User talk:Geometry guy/Archive 18

Vector spaces

Hi Geometry guy,

I have asked for a GA review at the round table, but people are busy/dizzy with LateX formatting and icon questions ;) But I remember your thorough review last time, so if you have a moment, could you review vector spaces? This is the page. Thanks a lot. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 15:28, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be better if a non-mathematician reviewed it, with me contributing to the review, as happened at the groups article. Geometry guy 19:09, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

early close of AfD

I thank you for your efforts to avoid early close of the de Sitter AfD. The admin seems to prefer a delete review. Delaszk (talk) 21:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments

<removed as a courtesy>

G-guy, obviously you can do whatever you want on your talk page, but I removed this thread as a gesture, and I ask you to honor that notion. However, I wonder why you removed my comment at Talk:Brenda Song, but not the comments of another editor directly primarily at me rather than the article? Gimmetrow 13:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I didn't understand the gesture because of the edit summary "bah", but I will remove it now as you request. You need to be more communicative if you want your intentions to be understood. Regarding Talk:Brenda Song, I removed your comment and a personal comment made against you in response. I only removed comments from the end of the thread. It would be helpful if personal comments made earlier in the thread were struck by editors making them, but removing them would confuse and possibly inflame the situation. Geometry guy 13:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you could ask them to do it? Anyway, let's go back to the start of this [1] - I didn't expect this edit to create such a fuss. My goal was to keep the GA reviews on one page so the next reviewer would see the previous reviews. I've seen this done before, and never observed anyone fuss about it. In fact, people often completely remove links to the older reviews so they're not linked anywhere on the talk page. That's why [2] was baffling - nothing was being removed - the exact same page was linked. While I'm here, do you have any objection to [3]? By the time of that post, I had already been punished for my misdeeds. From my perspective, MF was just being antagonistic and offensive, yet so far I haven't seen anyone take MF to task for it. Since MF has recently reiterated [4] that he doesn't find the comment objectionable, this is a live issue. Gimmetrow 14:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I imagine the editors concerned are watching this thread. I think it would be helpful if misplaced personal comments (e.g., on article talk, rather than user talk or a dispute resolution forum) were struck, but that is a decision each editor must make for themselves. In my eyes, doing so is not a loss of face, but an act of personal integrity.

It is good that you are now communicating your position, as miscommunication and misunderstanding have played a important role in escalating this dispute. Malleus' edit summary was extremely offensive, but needs to be taken in the context of an enquiry being repeatedly blanked. The end of October was a miserable period on Wikipedia, and Malleus in particular was under heavy fire from two reassessments he had been working on. However, the fact that he excuses incivility now on the grounds that other editors are just too sensitive beggars belief. Imagine if every editor had that attitude! Why not just say "I was pissed off and stressed, and responded in the heat of the moment"? It happens all the time and I would completely understand: it doesn't even involve using the word "sorry".

On the other hand, taking editors to task seldom solves anything. When editors show poor judgement, and then defend their actions in the face of criticism, they lose respect. One of my reasons for leaving the original thread on my talk page was to let other editors see just how stupid this whole dispute has been. I imagine that quite a few editors watching (not just Ling and Ohana, who commented) were unimpressed. A talk page template edit war leading to a block and multiple AN posts is a promising candidate for WP:LAME!

In contrast, acts of graciousness earn respect. Geometry guy 20:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry MF was under that much stress in late October; I didn't really know about the WQA thing until it was nearly over. Anyway, it's fairly obvious I was upset about the result of the first GA nomination, and I knew I was upset. I approached MF to resolve the conflict with Peanut4 by starting a GAR on the article, because I felt I was too upset to interact with Peanut4 or MM at that time without crossing some line that would get me blocked.[5] MF's dismissal of my request combined with the 3RR report [6] got exactly the result I was asking MF to help me avoid. That violation of my trust, and the subsequent edit warring and comments on my talk page, are the root of my complaints with MF. Things have rather spiralled from there. Ling's comment was among the best one I've seen in this affair. Gimmetrow 03:15, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Ling has a way of centering the point with humour, doesn't he?! It is gracious of you to take that criticism with (I imagine) a smile.

Concerning the lead up to the block, I'm sure you now realise that this comment was misinterpreted (not just by MF) as a suggestion that you might block Peanut4 and MM if you interacted with them. I'm sure that contributed to the spiral out of control from MF's side. On your side, I think you may have misinterpreted MF's revert of your renomination: his goal was to fix the article history, but his revert removed the nomination template at the same time: the evidence for his motives is that he did not remove the article from the nominations list. But I understand there was too much bad blood by this point, and a subsequent argument over the nominations "queue". I really hope this can now become water under the bridge, and also that Malleus returns to editing. Geometry guy 18:23, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Broader implications

Hey, wait a minute, what are all these new buttons doing on my edit bar!? But that's not why I'm here. You said, "I don't see the benefit in flooding Raul's list of potential TFAs with articles he generally ignores." Is this an argument to have fewer FAs in general, or not to pass things at FAC if we're pretty sure they're not going to make TFA? I want to make sure everyone is on the same page. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 22:56, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Well the whole distinction between FAs and TFAs is a massive problem that the community will have to address at some point: 50 new FAs per month doesn't square with 30.4 days in the month. Change at FA is very slow now, because it is a well-developed process. In the meantime there isn't a lot of point in flooding the process with vanilla format articles that will never be featured. There may be better ideas, but change only comes from presenting the facts in a provocative way. Geometry guy 23:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

