User talk:Aircorn/Archive 9

Latest comment: 6 years ago by WarKosign in topic Alert
Archive 5Archive 7Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10Archive 11Archive 12

A barnstar for you

  The Invisible Barnstar
I was going to try to clear out the old GAR requests, but kept not finding time. I stopped looking at it for awhile, and next thing I know, you cleared out the entire multi-year backlog. Thanks for taking the time to go through those. Kees08 (Talk) 11:20, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
@Kees08: Thanks, that actually means a lot. It was a mix of some that didn't need to be reassessed, some that just needed a little work and some that needed to be delisted (or at least reassessed). It is good to know other editors are working in this area too. I have been going through the community reassessments as well. There are two old ones that I can't close; Mishmar HaEmek (which I reviewed originally) and Rommel myth (where I left a large comment). If you find the time could you look at closing those two. I left a note at the help desk, but no one has responded. There are a few others which I am similarly involved in, but those are the two oldest. No problem if you can't, I was about to request closure at ANI soon anyway. AIRcorn (talk)
Sorry, I forgot to respond. I took a look at them and did not have interest in closing them, wish I did. I also saw you were working on cleaning the GA lists and wanted to thank you for that; I have spent some time on it but it can be overwhelming. Related to that, maybe we would want a bot to do a run through and see which articles are in the GA category but not listed in the GA list? Might be best performed after all the DABs are done. Kees08 (Talk) 18:38, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
@Kees08: see Wikipedia:Good articles/mismatches. I am cleaning up the DABs and redirects as it creates too much noise at that list. I am removing the missed delisted and current featured article ones at the same time. I imagine adding in missed entries is going to be the most time consuming part. Also some of the lists are a bit of a mess and there may need to be a discussion on making them easier to manage at some point. AIRcorn (talk) 18:53, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Lord. Maybe we should add a place in the GA project that lists tasks like these? I would not mind helping, but when it hits a thousand articles or more it is a little overwhelming. Kees08 (Talk) 19:27, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
The list looks scarier than it is as many of the articles in the bottom one redirect to the top one. That was why I was removing redirects from the Good Article lists. Although I am now getting sick of this. Is there an automated way to fix redirects at Wikipedia:Good articles/all. I know WP:NOTBROKEN, but in this case it kind of is. Failing that do you know an easy way (i.e. a tool or AWB function - not something that requires a bot) to remove the redirect from the bottom list if it leads to an article in the top list. The article from the top list should also be removed at the same time. I would rather not use a bot as it means I can't keep it updated (and we have enough trouble with AWOL bots at GA at the moment). You seem technically minded. AIRcorn (talk) 12:10, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

BWV 60

I don't know if you can understand, but when Francis takes over at an article I mentally unwatch, certainly don't follow every edit, saw the tags only today when you pointed them out. I like GAs - it's my initials ;) - but am not willing to be dictated what to do when. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:08, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I understand. I have been around long enough to have my fair share of disagreements with certain editors. I know (or knew) nothing of your two interactions, and have no real opinion on there merit beyond what I said at the talk page. At face value it does not seem unreasonable. However, I am coming at these from the point of view of the reviewer. They should not have to mediate a dispute when reviewing an article (why we have the stability criteria) and article issues should be resolved before nomination (as far as I could tell the one I failed had the tags on when it was nominated). I couldn't work out if this one was tagged before or after nomination so went with the benefit of the doubt, although 3 months was a long time ago. I will let you and other editors work out whether the tagging is justified, either way this needs to resolved before the article can be reviewed. AIRcorn (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
As you see in the link above, the empty sections were created together with the tags. At present, there's no tag after I asked at Project Classical music. - History: The article was like this when nominated for GA. Changes including the tags were prompted by the nomination. Perhaps we just forget it. I don't have the time - nor the patience - for something like this. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:13, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Looks like a case for ANI then. Like I said I only come from the side of the Good Article process and as you probably know it suffers from terrible backlogs. Causing reviewers to get caught up in personal disputes over articles they are most likely not that invested in doesn't help encourage reviews. BTW, slightly related, I see you are quite involved in the process from a nominators point of view. Would you be interested in reviewing articles yourself. I am willing to help editors who don't know the ropes get involved. If the more prolific editors who nominate articles get involved in reviewing we might get the backlog down to a reasonable size. AIRcorn (talk) 22:49, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
WP:Great Dismal Swamp? Never did that ;) - I do FA reviews, but no GA reviews, because I'm not a native speaker of English and can't really judge prose as the only reviewer. Thanks for asking. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:54, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I avoid it too. Still it has its place for obvious issues. Your prose is fine, more than good enough for reviewing Good Articles. I hope you reconsider someday. Best AIRcorn (talk) 23:09, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

  There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 06:54, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

How thorough does a GA need to be?

