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Revision as of 13:33, 10 January 2007 editCarcharoth (talk | contribs)Administrators73,550 edits →Deleting nastiness: extend and re-sign← Previous edit Revision as of 13:43, 10 January 2007 edit undoCarcharoth (talk | contribs)Administrators73,550 edits →NPA in the wake of PAIN's closure: commentNext edit →
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I've been trying to work on refining ] once it appeared likely that PAIN was struggling in MFD. Despite an RFC and Village Pump posting, there hasn't been a lot of input on my ], which tries to address some of the problems in the current policy (especially the implication from its wording that everything needs an escalating response). As both an administrator involved in the situation, and an editor whose opinion I've come to respect, I'd like you to have a look at it before I seriously consider doing something ] ] to a policy page. Thanks! ] 13:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC) I've been trying to work on refining ] once it appeared likely that PAIN was struggling in MFD. Despite an RFC and Village Pump posting, there hasn't been a lot of input on my ], which tries to address some of the problems in the current policy (especially the implication from its wording that everything needs an escalating response). As both an administrator involved in the situation, and an editor whose opinion I've come to respect, I'd like you to have a look at it before I seriously consider doing something ] ] to a policy page. Thanks! ] 13:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
:How about putting ] up for MfD? :-) Seriously, I think the main thing wrong with ] is that people use it in an admonitory, rather nasty way. You just know a dispute is escalating (on both sides) when one side says to the other "] please", or "that's a ]". Try putting at the top of ] and ] something like: please be polite when pointing people towards these pages, especially if the editor is already aware of them. The only real reason to cite these pages is to new editors who are not aware of them. It works quite well to say "Please don't take offence, but have you read ] yet?", but, and this is crucial, don't do this when you think you have been attacked. Leave it to ''others'' to call someone on a personal attack, and don't do so yourself. In that sense, what is needed is not so much reporting a personal attack to get someone blocked, but reporting a personal attack to get an outside view. All that is needed is for a place for people to post "is this a personal attack?", and then someone uninvolved (not even an admin) can come along and ask the two people to calm things down, and then that person can go away again. Blocking offences should go straight to ]. ] 13:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Revision as of 13:43, 10 January 2007

Hello, welcome ! Bishonen | talk 12:04, 3 September 2006 (UTC).

Yes, welcome back. Haukur 12:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Wow, what changed around here to warrant this? --Kbdank71 03:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Ah, that would be a certain Dutch wikactivity rather near to where I live. >Radiant< 20:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Huh? —Nightstallion (?) 17:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back, I hope! I have missed you. Nandesuka 05:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

And welcome from me too, if you are indeed back in action! Grutness...wha? 10:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back, and hope to see you editing again! :) - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 15:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back! I hope that whatever time you spend editing Misplaced Pages is enjoyable. --Interiot 17:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Feeling better now? Scobell302 20:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back from me as well. Jaranda 20:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Thank you! And yep, I'm indeed back in action. What did I miss? :) (seriously, do tell; I'll probably read up on a Signpost or two but I'd rather hear it here) >Radiant< 20:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Don't look too hard, you might want to leave for another 6 months.  ;-) Nice to have you back. Dragons flight 22:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Toolserver's been down for the past 3 months. Prod moved to an on-wiki process. (there's a non-toolserver way to revive the prod tracker, but I don't know if there's been any movement towards that yet)     If you're curious about wikidrama, User:NoSeptember/Desysop points to some of the stories. --Interiot 23:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Many folks seem to hang out on IRC, see Misplaced Pages:IRC channels (I don't). Use of Misplaced Pages:AutoWikiBrowser has reached epidemic proportions (various folks are suggesting 5000 edits is a reasonable minimum for RFA, since it's so easy using AWB to make hundreds and hundreds of meaningless edits). There's been a changing of the guard with bot folks - lots of processes got at least momentarily constipated due to reliance on dearly departed botters. It's bigger, currently 6,931,139 articles and counting. Template parser functions have arrived (see m:ParserFunctions) and have let any number of folks go truly nuts with templates that are completely inscrutable. Angela resigned from the board (!). Boothy443 got really pissed off and seems to be gone. user:Bobby Boulders was an annoying pest of a vandal for a while (may be the latest incarnation of WoW). Some sort of stable version feature is apparently actually in the works and will be enabled in the German vesion. No one can gain consensus to change virtually anything. You know, pretty much same old. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Welcome back... I am trying to remember exactly what you were active in before you left... I know that a log page was created to keep track of changes on {{cent}}. There has been changes and updates on WP:CSD, especially under the image/media sections... You left at about the same time that Jimbo established WP:OFFICE, so I do not know if you know about that or not. If I think of more, I let you know. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:16, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
    • wb! /me does happy dance. One thing not mentioned so far in the difflist is that the state of javascript automation has advanced quite a bit. Having the toolserver replication DB so lagged means a lot of js based history/count/browse things have been developed, but that's just one facet... check out WP:US, especially if you are going to pick up the admin mantle again... Another thing to note is that IRC is not just for talking, there are channels that are primarily bot traffic speaking of new users and potential edits in need of investigation, with handy links already embedded. WP:1.0 is making great strides, many projects are carrying out article classification (with the help of fairly standard talk page templates to track what's what and display current thinking) and User:Mathbot runs every night to build a vast grand list of all the articles so far classified and how good they are thought to be... For example here is The Beatles summary page... Hope that helps and wow, glad to see you back. ++Lar: t/c 20:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back. :) --Golbez 21:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, bit late on the scene- another welcome back from me :) Petros471 17:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yay! I am glad you have returned. Hope things don't piss you off too much too soon. JesseW, the juggling janitor 18:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

  1. an interesting exercise to be sure... note also that citation/reference/footnote technology has advanced... see WP:REF and WP:CITE

Welcome back! Glad to see you return. —Nightstallion (?) 17:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Really really belated WB! - Ravedave 03:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Blimey! Hope things are good with you. Yes, I look forward to arguing. Steve block Talk 21:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

