This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on my current talk page
Latest comment: 5 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
While removing deleted portals from several mathematical articles (many thanks for your work on portals), you have moved down the short description. This contradicts WP:Short description, where it is written Put the {{short description}} template as close to the top of the page as possible, for ease of finding it. Also, when one uses the short description gadget for importing a short description from Wikidata, the short description is always placed at the first line. Should these moves be reverted or should WP:Short description and the gadget be modified? In either case, I think that it is to you to do the job. D.Lazard (talk) 02:25, 13 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Any changes to short description are done by WP:AWB's General fixes, which I enable while doing the primary a task. The genfixes come as a package, which I never delve into. I just assume that everything in them has consensus as an appropriate fix; there was a bit of ruckus a year or two back when it turned out that the maintainer had been jumping the gun a bit by adding some genfixes without proper approval, but I think that is all behind us.
I know nothing about WP:Short description, other than that I have seen shortdesc appearing on various pages, and have just read the page now that you kindly gave me the link.
Per MOS:ORDER, short descriptions should come after hatnotes. This was added in April; however, I don't think anyone informed the AWB devs of the change. WP:GENFIXES move various things around based on MOS:ORDER. Currently, I don't think AWB knows anything about short descriptions, so they are probably being considered as some other type of template and being moved accordingly. — JJMC89 (T·C) 07:19, 13 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Here are the cases that appeared on my watch list. Respecting MOS:ORDER: [1]; not respecting MOS:ORDER: [2]. Because of a too fast reading of a move of protection templates, I believed that [3] was a third case. As there was no short description in this third case, I have imported one with the gadget ([4]), and it was placed in the first line, before hatnote and protection template. So, depending on the guideline and/or the tool used, we have three possible positions: first line, between hatnotes and protection templates, after hatnotes and protection templates... D.Lazard (talk) 08:15, 13 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, D.Lazard. It seems that genfixes's idea of order is hatnotes/protectionTemplates/ShortDesc. As JJMC89 kindly noted, AWBgenfixes is following MOS:ORDER.
So I did a little burrowing in WP:Short description, and found this edit[5] on 5 January 2019 by User:CapnZapp. That edit changed the wording from a general note which I paraphrase as "top of the page is nice, but subject to other things which come first" to a stronger "Put the short description template as close to the top of the page as possible." I am sure that was done in good faith, but it seems to me that these decisions need to be made by discussion at WT:MOSLAYOUT.
So AFAICS, Genfixes is doing this correctly, by following MOS:ORDER. WP:SHORTDESC should be amended to reflect MOS:ORDER, subject to any discussions which anyone want to start at MOS:ORDER. Personally, I couldn't care either way, so I won't be proposing any changes ... but D.Lazard, you may wish to start discussions at WT:MOSLAYOUT about whether the current order is OK, and bring WP:SHORTDESC into line with whatever is decided there. And I will continue to let AWB genfixes do what they do. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 12:29, 13 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Just stopping by to say if my edit survived all these months despite a healthy amount of further activity since then it stands to reason that the edit has consensus. If anyone thinks the page requires permission from another page's talk viewers, then the talk page should probably only be a redirect to that other page's talk page. In other words, ignoring a policy page because you don't like it is probably not a good idea. (I have no opinion on the topic discussed here, and I am not claiming anyone is ignoring anything - I was merely summoned here) CapnZapp (talk) 17:16, 14 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Your edit effectively required a change in MOS:ORDER, but the change was not made to MOS:ORDER and not flagged there, let alone discussed there. It was made to a different page, not discussed, and didn't even have an edit summary clearly describing what it was doing.
As to your claim that I am ignoring a policy page because you don't like ... are you a child with learning difficulties, or just a troll?
You know perfectly well that I have set out in the discussion above that this is nothing to do with whether I like it, and that I really couldn't care less which is at the top.
What has happened here is that you have unilaterally made WP:SHORTDESC say something different to MOS:ORDER. Issues of page order need to be set out in one place, because otherwise we could have dozens of pages each claiming that a different item should be at the top. And that one place is MOS:ORDER, which is what the AWB developers are following -- not me.
I am very happy to discuss this sensibly with people who disagree, but I have only contempt for people like CapnZapp who join a conversation only to misrepresent others. Zap, I notified you as a courtesy ... but stay off my talk until you can behave a civil adult. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 17:42, 14 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
All I said was that, not knowing anything of your specific case, if you don't like a policy, change it, discuss it, but don't ignore it and especially don't shop around for the one you like best. If there is community consensus around a specific policy that "violates" a more general one, it doesn't violate it, it overrides it. Otherwise it would be impossible to find something; if you can't trust what you read on a page ("oh that, just ignore it, you should read WP:THISOVERHERE instead.") I do not need to excuse myself for not knowing WP:THISOVERHERE, and again - there was easily half a dozen other editors that didn't change that edit either. So why didn't you boldly edit it if you're so sure it was a mistake, instead of summoning me only to yell at me?
As to your response, I truly suggest you stop considering yourself a mature and civil editor - unless you had a bad day and your reply was merely uncharacteristically uncouth, in which case I shall now heed your request and stay off your talk (unless you summon me again). CapnZapp (talk) 16:01, 16 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. LizRead!Talk!01:36, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Hey, I've seen your name pop up in a bunch of the spaces I edit and honestly what I've seen is the sort of care, attention to detail and neutral attitude that would be perfect for an admin. Have you considered putting up an RfA? If you do, ping me and I'll support it fwiw. Simonm223 (talk) 12:34, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
It picks up on an proposition repeatedly made by SmokeyJoe: that portals are a failed experiment, in which only a few have proven to attract readers. Joe has focused on the portals linked from the front page, which each gather over 1000 pageviews per day, and has suggested dumping the rest.
I have sympathy with Joe's idea, because WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers" ... and because the threshold Joe uses is about the same as the pageview count for the head article of most portals (most of them are 1000+).
However, I think that Joe is setting the threshold too high. I think that a threshold of 50 or 100 pageviews a day would be sufficient to weed out a lot of the low-traffic, under-maintained portals, while recognising that some portals which are not on the front page do nonetheless sustain much more credible pageviews than than the mass of unviewed portals.
So while Joe's suggestion would remove 98.8% of portals, I think that';s unlikely to gain consensus.
So my idea is to set a threshold of pageviews, and triage portals into three groups, as follows:
Portals above a given threshold, to be kept.
Portals meeting more than half that threshold, which may be improved to meet the threshold, so should be reviewed again after 12 months
Portals below half that threshold, which should be immediately deleted.
Then offer various options:
OPTION A: Aim to keep only portals which average over 1000 pageviews per day. There are no portals in the 501–1000 range, so delete the remaining 897 portals.
OPTION B: Aim to keep only portals which average over 250 pageviews per day. For now, delete the 848 portals which got <=100 views per day in 2019 Q2, and review again after 12 months.
OPTION C: Aim to keep only portals which average over 100 pageviews per day. For now, delete the 758 portals which got <=50 views per day in 2019 Q2, and review again after 12 months.
OPTION D: Aim to keep only portals which average over 50 pageviews per day. For now, delete the 577 portals which got <=25 views per day in 2019 Q2, and review again after 12 months.
I think that gives a reasonable range of options, but I worry that it may be too complicated.
Keep the top level portals as the only stand-alone portals. Do not delete the next best portals, but merge them into the top level portals. Reduce the content in portals, and put much more emphasis on their role to provide comprehensive navigation to increasingly more specific topics. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:52, 6 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Portal:LGBT, the first after the big step, of not being considered worthy of mainpage presence, clearly belongs within Portal:Society, in my view. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:18, 7 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
The hierarchical structural of Portals should share things with the hierarchical structure of the categories. In fact, conceptually, I would like to see the two merged. I also consider categories for user navigation, to also be a failed experiment. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:18, 7 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
From BF:
I think the analysis is good (I would leave out the last two columns in the table for simplicity; no need to invert the data as the previous two columns captures it). Is there an easy way to do the last 6 or even 12 months of views (or is that a lot of analysis); I say that because it would avoid any concerns over a portal having a "bad quarter" of views.
