User talk:Martijn Hoekstra/Archives/2015/March

Infobox statistical analyses
I'm following up the comments I made at the infobox review case. I was looking at User:Martijn Hoekstra/Infobox statistical analyses and I sort of get what you were doing there. I apologise for saying it would be trivial - as it clearly isn't (as your reply made me realise, I wouldn't be able to do an analysis like that). I hope some of the arbs said to you whether that statistical analysis was useful or not - it is rare someone actually does that sort of thing and it can be very useful. It got me wondering whether if a sitting arb had followed up and asked for more analysis, would you have been prepared to do that? The sort of questions I would have asked, if I still had standing to do so, would be things like how many nominations in total has AM made at TfD and what percentage is that of the total? Something like a table giving the number of nomination per year for every year, the total number of nominations made at TfD, and the percentages. The total number of templates in use on Wikipedia during that time would be another useful statistics, but I am not sure if it is even possible to generate that sort of statistic. Having stats produced regularly so that people can get an idea of what is going on in various areas of Wikipedia would be very useful, but it doesn't seem to happen very often. If you'd be willing to give advice on that as a general query about Wikipedia, not to do with arbitration, let me know. Carcharoth (talk) 17:12, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry if I reacted somewhat annoyed; the thing that got to me that the way it was phrased came across to me as if the way I set it up was intended to portray things differently then they were, which felt to me as an accusation as bad faith, which stung. I've been annoyed with other (tangentially related) things, and I may have overreacted. Arbs haven't followed up with questions or further analyses (I should really have also posted statistical significance and uncertainty interval, but I'm not really proficient with statistics), the only followup that has been made was s suggestion that Andys presence was so disruptive that the results were skewed because of his presence in the discussions (I disagree with that assessment by the way, but it's a valid theoretical possibility). TfD is currently in a bad state, but I'm not sure what the bad state really is, or what causes it. I'm convinced it's not Andy Mabbett though; I'm currently leaning to thinking that it's an area that is poorly watched due to bad visibility of changes to templates in watchlists, a majority of people not caring (which is not a criticism, just an observation - that problem also exists at RfD and CfD), and people being defensive about things they don't really understand - a perception that an amorphous they personified in Andy Mabbett are trying to destroy their templates and they have to rally to the cause. For the statistics you suggest, they should be reasonably easy to get out, but first, it's too late in the case to do that analyses: evidence has been long closed, and secondly, I'm not sure if they would clarify anything, or just drown clarity in excessive data, or even misleading data (remember: lies, damn lies, and statistics).For example, I'm not sure if the ratio of TfD's started by Andy would be helpful information at all. The argument that - theoretically, I'm just pulling numbers out of the air - Andy starts 30% of TfDs and that completely overwhelms TfD is equally (in)valid as the argument that Andy starts 30% of TfD and that this shows he's a driving force behind TfD. As a thought experiment, you could change out "starting TfDs" with "creating articles" and see if the same argument is still valid, and if not, ask yourself what the difference is. A proper statistical analyses, including confidence intervalls and significance would really be better, but the arbs should also be able to interpret it. I have no idea if they are. I'm certainly willing to give advice on such things in general, but I'm not the most capable person to do that. Somebody like would probably have much more knowledge of statistical methods and would be more capable then I would be both in collecting the data and analysing it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 17:44, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't put words in my mouth. -DePiep (talk) 17:49, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Struck the part where I apparently misrepresented you. Apologies for my mistake. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 17:52, 1 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Adding, in case of interest: I am among those not normally active in TfD, but participated in one because I use a template and found another one impossible to use. I found the discussion fair and factual, the merge was done. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:47, 1 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply, Martijn. The discussion Gerda linked me to was useful, as it contained a link to Infobox consolidation, an essay created in 2012. I see now that this was mentioned in evidence, in Andy's section, behind a link piped to say it is 'a FAQ' (frequently asked questions). Looking at 'what links here' for the FAQ, it seems not to have actually been used much. Maybe if Andy and others linked to that FAQ every time a 'consolidation' nomination at TfD was made, then that would help? Or are the TfD discussions archived in a funny way that removes them from 'what links here' (e.g. archives pointing to page histories)? Carcharoth (talk) 21:51, 1 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I found the archive at the bottom of Templates for discussion. - In the discussion I was part of, people showed up who had obviously never tried to use the template in question. I don't know if that is typical. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:01, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think what links here is broken for this. I haven't really seen the essay/faq - though it seems helpful when reading it - helping much. It seems that once things turn south, we're mostly unable to turn them around, and the discussion never recovers from going sour. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:23, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I guess it might be a good idea if a discussion proposal came from the start with a line: this is an effort to (word "clean-up" politely) as described in (link to essay). Who would have thought that no longer using a 2007 template with limited parameters, when you can have a new and flexible one, might cause any debate? I was wrong. - I don't think though that this has to do anything with the arb review, - just common sense. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:36, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I think a large portion of opposition is founded in change aversion. It's not completely unreasonable. Somebody proposes changing something that to them worked fine before. When presented with the choice between opposing the change and keeping everything the way they were fine with it, and having to take the time to think about whether it would affect their workflow at all, it's not completely unreasonable to pick the former. Then we somehow end up in a situation where trenches have been dug, and winning the discussion has become more important than doing what's best. At that point, common sense has long since left the building, and I don't know the way out of it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:52, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for understanding my irony. When one of the arb candidates used the phrase "common sense", I thanked him for that rare event. He was not elected ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:01, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * ps: the difference between Andy and me is probably that I simply don't use the useless template but the other (started long ago to do that), while he wants it clean - and takes the work and the blame, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:16, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

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Help needed at CFD
It would be nice if you could help deal with the backlog at WP:Categories for Discussion - it goes back to December. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:16, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I will. But I'm running up a backlog at TfD too, which I have been the de-facto closing admin on, and I haven't done much in two weeks. The XfD backlogs are everywhere, unfortunately. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:44, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm aware that TFD is backlogged (I looked for closers of XfD discussions, and that's how I found you), but the oldest discussions there are less than a month old and CFD's backlog goes back to December. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:57, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'll see if I can get to it. RfD is also in a rough spot by the way, but probably the least rough of the three. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:58, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I can't close any TfDs because either I'm involved or the templates require deletion. Alakzi (talk) 21:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll work on some backlogs tomorrow. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 22:48, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't get round to this yesterday, so I'll have to go for it today. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:59, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
 * There's always tomorrow! [mood swing] Until such day that there isn't. :-( Alakzi (talk) 10:18, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

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Table syntax strikes again
It would appear we've regressed. Alakzi (talk) 14:32, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
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