You may want to look at WP:DENY as well. It's like an hellzone. Jaranda 21:34, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow. -Splash - tk 22:17, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll try not to clutter your talk page with another section header, but I'm truly pleased to notice your return. At the time, I thought your departure was a big loss for Misplaced Pages, and I was dismayed when it appeared to be permanent. Umm, I guess the blocking mechanism has changed a bit and you might want to get used to that, and we've grown a lot more strict on bad (license, source, fair use rationale, etc) images. I'm happy to help if you have any questions getting used to it all again. :-) Dmcdevit·t 07:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

didn't think I would see your name on my watchlist again... welcome back... --T-rex 22:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Muaha! You are a veritable force of clean, sweeping my watchlist with unerring boldness and purpose! Huzzah I say! Huzzah!
(welcome back! I've seen your contributions throughout the talkpages, and like you already ;) The only thing I have to add to the ultra-condensed-Signpost-synopsis above is, there are new people with unrecognizable names everywhere! --Quiddity 23:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Good news to spot you here. Pavel Vozenilek 00:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Holy %&$^#^, it's >Radiant!< - can we get an amen? -- nae'blis 18:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Me too. Welcome back, Radiant. Deco 10:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

This news makes my day! :) Xoloz 18:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Seconded! Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Yippee! Hey, glad you're back! :-) --HappyCamper 18:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

You're back! I had no idea! Welcome back, fellow Wikipedian. It's always good to see a longtimer arise from the pits of departure. —this is messedrocker (talk) 02:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Hot damn I didn't realize you were back til now. So here is a welcome just for you! KOS | talk 06:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

A very belated welcome back, because no one tells me anything anymore. Seriously, it's great to see you back! --Mackensen (talk) 01:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe I failed to notice! Well, after what has seemed like a very rough few days this has cheered me right up! the wub "?!" 19:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC) (wow, so excited I forgot to sign the first time)

Wow, just noticed. Cool :).Voice-of-All 15:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Radiant, I am especially pleased to see you back. I don't think you really want to get into the drama of things that have been unfolding here, but you did ask "what did i miss?" YOu might consider having a look at the recent Netoholic arbitrations. He's mostly not around anymore.

But, that aside, I just can't convey how joyous it is to have you back. ... aa:talk 20:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Party!

Hello hello hello! I just saw you show up on my watchlist. What a sight for sore eyes. You're one of the people I've missed most. Welcome back, welcome back! :-)

\o/ \o/ \o/

Kim Bruning 20:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to remember why I liked you, which is that you keep everyone on their toes, which includes me ;-). I noticed you've semiprotected certain pages. It's certainly tempting to do so, but you should only really do this if there is vandalism. If only because I'm lazy and forget to log in from time to time, but also because we've got some other sane anons on board too. :-) Kim Bruning 20:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh happy day! -- ALoan (Talk) 20:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Your dreams were your ticket out... :P

Seriously, happy editing. It's good to see you - I spotted you on the talk page of WP:DENY. 1ne 22:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

You're really back! Welcome Radiant! one! Have a token of my esteem!

Have a field of them please! Whatever color you like, forever fresh and refreshing! Yeah! You're back! Let's have a Parade! Let's get drunk an Party! Yippeee-ee-eee!

Be well, stay well! Stay happy! Best news I've had all month! Best regards, // FrankB 21:34, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

... but it's good to see you back again! JYolkowski // talk 01:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm also glad to see you return. Conscious 05:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
At the risk of adding to both the spam on this page, and then size of your head, I'm also glad to see you're back, which I only noticed a short while ago. I was trying to think of a contribution to your quilt, and all that springs to mind is Ken and Kenneth from The Fast Show, (Ken: "Good morning, sir. How are we today, sir?" Man: "Fine. You?" Ken: "Radiant, sir, radiant."), which is probably lacking something outside of its cultural context... Alai 02:13, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back, I just discovered this since you returned while I was on vacation. Nice quilt. --Michael Snow 21:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed :) utcursch | talk 07:09, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Policymaking

The problem, as I see it, is that wikipedia has competing factions attempting to influence policy, and Misplaced Pages is large enough now that none of the factions has a clear majority except in edge cases of minimal procedural significance (either because they're so trivial that nobody cares, or because they're so entrenched that there's effectively no chance that they will be changed).

The methods I can see for clearing up this logjam are:

  • Gaming the system. That is, asking the "wrong" question so that the inevitable failure to achieve consensus can be creatively interpreted to indicate a consensus in the other direction.
  • Edicts from above. We're already seeing this with the OTRS stuff and the WP:OFFICE declarations. G11 is a prime example.
  • Ditching the "Discuss, don't vote" philosophy in favor of a vote (or something that approaches "voting" asymptotically).

None of the above methods are particularly appealing, but I don't see any procedural method for clearing the logjam that leaves Misplaced Pages's core philosophies intact. Asking people to reach reasoned consensus on a method to clear up a procedural logjam when the disagreement between them is what created the logjam in the first place is something of a non-starter.

Something will, eventually, have to give. And my suspicion is that it will be some subset of Misplaced Pages's core philosophies. I'm fairly certain that we're going to see more edicts handed down from above in the future regarding policy. It does the least amount of damage, is the easiest to justify, and they've already started doing it (thus making it easier to do it in the future -- the thin end of the wedge, as it were, though I don't believe it was intended that way).