I see editors confusing portals with articles at MfD, and for them, low page views are not necessarily a reason for deletion (e.g page views is a rarely used arguement now at AfD). They don't make the connection that a portal which is not maintained has no purpose (e.g. what would be the purpose of WP Main Page if it was left frozen at say 2011)?
The most compelling arguements are when it is shown the portal, bar the 2018 technical updates by the Transhuminist, has been almost untouched for +5-7 years, and has low traffic. This "double lock" of abandonment and no public interest are the most compelling deletes imho. Is there a metric/statistic like page views, that could capture abandonment (e.g. time since last real edit bar the TH and bots etc.)?
I see when editors engage in the level of abandonment, and that this is not just an "unloved article" issue, but a "frozen Main Page" issue, they are swifter to take action.
Everyone knows I have been a major deletion nominator of Portals, and like BHG I have a few dozen or so more I intend to nominate.
But I actually think once that is done it may be a good time to take a pause, so I would add an OPTION E: Do nothing more for now. One belief I have (a reason I have been so active) is that once the junk is deleted, the viewership of the remaining portals may (and only may: of course no guarantees) actually increase: certainly improvement efforts focused on the remaining portals will have more impact. I am surprised/disappointed more portal fans don't see this as a possibility.
This means the current viewership stats may not really be relevant.
Since there is no deadline, why not take a 12-month break, see where the portal viewership is at that time, and come back to the community then with a proposal along these lines? We have put out the fire, I for one don't see major value at this point of further deletion work in the Portal: space and the drama that would ensue. Why not look at the Outlines instead? UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:28, 7 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
From Hut 8.5
I agree that portals have largely been a failed experiment and I would support getting rid of most of the ones we have at the moment. I'm not sure pageviews are the right metric to use for this though. The only other situation I can think of where we use pageviews to determine whether to keep or delete something is at RfD, where they are sometimes used to determine whether a redirect represents a real search term or not, and even then the use is to determine whether the redirect has any human views at all. Judging from a few clicks on Special:Random most articles would be deleted if we imposed a threshold of 100 pageviews a month. For portals I suspect pageviews are largely a function of how prominently we link to the portal, rather than any particular property of the portal itself.
I suspect a proposal to nominate most remaining portals for deletion will meet with quite a lot of pushback, as you can see from the responses this proposal got. I'd suggest waiting a while and then focusing on the portals which have the least value, such as those in the <25 bracket above. These portals likely have little value and eliminating them would get rid of more than half the remaining portals.
If I had to come up with a suggestion for criteria we should use for having a portal on some topic I would suggest something like this:
A few portals on very high-level topics, such as those linked from the main page at the moment.
I am also very sympathetic to portals which showcase very high quality content, such as Portal:Battleships, as we don't really have anything else which highlights to readers how good these articles are.
First, I thank User:BrownHairedGirl for a useful analysis. Second, I have just proposed that there should be an RFC, but a policy RFC and not a mass MFD. My preference is to proceed with a policy RFC. I share the sadness and concern of BHG about the "sullen passivity" of a group of portal advocates, who continue to say that portal critics are ignoring the expressed views of the community (basing that statement largely on an ambiguous RFC a year ago). So I would prefer that the community be surveyed as to its views again, and that there be no mass deletion of portals until the views of the community are surveyed again. Perhaps the community agrees with User:SmokeyJoe that portals are a failed experiment. Perhaps the community only agrees with me that there have been two failed experiments, partial subpage portals and automated portals.
If we are to triage portals based on pageviews, my preference would be to keep those with 100 daily pageviews and delete those with less than 25 pageviews, which is a hybrid of two of BHG's options that leaves a larger middle zone. However, I would prefer to survey the views of the community with a new RFC.
Robert McClenon (talk) 19:30, 7 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Hi BHG, I wanted to ask you more about the technical limitations of Categories that you brought up at the RFC draft. Do you know what work, if any, has been done? I liked a lot of the ideas you suggested and wanted to take a look to see how hard it would be to add some of these features. Are there any other improvements to categories you think could be done software side? Wug·a·po·des 16:54, 18 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
WP:IECATNAVP is where I set out the start of the idea which was refined on the talk page (WT:IECATNAVP) into what eventually became {{AllIrelandByCountyCatNav}}. I think that in there there is a fairly good summary of my thoughts about the poor state of category software.
If I had to do a quick summary, I'd say that the key things needed are:
Latest comment: 5 years ago12 comments5 people in discussion
I see Newshunter12 recently tried to blame me for attempting to hack your account and I just wanted to tell you that it wasn't me (I did troll him and a few others) and correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't he the one that brought up the fact someone attempted to hack your account a few months ago before you had even said anything about it ? How could he possibly have known about it unless he or one of his cronies did it. 198.8.81.74 (talk) 18:40, 22 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
(I saw this at the AfD) Would you happen to be admitting to being the IP who's necessitated semiprotecting Newshunter12's talkpage? And the same person who left me the charming entreaties to commit suicide visible here? If so, I'll make sure to strike your comments at the AfD, since self-professed trolls who request editors kill themselves, while referring to them as "cunt" and "faggot", are not welcome to edit here. (See User talk:Zzuuzz#Proxy score of 65 from ipqualityscore and the second thread after it for context, I'm sure a CU would've turned up a good hand/bad hand situation) The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:49, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
For the record, I have said not one word anywhere about IP 198.8.81.74. I don't know very much about IP addresses, but it certainly sounds like this person is admitting to being behind the socking, death threats, suicide demands, and vile insults sent to me and others under other IP's and username, not to mention block evading right at this very moment. For better or worse, all my edits on Wikipedia are through this account and I've never received worse punishment then a warning for my conduct. Actions speak louder then words, and given your history of abusive and disgusting conduct, attempt at framing me via a now banned sock, and corrupt use of technology, I'd say the person who tried to hack your account at least this most recent time has been unmasked, BrownHairedGirl. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:58, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Important not to let this get overlooked. Given the apparent revelation about just who tried to hack your account, I would like to apologize to you BrownHairedGirl for you being inconvenienced/hurt because of whatever reason that person has for harassing me and others. You and I haven't exactly been getting on, but I would never want you to be hurt in that manner. Gute Nacht! Newshunter12 (talk) 03:22, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I don't think your sad attempt at deflection is fooling anyone Newshunter12 the fact remains you were the one who mentioned the attempted hacking of her account before she even publicly mentioned it how could you have known about it unless you or one of your pals did it ? I'd be willing to bet your history on this site isn't as squeaky clean as you'd like us to believe. 198.8.81.74 (talk) 04:20, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
You are the one deflecting. I didn't mention the attempted hacking of her account - I made a joke that by chance or fate happened to near-parallel reality. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Coincidences happen. You are the one with the known record of both vicious and tech based abuse, no bets needed. Newshunter12 (talk) 04:37, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Just to be clear BrownHairedGirl blamed NewsHunter12 for the initial hacking attempt and the most recent one for the reasons stated above. 198.8.81.74 (talk) 04:40, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Now NewsHunter12 is going around lying claiming that some type of conclusion has been reached to cover his tracks and he's acting like he's been exonerated I don't know if there's any way to prove this but I'm not the one who tried to log or hack into your account and judging by some of the things Newshunter12 has been saying I suspect it's him I mean I know you suspected him already with the wink wink nudge nudge comments he made about hacking but I'm afraid my recent trolling may have given him an alibi and now he might try again and apparently he's convinced Zzuuzz to try and silence me so I hope you read this and take this all into consideration. I'm not sure if this is possible but maybe another admin can try to look up the IP that tried to access your account and prove that it wasn't me. 46.45.138.102 (talk) 09:20, 23 July 2019 (UTC)WP:DENY troll — JFGtalk13:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Sorry about that I just don't want to see your account get hacked and I'm convinced that Newshunter12 was the one trying to do it but I don't know what can be done to stop it I guess you couldn't get the IP of the person trying to hack it yourself ? 46.45.138.102 (talk) 09:40, 23 July 2019 (UTC)WP:DENY troll — JFGtalk13:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I believe you entered the death info for this old hockey player, and I'm wondering how you got Drummondville, November 20, 1985. Official death records for Quebec list DOD as February 14, 1985, but they don't include a city of death. Any info appreciated. Thanks. Researchguy (talk) 19:04, 24 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Your belief is almost certainly mistaken, because I have little interest in sports and believe that the WP:NSPORTS has left Wikipedia with far too many perma-stub articles on minor sportspeople.
