User talk:Anne Delong/Archive 13

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This is the archive of messages posted on Anne Delong's talk page, October to December, 2015.

Please comment on Talk:Ganesh Chaturthi

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Meetup at Ryerson U., Oct. 15

Anne, if you happen to be free, it would be great to see you at a Women in Architecture meetup I'm helping to organize next Thursday (Oct. 15) at Ryerson U. Artchivist1 (talk) 18:21, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Artchivist1. I should be able to make it. Let me know what I can do to help.—Anne Delong (talk) 20:12, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, great to hear! If you could be on hand for any of the time to answer more advanced editing questions, that would be wonderful. I am doing beginner tutorials at 10:30 and 1. Would be glad of your presence whenever you can make it. Thanks! Artchivist1 (talk) 20:25, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Artchivist1, that works out well for me; I have a meeting in Oshawa at 7:30 so I should get back in time. After attending the editathon at the AGO, a couple of things come to mind which you may or may not consider working into your presentation:

• Wikipedia editing is different from most kinds of writing. Usually an author creates a work independently or maybe with a partner. However, each Wikipedia article is made by members of a community of volunteers who usually haven't met, and each contributor must show respect for the work of others and develop respect in the community in turn. This means that edit summaries and talk pages are very important, and your students need to understand this. An editor who doesn't use them may be considered rude or at the very least inept.

• An issue that is rarely relevant to visual artists, but which may come up with architects is that many of them work in companies. There shouldn't be two articles with almost the same information. For example, M. Jones and Z. Smith start a company "Jones & Smith, Architects". They design lots of excellent buildings together. Instead of an article about each person, Wikipedia would have one article about the company, with information about the two women in it. Then two redirect article titles would be made "M. Jones" and "Z. Smith", pointing to the company article.

• When starting a new article, there are several choices: (1) Sandbox - this is just for messing around and trying out to see how things will look (2) User space (ie. User:Anne Delong/Whatever) - you can gather material, start and start forming the article, and other editors will leave it alone unless it has serious problems such as copyright violations or looking like advertising (3) Draft space - works like user space except that other editors may come a long and join in. Both of these are not picked up by search engines and so are read mainly by other editors, so it doesn't matter if you save in the middle of a sentence, or your formatting looks really bad, etc. (4)Article space - To make a new article here you really need to be already familiar with Wikipedia policies, because if what you write doesn't follow them, it may be deleted within minutes, or sent to a discussion page for later deletion. This is because what you write there is indexed immediately and reflects on the integrity of the encyclopedia.

Okay, I went on longer than I had planned; please feel free to ignore it if you have other material that you planned to introduce instead.—Anne Delong (talk) 17:36, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Anne, thanks. This is all really good advice -- I have been thinking along some of these lines but it is good to have it laid out clearly. The aspect of architectural practice and redundancy had not occurred to me (I haven't yet worked on architecture on wp). So this is very constructive, thanks. -- Artchivist1 (talk) 17:44, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Artchivist1, can you tell me details of the lecture location, and also say what course the lecture is for? You can use e-mail if you don't want to post it onwiki.—Anne Delong (talk) 01:09, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

It's not a lecture or course, just a meetup to coincide with the Guggathon Women in Architecture events. See Wikipedia:Meetup/Toronto/Women_in_Architecture for details including location. -- Artchivist1 (talk) 13:20, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Anne, I've just learned that the event start time has been moved to 11:00am (so I'll do tutorials at 11:30 and 1:30). Apologies for late notice, but I just found out myself! -- Artchivist1 (talk) 16:58, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. No problem.—Anne Delong (talk) 17:06, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

June sends her thanks for all your wonderful help yesterday! Me too. Great to have you there. --Artchivist1 (talk) 14:12, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Carly Fiorina

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Reference errors on 12 October

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• On the Draft:Ada Pelleg page, your edit caused a cite error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

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American football WikiProjects

Anne, per your edit at Talk:Mike Priefer, please note that anyone who has coached or played in American college football or in the National Football League falls within the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject College football and Wikipedia:WikiProject National Football League, respectively, and not within the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject American football. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 20:43, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Jweiss11. I presume you fixed it. I am pretty ignorant about football - I just rescued the page from being deleted as a stale draft. I am puzzled as to why a page that begins "is an American football special teams coordinator" isn't of interest to WikiProject American football. However, at least my edit attracted the attention of someone who knew what to do.—Anne Delong (talk) 22:27, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:The Stone Roses (album)

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Chris Young

I have closed Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Chris Young Producer as delete. Given how self-promotional and unsourced it was, I don't think there is anything to merge to Draft:Chris Young (music producer), which was written two years earlier (Jan 2013). The content was curiously different - I had to check back to be sure it was the same guy. No mention of Izzy Gold Records, which features largely in the draft.

