User talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive 10
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Reward Board
Hi WhatamIdoing, thanks for your work =]
The issue i'm having is that i can't categorise files on the Commons. And the Category:Birmingham Gay Village is different here from the one at The Commons...I'm not sure how that happened...
Category:Birmingham Gay Pride is up though.
The Birmingham Gay Village is basically the equivalent of a Chinese district for gays. Birmingham Gay Pride is a gay pride event, which i assume i don't have to explain to you about. Thanks again ツ Jenova20 (email) 09:26, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
- commons:Category:Birmingham_Gay_Pride does not exist (despite having nine files in it).
- What do you mean, you "can't categorise files on the Commons"? What happens? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
- I only just figured out how to categorise things over here with Hotcat and the File Mover Permission. I don't know how it works at the Commons, or even if i can do it there. Thanks ツ Jenova20 (email) 17:19, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
- You can. HotCat is actually much better over at Commons. Go to commons:Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets and scroll most of the way down to "Tools for categories". HotCat is the second in the list.
- The cat needs to be created, which IMO is best done by opening the new cat page and adding a sentence of description, saving the page, and then using HotCat to put the newly created cat into some other cats (Category:Events in Birmingham, for example, and presumably there's a Gay Pride cat somewhere). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
- I may get round to it at some point then. Thanks
- What about the Birmingham Gay Village category which is different here than at the Commons? Thanks again ツ Jenova20 (email) 09:41, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
90 percent
hello, may i respectfully disagree with you? Can you please provide a quote from a wiki policy which supports your example of the ninety recent rule? I would appreciate to be enlighted.Ryanspir (talk) 16:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
- The rule is at WP:DUE: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources."
- "90%" and "10%" are examples of proportions. If 90% of sources say one thing, and 10% say another—or whatever amounts the sources actually divide into—then the article's content should reflect those proportions.
- Also, you might want to consider WP:FRINGE, the min policy on presenting mainstream views as being mainstream and presenting alternative views as being alternative ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Pubmed id
hello, could you please tell me why have you selectively asked me to provide pubmed id? Does it mean that all references without pubmed id shall be removed from this article? I hope you didn't ask it because you feel angry that there are peer reviewed studies supporting what you seemingly consider to be a snake oil? I'm calling you to assume good faith, be emotionally detached and be neutral.Ryanspir (talk) 16:35, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
- I have not asked for any such thing. It is, however, normal to add such id numbers. You just type "PMID" followed by the number, and it automagically becomes a link, like this: PMID 16766878. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
90 percent part 2
Kindly clarify the difference? Wp:undue is refering to published studies by reliable sources. And you were refering to opinions of mainstream healthcare professionals. Ryanspir (talk) 18:34, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
- Mainstream healthcare professionals tend to follow the conclusions of published reliable sources. If 90% of mainstream healthcare professionals believe something (about medicine), then there are very good odds that the published reliable sources support it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
synth
Hello whatamidoing. I just wanted to let you know that my latest contribution to synth has absolutely nothing to do with the bca page. I don't plan on using a new addition to "win" an argument against you (I don't plan on arguing with you at all, ever again). That would be gaming the system. In my mind, the "feud" is over. I don't really care as much about the bca page as I used to. It is no longer my main concern here at wikipedia. I hope you wholeheartedly assume good faith about my contributions to synth and that you stop thinking that I'm going to ruin the wikipedia as you know it. My IQ may not be annoyingly high, but I think you'd be surprised. Charles35 (talk) 01:31, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
- Actually, I have some sympathy with what you're trying to clarify in the NOR policy. It's just that, even though it might be both possible and desirable (separate concepts: someday I'll write the essay about why policy writing is about a hundred times harder than most people think it is until they spend a while trying to do so) to bring that concept out more clearly, that particular problem just isn't called SYNTH on the English Wikipedia. What you're talking about is plain old normal OR, not the specific subtype that's called SYNTH.
- I haven't got a lot of time right now, for BCA or anything else. But I am generally considered to be good with policy writing, and I'll think about this problem when I can. Feel free to ping me again to remind me about the problem. We ought to be able to do something to improve that page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:27, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
WikiWomen's Collaborative: Come join us (and check out our new website)!
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Feel better
I hope you feel better soon! Biosthmors (talk) 06:52, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks. I think I'm over it, but now I have weeks' worth of things to do to catch up on. It may be a while before I'm really caught up to the point that I can do much here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
ninety percent iii
I respectfully disagree with you. I think you are speculating and making assumptions. Generally what you are saying its an original research. But the most important part, that according to published research the situation is opposite. There is only one study made in botswana, which says that cs is not effective in vitro. However, all the rest of the studies are found cs to be effective, and that includes expert bodies such as epa and fda. In the letters in which fda advices against oral consumption by mouth, they do not say that cs was proven to be not effective. What they say in fact is that currently there is no sufficient prove that its effective. And, they refer only to internal ingestion by mouth, because the external application was found to be effective and was cleared by them. The editors who edit this page aren't doctors. It seems that drew their opinions from sensational publication featuring a blue man and misread letters of fda. Ryanspir (talk) 15:36, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
- I think we can continue this discussion when you have far more experience with Wikipedia. Until then, you would be safe assuming that, when it comes to the English Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, several of which I'm the primary author of, I know what I'm talking about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
- I take it you haven't read WP:BITE yet. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:32, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
- I've also read WP:POVPUSH and a sample of the editor's work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
- I take it you haven't read WP:BITE yet. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:32, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Cite pmid
Hi there,
I'm curious about this revert; the {{cite pmid}} links to a PMC article, which is also a free, full-text version, and the template itself could also be edited to add the url link to the pdf if desired. Also, I was under the impression the cite pmid template somehow automagically used fewer server resources or some such, allowing for a faster page load. Plus it's super easy. Is there a disadvantage you are aware of or a utility to the usual {{cite journal}}? Thanks, WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 11:23, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
- I didn't realize that the article was free at PubMed Central now.
- I don't know how the templates compare in terms of server resources. I'm not even sure where to ask. What I've heard is the more parameters (whether used or not), the more load. I don't happen to like cite pmid, because I like being able to see the title or other identifying information in the editing window, but that's not a big deal, only an explanation for why I don't know much about its internal workings. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:23, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
Discussion on the AFT5 Request for Comment
Hey WhatamIdoing - this is to notify you that there is a discussion starting on the Article Feedback RfC talkpage that has ramifications for the RfC itself. Your input is much appreciated :). Thanks! and apologies if I've missed anyone Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Conversation stoppers
Hi WaID. Thanks for tidying my last edit to WT:N. Was my input welcome? It reminds me of an awkward silence at a party. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:02, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
- Well, I thought it was welcome and a good explanation. But I think it takes people a long time to grasp the idea that "what my teacher told me" (for a specific academic field and a specific purpose) isn't the sole valid definition of primary source. (At least most of them in that discussion have figured out that WP:Secondary does not mean independent, which is an improvement over where the community was two years ago.)
