User talk:Iridescent/Archive 16



Necro-bump: Soft-block of School IPs
Some people do come up with  some wonderful time wasting proposals at  the VP - even in  good faith. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:43, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I can see the arguments—regardless of whether I agree or not—for abolishing IP editing altogether, but sorting between "good" and "bad" IPs would be a, um, courageous idea. – iridescent  07:51, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * (add) Looks like a brand-new user who thinks they've spotted what we've been doing wrong for the last ten years. Be gentle. – iridescent  07:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, yes. The other thing we did wrong was to  allow just  anybody  to  be a new page patroller. If the other RfC gets its way, it  might  be a problem  solved. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:08, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This is Wikipedia. No problem here is ever solved, they just turn into new and more intractable problems. – iridescent  12:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

BLP
If you restore defamatory attacks on a living person, I will block you. Fences &amp;  Windows  21:03, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You could. I'd suggest you be extremely confident that you're in the right, though, since the content you're edit-warring to remove is very clearly the personal opinion of one editor, as expressed on a noindexed page. To save you looking, the relevant line of WP:BLP is "and not related to making content choices"; since the comment in question is an editor discussing whether a particular person is a serious academic or a WP:FRINGE theorist (a matter on which I have no opinion) their credibility is obviously material related to making a content choice; if you're primly removing swearing from a thread about swearing, you're stifling debate and trying to force the decision your way, even if in this case I'd tend to agree. (If you really think "nutjob" qualifies as a gross personal attack, though, I envy you.) – iridescent  21:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Iridescent is a nutjob. Please tell me this warrants a block. --Moni3 (talk) 21:27, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Careful, Moni. Aren't you the one who committed this grave BLP violation? – iridescent  21:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That clearly is my post, but that statement is as honest, true, and verifiable as what was written on stones given to Moses. I challenge anyone to claim it a violation of the BLP policy. --Moni3 (talk) 21:45, 20 April 2011 (UTC)


 * This exchange demonstrates one of the differences between an arbitrator and a lowly lout like myself. My reply to Fences' nonsense would have been a little more direct and a lot shorter, consisting of only seven letters arranged into a well-known phrase or saying. Malleus Fatuorum 22:43, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * "Marry me"? There's a danger in being ambiguous, Malleus :-P. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Not enough "f"s in "marry me". The danger in not being ambiguous is that some officious clot of an administrator ... well, you know the rest. Malleus Fatuorum 02:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I do indeed. Of course, if you had said "marry me" to F&W in response to the initial comment, someone likely would've felt justified in blocking you for being off your rocker. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:57, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. I think though that in my small way I've given administrators pause for thought before they impose daft blocks on established editors, which is a good thing. Did I ever tell you about the time I was blocked for using the word "sycophantic"? Or GWH's five-second block? Malleus Fatuorum 03:36, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You've mentioned it once or twice. One can always hope. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry to butt in but... "sycophantic"... seriously? I'd love to hear about that one :) --Errant (chat!) 22:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You'll find it in my block log, but you may have to scroll down a bit. Malleus Fatuorum 03:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * (re Malleus's original post) One thing which is noticeable to me—and I shouldn't have been surprised—is that there's a reason so many Wikipedia higher functionaries communicate publicly in that strange stilted lecture-to-the-royal-society-of-tax-lawyers style. (This seems to apply across the spectrum, from Jimmy Wales himself through to Alison.) When one always has the knowledge at the back of one's mind that anything you say can be taken as a public pronouncement and waved at one of the drama boards in support of some wiki-crusade or other, it forces one to be very measured and pedantic with the wording of anything said for public consumption; Bradspeak is a virtually inevitable consequence. This isn't peculiar to Wikipedia, as anyone who's had any dealings with politicians, CEOs or high-ranking military and police will know, but it is interesting (to me) how strong this particular pressure is, even in an environment like Wikipedia which prides itself on its (generally artificial) unstuffiness. – iridescent  18:45, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I had exactly the same thought when I read your reply to F & W above. Surely the old Iridescent would have been content with something on the lines of "Knock yourself out"? Bishonen | talk 21:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC).
 * I am minded not to entirely agree with your comments concerning Bradspeak; I think one has to deliberate and evaluate fully and then come to a considered opinion before giving one's opinions in a forum where one's opinions could be subject of debate and conjecture which could reflect upon oneself and lead to others to form an opinion as to one's opinion. Giacomo Returned 21:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably, although I did preach my share of sermons back then too. (As an aside, F&W must surely be the first user in Wikipedia's history to be such a hardline crusader for civility that both Sandstein and GWH tell them to stop.) – iridescent  21:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Anybody who gets Sandstein to say "fuck" (not when he quotes it, but when he actually says "flying fuck" in his own voice, and the negative is missing) deserves a barnstar. P.S. I know, I'll ask him to marry me. Bishonen | talk 21:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC).
 * (serious point) The long-winded replies do serve a point. "Go away" or variations thereof would just send F&W away annoyed and confused, since he probably thought he was being helpful in Defending The Purity Of The Wiki. (As I and others have said many times, many people have genuinely never stopped to think that "civility" is a relative concept and the civility policy is aimed at "intent to offend", not "offence caused".) Explaining to him why he's mistaken serves the short-term purpose just as well, but also stops him making the same mistakes again, and doesn't annoy him so much he goes away in a huff and we lose another editor. Most people here are trying to help; if someone has the potential to be useful it's never a good idea to drive them away. – iridescent  21:40, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Some people here though seem to believe that it's their job to drive others away. Many of them are member of the civility police. Malleus Fatuorum 22:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * r.e. to iridescent; If RL (and my job specifically) has taught me anything it is that such language has its place... it sometimes helps to come across as the "cool capable beurocrat bureaucrat" (that's a word I can never spell :S). i.e. "I have the right answer, listen to me", people do listen. It is rather scary how unimaginative they can be. I've seen "Bradspeak" work a decent number of times. The issue isn't that it's used.. it's that certain people simply cannot step out of it and bring themselves to say "sod off" (even if they mean to) and take the criticism that ensues. Anything you say, even if it is couched in bullshit, can be "used in evidence against you". So it strikes me as a false economy. But, then, I am reliably informed that I am a member of the "civility police", so that could be a load of crap ;) --Errant (chat!) 22:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(Responding to the original post; I'll try to avoid spreading Bradspeak as best I can, although I fear the condition may be terminal) I think everyone posting on this page understands the importance of the BLP policy, but this strikes me as a situation where "why are you restoring this material, which I think is inappropriate?" would have been a better approach than starting off with a block threat. Just a thought. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You're almost certainly right, but why is it that so many administrators lace their admonitions with threats? Because they can? Malleus Fatuorum 03:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The root cause of anger and threats is almost always fear—but the trouble with the written word is that it carries so little information in comparison to a physical meeting. If I offer what you perceive as a threat of some kind, unless I choose my written words very carefully it may be very hard for you to tell if I am: drunk; venomously angry; 'avin' a larf; offering a polite and well-meaning warning; etc., whereas in person it would almost certainly be much more obvious. Ben   Mac  Dui  07:28, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * (re Brad) You're missing the point here. The reason F&W didn't say "why are you restoring this material, which I think is inappropriate?" is that at no point did I restore the material or, indeed, make any comment, reversion redaction etc to this or any other thread at ANI; my last edit to ANI in any context was on 9 April. This thread is F&W issuing a pre-emptive block threat against me just in case I was thinking of daring to take an action with which he disagreed. The people who complain about a culture of admins acting as if their status makes them "power users" with the right to boss people around may be overegging the pudding in that 95% of admins are completely non-problematic, but it doesn't mean the issue doesn't exist. Consider what would likely happen if one of our more vocal non-admins were to start issuing threats against other users on the grounds that they thought they might violate their particular interpretation of a disputed policy, in which consensus is broadly against them. ("If you replace that double-hyphen with a spaced en-dash I will report you to ANI.") – iridescent  11:31, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * (1) Actually, your post reminds me that in checking the history, I couldn't quickly find whatever it was that led Fences & Windows to warn you, either&mdash;but I assumed that he or she wouldn't have warned you without some sort of triggering event, so I figured I must have overlooked something. (2) Re "Bradspeak," a point of causation: it didn't happen that I became whoever it is I am on Wikipedia and then started to talk the way I do; rather, I always talked more-or-less the way I do from more-or-less the day I started editing. Make of that what you will. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:28, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You know what they say about "assume". AGF has much to answer for. Malleus Fatuorum 23:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * "Bradspeak"??? ... are we gonna have to add a new term to this article now? And yep, that Sandstein post made me wonder if someone had hijacked his account.  Cheers and Happy Easter to all (rather all that it applies to). — Ched :  ?  21:40, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Belated apologies for misinterpreting your comment on my talk page. I thought your reference to censorship referred to my redaction of defamatory comments that Orangemarlin had made at ANI about an article subject, which someone else had already reverted once. I was not aiming to threaten someone simply for disagreeing with me (I hope I've never been that petty when acting as an admin). I now realise that your comment referred to the revdel of his edit summary, which is another matter entirely. While I disagree with the restoration of that edit summary, that's not something I'd consider blocking over. So, sorry. Fences  &amp;  Windows  12:21, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * (Replying to comment above) We can take people to ANI for DASH violations? Hmmmm .... - Dank (push to talk) 23:19, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Bien sur. See Talk:Mexican-American War for how serious hyphens and dashes are. Fences  &amp;  Windows  00:55, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * In fact, there's a MOSDASH thread at ANI now. There was also one last month. And one the month before. – iridescent  12:57, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Bradspeak
Hurry up and read this new essay before it gets deleted! You have five seconds from now! Please help Wikipedia by expanding it! Bishonen | talk 21:22, 2 May 2011 (UTC).
 * In fairness to Brad, I did make it clear that this was a phenomenon which affects any environment in which someone's words might be taken by others as an ex cathedra ruling, and not unique either to Brad nor to Wikipedia. (Obama's Over the years, I've repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we've done. But it's important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people. Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates. – which when stripped of the semantic niceties translates as "we invaded one of our own allies because we thought it was in our best interests to do so, and didn't notify them until after it happened because we don't trust them" – is about as perfect an example as will ever be seen.) – iridescent  13:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * (adding) Probably makes sense to merge it with the main WP:WikiSpeak page, though. (On a tangential subject, looking at that for the first time in years prompted me to look at Decoding RFA as well. Given that it's three years (!) since Keeper and I wrote that, it's still depressingly accurate.) – iridescent  13:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Update ...
... on our FAC editorial in the Bugle, including your comments, here. The idea for this editorial was to give a lot of brief statements by a lot of different people to convey the idea that there's broad support for the idea that anyone can (and more should) review at FAC. After we see if the editorial has any effect, we can try to do something less scattershot in another editorial. Please let me know if you are (or aren't) happy with any effect this might have at FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 19:40, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me. If it hasn't been done already, if you do a more formal follow-up it would probably be worth going into detail on the similarities and differences between FAC and GAN—people coming from one to the other (in either direction) are sometimes taken by surprise. Giano's essay is aimed at writers, not reviewers—and is three years out of date—but is still well worth a read as a general introduction to the FAC mentality. – iridescent  16:19, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

May Metro
Simply south...... trying to improve for 5 years 22:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

On the front
This is strange. How did you manage to get on the front page? Simply south...... trying to improve for 5 years 16:49, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject UK Railways in the Signpost
WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject UK Railways for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Other editors will also have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 16:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Exactly the same answers as last year. (My original answers here if you want to work from them rather than last year's finished article.) – iridescent  17:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

User:Philip Baird Shearer
I'll not say that "I'm concerned", or "worried" about this user's behaviour. No, I'm annoyed at his repeated attempts to derail the improvement of articles I've written by repeating ad nauseum the same, tired old points about his preferred inclusion of trivia, the formatting of references sections, the placement of images, etc. Despite repeatedly being knocked back on article talk pages, like a bad smell he keeps returning to make changes which appear to ignore consensus on those talk pages. He'll do it on a long-term basis as well, so as to steer clear of 3RR, while attempting to have other users (me), who have no such concerns, blocked for the same.

I'm quite sure he has very little or no experience in writing a half-decent article. Certainly with historical articles, he seems completely ignorant of anything that isn't on the nternet. He objected to the promotion of Hanged, drawn and quartered to FAC (comments which were ignored by delegates), and now he's posted on the talk pages of at least two users regarding the current FAC for Guy Fawkes Night, and has in fact posted on that same FAC.

I've noted similar concerns about his behaviour expressed at WP:ANI, and I think it's time the problem is brought to a wider audience. What would you suggest? Parrot of Doom 09:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Despite the oh-so-reasonable wording of his posts he's blatantly canvassing two editors who have already been his allies on the Guy Fawkes night article. He should be banned from any further editing to the article for his constant disruptive behaviour. Richerman (talk) 13:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've wondered for years why he still has the ability to edit Wikipedia; get two editors to attempt to resolve problems with him, then start an RFC. He has such a long-standing history of disruption that it's difficult to understand that he can still edit, much less be an admin. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 13:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The standard argument of course is that in all of his trolling he "hasn't abused the admin tools", so his behaviour is perfectly acceptable for an administrator. Which has always seemed to me to be somewhat analogous to claiming that a police officer who habitually exposes himself on the street should remain in the job because he didn't arrest anyone while doing it. Malleus Fatuorum 15:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (tries to get his mind around the concept of a police officer arresting someone while exposing himself, exactly where is he getting the handcuffs from?)--Wehwalt (talk) 15:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm going to be deliberately non-committal here, for reasons which are hopefully obvious. Concur with Sandy, in that the best course of action if you want to go down the formal route is to file an RFC (which do actually work work surprisingly often). If that doesn't work, then Arbcom is thataway; the usual warning applies that when something reaches that level the conduct of everyone involved is examined. If you want someone to have an informal chat with PBS, I'd suggest SlimVirgin, Wehwalt and/or Karanacs*—they have the background knowledge of writing about contentious historical topics at FA level, but AFAIK have no prior involvement or particular interest in this topic and no previous bad history with either you or PBS. – iridescent  16:44, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * * B & G, my omitting you is intentional. I know you've done more than anyone else when it comes to this period, but where you go a horde of people spoiling for a fight will likely follow, so you're probably not best suited to be the people to calm an argument down.


 * I'll be happy to get in the middle if asked. I know nothing about the topic matter.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I just want him off my back, and I suspect I'm not the only one. Look at the comments on the lower part of this.  I accept I'm not perfect, but I don't go around pissing on others' efforts while contributing nothing of note myself. Parrot of Doom 17:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't do the heavy-handed disciplinarian very well, I'm afraid. There are other admins who care to indulge in that kind of thing.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I was asked to comment here. It's difficult to convey how disruptive Philip can be. I don't want to be overly harsh, but it's hard to avoid. The basic problem is that, whatever he has personally experienced in his life, becomes the truth and the way. It applies to everything: writing style, history, punctuation, copyright law. His strong convictions are often accompanied by poor writing, research, and reasoning. When he arrives at an article or policy, it tends to halt development, with people forced to start discussing whatever tangent he has introduced. If you stop replying to him, he engages in serial reverting to force you to respond.


 * I tried discussing it with him on his talk page last year, so I'd be in a position to certify an RfC, but I couldn't face it at the time. See here. My post here sums up my experience of him. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 23:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Per Sandy, Slim, Parrot of Doom. I knew nothing of the Guy Fawkes FAC, but was asked to comment here. I'd like to be able to get on with Philip, but there has always been a spiralling, intransigent, steely, belligerent aspect to his presence (I first came across him in 2005). I do wish he could engage in a better way with other editors, and it doesn't surprise me in the least to see this thread. I support measures to bring this matter under control. Tony   (talk)  12:54, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * One interesting thing about PBS is that the problems go back so long and are so pervasive and have occurred in so many areas, that it's hard to even remember where to look for diffs; I just know that for as long as I've been on Wiki, he's been a difficult editor, one you hope to never cross paths with, and if you must, you hope it's in an area you can just unwatch rather than be sucked in (which I know I've done in several areas where I've encountered him). Unfortunately, we can't just unwatch some pages, and when he's disrupting FAC with canvassing, it's time for action.  By the way, how do we know he hasn't abused the tools unless we launch an RFC where others begin to speak up?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 13:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * All good points. Tony   (talk)  14:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * So, is an RFC the logical next step? Are they particularly difficult to draft?  I've never had to go there. Parrot of Doom 19:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it's the only possible next step, particularly as SlimVirgin has indicated her willingness to certify one. I've been to RfC once I think, but only as the defendant (now deleted as it wasn't certified), so others will undoubtedly be in a better position to advise on how to go about it. Malleus Fatuorum 19:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't have the foggiest idea how these things are done and to be honest, my eyes tend to glaze over a little bit when it comes to such things. I'd much rather write articles but if RFC is the only way that PBS can be forced to "do one" then RFC it is. Parrot of Doom 19:59, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * To set up an RfC, you would create this page, Requests for comment/Philip Baird Shearer. You can either do it manually, so that it ends up looking like Template:RfC, or there's an automated option here. Best thing is to keep the statement of the dispute brief and general; if you restrict it only to Guy Fawkes, people not involved with that won't be able to certify it. So it should offer a general description of the disruption, using Guy Fawkes as one example if you like.


 * Once that's up, it would have to be certified within 48 hours by at least two people who have previously tried, but failed, to resolve similar disputes with Philip, along with diffs showing the efforts at dispute resolution. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 02:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * So would there be two users who could certify the RFC? I'm not clear if there would be.  Certainly there are several users who think he's out of order. Parrot of Doom 07:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I could certify it, because I had that talk-page discussion with him asking him to rethink his approach in general. Tony1 and CDGeist could certify it too, because they commented there, as could anyone who asked him to stop the Guy Fawkes issue, or anything similar. The RfC rule is that the certifiers must show an effort at dispute resolution, not just the continuation of the dispute, though that can be a fine line.  SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 01:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've made a start here. This is the first time (and hopefully the only time) I've done this so I'd appreciate any input. Parrot of Doom 09:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It looks fine to me. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 01:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, looks good to me as well. This is an extremely instructive case, and as a completely uninvolved party I will be happy to make my views known once the Rfc is started.  Jus  da  fax   06:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

RFC discussion of User:Philip Baird Shearer
A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of. You are invited to comment on the discussion at    :Requests for comment/Philip Baird Shearer. -- Parrot of Doom 10:47, 9 May 2011 (UTC) Parrot of Doom 10:47, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Enter the Grave
Hi, I hope you're well. Awhile ago you commented on my FAC of the above article. With that in mind, I was hoping you could review the article with FA standards in mind, and share that review with me on my talk page? If you could, that'd be much appreciated. LuciferMorgan (talk) 18:51, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I no longer participate at FAC and aren't up to date with the current standards. Your best bet would be other people who've put articles through the process recently on relatively niche music articles which don't have the widespread coverage the Michael Jacksons and Pink Floyds get, and will have a better feel for what the current flavor of the month is regarding which sources are good and which are bad (User:Another Believer and User:Moni3 spring to mind). – iridescent  16:23, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for your advice - I'll be sure to take it. LuciferMorgan (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Groid
Lovely page history. :P Also, fun fact: Damian Yerrick is user ID 1. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Remind me again why Groid&rarr;Negroid race is acceptable, but Turd burglar&rarr;Gay led to immediate deletion as an attack page and sprawling threads over every conceivable drama board up to and including RFAR for the next year? – iridescent  16:27, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably something to do with the makeup of the editorship? :-) (Or was that rhetorical... it can be difficult to tell.) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:41, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * What, these people? I hope you haven't uncovered the secret that Wikipedia is actually a vast experiment to discover whether sitting in front of a flatscreen monitor for eight hours a day can function as a substitute for sunlight. – iridescent  18:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

RfC/U note at WP:AN
Just wanted to make sure you don't think I endorse the creation of the RfC/U re:Sandstein. I just wanted to make sure it was listed (since the OP didn't exactly follow the guidelines for starting it) so the RfC process would move along.  Cjmclark (Contact) 19:06, 13 May 2011 (UTC)


 * No problem, although I personally would just close it, since the likelihood of it concluding that Sandstein overreacted here is zero. – iridescent  19:08, 13 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I completely agree. My intent was to make it visible to a wider range of admins as no one actively commenting on the RfC seemed to be moved to take action regarding it. I think everyone was just waiting for the 48 hours to expire.   Cjmclark (Contact) 22:02, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello Iridescent
Umm...Could you please do me a few solids i) Please delete File:Republic of new tomland flag 2.png ii) Please delete Republic of New Tomland iii)Please block User:MBAxTom for creating nonsense pages.

Thanks.  maucho  eagle   ( c ) 18:47, 14 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The former is a Commons file, and nothing to do with us; compared to some of the shite the Global Penis Depository hosts, it's practically Da Vinci. I've deleted the latter, but not sure why you're coming to me for this; in future, just stick db-hoax on hoax articles and the Wikipedia Fairies will magically take them away. – iridescent  18:58, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, will do, and not to ask so much of you but I think I forgot one, Is it possible that you could create protect that page?  maucho  eagle   ( c ) 19:01, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Someone else has salted it (I wouldn't have, but I'm not going to wheel-war over it). – iridescent  19:17, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

request for oversight
Hi, after a request from the subject at BLPN could you please oversight/suppress this diff - thanks. 21:21, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No. I have oversight for Arbcom auditing purposes—sometimes we need to see what people said and when—but I'm not an oversighter (the full list is at Oversight). Email to this link if you want something oversighted. I personally am not convinced that warrants it. – iridescent  21:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 21:27, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Is it worth bothering about this kind of thing?
While researching the lordship of the manor of Wakefield (re the gibbet) I couldn't make sense of which John de Warenne to link to, so I checked the ODNB and discovered that the 5th and 6th earls were incorrectly named the 6th and 7th. I've moved the articles, but I'm wondering if there's any reason not to ask for the redirect pages to be deleted, as its unlikely that anyone would need them. Or should I just forget about it? Malleus Fatuorum 21:10, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Ask at WP:PEERAGE; they're very active, and anyone likely to have an opinion will probably have that talkpage watched as a matter of course. User:BrownHairedGirl is usually the best person to go to with lords-and-ladies questions. – iridescent  21:19, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll do that. Malleus Fatuorum 21:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've checked with the Peerage project and there are no dissenting voices, so could I trouble you to move John de Warenne, 8th Earl of Surrey to John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, which is the redirect I created a couple of days ago? Malleus Fatuorum 11:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Saw this go past on my watchlist so... sorted it for you Malleus. :) --Errant (chat!) 11:58, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Malleus Fatuorum 12:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi
Hello there Iridescent, I hope this post finds you well. To be honest, I've been looking for an excuse to stop by and say hi. I don't know if you even remember, but I still recall the first time I stopped by to talk to you, and I expressed myself very poorly - and I still feel bad about that. Anyway, I see you decided to not only pick up your bit again, but to also throw yourself to the wolves (so to speak) by helping out at ARBCOM .. congrats and thank you by the way. The reason I found to stop and say hi was the Mick block reduction. Good call in my opinion. Nothing against BW, I think he's a fine wikipedian. I guess that's all I really had to say - cheers and best. :) — Ched : ?  16:49, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. To clarify, I don't think there was anything out of order in the way BWilkins acted here; sometimes people have to make snap judgements, and sometimes other people are going to disagree with that judgement, or on reflection the original person making the decision will reconsider. Unless I'm missing something, Bearian appears to have acted appallingly here, in deliberately baiting a user who was obviously under a great deal of stress in an effort to provoke a reaction; non-admins have been indefblocked for considerably less, and I really hope this was just a bad day and not the start of another flame-out. Give the benefit of the doubt for the moment, though; everyone has bad days and does something they regret at some point. – iridescent  22:28, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Brill Tramway - Wood Siding
I've noticed an inconsistency in the dates of the opening of Wood Siding extension. If I'm reading it right, it says on the Brill Tramway article that the extension opened 17 June 1871 yet the station article says November 1871. Please point out if i have got this wrong. Simply south...... unintentionally misspelling fr 5 years 16:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * They're both correct; industrial tramways don't have clear-cut opening and closing dates in the same sense that airports, tube stations etc have them, so it depends what one considers the "opening date".
 * 17 June 1871: the line of rail from Wotton reached the Wood Siding site;
 * 19 August 1871: the first rolling stock other than construction traffic reached Wood Siding, in the form of some passenger cars stabled there in readiness for the demonstration passenger run;
 * 26 August 1871: the first commercial use of the Wood Siding site, in the shape of the disastrous GWR passenger demonstration run to London;
 * some point prior to 29 November 1871: the line through Wood Siding to the brickwork siding (probably not yet complete) is finished, and occasional goods services (mostly coal) start;
 * January 1872: opening of passenger services (temporarily abandoned in mid-March for permanent way work on the incomplete line);
 * 1 April 1872: Re-opening of passenger services, operating to a formal published timetable;
 * 10 May 1872: Formal opening of the extension to paid goods and passengers (i.e., paying customers rather than the Duke hauling materials and labourers around his estates); this is the "official" opening date, although the line had actually been accepting paying passengers since January;
 * 1 December 1899: the Metropolitan Railway's upgrading of the route is complete. The line finally meets Railway Clearing House standards and the stations officially become "railway stations".
 * There really is no "right answer", and you'll find all of them given as the "opening date" in some place or another. The 1899 date is the closest thing to a "correct" answer—until it met RCH standards, it was officially just a piece of industrial plant rather than a "railway line"—and is the one you'll find on Douglas Rose's Diagrammatic History, but I'd venture to say it's outright misleading to use it. – iridescent  19:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clearing that up. Simply south...... unintentionally misspelling fr 5 years 20:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * No problem—Brill is a funny case, as it blurs the line between cart-horse trackway and modern metro line in a way few others do. It's always worth bearing in mind that for these primitive railways, "passenger use" was mainly symbolic (and often horse-drawn even on mechanised railways); the trains ran at average walking pace (and well below the speed of a typical horse), so for anything other than mass bulk transport there was no reason for anyone to use expensive, slow, smelly and unreliable mechanical haulage. (It's no coincidence at all that every early railway served either a coalfield or a port used for heavy bulk goods.) – iridescent  21:12, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

