User talk:Carcharoth/Archive 46

Re: DYK: Chief Justice of Hungary
Hello! Thanks for your reviewing. Yes, this is my first nomination and also thanks for help and instructions. Unfortunately mostly Hungarian literature exists on the subject of chief justice (I note that there is no standard English name for that position, so I consulted with other WP editors before writing the article). I also might even say that there is no comprehensive description about this office in Hungarian or any language.

My sources are largely archontological works (Markó, Fallenbüchl) and historical studies (András Kubinyi was one of the greatest medievalist historians in Hungary). Furthermore, I added some English works for providing sources to the English name of személynök. The Fallenbüchl book also has German-language part and publishes the English name of the office ("chief justice"). If I can find English language publications, of course I will integrate into the article. --Norden1990 (talk) 13:54, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the swift response. That all sounds great. I will tweak the hook, but other than that it all looks fine. Carcharoth (talk) 15:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello, thank you very much for your copyedits and hook modification. Unfortunately I don't speak fluent English yet. I'm glad for your interest in Hungarian history. Well, relationship between the Habsburg Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary is one of the most controversial historical themes in my country. Occupation, personal union or cooperation against the Ottoman Empire? I believe that the latter happened and Austro-Hungarian alliance had many positive aspects to my country. I hope, once you visit Hungary and its beuatiful capital Budapest. There you can see the Holy Crown and you will understand the underlying content of the phrase of 'Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen'. :) Thank you again for help and reviewing. --Norden1990 (talk) 23:49, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I found this website, but a major disadvantage that it does not indicate source. I'm afraid I'm not your man. The 20th century was tragic and disastrous for Hungary and its people (Trianon, World War II, Nazism, Holocaust, Communism, Hungarian Revolution of 1956), so I also turn toward the "glorious past" (medieval Kingdom of Hungary, Ottoman Wars, Austria-Hungary... etc.). Beside the history of Hungary I am also interested in West Africa. --Norden1990 (talk) 13:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Frank C. Newman
Casliber (talk · contribs) 16:39, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXXV, April 2013
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here. If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 15:03, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Sea
Hallo Carcharoth, good to meet you, and thanks for your comments on Sea. I guess "editorial control" is a bit tricky when we don't have a Chief Editor, Jimbo not having that function any more. Actually, I think it's amazing how good WP is given that it has evolved into a complicated democracy. Yeah, it drives me mad too, but there it is. We are of course working on Sea rather than everything else at the moment, time and energy being finite, so my question to you is simply, what do you suggest we do to make the article (rather than the rest of the encyclopedia) better? What are its critical weaknesses? Where would effort most usefully be applied? All the best --- Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:30, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note. All I'd really suggest for now is to pick a couple of major encyclopedias and see what approach they take to covering this topic. It is not easy (I tried this for physical chemistry and got nowhere very fast, and the same for science). For sea, I only looked at the online Britannica article, there will be many others. It can be difficult for those editing the article to step back and see the bigger picture, but essentially what I'm trying to get at is whether someone reading other encyclopedia articles on 'sea' would come away with a different impression to the one they would get after reading the Wikipedia article. Trying to get a feel for the similarities and difference should, IMO, help decide what to do on the Wikipedia article. If I get time, I may try and do this and then come up with some actual concrete suggestions, along with looking at the article itself. The one thing I noticed was that there were sections in the 'sea' article covering topics where I would instinctively not have looked at the 'sea' article, but would have gone direct to oceanography, marine biology and so on. In other words, to read about 'sea' I would expect to have to read multiple articles, and I wouldn't expect to read just one article giving an overview. 'Sea' is more a topic than an article. Does that make sense? I hope this doesn't discourage you or others, but the top-level articles are really fantastically difficult to do precisely because they can be written in many different ways, and Wikipedia really doesn't have a way to decide which approach to take. Carcharoth (talk) 11:33, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you