So I'm continuing to track reviews to see what longterm data tells us. This might be a completely worthless endeavor in the long-run but I'm a big enough believer in data that I have to think we'll learn something useful for GA out of it. So this means I'm spending a little bit of time each day logging Legobot's updates and I was suprirsed when I saw Doctor Who (series 3), one of the older outstanding articles, get taken for review and then passed with-in 20 minutes by auntieruth. Looking at the review I saw they made a few tweaks but that was it. Looking at a few other reviews of theirs I saw a similar pattern of passing without any comments/requests of the submitting editor. I know GA is supposed to be lightweight (something I could probably take more to heart in my own reviews) but this seemed less than even lightweight. But I'm also relatively new at this whole thing and wanted to get the perspective of someone more experienced. Thanks and Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:34, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

It depends on how good the article is to start with and how complicated the topic is. Some articles can be passed without making any comments, while others need to be pretty in depth. I would not worry unless they are consistently missing criteria. If they are just rubber stamping articles then something needs to be done. Given the shortage of reviewers I would be inclined to discuss it with them first and then if that doesn't work you could take it to the talk page. Editors have been banned from reviewing before, but it should be the last resort. AIRcorn (talk) 22:44, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Cite errors

Your edit created 13 bold red "Cite error"s, and I don't see an obvious way to fix them. Art LaPella (talk) 03:19, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry. I didn't think to check the references. Will be more careful in the future. AIRcorn (talk) 22:45, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Petra Kvitova article review

Kvitova's article is ready for review Silaslej (talk)

Reassessment of Roman Republic

Hi,

Thanks so much for all your contributions! I am at a loss to account for how the tag on this article has been neglected for so long. I'm also at a loss to account for the fact that your recent post has not been addressed for 2 months... After taking a look, it appears that most (if not all) of the citation-needed tags are in the Culture subsection. I'm making an effort (as my free-time currently allows) at addressing them by either finding supporting sources, or removing the passages themselves. Please consider giving it as much time as you can before going ahead with the reassessment.

Thanks again for bringing this up and being dogged in its regard. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 18:45, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi InformationvsInjustice. I understand that this is a big article and I was sincere when I said I hated to take it to reassessment. The ultimate aim is to keep it as good. I will keep it open for a while as long as editors are working on it. I generally check in on the reassessments every week or so. The first step is to make sure the citations are up to scratch. Not everything that should need a cite may be tagged so it means checking other statements within the article as well. Can you just keep me informed at Talk:Roman Republic/GA2 with how you are progressing. It is not the end of the world if it is delisted and any improvements are good. All the best AIRcorn (talk) 10:25, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Good news

The RfC on eliminating portals is over, and the consensus was to keep them.

I noticed your posting there:

Support with some regret. Almost every one I have come across are so out of date that they are misleading to readers. The very few that still function as intended could be brought into article space somehow. Regretfully as a lot of work has been put into them and there was potential. We just lack the manpower to keep these functioning and too often they rely on one dedicated individual, who may retire or move on. Marking as historic is fine if editors don't want to delete them outright. There is a certain historical charm in keeping these trapped in time for future generation to find.

I thought you might be interested to know that there is a serious effort underway to fix the problems that you pointed out.

So far, 80 editors have joined the team.

The Portals WikiProject, which was dormant for years, is now a beehive of activity.

We have analyzed the situation and have determined the following:

The portal namespace has around 150,000 pages, but only 1500 portals. The vast majority of the pages are subpages with a single static content forking article excerpt in them. That is an incredible number of pages to maintain by hand for so few rendered pages (the displayed portals), and far too much work for pasted copies of existing material. This is by far the main problem of the portal namespace.
By migrating the excerpt function to the portal base pages, most of the 150,000 subpages can be made obsolete and removed. And by using selective transclusion to display excerpts from articles (rather than the whole article as in regular transclusion), copying and pasting is no longer needed, while the versions displayed always remain current.
Using tools laying around the Wikipedia community, and by building some others, every section of portals can be automated at the portal base page, and therefore migrated from the respective subpages.
We've even found innovations in certain portals that were never communicated to the wider community.

Some of the advancements we've made so far:

{{Transclude lead excerpt}}, with supporting lua Module:Excerpt. This template is being employed in the intro sections of portals to display a fresh excerpt of the corresponding root article, with extraneous material stripped out (notice banners, hatnotes, infoboxes, etc.). You can select by parameter the number of paragraphs, or even which specific paragraphs (by their numerical position), to display.
{{Transclude random excerpt}}, also supported by Module:Excerpt. Using this template, you can provide a list of articles, and the template automatically displays an excerpt from one of them. So, rather than copy and paste excerpts, you can use this template to present as many excerpts as you would like.
Categories can be migrated from their portal subpages using {{#tag:categorytree|{{PAGENAME}}}} on a portal's base page.
Associated Wikimedia can be migrated from subpages using {{Wikimedia for portals|species=no|voy=no}} on a portal's base page. .