If you are referring to the article Maurice Courteau, then you are definitely mistaken. My only edit to that article was to add a category.[6]
Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
I am going away from keyboard for a few weeks. Plus I have a serious real life issue which demands constant attention for several weeks. I have just now added myself as a maintainer for roughly a half dozen portals that either I think I can improve or that I think are important to improve. I'd ask that I be allowed a few months to work with those portals before you nominate them for deletion. I ask that if any portals come up for deletion in which I am listed as maintainer, please email me. Thank you BusterD (talk) 16:38, 24 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
After a decade of systematic neglect of the majority of portals, I have repeatedly been unimpressed by white knights who ride in to "rescue" portals, as if a once-off driveby makeover was some sort of viable substitute for ongoing maintenance. For a portal to fulfill its claimed role as a gateway to the the topic, it needs ongoing involvement from multiple editors with multiple points of view ... and the efforts I have seen come nowhere near that.
[Average daily pageviews of portals on en.wikipedia in April–June 2019] Remember that WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". If a portal has low views and a history of neglect and only one editor promising to do some maintenance in the future, then it's a million miles from the baseline requirements.
Despite the culling of so many of the worst portals, the graph to the right shows the vast majority of portals are simply unwanted by readers. It really is time to stop luring readers to this pile of abandonment ... and for editors to stop kidding themselves that they are doing anyone a service by creating a few more redundant content forks behind a superfluous interface.
I'm sorry to here that you are having troublesome life issues. I wish you luck in resolving them.
WP:OWNership never applies, and it certainly doesn't apply to a page where one editor has merely indicated an intention to do something unspecified at some time in the future without even expressing an aspiration to address the fundamental problems.
@Buaidh: Most of the navbox-clone portalspam was deleted in April in two mass deletions of similar portals (one, and two), and the rest in smaller groups. Whatever else happens, your creation of a new automated junk portal is no benefit to readers. That's why I reverted. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 02:16, 29 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
P.S. - I'm not really sure how we got into this mini-feud since we both desire the same basic things for Wikipedia. You think deletion will get us there, and I think a few things should be preserved. Could we end the name calling? Yours aye, Buaidh talkcontribs02:04, 29 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
@Buaidh: I have been trying for months to persuade you to do exactly that, to desist from your endless personalisations and other forms of disruption. Yet even today, you were at it again, playing factionalising games by badmouthing me as you tried to suck up to the topic-banned portalspammer TTH.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:49, 29 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
You might be interested in how I came to create all those redirects, because it's kinda part of how I came to learn about portals, having ignored them in my previous ten years on WP.
In January 2017, I was working on Template:Year in country category and several related templates, trying to make them automatically add a link to the country portal and relevant year/decade/century portals. This was because there were a few editors doing big AWB runs adding the portals manually, and that seemed silly. The AWB runs inevitably had some errors, but even the accurate ones seemed to me to a be a task which could and should be automated.
Inevitably, it wasn't as simple as I had thought. One of the first problems I encountered was that a number of countries didn't have portals, so just adding {{Portal|CountryName}} was generating redlinks. So I started creating redirects.
As I proceeded, I realised that colonisation/decolonisation and country name changes made the whole map quite complicated, so instead of piling up the redirects I created Template:YearInCountryPortalBox to allow a more complex mapping of countryname to multiple targets to better reflect the imperial age. The lookup table at Template:YearInCountryPortalBox/parse got rather big, but it did allow me to set vast numbers of categories to automatically link to portals.
As I did that, I paid little attention to the portals themselves. I was just making links.
But as the months went by, I began to follow through by looking at the pageviews for the portals to which these categs were linking, and was astonished to see that the were still abysmal. And after that I began to look at the actual portal pages, and see how poor they are. And later I began to follow through on that observation.
Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO
Here it's written:
"The US/UK side claimed that this would undermine the authority of the alliance, and they noted that Russia and China would have exercised their Security Council vetoes to block the strike on Yugoslavia, and could do the same in future conflicts where NATO intervention was required, thus nullifying the entire potency and purpose of the organization."
NATO intervention was NOT required, thus nullyfing the entire potency and purpose of the UN.
Bombing other sovereign nations is not NATO's mission nor obligation as Serbia was answering only on attacks from Albanian paramilitary forces in Kosovo. Bombing Serbia should be under Controversy section of this article as they were also intentionally destroying state-owned factories and infrastructure, targeting civilians and helping ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Kosovo by killing people for organ transplants. Also they were using cluster bombs which are not allowed by Geneva's war convention.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. –MJL‐Talk‐☖21:16, 1 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
I don't consider you involved in this since you created the page as an admin action to enforce a close, so feel free to be the contesting admin if you so incline. –MJL‐Talk‐☖21:18, 1 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
No objection from me, @MJL. I created it to avoid a redlinked category. But if it's an empty category, it should be deleted.
Thanks for following this cleanup, and for spotting that glitch.
I was aware of it, but hadn't found a solution until today. The problem is that the other portal-linking templates (e.g.{{Portal}}) use unnamed parameters, so it's easy to just rip out an un-named parameter which matches the name of a deleted portals. I have one regex which does all such templates.
However, {{Subject bar}} uses named parameters, which would need a different regex. I only found out earlier today that it will tolerate gaps in the numbering sequences, which means that I can do it by just ripping out the whole portal3=John Smith code, without having to renumber any higher-numbered parameters.
Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Thanks for your work cleaning out portals. However, in case you are planning to do more edits like this, leaving {{Portal-inline|size=tiny}} in the article gives "Lua error in Module:Portal-inline at line 16: attempt to perform arithmetic on local 'root' (a string value)", see Johnny Cash#See also. I could fix the module so it outputs nothing, but that would leave an empty asterisk in an empty see also section. It's probably better to remove the see also altogether. There are currently 56 articles in Category:Pages with script errors and I think most of them are due to this problem. I could put a more convenient list of the 56 articles somewhere if wanted. I can fix these if you like but you are much more familiar with the state of portals. For example, I don't know if there are plans to insert something in the blank templates in the near future. Johnuniq (talk) 04:06, 3 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Many thanks for being on the case here. This is really helpful.
I have had various attempts at eliminating the residual {{Portal-inline|size=tiny}} (and variants), but hadn't quite cracked it. Your msg spurred me on the fix that, so I ran the fixes across all the articles in that set, and fix them all in these edits.
The result of my new setup for doing the main removal of {{Portal-inline}} is that there will be some empty "see also" sections. I think that's probably best left that way, because I haven't figured out a regex which would reliably remove only empty "see also" sections without false positives. I am also not too worried about it, because a clearly empty section is an easy manual fix, whereas most editors wouldn't have known what to do with a {{Portal-inline|size=tiny|Foo}} which produced no output.
Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:42, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
Hello @BrownHairedGirl. I posted in incident report on the Admin Noticeboard, but presumably because the thread has become long-winded, a judgement has still not been made, and it's moved into archive. [10] I scanned the Admin noticeboard, and thought you seemed very sober and thorough in your judgements, so would it be possible to make some kind of ruling on this issue? Otherwise the other party's reverts are likely to continue. To get your head around the issue, just reading the last three posts in the thread (where I sought a yes/no answer from the other party) may save time. Thanks for your assistance. ClearBreeze (talk) 05:29, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Hello @BrownHairedGirl. I'm presuming you don't wish to deal with this. Is there a way to get the Admin Board to make some ruling because it's just sitting there and time is moving on. Thanks. ClearBreeze (talk) 13:49, 30 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
Has it not gone beyond a content dispute when an editor refuses point-blank to permit a full-referenced fact in an article, and, as he stated at ANI, refuses to negotiate on that point? Surely it then becomes an issue of conduct? ClearBreeze (talk) 16:36, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Probably not, unless the same conduct is repeated in many venues. There can be legitimate reasons to oppose the inclusion of sourced content, and in this case there hasn't been a proper examination of whether that's the case here. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 16:39, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@Buaidh: if you ever showed even a small fraction of the analytical capability that TTH displayed, I might consider it. But TTH is way out of your league.
Your attempt at flattering him as a portal creator two months after he wrote that portals are becoming redundant was a piece of comedy.
Now to the serious bit. Please keep discussion at XFD focused. That's what I collapsed your attempt to use it as a caht room
On every previous occasion when I have nominated at MFD portals in which User:Buaidh has an intrest, they have responded with an extraordinary range of misconduct including: sustained personal attacks, spamming messages, blatant canvassing, and flooding the discussion with multiple walls of text, and maliciously false allegations of harassment. I urge Buaidh to refrain from that, and to discuss the substantive issues at the MFD. If there is any resumption here of such disruption, I will go straight to ANI, without further warning. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 00:12, 29 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I would find that assertion more credible if your activities on Wikipedia amounted to more than robotically creating convoluted sets of pointless pages, and if you demonstrated an ability to participate in reasoned discussion without so rapidly resorting to multiple forms of disruptive conduct to disguise your lack of substantive argument.
But there again, I have long held the view that the existence of expert witnesses in court proceedings (especially if unchallenged) is a perversion of basic and vital principles of evidence and of jurisprudence. Your evident unfamiliarity with the conduct of reasoned debate, and your reluctance to participate in it, reaffirms my view. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 00:47, 29 July 2019 (UTC)Reply
I didn't ask to have this conversation. I didn't ask you personal questions. You chose to come to my talk page try to flash credentials at me. I told you why I am unimpressed.
I saw this section linked from another talk page. I feel that "if your activities on Wikipedia amounted to more than X" can rightly be perceived ad hominem, because it seems to disqualify any argument made by a certain (kind of) person, probably implying that they are "people without the necessary personal attributes", as said below. Similarly, "Do you have any non-Wikipedia credentials?" sounds like a personal attack. I personally appreciate the energy BrownHairedGirl has put in the effort to clean up the portals and I admit I chuckled at several of her strongly worded arguments on deletion discussions, but I wish we could avoid such unpleasant personal interactions. Sadly, it might be impossible. Nemo07:43, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Hello, I came across your above discussion on abandoned portals and became very intrigued about the topic. As you know, I participated in the Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Harry Potter (2nd nomination) discussion after reading your thorough analysis and investigation of that portal, and reading the portal myself. I once spent a significant amount of time cleaning up pages for a different fandom, Fruits Basket, which included removing long abandoned junk articles like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kyo Sohma, cleanup like this and more. It was all stuff created during the years the manga was still coming out, but editor interest sharply withered within a year or two of the manga's end. A new anime series based on the manga is actually currently coming out so there is some renewed interest now.
It seems like your portal cleanup is very similar in nature to the cleanup I did for Fruits Basket, so I am interested in understanding the portal cleanup effort. Is it just you who's undertaking this and what is the end goal? Where precisely would you ideally like to see the portal section of Wikipedia end up? I don't see myself nominating any for deletion, but would like to contribute to the cleanup effort now that I know there is a mess. (Since some people have been causing a lot of trouble in this sphere, it seems prudent to say that if I end up at any more MfD's, I'm doing so of my own accord, so no one can justly accuse BHG of canvassing me.) Thank you! Newshunter12 (talk) 22:56, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for your msg! Several big questions, which deserve a longer answer than either of my braincells can give in the small hours. So I will reply properly in the morning.
In the meantime, some of my friendly talk page stalkers may choose to comment. And you might find it helpful to look at two essays by @Robert McClenon: WP:PWP and WP:GODOT. Robert and I have chewed over a lot of the issues with portals, and there are many areas where our thinking overlaps.
User:Newshunter12 – Thank you for asking about portals. I will try to add a little to what User:BrownHairedGirl has written. Portals are a feature of Wikipedia that can be used for showcasing, navigation, instruction or promotion, and for fun. Th.ey have always been a feature of Wikipedia, and, since 2006, have been in Portal space. Some editors are very enthusiastic about portals. I have never known exactly why, and I am inclined to think that, because they can't explain clearly what the advantages of portals are, they must be something that are liked because they are seen as technically neat. (I once worked on testing a computer system that may have had a lot of leading-edge software components that were selected because they were technically neat. It was a technical mess.) I don't know what value the advocates of portals think that they add, so I think that they must be seen as technically neat, rather than as functionally valuable.
As the essays that BHG has listed explain, portals are intended to be maintenance-intensive, but normally they are not maintained. I think that the advocates of portals, whom some of us call portalistas, are denying the need for maintenance.
In any case, early in 2018, when there were just under a thousand portals in existence (I think – I haven't checked my notes for the numbers), there was an RFC to delete all portals. It was closed with a consensus not to delete all portals, but with no other specific conclusions. Then a task force that I call the portal platoon decided that we (English Wikipedia) needed more portals, and decided to create thousands of more portals. They did this more or less quietly, and had created a total of 5700 portals, and most of the new portals were just automated crud. I then reported the thousands of portals at WP:AN, and since then some of us have been bringing portals to MFD for deletion. The portalistas have been claiming that we are waging a "war on portals". (I think they conducted a sneak attack by creating thousands of them, but that is only my opinion.) Most of the portals that were created in the wave of reckless portal creation were deleted in two bulk nominations to MFD that were expertly submitted by User:BrownHairedGirl. But since then, she and I and a few other editors who are skeptical about how much portals add have been working slowly to nominate some of the abandoned portals for deletion. We have the number of portals back down below a thousand now. Many of the portal deletion debates are bitter and unpleasant. Obviously the portalistas and portal platoon think that portals are valuable. I really don't understand what the value is, other than being technically neat.
Any informed assistance that we can be given in checking the status of portals and deleting the cruddiest ones will be appreciated. I don't think that we have a specific endpoint. I think that some of us who are trying to clean up portals would like to see a few hundred high-quality portals, and some of us would prefer to see more like twenty, or to delete all of them except for the main page, which is a super-portal and is labor-intensive. Do you have any specific questions at this point?
