User talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive 8

Requesting your advice and opinion
Hi Whatamidoing

Your comment about references in the 'Astrodatabank' query was of interest to me because I have had almost every reference I have provided for that biography subject to the same degree of intense examination and speculation. If you can find the time, it would be really helpful if you would drop by the biography page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Elwell_(astrologer) - I'm not asking you to read through all the discussion (which would be a lot to ask), but just to maybe read the page itself and leave an opinion on whether the tag, which says that the article is in need of further citation and reference, can be removed. In my opinion it is pretty much referenced to death now, and all the sources are fully reliable, so I cannot understand why the editors - those who have raised issues in the 'Astrodatabank' query - are insisting that the 'needs citation' tag - plus two other tags - must remain on the page. I have a different view to those editors but there are three of them, only one of me. Another voice will help a lot, and if you too disagree with me, well, then I will just have to accept that there is a consensus of opinion and drop my request for the tags to be removed, as flogins a dead horse. In any event, some movement would be beneficial. Thanks (hope you don't mind me asking) Clooneymark (talk) 10:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It looks like an unfortunate conversation is going on that page.
 * I recommend that you slow down your replies. There are more important things in the world:  find one of them to do.  High-speed, high-volume, nastiness discourages participation.  You can force MakeSense to slow down by slowing down yourself.  Think about the advantages of replying only once or maybe twice a day, and completely ignoring the page in between.  It's hard to get out of the "talk page as IM client" mode, but it is often highly effective.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi - I see you have made some constructive remarks on the Elwell page, and I thought perhaps you should know Clooneymark will not be around to respond for a few weeks - check his page please. Please note that I have actually tried to understand his viewpoint and make constructive remarks myself - I do agree that if something is very obviously a positive in sources, that should be reflected. However I also felt that the article in question did need to be more neutral than it was. Im not proclaiming any expertise and I too found myself feeling very disenchanted with the whole wiki experience on my first edit which was about something I cared deeply about. I was trying to support him and help him as best I could. However, I do feel I was not entirely successful in my efforts. The remaining editors who have been on the talk page have agreed to leave the article alone until everyones had time to cool off. Panderoona (talk) 21:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Im suprised and disappointed you havent bothered to reply, having accused me amongst other editors of being aggressive and plain nasty when two of us were asked offer thoughts to try and diffuse an already aggressive situation. Personally, I went to help, now I feel it wasnt wanted. Its not my particular interest, and since I still consider myself to be a bit of a newbie, I shall have no further interest in that page, nor be so quick to try and help another. Panderoona (talk) 13:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Unless you are also, I can't imagine which of my comments could be interpreted as an accusation against you. For example, I didn't see you telling the (apparently) "new" user that newbies needed to get advance permission to remove tags from an article—but MakeSense64 did, and nobody should have.  (MakeSense64 should have gone straight to WP:SPI with the concern that the "new" user wasn't actually new, but shouldn't have posted a single word about the WP:Editing policy not applying to new users.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I have no reason to hide behind false ID never have in 10 yrs online plus. I wrote for an other group back in the day, and fended of many and various fights. I have no intention of going voer old ground today, I came here for enjoyment and hobby. I went onto the page in question as a result of another person who helped me very much being asked to do so. I gave what I felt was true input considering the advice given me when I first joined up. I feel "bitchslapped" because you wrote very clearly that ppl ganged up on Clooneymark in way that was unacceptable, and I feel you are wrong in yr assumption. Given that I was also wrong in not knowing the full details of various events which lead ultimately to a ban on a certain persons part, I acted in the best interests of the article in question. I have since wrote to person in question and re-stated what I believe would help - based on my own experience on Wiki. I also feel that certain people had vested interests one way or another which you did not address in your comments, and your comments as far as I can see on the Elwell page were addressed to anyone who took part in the debate about that article. Acabashi was asked to go there by both parties - I am a newbie who felt very reasurred by his input on my account, and went there out of concern and with only best interests at heart. I tried to give the same kind of advice that was given my self, not by Acabashi but by others, all of which is readily available on my talk page. I feel you may have reacted swiftly to end a fight, without knowing the full details of such fight (and neither did I until I saw Clooneys talk page regarding his ban) I have since wrote to him in good faith., I dont care much how you see that. You jumped on me and considered me to be part of a vendetta which I was not. My only endeavour was to try and understand and help a fellow contributor, and I am deeply offended and deeply saddened that you feel this way about me. There is no room for manouvre on your part in this, I feel, This IS how I feel. I have taken page in question off my watchlist, and have left message with Clooney regarding my hope he takes on board my advice - which is only the same advice given me. I am not experienced here, and my time here could easily be cut very short by your reply. I am NOT here for any reason other than an genuine wish to improve existing articles. Panderoona (talk) 21:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If you are absolutely determined to believe that my complaints to MakeSense, and specifically about MakeSense's behavior, constitute a complaint about the behavior of every single person on the talk page, even after I have told you twice now that it's not, then I'm sorry, but I can't help you.
 * Your emotion-based guess about my intentions and my feelings about you is simply wrong. Unlike you, I actually know what my complaint was about, and it wasn't about you.  I have always assumed that you genuinely wished to improve the article.  You are not required to believe the truth, however:  you have the right to make yourself believe anything you like.  On the other hand, I can't really be held responsible for your persistence in this unfounded error.  What you choose to believe is your choice, and your problem.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:29, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * your uncaring attitude to my own feelings says a lot. You wrote on that page directly under my comments but choose to believe that you only targetted one person and that was not me. I suggest you reconsider what you have written and how it may appear to others not so educated or not "well up" on Wikipedia, whos intentions were genuine if not effectual. Your resistance to my comments only leads me to believe even more my own input is neither wanted nor considered reasonable. Is this truely how you wish to persue you own career here?


 * I don't know why I'm bothering, but I left four separate messages on that talk page. Three of them are immediately after, and in reply to, a comment by MakeSense.  Here's the text of the fourth, which follows a comment from you:


 * Now, can you tell me exactly which words in that message make you believe that I think you personally "ganged up on Clooneymark" or that you're "part of a vendetta"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * there was no place where you made it plain your comments were reserved for Makesense contributions only. you addressed your remarks in more than one place on that page and one of them was directly under a comment I made. Since you obviously dont care that you have made a relative newcomer feel bad for trying to help and disuaded them from trying to do that again, I wish you well and say goodbye. Its a shame that even clooneymark himself was kind enough to say sorry that I felt awful about the whole thing on his talk page. I wish him well in future endeavours, apart from that Ill be quietly on my way. ttfn. Panderoona (talk) 02:09, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * So the problem is apparently that I complained about someone else on the same day that I also talked to you. You appear to admit here that nothing I said to you or about you could be legitimately interpreted as accusing you of anything.  You have decided to be offended and emotional over something that you rationally concluded has nothing to do with you.  I'm sorry that you made the choice to beat yourself up this way, but your choices are fundamentally your responsibility.  If that's how you choose to treat yourself, then I'm willing to say good bye.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:24, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi - I wasn't able to tell you this before but you were brilliant. Your help was fantastic, thanks! You restored my faifth in Wikipedia. There's some interesting psychology going on here sometimes. I've changed my username so I'm not quite so much 'out there' in future. Also - your advice: absoltutely right. I was too close to see it, but I'll watch for that in future. Cheers for taking the time and trouble to help sort that one out Zac  Δ talk   00:35, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm glad my comments seemed helpful. I know how frustrating it is to need help and not get anything.  Perhaps you'll be able to step in with a third opinion for another person some day.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Will do . Zac  Δ talk   08:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Probably a lot to ask, realising that you took the brunt of the 'needing to be expressed somehow' frustration of contributors to the earlier discussion - but if you can find a little time to comment on my question about whether it's OK to include a note in a reference I'd appreciate your knowledge and experience. Or maybe you just know where to point me to get the policy information I need on this? (I looked myself until I got thoroughly lost in the mire of WP advice pages).


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dennis_Elwell_(astrologer)#Notes_within_references


 * I am taking things more slowly, as you suggested, mainly concentrating on adding citations to pages in need of them (knowing that most will be of value, even if some get kicked out for whatever reason). Anyhow, either way, my best regards to you  Zac  Δ talk   10:11, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks - that infor and those links were just what I was looking for. Zac  Δ talk   07:17, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Re Village Pump
Thanks for taking the trouble to give an opinion on the problem I raised on the Village Pump page. Ansotu (talk) 15:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Usually, when we encounter persistent abuse from a public library, it's only a single person who is screwing things up for all the library's users. If you really want to solve this problem, it may require going down to the library and pounding on desks until somebody there decides that they should stop the one user's abuse of the library's Internet service, rather than having all of the users blocked.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Advice needed
Hello ! I was so happy with your participation in PocketBook article. Ronz again deleted Bookland.net now from "Services:" in infobox claiming it is advertising. Bookland.net is visited by 200,000 people monthly. Do you think it is notable or any guidelines are not OK ? He is experienced user, I don't want to lose a dispute in noticeboard. Should I create Wiki article on it? Any other recommendations are highly welcome.--Brainsteinko (talk) 04:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * What makes something WP:Notable (that is, what makes something qualify for a complete, stand-alone Wikipedia article entirely about that subject) is the quality of WP:Independent sources that write about the subject, not the number of visitors. If you find, say, several magazine articles about the website, then write the article. If you find only a website traffic ranking, then don't.  You might like to read WP:CORP and WP:WEB.
 * I don't think that you need to worry about "losing" at a noticeboard. The purpose of a noticeboard is to get other people's opinions, not to "win".  If it's just the two of you, then I recommend getting a WP:Third opinion on the link.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

COI guide
Hey, I saw your work on WP:COI and thought you might be interested in looking at the help guide we've made up in the #wikipedi-en-help channel, WP:PSCOI. If you get a chance, let me know what you think. Cheers, Ocaasit 21:28, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I haven't finished reading it, but I've made a few changes and left a question on the talk page for you. Overall, I like it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:19, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks
Hey there, thanks for your input and advice at WT:RFC.

I'm still pondering whether I want to go ahead with the RfC, especially whether to actually file it under the article category. The reason is that in my experience, a great many of the group you politely refer to as "subject-matter experts" usually turn out to be article owners who have made up and stick to their own (incorrect) ideas about style (and content, for that matter).

I firmly believe that I have all the compelling arguments I need, but all the best arguments in the world are not enough to convince a typical nay-sayer.

So I'm still not sure how or whether to proceed. Trying and failing with something that should be completely uncontroversial and straighforward just because some people refuse to get the point is the single most frustrating experience on Wikipedia.

... Hm, reading the above, this has got precious little to do with you or the helpful advice you gave me. I guess I just needed a shoulder to cry on. --195.14.220.119 (talk) 13:18, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You can change the listings at any point, and the bot will update the lists. Another options is to list it as a policy RFC and then leave a friendly note on the talk page of some relevant WikiProject.
 * BTW, the usual complaint about RFCs is that almost nobody responds, so I wouldn't worrying too much about a horde of article owners. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:16, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, thanks once more. I'll think about it and go ahead as soon as I feel emotionally prepared... :) --87.79.230.112 (talk) 14:57, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Getty Villa
The GA status of Getty Villa is so complicated that even I can't see a clear path toward resolution. On June 13 Amadscientist started an "Individual reassessment" of the article. He then amended the article history template to delist it. An hour later, he then added an new GA reassessment template. He then deleted the article history template entirely. Aside from his technical struggles, he never notified either the prior reviewer or the nominator of his concerns to give us a chance to address his concerns. I have now addressed his comments in Talk:Getty Villa/GA4. Judging by his questions and comments in the reviews of Getty Villa and Getty Foundation it is clear that he does not understand how footnotes are supposed to work (they can be in the middle of a sentence if they source the first half of a sentence) or how quotations with square brackets work (words can be edited to make the quoting sentence grammatically correct). In March after quick-failing Getty Villa, he quick-failed The Incredible Melting Man, and the nominator sought a Community Reassessment. In an earlier Community Reassessment of Incredible Melting Man, Amadscientist did not take part, the consensus was that he quick-fails more than most, and the article was listed as GA. How can we clarify whether Getty Villa is a GA, and what can I do to get it back to GA if it has in fact been delisted? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 20:35, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * This is just shopping for GA in my opinion. I do not see good faith here at all or his own assumption of good faith. It apears to me he is exaggerating, and finger pointing. The 3rd review was done in a manner that was an outright rubber stamp. I reassessed and de-listed. Race should just take it to community reassessment. I did an individual GAR that he didn't like. He needs to take the proper steps and stop running editors through the mud.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:05, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, while I believe that WhatamIdoing is able to figure this out, I believe it only fair to point out as well that the GAR for Incredible melting Man did not contain consensus that "I quick-fail[] more than most". That's simply not what the GAR is for anyway. Wizardman did feel that declining the listing without a hold was "overly harsh", which was an honest opinion and may well have been shared by others, but it was not discussed. He also added "The article's not a GA yet, but the writer should've had an opportunity to fix in this case. Might as well use this GAR to many any fixes". Geometry guy stated: "Consequently, the present review was not a "quick-fail", as the "quick-fail criteria" were not invoked (nor do they apply) and the reviewer left a detailed review with reference to all of the good article criteria. Whether to place an article on hold has always been a matter for reviewer discretion: there used to be some guidance at WP:Reviewing good articles, some of which could usefully be reinstated. In any case, there is no obligation to place a nomination on hold; if it is, however, there is also no requirement to limit the hold period to 7 days. I hope that clarifies matters! Geometry guy 17:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)". The same user (Geometry guy) still believed that the article was not ready for listing 7 days later and work continued. On April 5 2011 the article was found to meet GA standards and was listed. It looks great now.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:40, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Amadscientist, what you're calling "shopping for GA" is what I'm calling "none of your business". WP:INVOLVED is policy for admin actions, but it is excellent advice for everyone.  You failed the article previously, and in ways that irritated the other editors.  You should not be trying to influence the next reviewer.  You should ignore it, and trust that the GA process generally gets things right in the end.  The alternative is to convince people that you have a problem with WP:OWNership, just like your choice to quick-fail some articles has already convinced some people (rightly or wrongly) that you are unfriendly and uncooperative.  If you believe that an article you previously failed was later listed improperly, then you can take it to community GAR, but you should avoid individual GARs and you should adopt a very hands-off strategy at the community GAR.  We need the process to look like it is fair and impartial, not like it's dominated by one editor who is determined to prevent the article from being listed.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Racepacket, you can list it for community GAR if you want. Alternatively, it can be re-nominated through the usual process.  Either way, I hope that Amadscientist will let other editors make the decision.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:13, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I had a much longer comment, but deleted it. I will take your words to heart. Thank you for the reality check. I can't say I agree with all your comments but to say anything further would simply add to your assessment that editors find me unfriendly and uncooperative.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:05, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Only Amadscientis...speaks for Amadscientist. I neither agree with or disagree with anything written here, but I do take the words of WhatamIdoing to heart as stated and should not be seen as an ebdorsement of any member or any policy or interpretation of policy and guide line.--Amadscientist (talk) 22:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that the problem traces back to the GA sweeps. During the sweeps most of the nominators were long gone and volunteers such as Amadscientist who entered the process became accustomed to reviewing without the participation of anyone else when they checked "old" GA articles against the current criteria. A fundamental purpose of the GA program is to have the nominator interact with the reviewer to improve the article. A person who is uncomfortable in interacting with others or in having his/her opinions questioned should not volunteer to review articles. When I review articles, I regard a "failed" result as a personal failure, and my goal is to improve and pass every article that I can. Our instructional materials should convey that spirit. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 10:07, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Apparently, Amadscientist agrees. Racepacket (talk) 10:14, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * No, and that belief is one of the problems we're having. Nominators are not special people.  The GA process is not intended to be an interaction between the nom and the reviewer (or, for that matter, between anybody and the reviewer).  The sole purpose of the GA process is to determine whether the article meets the criteria.  It's helpful, kind, collegial (etc.) if the reviewer says, "close but not quite, so I'll give you a fair chance to fix these problems" (and if it is close, and you don't give folks a chance, then—rightly or wrongly—they do often get mad at you), but improving the article is not actually the purpose of the review.  The actual (sole) purpose is to say either "yes, I believe it meets the criteria, so I'll list it" or "no, I believe it doesn't meet the criteria, so I won't list it".  Articles are nominated because the noms believe that the articles already fully meet the criteria.  The presence of other editors is not required, because (in theory) zero improvements should be required to meet the criteria.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Burgess Health
No, the CSD tags say that an appeal is not binding, otherwise there would be no point in a speedy tag. I've just deleted again, since for legal reasons, a copyright infringement can't be allowed to stay. Also, as would be expected for copied text, it reads like an advertisement (also not permitted).  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  05:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I see. Can you point me to the paragraph that says this?  Because I've read several pages now, and I find nothing that says this.  (I do find one page that says we ignore CSD tag removals by the main author, but nothing about outside editors.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not entirely sure what happened here, but I will note that copyvio is available as an alternative for g12 deletions. If somebody removes your g12 speedy in good faith it is obviously not an "unambigous case" and you should follow normal procedures for copyright violations. Yoenit (talk) 20:36, 23 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't believe that the original was a copyright violation (or at least not entirely; it was kind of long). The original, which included such typical, encyclopedic information as the name of the founding group and the number of hospitals currently in the organization, was tagged as being "unambiguous advertising".
 * What replaced it certainly appears to be copyright violation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, it's not necessary for the whole to be copied, nor to be verbatim &mdash; close paraphrasing is sufficient to infringe copyright. Same with spam, you can present true, factual material that still reads like an advertising brochure.  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  05:43, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Except that I don't believe that the previous version was "exclusively promotional", which is the specific requirement. It certainly wasn't "unambiguous", since I didn't agree with it.
 * But I'm merely asking you to provide me with the line in a policy that says any admin is permitted to delete legitimately contested CSDs, rather than being constrained to sending them through prod or AFD. Does such a policy exist, or not?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:44, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No idea where to find such a policy, but it's at least implied by the SD tags which say that a "hold on" isn't binding. If you feel strongly about this article, why not write a clean version, if only as a stub.  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  13:07, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Except it wasn't a holdon, it was a removal by an uninvolved editor. Normal course of action is then to take it AFD, not to invoke your admin powers and speedy delete it anyway. @Whatamidoing, I suggest you take it wp:DRV or request userfication if you are serious about improving the article in question. Yoenit (talk) 21:17, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * While I think that the subject easily clears the notability hurdle, that particular article is so far down on my personal priorities that DRV isn't worth it. Making sure that our processes is clear enough that reasonable editors (e.g., Jim) don't justifiably end up with opposite conclusions is almost always worth my time.  I don't think that the policy section you link to is clear enough.  It seems to have difficulty separating out the author-contested and independent-editor-contested cases.  This should be an easy, well-understood, transparent process, not a source of confusion.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:52, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

BigDumpOnYou
Hey sweetie - LTNS. Instead of cleaning out my garage, I decided to write an article. Consistent with this "misbehavior" motif I selected for myself today, I then decided it would be very fitting to dump on the nicest, busiest, most generous person I could think of ... and you immediately came to mind.