RE:Since nobody seems to have bothered to notify you…
Nobody seems to have actually notified you, but an edit of yours is being discussed at great length on Jimbo's talk page, having made multiple newspapers. You may want to comment there. – iridescent  09:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your thought and humanity. I would offer to assist you in your efforts in Wikipedia, but in light of Jimbo Wales attack, have decided to take some time out. Best Regards, --Trident13 (talk) 18:21, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * See how (and if) Jimmy replies to you, before you take any action you might regret later. While I don't see eye to eye with him on much, I appreciate that he's often under immense time pressure, and when he feels he has to comment on an issue can sometimes make snap calls without knowing all the facts of the case. As you can probably tell from my comments in the thread, I find the idea of the Daily Mail as an inherently unreliable source dubious—I think some of this may stem from a misunderstanding of the different meanings of "tabloid" in the US and the UK. I can certainly sympathise with the view that we should never (or rarely) treat any newspaper reports as reliable for anything other than commentary on how an issue is covered in the press. However, treating the Mail as unreliable while continuing to treat the equally celebrities-and-sex-obsessed Times as an inherently reliable source is in my opinion an unfortunate decision. – iridescent  22:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I have found The Times to be just as fallible as the worst tabloid paper. I don't trust any source that doesn't offer it's own sources. Parrot of Doom 22:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The Times is great for "newspapers of the day described it as a sombre occasion" type background material, because it goes back so far; it's also good for non-contentious court circular material ("The MP for Grabham-by-the-Danglers visited Lady Grimley-Fiendish at her country estate at Toad Hall"). For anything remotely contentious or at all likely to be challenged, it's about as reliable as the Beano; the British press has a well-deserved reputation for blatant fabrications going back centuries. (I can provide impeccably-sourced newspaper coverage that human-pig hybrids were roaming the streets of London in the 19th century.) – iridescent  23:17, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It also depends, to a large extent, on what assertion it is that we are seeking a source for. If it's "Mets centerfielder [Oxford cricketer] John Doe hit three home runs [hit a century] at Shea Stadium [the Oval] on June 22, 1973" then one newspaper is as good as another. If it's "President Nixon [Prime Minister Major] announced that he was appointing Harry Blackmun to the Supreme Court [recommending that Speaker Wetherill be promoted to the Lords]" then again, one newspaper is as good as another. If it's marital information that the article subject has actively denied, then the quality of the newspaper is critically important, and any one paper might not be enough (and in some cases it's questionable whether we should include the information at all). Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:25, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * As I've said privately, I don't think there is such a thing as a "quality newspaper" in Britain, in the context in which it's used here. With the exception of a brief blip in the latter 19th century, the British daily press has always been primarily a medium of entertainment, with serious news coverage historically covered by various weekly and monthly journals and to a lesser extent the Sunday papers. (You cannot hope/To bribe or twist/Thank God! The/British journalist./But, seeing what/The man will do/Unbribed, there's/No occasion to could have been written at any time since the 17th century.) Can you really spot a significant difference between the Last Surviving Broadsheet Newspaper the Telegraph (as I write this, currently devoting much of its front page and no less than six picture slots on its website to the World Beard Championship) and the much-maligned Daily Mail? – iridescent  23:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. But what is this "brief blip in the latter 19th century" of which you speak? Carcharoth (talk) 08:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There was a period under the third John Walter, after the rise of the penny-dreadfuls, when the Times made a conscious effort to maintain its position by upping its game and promoting itself as a 19th century equivalent of the present-day Economist, rather than trying to slug it out toe-to-toe with the populist press. The result was something akin to the modern Financial Times, in that it was deadly dull but prided itself on its accuracy, integrity, and broad scope. This incarnation of the Times ended abruptly in 1908 when Lord Northcliffe (the Rupert Murdoch of his day) seized control of it in the general chaos following the collapse of Britannica and turned it into the obsessively small-c-conservative mix of wildly biased reporting, pompous sermons to the lower orders and deeply dull chit-chat about the lives of the rich, which has lasted ever sense. (Someone who really likes pointless editwars ought to slap a cn on "The Times is generally seen as a serious publication with high standards of journalism", since the Times and its sister papers The Sun and the News of the World are arguably the three most despised mass-circulation newspapers in Western Europe.) – iridescent  19:19, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive Editing
Tony, one of the editors in the Dash arbitration, went to the Village Pump (policy) to notify them about the RfC, in line with the Arb motion. Several editors seem intent on sniping and negativity. I've tried hatting this thread, but another editor seems to think the commentary is fine. My concern is that this stay on track and not be derailed by negativity. I'm not sure if you can do anything, but I would hope editors would see that the more positive they can be the more quickly the issue will be resolved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#RfC_on_dashes

Diff of my hatting it: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=429850440&oldid=429846752

Diff of editor unhatting: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=429861968&oldid=429850440

Link to comment on user's talk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Yoenit#Disruptive_Editing

Thanks, and I appreciate your input on this. -- Avanu (talk) 11:15, 19 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I see the frustration. I will post something, given that I have been overlooking this. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:36, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Please explain to me how an announcement can "stay on track". There is no track, just the announcement and several comments making fun of it. The RFC it points to has already been archived. Yoenit (talk) 11:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The new discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/dash drafting where we can try and get everyone to offer their points of view once and for all and then (hopefully) come ot a consensus with some decent editor numbers Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:08, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I see the frustration on both sides. I can entirely see why a lot of people think this is absolutely pointless given that most readers can't even tell the difference between – and -; I can also see why a lot of other people think it's genuinely significant that Wikipedia have an internal standard and stick to it. I honestly don't really care either what the process is for deciding the answer, nor what the answer should be, but I'd encourage as many people as possible—including the "who cares?" contingent—to participate in this. If the soi-disant "polite, thoughtful, smart, geeky people, trying only to do something which is undoubtedly good in the world" can't come up with a solution to relatively minor issues like this, then to me it's a sign that the collaborative model isn't scaling and we should be seriously looking at a Committee of Last Resort to issue binding decisions on those policy-and-content issues Arbcom avoids. – iridescent  20:08, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your comments on that. I'm fine with people adopting a 'who cares' attitude on this issue.  I myself am fairly ambivalent on the dash issue, but I like consistency as well.  I would just hope that even if someone doesn't care about the issue, they still maintain a civil attitude toward editors who do care, and express arguments in term of the issues, rather than what a 'big timewaster' someone is simply because their priorities are different. -- Avanu (talk) 20:42, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hence if we have a few folks doing what I am trying to do - facilitate, spread the word, etc. we can get through this relatively painlessly. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:40, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to avoid doing too much directly. I'm long enough in the tooth to remember Userboxes, Ireland and Date Delinking, and I want to leave as little scope as possible for "you notified WikiProject Spaced Em Dashes but didn't notify WikiProject Double Hyphens, this (renders the whole process invalid)/(means you're hopelessly biased) and we have to run the whole process again" arguments. I'm painfully aware that if the process fails we're going to wind up having to issue ex cathedra ruling on a topic on which none of us are particularly well qualified to comment; I want the likelihood of that as low as possible. – iridescent  21:59, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Rumpy pumpy
As another purveyor of filth, I wonder, do you think I've included enough smut on this article? I have the Catharine Arnold book you mentioned but I haven't had time to read through it so far. Parrot of Doom 10:08, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks like a reasonable balance to me; you don't want to turn it into a gallery of smut. It would probably be good if you can find some vocal "ban this evil filth" voices from the time (some bishop or MP somewhere must have spoken against it). As currently written it gives the impression that nobody at the time saw a problem with the woman-as-object attitude; I don't believe for an instant that in this period—during the high-water-mark of Dissenting Christianity and hardline evangelicalism in English history—no Methodist, Quaker, Baptist etc (or Roman Catholic, for that matter) saw Harris's List as a soft target to score points against the failure of the established church to provide moral guidance.


 * It might be impossible to source, but if at all possible the legacy section should probably mention the successors. The English tradition of rate-my-whore publications didn't die out with Harris's List—IIRC the British military even compiled official versions to try to discourage their officers from going to street whores and catching diseases—and there's probably a direct line of succession from Harris's List to McCoy's Guide. – iridescent  11:37, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That's good advice, and I'll take it, thanks. Parrot of Doom 16:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Your edit at Nazi talking dogs
Hi Iridescent, your edit at Nazi talking dogs reminded me a joke:

A man calling a doctor:"Doctor,it is John Hendel, come fast, my wife's appendices is inflamed. It should be removed ASAP." Doctor responds:"John,I removed your wife's appendices last year, and I have never seen a person who gets another appendices after an appendectomy." "Doctor" - cries John -"Have you ever seen a person, who gets another wife after he divorced the old one!"

I am not sure you'll understand the meaning of the joke (I translated it from Russian, and it is hard for me to translate jokes), but what I meant to say is: don't you think that the man could be a rheumatologist and a historian at the same time:-) After all he is introduced as "a historian" by a few RS. Cheers.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:44, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * No, by no possible definition (including his own; the blurb on the book in question just describes him as "a senior lecturer and consultant rheumatologist at Cardiff University") is Jan Bondeson "a historian". He's a rheumatologist at Cardiff who was selected to do the tests when Julia Pastrana was exhumed; since then, he's earned pin money writing extremely dubious "believe it or not" books about medical history. (You might have had a better chance of convincing me, if not for the fact that I'd recently caught him passing off an 1805 description of Melrose Abbey from The Lay of the Last Minstrel as "an ancient charity document from Kent".) He's very good as a source-of-sources, and as a citation for unchallengeable material (that is, material where the primary source he's using is also available), but not for anything else outside his specialist fields of rheumatology and teratology. For a case like this, where he's the only source for the claims and none of the primary sources are visible, he's about as reliable a source as a back issue of Razzle. – iridescent  16:56, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't know if you've notice, but this is being considered at WP:DYK - Template talk:Did you know.--DavidCane (talk) 21:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Meh. To my eyes, this looks pretty much to be a checklist of unusable sources (The Sun?&#x2713; citing to reviews of the source with no citations to the actual source?&#x2713; Daily Mail?&#x2713; ) and even Bondeson himself has complained that this coverage is grossly misrepresenting his book (which the article's owner admits to not having even read), but the "it's in the Sun so it must be true" brigade are out in force for it. It'll go on the main page and give Wikipedia Review something to bitch about for a few days, then someone will presumably either quietly AFD it (once the unreliable sources are stripped out, the current article will be down to sub-stub length), or someone will turn it into a less inaccurate German experiments on animal psychology in the 1930s. (People who refer to the entire population of Germany in the 1930s as "Nazis" are a pet peeve of mine. If someone were to refer to every living Chinese person as "communist" they'd be rightly laughed out, but there seems to be a general impression that every German after 1933 liked nothing better than dressing up in jackboots and shooting their next door neighbour.) – iridescent  13:11, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * According to me (see what I did there) that's a pretty dire article. I wouldn't entertain that as a DYK for a single moment. Parrot of Doom 13:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration Case
Dear Iridescent, I'd just like to bring to your attention my note at the case. Thanks. --  Ashot  ( talk ) 07:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem. Don't take anyone's comments there as meaning that you don't have a valid case (or the converse), but since your argument is based on the fact that the other party is refusing to reply, you need to give them every reasonable opportunity to do so. Especially at this time of year when a lot of people are on holiday or trying to clear a backlog of work in the run-up to the holiday season, people do sometimes take a long time to reply. – iridescent  16:16, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. But probably there was a misunderstanding. I meant my following note: -->
 * Note. Though already after filing this request I contacted Angel670 2 times on his/her talk page and my edits were reverted:


 * 1st revert, where he/she tagged the revert as "stop vandalising my talkpage" which is a clear personal attack and incivility.
 * 2nd revert (includes both previous messages and new note).
 * I just bring this to your attention to explain why I was not that inclined to get in direct contact earlier.

<-- Regards, --  Ashot  ( talk ) 16:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Iridescent
i sent you a mail yesterday. could you please look into it. --CarTick (talk) 19:10, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Replied. – iridescent  19:16, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for paying attention
even though you are not happy with the tradition. Hans Adler 15:55, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem. I will warn you, though, that you may regret it. There's a reason few people who've had a TFA are keen to repeat the experience; there is very definitely a reason nobody who's had an April 1 TFA is ever keen to repeat the experience. – iridescent  16:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Eric Hill
Hi. I'm probably just being daft, but in a few rudimentary searches, I can't seem to find a citation for Eric Hill's death. If you have a minute, could you take a look? I really hope this isn't another case of death by Wikipedia.... --MZMcBride (talk) 16:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks like it at first glance; no obituaries I can see and nobody mentioning the death except Wikipedia mirrors. His publisher is still treating him as alive, and they're usually lightning-fast at changing bios when someone dies. The death was added by an IP, and unintentionally whitewashed by a lot of people who should know better tidying it up. Fixed until someone can point to an obituary. – iridescent  16:35, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I just poked around when I saw MZMcBride's note, and didn't find anything either, so I agree completely with Iridescent's edits. MZMcBride, out of curiosity and/or a desire to replicate what you did, how did you notice this problem? Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:09, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Out of boredom I was sampling and fixing a few talk pages (marking them as |living=no so they'd stop being listed on the report and having the BLP banner on the talk page). I usually try to do a quick sanity check and the weird birth date/death date formatting combined with the very short bio (and lack of an obit link) made me suspicious. When I verified that he had indeed received an OBE, it seemed even stranger that nobody had noted his death. So... random chance, I guess. I'm not sure if there's any programmatic way to catch cases like this. I think someone set up an AbuseFilter rule somewhere that can tag edits that add death dates/change verb tenses. Dunno for sure, though.
 * Iridescent: my thanks as always for the assist. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:08, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * P.S. Death by Wikipedia is a red link? Hmmmm.


 * P.P.S. God this place is great.

Gas-powered trams
While bumbling around filling in a few minor gaps in local history, such as the British Gas Traction Company, I noticed that although we have an article on the electric trams we have nothing on gas-powered trams, which seem far more interesting to me. Is that something you have any sources on? Malleus Fatuorum 20:44, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't really know much about trams, although if you poke WikiProject Streetcars and WikiProject UK Trams someone will probably know something. The quick-and-dirty way to do a rapid expansion of a rail-related article is go to the Robert Humm catalogue and search for titles in the area, and then go to WorldCat, find some UK libraries that have the relevant title (there's almost always at least one) and set up an inter-library loan. The Bibliography of British Railway History lists 25,000 books on British railways alone; whatever the topic, someone will almost certainly have written a book on it at some point. – iridescent  20:51, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks, I'll have a look around. Malleus Fatuorum 21:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * (butting in) There's always the Wikipedia Reference Desk, too. It's a crapshoot, obviously, but the few times I've used it I've had good results. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:16, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Err, yeah, there's always that I suppose. Malleus Fatuorum 22:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Railway of Death
Saw you were working on these. I'll review them both this evening.--DavidCane (talk) 13:06, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been telling people I'm "about to write" the parent article for at least a year. Hopefully, that one should be coming soon; I intentionally plucked the low-hanging-fruit on the railway first. The cemetery article will be necessarily massive, so I want as much as possible on the railway hived off to these subpages. (With bishops, horses, executions, disused railway stations, World War II, Victorian architecture and an Anglo-Saxon king, I think all it needs now is a hurricane and I'm the winner of Wikipedia Bingo.) – iridescent  15:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * PS—thanks for doing the reviews on those. They're both quite complicated; I have a feeling most of the GA reviewers would back away in horror. – iridescent  16:02, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * London Necropolis railway station has passed, though there are a couple of minor matters you might want to look at listed in the review.--DavidCane (talk) 22:26, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Lots of replies on the talkpage. – iridescent  16:59, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I have passed London Necropolis Railway as well. I made a few very minor adjustments as I read through, but nothing else needs doing. Both are excellent.--DavidCane (talk) 00:04, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for those... Now on to the parent articles, which I suspect will be harder. – iridescent  16:11, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

London Necropolis Railway
Wow, that's very impressive work. Any objections to me nominating it for GA?♦ Dr. Blofeld  10:33, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Already there—DavidCane's in the middle of the review (see above). – iridescent  10:41, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Its literally like featured quality already lol! No wonder you are critical of some short stubs and certain poor quality DYKs if you are capable of producing content that good!! Well done! ♦ Dr. Blofeld  10:49, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Mmm do you think British Humane Association refers to Royal Humane Society or British Humanist Association or neither?♦ Dr. Blofeld  10:53, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I may put at least some of the Brookwood series through FAC, but I want to wait until the series is a good deal more complete; at the moment I've only finished two of them, and they're the two easiest ones to write. FA status confers no actual benefit (the article is exactly the same regardless of whether it has a yellow dot or not) and potentially leads to a lot of problems as it opens up the risk of an article being TFA'd, so I'm in no hurry. Besides, FAC is quite clogged at the moment, and I don't like to add to the backlog.


 * Neither, so far as I can tell; certainly not the Humanists, but the RHS was "Royal" and not "British" since the 18th century. I suspect it was an early animal welfare charity, but can't be certain, and don't particularly have the inclination to go digging through old land registry archives. – iridescent  11:11, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Neither indeed – Founded in 1920 for "the promotion of benevolence for the good of humanity and the community". BencherliteTalk 11:13, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * And who says you can't learn anything on Wikipedia? (I'd love to know what the reaction of the present day Charity Commission would be to an application with "The promotion of benevolence for the good of humanity and the community" as an object.) – iridescent  11:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I did look in google books for some info but it didn't turn up anything, that's why I wondered if it was the royal one... I've started it to fill in a red link, web sources are lacking though, otherwise I'd expand it further..♦ Dr. Blofeld  11:31, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I am working on a very different railway of death in my sandbox at present, temporary link here (sorry, unsigned by Wehwalt)
 * Aren't we all cheerful this month, with my mass graves, your rail crash, Malleus's gibbet and Moni's nuclear meltdown? Must be summer. When you send that live, be aware that half a dozen people you never heard of will immediately turn up demanding it be renamed Canoe River disaster, Canoe River incident, November 21, 1950 Canadian railroad crash and every other permutation you can think of; rail accidents always seem to bring out a legion of the "naming convention" contingent. – iridescent  16:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I started out writing this to clear up a loose end for another link in my FA, John Diefenbaker. I knew the story of the case, since it is one of the most famous about Dief as a lawyer.  However, it turns out to be a fascinating story.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:Like
For what it's worth, like was mostly created (or hijacked, really, it already existed in some form when I arrived) as a proof-of-concept/joke. I think it's always interesting to see how well wikicode can emulate code elsewhere. And with the help of a few others, it turns out the answer is "pretty well." The reactions on the talk page make it fairly clear that it's not this template that people fear, it's what people assume it stands for. Good art challenges the viewer. (-;

Tangentially, I've supported having template like support in the past and still do. The difference between typing  and  support  is two characters, but people seem to think that requiring those extra characters will lead to a reasoned, rational discussion versus an irrational, barbaric vote. Or at least they pretend to think so. It's all a bit silly, fittingly. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * There's an obvious argument against support etc, in that it frazzles the servers. On most pages that's not an issue, but for the sort of places where voting processes are likely to be used—FAC, RFA etc—it's possible for the accumulated templates to hit the template limit, which is A Bad Thing. (This is why Raul bans the done template and its kin from FAC.)


 * Did you ever see Gurch's old userpage design? – iridescent  15:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * PS. Just noticed someone using "Grandma sharing photos with their grandkids" on that talkpage, as an example of what Wikipedia should be doing. The mind boggles. – iridescent  15:41, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Gurchbook? Of course. :D
 * I think my favorite Gurch creation is his old archive index, though. Hands down one of my favorite users. His creative touch is all over the site (the sudo redirect is another good example).
 * I suppose template limits are a reasonable enough reason, though Commons seems to get by well enough in most cases. It's mostly a matter of how complex the templates are. ParserFunctions usage is directionally proportional to parse speed. If the template just contained a simple image and bold text, you'd never come near a limit. But people want to be able to do all sorts of conditional magic; the like template is a good example of a simple design that quickly balloons.
 * My grandma loves Facebook; I can't imagine her ever uploading anything to Commons, though. I can't really imagine anyone uploading anything to Commons ever, actually. The Master Plan™ seems to be to make uploading from mobile devices easier, which may trickle down to the web UI at some point, I guess. Personally, I'll continue to contend that MediaWiki is the jack of all trades and master of none. Until it picks a damn focus (image repo, encyclopedia, or dictionary), it'll never be great. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:22, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * My opinion of Commons is vanishingly low. I'll upload completely non-contentious things there, but anything remotely unusual I'll keep locally; I'm heartily sick of their editors "improving" files.
 * MediaWiki may suck, but remember it's aimed at a much broader userbase than pretty much any other comparable software. It needs to be able simultaneously to cope with people using 20-year old DOS terminals over a spotty dial-up connection, high-end users handling massive video files, and people editing via antiquated WAP phones, all the while with 3,000 people constantly demanding it be changed to fit their pet project. It's actually remarkably good at what it does—try running the beta version of our future over Lynx and see how your computer reacts. (Thanks to Amazon's intentionally clunky browser software on the Kindle—outside the US Amazon massively discounts them with unmetered and unrestricted free 3G access worldwide bundled, so they intentionally make the browser shitty—you'd be surprised at just how many people are accessing Wikipedia via a command-line.) – iridescent  22:49, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Seeking input on a proposed finding of fact
Hello. I am writing this message as a third party monitoring an ongoing arbitration case. I have been voicing concerns about a proposed finding of fact since 6 June, but no arbitrator has chosen to respond to those concerns. If you have a moment, I would appreciate your input on Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Racepacket/Proposed_decision. I apologize for contacting you on your personal talk page, but despite posting notes daily on the proposed decision talk page requesting arbitrator input, no one has responded. Thank you. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 22:11, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I stand by my comment of "Simplified, but correct". To break proposed finding 9 down:
 * Interactions between LauraHale and Racepacket have been problematic.
 * Not in dispute, or it wouldn't be at Arbcom;
 * For example
 * Note the "for example"; this is not purporting to be a definitive summary of the incident;
 * Racepacket said the Netball article contained close paraphrasing
 * Demonstrable fact;
 * LauraHale misinterpreted this to mean that she was responsible, and asked for evidence.
 * Not in dispute;
 * Initially, Racepacket didn't explain there was a misunderstanding, and that LauraHale was not responsible for the close paraphrasing, or indicate where the close paraphrasing was.
 * Not in dispute, unless you're challenging the word "initially";
 * LauraHale repeatedly indicated that she believed Racepacket had in effect accused her of plagiarism
 * Demonstrably true.
 * I'm not clear what the issue is here. – iridescent  22:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your response. I will copy this to the central discussion on the proposed decision talk page and respond there. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 14:30, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

You have some great discussions on reviewing in your talk page
Don't freak out (not doing it for personality stuff) but got referred to your page for some discusison of FA reviewing (and then you even referr back deeper into your archives). Some very thoughtful comments in there and points from 2008 that still apply.

TCO (talk) 23:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

P.s. Yes, the only thing that matters are GA+ articles on topics of importance matter.

P.s.s. I agree with Mallman2008 that reviewers need to temper their tone given what the nominator is going through (and that he did all this work). Also, that the most important things are right content, well organized. Not dashing or that stuff.

P.s.s. We should probably have Sub/start/GA/"better" (maybe call it Outstanding)/FA. If we want, we could have some other stuff in there between start and GA or have the confusion of letters, but maybe better to not even have that. Just recognize everything below GA IS a "start" in that it is not a coherent, composed article yet.TCO (talk) 23:31, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

RE: Your comment | here
Iridescent - You've accused me of: * Making up policy | on this page * Suggested that an AFD be closed as being disruptive | here I suggest that you read policy a bit more, in particular Attack_pages as this is really is policy and not something I've made up. I am following policy for attack pages, that's all KoshVorlon Naluboutes ''AeriaGloris 11:59, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Regardless of your interpretation of policy (and I happen to agree that it is a violation of BLP), you can't unilaterally act when consensus tells you to wait. Like it or not, the community overrules the individual, unless that individual is Jimmy Wales :)
 * So by going against the actual authority here (the community), you're not following general policy. Many people happen to agree with you that the page needs change, but you aren't permitted to act unilaterally by policy if people challenge it. -- Avanu (talk) 15:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * As you were told after you unilaterally blanked the page, after you unilaterally blanked the page again, after you unilaterally blanked the page yet again, after you tried to canvass other people to blank the page for you, after you vandalised the related template and after you vandalised the related template again, you don't get to unilaterally rewrite Wikipedia policy just because you don't like a particular article.


 * As I write this 273 people have commented on that article's talkpage; there's a reason 272 of them have not seen fit to blank the article or tag it for speedy deletion, and there's a reason the large number of people trying to come to a consensus on the issue are getting annoyed at an editor who's had no input on the article, no input on the BLP policies, and no history of understanding the nuances of the neutrality policies as they relate to the real world, wading in all-guns-blazing and telling them that although they're outnumbered 272–1 their opinions count for nothing because they don't happen to agree with yours. There are legitimate discussions to be had on how Wikipedia covers notable cases of defamation and to what extent it's necessary to repeat the defamatory content, and how to handle the fact that Wikipedia's intentionally disproportionate Google rankings can lead to topic of marginal relevance to a topic becoming the first hit on a search for that topic. Both these matters have been discussed in multiple venues at great length, and you've never once bothered to participate in any of those discussions.


 * Once a page is under discussion at Arbcom, it's certainly not appropriate to try to circumvent the debate by nominating the page under discussion at AFD (without even a token effort to consider the overwhelming keep votes in the many previous AFDs). You have been warned—repeatedly—about your editwarring and disruption as regards this page. (You've had enough warnings in the past regarding showboating and disruption, such as your "NFCC doesn't apply to me" claims a couple of years ago, or your attempt to nominate Larry Sanger for deletion, to know where the bright-lines on what is and isn't acceptable are.) If you have something sensible to say about this, then the Arbcom case is the place to say it. – iridescent  15:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Irridescent --- the image you refered to was deleted anyway, and far as I'm concerned I acted stupid over it, no excuses, I was stupid.  Larry Sanger issued a legal threat and was actually taking court action against Wikipedia and our policy for legal threats is blank the page, which is just what I did.  Yes, an admin unblanked it, against policy and threatened to block me.