Robert McClenon (talk) 18:57, 5 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@Robert McClenon Thank you for this very informative and descriptive breakdown of the situation, and information about portals in general. This, coupled with the information BHG provided and what I've picked up at MfD has pretty much brought me up to speed and I have no further questions about portals. I'm certainly interested in keeping an eye on portals at MfD and if I find time, will look for dud portals to funnel towards MfD. Thank you again so much for your detailed response. I can't emphasize that enough. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Helpful summary indeed, I had lost track of the discussion until I recently saw the removal of all those hideous links to portals from articles. I took the liberty to add some links and I wish this could be depersonalised and copied to some page in project namespace, possibly Wikipedia:The Problems with Portals. Nemo08:03, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion
Hi BrownHairedGirl,
I understand that the New York page is a dab page, however, I believe that Portal:New York should remain as a redirect to Portal:New York (state), because changing it to a dab page would "break" or at least cause confusion to hundreds of pages that use this Portal. I suppose we could change all the pages that pages that use this portal, most of which are meant to go to the New York state portal. Natg 19 (talk) 20:14, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Additionally, it seems that the Portal template for "New York",
If it were up to me, I'd merge them and have a single portal for the city and state (the city being in, and the most prominent element of, the state). The separation of the articles in mainspace is not binding on their treatment in portal space. bd2412T20:51, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@BD2412: I wouldn't oppose a merger. But some editors would have strong views, so it would need some sort of discussion.
Wouldn't this be a WP:surprise for users who see the flag of NY state and are pointed to a dab page? For a normal end user, that would seem to be unhelpful. I am typically for dab pages, but not when they break or change behavior for hundreds of other pages that use this Portal. Natg 19 (talk) 21:19, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago16 comments6 people in discussion
Regarding some of your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Golf, surely you can convey your points about the strength of other editor's arguments without referring to them as "portalistas" or "liars". Even where legitimate rebuttals are made, the use of terms intended to describe the person being rebutted can overshadow the rebuttal itself. I would stress, in fact, that even if someone is a liar, the more effective counterargument is to treat their misstatements of fact as products of ignorance than of malice. Cheers! bd2412T03:55, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
If I were to contribute to these discussions, I would be doing so in close agreement with BHG’s detailed points and broad rationales. However, I find the abusive debating style repugnant. I think the damage to other editors exceeds the improvement to the project by removal of these pages. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:50, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@BD2412 and SmokeyJoe: Unfortunately, we have a serious problem. A bunch of editors who want to retain even abandoned junk portals (i.e portalistas) have taken to trying to sway MFD debates by repeatedly asserting as fact points which are demonstrably untrue and which they demonstrably know to be untrue.
1. It saddens to see good people bickering. Try formal civility and bd2412’s suggestion.
2. I admit to not being able to understand the perspective of the portal enthusiasts. The method of arguing for the opponent can be very useful in these situations. It would mean asking them to help. I understand that you might consider this a waste of time delaying an already tedious process.
3. Guideline development I think is the way to go. I think you might become amenable to guideline work after you’ve eliminated portals clearly failing even the very loose requirements. Maybe another six months.
4. I find RfCs so hopelessly unformailised as to make them very unlikely to lead to progress. So many are opened with too-broad and unimportant questions, unilaterally. Let me know when they close. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:02, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@SmokeyJoe, the problem is that all these processes rely on editors acting in good faith.
Unfortunately, what we have here is a small clique of editors who persistently fail to act in good faith. They have decided that: 1/ all portals are inherently a good thing; 2/ The guidelines which require that portals should be used and maintained should simply be ignored; 3/ That deletions are inherently bad, and may therefore be legitimately impeded by strategic lying.
The main practitioners of the strategic lying are currently NA1K and Hecato, tho one other appears to be warming up. Wikipedia's policy of AGF makes it relatively easy for such mendacious people to game the system. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 10:11, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
I know that there are often groups of editors who come together to press incorrect policy ideas with respect to certain issues. However, the outside observer sees a dispute wherein one participant appears to be calling other participants names, which these other participants can then complain about rather than needing to address salient points raised. I would just say to focus on the salient points, the evidence of a lack of interest in the portal proposed for deletion. At the end of the day, you are writing to persuade the closing admin of this, not other editors whose mind is already set against the existing state of fact and policy. bd2412T13:14, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
First, thank you so much for diligent hard work to vastly (and I mean VASTLY) improve the portalspace. That said, I would echo the above encouragement: it saddens me to see to see WP:SPADE invoked, because the result is often hurt feelings that do not provide a net benefit to the project in the long run, so I would encourage kinder language that focuses on the edits, not the editor. (Especially since I don't think it has resulted in a single MfD closing as delete that would have otherwise closed as keep had invective been absent). If the editor is not an obvious active vandal (and none of the current MfD participants are) I try to put myself in the other person's shoes to support my continued assumption of good faith. Doing that here, here's where I get on your 3 points above: both 1/ and the first half of 3/ are valid opinions good faith editors can hold (I don't hold them, but that's not relevant here). On 2/, the key words (for them) from the guideline are likely to, and I have this analogy: is the Sun likely to expand to a red giant and engulf the inner planets? Yes, it just needs enough time. And so "likely to" enables certain portal editors (again, not me) to, in good faith, believe a portal meets the "used and maintained" part of the guideline: they view the portal's past history, like the Sun's, as irrelevant to what they, in good faith, believe is likely to happen in the future. Because there can be good faith differences of opinion on what constitutes "likely", "broad subject area", and "large numbers" (all terms from the WP:POG guideline), we should be able to have invective-free discussions about where a given portal falls on either side of the judgement calls for those term (just like we do elsewhere on what constitutes a reliable source, for example). UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:10, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
But we have a systemic problem here which some day will need wider attention. It goes like this:
Portals are a largely unscrutinised adjunct to Wikipedia.
Portals have been built without regard to basic content polices, or with guidelines/conventions specifically excluding them. For example, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:TRIVIA, WP:WEIGHT, are all systematically flouted in portals.
A few portals are maintained by editors who also build and maintain encyclopedic content. But many (maybe most) portals have been built and/or maintained by editors who work only on portals. Few of these editors have any significant track record of creating encyclopedic content. One has created lots of DYKs, but I have found none of the portalistas who claims credit for a GA or FA. Some of the portal creators have difficulty in basic communication: e.g. Happypillsjr, who created over a hundred automated portals, has repeatedly written such aysmally incoherent contributions to discussions that I am simply unable to believe their claims that English is their first language.
At least one of the portalistas joined en.wp for the sole purpose of working on portals. A significant number of the other portalistas have stated that will retire if they don't have portals to work on.
So what we have here is a clique of editors who are WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia. Some of the portalistas do have interests elsewhere in en.wp, but there is a significant group who are only here for the portals and lack interest and/or ability to contribute to actual encyclopedic content.
The result is in some ways a akin to a group of desperadoes, who feel that cornered in the only part of Wikipedia where they have a place ... so they fight with whatever means possible to defend any old junk portal, simply because it's their last piece territory in this site.
So even back in February when there was discussion about deleting the automated spam portals, there were howls of pained outrage. On prominent portalista declared even the spam removal to be a "war on portals".
This battleground mentality which the portalistas have adopted since February has had various manifestations. There has been a persistent barrage of personal attacks on editors supporting the deletion of abandoned portals. There has been active sabotage of tracking categories. There have been attempts to rewrite the portal guideline to remove all quality standards. There have been malicious allegations against MFDs nominator of racism, religious prejudice, prejudice against non-European topics, vendettas against portals of interest to particular editors. You name it, it's been thrown.
I had thought that this cleanup phase would have been over long ago. I repeatedly said I doubted we'd go below 1400, 1300, 1200 etc ... but now we have fewer than 900 portals, and still there seems to be no shortage of abandoned junk like Portal:Harry Potter and Portal:Armenia. I have another few dozen lined up for MFD.
So as the number of portals continues to plummet, the portalistas are looking at a massive shrinkage of the only part of this site most of them are interested in and/or capable of contributing to. So they are getting desperate, and are now tag-teaming MFD with barrages of co-ordinated, flat-out lies.
