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Revision as of 02:54, 25 March 2013 editEvad37 (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators44,543 edits →Advice regarding potential new wikiproject: thanks← Previous edit Revision as of 12:29, 25 March 2013 edit undoRitchie333 (talk | contribs)Edit filter managers, Autopatrolled, Administrators125,291 edits →Cap-Saint-Martin: cmtNext edit →
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::::::I asked for assistance taking a UK road article to GA not long ago, and was met with silence. I have told you two publicly accessible archives where you may find content to improve articles, and you have ignored them. You are a disruptive and corrosive influence on this project, and if this continues, I may regretfully have to go to ANI to request you are topic banned from the project so editors may improve articles in peace. Have a nice day. ] ] ] 17:42, 22 March 2013 (UTC) ::::::I asked for assistance taking a UK road article to GA not long ago, and was met with silence. I have told you two publicly accessible archives where you may find content to improve articles, and you have ignored them. You are a disruptive and corrosive influence on this project, and if this continues, I may regretfully have to go to ANI to request you are topic banned from the project so editors may improve articles in peace. Have a nice day. ] ] ] 17:42, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Thank you for the gratuitous personal attack, and good luck with attempting to get me topic banned. --''']]]''' 22:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC) :::::::Thank you for the gratuitous personal attack, and good luck with attempting to get me topic banned. --''']]]''' 22:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
::::::::I don't really want you or anyone get you topic banned at all, and the above is my opinion that has been observed from your behaviour. It is a criticism of what you have done, not what you are. I had a brief look through ], and it looks good. It has a comprehensive history, reads well, and is properly sourced to official documents. Why can't you write an article of this quality on British roads? ] ] ] 12:29, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
::::::When I tried to introduce the RJLUK set of templates which were broadly in line with the layout agreed for UK RJLs, ] promptly ] in WP:RJL which detailed the agreement. This is hardly helping us, unless by "helping" you mean "helping on the US group’s terms". ] (]) 17:35, 22 March 2013 (UTC) ::::::When I tried to introduce the RJLUK set of templates which were broadly in line with the layout agreed for UK RJLs, ] promptly ] in WP:RJL which detailed the agreement. This is hardly helping us, unless by "helping" you mean "helping on the US group’s terms". ] (]) 17:35, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Martin, where was the "agreement" to use this in the mainspace? ] (]) 17:38, 22 March 2013 (UTC) :::::::Martin, where was the "agreement" to use this in the mainspace? ] (]) 17:38, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Revision as of 12:29, 25 March 2013

I manage my talk page with the following guidelines to keep the high volume of posts and 110 active talk page stalkers in some sort of order:

  1. Please start new topics at the bottom of the page, even if it is related to a section above. Otherwise it is difficult to find the posting.
  2. I will reply to your posts on this page to keep threading unless requested or unless it is extremely urgent. I am good at keeping track of discussions, and generally do not need {{talkback}} templates.
  3. I respond to talk page messages within a few hours if I am online, or within a day if I need to do some research or thought before answering your question. If I will be away for a few days, I will post on this page.
  4. Unlike some other administrators, I generally do mind if you undo my administrative actions without discussing it with me, unless it was an obvious procedural error on my part.
  5. It is generally not necessary to email me to alert me to a discussion unless it is time-sensitive or unless there are private or candid matters involved. I do not consider unblock appeals over email, and may not respond to them; please follow proper block appeal procedures.
  6. The AWB requests page for USRD is at User:Rschen7754/AWB.


User:Rschen7754/Wikistatus

This is Rschen7754's talk page, where you can send him messages and comments.
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WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter - February 2013

The WikiProject Good articles Newsletter
Volume IV, No. 2 – February 2013

For past newsletters click here

In This Issue


Request

Hi, a page I started Lucian Jayasuriya has been nominated for deletion by a person using an account which has been blocked indefinitely for sock pupetry. To whom should i apply for a decision? I have made a contribution to the discussion page.Liannalianna (talk) 19:59, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I've posted a note with a link to the SPI for the closing admin. I'm pretty sure it will be closed as keep, but that's for them to decide. --Rschen7754 20:51, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

User:MerlIwBot

I've had to reblock this bot. As you seem to have unblocked it yesterday, you might want to have a look at it. Cheers, —Ruud 13:01, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I was assured yesterday by the operator that there were no issues... apparently not. --Rschen7754 21:33, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata and the WP:EN article Enclave and exclave

Hi. I've been experimenting with Wikidata, adding various statements and correcting interwiki links were necessary. But I've come across an issue with the WP:EN article Enclave and exclave, which covers two linked concepts in one article. This makes it very hard to provide links for the Wikidata concepts of enclave and exclave, especially as Wikidata does not appear to let me set up interwiki links pointing at redirect pages. I've discused this further at Talk:Enclave and exclave#Reconsideration of merge of enclave and exclave, mostly from the perspective of whether we should demerge the article. As somebody who seems to be involved in the integration of Wikidata and WP:EN, you may like to comment there. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 16:39, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

It seems that other people have answered this, so I'll leave it to them, but let me know if you have other questions. --Rschen7754 21:36, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Impersonators at RFA

Hi, you've been mentioned (kind of!) at ANI, please see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Impersonators at RFA in case you can shed any light...thanks, GiantSnowman 15:41, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

You're being impersonated by Rschxn7754 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). ˜danjel  11:01, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Blocked, pages deleted, and locked by the stewards. --Rschen7754 11:04, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Hey, I thought you or one of your talkpage stalkers should be aware that the user has placed a uw-block notice on his/her talkpage and used that as the basis for an unblock request. ˜danjel  13:57, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
It was already declined, but blocked the IP that posted. --Rschen7754 14:53, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 February 2013