- By the way, in the long term, I'd really like to be able to find a published reliable source that directly compares and contrasts the definitions in different fields. Right now, we can find sources that say "X is primary" and "X is not primary", and anyone can therefore determine that there are differences, but I'd like to actually have a book directly discussing the variations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Lies and the lying liars who tell them
Greetings. I saw your amusing edit summary. For someone who's so attached to good grammar as you are, is "...the lying liars that..." completely standard? Shouldn't it be (as it is) "...the lying liars who..."? Other than that, were you trying to make some point about the futility of edit summaries? :-) Cheers. Signed: Basemetal (write to me here) 17:32, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
- 'The answer to the second question is yes. The answer to the first is more complicated. See User:WhatamIdoing#That, which, and who for the general grammar question, but the particular phrase is also a book title, so it probably ought to have been Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, using who, title case, and italics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Poor closing of an RFC
Please be a little more careful when closing RFC's, like when you did here for the one for User: Niemti.
- You really ought to leave a summary/conclusion/explanation/edit summary, otherwise you just end up upsetting the participants. (It's talk page and my talk page is enough evidence that you rubbed a number of editors the wrong way with this.)
- Your comment on the talk page, The summary would only say "Dispute moved to ANI" (with a link), which isn't exactly important makes it seem as if you don't really understand the situation either. That topic ban at ANI was just a minor part of the overall RFC, and an issue that didn't even exist yet at the time of creating the RFC. A topic ban regarding one particular article hardly resolves countless editor's concerns regarding long-term incivility and personal attacks.
I thank you for trying to help, but please try to be a little more thorough next time. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 14:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
- RFC/U pages are not supposed to remain open for nearly three months. There is no magic deadline, but a bit over one month from the opening date is usually considered the outside limit. Moving to another forum for dispute resolution—even if that doesn't fully resolve the dispute—is also grounds for closing the RFC/U. The mere fact that someone took any part of the dispute elsewhere, rather than continuing to try to resolve it at RFC/U, signals the end of this RFC/U. It should have been tagged as closed when the ANI thread was opened, not after it closed.
- If you'd like to get a second opinion on whether RFC/U discussions are permitted to continue indefinitely, perhaps you'll ask someone who is more familiar with RFCs than you, like Wizardman (talk · contribs) or Rd232 (talk · contribs). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
- My problem isn't the fact that it was closed, I agree it's been going on too long; my problem it was how you did it. You didn't give any sort of summary to give any sense of closure, or make enough effort to understand the issue at hand. (The issue didn't "escalate to ANI", but rather, a user separate from the RFC took him to ANI on issues on a particular article and pushed for a very narrow topic ban. The RFC spanned so much more than that, a narrow topic ban hardly concludes what was being discussed here.) I'm not sure what in my message above led you to think I want it to go indefinitely. I'm just saying, when you leave so many editor's concerns unaddressed by closing without explanation like you did, closing it does more harm than good. Sergecross73 msg me 17:41, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
- Summaries aren't required for RFC/Us that close due to inactivity or due to being open for significantly longer than one month. In fact, some people strongly object to them, e.g., in this discussion. The current closing instructions do not recommend summaries for time-based closures, and recommend only the inclusion of a link to the other DR location in case of proceeding to another form of DR (its exact recommendation is "proceeded to [ arbitration]/[ mediation]"). The only difference between what I did and what it recommends as normal is that I didn't copy and paste the link onto the front, since the experienced editors involved are all perfectly capable of reading the talk page and closure due to time, which gets nothing at all except the archive templates, is amply justified.
- In other words, the summary that you want isn't actually recommended in this instance. If you don't believe me (here is one reason why you should), then please do ask someone who knows more than you about RFC/Us for another opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
- I was under the impression that it was like AFD, where a summary is recommended if it was likely to be contentious. I suppose that part of my argument isn't so much your fault...but I still think you should have at least included some sort of explanation that time was your reason for closing the discussion. You didn't say that on your edit summary or the talk page when people questioned your decision. Your edit summary said essentially nothing, and your comments on the talk page seemed to suggest that you thought the topic ban somehow resolved by the RFC, which isn't exactly accurate... Sergecross73 msg me 18:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
- I can understand how confusing that could be. Summaries are kind of backwards in RFC/Us: they happen when everyone agrees, and not so much when they don't.
- I think that the next step for the people involved is to decide whether to proceed to ArbCom with the remaining issues or to give up. IMO it's largely a question of whether the problem is important enough to spend two or three more months of your wikilife on it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
- I was under the impression that it was like AFD, where a summary is recommended if it was likely to be contentious. I suppose that part of my argument isn't so much your fault...but I still think you should have at least included some sort of explanation that time was your reason for closing the discussion. You didn't say that on your edit summary or the talk page when people questioned your decision. Your edit summary said essentially nothing, and your comments on the talk page seemed to suggest that you thought the topic ban somehow resolved by the RFC, which isn't exactly accurate... Sergecross73 msg me 18:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Your opinion is requested.
Your rewrote the WP:MEDRS to include the line: If the findings involve phase I or phase II clinical trials, small studies, studies that did not directly measure clinically important results, laboratory work with animal models, or isolated cells or tissue, then these findings are probably only indirectly relevant to understanding human health; in these cases, they should be entirely omitted. in this bold edit. The emphasized sentence is being used to oppose inclusion of a possible mouse study about blood glucose levels from aspartame consumption cited here. I am still hunting down a medical journal with this published paper. If I'm unsuccessful then it's a mute point but if I am, what is your opinion of this mouse study in relation to your wording of the MEDRS? Thanks. Alatari (talk) 21:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
- You can read the discussion that led to the change at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)/Archive 5#Should_we_remove_this_line.
- Rodent studies should not be mentioned at all in an article like Aspartame controversy. That's a big, well-studied area, not a rare disease with nothing else available. You should stick to major secondary sources for an article like that.
- On a related point, just because you seem interested in knowing more things rather than as something useful in that article, you might like to read this series of articles about the limitations of mouse studies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:01, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Sexology arbitration case opened
The arbitration case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology has been opened. You have been mentioned as a potential party by one or more of the current parties to the case. If you would like to become a party to the case, please add yourself to the main case page linked in the same format as the other parties. For the Arbitration Committee, Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 03:39, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
help find sources project
Hello, last time we discussed on the Template_talk:Primary_sources. This time I seek for your comments on my drafted IEG grant proposal here m:Grants:IEG/find_sources_2.0. The basic idea is to enhance source-finding and thus citing practices for contributors old and new by providing lists of online and offline resources and some basic general description on the nature of the sources in these resources (per general research/librarian perspective and per WP policies WP:PSTS WP:V WP:RS.
