User talk:Lar/Archive 25

Wikipedia, Consensus, The Beatles and Project Policy (for your info)
The following is some text that I have placed on a few editors talk pages, and on the Policy talkpage. I suspect a simile involving fans is appropriate here. Do you know of any decent editors who may be able to adjudicate on this matter, should such a service be required? Mark.

I was going to step away from this, since I was only going by the rules and I didn't want to get into a big dispute (especially with editors who I respect and have enjoyed working with), but recent events have brought me back.

The debate about naming the convention regarding the capitalisation or not of the letter "t" of the in t/The Beatles has been going on for a while. I have endured the snide remarks of a Twit, and have engaged in civil debate with some others who continued to question Project policy regarding the issue. I pointed out the need to establish a reasonable argument for their viewpoint over and above that of some professional knowledge so there could be a debate. When they did provide reasonable grounds for reopening the debate I used the offices of the Beatles Newsletter Issue 9:Issue of the Month to request comment, debate on the matter. There was no response. In the next Newsletter Issue 10:Issue of last Month I commented that there had been no response, and that the Project policy would be altered to use of the lowercase. Again, nobody other than the proponents responded. After a brief while I did as I said I would, and amended the Policy.

Belated reaction
The new Policy is not to the liking of some of the editors involved the the Beatles Project (as the previous one was not to others.) After the policy was implemented reasons and arguments for retaining the previous convention were given. Authorities were cited and some discussion was created. Very recently more than one editor has edited Beatles related articles specifically to reflect the previous policy.

My Comments
My preference is to capitalise the letter t of the in the Beatles.

Wikipedia has very few rules; two of the most important relate to consensus and verifiability.

WikiProject The Beatles has a specific area for the implementation (following debate and consensus) of Policy. The associate talkpage records the debate and the arguments used in reaching Policy decisions. The Project also maintains the principle of abiding by the rules that have been agreed, and the fundemental Wikipedia ethos of consensus.

My Observations
No recent discussion occurred when the matter of the use of lowercase or uppercase was notified in two Newsletters, other than between myself and the proponents of lowercase at the Policy talkpage. Since Policy implementation discussion has only occurred on the talkpages of concerned editors, or on the talkpages of some of the articles, and not at the Policy talkpage.

More than one editor has unilaterally decided to ignore the new Policy, going so far as to amend articles to reflect the previous convention.

My Conclusion(s)
The Beatles Project is being disrupted by editors who I personally know to be conscientious and dedicated contributors of long and good standing. In that there is now occurring what might be considered vandalism (the knowing altering of articles in a manner that is against Wikipedian and Project rules and policy), likely as a result of their strongly held views, I believe that this matter needs urgent addressing. I am copying this to the Policy talkpage, and to all the editors involved in formulating the new policy and the recent opponents. I suggest that this debate is taken there, and that this matter is decided in a civil manner in accordance with the principles of Wikipedia.

I am deeply saddened that it has come to this. I am depressed that editors (people) whose integrity and civility (not to say sheer fun) I had been proud to be associated with have acted in (what I see as) bad faith and flagrant disregard for the rules and guidelines of both Wikipedia and The Beatles Project. LessHeard vanU 00:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I put my oar in, I hope it helps. We shall see... ++Lar: t/c 20:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Help
I created the article Xiong Yan with references and see also section, but they couldn't show up. Can you help please? Thanks! Wooyi 15:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry nvm now I know what was wrong. Wooyi 15:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * no problem. I have trouble with refs too, and usually it is because I am missing a trailing close of some sort (an angle bracket, a whole /ref, etc...) A tip, it's helpful to give links to what you need help with, and if it's an edit you had trobule with, give the diff... (Xiong Yan rather than just Xiong Yan... and I bet this was the diff where you fixed the problem.) Good luck with that article. Seems interesting to me. ++Lar: t/c 16:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

JzG's unwarranted accusation
JzG claims, persistently, that the reason I want a link to Tim Ireland's blog about Anne Milton mentioned in the article on Anne Milton is that I am politically opposed to Anne Milton. He has no evidence of that and yet refuses to withdraw it. That is merely one specific unwarranted accusation. Fys. Ta fys aym. 20:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