Re: CA 52

Closing per below. --Rschen7754 20:31, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sure. I just prefer to not use redirects, especially for templates. No harm in replacing WPBS with WikiProjectBannerShell. --Another Believer (Talk) 18:39, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Well specifically, why did you reorder the project tags? --Rschen7754 18:40, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you thought this needed to be "reverted" Rschen7754? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:47, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Because it's the U.S. Roads WikiProject that puts the most work into the article; I'm not even sure the other two should be on there as they do nothing for the article. --Rschen7754 18:48, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Displaying projects in alphabetical order is helpful, as it also displays affiliated categories in alphabetical order. I have been making edits like these forever, for the sake of organization, and have found they are pretty helpful and non-controversial. --Another Believer (Talk) 18:49, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Is there a guideline that suggests we should "revert" a re-ordering of tags? Is there a guideline for ordering of tags? I'm asking simply because I'm not aware of one, but I don't tend to edit tags on talk pages. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:51, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Well they're obviously controversial now, and I see no reason to make those sort of edits per the English Misplaced Pages's longstanding convention against edits that do nothing to substantially benefit the article, and in this case actually cause problems. And TRM, this is more of a matter of principle, especially since we have had numerous problems with WPUS tagging in the past. --Rschen7754 18:52, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) (Sorry this keeps happening!) To me, displaying projects outside alphabetical order is subjective. I do not think they should be displayed based on certain contributors' preferences based on the amount of work that was put into the article. People can look at an article's history and talk page to determine this. --Another Believer (Talk) 18:53, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
What problems are caused by my edit? --Another Believer (Talk) 18:54, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that it redirects people to the wrong projects should an issue come up with the article; furthermore, the article assessment gadget goes off the first class assessment, and in my experience the WPUS assessments are regularly wrong and stale. --Rschen7754 18:56, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm just looking for the guideline which enables an edit to be "reverted" (not even just "undone") because I can't see one. Alphabetical order seems just fine for this kind of thing. If you want a guideline substantiating the "fact" that a particular project has more precedence over an article than any other, then perhaps you can write it, or point me to it? It seems the ordering of projects here is currently a matter of personal preference, or subjective based on a feeling, which is, of course, irrelevant. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
This is a matter of common sense more than anything; in other states I've even seen the state WikiProject tags entirely removed from the articles. At this point, I am considering doing that myself in California. --Rschen7754 19:00, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
It seems like commons sense to me to associate the article with WikiProject California as well. --Another Believer (Talk) 19:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) (I am on a roll today). If there is an issue with an article, I think people can decide which WikiProject to contact on their own. Actually, they are most likely to just leave a note on the talk page, which would be seen by article watchers. --Another Believer (Talk) 19:01, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
...but most of the state WikiProjects have either been redirected to WP:WPUS or are stale. Do we want editors contacting stale WikiProjects? --Rschen7754 19:03, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, there's no "precedence" for a particular project, there's no "ownership" of a particular project over a particular article. Ordering is arbitrary, and so alphabetical is as logical as any other way of presenting it. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:05, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

However, there have been longstanding concerns regarding Kumioko and his repeated tagging of everything even tangentially related to the US, and that is what is being addressed here. --Rschen7754 19:08, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Are we still addressing my edit? I did not add or remove WikiProjects. I simply wrote out the full name of the WPBS template and put the projects in alphabetical order. Personally, I think the California project is relevant, but discussing whether or not it belongs on the talk page is a separate matter from my edit. --Another Believer (Talk) 19:39, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Quite, it would be well worth sticking to the point here and not dragging in issues that may exist that are entirely outside this discussion. Of course, if there's a more central issue, it should be dealt with elsewhere. Another Believer's edit was in good faith, didn't contravene any policy or guideline, didn't deserve to be "reverted" and shouldn't have been treated like vandalism. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
First of all, that was a misclick - I thought the center Twinkle rollback button allowed me to do an edit summary, but apparently not. And the issues are relevant - for quite a while USRD has been fed up with people insisting that WPUS get deference and moving their banners above ours and tagging all of our articles (or in some cases just our FAs) when they do nothing for them anyway. --Rschen7754 20:12, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Stinks of ownership issues. I suggest you and "USRD" get over it. This is about objective and clear notifications to editors, not about in-fighting, snipey nonsense and "our articles", "our FAs", "they do nothing..." etc. Please re-assess your approach to such discussions, an experienced editor and an admin should realise that this is not the correct path. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:15, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
How do you explain the fact that other editors have complained about similar issues who have nothing to do with USRD? --Rschen7754 20:18, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I think you'll find I don't need to "explain" anything. Your response above shows nothing more than ownership over certain pages, and that is unacceptable from anyone, particularly an experienced editor and admin. How odd you would think otherwise. Neither you nor your "project" own these pages. The edit made by Another Believer was in good faith, and didn't compromise any policy, any guideline or anything else, in fact made good common sense to most of us who exist outside of your project. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:22, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

One of the things that I miss from the 2008-2009 era of editing Misplaced Pages was the era of the WikiProject. Today we only have 4-5 projects and the rest have faded away. Meanwhile, USRD remains one of the only projects that is actually getting something done. As I've said elsewhere I don't go for all the anti-civility vested contributor brouhaha, but if this is how we treat other actual content contributors who put their heads down and generate actual content, something is greatly wrong with this site. A "strong" WikiProject is not a bad thing. Don't think this is going anywhere, so hatting this. --Rschen7754 20:31, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sulutil

Hi, just a technical question about your mention of sulutil on the arbcom noticeboard talk. I followed the link, because I'd like to know how to make searches like that, but I couldn't get it to show me any other block than the enwiki one. That one came up when I ticked the "Display blocks" option. So I suppose I only saw the one active block? How did you get the others to show up? My son always tells me I have these problems because I lack the "magic finger"; when he does stuff, everything shows up. Was that it in this case? Bishonen | talk 11:09, 1 March 2013 (UTC).

I didn't; I just clicked every contributions link where the contributions were > 10 or so and then clicked the block log button on each. --Rschen7754 11:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
No magic finger! OK, thanks. Bishonen | talk 11:43, 1 March 2013 (UTC).

Proposed closing of Morriswa RFC

Hi, Rschen7754. As a person who has commented in the above RFC, your input on a possible closure of the RFC at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment/Morriswa#Proposal to close would be appreciated. Thank you. --Rschen7754 05:10, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Camoka4

Hi. Could you take a look at this SPI page and tell me if you agree (or not) with my declining a CU request? I'm new at SPI clerking, and I'm a bit concerned that I might be overlooking an opportunity here for a CU to reveal sleepers in this case. If you think I should have endorsed this one, feel free to undo my "decline", and I won't mind. Thanks. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 01:58, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I usually decline unless there's a history of sleepers, or it's obvious that someone's trying to game autoconfirmed, or anything like that. --Rschen7754 02:04, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
OK, thanks. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:36, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
No problem! You should join us on IRC if you get a chance - it makes asking questions a lot easier. --Rschen7754 02:43, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Another "Leandro da silva pereira santos" sock, I believe

I noticed you commenting at a couple of old SSP cases regarding this user. I believe this user is socking as 187.113.197.150 again. The Natalie Portman edits (regarding her nationality) is what caught my attention, and then I noticed the edits to UFC articles and the location of the IP (Brazil) and it sealed the deal for me. What are your thoughts? Nymf talk to me 18:28, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

This should be filed at SPI so that it's on the record, in my opinion. --Rschen7754 18:46, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Wikidata and redirects

I have listed a discussion on Wikidata in which you might have interest: d:Wikidata:Project chat#Issue pertaining to redirects. I look forward to your input. Steel1943 (talk) 05:23, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Editing by Wondering 55

Hello. It's come to my attention that you have been systematically removing citations to a certain newspaper. This violates our neutral point of view policy, and is clearly against the purpose of creating an encyclopedia. As that is all that you have edited so far, it is clear that you are only here to further an agenda. That makes you a single-purpose account and is grounds for indefinite blocking.