The following efforts are underway:

Updating Portal:Contents/Portals (we have about 100 entries left to add out of the 400 existing portals that were missing from this page).
Upgrading/migrating the portal intro sections with selective transclusion.
Upgrading/migrating the portal selected article sections with randomized selective transclusion.
Migrating Associated Wikimedia to portal base pages (about 1/3 done)
Developing {{Transclude selected current events}} for use in portal news sections. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Alternative to Wikinews
Developing ways to automate all the other section types.
Designing a one-page portal model, that requires zero subpages.

Morale is high, and the participants are having a lot of fun working with each other.

There is still a lot of work to be done, but I wanted to let you know that we are up to the task.

For a more detailed account of what has happened so far and what is being worked on, see our Newsletter archive. We're already on issue #6! You can also see the flurry of activity happening on the WikiProject's talk page. The excitement is contagious, so I hope you decide to pop in for a visit. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   20:03, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Thanks for the detailed comment. I had a look through the talk pages and wish you and everyone involved all the best. I am stretched a bit thin with my own projects here so probably won't be much help. Look forward to seeing what you all come up with. AIRcorn (talk) 10:28, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Women in Red June Editathons

 
Welcome to Women in Red's June 2018 worldwide online editathons.



New: WiR Loves Pride

New: Singers and Songwriters

New: Women in GLAM

New: Geofocus: Russia/USSR


Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:15, 29 May 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

In Wrestling

The discussion about the "in wrestling" section is currently on-going. You admitted to not knowing much about the pro wrestling area of Wikipedia. That's fine. But the in wrestling section is for more than just moves. Before each section of the "in wrestling" section, the header is in bold. For example, it is finish moves. That tells you that section is for finishing moves. It continues with signature moves, entrance themes, wrestlers managed, managers, nicknames, theme songs, and wrestlers trained. Not everything is going to be in the in wrestling section, but those are the main items. Does that not make sense? Do you get it now? Mr. C.C.Hey yo!I didn't do it! 14:56, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

The fact you have to explain it just demonstrates how bad it is as a heading. AIRcorn (talk) 05:49, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Marketing performance measurement

We had a brief discussion about the article, Marketing performance measurement a few weeks ago. I recall seeing a note that the article had been deleted. Yet, to my surprise, the article is still there. Nothing about the article has changed and it remains a very misleading account of performance measures.

I have been thinking about this article quite a bit - measuring performance really is an important topic in marketing and Wikipedia should have an article on it, but sadly, the current article is not the one. In my own country, Australia, performance indicators have been very much in the news the past few months due to a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Banking and Finance, which has highlighted the problems associated with using sales/ profit measures exclusively (to the exclusion of customer-related measures), and also raising the issue of unintended consequences arising from the linking of incentives/ executive pay to performance measures. Further, the inquiry has found that the mix of measures used in an organisation has a major impact on organisational culture.

Wikipedia has another article, Balanced scorecard which is principally concerned with having a suite of measures of risk, culture, customer and financial indicators, which could be a potential alternative to the Marketing performance measurement article. The only problem with this option is that the article on the Balanced scorecard is very much written from a management perspective, and in my experience, editors of management articles tend to resist any attempt to overlay a marketing perspective onto a pre-existing article. BronHiggs (talk) 09:34, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

The nuts and bolts of this area is not really my forte. I am, or was, more interested in cleaning up Good Articles that are no longer good. What you suggest sounds fine so I would be bold and go ahead with your proposal. It is sometimes easier to do what you think is best and then wait to see what others think. If no one complains then you have implicit consensus. If you need help with technical stuff let me know. AIRcorn (talk) 11:24, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in study

Hello,

I am E. Whittaker, an intern at Wikimedia with the Scoring Team to create a labeled dataset, and potentially a tool, to help editors deal with incivility when they encounter it on talk pages. A full write-up of the study can be found here: m:Research:Civil_Behavior_Interviews. We are currently recruiting editors to be interviewed about their experiences with incivility on talk pages. Would you be interested in being interviewed? I am contacting you because of your involvement in Wikipedia’s Women in Red project. The interviews should take ~1 hour, and will be conducted over BlueJeans (which does allow interviews to be recorded). If, so, please email me at ewhit@umich.edu in order to schedule an interview.

