User talk:Asilvering/Archive 1

Welcome!
Hello, Asilvering, and welcome to Wikipedia! This is one of the most popular websites in the world, and it's only through the contributions of editors like you. And Wikipedia is not just a collection of articles, it's an active community. The real fun here is contributing to Wikipedia, but don't feel hurt if some of your first few edits get removed, as there are some central guidelines you may not be familiar with.

Some good advice: be bold in your editing, and use the talk pages to discuss with other editors. Be kind to others, because there's a lot you can learn from them, and there's lots they can help you with.

There's lots of resources to help you become a great editor, from our basic introduction to our in-depth manual. But if you have any questions or problems, no matter what they are, leave me a message on my talk page or place  on this page to get any help you need. If you haven't done so, tell us a bit about yourself. Oh, and please sign your name on talk pages and votes by typing &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126;; our software automatically converts it to your username and the date.

Glad you're here! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 03:28, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Women in Red
Hi there, Asilvering, and welcome to Women in Red. I see that for a new contributor, you have been surprisingly active tidying up existing articles. It's good to see you intend to us reduce the gender gap by creating biographies of women, perhaps based on Wikipedia versions in German. From our Redlist index, you'll see that there are opportunities in a wide variety of areas. While you are obviously already a competent editor, before you create your first biography, you might find it useful to look through our Primer for creating women's biographies. Please let me know if you run into any difficulties or need assistance. Happy editing!--Ipigott (talk) 08:08, 23 November 2021 (UTC)


 * @Ipigott Thanks for the welcome! -- asilvering (talk) 13:33, 23 November 2021 (UTC)


 * As we say in Danish, "selv tak".--Ipigott (talk) 15:42, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Short description
Hello! Thanks for your edit on Finn-Egil Eckblad. I think is a good idea to add years on some. Short descriptions that go over 40 characters, which there are many, I recommend to keep the years off. My basis on this is from a short description thread a while back discussing years vs. no years and some consensus was to leave them off on some. What you have done so far look fine.

I am no authority on this so feel free to do as you see fit on whatever you come across. If you feel like you need to add the years to short descriptions, go ahead. Just giving you some information from someone who has been there. Red Director (talk) 15:24, 1 December 2021 (UTC)


 * My guidance on this is WP:SDDATES. -- asilvering (talk) 18:20, 1 December 2021 (UTC)


 * That seems like a good example to adhere too. Thanks for the hard work! Red Director (talk) 18:38, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Assigning importance to articles
I've noticed that you've been assigning low importance to articles that deal with topics that are fundamental to modern engineering. Please restrict youself to topics that you have some expertise on. Bbanerje (talk) 20:38, 4 December 2021 (UTC)


 * "Importance" isn't an inherent quality of the topic of a wikipedia article, and it isn't making any kind of statement about whether something is a "fundamental concept" or not. It's mostly there to help various wikiprojects organize their article improvement efforts. The article in question is both relatively low-traffic, edits-wise, and also a very specific topic, rather than a broad umbrella concept; both of these tend to sort articles into "low". You're of course welcome to raise the importance according to the specific guidelines of the relevant wikiproject if you think that I'm wrong, and it should be "mid" importance! (I just wanted to make sure it was in a wikiproject at all.) But I will note that Mindlin–Reissner plate theory describes itself in the very first sentence of the article as an extension of Kirchhoff–Love plate theory, which is itself rated as "low importance", to both the engineering and the physics wikiprojects. -- asilvering (talk) 21:10, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

PROD of Felicia "Fe" Montes
Hello, I wanted to reach out to you on your talk page to let you know I removed the PROD tag on the article Felicia "Fe" Montes. I saw that she is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (I added that to the article). Inclusion of an artist's work in the collection of a notable museum such as LACMA can count towards conferring notability of an artist. If you feel strongly that the article does not meet WP notability criteria it can be taken to AfD. Netherzone (talk) 14:24, 13 December 2021 (UTC)


