User talk:MelanieN/Archive 19

You've got mail!
Tito Dutta (talk) 11:15, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Beverly Hills
Happy New Year. Too bad you're on vacation. You're missing out on Talk:Beverly Hills, California/Archives/2016. I know you've been a supporter of WP:USPLACE. Just wanted to let you know. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 13:05, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up. --MelanieN (talk) 02:34, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Laurens
Hi, Melanie! Just curious - what caught your eye about the Laurens article? As I mentioned on the talk page, I was going to call for semi-protect, so glad you did it, I'm just curious how you came across it. —Luis (talk) 17:36, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Slightsmile requested semi-protection at the requests for page protection noticeboard. It was clear the page was under serious attack. I was going to cite it for BLP violations, but then I realized he is not a "living person". Still, his memory deserves better than what was happening there. --MelanieN (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, I looked for the request but must have missed it in the history. I'm sad my local library does not seem to have any good biographies on him, but may just order one from Amazon, since he definitely does deserve better. Thanks! —Luis (talk) 20:32, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Luis, you might also see if your local library is part of a larger consortium that allows you to request books from other libraries in the area. I have sometimes been able to get my hands on very obscure books in that way. --MelanieN (talk) 14:01, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Eyal Yanilov
Hi Melanie. I see you deleted the article about Eyal Yanilov as being non-notable. With just one quick Google search I found coverage of him in Haaretz, a leading newspaper in Israel, which states as follows: "The main goal is to extricate oneself as fast as possible," Eyal Yanilov, head instructor of the International School of Krav Maga, explains. Yanilov was one of Lichtenfeld's top students and wrote a book with him called "Krav Maga: How to Protect Yourself Against Armed Assault" whose foreword was written by the former president of Israel, Shimon Peres. It has been translated into six languages. . That sounds notable enough to me. If you restore the article, I will work on it and improve the sourcing.Geewhiz (talk) 05:33, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note, Geewhiz. The complaint at AfD was that there were only primary sources. The mention in Haaretz is a non-primary source, so that overcomes that objection - although I'm sure you realize that being quoted somewhere is not enough by itself to establish notability. Try to find sourced information ABOUT him, including sourcing for his biographical details, and third-party evidence about the importance of his book. I will userfy the article to you; see what you can do with it. --MelanieN (talk) 14:50, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ The article is at User:Gilabrand/Eyal Yanilov. When you think you have it ready, let me know. If I think it is sufficiently improved from the original version, I will put a note on the talk page saying so; otherwise it would probably be tagged for speedy deletion per WP:G4 as soon as you move it into article space. --MelanieN (talk) 14:57, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks Melanie. I have revised the article and added several references. But for some strange reason, these changes do not show up in the final saved copy. Whole sentences have disappeared, too. Is there some technical issue here?Geewhiz (talk) 11:18, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I think I fixed it. There was a "/" missing from the end ("/ref") of a reference citation. Funny how these little things can mess things up! BTW the article would be much better if you used a standard format for references. See WP:Referencing for beginners.
 * More importantly, the article is still short of independent reliable sources. You found significant coverage in Black Belt magazine, that's good. And there is that one mention in Haaretz. You cite his diplomas to a book, but we can't see the actual fact in the book; it isn't required that a reference be available online, but we need SOME way to locate the cited fact, maybe a page number? Keep looking for references, preferably from completely independent sources (not seminars he gives or stuff he himself says or writes). --MelanieN (talk) 16:24, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the article is in better shape now, certainly better than a large proportion of what currently passes for encyclopedic content on this site...Based on my current research of this topic it seems pretty clear that a lot of the drama stems from business rivalry.Geewhiz (talk) 07:47, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Geewhiz, I agree that the article is ready to be moved to mainspace. Good work! I expanded the reference citations a little. I will move it to mainspace, and I will add a note on the talk page saying that it is significantly different from the original. That means it is not eligible for speedy deletion per WP:G4. If people feel he still does not meet WP:GNG, it could be nominated for deletion again - but only via a new AfD discussion. --MelanieN (talk) 15:47, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Who was that masked IP editor?
Hello Melanie! This is a message I should have written months ago, but it's been a long time since I brought a computer with me to a public IP address. I finally decided it was just too impolite to wait any longer, so I put on my ten-gallon hat and my masked IP address, and rode into town to say thank you for the truly heroic work you did on the case of FormerUser:MusicAngels.

Thanks to you, my little corner of Wikipedia is a safe and peaceful place again. Folks are sitting on their porches, waving at each other just the way they used to. We don't worry ourselves about whether we locked the windows or remembered to take the keys out of the car. We've learned to stop looking over our shoulder as we walk down to the fishing pond. I was editing the other day with a smile on my face, just the way I did back in the days when the first snow fell in November. This is all thanks to you, though I know you had help from other good-hearted admins.

So now it's time for me to retire my anonymous IP mask, but only after I wave my thanks while riding off into the sunset on my swift and trusty browser, shouting, "Hi yo, Chrome, away!" --- Posted from the anonymous IP address: 50.74.98.197 (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update, mysterious masked man, and for the kind words. I'm glad to know they didn't come back as a sock. And I love your description of the editing climate now that they are gone. Wikipedia can be a great place to volunteer, can't it? --MelanieN (talk) 19:08, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Marcus Simaika
Hi MelanieN. Thank you for telling me how to reference my text. I have now referenced Marcus Simaika's page as suggested by yourself and by Peridon. I hope that this is to your satisfaction. Thank you for all your kind help.