Thank you Ewitch51 (talk) 20:41, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

June 2018

  Hello. Regarding the recent revert you made to Ravshan Irmatov: you may already know about them, but you might find Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace useful. After a revert, these can be placed on the user's talk page to let them know you considered their edit inappropriate, and also direct new users towards the sandbox. They can also be used to give a stern warning to a vandal when they've been previously warned. Thank you. ~ Abelmoschus Esculentus (talk to me) 02:41, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I know about this and often leave a message. This editor is just one of many sore football fans that gets upset at the referee and wants to come here to work through there emotions. It is easier to just keep reverting and maybe protect the page until the world cup is over. AIRcorn (talk) 06:11, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Ford

I didn't see anything in the talk page saying the spectators not a reliable source. --1.136.104.66 (talk) 06:58, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Its an opinion piece. See Nicks comment. AIRcorn (talk) 09:02, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

July 2018 at Women in Red

 
Hello again from Women in Red!


July 2018 worldwide online editathons:
New: Sub-Saharan Africa Film + stage 20th-century Women Rock
Continuing: Notable women, broadly-construed!


Latest headlines, news, and views on the Women in Red talkpage (Join the conversation!):

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 14:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

GAR

So with another article up for GAR which would actually benefit from community participation here is the basis of an idea I've been thinking about. Want to get your thoughts before taking the time to develop it for a real RfC. There are three different ideas which could stand on their own or all be together.

Idea 1: Create a bigger pool of people looking at the reviews. My idea here is to contact people with at least X reviews (I'm thinking 10 - 20) and asking if they would like to be put in the GAR pool. When an article is nominated for GAR, 5 (or some other number) of those editors are chosen by bot and pinged for participation.

Idea 2: Despite it being a community review one editor, who would be eligible as a reviewer, coordinates the GAR. Essentially they would gauge the discussion/consensus about the GA criteria and then be responsible for the nuts and bolts of closing after determining consensus. In this way there would be no wondering about who is responsible for that

Idea 3: Ask people nominating for community review to identify which specific GA criteria (e.g. 1a, 6b) the article does not meet so that there can be focused discussion. Other community members could add other criteria but in this way we keep the focus on the GA criteria rather than wading into article content disputes which sometimes seems to be the problem.

Anything you see of merit there or are they all rubbish? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 06:16, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeah it is a bit broken. I have thought it might be best to just get rid of community reviews altogether and force the process through individual, but then there are actually a few in there that should get a few different opinions, or at least be closed by an independent person. More participation is the ultimate aim, but I am not sure enlisting editors is the best way. They could be better advertised maybe, which is the essence of 1, but I don't hold out much hope of that working. Idea 2 is pretty much how it runs most of the time now. I usually request a closure for ones I am not comfortable closing and someone eventually does it. Idea 3 should be a given. If someone nominates an article for reassessment they have to specifically say how it fails the GA criteria and if they don't it should be closed as kept.
It can almost work with just two GA knowledgeable editors. One to comment on those that don't have any comments or need a GA perspective and another to close them. It gets a bit tricky when outside issues get brought into the review as it usually brings editors not familiar, or interested, in the criteria and can turn into a lot of off topic discussion. Some warfare articles are the worst for this.
I would be happy to help with an RFC, but I am not sure what the questions should be. I think the scope of these could maybe be made clearer. They are not RFCs, AFDs or other similar discussion. The aim should always be to get them up to scratch. The criteria are not that strict, and while there are legitimate differing opinions on what can meet them for an article to be delisted it should clearly be demonstrated to have failed one of them. Saying that being delisted is not a big deal so there is no need to drag out the discussions.
I am going to get very busy in real life very soon, but will try and keep an eye on these and continue doing what I am doing. Your help there is much appreciated. AIRcorn (talk) 09:48, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Signature changes

I'm curious, were these changes to SMcCandlish's signatures intentional or some side effect of your method of editing? ―Mandruss  07:50, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

No idea how that happened, definitely not intentional. AIRcorn (talk) 08:33, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I came here to ask the same thing. What seems to have happened is that something replaced U+2009 (thin space, " ") and U+2003 (em space, " ") with regular spaces (U+0020, " "). Can you tell us which browser and which editor you used to make the edit? Anomie 12:48, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I use firefox. I used to have wikied enabled, but it started inserting spaces whenever I added a new line (see here for an example). These spaces did not show up in my preview and I could not get rid of them when I had wikied on. When I disabled it I could see them and remove them. I am pretty sure I had wikied disabled when I made the edit to the village pump though. AIRcorn (talk) 06:07, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Hmm. I note your reply just now didn't change the spaces in my previous post either. Anomie 13:18, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

List of 2006 FIFA World Cup controversies

I have reverted your edits for now as there was minimal explanation for most other than 'not a controversy' which is a subjective matter. Most of the incidents are things which I personally would consider to be somewhat controversial such as penalties not being awarded when it looked like they should be, etc. Most are unremarkable outwith the context of that tournament, but that's the focus of the article. I had no involvement with the good article process but most or all of that text was already there, so it appears the assessors found it worthy of inclusion. Obviously it has been delisted since then, but it appears the reviewers there also has didn't feel the incidents were so trivial as to be removed altogether. However, perhaps some of them could be condensed into bullet point entries rather than entire sections? Could you please discuss your rationale on the article talk page? Thanks. Crowsus (talk) 09:21, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Crowsus for the note. It is good to get a personal message instead of just a plain revert. I am not surprised it was reverted as I was boldly testing the waters at this. Myself and a few others are finding these types of articles problematic. You can see most of our discussions at Talk:List of 2018 FIFA World Cup controversies‎ in particular here and here. I decided I would see what the climate was like at older articles which were less likely to have the fly-by POV editors by trimming them. I personally find these older ones more problematic than the current one from a BLP point of view.
I personally focus a lot of my editing on referees, in particular trying to keep vandalism and undue focus on isolated events out of them. You generally find that after a game losing fans like to add their opinion about them to the article. This can range from easily reverted vandalism, subtly changing their place of birth or the addition of long screeds of sourced, but negative undue complaints (see this version of Mark Geiger). Anyway I wrote an essay on this a while back Wikipedia:Referee/Criticism, which goes into more detail. I have mainly focused on biographies, but it is also relevant to other articles like this one.
I am not sure what my next step is. I personally think these articles are WP:Indiscriminate and WP:POV forks. Some of the information may be useful though. I think ideally I would merge the information that has some notablity into the articles which describe the game (2006 FIFA World Cup Group A, 2006 FIFA World Cup Group B etc) and the very notable ones can have there own article (eg Battle of Nuremberg (2006 FIFA World Cup), Disgrace of Gijón etc. Any in between could go into the main article. What we have at the moment is a list of rather standard complaints agains referee decisions that occur after every game in every sport mixed in equally with ones which probably do deserve some coverage here. That is why I don't agree with using bulletpoints either. If anything they make the article even more undue as it essentially gives equal weight to everything. I will start a discussion somewhere about these articles (maybe once the current cup is finished) and ping you to it if you want. AIRcorn (talk) 18:14, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
As a side note, I am quite involved in the Good Article process so can say with some confidence that being an ex Good Article (or even a current one) does not have much to do with notability or prevent the content being merged, split, edited or deleted entirely. In fact cleaning up old Good Articles is something else I spend a lot of my time on here doing. AIRcorn (talk) 18:20, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

I would like to award this

Thank you so much for your help in reviewing and updating the Navarre, Florida Wikipedia article, as well as completing the proposed merge of Navarre Beach with the previously mentioned Navarre, Florida page. On behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Navarre, Florida, I would like to award you this:

  Wikipedians of Navarre Service Award
Awarded by a member of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Navarre, Florida, due to this user's service to aiding the advancement of Navarre, Florida, and its corresponding Wikipedia pages. Navarre0107 (talk) 16:31, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Once again, thank you so much!--Navarre0107 (talk) 16:31, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

A page you started (Zinc finger nuclease treatment of HIV) has been reviewed!

Thanks for creating Zinc finger nuclease treatment of HIV, Aircorn!

Wikipedia editor Serial Number 54129 just reviewed your page, and wrote this note for you:

Nice article! Any possibility of an image or two?

To reply, leave a comment on Serial Number 54129's talk page.

Learn more about page curation.

—SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 12:40, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

August 2018 at Women in Red

 
An exciting new month for Women in Red!


August 2018 worldwide online editathons:
New: Indigenous women Women of marginalized populations Women writers Geofocus: Bottom 10
Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative
Notable women, broadly-construed!



For the first time, this month we are trying out our Monthly achievement initiative

  • All creators of new biographies can keep track of their progress and earn virtual awards.
  • It can be used in conjunction with the above editathons or for any women's biography created in August.
  • Try it out when you create your first biography of the month.

Latest headlines, news, and views on the Women in Red talkpage (Join the conversation!):

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 11:22, 23 July 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

GA FAQ

Hi. I added a question in the GA FAQ. Hope this is fine. Cheers, MX () 21:44, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

No problem MX. My general procedure for reviewing articles from nominators I am not sure are active is to leave a message at their talk page like you say. I often do this with editors who may be active, but who I am not sure about (i.e new nominators, ones with lots of concurrent nominations or editors who have had issues in the past). It is not a stupid idea to do so in general if reviewing old nominations as even dedicated GA editors have time constraints evolve that may not have been present when they nominated the article.
I disgree with the part about complete a review as if there was an interested editor waiting though. Reviewers time is important too and I have reviewed enough articles with no response to be a bit more pragmatic. What I do next depends on the state of the article. If there are obvious, but not quick fail, GA issues I usually bring those up as a quick initial comment. If I get no response on those issues after a reasonable time then I just fail it. If I get a response then I complete the review like normal. If there are no or very few issues I might just pass it straight off the bat or fix it myself. I have no problem with reviewers making minor edits to get an article up to standard if they wish as that is the ultimate aim of all this anyway. Another good place to find potential editors is Wikiprojects. I have sought help there before when reviews have been abandonned with some success.
Hope this helps. AIRcorn (talk) 22:32, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
Amazing, great points. I amended the Q&A to reflect what you just mentioned. MX () 03:53, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I am doing my first GA review on Denise Vernay. The nominator and I disagree over a copyright notice on an image caption. Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions#Credits, I don't think it's necessary to put the copyright notice in the caption, but 47thPennVols, who seems to have more image experience than I do, says it is, at least for File:Prison Militaire Montluc Lyon.jpg. I was wondering if you could help clear this up. Thank you! Catrìona (talk) 00:59, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

  • Yes, unfortunately, we are in disagreement about this, and as I explained to Catriona on the GAN review page, my decision to include the copyright statement with the image in question was based on two things: 1.) the FAQ at Wikimedia Commons, which indicates that attribution and copyright information for an image must be included if the creator of that image stipulates its inclusion as a condition of reuse (even if that image is being reused on a Wikipedia site); and 2.) because of my concerns regarding past practice issues with a different article. (A Commons administrator deleted a photo from another article that I'd worked on some time ago because he indicated the article didn't cite the license.) Quite honestly, I'm puzzled as to why this has become a source of debate. The attribution statement is short and does not lengthen the caption or article significantly. Kind Regards to you both. 47thPennVols (talk) 01:24, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Hi @Catrìona and 47thPennVols:. Sorry for the late reply, pretty busy at the moment with work. First, thanks for starting to review articles, as you can see from the backlog we need as many willing reviewers as we can. As far as the copyright issue goes I am not seeing too much wrong with either version. The criteria allows some leeway with interpretation and the GA process itself is supposed to be lightweight. It also does not require adherence to all the MOS contents. Personally I usually go with the nominator on stuff like this if they have a good reason and it is not obviously failing the criteria.
  • In general I tend to do reviews in two parts. The first is what strictly fails the criteria and needs to be fixed. The second is more general comments on the article itself. Some of these relate to or expand on my first part of the review, while others are just things I think could improve the article or I want clarification on. Not meeting these will not disqualify the article form GA status, but in my experience most editors respond to them in some way. I would recommend reading Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not as it is surprising how few things the article has to actually meet. Again most nominators are more than happy to discuss extra points so don't be afraid of raising them, just don't use them to fail an otherwise good article. Feel free to ask for any other advice here or at the help desk. AIRcorn (talk) 09:44, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks for clearing that up. I guess I found it confusing that the MOS section of the criteria doesn't include WP:CAPTIONS, but that the MOS on captions is linked later in the criteria, implying that it should be followed. Catrìona (talk) 12:12, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No problem. I actually forgot it linked MOS captions under the images criteria. In light of that you were well within your rights to question it and if you wanted could hold your ground on it. I personally still would not as it seems a minor issue and the nominator has given a reason why they want it there. I guess it could be converted to a note if it became an issue. Good work on the review. AIRcorn (talk) 16:57, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Aircorn: Thank you for your insights into the review process. And, Catriona, thanks to you as well for volunteering to do the review. I now have an example to show you of the problems Wikipedia English editors are having with Commons editors. The photo I posted of the corpses at Mauthausen (a photo that is in the public domain because it was taken by a U.S. Army soldier at Mauthausen in 1945, and is housed in the collections of the U.S. National Archives) was removed from the Vernay page without discussion by a Commons editor - and has also been deleted from Commons without explanation by a Commons editor from the Netherlands. (It was also challenged a day or two ago by two other Commons editors - one doing so based on the rationale that he couldn't find the photo on Flickr - which is odd because not every photo that has been released into the public domain by NARA has been posted on Flickr - and the other who stated that it was unsourced, which was untrue because I'd clearly noted the sourcing on the photo's page while uploading (date, location, photo taken by a member of the U.S. Army's Signal Corps, housed n the collections of the U.S. National Archives, therefore public domain). I'm not quite sure what's going on with Commons right now, but I'll need to replace that now missing photo on the Vernay article page. So, just as a heads up, Catriona, I'll be re-inserting a link to one of the medal photos that I'd used originally (because it was attached to the article from its early days and didn't cause any issues with Commons editors). 47thPennVols (talk) 17:19, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Absolutely do not include such a notice. Attribution or other notice requirements are satisfied by the file description page the reader sees when he "clicks through". If, for example, a portrait of the article's subject is by a famous artist, and the article's editors deems that the reader gains something by knowing that, then that might be mentioned in the portrait's caption. But that's an unusual situation entirely based on a calculation of benefit to the reader.
If indeed an administrator deleted a photo from another article ... because he indicated the article didn't cite the license then there's something seriously wrong over Commons, but we knew that already. EEng 21:33, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I suspect there maybe is something deeper here than a simple GA review. I will admit that image copyright is not my strong point and there are vagaries to MOS and other aspects here that I do not follow closely. I have done a reasonable number of GA reviews over the years though and am pretty active behind the scenes so feel confident in my understanding of what the process is trying to achieve. It appears that EEng and Catriona are technically right regarding how credits should be presented in images. Also given the fact that this is linked from the GA criteria page does make it a GA issue. Not much is linked so that does mean something. My personal take, and since this is on my talk page I feel that is appropriate here, is that a what appears a minor style issue to me is not something that should prevent an article being rated good. Again that is my take, but the final decision is up to Catriona and I would personally support whatever way she comes down on this. Of cause this does not mean that others will. I see I have a ping to the GA help page and while I haven't read that as I write this it would probably be a better venue to get some more concrete answers. AIRcorn (talk) 09:16, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

State v. Driver, newspapers.com site

Hi, Aircorn. Way back in 2016, you made this edit to State v. Driver, adding a cite to https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/40862475 .

Earlier today, that reference was put in {{cite news}} format, but that edit munged it a bit. I've tweaked it as part of a general citation clean-up, but since newspaper.com is paywalled, I can't see the source itself. If you still have access to the cited article, can you please supply the title of the article being cited? Any other information to flesh out the cite (such as an author names) would be great, too. Thanks. TJRC (talk) 22:21, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

@TJRC: Glad to see that article is getting some love. I am trying to remember how I got that cite, I assume it was from a google search and do not have an account for Newspapers.com so it can't have been paywalled back then or must have been through another process. Looks like I was a little lazy with my citations. @NealeFamily: has access to newspaper.com, maybe they can help. this is the link. If not I will apply for access or even sign up for the trial membership as I feel obliged to fix this. AIRcorn (talk) 09:45, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Sorry but my access has expired - I'm stuck in the same position. NealeFamily (talk) 09:48, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
I'll ask over at WP:Resource Exchange. I'll bet someone has access. TJRC (talk) 15:32, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
I've just added the request ("Pittsburgh Courier via newspapers.com, 1962"); let's see what ensues. TJRC (talk) 15:40, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
That was fast. I got an answer already and have updated the Driver article. TJRC (talk) 16:23, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Glad that is resolved. AIRcorn (talk) 23:09, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

September 2018 at Women in Red

 
September is an exciting new month for Women in Red's worldwide online editathons!



New: Women currently in academics Women + Law Geofocus: Hispanic countries

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Good article review mentor

Hello! I'm currently doing first Good article review (for All My Love (Major Lazer song)) in a very long time, and I was fairly young when I did my earlier reviews, so I'm treating this as my first GA review. Could you look over my comments and provide input/corrections regarding the review of the article? Here's a link to the review. In particular, I wanted to make sure that it's appropriate to request a section focusing on the remix of the song so that the article complies with GA criterion 3a ("it addresses the main aspects of the topic"). Thanks, Hadger (talk) (contribs) 20:58, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi Hadger. A nice review. Left a comment there and have it watchlisted now. Ping me if you have anymore questions. AIRcorn (talk) 09:41, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Leatherface

Alright, sorry for the slight delay. I'm about to rewrite the reception section and get the rest of the GA edits done. DarkKnight2149 08:26, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

No problem Darkknight2149. AIRcorn (talk) 08:30, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Just got it rewritten. DarkKnight2149 21:45, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Will look at it this evenoing. AIRcorn (talk) 21:18, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Response

I appreciate your forewarning message, I attempted to improve the article, mostly in terms of media and reorganizing. Little attention came of it even after I nominated the article until a detractor who had negatively viewed all of the articles I worked on began placing templates. However I think the article needs more positive attention (by which I mean work) in the first place. As no one has given a formal review would you have suggestions on improving the article quickly? Sunriseshore (talk) 02:55, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi Sunriseshore. The Good Article process is generally an informal peer review process for well developed articles. Articles should not be nominated until the editor thinks they meet the criteria for becoming a good article. Eventually someone will come along and pass, fail or hold the article depending on how close they think it is to those criteria. Often they leave advice or suggestions on how it could be improved or what needs to be done in order for it to pass. There is already a large backlog at the nominations page (some have been there nearly a year) so it is not really practical to hold articles that are a long way from passing. You might be more interested in WP:peer review, which while similar it does not rate the article, but just gives general advice on what could be improved. From my cursory look the major issue is the lack of citations. That is quite easy, but often time consuming, to fix. The quickest way to fix it is to be WP:bold abd do it yourself. Other editors may join in or offer critiques, but in my experience as long as you are doing good work most just let you get on with it. Good luck and happy editing. AIRcorn (talk) 08:06, 4 September 2018 (UTC)