I don't know whether certain aspects of the paper are reliable or not (and frankly, I could care less), but a wholesale removal of all citations to that source because you hate it is not acceptable, and if it continues, you will be blocked indefinitely. --Rschen7754 08:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

You have been provided with misleading, false claims by Alansohn, or others that have been unfairly influenced by Alansohn, that are not based on the facts.

Alansohn has been systematically harassing me and publicizing his false claims with others.

I would suggest you check out Alansohn talk page with my responses under the Leanna Brown section and Edit warring Section concerning Alsonsohn's unsubstantiated claims and inappropriate behavior and harassment of me in violation of Misplaced Pages policies.

Check out Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Scroll down to Alanson's false claim of "Editor with an apparent grudge against a reporter" for my response based on the facts and rational reasons in response to his unsubstantiated claims, conspiracies, and false or misleading information.

I believe the information that you may have used to base your conclusions is simply inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, or false, and cannot be substantiated by the complete facts.

The complete set of facts will show that:

1. I am not systematically removing citations to a certain newspaper

2. I have no other agenda other than to ensure citations are accurate, relevant, or up-to-date. I have checked many other sources besides the cited newspaper and the cited reporter and have found most, but not all of their references to be correct. I have made needed corrections or notified others of needed corrections, as required.

3. I have not removed all articles by the cited reporter or cited newspaper when I determine the cited articles are accurate, up-to-date, or relevant.

4. I do not remove articles because I hate anyone or any source. In fact, I do not hate anything and it does not play any part in my objective reviews to determine if there is misleading, inaccurate, or irrelevant information.

No other reputable encyclopedia that I know would allow misleading, inaccurate, out-of-date, or irrelevant sources for specific articles to be retained. It would not matter if it was one source, or more than one source, that repeatedly violated these principle. They would all be removed and replaced on a case-by-case basis. Allowing any one source to remain in when it can be clearly shown that the cited source is inaccurate, out-of-date, or irrelevant for a specific article, would demonstrate an unacceptable lack of neutrality.

Alansohn has demonstrated a lack of neutrality in retaining cited articles that are inaccurate, out-of-date, or irrelevant.

Alansohn has demonstrated a lack of neutrality in obsessing on every single change that I have made in every single article, even when he is not directly involved in updating an article, and repeatedly Undoing them even after I provide facts and explanations that show the cited articles to be inaccurate, out-of-date, or irrelevant, or superseded by better references.

He appears to be obsessed with Undoing my changes and putting back in unreliable sources to see if I will respond to his unacceptable practices.

If anyone should be blocked it is Alansohn, who has become obsessive in making false claims against me without any basis of facts and repeatedly Undoing every change that I make in disregard of the facts and explanations that I provide to him. This is in disregard to Misplaced Pages policies to NOT make unsubstantiated denigrating comments about others, NOT repeatedly Undo someone's work without explanation, and treat others with respect and assumption of good faith.

If someone ever went in and started reversing every single change that you made without any basis of facts or asking for your input, I hope that Misplaced Pages policy would not allow that.

Lets' work together for the the betterment of Misplaced Pages.

If you could explain your role in this review process, that would be helpful.

Are there Misplaced Pages supervisors that have more influence than others in resolving issues? How do I determine if someone is just a Misplaced Pages member, who is commenting, or someone that can assist with deciding and resolving matters. Wondering55 (talk) 12:47, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) We're all equal here. Some editors have access to more tools, but that does not make them more important than anyone else. –Fredddie™ 12:51, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
However, some commenters seem to indicate they will take final action against me. How can that be? I would not be able to say that I am going to block someone or prevent them from using Misplaced Pages based on my personal decision. Aren't there administrators for conflict resolution? Isn't it true that some type of complaint was filed to an administrator for resolution of the conflict with me? How do I now who is an administrator when they comment to me? We may all feel equal here, but some commenters would seem to carry some more influence based on their experience and having more user contacts so they can more easily publicize their comments. I can be faced with an influential commenter making an irrelevant comment, which I might ignore if not for the fact that everyone else, who knows this influential commenter, will believe them even if it is not true and cannot be substantiated. Any comments on my concerns and questions would be welcomed.Wondering55 (talk) 13:18, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
You may wish to read through WP:ADMIN and WP:NPOV, the two most relevant guidelines here which have been agreed upon by the community. --Rschen7754 18:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Clarification requested

I did not follow your comment at Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(policy)#Image_formatting. What do you mean by Commons file type?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:15, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

There is a specific data type for a Commons file - it's not just some unregulated string. --Rschen7754 19:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I am not following, but maybe because I am concentrating on how it relates to my suggestion. We have three (at least) ways of formatting an image name in info boxes. I'd like to settle on one and use it everywhere. How does your comment affect my suggestion? Does it mean it would be a bad idea, or impossible or something else? By data type, do you mean data type? If so, it doesn't help me understand. Maybe you mean something else? --SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:42, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I mean. You can expect whatever is generated by the Wikibase (Wikidata) extension to always have a consistent format, as the interface will match a specific file to the item, not just a random string. --Rschen7754 19:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that is obvious. Perhaps I phrased my proposal poorly, as both you and Andy thought I was commenting on Wikidata. My proposal was not aimed at changing anything in Wikidata. It was aimed at changing a flaw in the way Infoboxes are designed. If someone is going to edit the infoboxes to use data from Wikidata, at the same time they are making that edit, I would like them to fix the image=parameter. I doubt that image names will be stored in Wikidata in the near future.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:45, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Rschen7754. You have new messages at ༆'s talk page.
Message added 14:22, 7 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 14:22, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 March 2013

Thanks

For some reason I had My76Strat's talk page on my watchlist and I saw that Go Phightins! had edited it (didn't see the hrdr or whatever it was after it) and I was confused that maybe I had been hacked. Luckily I wasn't, and I thank you for your vigilance in this. Go Phightins! 02:31, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