I spoke with her but she was insisted I leave the page alone, and I did. Apples to Oranges, basically. On Santorum_Neologism, our policy on attack pages calls for them to be blanked and deleted. It's just that simple. That's what I am attempting to do. There's no arb case either, 2 arbs accepted, the rest declined. That means no case will be heard on that. That leads us back to...... you guessed it, the policy on attack pages. I'm not real happy that an admin is accusing me of vanadlism, when that's really not the case, nor I am particularly happy that you're mis-labeling my attempts to follow policy   (BTW - please read the policy on Vandalism, removing Santorum from those templates was not vandalizing. Also read the policy on canvassing as that's not what my actions were. ) I shouldn't have to tell you, as an admin, to not attack editors, it makes it look like WP:ILIKEIT, which I know is not the case. So to review: * This is not being arbitrated * This is an attack page * We have a real live policy on attack pages, blank 'em and 'delete 'em. .... and that's just what I did (blank and call for deletion. It's really just that simple. KoshVorlon  Naluboutes AeriaGloris 17:38, 13 June 2011 (UTC)  KoshVorlon  Naluboutes AeriaGloris 17:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Four arbs have accepted it and two have declined; can you at least credit me with the ability to count? With 16 active and two recusals, that means only three more accepts will see it accepted (assuming no further opposes). And—as you've been told on countless occasions—can you please get your head around the concept that an article about a legal threat is not itself a legal threat, and an article about a libel is not itself a libel? – iridescent  17:34, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK for London Necropolis Railway
Materialscientist (talk) 12:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Great article! I enjoyed reading it. --Coemgenus 16:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! It's necessarily dull in places (there's no way to make fare structures or railway junction design interesting), but I think it's an interesting story on a topic most people are only vaguely aware of. – iridescent  17:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

...
Cranky much? (seeing above comment) :) -- Avanu (talk) 15:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I am heartily sick of people who treat something which has a real and sometimes devastating impact on real people's lives like some kind of videogame, of people who think disrupting other peoples' work is justified because they think causing trivial drama is somehow cool, and of people who think their own personal prejudices are divine right but anyone else's opinions are just What The Man Wants You To Think and they're striking a blow for freedom by ignoring them, in roughly equal measure. Finding this steaming heap waiting for me, containing liberal doses of all three, is not my idea of fun; finding something similar plus a couple of hundred emails every time one turns the computer on, less so. This particular user has a very long history of disruption-for-disruption's-sake, and my AGF level as regards him is squarely at zero. – iridescent  16:09, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

In The Times today
Times 2 Quiz, question 4: "Daniel Lambert (1770–1809) was famous for what reason?" Thought you might be interested as to how far interest in that article has spread (working on the not-unreasonable assumption that no-one would have asked that question before you rewrote the article and took it through FAC to TFA). Wikipedia strikes again! Regards, BencherliteTalk 16:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's possible that it's unrelated to the article. He's still a local celebrity in Leicester, which has something of a cottage-industry in Lambert-related tat, plus he turns up in a lot of 19th century books (Nicholas Nickelby, Vanity Fair etc). What I find more interesting regarding that series is how much of an impact my Tarrare article—which has a reasonable claim to be the most obscure article on Wikipedia—has had; it gets quoted in the unlikeliest places. (Did you ever see that dinosaur?) Interestingly, this page on the Campus Crusade for Christ website seems to be one of the few that's understood my thinking in writing the "18th century compulsive eaters" series; to me, their story isn't a pitying "hey, look at these guys who ate too much", but an inspirational one in that these were people with serious physical and/or mental illnesses (the jury is still out in all their cases) who nonetheless managed to carve out niches for themselves in a particularly unpleasant wartime society. – iridescent  17:09, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

A1 road (London)
Hi. I wondered if you might be interested in this: Talk:A1 road (London). I do have this horrible feeling that you'll think I'm an idiot, but I thought it was a bit churlish to raise it without mentioning it to you. Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 12:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Concur with "Henlys" not "Henly's"; since the no-apostrophe version is what TfL use and they're responsible for the signs, whatever they use is "correct" regardless of grammar. – iridescent  15:49, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, great, thanks! Best wishes DBaK (talk) 16:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Comments on DRV
On the Drv you wrote: ''*Endorse. KoshVorlon, will you quit forum shopping? By my estimation this is your seventh attempt to get this page deleted this month. Wikipedia's deletion process isn't shoot-till-you-win, and your constant refusal to admit that other people disagree with you is well over the line into disruption. – iridescent  14:25, 21 June 2011 (UTC)'' Please comment on content, not contributors. Read WP:CIVIL, WP:NOTVANDAL and the policy on Deletion, DRV isn't forum shopping, it's part of the policy on deletions. KoshVorlon Naluboutes ''AeriaGloris 15:21, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * No; when a contributor is intentionally being disruptive because on six separate occasions there was an overwhelming consensus against them (a consensus that included Jimmy Wales, most of Arbcom and dozens of long term users on one side, and you on the other) we comment on the contributor. Wikipedia is not your personal vanity project, and we're not going to change some of our core policies just because you don't like an article. – iridescent  15:32, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Following policy is not being disruptive. Comment on content not contributor is very march part of civility and has to be followed.

KoshVorlon Naluboutes ''AeriaGloris 16:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * This has gone on long enough, and you're ignoring the long line of people who've warned you about your behaviour. I'll post this on your talkpage as well, but I'll also post here for the record since I suspect you'll blank the talkpage warning.


 * You are repeatedly disrupting Wikipedia process, refusing to abide by the results of an RFC, and refusing to engage in discussion on the topic. If you blank, significantly reduce in content, or nominate for deletion any article, page or template relating to Rick Santorum or Dan Savage you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. If you have genuine concerns that you don't feel have adequately been addressed, raise them on the article or template's talkpage; this is one of the most watched articles on Wikipedia, and if you are unable to persuade even one of the people watching the page that your argument has merit, it very likely does not. – iridescent  16:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Again, I am following policy not disrupting it.  Please strike your threat from my page.

KoshVorlon Naluboutes ''AeriaGloris 16:57, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Final post, and after this I'm not going to reply to you any further. There are 179 people currently watching that page. Of those, 178—even the ones who are in favour of this article's deletion or substantial reduction—do not agree with you. If your arguments have merit, all you need to to is persuade one of them to nominate it for deletion. If you're unable to do so, stop and consider why. – iridescent  17:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Wickenby
Hi,I am just letting you know that I have created Wickenby, one of the things on your to-do list. Wigginton (talk) 15:27, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Please check your email
urgently. &mdash; Coren (talk) 18:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

FYI - ANI
Hi, please see a thread in which you are discussed, Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents - thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 22:15, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Off2riorob, thanks for taking care of the notification on behalf of the original poster. I've posted some comments in the thread. With everything else that is going on, I do not think Iridescent should worry much about this particular ANI thread at this time. If he wants to respond to Silver seren's concern at some later date, that's up to him. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

RfC/U: Cirt
Dear Iridescent, further to the recent Political activism request for arbitration and various arbitrators' comments at that request to the effect that there had not been to date an RfC/U on Cirt, please see Requests for comment/Cirt. Best, -- J N  466  13:23, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Any Comment?
Hey Iri, do you have any comment about what's going on over here? Sure looks like you're being thown under the bus by arbcom, but I have my doubts. What's going on? Tex (talk) 14:10, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Tex, excuse me for butting in here. We're hoping, too, that Iridescent will be in a position to post in the near future; however, xe may be quite busy ensuring that there are no other personal security breaches that need to be addressed urgently. Without minimizing the impact of this event to the Arbitration Committee or the general Wikipedia community, the impact on Iridescent as an individual is proportionally more severe. Just as intelligent, careful people can find themselves spending hours and even days mitigating the damage if they have their wallets stolen, the same is true when one's online identity is compromised in some way. Iridescent has been able to contact us in the immediate aftermath through alternative verifiable means, and we expect to hear further information in the near future that will help us to verify the extent of the account compromise. Risker (talk) 16:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Understood. Thanks, Risker.  Tex (talk) 19:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

So, it now appears that it wasn't your e-mail that was hacked. Seems strange that you still haven't commented at all, though. The longer you are MIA, the more the natives are going to believe you were the leak. You weren't the leak, were you? Tex (talk) 18:30, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not a technical expert, so I can't comment on the e-mail headers that led someone to conclude that a hack was made through Iridescent's account, but my understanding is that this evidence is no longer considered probative. As for any suggestion that Iridescent has leaked the arbcom archives intentionally, I am confident that there is no possibility whatsoever that this is the case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Anyone who wants to believe that I was responsible for this, will believe it regardless of what I do or say. I am not an expert in email tracking, so can't comment either way on the validity of the claims that the emails came from my account. (The account has been retired as a precautionary measure, although as I understand it the evidence has now turned out to be fake.) Given that I know first-hand how annoying it is to be accused of involvement on the basis of (apparently) inaccurate evidence, I'm certainly not going to join in any speculation as to the identity of those involved, unless and until evidence is found. – iridescent  09:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Hope to see you back online soon..
I understand you're offline for a bit longer, but I'm hopeful that we'll have ya back with us soon, we need ya around :) SirFozzie (talk) 23:19, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Strongly seconded. I miss your article work and your arbitrating and even your calling me various names. I understand that you must have other priorities right now, but I hope to be working with you again soon. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Chin up old thing. I noticed this latest drama-fest and wandered over to WR to see what all the fuss is about. A shade embarrassing for those involved perhaps, but it (the whole site) is all rather dreary really. Hope you make it back soon. Ben   Mac  Dui  17:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

July Metro
Simply south...... digging mountains for 5 years 21:49, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations on being CheckUsered (again)
Too soon?

It looks like (nearly? *) the whole Arb family got CheckUsered. If there's one group I'd count on to be my Clouseau, it'd be Wikimedia. The Head of Reader Relations is going to figure out if we've had an Emergency Level IX subsection B breach, using every tool in his belt. Go to red! #thisisnotatest

I see you're back editing. I'm glad. :-)

* (I don't actually have any idea how many people are on ArbCom at this point. Until about a week ago, I thought Carcharoth was still serving. It turns out he left in December 2010.)

MZMcBride (talk) 05:49, 11 July 2011 (UTC) 

Featured Article promotion

 * Yeah, so don't be so lazy in future Iridescent. ;-) Malleus Fatuorum 18:31, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Face-blush.svg|25px]] I'm... also not very knowledgeable about who is already doing more than their part in reviews. – Quadell (talk) 18:40, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm sure there are lots of editors who would take great pleasure in sharing with you a list of those whom they believe to be members of the mysterious FAC cabal. But then I'm just pissed off that nobody's ever asked me to join. Malleus Fatuorum 18:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll send you the SuperSekrit password immediately ... hold your breath! Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 19:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * ... turning blue now ... starting to feel very faint ... Malleus Fatuorum 19:10, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * (ec) Hey wait! Where's MY SuperSekritPasswordOfDoom??? (I'll do anything to avoid actually doing work today .. with the heat indices around 111 degrees F (43.8 degrees C, says my converter) I'm not in the mood to even get out of my basement... Ealdgyth - Talk 19:12, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * We've had a rather pleasant 22 degrees C here today, going down to a rather comfortable 16 degrees later this evening. Our weather is rather strange though. I know you won't believe this Ealdgyth, but a tornado tore through a housing estate about 10 miles from here last week. In fact I think we have more tornados than any other place on Earth, but they're obviously not of the same strength as the ones that rip though the US. Some years ago I was sitting in the upstairs bar of a sailing club I belonged to when one hit the boat park. Seeing the dinghies lifted up into the air and tossed aside was just awesome. Malleus Fatuorum 19:29, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Image source problem with File:Haringey wards with Noel Park highlighted.jpg
Thank you for uploading File:Haringey wards with Noel Park highlighted.jpg.

This image is a derivative work, containing an "image within an image". Examples of such images would include a photograph of a sculpture, a scan of a magazine cover, or a screenshot of a computer game or movie. In each of these cases, the rights of the creator of the original image must be considered, as well as those of the creator of the derivative work.

While the description page states who made this derivative work, it currently doesn't specify who created the original work, so the overall copyright status is unclear. If you did not create the original work depicted in this image, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright.

If you have uploaded other derivative works, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have created [ in your upload log]. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 18:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC). If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't be ridiculous. Borders are a geographic fact, not a work of original creation, and it's established beyond any doubt that it's impossible to copyright a geographic fact. – iridescent  18:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Have you walked away from your Chesham branch FAC?
Your last posting to the FAC page was a week ago. Did I waste my time doing a full review and leaving copious comments? Brianboulton (talk) 13:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you drop me a line
Someone has raised concerns over the Brookwood cemetery articles & related. Apparently they have a no photography clause and I was just wanting to clarify a few things r.e. the images. Any chance you could drop me an email - this involves an OTRS request so I can't go into too much detail here :) tom@errant.me.uk - if you have chance. --Errant (chat!) 15:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

August Metro
Simply south...... unintentionally mispelling fr 5 years So much for ER 17:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

A1 road (London) is going through a GAR
Details here: Talk:A1 road (London)/GA2.  SilkTork   ✔Tea time  00:44, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Credit where credit is due? And show it? (LNC)
[Note: Identical comment also placed on discussion page of London Necropolis Company WP article]

A fascinating article, probably a bit too detailed for a truly encyclopaedic WP contribution, but ticks all the right WP style and format boxes. Good example for anybody writing a WP (historical) article and justly given Featured Article status.

But, I wonder, I just wonder: in a 99,000 bytes article (say, 25 pages normal text in word) there are some 320 cites to only two books from one author. There are ten cites to one page from Clarke 2004 alone. Credit where credit is due: if WP used the Harvard style of citations, the name Clarke would be mentioned 320 times in the body of the text. As WP prefers the numbered Vancouver style, Clarke is only mentioned twice (in the bibliography). To address this imbalance gently I will add the source (and mention Clarke’s name) in two of the illustrations, which are based on maps from the two Clarke books. It creates inconsistencies in the citation style but that’s in my view a small price to pay for making the originator of most of the material in this splendid WP article slightly more visible. Sleuth21 (talk) 08:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Tempest
Back in 2008, you deleted a page on a Christian rock band called Tempest, due to "Article about a band without assertion of notability". I am preparing to re-create a page on the band, but am including multiple references, sources, etc. that will hopefully address your original concerns from 2 1/2 years ago. I'm still putting together album data, etc., but will hopefully release it soon. Per the directions on the page, I am contacting you, both to let you know about the new page, but also to invite comments on the page I've created and suggestions for improvements. Thanks! 5minutes (talk) 12:32, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Regrettably, Iridescent isn't active on Wikipedia at present. I am afraid you will have to request this input elsewhere. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:53, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

SPI help
Hi, I'm writing this because the SPI page's content defending yourself suggests talking to an Arbitrator for help. The Falkland Islands talk page is out of control due to a group of editors whose failure to discuss and [WP:AGF] has apparently pushed several users completely out of the discussion or into anonymous IPs. I am suspected of being one of them and User  Night w   started an SPI investigation against me. Clerk has declined CI request and yet this SPI remains opens, although nothing has been posted for three days.

Meanwhile, discussion at the page with end to make changes continues to be blocked, with all changes reverted. A [WP:ANI] request went nowhere because it was suspected to be from a sockpuppet. A previous WP:ANI incident went nowhere. I've also taken this to WP:WQA where an admin said a resolution there is not likely. On the issue of sources, WP:RSN goes nowhere either. The article has been to WP:MEDCAB a few years ago with no resolution then. And it's been to ARBCOM where it was declined in favor of RfC and lower forums. Always the same users, always the same antics.

It doesn't look like outside editors are responding to WP:RFC requests and no forum wants to touch this, everyone treats it like a hot potatoe. Personal attacks, violations of WP:AGF, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:GAMES, WP:IRS, etc all continue. Agreeing with another editor becomes WP:BEANS. Notifying editors of proceedings becomes WP:CANVASS, but if a notification is delayed they'll accuse you of not following procedure. This article needs admin involvement immediately and I and other editors who are screaming for it can't get it. In the meantime the ongoing and apparently stalled SPI against me seems to cast doubt on any dispute resolution measure.

Please help. Thank you.Alex79818 (talk) 15:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, Iridescent is not active on Wikipedia right now. If you need to pursue this issue, you will have to request assistance from someone else. Just letting you know. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost interview

 * Reminder: This interview will be published this coming Monday. Your input is appreciated. – SMasters (talk) 04:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Giving credit
Just giving credit where credit is due. Toddst1 (talk) 04:28, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

September Metro
Simply south...... eating shoes for 5 years So much for ER 07:48, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

sockpuppet editing
There is an open WP:SPI case looking at sockpuppet editing primarily on the Johann Hari/ Talk page. As you edited the Johann Hari/Talk page between 2004 and 2011, your input is welcomed. Yonmei (talk) 22:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
-- Red rose64 (talk) 21:13, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Pig-faced women
I have nominated the article Pig-faced women, to which you are the primary contributor, to to be featured on the main page this month. Since you haven't been active for a while I don't know if you'll get this message, but if you do, please feel free to respond. Difluoroethene (talk) 05:10, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there ever going to be an explanation?
Is there ever going to be an explanation of what happened here? Why my discussion with Iridescent was the first to be leaked, and why Iridescent has subsequently disappeared? Malleus Fatuorum 17:45, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Malleus. I don't know whether we will ever get a satisfactory answer to your first question. However, Iridescent has periodically communicated with members of the committee, and the absence is due to non-Wikipedia factors; I understand this has happened from time to time in the past, and the two situations are not related. Risker (talk) 18:37, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Seconding and confirming Risker's response. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:56, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thirded. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:13, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The timing seems a little odd. Coincidence? Malleus Fatuorum 22:24, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Neither I nor, to the best of my knowledge, any of the rest of us (i.e., the currently active arbitrators) have any further information that would be relevant to your questions. I frankly don't understand either what (if anything) you are suggesting or insinuating, nor what more you want of us at this point. I understand that you are upset about what occurred a couple of months ago&mdash;so are we, and that is an understatement&mdash;but it would probably be best to drop the matter at this point, at least unless and until any new information were to come to someone's attention. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:47, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm insinuating that I don't believe in coincidences. Nothing more, nothing less. Malleus Fatuorum 23:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * If you're insinuating that I'm responsible for the Arbcom and Checkuser leaks, you're down the wrong path; I can assure you I'd find something more interesting to leak were I the leaker, and any number of people can confirm that I never even had access to the Checkuser list in question. I'm not sunning myself with YellowMonkey and LaraLove on the Island of Lost Users; my "disappearance" is for entirely uninteresting real-life reasons. (My occasional bursts of no or minimal activity have happened as long as I've been on Wikipedia; you can see a neatly arranged activity-chart here should you care.) The only, very weak, link between my recent inactivity and the assorted on-wiki crap in July is that the prospect of endless conversations like this one any time I do anything is a disincentive to waste what little spare time I have on a visit to interminable arguments about spaced em-dashes and the definition of original research. – iridescent  17:18, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not insinuating anything about you, simply expressing my suspicion that the whole truth about this episode has not yet been told. Malleus Fatuorum 18:40, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The whole truth can't be told, but it's not for lack of trying by involved parties, and certainly not out of spite, malice, or obstruction. Nothing is being hidden. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 14:36, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Nah, Malleus; my 0.000002 cent hunch: unless Iridescent has managed some IQ-shrinking---Iridescent is not mr Malice.
 * And of course the whole truth has not yet been told. And I´m not sure it ever will be. And who cares (if you are a dog)? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:37, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not a dog, and I have never suggested that Iridescent was responsible for the leak. Malleus Fatuorum 21:41, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not a dog, but I do own a couple and like them I am a bit of a terrier, have a very keen nose and seldom give up. I too have been wondering when this infortunate matter was going to be properly explained by the Arbcom - I suppose election time (which must be almost upon us) is the time to mention it again. Speaking of Arbs - who are they these days? Since the last election, they seem to come and go rather like badly timetabled busses. Giacomo Returned 21:58, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm more of a cat person myself. The next ArbCom elections may indeed be interesting. Malleus Fatuorum 22:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh la la. I am sooooo sorry if I insinuated  that any WP-editor is a dog.  I tried to indicate that it is your contributions  that counts, not your DNA, canine or humanoid. And that also holds for mr.Malice. And I somewhat disagree with you,  when you say that you "never suggested that Iridescent was responsible for the leak". Technically; that might be true. (Just like, a-hem, technically, I have never accused you of suggesting  that). But you just raising the question here...what does that imply? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The implication is surely obvious; the truth has not yet been told. Malleus Fatuorum 22:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope; it is more than that: you raising the question on this talk-page  implies that Iridescent could tell that Truth™.  Which I am not sure about. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 23:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you need to revisit your copy of Teach Yourself Logic. The reason I posted here was that the conversation between Iridescent and myself was the first to be leaked, and I still wonder why that was. And I have no doubt that someone here on Wikipedia knows, but they're not telling. Malleus Fatuorum 23:31, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * PS: (lots of edit-conflicts here.) And I´m a serious cat-lover myself. Huldra (talk) 22:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Teach Yourself Logic  was not part of my Examen philosophicum -curiculum (which a took a life-time-ago, anyway.) Something local British? We only use the Arne Næss-books. Anyway; I am perfectly aware that the conversation between Iridescent and yourself was the first to be leaked; BUT: if Iridescent was the leaker: do you really think they would be pointing the finger -first- at you two?  I would rather guess:
 * 1: chance ...or
 * 2: someone really does not like either you, or Iridescent (Could happen, you know, when you edit in conflict-filled areas. (Gosh:I miss the Emoticons from that other unmentionable place! )
 * That someone here (Here = Wikipedia-user) knows and is not telling: whaw! That is the most shocking news I have heard since someone told me that the world was round, and not flat! Cheers, Huldra (talk) 00:18, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The world isn't round, it's an oblate spheroid. You ought not to believe everything you hear. Malleus Fatuorum 00:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Lol! I deserved that! (Hope we can agree that it is not flat). Anyway: Sorry if I sounded "bitchty"; seriously: I did not mean to. But try to see the difference between a mosquito and an elephant, as we say in my part of the world. And that your conversation with Iridescentis was the first to be leaked: it is still a mosquito, the way I see it, Cheers, and good-night, Huldra (talk) 00:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't like cats because of the way they claw and scratch furniture and stick their bottoms in people's faces - and they don't seem to like me much either - in fact, they remind me of quite a few wiki editors. If we don't get at least a partial explanation there's not going to be a lot of trust about at the next election is there? I suspect that's when people will airing their hunches and showing some feline traits. Giacomo Returned 22:14, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I love cats because they're much like me, their own men and women, not subjugated like dogs. The next election will indeed be interesting(ish). Malleus Fatuorum 22:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I certainly can't speak for Iridescent, but I believe that when he last posted to this page, he suggested that when he has an occasional moment to look in on Wikipedia, it's a bit disconcerting for him to be greeted with this kind of discussion. Might it possibly be better to take this somewhere else? Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps. But let's not forget that Iridescent has done nothing promised at his election, and has been largely absent since you know what. I would like to see a plausible explanation. Here. Malleus Fatuorum 01:40, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I make no comement on Iridescent - I don't know him/her, but I am wiki-familiar with several of the other Arbs - including you Brad! So I know wherever it is taken we will get no answers at all - especially from you - we will have waffle, pleas for patience and general "go away unimportant person and don't bother your little head about this - shows over" well I have news for you Brad - the show has barely begun and patience is exhausted. You surely did not imagine that people like Malleus and I would just let the matter drop unanswered? Giacomo Returned 07:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * (@Malleus) The promises I made at the elections are here. I'd argue that on the core points (dilution of the power of the arb/admin dual oligarchy; enhanced status for proven contributors without giving a blank check for vested contributors to bully other users; an end to the use of block logs as badges of shame; serious consideration as to what the structure of a Wikipedia 2.0 will be), I've done as much as anyone can be expected to do when outnumbered 14-1. Brad & co can testify as to how hard I pushed for the dismantling of the existing setup and its replacement by a series of subcommittees under a congress of delegates from Wikipedia's various factions, vaguely modelled on Hong Kong's LegCo (a real-world solution to a similar problem—how to reconcile aspiration, social mobility and guarantees of independence on the one hand, with nominal absolute dictatorship on the other). They can also confirm just how repetitive my constant "I think we should unblock xxxxx" was, and that I was pushing for a restructuring of block logs to be listed on the blocker, not the blockee's, log. (Although I originally wanted bad blocks deleted from the log altogether, I've been persuaded that this would make it too easy for bad admins to hide the evidence of their incompetence.) Even if you include Elen, the "tear it down and rebuild something better" faction is a minority of two on Arbcom—I'm not sure what more you expected from us. (If the pair of us hadn't run, you'd have had Sandstein and Georgewilliamherbert, and I'm not convinced they'd have been any more to your and Giano's taste.) – iridescent  08:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think you'll find that PhilKnight has also articulated some fairly significant proposals for change as well, see RfC Committee and ArbCom reform. To be honest, my greatest issues with most of these proposals is that they are predicated on the notion that there are sufficient competent and interested members of the community to make some of these proposals work effectively. That, and the history of the knee-jerk rejection of any proposals even vaguely related to governance that come from ArbCom or its members. There's also an ongoing discussion over at Village pump (proposals) that some may find interesting.  I can confirm that Iridescent has been amongst the more liberal arbitrators in recommending unblocks of contributors, and making proposals for alternative structures. (The block log thing doesn't sount familiar, but I won't dispute it. I'll just point out that every block made by an admin shows up in their activity logs as well, and I'm not sure what the point would be in not having a log of blocks on the blockee.) Even those of us perceived as more, umm, traditional have done some of the heavy lifting in trying to move things back into the community: CheckUser and Oversight are largely managed by community members, the community members are the main drivers on the AUSC, and the majority of decisions made by the committee include a discretionary sanctions clause that essentially devolves authority and responsibility for managing problem areas to the community. I think there's more that needs to be done, but it might not be something that comes from Arbcom, rather some ideas that come from the community that Arbcom (or its individual members) can leap in to support. Risker (talk) 14:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * But Risker, we are not discussing Iridescent's contributions to the Arbcom, we are discussing the arbcom leaks; a matter never properly explained - so can we please stay on subject. I well remember the intimidation I had via email etc from the Arbcom and that Sur Largo person when they stupidly thought I had breached their sacred wiki (even though it was me who told them it was at risk) There are only 3 people it could have been and one of those is highly unlikely - so could we please be told "who dunnit"? Or is there one law for naughty Arbs and another for the rest of us and please don't say you don't know because I think that would be a porkie. Giacomo Returned 18:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I read Iridescent's post this morning and was planning to come here to discuss some of it, but I see that Risker has anticipated several of the comments I was going to make. In particular, I agree there is a perception shared by many that to the extent "governance reform" (cynics might say "governance creation") on En-WP is desirable, it is not at all clear that ArbCom should take a leading role in bringing it about. Rightly or wrongly, it will be perceived that the arbitrators must have some hidden agenda of solidifying their power or controlling the evolution of the project, even though in reality was have no such intent.

(Frankly, as a general statement, a lot of people overemphasize the importance of the Arbitration Committee. The number of cases we now resolve each year is about a sixth of what it used to be, and for better or worse, a lot of what would formerly have been ArbCom's workload is now being handled by admins or by the self-selected portion of the community that watchlists AN and ANI. But that's probably a different discussion.)

I can confirm the accuracy of everything Iridescent has said about his work as arbitrator: he did push for governance reform (a conversation that was starting to get underway internally when we were sidetracked by the hacks/leaks), and he did suggest that we respond to various appeals by banned users by unblocking them and seeing what happened (I agreed sometimes and disagreed sometimes). Iridescent's contributions to the Committee during his admittedly limited periods of activity so far were sound. I came to value his posts to the arbitration pages and on the mailing list&mdash;assuredly more than he probably valued mine&mdash;and I do hope his circumstances allow him to return to arbitrating soon, though that of course is for him to tell us.

To Giano's points, I don't have the slightest idea who was responsible for the hacks or leaks that we saw this summer, nor do I have reason to believe that any of the other arbitrators knows who it was. I have said this before, and I don't know how to say it more clearly. If you or anyone else choose not to believe me there is nothing more I can do, but after my five years of activity on this project, I would like to think that I have earned the right to have my statements of fact accepted as true. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:12, 6 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The importance of the committee is as a symbol. If there's one thing the leaks ought to have made clear, it's how little authority Arbcom actually wields. (By the time most things reach the Arbcom level, it's generally pretty clear what community consensus is, and Arbcom generally just decides how it should be enforced.) The main reason I think a single central committee should be done away with is the signal it sends; my model would be to start with an independent committee with the power to impose binding solutions to RFCs (to separate the judge, jury and executioner roles); if that fizzled then no harm done, and if it took off it would be a step away from the overcentralized current setup. Before the leaks sidetracked everything, this proposal was fairly close to getting grudging acceptance.