From then on, it was really easy for me to just post you here and ask if you'd mind scanning basaloid squamous cell lung carcinoma, removing the "New" tag, and doing whatever else you really dont have time to do for me.

I'd ask Doc James or Axl or someone else to do it, but then I wouldn't be able to just pay them off with a big *SMOOOOCH* ... well, at least not without SOME damage to (what remains of) my hard-earned "rep" for manly manliness :-)~ LOL!

Thanking you in advance, wishing you the best, and thinking I need to take a serious break, I remain

Your #1 Wikifan: Cliff Knickerbocker, M.S. (&#91;&#91;User talk:Uploadvirus&#124;talk&#93;&#93;) (talk) 21:04, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Abortion
You might be interested in whether "death" should be include in the lede sentence of the abortion article. Of course the article is not a medical article because abortion is a much broader topic. There was a consensus lede sentence that for at least 5 years that some editors would like to change. I hope you will drop by abortion and the talk page. 71.3.237.145 (talk) 00:38, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I generally avoid the abortion-related articles, as being timesinks. There are many valid ways to introduce that subject, and whatever choice you make is guaranteed to upset anyone whose agenda it fails to serve.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:49, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * See, I knew you were a wise woman. The only way to win is not to play. MastCell Talk 01:33, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Although I proved curious enough to see what change is being proposed. They have defined abortion so that it does not include post-viability pregnancy terminations.  I wonder what those editors think the world calls a third-trimester, healthy-fetus, healthy-mother pregnancy termination these days, if the words "elective abortion" no longer apply.  (Or have they forgotten that these really do happen, e.g., under China's one-child policy or because the Indian mother discovered that she was carrying a girl?)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Technically Late termination of pregnancy typically with pre procedural feticide but this is just my interpretation of the literature and not something we consider here in Canada as except if the mothers life is at risk they are considered by the profession to be unethical. Now even if one does not use this technical definition by far the majority of abortions still occur before viability. Whether or not human cells are able to think has a great determination for example with "brain dead" organ transplantation here in the West. The same rational is applied to abortion. Thus the separation of terms in the view of the medical profession with before and after viability. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:31, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The LTOP article gives "late-term abortion" as an exact synonym, which suggests that the term "abortion" still encompasses post-viability LTOP. NB that  talks about "post-viability abortion bans", which in the odd definition you're giving at that article is a completely nonsensical phrase that would translate as "post-viability pre-viability pregnancy termination bans".  I'm not aware of any method of having a pregnancy termination that is simultaneously post-viability and pre-viability.
 * And, yes, I'm fully aware of the Western bias in that discussion. Canadian laws do not apply to most of the world (unfortunately).  You need to be writing an article that applies as much to Russia, India, and China as it does to Canada, the US, and the UK.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Japan does not/did not recognize brain death. Thus if one transplants organs on someone with a beating heart they have committed murder. Which is why I stipulate. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:32, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Given the mountains of objective evidence (from WP:MEDRS and other WP:RS) that a non-living fetus is properly called a dead fetus, argumentation to the contrary is tortured POV pushing: 71.3.237.145 (talk) 13:53, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * There are thousands of scholarly publications that use the term "dead fetus" here http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22dead+fetus%22&as_sdt=0%2C10&as_ylo=2000&as_vis=0.
 * There are over a thousand scholarly publications that use the term "death of the fetus" here http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22death+of+the+fetus%22&as_sdt=0%2C10&as_ylo=1992&as_vis=0
 * There are hundreds of scholarly publications that use the term "fetus dies" here http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22fetus+dies%22+&as_sdt=0%2C10&as_ylo=1992&as_vis=0.
 * There are over a hundred scholarly articles that use the term "kills the fetus" here http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22kills+the+fetus%22+&as_sdt=0%2C10&as_ylo=1992&as_vis=0.
 * There are hundreds of scholarly publications that use the term "dead embryo" here http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22dead+embryo%22&as_sdt=0%2C10&as_ylo=1992&as_vis=0.
 * There are over a thousand scholarly publications that use the term "death of the embryo" here http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22death+of+the+embryo%22&as_sdt=0%2C10&as_ylo=1992&as_vis=0.
 * A scholarly 2010 legal article titled Female Feticide in India also notes "the abuse of prenatal screening tests and abortions for sex selective termination of viable female fetuses" is a widespread problem in Asia. https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=26+Issues+L.+%26+Med.+13&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=a4f91c121bb76a2dbb87bbeffa76aaa1
 * There is a very interesting article here in the journal Contraception http://www.contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824(09)00519-8/abstract, that also explicitly refers to the death of the fetus during both induced intrauterine feticide or by induced caused during the induced abortion. which notes that "There is evidence that women prefer the concept of fetal death by feticide over fetal death during the process of extraction."


 * I'm not sure that Googling "dead fetus" and "kills the fetus" is the best way to arrive at a balanced overview of the best available sources, but I think that ship has already sailed. MastCell Talk 17:28, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree. The absence of the word "death" doesn't bother me one way or the other, although I agree that a plain, straightforward description could include that fact.
 * What bothers me is defining abortion so that it includes only those types of abortion that are generally considered legal and ethical in wealthy countries. Wikipedia has enough systemic bias without pretending that deliberately killing and extracting a healthy 28-week female fetus from a healthy mother in India somehow isn't "an abortion", on the grounds that it's illegal to do that abortion in Canada.  Western medical journals naturally focus on medical procedures that are legal in their own countries, but that doesn't mean that the other kinds don't exist.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with you that the abortion article needs to be more global, but it's pretty hard to have a serious, intelligent discussion there, as you might infer from some of the above. When I worked on expanding coverage of unsafe abortion (on grounds that it is, after all, a major public health issue globally), much of the discussion was along the lines of "zOMG what do you mean 'unsafe abortion'? All abortions are unsafe... FOR THE FETUS!!!1!!" At least that's how I remember the experience. MastCell Talk 20:56, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I would not be surprised if your recollection was essentially correct. I think that subject (like many others) needs to be not only more global, but less "owned" by medicine.  Abortion, like teen pregnancy and rape, is not strictly a medical subject.  Imposing the "law-abiding Western gynecologists' view" won't give us a complete on any of those subjects.  (It reminds me, naturally, of Doc James' quest to have Rape merged into Sexual assault, on the grounds that his hospital's coding system doesn't distinguish between groping a woman's breasts [one of many forms of sexual assault] and forcible vaginal intercourse [rape, which is another form of sexual assault].)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. I see your point, but I've always been in favor of a predominantly "medical/public health" view in the article, for two reasons. First, when I look at other Serious, Respectable Reference WorksTM, they seem to cover abortion from a medical/public-health perspective. And second, there's no limit to the crappy partisan sources people bring to that article, so insisting on strict reliable sourcing along WP:MEDRS lines helps keep the POV-pushing down to a dull roar. That's just my take on it, though. MastCell Talk 03:34, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Predominantly medical, sure. Predominantly wealthy-country, Western-law-endorsed, medical-academic-experts-only medical, no.  There has to be room in that article for the perspective of the one-third of women in the world who can (and often do) obtain legal third-trimester abortions, without us pretending that they're somehow not getting an abortion just because our white experts are squeamish about using the word abortion.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:08, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that's an interesting question. Viability itself is a moving target. Infants born at 28 weeks typically require antenatal corticosteroids, neonatal intensive care, mechanical ventilation, and exogenous surfactant to survive. If those resources aren't readily available in a developing nation, then a 28-week-old fetus may not be "viable". But yes, I'm not sure that we can be dogmatic about "viability" using only Western/US sources. MastCell Talk 20:44, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * A moving target, and often with unfortunate definitions. One definition ("long-term survival") basically defines whole groups of children with genetic and developmental disorders as "non-viable", even if the condition isn't discovered until after an otherwise uneventful birth.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

QuackGuru
What is one to do with all those shenanigans on Talk:Vertebral artery dissection? JFW &#124; T@lk  19:18, 3 July 2011 (UTC)


 * An RFC/U for disruption of the WP:IDHT variety. The community will actually ban such folks... eventually... but it has to be sufficiently bad that other editors are willing to go through weeks of pain to make it happen.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I have no stomach for that kind of thing. I'd prefer to write articles, not do battle with armies of strawmen. JFW &#124; T@lk  22:30, 3 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand that it's not a pleasant or desirable process. But that's the process that the community chooses.  Bans basically require someone to decide that several weeks of concentrated pain is preferable to the prospect of years of chronic pain.
 * There is no process for making an editor socially competent, able to set aside pre-conceived biases, less interested in POV pushing, or able to hear the other side. The functional options in this case are put up with the editor, or (attempt to) get rid of the editor.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

This might be relevant - DigitalC (talk) 06:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

FYI
I noticed you have been involved in a discussion about the example of Eskimo/Inuit on Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. I have simply removed this example from that page, and so resolved the issue. Debresser (talk) 11:14, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:15, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Civility
You're right of course. Malleus Fatuorum wasn't even cautioned for that attack. I think a wider discussion regarding civility on the project should happen somewhere. Some potential talking points: (1) It's easier and less controversial for administrators to civility block newbie editors than experienced editors, (2) Too many people ascribe attacks on behavior as being acceptable, as it's commenting on behavior, and supposedly not the person, (3) Past civility issues often seem to have no bearing on current problems with a given editor. There's plenty of other potential talking points. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:03, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that a community discussion would make any difference. I think this is a case of the community saying one thing and doing another.  Some rude or tendentious editors can be—let's say "useful" to us.  So we all know that ____ has a very bad case of IDHT, but we'd rather not have him banned, because we can throw him at newbie POV pushers to save ourselves the bother of explaining the policies politely.  We all know that ____ is persistently rude, but we'd rather not have him banned, because we can use him to defend the status quo at a favorite guideline.  We all know that ____ is an irredeemable jerk, but we'd rather not have him banned, because we can use him to drive away spammers.
 * In the long-term, these people are destroying the community. But while we occasionally indulge in public spasms of reform, we don't actually want to give them up yet, because in the short-term, it's easier for us to say, "Oh ____, did you happen to notice the dispute at Example?  I'm sure they'd benefit from hearing your opinion" than to deal with the problems (correctly and politely) ourselves.
 * I'm willing to have the discussion, but I honestly expect no practical benefit from anything less than an ArbCom motion that says, e.g., any editor, once warned, may be blocked for 24 hours every single instance of profanity, coupled with a tag filter that automatically flags violations to people willing to issue the blocks. And even that wouldn't solve the real problem; it would only result in the incivility being slightly disguised.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, something along the lines of "You have more hair than wit, more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults" or "I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables" :) --Hammersoft (talk) 18:36, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Not that you asked my opinion, but... I don't think that civility can be promoted or enforced by blocks, no matter how draconian one is in applying them. Being blocked doesn't make people more civil; if anything, it pisses them off and results in a lot of secondary incivility and fighting about the block itself. The only blocking approach that would conceivably improve civility would be to indefinitely (infinitely, really) block people who were consistently uncivil. Thus far, I don't think the community views that as an acceptable approach, largely because of the baby/bathwater conundrum. Insofar as civility can be improved, I think we need to look at more imaginative solutions than blocking. In general, my experience has been that Wikipedians respond to operant conditioning. If they receive positive reinforcement (in terms of attention, even negative attention) for doing something, they'll keep doing it. If they're looking for attention and don't get it, then they'll either fade away or modify their behavior. So I think the best approach is to model civility (as best one can), and at the same time studiously ignore people who are making asses of themselves. A secondary question has to do with burnout. If you take a snapshot of people who behave like irredeemable jerks at present, a lot them used to be more polite (not all of them, of course). In the end, one's patience isn't infinite, and it's hard to be as polite to the 100th spammer, or agenda account, as to the first. Moreover, as you allude to, uncivil behavior sometimes works, at least in a pragmatic and short-term sense, in dealing with the various nuisances besetting this project, although I agree it's probably maladaptive in the long term. On the other hand, if we had mechanisms in place for quickly, firmly, and civilly showing the door to spammers and POV-pushers, I think that would go a long way both in reducing the burnout that leads to incivility and in reducing the practical payoffs of uncivil behavior. MastCell Talk 18:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Of note to your second paragraph; I have a personal policy of ignoring people who use insults/incivility as a means to an end. Several times now, I've been taken to task for having this as a personal policy. In fact, I've been repeatedly told that failing to respond to people who use insults/incivility is itself uncivil. There's no win. See, around here Gollum is a respected editor, and held in the highest regard. Very civil chap, that. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:04, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, you could always cite User:Heimstern/Ignoring incivility... :) MastCell Talk 20:42, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I already cite WP:HAMMERSOFTSLAW. I've been insulted numerous times for citing it, and someone even attempted to have it deleted. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:54, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * In the general case, I agree that "civility blocks" are counterproductive. In the cases I'm thinking about, however, it could be effective at discouraging certain types of incivility.
 * An editor who thinks "If I type ___ in an edit summary, I will be blocked" is very likely to choose words that do not predictably produce an unacceptable outcome. At minimum, the editor knows that his choice is between "Say this and be blocked" or "Say something else and not be blocked".  In our current system, it's "Say whatever you want, because nobody cares, and being rude is more effective than being polite."
 * Punishing people for obvious misbehavior is very much in line with your notion of operant conditioning, which is just as effective for teaching "Do not push the button that gives you the nasty shock" as it is for teaching "Push the button that gives you a treat". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * But if an editor craves attention, then being blocked for incivility isn't really negative reinforcement. It generally attracts more attention, spills over onto noticeboards, draws in outsiders who either take up the blocked editor's cause or vilify him... it functions more like positive reinforcement. I think the punishment - the electrical shock, in your metaphor - would be ignoring the editor, rather than blocking them. The choice should be: "Say this and people will ignore you" vs. "Say something else and people will pay attention to you." MastCell Talk 20:47, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Negative reinforcement ("ignoring bad behavior") is what we're doing now with these privileged editors, and it isn't working. See, e.g., the complaint in the first paragraph of this section:  "wasn't even cautioned for that attack".  The rude, profanity-laced remark was passively ignored.  It wasn't even reverted (which, by policy, it ought to have been), because we all know that it's useless.  Reversion or complaint are reliably met with edit warring and more insults from the editor and his small cadre of supporters.  It reliably produces zero action, and almost zero censure, from the community.  There are more than two thousand people watching the page.  There are dozens of admins reading that page every day.  And not one person (including me) felt like challenging the rude remark would be anything more than a waste of time.
 * Punishment ("making bad behavior result in pain to the badly behaved person") is a valid approach to operant conditioning, and IMO more likely to work in these situations. Passively ignoring rude remarks has not worked.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


 * A problem with operant conditioning in this environment is that only a tiny fraction of people are willing to ignore those who use incivility/insults as a means to an end. They still get plenty of attention, notice, etc. for their efforts. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:56, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is, at present, the fatal flaw in my proposition. It would require buy-in from a large portion of the community, which seems unrealistic. I think the best we can do is try to model it ourselves. You know, like ignoring it when people call you "bitchy" for no apparent reason (to take an up-to-the-minute example). :) MastCell Talk 21:08, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I went to leave a civility caution for this editor and found there's no template for civility concerns listed at Template messages/User talk namespace. Perhaps there should be. At any rate, the editor in question struck their comment. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:14, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You're assuming that the primary goal of the bad behavior is to get attention. I suspect that the more common goals are to achieve some other goal more efficiently or reliably (e.g., we can talk politely for three days, and then you will maybe do it my way, or I can be rude now, and you will do it my way now [or quit Wikipedia in disgust, leaving me free to do it my way]) or to avoid the bother of exercising self-restraint or thinking about other people.  The latter exertion doubtless seems trivial to both of you, but it does not seem to trivial to some habitually rude people.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Case example
I ran across this incident today; an IP posts this to Δ's talk page. Oh but not to worry, it's not a personal attack. See, it's only a complaint, and sheer exasperation, and the IP was only commenting on behavior. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)


 * And people wonder why he's not sweet and generous after years of this. That sort of endless attack would sour the disposition of a saint.
 * It doesn't seem to occur to most of the usual bullies there, but it is actually possible to condemn the IP's bad behavior without endorsing anyone else's behavior. "I know you are upset, but that doesn't excuse you from being rude to the person you think is hurting you" is something I thought was normally taught to children around age six or eight.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I have a couple of friends who are teachers in high school. They're still teaching (and failing to get through) that concept to young adults. $\delta$ isn't a saint. He's human. There's an unreasonable expectation that he be a saint, in that if he errs slightly he's considered to be in breach of his restrictions and needs to be site banned. I've taken to task before over some issues, but I treat him with respect. A great many editors do not. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:09, 14 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Some adults never get there, just like some never learn to keep track of their finances or never learn to keep their tempers. But it's still a concept that we expect the typical school child to have heard of.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

AE for QG
Just a heads up: Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement Ocaasit 20:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

username
Your username: What am I doing? Yes, what are you doing? Rather, does it refer to something? See also: my reply to an ongoing discussion, that you have commented on. A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28, 2010. (talk) 21:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)


 * My username refers to my interest in not wasting my own time: What am I doing—and is this what I want to be doing?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:56, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28, 2010. (talk) 22:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

AN/I
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at the Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have some information. You are invited to comment at the relevant thread. Thank you. CycloneGU (talk) 15:55, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * AFAICT, my involvement in the Zac–MakeSense dispute is limited to answering one question from Zac at WP:ELN and one question from MakeSense at WT:COUNCIL. I have no information about the dispute beyond what anyone can read.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I feel you should be entirely free to comment so please ignore this if you wish; but hope it's OK to point out that my change of user name might have confused you. Neither of those two involvements were relevant, but you may remember that you witnessed a dispute between us in action on the Dennis Elwell (astrologer) biography when I was posting under the name of Clooneymark.  Hope it is OK to point that out in case you were confused. Understand if you have better things to do!  Zac  Δ talk   20:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's right: I even remember you posting a note there about your name change.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

A kitten for you!
Hey! I just wanted to show my appreciation to you for all your work explaining how the Article Feedback Tool works to people who have questions and concerns. It's really reduced my workload. So, thanks!