I hope that you will can provide comments to improve the grant proposal. Thanks. --(comparingChinese Wikipedia vs Baidu Baike by hanteng) 00:31, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I mentioned you
Here and you'd most likely see it but can't help being the notification system Wikipedia should ideally do already! Best. Biosthmors (talk) 20:05, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- WT:MED is the one page that I try to keep up with, even when I can't do anything else, so I'd have seen this anyway. But I'm always happy to hear from you anyway. I hope that your editing is going well these days. I've been a bit busy in real life plus tied up with some cat work over at Commons, so I'm not getting much done here at the moment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- Things are going well. Maybe I've been a bit too devoted to trying to improve processes (and getting into dicey deletion discussions) instead of focusing on content lately, but all is well, thanks! Biosthmors (talk) 21:42, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- Well, if you were born to be a Metapedian, then I don't think you have much hope of resisting your process-oriented fate. At least, I haven't figured out how to avoid it. But I think it's a lot more fun to write articles, especially articles that don't have a half-dozen people working on them, or to go wikignoming on obscure articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Appreciation
Even as we chew on whether/how "general references" should be defined, I appreciate your work in clarifying some of those places at Citing sources where it has been used ambiguously. Thanks. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:55, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for the kind note. Like you, I do want to resolve as much of the confusion over this concept as possible. I'm glad that you think my bold change was an improvement. I'll stop by the talk page later; right now, I'm only doing mindless and easily interruptible things in between real-life work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:59, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
response, perhaps a bit of a "gotcha"
I have replied to you at WT:Tendentious editing, and feel it is important/amusing enough to message you directly, especially given that you seem to disagree with the inclusion of a bright-line rule. -- UseTheCommandLine (talk) 23:48, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Talkback: you've got messages!
Message added by Theopolisme at 11:55, 22 February 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
thanks for your inquiry and the diplomacy
thanks for the help and info
will con't with the sandbox page, watching the COI criteria carefully. Signed up for WP:MED and WP:DENT - didn't know they existed. thx.Ian Furst (talk) 02:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
- Welcome, and good luck! WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:26, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Continuation of conversation at Wikipedia_talk:Signatures#Different_signatures.2C_depending_on.C2.A0the_namespace
Hello WhatamIdoing,
I thought I'd better put this here, as I have some misgivings (expressed earlier) as to whether this sort of discussion is permissible at Wikipedia_talk:Signatures.
Please accept my apologies for misleading/giving you false hope in this discussion. For good or bad reasons I had done my testing on an external (slightly obsolete) wiki. So I know at a software level MediaWiki has the capability of doing what you want.
Here is the big "gotcha". Unfortunately I completely forgot about this policy on WikiPedia, which basically bans all the neatest solutions; and puts a severe crimp on the "next-best" ways to approach this.
Not to completely give up; would you please be so kind as to give an example of the sort of effect you want to achieve? Even if the general case is practically ruled out, it might be still possible to do what you want.
(When I say "general case" above, I am thinking about something like a signature inside a template which gives different results when transcluded into different name-spaces, and do so for every single user login. As I suggested: technically feasible; but within the policy very probably impossible!)
Finally, I completely lack artistic ability, so my own signature is best as: MODCHK (talk) 22:39, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
- What I want is to find a quick and easy way to reduce complaints like this and this. So far, I haven't been able to think of one. If we could get the text to appear only when he's signing something on a user talk: page, then I think that would reduce the likelihood. Ideally, I'd be able to say, "Here's the code. Go paste this in your sig." But I don't know how to do it, or even if it's possible without violating that policy on transcluding templates into sigs or having to subst a huge amount of text on to each page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- I think I see the problem. And unfortunately problems with any technical solution, viz:
- You have already raised the use of {{talkback}} (and by implication use of a watchlist) and it appears to me this particular user is fairly resistant to the idea. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) If this really is the case then giving them a "potted signature", especially bearing in mind they clearly have modified their own already may not go down well. And will be re-modified subsequently, which may be even worse.
- I really suspect education and peer pressure might be the way to go rather than anything technical. You have clearly already attempted this. I guess the next step is the painful wait for the other party to finally have the wonderful idea on their own (and rationalise themselves as the origin of said inspiration, which of course in reality you had planted...)
- Sometimes I am so cynical I mistrust myself. Doctors; can't live with them (fill in suitable next verse...)
- I fear I have been no real use to you whatsoever. However, you truly have my sympathy! MODCHK (talk) 04:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- I think he's pretty cooperative, just even less technically minded than I am. (After all, it took me several months to wonder whether a technical solution would be feasible.) It was fun to talk through the possibilities with you, even if we didn't come up with a neatly packaged solution. Thanks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:22, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- I think I see the problem. And unfortunately problems with any technical solution, viz:
- Another minimal-technical approach to the issue occurs to me: why not do exactly what you and I effectively did with this discussion (i.e. reverse the {{talkback}} model.) Immediately after his first contribution to a thread:
- insert a link of the form [[discussion continued at User_talk:...]]
- and then place your "real" response on his talk page.
- This way he is happy (because he got his own way), the community can still find the message thread, and (sneaky I know) after a time his talk page gets so full he might come around to a more communal-friendly method.
- (Substitute "his"/"he" as appropriate.) End of naughty-psycho-judo idea. MODCHK (talk) 22:21, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- It won't work, because every user would have to do this, including newbies.
- His goal seems to be keeping user pages out of his watchlist. His solution is to sign every post with a note asking people to ping him instead of expecting him to be watching the user talk page. This isn't entirely unreasonable (I can't keep up with my watchlist, so I can't really expect anyone else to), and he is an extremely active editor (over 70,000 edits so far), so he communicates with a lot of people, which means a lot of user pages.
- But when these signed messages, which provide practical, good-faith information about how to actually communicate with him, appear on article talk pages and Wikipedia noticeboards, it sometimes produces complaints for him, because the information is irrelevant to that discussion. So the goal, I think, would be a way to get that information into the signature when he edits a user talk page, but not into the signature at any other time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- All right (I don't know why I am buying into this business; I really don't!), going back to your original idea, and trying to avoid the policy pitfalls, here is my attempt at reverse engineering this persons signature, and the associated changes to (I hope) get some of the effect desired.
- First here is the wikitext (I had to manually wrap it for this display to work, and there are other problems I'll try to address below):
[[User:Jmh649|<span style="color:#0000f1">'''Doc James'''</span>]]
([[User talk:Jmh649|talk]] · [[Special:Contributions/Jmh649|contribs]] · [[Special:EmailUser/Jmh649|email]])
{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|{{TALKSPACE}}| (if I write on your talk page please reply on mine)}}
- Exactly the same code pasted here (a talk page, obviously) looks like this: Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your talk page please reply on mine)
- And the same code pasted into a non-talk sandbox yields: Doc James (talk · contribs · email)
- (Note one above: my cut-and-paste destroyed the colouration; please see here (user) and here (talk) for actual working examples.)
- Now having established the principle, this actually fails the acid test. Preferences only accepts 255 characters or less in signatures. What it doesn't tell you is that it adds text before (a SUBST: after every single double-open-brace) saving, so you don't really even get that!
- This is the compromise I came up with, which both fits and works, but I am afraid is pretty curt. It saves as 254 characters, so only one more free! I deliberately did not wrap this one so you can cut-and-paste it a bit more easily. Note that "Treat the above as wiki markup" needs to be checked in Preferences for this to work.
