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GovLinks

as a participant in the discussion, you might be interested in this thread. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 16:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on it, thanks. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:02, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

My intent is that in one week, I will restore the politically useful links in GovLinks and CongLinks. I voted to NOT delete most of those categories which you deleteed, as did the majority of other people discussing the matter. Then both CongLinks and GovLinks were both stripped. See full discussion under GovLinks; what I mean "incumbency protection" in that discussion is that the existing links in GovLinks and CongLinks, after your stripping them, all work for incumbents, and mostly do not work for challengers. For example, the House.gov links and the "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress" only work for elected members of the House, and not their challengers. The FEC links only work later in the process, typically after the establishment candidate has won the primary. I am most interested in the VoteSmart and OnTheIssues since they most assist challengers and non-establishment candidates. My intent is to restore those two, and if you want to have a discussion after the fact on the grounds above, so be it. I read in great detail the WP:EL and other guidelines and it is my opinion -- and the opinion of the majority of Wikipedians who contributed to the discussion on CongLinks -- that those two should be restored, and perhaps a couple others. I do concur that the news & entertainment links were too plentiful and I did contribute on CongLinks that they should be trimmed. But the political links should be restored -- I think you two above are ignoring the reality of the politics here -- what you have done directly benefits incumbents and establishment candidates at the expense of challengers and outsiders. That is an implicit goal of Misplaced Pages -- to help those outside the mainstream establishment -- even if it is not in the explicit guidelines. JesseAlanGordon (talk) 00:49, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

User:JesseAlanGordon, my suggestion would be to discuss that at the relevant talk pages before acting. There was a consensus on what was done with both of those, and given that you have a clear relationship with OnTheIssues as noted in your userpage, I don' know how successful you'll be. Discussion is key. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:06, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

The consensus was that some of the entertainment links should go, and the other links should stay, including OnTheIssues' links. I will follow what the consensus concluded -- which is not what was implemented! JesseAlanGordon (talk) 03:32, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I am taking your advice that "discussion is the key." But I am a politician, so you might not like the amount of discussion that your advice begets. I have initiated a formal discussion on Template:CongLinks to un-delete the list of inappropriately deleted links on both GovLinks and CongLinks. I will repeat my post here, and encourage any readers here to "vote" by providing an explicit yes/no to each link. I will summarize the links and act according to that summary. The original deletions did NOT do that -- they deleted wholesale many more links than those for which there was a consensus for deletion. I will follow the consensus decisions in two weeks' time, on March 15, 2014. Here are the details..... I concur with Plastikspork's Jan. 24 conclusion that "The result of the discussion was no consensus to delete, but there appears to be consensus to limit/shorten the number of links." So the question becomes, "Which links should be deleted, and which should not?" Here is a summary or each link as discussed in the originating discussion at Misplaced Pages:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2014_January_3#Template:CongLinks : (Yes = keep it; Lean-Yes = reservations but keep it; Maybe = either way; Lean-No = reservations but delete it; No = delete it)

• ballotpedia: Lean-Yes 1, Maybe 1, No 1
• bloomberg: Lean-No 1, No 1
• congbio: Yes 2
• c-span: Lean-No 1, No 1
• fec: Lean-Yes 1
• findagrave: Lean-Yes 1
• followthemoney: Lean-Yes 1
• govtrack: Lean-Yes 1
• guardian: Lean-No 1, No 1
• imdb: No 3
• legistorm: Lean-Yes 1
• nndb: No 3
• nyt: Yes 1, Lean-No 1, No 1
• opencong: Lean-Yes 1
• opensecrets: Lean-Yes 1
• ontheissues: Yes 1, Lean-Yes 1
• rose: Lean-No 1, No 1
• votesmart: Yes 1, Lean-Yes 1
• worldcat: No 2
• wsj: Lean-No 1, No 1
• washpo: Yes 1, Lean-No 1, No 1

I would describe that as a consensus to remove Bloomberg, C-Span, Guardian, IMDB, NNDB, Rose, Worldcat, and WSJ. That is certainly in line with the idea of shortening the list, and removing irrelevant links. I am hereby starting a discussion to more formally gather a consensus, or at least a majority opinion. I intend to undo the deletion of CongLink templates for any which do NOT have consensus to remove. The overall conclusion of the previous discussion was "shorten but do not delete", which to me implies "discuss which to remove but unless there is near-consensus to remove, then keep the link." I made the list above by interpreting people's comments. Let's be more explicit this time. I suggest that participants write up a list like mine below, and I'll tally it up after a week or two like I did above. My votes, and a model for how I'd like others to offer their opinions (I added "Unknown" to the choices above, for ones on which you are unfamiliar):