 * Thanks for that. We are all human, really! And to be fair, I had the time this weekend to do some of this stuff. Another weekend it might be another arbitrator. Doing small individual stuff is easy. It is the stuff that requires group discussions and consensus that is difficult. It might look to those waiting for a reply or some decision like nothing is happening, but it might just be because some arbitrators are not around this weekend, so we are just waiting. Carcharoth (talk) 22:36, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

email.
Sorry to trouble you, but I've just sent you one. — Ched : ?  01:39, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Basically my concern is your comment here in regards to: "I have also just finished reading some of what has just transpired at WP:ANI, with at least two of the editors above involved there. I really hope that's not connected in any way to this."  It is not my intent to call others upon the carpet, but rather to respond to any concerns as to my own actions.  I was recently active in an ANI thread that perhaps you are referring to, so I offer my willingness to respond to any and all questions; either from yourself, or the committee as a whole.   Thank you for your time. — Ched :  ?  07:29, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Ched. My comment there wasn't directed at you. It was at Fladrif and Doc James (User:Jmh649). If this came to arbitration (though not before), I would have a closer look, but as long as all those involved are willing to explain what happened, I'm usually fine with most reasonable actions. I can only speak for myself, though, and not my colleagues. Carcharoth (talk) 07:57, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the reply Carcharoth. To be perfectly honest here I do have some major concerns in regards to a "big picture".  I'm getting the impression that there are some factors in play in regards to the TM issues which are not being viewed in full light.  My own personal perception is that there are some "behind the scenes" issues in which certain editor are being intimidated and discredited.  I don't think that is an acceptable situation for our project; and yet I'm not really sure it's my place to voice concerns.  I am open to any and all suggestions. — Ched :  ?  08:10, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that the best way forward is to have more editors involved on the TM articles. Right now, it's my impression that they are heavily influenced by a small group of accounts, some of which share overlapping IPs and many of which are closely affiliated with the TM movement. That's not a healthy situation, but following the TimidGuy ban appeal case I feel somewhat apprehensive pointing out this elephant in the room. I don't really care how the movement chooses to present itself, or influence its presentation on Wikipedia. I do care insofar as our coverage of the purported medical benefits of this approach. Having spot-checked a few of the medical articles and textbooks cited in these articles, I'm very concerned that these sources are being misused, or at least very selectively quoted, in a way which undermines the goal of neutral encyclopedic coverage (I can elaborate if you like, although perhaps this isn't the place). It's not clear to me why these accounts are exempt from the usual best practices urged by WP:COI. We wouldn't tolerate this situation if it involved a bunch of accounts closely affiliated with Merck, promoting one of Merck's proprietary drugs. We didn't tolerate this situation with regard to the Church of Scientology. I'm concerned that in the rush to condemn the tactics of one specific editor (Will), we've legitimized problematic editing practices on these articles. (I've said more in this thread on my talkpage). Ched, I thought it was wrong of James to alter your block of Fladrif without discussing it with you. I'm glad it seems you've been able to work it out, and at least we have the benefit of a clearly expressed community consensus for your indefinite block. I'm not OK with bullying or intimidation, so if you believe that such things are occurring, I will help you combat them. In terms of suggestions, I think the TM articles (which have proliferated to the extent that I think the term "walled garden" is appropriate) would benefit from additional input from independent editors unaffiliated with the movement. MastCell Talk 21:00, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Its unfortunate that the perspective expressed above echoes the false narrative perpetuated by Will BeBack and Fladrif including the buzz words: “elephant in the room” (Will Beback), “walled garden” (Fladrif), “overlapping IPs”(Will Beback and Fladrif) and “closely affiliated with the TM movement” (Fladrif, WBB, Doc James). It also, in my opinion, mischaracterizes the current discussions and progress being made at the TM talk page regarding sources. It also links to yet another confrontation of TimidGuy regarding his self-proclaimed conflict of interest by an editor who has been in general disagreement with TimidGuy at the TM talk page for the past month. Furthermore, its a perspective that marginalizes editors as individuals and instead attempts to blackball a random collection of editors with a different perspective on content issues. The situation is not the way Will Beback, Fladrif and Doc James have described it and I'd like to touch on a few key points using some quotes from the post above to illustrate why I feel that way:
 * 1) ”TM articles... heavily influenced by a small number of accounts, some of which have overlapping IPs” That’s a pretty strong accusation. The TM Arbcom of 2010 found that: “The evidence presented [which included extensive check user results and contrib list analysis] has been carefully examined; investigating arbitrators have been unable to independently detect or confirm – other than in one isolated instance – sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry or collusion within the topic” NOTE: The only case of sockpuppetry found in the case was that of an editor supported by Will Beback.  I can only assume that there is some recent check user information to substantiate this accusation. If so please inform us of which specific users have been found  to have overlapping IP’s.
 * 2) ”following the TimidGuy ban appeal case I feel somewhat apprehensive pointing out this elephant in the room”. What elephant is that? The elephant outlined in 100 pages of evidence, which was then analyzed and discussed by 11 Arbitrators over a 3 ½ month period in 2010?  Or do you mean the 50 evidence page elephant that was analyzed and discussed for 2 months during the TimidGuy arbcom of 2012 by 15 committee members 8 of whom were not involved with the 2010 ArbCom? A decision which included the FoF: “Analyses by arbitrators of TimidGuy's edits since October 2010, when the two-month topic ban elapsed, do not appear to have detected any significant systemic concerns or apparent advocacy.”  Or do you mean the elephant that TimidGuy has been questioned about ever since he self proclaimed his COI in 2006?  When does the elephant become a dead horse?
 * 3) ”Having spot-checked a few of the medical articles and textbooks cited in these articles, I'm very concerned that these sources are being misused” This was just brought up on the TM talk page and not only did every editor support the suggestion but Olive took the initiative to post at the RS talk asking for people to join the page and look at the sources. Over the past year I have personally invited a number of editors to review my work on the TM articles including DGG, Shiimgray, Arjayay, Panyd, Andy The Grump, Nyttend, GabeMc, and Dru of Id. Meanwhile TimidGuy and Spicemix have been asking for a week or more to discuss a list of WP:MEDRS compliant sources that appear to have been misrepresented and repeatedly deleted and reverted by Doc James. This is a concern that was raised previously at the TimidGuy ArbCom at which point Doc James was suddenly too busy to participate. So this concern for an objective analysis of all TM research sources is an undisputed concern for all editors on the page and there are assertions of misuse from both sides of the discussion.
 * 4) Since WBB's departure there have been 17,560 words of talk page discussion by 14 different editors on the Transcendental Meditation research article, and 8,740 words of talk page discussion by 8 editors on the Transcendental Meditation technique article and 25,577 words of discussion by 13 editors on the Transcendental Meditation article. Over the past 30 days 10 different editors have been engaged in discussion on the TM talk page  including MastCell, Zad68, IRWolfie, Anthony Cole and others.  One uninvolved user said some months ago: it was a long and active article, which made following the changes rather difficult; especially when, halfway through re-reading it, it was changed again - but as the changes were heading in the right direction, I was happy to let them run their course. As stated on the talk page, I was impressed by you and your fellow editors' ability to view the article from a NPoV.”   There are dozens of controversial articles that would love to have an array of editors as diverse as these articles have had since WBB left. So I don't get the "unhealthy situation" in the "walled garden" stuff.  Instead I see healthy discourse and collaboration taking place in a respectful environment.