"'Non Shouty topic" advice needed by Beatles editors
If you have the time, please could you look here and check that the discussed matter, creating a stub to hold a list sub page, would be okay from a Wikipedia viewpoint? Thanks. LessHeard vanU 13:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Could you repeat the question? I'm not sure what you were asking me. In general I feel an article stub with a list is not necessarily either good or bad, it depends on the nature of the list and how likeiy it is that an article will grow from it. In talk/project space, list subpages are fine, I did that with our newsletter subscriber list. I tried to follow the link but may not have gotten to the right place. ++Lar: t/c 16:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I thought the link would take you to the section. It is the one titled "All We Are Saying". An editor has read the book (John and Yoko explaining themselves over a matter of topics) and was frustrated by the lack of an index. The editor has created an index, and placed it in his userspace. I suggested creating a short/stub article for the book and making the created index a subpage. We are concerned if this would violate Wiki policy in any way, as the index does not exist outside of Wikipedia (although the contents do). My argument for would be that literature created without an index has had it added at a later date, i.e. Standard Texts for educational purposes are often annoted and indexed. I would appreciate if you could comment back over at the Project talkpage. LessHeard vanU 21:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid to weigh in and hurt feelings, but my thinking on reflection is that maybe, this is too narrow a topic to have a page for. an index into a single book is very narrow. Is there somewhere else it could live and then we reference it??? ++Lar: t/c 21:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Nah, no hurt feelings ~ no feelings at all, I'm told... I suggested making it a sub-page, the other editor has it on a (Wikipedia)userpage already. If we can internal link to that then fine. LessHeard vanU 22:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * If this is an articlespace thing, we should not link from articlespace to a user subpage. We should link to some other place within article space (the "list"...) but in order for that list to survive a possible AfD we need to be able to establish relevance of the list to the article it's linked from as well as accuracy. If this is an index someone did by their own reading, it's original research and therefore not OK by our policies. Tricky wicket. now, on the other hand, if this is a resource that we would keep in the project or on an article TALK page, for use by editors to make articles better, then it's much less stringent about how AfD defensible it needs to be, as well as how non original research it needs to be. I'm confused which it is. If you think the original author isn't going to be miffed that wp policy says that we shouldn't have his list in article space by all means feel free to copy this whole thread over to there or whatever. That's what I was scared of, he's put a lot of work into it, and people just hate having their baby called ugly. :) Hope that makes sense, mate. And PS thanks for trying to work through the t/T thing... rather thankless, that, eh? Good work on helping keep things calm. ++Lar: t/c 23:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Urgent notice
Please delete JzG's recent post on the User Talk page of Chicagostyledog, as well as the record of it in the edit history. It contains a disclosure of personal information that violates the Wikipedia privacy policy. Dino 02:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I have an implicit "no deletion" policy, except in very egregious cases, I don't remove posts from my talk page and I prefer others do not either, even if they authored them. So I've restored this request. I have to confess I reviewed the history of that page and didn't see anything but I may have missed it. I do note that the last thing to it was a removal of some material by JzG. If there truly is personal info disclosed that is putting someone at risk, (the info is still in the history of the page, after all) we can oversight it away but we need to know what information it is specifically. Mail me or any admin a diff that shows it, along with an explanation. ++Lar: t/c 14:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * PS, blanking sockpuppet notices off the pages of other users, as you did, is a blockable offense, don't do it again please. ++Lar: t/c 14:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Bomberphone
Having watched a few afd absurdities recently it would probably go for keep :( -- yes - I had three admin friends last night i left notes about this one - complete and utter crap. So I am about to change my wording in that talk SatuSuro 23:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It might well go for keep at that. PROD it, I think. I should have, back then. ++Lar: t/c 00:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * My apologies - you deserve the credit for the hard work earlier - the response was blustery rubbish - sorry - I had alerted hesperian and he went in and did it. Thanks for the checking!  I am one of the few tasmanian project taggers it appears - and my systematic (in a chaotic way) tagging every tas article is coming up with some odd bits and pieces...  I used to live on the west coast - and most articles have my shameless tagging ... cheers and thanks. SatuSuro 01:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

More Scandinavia nonsense
Hi Larry

Just wanted to let you know that it looks like our old friend is, see the contributions of User:Arigato1. Except Rollo, it is the same garbage again. I won't revert the Greenland nonsense again to avoid being accused of 3RR, but "Arigato1" don't seem to have the same concerns. Valentinian T / C 18:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm going to not assume it's the same person (although the contribs certainly suggest eerily similar areas of interest) just yet... have warned at their talk. Greenland edits today were a clear 3RR violation but I just warned. Let us watch and monitor. If my soft touch is too soft you could well take it to WP:AN/I if you felt the need. ++Lar: t/c 19:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Let me say it like this, I actually hope that it is the same person. If it isn't, I'll have to start worrying about the future of Danish public schools (which weren't exactly helped by a combination of hippies / experiments in the 1970s + the legacy of Ritt Bjerregaard). It looks like at least three other editors are also monitoring the current situation, but I just felt better about telling you sooner rather than later. All the best. Valentinian T / C 20:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey, Don't be Down on Hippies, maaaaaaaaan. (they tell me I had a good time in the 70's. I couldn't say, I don't quite recall...) but, er, ya, no problem. Just give me another nudge if I miss what's going on, I will try to keep an eye out. ++Lar: t/c 20:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: awesome
Wikipedia_may_or_may_not_be_failing. Needs a humor tag though, think I'll start an edit war about that. :) ++Lar: t/c 22:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Er... who said it was humorous? I am entirely serious here :) – Qxz 22:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * SURE you are. ++Lar: t/c 22:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Anna Cora Mowatt
Hey Lar, you're asleep and I won't be on IRC when you will tomorrow, so here we go. The article was 99% most likely a copyvio from the getgo by Primetime, as exhibited here. As Will Beback points out:


 * Primetime says he spent "an incredible amount of time" writing articles including Anna Cora Mowatt. Even more incredible is the amount of time he must have spent researching it:


 * See also Imogene McCarthy, "Anna Cora Mowatt and Her Am. Audience" (unpublished master's thesis, Univ. of Md., 1952), especially useful on her Richmond life, which is also touched upon in Marion Harland, "Personal Recollections of a Christian Actress," Our Continent, Mar. 15, 1882, and in Marion Harland's Autobiography (1910)...For genealogy, see William O. Wheeler, comp., The Ogden Family in America (1907). Birth record from Archives Municipales de Bordeaux; death record from Gen. Register Office, London.


 * It must have taken a lot of time to go to the University of Maryland for the thesis, to dig up an 1882 issue of Our Continent, and to obtain birth and death records from the archives in Bordeaux, France and London, England. Yes, "incredible" is the right word. -Will Beback 04:39, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

So that being said, I think the whole old version is a wash and needs a new start. The illustration should not be copyrighted so it should be fine. I'm looking forward to seeing the new article. Teke ( talk ) 05:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, and the only other serious editor to the article was User:Igtrn, one of the many Primetime socks that restores his old articles. The other edits are cats, dabs, wikilinks, etc.  Teke ( talk ) 05:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info! Note that rootsweb.com does have good birth/death records, E uses them all the time. ++Lar: t/c 13:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Your comments are cordially invited
... in the discussion about "Articles about ongoing enterprises should be official policy." The goal is to protect Wikipedia's reputation as a neutral encyclopedic resource, and protect Wikipedia from civil liability. The consensus appears to be that WP:BLP should be modified to include ongoing enterprises. What do you think? Please add any additional comments to the existing discussion on this page. Dino 12:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure you actually will want my comments but I'll put my oar in. ++Lar: t/c 13:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Requests for adminship/Georgewilliamherbert (2)
FYI, I have removed this RFA from WP:RFA. The instructions given under Requests for adminship/nominate state that the nominee should (1) accept the nom, (2) answer the questions, (3) change the time, and (4) transclude the RFA. Step 3 is trivial, but I don't think it would be fair to him to have the RFA transcluded and have oppose !votes sway the thing simply because he hasn't yet had a chance for step 2. --BigDT 18:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Good deal. The way it used to be done was answer the questions (if desired) THEN accept, so... but ya. I was just going to untransclude it myself... Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 19:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:Did you know/Next update (copied from here)
I saw you made some good improvements to the wording on T:DYK/N... when changeing wording there, don't forget to change the wording at Template:Did you know/Next update/Clear as well, because that's used to refresh, so your changes would be lost (if not done there) at the next time ../clear was used to refresh. I wonder if that tip needs to be saved somewhere :) ++Lar: t/c 21:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Lar. I added the DYK next update clear to the list at Did_you_know. I'm not exactly sure how/when the DYK next update clear page is used to refresh the DYK next update page.  Would you mind providing more detail about the DYK next update clear page on the Did you know page.  Thanks.  -- Jreferee 19:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Fix up further as needed. You don't have to use it every time, just cleaning stuff out by hand is fine, but once in a while it's nice to get rid of the stray commas and suchlike. PS, thanks muchly for your yeoman efforts at making these pages much more usable! ++Lar: t/c 19:26, 22 February 2007(UTC)
 * It has helped me understand the DYK process, which I previously found somewhat confusing. -- Jreferee 22:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * They say nothing helps you learn something as well as teaching it to another person, so that seems pretty logical to me! Again, thanks! ++Lar: t/c 22:50, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Problem editor
Hello again, Lar. An anonymous editor User talk:24.11.154.225 is screwing up the Coney Island hot dog article. Can you check it out? Steelbeard1 23:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Warned in concurrance with your warning, LMK if I don't spot things that happen going forward. ++Lar: t/c 02:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Mnemo
Oops about the email - I neglected to check the "allow" box. Apologies. The user's only purpose is promoting his mnemonic system. There was not a single noba fide contribution. See my deletion log prior to the block for a list of things deleted. But if you wish to unblock, go ahead. - NYC JD (make a motion) 13:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

U.S. Roads Newsletter Issue #2

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Apologies for the late delivery. Filling in for Vishwin60: Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

ESC articles
I know you were kidding, but you'll be pleased to know that I'm currently finishing off Poland (I'd say "polishing off Poland", but y'know...), so we're coming inexorably closer to the end of the alphabet. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 22:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XII - February 2007
The February 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

Delivered by grafikbot 17:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)