• ballotpedia: Lean-Yes: I'd rather see this listed as a "sister organization" but otherwise keep it.
• bloomberg: No
• congbio: Yes
• c-span: No
• fec: Yes
• findagrave: No
• followthemoney: Yes
• govtrack: Lean-Yes (it's only for current incumbents, so only of limited value for political researchers like me)
• guardian: No
• imdb: No
• legistorm: Unknown
• nndb: No
• nyt: Lean-Yes, because its archives are very thorough. But the links often go dead.
• opencong: Unknown
• opensecrets: Unknown
• ontheissues: Yes
• rose: No
• votesmart: Yes
• worldcat: No
• wsj: No
• washpo: Yes, because its links included not only articles but also voting information.

I will spread this post around on other appropriate locations (its home is Template_talk:CongLinks, and I will post the results there in a week. JesseAlanGordon (talk) 05:21, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

User:JesseAlanGordon, the key guideline you need to look at is WP:EL. If you think those links (including the ones you're directly involved with) are viable, you need to change the guideline first. Good luck. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:32, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

As stated earlier in this discussion, I have read WP:EL; since somehow you believe I have not, I will cite the rules explicitly below as to how my chosen links DO meet those rules, while your actions do not. However, the more relevant rules are not external link rules, but the rules for deletion. You did not follow those rules -- you allowed a discussion, but you ignored the results of the discussion, and deleted all those links -- MY links -- dozens of hours of MY work -- and hundreds of hours of the work of other dedicated and sincere Wikipedians -- without any regard for what the other Wiki editors said, and in fact in DISregard for what they said. Here are the deletion rules and how you violated them:

• Presumably you believed that deletion rule #10 applied to CongLinks. That rule states "Redundant or otherwise useless templates" -- but the deletion discussion demonstrated that CongLinks was far from useless, since many Wiki editors defended it. Same for GovLinks, tied to CongLinks, but you deleted GovLinks even though many editors defended that implicitly via the CongLinks discussion.
• The basic rule for deletion is "Disputes over page content are usually not dealt with by deleting the page, except in severe cases" -- as stated under Alternatives to deletion. There is most certainly a dispute over CongLinks and GovLi nks -- but you deleted GovLinks anyway, and you deleted most of CongLinks anyway. You justified that by claiming that you had provided two weeks -- the rules do not place time limits, but instead focus on whether there was a dispute. There was a dispute, and hence you should not have deleted until the dispute was resolved.
• The most applicable rule is "Disagreement over a policy or guideline is not dealt with by deleting it", also under ]. Your core claim is that GovLinks and CongLinks had too many links -- but "too many" is a judgment call, and your judgment differed from mine. My judgment, however, had the backing of the majority of other Wiki editors, while yours did not. We disagreed over interpretation of the policy of how many was too many -- yet you dealt with this disagreement by deleting the page, in direct contradiction to the rule.
• The rule to restore a page states: "Even after the page is deleted, any editor can have the page restored", per the proposed deletion rules. I asked. You are still declining. The proper response is to restore the page and re-open the discussion.
• You might state that the above rules don't apply to templates like GovLinks and CongLinks -- I would say they do, but in case you believe they don't, then certainly the general deletion_discussion rules do apply. You did not apply those rules.
• The deletion discussion rules explicitly state, "Outcomes should reflect the rough consensus reached in the deletion discussion". Indeed, a rough consensus was reached: SOME of the CongLinks and GovLinks should be removed, but not all of them. You deleted all of GovLinks and most of CongLinks; that was not the consensus by any stretch of the definition of the term "consensus".
• My initial tally indicates where any actual consensus was: You might have deleted Bloomberg, C-Span, Guardian, IMDB, NNDB, Rose, Worldcat, and WSJ, but not the rest of the CongLinks nor GovLinks -- and then I would not be complaining. My final tally next week will more accurately reflect consensus opinion and which links have consensus for deletion -- but I expect you to follow that new consensus, including the restoration of GovLinks.