Jorm (WMF) (talk) 20:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC) 


 * I'm happy to help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Looking at some of those ratings, I really wonder who thinks that Anger management is a good article in any way. Probably the spammers who wrote it. FuFoFuEd (talk) 18:40, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Then they're some of the most inept WP:SPAMMERs we've got, since there are only three URLs on the page, and none of them are really spammy looking. Psych articles overall tend to be poorly written, though.
 * I think that it's useful to keep in mind two things: what the "insiders" think is a good article isn't always what our readers actually want; and that it's probably better to compare the article's ratings against ratings received by similar articles, than to interpret them as absolute answers.  On the first point, BTW, we've had requests for an option in "Complete" that says "Too much information".  I suspect that if we offered it, a substantial number of FAs would get dinged that way.   WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The only reference, bodhi.name, is a reliable source how? Perhaps you didn't read the drivel they have there, which is exactly the kind that make the object of attention from QuackWatch. Here's an exceprt:

"As a new epoch begins in the life of Humanity, people start investigating enlightened perceptions and their components, characteristics and laws, bring into the light the joyful wishes aimed to change constituents of perceptions and create optimum technologies for these changes. In the process of investigating materials the scientists of the past discovered new substances with unique and incomprehensible characteristics. Likewise in this process, while practicing replacement of negative emotions with enlightened perceptions, the new enlightened perceptions appear with such striking qualities that are impossible to see even in the boldest of dreams. The era of enlightened perceptions engineering begins forming a conglomerate called the “man”. A man starts a new and unique journey, the peculiarity of this journey consists of in the fact, that it’s not a notorious “journey of the mind” usually implying a certain emotional or intellectual process severed from the physical reality and senses, which means the physical body and common chores. A man goes on a journey as a whole entirety. He is not a dreamer that turns over philosophical terms in his mind and experiences a huge number of negative emotions and he has no enlightened perceptions, feels sick and gets worse and worse. His physical body is also a unity of perceptions, we call them “feelings”, and these perceptions can also be replaced directly by effort (e.g. apathy to activeness, from “feeling not well” to “feeling great”), his physical body begins to transform and improve as negative emotions are disappearing from the set of perceptions and enlightened perceptions taking their place.

At this moment (year 2005) there are very few of such travellers, only about 20 (I mean “snouts”), but in the year 2000, when I started my activity, there were no snouts at all. It makes me feel sure there will be more and more of them as money, cars, education, relations or inheritance are not needed to make the journey. It is enough to know that this journey is possible (the task is solved by this book) as well as the fact that you are alive and have the aspiration to be happy, to experience enlightened perceptions and overpower distresses. This is why I am confident the number of snouts will grow every year and the time will come when there will be snouts by the hundreds and thousands. Therefore I have had the most intensive anticipation while realizing my joyful wishes of accomplishing “snout-projects”, when I develop the infrastructure for the snout-culture, get books translated into other languages, be supportive with the “snouts” practices and help them become with time the experts in this field and be enlightened perceptions educators who can assist the beginners independently. All my time and finances are aimed for this and I enjoy it.

The minimum task for “snouts” consists of first mastering the art of lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences and then of learning to keep the conscious clear throughout the process of passing away (when the body is going to die), in between the physical death of the body and the birth of the new and after the reincarnation to recall your practice in the “new life” and to continue from the level you have gone through in your past life. I am sure that to gain this experience it is necessary to get rid of distresses and achieve continuous enlightened perceptions of preferably ecstatic quality. Mankind has already had some similar limited experience (e.g. Dalai-Lama the 14th, Karmapa the 17th, and hundreds of other less famous Tibetan monks, “tulku”, known as people who transferred their consciousness to the new body with some larger or smaller gaps in their self-consciousness and capability to recall their past lives and past experiences)."

Snouts, huh? FuFoFuEd (talk) 20:17, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Garbage ≠ Spam. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Image file missing -- "Article title versus first sentence.jpg"
I see that you originally uploaded the image file entitled "Article title versus first sentence.jpg", which is referenced in Article titles and Manual of Style (lead section). The file is now empty and no images appear in these articles. I was considering replacing it myself, but I'm new at this and I wouldn't want to accidently cause additional problems. I suspect that you'd be the one best suited to re-create the image as it did initially (or as you now feel it should) appear. I did also see a message on Commons, as I was looking at this, regarding a problem generating thumbnails of uploaded/updated files, but I wouldn't suspect that would apply in this case. It doesn't look like the image file was erased or anything; at least the wrapper info, CCSA3.0 license, description, and everything else appear to still be intact, save for the fact that the jpg is empty/gone. I am also just a little curious why you would use a Share-Alike license rather than a Public Domain permission; I haven't uploaded anything to Commons so I haven't had to make that decision yet; but just curious why you'd choose one v. other or if it's just a default option thing. ttfn -- Who R you? (talk) 04:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The file is still there, as you can see. (Click through to the full size if you're having trouble with thumbnails.)
 * As for the license, some elements in the image (e.g., the text of the article) aren't mine to release into the public domain. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:07, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * What do you see here? (Be prepared to wait a few seconds for it to load.)
 * Are you running any sort of image-blocking software, especially of the sort that might make an image disappear if you click on the wrong menu? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * When looking there (I even double-checked), I only see the empty screen with the standard picture missing (Red X in a grey box in a standard 3&minus;D inset–border box) image. Not running any special software (although I do keep my security settings very high & prompt for most things); and all other WP site images (including your kitty & jpgs, pngs, & multi–frame gifs elsewhere, etc) all display without issue.  That's why I looked into this one; it was the oddball missing image that I figured, if necessary, I could recreate.  Can you think of any other jpgs and/or png/gifs that you've uploaded that I can check to see if it's just this one image or something weird in your jpg/other image format –vs– my browser?  Obviously if you see it, and you haven't had other people commenting in the past, and nobody else has boldly replaced it, then this is likely something different & rare; whether it's just me for only this pic, or IE8 .0.7601.17514 on Win7 32&minus;bit (sp1) w/AVG AV for just your image software, or what, who knows.  If memory serves, I don't think jpgs can be infected or contain tracking cookies, so there'd be no reason for the AV to block it; (and the log doesn't show this or any other jpgs).  -- Who R you? (talk) 20:19, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * How very strange. I'm not much of an images person, but you can look at this and this, which are the only other two things I've uploaded to Commons.  I believe that this screenshot is the only thing I've ever uploaded to the English Wikipedia.  All of the files were created/processed on a Mac running OS 10.4, so the likelihood of them containing malware that could affect a Win7 box is extremely low (assuming it's even possible to infect a jpg or png file).  Have you tried another browser?  Do you have access to a second computer somewhere?
 * Oh, and I didn't know this until today, but you might be interested in knowing that there's a special license template at Wikipedia-screenshot for Wikipedia screenshots. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Those other 3 images all look good; but (I checked again) the "Article title versus..." image is still blank for me. Bizarre.  Maybe if you're chatting w/one of the other editors, u can ask them what they see in the thumbprint above; but beyond that, I guess the image needs to be recreated, reuploaded (either replacing the original or to a new name), and, if new name (which I'd suggest just to permit the opportuntity to try to figure out what's different about the current version), amended in the 2 linked articles.  I haven't got access to another sys, and the hard-drive on this one's so full I'd prefer not to add another browser; otherwise I'd try to do some more checking.  Thanks for the info re the WP-screenshot licence; (I think) that's what I used when I uploaded the two shots I included above.  Anyways, if you like, let me know if you replace the images in the Article titles and Manual of Style (lead section) articles and I'll double check that they show up ok, but I'm assuming there's just something unusual about the previous version, whatever that something may be.  ttyl  — Who R you? (talk) 19:20, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I've left a note at Village pump (miscellaneous). Perhaps we'll find someone else that has similar trouble, and see if we can identify any similarities.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I think that we've figured out the problem (IE8 doesn't know how to read all 'legal' JPEG formats). It sounds like someone has uploaded a replacement that it should be able to read, but Commons seems to be having some difficulties with thumbnails, so while you should be able to see the file itself, if you click all the way through to the full-size file, it may not be visible on the page.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The image shows just fine now, thumbnail & all. Don't ya just love technology!¡  Glad an answer was found.  ttyl  — Who R you? (talk) 03:15, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The fix is easy enough to do (and a CMYK JPEG [rather than an RGB JPEG] is frankly a silly format for a screenshot; I must not have checked the defaults in Adobe Illustrator before saving it), and IE's pretty commonly used, so I'm hoping that someone will figure out how to identify such files automatically and tag them for conversion. Commons has more than 10 million files, and even if this is a very unusual combination, we could still end up with tens of thousands of these "traps" out there.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────┘

Yeah, image compression algorithms definitely aren't my thing; but no doubt someone with an image crunching background could write a simple enough scanner to check the color palette of the image. If memory serves (which more and more these days it doesn't necessarily; but if it does) the Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black -vs- the Red-Green-Blue palette selection is just a flag set at such&such a bit location in the image header record. I thought I saw talk of an image group/lab/support/something somewhere, probably in Commons, who are probably capable of writing a quick scanner to flag all the CMYK J-Pegs in Commons. I guess we should all be using PNGs but, of course, they aren't quite as universal as jpgs but I don't know what would still be around that doesn't support png. I guess maybe if someone in Africa or China is using a 15-year old computer running IE6 (tongue-in-cheek assuming that's how long ago microsoft created png), and I have no idea how long (or if) all other platforms like Mac fully support viewing/creating/editing microsoft's portable network graphic format. I know in recent times I have run into the odd occasion where I had to convert something from a png to a jpg in order to satisfy something that couldn't handle png; so I guess until it's ubiquitous, jpgs still the best option (still better quality than gif for a lot of/most things like screenshots and photos). Meanwhile I guess us IE users either have to finally dump ms (not that I'd mind on a lot of levels), or just follow-up if we see a missing image. But it was interesting to learn why that happened; apparently the saying's still true that one can learn something new every day. — Who R you? (talk) 05:27, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It was a different world back before the dotcom bust.
 * Hey, I wanted to say thanks for your comments at Syphilis. It's so easy to fall in the trap of "writing for other professionals" (I'm not one, but I find that the writing style in the professional-level sources is contagious).  It's really useful to have someone waving his arms and saying "doesn't make sense!  Try writing in English next time!"  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:22, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Happy to try to help; I was concerned I was being more of a hinderance repeatedly bringing up the same issue, but glad to know (at least on some level), that wasn't the case. :) Great to see the article earned the GA; & deservedly so! — Who R you? (talk) 01:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Open wikis query
Just a note to say thanks for your comments in response to my query at External_links/Noticeboard/Archive_8. The feedback was very useful to help crystalise my thoughts about how to take this forward. AndrewRT(Talk) 17:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm glad it was helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Non-accredited
I think a more up to date source (2011 vs 2007) is here. FuFoFuEd (talk) 18:28, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Feel free to change it, if you think it's a better source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Syphilis GA nominee
Hi, Syphilis is currently being reviwed for GA by me. As you have contributed major to it i want you to participate in current going reviewing and debate thanks. Sehmeet singh Talk  13:54, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

GARs
Wow, maybe I need to get you to review my next GA candidate; you seem like an easy reviewer. Or is it just much harder to get delisted? I have seen much better articles fail GA, and others get delisted. Did you actually look at my candidates and think they are representative of good articles? Would you pass them? I think you have to grade articles so that any GA article has a similar level of quality, no? I am not sure I understand what you want me to do to verify the sources, with the templates and all, but I have not been allowed to use those same sources in the past in a failed GA review. BTW, I also see reviewers complain about reference formatting as well, even down to consistent date formatting across refs. BollyJeff ||  talk  01:47, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know enough about the articles or the sources to form an opinion on the specific articles.
 * On the other hand, I know quite a lot about the GA criteria, and most (but not all) of your complaints have nothing to do with the GA criteria. Fake criteria invented by reviewers is one of the major problems that the GA program has, and I oppose it whenever I encounter it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I was just going by what I encountered from other reviewers in the past. I though that the method of style was important too, but apparently only 5 pages of it, as defined here. So what should one do when finding reviewers who are too strict? And also what specifically should I do to determine if these sources can in fact be used? I know several editors of Indian cinema articles that would say no because they have been questioned in the past. I'll just fix the formatting myself. The only thing I could find on Idlebrain.com is this. But the source that you showed me said a site cannot be blanket banned and must be evaluated for reliability on a case by case basis. Now how is that supposed to work? BollyJeff  ||  talk  12:53, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * When you encounter fake criteria like that, the first thing to do is to remember that (like yourself) the reviewer is probably just going by what someone else did in the past. The "fake criteria" problem is a problem that we want to fix, but not one that we really need to assign blame for.  Also, sometimes even if it's not technically required, it's still the kind of good idea that you'd want to do no matter what—so if that's the case, then why not do it anyway?
 * Then I'd point them at WP:What the Good article criteria are not. If that's not good enough, you can leave a note at WT:GAN to ask for help resolving the difference between the criteria and the reviewer's opinions.  You can also contact me or User talk:Geometry guy (the other major contributor to GACN) to ask for help directly.
 * As for identifying reliable sources: We have to go case by case for sources because how exactly you use the source is important.  To give a silly example, a children's book like The Very Hungry Caterpillar is an impossibly unreliable source for a statement about Albert Einstein's physics theories, but it's a 100% reliable source for a statement like "This children's book is about a caterpillar".
 * According to policies, a reliable source has these characteristics:
 * It has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
 * It is published by a reputable publishing house, rather than by the author(s).
 * It is "appropriate for the material in question", i.e., the source is directly about the subject, rather than mentioning something unrelated in passing.
 * It is a third-party or independent source.
 * It has a professional structure in place for deciding whether to publish something, such as editorial oversight or peer review processes.
 * A standard, commercial celebrity magazine or gossip website would typically have most of these qualities. The fact that this class of scummy, muckraking publications pander to some of the worst qualities in humans, profit off the destruction of people's reputations, and report information of strictly dubious importance to the world is irrelevant.  In fact, some of them are feared by their targets specifically because they have formidable reputations for accuracy, and, consequently, whatever hateful, destructive claims they publish about you are highly likely to be believed by everyone who reads it.  (Others are merely rumor mills.)  I don't know enough about these sources to help you sort them out, but the question is always the same:  Is this source good enough to support the specific statement in question?  The question is never, "Is this the sort of respectable magazine that decent, moral people would be proud to tell their families they worked for?"  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Social media links
Hi there,

after the removal of the social media links at British Red Cross, I have restored them, as I believe that is not the correct interpretation of WP:EL which says "Official links (if any) are provided to give the reader the opportunity to see what the subject says about itself. These links are exempt from the links normally to be avoided" (emphasis mine). This preceeds the section you quoted, and reading around it, these links are permitted provided they are the official source of information for the organisation. That is also why the and  templates are allowed to stay.