That is true only if you believe that the sole purpose of FA is to act as a feeder to TFA. That certainly isn't my view. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:08, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Nor mine. Geometry guy 23:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I changed my mind this morning and decided to support the article in question, Tropical Storm Erick (2007). I posted my rationale at WT:FAC and the relevant FAC page. I'm dropping by here to make it clear that I still support your position that boring articles shouldn't be FAs. This is a special case where the larger picture, the effects of tropical storms, isn't boring at all; on the contrary, people can't stop talking about the effects of climate change in general and tropical storms in particular. If I were setting the rules for Wikipedia, I would prefer not to have FAs so "chopped up"; I'd want an FA on some popular science topic to read more like an article in Scientific American. But I don't make the rules, and WIAFA #4 in particular says (according to what I read as consensus) that we can't pull in anything "interesting" to that article if we can't tie it directly to that storm, which is not at all a rule that articles in Scientific American follow. So I've decided that I'm satisfied if there's a good argument that the broader topic is engaging, as long as the article in question is a natural part of the whole (and I don't see how you can talk about the effects of the tropical storm season without covering the tropical storms), and as long as there's a hatnote right at the top telling you where to find the "good" stuff. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 16:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

P.S. However, I agree that this one is a judgment call and I respect your opposition. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 16:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

It's okay, no need for apologetics. I am partly opposing simply to encourage discussion of the issue: FAC has been navel gazing since the summer, and concrete examples help to focus minds. I disagree that the hatnote helps, but will not be upset if the consensus goes against my view. Geometry guy 19:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Understood. Part of why I'm weighing in now is that I won't do a lot of weighing in on the FAC issues of the day when my focus shifts (very soon) to nurturing copyeditors. I'm not sure, but I think Sandy is suggesting using the language from Wikipedia:Lead_section#Link to sub-article, and I've made the edit; it now says This is a sub-article to 2007 Pacific hurricane season. Since that article uses the "main" template to point to Erick, that hatnote should have been there anyway. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, Sandy's suggestion is better, and may partially address one of my reasons for opposing. Geometry guy 20:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I saw your recent comments; I drew an inference from Mike Christie's comment on his talk page, and it has relevance to the comment you just made on poor Erick's FAC page. Feel free to join us. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:35, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Mike Christie#Interesting argument. I'll take a look. Geometry guy 20:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Math template

Thanks for setting me straight regarding the "comments" field. As I said at Template talk:Maths rating, I had completely misunderstood the purpose of the field since in the actual appearance of the template the relevant bit reads "Please also add comments to suggest improvements to the article." I had thought that this meant a general discussion on an article, like what happens at a talk page, rather than making notes about assigning rating. I think it is a good idea to modify the template code to something more explicit and informative, such as: "Please add comments regarding the assessment of the article." I am sure that I am not the only one who was completely confused by the current wording on the template and it would be really helpful to make the wording more clear. Nsk92 (talk) 02:48, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Your opinion on the new lead

Hello. I have undertaken a great reworking of the lead section of the article Homosexual Transsexual which you were good enough to review the good article status of. I have tried my best to make the leade more of a miniature of the whole article. Which is not easy to do. Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Homosexual transsexual/1 I hope that you don't feel "unprepared" for what comes in the rest of the article after reading it. :-) --Hfarmer (talk) 17:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

No it isn't easy, and that was a good effort. I've comment on the talk page. Geometry guy 22:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Cupid?

Has Geometry guy got himself a girlfriend? :) Martin 18:27, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Other than sharing extremely good taste in mathematics and usernames, we are unrelated :) Anyway, jokes aside, it's great to have another mathematics content contributor joining the project. Geometry guy 19:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I must contribute some content one of these days ;) I'll have no excuse soon, after my thesis is submitted :D Martin 19:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Good luck with that. I know how difficult the final push to complete a thesis can be, not only from my own experience! Geometry guy 20:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, a clue to your profession? Thanks for the good luck. My original (self-imposed) deadline was October, so I'm a bit behind :) To be honest, although I can be bold in some respects (as you saw), I have lacked the confidence to do much with the mathematics articles. I've always assumed that other contributors would know more than me, or perhaps mroe importantly, I've felt that I lack a broad enough knowledge to write about any topic in a way that covers it fairly. I work in geometric group theory, and the only math article I've ever created is Link (geometry), still a pathetic unsourced stub :( Martin 08:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's not a secret, but I don't like to edit from authority, so I don't make a big deal about it. I encourage you to be bold in article space: that's the place where being bold is really important. Geometric group theory is very listy: pretty much any edit you make will probably improve it! And please add a source to Link (geometry)! Even if the article is stubby, at least readers will be able to find out more from the source. Geometry guy 18:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

GA reviews

There are currently 284 GA nominations that need to be closed, 226 of which have not even been reviewed yet. If the reviewer personally wants to give contributors more time, that is completely up to them (take note of Talk:José Martí which i skipped because the reviewer had specifically said he would hold it indefinitely as long as he saw people working on it). the fact that some people nominate articles for GA when the review comes back with loads of ref, MOS, and OR issues is one reason we have such a backlog, another reason is reviewers who forget about their reviewed articles. I'm just trying to help expedite the process by recommending articles are failed for now because they have exceeded the normal seven days by quite a bit, and they should really just be removed the list as fails. There's nothing stopping people from renominating it, and i hope that they do! I'm also in the process of placing articles on hold that have already been reviewed, and gently reminding users who have yet to review an article they said that they would - I want Wikipedia to have good articles as fast as possible, and i don't really see anything negative about trying to encourage that. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 21:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

