User talk:Evanarsdall

Page move
helpme I need to know how to change the automatic title that Wikipedia is adding to my new page. It shows as "Sevocab" with an initial cap, but it should be "SEVOCAB" (all caps). It's an abbreviation. Could someone tell me how to change this? As is, I now have two titles: Wikipedia's automatic title, displayed incorrectly, and my correct title. Evanarsdall 19:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, you can give the article an all-caps title by performing a page move. All you need to do it go to the article and click the "move" tab at the top.  I'll let you give it a try, but if you have trouble, just let me know here. --After Midnight 0001 19:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Moves are not possible for users whose accounts are less than 96 hours old. Another editor performed the move for you. Adrian   M. H.  19:27, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I have actually had an account for probably over a year now. I just haven't used it before now. I actually started to try and move the page, but I wasn't sure where I would be moving it. Evanarsdall 20:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Advice about article creation
Having seen your question at the Help Desk, and the work-in-progress on your user page, I thought it would be helpful to provide some advice and links that are additional to the my welcome message. Currently, your article does not establish notability and does not verify its content by citing reliable third party sources. Uploading apparently non-notable material may leave the article open to a deletion nomination, which most commonly happens when new editors are not familiar with the minimum requirements. Of course, it may be the case that a particular subject is not notable enough, in which case, it should not have an article. Writing as someone with an IT background, I would say that your chosen subject is already (or very soon will be) notable enough, but this always has to be demonstrated for the benefit of readers. Those links will provide you with most of what you need to know about this particular area of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, but if you need any clarification, advice or assistance, leave me a message at my talk page. Regards, Adrian   M. H.  19:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

About Notability, Verification, etc.
I appreciate your reminding me of these things, and as a professional editor, I can also appreciate that Wikipedia has rules for verification and authentication of content. However, I agree with those who consider the concept of notability to be subjective. Nothing will be considered notable by everyone. SEVOCAB will certainly be notable to the large number of people and organizations that care about the body of international standards.

I also question why anyone might feel that this topic be subsumed under another topic. What I have written is not a work in progress. It is the complete text on the subject of SEVOCAB, adapted from the press release on the IEEE Computer Society Web site at. It is a project in which several organizations are involved, so putting it under a topic for, say, IEEE or PMI would be inappropriate.

I found nothing in the help topics that tells me exactly how I should cite the press release. It's not an article, and a footnote would not be appropriate. Should I add a link to the actual press release? That information is likely to be moved or deleted at some point. At least next year we can point it to an online standard, but that won't happen for a while. Should we forget about posting it in Wikipedia altogether and prevent many people who might use it from finding it?

I am one of the editors of the SEVOCAB database, and I represent all of the organizations listed in the press release. I made very minor modifications to the text, and I rearranged it a bit because I felt that the acronymns needed to be spelled out before they were used. Regardless, the content will undergo scrutiny and revision by all of the STC/IEEE/ISO/PMI representatives who are affiliated with the SEVOCAB project. At least being able to see it will enable them to edit it online if they choose. Evanarsdall 20:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm, well. As I wrote above, I believe in its notability (which, by the way, is not subjective, but quantifiable. Examples of which can be found at WP:CORP and WP:MUSIC for, respectively, businesses and bands. It may be subjective in the real world, but if it was subjective here on Wikipedia, we would be in a bit of a mess). But, it needs to be proved, regardless of what you or I think or know about the subject.
 * But you can effectively do that by verifying the material with reliable sources (primarily third-party). Those TP sources will demonstrate notability.
 * If you found nothing about citing press releases, you probably missed WP:REF and WP:CITET. I often cite press releases and it is not a problem. Remember; content does not have to be online in order to be usable. Otherwise, books would be out, not to mention many newspapers. Use those templates to indicate what data you should include (where available) and in which order it should be placed, but you do not have to use the templates themselves.
 * Your second paragraph suggested that someone had proposed a merger, which they have not.
 * Your final paragraph is of more concern, because it reveals a conflict of interest. This may present issues both for you and for the article, not least one of potential bias and vested interest. I am not going to assume anything here, but you do need to read that key guideline, particularly as you acknowledge that other people with similar COI issues may edit the article. Adrian   M. H.  20:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, and for the pointers to the templates. I had read through WP:REF but found nothing relevant to press releases, even when doing a page search. The other had exactly what I needed, and I used an example from it for the Reference entry.

My comment about the merger came from reading some of the guidelines. I guess I was merely speculating on the possibility that someone might feel that this topic is not "notable" enough on its own. I appreciate that you do believe in its notability, but the selection and approval process is quite subjective, so who knows.

I certainly understand the concerns over COI, so I should clarify that I am a volunteer for the SEVOCAB project. In fact, the project is staffed almost entirely by volunteers. I do not work for any of the organizations involved, though I am a dues-paying member of IEEE. I was appointed to the working committee a few months ago by a fellow volunteer, and I make no money from it.