 * Regarding the leaker, I have a suspicion who it was, but no more than that. In the absence of evidence, I'm not going to start throwing accusations around publicly; having been the victim of dubious evidence in this case myself, I certainly don't want to put someone else through the same. To be absolutely clear, I do not believe it was a current member of the committee. – iridescent  12:09, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Richard D'Oyly Carte
As a former commentator on some of the G&S-related articles, I thought you might like to weigh in on the current discussion about infoboxes at this page. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:57, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably better I don't in this case—I've had no input on this particular article, and there's not much more irritating than someone parachuting in out of nowhere and haranguing people who've actually devoted a lot of time to something about where they've been going wrong. My feeling on infoboxes is no secret; they have a useful role on articles that form part of a series (battles, villages, albums etc) but when it comes to biographies, unless the article is very statistic-heavy (athletes and so on) they have no purpose, make the page look cluttered and distract the viewer from the images and text. I see you have Giano and Blofeld on that talkpage, who will make the argument more passionately than I ever could. – iridescent  12:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Main page appearance: Waddesdon Road railway station
This is a note to let the main editors of Waddesdon Road railway station know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on October 9, 2011. You can view the TFA blurb at Today's featured article/October 9, 2011. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director or his delegate, or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions at Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:

Waddesdon Road railway station was a small halt in open countryside in Buckinghamshire, England. It was opened in 1871 as part of a short horse-drawn tramway to assist with the transport of goods from and around the Duke of Buckingham's extensive estates in Buckinghamshire and to connect the Duke's estates to the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway at Quainton Road. In 1872 the line was expanded and converted for passenger use, becoming known as the Brill Tramway. In 1899 the operation of the line was taken over by the London-based Metropolitan Railway. In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was taken into public ownership to become the Metropolitan Line of the London Underground, and despite its rural setting Waddesdon Road station became a part of the London Transport system. The new management could not see a future for the line as a financially viable passenger route, and Waddesdon Road, along with the rest of the former Brill Tramway, was closed in late 1935. (more...) UcuchaBot (talk) 00:02, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Help
Hi.Please help me.Please tell me What I must do? I am new comer to wikipedia.I delete some mistakes and lies about Azerbaijan and Iran.But these two users User:Xooon and User:Alborz Fallah were plotting against me Sockpuppet investigations/Orartu to continue their lying about Iran and Azerbaijan.For example:When there is no valid source about Azerbaijani ancestry of a person, they insist to put them in category:Iranian people of Azerbaijani descent.This user User:Ebrahimi-amir and me are different users.But this user User:Xooon wants to intend we are same.They want to violate the neutrality of wikipedia.They want the deletion of this articleAzerbaijani Genocide in Iran too.Please help me.In advance thanks a lot for your helpsOrartu (talk) 18:21, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

November Metro
Simply south...... "time, department skies" for 5 years 01:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Analysis on quality
See here: PowerPoint: Wikipedia's poor treatment of its most important articles

There is a section on one of your articles (mostly negative). Just being straight and telling you.69.255.27.249 (talk) 17:02, 23 November 2011 (UTC)


 * According to that, I'm a Battleship editor. I'm guessing that's heavily influenced by Gunpowder Plot related articles.  Poor Malleus is relegated to a Star Collector, lol.  Nev1 is a dabbler - around Manchester that probably isn't something you'd call anyone! Parrot of Doom 17:29, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been called worse. I don't give much credence to that vital article list beyond the obvious such as planets and elements anyway, and some I think are bizarre choices that could never amount to spit. But after checking the figures I see that Cottingley fairies got 19,055 hits last month, Peterloo Massacre got 17,045, Donner Party got 84,188, and even the Green children of Woolpit got 3,988 views,, all well above the 3,000 hits per month criterion chosen, so I don't feel too shabby. Malleus Fatuorum 20:10, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I do (sniffle) Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:17, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Classifies me as a star collector, but he couldn't even get my name right! (page 64).--DavidCane (talk) 23:13, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably a good job the authors didn't look at the page views of my most recent GA or they would have had a fit... Alzarian16 (talk) 01:33, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I am probably missing a point here? Is it not incredibly hard to write an FA on a high profile subject simply because gaining consensus is exponentially harder than it is on an obscure subject? --Senra (Talk) 01:40, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I think it's someone else who misses that point; it reads like a "Manic Manifesto" from someone who pounded out a pseudoanalysis based on faulty assumptions, and who regularly asks to be blocked, to vanish, then comes back, posts as an IP, posts as a Vanished user, reinstates his account, uninstates his account, and so it goes ... Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:05, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep the mudslinging to a minimum Sandy. We all know how defensive you are about FA, no need to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-establish the fact. Res Mar 04:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Aren't you up a bit late? Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 04:35, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It was around 12, yes. What does that have to do with anything? Res Mar 22:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Vanity Publication??
Can I come back to the ppt presentation mentioned above PowerPoint: Wikipedia's poor treatment of its most important articles ? It deals with the character of some WP 'featured articles'. Iridescent has published a few, e.g. the London Necropolis Company (LNC) one. It’s excellent, but I wonder, after studying its content, form and genesis carefullly:

The article has been created essentially by only one editor and is a ‘featured article’. Typically, Wikipedia articles are (should be?) the result of collective efforts, but this article was put on WP 'in one go' (on 10 June 2011) and there are only few subsequent 'collective' edits. As mentioned above, this article complies (on a very high standard) with WP style editing policies but is much too detailed to qualify as an 'encyclopedic' contribution. It also violates the spirit of copyright restrictions and ‘close paraphrasing’ rules. Some of the main editor’s paraphrasing falsifies careful scholarly statements in the two main sources (by John Clarke). This and similar major WP articles seem to use WP as a vanity press publisher. (I have placed a corresponding general comment on the vanity press site and on the LNC article’s talk page.) Sleuth21 (talk) 11:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Most Featured Articles on obscure topics are created by one person, with minor contributions from other editors. For instance, I'm almost single-handedly responsible for this article.  As it's very unlikely I could ever have got anyone else interested enough to purchase source material, should I not have bothered? Parrot of Doom 12:19, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the quick reply: I would say ‘No’ and I am glad you bothered with this interesting article (Harris's list). Strictly speaking, using my own improvised definition, it could still be called a vanity press publication but it differs in several substantial aspects from e.g. the London Necropolis Company article:


 * It was developed over several weeks in full view of the Wikipedia community and grew gradually from some 4,000 to 36,000 bytes and wasn’t dropped on the WP public in ‘one go’.
 * It cites a wider range of sources and no single source constitutes (my eye-balling impression) more than 40% of the references.
 * Only one or two pages from your sources are cited more than once. The LNC article ‘cannibalises’ (cites from) individual pages up to ten times, i.e. drops nearly the whole page only slightly, sometimes misleadingly, paraphrased into the WP article.
 * The subject matter of your article is of interest to a wider audience (ahem) and not just (in the case of the LNC article) railway buffs.
 * So yes, still vanity, but acceptable in the circumstances! Sleuth21 (talk) 15:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Most articles that are posted in one go have been developed by the author in a user space sandbox. There are a number of reasons why author's choose to fully develop articles before posting them:
 * The author wants to do a proper job of completing the article rather than post a partial or incomplete product
 * They are complex and need a lot of development time, but can be worked on at the author's own pace without a sense of pressure to complete
 * It is easier to handle referencing and formatting when it is done in one go rather than bit by bit
 * It avoids "help" from other users and bots putting in citation required type templates on partially done articles
 * The author may be developing a number of related articles in parallel and wants to coordinate their development
 * There is a greater sense of achievement and flourish in the publication of a completely new article than one that has been developed bit by bit over a period of time in main space (even if has been developed by the same user)
 * The LNC article is heavily cited, but citing from individual pages is the usual way to do this. Where multiple pieces of information are being referenced in multiple places, each use should be cited. The density of citations is often part of a user's style, but under referencing is more likely to be criticised in GA and FAC reviews than over referencing.
 * As to whether Iridescent or other users use Wikipedia as a vanity press; that really asks a question as to motivation. Why do any of us spend time researching and posting content here? There is a sense of sharing of our knowledge and in a collaborative process (particularly within a field of interest), but, like most things in life, a bit of recognition is always welcome. Wikipedia is hardly the ideal vanity publishing medium though - unlike a blog, it is relatively hard to learn all of the MOS rules and the formatting tools to present a page in an attractive way and nothing is truly permanent because other users can edit the "masterpiece". The amount of effort to get an article through the FAC process is also considerable. Wikipedia is also essentially anonymous - editors are not identified on the article (only in the history) and most users post pseudonymously. If vanity were the only reason to publish here, it hardly seems worth it. --DavidCane (talk) 22:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I have thanked DavidCane for and commented on his thoughtful note above on the Vanity Press talk page. Sleuth21 (talk) 20:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Is it reasonable to ask Sleuth21 to reveal him/her-self and to explain why there is a need to hide their identity? What gives Sleuth21, indeed anyone, the right to ask searching questions of any editor without fairly letting such editors know who they are dealing with. If I did this, I would be blocked. I am getting sick and tired of this continual charade to be frank --Senra (Talk) 23:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Senra, your question is reasonable, but which WP misdemeanour did I commit which would get you blocked? - I have always signed my edits with my user name since I registered it with WP. Before that (going back to ca. 2003) I posted anonymously but often mentioned both my real name and my e-mail en clair in the body of the edit. - There are serious concerns about at least two of Iridescent's FAs. They have been taken up by a WP admin editor (I believe to no avail) and with WP's head office. - If I think it appropriate I will further discuss this matter on my talk page. Sleuth21 (talk) 20:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It is well-known that Iridescent has been away from Wikipedia for some time and is inactive at the moment, so I don't see much point to having this conversation. Please stop. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:42, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * A good suggestion, Brad. If Iridescent doesn't want to comment here (his last WP activity dates from 06.10.2011), he will have his reasons. Further comments may appear on my talk page, or elsewhere, as appropriate, not here. Sleuth21 (talk) 20:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Question about arbcom
Why aren't you staying on ArbCom? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Griefer ladness (talk • contribs) 02:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Main page appearance: Norwich Market
This is a note to let the main editors of Norwich Market know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on December 10, 2011. You can view the TFA blurb at Today's featured article/December 10, 2011. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director or his delegate, or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions at Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:



Norwich Market is an outdoor market consisting of around 200 stalls in central Norwich, England. Founded in the latter part of the 11th century to supply Norman merchants and settlers moving to the area following the Norman conquest of England, it replaced an earlier market a short distance away. It has been in operation on the present site for over 900 years. By the 14th century, Norwich was one of the largest and most prosperous cities in England, and Norwich Market was a major trading hub. In the Georgian era, Norwich became an increasingly popular destination with travellers, and developed into a fashionable shopping town. Following the First World War, the local authority began to systematically buy up all the stalls on the market, eventually bringing the entire market into public ownership, and the market was radically redesigned in the 1930s. Stalls were arranged into parallel rows, and a new City Hall was built along the entire western side of the marketplace to replace the by now inadequate Guildhall. This new arrangement survived with few significant changes for the rest of the 20th century. By the 1990s the market was becoming decrepit, and proposals were made for another radical rebuilding of the area. These proposals were abandoned in favour of a scheme which replaced the old stalls with steel units of four stalls each. The rebuilt market was completed in early 2006, and is one of the largest markets in Britain. (more...) UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Season's tidings!
FWiW Bzuk (talk) 03:25, 25 December 2011 (UTC).

New Yaer Metro
Sorry its late and happy new year. Simply south...... having large explosions for 5 years 23:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

February Metro
Simply south...... having large explosions for 5 years 22:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I feel like a groupie
But I just met Iridescent. How cool is that? Well, maybe a bit less cool than that he met me, but you get the point. Malleus Fatuorum 21:18, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Makes two of us then Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:24, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Your name did come up in conversation. In a nice way, of course. And I believe I'm now in a position to reveal that Iridescent is either a male or a female. Malleus Fatuorum 21:41, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Beats driving dog-tired down the A1 :( Still, hearing Eddie Mitchell swearing live on 606 woke me up :) Parrot of Doom 23:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * There was a bloody tube strike in London when we met up...which made for interesting travel....Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I saw your post ..
... on the Civility AC talk page - great to see you back. I think what you wrote is absolutely fantastic, and well stated. I do hope the post was a consideration of returning to a more full time role here, as your wisdom could surely be appreciated by many. Either way, it was great to see you, and I hope all is well in your real life. — Ched : ?  16:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I have to say, we really could have used you on the Committee in this case. If nothing else, it might have been interesting to see whether I still would have been solo dissent on one or two things or whether I might at least have had company. Hope all is well. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * What NYB said. Jclemens (talk) 00:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't log in a lot, but I still read a lot. And you're still on my watchlist that I never check, Iri., but I checked today, and Ched's post intrigued me so I found what you wrote, and I found it to be rather brilliant. I didn't realize you'd disappeared for most of the winter. Good to see your input and be once again reminded of how remarkably clearly you are able to communicate within a difficult medium (the interwebs). So anyway, just saying. And back to IP I go. :-) Keeper  |  76  18:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not back; not only do I not have time, but the more I see of Wikipedia from the vantage point of a semi-detached observer, the more certain I am that the trends I was pointing out a couple of years ago—an obsession with strict compliance over common sense, the increasing domination of policy-wonks, an accelerating decline in the number of editors actually active in content work of any kind, entrenched US west coast and south-east English cultural bias, and simultaneous (and contradictory) unhealthy fixations on the concepts of "anyone can edit" to the point where respected users argue for the unblocking of some of Wikipedia's most disruptive nutjobs because "anyone can edit" and of "disruption warrants blocking" to the point where generally non-problematic users are either blocked from editing or hounded off the site owing to minor breaches of etiquette or personal grudges—have come to dominate the internal workings of Wikipedia to the point where it's becoming impossible to get anything done unless one's a member of one or another privileged clique who'll circle the wagons for you. (Ched, you might want to think long and hard about exactly why you're pushing so hard for the return of Rlevse—who in terms of "time and effort taken to clean up afterwards" is arguably the most disruptive user in Wikipedia's history, and who left such a mess that the cleanup effort is still incomplete 18 months later—but you're not arguing for the return of Ottava, Mattisse, Peter Damian, Kohs, Mbz1 and many more, all of whom were considerably more productive and certainly no more disruptive.)


 * As all four of you presumably know, I've believed for a long time that Wikipedia's internal systems have failed and that the most pressing action for Arbcom to take is to oversee its own dismantling and replacement with formal and separated structures for dispute resolution and policymaking. Watching the Civility Enforcement mess—where Arbcom ended up painting themselves into a corner in which they were forced to create policy post facto, and then the same people who created the policy had to rule on who had breached said policy despite the fact that it hadn't existed at the time—just drives home how dysfunctional the current system is. (Plus, despite the pseudo-legalese and the best efforts of three of the Arbs to be genuinely impartial, the current system is almost entirely personality driven. As Malleus can confirm, when the list of "arbitrators active on the case" was announced I correctly told him what the findings would be along with voting numbers, based purely on what I know of the interpersonal relationships of the current arbitrators; all the three months of discussion was just window-dressing to give the foregone conclusion some legitimacy. No system should work like this.) While I may make the very occasional reappearance, I don't really see the point in dedicating substantial time to a system which is willfully ripping itself apart.


 * @Brad—your comments here are thoughtful, but they're missing a very important point. The strict enforcement of "banned means banned" doesn't actually work; the reason it appears to work is that those admins who do enforce it are flat-track bullies. The two highest profile cases of banned users who made significant contributions using sock accounts and then saw those articles deleted thanks to the strict enforcement of WP:CSD both wrote in low-traffic areas, where the deletion of the articles had no particular impact on Wikipedia. If you (or anyone) genuinely believes that "edits made by banned users must be reverted and any page created by them should be deleted" (which is not what WP:Banning policy actually says), then head on over to Boeing 747 (most of which was written by Dereks1x socks post-ban), and remove everything added by socks. If you're willing to delete River of Renewal: Myth and History in the Klamath Basin but not to stubbify Boeing 747, you need to ask yourself why. – iridescent  14:02, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You did indeed predict the result spot on. As you say, the case was just three months of window dressing. Malleus Fatuorum 14:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily. Might have been an intimate understanding of the issues and then making an assumption that most sober eyes might see it the same way.....or maybe I'll just take off my rose-coloured glasses now. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * All that aside, I really worry that the dilemma of COI blows civility out of the....oh bleh. Thanks for the link on the cleanup effort as I think some summary at the end would be good. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah. And I got to this page thanks to the recently banned user Mbz1, heh. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 19:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * As an experiment in government, Wikipedia is very young. These things need a couple of hundred years to bed in.  I do wonder how different it would have been if it had been presented in a different way (with fixed rules for example). I am minded that it actually would have been more productive, as most editors would continue to edit under any vaguely rational set of rules - workplaces and academic institutions get by with plenty of arbitrary rules, and few people expend significant energy getting them changed unless they have a major impact. A few years ago, I worked somewhere that suffered a series of fire alarms from incendiary toast incidents.  Faced with a call out bill from the Fire Brigade, management sent someone round to remove all the toasters from the kitchens. In real life, the majority of people don't get drawn into extensive, ongoing arguments about that kind of stuff - a little water cooler whinging, and it's over as far as getting anything changed goes.  Wikipedia's mistake was to hold out the prospect that anything could be changed, meaning that nothing can ever be done without heavy collateral damage from people who feel they weren't personally invited to submit their 100kb. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:07, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * "workplaces and academic institutions get by with plenty of arbitrary rules, and few people expend significant energy getting them changed unless they have a major impact." The options are limited except in exceptional circumstances (pdf, Lomax (1976) "Workers Councils" Socialist Register) resistance to the rules of workplaces and academia is in the final analysis futile.  And between 1940 and 1980, in the conditions of full employment, where labour was valued, a toaster was a perfect reason for an eighteen months drawn out shit fight; because any cause was a decent reason for an eighteen months drawn out shit fight with people forcing foreign structures of conduct onto the people who did the work. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:26, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Not having set-in-stone rules was what got the system started; if Wikipedia had had firm rules in the early days, it would have ended up like Citizendium with a mob of petty tyrants preventing anything getting done. Something Jimmy Wales does deserve full credit for is a willingness to sit back and let things take their course, even when he wants to intervene. However, this openness has now become a millstone around Wikipedia's neck; at some point around 2007 "anyone can edit" came to mean "everyone is of equal value". Thus, Wikipedia has reached the point where (for instance) two of Wikipedia's most highly regarded editors are flinging shit at each other like a pair of bored gibbons owing to a minor spat over who notified whom regarding a potential copyright violation in a WikiCup entry; where another two people who should know a lot better are tossing insults back and forth over whether to retain a one-line substub on a deeply obscure specialist magazine; where brand-new accounts can harangue long-term editors to the point of resignation; and where nobody feels they have the authority to tell them all to knock it off, because "anyone can edit". The more I see of Wikipedia, the more I think it would make sense to raise the autoconfirmed cutoff from three days to three months.


 * I agree that "Wikipedia's mistake was to hold out the prospect that anything could be changed", but that's only half the story; Wikipedia's real mistake was to give the impression that, since everyone is of equal value, any given editor's personal prejudices were of equal value to those of anyone else, and thus not only "anything can be changed", but anything should be changed. The constant references to WP:FIVE as if it had been carried down from Mount Sinai on stone tablets by Larry Sanger—as opposed to being an essay User:Neutrality knocked off one day about how they thought Wikipedia ought to be run—don't help either, since new users seeing it assume (reasonably) that it describes how Wikipedia works, not how some people feel it ought to work, and get shocked and upset when they see established users failing to follow it. – iridescent  15:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with many, though not all of the concerns Iridescent has expressed here and over the years. (Another way of putting things, I think, is that the Wikipedia editor base or community has very weak skills of prioritization.) I just wish (1) I could write about the site's issues as clearly as Iridescent does, (2) that I had a clearer idea than I do about how to address them, and (3) that the issues weren't continuing to drive some of our most thoughtful editors away from the site. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Good luck with that part about editors being driven off. As go MastCell and Iri, go most of us.  I, for one, have had all I can take of being shat upon by abusive admins and arbs.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I've been where you are now many times Sandy, and if NYB really doesn't know how to tackle the problems here then I say shame on him; it's bloody obvious what's gone wrong here, and it starts with the administrators and their dumbass enforcement of Wikipedia's dumbass pillars. And so far from recognising that blindingly obvious truth are ArbCom that they consider it proper to stifle any criticism of the admin corps at WT:RFA by topic banning me, and effectively disenfranchising me. One might have thought that even a lawyer could see the dangers inherent in such an approach to dealing with criticism. Malleus Fatuorum 18:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You may have been here many times, Malleus, but I was there first :) And in spite of that, I was hopeful that things would change after FeloniousMonk was desysopped, so I spent four stupid years working hours every day in what with hindsight amounted to feeding the very "reward culture" that is part of the problem, knowing all too well what I knew all the way back to the days before I was FAC delegate, when an admin cabal could go after me:  if you are an admin or are perceived to have power on Wikipedia, you will not know what it's really like in here, as long as you are "protected" you won't find out how abusive admins with double standards can be.  But there is some very good news here:  NYB has learned how to say nothing in fewer words than it used to take him (said with all due affection, because I do believe he tries :) :)  And again with all due affection, NYB-- if you had to edit in the trenches with the rest of us, I think you'd much more quickly get some very clear ideas of how to address these problems.  When you all look at admin abuse, it's not enough to look at just abuse of the tools: they abuse just as well with threats to use the tools, and by smearing regular editors with impunity whenever they damn well feel like it. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 19:19, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Once again, Iridescent set a very good and principled example by giving up the tools for a year and doing exactly that, editing like a regular user. I invite NYB to follow that example; it may clarify his thoughts. Malleus Fatuorum 19:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * ...but he'll still be NYB, just as iridescent was iridescent when he was not an admin.....I am not sure that is the way to go. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I am sure. Try editing articles as opposed to pontificating, find out what it's really like in the trenches. Malleus Fatuorum 20:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't understand that comment, Cas ... it took 'em six years to beat me down to a place of no hope. He would still be NYB for a while, yes, it takes a while to have it beaten the hell out of you-- so, where do you think you would be today (in terms of having any hope) if you faced an MDD FAC every single day you edited?  Even when you tried to just go do your own work and stay out of other people's way.  If that person were still hounding you, every where you went, every thing you did, and nobody helped.  Etc ...  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 20:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * He wouldn't be the same NYB for very long, guaranteed. Malleus Fatuorum 20:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what an "MDD FAC" is, but it sounds painful. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It was. And those who need to know, do.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 21:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok McBride, you're a clever cookie, I'll give you 24 hours and see if you can figure it out. Use your deductive skills. :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * There's probably a very good reason why Casliber goes off to a quiet corner of Wikipedia to work on his mushrooms. I'm sometimes jealous of editors whose articles get 30 page views a day, and one edit a year.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if anyone is still reading here, but for what it's worth, I "was NYB" before I became an administrator and arbitrator. You have a cause/effect reversal there: it's more that I was selected for those roles, for good or ill, because of the way I spoke and acted on-wiki, rather than that I started speaking and acting a certain way because of the roles I found myself in. That being said, I can see that my spending too much time doing those things might have made my aggravating on-wiki mannerisms worse than they started as.

As for knowing the problems of Wikipedia, I do know a good deal about many of them. I can't solve them all myself, though, as sometimes seems to be expected of me: first of all, I find myself in disagreement with large segments of the community on various issues, and second of all, I don't have enough time in the day to deal with all the things that ought to be improved. Much of it, in my mind, still comes down to misplaced priorities. More on this sometimes when I have time to write an essay about it, and still more time to cut the length of the essay down from the first draft to something people might actually read. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

WMF
Re: "While I may make the very occasional reappearance, I don't really see the point in dedicating substantial time to a system which is willfully ripping itself apart."

You chose to run for adminship (and you're still an admin here). You chose to run for ArbCom. Most editors don't do this. Most editors quietly and peacefully edit articles.

The more the Wikimedia Foundation grows and expands, the less I like it. But it's not as though I came here to Wikipedia to work for the Wikimedia Foundation (or Jimmy Wales or anyone else), so it doesn't really matter, does it? Wikipedia is about the content; as someone once said, without the content, Wikipedia would just be Facebook for ugly people. ;-) There's a difference between being involved in the inane, political bullshit and editing articles or uploading images or doing other types of content work.