Understood, maybe ill place the article under review. In second thought, I think I would like more time to respond to concerns, if that is possible? Sunriseshore (talk) 17:39, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Yep. Just delete the review nomination and you can work on article in your own time. It just means deleting the template from the talk page. AIRcorn (talk) 21:20, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Climate change

Thanks for your comments at AE. One thing caught my eye that I wanted to clear up though. You mentioned some of the climate change stuff I discussed way back. That was never about editors, but about the real-world sourced content issue of anti-GMO activism using similar science denialism tactics to climate change denial and other similar groups.[1][2] The two get studied in primary literature sometimes too.[3] Essentially, I was saying at one point be wary of typical pitfalls of pseudoscience when dealing with content in the topic and used climate change as an example of things people might be more familiar with for some parallels.

That obviously is a thorny issue to make sure it's not being conflated towards editors themselves on talk pages (though an odd case when dealing with legitimate WP:ADVOCACY behavior issues at admin boards), but when I was discussing the content portion, other editors chose to cause drama making it seem like I was calling them or groups of editors in general climate change deniers despite me repeatedly clarifying. Nowadays I can't remember how much I've had to ignore when people make spurious accusations like at the recent AE case because I'll usually make a single clarification post and try to ignore periphery stuff to focus on the case at hand (or deal with word limits). I'm guessing that might have been what happened from what you remember, so I just want to check in on that. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:47, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't often comment at those venues so it was mildly interesting to see how it went down. The close was a bit disappointing, not so much for the result as this happens, but because of the statement that they didn't read it. I have been editing these articles on and off for years and maybe have become a bit immune to the insinuations. I usually find it a little ironic as I am actually not a big fan of Monsanto (mainly due to IP concerns). I also went in expecting it to be quite heated and it really wasn't (not in the early years anyway). So, while I understand why editors get upset by the shill gambit, it never really bothered me that much.
As for comparisons with climate change I understand the parallels. There is an interesting discussion at Talk:Genetically modified food controversies/Archive 1#Split where it is brought up and discussed by some old hands. Those were good days; we actually got stuff done and most of the comments were related to improving the articles.
I don't really feel like scouring through diffs to showcase occasions you used it, so I hope you don't mind if I use my imperfect memories. A lot of stuff was happening at a lot of venues much of it nasty. As such seemingly mild comments can be taken badly and things escalate quickly. Most, if not all, of the opponents to GM were also strong advocates of climate change. While your first few instances might have been innocent enough, you must have realised that it upset them. It came across a bit too on the nose, even for me who generally supported your positions. Since we are making comparisons there is little difference saying "these edits are what I would expect a paid Monsanto employee to make" and "these edits are what I would expect a climate change denier to make". Okay there are quite a few differences, but I guess my point is that they just served to inflame the situations and fill countless talk pages with back and forth that serves no purpose content wise. Again imperfect memory so I am not saying you used those exact wording, it is merely an example of how it can be perceived.
I will offer similar advice I gave to another editor many years ago. Sometimes the best approach is to ignore someone if the relationship between yourself and that editor has reached unmanageable levels. At least keep the responses to a minimum and focus solely on the content. I often delete quite a bit before I hit publish if I think it will not help the situation. I have also learnt to trust wikipedia to eventually get the content right and as long as you are on the right side of the science consensus will follow. If anything the AE case has shown that any disruption needs to be quite overt, so reacting to anything else will not have any effect beyond wasting a lot of time. Unfortunately the editor I gave the advice to is now topic banned from GMO articles, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt. Anyway I hope you don't take this the wrong way, my main aim here has always been to create good articles and we need editors in the GMO topic area willing to work on these articles as they are still quite a mess. AIRcorn (talk) 09:24, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

October 2018 at Women in Red

 
Please join us... We have four new topics for Women in Red's worldwide online editathons in October!



New: Clubs Science fiction + fantasy STEM The Mediterranean

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Get ready for November with Women in Red!

 
Three new topics for WiR's online editathons in November, two of them supporting other initiatives



New: Religion Deceased politicians Asia

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--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:40, 14 October 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Alert

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have recently shown interest in the Arab–Israeli conflict. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect: any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or any page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

WarKosign 16:57, 29 October 2018 (UTC)