No problem, someone actually alerted me to it. --Rschen7754 02:33, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Shirt58 just notified me on my talk (though I'd already seen it). I guess if someone wants to impersonate me, I have done something right! (or just am nuts) Go Phightins! 02:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

8 years on Misplaced Pages and counting... postponed

I was going to post a celebratory message here, but I don't think it appropriate under the circumstances. I will postpone it until tomorrow. --Rschen7754 01:28, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

SPI question

This can't be done this way, can it?--Bbb23 (talk) 06:36, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion, he needs more evidence, but I'm reluctant to do anything with this particular report as right now I'm not exactly on the best terms with a lot of the UK Roads WikiProject - I'll be leaving it for another clerk. --Rschen7754 06:39, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I guess I was too terse. I wasn't talking about the merits of the report. I just didn't think one could add a report to the page that says the discussion is archived; I thought one had to open a new report in the normal way and then a clerk combines the new report with the old archived report. Can it be done the way Martin did it?--Bbb23 (talk) 06:45, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, though when you file a new report for a recurring sock you just follow either Twinkle or the form off the main SPI page and it will do it properly. Where we get annoyed is where people try to either edit the archive, or misuse Twinkle to file multiple new reports when they could all be merged into one new report. --Rschen7754 06:49, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Never mind, I'm apparently wrong. Either something changed or I just never noticed the way it worked. Sorry to have bothered you.--Bbb23 (talk) 07:02, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 March 2013

Possible new sock of Longjohnlong?

Hi. You recently closed Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Longjohnlong, but I think he's reappeared as BunyipMan (talk · contribs) with a general matching pattern of stalking contributions by Stuartyeates (talk · contribs) and putting them up for deletion. Not disruptive per se, but worth reopening the case for this? Ritchie333 13:31, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Blocked. --Rschen7754 17:30, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Article Feedback deployment

Hey Rschen7754; I'm dropping you this note because you've used the article feedback tool in the last month or so. On Thursday and Friday the tool will be down for a major deployment; it should be up by Saturday, failing anything going wrong, and by Monday if something does :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:00, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Marking my eighth anniversary on Misplaced Pages

Yesterday marks 8 years that I have been an editor here. Over the last few months, as my activity has increased now that I am out of undergrad, I have stopped several times to think at how long it has been. No matter how many times I have tried to quit, and despite all the hardships I have faced here, I am still as enthusiastic as ever, so it is evident that I will be here for quite a while longer

Over this next year my goals are to continue work on California road articles while staying involved in admin areas such as SPI. I've gotten 4 of the San Diego County road articles to the desired quality, and am working on finishing the rest of the county's road articles before moving on to Imperial County and then north through the rest of the state. It may take a long time to get this done, but now that I've put 8 years into getting the infrastructure ready for it, I might as well do it.

I will continue my work with U.S. Roads and with the Highways project in general, helping other editors write articles about their local roads. This is something that I hope to continue well after the California road articles are "finished."

At this time, I would like to soapbox a bit and promote two ideas that I think would improve the encyclopedia:

  • The role of the WikiProject. Today, people dismiss the role of the WikiProject as antiquated and cliquish, even likening that to some sort of a cabal or walled garden. But as a member of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, I can confidently say that our project together has done much more than the sum of all our possible efforts combined. Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2013-02-25/WikiProject report describes our methodology that has gotten us an average article quality of between Start and C (well above the Misplaced Pages-wide average), and 48 FAs and over 800 GAs. We have an IRC channel where we can collaborate in real time. It sounds weird, and arbitrator candidates regularly pan WikiProjects, but it works. That's the only way that I can explain why we have a high editor retention rate and most of our editors stick around, or come back after a year or two away.

If we really want to work on editor retention, we need to get editors with specific interests plugged into these smaller groups, where they can form a community and collaborate and accomplish much more than they could individually. USRD is why I am still excited about Misplaced Pages 8 years later, even as the world outside USRD becomes no longer safe for the average editor. We cannot continue to strip WikiProjects of any capabilities that they still have and expect these groups of editors to stay around and generate high-quality content. Today there are only 3-4 A-Class review processes still remaining on this site, including the Highways ACR. We have roughly an 80% pass rate at FAC over the last 3 years because of this ACR. If only we had more ACRs left, I think that FAC wouldn't be the backlog that it is today (no fault of Ian or Graham of course, who are trying to make the best of it).

  • The treatment of functionaries. Currently, when functionaries (ArbCom, CU, OS) make mistakes, they are called out on them in the worst way possible. In fact, even when they make unpopular decisions, they have comments made against them that would be block-worthy had they been made against anyone else. I have heard many of them saying that they have considered resigning over the last few weeks as all of those teams have come under fire. Yet they are vital to the day-to-day operations of this encyclopedia.

There will be times when functionaries screw up and need to be called out on their actions. But we must do it with words and logic, not with rhetoric and pitchforks. I have criticized two sitting arbitrators before, and my opinion that they should have resigned was clear, but I have strived to do so in respect, and I encourage you to do the same in similar situations.

A theme through all of these incidents deals with privacy, be it arbcom-l, CU, OS, or outing. Not everything that is private is bad. I think that today editors hear about private discussion going on and go ZOMG SECRET CABAL! MUST KILL!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!! Having seen a touch of what ArbCom deals with through my own OS requests and other issues (and no, they had nothing to do with Malleus or Cla68), and through my role on the SPI clerk team and on OTRS, I can say this for a fact - there are reasons why some information is private, and very good reasons at that. I can't even begin to imagine all that ArbCom actually deals with that the average editor will never see. A lot of the critics are quite frankly uninformed.

What happens on projects without an ArbCom is that this private information is discussed in public, which is uncomfortable at best and violates the editor's right to privacy at worst. I also hold sysop on Wikidata and the English Wikivoyage and have seen crosswiki situations like this.

We have a fundamental problem with editors going from WMF wiki to WMF wiki asking for user rights like they are toys, and many of them are young. I believe that we have a moral responsibility to protect their privacy as much as possible while still putting the goals of the encyclopedia/database/travel guide/dictionary etc. first. This responsibility does not involve vigilante actions or false or flawed accusations against others, but first communicating with the user, trying to work with them so that they become productive editors, and taking proper action if they do not in order to preserve the integrity of the site.