Hope that helps, OwainDavies (about)(talk) edited at 04:22, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Have you read the second half of WP:ELOFFICIAL? That's the bit that begins with Minimize the number of links.  It says that while under some circumstances such links might be allowed, they should only be included "when the additional links provide the reader with unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites".  The Facebook and Twitter links at redcross.org.uk look "prominently linked" to me.  This is why I removed them.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I note for others that you did the same at Quick Chek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning. Richardc020 (talk) 07:19, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * And a dead link, too. WP:DEADREFs are kept, but dead external links should be deleted on sight.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:18, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

An olive branch
I am concerned by the time that we are both expending on high school notability. You have spent a lot of effort working your way around Wikipedia guidelines and I have spent a lot of effort following you around and reverting you! Though we may have a philosophical difference, in practice it is only just possible to get a playing card between the effect of our differing positions. I take the pragmatic position that since 99% of high schools have sources available (whether on Google or not) to meet WP:GNG treating them all as de facto notable (note I don't use the loaded term 'inherently notable') saves the Community spending an inordinate amount of time chasing them all through AfD in order to weed out the very few that may not be notable. This pragmatic approach is not unique to high schools. It is taken, for example, on:
 * Designated settlements
 * Numbered highways
 * Airports
 * Railway stations
 * Fauna and flora
 * Named bridges
 * High court judges
 * Peers of the realm
 * Super-regional malls
 * Sportspeople who have played in a fully-professional league

None of these would get deleted at AfD even without a sniff of sources (note I am not justifying these merely exemplifying them). It is also not helpful inaccurately characterising supporters of high school notability as 'teenagers' or a 'minority'. Also, the various attempts at a school notability haven't foundered on this issue. What happened was that any standard that we suggested was considered too restrictive by schools inclusionists and too permissive by schools deletionists and it only takes 2 or 3 determined editors to scupper any standard.

Your concern appears to be that taking high schools as notable might allow home schools or small all-through private schools, for whom there are little or no reliable sources, to survive. In fact, this is not the issue. The problem, with the lack of an agreed standard, is with Indian, Pakistani, Filipino and Bangladeshi high schools where major public schools are continuously put forward for deletion. This is due to the generally woeful standard of writing and that there is only a very limited amount of reliable sources on the Internet. To avoid systemic bias it has to be argued that reliable sources probably exist but that ample time needs to be given to allow local sources to be researched (at local libraries and the like).

My offer of a compromise is that if you will row back from knocking the de facto notability of high schools, I will support you in getting deleted such schools as home schools, tiny private all-though schools for which we know reliable sources won't exist. That way we can both concentrate our efforts in doing some of the much-needed work of article writing and improvement. TerriersFan (talk) 19:34, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I am concerned about the "ageism" for multiple reasons. It is frequently used to justify the improper deletion of notable middle schools and elementary schools.  I know you've seen AfDs in which people argue that a dozen sources doesn't show notability of a middle school, and others in which the high school's own website (a non-independent source and thus completely worthless for determining notability) is somehow proof that the high school is notable.
 * I expect you to support the inclusion of all schools that are likely to meet the actual, source-based standard, and I expect you to oppose the inclusion of all schools that are unlikely to meet the actual, source-based standard. I think it would help Wikipedia immensely if you and other editors would stop !voting "Keep, because it's a high school" and start !voting "Keep, because I found some independent sources" or "Delete, because unfortunately I can't find any independent sources".  If you would stop promoting the rejected age-based standard, we might get more thoughtfulness at AfD and better articles in the mainspace.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It may look like ageism but in fact it's not. Sure high schools have older students but that's not the prime issue. High schools are considered to affect the future lives of their students in the way that elementary schools do not; they tend to be cited by notable people as an influence on their careers; and high schools are major institutions in their local community. The problem with the middle school article in question is that you hadn't added and woven the sources into the article. Had you done that then it might well have been kept. Indeed it is not too late; if you would like to develop it I will userfy it to you and I will help you source it up. The bottom line is that I am spending valuable time continuously debating the same issue with you in various forums. If you row back from doing this I will have the time to help you keep some elementary and middle schools; I have much expertise and experience in successfully getting them through AfD; it is not though a matter of voting keep, it is a matter of sourcing them up and I am happy to assist in this if you will accept my olive branch. TerriersFan (talk) 17:03, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem with "the middle school article in question" is that it's not just one middle school: this is a systemic problem, and one that wouldn't exist if people didn't keep repeating the false story that high schools are inherently notable and middle schools are inherently non-notable.
 * (For the most recent example that I bothered with, "the problem" you report is apparently a complete inability of certain editors to read the guideline, which explicitly states that notability is not dependent on anyone ever "adding and weaving the sources into the article".  If that's your impression of what the last half of WP:NRVE says, then imagine how much more ignorant the average AFD participant is on that point.)
 * Now that college is normal for people likely to become notable, I hear remarkably few people saying that high school had much of an influence on their lives or careers. That was true in the mid-20th century, but it's not any longer.  And even if it were true, it's completely irrelevant:  Notability is not determined by whether something is actually important.  It's determined by whether independent sources have taken notice of the subject.  (Also, the education literature suggests that your first grade teacher has more actual effect than anything else, so if we were going by real effects rather than nostalgia, we'd be profiling elementary schools.)
 * The fact is that I don't actually have an interest in schools of any type. I have a strong interest in stopping the continuous, public misrepresentation of Wikipedia's notability guidelines.  WP:Nobody reads the directions.  If someone pushes a fairy tale about notability as if it were true, then that fairy tale will be widely believed.
 * That's why you believed it initially, right? You came to Wikipedia, you looked around, and you heard a bunch of people repeating the 'high schools should always be kept' story at AFDs, right?  I know that you never actually saw any official guideline that supported this story, because none has ever existed.  You simply believed, in good faith, that the editors before you knew what they were talking about, and since it seemed sensible to you, you went along with it.
 * And now, even though you know it's more complicated than that, you are repeating this story yourself, and therefore teaching it to the next 'generation' of Wikipedians, who are going to believe, in good faith, that when you make a statement backed up by a shortcut, that this is the official advice from the community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Third-party
Template:Third-party has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. FuFoFuEd (talk) 23:06, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the notification. Please read WP:Secondary does not mean independent.  For that matter, please go read the template itself.  You don't seem to have realized it, but your deletion rationale is a ringing endorsement of the template's contents.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Please retract your accusation
I quoted a statement from WP:TITLECHANGES that has been in there since at least May 2010. I did add wording to WP:NDESC yesterday that was a clarifying paraphrase of this statement, but that's not what I quoted in my statement. Please acknowledge at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests.

Please retract the accusation you made of me: " make a significant change to a policy and then quote it as if it had always been part of the policy."

I would NEVER do that! WP:AGF, please! --Born2cycle (talk) 05:32, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * No matter how well-intentioned you felt, or how minor you personally thought the change was, the fact remains that changing a policy to strengthen your argument in an ArbCom case is a problem. "Gaming the system" makes people distrust you and believe that your opinion is too weak to stand on its own.
 * Also, duplicating text within the same advice page is discouraged by WP:Policies and guidelines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Appreciating your contribution
Hey, you may hate these things, I don't know. If so delete it, but wanted to show my thanks. Zac Δ talk   22:00, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. I'm glad to see that you're helping WP:REVIVE WikiProject Astrology.  I hope that you and the other editors will make a particular effort to make solid progress during the next six months.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

thanks
Hi. Thanks for the help with the Vermillion Literary Project Magazine. Wanted to know if you can see my user pages? I am working on another article, Lifelines, a literary journal out of Dartmouth. Hope I have done this right so far....Jimsteele9999 (talk) 18:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I fixed the category for you at User:Jimsteele9999/Lifelines (literary journal), although you might consider if you're not going to WP:MOVE the page to the main namespace soon.  A page like that always looks more "professional" if you add an infobox.  (Just copy it out of the other, and fill in the blanks.)
 * What you really need is some non-Dartmouth source of information about the journal. If none exists, then it would probably be better to WP:MERGE it into the article about the medical school (with a suitable WP:REDIRECT to help readers find it).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Having some difficulty finding sources outside of Dartmouth, but I am sure they are out there. Also, tried to add info box but it didn't work. Jimsteele9999 (talk) 02:08, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You need the code from the top of the article (visible in the edit box). It looks like you tried to paste in a diff.  I've swiped the code out of the other; all you need to do is to change the "answers".  Any line that is irrelevant can be removed.  Just be sure to take out the whole line, from the pipe (the "|") through the equals sign (and the line break, if you want it to look organized in the edit box).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Autoconfirmed article creation trial
I'm contacting you because you participated in the proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles a few months ago; and particularly because you had some interesting ideas on how to implement the trial. I have set up a discussion page for various aspects of implementing the trial at WP:ACTRIAL. Please feel free to join the discussion if you are interested. I am not initially contacting a large number of users (in an attempt to keep the discussions contained and manageable), but feel free to invite any other users who might be helpful. Thanks. &mdash;SW&mdash; spout 00:12, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the invitation. I agree that trial design by enormous committee usually degenerates into silly arguments about the color of the bike shed and disruption from people who don't want the change to happen in the first place.  I'll look at the page later today.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:20, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi!
I was just Wikisurfing and I found your username. I have to say, It's awesome! Mike  2  8  9  18:38, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm glad that you like it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

1st party, 3rd party sources
Hi, I'm interested in your opinion on a question that came to mind after reading the following sentence.
 * "An article written using entirely first-party sources (e.g. a biographical article using only a published autobiography by the subject of the article, or an article about a scientific experiment sourced only to a reliable, peer-reviewed paper where the experiment was published) could meet WP:V without meeting WP:N."

Is a peer-reviewed journal article about a scientific experiment by the author, considered a first-party source or a third-party source? My thinking is that it is a third-party source because the peer-reviewed journal where it is published is a third-party source. If instead the experiment was reported only on the website of the experimenter, then it would be a first-party source. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 23:48, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * My own report of my own actions is a first-party source no matter where I publish it. So if I mix some chemicals in a lab, and write up a description of what I did, then that is a first-party source, whether I publish that description in my blog, in the local newspaper, or in a peer-reviewed journal.
 * The first-party/third-party distinction is about the distance that the author has (or doesn't have) from the subject matter. The identity of the publisher, whether the publication uses proper editorial control, etc., is irrelevant to this determination (but highly relevant to determining whether it is a WP:Reliable source).
 * Your two examples sources would be classified as a first-party, non-self-published reliable source (for the peer-reviewed article) and as a first-party, self-published reliable source (for the web page). Either of them might be totally acceptable for WP:V purposes.  The first might (or might not) be useful for WP:N purposes, depending on the details.  Naturally, it would not show that either the author, the experiment, or the publication is notable.  However, it might (help) show that the chemicals are notable under certain circumstances, e.g., if the chemicals are owned by one company and the author works for someone else.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:34, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you, I appreciate your response.
 * Re "The first-party/third-party distinction is about the distance that the author has (or doesn't have) from the subject matter." - This seems like the distinction between primary source and secondary source. How is the 1st/3rd distinction different from the primary/secondary distinction? Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 21:30, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * All of these systems are efforts to show different kinds of distance—distance measured by my personal involvement as well as distance measured by how I learned the information. So if I mix the chemicals, and write up what I did, then my paper is first-party primary; if I mix the chemicals, but you write up what I did, then your paper is third-party primary.  If I take my paper and write an essay about the flaws in my work, then my essay is first-party secondary; if you take my paper and write an essay about its flaws, then your essay is third-party secondary.
 * Have you read WP:Party and person? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the wikilink to the essay. I just finished reading it. I thought it was well written and organized.
 * The part that I would like to discuss with you, if you have a moment, is in the Combinatorics section where the example for First party Primary source is: Scientist publishes original report about his experiments. No distinction is made between self-publication and publication in a peer-reviewed journal.  I recognize that this is consistent with what you wrote above, "My own report of my own actions is a first-party source no matter where I publish it."
 * Here's my take. The important difference between self-publication and publication in a peer-reviewed journal, is that the scientist's report is evaluated by the journal's staff  and they are third parties to the scientist's work. Submissions are routinely rejected with  some journals having higher rejection rates than others.  The journal is a third party source and the scientist's report that appears in the journal is part of this third party source.  Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 00:15, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There is an important difference, but the difference is not in whether the source is first-party or third-party. The difference is whether the source is self-published or credibly published.  These are completely separate considerations, and which consideration is more important will depend on the specifics.  A first-party peer-reviewed primary source has a lot more credibility than a third-party self-published celebrity gossip blog.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the discussion and useful information. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 00:47, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

BTW are you satisfied with the title of the essay Party and person? Bob K31416 (talk) 17:47, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * No. I have been finding one of the redirects more useful for one common problem (WP:Secondary does not mean independent) but that move would require admin intervention, and I'm not sure that it's really the best name for the whole thing, anyway.  If you have ideas, please feel free to boldly rename it.  (Whatever you think of couldn't really be any more obscure and unhelpful than what I started with there.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:08, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the encouragement to move it, but I would prefer to work through you, if you have the time. Also, I think you have a better understanding of what works with other titles in Wikipedia and what would be acceptable by others in this subject area. With that in mind, is Types of sources a possibility? Bob K31416 (talk) 18:49, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * That's a possibility, although I think that would be a bigger subject. "Types of sources" should include self-published vs properly published, and it could include far more (e.g., peer review).
 * I guess the next thing to do is to send you over to Identifying and using primary and secondary sources, which is where a related page (mostly about telling the difference between primary and secondary sources and how to use them), rather than the conceptual difference between first-/third-party vs primary/secondary) is under construction.
 * Of the long-standing pages on this subject, WP:Third-party sources and WP:Independent sources (which might get merged) are probably the most important ones. Ultimately, all of these pages should fit together in a more or less organized fashion.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:28, 21 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll defer to your opinion about using "Types of sources". Trying to define types of sources seems challenging.
 * I looked at some of Sandbox 4 and I thought it was well written. In the science section I agree that raw data is primary, but I think that the analysis of the data is secondary, whether by the scientist that took it or by someone else. I think that the purpose of Wikipedia discouraging articles that have only primary sources is so that the article won't contain analysis  of the data by editors. If the data is analyzed in the source, then it should be considered a secondary source and perfectly acceptable for Wikipedia. Just my opinion. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 07:09, 21 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Long discussions elsewhere have resulted in most science editors declaring original reports of experiments to be primary according to real-world standards, but my thought here is that—no matter what some expert in the real world might or might not call them—we need to give editors the "correct answer" according to Wikipedia's practice, and as far as Wikipedia is concerned, such reports should be treated like primary sources.
 * In practice, if you try to use a paper like "Spilling beer into cell cultures: effects on the lab manager's blood pressure" or "Case study:  Length of employment after spilling beer in the lab" in the same way that we regularly use literature reviews and meta-analyses, you can expect someone to fuss at you about overstating its conclusions.  On the other hand, if you treat it the same way that we would treat any other primary source, they won't fuss at you for mishandling it.
 * We normally want editors to handle these reports like primary sources, which normally means describing them ("One uncontrolled study concluded that spilling beer into cell cultures may cause a lab manager's face to turn purple"). Compare that to what you would say if you had a meta-analysis that combined multiple studies to conclude that spilling beer into cell cultures resulted in involuntary termination of employment for 97% of spillers, with a median post-spilling length of employment of 6 normal business hours:  you would assert as a fact that spilling beer in a lab almost always got people fired promptly, with no temporizing about only "one study" reaching that conclusion.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:13, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Re "no matter what some expert in the real world might or might not call them—we need to give editors the "correct answer" according to Wikipedia's practice" - I agree with this attitude, but I'm not sure about using a term like "primary source" if it has problems with its meaning. My first preference is to give guidance without using a term, but I understand that might not work. One would have to try it to see.


 * In the case of Wikipedia medical articles, in which we both seem to have some experience editing, I would guess that a large majority of the references are primary sources, according to your definition. (What's your guess?) This would seem to go against Wikipedia's advice to use mainly secondary sources.