Simply, I don't accept your premise that dedicating time (substantial or not) to this project is a bad idea. Like nearly anything else, it's simply a matter of how you choose to spend your time. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I was kinda following you .. until ... ummm, we are working for the WMF now. Like it or not, and it does affect us. In my area of editing, we are getting killed by their efforts to recruit students who are editing and damaging medical articles-- quantity over quality, and that is precisely what is making Wikipedia least enjoyable for me right now. Cleaning up copyvio and POV and all manner of crap after editors who are doing it for a grade and won't stick around.    The rest is little stuff. Medical topics that are damaging children's health and welfare is not "inane, political bullshit", and we have no equivalent of a BLP policy to protect them.  Novice editors can plop in all the primary-sourced, dangerous POV they want, and there's little an individual can do about it. In the medical realm, Wikipedia has gotten too dangerous to walk away from.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 21:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * "Wikipedia has gotten too dangerous to walk away from". That's a very interesting perspective, and returning to NYB one of the things he has to come to terms with is his long-term advocacy of pre-teen administrators. Which has contributed to the mess we're in today. Give up the tools for a year, see what damage your spawn has done. Malleus Fatuorum 21:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Edit conflict, to Sandy: I know we've talked about this quite a bit, but maybe it's time to develop a BLP-equivalent policy dealing with medical content. There's ample evidence that Wikipedia's medical content is widely read, and the potential for real-life harm dwarfs that associated with BLP violations. But there are no real protections for people who go to the mat for quality (or at least not-actively-dangerous) medical content. If we could tap into even a fraction of the self-righteousness that's grown up around BLP issues and harness it in the interest of heading off potentially dangerous medical content, Wikipedia would be a better place. MastCell Talk 21:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) Well, it sounds as though you're making arguments to continue editing, not stop. I think we agree there.
 * If the Wikimedia Foundation is making a mess, tell them to clean it up. :-) I'm not sure why the burden would be on anyone but them or why anyone else would volunteer to fix their mess. They're paying people to do that recruiting. If it's resulting in damage to the encyclopedia, it absolutely should be stopped, using whatever tools necessary. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * But it won't be, because the WMF's focus is on quantity, not quality. Malleus Fatuorum 21:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * MZM, you're not getting it-- I guess I'm not explaining well. The WMF won't fix it-- for starters, they don't care to, and for seconds, they wouldn't know how to even if they were willing.  I'm not talking about trivial medical topics:  I'm talking about complicated neuroimmunology and medical sources that even those well versed in the topic have a hard time working with.  It's not "damage to the encyclopedia" that worries me-- it is damage to the health of real people caused by POV and inaccurate medical information on Wikipedia.  Wikipedia is widely read-- POV warriors and advocates know how to use it to push quackery, often dangerously so.  We have adequate medical sourcing policy guidelines (WP:MEDRS), but when POV warriors chunk in primary sources, we can't revert as we can with the protection we have on BLPS.  So the time it takes to keep the articles medically accurate is a burden.  We need a policy for medical articles that is the equivalent of our BLP policy, that gives MEDRS some teeth.  WMF's solution is to recruit new editors who chunk in more copyvio and primary sources, because they have an agenda, are unknowledgeable in general, or don't understand primary vs secondary sources.  In the neuropysch realm, just about every new editor who shows up has a POV agenda.  Now, that's just one piece of what I deal with in daily editing-- on top of the admin abuse even when I'm minding my own business.  I've also got one admin who follows me around and is convinced every word I write is about her, and periodically shows up to "warn" me ... and there's more.  I wonder if anyone who isn't really in the trenches of article editing can understand the daily toll. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 21:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * WMF has been able to implement whatever half-thought-out "experiment" they like, based on the assumption that there is plenty of free labor to fix things if they go wrong. So far their assumption has been roundly confirmed. As long as folks continue enabling WMF by cleaning up their messes, they have no incentive to stop making messes. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, or at least half of one, because I remain unconvinced that they recognise the messes they create, far less the effort required to clear them up. Malleus Fatuorum 22:58, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * agree about MEDRS - we've got the guideline, it's a matter of making editors more aware of it. Maybe a piece in the signpost? Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:31, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it needs a different emphasis, at least in the introduction. If you read BLP, it's very forceful about accuracy and sourcing etc. in its opening, it reads very differently than MEDRS. Put a little urgency into the policy, and then urge administrators to enforce it more forcefully. There's no Siegenthaler incident to put it into everyone's mind, so that'll have to be done the hard way. Nathan <strong style="color:#0033CC"> T 02:10, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The real problem is that most new editors never even read the page, so how it's written might not help much. I've been dealing for three days with one editor who won't respond on user talk or article talk, but keeps on chunking in primary sources with POV text that is contradicted by secondary reviews.  And I've been dealing for one year with another advocate whom I have educated about MEDRS, who simply created a POV fork with primary sources to avoid having to source correctly.  Admins don't typically get involved or even always understand content disputes.  GA and DYK regularly promote medical articles that don't comply with MEDRS, and the lack of awareness is everywhere.  Nobody reads The Signpost (the last time they bashed me, their readership was about half of what my talk page gets).  In short: it can't be enforced more forcefully unless we have a policy similar to BLP, where we can shoot poorly sourced medical information on sight.  It reads differently because it's a sourcing guideline, not a policy like BLP.  Because it's a guideline, and because there are times when judicious use of primary sources is indicated, we have no policy akin to BLP that allows us to enforce strictly, so we have to spend hours, days and weeks dealing with advocates or axe grinders or the merely unaware who use primary sources to support POV. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:37, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Forgive my passing comment, but I would strongly support the idea of promoting WP:MEDRS to policy and giving it the same enforcement "teeth" as WP:BLP. You make a convincing argument, Sandy. Bad medical information is just as bad, if not worse, than libelous material on living persons.  Both have the potential to do immediate harm to innocent people.  What's the best way to go about making this happen? –Grondemar 02:44, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't really know how to answer that, Grondemar; I'm not that well versed in how to get a guideline elevated to policy, but I do know it ain't easy. All of the medical editors "in the trenches" have agreed for years that we need this, but I just skimmed the TimidGuy arbcase and see that MEDRS was an issue there, and I see some alarming issues in that case.  The numbers of knowledgeable medical editors are declining as we give up in despair (eg MastCell, me, Eubulides is gone, and we're just stretched too thin), while the number of POV warriors and advocates who want to use primary sources incorrectly grows all the time. I witnessed one case at FAC where an editor who realized an article was going to have to have some primary-sourced POV removed and replaced with secondary review sources if she wanted the article promoted FA, so she withdrew the FAC nomination (you can get your google hits with POV without the FA star).  There may be some opposition to strengthening of MEDRS, so I don't know how to launch a policy proposal effectively.  And I'm not even sure how it would be written, because there are some cases when primary sources are appropriate.  And most admins can't or don't know how to enforce MEDRS, in fact, don't know how to distinguish a primary study from a secondary review. The best person for this job is User:Colin, but most medical editors these days are just ... exhausted.   We've had to deal with the whole malformed student editor recruitments for a year ... I am glad you cared enough to ask, though.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I've assumed that BLP and to a lesser extent MEDRS were to reduce legal risk, given non-US libel laws etc. Since individual journal articles can cost as much as a CD, CopyVios alone could be a significant legal risk. No hope of requires MEDRS → Semiprotected I guess. RDBrown (talk) 00:19, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, the notion of reducing legal risk was no part of the issue when we were putting together MEDRS-- the site-wide disclaimer already covers that. It was to deal with quackery, and to date, we are still unable to deal effectively with quackery. The TimidGuy arbcase is much alarming on that score.  If I'm reading the proposed decision page correctly, we are unbanning a user who doesn't use MEDRS, and sanctioning a user who respected policy because he made the mistake of writing to Jimbo.  Doesn't bode well, but I have learned never ever to appeal to authority when I have confidential info, since that mistake made by Will BeBack apparently trumps the content issues of non-MEDRS compliance on TM by TimidGuy.  I could be reading it wrong, but that's what I'm seeing.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 01:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Sandy, I don't do much editing on medical topics, but like Grondemar I would strongly support an effort to promote MEDRS to policy status alongside BLP for the reasons you've given here and elsewhere. If there's ever a serious effort to do that, please let me know, I would like to help. 28bytes (talk) 01:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, 28; it is such a relief to know others see this problem. I've spent a good portion of this week dealing with a non-MEDRS compliant POV situation on an article where children's health has been jeopardized for years by quackery, and independent editors have not been helpful, because they don't seem to even understand MEDRS (which is why I worry about TM on the TimidGuy case). Someone started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine), but I really don't think it's as simple as just promoting that page to policy; tweaks will be needed, and the discussion will be arduous, so it needs to be focused and organized.  User:Colin is really the guru on that page, so others are probably holding off until he weighs in.  That seems to be the starting place, so you may watchlist that page.  Best, Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 01:35, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * No, their worst fears have been confirmed, namely that the clueless old curmudgeons fight them! It took me a while to find out what the WP:ACTRIAL that Sue mentioned here was about. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Apparently I missed that proposal. So, if I'm understanding you, the community agreed on something in a widely supported poll that would help us deal with the problems mentioned above, but WMF refused to uphold what the community had agreed upon?  Is that how it went, or am I missing something?  So, what did Sue Gardner have to say? (I'm hoping you'll save me from watching that whole dreadful presentation again.)  At the same time, the WMF recruits students without ample supervision and based on no community input or feedback, with results that make us all miserable.  What the heck.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * She basically said that the community was well meaning but clueless on that issue. I have impression that it was one of the key events that led to the writing of WP:You don't own Wikipedia. The n+1 discussion on quality vs. quantity / editors vs. content is now taking place on WP:VPP, by the way. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 13:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Discussion on that issue is continuing here, with spillover to the general topic of WMF's regard for the community (or lack thereof). Note especially the proposal for an RFC on relations between WMF and en.wp. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Geeeeeez, I've just read through everything linked by ASCII and Short Brigade. Who knew.  This is far worse than I thought-- I didn't realize so much of the Wikipedia was up in arms over this, and I thought it was only affecting us medical folk.  What is going on with WMF is most discouraging in terms of editor retention: they don't seem to understand that their efforts to attract new editors are seriously chasing out knowledgeable editors.  So, where is the editor retention in chasing out editors who know what the hell they're doing? Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:31, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Arbcom reform

 * (to Iridescent, waaaay back above) You are probably the best person to actually propose such reforms. While I grant that you don't have the time, those of us currently trying to do the committee's day-to-day work are hamstrung by that workload.  Even assuming that actual membership on the committee doesn't impose a myopic outlook on its structure and problems, the workload is both a split in attention and loyalty.  What you have that no one else has (except the sitting committee and recently retired arbs like Coren and John Vandenberg) is an insider's view of what the workload actually entails.  On that basis, I think you have the best combination of credibility and support, if you can find the time to put a proposal together. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 03:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Main page appearance: London Necropolis Company
This is a note to let the main editors of London Necropolis Company know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on February 29, 2012. You can view the TFA blurb at Today's featured article/February 29, 2012. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director or his delegate, or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions at Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:



The London Necropolis Company (LNC) was a cemetery operator established by Act of Parliament in 1852 in reaction to the crisis caused by the closure of London's graveyards in 1851. The LNC intended to establish a single cemetery large enough to accommodate all of London's future burials. The company bought a large tract of land in Brookwood, Surrey, and converted a portion of it into Brookwood Cemetery. A dedicated railway line, the London Necropolis Railway, linked the new cemetery to the city. The LNC had anticipated handling between 10,000–50,000 burials per year, but the number never rose above 4,100 per year. The LNC remained solvent by selling surplus parts of its land, but as the land had been chosen in the first place for its remoteness, sales were low. After an 1884 ruling that cremation was lawful in England the LNC took advantage of its proximity to Woking Crematorium by providing transport for bodies and mourners on its railway line and after 1910 by interring ashes in a dedicated columbarium. Although it was never as successful as planned, the LNC was influential on both the funeral industry and the development of the area around Woking, and Brookwood Cemetery remains the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom. (more...) UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Sonnets
People reading this who are interested in Wikipedia's coverage of literary subjects might like to weigh in on the topic of what to do about at its discussion. Uncle G (talk) 23:24, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The Metropolitan - March
Just in case you stop by.--DavidCane (talk) 20:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Deceased User:Kbthompson
This deceased user's page is protected. It has two red-links on it that are attracting unwanted bots to his talk page. Would you kindly delete the redlinks? They are: Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Template:UKLP and
 * Next month's portal test page


 * (TPS) Iridescent hasn't edited since 24 February so may not see your request; I've removed the redlinks myself. Nev1 (talk) 15:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, and thanks! Please come back, Iridescent!   :-)   -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:16, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

April Metro
Simply south...... going on editing sprees for just 6 years (as of 28/03/2006) 21:32, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Main page appearance: Biddenden Maids
This is a note to let the main editors of Biddenden Maids know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on April 8, 2012. You can view the TFA blurb at Today's featured article/April 8, 2012. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director or his delegate, or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions at Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:



The Biddenden Maids, Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, were conjoined twins supposedly born in the village of Biddenden, Kent, in the year 1100. It is claimed that they were joined at both the shoulder and the hip, and that on their death they bequeathed land to the village. The income from this land was used to pay for a gift of food and drink to the poor every Easter. Since at least 1775 this has included hard biscuits imprinted with an image of two conjoined women, known as "Biddenden Cakes". Some historians dismissed the story as a folk myth, claiming that the image on the cakes had originally represented two poor women and that the story of the conjoined twins was invented to account for it. Despite doubts as to its authenticity, in the 19th century the legend became increasingly popular and the village of Biddenden was thronged with rowdy visitors every Easter. In 1907 the land supposedly bequeathed by the twins was sold. The income from the sale allowed the annual distribution of gifts to expand in scale, providing the widows and pensioners of Biddenden with cheese, bread and tea at Easter and with cash payments at Christmas. Biddenden cakes continue to be given to the poor of Biddenden each Easter Monday, and are sold as souvenirs to visitors. (more...) UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution survey

 * Probably not really appropriate to me. Although I was on Arbcom, that's very much the place to go when DR hasn't worked. Thus, my view is necessarily jaundiced as dispute resolution only ever came to my attention when it failed. – iridescent  12:44, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Troubles
One of the best things we ever did was get you on ArbCom; the insight alone was worth it, even if it became a burden for you. Anyway, your reference to the Troubles case jogged my memory on something. I will email you ... not sure if I have your current email. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 13:45, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Have temporarily reenabled the "email this user" button, which goes to the only account I still check.
 * I wouldn't wish Arbcom on anyone; through nobody's fault, what was meant to be a dispute-resolution body has degenerated into a lightning rod for all the most corrosive and dysfunctional aspects of Wikipedia. If you'll forgive a Moniesque bursting into showtunes, Those who are fools are swallowed up whole, and those who are not become what they should not become, changed – in short, they go bad sums it up pretty well; if one set out to design a mechanism for bringing out the worst in fundamentally decent people, one couldn't do much better than Wikipedia's laughably-named dispute resolution processes. Even if Wikipedia survives the next couple of years in its current form* I'll be very surprised if Arbcom survives with it; at the moment what credibility remains is driven by residual respect for Brad and Roger (even amongst those who disagree with them). Once they go, there's a very real chance it will become the Holy Roman Emperor of the internet, and sit there churning out judgments and proclamations which everyone else ignores. If I were Sue Gardner, I'd be seriously considering formally killing "consensus" and hiring a paid editorial board to take over both editorial policy and dispute resolution. – iridescent  17:14, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * * No longer a given; Qwiki has big money and big names behind it, and if they manage to develop an editing interface that doesn't suck, they could easily become the Facebook to Wikipedia's Myspace.
 * You've got my mail, from my new gmail Wiki address, but old friends are advised to respond on my old account, which I read more regularly :) I dunno there, good analysis, except that I'd also fire Sue Gardner :) :)  Convince me otherwise. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:19, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

May Metro
Simply south...... going on editing sprees for just 6 years (as of 28/03/2006) 23:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

WP London in the Signpost
The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject London for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 05:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Around
Yes, 'following me around' was obviously badly worded. I only meant that one instance - but I do object to him using Nev1's departure to bash Admins. But it was probably wise to hat it, although not my suggestion of an edit filter. Dougweller (talk) 13:43, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Your mileage may vary, but I can't see how "The longer you've been here the shorter your rope; the only survivors can be the newest of IP editors, which is why Wikipedia is in a death spiral" can be interpreted as "admin bashing". It's a very well-document fact (and recognised by both the WMF and Arbcom as a serious internal dysfunction) that en-wiki's internal dynamic creates an "excluded middle". At one extreme is a hardcore of de facto untouchables (a group in which many would include Malleus himself) who can get away with problematic behaviour that would get most editors sitebanned; at the other extreme are the new users, and those so passive or adept at avoiding conflict that they never become involved in any significant interaction. In between, is a huge swathe of editors who've accumulated assorted grudges over the years. Wikipedia must be one of the few environments in which work becomes more difficult with experience, as one inevitably accumulates a coterie of cranks; this in turn drives the continuing decline in active, experienced content editors, and the continued rise of the policy-wonks, the template-fiddling obsessives, and the strict-compliance hardliners, in what the WMF call 'the "holy shit" slide'. (As I write this, the big guns are slugging it out at Arbcom over whether Zoë Baird's name should be written with or without an umlaut, in a case that will result in the departure of at least one long-term editor no matter how it ends—can you really imagine this kind of crap happening at Britannica?) – iridescent 2  14:18, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I was really referring to his post at AN shortly after I brought Nev1's leaving there, he seems to be using it to bash Admins. And although I recognise the problem you describe as real, 'the shorter the rope' and "the only survivors can be..." doesn't seem to include your hardcore of untouchables (and I'd include Malleus in that one). Hm, I've been here 6 years, how much shorter is my rope than when I started? The main reasons that the people I know have left is pov editors and civility problems - a problem which isn't exactly helped by Malleus, right? And it wouldn't happen at the Britannica probably but Britannica's articles don't impress me. But it will be said if umlaut wars cost us an editor. Dougweller (talk) 14:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It wasn't "badly worded" Dougweller, it was a blatant lie, for which you would apologise if you had any decency at all. Malleus Fatuorum 15:16, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree with Malleus on this one. "Blatant lie" may be pushing it too far—"genuine mistake because I kept seeing your name pop up on Nev1 related pages and didn't realise how close the two of you were, and that you might be upset at seeing one of your closest collaborators hounded off the project" is probably more accurate—but I do think you (Doug) owe Malleus an apology. Malleus, if/when you do get an apology, treat it as an admission of a good-faith mistake, not an excuse to start another argument. – iridescent 2  15:23, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The illogical malevolence of Dougweller's position – that I in some way used the departure of an administrator I've worked with and supported for many years to "bash administrators" – is quite simply breathtaking. And compounded by his outstanding lie simply further demonstrates the unresolved problem here. I couldn't care less whether Dougweller apologises or not, I was simply pointing out that if he had any decency at all he would apologise. And apology or not, I see no "good faith" in Dougweller's remarks, simply more Malleus bashing. Malleus Fatuorum 15:35, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I was unaware of the closeness of the relationship between you and Nev1. If I had known that I might have responded differently. I've already explained I shouldn't have said 'around' and I regret using that word as it didn't convey what I meant to say. Since you continue to call me a liar and make it clear you don't believe in my good faith, we aren't going to get very far. I'm sure that you know that this sort of attitude is the cause of a lot of 'Malleus bashing'. Dougweller (talk) 15:44, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * What I know is that it's administrators like you who are at least in part responsible for Wikipedia's inexorable decline. Had you assumed good faith you would not have written what you did. But of course in common with many others here you believe that AGF is a one-way street; you should be given the benefit of any doubt, but not anyone you've taken a dislike to. Malleus Fatuorum 15:58, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Look Malleus, I really am sorry that I misunderstood you. It hurt me to see him go and I've only worked with him only a little, so it must have hurt you much more. But I won't accept that I'm part of some inevitable decline. I've helped a number of good editors get through bad patches, let alone anything else I've done. AGF does work both ways, but even when someone doesn't offer good faith to you you should still offer good faith unless there is ample evidence that the other editor hasn't been editing in good faith. But your attitude, your willingness to call me a liar, that doesn't help and that attitude isn't shown just to me, as we all know. That type of attitude drives editors away. Dougweller (talk) 16:20, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Saying it doesn't make it so. When you lie, as you did here in claiming that I was "following you around", I call you a liar. Simple. It's the kind of dissembling you display that drives editors away; whenever you're caught, claim the AGF defence. Malleus Fatuorum 16:37, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

June Metro
On time for once! Simply south...... always punctual, no matter how late for just 6 years 21:45, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

July Metro
Simply south...... always punctual, no matter how late for just 6 years 22:19, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

eamil
I sent an email to the address associated with this account. Thank you. — Ched : ?  17:27, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Credo Reference Update & Survey (your opinion requested)
Credo Reference, who generously donated 400 free Credo 250 research accounts to Wikipedia editors over the past two years, has offered to expand the program to include 100 additional reference resources. Credo wants Wikipedia editors to select which resources they want most. So, we put together a quick survey to do that:


 * Link to Survey (should take between 5-10 minutes): http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N8FQ6MM

It also asks some basic questions about what you like about the Credo program and what you might want to improve.

At this time only the initial 400 editors have accounts, but even if you do not have an account, you still might want to weigh in on which resources would be most valuable for the community (for example, through WikiProject Resource Exchange).

Also, if you have an account but no longer want to use it, please leave me a note so another editor can take your spot.

If you have any other questions or comments, drop by my talk page or email me at wikiocaasi@yahoo.com. Cheers! Ocaasit &#124; c 17:19, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Waddesdon stations, 1903.png listed for deletion
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Waddesdon stations, 1903.png, has been listed at Files for deletion. Please see the to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Bulwersator (talk) 13:14, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

August Metro
Simply south...... flapping wings into buildings for just 6 years 22:32, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

A kitten for you!
Wow, somebody who actually understands how Wikipedia history impacts its standards. You deserve a kitten for that, dear sir!

<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 18:11, 13 August 2012 (UTC) <br style="clear: both"/>

GA Review of Serpentine (lake)
I'm notifying you (as the top editor to the article) that Serpentine (lake) is up for GA review. Chris857 (talk) 17:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank YOU
Very polite your answer in other user's talk. The detail was in fact the right side of the train. Though I'm not a deep expert in British railways it's obvious its importance for railways setting all over the world, Italy too! Very complete and very kind explication. Thanks again. --Silvio Gallio (talk) 08:00, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Excuse me for butting in, Iridescent, but please be assured that I am not a, but a friendly talk page watcher!
 * @ Silvio Gallio (talk), It is a shame that the editor, to whom you addressed your query, could not take the trouble to reply to you himself, isn't it?
 * If you were to look a little higher up on his talk page, you will see that I was treated in just the same manner.
 * @ User:Iridescent Thank you for treating a newcomer kindly.
 * Sincerely, -- Gareth Griffith-Jones  (talk) 10:51, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Silvio—Malleus's comment was fair—you did ask a complex question which needed a complex explanation to give a correct answer, and demand "just a yes or no". ("Yes" would have been true, but would also have been misleading without an explanation of why the train was on the 'wrong' side.)
 * Gareth—this edit summary is entirely fair; as The Duke of Waltham explained, you introduced a swathe of formatting errors (to a featured article, incidentally) with an edit summary of ' "General "clean up " '. Malleus would have been well within his rights to have been considerably ruder about this, since—whether intentional or not—you were making edits that could easily have earned you a vandalism warning. – iridescent  11:34, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You may rest assured that the formatting error – and I believe it is fair to say that it was only one – was not intentional.  I appreciate your taking the trouble of making this reply.  Sincerely,  -- Gareth Griffith-Jones  (talk) 12:35, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It is not fair to say it was only one. And perhaps you'd care to explain why you thought I should repeat the perfectly good explanation you had already received from The Duke of Waltham? Malleus Fatuorum 14:47, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have to correct you here: it was one. It was the one action of selecting a script Wikipedia's AutoEd to edit as it is programmed to do.  Sincerely,  -- Gareth Griffith-Jones  (talk) 16:33, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If you're going to attempt to correct me then you need to stop being disingenuous; your claim that the only formatting error you introduced was the spaced ndashes is patently untrue. Malleus Fatuorum 16:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No, you are wrong. The only place with regard to this episode that I introduced spaced-n-dashes was on your talk page.  Certainly not on the witches' article.  Sincerely,  -- Gareth Griffith-Jones  (talk) 16:44, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You seem to be a little hard of understanding today. Contrary to what you claimed earlier, you introduced more than one formatting error to this article. Got it now? Malleus Fatuorum 16:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

WT:ARB
Ping. Nice to see you back in action, btw. - Dank (push to talk) 02:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ditto. And I expect you will clarify your comment about the referencing, which I think some people may be taking out of context. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:35, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, possibly I was the only person confused :) I do think there's a clear difference between asking for end-of-sentence refs on every sentence and asking for refs for particular sentences, and it's also clear which Piotr is asking for; he's never said anything different. I'm mulling how best to handle this; I think the answer could have implications for the current Arbcom case request (Featured Content) as well. - Dank (push to talk) 03:23, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think Brad has answered it already; while there was never an explicit Arbcom-ruled requirement, "cite everything that relates to Eastern Europe" is a logical conclusion based on "cite any material likely to be challenged" and "anything relating to Eastern Europe will inevitably be challenged by someone" (paraphrasing but not by much).
 * Per my comment on the original thread, I don't necessarily think Piotrus is correct here, but I do think his concern was a reasonable one regardless of whether I agree with it, and that the pile-on-and-flame-off reception he received was unjustified. – iridescent  19:11, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Train expert, anren't you?
From your answer in that quarrel (non important - I only asked to know if the paint was mirrored (yes) or not (no). One question) I argue that you are very deep with railway. Am I right? Anyway, since I'm writing an article in old railway safety, I noticed and just want to signal the lacking of the disambiguation for "Policeman". As the old way to indicate the first "Signalmen". I think I know why train ran on the right side; try and find me in it:Wikisource or in Google. Unfortunately in italian... :) Bye! And thanks again. --Silvio Gallio (talk) 06:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say train expert; 19th century civil engineering, which includes some train material (but more the lines and buildings than the trains themselves). The people to talk to would by User:Slambo, User:Redrose64 and User:DavidCane, or post at WikiProject Trains. I can say I never heard the term "policeman" in this context and I'd be very surprised if it were ever in common use; by the time the first scheduled train services in Britain began (September 1830) the police (in the "guys in uniforms who chase criminals" sense) had already been established, so it would have been very confusing to refer to "policemen" in any other context. Railway police existed, but they were police officers who patrolled trains and stations, not signalmen. – iridescent  19:18, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

link
Hi Iridescent, I recall you discussing alternative sites (such as Qwiki) a while back and I ran into something that is different than the typical mirrors I normally run across. I'm not convinced it's an viable option to Wikipedia, but thought you might enjoy a look through it. — Ched : ?  17:06, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * http://www.quora.com/


 * Unless they change their logon procedure I can't see it being anything more than a bubble; anything that requires me to set up a Facebook or Twitter account just to view their site isn't a site I can imagine most people frequenting, particularly since they're presumably handing over their readers' search histories et al over to Zuckerberg and his goons. There's certainly a case for an "anyone can edit, but you have to do so under your real name" site (although the experience of Citizendium would suggest that the lunatic/nonlunatic ratio would rise to a level that puts Wikipedia to shame), but not for a site that only members can even read. – iridescent  19:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I had a Twitter account, and maybe posted twice. I never did understand the appeal of that.  Facebook I've drifted away from, but do keep in touch with my family there from time to time.  Citizendium kind of left me feeling a bit cold, and haven't even looked in years at it.  This "quora" thing, the more I looked, the more it seems like answers.yahoo.com, rather than anything of particular value.  I ran across it because I have "Wikipedia" in my Google news feed, and saw a "The next Wikipedia killer" article.  (not the exact title).  It (quora) is more a "Ask a question", and you get threaded replies.  In the end, I see it as "Apples and Oranges" as far as Wikipedia goes - but remembered that you keep an eye on many informational things. — Ched :  ?  20:34, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The Twitter/Facebook thing put me off as well. I've never used Twitter and very likely never will, but I do have a Facebook account, which I make use of from time to time to keep in touch with people I otherwise would never see. Other than that though, I really fail to see the attraction of it. Malleus Fatuorum 21:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I played quite a bit of scrabble with friends I used to play with 20 years ago in Sydney who now live overseas. That was a quite useful aspect of facebook. Twitter I also made an account but never use and can't see the use of. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I can understand the appeal of Facebook as a means to stay in touch with people you might otherwise lose touch with. Twitter I don't get at all—to me it's like endlessly reading other peoples' Facebook status updates.
 * Per previous comments, I still think Qwiki is best-placed to be the Wikipedia killer. Their interface can be tiresome but viewing Wikipedia and Qwiki pages side-by-side, particularly on mobile devices, makes is painfully obvious how dated MediaWiki is becoming. If I were Sue Gardner I'd be seriously considering licensing Qwiki as a read-only skin for Wikipedia itself—they'd probably offer it for free to get the publicity, if someone asked nicely, and the integrated screen-reader and image-manipulation software would force people here to take WP:ACCESS seriously. – iridescent  10:24, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I logged on to Quora using a throwaway email address and someone else's name- can't remember anything about TwitFace being required. Ning-ning (talk) 11:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:TFAR
Hi Iridescent, as someone with a long memory when it comes to the workings of TFAR, I wondered whether you had any views about a discussion thread I've started about whether the "points" system is still needed in the light of recent changes that have approximately doubled the maximum number of possible requests to 15 (10 date-specific, 5 others). I know your on-Wiki time is limited, but any words of wisdom you were able to contribute would be welcomed I'm sure, whether you agree with me or not! Best wishes, BencherliteTalk 09:32, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I have nominated Albert Bridge, London at WP:TFAR Pumpkin Sky   talk  00:15, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * @Bencherlite - the one change I'd make is to make notification of significant contributors compulsory, rather than just "recommended", and to keep the queue permanently scheduled two weeks in advance to allow time to pull articles with issues. Opposition to the idea of "ownership" can swing too far; the people who've worked on an article are likely to be the ones most likely to know reasons why it shouldn't run (an upcoming more appropriate date; a significant new work on the topic which has yet to be integrated into the article; legal issues…). If I had my way I'd get rid of TFA, DYK and ITN altogether (TFA has served its purpose but is getting dated, DYK by its nature tends to highlight poor-quality stubby articles on insignificant topics; ITN by definition showcases those articles which are most unstable), and replace it with a mix of "things we think you'd find interesting" and "articles which need improvement - here's how you can help".
 * If TFA stays in its current form, I think the points system should remain, at least for articles nominated for specific dates. Without it, the only way to determine which of two nominations for the same date should run is either a long voting process each time, or an arbitrary coin-flip by Raul (or his successor). The points system is a lot less likely to generate bad feeling.