All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction
15:12, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

As the number of people involved in making a decision grows, the chance that there will be someone who will doggedly fight for any given position (regardless of its merit) approaches 100%. One possible way to counter this is to split the project into a republic, and if a particular policy or process ends up working well in practice for one group/state, others may choose to adopt it (we already have this to some extent, with different languages and citizendium adopting slightly different policies/processes). Another option is to form committees to do the critical thinking (no false dichotomies, not necessarily adhering to tradition), and they would generate suggested options that others would have less opportunity to logjam... though it would still be good to get some kind of consensus from everyone (maybe there'd be a straight-up vote, because the false-dichotomy problem would already have been addressed a bit).
Having a republic multiplies the complexity of trying to keep track of policy, but seems more wiki than committees. Maybe we need to recruit more multi-language people to help compare interwiki policy, and generate more documents like Misplaced Pages:Adminship in other languages. --Interiot 16:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
This is the hot button issue today; one way or another it drives all other serious issues -- all of them, from user conduct through policy proposals and adminship to content disputes. One way or another, all of these troubles are traceable in large part to growing pains. This community has finally grown to the point where consensus-style decision making simply doesn't work anymore.
Consensus is a dearly held principle around here; I've certainly killed enough bytes defending it. For me, though, consensus stands in opposition to autocracy. Others fear more the tyranny of the majority.
I agree that the two obvious alternatives are representative democracy and bureaucracy; I find them both repugnant, the latter much more so. I have a fairly complex alternative to all of these in mind but I fear it may simply be far too novel to get any attention at all. Certainly, one of the worst alternatives to consensus is pure mass democracy, with every issue being decided on a slim margin of straight up community-wide votes. But as the consensus ship sinks, this is going to look like the nearest lifeboat.
At bottom, my worst fear is that the community is simply too wedded to consensus to let it go. Radiant -- no offense -- is putting up a last-ditch defense of consensus and discussion; I think he's not the only diehard. It looks as if the dam is going to break first at RfA, where straight voting is going to take over in time -- for good or ill. It may already be too late to turn the herd in another direction.
I think this crisis is real and bigger than anything else around here -- bigger anyway than pedo-UBX. Dealing with it will take a core group of committed editors who aren't afraid to try something new. Is it time to open a page? Or is the issue so explosive that it should be discussed offwiki before trying to put out a proposal? John Reid 18:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
No, keep it on-wiki. I'm interested in hearing ideas, although I guess I'm another wedded to the discuss and reach consensus idea. But there certainly is an issue with a lot more people arriving at Misplaced Pages with intractable positions. To my mind we need the board to get more involved in some of the issues. If they can see a position of compromise or a position which is most likely to get supported or a position they actually want, they're going to have to start fighting for it. There is now a need for a casting vote on some issues. And I don't see a republic or a parliament working, to be honest. Steve block Talk 19:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
My prediction, for whatever it may be worth, is that the future of Misplaced Pages holds at least two things which are essentially anathema to the current philosophies of Misplaced Pages:
  • Some sort of policymaking committee.
  • Increased restrictions on the "anybody" portion of "The encyclopedia that anybody can edit."
I consider the first to be an inevitable consequence of the fact that there are many people who come to Misplaced Pages, spend a very brief amount of time editing actual articles, and then immerse themselves deeply into the policy aspects of Misplaced Pages, never to surface again. They are more interested in pursuing some vision of online social justice than they are of actually creating an encyclopedia.
I consider the second to be an inevitable consequence of the fact that the OTRS folks and the OFFICE folks will find themselves snowed under by complaints as word gets out that, hey, you can bitch at the guys who run Misplaced Pages about your article, and they'll jump through hoops for you.
It may not happen this year, or the next, or even the next. But I predict that it will happen, unless a substantially new and innovative policy creation and enforcement mechanism is crafted between now and then.
All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction
04:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I've certainly begun to ponder whether we should just make all pages semi-protected, if only to make welcome messages and warnings and the like more easily targeted. But that's a big step and I think it's already boiling on the back burner, personally. The policy council, um. Yes, I think it may well happen, but I think I'd need persuading on it. To my mind once you start creating committees, you start seeing them detach and you start bringing in a divide. Maybe on divisive, binary issues we just need to have a big centralised discussion and get a crat in to call consensus after a time limit. Anyone not willing to move on a position is discounted as not working towards consensus. Who knows. It used to be we'd all agree on what we wanted, and work from there. Now we all disagree on what we don't work, and never seem to meet in the middle. Steve block Talk 09:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, don't mistake my predictions as endorsement. The policy-making committee idea has several profound failure modes, depending on how it is constructed and populated, and (tortured syntax ahoy, Cap'n!) by whom it is populated with. If it's a strictly back-channel thing, as was being sorta semi-worked on by Kelly Martin and others, that would be bad. If it was populated by a process similar to ArbCom...well, it would still probably be bad, but not quite as bad.

I am generally less opposed to increased restrictions on who can edit, mainly because I spent 10 years enforcing online policy for a large ISP. And online policy enforcement has certain parallels with online security. The first rule of online security is "No system is 100% secure as long as it has an active network connection to another computer." Breaking the security of a computer system is a function of three things: Time, Money, and Motivation. Given the right amount of these three things, any system can be compromised. Thus, the purpose of network security is not to eliminate the chance of intrusion, but rather to make the cost of those three things sufficiently expensive that casual abuse is discouraged.

Likewise, the abuse we see on a daily basis here in Misplaced Pages is a function of Time, Money, and Motivation. And right now we have very minimal brakes on that behavior, such that casual abuse is rampant. I think the first (certainly the most obvious) restriction which will be added will be requiring registration to edit Misplaced Pages, followed in short order by requring a valid email address during registration. This will not eliminate the casual abuse, but will sharply decrease it to a more manageable level.