I don't think that ordinary rebuttal is sufficient to rescue consensus-building in the face of the lying campaign by the portalista desperadoes. Sooner or later, this will have to be dealt with at a more systemic level. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 15:43, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
On that question of "likely", I think you are being far too generous to the portlistas.
The reality in most off these cases:
Long-term neglect of the portal
Long-term low pageviews
Long-term decline in pageviews
There is hard data on all of those points.
Similarly, that there is hard data that ratio of active editors to articles continues to fall, so the availability of potential maintainers continues to fall.
All of that data demonstrates that it is not "likely" that the trend of portals being unmaintained and unread will be reversed. It is of course possible that unexpected events or trends may emerge, but it is not likely.
That it is why I have challenged them for actual evidence to support their claim of likelihood, and they have none. This is where we disagree about their good faith: there is zero evidence on their side, and a mountain of evidence against them, so their claims are not a matter of interpretation or of weighing conflicting data: they are simply counter-factual.
Please remember that this is not a social club or a web forum. We are here to build an encyclopedia, and we have a right to demand that those who want to participate in that process uphold relevant standards of analytical capacity and integrity. Insisting that something is "likely" when all the evidence presented points the other way is a pretty good marker of stupidity or mendacity or both.
For over a decade, portalspace has been the corner of wikipedia where low standards of integrity and competence have been institutionalised. We are now seeing the consequence of that, as people without the necessary personal attributes resort to anger and deception as their only tools to defend the only sandpit they can play in. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 16:04, 4 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
User:BrownHairedGirl, NA1K is not acting in good faith, and that he is repeated lying? This needs to be resolved. Is the editor lying at MfD. If no, then what, and you should stop repeating the allegation. If yes, then the community should take action, because lying is disruptive. I think if you feel justified to accusing an admin three times of lying in a formal discussion (eg an MfD), then it needs to go to WP:AN. It is not OK to have one admin routinely accusing another of lying. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:13, 5 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
It's a pity that portals should cause such civil wars. If only the famous RfC had not received such a desperate response, the community could have found consensus on an ordinate disbanding of the unwanted portals, instead of the street by street urban warfare forced on us by the necessity to discuss deletion one by one. Nemo07:30, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
User:BrownHairedGirl I agree with User:bd2412 and User:SmokeyJoe in particular as to the allegation than NA1k and others are lying. In English, there is a clear distinction between lying and the statement of seriously incorrect facts. We really should stretch the Assumption of Good Faith a long way for them. We know that they can't explain why they want portals, and the least unlikely explanation is that they believe things that we either can't understand or are just plain wrong. So I really believe that when they are saying things that are not true, they are not lying, but they have confused themselves or persuaded themselves of serious error. They aren't lying. Give them that assumption of good faith. Their stated facts are bunk, but they are bunk that they believe. (A Flat earth believer isn't lying when they say the Earth is flat. They believe it. It is just absurdly wrong. Similarly, the portal advocates have their own facts, and a man or woman is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts, but that doesn't make the non-facts lies.
On reading NA1K’s RfAs, I got an unexpected new perspective. He has a history of judgement difficulties and an affection for trivia? I think it is a conflict for WP:AN resolution. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:47, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Discussions of administrators at WP:AN either get nowhere or get sent to the ArbCom, and there is nothing so blatant about NA1k that the ArbCom is likely to take a case. (Well, I did try to file an ArbCom case.) Robert McClenon (talk) 20:36, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Your ArbCom case was ill considered, there was no chance of them solving this obviously content-centred issue, and earlier steps of dispute resolution had not been attempted. If BHG’s allegations are true (I suspect that they basically are, although overegged in parts), then as a distasteful display between admins, WP:AN (or ANI Not sure, but I don’t think ANI’s 48 hour timeframe is right) is the right venue, and options on the table should be: Warning(s) about lying or accusation of lying; TBan from Portals; TBan from MfDs on portals. Alternatively, an RfC could be used, but not a half baked ill considered brain fart like the several currently muddying the water. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:33, 8 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
User:BrownHairedGirl - I see that the most common issue involved in allegations of lying is what the portal guideline, if it is a guideline, says. The advocates of portals actually believe that the noun phrase is meant to be the full statement of the rule and the qualifying clauses are merely detail. That is probably good marketing. It isn't good computer science or requirements engineering. I don't think it is good legal reasoning, but that depends on the school of legal reasoning. I was wondering whether it is good analytical philosophy, but I think that an analytical philosopher will develop a complex rule as to when the qualifying clause actually limits the noun phrase. A requirements engineer or computer scientist says that the qualifying phrase wouldn't be there unless it was part of the rule.
Latest comment: 5 years ago15 comments4 people in discussion
Take this to WP:DR or WP:AN. I am not a one-woman court to act as judge, jury and executioner in a cases of alleged misconduct in complex content disputes. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 07:30, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi, I'm interested in banning a disruptive user who has a long history of engaging in edit-warring, misrepresenting data, specifically targeting Wikipedia articles that revolve around a single topic to push an agenda, and is an all-around Wikipedia dragon who is just polluting honest discourse on the encyclopedia. He's widely disagreeable, with his disruptive edits going as far back as 2017. I've spoken with other admins over this topic and they've all pretty much said that it's all a very technical issue to go about with since he's been getting away with this behavior for so long, and has essentially created consensus with this aforementioned 2-year-long, trackable campaign. I'm positive I can prove he is being disruptive and is attempting to push a narrative through the wiki, which is why I'm pursuing this route rather than trying to debunk ALL of the information he has individually put out. What are my options with this user? HueyXocoatzin (talk) 02:11, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@HueyXocoatzin: I see we've been active on Wikipedia for about the same time. Without commenting on the situation, I just want to caution you that from my experience that it's really really hard for newer users like us to get an editor blocked if they have been here longer. That's at least been my experience anyways, so I tend to avoid interacting with such users whom I know to be poor actors. (talk page watcher) –MJL‐Talk‐☖02:28, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@MJL: Thanks for the input. I at one point just disregarded the edits, but as I continue browsing Wikipedia, I see more and more of his edits with the exact same motive in mind; essentially whitifying Mexico.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] I don't know what his motives are, but I suspect their origins lie in specific internet forums that revolve around toxic politics, and I don't think this sort of influence should be on Wikipedia even if the editor's insistant on maintaining such influence on these articles. Cheers.HueyXocoatzin (talk) 04:01, 10 August 2019 (UTC)HueyXocoatzinReply
@MJL: Sorry for the uncomfortable situation, I just needed to go a little more in detail on why exactly I feel the need to do this. I guess all there is now is wait for any admin to respond back, which I hope is soon. Thanks for keeping me company! Have a good night!HueyXocoatzin (talk) 04:22, 10 August 2019 (UTC)HueyXocoatzinReply
Greetings to the administrator BrownHairedGirl, I know it may be out of etiquete but I feel that I have to intervene here, because as it happened months ago, the editor Hueyxocoatzing is greatly distorting the reality of this issue as portraying me as something I'm not, in fact the administrator that intervened in the previous conflict i had with this editor (Oshwah) acknowledged that he judged me wrongly and that I was the side of the conflict that was in the right (this, as well as the fact that I'm not the only editor that has reverted that kind of edits is what Hueyxocoatzin complains about "me creating concensus"). The reality here is, as is clear on my summaries in the article's edit [22] the editor Huyxocoatzin completely disregards what the sources say and removes them under completely false claims (here, he discredits a source saying that is from 1800 [23] but the book actually was published on 1960) that's his modus operandi everytime and is tremendously agressive when it comes to reverting, another administrator, Edjohnston blocked an account that had a similar editing behaviour [24] on articles regarding the ethnicity of Mexicans (agressively reverting whilst disregarding sources [25][26]) and also acknowledged that I was on the right side on said issue, I would appreciate your opinion on this. Pob3qu3 (talk) 02:39, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
I sincerely doubt that Oshwah would ever say that you were in the right in regards to our little spat considering I spent some time sending emails back and forth with him explaining the situation. He agreed that your original edit made about 2 years ago (outright disregarding consensus without getting checked) were problematic and are currently tough to go around. This is how you've essentially built consensus on the many articles regarding "white Mexicans", "Mexican Mestizos", phenotypic traits used to subjectively "identify" these white Mexicans, and the Demographics of Mexico, both on the Spanish and English versions of these topics on Wikipedia. As for the recent exchange between you and I, it's in regards to, again your subjective interpretation of a survey conducted by a Mexican government organization, identifying it as a sort of census even though all it reveals is how a surveyed group of Mexicans self-describe their skin tone, with no categorization of race in said survey. But to remedy this, you instead conduct an unpublished pseudo-meta analysis, conjoing one antiquated census with a book with a survey, to clumsily "connect the dots". But I'm not the first to tell you, Iñaki, Evergreenfir, Wikiedro and others have as well[27]. These tenuous mental links are dishonest, unfounded, and frustrating. I and others have written back essays to you to no avail[28], which is why I'm no longer engaging with you specifically and am only advising you of what I'm planning to do.