 * @Pumpkinsky - nothing personal but I'm going to oppose that one. It's a topic of marginal interest, which has been IMO has been too over-represented at TFA already. – iridescent  23:12, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I just thought it would make a nice TFA. Pumpkin Sky   talk  01:54, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * (adding) I see Dabomb has scheduled that already—for the record I think that's a really bad call. There are eleven Thames bridges in West London, of which three have already been TFA; I'm not sure there's ever been a more over-represented topic at TFA as a proportion of the total articles on the topic. Albert Bridge in particular is a particularly bad choice, since all the images are of it in its pre-renovation state. – iridescent  23:18, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've switched it out. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:10, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've nom'd Postman's Park at TFAR. Very interesting article. Pumpkin Sky  talk  12:51, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought London Necropolis Company would look good on Halloween ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Gerda, check your email. – iridescent  15:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

RFC notice
You're randomly chosen to receive this invitation (but I am not a robot, ). There is currently a Request for comment about the utility/redundancy of Largest cities/city population templates. This is an open invitation for participating in the request for comment on WP:RFC/City population templates. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. Mrt 3366 (Talk?)  [ (New thread?) ] 15:44, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

October Metro
I'm sorry I missed September but I was rather busy. Enjoy. Simply south...... wearing fish for just 6 years 23:03, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi
Are you watching this? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:41, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I glanced at it. As you may know, I proposed something similar a couple of years ago. (My version was slightly different in that it explicitly recognised interest-groups with a limited number of reserved seats for various factions, to ensure voices from across Wikipedia were heard.) I don't have the energy to re-hash the arguments, especially given that any change is vanishingly unlikely to pass. (Most of the arguments will be a rehash of those that were raised at WP:ACPD and its RFC.) Until the remit of Arbcom is explicitly and formally limited, any other "governing council" style body is doomed to degenerate into chaos, as there will be endless turf-wars and forum shopping as people challenge any decision they don't like. – iridescent  21:40, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link. I don't recall seeing your proposal. I'd like to see it if you can dig out a link sometime. The inertia here is formidable but since Looie's proposed panel has arisen from the community, involves election by the community and is limited to just one task - the appointment and oversight of admins - I think it is more likely than ACPD to be adopted, though I'm not optimistic. I see it more as an HR department than a governing council, though neither analogy is ideal. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * God knows where the discussions were. Roger Davies might remember, as they were concurrent with the discussions on the ratification of his Arbitration Policy. The original ideas took shape on this hellishly long subsection of an even more hellishly long thread, although my vision was fairly different to Abd's concept of formal cliques weighted by membership. If you're not familiar with Abd, be aware that you should probably bring a packed lunch before you set out to read any thread in which he's involved. – iridescent  18:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I encountered him(?) for the first time on Wikipediocracy yesterday. Wow. Lengthy. Complex. A lot of peripheral reading too. That WP:PRX discussion was interesting; and RFC/ACPD. I'm driving at the moment, so have downloaded a spoken word version of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:48, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

My Govcom plan
As someone else has also requested by email details of my old scheme to break up Arbcom, here's what I recall of it. The talks intentionally took place off-wiki, as my plan was to have a concrete proposal ready as a basis for discussion; unfortunately, this means the history is hidden on arbwiki which I can (obviously) no longer access. It was based on an eclectic assortment of real-world attempts to reconcile "everyone should have a say" with "some peoples' opinions are more important than others", ranging from the Soviet Congress of Workers' Deputies to the Stannary Parliament, with a particular nod to the Hong Kong Legislative Council. (Note to all: I'm no longer active on Wikipedia, and have no interest in discussing the pros and cons of a two-year-old scheme; this is just posted for information.)

The idea was to have three independent committees, each with a mutually exclusive membership (i.e. nobody could be on more than one):


 * 1) A greatly reduced Arbcom, which would deal exclusively with acting as a final port of call in disputes; it would have around nine members and would work much as it does now but explicitly without any remit to make policy or set precedents. It would be elected in the same way as the current Arbcom ("the top x people among an annual poll").
 * 2) A "Govcom" with the express authority to create binding and locked versions of Wikipedia policies, but with no authority to intervene in individual cases of editor conduct. It would be quite large (probably around 15-18 members). In recognition of the fractured nature of today's Wikipedia, some of its members would be elected in "constituencies" to ensure representation from various significant groups and not a dominance of "whatever clique happened to be in vogue at the time of the elections". (Anyone who's watched RFA knows that flavour-of-the-month is a genuine issue on Wikipedia.) Who the constituencies would be would have to be decided; my initial thoughts were: candidate(s) elected by non-admins only; a candidate elected by admins only; a candidate elected only by editors with an FA credit; an candidate elected only by bot operators or those who had made significant coding developments (significant complicated templates etc); possibly candidates elected by geographical region although that would be very hard to implement. All of this would go against the OMOV principle, but that's not insurmountable; the issue is to get people likely to notice problems onto the committee rather than to ensure equal representation. (This model isn't plucked out of nowhere; it's the Functional constituency model of Hong Kong and Macau, and is also the system used for internal elections within many political parties and trade unions.) It differs from Abd's delegated-proxy model in that my concern isn't voting strengths, but in ensuring input to discussions by those likely to be affected. The Govcom would expressly not have the power to change policy retroactively to get people in trouble for breaching policies which had never been explicitly recognised as binding policy at the time they were "broken".
 * 3) A beefed-up Block Appeals committee elected by the same method as Arbcom, but six months off (to lessen the impact of whatever-happened-to-be-the-issue-in-December-sets-the-tone-for-the-next-year). Any block, current or expired, can be appealed to this committee; Arbcom have no authority to overrule unblocks issues by the committee unless the editor causes further problems once unblocked. Historic blocks can also be appealed if the blocked editor genuinely feels that bad blocks in their block log are causing problems; if this is found to be the case, the block logs are revdeleted asymmetrically (that it, it remains in the admin's log as a record of their actions, but no longer displays in the blocked editor's block log).

This model would still have had issues, but I think would have provided more stability and clarity than the current model. I don't think one has to be a paid-up hater to believe that the current "everyone is invited to comment at great length across multiple pages, and then we ignore it and find in favour of whichever side we're friendlier with" model of governance doesn't work. – iridescent  16:50, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I've looked, and I don't see a copy of this on Arbwiki. I suspect that the Arbcom-L discussion of early April, 2011 is what you're looking for.  If you need copies of what you wrote there, I'd be happy to supply them. Jclemens (talk) 04:18, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That'll be it; the discussion in which you suggested initially creating a subcommittee to issue binding closures to RFCs as a testing-the-water to see if a split of Arbcom's policy-making and policy-interpreting functions would work. Unless I've significantly misrepresented myself, no need to post the original discussion. – iridescent  20:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup, that's the one. I can forward those emails to an address of your choice, if you no longer have the original copies, "Email this user" me an address to forward them to if desired.  Alternatively, I *could* "Email this user" them to you... but that would be quite a bit more work on my end. Jclemens (talk) 01:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why you think a 9-member arbcom would be better, given that there's always a few arbs not participating regularly, and I have no idea why you imply that Arbcom has anything to do with policy development. I like the idea of a policy group, although I can personally think of more than 18 constituencies, and many editors whose interests overlap those constituencies significantly. While I like the idea of a block appeals committee, I'm pretty sure it would be difficult to recruit for it; when one looks at the people currently reviewing blocks onwiki, there's a pattern there that (I'll be honest) isn't pretty, and they would be the pool of users most likely to be interested in running. There's not any significant overlap between Arbcom candidates and people who have shown an interest in unblock requests; even though "final say" on unblock requests currently lies with Arbcom, nobody runs for Arbcom with the intention to spend a lot of time on it, and to every arb who's ever drawn the "unblock review" straw, it's just a necessary chore. Every time that this has been proposed in the past, the community's shown no interest in moving in this direction. Risker (talk) 06:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Canvassing your thoughts
If this interests you, I'd appreciate your thoughts. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:32, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Medicine
I'm not sure if we've ever talked, but I think you've got ten times more clue than the average Wikipedian, so I'm pointing you to m:Talk:Wikimedia Medicine in the hope that it will interest you. If it does, I would welcome your thoughts. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Replying here, as I'm not sure I even remember my password at Meta; feel free to cross-post any (or all) parts of it if you think they're relevant.


 * While I do have a science/engineering background, I don't feel I know enough about medicine to participate in an explicitly medical project. The person you really want to move heaven and earth to get on board is Casliber, particularly if he drops off Arbcom at the end of the year and thus loses the inherent COI; he's one of the very few people with expert knowledge in both the internal workings of Wikipedia, and of current medical custom and practice.


 * Some thoughts (possibly more to follow if I think of them):
 * What does "participation and advocacy" actually mean in theory, and what will it mean in practice? If the project becomes a self-appointing group which parachutes en masse into contentious areas to sway block votes—or is perceived as such—it's likely to meet the same reception as that given to the East European Mailing List or the Article Rescue Squadron.
 * How much input do you (plural) envisage this project as having over Wikipedia content? I can easily see it becoming a star chamber which determines Wikipedia's or Wikimedia's party line on contentious medical issues—even if that's not the intention of the founders—and in that case, it will become a prime target for various cultists and cranks. If it has (for instance) twenty active members, I could easily imagine Narconon, the TMers or the big pharma companies getting enough of a foothold to stage a coup.
 * What mechanisms will you have for reconciling "anyone can edit" and "keep out the lunatics"? How do you handle the hypothetical situation where a dozen crystal therapists or reiki healers sign up, in sufficient numbers to start swaying votes?
 * This thread is only touching one worm from a vigorously wriggling can. How will "radical transparency" react with the situation where identifiable individuals are citing each other as examples of sufferers from mental illnesses? When someone uploads an identifiable photo of themselves to illustrate a particular topic, and by the time they sober up and try to take the image down the Free Culture hardliners at Commons have got their mitts on it and refuse to allow it to be deleted as a point of principle? When people are posting accusations of medical malpractice against identifiable medical practitioners? (All these things have actually happened.)
 * Some people are already alluding to this on the talkpage; are you going to follow a Teach the Controversy doctrine or scientific orthodoxy? "Encourage health care providers to use Wikimedia projects and to adopt the values of free culture and open access" could easily be read as an open invitation to Reichians, chiropractors, ibogaine therapists, acupuncturists and other not-totally-disproven-but-undoubtedly-fringe people to say their piece. If the project is genuinely open to everyone working in health and medicine, it will likely become a free-for-all and the net result will just be that the arguments take place at one remove from the broader community, rather than on the talkpages as they do now. If you do adopt a "party line" and only accept contributions from people following medical orthodoxy (as I believe is the only morally responsible path to take), you're adopting a position that's fundamentally at odds with the WMF custom and practice of "anyone can edit". ("Anyone can edit" is not actually written down anywhere in the WMF constitution, and although it appears on the main page and is listed in the executive summary at WP:FIVE it doesn't actually appear on any of the actual Five Pillars—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and you'd be astonished at how many of the people who cite WP:FIVE as if Larry Sanger carried it down from Mount Sinai on stone tablets, have never bothered actually to read them—but the idea has become so ingrained in the culture that any attempt to ditch it would meet with howls of protest from the Defenders Of The Wiki.)
 * A biggie, which nobody appears to have mentioned: almost all the people you're looking to attract have a huge COI, and there doesn't appear to be any discussion of how you're going to handle this. If GlaxoSmithKline offers a dozen people on secondment to write medical articles full time, do you turn them away even though they're almost certainly better qualified to write on the topic than anyone currently active on Wikipedia? How about the National Health Service? How about the CCHR (who may be industrial-grade whackadoodles but are undoubtedly among the world's leading experts in current psychiatric and pharmacological practice)? How about the Followers of Christ? Who will decide who is and isn't a "health care provider", and once you open the door to some groups where do you draw the line and why?
 * If this project gives "official approval" to medical articles, or a status which outside observers could reasonably construe as such, what are the liability issues if an article gives incorrect information which negatively impacts on someone's health? IANAL, but I believe that an oversight panel of this nature could well pull Wikipedia's medical coverage out of the S230 umbrella, and open the WMF up to virtually unlimited liability. Even if it's ultimately determined that S230 still applies, I very much doubt Jimmy Wales has any enthusiasm for that particular test case.
 * Executive summary
 * I support the principle of a de facto regulatory body to monitor and improve Wikipedia's medical coverage, but because it will attract ferocious opposition and controversy, it can only work if you can get an explicit imprimatur from both Jimmy and Sue to overrule "consensus" if consensus is leading in inappropriate directions. Because this will make the project one of the most powerful bodies on the internet, a lot of thought needs to go into who can be a member and what the procedures should be for ejecting inappropriate people; until this issue is addressed it's likely the WMF will get cold feet about recognising the project and creating an explicit link which could jeopardise both goodwill and S230 immunity. If the WMF do recognise this project they're likely to insist on such strict controls that you'll find yourselves hamstrung from doing much, while if the WMF doesn't recognise this project it will probably be treated as an inappropriate canvassing group and its members ultimately banned from Wikipedia. – iridescent  00:21, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * (damn!! - it's just turned spring here and the daytime average temp has just shot up about 9C, meaning my garden is looking a little the worse for wear, and I really need to get out mulching, watering etc. and this goddamn thread turns up....aaaaarghhh). I have concerns somewhat along the lines of above. I'll try to keep the discussion in one place. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:48, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you both. Cas, I haven't approached you until now because I hate dragging you into your day job here; but I agree with Iridescent that any attention you could give to the project would be very valuable indeed. I'll comment more later. Just one immediate response to one aspect of Iridescent's comments: I don't see this as in any way a governing body. I see it's purpose solely as a means of raising and disbursing funds with the aim of facilitating the Wikimedia Foundation's aims with regard to health-related information: basically a bank account for us to spend Bill and Melinda Gates's money, and a corporate that can negotiate with Google and others for funds, expertise, etc. And some other things. I don't see this project usurping one iota of Wikipedia's role. I will say more later. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:50, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * (snaps fingers) ....in which case it is like a wikimedia chapter...but on based on subject instead of geography....? Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:23, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup. Per this brief description. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:55, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Iridescent, presently health-related content on en.WP is well-constrained by WP:MEDRS. There is a constant battle on the fringes staving off quacks but, though that is sometimes noisy and dramatic, it involves only a tiny percentage of the health content here, and is usually successful. The vast amount of health content is uncontroversial and stable, but most of it is incomplete and some is inaccurate. What the new project will do is develop strategies to (1) increase the number of good medical contributions and (2) translate good articles into other (but as a priority third world) languages. We'll be working with projects like WP:MED to ensure our efforts match their aims.


 * With regard to our relationship with the foundation: we'll be incorporating in a way that makes us eligible for recognition as a m:Wikimedia thematic organization, and so eligible to apply for foundation grants, but won't be controlled by them.


 * Regarding: "a lot of thought needs to go into who can be a member and what the procedures should be for ejecting inappropriate people", I agree. Your, and any talk page stalkers', thoughts on this important point will be welcome. Presently membership is open to everyone. We need to define whom we exclude. The first board is selecting itself at the moment and I am relaxed about that because of the quality of those nominating. All, I think, are veterans of WP:MED and all, I think, have a commitment to the foundation mission and the five pillars.


 * Regarding "radical transparency", WhatamIdoing added this sensible caveat.


 * As for "are you going to follow a Teach the Controversy doctrine or scientific orthodoxy?" I don't know the answer to that. That is, it hasn't been discussed to any extent that I'm aware of. Are you sure you don't want to join the conversation at Wikimedia Medicine? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:29, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't see how it can avoid becoming a de facto governing body, regardless of intent. One of the enduring problems of Wikipedia is the extent to which WikiProjects become cliques, which take effective control of "their" articles. I gave up touching anything to do with roads because I became fed up with being lectured by self-appointed style cops from the roads project, and I can't imagine the situation has improved. (Go to any of these pages, change "The Beatles" to "the Beatles", and count the number of obsessive cranks who turn up on your talkpage acting like you took a dump on the High Altar of the Vatican.) If a body exists which centralises all Wikipedia's medical experts, people are going to defer to whatever it says, regardless of whether it wants to be seen as a governing body or not. To be clear, I don't think this is at all a bad thing, but you (plural) need to be aware from the start that this is what will happen if it goes forward, and that this is the context in which the WMF will view it when deciding what degree of autonomy to allow it.


 * Because of that, I believe it has the potential to be more vulnerable to quackery and pseudoscience than the current WP:MEDRS setup. As anyone who's had any dealings with the Discovery Institute or Narconon can testify, some pseudoscientists are very gifted at demanding their particular brand of quackery be heard, and a small centralised body is a lot easier to infiltrate than an sprawling amorphous mass. While the current board members are fine, what are you going to do when the quacks come calling? Bear in mind that the new British Health Secretary is a paid-up believer in homoeopathy, and Mitt Romney gives every impression of believing every fringe theory in existence; there's a very real chance that come the new year, the two countries which traditionally drive medical publishing will be under the strong influence of woo-merchants, making WP:MEDRS potentially a much shakier foundation on which to build than it currently appears.


 * Once the grants start flowing, who is going to decide what to accept and why? Bill and Melinda are one thing (although as Steve Jobs thoughtfully illustrated, Silicon Valley types can easily take drastic turns into medical nuttery), but grants rarely come for "general purposes". The mistake most PR types make when it comes to Wikipedia is to directly edit articles to include their preferred slant. At some point, an enterprising PR person will realise that the way to game Wikipedia for PR purposes is to adhere to NPOV scrupulously, but to inflate articles until they're large enough to justify splitting into "pros of" and "cons of" articles, and only to improve those articles which benefit The Cause, and allow the negative article to drift back into the unmaintained grey goo. (This is exactly the tactic the creationists already use, and Wikipedia has yet to come up with a defence against it.) How much would it be worth to Hershey or Nestle to have Health benefits of chocolate as TFA on the The Sixth Most Visited Page On The Internet™? When the guy from Cadbury's comes calling offering three interns to work full-time on writing it, do you turn him away? When the newspapers ask [why a charity is turning away donations]/[why Wikipedia is accepting bribes from PR firms] (delete as appropriate), what do you say? These are decisions that need to be made beforehand, not made up ad-hoc by Jimbo as and when they happen. You can be sure Seth and co will be watching for any sign of ethical slips.


 * Likewise, the protocols on who to accept as members, who to reject, and why need to be formalised before anything gets off the ground. Blanket bans on Scientologists, religious fundamentalists, hardline activists et al might well be illegal, depending on where you choose to incorporate, and would certainly be immoral, but you presumably don't want two dozen Christian Scientists or Aspies For Freedom activists turning up to every online meeting. Again, this is something that needs to be resolved before you get started, as it will affect the objects and powers clause when you incorporate, and you really need the Foundation involved in the discussions. As Fae can testify, the WMF will have no compunction about washing their hands of you if there's even a hint that you might cause any kind of trouble. (In fact, add Newyorkbrad and Risker to the list of people you need to get involved in this; Brad is very gifted at translating complex legal arguments into Wikispeak, and Risker is very good at telling people things they don't want to hear when it becomes necessary.)


 * I'm still not convinced by "radical transparency", even with the caveat. Transparency is great in theory, but all too often it translates into a situation where every comment attracts a dozen replies, each of which attracts replies of their own, ANI style. I'd suggest a setup where anyone can view discussions, but only an approved set of people are permitted actually to participate. (This is the setup en-wiki's Arbcom uses, and while I have extreme reservations about the legitimacy and remit of Arbcom the process itself generally works, in the sense of getting some kind of result that makes all those involved equally unhappy.)


 * The "teach the controversy"? issue is another one that really needs to be resolved before things get off the ground. If you do it, you're issuing an open invitation to every snake-oil peddler on the internet; if you don't, then you're creating a star chamber to determine Wikipedia's line on controversial issues, which is a radical departure from Wikimedia's traditional ways of working and would probably need explicit authorisation from the foundation. (I know, I know, you don't want to be a governing body… but assuming you have $100,000 of Bill and Melinda's cash in your bank account, how would you reply to "I would like to apply for a $1000 grant to improve Wikipedia's coverage of energy medicine", and why?) If and when the remit extends away from en-wiki to cover China, India, Central Africa and other places where the medical establishment has a radically different view of what constitutes pseudoscience, the issue will become particularly acute.


 * Thanks for the invite and the vote of confidence, but I don't think it's appropriate for me to be involved to any greater degree than talkpage discussions. I've not been active on Wikipedia for some time, and I don't think it's appropriate for me to be doing any more (in any context) than offer the occasional opinion; I don't want to become a Larry Sanger figure, constantly saying "that's not how we did things in my day". It's no secret that I think Wikipedia in its current form has become overwhelmed by its own bureaucracy and a self-appointing elite who control that bureaucracy, and that the structure will collapse completely if given a strong enough kick (Google putting Qwiki or Britannica above Wikipedia on PageRank is all that would be needed to turn Wikipedia into "the place you look for obscure topics which nobody else covers, but not for anything significant"). IMO the important thing for your project is to build the structure that will populate the medical articles on Wikipedia II, and that's not something on which I'm really qualified to comment. – iridescent  17:31, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I see you mentioned me here. Well, I finally got around to commenting on this (real world and Arbcom life have kept me busy), which I did here, at least in passing. Hope you're keeping well. Risker (talk) 06:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)


 * That's all brilliant. Thanks. I totally agree that many on-wiki discussions should be invite only. That The Beatles controversy is absurd. I asked NYB, but he's too busy at arbcom. Risker is the person on this project whose opinion I most value and, emboldened by you, I shall ask for her input. If you and Carcharoth would step back into arbitration, I think both of those may be more inclined to spare a bit of attention for m:WM:MED. Yes, the "teach the controversy"? issue needs to be resolved before things get off the ground. So join in on the talk page. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:04, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I can't imagine Carcaroth having any desire to go back on Arbcom. In my case, I'm not even qualified to vote in Arbcom elections, let alone stand in them. Besides, I can guarantee that the reaction to any return to Wikipedia on my part—let alone to Arbcom—could best be summarised as "Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!". – iridescent  18:18, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * That's more likely to be Br'er rabbit's fate than yours. I see him as Piggy, though he sees himself as Jack. I think I eavesdropped on a recent Carcharoth conversation where he "didn't rule out" a return to arbcom. Regarding the other, nothing's stopping you from involving yourself here, Ralph. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:39, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

You were mentioned by a few users http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Invitation_to_all_editors_to_participate_in_WikiProject_ArbCom_Reform_Party Cheers.--24.4.36.87 (talk) 06:03, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I was also going to mention that thread to you. You may, or may not, want to comment there about the mentions of yourself there, or about any other aspect.
 * As for the above discussion, to Anythonyhcole, I'd be glad to help out if I'm needed to help on the wording of a particular proposal, or something along those lines. It was the idea of a more general, open-ended commitment that I declined, partly for time availability reasons and partly for subject-matter expertise ones. In the meantime, I appreciate that Iridescent has recommended me, although I'm a bit surprised that he's recommended me to write anything, given his past comments about my writing style (and when I look back at some of my prior contributions with the benefit of some distance I can kind of agree with those). Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:34, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That thread has been archived, so won't reply to it. Not much point in any case, since anyone who's going to have an opinion of me one way or another will have made their mind up long ago. (No idea who this Blade of the Northern Lights is, or what his beef is with me; AFAIK I've never interacted with them in any way. Not sure where the idea that I've somehow changed has come from, either; as you know, the only significant change in my opinions in the last five years has been that the MediaWiki software is no longer fit for purpose and is leaving Wikipedia wide open to any well-organized competitor. That's hardly an extreme view, given that it's the official policy of the WMF.)
 * Go back and re-read my comments about your writing style (there's a link to the original post in WP:Bradspeak). I was praising your willingness to write without ambiguity even when it means using a stilted style. – iridescent  23:00, 22 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I think Wikimedia does not need Wikimedia Medicine. I think Wikimedia needs some medicine for Wikimedia and for English Wikipedia in particular. Cheers.--24.4.36.87 (talk) 04:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Brad. I thought I'd responded to this comment shortly after you posted it but it appears I didn't click save. My main concern at the moment is drafting an appropriate mission statement (or "statement of charitable purpose") for our IRS charity registration and Wikimedia Foundation recognition. I realise it's outside your bailiwick but any thoughts on that from you or any if Iridescent's stalkers would be very welcome. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:10, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

arbitrary break
Iridescent, I mentioned you.[] --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:22, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I do think you need to address the "do we exclude groups, and if so how and why?" issue before it goes any further. Given that the alleged infiltration of Wikipedia by PR hacks was plastered across the newspaper yesterday (and is presumably in the other papers as well), I imagine Jimmy and Sue will shut you down without blinking if there's even a whiff of infiltration. – iridescent  23:00, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not sure where or how I ought to weigh in on this, but I am happy to see this conversation. Iridescent, you are quite welcome to comment on the Wikimedia Medicine page anytime if you ever want increased exposure for your thoughts. I really appreciate your perspective and consideration of the concept of Wikimedia Medicine. I am going to email you right now and ask if I might schedule a phone or Skype chat with you.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   21:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree that these are excellent points we need to consider. With respect to who we allow to get involved, one requirement will be that they need to share our vision / goals (this means wanting to promote open knowledge / open medicine). This would exclude the pharmaceutical industry from direct involvement (as they currently hid much trial level data behind the excuse of it being proprietary knowledge)


 * We will also want the majority of the board to be major contributors to WP:MED and willing to let the literature determine what they write per WP:MEDRS. I do not see this organization as one that will determine content (this will be done on Wikipedia as always). The organization is similar to a chapter but rather than based on nationality will be based on subject matter. I do not see it as being any more controversial than say WMUK or WMCA. Our main efforts will involve 1) supporting Wikipedian's in Residences at major medical institutions, 2) giving talks at Universities / major institution, 3) other partnerships. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 16:40, 28 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Disregarding "(if I write on your page reply on mine)" as this is a reply to multiple people above
 * For a potentially sensitive topic such as this, I'd much rather the conversations be held in the open where at all possible; it sends out a nasty signal if a project with an avowed aim of "radical transparency" begins with secretive smoke-filled-room discussions.