The only 100% perfect solution I can see is, of course, to place me in charge of all policy-making and policy-enforcement decisions. But since neither Jimbo nor the Foundation have the vision to make such a radical change, I'm afraid we'll all be stuck with a less-optimal procedures.  ;-)

All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction
14:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

No no, I should be the Great Dictator! Isn't it obvious? I'm one of those editors who disappeared into the policy swamp shortly after arrival; it's really all I'm good for, aside from the occasional pretty picture.
I have some really radical ideas for reform; as usual, I take a little from every side and whip it together. I really don't see the point of airing them, though, before the entire community. No doubt they're completely unacceptable as I would write them initially; they need to be worked on before showing to a wider audience. You need to keep in mind that a large bulk of editors are hostile to anything they see (shoot first); more are hostile to anything new (good enough for grandad); still more hostile to anything they haven't peed on (that's the smith's dog i smell), and others hostile to anything that alters long-standing policy (defenders of the faith).
Any proposal that goes deep enough to address the failure of consensus will, if aired in a raw state, be shredded and the creator burnt at the stake. No, we need a quieter place to work this up. John Reid 02:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Pretty picture

Hi Radiant, I thought you'd like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mag3737/296851106/in/photostream/ Cheers! Kla'quot 09:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, it's non-commercial only. You get to look but not touch. :) Kla'quot 09:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

League of Copyeditors

Thank you for your support, Radiant, and thank you for your ideas to help this group succeed. We are already showing a good start and I wanted you to know your help early on was much appreciated! Trusilver 23:19, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The Outer Limits (and probably some other television series episode articles)

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for renaming all those The Outer Limits episode pages. I'm one of the main culprits who created a pile of them earlier this year and then realized they should all be renamed. I was just too lazy to ever do it. -- Slowmover 17:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, that was funny

this made me laugh : )

Oh and on a similar note, check out WP:UCFD : ) - jc37 12:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Gaah! We have way too many of that; I'm amazed that so many people care about the exact spelling of joke cats and such, and I'm glad it's no longer in the main CFD. Reminds me of the UBX debacle earlier this year. (Radiant) 13:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I'm only pruning. We still will have a rather strong group of Wikipedian categories. - jc37 13:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Overcategorization

Great work on the page. I've added a mini proposal to go with it at Misplaced Pages talk:Categories for discussion.

I've also been thinking about some general purpose templates for categories that might help in their management. I hate the {{catdiffuse}} template, and would like some that are much more user friendly, not blatantly self-referential and move us towards the category structure discussed at Misplaced Pages:Category intersection. I'm not sure of all the details, so I wanted to bounce the idea off you before I do anything.

The basic idea is to label categories so that people understand the different ways we use categories. The language would be written for the users of wikipedia to help explain the use of the category, while at the same time it would indirectly help editors know how the category should be populated. There would be templates for each of the following:

  • Topic Categories -- Topic categories are high level categories containing both articles and subcategories. Typically, these do not contain any articles about specific instances of the topic. An example of this type of category is Category:Film
  • Index Categories -- These are the "Primary" category talked about at WP:CI. An index category contains all the articles that are members of a class of articles defined by a topic. It is a master index of the topic. All members of one of these "X" categories are an "X". An example of this type is Category:Film directors (though it is not currently populated). The template for this type of category might have a link to the topic article for the category and explain how subcategories might be helpful.
  • Subcategories Subcategories are secondary index categories, a more specific means of classifying articles. Articles put in subcategories would also be put in the index categories that are their parents. The template would have a link to the parent category.
  • Navigation categories These categories only contain subcategories and are intended to help people navigate through the category structure. An example of this is Category:People by nationality and occupation
  • Intersection categories The intersection of two (or perhaps three) primary categories. The articles placed in these categories should also be in the primary categories. The template would have links to the primary categories.
  • Subject categories These are low level categories mainly containing articles that are related to a topic. Typically, they are eponymous categories and not part of any larger taxonomy. An example of this is Category:George W. Bush.

What do you think? -- Samuel Wantman 08:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this thread should be moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Overcategorization, but I tend to agree with the sentiment expressed at Misplaced Pages talk:Categorization#Categories getting out of hand. As currently implemented categories have no formal meaning and no formal structure (other than directed graph), which I think means any attempt to attribute meaning to categories is ultimately doomed. I suspect there's not much point in doing anything along these lines until we have something like semantic mediawiki. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Rick, thanks for commenting. Yes as currently implemented categories do not have a formal meaning and a formal structure. That is why I'm trying to give them more structure. The classes I came up with are based on the structure that most categories seem to have, and by putting these labels on categories we would be giving categories more structure in a wiki-like way. Categories seem to be at a point that they will either degrade into meaninglessness or take form. I'm not quite ready to give up on them yet. -- Samuel Wantman 20:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Samuel's types of categories outlined above. These are exactly the sort of categories I've been seeing develop. I've always tried to add a few lines explaining a category to the editors using it, and directing them to more appropriate categories if needed, and directing readers to the correct place as well. See what I did at Category:Tsunamis and Category:Tsunami. Carcharoth 00:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Ddcc has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Smile to others by adding {{subst:smile}}, {{subst:smile2}} or {{subst:smile3}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Happy editing!

Thanks

Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to participate in the whole naming discussion debacle. I'm sorry you had to put up with all that, it is a bit ridiculous when someone asks for an outside opinion and then attacks it when it doesn't agree with theirs. Cheers. --Milo H Minderbinder 23:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

clichés

Is there a list of RFA clichés I don't know about? (btw, Hi! good to have you back!!) ... aa:talk 17:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Guideline?

I'm glad you like the Misplaced Pages:Category structure idea. I'm not sure it needs to be a "proposal". I think we can just start doing it: make templates, and start tagging categories. If it is a good idea people will join in. If not, they'll complain. The Misplaced Pages page should explain what it is about, rather than have discussion that makes it seem like something needs to be decided. I did pretty much the same thing when I created Misplaced Pages:Categorization. It has been around for over a year, and people regularly put the templates on categories.

So, rather than discuss this as a proposal, let's just start collaboratively creating templates and working on the Misplaced Pages page that people will get to when they click on the "category structure" link that all the templates will have. Once it is all ready, we can then start tagging. Anyone who wants can join in and help. If it becomes widely adopted and eventually considered a requirement of any new category, we'll lable it as a guideline.