[[User:Jmh649|<span style="color:#0000f1">'''Doc James'''</span>]] ([[User talk:Jmh649|talk]] · [[Special:Contributions/Jmh649|contribs]] · [[Special:EmailUser/Jmh649|email]]){{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|{{TALKSPACE}}| Reply on talk}}
- On normal pages this looks like (obviously I have completely modified the wikitext, these lines are simply for display):
- And on talk pages:
- Do you think the user might still perhaps be persuaded? MODCHK (talk) 03:15, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Sloppiness
"Rincon Valley Union Elementary School District has an AFD tag pointing at a separate discussion. I have mixed feelings about the expansion efforts. On the one hand, a properly written and sourced article is undeniably a good thing. On the other hand, people who clean up these articles in response to a sloppy, pointy, or wikilawyering nomination are rewarding and encouraging that type of nomination by making an AFD be an effective method of finding someone else who will stop what they're doing (which might be more important) and clean up the nominated articles ASAP. I don't think that we want to reward this kind of nomination. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC) "
I didn't ask anybody to expand any of them. I suggested deleting them all, recreating using a regulated bot and then people can expand at their own will in their own time and not feel pressured to have to clean up a big mess ASAP. You've completely misunderstood the purpose of the deletion. And it's ironic too that I've had to put up with exactly the sort of nomination you describe for years on here. I was simply trying to sort out a mess by nuking it and trying to encourage something greater in its place. If you can't see that then that's your problem.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 16:30, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
- I agree: you weren't "asking". You were saying things like "I'm not questioning that sources exist, just who you think is going to cleanup up 500+ articles and expand them" and "Well, good luck with expanding all 500 odd!" Technically, those are not questions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Most of the articles were unsourced, with basic grammar errors and some had faulty website links. That cleanup is needed first before even trying to make the sub stubs half decent. It's quite a task, that's why I said that because the "keep!!" voters nobody seemed to care about the problem that had been created with the errors or think of a way to tackle it in the aftermath of them being kept. I have a lot of experience on here and trust me, the most productive way long term would have been to delete and restart using a bot feeding off the same data format and to actually not only recreate the 500 odd but create all 12,000 in the same way to they are useful starter stubs without errors, nice and clean, to be expanded by anybody in their own time..♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 16:43, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
- Last I checked, bots were capable of replacing text on existing pages, not just creating new pages.
- I do understand the problems. Many of those require complete re-writes. But WP:deletion is not cleanup, no matter how much cleanup is needed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Hope you dont mind...but
I hope your ok with this - I realized after I posted it I should have asked first (sorry). I mentioned you here as I was astonished to discover you were not an admin.Moxy (talk) 20:40, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for the compliment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Sourcing help please
Hi there, you have helped me with sourcing in the past and I am again looking for help. Most of the articles I work on are related to children--for that reason I have worked on the Bisphenol A article for several years because I believe that BPA (and other chemicals) may be harming our children while our government drags its feet. Yesterday a new editor came on the scene and within a few minutes had deleted numerous primary studies with plans to delete every primary study from the article. This will pretty much gut the article. Of course I'm aware of WP:RS but I do know that dozens of med-related articles, or in my case chemical since I do a lot of work with the pesticide articles, have many primary studies in the articles. If all the work that I have done over the years can be deleted in a few hours I will be devastated. Perhaps one thing I could do is find a book as you did for the pink article... Anyway, please advise. Thanks, Gandy Gandydancer (talk) 01:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- Well, to see where he's coming from, you might want to read his comments in the recent discussions about WT:MEDRS. I'll look over your discussions on the talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:08, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- That was...
- Okay, yes, he's right, it would be lovely to support as much of the article as possible to high-quality secondary sources (and you're moving in that direction, aren't you?), but his definitions of "primary" are incorrect and his ham-fisted solve-by-blanking approach is uncollegial and destructive. I've left comments on the talk page. I don't know if it will be very useful in the end, but some errors needed to be corrected. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:33, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- BTW, I'm going to be mostly offline tomorrow, with a string of offsite meetings. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for your help. Yes, hopefully the sourcing can be improved. Would this be considered a good secondary source? [1] What about news reports such as this? [2] Gandydancer (talk) 16:30, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, those are (mostly) secondary sources (it's complicated). But the first isn't really a high-quality source for scientific information; it's more like a normal magazine article. Have you looked into finding a good university-level textbook or reference work that describes the science behind BPA? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, I did google looking for a book but nothing seemed to turn up. I live way out in the sticks so going to a library is not really an option for me. Waid, I am so appreciative of your help. Wikipedia has lost some good editors lately and for awhile I was thinking that it might just lose me too if that editor turned out to be right. While I fully understand the reasons that WP is so fussy about sources, I can only "work" here if my devotion, respect, etc., for WP remains. I have the same expectations of WP that I had of my workplace when I worked for pay. I have read that med students use WP as a pocket handbook and according to Doc James (BBC interview) WP is by far the most important source of medical knowledge in the world (!). That's all fine and dandy, but I'd like to see my needs met as well. Yes, I get the fun of seeing "my" articles such as Gandy dancer and Pullman porter but the real payback for me is a chance to help provide up-to-date information on women's and children's issues. As an example, I am very much aware of how important your "pink" work is--without it one would have no idea of the politics behind all those pink ribbons. For now, gandy Gandydancer (talk) 21:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- You're welcome. I've been trying to pay more attention to women and children's issues on Wikipedia, because the WMF has said that it's underdeveloped, and indeed, if you want to massively improve an article with little or no opposition, just pick something about children or education. But it's not exactly my main interest area. My "free time" reading today is a reference work for pastry chefs.
- I've got to get going, or I'm going to be late. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- You're welcome. I've been trying to pay more attention to women and children's issues on Wikipedia, because the WMF has said that it's underdeveloped, and indeed, if you want to massively improve an article with little or no opposition, just pick something about children or education. But it's not exactly my main interest area. My "free time" reading today is a reference work for pastry chefs.