My intent is to restore your deletions after a proper discussion, if you won't do it yourself. There was already a consensus before the fact of your deletion that you should not delete CongLinks and GovLinks. Now there is a growing consensus among other editors responding to my posts elsewhere, after the fact of your deletion, that you did not follow the rules. In order to further facilitate that discussion, I will respond directly to your insinuation that I have not read WP:EL by citing how VoteSmart and OnTheIssues DO follow the WP:EL rules, one by one, addressed to other Misplaced Pages editors to assist in overturning Thargor's deletions:

• Thargor cites WP:EL as the rationale for deletion of VoteSmart and OnTheIssues, so let's look at what should be linked, according to the guidelines called What to link. The first bullet contends, "Is the site content accessible to the reader?" VoteSmart and OnTheIssues are clearly accessible (as are the New York Times and Washington Post); they all have search engines built-in and clearly spend a lot of effort organizing their very large content.
• The 2nd bullet asks, "Is the site content proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)?" All four of the CongLinks I list above, by their nature, have more factual information than is possible on a Misplaced Pages page, which is appropriately intended as a summary.
• The 3rd bullet asks, "Is the link functioning and likely to remain functional?" The NYT links are questionable on this criterion, as I noted in my comments above. But the others -- WashPo, VoteSmart and OnTheIssues -- maintain their links indefinitely, for exactly the purpose of remaining functional for the purpose of being linked to. VoteSmart and OnTheIssues are intended as archives; while WashPo does include news content, the voting records which I cite as my rationale to keep the WashPo links are also archives.
• The general criteria for WP:EL are: "Each link should be considered on its merits, using the following guidelines. As the number of external links in an article grows longer, assessment should become stricter. When in doubt about the appropriateness of adding new links, make a suggestion on the article's talkpage and discuss with other editors." This is where Thargor most failed the guidelines -- Thargor did not consider each link on its merits. I concur that removing SOME links is appropriate; Thargor removed ALL of GovLinks and most of CongLinks.
• The specific criteria for what can normally be linked state: "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Misplaced Pages article due to…amount of detail (such as…interview transcripts)." Again, that is the primary purpose of VoteSmart and OnTheIssues -- they are encyclopedic -- for example, OnTheIssues.org has 75,000 pages -- both sites include interview transcripts and speech transcripts, as well as campaign website excerpts which often disappear after the campaign ends. VoteSmart and OnTheIssues are intended as neutral and accurate -- they present excerpts and summaries of issue stances, not political opinion -- and they present materials for candidates from all parties, including minor parties.
• The primary basis for Thargor's removal seems to be the guideline that "Long lists of links are not acceptable", from Links to be considered. I concur; long lists of links are not acceptable; if I were to unilaterally act without consensus, I would certainly remove IMDB and NNDB. But I would not act without consensus -- as Thargor did! -- and the only ones that should have been removed by consensus were Bloomberg, C-Span, Guardian, IMDB, NNDB, Rose, Worldcat, and WSJ. That would reduce the list substantially, fulfilling this guideline. Deleting GovLinks does not fulfill this guideline.
• Some editors seek deletion based on reliability -- but the guidelines further state, "Sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources." WashPo, NYT, VoteSmart and OnTheIssues are certainly "knowledgeable sources" that "contain information about the subject of the article" when linked from, say, Rep. Barney Frank's page or Gov. Deval Patrick's page . Yet Barney Frank and Deval Patrick no longer have CongLinks and GovLinks because of Thargor's actions.
• Thus far, my arguments have all been defenses against Thargor's deletions. I would like to close with affirmative assertions on why many of the deleted links should be restored.
• Thargor cites elsewhere in this discussion that I should not be concerned with "incumbency protection," by which I meant that Thargor's chosen deletions favor the established incumbent over challengers, especially lesser-known challengers. We as Wikipedians, in fact, SHOULD be concerned with incumbency protection, and SHOULD favor the lesser-known challengers, as clearly defined in the guidelines for Identifying reliable sources: "Misplaced Pages articles should… mak sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered." The nature of political races is that the incumbents have an easy time having their views heard, while the challengers, especially third-party and lesser-known challengers, do not. VoteSmart and OnTheIssues give equal space to "significant minority views"; even WSJ, NYT and WashPo often do not do that. That is the basis of my contention that VoteSmart and OnTheIssues fulfill the mission of Misplaced Pages.
• Thargor's greatest violation of Misplaced Pages policy, in my view, is that the deletions violate the Neutral point of view guidelines, which state that "NPOV is a fundamental principle of Misplaced Pages… This policy is nonnegotiable and all editors and articles must follow it." Thargor's deletions were NOT neutral -- they favored incumbents and hurt challengers. Thargor's deletions of GovLinks removed hundreds of links to gubernatorial challenger's external information, on VoteSmart, OnTheIssues, and elsewhere. Incumbents don't have that problem -- they have their official state websites. The nature of incumbency means that challengers must struggle to get their point of view across -- and Misplaced Pages helps with that struggle -- until Thargor's deletions whacked every challenger's links off the lists. The same applies to CongLinks, of course.
• Another Misplaced Pages pillar that Thargor broke is consensus, which states that "Consensus refers to the primary way decisions are made on Misplaced Pages…. Consensus on Misplaced Pages does not mean unanimity… Decision-making involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns." Thargor did not make "an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns". Thargor, in fact, ignored my legitimate concerns, and the concerns of other editors who expressed concerns, about which links should be deleted.