You don't need to tell me about GAN statistics. I maintain graphs of them. However, your good faith efforts are based on the notion that there is a corpus of professional reviewers, and that once they complete one review, they will move on to another. That isn't the case: many GAN reviewers just saw an article that interested them and decided to review it. They are not going to move onto another GAN once they are done. Also, these reviewers are more likely to be the ones that favour long holds, because it is the article that interests them, not the backlog. So your remarks are just discouraging the occasional reviewer, not, as you seem to believe, encouraging regular GAN reviewers to be more efficient.

Such action, however well-intentioned, has the potential to reduce the size of the reviewing community, hence increase the backlog, not reduce it. Geometry guy 21:11, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

oddly enough, i left no note on your page, so i don't see how you can attest to knowing how everyone would feel about the messages, and my efforts are not b/c i think there's a bunch of professional reviewers. sheesh, so far any reactions from the people actually involved have been positive or neutral, and i don't really need to defend myself. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 22:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

You don't need to "defend" yourself. You have done nothing wrong, and Wikipedia is not a battleground. Geometry guy 22:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

your actions of wikistalking, telling people to ignore me makes me a little defensive, sorry. and perhaps the phrase "defend myself" was inapt - rather "defend my actions". and i'll point out that the day after my note, No Mercy (2007) was promoted to GA. rather than reacting to some imagined threat, you should look at the consequences of my actions and judge them based on that. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 02:09, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend you to be careful with the word "wikistalking", which involves following a contributor to unrelated issues, usually over an extended period. Editors may take offense at the label. I was not imagining a "threat", merely recommending that reviewers use their own judgement. However, I accept your apology. Your advice was well meant, and if some good has come of it, I am happy about that. Geometry guy 21:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Who Would Have Thought It?

Hi Geometry guy! Thanks again for your support and quick responses (especially to that note!) I need a little of your expertise with our themes section. They seem to overlap and Sanchez and Pita say that class, gender and race are interconnected. How do you think I should address this? Should I remove the headings for class, gender and race, combine them and say how they complicate the construction of identity? Thanks again. --Nicolecruz (talk) 07:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

This isn't my area of expertise, but I have the impression that Ruiz de Burton uses race and class in very similar ways (e.g. the changes in Lola's skin colour reflecting her position in society), but that gender raises other issues. I suggest you combine the sections on class and race into one ("Race and class", say) and keep the gender section separate. A sentence in the gender section (or the class and race section) would suffice to highlight the overlap. Geometry guy 17:56, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou

Thankyou for your help in relation to the article Homosexual transsexual. The article will stabilize in time and it will be better because of things you pointed out. I don't know about that book cover needing to have a fair use rationale. It's a picture I took myself of a book that I own, then cropped out the background so that it would look good. The copyrighted, on the publishers website of that book cover, whic is what's online, does not have the cover blurbs. Other than that I totally accept everything you said about the article. Thankyou again. --Hfarmer (talk) 05:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The copyright of the book cover is almost certainly with the publishers, and your photograph is a "photographic reproduction" of that. Copyright law does not require a declaration of copyright.

However, this is a footnote. The main message I want to convey is that reliable sources have a point of view, and Wikipedia should not endorse or synthesise them into an argument. Neither should it dismiss them. I hope you and Jokestress (and others) will find a happy middle ground.

Malkinann is a very helpful editor who is doing an excellent mediation job (better than the informal mediation in my view). I will keep the page watchlisted so that I can support that effort where I can. Geometry guy 19:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

AP Biology Project

Endomembrane system. I am rather pleased with this ones efforts. If you note the original article that he inherited and what is there now - it is really most remarkable. The weakness will likely be citations; as is typically the case; however not too bad for a 14 year old. Despite the fact that the class is undergoing "natural selection"; the end product should be a fairly dedicated group. I'm hoping to see the reamining few rise up to their potential. --JimmyButler (talk) 16:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree. This is one I've edited, and I will look again at it soon. Geometry guy 19:41, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Me again

Almost every tug-of-war I've ended up in at GA started with me trying to fix an articlehistory error, so when I see one that I don't understand and that I've already fixed once, I'd rather not fix it the second time. This is showing up in the articlehistory error cat; what's triggering the error is only the incorrect topic, but since it looks like something tricky is going on there, I hestitate to alter it a second time. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Fixed by Gimmetrow. I've added "sports and recreation" and "sport and recreation" as synonyms to Template:GA/Topic. That should give the servers something to do in a quiet moment :-) Geometry guy 21:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

IP block exempt

Is it at all possible that you could grant me an IP block exempt rights I do most of my editing at my high school during my study hall and any other free time I have. And the school's ip address commonly gets blocked for ip and account aka hard block log in which blocks me from editing also. Anyway I was just wondering if you could grant me the right. Thanks. Hda3ku (talk) 19:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

See WP:IPBE. What is the IP address? Is it currently hard blocked? Geometry guy 19:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

