User talk:Rawlangs/Archive 1

February 2012

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, such as on Talk:Robert Bringhurst, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You could also click on the signature button or located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when they said it. Thank you. Oneiros (talk) 19:17, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Princess Theatre

As I indicated on WT:ALBERTA, I rated it B only because the highest rating I can give it without an assessment process. I suggested that you nominate it at WP:GAN now, because I think it's very close to ready if not actually ready; I don't have much feedback on specific points, because the relevant areas (architecture, theatre operations, etc.) are not ones where I have any significant knowledge, but I'd be surprised if it didn't pass the GA process with a minimum of effort. WikiProject Alberta does not actually have an A-class assessment process, so that's not open. In any event, well done on the article, and welcome to Wikipedia. Steve Smith (talk) 18:52, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Just a comment, but it's poor form to solicit specific editors to review your nominations at GAN. If an editor, like Hwy43, has been a significant contributor to an article, s/he can't be the reviewer of that article either. When an interested reviewer comes along, your article will be reviewed. Until then, you should wait like the rest of us with nominations sitting in the queue. Imzadi 1979 → 22:05, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I'm still learning the ins and outs of wikipedia etiquette, but I can't find anything to support your comment. WP:EQ has nothing to say on the topic of soliciting editors, and WP:TP explicitly states that talk pages are for discussing improvements to articles; and that's what WP:GAN is, a process for improving articles. I can only assume from your comment that you are referring to a personal standard, not a wiki-wide standard.

Moreover, I have a good rationale for editor shopping in this case. To do the job justice, any reviewer of the article must have access to a complete record of the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Bulletin, which probably means the reviewer should be an Albertan, or at least a Canadian. Hwy43 made sense because of the user's location and interest in Canadian articles.

Contrary to your comment, WP:GAN is not a true queue. Editors may choose any article they please for review, meaning some articles get reviewed immediately while others wait for months. Additionally, WP:GAN is not configured to direct articles that rely heavily on local, hard-copy sources to qualified editors. The likelihood that an editor who has an interest in the topic, and has the ability to verify the sources will stumble upon the WP:GAN nomination are exceedingly low. Without editor shopping the article is likely to either languish on the WP:GAN page or to be reviewed badly and lazily — perhaps both. Since the spirit of WP:GAN is article improvement, not article validation, neither of those outcomes is positive for the article or Wikipedia.

Granted, Hwy43 had made edits to the article, but they amount to fewer than 200 bytes worth of changes. None of those edits added or removed details relevant to the history of the theatre, or required fact checking or citation. Moreover, WP:GAN encourages reviewers to make small layout changes and copyedits in the process of reviewing an article. If these types of edits constituted significant contribution, GA reviewers would essentially disqualify themselves as a reviewers during the process of reviewing (and that makes no sense). So no, Hwy43 is not a significant contributor to the article. Rather, Hwy43 has effectively begun the the review process.

By the above logic, as of today, I am (unfortunately) the only significant contributor to this article, and the only editor technically barred from reviewing it. I am also a fairly new editor, and to improve I have tried to make a study of Wikipedia conventions. I have also reached out to more experienced editors when I feel it is necessary. Far from being chastised, shouldn't this kind of behaviour be encouraged for the general improvement of the wiki and its contributors?

If your comment is really related to my solicitation of DanTD, he deleted the note and I have not pursued the matter further. I approached that user because of their apparent interest in historic buildings, and thought they might make the effort to review the article if they were interested.

I'm unclear why I'm getting this from you. If Hwy43 was offended, I would expect the user to speak for him or her self. But I don't think I offended that user at all. My gratitude was genuine, and I was hoping we might work together to substantively improve and promote the article. Hwy43's response to my solicitation was a polite no, not offence or pique.

I cannot find anything, save your comment, that suggests my behaviour was incorrect. Your wording was also vaguely hostile ("Just a comment, but"; "you should wait like the rest of us"). I refer you to WP:BITE which suggests that editors explain the rules clearly and carefully. Merely stating that I'm not following the rules, or that something is convention, does not help me improve as an editor.

--Rawlangs (talk) 18:19, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:CANVASS which is our rule on canvassing editors. Basic fair play says that editors can't choose their reviewers, and they have to take whatever reviewer shows up to review their articles. If I could choose my reviewers for my nominations, I could specifically solicit a friend who will pass the articles with or without regard to the fact that the articles may or may not actually meet the criteria. You'll notice that I didn't say Hwy43 was a significant contributor, I said ''If an editor, like Hwy43, has been a significant contributor to an article, s/he can't be the reviewer of that article." Yes, reviewers are encouraged to make minor edits once they start the review process, but they should be coming to the article review in a neutral, unsolicited manner. This is especially the case with GANs because a single editor can pass or fail the article unilaterally. Unlike WP:FAC which is a community discussion with consensus to promote determined by neutral delegates who can discount comments of participants as needed to counter canvassing or bias.