I'll be able to work on it starting Dec 7. Take care. -- Samuel Wantman 22:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:TROUT

What is this? There's no explanitory text at all, you seem to have cited it as a guideline on the Villiage Pump... it's just a picture of a fish that says "Whack!" It seems to be a cross between slapstick humor, a personal attack, and sarcasam. For some odd reason it vaguely reminds me of the Wikicouch that was briefly floting around. Just... what is it? ~ ONUnicorn 17:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I think he was just making a joke, saying you should remind them of size guidelines, summary guidelines, and possibly smack them with a trout. It reminded me of the couch as well, though I doubt anyone is going to be held in contempt of WP:TROUT anytime soon.--tjstrf talk 17:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thank you for my laugh of the day. Clicked the link showing on your edit summary, and just laughed and laughed : ) - jc37 17:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Starry Night

It was a very pleasant and encouraging surprise for me to discover a barnstar after clicking on the "new message" link. Thank you, i appreciate it a lot. =D --`/aksha 11:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

MONGO

I'd dig out the Barnstar of Diligence code but I think we're probably above that sort of crap by now. This is an exceptional piece of work, and I sincerely hope it has the desired effect. Guy (Help!) 00:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Re:Misplaced Pages:Gay Nigger Association of America/FAC Objections

Thank you for the correct closure of this MfD. I honestly have no real opinion on the whole GNAA fiasco (I mean, the article never asserted notability through RSs, but and I thought the organization was rather dumb, but I didn't have any particular dislike for them outside of not liking any trolls), but if that MfD was closed as a "no consensus", I would have 1) brought the decision to DRV, and 2) ripped my hair out, as I don't think anyone who !voted to keep the page actaully read it. So, once again, ¡gracias! -- Kicking222 23:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

On an unrelated note, your talkpage is nutty long. Why not split it up/archive it? (Just a friendly question.) -- Kicking222 23:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks. Tragic romance 19:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

thanks for your comments

Thanks for your comments radiant. Sorry to bother you. Best wishes, Travb (talk) 16:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Just saying thanks for your input on the various adventure-related afds, it has been reasoned and non-partisan. --Amaccormack 10:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Holiday Wishes

Tractorkingsfan would like to wish all of his Wikipedian friends, of which you are one, safe and happy holidays. Cheers, --Tractorkingsfan 06:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Moondance magazine AFD-Revision Talk

Hi Radiant! Just added many external links to University sites that have this magazine in their cirriculum (most are Women's Studies Depts). You can link over to review this at Moondance magazine. All thanks for your continued help. --Lysanzia 10:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

User Page

Good evening (GMT time); I hope you like my wisdom that I've added to your quilt on User:Radiant! - it's one of my favourites! Feel free to remove it if you don't approve.

Cheers and regards,
Anthonycfc (talk • email • tools) 16:25, Thursday December 28 2006 (UTC)

I have as well. It is a quote of my own design. Feel free to spread it to those you think need it most. Jfingers88 04:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Category intersection (again)

I'm still wondering about how to make WP:CI feasible. So I'm wondering about having a composite system combining something like what we do now with dynamically created category intersections.

The impediment discussed was that large categories intersected with other large categories could likely cause server load problems. So perhaps these problematic category intersections could be flagged so that the intersection is not available. Here's how I see this working:

I'm assuming that we institute one of the CI options that do in fact create an intersection space.

  • Someone requests an intersection that causes too much server drain (the developers can decide what that level is, and how to measure it). Let's say for example, that the threshold is one second of server time.
  • When the threashold is reached, the server creates a flag for the intersection on the appropriate page in intersection space.
  • Any time that intersection is requested again, users will get a message that the intersection is not available because it requires too much server time.
  • Each time the intersection is requested, a counter (which could also be the flag) would keep track of how many times the intersection is requested.
  • When there is extra server capacity, flagged intersections could undertaken again, with priority given to the ones with the most requests. The intersection page would then be replaced with a wiki-markup list for the created intersection. These saved lists would not require any server time the next time they are requested. There could be a note as part of it that explains that the page may not be up to date.
  • Every time the saved list is recreated the counter would be reset. Statistics for each page, like a running total number of requests, or average requests per day could also be kept. These could be used for alternate methods of determining which intersections should be recreated.
  • Empty intersections could also be flagged, and a special page created to view a list of these empty intersection pages. Admins could flag any that are meaningless, so that the servers would no longer attempt to create new intersections, and they would be displayed as being empty.

What do you think? -- Samuel Wantman 09:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Sam invited me to comment as well. I think the technical feasibility of this hinges on the ability of an intersection query to the database to either be predicted as one that might take too long or to be interrupted after the resource threshold has been reached. I think the former might be somewhat easier than the latter (I'm not a MySQL user, but from what poking around I've done I don't think there's a way to either interrupt a query or give a query a lower priority than other queries). Something simple like if the size of any category involved in the intersection query is larger than X (5000?) might suffice. The only problem with a size limit is that it would presumably add a size query (for each cat involved) to the processing involved in doing an intersection. The rest of this sounds kind of complicated and I suspect would require a fair amount of work to implement, and doesn't address the issue of locking the DB while the intersection query runs (there's really never a good time to do this).
An alternate approach might be to dedicate some number of "intersection servers" in the server cluster and give them read-only access to the category database. I don't know if MySQL supports a distributed server arrangement in this fashion (I suspect probably not), but if it did then the intersection queries could be shoved off to these servers making these queries not interfere with other uses of the database (sort of like the tooserver approach). Given that toolserver runs off a copy, I suspect this isn't actually feasible.
Yet another approach might be to implement two different algorithms for intersection, and pick which one based on the sizes of the categories involved. The first one (for use where all the categories are reasonably small) would run the obvious intersection query using SQL (like Radiant implemented some time ago). The second one would first run an SQL intersection of all "small" categories in the query and, if there is a non-null result, then do an intersection outside the database (in one of the Apaches) for the larger categories by reading a reasonable number of entries at a time (500?) per category. From the DB's perspective this would be the same as someone listing the contents of the larger categories, rapidly hitting "next 200" over and over. Doing this avoids the potential DB lockup that a very large query might entail, which I think is the actual problem that has to be solved (there are enough Apaches so that if one is busy for a while, even 10 seconds, it's not a site-wide disaster). -- Rick Block (talk) 19:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the server load problem will only be in cases where a large category intersects another large category. If a small one is part of the intersection, then only the members of the smallest category need to be looked at. Likewise, in cases of more than 2 categories being intersected, only the intersection of the smallest two categories need to be looked at.