But anyway, off my soapbox, and back to writing an encyclopedia. It's been a great 8 years so far, and here's to the ones ahead! --Rschen7754 10:22, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

DarafshBot2

Hi. i fix the problem, please unblocke my bot. Thanks Darafsh Kaviyani (Talk)‍ 13:02, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Why does it need to be unblocked? What will your bot do on enwiki? --Rschen7754 20:14, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
The bot add interwiki. for example see this edit in Fa.wiki. if my bot blocke in En.wiki, he cant add interwiki in here. Darafsh Kaviyani (Talk)‍ 01:03, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
The whole point of Wikidata is to not add interwikis to articles. --Rschen7754 01:08, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes i know. please see fa:مسابقات جهانی شنا (۲۵ متر) ۲۰۱۲ and look other wikipedia, you can see فارسی (Farsi) but in EngWIki it doesnt appear. i think depend of my blocked bot. Darafsh Kaviyani (Talk)‍ 01:19, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
You should disable your bot entirely as Wikidata is live on all Wikipedias. They have started globally locking all bots who continue adding interwiki links. So this is  Not done. --Rschen7754 01:24, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Talkback: you've got messages!

Hello, Rschen7754. You have new messages at Theopolisme's talk page.
Message added by Theopolisme at 05:27, 17 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
'Nother. —Theopolisme (talk) 05:41, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Any advice would be welcome

Howdy Rschen7754. Thanks for the warm welcome you added to my talkpage. I could do with some advice as how best to proceed with a discussion that I'm involved in on Talk:Second Severn Crossing, which is now going round in circles.

An editor there has converted all the primary units in the entire roads article from customary/imperial to metric without a substantial reason as advised in WP:UNITS. When challenged he has offered nothing but red herrings in defence. He has refused to accept, even though the article units had been stable for 2.5 years prior to his intervention, that it might be wise to keep the long established units system in place pending the outcome of the discussion. He is insistent that metric units should be dominant in this article, but is unable to justify that position.

Should I, for the sake of peace and harmony, just let his will prevail, or is there anything I could (or should) do to ensure the article gives best value to the readers? Cap-Saint-Martin (talk) 21:27, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. The other editor is now actually refusing to discuss the matter further. Cap-Saint-Martin (talk) 21:30, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

This editor has been systemically doing things across all of UKRD, one of the reasons why the project has been far behind the United States and Canada projects. I think at some point a more large-scale discussion needs to be held, and if that fails, a WP:RFC/U. --Rschen7754 21:32, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Shall I just leave him to it then, or is there anything more I should be doing right now to that article do you think? Cap-Saint-Martin (talk) 21:38, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
You could take it to ANI, but it might get messy. --Rschen7754 21:42, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure what ANI is, but I don't need messy right now. You seem to be aware of more problems though, so I'll back off and leave it there for now. Thanks. Cap-Saint-Martin (talk) 21:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello again, just to inform you that I mentioned your comments above in a discussion here. You might what to add more of your own observations there too. Cap-Saint-Martin (talk) 23:22, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Good Article Nominations Request For Comment

A 'Request For Comment' for Good Article Nominations is currently being held. We are asking that you please take five to ten minutes to review all seven proposals that will affect Good Article Nominations if approved. Full details of each proposal can be found here. Please comment on each proposal (or as many as you can) here.

At this time, Proposal 1, 3, and 5 have received full (or close to) support.

If you have questions of anything general (not related to one specif proposal), please leave a message under the General discussion thread.

Please note that Proposal 2 has been withdrawn and no further comments are needed. Also, please disregard Proposal 9 as it was never an actual proposal.

A barnstar for you!

The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
Thanks for realizing how utterly incorrect all of the WikiWork scores were. Without you, the entire initiative would have been a complete waste of time! Note to self: In the future, double check your API calls and make sure that the word class isn't spelled "clas". —Theopolisme (talk) 23:52, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Haha you're welcome, and thanks for putting in the work! --Rschen7754 23:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Removing state WikiProjects from road related articles?

So why remove the California (and other) WikiProjects from particular road articles? Because other road articles related to other states don't have them? By analogy, Brooklyn Bridge is of interest to NY, NYC, trains in NYC, and NRHP projects. Perhaps Bridges is the only project that should be of interest for the article. Also, why not add the state projects to those road articles which are of state interest but don't have projects supporting them? In particular I'm looking at Highway 111 in the Coachella Valley. This road is the main drag connecting the towns in the valley. Seems to me adding state projects, especially when they have task forces interested in local areas, is a good method of attracting interested editors to the road articles. Your rationale and guidance will be appreciated. – S. Rich (talk) 02:21, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

In theory, yes, but in practice it actually doesn't, and causes problems such as random sections and trivial/non-notable information being added to articles which now has to be removed for the articles to ever reach FA/GA status. --Rschen7754 02:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
If you don't mind, I'll restore the California Inland Empire TF to 74 & 111. These are 2 routes in my neighborhood and are on my watchlist. Also, I'll continue to review the layouts for compliance with USRD/MOS, trivia, etc. – S. Rich (talk) 16:10, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Please don't restore them, as there is no need. Furthermore, it's pretty clear that USRD standards are not being followed in those articles, as both of those articles were written in the wrong direction and remained that way for years, tagged and all, until I finally had to intervene. --Rschen7754 18:42, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Block of Shanker Pur

If you don't mind, I'd like to lift the block. I've communicated with the user by email about the issues here, and I'd like to AGF that this won't happen again. Keegan (talk) 04:05, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. --Rschen7754 04:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Sockpuppet

A sockpuppet you banned is using two new aliases(User:Bikramjit1983 and User:Jacksinghsully to make the same unsourced changes. Please use CheckUser to find if these two are the same. Thanks.--Neelkamala (talk) 07:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Blocked. I do not have CU, but it's obvious that they are the same. --Rschen7754 07:56, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the help. :) --Neelkamala (talk) 07:58, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Cap-Saint-Martin

I have instigated an SPI against User:Cap-Saint-Martin. He has defended himself by asserting that I am "making trouble and wasting people's time", backing this up by your statement "This editor has been systemically doing things across all of UKRD, one of the reasons why the project has been far behind the United States and Canada projects. I think at some point a more large-scale discussion needs to be held, and if that fails, a WP:RFC/U". I have responded with "User:Rschen7754's statement was probably the result of a mis-understanding and to save cluttering up this page, I shall invite him to explain himself on his own talk page."