IP address is currently not hardblocked but at my school there are aproximatly 20 IP's so at one give time there is always one that is hard blocked. I also belive that my school might have non static IP's. Hda3ku (talk) 19:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

By the way I've contacted another user, Toddst1‎‎ first, but he seemed to have no experience on the subject matter so I contacted you; you seemed to have more experience. I don’t know if this is relevant or not. Hda3ku (talk) 20:22, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Where did you find my name? We normally remove IPBEs when an IP is no longer hard blocked. I can't act on this without knowing the IP range concerned. Geometry guy 20:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I found your name here Wikipedia_talk:IP_block_exemption/log im not sure of the full range but i know it always starts with 151.199 if there must be a current hard block ill comm back when there is one but it just happens at random being that the school has mutiple IP's that are possible rolling IP's but for now if you can grant me the right I guess I'll just use the secure sever to log in. Hda3ku (talk) 00:13, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Reply to your edit summaries

• [7] Ask Mattisse: [8]
• [9] Ask Jenna: [10]

Now would you care to apologize for your hurtful comments? Gimmetrow 23:39, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

But what are the rules, Gimmetrow? I have no idea how to fix the "mistakes" made by Matisse and Jenna, if I do not know what are the rules of your citation format. Since you eschew templates, there is no logical markup to help me. I just have to hope that you won't revert the edits I make. How is that a good editing environment? How is it adminly conduct to demand apologies and reparations on user talk pages, instead of explaining clearly on article talk what the formatting style of your citations actually is? Geometry guy 23:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

How is it adminly conduct to make multiple offhand disparaging remarks about a content creator, in edit summaries? Gimmetrow 00:07, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

And you wonder why conflicts with you escalate? Geometry guy 00:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's remember how this started. Jenna came to the article while defending MF, and added some dashes and nbsps. I saw what she did and added more dashes and nbsps to complete her edit, but she misread the edit and jumped on me. I pointed out she had misread it, and she responded with sarcasm. I again pointed she misread the edit, and she was even more sarcastic. Now she's doing the routine - she took a style point which was 100% and 98% consistent, and imposed what was originally 0% and 2% versions into 50-70% of the article, and left it that way for hours. Not 10 minutes after I start restoring consistency on those points, she pounced on me again, falsely portraying my edit as "reverting [her] corrections"[11] I did not, as far as I know, revert a single thing she did that could be understood as a correction. If I did, it was an oversight. All her archive.org links were still there. All her quotes around links were still there - you'll need to ask her for her logic. Her additions and corrections of publication dates were still there except for one place she added two publication dates. I did remove one deadlink template she erroneously left for a working URL, but that's it. And yet she has gone on endlessly accusing me of OWNership. Gimmetrow 00:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes I saw you took care not to revert, and only undid the changes you didn't like (e.g. the author First-Last issue and the "Accessed" vs "retrieved on" issue). That has been appreciated. However, this article does appear to be causing you undue stress and some aberations in your normally calm editing patterns. While Jennavicia has not gone on endlessly about OWNership, she is not the only editor who has this impression. The current situation is driving away good faith attempts to improve the article and help it on its way through GAN and beyond. If you react as you have been, you run the risk that no one will want to help or contribute any more, or care what happens to the article. I think that would be sad, as it is in pretty good shape now. Geometry guy 01:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Bishop–Keisler controversy

An article that you have been involved in editing, Bishop–Keisler controversy, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bishop–Keisler controversy. Thank you. Mathsci (talk) 05:39, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: Congratulations on another FA!

Thanks. I appreciate your comments at the FAC, specifically those which helped me improve the prose. –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 22:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Please let me know if I can help with prose on other articles. Geometry guy 00:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:Layout

Note that my proposed wording in my edit today includes the dreaded word "should". There's a legitimate argument (which you might champion) that this over-represents the authority of a guideline. But my feeling is that either people understand what guidelines are or they don't, and if we insist on inserting "normally" or "usually" all over the place in order to reinforce the idea that the page is not policy, then we lose the ability to have "normally" mean anything on a guidelines page. For instance, farther up on the page it says that paragraphs are "normally" prose. Well, not all paragraphs are prose, but if we qualify every sentence in every guideline, people won't be able to tell the difference between "Most paragraphs are prose, but some are lists" and "We haven't heard a persuasive argument for putting a sister site template in the text, yet. This is only a guideline, and you might come up with a good reason, and a few people disagree, but we've got rough consensus for now." - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

P.S. On the other point, I wouldn't say that I understand something deep from WP:SELFPUB SELFREF, I'd say that I want to be active in getting people to talk problems out on guidelines talk pages rather than edit-warring. If I stride in and say "boy, whoever wrote this is an idiot", then I wouldn't be helping if the "idiots" show up, and I'd be positively prohibited (as I read WP:RFPP) from wielding my mop in defense of the page if it comes to that. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The wording seems fairly reasonable to me, but I'm sympathetic with the principle. I also agree with your point about "normally" and "usually". Indeed, I think that guidelines should use as few adverbs as possible. But my view may be partly influenced by the vacuous use of "actually" in WP:SELFREF that I discovered just now :-) Geometry guy 19:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

On the PS, this was one reason I left my comments at WP:LAYOUT rather than WP:SELFREF. Geometry guy 19:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy with your responses. (Maybe this is gratuitous, but I think I would have caught on to how Wikipedia works a little faster if people would actually acknowledge when they're in agreement.) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree ;-) Geometry guy 20:05, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Rather odd