Youssef — Preceding unsigned comment added by Youssef simaika (talk • contribs) 19:48, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Replied on Peridon's talk page. --MelanieN (talk) 21:38, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Marcus Simaika
Thank you very much. I am very grateful for all the kind help that you gave me. Youssef simaika (talk) 04:49, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting vandalism reversion
Hi, thanks for correcting the vandalism reversion against me on the Charles Manson page. Its good to see that some people still apply common sense on Wikipedia.110.175.158.17 (talk) 23:14, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Notability of academics, revisited
Hi, Melanie. I closed Articles for deletion/Mircea Itul as "delete" and one argument from you I use in the close was "Having an academic position at a university is not enough (except for certain highly notable or distinguished titles)." Elsewhere, however, I have generally accepted that a respectable university's website listing a professor as a named post is sufficient to stop deletion, for example Kerrie Mengersen (verifiable as being the Professor of Statistics in the Science and Engineering Faculty at Queensland University of Technology). Does my view contradict yours in the AfD above, or am I getting the wrong end of the stick? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  11:45, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi, Ritchie! Thanks for the note, and thanks for closing that incredibly long AfD. (I hope you didn't read all the walls of text.) My understanding of WP:PROF is based on this: "The person holds or has held a named chair appointment or distinguished professor appointment at a major institution of higher education and research (or an equivalent position in countries where named chairs are uncommon)." IMO that grants automatic notability only to someone with a named chair or the title "Distinguished Professor of...". It does not grant automatic notability to anyone with the title "professsor", even at a major university. To me, someone who is a professor - even a full, tenured professor - must meet other criteria, such as being highly cited for their work. That's based on the American university system; maybe "professor" in the UK is a rarer or higher or more distinguished title? WP:PROF is a tough criterion to meet (often contrasted with sports where everyone who has ever played in a fully professional league gets an article), but WP:PROF appears to be the consensus rule here so that's the understanding I apply. IMO Mengersen doesn't qualify due to her position as a professor, but she may well meet the criteria due to her leadership in societies. (BTW I removed some puffery from that article and fixed the punctuation.) --MelanieN (talk) 15:58, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * P.S. Just noticed the SPA's last-minute attempt at canvassing. --MelanieN (talk) 16:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I skimmed through the hatted sections as best I could. I don't close AfDs often and in this case I put my own feelings to one side and just reported what everyone felt, which seemed to be a lot of trivial mentions that didn't add add up. I did notice that he seems to have travelled through quite a number of academic places, and that in itself is a red flag; most genuinely notable academics tend to stay in one place and stay there forever and ever.
 * I believe in the UK and Europe, it takes more work to achieve a title of "Professor" (and this seems to be confirmed by our article on Professor, though it could do with more sources), it's the highest level of achievement you can get in a university, you must have at least a PhD, be a recognised expert in your field and only comes after a lot of hard work, possibly decades' worth. As I understand it, having achieved the tenure, you are then frequently called to be a spokesperson on a topic, which is why we consider them notable. In the case of Mengersen, I saw obvious evidence of being a world expert on statistics, and the Google Scholar link and felt that was good enough for somebody to write an article. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  17:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I had a feeing that "Professor" might mean more in the UK (and Commonwealth) than it does here. I put my own feelings to one side and just reported what everyone felt. That's what I do too. Most of the time, if I am closing an AfD I don't even look at the article. In my mind I am wearing one of two hats: either admin or editor. If I am wearing my admin hat, my job is to evaluate the consensus of the discussion, not to evaluate the article as such. If I go off and evaluate the article for myself, I figure that makes me an editor rather than an admin, and I !vote rather than closing. That's what I did in this case. (Sometimes I add a !vote just to make it easier for the next guy to close. That's also what I did in this case.) --MelanieN (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Improper revert
Your recent revert at Hillary Clinton was very ill-advised. Please see Don't revert due solely to "no consensus". The language you reverted had not been previously removed from the BLP, and it was sincerely written to overcome the stated objections. You gave no substantive reason for opposing it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Discuss at the talk page, please. --MelanieN (talk) 23:27, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm done there.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:31, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Zika virus protection
Where is the persistent high level of vandalism on the Zika virus page that has not been summarily and instantaneously reverted by automated means? You have prevented valuable edits by IP editors for no good reason. 108.243.8.251 (talk) 08:07, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I realize that semi-protection doesn't just block vandalism; it also blocks constructive edits from responsible anonymous users. That's unfortunate, and it's why we are conservative in applying protection. But in this case, just in the four hours before I protected, there had been four vandalism or inappropriate edits by IP editors, including two blanking the page. Bots caught only two of them. With such a heavily edited article, it's almost impossible for page watchers to keep up with that level of vandalism. Some vandalism had been going on for at least the past week, that's why I protected it for a week. I'm sure you've heard this before, and you don't have to do it, but you could avoid this kind of "getting punished for what the bad apples do" by registering an account. Your alternative, if you want to make an edit during protection, is to post a  suggestion on the talk page and hope someone else will make the edit for you. See Template:Request edit. --MelanieN (talk) 16:18, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Your semiprotection is unwise and heavy handed. Many of us have had no problem keeping up with the edits on this article. Now, you have biased the edits in favor of registered users, who are almost as likely to be vandals as the IPs. I suspect you did very little in examining the history of this article before quickly and hastily responding to the semiprotection request from someone who has made almost no edits to it. Of course it is easier for you to reflexively semiprotect than taking the time to determine whether there has been heavy vandalizing. Very disappointing action on your part. 208.54.4.228 (talk) 07:34, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Person
Although editing is very slow, almost none of pending changes edits were good. Extend PC? --George Ho (talk) 04:58, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * You are right that there isn't much editing of any kind at this article. But in the 6 months since I protected it, there have been about 20 edits by IPs and non-auto-confirmed users. All but one were vandalism or otherwise unproductive; only one was accepted. That suggests that the PC protection is needed and should be extended. I will extend it for another 6 months. --MelanieN (talk) 15:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)