And FYI, my point for disregarding that source wasn't specifically the time period--although it is still antiquated--it was the fact that you're trying to link a mostly unrelated anecdote to the pigmentism survey of Mexico[29], which (if you haven't caught on) one is a survey in the 21st century and the other is a brief mention of what they individually saw in a specific region in Mexico in the mid-1900's[30].— Preceding unsigned comment added by HueyXocoatzin (talk • contribs) 04:01, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
We'll have to see what Oshwah and EdJohnston think of this (here's the last exchange I had with him, on which he asks me to notify him if you become conflictive again [31]), he does not mention said emailing he had with you at all, and as you acknowledged he never agreed with you (you also mentioned early that "I have built consensus" which means that many users agree with me, in that reply of yours you acknowledge that you are on the thin end here and against the current consensus). What you are doing is to try to remove well sourced, official data taking advantage of how taboo the topic of race is on Mexico and still, in the article there are sources, both official and from third parties that stright out say that there are Mexicans that look like Europeans and on which said group is consistently delimited from other Mexican ethnic groups. Additionally there are also sources on which the segemnt of the population of Mexico who has light phenotypical traits/European appearance are refered to as "White Mexicans" [32][33], I guess I'll have to incorporate these onto the article on which we are having the conflict. This has been more than enough to create a new, reasonable consensus (with no mention of all the other research there are about phenotypical traits in Mexicans such as hair and eye color), which is why several editors besides me have reverted edits like yours, thing that can be verified in the edit history of almost every article you linked in your previous replies, and why no administrator has ever sided with you. Pob3qu3 (talk) 04:52, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
In that discussion you linked, he states that the dispute died down. That means that I became uninterested with the topic by that point. I haven't checked how much time passed since I last messaged him, but I'm guessing some weeks of inactivity passed by that point. After all, I haven't invested my life to raiding Wikipedia articles regarding the racial demographics of Mexico. I never "acknowledged" him not agreeing with me, I don't know how you gathered that, but I stated that he agreed that your initial edits on the Demographics of Mexico article[34][35] were problematic. He states, "Sure, not a problem. To answer your question regarding whether it's 'against consensus to make large, new edits that are contradictory to a previous narrative in a given article without explaining it in the talk page or even the edit summary': Technically, it would be, yes... however, the majority of editors that do this are usually unaware that such discussions took place or that consensus already exists from them."[36] And the defintion used for consensus is "Consensus is a normal and usually implicit and invisible process across Wikipedia. Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus. Should that edit later be revised by another editor without dispute, it can be assumed that a new consensus has been reached. In this way, the encyclopedia is gradually added to and improved over time."[37] This is the definition for consensus, not "widespread agreement". If it were the case that your edits are widely agreeable, then your edits wouldn't have a history of being so controversial in the first place.
Your citations continue to not be sourced from any scientific site or organization, but you continue to push this conspiracy that "Mexico is hiding the true demographics because they aren't pleased with the size of the white population". You cite tabloids to corroborate your claim that these light-brown-skinned individuals are white as if these journalists are scientific analysts. The studies continue to say "light skin" and they clearly conflate light-brown skin with fair skin, no mention of "European phenotypical traits". But don't fret about this ambiguity, because an actual organization dedicated to data analysis exists, and they're called Habitalia.[38] They've done the professional work and consultations, and they've distilled the data from various studies on pigmentation and have seperated "intermediate" skin from fair skin, as other editors have been pointing out and you've been looking over. They state: "El 67% de la población mexicana entre 25 y 64 años de edad autoclasifica su color de piel en tonos intermedios." That leaves the fair skin population at 12%, the OBVIOUS if you couldn't already gather that from the charts themselves. So there you go; no where to hide behind now.
By the way, I have recieved admin support, which is why you were temporarily blocked from editing for some period of time. And from what I've seen, I'm probably the first person to pursue admins the way I have with this dispute over the demographics of Mexico, albeit lazily because I never bothered to go through with my plan, I've only ever asked for advice. And you can continue fooling yourself that my deletions are unfounded, even though I've already gone in depth both in the edit history and talk page refuting your points: from your misinterpretation of "Calidad Español" meaning racially European to your misinterpretation of modern survey data related to skin pigmentation in Mexico.[39] — Preceding unsigned comment added by HueyXocoatzin (talk • contribs) 06:35, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@HueyXocoatzin, it seems that my reply below may have been to subtle.
@BrownHairedGirl: Sorry about that, I posted this at just about the time I checked for a response from you. I think I was probably almost done typing this out when you starting typing to me. Sorry for this ugly mess, I was specifically trying to avoid this by trying not to engage with him. HueyXocoatzin (talk) 07:07, 10 August 2019 (UTC)HueyXocoatzinReply
The first thing I need to say is that absolutely no way that I or any other responsible admin will jump at the request of one editor and ban another editor over a content dispute. There are too many layers of inappropriateness in that request for me to explain them all without a vast screed, so I'll summarise with a brief quote from my user page:
"like any admin, I am not your private army in a content dispute".
The core of this matter is a content dispute. Where two editors disagree about content, I would expect the disagreement to proceed roughly as follows:
One or two reverts, but per WP:BRD, a quick move to
Discussion on the article's talk page, assuming good faith, and trying to reach consensus
Instead, I see that you produce no evidence of any of those steps, just a request for me to parachute in and ban someone.
No no no no. I am not gonna do that.
Please note that I have not formed a view on who is right here. It may be that one of you is POV-pushing, or that the other is POV-pushing, or that you both are, or that nobody is POV-pushing and that it's all just a misunderstanding.
Please also note that I have not formed a view on whose conduct is better here. It may be that one or other of you is a saint and the other a miscreant, but I have not attempted to weigh that. Maybe you are both rogues? Or maybe you are both great editors whose wires are crossed.
@BrownHairedGirl: I understand that no admin will just carelessly outright ban one editor at the request of another; I was planning on going more into detail on this case once you asked for more information. Just to confirm, and I've had this talk before, posting biased information/misrepresenting sources to push an agenda is strictly prohibited. Doing this to various articles related to the topic being altered is tendentious editing. This would make that editor a bad-faith actor, and thusly be labeled a disruptive editor who would ultimately get banned. Am I missing something here? It's been a while since I've been involved in this.