Hi Geo, could you close Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Natural family planning/1 please. It looks like it wasn't closed fully. Because of the setting's I have on my preferences, the article is labeled as still under reassessment lol. — Realist² 00:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That's the fault of whoever coded the widget. The reassessment was fully closed. However, I've built article history, which may help. Geometry guy 11:41, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah fixed, cheers Geo. — Realist² 14:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Open reviews update

I've now posted the working group proposal to WT:GAN - your eyes (and input) on its progress would be most welcome. Best regards, EyeSerene^talk 13:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Acid dissociation constant

Hey, Petergans and an anonymous IP (that is acting like a sockpuppet of Petergans) are having a dispute with me on the acid dissociation page about my recent attempts to explain the base dissociation constant. Though my prior attempts were rightfully reverted, I feel my current attempt is accurate. Even if they are not, I feel that an explanation is needed where as Petergans does not feel so. You were definitely right about having a thick skin (as you will see if you look at the edit summaries). Can you please weigh in. I want the article to be as accurate as possible.--Jorfer (talk) 15:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Believe me, I have noticed! The article is on my watchlist and I hope to be able to contribute soon. Geometry guy 18:41, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Civil War article

Hi:

The discussion is ongoing; here is the latest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Civil_War#To_Sum_Up_Answers_to_Questions_About_Misunderstandings

The responses to those points appear below that section. Several of the points I've raised have resulted in edits to the article. So I am just wondering how many corrections can be made before the Good Article status is reconsidered.

peace

98.232.243.146 (talk) 14:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)Cedwyn

I don't understand. Incremental improvement to an article is no reason to remove its GA status. Geometry guy 19:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review for Odex's actions against file-sharing

I have an article which has started its third peer review, and it could benefit from some feedback if you do have a couple of minutes to spare to review it. Thanks in advance! - Best regards, Mailer Diablo 22:56, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Peer review bot error?

Hi Geometry Guy, I am leaving a message here since Carl is traveling, but Peer Review Bot did not run today and ran at an odd time the last time it did run. I can do the SAPRs and archive by hand if need be, but hopefully the bot can be fixed / turned back on. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Neither PeerReviewBot nor VeblenBot seems to be running. I let Carl know too. Off to do the semi-transclusion trick to make PR smaller. Sigh. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

And the toolserver is down, so I can't run Carl's nifty tool for partial transclusion of peer reviews. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Mayer–Vietoris sequence

Any input you could provide to Talk:Mayer–Vietoris sequence/GA1 would be appreciated. Happy Christmas, Martin 15:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey you missed it. I have just listed it as a good article. Hope you're having a good break. Martin 08:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. I saw the review, but you did a great job, so I didn't feel the need to add anything. Geometry guy 12:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Well thanks. It wasn't too arduous, so if any more come up that you'd like me to look at, I'll be happy to. Could I also draw your attention to this discussion? Martin 15:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Noted. I will take a look tomorrow. I see also that the article is now at FAC. Geometry guy 21:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Commented. Geometry guy 18:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Children in content review processes

See User talk:SandyGeorgia#NYC meet-up video. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

RS Notice board:Commentaries on a Peer reviewed Article.....Again

Hello,

You are being informed of this topic on the reliable sources notice board because you, commented on the question the last time, or are editor of the article The Man Who Would Be Queen, or you edited a related article. This was originally raised in October 2008. This is a complex topic and hopefully you will remember what this was all about and be able to comment insightfully and help us reach a consensus. I have asked that the comments found in the archive of the original discussion be taken into account this time since I am sure those other editors will return at some point. It is my hope that these can be comprehensively settled this time. To see why This is being asked again check out Talk:The Man Who Would Be Queen.

This link is to the new request for comment on the reliable sources notice board. (You may have to scroll down to see it)

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Thankyou for your help. --Hfarmer (talk) 13:03, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Check out the last three sections

...at Wikipedia talk:Controversial articles. You've done a lot of work on WP:Words to avoid, so I thought you might be interested, since this concerns moving the "terrorism" material over to that guideline. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 18:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Commented. Geometry guy 18:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Mayer–Vietoris sequence

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mayer–Vietoris sequence

Well. Displaced that easily :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Reviewed. Geometry guy 18:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Fitting the GA into place

The WP1.0 scheme is used by most WikiProjects and is widely understood. The GA criteria fits right into it. What I am seeing is a number of editors who are jumping from Start class straight to a GA review without having considered that the article they have put forward doesn't even meet B-Class requirements. FA candidates are frowned upon if they have not already passed GA criteria, and we should be at least indicating to people that GA is a level above B-Class and articles which don't meet those requirements are unlikely to pass GA. SilkTork *^YES! 00:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

But it isn't. Don't be fooled by the stupid historical insertion of GA-Class into the Wikiproject ratings. Those that did it hate it, and GA-Class only persists because of inertia. The GA requirements are very simple: the article should comply with basic policy, and be well written, factually accurate, broad, neutral and stable, with images if appropriate. That does not require any specific compliance with WikiProject guidelines. Your proposal is a can of worms in which any WikiProject can add to the GA criteria with no accountability. You are completely wrong that FA candidates are frowned upon if they have not already passed the GA criteria. As for B-Class before GA, the question is, according to whom? Geometry guy 00:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

