User talk:Newyorkbrad/Archive/2018/Mar

Consensus
"How long one should wait before challenging a previously agreed consensus, and whether consensus should be developed globally or locally, are sometimes deep issues." - I agree, especially as some believe that the presence of an ibox in article is not something that long-time use has agreed upon, but at their disposal as a reward for improving an article. I confess to be not happy about that, nor the "50%" discussions which seem to support that thinking. In most cases I know the ibox is harmless and correct, so why remove it when it helps certain readers (vision-impaired, not good in English, searching for a distinct fact.) - Many talk pages are referred to as showing a consensus, - looking closer all you see is "no consensus". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:13, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * , I wonder how a screen reader would render Winston Churchill. I don't think that parade of infobox trivia would be all that helpful.  Regards, Kablammo (talk) 16:28, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Ask Graham87. My model is Beethoven. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:51, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If only that were the model for all. I believe Brianboulton may have suggested such a solution.  Best wishes.  Kablammo (talk) 23:52, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I hope you won't find it too disappointing that I suggested it, August 2013. Brianboulton, October 2013. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:08, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Not disappointed at all, Gerda. had also written a signpost piece on it in July of that year.  WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-07-10/Dispatches.  He mentions the Churchill article, among others.  Kablammo (talk) 13:20, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I remember that article, and its discussion. Recommended (or should we say required) reading for our arbitrators. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:53, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Infoboxes are just data tables, which can be navigated fine with screen readers. I like them when they contain a lot of statistical info; otherwise I'm generally meh about them, to be honest. Graham 87 04:43, 9 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm happy to see that my long-ago Signpost article is still remembered by some. Reading it again after 4-plus years, it still makes reasonable sense (if I may say so). Despite the generally supportive tone of many of the comments, I don't think we've made much progress since then. There doesn't seem, yet, to be any agreement about what are the "key facts" that properly belong in an infobox, nor any further exploration of ideas such as limiting the number of paramaters. There are plenty of IB monsters still around, and no willingness, it seems, to do much about these. I am a long-time proponent of miniboxes (see e.g. Alan Bush, Lieutenant Kijé (Prokofiev), Bessie Braddock, A Handful of Dust, Talbot Baines Reed, etc all of which have stood since the article's FAC promotion and failed to excite subsequent comment or controversy.  That suggests an (unspoken) consensus, I think. Brianboulton (talk) 15:55, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I took a stab at Churchill once, and got rid of some of the trivia. Then I decided to get rid of the succession templates, which must have offended those who really, really needed to know RIGHT NOW such information as who preceded and succeeded him as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and couldn't be arsed [did I use that correctly?] to look at the duplicate succession templates at the bottom of the page.  So of course they reverted.  Someone came along and collapsed the lot, which was nice, but small consolation to those trying to edit on a phone.  Kablammo (talk) 17:27, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all for your thoughts. I'm glad for this discussion to continue here, but if you want to include other interested editors in working toward solutions, would it make sense to pick this up on a guideline talkpage or similar? Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the suggestion. It could become part of the community discussions recommended in 2013 and not happening yet. For the moment, Newyorkbrad, you could take some of the thoughts to the arb case. I am not welcome to propose something like an identibox as a compromise, - just look at the Boulez discussion. Instead, some prefer collapsing, while we have readers who have a hard time to click on the show button of something collapsed. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:17, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Revisiting the deleted article on Houston McCoy
Thanks for trying to provide some update on Houston McCoy.
 * 1)  thought you were the individual to say that McCoy, or his family, requested courtesy deletion. But this AFD was so long ago, you don't really remember it?  Does this mean you don't remember knowing where or when McCoy, or his relatives, made a request for courtesy deletion?
 * 2) Unpleasantness or harassment, at ANI?  I had nothing to do with that, other than being a target.  The claim Mr Wales was bullying me was an attempt to mock me, from one of my wikistalker.
 * 3) Why would anyone be interested in an article on McCoy?
 * 4) I encountered the topic of Houston McCoy through the AFD -- I had never heard of him, and had only a vague recollection of the Texas Tower shooting.
 * 5) I did my own web search, and concluded he definitely wasn't a BLP1E.  Textbooks talked about him in the contexts of (1) the development of the tactic of the SWAT team; (2) the recognition of the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; (3) the recognition of the idea that some individuals commit "suicide by cop"; (4) McCoy sued the producers of the first movie about the shooting; (5) reporters sought out his opinion on the Virginia Tech shooting.  So, I concluded McCoy was not a BLP1E.  Wikilinks to Houston McCoy from the articles on PTSD, Suicide by cop, SWAT teams, the Virginia Tech shooting, or the movie, should not redirect to a subsection of the Charles Whitman article.  This information is relevant, and, really, is largely or completely off-topic in Charles Whitman.
 * 6) I think of the deletion of the Houston McCoy often.  I see it as the best example of a mistake routinely made at AFD.  When a topic is related to multiple topics, coverage of that topic shouldn't be shoehorned into a subsection of one of the related articles.  It doesn't really matter which related article is chosen, some of the  information relevant to some of the related topics will be off-topic no matter which related topic becomes the redirect target.  In my opinion, if a topic is worthy of more than one wikilink, from other articles, and there are meaningful references, the wikipedia's readers are best served by centralizing the information on that topic in a standalone article.  It seemed to me that those who kept arguing McCoy was a BLP1E had a failure of imagination.  It seems to me they thought there was one and only one reason readers would want to read about McCoy -- because they ere interested in Whitman, when they might want to read about the first individuals recognized as having PTSD, for whom Whitman is a distraction.