- Yes, I did google looking for a book but nothing seemed to turn up. I live way out in the sticks so going to a library is not really an option for me. Waid, I am so appreciative of your help. Wikipedia has lost some good editors lately and for awhile I was thinking that it might just lose me too if that editor turned out to be right. While I fully understand the reasons that WP is so fussy about sources, I can only "work" here if my devotion, respect, etc., for WP remains. I have the same expectations of WP that I had of my workplace when I worked for pay. I have read that med students use WP as a pocket handbook and according to Doc James (BBC interview) WP is by far the most important source of medical knowledge in the world (!). That's all fine and dandy, but I'd like to see my needs met as well. Yes, I get the fun of seeing "my" articles such as Gandy dancer and Pullman porter but the real payback for me is a chance to help provide up-to-date information on women's and children's issues. As an example, I am very much aware of how important your "pink" work is--without it one would have no idea of the politics behind all those pink ribbons. For now, gandy Gandydancer (talk) 21:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I have many of these all around the 'pedia. See Birthday cake and Cake decorating as well. But they are not mine, they are my daughter Judy's cakes. I've been trying to get her to work on the cake decorating article. Gandydancer (talk) 21:46, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- folks I am a talk page stalker. I think we are maybe all coming from the same place, and maybe just the way I did what I did, was offensive? Do we agree that the best sources would be reviews by toxicologists? I am happy to go find them. I just really want to kill the laundry list approach where the content is clearly driven by primary sources, and present real, consensus, health information. If you would be OK if I replace the current content, driven by primary sources, with content driven by tox reviews, we are all good. I will create it and propose it on the talk page! (leaving same note on gandydancer's page)Jytdog (talk) 22:28, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Alt med move
I've initiated the above talk page move. Doc James suggested previously that you might have some useful input to make on this proposal. Relevant talk page discussion found here. Thanks. FiachraByrne (talk) 02:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
bisphenol A
I am completely confused by your comments on the talk page. I wish you would say more so I can make sense of it. Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- I'm out of time. I suggest reading them again, and then pick one for us to discuss later. It's likely to make more sense if we focus on one thing at a time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- Understood. It is more the big picture, where you are coming from. We should be presenting the toxicological consensus in the "health effects" section of bisphenol A. The content should not be driven by an editors' grabbing of a random primary study and writing a blurb about it, again and again. That laundry list content, is what I was tearing down. I am baffled that you are wrestling me to the mat on each one of these things. Maybe you don't like what i did, how i did it, how i justified it. I don't know. But I don't get where you are coming from.Jytdog (talk) 22:20, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- I just read above. your discussion with gandydancer. What is wrong with my definition of primary source? It is an article where research is first published! (however the intro of many primary articles can function as a useful secondary source). right? Jytdog (talk) 22:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- Understood. It is more the big picture, where you are coming from. We should be presenting the toxicological consensus in the "health effects" section of bisphenol A. The content should not be driven by an editors' grabbing of a random primary study and writing a blurb about it, again and again. That laundry list content, is what I was tearing down. I am baffled that you are wrestling me to the mat on each one of these things. Maybe you don't like what i did, how i did it, how i justified it. I don't know. But I don't get where you are coming from.Jytdog (talk) 22:20, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- The basic problem with your approach is that you're "tearing down", and the goal is to build up, not to destroy. Yes: let's have better content. Yes: let's have better sources. No: let's not tear down someone else's work, and leave nothing better behind, just because it's not already perfect.
- Your definition, or more precisely, your application was incorrect, in part because you just made a couple of errors, but in part because you decided to call the book (a secondary source) a primary one on the grounds that it was based on primary sources—even though that (being based on primary sources) is what all good secondary sources do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
ANI
Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — T13 ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended )
The moment you've been waiting for...
Research status on manual and manipulative therapy! I respect your editing and could use a critical eye here [3] Regards, DVMt (talk) 03:52, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
- Sixty-nine citations and multiple sections of text is too much for me to process right now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
- I broke it up into 2 main sections. The first is more descriptive, the 2nd is the heavy research status. I described it in more detail at the comments part of the talk page. If you have the time for section 1, any comments would be appreciated. DVMt (talk) 19:38, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
- The first half sounds okay overall. I think that the lists and definitions might be useful to people trying to figure out "what this is" rather than "whether this is safe". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
- I agree. It simply meant to be informative, hopefully it's non controversial, but who knows with that article. The majority citations are in the 2nd half, i.e. effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and safety. I was surprised when this ended being a lit review and the were a lot of systematic reviews on the subject. Anyways, thanks again. Maybe you can nibble on this [4] in the meantime ;) Regards, DVMt (talk) 23:43, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
COI questions
Hey WAID, I'm wondering if you think this draft request for comment would prove fair and useful? User:Ocaasi/coiquestions. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 18:31, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
- Quick reply: You might like reading User:Beeblebrox/The perfect policy proposal. You will get complaints over the multiple-choice format. (I'm not saying that you deserve such complaints, only that they will happen.)
- What's your immediate goal? Are you more interested in finding out what editors believe, or are you more interested in improving the guideline? If it's the former, then you might consider running an actual survey, e.g., on SurveyMonkey, and then writing up an informational page about the results. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for the link. This was in some ways intended as a survey of what people believe current policy is and also what it should be. Perhaps that complicates the matter. I didn't think a formal survey would be appropriate as it's not transparent and doesn't allow for discussion. It also would get spammy with links and have other sampling issues. I'm going to think about it. Some other editors have chimed in with edits and suggestions about about phrasing, so hopefully we can tighten up the whole thing. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 19:50, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
- You might consider adding the "futility of rules" camp to your options. COI enforcement is very difficult. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
DALYs
the point I was trying to make was that DALY's measure lack of ability to do things e.g. work, and do not capture aspects of illnesses such as pain and suffering. Many would think humans have now reached a civilisation level where we regard pain and suffering as importat in themselves, and try to prevent them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JCJC777 (talk • contribs) 03:45, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
- Here's what the source says:
- Use of YPLL implies that extra value is placed on premature deaths. Measures that do not capture broader aspects of burden (e.g., pain and suffering, deterioration in quality of life, and emotional and physical impacts on families) imply that these values are not as important as traditional measures.
- YPLL is not DALY. Unlike YPLL, DALY captures at least some of the effects of pain, since that's a type of physical morbidity, and some effects from suffering, especially to the extent that it leads to depression.
- We can't really use the sources complaint about YPLL and similarly limited measures to support a statement about the much broader DALY. The source doesn't say that DALY fails to capture the physical and emotional effects on the disabled person; it says that some measures fail to do this. As it happens, DALY is not really an example of a measure that completely fails in this area.
- Also, while illness overall is an unpleasant thing, it does not seem to be a uniformly destructive force. There is a book called Why I'm Glad I Had Breast Cancer, and survivor stories like this one are fairly common. So if you want to count emotional and spiritual struggles against the illnesses, you should also count the emotional and spiritual growth in its favor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Infoboxes:
I've archived the debate [5]. Nothing more productive was going to come, and the majority approved the motion that info boxes are not always necessary. Seems a good compromise. Giano 19:16, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
- I fully agree that infoboxes are "not always necessary", and I don't normally add them to pages I've created. I disagree that collapsing them is a valid compromise if there is a dispute over the desirbility of an infobox on a given page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Accessibility
I think it might be a good idea to make a proposal to reword Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility and the Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Scrolling lists and collapsible content pages in the future. After that long talk and edits like this, I am very concerned people are more focused on an apparent loop hole of wording over the spirit of the guides itself. Seeing people site ignore all the rules to use a preferred version that is deliberately dismissing a guide that is part of our founding principles - to bring knowledge to all - is very upsetting to me. I was looking for an essay on accessibility and could not find one - this might be a starting point. Moxy (talk) 21:10, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
- I think that we might want to let things calm down for a week or so, and then go to either WT:MOS or WT:ACCESS (with a note to the whichever page we don't start on) and talk about the problem of collapsed and scrolling content.