I light of the way in which Cap-Saint-Martin has used (or misused) your statement, will you please explain exactly what you meant it. If Cap-Saint-Martin is out of order in his interpretation, please say so on the SPI page, but if this is likely to be an involved discussion, it is best to have that discussion here. Martinvl (talk) 08:12, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, your behavior is being disruptive by continually agitating for a certain measurement system and template system, and basically flat out WP:IDHT and refusal to listen to consensus as noted at WT:RJL. That is one of the reasons why the UK roads project has been far behind the United States and Canada projects. --Rschen7754 08:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Are you willing to cite any other reasons so that we can put your statement into perspective? Martinvl (talk) 09:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
There is no perspective. Your behavior is disruptive and needs to stop. --Rschen7754 09:34, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
For the second time, please cite other "reasons why the project has been far behind the United States and Canada projects", or are you placing the blame entirely on me? Martinvl (talk) 13:49, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Well no, it's not entirely you, that is true. But certain editors need to actually work on the UK roads articles and making them better rather than going around the site bashing the U.S. roads projects and their editors every chance they get, even in completely unrelated situations. Some editors need to stop insisting on including coordinates for every single darn junction, especially as that makes no sense for linear objects and has been superseded by KML anyway. Certain editors need to stop edit warring and arguing about metric versus imperial and just include both measurements (and frankly I could care less about which comes first). Some editors need to stop insisting on using SPS and use high quality sources instead, a lesson that the U.S. roads project has learned over and over again. Some editors need to stop insisting on outdated junction list standards when they still fail the site-wide MOS. And finally, the UK roads project needs to learn how to take advice from a roads project that has been very successful at GA/FA (we have 48 FAs and 800+ GAs) without being so flipping hardheaded and stubborn without insisting on their own "innovations" that take the project back to 2005. Our methods have worked in Ontario, Croatia, and Western Australia. It's time to swallow your (collective) pride, stop acting like you OWN the articles, and actually work to benefit the encyclopedia rather than rejecting widely accepted standards despite all logical and reasonable arguments just because "The Americans™ proposed them, so we cannot use them." Whether from this point on you personally choose to fall into any of these categories is entirely your choice. --Rschen7754 18:36, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I hear what you are saying. In the United Kingdom it is notoriously difficult to get information from government departments - that is what public libraries are for. The result that unofficial publications abound, some good and some not so good.
I looked through one of the archives of a British roads website dated 2008 which appears to have been at the time that Misplaced Pages started tightening up on the need for information to be properly cited and judging by the comments on that website, it appears that certain individuals in the Roads Group became too enthusiastic about proper citations too quickly with the result that many other editors abandoned the project completely. As a result there are very few active UK roads editors today. I was not around at the time so I don’t know who was to blame.
Does this put things into perspective? Martinvl (talk) 21:29, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
We have faced similar pushback in the U.S. but it has not been so extreme. However, the thing is that the sourcing requirements are largely out of our (the road project editors') control - this is a Misplaced Pages-wide standard. --Rschen7754 21:42, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
The sourcing requirement might be out of the control of the road project editors, but on reading that website archive it appears that it was handled in a heavy-handed manner. As regards the road junction lists, I think that you need to be aware that things are not the same between the US and the UK - think of all the motoring terms that are different - pavement vs sidewalk, carriageway vs pavement, bonnet vs hood, gear lever vs gear shift to mention but a few. The handling of road junction lists shoudl be seen in the same light a variation in WP:ENGVAR rather than a deviation from standards. Martinvl (talk) 22:29, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
That's patently absurd. We don't have different standards for UK and US biography articles. I've been to the UK and I see no reason why we cannot have an entirely universal standard. Roads aren't that different worldwide, you know. Why are United Kingdom Roads® so special? --Rschen7754 22:33, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I've been asked by Rschen7754 to state my opinion on this, and would like to make the following points:

  • Speaking as a broad generalisation, those in the US tend to have a more positive outlook on life than in the UK, where "have a nice day?" is treated as a mild patronising insult. We celebrate US Route 66 in song and U.S. Route 50 in Nevada is a modern cultural icon, while over the other side of the pond, post Twyford Down, the only road items that get on the national news are protests. I think it's important to recognise that culture clash exists, particularly when thinking how somebody else would read your post.
  • As Martinvl notes, there has been, in the past, a very strong anti-Misplaced Pages bias in some other parts of the internet, which has broadly pollinated down to other users, who are then disinclined to edit here and write about stuff elsewhere - compare A82 on SABRE with A82 on here. I wouldn't mind if the same people wrote both, but I can't see evidence they do - so there's just duplication of work. I have to say that the endless discussions on marker posts, metrication and counties do not serve to dispel this bias, which is why I make a deliberate point these days to ignore them.
  • Martinvl states "In the United Kingdom it is notoriously difficult to get information from government departments." Balderdash. To paraphrase Malleus Fatuorum : "Have you ever heard of libraries? You know, those great things that let you have books - for free!" The complete archive of Hansard Parlimentary debates and the London Gazette, invaluable sources for project records, opening dates, major decisions etc etc, are all online, and the National Archives requires a simple 10 minute registration to check you're competent enough to pick up 100 year old papers without destroying them. I would universally recommend anyone with the time and inclination to visit TNA and check out File MT39/191 and see just how many high quality free images are accessible to us. All you've got to do is find them! It's worth pointing out that the SABRE forums are frequented by professional highway engineers and contractors, and can generally find "a man who knows" to source some information, although getting that in a format that's reliable and verifiable is slightly trickier.
  • In my view, Rschen7754, you don't come across as well as you could explaining things. From my experience, explaining Misplaced Pages policies and processes to newcomers is extremely hard and a challenging task, as can be easily seen by observing our systematic bias, and the WMF's apparently unsuccessful attempt to recruit more women into the project. (I know my other half won't touch WP with a bargepole and is amazed I even bother to edit). I can't remember a case where you've actually described what a good article (GA) and what a featured article (FA) is, what's basically required to write one, and why you'd want to do it. You claim to have written a substantial amount of GAs - why have you not taken (to pick a random example) A82 road or A303 road to GA? For someone with your claimed experience, it should not be hard to do so. I think had you written a few GAs on the project yourself, you'd be in a lot stronger standing. I think that recognising there's a communication problem is important to get people on your side, otherwise we'll probably all be here this time next year saying the same things.
  • Another point on communication - you need to follow through with complaints. Rschen7754, you complained that M62 Motorway wasn't featured article quality and should be taken to the reassessment process. In my view, I agree that the article is not FA quality, but for far more substantial reasons than you have stated. Has this article been taken to FAR yet? If not, why not?