That sums up what I have to say -- sorry to be so long about this. Sorry, forgot to sign my post. JesseAlanGordon (talk) 04:45, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't discuss issues like this on my talk page. This is appropriate for the individual template talks, or at WP:DRV. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:41, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

OnTheIssues

Thargor has proposed deleting OnTheIssues for "lack of notability". I hereby protest the potential deletion and request a formal discussion. The proposed deletion of OnTheIssues is heavily tied to Thargor's inappropriate deletion of GovLinks and stripping of CongLinks. In the meantime, I am editing and adding references for OnTheIssues' Notability as outlined in the Notability Guidelines. JesseAlanGordon (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I have not proposed deleting OnTheIssues. I have tagged it with a notability tag because it's questionable as to whether it's notable for inclusion due to our policies. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:41, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

You said the same thing about GovLinks and then deleted it -- why are you doing this? Your rationale about "EL:NO" just does not hold water for GovLinks. Your argument against notability for the OnTheIssues page is similarly biased -- I will address the notability issues but I don't think anything I do will stop you from deleting it. I would like a date that you plan to delete it so I can fight you. I would have liked the same thing with GovLinks but you deleted it prematurely. JesseAlanGordon (talk) 02:45, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to discuss this issue further at the relevant page. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:56, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Where is the relevant page? The guidelines say to request a discussion with the relevant deleting editor. That person is you, and that place is here. JesseAlanGordon (talk) 14:13, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator. If you're interested in discussion of OnTheIssues, go to that article's talk page. Same with CongLinks. If you're worried about actual deletion that's already occurred, it seems you're already at that administrator's talk page, but there's little to be said here as I do not have deletion powers. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:34, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of former child actors from the United States

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re: DBC "further reading"

Just use it as a source for some content then there will be no need or rationale to have it as an external link. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:53, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I think you meant to put this on the talk page of the person who wants to include it in the article. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:10, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

ANI notice

There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 05:55, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Clarification

I don't know why you think you are responsible for getting me blocked last year. I certainly don't blame you. But now that you mention it, are you trying to say you had something to do with it? :) Viriditas (talk) 13:34, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

You calling me a paid ALEC shill didn't help your case, for sure. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:40, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't recall saying any such thing. Do you have a diff or a link? Viriditas (talk) 23:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Here you go. Thargor Orlando (talk) 11:29, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't see the words "paid" or "shill" anywhere in that diff. That thread does, however, demonstrate, that you were engaging in the same maintenance tag warring and article-hostage taking then as now, so your behavior has remained entirely consistent. And it is that behavior which myself and others have taken exception to in the recent ANI report. Will you be changing your behavior, or do we need to file an RFC and then proceed to arbcom? Given the long-term pattern here, what do you think arbcom will do? Viriditas (talk) 20:44, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to butt in here. My advice to Thargor is to be more flexible about the further reading thing; I'm sure there's a compromise where the sources could be used as sources in the main text. But, that said, I think it's splitting hairs to focus on the absence of those two words from the diff. And I'm pretty sure that ArbCom would agree with me about that. And make no mistake about it. It wasn't Thargor who went to an admin about having Viriditas blocked for statements like that diff. It was me. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:52, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

It's really not actually an issue. As it always goes with these, discussion happens and we move along with it from there. Either things change or they don't. That I happened to cross someone who has a chip on his shoulder with me is par for the course. It's happened before with other issues, it will happen again. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:03, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not the least bit surprised by what you're playing here. Not playing further. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:03, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

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