Building on what Rick suggests, there seem to be several strategies for reducing server load:

  1. Interrupt long queries if this is possible.
  2. Dedicate a server or servers just for the purpose of generating intersections if this is possible
  3. Use a prediction strategy based on the size of the smallest category used in an intersection.
  4. Use a prediction strategy based on processing the previous intersection request. Allow every intersection to be processed the first time it is requested, but keep track of how long it takes. Allow it to be re-processed based on that speed and other factors like how long it has been since it was last requested and how many requests there are for the category, and how many articles resulted. This way time consuming intersections that result in few or no results would be run very infrequently, and those that are quick can be kept current.
  5. Recycle popular intersections. These could be saved and not rerun until a certain amount of time has passed.
  6. Create special pages with lists of intersections that take the longest or that have null results, and flag them as meaningless.

Are there any other possibilities? -- Samuel Wantman 00:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

In the current site server architecture, the database is the most time critical element (see m:Wikimedia servers). I believe the whole issue boils down to making sure there are never any requests that take a significant amount of processing time (in the database) to complete. Without doing some benchmarking, I'm not sure we can come up with a reasonable answer. It might be that a small cat intersected with a large cat takes time proportional to only the size of the small cat, but I suspect it may actually take time proportional to the union of the sizes of all the cats involved. Like I say, I don't think MySQL has an interrupt mechanism, and I'd be surprised if it supports multiple servers in an active/active cluster (although I'm not sure what DB2-DB4 in the diagram at m:Wikimedia servers actually do). MySQL does apparently support limiting the search result (like the 200 results at a time in the current category listing code). The problem is this is not useful as a limiter for an intersection (since if there's no result you've already done all the work). So, I think #1 and #2 are not technically feasible with MySQL and the rest basically optimize when or how many times we run a long query. If the rule is we can't ever run a long query (and I suspect this would be the rule), I think we have to come up with something else. I don't know if User:Tim Starling has commented on this (he never responded to User_talk:Tim_Starling#category intersections), but he's the right guy. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Are you sure we have to say "never"? Could we get by if these long processes happen "once" and then are flagged to never happen again? It seems that with all the server power now available, this might not be so terrible. Also, it seems that if the union of the categories are determining speed than the routine to find the intersections needs to be rewritten. It might be that there could be different algorithms for different size combinations. If there are more than 2 categories and most of them are small, it would make sense to find the intersections of the small ones first. Then, if there is a small number of articles that result, you could just check to see if they are in the large category. This could be very fast, and intuition makes me think it would be much, much faster than the situation when you have the intersection of the same number of categories, each roughly equal in size and the total number of articles in the union of the categories being the same as before. --Samuel Wantman 22:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Rick, it's been nice chatting about this. I'm still wondering what Radiant! thinks? Radiant? -- Samuel Wantman 22:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Hi there! Happy new year and such! This catting is tricky business... I think it's reasonable to assume that anything that requires major changes to the database setup is Not Going To Happen. I've talked to Brion on this in the past, and the performance hit occurs for an intersection of two categories that (1) are large, and (2) have no common members. It is easy to see that intersecting two 1000-member categories requires a million comparisons. Aside from potential overusage by readers in general, this is a rather obvious DOS attack. I think the two obvious solutions are (1) keeping track of "huge" queries and don't perform them more than once a month, or (2) a priori blacklist all categories over a certain size. It may also help to list the smallest category first, although I believe MySQL can make that decision by itself. I'm quite capable of coding all of the above if need be, but I'd have to talk with Brion on IRC about feasibility; without his input, we don't really know what to aim at. >Radiant< 13:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Not an insignificant quibble, but I think an intersection involving two 1000-member categories should only take a worst case of 2000 comparisons (assuming the indices are sorted). Tim is really the database guy, not Brion, so I think it might be better to talk to him. I have a pretty strong hunch that these SQL queries might take 10s of seconds, which I think means we can't ever do them (even once a month). Rather than do our own intersection code outside the database, maybe we could parse a single intersection request into multiple requests (like select a* from both, then intersect those, select b*, intersect those, ...). The trick would be to come up with some algorithm that basically ensures we're never doing a query that will take a long time. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm updating the list of different approaches that can be employed, and the more we think about this, the more we'll come up with:
  1. Blacklist
    • Based on predictive analysis (some intersections may never be run)
      • Size of smallest category
      • Relative size of medium to large categories
    • Based on past results (some intersections may only be run once)
      • Limit frequency of updates
      • Prohibit updates
    • Manually maintained blacklist based on administrator flagging
  2. Abort intersections
    • Abort time consuming database calls (likely not possible)
    • Abort multi-step algorithms mid-process
  3. Use analysis to choose alogorithms
    • Intersect category subsets
    • Intersect smallest categories first
  4. Restrict intersections to specific hardware
    • Dedicated servers (may not be possible)
    • Use database copies to perform frequently requested slow intersections off-line (eg "American Actors" might be banned, but an intersection could be regularly performed on an off-line copy of he data base)
--Samuel Wantman 20:32, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Pastorwayne

I left a comment on User:Pastorwayne and his rapid category creation at WP:ANI. The comment asks for Pastorwayne to be regulated regarding category creation. Feel free to comment. Dr. Submillimeter 22:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Esperanza essay

Thank you for all the compliments! ★MESSEDROCKER★ 11:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

YouTube

Hi Radiant! (since you already have a ! does that make me appear mad if I add another or perhaps I'll just leave it).