 * No, that's great actually! I wish WikiEdu was clear about that to students, so we ended up with articles that clearly established notability instead of ones that summarize three (sometimes embarrassingly minor) publications by the article subject... -- asilvering (talk) 17:19, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Nice meeting you here, and thank you for your work! I agree with you about this. I too wish WikiEdu provided clearer notability criteria to students and to the faculty who oversee students. Students don't always understand the difference between a primary source and a secondary source; or a blog and a reliable source. Another editor recently shared this from the WikiEdu training module: which I don't think goes into enough detail and states that "significant coverage means that at least a couple of sources talk specifically about your topic." I always thought that WP:THREE was a good rule of thumb. Netherzone (talk) 17:36, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Part of the primary/secondary source issue is that Wikipedia has a mildly eccentric definition of "primary source". Students in history/literature/etc are usually taught something like "a primary source is an original document or record from the period." I don't think it's difficult to understand WP's rules on this, but it's very easy for a student to not realize the problem, since "it's published in an academic journal" means "not a primary source" almost all of the time in their experience.
 * What I really think is a shame is that some types of article have extremely simple notability guidelines that are applied quite consistently (books need two mainstream reviews, authors survive AfD if they have multiple books with mainstream reviews, artists are unlikely to fail AfD if they have multiple works in the permanent collections of notable galleries, etc), but this doesn't seem to make it into the guidance given to students (or instructors). -- asilvering (talk) 17:53, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Survey about History on Wikipedia (If you are resident in the United States)
I am Petros Apostolopoulos, a Ph.D. candidate in Public History at North Carolina State University. My Ph.D. project examines how historical knowledge is produced on Wikipedia. You must be 18 years of age or older, reside in the United States to participate in this study. If you are interested in participating in my research study by offering your own experience of writing about history on Wikipedia, you can click on this link https://ncsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9z4wmR1cIp0qBH8. There are minimal risks involved in this research.

If you have any questions, please let me know. Petros Apostolopoulos, paposto@ncsu.edu Apolo1991 (talk) 18:15, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Deprodding of Homosexual Trials of Frankfurt
I have removed the tag from Homosexual Trials of Frankfurt, which you proposed for deletion. I'm leaving this message here to notify you about it. If you still think this article should be deleted, please do not add back to the page. Instead, feel free to list it at Articles for deletion. Thanks! -- Tautomers (T C) 04:15, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Deprodding of Joerg Stadler
I have removed the tag from Joerg Stadler, which you proposed for deletion. I'm leaving this message here to notify you about it. If you still think this article should be deleted, please do not add back to the page. Instead, feel free to list it at Articles for deletion. Thanks! -- Tautomers (T C) 00:42, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Asilvering -- Just to let you know that the process for BLP prods is peculiar and often misunderstood. To place the deletion tag the article must have no sources whatsoever, which includes external links to unreliable sources such as IMDb. Once the deletion tag is correctly placed, saving the article requires including a reliable source (so IMDb would not count). Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 07:53, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Organizational structure of the Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic moved to draftspace
An article you recently created, Organizational structure of the Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic, is not suitable as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of " " before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page. Liz Read! Talk! 00:19, 24 December 2021 (UTC)


 * @Liz I have no desire to work on this! It's just material I pulled out from another article because it was way too long, that I didn't want to outright delete in case someone wanted it. Now that it's separated, I suppose someone could just ask for it to be resurrected if they want to work on it in the future, so you're welcome to G7 it. -- asilvering (talk) 00:30, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

January 2022 Women in Red
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:01, 28 December 2021 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Judith Augoustides
Thankyou for nominating the article on Judith Augoustides for deletion. You clearly went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that you checked that there were reliable sources. I would like to praise you for your noble effort. I wish people would understand it does no one any good to flood Wikipedia with articles on people for whom there are not enough sources to ever create a substantial article. Your work is comendable. Thankyou very much.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:58, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Reviewing the article Minnesota State Capitol
Thank you for reviewing the Minnesota State Capitol page. I appreciate your time and work on this. Please let me know if you need me to fix or add anything. Myotus (talk) 02:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Myotus I've put the review on hold for now, it's back to you for changes! -- asilvering (talk) 02:43, 7 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I am looking over them now. All of your recommendations make sense and will make for a better page. I will get to work. My only concern is review item #3 'Broad in its coverage'. I did not include information on public access or tours as it was included in a previous revision but was removed and deemed promotional in nature by an editor I have respect for their work on Wikipedia. I will try to add the information in and hope it will be left alone.