In short, editor shopping is bad, no matter the good intent behind it. I write primarily highway articles about the state of Michigan, and for their histories, I have an archive of the paper maps published by the Michigan Department of Transportation (and its predecessor departments). By your logic, no one can review the articles I've nominated unless they have access to those maps, some of which only exist in private collections, the Library of Michigan or MDOT's own library. That is not the case, as unless there is a concern that you have violated copyright or committed plagiarism with your writing, any reviewer can WP:AGF (assume good faith) that the information is accurate. If you're seeking out collaborators to help improve an article, post away, but please, for the sake of transparency and fair play, don't also ask them to review your nominations. Imzadi 1979 → 20:09, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Sincere thanks for your prompt response, and your concise answer. Your information and opinions are valuable to me. But I still don't see how WP:CANVASS prohibits what I've done, in fact, I see a lot there to support what I did. Please correct me if I've misread, but my messages seem to fall within the scope of "Appropriate notification" under WP:CANVASS. Specifically:

"On the talk pages of concerned editors. Examples include editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics), who are known for expertise in the field, or who have asked to be kept informed. The audience must not be selected on the basis of their opinions—for example, if notices are sent to editors who previously supported deleting an article, then identical notices should be sent to those who supported keeping it. Do not send notices to too many users, and do not send messages to users who have asked not to receive them."

Wouldn't the minor contributions of Hwy43 count as participation in the discussion? Namely, the article? Doesn't DanTD's stated interest in historic sites count as expertise in the field? I must stress that I don't know these people at all, and I don't expect to ever know them. If I simply wanted the article passed I could just ask someone in real life to review it for me. The system is not designed to be hard to game. I have no way of knowing whether the people I contact would pass the article or fail it, so I can't be said to be soliciting on the basis of opinion (disallowed), only on the basis of knowledge (explicitly encouraged). Solicitation does not necessarily create bias, sometimes it just spreads information. Notice I didn't ask anyone to pass the article, merely to review it.

Your note about your maps is thought provoking and welcome. I would still hope that a reviewer would take the time to check the accuracy of references by going back to the source material. Verifiability is after all one of the pillars of wikipedia. If in fact the maps are only in Michigan, I would expect that a responsible reviewer would ensure they could access those maps. I respect that anyone can review articles and pass or fail unilaterally.

I also note that WP:IGNORE instructs me to ignore explicit rules when they prevent me from improving wikipedia. Even if I broke a rule, a good rationale (which I hope I explained sufficiently) seems like it justifies my actions. In short: if I can match an experienced, local, and interested editor to this article, I believe they can only help improve it. The spirit of WP:CANVASS is to avoid bias, and I really do hope I have done that. --Rawlangs (talk) 21:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

There was an Arbitration Committee case that in part considered the concept of editors shopping for reviewers at GAN. The committee didn't pass any remedies in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Racepacket related to the topic, but they did pass a principle that states, in part, "Editors are discouraged from reviewing articles in which they have had editorial involvement." It's up to the editors involved to determine how much involvement they've had, and whether that is disqualifying. As an example, our project updated how the various template parameters worked in {{infobox road}}. As part of this update, I used AWB to update several thousand articles to replace deprecated parameter names. We did this before the stage of the overhaul that removed the deprecated names. (Instead of having four ways to specify the parameter for a roads terminus or end, we consolidated to one parameter.) I updated the articles before our changes "broke" them because they using code that wouldn't work later. That action alone does not disqualify me from ever reviewing any of those highway articles at GAN because in most of those thousands of case, I'd have to dig into the edit history to see if I had actually made that edit in 2010, and those edits didn't actually change the content of the article. On the other side, I've been trying to mentor a few new editors, and I've made significant copy editing changes to some of their articles, so I can't review them. I can offer suggestions on the talk page to point out how the article may or may not meet the criteria, but I can't actually perform the review. (I've done a fair amount of work on Seward Highway and quite a bit of commentary on Talk:Seward Highway for example.) There's no "editorial involvement" with something like a find and replace in an article, but there is in rebuilding an entire table in an article after seeking out the DOT log document that lists all of the mileposts along the highway.

My short point though was overlooked, so I'll restate it here: If you're looking for potential collaborators, post away on user's talk pages. When it comes to the review processes, it just looks bad though to ask someone to specifically review an article where a single editor has the power to promote the article. Our colleagues can improve articles without being the reviewer, but it's best for all concerned if our assessments are based on a level of impartiality. Imzadi 1979 → 22:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll take all of this on board. Thanks for your kind and patient explanations. --Rawlangs (talk) 23:14, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

Fixed the mistakes on the "Pilot (Smash)" good article review NoD'ohnuts (talk) 22:36, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Garneau Theatre

I wouldn't disagree, I would simply suggest that the category:movie palaces have clear inclusion guidelines such as the ones you just described. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 16:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Robert Bringhurst

Hello Rawlangs, please let me know if I'm communicating with you properly...I'm still new at this...Am looking forward to a respectful and fruitful interchange of ideas, information and perspective on the Bringhurst entry. Cheers, amweder 01:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

You were close! A few easy notes:

1. Remember to use the new topic button when you start a new conversation thread, and title it so people know what you're talking about. (I've taken the liberty of creating a new titled section and moving your comment into it.)
2. To sign your name, click the signature button OR type four tildes. You only have to hit the button once.
3. I took the liberty of removing your real name from your signature line. I wouldn't suggest using this unless you're comfortable with all of your wikipedia edits being indexed on google when people search your real name. Not a rule, just a thought.