- I think one of the problems is that we provide rules, but we're a little short on the "why" and the "how". It would be helpful to have a good {{supplement}} that shows good examples of collapsing content (do you think that stats for some athlete would be a good example of a table that could/should be collapsed?), scrolling content (I just added {{wide image}} to Fetus today; maybe that would be a good example), and a list of the variety of accessibility issues. Collapsed content affects not just people with visual disabilities, but also people with neurological issues and people with limited computing resources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
- Not a fan of any collapsed info. But that said if a collapsed section only contains one type of info and that info is described in the header well - it is somewhat ok. As we would know what it contains and know if its worth the effort to view it - like below. Note how the "Show" tab is bigger then normal in this type of template :-) .. Moxy (talk) 21:28, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
| Climate data for Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (1971–2000) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high humidex | 13.1 | 14.6 | 30.0 | 35.1 | 38.2 | 44.0 | 46.0 | 45.7 | 42.5 | 33.7 | 26.1 | 21.0 | 46.0 |
| Record high °C (°F) | 12.0 (53.6) |
14.2 (57.6) |
27.2 (81.0) |
31.1 (88.0) |
32.8 (91.0) |
36.1 (97.0) |
36.7 (98.1) |
37.8 (100.0) |
35.0 (95.0) |
27.8 (82.0) |
23.9 (75.0) |
18.0 (64.4) |
37.8 (100.0) |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | −6.1 (21.0) |
−4.1 (24.6) |
2.2 (36.0) |
10.8 (51.4) |
19.1 (66.4) |
23.8 (74.8) |
26.5 (79.7) |
24.9 (76.8) |
19.5 (67.1) |
12.5 (54.5) |
4.8 (40.6) |
−3.0 (26.6) |
10.9 (51.6) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | −10.8 (12.6) |
−8.7 (16.3) |
−2.5 (27.5) |
5.7 (42.3) |
13.4 (56.1) |
18.3 (64.9) |
20.9 (69.6) |
19.5 (67.1) |
14.3 (57.7) |
7.8 (46.0) |
1.0 (33.8) |
−7.1 (19.2) |
6.0 (42.8) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | −15.3 (4.5) |
−13.3 (8.1) |
−7.1 (19.2) |
0.6 (33.1) |
7.7 (45.9) |
12.7 (54.9) |
15.4 (59.7) |
14.1 (57.4) |
9.1 (48.4) |
3.0 (37.4) |
−2.8 (27.0) |
−11.1 (12.0) |
1.1 (34.0) |
| Record low °C (°F) | −35.6 (−32.1) |
−36.1 (−33.0) |
−30.6 (−23.1) |
−16.7 (1.9) |
−5.6 (21.9) |
−0.1 (31.8) |
5.0 (41.0) |
2.6 (36.7) |
−3.0 (26.6) |
−7.8 (18.0) |
−21.7 (−7.1) |
−34.4 (−29.9) |
−36.1 (−33.0) |
| Record low wind chill | −47.8 | −47.6 | −37.8 | −26.3 | −10.9 | −1.6 | 4.6 | 1.1 | −6.4 | −13.3 | −29.5 | −44.6 | −47.8 |
| Average precipitation mm (inches) | 70.2 (2.76) |
58.9 (2.32) |
73.9 (2.91) |
72.4 (2.85) |
79.0 (3.11) |
85.0 (3.35) |
90.6 (3.57) |
87.1 (3.43) |
85.3 (3.36) |
79.4 (3.13) |
80.1 (3.15) |
81.5 (3.21) |
943.5 (37.15) |
| Average rainfall mm (inches) | 25.2 (0.99) |
17.6 (0.69) |
36.3 (1.43) |
60.5 (2.38) |
78.4 (3.09) |
85.0 (3.35) |
90.6 (3.57) |
87.1 (3.43) |
85.3 (3.36) |
74.9 (2.95) |
59.8 (2.35) |
31.3 (1.23) |
732.0 (28.82) |
| Average snowfall cm (inches) | 55.2 (21.7) |
46.0 (18.1) |
39.8 (15.7) |
11.0 (4.3) |
0.6 (0.2) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
4.1 (1.6) |
21.9 (8.6) |
57.2 (22.5) |
235.7 (92.8) |
| Average precipitation days (≥ 0.2 mm) | 17.0 | 13.1 | 13.6 | 12.0 | 12.9 | 12.2 | 11.6 | 11.1 | 12.7 | 13.4 | 15.3 | 17.7 | 162.6 |
| Average rainy days (≥ 0.2 mm) | 4.5 | 3.9 | 7.1 | 10.1 | 12.8 | 12.2 | 11.6 | 11.1 | 12.7 | 12.6 | 10.4 | 5.8 | 114.8 |
| Average snowy days (≥ 0.2 cm) | 16.0 | 11.9 | 9.5 | 3.7 | 0.3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.4 | 7.6 | 15.2 | 65.6 |
| Average relative humidity (%) | 74.0 | 72.1 | 73.0 | 72.5 | 74.9 | 79.6 | 82.4 | 86.8 | 87.6 | 83.4 | 81.9 | 79.8 | 79.0 |
| Mean monthly sunshine hours | 101.2 | 129.8 | 159.8 | 189.4 | 230.3 | 253.3 | 276.8 | 246.7 | 171.5 | 136.7 | 83.6 | 82.0 | 2,061.1 |
| [citation needed] | |||||||||||||
- It would be better with a caption that said something like "Lists Humidex, Record high, Average high, Daily mean, Average low, Record low, Wind chill, Precipitation, Rainfall, Snowfall, Avg. precipitation days, Avg. rainy days, Avg. snowy days, % humidity, Mean monthly sunshine hours for each month." WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
- Sounds good to me - not sure if others would like it. This whole thing has been disheartening to me - the lack of respect and consideration is baffling. This may be an odd question - not sure if you know - I am wondering do they still teach debating skills in schools?Moxy (talk) 05:57, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
- I believe that many schools teach debate as an optional class, or as part of an optional class on public speaking. I believe that there is also commonly (in the USA) at least a brief section on fallacies that would have classically been covered by debate, but now presented in the context of consumer education (e.g., the use of glittering generalities to promote toothpaste).
- There are several possible explanations for the behavior we're seeing. The two that seem most plausible to me are that he uses ad hominem attacks either because he knows that he lost and so is grasping at any possible method of preventing consensus from being implemented, or because his social skills are very poor in general. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:35, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
- Your proposed alternative heading for Moxy's table is ridiculous. And who is this mysterious "he" you're referring to above? BTW, "attacks" aren't "ad hominem", that's a form of logical fallacy. Do they still teach logic in schools? George Ponderevo (talk) 21:04, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
- Sounds good to me - not sure if others would like it. This whole thing has been disheartening to me - the lack of respect and consideration is baffling. This may be an odd question - not sure if you know - I am wondering do they still teach debating skills in schools?Moxy (talk) 05:57, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
- I did not propose an "alternative heading" for Moxy's table. I proposed a caption in addition to the existing heading. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
- I stand corrected; what I ought to have said is that your proposed caption is ridiculous. George Ponderevo (talk) 21:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
- At minimum it is poorly written, since it was a quick copy-and-paste of the first column rather than a polished final product. If we were going to add something like this, then all the abbreviations would need to be removed, and it might be appropriate to shorten it by summarizing some of the information, e.g., "This table lists average and record temperatures" rather than "This table lists record highs, average highs, daily means, average lows, and record lows."