 * Per my previous answer, I don't have the medical knowledge or background to contribute usefully here. My comments are based on the experience of previous "umbrella" projects—from Esperanza to the Association of Established Editors—and observations on why and how they failed, coupled with a reasonably good knowledge of how PR operators infiltrating Wikipedia work in practice, rather than the hamfistedness of people who write "our company is great!" puff-pieces or the apocalyptic "if someone who knows what they're talking about is allowed to touch Wikipedia the whole place will go up in flames" scaremongering you see from some of the more excitable Defenders of the Wiki.


 * My concern is that this project will inevitably become a quasi-governing body for medical articles, and that it will be very open to manipulation. As WMFUK are thoughtfully demonstrating, reconciling "anyone can edit" with "any conflict of interest is unacceptable" is a lot harder in theory than in practice.


 * I still don't see how the project can proceed without a clear policy on who to exclude. They need to share our vision / goals (this means wanting to promote open knowledge / open medicine). This would exclude the pharmaceutical industry from direct involvement (as they currently hid much trial level data behind the excuse of it being proprietary knowledge) is well ang good, but a lot harder in practice. To rephrase one of my earlier points, what do you do when:
 * Glaxo offer to release all the trial results relating to WonderDrug1673, and provide a $100,000 donation and a employee on permanent secondment, on condition that their employee is allowed to write WonderDrug1673 subject to Wikipedia's usual review by other readers?
 * The CCHR turns up, offering a dozen full-time fully-qualified experts to rewrite Wikipedia's psychiatry articles; they're perfectly open about who they represent, and are more than happy to release all their research into the public domain providing Wikipedia/Wikimedia agree to host it? (The CoS could do this out of petty cash, and haven't been shy about trying to infiltrate Wikipedia in the past.)
 * The Sierra Club offer free advertising on their website and mailshots, providing Wikipedia gets Health benefits of wilderness hiking to FA status?
 * An editor who happens to work for a pharmaceutical company IRL but is working on Wikipedia purely as a hobbyist in a personal capacity, edits an article on one of that company's products; they openly admit their involvement with the company, but argue that there is nobody better qualified to write on said product as they spend every working day monitoring press coverage of the product in question?
 * An editor who happens to work for a pharmaceutical company IRL but is working on Wikipedia purely as a hobbyist in a personal capacity, edits an article on one of that company's products; they edit under the account name User:BritneySpearsFan1367 and their connection with the company only comes to light when they accidentally edit logged-off and their IP comes back to EvilMultinationalCorporation's head office?
 * All five of these things are likely to happen. Unless and until the project has a party line on which of these behaviours are acceptable/unacceptable and why, it shouldn't go live. Gibraltarpedia going live without considering these issues led to a lot of bad feeling which has yet to be resolved, and the future policy on healthcare of the most-read site on the internet is a much more sensitive topic than a bunch of monkeys and rusting cannons on a rock off the coast of Spain. If the WMF gets the balance wrong on coverage of Gibraltar, the worst that happens is complaints that Wikipedia is painting too rosy a picture of one side in a long-running territorial dispute; if the WMF gets the balance wrong on medicine, people die. (No, I don't think that's too apocalyptic. People believe Wikipedia more than they should; all it takes is one person to believe it when they read that watercress cures cancer—I can even provide a source for that one—and you're on very shaky legal ground, if someone manages to persuade a judge that the Medical Project is a de facto governing body and thus liable for the content of the medical articles.) – iridescent  17:01, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to pass the last question to the Foundation for comment. Do you mind if I point Bence to this conversation? He's the m:Affiliations Committee member assessing our application.

Regarding whom to exclude, article II section 1 of the organisation's proposed bylaws says:

Perhaps we should consider changing that to something like

We're discussing the mission statement at m:WT:MED#Mission statement. The present proposed wording is This mission statement, combined with section one, will exclude pseudoscience and quackery, and give due attention to fringe science, as WP:MEDRS does on en.Wikipedia. I think.

May I invite WhatamIdoing to opine on COI, or anything else, here? She wrote the first draft of Conflicts of interest (medicine), and I value her opinion. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:37, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Sure, invite anyone you want. If you haven't already, you might want to ask some of the noisier people here and on the Gibraltarpedia MFD, as they're the ones most likely to (oppose the hijacking of Wikipedia by corporate stooges)/(oppose the potentially dangerous centralization of authority)/(support greater collaboration with like-minded independent bodies)/(support the use of any legal means necessary to improve the standard of Wikipedia). If there's going to be opposition (and there will be), better to flush the serial complainers out now so you can either decide the concerns are valid and address them, or decide the concerns are unwarranted and disregard them. It would probably be a good idea to ask User:RexxS as well; as someone on the board of WMUK he'll have watched the Gibraltar fiasco, the Monmouth triumph, and the British Museum jury's-still-out unfold from the inside so should have a good grasp of the issues you're facing, and given User:RexxS/Hyperoxia I assume he understands the basic issues of medical articles even if they're not his main area of interest. – iridescent  20:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:39, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

arbitrary break 2
Comment from Bence on liability. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:24, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I disagree with his answer, as what's proposed isn't a typical WikiProject or WMF Chapter. He argues (as I read it) that the issue is moot because "In general, chapters (and by extension WM Medicine) do not edit the content of the projects, nor do they influence editorial policy (at most, they might raise awareness over issues, and provide a venue for the community to have a debate)", but that's not the case here. Your mission statement includes Create and expand medical content on Wikimedia projects (i.e. directly editing the content of the project) and increase its overall quality in all languages (i.e. influencing editorial policy, since "overall quality" is a subjective judgement which will reflect the values of your project; there are plenty of people who would consider no medical article complete without a mention of orgone accumulators as a treatment, but I doubt you'd agree). Unlike geographic chapters, which generally act as general drum-bangers and promoters, this project is explicitly going to get its hands dirty. (Wikimedia Australia isn't about to tell me which sources I can and can't use should I decide to remedy the fact that Australian Indian Ocean Territories is a jaw-droppingly bad article;* should I notice that Pharmaceutical drug is equally poor and decide to fix that instead, your project will effectively be the final arbiter on which material should be included.)
 * * Given that most Aussie geography and politics articles are among the best on Wikipedia, that one's a real shocker; for an article on a significant administrative division of a major English-speaking country to be that shitty after six years is impressive.


 * This is not a bad thing—it's about time steps started to be taken to rein in Randyism all across Wikipedia and the whole "everyone's opinions are equally valid" pretence that permeates the project. Medicine is as good a place to start the fightback as any, since WP:MEDRS is one of the few formal brakes on fringery, and I can't see any way to do that with even a semblance of democracy, within the peculiar atmosphere of Wikipedia*—but it does go contrary to Wikipedia's culture to have a self-appointing ruling committee in any field, and you can expect the free-culture hardliners to rally against you at some point. – iridescent  16:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * * I don't see how you can avoid being either a self-appointing cabal, or a WMF-anointed Chosen Few. The project will have at most a couple of hundred active members, if other chapters are anything to go by (even WMUK, the most active of all the chapters, only has 330 members and a lot of those aren't active); free-and-fair board elections would be an open invitation to any passing cult with the time to sign up a dozen of their members. I can't think of any legitimate method to exclude cultists, nor should you want to—someone could be a devout believer in chemtrails and fluoride poisoning, while still being a leading expert on setting broken bones. However, you don't want acid-gurus or Scientologists setting your agenda, or even being given the chance to. A politburo model in which existing board members have the ability and the willingness to blackball prospective new board members seems to be the only one which wouldn't spend all its time fending off entryists.


 * Wikimedia Medicine will not be able to impose editorial restrictions on any Wikipedia. There is no way it can. Nor should it. The more restricted editing environment you want can only come from within the Wikipedia. Most of WM:MED will be active in en.WP:MED though, and so they will be able to argue for changes to en.WP policy from there. The wording of the mission statement is still evolving at m:Talk:Wikimedia Medicine. The present iteration is:
 * I've mentioned your last suggestion on the WM:MED talk page.[] --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:08, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It is the on Wikipedia WP:MED that has influence over Wikipedia content. WMMED will have not greater influence than any other national chapter. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:07, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding legal liability, one of the first things I'll suggest we fund is high quality advice on the questions you ask. I'm concerned about this, and think we should have the best guidance money can buy, or appeals to altruism can elicit. My biggest concern is not that someone may get sued, though; it is that someone might suffer or die because of our behaviour.

This may be worth watching. We are deciding the bylaws of the corporation. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:12, 5 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Per my previous comments above, I disagree with "WMMED will have not greater influence than any other national chapter". With a very few exceptions such as Israel/Palestine, the remits of national projects are uncontroversial and any disputes are over priorities rather than topic. (A couple of years ago I noisily opposed WMUK's throwing time and money at the British Museum at the expense of other institutions, given that the BM is a massively-wealthy institution who are perfectly capable of running their own website whereas smaller museums and galleries would have genuinely benefited from an influx of WMF cash and expertise, but I wouldn't dispute that the British Museum is a legitimate British topic.) Thematic organizations will be different, as the boundaries aren't clearly defined. Regardless of intent, I can't seen how any thematic organization can avoid being a de facto governing body; if it's in charge of publicity and disbursing funds, editors and local medicine projects are going to have their overall directions and tone set by the meta-project regardless. As a concrete example, consider the impact if a large number of Asian projects sign up, and vote to award grants to improve articles on acupuncture or traditional Chinese medicine; the thematic project will find itself in the position where it's forced to choose between (a) paying en-wiki contributors to write articles on topics which the en-wiki WikiProject Medicine explicitly considers a pseudoscience, or (b) explicitly ruling that only Western medicine is legitimate, causing a PR backlash against Wikipedia in the Indian and Chinese markets that the WMF is so keen to cultivate.


 * I know all this sounds negative; it's not intended to be an attack on your project, but trying to identify as many potential pitfalls before they happen. One only has to look at the WP:BLP issue to see what can happen when you try to reconcile "anyone can edit" with "ethical principles" without a clearly structured policy on what is and isn't acceptable, and medicine is in some ways even more problematic. (How long will "We will avoid involvement with firms that do not publish all results of their clinical trials" last if Pfizer offer a million-dollar donation, and if you do stick to your principles what do you say to Jimmy Wales when he calls to ask why the WMF has a million-dollar shortfall in the accounts?)


 * I'd say keep the mission statement out of your constitution. You want any objects and powers clause to be as vague as possible, especially as you're not 100% sure what you're actually going to do. You also want to preserve the wiggle-room to break the link with Wikipedia if it ever becomes appropriate—it's perfectly possible that at some point in the future some other project will be more compatible with your aims. I've said before that one could make a good case that the aims of the WMF—to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally—could be best served by selling the domain name to a multinational and using the ensuing cash (the standard website-valuation algorithm values the Wikipedia domain name alone at $14 billion, which is likely to be an underestimate) as an endowment to fund local educational institutions and initiatives. It's vanishingly unlikely now, but you're laying the foundations for something that could last for decades and policies change; you don't want a constitution that could potentially tie you to shilling for Microsoft or Facebook. (Or, more likely than this extreme scenario, one of Wikipedia's rivals gets the formula right and Wikipedia becomes a Myspace-style irrelevance.) – iridescent  14:35, 5 October 2012 (UTC)


 * addendum I'm not sure about "to make clear, reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date educational resources and information in the biomedical and related social sciences freely available to all" as a mission statement, if you have to have one. (I don't see why you need a mission statement at all; if you're incorporating as a charity you're going to have a legally binding Objects clause, which if properly worded ought to be all you need). "Clear" and "comprehensive" can be mutually exclusive when it comes to scientific articles, since sometimes you have to use the technical terminology for accuracy—the last thing you want is to legally bind yourselves to ensuring everything is written in Reader's Digest-speak. If you really feel the need for a mission statement, might I suggest "…to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content on the biomedical and related sciences under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally"? (I'd drop the "social" from "related social sciences", as it gives you wiggle-room to cover related topics like veterinary anatomy which are clearly related, should you ever want to do so. The "empower and engage … effectively and globally" wording was carefully worded by the WMF to be as future-proof as possible, and does the job well.) – iridescent  15:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Regarding WM:MED's government of the Wikipedias: how will that work? If WM:MED agrees to train and help members of the International Association for the Study of Pain to improve our Palliative medicine category, or if a representative persuades the WHO to license all their publications cc-by-sa, or if we translate an article - these are what we'll be doing - how will those activities involve government of the Wikipedias? You mention we'll be in charge of publicity. What kind of publicity, and how will that be government? Regarding the fact that we'll be disbursing funds: the serious money, I think, will go on trainers and translators. Can you describe for me how us having a budget for trainers and translators will become government of the Wikipedias?


 * For example, if we persuade the WHO to release Cancer pain relief and palliative care in children under cc-by-sa, use swathes of it to write Pediatric palliative care in English (or help an expert write the article de novo), and translate it into German, en.WP and de.WP don't have to take it. Or they can take it and do what they will with it within their guidelines. I just don't see how that is government.


 * Regarding the example of a great number of Chinese projects signing up: projects won't be signing up, identified individuals will. The proposed mission statement specifies our remit, biomedical and related social sciences. Acupuncture isn't in there. Neither is Scientology. The proposed membership criteria in the bylaws exclude people who do not support that mission. I believe the combination of these two elements - the commitment to science in the mission statement and the requirement to support that mission in the membership criteria - will effectively protect the organisation from being usurped by woo. My one concern is the fact that, though changing the bylaws (including the membership criteria) is time-consuming and cumbersome, a mission statement adopted by resolution can be easily changed by resolution. That is why I favor locking the mission statement into the bylaws. The present mission statement (in the box above) clearly covers everything we'll ever want to do, while clearly excluding everything but the biological, medical and relevant social sciences; so I can see no disadvantage to having it locked into the bylaws, while locking it in there offers added security against a rogue board or putsch easily steering the organisation away from its commitment to science.


 * Regarding negativity, it's positivity. You can't imagine how much I appreciate this. As for Pfizer making us an offer we can't refuse: damn good point. We should define from whom we will and won't accept money. However it's defined we have to exclude drug companies. Perhaps that should go in the constitution too.


 * And the "veterans" at WM:MED are very alive to the possibility that at some point in the future some other project will be more compatible with our aims than Wikimedia. We will retain autonomy.


 * We do need a "statement of charitable purpose" (a mission statement) in our application for tax exemption to the US IRS, and the mission needs to be stated somewhere to give meaning to one of the membership criteria, as outlined earlier in this comment. I'm going off "resources" though, on clumsiness grounds. Regarding "clear and comprehensive", I'm comfortable with that. Clear may include comprehensive. They're not mutually exclusive - at least not in medicine ... maybe they're incompatible in maths articles. "Social" is in there to encompass psychology because of the deep inroads cognitive behavioral therapy is making into the clinic, and its use doesn't rule relevant vet medicine out of the mission. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 16:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm intentionally looking at the grey areas where things have the potential to go wrong; 99% of decisions will be uncontroversial, but the 1% where things are problematic is where problems arise. Training the International Association for the Study of Pain might be uncontroversial, but how about if the eminently respectable woo-peddlers of the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (of which the Royal seal of approval, the taxpayer support via the NHS, and the unearned legitimacy through piggy-backing onto the University of London, are a triple-blot on Britain's claim to lead the world in clinical excellence) suggest the same deal? The Gibraltar fiasco, where regardless of good intentions there was the appearance of whitewashing on behalf of a funding body leading to a flare-up and mass-disillusionment of the very people the project was trying to attract (as they arrived on Wikipedia full of good intentions and were promptly accused of being part of a corrupt team of stooges), is well worth studying.


 * I don't see the "de facto government" issue relating so much to the project's initiatives, as to the way it will become a meta-arbitration committee for medical issues. People will naturally approach you on the issues where WP:MED can't reach a consensus, as to most editors you'll be seen as the distilled wisdom of all the projects. Regarding budgets, it's easy to see how control of the translation budget has a strongly pseudo-governmental element; if you have control over which foreign-language sources are available in English, you have a degree of control over which sources are used, particularly in minor languages. If the five metastudies that found statistically significant traces of green cheese on the moon are translated into Elbonian, but the 500 metastudies that found no cheese aren't, then you're skewing Elbonian-wikipedia towards the Green Cheese Hypothesis since their writers will primarily work from the sources in their own language. I can certainly imagine (for instance) a coffee company giving you a grant to translate a legitimate study that has found a health benefit from caffeine into as many langauges as possible.


 * "Acupuncture isn't in there. Neither is Scientology." isn't clear-cut. Scientology might not be in there, but psychiatry certainly is and the CoS-funded CCHR are genuine experts and can't (and shouldn't) be excluded despite their being strongly opposed to it. Acupuncture might not be in there, but I strongly suspect that if one were read Chinese-language rather than English-language medical journals one would find plenty of positive peer-reviewed coverage of it. Bear in mind that the WMF is explicitly pushing expansion into Asia and Africa; assuming this continues, there will be a lot of people coming in with a radically different view of what constitutes "mainstream", and at some point the question of 'what do we mean by "biomedical sciences will reach a point where you'll have to offend someone or other. (Ask Sitush or Fowler&fowler about what became of Wikipedia's coverage of Indian and Pakistani culture during the WMF's disastrous rushed-expansion into India.) – iridescent  17:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It's late here. I'll get back to you. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * We will not be translating journal articles but will be translating Wikipedia articles. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Doesn't change the basic issue; deciding which Wikipedia articles to prioritise still has the power to skew the minority-language Wikipedias. (If Health benefits of XXXXX is a featured article but Side-effects of XXXXX is a two-line stub, you're still skewing coverage.) – iridescent  18:37, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in getting back. I've just re-read the above and I'll try respond to any open issues.

We (James) have applied to the State of New York for incorporation; it is not necessary to define our bylaws or mission statement at this stage, so those are still being discussed at m:Talk:Wikimedia Medicine and m:Talk:Wikimedia Medicine/Bylaws, but we'll need to compose these and a more beefy statement of our practical intentions before applying to the US IRS for charitable tax exemption and the Wikimedia Foundation for recognition as a thematic organisation. We need smart people with high ethical standards and some Wikipedia/Wikimedia corporate memory to involve themselves in those discussions. Essentially, this organisation is still a blank sheet. What is written on it is up to those that involve themselves.

Initially, I thought we'd need a large budget to get our most important articles translated into third world languages well, and without delay. As I learn more about Translators Without Borders and I'm exposed to their enthusiasm for working with us, I am hopeful nothing we presently envision doing will involve any paid staff or contractors, and we can achieve our most ambitious goals on a shoestring. Our WMF funding, if we bother to apply for any, will be likely miniscule compared to the budget of, say, WMUK, and I hope we'll be doing at least as much unalloyed good as they do.

Risker links to this comment, where she says
 * "...affecting content and processes on WMF projects..." We will, hopefully, be affecting content on Wikimedia projects; otherwise we're wasting our time. Specifically, we'll be encouraging creators to release appropriate text and images under cc-by-sa so that Wikiprojects may use them if they wish, encouraging experts to review articles for accuracy, completeness and up-to-dateness, working with volunteer translators to get more of our good medical articles (in whatever languages) translated into other languages, so that Wikiprojects may use them if they wish, doing outreach to medical organisations, and so on.
 * "The charitable/non–profit infrastructure required to support such thematic organizations and affiliations will bleed donor dollars into activities that do not bring any inherent value to the movement." I don't see that happening at WM:MED. The board of the organisation is unpaid, we have no need, given our present and proposed activities, for paid staff, and incorporation is costing, I think, $75, which is being donated by James.
 * "Further, there's considerable concern that these organizations may well operate without the support of, or in fact face opposition from, the WMF projects that they wish to work with." Since we'll be independent of both Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, it is open to us to behave in a way contrary to their aims, I suppose; but I can't envision that happening. Our aims and those of the Wikipedias and the foundation are presently perfectly aligned, as far as I can see. I can't speak for other proposed themed organisations.

Iridescent, our present proposed defense against woo advocates hijacking the organisation is making membership contingent on, among other things, a commitment to out mission statement which says "To make clear, reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date educational resources and information in the biomedical and related social sciences freely available to all people in the language of their choice." We'll be making available what science has to say about health, including what science has to say about woo. If it is clear that a member wants to move our focus away from the science, they'll be asked to leave.

On transparency, there's a place for some discussions (commercial in confidence, personal, etc.) to be kept confidential, and for some discussions (maybe directors' discussions, discussions between the directors and the advisory board, advisory board discussions, etc.) to be invite-only but visible to others, but I'd like us to default to openness.

COI. We're discussing how to deal with directors who have a material COI at m:WT:MED. I favour: if you're a director and you intend to gain (above reasonable expenses) from an activity that is subject to a board resolution, you should exclude yourself from the resolution discussion and vote; if you do gain (beyond reasonable expenses) from an activity that is subject to a board resolution, you should resign from the board. But that discussion is ongoing, and I'd appreciate thoughtful input there. Wrt dealing with drug companies and the like, that's also open for discussion, and screaming out for input. Most agree there is no place for pharmaceutical shills, tobacco industry shills, etc. in this organisation. If such an organisation offers us resources, that's difficult. Please join the discussion.

"Official approval" to medical articles. You were concerned that if we give some kind of imprimatur to an article, it may open us to liability if our content causes harm. m:WM:MED won't be doing that. However, James and others are presently working with several medical journals who are willing to offer independent scholarly review and online publication of our medical articles. That is, we submit a Wikipedia article for publication, their peer reviewers critique it, we modify the article accordingly, they review again, and when the peer reviewers are satisfied, that version is published by the journal. Several are interested but only one journal is presently willing to do this using the cc-by-sa license. Hopefully more will jump on in time. The published version would then be about as reliable as the present academic publishing model offers, so that diff could be considered an officially approved version I guess, but approved by the journal not by m:WM:MED. I imagine it would be that version of the article we'll be submitting to Translators Without Borders for translation. Whether any Wikipedias choose to copy and paste the article, or some of it, will be up to the individual Wikipedias to decide.

Morphing into a meta-arbitration committee for medical issues. Well, no. There is no way that can happen. We're completely corporately distinct from the Wikipedias.

Deciding which Wikipedia articles to prioritise still has the power to skew the minority-language Wikipedias. I don't think I'm following your line of thought there. Regarding the problem of Health benefits of XXXXX being a featured article but Side-effects of XXXXX being a stub, certainly, an individual Wikipedia may choose to have such articles but m:WM:MED won't be producing an article with either of those names; that is the kind of forking WP:MED is very conscious of.

Thanks for your time and attention, and sorry again for the delayed response. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:26, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you
I'm happy to see that someone is on their toes and has an institutional memory. I'd unwatched TFAR and idly peeked in a few moments ago - wouldn't even have looked had you not commented. Miss Moppet is clean; I had the ILT/Suzanne (whatever her name was) edits rev-deleted - and that was a battle where I lost some skin. Nevertheless that CCI has hundreds and hundreds of pages and I keep stumbling across more that I've forgotten to report. The repercussion of running it would not be good in my view. Not at all. Truthkeeper (talk) 19:30, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Adding: I've removed it. Don't have the time or the energy for another "discussion" there. Truthkeeper (talk) 19:40, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I've asked for an explanation at WP:TFAR before having this removed. Iridescent, if you're familiar with the issue, detailed comments would be welcome. I'd be willing to help bring it to FAR if there's solid evidence that this isn't our "best work". Mark Arsten (talk) 19:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * My issue with this running is different to that which Truthkeeper raised. Although all the ILT edits have been revdeleted, that hasn't cleaned the article history. The version which passed FAC was a cut-and-paste copyvio; at the moment, what you have is an article in which the revdeletions mean that there are multiple blatant copyright violations which are now attributed to assorted good-faith editors, each of whom happened to be the next person to touch the article after ILT pasted in one or another chunk of cut-and-paste. (You also have links to pure copyvio versions at the top of the article talkpage, as those were the versions that passed the various GA, FA etc processes and are thus auto-archived.) Unless the WP:CCI people are happy for this to run—and preferably User:Moonriddengirl wearing her "official WMF capacity" hat—this shouldn't run; "hosting multiple blatant copyright violations in the article history" is still "hosting multiple blatant copyright violations". Standard practice in cases like this is to wipe out the history altogether prior to the first clean version, but because of the exceptional circumstances of the FAC this isn't an option with this one. Basically, the continued existence of this article and its history are a legal liability, and you really need WMF consent before you put it in a high-profile position on the main page—consent Maggie is very unlikely to give.
 * The article as it is today has almost nothing in common with the article which passed FAC. If I were in charge, I'd wipe this article altogether, recreate it with an explanatory "here's why you can't see the history" note on the talkpage and as the initial edit summary, strip it of its FA status and (if Truthkeeper and Ruhrfisch so desire) renominate it at FAC under its own merits.