Anyway, my closing advice is - ignore all dramas and just write good stuff. I've taken two UK road articles to GA, and reviewed a third, so it's certainly possible to improve the quality of stuff without getting tied up in a lot of nonsense. Ritchie333 09:51, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't explain how to write a GA or FA because nobody from the UK roads project has asked me. They've been too busy fighting other stuff. I'll be honest - in the U.S. we spent a lot of time fighting over stuff too, but in 2008 we snapped out of it, built a system, and got to work.
It is standard to give at least two weeks warning before taking an article to FAR. I plan to take it there Tuesday. --Rschen7754 09:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, but your brief reply leads me to conclude you aren't really taking in what I'm saying, so I'll leave this conversation and wish you the best. Happy editing. Ritchie333 09:58, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Or maybe you just had no answer for my matter-of-fact statements. Besides, a lot of it was not addressed to me anyway. Furthermore we all work on what we want to work on, but that doesn't mean that we are barred from giving input. I've reviewed untold numbers of Michigan road articles, for example, but I have never even been to that state, let alone have ever written a sentence on a Michigan road. Imzadi1979 still respects my input. Ditto for Canada, Croatia, and Western Australia. To be blunt, why is UK Roads any different? --Rschen7754 10:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm afraid I do not share that view. A good manager leads by example. You have regularly complained about the quality of articles on this project whilst making no obvious concerted effort to improve them yourself. I personally consider that to be disruptive and unacceptable. This, I believe, is also the reason that Malleus tells people to go and <insert profanity here> themselves on a semi-regular basis. Ritchie333 12:37, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
On the contrary, we've tried to help you, and all you figuratively do is tell us "to go and <insert profanity here> themselves on a semi-regular basis". --Rschen7754 17:25, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I asked for assistance taking a UK road article to GA not long ago, and was met with silence. I have told you two publicly accessible archives where you may find content to improve articles, and you have ignored them. You are a disruptive and corrosive influence on this project, and if this continues, I may regretfully have to go to ANI to request you are topic banned from the project so editors may improve articles in peace. Have a nice day. Ritchie333 17:42, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the gratuitous personal attack, and good luck with attempting to get me topic banned. --Rschen7754 22:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't really want you or anyone get you topic banned at all, and the above is my opinion that has been observed from your behaviour. It is a criticism of what you have done, not what you are. I had a brief look through California State Route 75, and it looks good. It has a comprehensive history, reads well, and is properly sourced to official documents. Why can't you write an article of this quality on British roads? Ritchie333 12:29, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
When I tried to introduce the RJLUK set of templates which were broadly in line with the layout agreed for UK RJLs, User:Imzadi1979 promptly in WP:RJL which detailed the agreement. This is hardly helping us, unless by "helping" you mean "helping on the US group’s terms". Martinvl (talk) 17:35, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Martin, where was the "agreement" to use this in the mainspace? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:38, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
The agreement is at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Road junction lists#M5 motorway where it has been for at least the last two years. Martinvl (talk) 17:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
No, that's a project-based manual of style reference. Where is the "consensus" for it? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
The "agreement" was more or less "you won't stop complaining and we're getting sick of this, so fine go do your own thing." --Rschen7754 22:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Which is exactly what I did when I wrote the templates. Martinvl (talk) 22:06, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Rschen,
There are a number of reasons why the UK Roads group were different to road groups from other countries:
  • First of all, how developed were the road groups in countries other than the UK? If they were starting with a “blank piece of paper”, they probably welcomed assistance. If they had already developed their own style, they might well resent being told to change.
  • There is an ethic in the UK that the government gives out very few details about roads, railways etc, but that geeks (let’s be honest you and I are both geeks or have tendencies that way) publish lots of good work. This makes it difficult to get "reliable sources" in the Misplaced Pages sense, but the UK editors found it frustrating being told by outsiders what was good and what was bad. Things were probably done in too heavy-handed a manner.
  • The UK model for road junction lists was based on the pattern used by, amongst others, the The Automobile Association - the signs in each direction being displayed separately. There was almost certainly resentment at being told to change things, especially when no good reason was given.
  • A good reason against change was the demand to include one or more location columns in RJLs is that such information is totally meaningless in the UK situation. From my own experience, I have lived in the UK and in South African. I have worked in Germany, Netherlands and in Italy. I have researched my family history in both the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands (which require a detailed knowledge of local administrative areas). From this background I am able to compare the British approach to location identification with that used elsewhere - take it from me, unless you have lived here, you don't know what a mess it is – much of continental Europe benefits from the Napoleon administrative reforms, but the UK does not. One classic case is that of Middlesex - the country was abolished in 1965 when it was absorbed by Greater London, but continued to be an offical part of postal addresses in 1996. It is stil often used today in postal ddresses.
Martinvl (talk) 12:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
"There was almost certainly resentment at being told to change things, especially when no good reason was given." - yes there is, we are a general purpose encyclopedia, not a road map company, road atlas company, highway organization, etc. We are not bound by whatever format The Automobile Association uses. Furthermore, we must comply with the Misplaced Pages-wide MOS.
Nobody has mandated any specific form of identifying location. Be it counties, townships, being near a city eve, whatever works, just as long as there's a column of text that the general reader can use to figure out where the heck a junction is. It's that simple. --Rschen7754 22:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Taking this to DRN

It is clear that we are not getting anywhere. I think that it is appropriate that this is taken to WP:DRN. Before I sdo so, I woudl like ot give everybodu a chance to see the terms of refernce for doing so. My proposed terms are:

  • Dispute Overview:

    The page Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Road junction lists catalogues the columns that should appear in a Road Junction List (for example Interstate 10 in California#Exit list and M25 motorway#Junctions). A dispute between editors split roughly along UK/US lines has been simmering for a number of years regarding the differences in style of these two road junction lists with the US editors arguing for more standardisation across all of Misplaced Pages and UK editors arguing that regional differences make such standardisation impracticable.

  • How do you think we can help resolve the dispute?

    Are the UK editors being unreasonable in declining to add "location" columns to their RJLs or are the US editors failing to take the UK situation into account? A parallel ongoing discussion on the use of miles or kilometres is outside the scope of this DRN.

I have been as careful as possible in the above wording to be both absolutely neutral in describing the situation and to be clear in what we are discussing. Do you wish to make any comments before I go ahead? Martinvl (talk) 11:10, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

The dispute is that you aren't listening to consensus. "A dispute between editors split roughly along UK/US lines has been simmering for a number of years" is wrong because The Rambling Man is from the UK. Evad37 is also from Australia. But whatever, I know that you're not going to listen to me, or to anything that DRN says if it doesn't go your way, anyway. --Rschen7754 08:07, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
And although he's not currently active at the moment, "our" side in the debates was also represented by Floydian, who's Canadian. Trying to make this into a UK–US issue is gross oversimplification. Imzadi 1979 → 13:16, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 March 2013

Another sock?