- Whether it is desirable to provide a description is something that would have to be determined after considering the specific context at the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
- I stand corrected; what I ought to have said is that your proposed caption is ridiculous. George Ponderevo (talk) 21:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
COI template
I have initiated a discussion at Village Pump Proposals regarding applying Template:COI editnotice more broadly, in order to provide advice from WP:COI directly onto the article Talk page. Your comment, support or opposition is invited. Cheers. CorporateM (Talk) 21:50, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Article Feedback deployment
Hey WhatamIdoing; I'm dropping you this note because you've used the article feedback tool in the last month or so. On Thursday and Friday the tool will be down for a major deployment; it should be up by Saturday, failing anything going wrong, and by Monday if something does :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Page watchers on ELs
How interesting -- I had no idea there was a toolserver to parse active & non-active page watchers. Thanks. As for my 750, I just relied on my mistaken memory. In any event, I was surprised when no comments were posted for almost 5 days. – S. Rich (talk) 00:10, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
- I think you can take the lack of immediate opposition as a good sign. If there were real problems, it would have been reverted quickly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:07, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
- Which is whatiamdoing. – S. Rich (talk) 01:29, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
- And whatamIdoing is failing to deal with dinner and other mundane facts of life, so I'm going to get offline for a while. See you tomorrow, WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
red links in articles
Hi, you just reverted my deletion of dead wikilinks in an article. first conversation I've had about this on wikipedia. IMO red links are a sign of draft-ness - unprofessional (for lack of a better term at the moment) for an actual, published encyclopedia, and they should be deleted whenever they appear. I have had a sense that others use them as per your edit note -- as reminders of content that need to be created. I get that. My sense is that there are different styles at play here. Is there some kind of policy or guideline on this? Thx. Jytdog (talk) 14:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- At WP:REDLINK, which I linked in the edit summary. In general, red links should not be removed unless the subject is not WP:Notable and thus no article should ever be created on that subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:52, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 18:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I had already revived Eleassar's work on inheritance. Now it's there twice? DMacks (talk) 17:25, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- Argh. Thanks. I've fixed it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:27, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- No worries, thanks for all your work on medical articles! DMacks (talk) 18:06, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you
Thank you for helping us with this link Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Popular pages. With it I have found heart rate which needs serious review. It is written only in a sport point of view and can make people afraid. Many references seem to me questionable. I'll try to make this article better. Doc Elisa ✉ 07:08, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Notice of Dispute resolution discussion
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute in which you may have been involved. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we are requesting your participation to help find a resolution. The thread is "Jozef van Wissem".
Please take a moment to review the simple guide and join the discussion. Thank you! EarwigBot operator / talk 09:33, 24 March 2013 (UTC) Josef van WissemPlease note that I filed a DR request: Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Jozef van Wissem. Please comment there. Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:34, 24 March 2013 (UTC) Need a programI need a java script that would hide on my watchlist any edits related to infoboxs or those involved with them - Is this possible - dont want to end up going crazy like this ..... I am losing it at Talk:Robert Stoepel#Infobox proposal - LOL - ROLF.Moxy (talk) 09:45, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Motion to close RFC/UYou have previously commented on Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Niemti. As an outside editor, I have moved that this RFC/U be closed. If you wish to comment on the Motion to close, please do so here. Fladrif (talk) 14:40, 28 March 2013 (UTC) A question about some content you added/editedSee Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedians#Maths.3F. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:49, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Help pleaseSay, could you take a look at the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. India does not allow the name of rape victims to be published however in this case both the victim and her parents said that they did not object. We have a reference for that. Her name is now being used in the UK, US, and elsewhere, except for India. See the talk page, second section re Jyoti's name and to save time scroll down to the April postings. Not using the name makes the article sound awkward and perhaps even lacking in respect for the victim. Since a decision for the use of her name seemed to be stalled, and thinking that at least some Indian news sources were now using her name, yesterday I did a trial and used her name in the lead. Editor Paris instantly responded and I reverted. S/he seems to be knowledgeable but the other editor, 007, seems to be as well. Would you have any advice here? Gandydancer (talk) 10:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Move discussionAt Wikipedia talk:The answer to life, the universe, and everything/Archive 1#Requested_move. --Lexein (talk) 06:02, 6 April 2013 (UTC) Message added 20:32, 7 April 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. howto in relation to practical information - amazon topicCould you please clarify? Howto is explaining or directing of how to do something. And i'm mentioning about including practical information, in which no explaining or directing how to do something is included. Example: very high number of people who has posted feedbacks on amazon has indicated that d-mannose resulted in miracleous cures for bladder infection. In such a case we don't say that it actually provides cure, but we rather state the facts on the ground. Ryanspir (talk) 17:12, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
RS/N DiscussionHello WhatamIdoing! I started a discussion on Venezuela's most-circulated newspaper and I noticed that you are one of the most active users on RS/N discussion board. I was hoping that you would be able to help out and contribute some of your expertise? :) Thanks for any assistance you can provide! Justiciero1811 (talk) 22:38, 10 April 2013 (UTC) Breast Cancer content disputeJmh649 and I do not agree. He states that I can not use this Cochrane Collaboration (CC) web page [[6]], last updated Oct 20122, as a reference to support the quote "Screening produces patients with breast cancer from among healthy women who would never have developed symptoms of breast cancer. Treatment of these healthy women increases their risk of dying, e.g. from heart disease and cancer. It therefore no longer seems reasonable to attend for breast cancer screening. In fact, by avoiding going to screening, a woman will lower her risk of getting a breast cancer diagnosis. However, despite this, some women might still wish to go to screening." Zad says the pamphlet referred to on that web page (linked) says Draft, but it's not ("Draft") when you print it out. We don't need the pamphlet anyway, given the CC statement on their web page. The difference is huge (look at the current text). Mammography is no not recommended at any age. Heck, that was on the national news several months age, which is why I long ago looked into the supporting facts (CC) and tried to update Wikipedia. I worked with Jmh and made corrections / additions. Quickly deleted by another editor, see history. I feel Jmh649 does great harm to Wikipedia, smacking of conflict of interest.32cllou (talk) 20:45, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Breastfeeding articleHi there, would you please have a look at the Breast feeding article's HIV section? It seems to be much too involved for the article and I wonder if it should either have its own article or be moved to the Breastfeeding difficulties article. (I wrote a little on the talk page.) What do you think? I asked Doc James and he agreed split or something. Gandydancer (talk) 16:39, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Quick note re: RfC templateSorry, late reply. WykiP (talk) 11:16, 18 April 2013 (UTC) I would very much appreciate your help (and talk page lurkers too) in drafting a new policy to deal with assignments, particularly student. See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Assignments (student editing) and the draft at Wikipedia:Assignments. Thanks. Colin°Talk 10:53, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh hey thereThis was an interesting conversation, and it had the potential to become a lot more productive, since it appeared that a few of the right people were participating. I know professors often assign students to participate in online communities of various types, and WP is the biggest and most information-rich environment online. I'm sure that even for professors who don't assign such things, the temptation is enormous. Suggestion: WMF, WEF and the community work together to get on top of the situation, and steer it in a manner that is beneficial to Wikipedia in the form of a Wikiproject. Put someone in charge of it, give that person an attractive title and some other perks. Gather volunteers, and assign them to run a "help desk" for college students who are editing articles as part of a class assignment.Once that's all set up, reach out to certain universities that have a good reputation and a strong online presence, and offer to host their students for a few assignments. Rather than letting professors turn their classes loose on us, we control the situation and steer them in the right, constructive directions. We also create a policy requiring such classes to work through the Wikiproject rather than on their own, at the risk of being blocked. Wikipedia improves, we probably get some new editors in the long term (after their assignments are finished), professors start to respect us a little more (maybe), and the entire process works in a manner that is constructive. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 17:08, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