 * P.S. I got a little chuckle about the beer in a microbiology lab. Microbes may be the dominant form of life on Earth, depending on one's criterion. Here's a clip which shows them saving the planet from invaders, in the end. (Sorry for the digression.) Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 17:00, 22 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It depends on the article. Some (e.g., Medicinal mushrooms) rely far too much on primary sources; others (e.g., Syphilis) rely heavily on secondary sources, with the occasional primary source to fill in a detail.  A bare count of sources isn't the determining factor.  I've seen many articles that name a small number of literature reviews or textbooks along with a couple dozen primary sources, but the primaries are cited once each for some minor point, and the secondaries are cited dozens of times, and for major material.  There's still work to be done, but overall I think we're making progress on this front.
 * In theory, it would be nice not to have to shoehorn every area into the historian's framework, but the fact is that the community has decided to use that framework to deal with 100% of sources. If we don't tell editors how the policy's language maps to non-history sources (I'd like to add more than just science to that section), then we'll get confusion and disputes, as each editor makes up his own system (that just accidentally happens to support his side of any given content dispute, of course).  So I think that we need to use that language, even if the framework feels a little unnatural from the perspective of an "insider" in the field.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * All I can say is that I think you have taken on a very challenging task and I wish you good luck. Best regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 00:43, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Notability (high schools)
Sorry, but this contribution is starting to come close to failing to meeting the spirit of WP:AGF even if it may meet the letter. Please do not ascribe motivations to me, or any editor, particularly since the ascribed motivation is incorrect. TerriersFan (talk) 22:24, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I honestly wish that I had a different impression of your motivation. I readily agree that the appearance of your motivation may be deceiving.  However, please note that in saying that I believe you want to keep all American high schools that happen to have a sports team, I do not say that you do this for any reason except to improve Wikipedia, according to your idea of what best improves Wikipedia.  I am doing more than just assuming good faith:  I do not have even the smallest doubt that you believe your approach improves Wikipedia.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:33, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Words
Your name came up in the history of External links/Perennial websites and your talk page is full of all sorts of grammar fun. The essay Video links could use a copy edit to improve its readability. No worries if you are too busy, but it would be awesome if you had 10 minutes for it.Cptnono (talk) 07:17, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, it needs more than ten minutes' work, but I had a go at it, and hope that you will think it somewhat improved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Awesome. Thanks for the hand.Cptnono (talk) 20:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool
Just wanted to a drop a note saying that despite a vocal minority of complainers, there are long time editors like myself who really appreciate the efforts being made to launch this tool. It's not perfect, but rarely is the most viable product released in a perfect state. I've made a few comments on the Media Wiki page (as an IP since I don't particularly care to create another Wiki account) voicing my support and trying to point out to the objectors that there are sound market research principles behind your methodology. I do hope that you have the support of the WMF to give this project the time it needs to iron out the bugs. AgneCheese/Wine 19:12, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the note and your support. I'm just an editor like yourself, but it's amazing to me how half a dozen people think that all half-billion Wikimedia readers always agree with them and so the opinions of the 90% of people using the tool don't matter at all.
 * It's like the problems over at m:Talk:Image filter referendum/en, with the young, single, white males declaring that it's evil for parents, non-whites, and women to not want to have pictures of mutilated bodies, pornographic images, and such displayed on their own computers every time some editor (or vandal) puts such an image on a page—as if the whole world was as squarely in the middle of the violence-and-porn market as they are.
 * Speaking of which, if you haven't shared your opinion on that question, then please consider going to Special:SecurePoll/vote/230 and doing so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:41, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability: Schools
As I  know you  like contributing  to  policy  issues, there is currently  a long  and important  thread on Jimbo's talk  page that  might  be right up  your (High) street. This may finally be the opportunity we are hoping  for  to  get  any  ambiguities cleared up  regarding  any perceived interpretations of   (non)notability. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * That's an interesting discussion. I don't really have much time for en.wiki today, but I will keep an eye on it.  Thank you for letting me know about it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for responding to my lament about not being able to vote on hide-ability of ˈoffensiveˈ images.
I appreciate your taking time to explain to me why I am not invited to vote on this issue. Had I known prior to seeing the notice yesterday, I would have worked like a dog much earlier to meet the eligibility requirements. It seemed a bit abrupt to me that the referendum was announced such a short time before the voting date cutoff. Admittedly, perhaps my sense of such timing is simply out of whack with some standard procedure. I only hope at this point that enough others share my pain concerning even the serious consideration of this action. Thank you for reading my rant on it. I can now at least take solace in knowing that someone read it and even bothered to send me a comment. Such a compliment is becoming rarer and rarer these days. Oh, by the way, I just read an earlier paragraph on your page. I now surmise you are in favor of such censoring, so let me point out that I'm neither young nor single, just white, (whatever that has to do with anything). Do you really think this is only young white men wanting to push porn and violence? Please! This reveals far too much about your personal bias of who's trying to do what to whom. I assumed all readers had the ability to make suggestions for editing articles individually if they had the gumption to get involved. Readers censoring all of Wikipedia with mere a click of the mouse to accommodate their 'taste' smacks of caving in to Political Correctness, to me a dirty-word expression for insidiously turning information.. its very content, into Pablum and everyone into a 'Hey, don't look at me!' innocent bystander. What's controversial? Where does it end? Where do you judge it to become silly? Are you in favor of removable paragraphs, even entries, if they offend? Who dictates what varieties of what topics of material might need filters built and installed for them? Can I assume for a moment that you're not a Fundamentalist who believes the world was created 6,000 years ago, like many, many here in the U.S. do? Do you believe a mother should have a button to click on the home computer to filter out any possibility of her kids reading the entry Darwinism? Do only young white males think like I do? You make me laugh. No images of Christian crosses, but Maltese crosses are OK? Sexual matters? Which ones? Animal kingdom, too?, AIDS? How about Homosexuality? Segregation? Maybe someone wants to wipe from view any and all articles about communism? Capitalism? Anything at all about Islam? Karl Marx? Ayn Rand? It rather defeats the purpose of a group of individuals getting together to decide how to honestly, intelligently and correctly present the facts on any given topic, doesn't it?

Mykstor (talk) 20:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has had a problem with vandals adding pictures of Goatse to inappropriate articles. Is it okay with you if some people don't want see those pictures whenever some vandal decides to spam it into an article?  Is it "censorship" to defend themselves against such vandals?  I believe that a user who truly doesn't want to see a goatse picture should not be required to see that kind of picture—ever, and not just so long as the user magically knows which page was most recently vandalized to include it.
 * As for your other worries, I'm not sure that you understand the proposal. It applies to images only, and it will not prevent anyone from seeing anything they actually want to see.  As a form of parental control, it would be completely and utterly ineffective.  The mother might say "No porn pictures for you!", but the child can say "Click here to see it anyway!" as soon as the child can touch the mouse.  A single click bypasses the filter.
 * BTW, more than half of the English Wikipedia's users are white males under the age of 25. That such men (and teenage boys) dominate the English Wikipedia is not really disputable.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:21, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Let me give you another example: Do you know what Rickrolling is?
 * There are software filters that stop that harmless video from loading from hundreds of websites. Is it censorship to install a filter that blocks it from loading?  If someone e-mails you a link, or if you click on a link to that video, are you morally obligated to view the video?  Are you engaging in morally reprehensible behavior by refusing to load or view the video?
 * If it's okay with you for someone to say "I don't want to have videos of Rick Astley on my computer screen", then why isn't it okay with you for the same person to make exactly the same statement about images of (for example) goatse in Wikipedia articles? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you
For your thorough explanation. And I apologize if WTF's answers made me cross the line, I tried, as hard as I could, not to (and not to overreact). But as I've said, I was appalled by such replies (go away from this wiki, and the obsessive use of the f word). --Vlad|-> 05:15, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm glad that the grammar explanation made sense. The English Wikipedia really needs multi-lingual editors.  Have you considered listing yourself at Translators available?  We have identified very few people who can translate from Romanian.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your offer, I'm afraid that my day to day life doesn't allow me too much time for wiki editing. I've given up administration on ro.wiki 4 years ago for lack of time, I'm afraid that I still don't have time, especially not for translation (which is more time consuming). I'll keep helping with what and whenever I can. It's been a pleasure interacting with you (this is what I've been accustomed on en.wiki until recently). --Vlad|-> 15:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Re:Speedy
Very well, I realize now that the user was still working on it, but bear it mind there are many pages that are created and an hour later it's still only contains "born in New Zealand..." so I assumed that the article was either created as a test or an A7. SwisterTwister  talk  22:03, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I fully acknowledge the too-frequent creation of garbage, but it's just not possible to tell which is which three minutes after creation. That's why we've long recommended that people look further back in the queue.  At least then, you've got a fair chance of identifying things correctly.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

High schools
I think the beliefs you have laid out are fairly well reflected in my edit All high schools can be notable. Care to take a look? Ryan Vesey Review me!  18:37, 27 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not agree with the first sentence. Some high schools are not notable.  I include in this category any high school that has never been mentioned in any newspaper or other type of independent, reliable source.  This includes thousands of legally constituted, very small, independent (=not government-run) high schools just in the United States.
 * School articles are normally measured against ORG rather than GNG. ORG is slightly higher.
 * A decent article on a school (high or otherwise) also includes information about its funding and facilities. Significant amounts of non-routine coverage in reliable sources is about facilities:  NIMBYs complaining that a high school might be built near them, anti-tax people whingeing about the expense, etc.
 * IMO all such essays would benefit from a direct statement that if a good-faith search indicates that no reliable independent source has published more than a trivial or routine mention of the school, then the article can be, should be, and has normally been merged into a larger subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll incorporate your concerns into the essay. Your first concern actually came from a difference in opinion on what a high school is (the ones you described, I would not call valid high schools, they seem similar to home schools to me).  I do see what you mean and the article will probably require renaming.  Really, the essay is something like A well written, well sourced article on a high school is notable.  That title seems long though, got any other ideas?  I will be busy for most of today, so you can feel free to make some of those changes yourself if you like.  Ryan Vesey  Review me!  19:38, 27 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Many of those thousands are legitimate schools, enrolling students who are not related to each other, not being taught by their parents, and not operating out of someone's home. These are "real" high schools.  The number of students isn't what makes a school notable; it's attention from independent sources that matters.  It happens that large schools (like large businesses) are more likely to get attention than small ones, and that older schools (like old businesses) have had more years in which to get that attention than new ones, but it's the sources that matter, not the number (or age) of the students.
 * It's also not the current state of the article that matters. It must be possible to write a well-sourced article, but Cancer was a notable subject when it contained zero proper bibliographic citations (which it did, for nearly three years after its creation).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Request
Hi there,

Although I've edited wikipedia for years, I still have no clue as to how to give a standard warning that a particular article likely violates NPOV. Please, where is the wikipedia advice page which shows me how to add that to the top of an article or other statements such as the claim that the article may have original research in it etc. Thanks. Loki0115 (talk) 17:36, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Loki,
 * It sounds like you're looking for Template messages (which links to several sub-pages and ultimately dozens, or maybe hundreds, of templates). The main template for POV problems is .  Don't forget to start a discussion on the talk page to explain your concerns, if you add that one to an article.  We had a problem with people adding the template merely because they personally disagreed with the articles (e.g., a person who believes in homeopathy being unhappy because an article didn't say that homeopathy worked), so we've made discussion a rule for that particular template.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If I may interject, this is exactly the issue at hand WhatamIdoing. Loki0115 has issues with the content of several articles concerned with cooking, which Loki0115 appears to have a strong opinion against.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龙 ) 19:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The goal behind that rule is only to stop drive-by tagging, not to prevent people from expressing disagreement in a method that is likely to result in discussion and resolution. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

If I may make a point. I recently deleted some very seriously biased pro-cooking "data" which was contradicted by other studies showing the exact opposite. Ryulong is perhaps right. I should have also prrovided refs showing such, even though they are easily accessible online. I will do so now. As for the Margaret Mead assertion by Ryulong, that has nothing whatsoever to do with cooking, but Ryulong is trying to promote an anti-raw assertion here, of course, which, again, has nothing whatsoever to do with Margaret Mead, solely in order to make a biased attack on me. I will add the necessary refs. Loki0115 (talk) 21:13, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm glad that you will be adding some references. When studies contradict each other, it's often best to present both sides, not just one or the other.  The "mainstream" view should normally get more emphasis than a minority view, but all significant sides can be presented.  (Whether a side is "significant" is determined by how many sources support it, not by how many Wikipedians think it's sensible.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not being anti-raw or pro-cooking. The article discusses cooking, and Loki0115 has been removing statements that have sources that say cooking happened at some point in prehistory. There is no reason to remove information on cooking or provide information on the raw food perspective when the article (in part) is about cooking.— Ryūlóng  ( 竜龙 ) 22:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I did not provide pro-raw info. I simply deleted some extremely questionable pro-cooking claims, such as the decidedly scientifically-unsupported notion that cooking allowed humans to proliferate. I showed that the ref in question did not actually back up that notion, that it, instead supported the notion that the discovery of fossil fuels allowed humans to proliferate, not cooking per se, and pointed out that other data showed that human populations remained stable during the palaeolithic era. In short, I am not against solid data about cooking, I just don't want blanket pro-cooking statements which have already been debunked elsewhere in scientific circles.Loki0115 (talk) 07:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It is more common to provide both sides of the story, rather than removing information that you disagree with. That way, readers get the whole story of who believes what, rather than an incomplete story.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:54, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The trouble is that including all views can make an article really longwinded and unclear. For example, your suggestion would involve first citing studies which show that cooking makes meat easier to digest, followed by studies showing that cooking makes meat more difficult to digest. That way, everybody gets confused, when, in reality, the issue of raw/cooked meat being more/less digestible hasn't really been sorted out yet for any definitive claim to be made as yet. Plus, it makes the article needlessly longer than it should be, also, the article isn't really about cooked food or raw food, it is about the control of fire. So any pro-cooking info really belongs in the cooking wikipedia page.Loki0115 (talk) 18:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Make sure (if you test it) that you comment out the other as above. Once I'm sure it's behaving I'll replace the original with the new code so no one will have to change anything (that's the usefulness of importing). Thanks! fg 18:52, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You don't have to take the long-winded approach. You can say, for example, that "Some studies claim that cooked meat is easier to digest than raw meat,


 * Works for me. It says "gathering data for __ unique authors" first, and then produces the usual links.  I've tested one link (you'll get only 26 unpatrolled pages next time), and it all seems to work fine.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Awesome. Thanks for trying it out. Always best to get a second opinion just in case of delusions brought on by staring at a screen for too long. fg</b> 21:36, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

All swapped over now so use the long named script. There'll be no more changes to the import link to worry about. I may still fix it up a bit later but basically it's all done. <b style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#003e3e;">f</b><b style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#003e3e;">g</b> 04:12, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I've reverted to the old name, and it seems to be working well. Thanks again.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Okies. Lemme know if it falls apart or if you want any others. <b style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#003e3e;">f</b><b style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#003e3e;">g</b> 18:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

New Thanks
User:WhatamIdoing, Thanks for getting in touch with me and sharing the editing info about which I knew nothing. I'm a fairly eclectic reader and originally got interested in editing by seeing a notice on the Osama bin Laden article that requested an edit of a section for improved readability. I played with the idea of making the articles related to various aspects of Islam more NPOV. I'm a native English speaker, a non-Muslim, and my professional background gives me a mindset of "withhold judgment." I'm not sure what I could do, and I know I have a lot to learn, but I think I have something to offer. I've been extremely frustrated. I would really like to work with a group of people rather than in such an isolated manner. Again, thanks! Tina Carmaskid (talk) 20:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, if you enjoy copyediting, then Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit lists almost 4,000 pages that need attention. Controversial topics, like Osama bin Laden, seem to attract people who care more about fighting than about grammar or whether the reader can figure out what we're trying to say.
 * If you're interested in women's issues at all (there are too few of us women around Wikipedia), then WP:WikiProject Women's history seems to have some nice folks and a fairly broad interest area. If you posted a note there to say hello and offered to copyedit, I'd bet that you could find an appreciative response.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:27, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

hello
Hi and a question. I think the Vermillion Literary Project Magazine article ought to be listed as such, seeing how the Project it is affiliated is a seperate entity. I'm working on improving the article, and also want to put an image up too. Thoughts? Thanks!Jimsteele9999 (talk) 22:39, 8 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, basically you're asking a dyed-in-the-wool mergeist whether she approves of splitting, so take my response with a grain of salt:
 * I wouldn't do it. Since it's not a "famous" subject, it's already at risk for notability challenges.  Splitting the two either divides your sources across two articles (making both more vulnerable), or it results in substantial duplication, which puts it at risk for an WP:A10 deletion (officially, just in the short-term, but certain people have rather expansive definitions of some WP:CSD criteria).
 * Also, I believe that many readers will get more value out of a single article, and I know that they're far more likely to read about both the organization and the magazine if they're presented on the same page. It doesn't matter what the subject is:  the law of the web is that every click loses readers.
 * In terms of images, organization logos are pretty common. You have to upload those to en.wikipedia, not to Commons.  Be sure to click through to a couple of description pages on similar logos and have a look at how they write their fair use rationales.  The process of complying with copyright laws isn't exactly difficult, but it is definitely not something anyone gets right if they're just guessing, and there are people who patrol that area fairly closely.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Usage share of operating systems
There is a poll Talk:Usage share of operating systems. You might want to comment. &mdash; Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 23:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Dispute resolution for Usage share of operating systems
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Usage share of operating systems, Usage share of web browsers". Thank you. --Jdm64 (talk) 00:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Interview
Hi, I am a Wikipedian and researcher from Carnegie Mellon University, working with Professors Robert E. Kraut and Aniket Kittur. We’ve published many scholarly papers on Wikipedia and are partnering with the Wikimedia Foundation on several new projects.

I have been analyzing collaboration in Wikipedia, especially Collaborations of the Week/Month. My analysis of seven years of archival Wikipedia data shows that Collaborations of the Week/Month substantially increase the amount and nature of project members’ contributions, with long lasting effects. We would like to talk to Wikipedians to better understand the processes that that produce this behavior change.

We’ve identified you as a particularly good candidate to speak with because of your involvement with the WikiProject Medicine' Collaborations, which is one of those we’ve been investigating. It would really help us if you would be willing to have a short talk with us, less than 30 minutes of your time. We can talk via skype or instant messenger or other means if you’d prefer. Do you have time at any point during this week to chat? If so, please send an email to haiyiz@cs.cmu.edu or drop a line on my talk page.

Thanks! (This my personal website)Haiyizhu (talk) 02:41, 11 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Since it's now Thursday evening, "this week" effectively means "tomorrow". My schedule for tomorrow is already as busy as I would like it to be.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:53, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

AfD on those hockey players
WhatamIdoing: Please see my 19:41 post on the talk page of that hockey player. As I wrote there, I could use some help shoehorning this into little-finger-out, proper form for an AfD. Greg L (talk) 19:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Are you sure it's not just a doomed effort? The folks who hang out at certain sections of AFD do not always seem to care very much about things like whether any reliable sources have been published.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

COI at Labiaplasty?
Thanks for your reply at WT:MED. I have responded there, but I find your blanket response a bit glib, and I would prefer an actual assessment of the changes that have been made.