Many thanks for looking around the relevent project pages on this - unfortunately, you seem to have already had a taste of the difficulties that a simple exercise of reviewing a bunch of links for copyvios has created. Any support and/or advice you can offer to resolve this dispute would be very much appreciated. The wrangle is starting to be a major timesink and ideally I'd like to get the links reviewed and go back to writing articles. I'm willing to admit I have probably been too confontational so I haven't helped and I will try to do better. Thanks. --Spartaz 15:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Radiant! (Rather late ... er, I know ... but anyway` ... Template:Emot) Yuser31415 17:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Articles for individual dates

Hello, Radiant. You replied to a post I made on Misplaced Pages talk:Deletion policy on December 22nd, but I somehow missed this. Are you willing and able to help me out on the best way to proceed with the articles in Category:Days in 2003, Category:Days in 2004, Category:Days in 2005, and Category:Days in 2006? I don't see how these articles have any purpose in Misplaced Pages, since they are basically newspaper frontpages. Furthermore, many are not linked from anywhere useful (see e.g. December 2, 2005, where the only link is from a page with no relation with the article). I feel that a nomination based on WP:NOT can be made, although none of the criteria fits exactly (not a repository of internal and external links, and not a news service, are probably the best). But I fear the backlash when I nominate all (almost 1,400) articles at once, and I don't feel like nominating them in groups (it would take forever)... By the way, it seems that most of the articles were created by User:Pcb21, who has since left (hence the lack of articles beyond 2005). Fram 15:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

American films

When the categorization proces is completed and all of the missing notable AMerican films are added to wikipedia I beleive there may be as much as 100 pages for the category. THis is why I thought it better to organize American films by year of release in A-Z lists of their own rather than the huge A-Z index.

Template:Americanfilms

You said about difficult navigation? THis box would take you to the A-Z lists of American films organized by year of release Ernst Stavro Blofeld 10:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

In 2005 alone America produced over 10,000 films and even if only 3/10 of these are notable that means 3000 films -large for even one of the broken up categories let alone the giant main one. With the box over 100 years of American film are displayed in front of you and is also more useful for the browser as it puts films in chronological order and gives a better ubnderstanding of American cinema history. If allowed to proceed each category would have full A-Z lists of their own Ernst Stavro Blofeld 10:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes I beleive you are right about that. Really such a division would be more useful for the latest films as the number of films increases generally over time but this I agree would complicate things. However I beleive there should be something in relation to American films on wikipedia that lists them in chronologcal order. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 13:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think studios might complicate things further as many people are clueless of the film companies involved. I would actually prefer it kept as simple as posssible its just I thought there were so many American films that it might be better in year A-Z Ernst Stavro Blofeld 13:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

You said something about our software being able to sort the American films by year? I beleive the best solution would be to create lists of the more notable American films organized by year . Each film would have minor details of the director, actors and date of release. See List of Argentine films in this format. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 13:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Rather than the list of films on one page American films could be listed like this but by year all connected by the navigation box as evidently there are MANY films!!. THis way we would have a full A-Z index of al American films in the categories and an inforation timeline of American films released by year and date of release. So anybody wanting to browsw thorugh American film history could look through every year and see the notable films in order of release and the participants Ernst Stavro Blofeld 13:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I too really agree with you that categories should not be cluttered with too many sub categories so they should remain intact. but I do feel that chronological lists of American films would serve some educational use on wikipedia. I don't think every American film should be listed!!!! but I do think that many of the more notable films released in America could be organized into an organized timeline by year and date of release. E.g at present if a user wanted to know what films were produced in America in 1975 and the actors, direcotrs and release dates involved there is no real source. A timeline List of American films could provide this. Do you think some chronological film articles of Amercan films would be better?

Absolutely mate. . How about a chronology of American film by year organized by the navigation box summarizing these details but You know you mentioned the film studios. The format would be like List of Argentine films but we could add an extra column for the film studio of production. I beleive these lists would be of very high educational value. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 13:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Also the lists would be in keeping with the other chronological lists I am creating by country. Each of these lists are intended to be part of Cinema of pages under the section films. E.g if you look at the Cinema of Argentina page you will see the section films directs to the List of Argentine films chrono list. The same could be done with Cinema of United States but on a much grander scale. How would the technology provide you with the list by year though? Ernst Stavro Blofeld 13:47, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorting by column?

In the discussion with E.S.Blofeld you mentioned: "... you could make a List of films and ... our software allows that to be sortable by any column, such as director, production year, etc". I would be grateful if you would explain this. I had considered it impossible till now. Hoverfish Talk 14:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Must a user install script or does it appear to all, if used? Hoverfish Talk 14:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I tried it. Thanks a million for the news. I aired it in the project already. Hoverfish Talk 14:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Notability (architecture)

Thanks for your comments on the above - I realised I had probably posted to the wrong part of the village pump so I moved the discussion to Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(proposals)#Misplaced Pages:Notability_.28architecture.29 and replied there. Cheers. --Mcginnly | Natter 14:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Smile

La gloria è a dio has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:smile}}, {{subst:smile2}} or {{subst:smile3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Misplaced Pages:Category types

I've been working on this, and it's almost done. I'd appreciate your feed-back. I moved it to a different page from the one you had created. -- Samuel Wantman 00:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Category intersection (yet again)

I think we may have overlooked a very simple way to limit problematic intersections. If we limit intersection requests to the checkbox interface Rick and I designed for articles, then it will be impossible to have an empty intersection set, and very unlikely that we will have two huge categories intersecting to create a tiny intersection set. The big category combinations will probably be something like "American people" intersected with "Film actors". In cases like this there is a very large overlap. Since 200 American film actors should result fairly quickly, perhaps this would not be a problem. These popular intersections (ones that we already have categories for) should probably be saved and only updated periodically.