I will end my post with a comment that Risker made to Doc James at an ARCA thread he created in 2011. “Keep in mind the converse is also true; those who have a personal belief system that is in direct conflict with the philosophies of Transcendental Meditation (or for that matter, any other belief system) must also bear in mind their own potential conflict of interest and edit neutrally or not at all.”
 * I hope this information is helpful in presenting another side of the issue and adds to the productivity of the discussion. Best, -- — Keithbob • Talk  • 03:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * (randomly coming across this) Risker's comment re COI is false. There is no automatic converse to COI. It doesn't work like that. The "I" bit is "interest". If you have no "interest" in promoting or opposing TM (i.e., it is your day job or forms an important part of your life) then you have no COI. One can have a "personal belief system that is in direct conflict with the philosophies of Transcendental Meditation" and not have any COI about TM. You may have other editing behaviour problems, but they aren't COI. You may have bias but that isn't COI. I guess that most of the WP:MED editors mentioned above couldn't give a damn about TM's beliefs and steer clear of writing about them. It is only when articles make medical/health claims that these editors get involved. They want to ensure such claims are neutral and justified. Wanting this neutrality should not be confused with having some personal interest in opposing TM. Oh, and before anyone gets any ideas: I'd rather stick forks into my eyes than edit TM pages. I'm trying to reduce my wikistress not increase it... Colin°Talk 06:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * (Carcharoth is in my watchlist.) Regarding COI, I have to agree with Colin. I think Timid Guy has said he is on the faculty of Maharishi University. If so, he has a COI. Quite likely, others editing Transcendental meditation are on the MU payroll. They too have a COI. But, given the behaviour of some previous ant-TM editors on that page, I can understand their reluctance to step back from actually editing the article.