When edits are made to an article about a controversial procedure by somebody who actually undertakes that procedure for money, I don't think there needs to be promotion of that individual's individual practice or publications for there to be the potential for COI. Jheald (talk) 10:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure—in the real world. On Wikipedia, COI violations are limited to situations that actually harm the encyclopedia.  If the person's interests and Wikipedia's interests happen to coincide, then we call that a win-win situation, not a COI problem.  This is because there's actually no conflict between the two entities' interests.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:44, 13 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why tilting the article to bury the controversy should be "in Wikipedia's interest". Changes to make the article more silently complicit with attempts to manufacture normality for this procedure quite realistically do harm our readers, and WP's reputation.  Jheald (talk) 09:33, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you mean by "tilting the article to bury the controversy". After Otto's work, the criticism section is three times as long as it was, and its location in the article has not changed.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * It seems notable to me that the discussion has been excised completely from the lead section; and for all the increased length (some of which is rebuttal), the criticism section is now actually much less direct, with the viewpoints now presented to seem more extreme and more marginal. Jheald (talk) 22:46, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it reasonable for a criticism section to acknowledge perceived flaws in the critics' positions, just like I think it reasonable for the rest of the article to acknowledge relevant criticism. For example, if some particular surgical approach has (or might have) some particular failing, that ought to be explained right next to the procedure, not just in the criticism section.
 * Is there some particular reason you have not attempted to WP:BOLDly improve the lead? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal
As advised by ItsZippy at Dispute resolution noticeboard‎, applied to Mediation Cabal. &mdash; Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:43, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

TNBC prevention
Hi, perhaps you have an idea where to place this -- "Among younger African-American women, we estimate that up to 68% of basal-like breast cancer could be prevented by promoting breastfeeding and reducing abdominal adiposity." ? . -- Richiez (talk) 00:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, as an estimate from a single primary source on an extensively studied disease, about a single subtype in a particular population during low-risk (younger) years, I'm not sure that I'd put it anywhere. But Risk factors for breast cancer (an article that needs a lot of work) would be the obvious place to consider.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal: Request for participation
Dear WhatamIdoing: Hello. This is just to let you know that you've been mentioned in the following request at the Mediation Cabal, which is a Wikipedia dispute resolution initiative that resolves disputes by informal mediation.

The request can be found at Mediation Cabal/Cases/13 November 2011/Usage share of operating systems.

Just so you know, it is entirely your choice whether or not you participate. If you wish to do so, and we'll see what we can do about getting this sorted out. At MedCab we aim to help all involved parties reach a solution and hope you will join in this effort.

If you have any questions relating to this or any other issue needing mediation, you can ask on the case talk page, the MedCab talk page, or you can ask the mediator, thehistorian10, at their talk page. MedcabBot (talk) 20:59, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for adding to the discussion at Vitamin D. I've learned not to try to form coherent opinions after spending a few hours relearning antibiotics and TB. The Haz talk 04:38, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * What a complete mess that dispute is. Perhaps in ten years that article will quit being a hot-button.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * To say the least... I understand people wanting to get away from primary sources, but using some sketchy secondary sources doesn't make an article any better. I'm staying away from Vitamin D for awhile, at least the article on it. The Haz talk 18:13, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Surgury Book
Hi. Not sure exactly what you were looking for, but here is the table of contents from that surgery book I've got my hands on: Unit I 1 Concepts Basic to Perioperative Nursing 2 Patient and Enviromental Safety 3 Surgical Modalities 4. Infection Prevention and Control 5. Positioning the Patient for Surgery 6. Sutures, Needles, and Instruments 7. Anesthesia 8. Postoperative Patient Care and Pain Management 9. Wound Healing, Dressings, and Drains 10. Patient Education and Discharge Planning

Unit II 11. Gastrointestinal Surgery 12. Surgery of the Liver, Biliary Tract, Pancreas, and Spleen 13. Repair of Hernias 14. Gynecologic Surgery and Cesarean Birth 15. Genitourinary Surgery 16. Thyroid and Parathyroid Surgery 17. Breast Surgery 18. Ophthalmic Surgery 19. Otologic Surgery 20. Rhinologic and Sinus Surgery 21. Laryngologic and Head and Neck Surgery 22. Orthopedic Surgery 23. Neurosurgery 24. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 25. Thoracic Surgery 26. Vascular Surgery 27. Cardiac Surgery

Unit III 28. Ambulatory Surgery 29. Pediatric Surgery 30. Geriatric Surgery 31. Trauma Surgery 32. Complementary and Alternative Therapy. I'm not exactly sure what you'd like out of these. I have zero medical background at all. The books basically ended up in boxes shipped to me and I was asked to hold onto them until my boss finds someone who wants them.--v/r - TP 16:07, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I was thinking of Chapter 5, "Positioning the Patient for Surgery". It would be good to know if our seriously undersourced page at Surgical positions had a reasonably complete list of positions.  Also, if we could get a simple description of each one, that would also be helpful.  (For example, the Trendelenburg position has the patient lying down with his legs elevated higher than his torso.) Even if you don't know anything at all about the subject, I don't think that it would be too complicated for you, unless the book relies solely on the most obscure anatomical jargon and doesn't provide any pictures.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Would you mind if I gave you an oversight of what the chapter is about here and you can identify which parts I should try to paraphrase for that article?--v/r - TP 17:21, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure, that would be fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Huh?

 * What book is this? ISBN or title+author? tedder (talk) 19:03, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Alexander’s Care of the Patient in Surgery, ISBN 0323016227
 * If you have opinions about simple ways for a non-medical person to improve the article in question, please feel free to comment below. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm generally clueless, just didn't know the context; Mrs.Tedder is in med school, and this sounded somewhat familiar. In other words, let me know if there are content areas I can ask her for citations on. tedder (talk) 19:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * IMO being "generally clueless" is a fantastic qualification. We non-medical folks help keep the professionals from wandering off into their impenetrable forests of jargon.
 * If you can tell me what topics Mrs Tedder is studying, I might have some specific questions. For example, the articles on pregnancy and pediatrics are generally awful.  Constipation and Infant both could stand to have a definition of what counts as constipation in the newborn, which has nothing to do with how much the baby grunts, and everything to do with the texture of the poop.
 * Have you invited her to improve Wikipedia's medicine-related articles? WP:MED is a great group of friendly, helpful people, and we've got nearly the whole of Gray's Anatomy online due to the effort of a few med school students a few years back.  Besides, all her future patients are going to be reading Wikipedia, so fixing articles should count as "preventive medicine".  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * She's getting ready for the Step1. In other words, in her second year of med school Yeah, I encourage her to edit, though she rarely has done so (six edits in her user account, plus a few dozen on IPs, usually working on bacteria, antibiotics, medication). Every time the signpost talked about medicine I forward it to her . Obviously the first two years are very wide-ranging, but the current system is pulm, next is endocrine. tedder (talk) 19:43, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Factors
The book talks about pressure put on the patient's body including from the surgury itself but also from instruments, drills, the bed and attachments, bandages, ect. It describes factors such as duration and intensity and the limit of how much pressure the tissue can withstand (32mm Hg). Then it describes intrinsic factors such as the length of the procedure, position of the devices, and physiological changes.


 * The Haz talk 19:13, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The Haz talk 19:13, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Forces
The book discusses three forces: shear, friction, and maceration. Shear forces are the folding of tissue then the skeleton moves. Friction is the tissue rubbing against each other. Maceration is when moisture on the skin causes it to be more vulnerable to pressure, friction, and shear.


 * The Haz talk 19:16, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The Haz talk 19:16, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Stress
The book then discusses stress on the musculoskeletal system and nervous system. Then it gets into something called Peripheral Neuropathies (?) and Upper Extremity Neuropathies (?) and Lower Extremity Neuropathies. I dont really get this part but I think it has something to do with the position of nerves in the body in relation to placement of the legs and arms.

It then discusses how anesthesia changes the body's vascular system and how vessels dilate causing a drop in blood pressure. It discusses the pooling of blood and compression in the vessels (?).

It discusses how in all types of positions (except Fowler, sitting, and reverse Trendelenburg), the abdominal viscera (?) are pushed toward the diaphragm putting stress on the respiratory system.


 * The Haz talk 19:31, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The Haz talk 19:31, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Preoperative Nursing
It then discusses nursing considerations such as planning, implementation, and evaluation. This part discusses beds, matresses, and gel packs (pressure-reduction considerations).


 * The Haz talk 19:33, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The Haz talk 19:33, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Positions
Then it gets into the actual positions. All of these also discuss transferring the patient and anesthesia.
 * Supine: The most common. Patient lies with back flat on OR bed.
 * Trendelenburg: Same as supine but upper torso is lowered.
 * Reverse Trendelenburg: Same as supine but upper torso is raised and legs are lowered.
 * Fracture Table Position: For hip fracture surgery. Discusses transfer of patient to the bed.  Upper torso in supine position with unaffected leg raised.  Affected leg is extended with no lower support.  Strapped at ankle with padding in groin area to keep pressure on the leg and hip.
 * Lithotomy: Used for gynocological (sp?), anal, and urological procedures. Upper torso in supine position, legs raised and secured, arms extended.
 * Semi-fowler: Like a lawn chair. Lower torso in supine position.  Upper torso bent at a nearly 85 degree position.  Head secured by u-shaped restraint.
 * Fowler: Begins with patient in supine position. Upper torso is slowly raised to a 90 degree position.
 * Prone: Patient is lying with stomach on the bed. It seems like the abdomen could be raised but if I understand it correctly it doesnt have to be.
 * Jacknife: Patient's belly faces the bed. The bed is kind of scissored so the hib is high and the legs and head are low.
 * Knee-chest: Kind of like the jackknife except the legs are bed at the knee at a 90 degree angle.
 * Lateral: Also like the jackknife except the patient is on their side. Discusses lateral recumbent, lateral decubitus, and Sims.  Other similar positions are Lateral chest and Lateral kidney.  I don't understand the verbiage so I can't paraphrase.

Hope this helps.--v/r - TP 18:00, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem with an article on positioning is that it needs to be very brief and only describing the position as well as when and why it may be used. The positions used are often just at the discretion of the surgeon, not by any established recommendation (even when there is one established). For instance, a central line may often be put in while the patient is in Trendelenburg, but a slightly taller surgeon may choose to use a supine position instead. The Haz talk 18:17, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't know. I just have some books that are temporarily in my possession and I'm offering to look through them if someone wants something out of them.  WhatamIdoing is the only person who has taken me up on the offer.--v/r - TP 18:25, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying not not to! In fact I'm glad you're helping and thanks for the offer. What I'm saying is that the article needs to remain very factual as there are too many opinions regarding which surgical positions are best for which procedures. The Haz talk 18:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I generally agree with Hazmat's suggestions. In fact, I might even skip the "when and why" aspect in most of the cases.  Right now, if we can just get a one-sentence "what it is", it would be a significant improvement.
 * I'll add comments above in green type. Hazmat, perhaps you'd add your thoughts in blue?  (If you haven't looked at the target article, then please do.  It's barely a couple of sentences.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Alrighty. I'll see if I can give it a go.  I'll spend a day or so reading the chapter so I understand the context and then I'll try to paraphrase it.--v/r - TP 19:59, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be fantastic. Thanks. The Haz talk 20:33, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Office hours

 * Hey; once again, office hours for the article feedback tool! These will be held at 22:00 UTC this evening; logs from the last session can be found here. Hope to see you there :). Do drop me a note if you're not familiar with IRC and would like the cliff's notes, or if you can't attend but would like the logs/have some questions for me to pass on to the devs :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 05:28, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Filter
Hi. Can you please point me to some pages that will give me the full back story on the image filter? So far I've got the Harris report and Meta:Controversial content/Brainstorming Will that do it? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:18, 22 November 2011 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "the full back story"?
 * The Harris report will tell you at least most of the story from the perspective of the Foundation and the Board. Image filter referendum/en and especially its endless talk page archives will tell you about the referendum, and a good deal about the complaints from the German-speaking community about the idea that their readers might be given control over what appears on their readers' computer screens.  The strong support from Asia, Africa, South America, and Middle East cannot be found there, but is suggested by an analysis of the broad range of results split by project language (and is also indicated by the Harris report, if memory serves).
 * None of the community discussions are remotely edifying. Basically, it's the usual situation:  white people from northern Europe get attention for declaring that the prudish Americans are trying to censor them, and the rest of the world gets completely ignored or even insulted when they say that the libertine Americans are filling their computer screens with smut and they want some tools for self-defense.  There's a good deal of fearmongering (good old Uncle FUD) among the opponents, some signs of ego-driven panic among a few divas who are re-discovering that they don't own Wikipedia, and some rather tedious "won't somebody think about the children!" from supporters who misunderstand the proposal (it will not allow parents to lock down settings).
 * What you won't find is much recognition by regular community members that they can't actually prevent the Board from ordering the staff to create a filter, which the Board did months ago. It's going to happen, whether we like it or not.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I haven't been following this at all. Didn't even notice the referendum. I'll do some reading. I was pretty gobsmacked by Jayen's description of how it's going to work (if "work" is the right term). --Anthonyhcole (talk) 20:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)


 * At this point, I don't think that anyone can even guess how it will be implemented. The previous proposal (a handful of master lists based on content categories), although IMO neither a great solution nor a truly horrible one, produced noisy complaints from some users.  The alternatives proposed since then seem IMO less effective (most of them require the user to see the images that they do not want to see), but the whole thing is still in the early design stages, and it's possible that whatever today's favorite idea is (it changes approximately every week) will be rejected by the devs (insert your favorite technical excuses here) and something else entirely will happen.
 * I ultimately expect this to follow the normal website change path, i.e., noisy complaints for a few weeks after implementation, then a few months of occasional grumbles, and finally "it's always been that way and we love it". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Request assistance
Hi, I am trying to post something on the project medicine forum, but for some reason the second half of my text is not appearing. It is visible if I go into edit mode, but not showing in the preview or in the published draft. Any suggestions? Puhlaa (talk) 23:04, 23 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I've fixed it for you.
 * You had an unpaired tag. Whenever you have just about anything at all that begins with the letters "<ref", there must be a closing tag (one that beings "</ref"; what you've seen as  is just a shortcut for both opening and closing the tag within the same pair of angle brackets).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 24 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks alot whatamIdoing! I didnt mean to have actual refs....so I should have removed the <>. Wont make that mistake again :)

Best regards!Puhlaa (talk) 01:55, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Dispute Resolution
You may be interested in this. Peter jackson (talk) 17:53, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thoughts?
Hi. If you think there's a problem with controversial image use on Wikipedia, would you mind telling me what you think it is here? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:39, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Let me think about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * While you're thinking about that, what are your thoughts on the upcoming ArbCom election? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:27, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * That if I close my eyes and wish very hard, it will eventually go away.
 * Serving on ArbCom is a difficult, time-consuming, pain-inducing, thankless task. I can't imagine why any basically rational person would volunteer for it.  I haven't yet been able to bring myself to find out which of the people I like and respect might have volunteered for it this round.
 * Normally, though, there are a handful of people who are unhappy with "the system" (usually as exemplified by a single case) and stand for election on the rather naïve notion that (1) while working in the same system and with the same people, they would produce radically different results, and (2) the presence of one or two gadflies will somehow revolutionize the process, resulting in peace and liberty and personal maturity for all. These people tend not to get elected and are generally ineffective when they are.
 * Among the rest, some will have the "wrong" personality (e.g., tend to assume that personal insults directed at individual ArbCom members are meant to be taken personally, rather than as an interesting clinical signal about how threatened the insulter feels at the moment), which means that they are likely to find participation exceptionally painful, and any of the rest would likely be fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thoughts. I've voted, fairly conservatively I think. Coincidentally my + votes matched Wizardman's. If I've made a dreadful mistake, let me know. I've believed for a while that you'd make a good candidate but, given your comments, I'll stop wishing that on you, for now. :) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:13, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive comments and false accusations on RFC
You have made disruptive personal comments and several false accusations here. Please retract and address the subject or further action will be taken thx ... talknic (talk) 10:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * My my, sweetie pie - I had a myself a look at your "disruptive personal comments and several false accusations" heretofore referenced. You're SUCH a bad girl!