You can vote there. --George Ho (talk) 23:39, 24 April 2013 (UTC) Thank youThank you for looking into my problem on the village pump about my edits on Books LLC. I really couldn't understand why Rklawton was accusing me of being in an edit war and threatening me with banning. Well, actually I still don't, since I wasn't and haven't ever. But it was such a relief to hear someone else confirm what I thought had to be so, that this was a damned peculiar definition of edit war and that my edit, which Rklawton reverted, was neither unfactual nor unjustified. I was particularly impressed at how you found out that Rklawton was in fact a Wikipedia Admin (which does nothing to ease my worry, but is useful to know). I have no idea if there is anything I can do about this. But at least I am over my initial feeling of helpless horror and shock, thanks in large part to your matter-of-fact post. Thank you. Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 09:02, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Hello WhatamIdoing, I had to remove the statement about "faultless victims" etc in the article since the source you gave did not contain anything about it. --95.118.36.4 (talk) 12:27, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
TalkbackMessage added 21:36, 29 April 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 21:36, 29 April 2013 (UTC) bisphenolThere is no way in hell I am going to rewrite the tox section of the article. Gandydancer is very invested in the work she did there and she already thinks I am creepy or something as per discussion between her and others on her Talk page concerning work we were doing on the BP article, from which I have withdrawn (see here and surrounding edits. So I am going to take it very slow on the bisphenol page and deal with content that exists piece by piece. She and I work on overlapping articles so I have no desire to further antagonize her, as I don't like people to be upset because of things I do and because bad relationships make it harder to do work on wikipedia. But the article as it stands is a train wreck (as per comments by other editors on the MEDRS talk page) and I want to fix it. Jytdog (talk) 11:59, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Visual editorIs this similar to the thing that is deployed at Wikia? And does it function better than the thing at Wikia? -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 01:34, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
VisualEditor and FlowYou wrote:
Actually, the entire talkpage system will be replaced with a system called Flow. The documentation page is here. Flow will be released before VE according to this, which means in a month or two. Incidentally, you might want to advertise Flow, since NO ONE seems to have heard of it, even though it's an enormous change. -- Ypnypn (talk) 03:42, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Is there any way at all to stop them from making all these huge changes? I'm afraid my reaction is to step back from communicating with other editors unless they seek me out - I can't deal with the weird form of threading MediaWiki prefers and learning things like getting interwikis onto WikiData is taking all the time I could devote to schmoozing. With a new system replacing talkpages I'm afraid I don't think I'll be able to welcome people or help them out nearly as much because of the learning demanded. Also, it is demonstrating again and again that the developers just don't care about editors, only about new, new, new. It's too much, they respond arrogantly when we explain on the Village Pump that we were not told about the latest change or that it is having an unfortunate side effect (latest instance - failing to realize IPs need the orange bar or some other highly noticeable sign so they can be made aware of warnings before someone blocks them), and I'm not persuaded of the usefulness of 90% of it. Sorry to unload, but your post at WikiProject Trains was the first I'd heard of "Oh by the way talk pages are going away". Rah, rah. New! Exciting! I don't think I'll bother complaining anywhere else - but if there is any way to get them to STOP, please! Get them to STOP!!!!! It's hurting the encyclopedia. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:27, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
WPPThank you for your words and participation, the project has attracted some interest despite not being really announced. With the grudge that they have against me, the best thing I can do is ignore their editing areas for now. The effort to disrupt and drive off supporters is a part of the goal and I will not feed that fire further. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:19, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Just to be sureWhatamIdoing, just to make sure I haven't left any wrong impressions, our friendly discussion at wp:rs was a reminder that I wanted to bring up FAQ's at the talk page guidelines, but was NOT the reason for it. Also, the title of the thread at wp:talk page guidelines is NOT applicable to this situation. Both the original text and your revised text that I was advocating dropping were and are purely good faith efforts to provide useful advice. Also, I left that thread at wp:rs about two weeks ago, considering the end result to be OK if not ideal. I should have been clearer on that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
TalkbackMessage added 00:08, 10 May 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. Unforgettableid (talk) 00:08, 10 May 2013 (UTC) A barnstar for you!
You beat me to the punchHah! I was going to start building out a version of mw:Flow Portal on enwiki tomorrow (which is my WFH day). But you beat me to the punch. I'm going to go ahead and start moving content in. Thanks!--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
AwesomesauceThat comparisons table is just magnificent. Thank you!--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 20:33, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
My bad.Madam, I can explain, but I cannot deny. Please accept my apology. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Help with another matterI wondered if you could help me with another matter. I ask you the following reluctantly. If I have a complaint about another Wikipedia contributor, where do I turn? There is another Wikipedian who makes minor changes and occasionally major changes because of something like an idée fixe that animates him (I think it is a him) to concentrate his editorial fire on occupational health psychology as it appears in the entry and as it appears in the applied psychology entry. I have asked him on his talk page a number of times to discuss edits but he doesn't respond. I think it was he who had a similar bent back in January under a different name. What can I do? Thanks.Iss246 (talk) 18:28, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Earlier I included a link to his talk page after I fixed one of his many changes to an entry. The link is in my comment on reversing a change.Iss246 (talk) 01:00, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
edit summariesPlease be more cautious in using edit summaries [7] -- I'm pretty sure that particular discussion is well beyond lame. NE Ent 11:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
TalkbackMessage added 16:07, 24 May 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. Northamerica1000(talk) 16:07, 24 May 2013 (UTC) Re: RfC/UJudging from the RfC/U Talk page, you're the "go to" person for questions like this one. I'm trying to start an RfC/U regarding User:Xenophrenic. The main allegations are that he's tendentious and a POV-pusher. There's already substantial support from at least four different editors. The two certifiers are myself and User:Malke 2010, and we've posted diffs of our efforts to resolve the matter with Xeno on the Talk page of Tea Party movement (where this long simmering dispute came to a boil). Actually I've been encountering Xeno and his editing habits on several articles related to U.S. poli tics for years, starting out with Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now in 2009. This has reached the point of Xeno edit-warring over whether the RfC/U meets the minimum requirements, repeatedly moving the RfC/U up to "Candidate pages" from "Certified pages" on the UsersList: [8] Please review the RfC/U and the diffs provided. If he's correct, and it doesn't meet the minimum requirements, please let me know what the problem is — with a note on my User Talk page. If I'm correct, and it does meet the minimum requirements, please let Xeno know on his User Talk page. Thanks ... Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 19:00, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Mrm7171I appreciate your encouraging words to Mrm7171 today.Iss246 (talk) 02:04, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Re: ListsHello, JAWS reads the lists separately, like so: "Definition list of 1 items, Rose colors, list end; list of 2 items, bullet white rose, bullet red rose, list end". NVDA also reads them separately, but doesn't distinguish between the two types of list. Graham87 00:54, 29 May 2013 (UTC) Seneca Valley virusHi, I undid a change you made on the Seneca Valley virus-001 page, I started a discussion on the talk page if you'd like to discuss it further. Viraltonic (talk) 13:10, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
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