This is interesting. I thought that GA was integrated into the wider Wikipedia project, but you are suggesting that it is not a part of the community. Is there an advantage to GA not working with the wider community? I understand difficulties - the more people one has to deal with the trickier any project becomes - however, the whole ethos of Wikipedia is that we embrace the can of worms because we recognise the huge benefits of cooperation. SilkTork *^YES! 09:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I am suggesting no such thing. Obviously GA is integrated into the wider Wikipedia project. Indeed from the WikiProject perspective, GA is an example of the wider community. So obviously GA should and does work with the wider community. The question is how. A fundamental principle of GA is that it is a lightweight process. Incorporating 100+ WikiProject guidelines into the good article criteria is neither lightweight nor healthy. The tail should not wag the dog. WikiProject and good article assessments serve completely different purposes. The conflation of these purposes in the form of GA-Class is an unfortunate historical accident. Geometry guy 10:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

In what way would you regard an assessment of how an article achieves its aims becomes a different purpose when it gets to higher criteria? It appears to me that all assessments serve the same community wide and public purposes - a)to guide and motivate editors to create worthwhile content and b)to indicate to readers how reliable an article is. I don't see how WikiProject guidelines, the community-wide WP1.0 scheme, or GA and FA substantially differ from these purposes, certainly not enough to suggest that they are incompatible. Are there politics here that I am not aware of?

Also, I am not convinced that a significant outcome should rely upon a lightweight process. GA status matters, internally and externally. It matters rather more than WikiProject assessments precisely because there is some formal and accountable process. And I would dispute that spending several hours (or days) assessing an article, and then several days (or weeks) working with others to build the article up to standard, is a "lightweight" process. SilkTork *^YES! 13:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) please forgive the eavesdropping. :-) If you think GA isn't lightweight, you haven't seen the serial FACs of Roman Catholic Church or the marathon FAC of Samuel Johnson. Though admittedly some FAcs are far far far far more GA-ish in length and depth of comments. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 14:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(Since we're stalking Gguy's talk page...) I see GA as "lightweight" in terms of the bureaucracy involved in assessing rather than the assessment itself, which can be pretty much as rigorous as the reviewer makes it. IIRC there were some abortive proposals during the C-Class introduction debate to decouple GA entirely from the -Class assessment scheme, though if they were revisited I missed the discussion. It would make sense though; it's an unhelpful quirk of WP:ASSESS that places it between B and A when really it lies outside the scale altogether. EyeSerene^talk 17:38, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(Another stalker, this topic is getting interesting!) There are various opinions on article assessments and about how GA fits in. In my opinion, there are two possible logical conclusions to these views:

1. The assessment scale is made community-wide rather than project-specific. Wikiproject-specific criteria are abandoned (although they would still have guidelines on how to interpret the global criteria). Each article would have one quality-class and projects would have to agree on it. The GA would fit into this scale (probably between B and A).
2. Assessments are kept project-specific and GA/FA is decoupled from the scale. Each project assesses articles in their own ways; projects should not interfere with other projects' assessments of an article.

I wouldn't be able to judge accurately but opinion seems roughly 50/50 between these. I can see the merits of both and don't have any strong preference. But I think we need to decide which way we're going and stop the confused mixture ;) Martin 18:04, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:ASSESS is a community-wide assessment into which GA and FA fit, and WikiProjects make use of this scheme. Some WikiProjects have their own assessment guidelines which they blend into the WP1.0 scheme (some more successfully than others). As GA is already on the scheme, I'm not sure of the advantage of saying it isn't. Nor am I sure what benefit would be gained from making an effort now to remove it. I certainly see the benefit of the community working together for the same aim, and integrating assessment schemes together. Wikipedia:ASSESS is part of that integration. SilkTork *^YES! 18:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I perhaps expressed myself badly - what I should have said was that in practice GA lies outside the hierarchy somewhere parallel to B and A, although exactly where depends on the Wikiproject in question. Martin's assessment is spot on in my view. The second option would, I think, cause less disruption, and if GA is decoupled it makes sense that FA should be too, as the only two community-wide review processes in the scale. I believe part of the problem is that FA would rest naturally at the top of whatever scale we cared to devise, whereas fitting GA into a strict hierarchy is difficult because Wikiproject assessments aren't consistent. EyeSerene^talk 18:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec with edit below) "Difficult" is not a genuine reason for not doing something. And your comments are more indicative of a need to look at creating consistency. Removing GA from the WP1.0 scheme wouldn't help that consistency but would encourage greater inconsistency. I've yet to hear any genuine reason why GA should not be part of a community wide assessment scheme (or rather why it shouldn't be acknowledged as being part of the scheme - it is already part of the scheme). I think, also, that there is some misunderstanding of the term "community-wide" if you feel that FA and GA are community-wide reviews while the other assessments on the scheme are not. All assessments are equally open to the whole community. GA and FA have a more formal structure, and some projects have assessment teams, but all assessments up to GA can be done by any single member of the community as far as I am aware. SilkTork *^YES! 21:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

GA was never in the WP1.0 scheme, so it doesn't need to be removed. GA-Class is in the scheme, but it currently means "Good articles which are not A-Class", which is a pretty rubbish class descriptor of anything. Most of your other questions may well be answered by my earlier post below. Geometry guy 22:05, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Where are you getting "Good articles which are not A-Class" from? That's not what I read: Wikipedia:ASSESS#Grades. SilkTork *^YES! 22:15, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