 * My bet is you are just gonna hafta decloak the Warbird Sarcasm a little more or she ain't gonna be noticed ... of course that's just my biased opinion *smooch*
 * Cliff (a/k/a &#34;Uploadvirus&#34;) (talk) 13:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

more on reliable sources
Ive done some research and found that hrafn has been raving against sources contrary to his personal beliefs for some time. And has been twisting WP policy to force his view. See this small sample of discussions (if you can call them that): --- SmittysmithIII (talk) 22:54, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Talk:Scriptural_geologist
 * Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_42
 * Talk:John_Murray_(science_lecturer)

hey
I just realized that I overlooked somehow a perfectly lovely note from you. I hope you remember what I'm talking about. Anyway, just wanted to let you know it was appreciated, if belatedly! I know I'm not always the most cuddly editor around, but I do think it's important to recognize the good-faith efforts of new editors. Best, Cynwolfe (talk) 15:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I do remember, and thinking about the friendly welcome you all gave to the new editor makes me happy all over again. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Mount Sinai
There has been a bunch of editors adding external links to Mount Sinai web site. User:Cardioeditor is only one. I assume that they are linked.-- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I see that he's adding ==External links==, and they weren't all the best possible choices for links, but he's trying to improve things in good faith. ELNO #1 is frankly hard for people to grok, and it's probably not the best explanation of the real problem.  For example, the "Only look, this hospital has a clinical program on this subject" link was pretty weak, and the problem is that nobody cares whether some individual hospital has a program, not that it didn't contain information that belonged in the ideal article.  That information didn't belong in the article, but there wasn't any really clear description in any of the guidelines about that particular pitfall.  For the press release, it would be better to have found a great source and added it to the article, but simply reverting it isn't going to help him figure out how to do that (and it's complicated:  remember how much you got hassled about mistakes during your first few months?).
 * Now he's upset and thinks you're the primary source of his difficulties, which isn't going to help Wikipedia—and we desperately need some cardio-savvy people. Those are some of our most important and most neglected articles.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Student analysis
I would be interested to know what you make of this: User:Colin/Introduction to Psychology, Part I. Colin°Talk 23:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * At a sixty-second glance, I'd say that you need to define your scale, and that you probably shouldn't assign any score to no-content editors. (It's not reasonable to say that someone who has done nothing at all did a better job that someone who tried, but screwed up.)
 * Also, I'd say that you've done a huge amount of work, and that it's not easy to spot patterns in a narrative review of someone's work. (Must run for now,) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The scoring is defined at the bottom, but not meant to be a scale. Essentially it is
 * Did something useful (two levels)
 * Did nothing
 * Did something bad (two levels)
 * The narrative is mostly an aid to memory but also some examples to look at. Peter.C has done one group but used a different score to me. Colin°Talk 07:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Notabilty
You may be interested in this. I can't remember where the last debate was. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:54, 12 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't have time to comment there right now, but the last discussion was probably at Notability (high schools). It would be good if someone explained the "no inherent notability" concept to Night.  "Being 100 years old" does not make it possible to write a decent or policy-compliant article.  We absolutely must have independent sources, no matter how old the school is, or what age students it enrolls, or anything else.  Perhaps pointing him at WP:WHYN would be helpful.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Reply to You..
whatamIdoing- thanks for the message. I'm a new user, would be grateful for any tips on best practice for the link added. OncologyMD9 (talk) 20:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)OncologyMD9


 * Welcome to Wikipedia. I know it can be incredibly confusing and complicated when you're just getting started.  I hope that you'll hang in there during the learning curve.
 * As a general rule, I wouldn't link to webpages like that. We get readers from all over the world, and most of them aren't looking for a place to get treatment for any disease at all.  So the information that such a link provides to our typical is pretty much worthless:  "Oh, look, some hospital treats breast cancer!"  Well, that's not very informative, and literally thousands of hospitals can make the same claim.  So why would we want a link to any hospital's "look, we treat this kind of cancer" department page?
 * The usual goal for links is to provide detailed information about the subject, not about people "selling" something related. (Not that a hospital is necessarily trying to "sell" cancer treatments, but I think you'll understand what I mean.)  So a good link is something interesting and informative that we can't put into the article (like the survival calculator) or that contains information that has more details than what ought to be in the article.  Ideally links would be just as useful or interesting for a high school student who has to write a paper for school or for someone who was just randomly clicking around Wikipedia as it would be for a patient.  What I mean by that is that the links are supposed to be primarily "educational" (like a bunch of detailed information on some aspect of breast cancer) rather than "practical" (like where to get treatment for breast cancer if you happen to be willing to travel to New York).
 * Let me also suggest that articles about women's health are, on average, pretty weak. The cancer-related articles also tend to attract strange viewpoints or good-faith errors by people who just didn't realize that their personal experience was different from average.  Our goal isn't to suppress alternative viewpoints, but we do want mainstream medicine to be presented as the mainstream viewpoint.  So if you see problems in the main body of any of these articles, especially if it's a dubious factual claim that is not supported by an WP:Inline citation to a decent medicine-related reliable source (like a med school textbook or a good review article), then please feel free to WP:BOLDly fix it.  You can always leave a note for me if you run into problems with formatting or anything like that.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not sure why all the links are to Mount Sinia. I have seen probably 8 new editors adding these links. I am wondering if they are all the same person. But none of them communicate enough to determine this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:43, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Admin tools
I noticed this: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Lists. I looked back at your talkpage and note that you haven't been keen to become an admin. Being an admin doesn't mean that you have to do anything. It means you are trusted with extra tools so that you can do things like page moves yourself as and when you need to. It was the page move tool that I wanted. I got fed up with asking other people to make what were obvious moves, but were protected because of some prior move. You have plenty of experience, are widely trusted and respected, and are level headed, so there shouldn't be a problem with an RfA. I'd be happy to nominate you if you'd allow me.  SilkTork  <sup style="color:#347C2C;">✔Tea time  10:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Administrators' noticeboard
Hi WhatamIdoing. You participated in Administrators' noticeboard/Archive228, in which a one-month topic ban on creating new articles and making page moves was imposed on. The closing admin has asked for community input about whether to remove the topic ban or make it indefinite at Administrators' noticeboard. Cunard (talk) 08:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Recent Update of Aortic Valve Stenosis
Hi WhatamIdoing-

Thanks for your recent Helpful tips, I added some information under the Percutaneous Aortic Valve Replacement section of this page as you suggested. When you have a chance, please let me know if a link to the page should be provided in this section as well. THANKSCardioeditor (talk) 16:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)Cardioeditor


 * It's a good start, but it needs some work. Here are my quick ideas for improvements:
 * Wikipedia never highlights trademarks with either ™ or ®. (See WP:® if you want more details.)
 * It just doesn't matter who the people involved were. We're not trying to make them famous, and no matter how integral they were to the procedure, it's pretty much irrelevant for the purpose of this section, which is more like "There's a treatment that works like this" rather than "There are these important researchers and clinicians."
 * Yes, you'll want a link to a decent reliable source. That article seems to use the most common system for formatting WP:Inline citations, which is usually called "ref tags" (because you type (with a slash) at the end of it).  WP:REFB is supposed to have simplified instructions, but I think if you type something that seems like it should be useful and appropriate between those two codes, you'll get something that's good enough for now.  Alternatively, if you can find a good peer-reviewed paper about it on PubMed, then you can paste the PubMed ID number into this website, and it will spit out perfectly formatted citation template gobbledygook just like what is being used by the citation earlier in that section (and save you a lot of typing).  Then all you have to do is paste it in between the ref tags and you're done.   WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * This was a copy violation of the content found here  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:06, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, dear. That's a serious problem.  Fortunately, it can be fixed by doing exactly the kind of editing work that needs to be done anyway.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

HOW Can this be modified/edited to include this information about such a first-time historic implantation event? Can you please advise or add this to the article in the best manner-Maybe a link would work best.Thanks in advance for your helpCardioeditor (talk) 14:29, 19 December 2011 (UTC)Cardioeditor


 * First, you remember that nobody except the people directly affected by the "first-time historic implantation event" actually cares much about it. There are similar "first-time historic events" every day of the week.  So if you're a typical reader, rather than someone who expects to be made either famous or wealthy as a result of this (or the patient and the patient's immediate family), then this one just isn't that important.  It's just as unimportant to the reader as all of the other hundreds of similar "first-time historic events" that happened this year.
 * Try this thought experiment: every single treatment in that article, and all of the treatments not mentioned yet, have an equivalent "first-time historic event".  But you're not really excited about any of those enough to bother naming the people who did each of those, are you?  And if you think back to the medical encyclopedias you've encountered in the past, you wouldn't normally expect them to bother listing the names of all the clinicians and researchers that happened to be the first to do something in a particular country, would you?  So that kind of detail doesn't belong in Wikipedia, either.
 * As for how to modify the text, you basically need to say two things about this device:
 * What it is: There's a new type of aortic valve prosthesis made by Medtronic.
 * How it is different: Rather than requiring open heart surgery, it can be inserted through an artery.
 * You probably know more things that could be said about this particular device, but those are the two basic concepts that the reader wants to hear about: what is this thing, and what makes it different from all the other things.  Explain those two points in your own words, using the same kind of jargon-free language that a good surgeon uses when talking to a patient.  Then cite the strongest source you can (which is probably something similar to  rather than a press release from a hospital).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Bed blocking listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Bed blocking. Since you had some involvement with the Bed blocking redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Beeblebrox (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

just an observation
err… I don't want to bring this up in article talk, but it would probably be wise to quietly edit out the with the trait in question bit of this post. I'm assuming it was unintentional (because you're the last person I would expect to indulge in that kind of thing) but implying that someone has a paraphilia of this sort is really dicey. best it just fades away… -- Ludwigs 2  23:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * BitterGrey is quite open about having paraphilic infantilism; a link to his website, which contains (or did, last I looked) stories about his personal experiences, is on his user page. I don't see any reason to treat his open declaration of having this paraphilia as being any more shameful than other editors' equally open declarations that they are gay or transgendered.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah, my mistake. I hadn't realized it was an open declaration.  Too much text…  never mind.    -- Ludwigs 2  00:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * We can't know everything, especially on Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

TOS - Logos
Thanks for your comprehensive responses at my questions regarding the new TOS. It didn't occur to me that trademarks can sometimes be "organically produced" and can become used more widely than initially intended-- my presumption was that, as you said, some group is designated to create official logos and so, it would be easy to create an exhaustive list and add to it as needed. I can see why The Foundation would want to cover these cases as well, and so I now understand why the TOS is worded as it is. Thanks again for your clarification-- hopefully you haven't given Geoff too much more work to do. I'm sure he's busy enough as it is. :) I, Jethrobot  drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 20:36, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. I can be a fountain of trivial knowledge sometimes, so I'm glad that it was helpful to you.
 * (Geoff is probably used to being overworked. A sensible person probably would have run screaming from his job shortly after starting.  I'm just amazed when I read that he's actually enjoying the endless discussions.  The WMF did a good job when they chose him.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Your messages to Wikipedia projects
Your concern for policy is commendable but  please guard your comments and do  more research before unilaterally sending out critical blanket comments. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)


 * "Critical"? In what way is telling a few groups that some other groups have been voluntarily choosing to move their pages a "criticism"?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You can perhaps ask people '..to consider -ing...' but  'telling' people what  to  do  and telling  them  that  their projects are nailed to  their perches when they  are extremely  active is just  out  of line. You  message was a authoritarian lambast. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:07, 21 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, here's what I said (at one WikiProject; I changed the wording slightly over time):
 * ...some of the WikiProjects are renaming their pages to something like "Article advice", "Recommendations", or "Style advice". This is just a friendly suggestion (by no means a requirement) that your group consider doing the same.
 * Now can you tell me what about this is lambasting anyone? Does anything about the phrasing "just a friendly suggestion (by no means a requirement) that your group consider doing the same" sound authoritarian to you?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm talking about  the  speech you  made at  WT:WPSCH - there was nothing friendly  in  that by  any  stretch of the imagination,  even taking  cross cultural  communication  in  English  into  consideration. It's an extremely  busy  project but  you  never bothered to  check. I  left  an answer there just  after you  posted, but  I  didn't  expect  you  to  follow up.  --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm just not seeing it. That message, too, says, "some of the WikiProjects are renaming their pages to something like "Article advice", "Recommendations", or "Style advice". This is just a friendly suggestion that your group consider doing the same".
 * Do you want to take another try at explaining how the words "suggestion" and "consider" is ordering that group to do anything at all? Or perhaps you might want to re-read the message and consider whether your initial reaction might have been misplaced?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I was taken aback by  this comment: While you're at it, if it's been a long time since anyone overhauled those pages, this might be a good time to do that, too. I don't know what the history is for your group, but it's pretty typical for a page to get written and then neglected for a long time. If you happen to find anything that no longer matches up with the community-wide Manual of Style or other general guidelines, then perhaps it would be good to fix it,  which  would appear to  suggest  that  you  are not  aware that some  projects are actually doing  quite well  without  your policing,  and are regularly  maintained by  experienced editors. We have hundreds of projects at  Wikipedia (maybe thousands), perhaps it  would be more constructive to  single out the really  dormant ones and send them to  MfD. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)


 * There's a wide variation in WikiProjects, and MFD is not considered an acceptable response to a formerly active project. That's why my suggestion said "if it has been a long time since anyone overhauled those pages...", not "since".  Some WikiProjects have extremely well-maintained advice pages.  Others have completely neglected pages that no one has paid the least attention to for literally years (and the community-wide guidelines have changed dramatically in the last several years) or that one member started writing and nobody else ever paid attention to.  They, not I, are best positioned to figure out whether their advice is what they want it to be, and my suggestion that they look over the content while they've got the page on screen anyway is nothing more than a suggestion:  it might be a good time to look it over, and perhaps they will find something that they want to improve.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Some WikiProjects have extremely well-maintained advice pages - exactly, and this is one of them. If you're  on a mission to police Wikipedia in all  it's meta areas, please consider doing some basic research (I don't know what the history is for your group)  before issuing such blanket messages, otherwise all you will achieve  is discussions such  as this that  really only disrupt peoples'  workflow. Do  bear in  mind that  projects that  may be worthy  of your good faith efforts are probably  dead or dormant  and won't be watched or produce any  reaction anyway. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:00, 22 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I generally expect an experienced user like you to be able to evaluate an if...then clause, and to ignore the "then" whenever it doesn't, without disrupting his workflow. Perhaps my assumption is invalid in your case.
 * I have little interest in "policing". I have a good deal of interest in informing people of discussions and decisions that might affect them significantly and which I can be reasonably confident they are unaware of.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:22, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You have not  addressed what  I  have said above nor apparently  followed the link - I'm  not  here (as a professional  linguist)  to  discuss your use of grammar, I  just  think  that there are more constructive ways of 'policing' the project, so  let's just  leave it  at  that for now. I'll get  back  to  improving  NPP, schools, and RfA, and you  can continue your excellent  work  on  the AfT. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:52, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Refs
Are there refs to support this? "Palliative care is often confused with hospice and therefore only involved when people approach end of life. Like hospice care, palliative care attempts to help the person cope with the immediate needs and to increase the person's comfort. Unlike hospice care, palliative care does not require people to stop treatment aimed at prolonging their lives or curing the cancer." Specifically the "often confused" part Thanks Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 12:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The confusion is substantial enough that every single palliative care organization I've seen makes a point of explaining it. Sources are trivially available, e.g.,, etc:  a short trip to your favorite web search engine will show you what I mean.
 * I'm not convinced that this sort of simple definition truly requires a source, but if you want one, you might consider ISBN 9780824210137 p 127, which says, "Palliative care is not hospice care, though the two can be confused easily", or ISBN 9780415950671 p 45, which says, "The concept of palliative care is often confused with hospice service." WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Aside from Talk:Ariel A. Roth
I saw this and knew I had to respond somewhere. I chose your talk page. Feel free to move it:
 * Thank you WhatamIdoing for that myopic and unhelpful piece of WP:WIKILAWYERING (which ignores the fact that WP:N clearly leaves open that it may indirectly "limit the content of an article"). Does your comment add any useful insight whatsoever? "Nope".

Someone else already called WP:UNCIVIL on this so I don't need too. What's remarkable is the charge of WP:WIKILAWYERING to your common-sense distinction between WP:WEIGHT (or WP:UNDUE) and WP:N. Compounding that error is the bizarre creative twist that all the tests of WP:N and its children spill into article content because of the "do not directly limit the content" phrase in the text of the guideline.

The reason for that phrase is that the content is limited because editors cannot omit the stuff that allows other editors to evaluate its notability. That is the total extent of the indirect limitation of content. Does this need to be brought up in WT:N? patsw (talk) 16:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the note. I'm completely failing to keep up with my watchlist.
 * Given that editors can (and regularly do, e.g., in a quarter-million completely unsourced articles) "omit the stuff that allows other editors to evaluate its notability" without actually affecting the notability of the subject, I think we might benefit from dropping the word "directly" entirely. It might also be clearer to rephrase the second sentence there as something like "Many other policies, however, do limit the content of the article, including NPOV (especially its UNDUE section), WP:V, NOR, NOT, and BLP".  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Season's tidings!
FWiW Bzuk (talk) 03:48, 25 December 2011 (UTC).

Help Please
Hi –

Can someone please help me. I am trying to figure out why Ameya Pawar has not gone live yet. Please advise. Thank you.

rideittowin 17:09, 28 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rideittowin (talk • contribs)


 * Offhand, I'd guess that it's because you didn't formally "submit" it to the WP:Articles for creation (AFC) process for review. But you don't actually need to do that; AFC is mostly for people who don't have user accounts.  You can WP:MOVE the page to the proper name and make it "live" yourself.
 * If you'd like some advice, articles about people often benefit from having as many WP:Inline citations as possible to as wide a variety of WP:Reliable sources. If you changed things so that there were more references than WP:External links, I think it would improve the article.  (The way you link to a newspaper story online is the same, only you put the link at the end of a sentence or paragraph that it relates to, and  put the " " tags on either side of the link.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Surgical positions
Hi. I've gone ahead and expanding this article. Would you mind giving it a copyedit? I might like to send this to DYK.--v/r - TP 17:51, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I've copyedited the lead, and looked briefly over the rest. It looks pretty good.  I think you should submit it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Is it what you were looking for or do you think it's weak in any area? GorillaWarfare suggested I make sure that the changing positions section isn't "How to".--v/r - TP 02:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it's a solid improvement and addresses more than what I'd initially hoped for. Also, ==Changing positions== doesn't strike me as how-to; it's more like why-to.  (If you don't, you'll get this complication; if you do it this bad way, you'll get this other complication; etc.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:01, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Re: Personal wedding website
Hi, thanks for reviewing the article! I think that it greatly benefited from the GA review as we were able to iron out some kinks. I agree that the article hasn't yet meet GA criteria. When I have the time, I might do additional work on it (I still think the chart is an eyesore). Bejinhan  talks   13:56, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I was really happy with having you involved. It'd be great if you (or anyone else) decided to improve the article further (or any of the other nearly four million articles, of course), but I'm actually pretty satisfied with it having gotten just this far. It is such a dramatic improvement compared to what they started with.  Thanks again.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

A tool for you!
Hi WhatamIdoing! I've just come across one of your edits (or that you have been patrolling new pages), and noticed that you might appreciate some help with references.