I would normally flag File:Chris Young Producer (12).jpg for deletion on Commons as out of project scope, but I'll leave it in case you want to try to make something of the draft. Cheers, JohnCD (talk) 14:04, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi, JohnCD. I agree that there was no content worth merging. I just worded it badly - I should have said "I would have suggested" instead of "I would suggest". Sorry for the confusion. I guess he's "moved" on from Izzy Gold, but of course, Wikipedia never forgets, he he... —Anne Delong (talk) 14:09, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

08:11:50, 19 October 2015 review of submission by House of Ou

• House of Ou (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:WomenTalkTV (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Submitted again. House of Ou (talk) 08:11, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello, House of Ou. I have edited this article quite a bit, so I shouldn't review it. I have added a couple of references. It seems, though, that the website is mainly mentioned in articles about its founder, Eunice Olsen. Not many independent newspapers and magazines not connected with Ms Olson (as I see that you are from your username) are writing about it. The reviewers may decide that it isn't well-known enough for its own article. If the article is declined again, my suggestion is that you add a section about it in the Eunice Olsen article. I can then make redirect title "WomenTalkTV" pointing to that article. That way, in any case, some information about the website will be in the encyclopedia.—Anne Delong (talk) 14:33, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Arnold J. Sameroff has been accepted

Arnold J. Sameroff, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.
The article has been assessed as C-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for Creation if you prefer.

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Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia!

DGG ( talk ) 00:38, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Subhanallah (song)

An article that you have been involved in editing—Subhanallah (song) —has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Worldbruce (talk) 07:16, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Message

Hi Anne Delong, I dropped you a message a few days ago, just checking if it might have gone into the ether. Thanks, Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 22:17, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Rui Gabriel Correia. I did receive you message but I didn't reply. Your message didn't come through the Wikipedia email system or to the e-mail address that I gave Wikipedia. I have had some difficulty with fraudulent e-mails from Wikipedia editors (probably) and even people impersonating me by sending e-mails to other editors pretending to be me and offering to do paid editing! Also, I prefer not to discuss other editors off-wiki.

Now that you have contacted me here, I can say that you should not "out" an editor; nor is it necessary. If a book source is being added in an appropriate way, to back up a fact, and if it's a reliable source by Wikipedia standards (published by a known publishing house with an editor as opposed to self-published), then it shouldn't matter who added it.

If a source is being overused, you can try to balance it by adding more and better sources for the same fact; there can be a good reason for removing a citation if there are several clearer or more authoritative sources for the same fact per WP:CITEKILL. If it's being used to add opinion, then the text should reflect that it's an opinion, and it should only be added if the author is a recognized authority on the subject.

If a book source is being added in order to promote the book itself, (see WP:CITESPAM), especially if it's a self-published source or one published by an organization with an agenda, it needn't be the author of the book who's doing the promotion - it could be someone else with a conflict of interest - a publishing company or a store selling the book, or a friend, relative or colleague of the author, etc., so it's not good to make assumptions. So, if the adding of a book seems inappropriate or promotional, it's better to focus discussion on that. I hope this helps.—Anne Delong (talk) 00:59, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Anne Delong. Thanks for your detailed response. I will come back to it later, if nacessary. For now, I would just like to add that I rarely do anything off-wiki (actually mostly to establish real life contact with other editors) and this is the second time that I do so to discuss an editor (the first time was about a sock investigation). The reason for writing off-wiki was to safeguard the anonymity of the editor and not indirectly "out" that editor to anyone putting two and two together. I wrote to a second admin, who suggested I take it to COIN. In the meantime, I have found more disturbing practices, but it would be difficult to discuss openly without "outing" the editor. I will think about this for a while and decide on it later.

PS, you say the "message didn't come through the Wikipedia email system or to the e-mail address that I gave Wikipedia". This is odd, as I made use of the "Email this editor" feature, which opens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:EmailUser/Anne_Delong. Perhaps the address on record is outdated? Thanks for your help, I will let you know. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 01:40, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

A cup of tea for you!

With this ever dramatic world and winter coming, here's a cup of tea to alleviate your day! This e-tea's remains have been e-composted SwisterTwister talk 04:54, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Umpqua Community College shooting

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Please comment on Talk:Frogman

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Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

---

Hello Anne Delong:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    – North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 23:45, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

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A barnstar for you!