 * As far as "Security" headings, that is more complicated. I think the focus of the article is to keep it on the building and less on events at and in the building unless they affect the building itself. It seems to be the standard at other State Capitol pages. My feelings are it would be a complicated slippery slope to go down given the amount of partisan protests that occur at the building. That was already beginning to become an issue when I started editing the page. There is enough history to give events at the Minnesota State Capitol its own page however, it should be a comprehensive history that includes event history from its 100 year+ existence, such as the farmers strikes in the 30s. I was planning on doing just that but after creating five pages on the MN State Capitol and revamping the Capitol page itself I really, really needed a break especially given what a political hot potato an event page could be. I decided to do work on Wikipedia's Christmas tree page as a palate cleanser. :-) Myotus (talk) 03:42, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * @Myotus Sigh. Those infamous "promotional facts". In this case I think I see what they mean - it's the "how and who gives tours" as they mention, that's a bit weird. I think if what you'd had was "The building is open to the public most days of the week, and guided tours are available." it would probably not have bothered anyone.
 * For what you have now, I think it would make sense to retitle that "Public access", and mention something about what the public can see / where they can go - not from a tourism/promo perspective, I mean just simply: "The rotunda and the west wing of the capitol building are open to the public. Senate sessions viewable by members of the public from the second-floor balcony or on Channel 4." <-- obviously I just made those "facts" up, but that's the kind of thing I meant, not "tours leave every 45 minutes" type of thing.
 * As for news - I hear you. -- asilvering (talk) 03:44, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you for taking a look at Lorenza Böttner. I appreciate your focus on academic quality and accessibility - many of your comments speak to best practices for referencing information, while also finding a way to best represent the life and death of a skilled artist who is only now becoming widely known. Your promotion of the article was unexpected (still a few matters to address), but I will be sure to take care of them when I can. Lorenza's memory and our readers deserve the article to say more, in proportion to her life and legacy. As I said in our review, her article was only started by me in October, despite the amount of attention she had received from scholars and art critics ... I'm not too sure what we can make of important ( and as you say, awesome ;) ) women being neglected, but at least she's here now, and in a state worthy of pride. And you can certainly take some pride in that. Thanks again. Urve (talk) 20:34, 8 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Urve My reasoning for the promotion was that if those three (minor, I think) things were the only things I noticed from the beginning, I would have just marked it as a GA from the outset. I don't think anything in the article currently is misleading or seriously incomplete and I didn't want to leave a deadline over your head. If there's a more typical way to handle that, please let me know (it was only my second finished review).
 * Thanks again for writing the article - all the pride is due to you. I noticed it languishing in the queue last year but was a bit nervous about starting a review for it until I saw a handful of other noobs jump in to the January backlog drive. If/when that happens to you again, I'll happily take the article on if you like, just let me know. -- asilvering (talk) 21:10, 8 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comments, and thank you for your offer; the same goes to you. For your question, there's no right or wrong way. Typically, I leave reviews with minor points open (unless the nominator says that it will take a while, or they disagree with the unresolved points), just so I remember to check back on their work, and see if anything new catches my eye. It's also a place for people to ask "How do you feel about this?" if they're not confident in their changes, since many articles are entirely their own work and there's nobody else watching over them. Wikipedia is a bit like living on a thousand deserted islands, and some people might feel imposing asking their reviewer for feedback afterward.
 * By the way, since you said you were nervous about starting a review: If you ever feel that way, I'd be happy to help. But if your reviews are as focused as the one we just shared, you have nothing to worry about. Take a look at some of the other reviews on the January backlog page, and you'll find yours was much more helpful, to-the-point, and (importantly!) substantive than most. Urve (talk) 21:26, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * @Urve Thank you for the encouragement! Mostly I was worried that I would inappropriately pass or fail something without any oversight, but that if I asked for a second look, I'd get my head bitten off for being a sockpuppet / a noob who shouldn't be here. The backlog drive seems to be relatively newbie-accepting. If I make it through this month without being blocked for being WP:INCOMPETENT, I'll be fine. -- asilvering (talk) 22:42, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Anarchism
Hi Asilvering,

I saw your work on articles related to anarchism and wanted to say hello, as I work in the topic area too. If you haven't already, you might want to our noticeboard for Wikipedia's coverage of anarchism, which is a great place to ask questions, collaborate, discuss style/structure precedent, and stay informed about content related to anarchism. Take a look for yourself!

And if you're looking for other juicy places to edit, consider expanding a stub, adopting a cleanup category, or participating in one of our current formal discussions.

Feel free to say hi on my talk page and let me know if these links were helpful (or at least interesting). Hope to see you around. czar 17:45, 9 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Czar Oops. Stepped too close to the Paris Commune and blew my cover. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually... -- asilvering (talk) 06:48, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

A bowl of strawberries for you!