I case you're not aware, you might consider using this tool – it makes your life a whole heap easier, by filling in complete citation templates for your links. All you do is install the script: // Add WP:Reflinks launcher in the toolbox on left addOnloadHook(function { addPortletLink( "p-tb",    // toolbox portlet "http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py/" + wgPageName + "?client=script&citeweb=on&overwrite=&limit=30&lang=" + wgContentLanguage, "Reflinks" // link label )}); onto Special:MyPage/skin.js, then paste the bare URL between your tabs, and you'll find a clickable link called Reflinks in your toolbox section of the page (probably in the left hand column). Then click that tool. It does all the rest of the work (provided that you remember to save the page! It doesn't work for everything (particularly often not for PDF documents), but for pretty much anything ending in "htm" or "html" (and with a title) it will do really, really well. You may consider taking on Category:Articles needing link rot cleanup. So long! --Sp33dyphil ©hat<sub style='position: relative; left: -1.5em;'>ontributions 03:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification
Hi. When you recently edited Breeding for drought stress tolerance, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Breeding (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Don't understand a thing about the Village pump
I have been trying to discuss [|"Change of policy towards Dutch ..."] and wonder how this "village pump"-thing is supposed to work. Is there anybody of notice who decides to close a discussion, promote it to a serious policy- proposal, flush it down the history (as has happened here). Someone is allowed to tilt the discussion out of scope by adding a "subheading" to discuss the quality of a specific article. I see some things are done by bots. Guess someone operates them.

Isn't it time someone starts a villagepump policy policy discussion which stays on top until resolved? I think it's not in my way, being far to unnoticeable.

Sorry to bother you with this but saw no better chance. Victor50 (talk) 22:41, 30 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The Village Pumps work like a regular, face-to-face conversation with other people. Imagine that you're talking the people standing next to the coffee pot in an office.  The conversation might start by talking about sports and end up talking about politics:  that's okay.  The conversation might start with an important idea and end with something trivial:  that's okay.  The conversation might result in a firm decision, or people might just walk away and forget about it:  that's okay.
 * If you believe that people understand and support your ideas (and I am not convinced that either is true), then you should probably read about how to make a serious policy WP:PROPOSAL. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Tx for your answer. As you observed: although there is some understanding and support for the idea the tone is set by some Dutch contributors who feel it as a personal attack. I am disappointed at the fact that the pump is not systematically watched by some committee of notice. Anyway, no one was there who was prepared to help and take the idea one step further. Unfortunately I am not in a position to follow the lines in WP:PROPOSAL by sheer lack of time to absorb a lot of present policies, become 'noticeable' and then advertise and campaign for my proposal. Still I am very frustrated at the poor level of the Dutch Wikipedia. Probably other languages with a small user base are as bad, but I have a hunch they leave more non-local subjects alone, so when you Google "Bob Dylan" you won't get any references. I sketch here an alternative and much easier to implement pre-proposal, hope you know of someone who can and will take it further and leave it at that.Victor50 (talk) 10:01, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Hepatitis
From what I can understand from your comment on the causes of hepatitis you appear to think that the list of causes I provided were not cited from reviews or similar secondary sources. This is incorrect: this can be confirmed from the references themselves.

It appears that you would prefer to see a single source for all the causes rather than the multiple sources I provided. Most textbooks of general medicine will list for example parasites as a cause at least in part because of their association with cirrhosis and liver cancer. They may be slightly less informative on the replication sites for (say) the Ebola fever virus which has the liver as its primary replication site but these can be found in infectious diseases/virology/microbiology textbooks. When I pointed this out I simply ended up in a row. For this reason it seemed sensible to provided multiple sources. There may perhaps be some diversity of opinion on this point.

As the record shows provision of suitable references by itself was not sufficient to prevent a minor edit war when these were then deleted without even being read - which seems (to me anyway) at least a little rude.

As to the importance of the infectious causes I think it is clear to say that virtually all if not all of the categories listed could be regarded as important. In medicine a cause is regarded - generally - as important if it is treatable. If a disease is untreatable the precise cause of the problem is usually not regarded as a priority: there are exceptions. Most of the infectious causes listed are thankfully treatable.

A secondary consideration in importance is the transmissibility of a disease. Tuberculosis is regarded as an important disease partly because of the difficulty treating it but also because of its transmissibility. Ebola is not very treatable but is an important cause because it is very easily spread to the health care staff treating the patient.

Other considerations in the importance of a disease include their likelihood of being confused with another disease. The causes of granulomatous hepatitis are among these. An inexperienced clinician may think of these as only being caused by tuberculosis when the actual list is much longer. Red faces soon follow when this is pointed out. Before dismissing this as nonsense I have seen this very error with my own eyes. I am sure I am not unique there.

Another consideration is the age profile of the patient. A number of conditions occur only in children. These are uncommon or rare in the population as a whole but worthy of serious consideration to those treating children. Parvovirus as a cause of hepatitis springs to mind here. Parvovirus and its relations infect only dividing cells. Children particularly smaller ones tend to have more dividing cells in their organs than do adults. For this reason it is thought parvovirus tends to be a cause of hepatitis in children rather than adults. There may well be other reasons but if there are I have not yet come across them. Numerically parvovirus as a cause of hepatitis in the population as a whole is a miniscule quantity. However in children with hepatitis without an obvious cause parvovirus is high on the list of differentitial diagnoses.

Importance is not even a matter of being listed in textbook as textbooks take different slants. A textbook of paediatrics will list different causes for many things than an adult textbook. A textbook on infectious diseases normally will give a much more extensive listing of infectious causes than a textbook on general medicine. Larger textbooks tend to give more causes than smaller ones.

For these reasons and others, while your comment on importance is of note, importance is not a simple issue.

You mentioned a list of drugs that can cause hepatitis. This is an extensive list. Your point as regards importance of the agents is again interesting. I do not pretend to any expertise in deciding which should or should not be included in such a list. Perhaps an appeal for an expert opinion on these matters is indicated. The current listing gives no indication which if any of these drugs are important causes of hepatitis. Suggestions as to its revision seem desirable for this reason.

I agree with you over the causes of fatigue - a veritable nightmare list of causes. I would argue that where there is a defined clinicopathological entity such as hepatitis the causes thereof listed may need to be/can be justified as being more extensive than in cases where there is no defined pathology such as fatigue. Perhaps you may have an opinion on this?

Finally a minor note not directly related to your comment. JWD has stated that cardiac failure does not cause hepatitis. This - as I have pointed out to him - is incorrect. That this condition does cause hepatitis is stated in the usual undergraduate textbooks of pathology as well as the references cited. The pathology cardiac failure induces is very similar to that produced by ischemic hepatitis which is a cause that was earlier included. DrMicro (talk) 10:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * It appears that we have three separate things to discuss:
 * Importance
 * I agree that it's not always simple to determine how much weight (from "any mention at all" to "entire section entirely dedicated to") should be given to any particular cause. Unlike your model of determining importance from real-world effects (commonness, transmissibility, threats to particular populations), we determine importance based on what our best sources consider important.  We know what they consider important because they talk about the important stuff more than they talk about the unimportant stuff.  "Follow the sources" is our method for getting an "expert opinion" on what is important enough to mention and how much attention to give it:  we mention what our best secondary sources (like a good textbook) tend to mention, and we don't mention what our best secondary sources don't mention.
 * So if you look at a handful of textbooks and see that most of them write (for example) a whole chapter about Hep B, multiple paragraphs about parasites, and merely mention Ebola in passing or as part of a list, then we (because we summarize, i.e., write less than a textbook) should probably discuss Hep B in a few paragraphs, maybe dedicate a sentence or two to parasites, and probably omit Ebola. Because we're writing a summary, we also try to write at a more general level.  For example, we would normally write about "liver flukes" as a class, rather than specific, named, individual families or species of liver flukes.


 * Secondary sources
 * You assert above that you're using secondary sources, but (Lujo virus) is a primary source.   (Hantaan virus) is a case study.   (Dengue) is a primary source.   (Cytomegalovirus) is a randomized controlled trial—another primary source.   (Influenza) is a primary source.  And so forth.  Please don't expect me to believe that you are using "reviews or similar secondary sources" when your list still names so many primary sources.


 * Purpose
 * I'd like to understand better why you're interested in creating a list of causes. It seems to me that your goal may be to create a reasonable comprehensive list as a practical aid to differential diagnosis, i.e., for the laudable purpose of saving lives in the real world.  But perhaps I have misunderstood you.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:27, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Maybe these might suit you better


 * CMV: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/215702-overview
 * Dengue: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15361994. Admittedly this is an analysis of <1500 cases of whom over 40% had raised liver enzymes. The sheer number of cases in this paper argues for dengue's inclusion in such a listing. Raised liver enzymes are also highly characteristic of dengue fever.
 * Influenza: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16565492
 * Hantaan virus: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2895603
 * Lujo virus which causes haemorrhagic fever is a notifible disease. Part of its clinical presentation is a form of hepatitis. It is thankfully rare but because of its causative role in haemorrhagic fever it probably justifies inclusion on that ground alone.


 * Concerning your comments on (say) liver flukes chapters in in textbooks on parasitology are devoted to each of these individually. They are listed like cigarettes and Helicobacter as class 1 carcinogens. One of the primary cells for the replication of Ebola is the liver something that has been known for several decades now. One of the major problems with Ebola and similar viruses is the effect it has on the coagulation system - proteins produced by the liver. Post mortums in fatal cases show extensive hepatic changes. It is a notifable disease which means it has separate legal status in most countries. It is well known to the general public in part because of books such as the Hot Zone


 * http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Zone-Terrifying-True-Story/dp/0385479565


 * The Centres for Disease Control have a section on Ebola in their handbook (somewhat less dramatic in their account)


 * http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/ebola.htm


 * In passing it may be worth noting that almost all the infectious causes already have pages on Wikipedia which argues for their individual importance.


 * Since we are on this topic the lack of references for the remainder of the page might also be worth discussing. For example while it is a commonly known fact that alcohol is a cause of hepatitis there are not supporting refs on the page. For ensure consistency perhaps this should be deleted as cause until suitably referenced? If some causes may be included without providing refs being provided what criteria are to be used? DrMicro (talk) 22:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Your new Dengue and Influenza citations are still primary sources. Is there some reason why you aren't using textbooks or other guaranteed-to-be-non-primary sources?
 * It doesn't matter if a page exists. That a subject is notable (=gets its own article) does not mean that the subject must be mentioned in every other possible article.  IMO an article should (eventually) be written for every single virus that's had more than two publications about it.  That doesn't mean that every single virus should be mentioned in every single other article—or in any other article.  WP:DUE weight is determined by the context of the specific article in question.  For example, a cause that is really not important enough to even mention in Hepatitis might well deserve inclusion in the more specific article on Viral hepatitis.
 * See WP:MINREF for the list of what must be provided with an inline citation. "Commonly known facts" isn't on the list.  Furthermore, trying to destroy the rest of the article as retaliation for being (correctly) told that you're using primary sources when secondary sources are strongly preferred is not going to help improve either the article or your relationships with other editors.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:11, 1 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I provide here new refs for your opinion
 * Dengue: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2006.01678.x/full
 * Influenza: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1606546/
 * I agree with you over the viruses. I have been moderately active in that given area: the DNA virus families and most of their genera now have pages devoted to them: all are consistent with the ICTV. I hope to try to improve the situation of the RNA viruses in the not too distant future.
 * Due weight seems a topic worthy of discussion. Consider Egypt a country whose population of ~80 million are mostly fairly observant Muslims. Alcohol related disease is rare there at least in part because of the prohibition on the use of alcohol by Muslims. Until relatively recently virtually the entire population were have been infected with schistosoma. Public health efforts made significant inroads into this problem. There are 300-500 million cases of malaria each year. While all of these develop a mild hepatitis ~1% develop clinical hepatitis making a total of 3-5 million cases each year. The drug methyldopa is now only rarely used as better alternatives have been available for years. I would have to check to be certain but I think the incidence of this side effect is <1% of people who take the drug on a long term basis and that the total number of cases reported is <10,000. Since this agent lacks an inline citation presumably this is because this drug may cause hepatitis is a 'commonly known fact'. Perhaps there may be some other reason that I am not familiar with. If this is the case I would be grateful if you could enlighten me.
 * My understanding of the term 'encyclopedic' agrees with that in this dictonary
 * http://www.thefreedictionary.com/encyclopedic
 * An encyclopedic article IMHO should tend to be complete - something that this definition seems to agree with. The causes I have listed in the Hepatitis article I believe can be justified on the grounds that they are treatable and/or are significant public hazards. I have not - and do not intend to try - to list the entire litany of causes - principally because I lack the expertise to do so.
 * I do not disagree with you that because the list of causes is of some length - and currently is only partly complete - that the lay out of this article cannot be improved. This is not a problem unique to Hepatitis. The liver is a body organ. Inflammation is universal response in body organs to injury. The list of unique causes of injury to the body is not short for any organ. A useful solution in the case could and probably should be used elsewhere. I recall that both I and Doc James requested opinions/suggestions on method of improving it. Perhaps these were deleted?
 * I think it is safe to say that Doc James and I agreed that there should be discussion in the article on the relative importance of these causes. This is not IMHO a simple matter. The prevalence and incidence of causes differs considerably between countries and over periods of time. Halothane for example is rarely used if at all because of its association with hepatitis. Whether such agents should be included in such a list since they are now rarely used but are mentioned in virtually every review on drug induced hepatitis because they spawned a number of law cases I do not know. Perhaps you may have an opinion?
 * Finally I have misunderstood you here but I would tend to regard 'destroy', 'retaliation' as having some difficulties complying with the instructions on this page - No personal attacks. I also fail to see how your choice of words on this occasion helps your relationship with other editors. Perhaps it may be useful if you could how the choice of words here is (1) compliant and (2) helpful DrMicro (talk) 23:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The influenza ref is just commentary. Look:  this is not difficult.  High school students can manage this task.  If you're absolutely determined not to use a sensible, reasonably comprehensive source like a medical textbook, then go to PubMed, put in a relevant search term, and click the button under "Filter your results" that says "Review".
 * Use the secondary sources to figure out due weight. Due weight is not determined by how many people in the world die from something.  It's determined solely by how much good sources have written about it.  If good sources go nattering on about something incredibly rare, and gloss over something incredibly common, then we follow their lead.  We do not actually care what the prevalence of a given cause is:  we care how much ink has been used to talk about the cause.
 * NPA is generally interpreted quite strictly, and my comments do not transgress it. If you'd like to learn more about behavioral advice, you might want to read WP:Tendentious editing, which (among other problematic behaviors) embraces your idea of deleting obviously accurate and verifiable information (e.g., alcohol as a cause of hepatitis) merely because it isn't being presented perfectly, especially in the context of people wanting good sources for the less obvious and quite possibly UNDUE causes you've been adding.
 * Basically, I don't think that you understand the job of an encyclopedia article. The whole encyclopedia—all of the nearly four million articles taken together—is supposed to be "Embracing many subjects; comprehensive".  Individual articles are not.  Individual articles are supposed to provide summaries.  They are not supposed to include every detail.  WP:NOTEVERYTHING actually prohibits this:  individual articles are not permitted to be "a complete exposition of all possible details".  And if you go look at any other encyclopedia ever published, you will discover that the individual articles are normally quite brief, and that absolutely none of them provide complete lists like you're looking for.  Encyclopedias are a mile wide, but only an inch deep.  If you really want to make a complete exposition of all possible causes, then you need to be writing at Wikibooks or Wikiversity, not at Wikipedia.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTEVERYTHING - 'The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts...' That seems compatible with a list of causes.
 * 'The influenza ref is just commentary.' This paper is an editorial review of a number of papers on viruses and hepatitis.
 * As I have stated before I have not and would not try to list all the possible causes. Please do not suggest that I have attempted to advance such a idea. My apologies if I have misunderstood your comments on this point.
 * The record shows that alcohol as a cause was not deleted. To be consistent with your policy of requiring references this would seem to suggest that alcohol might also might also require a reference. Wikipedia does not require and indeed advises against providing citations for everything.
 * I think it is probably safe to say that there are more articles written on jaundice in malaria (where it is regarded as a poor prognostic sign) that there are on methyldopa as a cause of hepatitis. Malaria is referenced: methydopa is not. Your policy appears to be inconsistent. An explanation of the reason for this inconsistency would be nice.
 * 'NPA is generally interpreted quite strictly, and my comments do not transgress it.' That I think is a matter of opinion. Nemo iudex in causa sua. Even if your comments do not violate the NPA they do seem (IMHO) to transgress one of the five pillars of Wikipedia: Civility. Your milage may differ. DrMicro (talk) 12:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Why isn't alcohol followed by an inline citation? Because nobody's gotten around to adding one yet.  Someday, somebody eventually will.
 * Why are people fussing at you about the inline citations you've added? Because you've been adding weak sources—sources so weak that they don't demonstrate that we should even be mentioning some of these causes at all.
 * There is no point of policy here, unless you consider the fact that Wikipedia is a work in progress to be a "policy". This is just reality:  the article is not finished.
 * Let me give you an analogy: Imagine a pile of dirty dishes.  You get one dish half-clean, and people say "That's not good enough."  Your response is "Well, nobody's ever attempted to wash this other dirty dish, so you should be perfectly happy to eat off of this half-dirty one!"
 * As for your concerns about civility, you may want to reflect on the substantial gulf between civility and friendliness. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Separate funding of Wikipedia's
Open the possibility to earmark donations to Wikipedia to specific languages. Alternative: Have all (localized) Wikipedia's campaign for themselves.

(Arguments are given above and in my villagepump-proposal)

Victor50 (talk) 10:01, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * This isn't practical. Most of the money isn't spent on a single language's Wikipedia.  When the developer spends a month creating a new feature, that work benefits all of the languages and all of the projects equally.
 * Also, we depend on other projects. Most of the money comes from readers of the English Wikipedia.  Would you like to have Commons, without which the English Wikipedia would be seriously limited, starved of resources merely because the readers didn't know that's where we keep most of the images they like?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 31 December 2011 (UTC)