If you're trying to learn to use wikipedia, here are a few tips to help you get started:

1. Keep conversations on the same page, unless it makes sense to move it elsewhere. This means we should keep this discussion on my talk page from this point, unless we decide to move it to a better venue (like the article's talk page).
2. Type a colon immediately before the first word in a line or paragraph to indent it. Two colons double indent. This helps keep the conversations readable. Your reply to this should probably be indented twice.
3. If you're not sure how to do something (like these handy numbered lists, or linking) click the edit link for that section of the article to see all of the markup. Wikipedia's syntax is very easy to learn, but takes a few minutes if you're brand new.

Last topic: wikipedia has a lot of guidelines. You don't have to know all (or any) of them to make edits, but editors will generally revert (remove) or revise edits when they feel they are out of step with a guideline. You can respond with a rewrite of your own, or by talking to the editor that changed your work. If there are any big problems, there is an arbitration process. Most exchanges on wikipedia remain respectful, so most people never have to go to arbitration.

You should probably start by familiarizing yourself with wikipedia's biographies of living persons guidelines, and neutral point of view policy. Also, (without trying to be inflammatory) I would read the attribution policy and the conflict of interest policy, as both have notes about citing yourself. --Rawlangs (talk) 02:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Point taken, Rawlangs, I do need to find the time to learn more about proper protocol and citations regulations. And definitely I know that writing an article doesn't give me a "free pass" but there were certain facts culled for the research into this article that were not neccessarily published in the article itself, such as the fact that I phoned both MIT and emailed Noam Chomsky himself, both sources told me directly that Robert Bringhurst spent one freshman year in general studies and did not study linguistics (which at that time was only offered to graduate students at MIT). But I'm not sure how to reference this. Any suggestions are welcome. Similarly, it was individuals at the IJAL itself who told me, on the phone, that they received a letter from Bringhurst (or perhaps his lawyer--that I'm not sure of), threatening to sue the journal, its board and its authors if the journal didn't publish a public retraction. Three of the individuals involved expressed great anger at their feeling of being muzzled and coerced into the retraction, but I would not think of adding that to this entry, because (a) it's difficult to cite as "fact" and (b) it would risk turning this section into a "he-said-he-said" bunfight rather than a useful discussion. However, I must say that I am occasionally following this wiki entries in good faith--my role in and knowledge of this situation came from journalistic research of the subject rather than as a rival linguist; I feel very strongly that my Globe and Mail article took care to present all dissenting viewpoints--it was not an editorial or criticism on my part; it was reportage. Enrico's non-literary, scientific translations were pointed out as a different kind of translation--"apples and oranges" is one quote that figured in the article. in fact, I even took the extra and unusual step of going over with Bringhurst on the telephone every quote from him to use, reciting the context to him, and allowing him to clarify his wording when applicable so that he could feel his points and defense of this detractors were properly and completely conveyed in the article. That's a NPOV. (As indicated in this article, all sides have very valid points in what they're doing and why they're unhappy about things.) I do not think it's a NPOV to editorialize in such a way that minimizes or dismisses the detractors. That said, I realize it's hard for either you or me to know for sure if we are being "objective". I've been open about how I became acquainted with this issue; I'm curious how you came to it or whether you know any of the principals involved. I'm quite open to continuing a lively conversation and however it might seem, I do want to adhere better to Wiki protocol (I'll work on that. I see the problem with "citing oneself" and I'll learn the protocol before I do that again, but I believe you know i'm not trying to hide anything, since my user name is so close to my real name.). And please take my word that I, like you I presume--would like to maintain cordial respectfulness, open-mindedness and humility with the aim of presenting a balanced, information text on a complex and highly charged issue. Cheers, --Adele — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.157.1.75 (talk) 20:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Charles Wang

Hi there. You had stepped in at Charles Wang after I'd reported nuisance edits at BLPN. The IP has resurfaced with yet another slightly different IP address, reverting back again. I'm at a loss for where to take it now. I did put up a report at AIAV here: [1] but not sure if that's the best place for it. I also added a post to the article talk page, although I doubt this will get anywhere. Any suggestions? Echoedmyron (talk) 19:45, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I've placed the article on my watch list. It might have to be protected again for a longer time if this keeps up. Revert the guy as you see it, but be careful as always not to break the three revert rule. --Rawlangs (talk) 21:27, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

FYI - this [2] happened today. Also left a PA on my talk page: [3] Either you or another admin suggested requested a block of the IP range, I can't find that suggestion, but any pointers here? Running out of ideas, and patience with this vandal. Echoedmyron (talk) 23:29, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

And also this personal attack directed at me, on their talk page, after I had left a warning for the repeated edit to Charles Wang: [4]. Echoedmyron (talk) 23:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)