He was mentioned in the SPI but User:Zahid2005 seems to fit into the same category entirely. He !voted at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Datatune and then set about building his edit count to look like a legit account. But on closer inspection, almost all of the edits were gibberish or pointless red-link creation. I've reverted almost all of them. I didn't think opening the SPI again would be of great value but I thought I'd get your thoughts first. Stalwart111 05:02, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

It may be time for a new SPI actually, since it seems that a lot of new accounts have magically cropped up at the AFD. --Rschen7754 07:43, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Understood - have now done exactly that with those new accounts included. Thanks. Stalwart111 03:09, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Question about policy

Hi, nice to meet you. I am curious, could you tell me where exactly (which policy page) it says that " someone of sockpuppeting a bannable offense"? Thanks. ~ Daniel Tomé (talk) 11:11, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

No, I said that sockpuppeting is a bannable offense. Though if someone keeps making frivolous sockpuppet accusations, I suppose they could get banned too. --Rschen7754 20:20, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
I see, thanks for clearing that up. ~ Daniel Tomé (talk) 21:08, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

The Rambling Man sockgate

Hello Rschen7754. I decided the best way forward with the above issue was to open a thread at ANI. You may wish to comment here. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 14:13, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

TY

Just wanted to drop a "TY" note for your input on my talk. I'll have a look at that the first chance I get. Thanks. — Ched :  ?  00:14, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Advice regarding potential new wikiproject

Hi Rschen7754. I have been thinking about setting up a wikiproject (or possibly task force) for Australian roads, and was wondering if you (or any of your friendly talk page stalkers) have any advice? I think that my first step will be to post a message on WP:Australian Wikipedians' notice board and see if other Australian roads editors would actually be interested in such a project. - Evad37 (talk) 03:58, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Setting up a WikiProject is definitely something to think about carefully. The only reason to do so, in my opinion, would be to provide more resources for effective collaboration that being a part of a task force (the Oceania task force of WP:HWY) would not be able to provide. For example, USRD could not be folded into HWY because there's too much going on there. I think the two main concerns for starting any new WikiProject would be scoping/activity and getting completely off track.
The U.S. roads project is the flagship project on enwiki, and the most successful (trying not to brag here, but by the numbers...) However, there were a few state highway WikiProjects that were created before USRD was, and more were created later. The problem is that 1-2 years in, over 75% of the state highway WikiProjects were active. The rest of us really began to start working together as a unit (a lot of it through our IRC channel, which by the way, is geared towards roads in all countries) and in early 2012 we decided to make paper match practice and merge all the state highway WikiProjects into USRD. However, we definitely angered a few people along the way when we tried to do it too early, and the New York roads project strongly resisted the merger, and are still their own "separate" WikiProject. It's a shame too, because now they're taking this as a license to insist on their own standards and have chased away at least one editor who then swore off New York road editing altogether. So if I were to do it all over again, I would say that larger scope is better, and I would have started off with one national WikiProject and no state highway WikiProjects. I will say that we definitely had the days where we all fought each other, years ago, but we seem to have gotten past that and have been doing solid content work for years now.
The Canada roads project is mostly inactive now. The exception is Ontario, where articles are around the quality of the U.S. articles. Back in the early days, the Canada project had a rough start - there were WikiProjects created for all the provinces, but they wound up at MFD because they were basically copied and pasted - sometimes they forgot to change the name of the province! We had a bit of a run-in with one editor, but then someone decided to invite him to the IRC channel and we were able to work things out pretty well, and that's how Ontario got turned around. Unfortunately he's been semi-active as he's run into some difficulties IRL. Except for a little activity in British Columbia, the project is inactive.
The India project died. There was never a good editing base there, and I suspect that the language barriers had something to do with it. It also never had a solid set of standards, so I think that was a part of it too.
The UK roads project is a good example of my second point, as you probably have noticed. That project has completely and consistently gotten it wrong, time and time again. They don't even follow Misplaced Pages standards, and we will need to audit their "quality" content entirely. Even in their greatly inflated statistics, they're an entire class level behind the US, and they've been around almost as long as we have! However, when US/Canada road editors have gone in to try and get the project back on the right track, they have gotten entirely stonewalled and have finally given up out of frustration, from editors who are entirely unwilling to compromise. This time around it's been particularly virulent - The Rambling Man (an admin and crat) was accused of sockpuppetry (which is quite a serious accusation as he could wind up losing all his tools on all Wikimedia sites and be banned globally if it was proven to be true) and I was threatened with a topic ban (though it would never pass ANI and be enacted). There have been some very toxic personalities involved there too, including one socker who keeps making socks and causing mayhem. I would not be surprised if it took an arbitration case to restore order to that WikiProject. So you've gotta stay in touch with the greater Misplaced Pages, and make sure that you're not straying from the goals and standards of the site as you collaborate just among yourselves.
So in summary, whatever you decide, I would suggest learning from our and others' mistakes so that you don't make them yourself There's definitely no clear-cut answer here though - Croatia has several GAs and no WikiProject, though it is just one editor who is also writing Croatian articles on other subjects.
P.S. This will probably come up sooner or later, but you'll notice that there has been some lively debate on converting Australia to Infobox road, as the only country that does not use Infobox road. It's particularly a sensitive issue, and something that we've mishandled in the past, so I'd rather not bring that up until people are ready for that discussion again, because I (and a lot of the other US road editors) want to focus on building working relationships with the Australian road editors right now before we discuss something that controversial. --Rschen7754 08:50, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
I saw the original question, and I was trying to come up with my advice. The short version is that I would try to ramp up the activity in the Oceania TF of WP:HWY first. Geographically speaking, there isn't going to be that many more countries in that grouping with numbered highway systems, so pulling Australia out of it would almost collapse the TF down to just Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. If there's enough activity and interest, I'd then suggest splitting the TF into Australia and the rest of Oceania (or maybe a joint/AUS-NZ group). Since the US and Canada have active projects, the rest of North America was combined with South America as a Latin American TF, so there could be some geographic fudging to reclassify some areas with Asia's TF if needed. Imzadi 1979 → 13:12, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you both for your responses, they've certainly given me food for thought. I'll spend some more time thinking about the best way to proceed, and maybe flesh out the details of a proposal. - Evad37 (talk) 02:54, 25 March 2013 (UTC)