 * The editors presently expressing concerns about our possible over-egging of the health benefits of TM are mostly regular medical editors with a firm grasp of WP:RS and a commitment to reflecting the best sources on all health efficacy and safety assertions. I think there are no more anti-religion POV-pushers on the page. If I'm wrong, please point them out. Having a commitment to WP:RS is not a COI. Neither is it POV-pushing, unless you include a commitment to WP:RS in your definition of POV-pushing. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email)  08:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks guys. Not really the right place. :-) It has been a while since I've had overspill from arbitration matters onto my talk page. If you could continue the discussion somewhere else, and make sure nothing said here that needs to be said elsewhere is forgotten about, that would be appreciated. I should dig out that notice I may have had at some point about where and when to discuss things here or elsewhere. Carcharoth (talk) 01:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

note on proceeding
hi there. thanks so much for your reply and all your work on that item at Arbcomm. I really appreciate it.

by the way, in response to one of your notes, i wanted to add some additional data on my own communications. for the record, here are the other talk pages where I left queries about this. this includes the personal talk pages for several members of Arbcomm, and others.
 * User talk:SilkTork
 * User talk:Roger Davies
 * User talk:Kirill Lokshin
 * User talk:Nyttend
 * User talk:NuclearWarfare
 * User talk:Hertz1888

thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:25, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Geological Society workshop
Hi,

Sorry for taking your name down from the list of trainers (Geological Society workshop)! I was going through the old pages to bring them up to date, and looking at the emails about the event I thought you weren't present. I have now brought it back. Hope to see you at some future Wikipedia training workshop events. Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (talk) 16:22, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No problem. Thanks for fixing it and thanks for the note. Carcharoth (talk) 01:11, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 April newsletter
We are a week into Round 3, but it is off to a flying start, with claiming for the high-importance Portal:Sports and Portal:Geography (which are the first portals ever awarded bonus points in the WikiCup) and  claiming for a did you know of sea, the highest scoring individual did you know article ever submitted for the WikiCup. Round 2 saw very impressive scores at close; first place and second place  both scored over 1000 points; a feat not seen in Round 2 since 2010. This, in part, has been made possible by the change in the bonus points rules, but is also testament to the quality of the competition this year. Pool C and Pool G were most competitive, with three quarters of participants making it to Round 3, while Pool D was the least, with only the top two scorers making it through. The lowest qualifying score was 123, significantly higher than last year's 65, 2011's 41 or even 2010's 100.

The next issue of The Signpost is due to include a brief update on the current WikiCup, comparing it to previous years' competitions. This may be of interest to current WikiCup followers, and may help bring some more new faces into the community. We would also like to note that this round includes an extra competitor to the 32 advertised, who has been added to a random pool. This extra inclusion seems to have been the fairest way to deal with a small mistake made before the beginning of this round, but should not affect the competition in a large way. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please feel free to contact one of the judges.

A rules clarification: content promoted between rounds can be claimed in the round after the break, but not the round before. The case in point is content promoted on 29/30 April, which may be claimed in this round. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 15:49, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

additional apologies
for misspelling your name. a small thing, but I should have been more diligent. -- [ UseTheCommandLine  ~/ talk  ] # _  10:36, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Precious again
  thoughts

Thank you for giving your precious time to thoughts, and for sharing them, thoughts on a BLP, on paid editing, and "how letting personal animosity and dislikes get in the way of the bigger picture ... destroys trust"- repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (30 December 2008)!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC) A year ago, you were the 122nd recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, repeated in br'erly style. I miss sensible conversations like this and put "Letting go of the past" on top of my talk, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:04, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXXVI, May 2013
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here. If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 12:53, 22 May 2013 (UTC)