This limitation would mean that there would only be one way to get to intersection space. I'm not sure if and how you could limit someone from typing in a URL for the intersection. It could be that we start out using your system of having a special page for implementing this. Someone might gum up the works by miscategorizing an article on purpose just to make things slow down, but this can probably be policed or spotted by some of the other methods we've talked about. The worst cases we've been worrying about shoud be extremely rare events. -- Samuel Wantman 10:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Deletion Policy

Me? Edit so much as a word of deletion policy? Don't be silly. I'd be run up the nearest tree with my neck in a noose, sweet Radiant. No...while I do feel that there is a lot unclear, and even wrong with the policies, I have a firm conviction not to touch them myself until I've worked out exactly what my wording changes would mean. After watching people turn DDV into a near trainwreck, and since recent events have frayed my patience and sense of decorum, I have hesitated to do anything like that.

hugs It does mean a lot to know you think I could do such a thing, and I thank you for asking me. I'd normally be happy to write up things but realistically, the problem isn't the deletion policy so much as the content that gets submitted that straddles the lines, and I don't want to get jiggy with that. --Elaragirl 18:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Wiki is Freaakky.

I've run across an most accomplished new user - User:Wiki is Freaakky. (who has requested a name change to User:WP Planeteer, per this). The user's first edit on January 4, 2007 was a vote in an RfA. The second edit was to a template, the third to a category, and the fourth added a reference to an article. 18th edit was an AfD nomination. On the fifth day the account has existed, the user is quoting from WP:SOCK during another RfA .

The user has also worked on an template to post regarding imposters and an extensive blocking notice for users, something no new user would be interested in. Or consider this posting at Misplaced Pages talk:Autoblock: Why is it that when someone logs in from an autoblocked IP they can't edit or make a new account? I remember autoblocks weren't as restrictive.

The relatively few articles edits by this user are constructive, as are the user's participations in AfDs, so there are no grounds for a wide-sweeping checkuser on the account (that I know of). But it bothers me - perhaps it should not - that so much points to this being a sock puppet. Any suggestions? John Broughton | Talk 03:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

As someone who's dealt with Eddie in the past, I'm quite confident that the right move has been taken. I think that there is enough evidence (it would probably not be clear to anyone who doesn't know Eddie's MO) to come to a conclusion that it's Eddie. – Chacor 12:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. John Broughton | Talk 13:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

MOTD ANI thread

Thanks for reminding me about that; as you're aware, it's been speedily de-hierarchified (yes, that's a word...). Oh, and congrats on your now-guideline regarding polling - it is a perfect example of how discussing issues at length in a civil and intelligent manner proves fruitful to all involved. Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 11:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

User:PJHaseldine

Thanks for your intervention. --Dweller 13:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion box

I notice you tagged this as 'historical interest' earlier today. Would you mind commenting here? Thanks. --Cherry blossom tree 22:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Deleting nastiness

When closing the PAIN MfD, you said "delete the page itself since it's basically a lengthy list of accusations of nastiness" - is this not being over-protective of the community? If anyone was to go trawling through the history of PAIN and drag up old stuff, or even point out an old PAIN posting, it would reflect badly on them, rather than the person they were pointing to. Also, in cases like this and Esperanza, I think it helps to have a full list somewhere (probably the XfD page itself) of the pages that were deleted, blanked, redirected, salted, whatever. Normally, the XfD pages record the pages that were deleted, but umbrella nominations like this often don't mention the pages, so unless there is a record somewhere, it can be hard to be clear exactly what has been deleted without trawling through the deletion log (and try doing that a month or so later). Carcharoth 13:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh. Only one PAIN page? From the lengthy discussion I had assumed that it had spawned lots of pages. Thanks for the reply. Esperanza is more problematic, as several admins did the deletion, not just the closing admin, but I've requested a full list for that as well. That seems a reasonable request, but I'm not so sure a full list can be generated if not done at the time. Would be nice if the developers could add more functionality to the deletion log. I still haven't had anyone tell me just how many pages in total have been deleted in the history of Misplaced Pages (or rather back to when the deletion table was last cleared or got lost in a database crash). Oh, for an example of a well-organised tidy-up, see User:Kenb215/Projects/WP:COMMsubCle, but I see you've already commented over at the talk page where I mentioned that. Carcharoth 13:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

NPA in the wake of PAIN's closure

I've been trying to work on refining WP:NPA once it appeared likely that PAIN was struggling in MFD. Despite an RFC and Village Pump posting, there hasn't been a lot of input on my Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks/Proposal, which tries to address some of the problems in the current policy (especially the implication from its wording that everything needs an escalating response). As both an administrator involved in the situation, and an editor whose opinion I've come to respect, I'd like you to have a look at it before I seriously consider doing something too bold to a policy page. Thanks! Serpent's Choice 13:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

How about putting WP:NPA up for MfD? :-) Seriously, I think the main thing wrong with WP:NPA is that people use it in an admonitory, rather nasty way. You just know a dispute is escalating (on both sides) when one side says to the other "WP:CIVIL please", or "that's a personal attack". Try putting at the top of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL something like: please be polite when pointing people towards these pages, especially if the editor is already aware of them. The only real reason to cite these pages is to new editors who are not aware of them. It works quite well to say "Please don't take offence, but have you read our policy on no personal attacks yet?", but, and this is crucial, don't do this when you think you have been attacked. Leave it to others to call someone on a personal attack, and don't do so yourself. In that sense, what is needed is not so much reporting a personal attack to get someone blocked, but reporting a personal attack to get an outside view. All that is needed is for a place for people to post "is this a personal attack?", and then someone uninvolved (not even an admin) can come along and ask the two people to calm things down, and then that person can go away again. Blocking offences should go straight to WP:ANI. Carcharoth 13:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)