Mr Wales may have many strengths, but I am extremely uncomfortable when he, or anyone else, acts as if it is okay for them to bypass OTRS. In my opinion OTRS should be trusted to be the party which confirms individual corresponding with WMF projects are who they say they are. Even if, for the sake of argument, Mr Wales, or the other individuals who have usurped OTRS's role, were as experienced, or even more experienced, than our OTRS team members, it would still be a mistake to allow this usurpation. When an OTRS team member corresponds with an outsider, and confirms their real world identity, we have an audit trail, of all their correspondence. But when Mr Wales, or anyone else, conducts a private correspondence with an outside person, and then insists we trust their personal judgment that the outsider is who they say they are, their correspondence isn't recorded where OTRS team members can double-check it, or refer back to it, years later, when something comes to light, making confirmation necessary.

Courcelles wrote that it seemed like you were the individual who wrote that McCoy, or members of his family, requested courtesy deletion -- and you don't remember this. So, if you did make this claim, and it was based on private correspondence, am I correct that correspondence wasn't turned over to OTRS?

I am not an administrator. I think I found the version of Talk:Houston McCoy available to me was completely useless. I am wondering whether the requests for courtesy deletion, apparently from McCoy, or his family, were made on deleted versions of Talk:Houston McCoy.

I hope this answers your questions. Geo Swan (talk) 03:39, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the background. I'll be traveling this weekend with only limited time online, so I'll get back to this early next week if I have anything to add. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:50, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll look forward to it.  Cheers!  Geo Swan (talk) 18:49, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:TPG
Here you created a talk page header that is not compliant to WP:TALKNEW ("Don't address other users in a heading"). WP:TALKNEW is part of WP:TPG: could you maybe also read my post just above the header you introduced (it is visible in the diff I gave)? Please amend your talk page post on that page so that is compliant to the cited guideline. Tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:28, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The substance of what I posted stands, and is so much more important than the formatting guideline you cite, that your focus on the latter is disturbing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 06:05, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Disquietingly inadequate response. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:32, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Email
-- Avi (talk) 06:40, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Received and responded. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 02:23, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Apologies
Somehow, I didn't realize that was an arbcom motion instead of a general request for comments. Sorry for messing things up, and thanks for the cleanup. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:59, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not a big deal at all. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:02, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

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ARCA
I am not the only one added as involved user in the DS appeal, but also Sandstein. Even GoldenRing recused, because he was involved in the AE. I am appealing against the sanction imposed by an admin, with whom Doug Weller is WP:INVOLVED as recently as this appeal was posted. I asked Doug Weller to recuse and also posted the reasons on his talk page but he is refusing to recuse and thinks that he had to be involved with me then only he could recuse. What are your views? — MapSGV (talk) 16:48, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Doug Weller is an experienced, excellent arbitrator and if he believes he can decide your appeal neutrally then I trust his judgment. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:11, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes I should let it be that way. Either way, we are close to the end. MapSGV (talk) 17:36, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Layout
You say the trains on the main level of DC's station, but some layouts show trains on the main level and then on the basement level. I guess what's confused my about the description is that they use "upper" and "lower" level, which makes it sound like trains on are on second floor (above Columbus), which would imply that the ground floor (at Columbus) is just for shopping. --Criticalthinker (talk) 22:05, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Amtrak trains today are on the main level. The connection to the local Metro system is on the lower level. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:39, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, it appears the VRA trains are in the basement level. I guess I've got my answer, then.  The Amtrak tracks are at ground/main level, and the VRA trains are on the lower/basement level.  The Metro station is a totally seperate connections, and I'm not really interested in what level it would be at. --Criticalthinker (talk) 22:49, 31 March 2018 (UTC)