It looks as if there are a number of obstacles that may prevent SEVOCAB from becoming an official Wikipedia entry. I'll point my colleagues to the page while it's there, and we'll hope for the best. Evanarsdall 21:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * No, I honestly do not think that it is at risk. As a deletionist and pro-active Wikipedian, if it actually warranted deletion, I would nominate it myself. I occasionally see articles nominated for lack of verifiability, but that is not strictly a good enough reason to delete an article except when it cannot be verified (a new theory or neologism, for example) because deletion policy favours improvement where possible. I don't think you have any worries on that count. With regard to COI, it can still be acceptable, because what it really asks of an editor is that he/she is aware of the potential for COI and works to avoid bias. Really, we all have to work to avoid bias. COI only becomes a bigger issue with commercial content; as you can probably imagine, we get lots of attempts at self promotion from non-notable people. But that is clearly not the case here, so I don't think anyone will ever question the COI. In itself, COI is not a valid reason for deletion. Anyway, happy editing. If you ever need any help, drop me a line. Regards, Adrian   M. H.  22:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Adrian, I thank you for your encouraging comments about the submission. I can imagine that many people do use the site for personal gain. I'm glad to have finally had this experience of using Wikipedia for something that I think will be a big help to the IT and engineering community.

I have learned a lot today, both from you and from the process of completing my first draft entry. I'm sorry to have been such a helpless head case, but wading through everything was a bit daunting at first. Now that I have had this experience, I really like it. I'm considering volunteering for the classification project. Thank you so, so much for your help and for your objective, insightful comments. Best to you, Eddie Evanarsdall 22:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to help you, and I'm glad that you're going to continue as a contributor. You'll get used to it all in due course; as I wrote on another talk page today, your pace of learning increases as you get used to finding your way around. Regards, Adrian   M. H.  13:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Copyright Infringement?
Adrian, I hope that you might be online this weekend. My SEVOCAB submission has a prominent, ugly message accusing me of copyright infringement. I don't know what to do. I was asked by all of the parties involved in the SEVOCAB project (including the author of the press release) to create the Wikipedia entry. I am a member of IEEE and the official ISO working committee that is responsible for this project. As an editor, I tried to at least improve upon the text of the press release by spelling out all of the abbreviations on first usage, but based on Wikipedia's response, my altering the text is not the issue. I'm confused, because I was under the impression that press releases are written for reprinting. This is highly embarrassing, and even though I have pointed it out to the others on the project, no one seems to know what to do or is taking any position. I would appreciate your advice. Evanarsdall 16:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I just got in and your talk page was still on my watchlist. I'm not an expert in Wikipedia's copyright policies, but I can give you the essence of it. Press releases, while perfectly fine as a source, are not to be reproduced on Wikipedia because of the GFDL. Under the GFDL, any material that is used on Wikipedia - images and text alike - must be licensed by the original author for use under the terms of the GFDL. Luckily, you are in the convenient position of being able to ask the author and publisher of the source material whether they are willing to state their permission for GFDL usage, which will need to be visible at the source. Copyright covers that in a brief and basic fashion. Copyright problems mentions what the original copyright holder must do when submitting content for use in Wikipedia. Copyright violation is a serious issue for Wikipedia, so you will have to rewrite the article substantially if permission cannot be obtained. See if you can find some third-party sources as well, as that may help (though the same requirement to write in your words still applies, of course). Let Notinasnaid know that you are in the process of actively addressing the issue (he's a very reasonable editor) and if anyone tags it for speedy deletion, put the hangon template tag on the page. Best of luck. Adrian   M. H.  17:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Evanarsdall 20:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Adrian, I opened the SEVOCAB page and added the hangon tag. Everything looked fine, so I then opened the discussion page and added a comment asking that the page not be removed just yet. Once I saved my comment, the whole page disappeared. It no longer appears in the Wikipedia knowledge base. If you search on sevocab, you get nothing but a redirect to a "this page has not yet been created" message with the text editor displayed. So either I did something wrong, or my timing was just weird. The page appears to be no more. Fortunately, I saved the marked-up text in an external file, so if I end up rewriting it, I'll have something to use as a base. I'm quite disappointed, but again, I'm grateful to have had your help and advice. Evanarsdall 21:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * On the edit window, there is a link to the deletion log (one of the special pages). This is the entry for SEVOCAB, which shows who deleted it, when, and for what reason. Once you have sorted out the copy vio issue, there won't (or certainly shouldn't!) be any objections to the article being recreated. Glad I could help anyway! Regards, [[User:Adrian_M._H.| Adrian] M. H.  22:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Adrian. The person behind the ID of Notinasnaid has not responded to me. Meanwhile, the author of the press release has agreed to grant permission, but I don't know exactly what to do. Can you point me to any examples of what needs to appear on the page? Sorry to be a pain, but at this point, I would like to just give up on this and let someone else take care of it. Evanarsdall 01:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I know that websites have to show a GFDL license statement, but I'm not sure about printed material. Since a statement on the source material itself is unlikely, it may just require an acknowledgment of some kind. It might need a statement along the lines of the templates at Template messages/Sources of articles (though none of those are suitable). I'll look into it for you, as I'd like to know the answer to this anyway. Adrian   M. H.  11:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I have found exactly what I was looking for. It is at WP:COPYREQ, which explains how to confirm to Wikipedia that you have permission. Seems quite straightforward. Regards, Adrian   M. H.  13:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Adrian. I do have the author's permission, so I'll pursue this. Evanarsdall 15:40, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Category:Computer Science
You put yourself in Category:Computer Science, can you help me prune this category, and add more articles to it? Mathiastck 09:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Virginia Birding and Wildlife
Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and the page that you created has been or soon will be deleted. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. Avs_Dps 14:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avs dps (talk • contribs)