And just to clarify, I have attempted to reach consensus on this topic before[40] and so have other editors[41][42][43]. Consensus has never been reached, it appears that Pob3qu3 just isn't a very flexible or honest person, he's set in his ways and there's no changing it. He's got the time and dedication to these articles that none of us have, and that's turned out to be a problem.HueyXocoatzin (talk) 07:16, 10 August 2019 (UTC)HueyXocoatzinReply
I remain unpersuaded that you have made reasonable efforts to take this through the normal WP:DR pathways.
Even if you had done that, and believed you were dealing with a rogue editor, you have still failed to make a prima facie case that there was the misconduct you allege.
And even if you had made that prima facie case, you still don't get the core point that I am making: I have not asked for more info, and I will not ask for more info, because I am not your one-woman private army. If you want to pursue this as a conduct matter, please take it to WP:AN. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 07:27, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi there how are you? I noticed you were recently editing Addiction and thought if you had time and I could interest you could assist me as many others have in my cleanup and improvement of the Digital media use and mental health category.
Theres a few page move / terminology discussions
1. Here (social media addiction)
2. Here (Internet addiction disorder)
Latest comment: 5 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
I'm not exactly sure what exactly could've triggered a response like this. I don't know if I insulted you in some way or if I was being particularly rude. I wanted to present my case in full, and I'm sure part of the process would be to let the person being accused of disruptive editing make a case for themselves, I don't think I have any power over whether I want them to make a case for themselves or not. I think there was a misunderstanding of what I meant by "not engaging him", which I meant not continuing this toxic cycle of back and forths that go no where. I wouldn't want to interfere in the process to get this issue resolved. I think I came at this a little too hot, which I really shouldn't expect anyone to just sympathize with right off the bat given a massive lack of background. Again, sorry for offending you. I'd like to know where I went wrong in this. HueyXocoatzin (talk) 07:47, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@HueyXocoatzin, it all comes down to you expecting a lone admin to hear the case. That's just not the way that Wikipedia works.
And then being slow to take the hint that you should try other routes.
User:HueyXocoatzin - The way I see it,and I know nothing about the content background of the dispute, is that you dumped a too long, difficult to read complaint about third-party behavior at BHG even after she said that she wasn't going to fight your battle for you. I don't know who was right, but you unintentionally provoked her by continuing when she said to stop. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:05, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
User:Robert McClenon In my defense, the bulk of the background related to the content was being discussed between Pob3qu3 and I in my previous talk section. I only asked her if my interpretation of tendentious editing was correct while providing evidence that I and other editors have attempted to discuss this in the past with Pob3qu3 on the article's talk page, which she stated she saw none of. This was my reply to her first reply to me. My second response to her was clarifying that my long response to Pob3qu3 was published at around the same time she published her first response to me along with an apology on my part stating that I didn't intend to have this long winded discussion with Pob3qu3 on her talkpage, which I was then accused of not wanting her to hear his side of the story.
I didn't intend to offend her, but my responses were taken as such and now you and I are having this discussion over some misunderstandings. Cheers. HueyXocoatzin (talk) 21:26, 10 August 2019 (UTC)HueyXocoatzinReply
Latest comment: 5 years ago8 comments3 people in discussion
BrownHairedGirl and Robert McClenon, I recommend Portal:Land of Oz be brought to MfD. It has essentially been abandoned for a decade (the creator only touched it for about a week and his last edit to Wikipedia was in 2007). The DYK section was last constructively updated in 2008. The Oz books section has been touched twice since 2009, the last time in 2015. The things to do section last touched in 2012. The wikiproject section untouched since creation in 2011, while the associated wikiproject is long dead. The categories section last constructively edited in 2011. There was a rename in May and an editor claimed they were going to do a lot of work on it, but didn't follow through. All these little sub-pages got title updates in May, by the way. The page view count is abysmal. From June 1 2019 until July 30, there was an average of 3 visits per day to the main page. The long term trend is even more stark, given that per day rate in July and August 2015 was 20 per day.
As you know, this is my first time evaluating a portal and I did the best I could. I hope you find this helpful and please let me know if/how I can better prepare portal reports for your evaluation. Newshunter12 (talk) 18:44, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Thanks guys. Glad I could help with this effort. Good luck crafting the MfD, Robert McClenon, and with your work, BHG. Just try to channel Thomas the Choo Choo Train, BHG. I think I can, I think I can - maybe there's even a portal for that extensive topic? Newshunter12 (talk) 05:11, 9 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
@Robert McClenon Here is another one for MfD. Portal:Jacksonville, Florida Just about everything on the page was last updated (aside from a name change by BHG) 5+ years ago when the portal was first created by Mathew105601, who last touched the portal in 2015, although they continued to edit on Wikipedia until April of this year. From June 1 2019 until July 30, there was an average of 1 visit per day to the main page, while Jacksonville, Florida in the same period averaged 1925 visits a day. Newshunter12 (talk) 01:41, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Another crud portal ripe for MfD: Portal:NASCAR It has essentially been completely abandoned since the sole fan-maintainer (Nascar1996) left Wikipedia in 2017 (aside from a few stray edits elsewhere into Feb 19), but parts of the page have been abandoned for a decade (the creator only created the portal, never touched it again, and his last edit to Wikipedia was in 2012). Five of the six biographies are virtually unchanged since 2010, while one was created in 2016. All 10 pictures were uploaded in 2010-11 and do not well reflect current drivers, car designs, or league names in descriptions. The news section was last touched in 2015. but it is automated. However, the five pieces of posted news are from 2013-16, and three are from 13-14 about Jeff Gordon, who retired in 2015. He's a legend in the sport, so it's exceedingly noticeable to anyone who knows much about NASCAR. The DYK section was last updated in 2010. The selected article section has 15 articles, but 10 were added to the portal in 2010-11, two in 2012, and three in 2015, and they are overwhelmingly about individual races over just a few years. The wikiproject section is untouched since 2011, and while the two primarily associated wikiprojects are still active in 2019, those wider communities don't appear to have ever been a part of this portal; only the maintainer did both. The categories section has same content as in 2010. The topics section unchanged from 2010. The page view count is low. From June 1 2019 until July 30, there was an average of 11 visits per day to the main page. The long term trend is grim, given that per day rate in July and August 2015 was 20 per day. From June 1 2019 until, July 30, the head article NASCAR had a visit rate per day of 1330.
In sum, this portal was always just a fan creation of Nascar1996, built to their taste, generally stuck in 2010-11 and left to completely rot when they didn't want it anymore. It's also funny that the NASCAR portal is old, decrepit, and has declining popularity because that perfectly describes NASCAR itself! Maybe this portal does belong... It is stuck nearer happier years for NASCAR after all. Newshunter12 (talk) 06:48, 11 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi BrownHairedGirl, this is Fgt30256. I'm creating a wikipedia page for my company(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Nreal). As a wiki rookie, I've researched and followed all the rules to create the draft(please forgive me if there's still something wrong or missing). The article is objective and cited from well-known media.
My friend suggested me contacting a wiki editor to get the feedback and eventually get the articles published. Wondering if there's anything missing or I should do to get this draft published.
Latest comment: 5 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
"Some wikipedian user pages tell their life story or reveal all sorts of interesting details about themselves, whilst others define their interests and values. I want do neither, so a few boxes to the right is all you get."
vs.
"Some wikipedian user pages tell their life story or reveal all sorts of interesting details about themselves, whilst others define their interests and values. I want to do neither, so a few boxes to the right is all you get.?
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:42, 15 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Guideline and policy news
Arbitration
Miscellaneous
New York portal
I'm really really uncomfortable getting in the middle of this. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 04:13, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
Newshunter12 (talk) 05:11, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
![[29]](https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/798d597831946830514031418f69274d/205389961/Huffpo_Poblacion2.png){kind=link}
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.--Vermont (talk) 20:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)