 * Yes, that's what I'd like to see happen and which I requested, but the request was denied, and I let ago after being accused of wanting to exactly what you suggest so that I could take credit for the star myself. (Would take forever to find the diffs, but I can if necessary). The entire history has to be blanked. And there's the additional problem of the many pages that this links to. Truthkeeper (talk) 20:57, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Very interesting, thanks for all the detail, Iridescent... this does change my perspective on the issue. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Then why is it still an FA? Doesn't make sense to me. Should we suspect all FAs? MathewTownsend (talk) 21:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course you should suspect every FA, particularly those from before spot-checking was made mandatory. (This article and Grace Sherwood are the reason spot-checking was made mandatory.) Quite apart from the occasional plagiarism/sourcing issue, older FAs often contain broken links, malformed templates and good-faith nonsense additions. The reasons it wasn't wiped at the time are long, boring, and largely down to the fact that this was also going on at the time and sapped everybody's willingness to engage in any conversation including the word "copyright". Everyone involved is well aware of what happened in 2010 and there's no need to rake up old dirt just for the sake of it. – iridescent  21:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Seems like that's what's happening - the raking up of "old dirt". Ugly. I'll not trust FAs anymore. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Furthermore articles that even now are promoted without spotchecks should be suspected for the very reasons that this, which appeared to be quite good, got through, and another Beatrix Potter page, which also appeared to be quite good almost got through. We didn't know at the time that the editor in question was a sock of, most of whose pages are extremely well-formatted, sourced and apparently well-written, because of the plagiarism. I don't believe Iri was around at the time it was decided to keep the star, but I can trawl through history and find diffs if that would satisfy you. Personally I think it would be better to leave it alone as Iri suggests. Also as Iri suggested, it would have been nice to post a notification to my page in regards to this. It was a fluke that I noticed it. In the meantime I'll have to put back my archives, trawl through them and post a few diffs to my page for those who don't entirely understand the situation. Reading the article talk page is helpful too. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

well, there's no proof, according to Sockpuppet investigations/ItsLassieTime/Archive. But I love it that you go around blocking editors. Great work for wikipedia. [personal attack removed]. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Does nobody ever click on the link on every single page on Wikipedia that says WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY  ? This is Wikipedia; you shouldn't be trusting anything you read here, and the sources are provided precisely so readers can check things for themselves. The FA process measures compliance with arbitrary style guidelines, not "truth", and truth has little relation to an article's internal grading on Wikipedia; it's a safe bet that at any given time Southborough, Bromley is more accurate than Michael Jackson.
 * Per my comment to you on Mark's talk, I have no desire to engage with you; as far as I can tell Mark came here to raise a legitimate concern that directly relates to me, whereas you came here solely to whine about the Featured Article process, a process in which I'm not involved, shortly after posting a string of abuse about me on someone else's talkpage. Unless you have something to say that directly concerns me, please don't post any further on this page. – iridescent  21:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't accept wikipedia as the "truth". I just use my judgment. [personal attack removed] I wonder how many editors have been blocked unjustly. Seems like many editors spend all their time trying to block people. It's amusing reading Sockpuppet investigations/ItsLassieTime/Archive which doesn't seem to mention Suzanna at all (that I can see). But nonetheless ... Hey, bully for the crusaders! MathewTownsend (talk) 22:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Which part of "Unless you have something to say that directly concerns me, please don't post any further on this page" did you miss? Please take your fight somewhere else. – iridescent  22:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC) As a final piece of advice; this is one of the most-watched talk pages on Wikipedia, and is a really ill-advised place to launch personal attacks against other users. –  iridescent
 * I've done it once. I was upset. Please let it go. Truthkeeper (talk) 22:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Question: per this - do you consider that scrubbing Miss Moppet was a conspiracy? Truthkeeper (talk) 19:16, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not at all - "Mark is an innocent party in this" was intended to mean that Mark's reverting your removal—and snappy comments prior to the full explanation—were a good-faith misunderstanding in that he didn't realize the scale of the problems with ILT, and not either an attempt to harass you or acting as any kind of apologist for ILT. – iridescent  19:28, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Phew, still a little prickly I think. Next question (this was meant to come first until I stumbled on that conversation) because I value your opinion. How do you think this mess should be dealt with? I haven't submitted Miss Moppet to FAR yet because I'm not convinced stripping the star is all that's necessary. If it were up to me, I'd delete all the pages ILT wrote and turn them red. That would solve the problem of the contaminated histories and send a powerful message. The only problem is the sheer volume of them (and there still more to be added that I stumbled across some months ago). They're mostly popular enough that someone else will come along and turn them blue again. They could be watched, I suppose, to prevent the the possibility mass plagiarism again. Such a drastic measure aside, I'm not sure what an in-between solution is, but I do think it's something we need to deal with. I simply don't know what to do about it. Btw - nice to see you around again. Truthkeeper (talk) 19:48, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi, decided to send to FAR in case you'd like to weigh in. . Truthkeeper (talk) 00:52, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * My thoughts on the issue are here; feel free to cut-and-paste any of it if you feel its relevant. Since the WMF policies on copyright and attribution are incompatiable, someone somewhere needs formally to rule on which way this should go. Pick whichever you think would be the least dysfunctional from Arbcom, the WMF or a community RFC. – iridescent  18:32, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've cross posted to the FAR page, . I agree it's a test case and needs to be sorted. From the varying answers to questions I was asking during round one of this it was clear it was a very muddy area. I agree this is a test case and an issue that needs answers. And something that really needs to be dealt with. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:52, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey, Iri ... came over to look into that medical proposal above (which concerns me for a number of reasons I won't go into here), and saw all of this (more of the unfortunate sort of business going round lately, methinks). Now this "FA, particularly those from before spot-checking was made mandatory" caught my eye, and jogged my (perhaps faulty) memory. Here's how my memory goes, FWIW. Spot-checking was never made mandatory. There were multiple attempts to put something in place to check for copyvio after Grace Sherwood, people kicked and screamed, nothing was done because consensus didn't form, short of doing it myself (which was what I often had to do) there was nothing else I could do to institute something formal even after many attempts, and that led to ... the Lassie Time copyvio. After that I simply decided that I would not have any part in promoting any more articles without a spot check unless I was already familiar with the integrity of that author's work, or previous checks of that author's work had been performed. Unless my memory is faulty and unless something has changed, spot checks were never instituted ... I just decided I would insist upon them because I wouldn't be part of a promotion process that refused to assure that articles accurately reflected sources, without copyvio. I guess that became part of the process, simply because no one objected. For the record, since the community kicked and screamed when I pushed for something formal, so I had to just do it myself. Take care there, best Sandy Georgia (Talk) 08:22, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Main page appearance: London Necropolis Company
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The London Necropolis Company was a cemetery operator established by Act of Parliament in 1852 in reaction to the crisis caused by the closure of London's graveyards in 1851. The LNC intended to establish a single cemetery large enough to accommodate all of London's future burials in perpetuity. The company's founders recognised that the recently invented technology of the railway provided the ability to conduct burials a long distance from populated areas, mitigating concerns over public health risks from living near burial sites. Accordingly, the company bought a very large tract of land in Brookwood, Surrey, around 25 mi from London, and converted a portion of it into Brookwood Cemetery. A dedicated railway line, the London Necropolis Railway, linked the new cemetery to the city. By the time Brookwood Cemetery opened in late 1854, a number of other cemeteries had opened nearer to London or were in the process of opening, while LNC was on the verge of bankruptcy. The LNC remained solvent by selling surplus parts of its land, but as the land had been chosen in the first place for its remoteness, sales were low. Although it was never as successful as planned, the LNC was very influential on both the funeral industry and the development of the area around Woking, and Brookwood Cemetery remains the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom. (Full article...) UcuchaBot (talk) 00:02, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

TFA
See - Raul scheduled this, will you tell him that he missed a lot during his time of MIA? Gerda Arendt (talk) 02:36, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Repaired, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:17, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Mid Dec Metro
Sorry this edition is so late. Simply south...... walking into bells for just 6 years 11:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Billy Boy
"suggest William the Conqueror. As the date the Norman Conquest was completed, and of his coronation, it has undoubted strong date relevance" - but Christmas day 1066 wasn't really the end of the conquest - various dates have been suggested - I lean towards after the defeat of the Revolt of the Earls but a strong case can be made for the completion of Domesday Book or for William Rufus' defeat of the rebellion of 1088. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Depends on where you draw the line; pop over to WP:WALES or WP:CORNWALL and you'll find plenty of people willing to explain at great length that the Conquest was never fully complete, and that there's an unbroken line of Refusal To Bow To The Norman Yoke from 1066 to the present day. In reality, "no credible opposition, recognition by the major institutions of government, and military occupation" to me equates to "conquest" regardless of whether the potential for revolt remained; Germany can legitimately be said to have conquered France in 1940 even though the Resistance continued to operate, some French possessions never recognised Petain's surrender, and they were ultimately unable to hold on to their conquests. To me, either Berkhamsted or the coronation marks the point at which opposition ceased to be credible. A hypothetical Viking fleet sailing up the Thames on 24 December and restoring Edgar Aetheling or the Godwinsons would have been seen by historians as a continuation of the defense against William; the same fleet on 26 December would be treated as a reconquest from William. – iridescent  13:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Jan Metro
Simply south...... walking into bells for just 6 years 20:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The King and I is at FAC
Hi, Iridescent. The King and I has been nominated for FAC. I see that you have reviewed FACs in the performing arts area before. It would be great if you could take a look at the article and give comments at the FAC. Thanks for any time you could spare! -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:28, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll have a look when I get the chance, with the proviso that I'm not up to speed with any changes to FAC criteria in the last couple of years. You may want to ping Malleus as well—even though he's left, a post to his talkpage will notify a lot of people who are likely to have an interest in the topic. – iridescent  16:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

March Metro
Simply south...... catching SNOWballs for just 6 years 21:54, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Er...
I agree with the general message, but is it really necessary to imply that the editor is a young child? You are not required to remove the comment, but I'd appreciate, if at least for civility's sake, you struck it. m.o.p 15:57, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * No. Being a young child is certainly not the same as acting like a young child; a young editor behaving inappropriately would be grounds for someone to take them under their wing and either show them the ropes or quietly and privately explain why and how Wikipedia differs from Reddit and Myspace, whereas an grown adult with two years on Wikipedia behaving inappropriately is a totally different matter. – iridescent  16:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I understand the distinction, and I'm by no means saying Technical's behaviour is acceptable. I just don't see remarks like that as necessary - they don't contribute anything to the message. It's just kicking the person while they're down. Again, whether or not you remove it is your prerogative - just thought I'd ask. Best, m.o.p  16:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * A declined unblock is pretty much by definition kicking a user when they're down. Since the point of the block-request-unblock cycle is to indicate to the user in question what needs to change, it needs to explain what the problem is, otherwise the blocking admin may as well just lock the talkpage in every case. In this case, the root problem is "acting like a child having a tantrum, when you're experienced enough to know better"—as the hints-and-whispers dropped by previous commenters have failed to get the message through, there comes a point when it needs to be said in plain speech, otherwise the user in question just gets frustrated as to what they've actually been blocked for. (I'm not the first in this case, either.) – iridescent  16:31, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

About your decline rationale...
Hey, Iridescent, I saw your rationale in declining Technical 13's unblock; I just wanted to mention that Technical 13's email to Anomie and me (he emailed Anomie at my suggestion, and forwarded me a copy) were to apologize for accusing Anomie of making a comment he never made. There was nothing inappropriate about the email, and indeed, it made me hopeful. I don't think now's the time for him to try again, so I don't disagree with your decline, but perhaps in time. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I haven't experienced and don't know of anything untoward as far as email goes, and your suggestion otherwise might be a little wounding to him. Writ Keeper (t + c) 15:57, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, maybe I misread your post; I think I see what you're getting at. Writ Keeper (t + c) 16:00, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've removed it; without context, I assumed it was an "I want you to unblock me" email. If it was a solicited request for information, that's obviously a different matter. – iridescent  16:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yep, no worries, I can see why you'd think that. Thanks for removing it! Writ Keeper (t + c) 16:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

April Metro
Simply south...... eating shoes for just 7 years 20:36, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

TY, and
Thank you for your input Iri, much appreciated. If you see something you think would be better as far as lay-out or presentation, please feel free to sort, move, adjust, format, etc. as you think best. I'm hoping to push it out to a public area with a RfC listing by maybe the beginning of next week; so the cleaner it looks and easier it is to use the better. Thank you again. — Ched : ?  03:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Unless Wikipedia has drastically changed in my absence, a formal RFC on infoboxes isn't a good idea. While there are certainly good-faith, reasonable people on both sides of that debate, in practice the dispute is driven on one side by two of Wikipedia's most toxic personalities—aided-and-abetted by a gaggle of serial sockmasters venting old grudges—who will refuse to compromise in any way and if any decision goes against them will resort to trying to bully opponents off the project until the numbers are back in their favor, and on the other side by a clutch of highly-strung people who will overreact to perceived provocations and escalate minor disputes into full-blown battles.
 * Unless you can persuade Arbcom to issue a ruling by fiat—and I can't imagine there's any enthusiasm on their part to get involved in MOS issues*, since they're all familiar with Mabbett, Malleus, Mattisse et al and will have no desire to renew the acquaintance—the only way this firework could be extinguished once lit is either by total capitulation to every demand of the "Wikipedia as spreadsheet" hardliners, or by long-term blocks, since experience has shown that two of the users involved in particular will refuse to compromise on anything and thus the usual discussion/consensus cycle isn't possible.
 * If you haven't already, you should probably speak to User:Tony1, who's familiar with the previous occasions in which there was a petty MOS dispute where one side took a "death before dishonor" attitude and preferred to try to take the temple down with them rather than compromise. (Date delinking is the most notorious, with an honorable mention for en-dashes, but there are plenty more.) I don't always (or even usually) agree with Tony, but his analysis of the failings of Wikipedia's decision making process is generally spot-on. – iridescent  11:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * * They all watch this page; I dare say Brad or Risker will pop up in a moment to make the same point in more diplomatic language.
 * Suggestions on further articles that do not play well with infoboxes (this from someone who generally does use them on articles I edit) - Middle Ages, Norman conquest of England, Carucage, Epikleros, and Jersey Act. A number of other articles where I've just dealt with the incompatibilities - Hubert Walter, William Longchamp, Nigel (bishop of Ely) - where they all have two infoboxes because others have insisted. (Note that Gerard (archbishop of York) has managed (so far) to avoid the dreaded second infobox.... lets see how long this lasts...) And I like infoboxes - but there is no denying that there is a group of folks who push them all-the-freaking-time. And there is also a group of people that seem to feel that every-single-detail-needs-to-be-in-the-infobox - have you checked out the insane number of fields in Template:Infobox person??? "Net worth"??? "Agent"????? Is that really necessary? I highly doubt that any person is noted for their agent, so why do we need that field in an infobox? And if it exists, someone will think it's needed... Ealdgyth - Talk 12:17, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Arthur Galston- he's noted for his agent.Ning-ning (talk) 20:07, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you all for the input. I see I have a TON of work to do as far as reading, and will try to absorb everything as quickly as possible.  I'll likely be doing more reading than typing for a bit - but I will be paying attention.  Iri, for email - is your "Email this user" link to the left still the accurate one to use? — Ched :  ?  20:22, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Quick note: Being a person that loves irony - I did notice that Microformat does not have an infobox. I can fully understand the "why", still, how can you not appreciate something like that? — Ched :  ?  20:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The "email this user" link will still reach me, although I don't check it very often. Regarding how Google searches work, there's a fairly good explanation at Google Panda, and a (probably over-technical for Wikipedia's readership) explanation of the old system at PageRank. Needless to say, neither has anything to do with infoboxes or metadata, which is a piece of puff spun by the "every article needs an infobox" brigade; the only way metadata would affect a Google search is in the unlikely event one was searching for a phrase present in the metadata/infobox which wasn't present in the article proper.
 * (For TPSs baffled by this thread, it's a continuation of this draft RFC, which I'll reiterate that I think it would be a Very Bad Thing to send live, unless you're really in "hasten the day" mode and have a blinding urge to see old scores being bloodily settled in your userspace. I can save Arbcom three months of their time and tell you now that the result of the case will be "preserve the status quo", but at least three of those involved—I can even give the names—will come out of it sitebanned.) – iridescent  21:01, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd love to see an email about that list of who'd be banned. Curious if it agrees with my list. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You've got mail. – iridescent  21:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The LAST thing I want to see is ANYONE site banned. The more I read the less anxious I am to go the RfC route.  My original intent was to put out a few of the fires that have been flaring up lately, but the more I read the more unsure I am of how to accomplish that.  I will likely drop you an email in the next few days, when I do I will note it here as well.  Thank you all again. — Ched :  ?  22:19, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Since Iridescent suggests that I might have something to contribute to this discussion, here I am. Suffice it to say, though, that I don't have strong views relating to infoboxes, nor do I want to comment on any of the user-conduct issues since the entire situation may come before ArbCom at some point. (I'd love to know whom Iridescent is referring to in his comments on both past and hypothetical future cases, but I'd better not ask.)

"Should there be infoxes" on a given class of articles is often treated as a single question, but in reality, I think the objections to them fall into at least two major categories:
 * Objections based on formatting of the article, and the view that a summary box messes up either the aesthetics of the formatting or the structure of the article or both.
 * Objections based on the oversimplified nature of the information that can be included in an infobox. We recently had a request for arbitration over the infobox in Continuation War, which is our article on the war between the USSR and Finland from 1941 to 1944. Everyone seemed to be in agreement that the content of the article itself was balanced or at least acceptable, including in its discussion of the outcome of the war&mdash;but we had rampant edit-warring over whether the infobox should describe the outcome as a "Russian victory" or a "limited Russian victory" or a "split outcome" or whatever. This is the inevitable result of trying to reduce complicated historical issues to a sentence fragment, and can be extrapolated to infoboxes on other topics.

As against these objections is the response that infoboxes make straightforward, uniform summary information available across the great range of articles, and that while there are exceptions, for the most part the sort of information contained in infoboxes is purely factual and won't typically be subject to dispute. (E.g., birth and death dates, term dates for politicians, coordinates, and so forth.)

One possible way of reconciling the competing interests, which would be a compromise and therefore would probably please no one, has been obvious to me for years: where the desirability of an infobox is disputed, put the infobox on the top of the talkpage. No one cares about the aesthetics of a talkpage, and any disputes about the content of the infobox could be addressed with a footnote saying that for more detail, one should consult the relevant section of the full article.

One counterargument to this modest proposal is that readers (as opposed to veteran editors) won't think to look at the talkpage, but that's the best solution I've been able to come up with so far. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:40, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * (watching) there's an infobox on the talk page of Bach - and a discussion (that brought us here and to my first ANI appearance) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:59, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting&mdash;but there (as I read it), someone has posted the infobox there to start a discussion about whether to include it in the article. My tenative suggestion here is the different one of hosting the infobox on the talkpage permanently. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:23, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I was someone. I will think about it but promised (myself) not to mention "infobox" until Carmen left the Main page ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we're both still around
Hi. I was just updating my list of favorites when I rediscovered this post of yours from July 2009. It's as true today as it was then, and re-reading it left me feeling happy and inspired. :-) I hope you're well. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:17, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Heh, an interesting collection of names there, particularly if you scroll up to the start of the thread. That outburst came at the end of a very odd week which screwed up the brains of everyone on Wikipedia even more than usual—under normal circumstances, I assure you my response to talk-page comments isn't typically to launch into a full-blown religious sermon on the theme of gardening.
 * I do stand by what I said there. Wikipedia's content is often dubious writing of dubious accuracy on subjects of dubious interest; most of it won't survive when the money runs out or one of the big corporations gets around to creating Encarta II or a decent version of Britannica. Wikipedia's true value is as a sandbox for people who think they might be good at writing (researching, coding, photographing…) to climb a very steep learning curve and either find out they have a gift for it, or have their illusions shattered early on before they waste too much time trying to do something for which they don't have a gift.
 * Nice to see you still about—last I saw you'd been blocked for some incomprehensible argument I couldn't be bothered to follow. Looking over that 2009 talkpage it's shocking how many people are either blocked, retired or effectively dormant. You might want to add Nominative determinism to that list of favorites—the current article is in a shitty state but the sources do exist for someone to make it one of Wikipedia's all-time greats. (You can pass ages thinking of examples of ND—one of the journalists who broke the Catholic abuse scandal being named Roger Boyes is surely the winner.) – iridescent  17:57, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * And yet Dick Swaab specializes in neurobiology rather than venereal disease... MastCell Talk 18:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, it seems nearly everyone saw that I'd been indefinitely blocked. A lot of overreaction (heavy-handed blocks and revision suppression) regarding <http://wikipediocracy.com/>, which I guess is the new <http://wikipediareview.com>. Same trolls, different domain (or the same domain... heh). You've drawn the curtains on both your Wikipedia involvement and Wikipedia itself several times and I can certainly agree that most of the content here is mediocre or bad (to say nothing of the awful state of affairs in many of the Global South projects). However, Wikipedia seems to be here to stay. Britannica, Encarta, Knol... it isn't that Wikipedia is indestructible: anything that can be built can be destroyed. But given Wikipedia's size, popularity, maturity, and other protections put in place (particularly its open license), I think we can say with a high degree of confidence that Wikipedia will be around for a very long time. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:33, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The WMF can say the "holy shit slide" has ended until they're blue in the face, but it still won't change the fact that the number of regular editors last month was at its lowest level since February 2006, and the number of new accounts registering was at its lowest since November 2005. Wikipedia will survive in some form, but things like this tend to wither to a hardcore of True Believers very quickly as and when someone comes up with something better, quicker or just cooler—the barriers to entry are so low, and all it would take to send Wikipedia the way of Myspace would be if Google restarted Knol on a more sensible model and based on a WP mainspace content-fork, then gave WP itself a Panda rating of zero to kill casual traffic to the original site. Remember AOL, Yahoo Auctions, Webvan, Compuserve, Bebo, Napster? (Nobody will get poor short-selling Facebook, come to that.) – iridescent  20:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. The barriers to entry are so low and yet, here we are. Over a decade on the Internet is significant and shouldn't be overlooked, I don't think. Wikipedia has no shortage of enemies. And Wikipedia has no shortage of people interested in capturing one ten-thousandth of the traffic it receives. And yet.
 * Google, for its part, seems more interested in giving money to the Wikimedia Foundation (and related projects such as Wikidata) than it does in rebuilding Knol.
 * Part of me finds those stats very troubling and part of me finds them completely irrelevant (given the Pareto principle and my personal observations of Wikipedia). We need better tools and a better community, but not necessarily a bigger community. I think the Wikimedia Foundation understands (at least) the need for better tools, though it will, of course, take them three times as long to deliver on reasonable solutions than it should. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:10, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * To return to the garden metaphor, I think a good deal of the problem is that the WMF wants to run the garden as an agribusiness, while most individual editors see it as a cluster of allotments and organic smallholdings. Thus, Wikipedia has shitloads of incomprehensible policy pages, protocols and markup, which quite understandably deters people who just want to add 200 words about an interesting building in their hometown. It's one of the reason I dislike the WP:Lua initiative; Giano's hypothetical intelligent 14-year old target reader could look at the code of the old-style citation template and figure out what did what, even without any previous knowledge of wikitext, but nobody without a reasonably high proficiency in programming will make head or tail of the new-style code. This and all the other "complexifying" things like it (an insanely incomprehensible piece of markup code being the first thing they see when they click "edit", a ludicrously long list of policiees one can be blocked for breaching...) creates an "us and them" mentality between an elite at the top of the learning curve, and a crowd at the bottom. The natural reaction of any normal person faced with that is either to go off somewhere else, or decide to devote a lot of time and energy into becoming part of that elite.
 * Thus, you have both the editor recruitment and retention crisis—to put the raw data I linked above in starker context, at the present relative rates of decline in 12 months Wikipedia will have between 2000 and 2500 regular editors of whom fifty percent will be admins (and quite a few will be either socks or bots, so the number of actual people will be lower)—and you have a strong incentive to become a die-hard MMORPG-er for anyone who does decide to stay. Sue Gardner* was looking at ways to address this, but presumably with her leaving the impetus for that will go; Jimmy Wales has many admirable qualities (I do mean that sincerely), but does have an understandable difficulty in admitting that his baby has serious structural issues that won't be resolved by everyone closing their eyes and pretending the train is moving. – iridescent  21:38, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * * Sue's resignation statement is well worth reading in full, if you haven't already. The shift from a single "the internet" to a bunch of smaller competing subscriber/member services isn't a development the WMF has prepared well for. As Tim Berners-Lee is so fond of pointing out, 200 million internet users never visit any site other than Facebook, and every cable TV company, search engine, Rupert Murdoch etc would love to do the same. ("We'll give you a completely free high-speed broadband line, with the proviso you only visit approved sites from which we get a cut of the advertising, and you allow us to track every single thing you do and sell the data.") – iridescent  21:38, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Lua is fine. Yes, it's complex, but a well-performing and syntactically-sound programming language is much saner than the abominations people made using ParserFunctions (for example). If editor retention is an issue, surely forcing editors to wait 45 seconds for an article to parse/render (due to slow citation templates) is a high priority. Wikitext templates are simpler, yes, but they're in a language that literally no else on the planet uses. So you trade some simplicity for a proper programming language that's really fast and that has an independent user community. This is the price we pay to be able to do all kinds of neat tricks within wiki templates. We've really only just begun to harness the power of Scribunto/Lua. (It and LabeledSectionTranclusion have the power to transform many parts of the wiki, in my opinion, including wiki processes.)
 * If you're looking for walled gardens, I'd probably cite Wikidata and/or Wikimedia Labs.
 * If we look at Wikimedia Engineering, we can see that VisualEditor is a high priority. Everyone realizes that infoboxes and wikitext are generally awful for new users. But eventually we'll have sane interfaces for these things.
 * Regarding the stats... there are still a lot of areas that need further examination and study before drawing many conclusions, I think. Including examining whether those stats are accurate/consistent and examining what happens in the next few months.
 * I read this piece and it's obviously a disturbing premise (Facebook and Google gaining even more power/clout). I guess we'll see what happens. It reminded me of Wikipedia Zero in some ways.
 * It'll be very interesting to see who's on the short list for Executive Director. This is really the first time this has happened (the previous EDs were interim). Sue has done a wonderful job growing the Wikimedia Foundation, but eventually this growth took its toll. The Wikimedia Foundation (currently at 162 staff and contractors according to wmf:Template:STAFF-COUNT) is still very small for a tech organization, but getting to be quite large for a non-profit. The Board responded to this growth with the "Since the plan..." paragraph inside of wmf:Resolution:2012-2013 Annual Plan. Sue responded with m:User:Sue Gardner/Narrowing focus. And as her time at the Wikimedia Foundation wraps up, she's now finishing up m:User:Sue Gardner/Wikimedia Foundation Guiding Principles, a lot of which I agree with and support. This is a very wordy way of saying, yes of course I read Sue's resignation note. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:38, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Lua's fine in its place, but it's in the wrong place. It should be hidden away in MediaWiki space or in a restricted area of its own, and not left in the "anyone can edit" morass—all making it public does is confuse the hell out of people, and put it at permanent risk of being destabilized by any good-faith editor who wants to improve it but doesn't really understand.
 * Facebook and Google aren't the ones to watch—Facebook is a bubble on the verge of bursting, and Google is too much in the sights of various regulatory bodies to get away with anything drastic like disabling Wikipedia on Android. The one to watch is Amazon, who are quite open about the fact that they're trying to get a choke-hold on the distribution of information and using Kindle as a trojan horse to do so. If it can occur to me that blocking access to Wikipedia on Kindle Fires and redirecting traffic to an Amazonpedia, charging a $0.001 micropayment per page to do so, would add up very quickly, I'm sure it's also occurred to Bezos.
 * Although it will get me even more hated by the WR crowd, I have a lot of respect for Sue. She was the first big-shot publicly to challenge the "everything's fine" consensus while still supporting the original idea behind Wikipedia, and took a lot of flak for it. – iridescent  19:48, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * See also: Worse is better. Fran Rogers (talk) 21:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Hah, so I'm looking through my watchlist and I see Gen Padova. Someone recently removed her virginity status from her article (because nobody would be interested in that when reading this kind of article, heh) and I was trying to figure out how this article ended up on my watchlist. No edits by me to the article or its talk page, but I see your name in the talk page history. It didn't take too long to find Administrators' noticeboard/Archive213 (that section is bizarrely duplicated in the archive...). Of course, with enough time, a helpful IP came along and added this fact to the article in February. God bless Wikipedia. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 18:57, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Back to Ecclesiastes. See how long that one lasts; I'm reliably informed that IP-inserted libel on BLPs isn't a major problem on Wikipedia. You do realize Ottava will take this thread as Conclusive Proof that you and I are part of the Great Wikipedia Porn Conspiracy?
 * (Side note to any policymaking types watching—is someone gloating over the possibility that Wikipedia might get people fired as "a commendable act of economic terrorism" really the kind of thing you want noobs to see as their first glance of "typical Wikipedia editors in the flesh"? I know Wikipedia doesn't do censorship yadda yadda yadda but given that Talk:Main page is usually the first "internal" page prospective new editors will see, someone really ought to consider moderating it.) – iridescent  19:48, 14 April 2013 (UTC)