	The Editor's Barnstar
	My congratulations on your amazing accomplishments at Wikipedia! I am immensely enjoying some of your creations. Natalie.Desautels (talk) 12:18, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Some feedback please; your expert advice would be greatly appreciated

@Anne Delong and Checkingfax:

Hello Anne Delong,

My congratulations on your amazing accomplishments at Wikipedia! (I sent you a much deserved barnstar to add to your collection : )

I have been referred to you by Checkingfax; indeed, you are highly recommended by him! I have created an article on classical and flamenco guitar and atonal music in general and on internationally renowned Canadian guitarist Michael Laucke in particular. So far, I'm delighted that it has been ushered in live, and several editors have sent some nice comments my way; still, I feel improvements in style remain to be made and Checkingfax mentioned you could perhaps help us improve it.

I am proud to have contributed about several hundred hours of research. We are approaching 600 edits, about half of which are the incredible work of Checkingfax, and 13 other editors have also helped

I am just loving the Wikipedia adventure! I am a born perfectionist, and need to see things through to their logical conclusion, that means ...excellence. I am "polyglote" (multilingual); there is little difference to me between a few languages. So after this English version, I will have the pleasure of making a French one with different sources, and then a Spanish one.

My hope is to get an English version with improved syntax and style, smoothness and readability; indeed, this would be most inspiring for the translation and re-working into my other language versions.

The article references, of which there are over 100, are perfect according to various software like reFill and Proveit. Thus, my questions concern things like,

• - Is the first paragraph in the lead too long?
• - Does the lead have too much detail; should it be more general?
• - In striving really hard for a neutral point of view, have I made it acceptable to Wikipedia but boring?
• - Are the sections in the best order?

I do hope that this might interest you, that I have piqued your curiosity and that you can help me make a better version; even if time is short, as it always is, any feedback from you will help and be much appreciated, to be sure.

Cordially,

Kindest regards, Natalie --Natalie.Desautels (talk) 12:30, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

P.S. @Robvanvee: @Checkingfax, GrammarFascist, Bgwhite, and Vipinhari: I am pinging several editors who have helped improve this article, just to keep them in the loop. --Natalie.Desautels (talk) 12:30, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Natalie.Desautels: Thanks for the kind words. I can see that you have put a lot of time and effort into the wording of the article. I can also see from your post here that you are a person who loves to write and whose bubbling enthusiasm fills her writing; sometimes this is a bit of a handicap when writing an encyclopedia article, which shouldn't contain emotionally coloured words and other promotional language. I certainly admire and enjoy classical guitar music. I will answer your questions:

@Anne Delong and Checkingfax:

Hello Anne Delong, Thank you so much for taking the time to send feedback my way; it is very much appreciated, and then some. Indeed, this is sorely-needed and extremely helpful towards improving my Wikipedia skills in general and the Michael Laucke page in particular. I hope your practice went as you wish. As Shakespeare said, "Music is the trade of Love" and you are fortunate to be able to experience this.

I've read with pleasure a few more of the articles you worked on, and continue to enjoy them very much.

I agree that passion is a handicap when writing an encyclopedia article; one more impulse that is our own and that which we can control, Epectitus not withstanding :). I have found this area can be confusing, as many Wikipedia pages in the classical music field are rife with enthusiastic superlatives, such as "legendary" Andres Segovia, Paco de Lucia referred to as "one of history's greatest guitarists", and so on. Julian Bream was called "the greatest guitarist in the world" but I see that has been removed. (I would agree that he might very well be, but that's certainly not neutral, as it were). I've gathered hundreds of articles on Michael Laucke, so I am in a position to prove every second word, it seems, but that would probably look awful. But I digress : ) I am replying to each point below in blue.

• Is the first paragraph in the lead too long and does it contain too much detail? - The whole lead is about ten times too long. The lead should be a few sentences only, and should summarize material that is expressed in more detail in later sections, and perhaps include one sentence about something for which the artist is particularly well known, to assert notability. The most common format after that is "Early life and education", containing events up to the beginning of professional performance, then "Career" containing events after that. Organizing information chronologically instead of starting with the most notable events is part of what makes the article neutral.

Thank you so much for some very valuable points! I will certainly be considering all of them—your tips on the lead, notability, subsequent sections ("Early life and education", "Career", and organizing information chronologically to impart neutrality,)—all this is really very much appreciated. A user called Changedforbetter also contacted me to help develop our lead section as this is her specialty (and I need all the help I can get:). She has actually brought a large number of articles to GA status, so I am eager to see how she reworks the lead and learn from it first-hand. I'm really too new here so the best route is to defer to other editor's opinions.