That is because, I'm shocked to discover, HappyMelon staged a coup in June 2008. Look at the prior version. Geometry guy 22:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Lol, I hadn't noticed that either :O As I see it, the deceptively simple linear layout of the current assessment hierarchy implies that there is a consistent graduated quality ladder all the way from Stub-Start-C-B-GA-FA, with each step on the ladder leading to a corresponding incremental improvement in article quality. I think we all know that, in practice, there's nothing of the kind. I agree that ideally such a thing might be desirable, but I also think that making it so across the encyclopedia would be like trying to herd cats. It would mean preventing the various Wikiprojects from using their own variations on the scale and their own assessment methods, and also significantly rewriting the assessment criteria for some of the steps (since as Gguy says, GA and project assessments generally look for different things). To take two examples, for pragmatic reasons at Milhist we haven't adopted C-Class at all, and the Maths Wikiproject has no C but a pre-existing B+ rating. Regarding 'community-wide' assessments, all that means is that GA and FA are assessed by editors from outside the Wikiproject assessment system so are awarded by the 'community' rather than the project. EyeSerene^talk 22:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I've fixed it. Please, interest editors, improve my fix if necessary and watchlist Template:Grading_scheme. Geometry guy 22:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Destalking is always welcome at User talk:G'guy. Indeed all contributions are welcome. Here are mine.

• In any corner of Wikipedia, those who believe in its benefit to the encyclopedia naturally want to extend its influence. This is true of FA, GA, WP1.0, active WikiProjects, and other places. The assertion that WP1.0 is "a community-wide assessment into which GA and FA fit" is a statement that several editors at WP1.0 want to advance, because they believe in the value of such a community-wide assessment. However, such views do not represent any kind of broad consensus. What you see at WP:ASSESS is the consensus of editors at WP:ASSESS, nothing more.
• What WikiProjects have done is to take the basic Stub-Start-B-A structure (as it was) and adapt it to their needs. WikiProject ratings are a mechanism for WikiProjects to track progress. They focus on content improvement, because that is what WikiProjects are most interested in and is what they do best. By contrast, GA is a quality control mechanism, which focuses on policy-compliance and style. I have worked extensively with both, assessing thousands of mathematics articles, and contributing to hundreds of GARs, so I do know what I am talking about.
• GA is lightweight because it only requires one nominator and one reviewer, and the criteria are extremely simple. The article should be well written and structured, verifiable, broad, neutral and stable, with images where appropriate. In short, the article does a decent service to readers and complies with policy. That isn't rocket science. I rail against the idea that "GA is a big deal" on every occasion. It isn't. Let me repeat my argument (well this is my talk page :-)
  • There are over 2.5 million articles on Wikipedia. At most 10000 are good or featured (about 0.4%). Most of the rest do not even comply with policy. GA is the only community wide process that stands a chance of addressing this before the third millenium. The number of FAs increases by about 50 per month, a growth rate which has been static for almost a year. GA growth is growing approximately linearly. I attribute this to the fact that the one-on-one process means that reviewer numbers grow with article growth. And I've made graphs to prove it.
  • To every editor who says "Some GAs are crap", I would say, "1. Delist them" and "2. Do something about the other 2.5 million even more crap articles".

Chalk is my favourite writing instrument to deliver lectures; cheese is my favourite food to wind down with of an evening. I wouldn't eat chalk, or write my lectures using cheese. WikiProject assessments and GA are just like that.

The current blend of chalk and cheese is a mess. We get "this article can't be a GA because it isn't even B-Class according to WikiProject X". Well no, if it meets the GA criteria, it is a GA. Meanwhile, WP1.0 tries to adapt its scheme to fit GA somewhere between B and FA, but WikiProjects need to be able to rate articles as A-Class without going through GA, because A-Class is their ultimate content-check. Consequently when a reviewer delists an A-Class GA, they have no idea whether to demote it to B-Class or not.

Almost every democratic nation in the world has separation of powers, often several, and for good reason. Why can't we separate WikiProject and community assessments?

To Martin, I say good luck. I have tried to promote the second of your two options (in agreement with EyeSerene), but without success so far. Even a more recent proposal to redefine GA-Class to mean "B-Class + good article status" (so that it can be explained easily to GA reviewers what to do when they list or delist an article: change B to GA or GA to B and ignore everything else) was stonewalled.

Much as I love both GA and WikiProject assessments, in the current climate, as long as I have influence, I will oppose any attempt to merge them. I don't fancy having chalk for dinner or writing my lectures with cheese. Geometry guy 21:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I've long held the view that there are several orthogonal review schemes. Projects use the stub-start-B-C-A scheme, and each can decide what the criteria are for each level. GA, as an indepent review process is entirely separate from that, and doesn't necessarily fit between B and A, or A and FA, as is the conventional wisdom. Hence, whenever I've delisted a GA I've never altered the project ratings. Perhaps even more radically, I don't even see FA as necessarily being the pinnacle of the assessment scheme. It is quite possible for an A class article, for instance, to be at least as representative of wikipedia's best work as an FA. All that FA means is that the article has been through the FA assessment process, so that too is an entirely separate process from that used by projects. In other words, Martin's second suggestion above is exactly what I believe the present situation to be. The CD assessment rankings just muddy the water to no benefit. --Malleus Fatuorum 22:38, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(to Geometry guy)