 * @Mccapra Nope, it's all from the biographical dictionaries linked in the Bibliography. I checked ru-wiki to see if they had an image I could use for the infobox, but that's all. Thanks for the appropriately tinted fruit. -- asilvering (talk) 17:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The GA nomination of Joan Mitchell
The article Joan Mitchell which JennyHemlock nominated with your help as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Joan Mitchell for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Mujinga (talk) 22:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Hugo Gottesmann
Please contact me at mjdoerr@att.net 12.239.192.130 (talk) 16:37, 27 January 2022 (UTC)


 * No, sorry. You can talk to me here, or ping me (see Template:Reply to if you're not sure how) on any Wikipedia talk page. -- asilvering (talk) 00:28, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

February with Women in Red
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:09, 31 January 2022 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Thanks for help with Eclipse
Thanks again for your work making Eclipse Foundation a better article and helping me navigate the editing process.

Lkb335 (talk) 20:31, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Lkb335 No problem! Pass it on, and good luck out there. -- asilvering (talk) 20:56, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Eugène Protot
Just to make sure we don't cut across each other, this is to let you know that I'm intending to work through the translation of the whole article, but that this may take a little time as there are quite a few French legal terms in it (and I have other things to do besides). Ingratis (talk) 14:16, 5 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, thank you for doing this! I just stepped in to resolve that dab link and am happy to leave you to it! -- asilvering (talk) 17:38, 5 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I've done as much as I think I can do with it for now as a translation but will certainly have missed something - if you have a moment to cast an eye over it that would be great. On a point of translation, do you think it's correct to translate avocat as "barrister"? they are similar but I'm not sure that they're the same. Ingratis (talk) 15:32, 6 February 2022 (UTC) Checking further, it seems that although they are now different they were the same in the 19th century so I've left it. Ingratis (talk) 15:39, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Honestly, since legal terms differ based on time, place, language, and dialect, in a general-reader context I tend to just default to "lawyer" unless there is some specific reason why that would be unhelpful or misleading. Leaving the original word in brackets as you did is a good call, I think. -- asilvering (talk) 17:51, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think you're right! Ingratis (talk) 05:44, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Irmintraut Schneider
Thankyou fro putting a proposed deletion nomination on Irmintraut Schneider. It is really getting frustrating how a mass sub-stub creator, who at times created articles at the speed of one article a minute, is able to get away with my reasoned attempts to lessen the flooding of Wikipedia with such sub-stubs. His determined mass reverting of my redirects is getting very tiresome.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:15, 7 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Johnpacklambert Judging by the edit summary I saw on Irmintraut Schneider from the other editor, I think it might help if you mentioned specifically what you checked to determine that the stub wasn't of a notable person? That might reduce the feeling of "there's no way that guy did a WP:BEFORE that fast, he just hates that I make a lot of stubs". It's pretty clear that you do hate mass stub-creation, so I can see why it would be hard for the other editor to assume good faith all the time. I've personally learned to be suspicious of "not notable" or "no sigcov"; even though I haven't been here all that long, I'm already coming to the conclusion that "fails WP:GNG" is synonymous with "I didn't check" in an alarmingly high % of cases, especially when the article is a neglected stub or a pile of disastrous WP:OR. I'm with you - it's frustrating how much work it can be to remove things relative to how much work went into making them in the first place - but I don't want people to feel trampled on, either. -- asilvering (talk) 20:43, 7 February 2022 (UTC)


 * The editor in question made so many stubs that he has been banned from making new stubs because his actions were so disruptive. At times he was making them at a rate of one a minute. It does not matter how much effort I put into checking background, he will revert me, and with the unreasonable limit of one AfD edit a date being placed on me, I end up with a list way too long to ever get to. I am really tired of how hard it is to remove total rubbish and articles on people who are not by any stretch of the imagination notable from Wikipedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:49, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * If you're being habitually reverted by the same person despite showing evidence of good-faith background checking before you PROD things and can't get anywhere talking to that editor, I think you may have reached "dispute resolution" time, alas. -- asilvering (talk) 21:42, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Burkhard Wilhelm Pfeiffer
Good morning! Could you tell me what amount of inline citations would be appropriate for this article to remove the citation banner? Do I need to attach one to the end of every sentence? I tried to include them in reasonable amounts by grouping statements based on sources together and then citing after that. Is that not correct? Thank you. Evansknight (talk) 14:46, 11 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Evansknight You've got the right idea! I wouldn't have tagged it if there were footnotes on the end of every paragraph, for example. But there are some sentences that definitely don't have attribution, like "The immense size of the work, and it’s somewhat pedantic and overbearing nature, earned Pfeiffer the nickname der praktische Pfeiffer, or "the Practical Pfeiffer" for the rest of his life." That one is right at the end of a paragraph so I can't generously assume that the next sentence will have the citation.
 * By the way, I noticed copying that one over that the German text is in italics rather than German-language markup. Did you know about this template you can use to tag non-English text? It will automatically put it in Italics, and it's helpful for pronunciation for screenreaders: Template:Lang. Kind of a pain to add if you're working in visual editor, but not so bad to add in the source editor. -- asilvering (talk) 20:25, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks again! I’ll make sure to back and footnote as much as I can. A lot of the information is from the same sources so I wasn’t sure if it seemed weird to footnote the same source several times in a row, but you’ve made it make sense to me. -Evansknight (talk) 20:48, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
 * It does feel kind of weird to me sometimes too, so I won't necessarily use the same footnote for two sentences that look pretty related. A trick I've seen some editors use is to comment out (WP:COMMENT) the citations when they're repeated, so any editor can see that they're there if they're going to move anything around in the wiki text, but people reading the article aren't distracted by dozens of individual footnotes. -- asilvering (talk) 23:27, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Would you mind taking a look at the articles for Burkhard and Johann Pfeiffer and letting me know if they are sufficiently cited? I hate seeing that tag on them, but obviously I wouldn't remove it without external confirmation of their suitability.-Evansknight (talk) 01:39, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Evansknight I added a couple more for clarity, but I think you're fine to take off a maintenance tag like that if you've addressed the problem. -- asilvering (talk) 03:31, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Once I get more headway on the rest of the Pfeiffer articles, I may rely on your input again. -Evansknight (talk) 04:26, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thanks for helping w/ the deletion process in the Joan McAlister article. You know I got a nasty note telling me I'm "too new" and have no right to propose deletion or participate in deletion discussions? And of course this person vetoed the deletion without lifting a finger to improve the article afterwards... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Just Another Cringy Username (talk • contribs) 03:58, 12 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Just Another Cringy Username Yeah, I noticed that. I'm really sorry this is happening to you. The newcomer guidance is all "BE BOLD!!" but then if you do anything competent you get accused of being a sockpuppet, and if you do anything wrong you get told you're too new to do things and should stop. There's a real whiplash between the cheerful and encouraging stuff developed by Growth Team and then the reality of actually interacting with the community. It helps to keep in mind that the admins who deal with things like vandalism and bad-faith deletion attempts are seeing the worst bs on this website day in and day out, so they're all some degree of jaded, out of patience, or developing brainworms, unless they're basically saints.
 * In that particular case, the admin was right to decline the speedy deletion - basically, you should only ever use a WP:PROD for something you think would be totally uncontroversial, and WP:CSD is for very specific types of deletion that are both completely uncontroversial and really urgent. It would have been fair for you to use PROD on that article (someone might have reversed it, but it wouldn't have been the "wrong" choice), but definitely not CSD. When I first started out, I sent everything to WP:AfD rather than ever using PROD because I figured that since I was new and wasn't confident that I completely understood what made an article deletable, everything I did should have other eyes on it to make sure I wasn't screwing something up. I'm not sure that's necessarily good advice, but it does seem to have worked out for me. It's why I put Joan Faber McAlister up for AfD instead of PROD - I'm not in Women's Studies, so I don't know if those awards or that journal EIC stint is enough to count under WP:NPROF. I didn't think so, but there's someone in the deletion discussion now arguing that that is the case, and they may well be right. In that case, I can come back and clean up the article some more so it's stubbier but less lopsided. This particular WikiEdu assignment type (write about a person and three of their works) can make some good articles but tends towards weirdly lopsided ones. -- asilvering (talk) 18:28, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Sociology of Disaster
Yes, I'm at it again LOL. I'm trying to get Sociology of Disaster deleted as it's another of what you called those WikiEdu assignments. I've done everything right that I can see, but the link I placed on the delete log page just refuses to parse. It has my reasoning on there, but it won't show the standard heading and list it under the ToC like all the other page nominations. What am I doing wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Just Another Cringy Username (talk • contribs) 07:45, 12 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Just Another Cringy Username Yes, this one is also WikiEdu, but a different format of assignment this time. And some WikiEdu articles are very good! They're mostly made by undergraduate classes, so of course some students are very into it and some are not, some are very quick learners and some are not, and so the resulting articles run the full spectrum from "extremely valuable" to "total disaster". Most fall somewhere in the middle. You only really notice the ones that are problematic. Unfortunately, since they're class projects, the Problem Ones tend to come in batches.
 * I don't think you're going to have success getting this one deleted (apologies in advance for !voting keep). In general you're going to find the wikipedia community extremely unsympathetic to arguments about quality unless what you're looking at is a total disaster. Sometimes even then it's hard. (Here's an example, a total unworkable disaster of an article that hadn't been fixed in fourteen years, which I tried to get help for at the relevant wikiprojects to no avail, and even still it looked like it might be kept until another editor dropped a three-paragraph bomb onto the discussion and turned the tide: .) You will see a lot of people yelling WP:NOTCLEANUP and then doing nothing whatsoever to help clean it up; I'm afraid there's not a lot you can do about that one. If it's any consolation, it clearly drives a lot of long-established editors crazy too. I'm of the firm opinion that having a bad article is worse than having no article, since people who could write something worthwhile look at a mess and nope right out of there, but this is clearly not the consensus of the community and wikipedia runs on consensus so I'm SOL there. (See Paradise Lost as a great example - the article's been in this state for years, and it's one of the most famous works in all of English literature. There's simply no way there aren't people on WP right now with the skills and knowledge to write a much better version. I've improved it a bit, but I'm not a Milton scholar, and... ugh.)
 * The general argument in favour of "get rid of this, it's unsalvageable" is WP:TNT, but it's almost always very controversial and I suggest you avoid invoking it until you've watched enough deletion discussions that you feel reasonably confident that it won't go down like a lead balloon. Often, one "bad" vote can boomerang the whole discussion - it's like people start arguing over the merits of that one vote, rather than the merits of the article or the article's subject. (I made the mistake of calling an article a "stub" in an AfD once, and the comments were arguing that it's perfectly valid to have stubs, like this has anything to do with whether a subject is notable. The article was kept even though no one argued against my case for deletion! A bad close I could have disputed, I think, but I didn't feel it was worth the effort or drama.)
 * tl;dr: wikipedia editors are generally speaking extremely comfortable with extremely bad articles hanging around forever because "someone could fix it" or "it's not that bad". If you think the subject (not the article in its current state!) could pass WP:GNG or a subject-specific guideline like WP:NPROF, you are very unlikely to succeed in getting it deleted. But you can delete or consolidate text. WP:ATD has some other options. -- asilvering (talk) 18:58, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Just Another Cringy Username As for the technical question: I think someone else fixed this for you because it looks fine now? But now that you're autoconfirmed, you can use Twinkle, which makes the whole process so much easier that I don't actually remember how to do it manually. Find it in Preferences --> Gadgets. Also, I suggest you go to Preferences --> Editing --> Discussion pages and turn on all those options. -- asilvering (talk) 19:00, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm discovering that even if an article doesn't get deleted, nominating it is a good way to get people talking about it and finally digging in to fix longstanding issues. Same thing happened w/ the Anil's Ghost article. People hated me for trying to delete it, but it looks a lot better now than it did and I doubt that would've happened if I hadn't forced the issue.

Thanks for your help...again! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Just Another Cringy Username (talk • contribs) 21:12, 12 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Just Another Cringy Username That's certainly true, but definitely better as "a reason to not feel bitter about articles being kept" rather than "a reason to nominate dodgy articles to AfD". That's definitely not what AfD is intended for, and if it looks like this is what you're doing, or if in general people think you're misusing the AfD process, you might get blocked from AfD entirely. Which would be a bummer! I think now that you've seen the outcome of the Anil's Ghost AfD you can see what kinds of changes you can make on your own without raising too many eyebrows, and it's better to use solutions like that wherever possible. The kinds of articles you've been digging through have often been forgotten for a long, long time, and were created back when Wikipedia was all about just throwing as much stuff up as you could and having faith that the community would improve it later. "Later" is now. It's ok to just cut that stuff. When you give full edit summaries about what you removed and why, someone can find it again later if it's really necessary, or they can revert your changes and have a chat with you about it.
 * fyi, you can sign your posts on talk pages by typing ~ at the end. -- asilvering (talk) 21:47, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Ernie O'Malley
Hello there. Thank you for your very fair review of the above article. May I ask what grade of article below GA it stands at now, and would you add that info. to its Talk page? Many thanks, Billsmith60 (talk) 21:33, 13 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Got you covered already: I rated it as B-class right before doing the review. -- asilvering (talk) 22:50, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Billsmith60 Sorry, adding ping asilvering (talk) 22:51, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

D&G
Replying here, just so our friend Czar does not get more notifications than necessary :) I have a couple of problems with using the primary source material on body without organs about the egg example. And I think these could be informative about my work on Wikipedia in the future. These are just some considerations; I really don't think your suggestion was misplaced or incorrect. Here's just what I've decided on now.

If this were a paper I was writing, I would absolutely rely upon the source material, and based on our exchanges about Lorenza Boettner, that's your view as well. Totally understandable, but I find that to be somewhat of an untenable solution in this case. I'm not sure how familiar you are with D&G, but the interpretation of their work is varied (a particularly stark example), so going beyond statements of fact ("D&G use the egg as an example. They say 'quote that is not understandable to most people'.") is potentially controversial. (If not impossible, because of their intentional ambiguities.) In this respect, I think it is different from a plot summary; when one starts to interpret the text -- and interpretation has to happen with D&G's work, IMO -- our guidance on plot summaries is not so helpful.

Second, while WP:V technically allows us to cite materials that are hard to access or hard to read -- you can cite the sole surviving copy of an Esperanto treatise on [whatever] held in the private vaults of an archive, which has a waitlist of 3 years to access -- I find it a bit unfair to expect people to verify things directly from the very complicated texts of D&G. In math education, we talk about 'mathematical maturity' when students encounter a new idea; do they have the mathematical maturity to engage with it? This is not just having had classes in number theory or whatever, but the kind of thinking of a mathematician; of recognizing patterns, following arguments, devising new ones, sensing that a certain line of reason is worthwhile, understanding trial and error, etc. In my experience, many of the people interested in D&G -- and especially the BwO -- are high schoolers, who do not have the philosophical maturity to engage with the source material. So even if I'm off about my first point (whether it is actually interpretive), I also have a pedagogical rationale to exclude that source material, and look more to overviews and accessible journal articles. Whether this approach is workable is TBD, of course ;)

Just some thoughts. Again, if it were anywhere but here, I'd oblige; but this space is special and may need special considerations. Urve (talk) 23:36, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Urve Yes, that makes a lot of sense. When I initially wrote my question I had the interpretation problem in mind but thought "well, surely just summarizing the example itself is possible," but in retrospect that's a nonsense thought. Without veering into interpretation you'd be left with a sentence like, I don't know, "D&G use the example of an egg to demonstrate their point." Yes, very informative, good summary, much helpful.
 * I'm amazed there are high schoolers interested in D&G! I doubt I'd even heard of them until grad school. -- asilvering (talk) 02:08, 16 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you. D&G are essential reading for high schoolers doing debate in some parts of the US -- they were when I was! It's rarer now, but D&G's arguments still pop up relatively frequently, depending on where you are. Urve (talk) 05:29, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Deletion Process
So it appears there's speedy delete and AfD and then a sort of "middle ground" between them where you can put the delete tag up top to recommend deletion w/o doing the full AfD process. Am I reading that right? Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 21:24, 16 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Just Another Cringy Username I think you're talking about WP:PROD. Does that link help? -- asilvering (talk) 00:39, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Yep, that's it! I just wanted to make sure I wasn't conflating the two. I kept thinking PROD and AfD were the same thing, but then not. Thanks! Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 02:07, 17 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Just Another Cringy Username Indeed not! Basically, CSD (speedy) is for specific types of deletions that are totally uncontroversial and/or need to happen very urgently, PROD is for deletions that don't fit into a CSD category and which you think are almost certainly uncontroversial, and AfD is for everything else. Happy to answer any specific questions if you have them. -- asilvering (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Precious
You are recipient no. 2701 of Precious, a prize of QAI. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:25, 18 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you, @Gerda Arendt! I hasten to add that I claim no writing credit for any of these (well, except "basically saints"), but I suppose that's extremely apt for a Precious labelled "women anarchy". :) -- asilvering (talk) 04:34, 19 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Well deserved. Get ready for sweetheart Gerda to bless your talk every once in a while. I look up to both of you. Urve (talk) 06:24, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Joseph Favre
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Joseph Favre you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of No Great Shaker -- No Great Shaker (talk) 16:40, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Joseph Favre
The article Joseph Favre you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Joseph Favre for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of No Great Shaker -- No Great Shaker (talk) 13:41, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

March editathons
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:37, 27 February 2022 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Gerhard Schröder
I have repeated the edit to Gerhard Schröder, which is factual, to list his current role first not hide it at the bottom of the page. Listing old roles, which at this stage are actually LESS known globally than his current role is engaging in misinformation.

I have changed the lead from ... is a German retired politician, consultant and lobbyist, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005 ... TO ... is a member of the board of the Russian state owned company Gazprom, he is also a retired German politician, consultant and lobbyist, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005.....

This edit is NOT a disruptive edit. Its a fact, a highly relevant fact - his current role, and the role he is most known for throughout the world. 79.155.94.28 (talk) 17:21, 27 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Since one of your earliest edit summaries is "kill this man" I think you're going to have real trouble convincing anyone you are being anything other than disruptive here. -- asilvering (talk) 18:51, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion on Theresa A. Yugar draft.
This is helpful. --Dzingle1 (talk) 19:31, 28 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Dzingle1 Glad to hear it, and good luck with the article! -- asilvering (talk) 19:49, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Could you rename Draft:Armand Baltazar to Draft:Timeless (series)?
Hi User:Asilvering, I have read your comments and think they make sense. Could you please rename the draft to Draft:Timeless (book series)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:647:5800:1A1F:DC52:32D7:10ED:939F (talk) 00:48, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I've decided to request g7, as I won't have time to improve the draft right now. I'll probably pick the project up again at a later time, or move onto something else. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:DC52:32D7:10ED:939F (talk) 00:57, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Page deleted. Will probably take up later.2601:647:5800:1A1F:DC52:32D7:10ED:939F (talk) 01:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * In case you were unaware, you can leave a draft alone for a while without editing it - they won't get deleted as abandoned unless there's no (or very minimal) changes to them for six months. -- asilvering (talk) 02:11, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I just thought it would be better to get it over with then have the draft spend six months in limbo. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:DC52:32D7:10ED:939F (talk) 03:09, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Draft:The Beginning After the End
Greetings. I understand what you told. but I must say that even for me, it is something inevitable. Because as much as I tried to expand this article, there were not enough news to find. Besides, not everybody was interested. Therefore, I must admit I needa lot of help, so thank you. Fico Puricelli (talk) 23:13, 3 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Fico Puricelli if there isn't enough news to find, I'm afraid no one can really help - no amount of editing can make up for a topic that isn't notable. I'm surprised to hear that's the case for a series that is apparently so popular, though. You might try asking for help finding sources at the Teahouse? See WP:TEA. -- asilvering (talk) 03:15, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

History merge request at requested moves
Hi there Asilvering, I removed your request at requested moves regarding Willem II and Hendrik I counts of Limburg Hohenlimburg Broich beaause it unfortunately isn't the right place for it 🙂 Instead, I added the histmerge template onto the page. I've removed your request per standard procedure. Please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him &#124; talk) 03:50, 9 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @EpicPupper Great, thank you! This one looks pretty uncomplicated to me, so it looks like only the template is required, but would you mind explaining what a "complicated" request is? The link sends me to the admin guide page for how to fix complex cut-and-paste moves, rather than explaining what those might be or how I'm supposed to signal if I've found one of those. -- asilvering (talk) 03:55, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Asilvering as far as I know, complicated requests are when pages have conflicting histories (e.g. when a cut-and-paste move is done, but then the old page is changed, for example, turned into a disambiguation page). I'm not quite sure either to be honest, but this section might be helpful. 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him &#124; talk) 04:01, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @EpicPupper Thanks anyway! I suppose if I ever run into a complicated request, I can always tag it as normal and wait for the admin who tries to fix it to come tell me off... -- asilvering (talk) 04:05, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

DRAFT:PERICENT Article
Dear Administrator, I need your little help to understand, where I need to improve, I have made certain edits after previous comments.

01:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by GK1975 (talk • contribs)

Thanks for helping at Girl Giant and the Monkey King
Just wanted to send a quick note to say I appreciate that you're also trying to help give this new editor a welcoming experience of Wikipedia. Thanks for building on their article edits so their work is less likely to be reverted. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 17:25, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

About Draft:Mehdi tehrani
Hi. Thanks for ur attention about my first article at Draft:Mehdi tehrani. So much appreciate for ur Guinness. I had asking. In talk page I put a link about Mehdi tehrani in (Wikipedia persian/farsi). Plz see that. پاتريشيا67 (talk) 17:18, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

draft: Heinrich Josefsohn
Hi, I re-submitted the article on Josefsohn and I added a bit more material. I understand the suggestion of only creating an article about the manuscript alone, but I feel that he was important to know his literary place as well as surviving writings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meiselman2 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the Rose City edit
Turns out you saw the idiocy around the same time I did, and finished the edit before I could submit mine, Jolly good show lad! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daknowledgeguy (talk • contribs) 05:37, 19 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Daknowledgeguy It lasted a week without edit protection... maybe a new record? -- asilvering (talk) 05:44, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Final edit about Draft:Mehdi Tehrani
Hi. Final edit I do. Also I put a answer in Draft:Mehdi Tehrani for u sir. Plz see and take a last action. Be or not to be. پاتريشيا67 (talk) 08:38, 20 March 2022 (UTC)