• In striving really hard for a neutral point of view, have I made it acceptable to Wikipedia but boring? No. Encyclopedia articles are intended to be factual, not exciting, and should contain no opinion at all. What you have written is not yet close to being neutral. Phrases such as "highly anticipated", "most distinguished", "finest teachers" should be removed. Also, the article is full of quotes; quotes should be used very sparingly, and not to promote the subject. This is called "cherry picking" - choosing from among the many things a person may have said about the artist, and picking out the most positive and praising part to quote. Most of these should be removed and summarized, just noting that he received a positive review from x, or was praised by x for a particular skill, or some such thing. This will make the article shorter and more readable as well as more neutral. There's no need for all of the promotional quotes in the reference section either; you've properly identified the sources, so people who want to know what's said in them can find them and read them.

Again, what you have kindly taken the time to write is of great interest to me and again, my sincere thanks. I have read about neutrality, and I guess this is still a challenge for me to achieve. This begs a question: the adjectives "highly anticipated", "most distinguished", "finest teachers" and so on all come from newspaper articles, such as The Washington Post. I personally have no problem at all removing them, but would it be considered biased, or promotional, to simply quote these papers? I guess the answer is that if one quotes too many, than it appears to be promotional. Is that a correct assumption? As well, I understand your very good point of making the article shorter and more readable as well as more neutral; I guess one relies on others at my stage to achieve this I think, or perhaps I can take a stab at it. Regarding quotes in references, I did want to make it easier on the reader and not ask them to wade through full articles; I wanted to sort of take them by the hand and guide them just to the good stuff, the relevant quote. But you have made another good point to consider and we'll have to work on this as well. I love your comment "Most of these should be removed and summarized, just noting that he received a positive review from x, or was praised by x for a particular skill" and I see how I can have a go at this, putting the accent on a particular skill and leaving the quote in the reference; ...exciting idea!

• Order of the sections - The lists, such as discography material, should probably be at the end, and the following paragraphs moved up. A lot of readers stop reading if they are not interested in the table material, not realizing that there is more text below. This is just my opinion, though.

I was never at ease with the order of the tables, but it just lurked in my subconscious until you mentioned it. The tables should definitely be at the end; I agree that readers stop reading if they are not interested in the table material

• Other observations - There is some WP:CITEKILL - for example, when there is already an awards section, there is no need to cite six sources to the general statement that he has won awards - pick out the best two. In the awards section, some of the items are not awards. If he performed at a particularly well-known venue, or was praised by a respected critic, this can be noted in the Career section in chronological order.

Thank you kindly once again. To clarify, the awards section is actually called "Awards, Honors and Prizes", so it comprises more than just awards. Checkingfax is going to encapsulate the six references into one, since I haven't had time to study the code to accomplish this. But yes, another very good point to consider. I think a Career section is a very good idea too, and an editor suggested that a classical musician might have a critical acclaim section, but I have not seen an example of this type of section, so that's probably not a good idea, not neutral I would think.

I'm sorry to have had to point out so many needed changes. Please don't be discouraged - the research you have done has all been worthwhile; you've uncovered a great many useful facts. I see that you have also learned quite a bit about formatting. I have to go to a band practice now, so I will leave it there. Please remember that I am just one editor, and if you had asked someone else you might have received somewhat different advice.—Anne Delong (talk) 15:16, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Wow, certainly nothing to be sorry about. You have helped tremendously! Thank you for your kind encouragement as well. It was not hard to learn basic Wiki language as I have some programming skills in asp, asp.net, php and of course good old DOS. I will take your advice to heart and ask other editors for more feedback to be able to see things from the broadest perspective and to "bring others into the conflict resolution process" :) (Sun Tzu's Art of War). Thanks you once again for your valuable insight, time, and kind attention; ...very appreciated indeed. All my very best wishes, Natalie --Natalie.Desautels (talk) 09:57, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Cc. @Robvanvee: @GrammarFascist, Bgwhite, and Vipinhari: --Natalie.Desautels (talk) 09:57, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Hello, again, [User:Natalie.Desautels|Natalie.Desautels]]. Glad to see I haven't discouraged you. A few points raised by your comments:

• About promotional language in other articles: Yes, it's true that there are many of Wikipedia's five million articles which don't follow all of the policies at this time. That's because it is being created by an incredibly diverse collection of editors, most of whom don't take the time to read the policies before plunging in and creating an article! However, these are being improved by experienced editors as quickly as they are found. There is even a policy about that, called Wikipedia:Other stuff exists, which, in exaggerated form, means that just because there are poor articles in the encyclopedia doesn't mean we should create more.

• About promotional language from sources: Articles in newspapers, magazines and books, especially those about creative subjects, often use colourful language. That's the authors' job - to present their opinion as well as the facts, pique their readers' interest by painting a visual or auditory picture, and so sell their publications. An author might write "The huge mastiff took the small shivering kitten in its slavering jaws and shook it, tossing away the crumpled body.". Wikipedia would say "The cat died after being attacked by a dog."

• About overciting: As you intuitively realized, having citation numbers everywhere is disruptive to the reader, and also long rows of them for one fact is a form of promotion, used to make a particular fact look import. Another reason, though, for not having a long list of citations for one fact is to lead the reader to the most appropriate sources instead of having them wade though large numbers of unnecessarily repetitive material. Encapsulating them will not help with this problem, and is especially unnecessary if references are already used as citations elsewhere in the article. One or two particularly reliable and independent sources are better than a long list of varying quality. Editors who want to promote an article have been known to try to "dazzle" other editors by adding large numbers of citations to small mentions, upcoming event listings, postings by the artist's agent or publisher, postings on personal blogs or social media, etc., to hide the fact that there are no proper news reports, books, magazine articles, etc. to be found. As long as you have enough to demonstrate that the subject warrants an article (and you do), a short list of good sources is better than an exhaustive list.

• About mentioning truly famous people: Yes, no one will dispute that someone like Segovia, for example, can correctly be called "famous". However, what is the purpose of the adjective in the particular article? If it is to indicate that the subject of the article must also be famous by association, then that's inappropriate. I'll give an example from my own genre, bluegrass music. The founder of this genre is a fellow named Bill Monroe. Yes, he is famous. It's amazing how many times he's mentioned in other musicians' articles - they have shared a stage (performed at the same festival), sung some of his many compositions (which anyone may do), performed at the festival he founded (which thousands have), were his protegé (took some mandolin lessons from him), were influenced by his style (listened to his records), etc. This is bad enough without unnecessarily adding "famous" or "amazing" or "legendary" every time he is mentioned. For the few readers who take the time to read bluegrass article and don't already know this, his name is linked to the article about him.

Okay, enough. I do go on....—Anne Delong (talk) 13:10, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Reflections on, and appreciation for, your kind advice, and its implementation

@Anne Delong and Checkingfax:

Hello again Anne Delong,

I trust you are well ! I have studied your excellent suggestions deeper, absorbed their meaning and set about implementing most of them. Once again I wish to extend my appreciation for your precious time, and for sharing your expertise. Your suggestions are immensely clear, and make simple some otherwise complicated concepts; I find they facilitate article development. I take pleasure in outlining below the points I am enforcing.

So, I will respond here on which particular points I have culled; perhaps some readers will find this brief summary useful. I have answered each of your most recent responses in green below. I guess I should try to avoid backlog; it seems ungainly responding this way and trying to make it look pretty, format-wise.

• Leads should summarize material that is expressed in more detail in later sections, including one sentence about something for which the artist is particularly well known, to assert notability. After that is "Early life and education", up to the beginning of professional performance, then "Career" containing events after that. Organize information chronologically.
• Article should contain no opinion at all, just noting that the artist received a positive review from x to make the article shorter and more readable as well as more neutral.
• Avoid WP:CITEKILL by picking out the best two citations. If the musician performed at a particularly well-known venue, or was praised by a respected critic, this can be noted in the Career section in chronological order.

So I have used my sandbox (un-indexed and un-findable by Google) for a revised lead. I have condensed and started to implement changes based on your sound advice, and more. I refer you to the highlights in green below which address the most recent comments.

Most recent responses in green below

• About promotional language in other articles: Yes, it's true that there are many of Wikipedia's five million articles which don't follow all of the policies at this time. That's because it is being created by an incredibly diverse collection of editors, most of whom don't take the time to read the policies before plunging in and creating an article! However, these are being improved by experienced editors as quickly as they are found. There is even a policy about that, called Wikipedia:Other stuff exists, which, in exaggerated form, means that just because there are poor articles in the encyclopedia doesn't mean we should create more.

Great point here: "...poor articles in the encyclopedia doesn't mean we should create more"

• About promotional language from sources: Articles in newspapers, magazines and books, especially those about creative subjects, often use colourful language. That's the authors' job - to present their opinion as well as the facts, pique their readers' interest by painting a visual or auditory picture, and so sell their publications. An author might write "The huge mastiff took the small shivering kitten in its slavering jaws and shook it, tossing away the crumpled body.". Wikipedia would say "The cat died after being attacked by a dog."

That's fantastic! I Think that example should appear on Wiki help pages; it makes a great point, and it's humorous as well; I love it! "The huge mastiff took the small shivering kitten in its slavering jaws and shook it, tossing away the crumpled body.". Wikipedia would say "The cat died after being attacked by a dog."

• About overciting: As you intuitively realized, having citation numbers everywhere is disruptive to the reader, and also long rows of them for one fact is a form of promotion, used to make a particular fact look import. Another reason, though, for not having a long list of citations for one fact is to lead the reader to the most appropriate sources instead of having them wade though large numbers of unnecessarily repetitive material. Encapsulating them will not help with this problem, and is especially unnecessary if references are already used as citations elsewhere in the article. One or two particularly reliable and independent sources are better than a long list of varying quality. Editors who want to promote an article have been known to try to "dazzle" other editors by adding large numbers of citations to small mentions, upcoming event listings, postings by the artist's agent or publisher, postings on personal blogs or social media, etc., to hide the fact that there are no proper news reports, books, magazine articles, etc. to be found. As long as you have enough to demonstrate that the subject warrants an article (and you do), a short list of good sources is better than an exhaustive list.This is what I retain here; most excellent again. " unnecessarily repetitive material ...is especially unnecessary if references are already used as citations elsewhere in the article. One or two particularly reliable and independent sources are better" ..."), a short list of good sources is better than an exhaustive list."

• About mentioning truly famous people: Yes, no one will dispute that someone like Segovia, for example, can correctly be called "famous". However, what is the purpose of the adjective in the particular article? If it is to indicate that the subject of the article must also be famous by association, then that's inappropriate. I'll give an example from my own genre, bluegrass music. The founder of this genre is a fellow named Bill Monroe. Yes, he is famous. It's amazing how many times he's mentioned in other musicians' articles - they have shared a stage (performed at the same festival), sung some of his many compositions (which anyone may do), performed at the festival he founded (which thousands have), were his protegé (took some mandolin lessons from him), were influenced by his style (listened to his records), etc. This is bad enough without unnecessarily adding "famous" or "amazing" or "legendary" every time he is mentioned. For the few readers who take the time to read bluegrass article and don't already know this, his name is linked to the article about him. See discussion. This is the culprit that triggered the discussion :)

Discussion

Also, I would love to have your thoughts on the adjective "legendary" we talked about, based on my following thought processes; I would also like to show why I think we are talking about valuable knowledge here, not fame by association or otherwise. The world of music is divided in such a way that all "serious" music (jazz, classical, opera) is 1% of the total world interest in it (meaning income=1%). So if a symphonic orchestra in a major city sells out every night, the income represents a small fraction of the operating costs; thus the need for government and other grants to continue to promote culture. An example music historians like to give is that when the Beatles disbanded, 26 orchestras in England went down with them; in other words, the 99% income generated from popular music is used to keep culture alive. (Btw, in France, the government budget for culture was 16 times grater than in Canada). Why do I mention this. Well, I am not really rambling; I do have a point to make here : ) Andres Segovia played guitar in public for 80 years, from 14 years old to 94, at 200 concerts per year in every country imaginable until 85 years of age. (He had a heart attack performing at Carnegie hall at 94). He was hailed as the greatest classical guitarist in the last 200 years, and so on. (For the record, he's not my favorite) (Also of interest: He signed until he would have been 99, but didn't make it). He was the Picasso of the guitar and was in Time magazine when he died. The word "legend" is of course appropriate, but few people on the street will know of him - - - the "why" of this is because we are back to the 1% who like "serious" (don't like this word much) music. So, the guitarist Michael Laucke won a competition with 200 other guitarists to study with the great master Segovia; then Laucke ended up being selected by Segovia to perform before 25 million viewers at the Met in New York for PBS and afterwards studied with him. We are talking about the transmitting of knowledge, what Wikipedia is all about. All this means little if the reader doesnt know Segovia's historical importance, without knowing where this knowledge came from. (Of course, I totally agree with you that credit is given on its own merit, not merely by association. No one is saying Laucke is Segovia by association; that would be absurd). I think, in this case, it would simply save users time to add the straightforward adjective "legendary" to Segovia's mention; it would be undeniably factual, save time (not everyone wants to wade about in the citation section), would be neutral and un-promotional. Adjectives of this sort are unnecessary for the 99% audience, as in the case of, say, Elvis, Elton, Beatles, and so on. In short, why is this association of Laucke to this man important; well, Segovia was a guitar legend and Laucke studied with him and was transmitted special, historically valuable guitar knowledge. It piques the general reader's curiosity. Musicians and classical guitarists also might be interested in what Laucke learned from a legend who passed on a classical guitar tradition going back 500 years. (Well, ok, since 1800, but the guitar's relatives, the lute and vihuela, go back to 1455). We also avoid what often seems silly when we hear about a "living legend", since Segovia is dead.

I would feel privileged if you would share your thoughts on this subject; I mean, you already did, but if you feel like elaborating a bit in light of the information I just mentioned, that would be great! Thanks so much. all my very best, --Natalie.Desautels (talk) 05:02, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Cc. @Robvanvee, GrammarFascist, Bgwhite, and Vipinhari:

Natalie.Desautels, "legendary" is about as non-neutral as you can get, and not necessary in the context you mention. It is not the purpose of the article to demonstrate the importance of Laucke, or the music he plays, or even Segovia, only to provide facts. It would take a pretty clueless person to read that hundreds of musicians entered a contest to be instructed by a musician and not clue in that the instructor must be highly in demand. If Laucke then performed at the Met (well, it seems that he participated in a lesson by Segovia held at the museum of art, not performed a concert at the opera house as I first assumed from your phrasing), and this was broadcast on PBS, those are facts and can be stated plainly. You'd need a very reliable and independent source before adding that 25 million people were watching it - that's more than the most popular prime time television series last year. "Historically valuable" is an opinion, and that should be left for an article in a magazine or book. Did you notice that the article about Laucke is twice the length of the one about Andrés Segovia? It's so long that users with slow connections would have trouble reading it.

You should stop looking for reasons to include colourful and promotional language, cherry-picked quotes, name dropping, etc., and just not do it. Each time you do, it takes up other editors' time removing it and/or arguing against it, and slows down the development of the encyclopedia. Eventually other editors will assume that you joined Wikipedia to promote Mr. Laucke instead of to write a neutral article. —Anne Delong (talk) 11:38, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

@Anne Delong and Checkingfax:

Hello again Anne Delong,

Thanks again for the help. The word "legendary" as well as other "promotional" words are deleted, as is "historically valuable" and other such nonsense. We are filling out an Early Years section, and then Early career as you suggested. The article is getting more neutral, lead is shorter, citations fewer...

Just to clear up some proven facts about the Metropolitan Museum concert with Laucke and Segovia. Laucke was one of seven winners and did perform in this film – it was not merely a lesson. So this should be stated factually; the sequence was as follows:

• Newspapers claim that between 1200 and 2000 students sent their tapes to the University of Southern California so that a committee could start the elimination process
• 57 guitarists were selected by the committee. They presented themselves at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to further continue the elimination process
• Segovia alone was to choose 18 participants; 11 benefited from a master class in the morning, and seven perforedm in the PBS film during the evening, as you can see here
• Laucke performed a 25 minute work by Manuel Ponce; he did not receive a lesson that evening but later on in Geneva.

So these are the verifiable facts as they appear in newspaper articles, here, and here, and many others.

Regarding the viewing audience of 18 or 25 million viewers that was reported, this is a ridiculous figure! I'm a bit perplexed and uncomfortable as to what to do; this is what is reported, yet it is not realistic; does one report the facts nonetheless? Critic emeritus Eric McLean of The Gazette habitually phoned in to different sources to verify his information, so this is well researched information. So even though the sources have a strong basis in fact, I would feel more comfortable just leaving this part out. The other facts surrounding this event are absolutely solid, and I would keep them

Thanks again. --Natalie.Desautels (talk) 04:53, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Non-free content

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Old article history from other topics

Hello Anne Delong, as you often deal with AfC issues, could you help me with a question please? I just found the article Mayam Mahmoud, that was stored in Wikipedia namespace at Wikipedia:Mayam Mahmoud (I assume by accident). I moved the article to regular article space and cleaned it up a bit. But now I just saw, that the article's history contains a lot of "nonsensical" old entries about unrelated previous sandbox topics and other drafts. Is such unrelated history usually kept in those cases? Or maybe I shouldn't have moved the article in the first place? It looks like a legit notable topic though. GermanJoe (talk) 17:11, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi, GermanJoe. It looks like this page was part of a student project. The student started creating an article in his/her sandbox, blanked it and started a new topic. This is one of several problems which arise from using a sandbox to create an article, instead of for its intended purpose of just experimenting with wikicode. It looks as though the student finished the assignment and didn't know where to move it. There was another copy at User:Bowdch01, which I blanked and replaced with a link to the version you worked on. You were right to move it - it certainly didn't belong in "Wikipedia:". I can delete the old diffs about the other topic, but I'm not sure if I should or not, so I am going to ask at the help desk because it's likely I'll come across this again.—Anne Delong (talk) 01:05, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Jehovah's Witnesses

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Please comment on User:Ianmurray5/sandbox

Hi Anne, thanks for your help with my Alley & MacLellan Ltd page,learning from you, I have started a new one for a different company in my sandbox, Not finished yet, but would love to get your thoughts/comments on it. Not sure when to submit as, rather like the Alley & MacLellan, as I research the Worcestershire County Archives further I hope to find more evidential information. Thanks again, Ianmurray5 (talk) 00:22, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Ianmurray5. Some thoughts:

• The sandbox is great for testing out formatting, etc., but a serious article-under-construction should be (1) on a named subpage in your user space (ie, Ianmurray5/Name of article), or, if you are hoping others will notice it and contribute, (2) at Draft:Name of article. That way you can have several drafts on the go if you want to.
• Not all companies are notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. There must be fairly extensive material written independently (not inhouse company histories, advertisements, directory listings, etc.) in news reports, magazine article or books. Because these companies are chosen for coverage by journalists and other authors, and because the resulting text is vetted by an editor, Wikipedia uses this as a test of what topics should have articles, and what information should be in them.
• If you aren't finding much, starting a new article may not be the best approach. It's just as helpful to the encyclopedia to add to existing articles. For example, if a famous person starts a small company that didn't get much coverage, a paragraph about the company can be added to his or her page (with a reference). In reverse, if person is known mainly for involvement with a well-known company, a paragraph about him or her on the company page may be appropriate.
• When you find a good write-up, remember to include the original title of the article, as well as the date and page number. Another editor should be able to find the source and read it.
• As well as your archives, don't neglect online sources such as Google Books and online history magazines (not personal webpages or social media sites- these aren't fact-checked). If you are an archivist in the UK, you may have access to the British Newspaper Archives. That's a great source for historical information.

Good luck with your project.—Anne Delong (talk) 01:15, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

Thank you for your help. You are my guardian angel wiki. Love, jdxzhu 19:07, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for catching and removing the commercial book site. I appreciate your help a great deal! jdxzhu 02:05, 16 November 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdxzhu (talk • contribs)

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Please comment on Talk:War in Donbass

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Draft:The Evolution of Pro-Bono in the Legal Field

If you look, I did an edit at Draft:The Evolution of Pro-Bono in the Legal Field to postpone the G13 listing (it's possible to merge into Pro bono to me) before you deleted it. Would you consider restoring it? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:02, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Sure, Ricky81682. I must have taken a break between loading the page and dealing with it. Besides, db-g13 deleted pages can be refunded by anyone who wants to work on them. Sorry! And by the way, thanks for helping out with checking the abandoned pages. It seems a shame that some of these weren't worked on months ago when the editors were still active.—Anne Delong (talk)

Oh I agree. I could do it myself. As to abandoned pages, I'm just annoyed we're now having Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Blank userspace drafts arguments. If we can't even blank pages with a template telling people how to access the edit history, we'll never be able to deal with those. There's too many people who absolutely defend doing nothing at all above all. At the very least I've added a dozen or so drafts so far. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:49, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Green Prophet

Green Prophet has been created and cleaned up. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:17, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Ricky81682. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:01, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

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Please comment on Talk:Socialism

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I need your help!

Hi! I have checked out some of your work on pages like this, and I'm impressed. I am wondering if you could help out with draft:Kresten Bjerg?

What I need help with is:

• Establishing notability

• Writing more about his life, mostly based on his CV

•Fixing spelling and technical stuff

Thanx in advance!

78.72.12.130 (talk) (Magnus Bjerg, sorry not logged in.) —Preceding undated comment added 22:38, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi ((U|Magnus bjerg}}. It looks as though a couple of experienced editors have already been giving you advice. Here are some points that occur to me:

• When you log in, there is an option to stay logged in for 30 days. This may help.
• An encyclopedia article should not be based on a CV. CVs tell what a person would like others to know about himself; an encyclopedia contains what others have decided is important enough to write about him. You'd be surprised how different these two sets of information sometimes are. However, an article about an academic should definitely include a section about his education.
• References, both for notability and for verifying facts, should be books, magazines, news reports (on paper or on line), not social media sites such as facebook, not user-contributed sites such as wikis and forums, and not profiles and CVs on the websites of organizations with which he is connected. Also references shouldn't be information that he has written himself.
• Not every fact needs to be verified with a reference before acceptance, but anything controversial must have a reference.
• A medal presented by a person's employer would be considered a minor award, but could help established notability if there was an article about the winners in the newspaper.
• There are millions of people who have lectured at universities, colleges and research institutions around the world. Only those who are particularly well known should be the subject of articles in the encyclopedia. There must be enough references to sources written by journalists and other independent authors, in publications with editors, to show that a lot of information has been written about Mr. Bjerg. Look for these first, because unless you find several of these articles, containing extensive information written about him, the article will not be accepted. I can't help you find these, because I speak only English. However, if you do find them, I can help with spelling and technical stuff in the article after that.—Anne Delong (talk) 02:39, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Article you rescued may need to be renamed

Hello Anne. I happened to see your list at User:Anne Delong/AfC content rescued from db-g13. Damien Lewis (author) might need to be moved to a title without the 'author', so I've proposed a change at Talk:Damien Lewis (author). Thanks for any opinion, EdJohnston (talk) 02:19, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

EdJohnston , your suggested change seemed reasonable, so I moved the article.—Anne Delong (talk) 12:10, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

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