• "What you see at WP:ASSESS is the consensus of editors at WP:ASSESS, nothing more." Is there history of discussion on this topic between GA and WP:ASSESS? If so, would you be able to point me to it?
• "They focus on content improvement, because that is what WikiProjects are most interested in and is what they do best. By contrast, GA is a quality control mechanism, which focuses on policy-compliance and style." That's not my reading of Wikipedia:ASSESS#Grades. I see the same aim throughout the scheme. I'd be interested in your analysis of where you feel the criteria indicate the difference in aims that you suggest. I see awareness of policy and style throughout the criteria. Example from Start-class criteria: "the article should satisfy fundamental content policies such as notability and BLP, and provide enough sources to establish verifiability.; example from C-class criteria: "need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research."
• "I rail against the idea that "GA is a big deal" on every occasion." My wording was "significant outcome" and that "GA status matters, internally and externally." People do consider GA status significant. Some people put green discs on their user pages for every GA they have been involved with. And a perspective would be drawn by a casual reader that an article which has been through a formal and accountable process, the record of which is attached to the article, has some kind of significance - otherwise why the accountability record? I acknowledge that you don't like this significance. But you personally not liking the significance will not make it diminish for others.
• "GA is the only community wide process that stands a chance of addressing this before the third millenium." I like that you are passionate about the project that you involved in, but I think you need to acknowledge that GA is not the only project that is attempting to improve Wikipedia.
• "To every editor who says "Some GAs are crap", I would say, "1. Delist them" and "2. Do something about the other 2.5 million even more crap articles"." I agree.
• "The current blend of chalk and cheese is a mess." I'm not seeing where the aims of improving articles is a mess and where there is a such a chalk and cheese difference. Be helpful at this stage, as I am willing to help out where I can, if you could point me to specifics.
• "as long as I have influence, I will oppose any attempt to merge them" I have got very strongly your personal feelings on this issue. What is not clear is why. I'm aware that I may be asking a bit much, but I am genuinely perplexed by your reaction to my edit to Wikipedia:Good article criteria, and in all the words spent on your talkpage I'm still no clearer to understanding your reasons. Are there discussions on this that you can point me to? I've found evidence of where you have worked together with the 1.0 Editorial Team in order to reach a consensus on categories, but not yet of the matter we are discussing. SilkTork *^YES! 23:18, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I would be happy to answer these comments, but it will take some work to dig through the archives. Meanwhile there is a good article reassessment which would benefit from some work on your part. Geometry guy 23:36, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(to Malleus_Fatuorum)

I had to look up "orthogonal" - and I'm still not sure of what you are saying. Like Geometry guy's assertions on the topic, I've yet to understand the reasoning behind why people feel that GA has a different assessment aim. I see all the assessment aims as being the same - to assist in the building of the articles by giving editors guidance on how to improve an article, and motivation to do the work needed; and to give readers of the article some indication of the reliability and quality of the article. GA and WP1.0 assess the same thing - content, style, presentation, policy, verification. How are they different? And please guys, don't assert "They are" - be nice to have some arguments to discuss! SilkTork *^YES! 23:30, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

WP1.0 doesn't assess anything so far as I'm aware, relying largely on wikiprojects to assign the stub-start-C-B-A ratings and the GA/FA projects to assign those rankings. But the overwhelming majority of wikiprojects are not geared up to carry out consistent reviews, like MilHist does, so project rankings are usually arbitrarily assigned. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, because FA and GA are available to give independent reviews against community agreed standards. That's what I mean by othogonal, the separate strands have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and are in no way related or connected. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:43, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

In an attempt at greater clarity, my view is that an article has (at least) two separate ratings, not one as WP1.0 suggests. In other words, an article can be a B and a GA simultaneously, or a C and and an FA simultaneously, for instance. FA doesn't necessarily sit above A, or vice versa, because they inhabit different dimensions. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:49, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I think both proposals (enforce uniformity of ratings and decouple GA, FA, FL) will a nice addition to WP:PEREN. Ruslik (talk) 12:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Civility

Please review Wikipedia:Civility and consider apologizing for this edit. – SJL 18:47, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I apologize. Geometry guy 19:13, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia ought to run remedial classes explaining this civility policy, because I for one have never understood it, and I doubt I ever will. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:42, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't look uncivil, but apologies are free, never hurt and often can help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:44, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, I agree with that. I was just thinking out loud ... --Malleus Fatuorum 19:48, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

What is considered civil or incivil varies from user to user and forum to forum. I have never quoted WP:Civility at any user, and never intend to for that reason. My remark was made in a highly contested !vote on a binary choice about an issue (flagged revisions) with many subtleties (they can be used in many ways!). It may or may not have been incivil, but SJL found it so, and as Sandy points out, it never hurts to apologize. Geometry guy 20:56, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Still agreeing (you'll get bored with it soon). To paraphrase Stephen Redgrave, if you ever see me take anyone to task over the civility policy, then you have my permission to shoot me. But to play Devil's advocate, what you're really apologising for is for making another editor feel that you've been incivil, not for being incivil. Yes? Nothing wrong with that of course, but probably not what the other editor was demanding. Anyway, I'll shut up on this topic now, nothing else to say. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum 21:06, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a mind reader. I was asked to apologize for an edit, and I did. Geometry guy 21:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC)