User talk:GreenC/2020
Happy Holidays
edit-
MMXX Lunar Calendar
Have a great 2020 and thanks for your continued contributions to Wikipedia.
– 2020 is a leap year – news article.
– Background color is Classic Blue (#0F4C81), Pantone's 2020 Color of the year
A barnstar for you!
editThe Defender of the Wiki Barnstar | |
Fraud hurts us - and investors, too. Thank you for pointing that out. Bearian (talk) 14:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC) |
IAbot returning broken links again
edit[1] MBH (talk) 03:39, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
- [2] - "Last heartbeat check: 2019-11-26", this looks like when IABot added it to the database so it was not included in the list sent you checked. This is a problem, IABot will keep adding new links to its database. -- GreenC 04:50, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Busch
editWhile I understand where you're coming from, I still think the line about being shielded by wealth and name is a prejudgment. For example, the ABIV page includes a complete section on a "helicopter incident" where the subject was found completely at no fault. The only reason why the issue became relevant is because of who he is, whereas anyone else would not have been subjected to public scrutiny. Furthermore, this page continues to give unequal weight to various legal issues without proper context of his complete career, in my opinion. For example, most others don't have an entire section devoted to legal proceedings, whereas it's put under personal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drinkability ( • contribs) 18:31, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
- The problem with Busch his legal troubles and reputation for partying and alcohol/drug use are a major part of his notability (at least during his 20s-40s I think). That's not our fault and BLP is not meant to suppress legitimate stuff like this. Yes this is put under the spotlight because of who he is, but at the same time some people have said he got away with stuff because of who he is, it goes both ways. Such is the double bladed sword of fame. Anyway I will remove the reputation thing and just leave it as such about legal troubles. -- GreenC 18:57, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your attention. I'm not arguing necessarily about the inclusion. Obviously his page goes more into depth about legal situations than anything else in his long career, which is somewhat unfair. Regardless, the line you added is much improved. I think starting from a point of using the word playboy and shielded by wealth is disingenuous at best. Still, he's only had one situation that has ever made it into a court of law, of which he was acquitted at age 21. Perhaps an easier line to include would be "Busch IV's personal life has generated headlines and controversy through the years."talk
Archiving advice?
editYou seem to be pretty well versed in archiving technology, so let me ask you a question. I've been working on cleaning up the references in American Bank Note Company Printing Plant. I see that archive.org and archive.today are the two big players in the field. Is there any particular reason to pick one over the other? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:14, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Hi Roy, it is your preference :) Archive.today sometimes has archives Wayback is missing or won't archive for policy reasons. They sometimes do a better job saving pages (more accurate). Their links are a little more stable (Wayback is pretty stable just less so than Archive.today). Wayback is about 20 times the size of Archive.today in terms of number of links on Wikipedia. Wayback has institutional money and is a large organization, archive.today is mostly the work of one talented person and appears to be self-funded and hosted on AWS. They are the top 2 providers. WebCite used to be number 2 but they have stopped accepting new archive requests and is kind of falling apart from neglect so I would recommend switching any WebCite you care about - we would do it by bot but there are dangers due to content drift (data that changes depending on when it was archived, like weather or sports scores) so we won't do it by bot unless WebCite goes offline and have no choice. -- GreenC 16:34, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- GreenC, OK, thanks. I'll stick with wayback. I've often wondered why WMF doesn't run their own archiving system. Being so dependent on outside entities for such a critical function seems kind of risky, but I'm sure this has been discussed and rejected. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:44, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Totally agree re: running an archive service. I've never seen a reason for not doing it, but suspect it's mainly because they can get it for free from Wayback who they have a good relationship with (both in SF). For the non-technical person archiving seems straight-forward but when you get into the details it becomes obvious there are many problems with outsourcing and Wikipedia would be better off with an internal service. -- GreenC 16:53, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- GreenC, OK, thanks. I'll stick with wayback. I've often wondered why WMF doesn't run their own archiving system. Being so dependent on outside entities for such a critical function seems kind of risky, but I'm sure this has been discussed and rejected. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:44, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
editThe Half Barnstar | |
Could not have done it without you.
Perhaps that should have been 1 ½ barnstars! Cheers. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:14, 7 March 2020 (UTC) |
Shared bread all around. This is an interesting topic as it's the same neighborhood as Fred Rogers who came up in the Tiedtke ARS; and I spent some time in Pittsburgh as a child though do not recall the store (we were about 15 miles west of Squirrel Hill). I hope the sock is not making money from our work. -- GreenC 19:17, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- He didn't do much work. Also, I called the store and spoke to the owner. He is relatively old and not tech savie at all. I explained that I edited wikipedia and what my connection has been to the article, telling him I had helped to save the store's article, and that I expected it to be on Wikipedia's main page. I asked him to send me their clippings file. I explained that after 50 years in business there must be a lot of material that antedates the internet. He kept asking what I wanted and why. He wanted to know "what's in it for you?" I told him I was a volunteer and didn't want anything from him at all. Other than I told him clippings and help; nothing else. "Not even thanks." He grudgingly said he would turn this over to somebody else, and they might send the material. He seemed oblivious to me about Wikipedia. Anyway, I have sometimes had luck with that schtick the few times I tried it. Saving articles that are in jeopardy can be difficult. Everything is not on the internet. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 00:28, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
COI?
editConsidering your 'essay' Wikipedia:GOOGLEBOOKS, which you referred to as a reason for mass deletion of Google Books-links, I would like to ask you if you are in any way affiliated with the Internet Archive. Greetings, Eissink (talk) 17:47, 8 March 2020 (UTC).
- Eissink, did you even bother to read the user page? Nemo 18:18, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- I thought I had read it all, but know I see a small note at the very bottom, so thank you for bothering and commenting on a question that didn't address you. I doubt whether such a note warrants user's conduct and I will give it a second look, which might be – as I see on your user page – be interesting to you too. Eissink (talk) 18:29, 8 March 2020 (UTC).
- Glad you managed to read now. I didn't manage to parse the second sentence above, but there is no problem with a conflict of interest here. There is consensus for improving citations this way and it's immaterial who applies the consensus. I suggest that you focus on the merits, but if you decide to focus on users please articulate your concerns and I'll be happy to explain why there is no issue here. Nemo 19:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- If you could give me a link to the discussion that brought the consensus, I would be helped, so please do, but I wasn't addressing the change of citation only. After previous, unanswered discussion, my attention was drawn to this user (and not to you, at first) not because of the content of the citation changes only, but because of user's tone of voice especially, which appears pretty unpleasant to me. While you might think you have a reason to chaperone GreenC, I do not wish to get only answered by you, because it's not you whose conduct and tone of voice I challenge. Thanks so far. Eissink (talk) 19:41, 8 March 2020 (UTC).
- Considering the reason you're blocked on the Dutch Wikipedia, I wouldn't recommend answering such questions of yours, hence I'm providing the answers anyone could provide you. As for the consensus, it's relatively easy to find from the bot's page. Nemo 19:52, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- Maybe you would be interested in knowing, since you're so eager to bring up the totally unrelated subject, why the blocking moderators [both bureaucrats also] have now both left the Dutch Wikipedia. If you are capable of finding out, which I doubt, you might regret your remarks. Thanks for relatively easy linking to the bot's page. Eissink (talk) 19:58, 8 March 2020 (UTC).
- Considering the reason you're blocked on the Dutch Wikipedia, I wouldn't recommend answering such questions of yours, hence I'm providing the answers anyone could provide you. As for the consensus, it's relatively easy to find from the bot's page. Nemo 19:52, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- If you could give me a link to the discussion that brought the consensus, I would be helped, so please do, but I wasn't addressing the change of citation only. After previous, unanswered discussion, my attention was drawn to this user (and not to you, at first) not because of the content of the citation changes only, but because of user's tone of voice especially, which appears pretty unpleasant to me. While you might think you have a reason to chaperone GreenC, I do not wish to get only answered by you, because it's not you whose conduct and tone of voice I challenge. Thanks so far. Eissink (talk) 19:41, 8 March 2020 (UTC).
- Glad you managed to read now. I didn't manage to parse the second sentence above, but there is no problem with a conflict of interest here. There is consensus for improving citations this way and it's immaterial who applies the consensus. I suggest that you focus on the merits, but if you decide to focus on users please articulate your concerns and I'll be happy to explain why there is no issue here. Nemo 19:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
- I thought I had read it all, but know I see a small note at the very bottom, so thank you for bothering and commenting on a question that didn't address you. I doubt whether such a note warrants user's conduct and I will give it a second look, which might be – as I see on your user page – be interesting to you too. Eissink (talk) 18:29, 8 March 2020 (UTC).
GreenC, on your User page you mention that you have been paid by Internet Archive, which is past tense, and I like to know if you are still being paid by Internet Archive. Eissink (talk) 19:41, 8 March 2020 (UTC).
- Since you refuse to answer my questions here, I will unfollow this page and widen the discussion elsewhere. Eissink (talk) 20:25, 8 March 2020 (UTC).
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. at any time by removing the
Thank you
editThank you for your part in keeping Kids Help Line from being deleted back in 2013. I was pleasantly surprised, many years later to have not only created this page, but also to see it has flourished :) [1] Yynatago (talk) 23:57, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
- Yynatago, thank you for the thank you! Glad it has worked out thus far. -- GreenC 13:01, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
IA Bot
editHello there, GreenC!
I randomly stumbled on your user by checking some discussions on link archiving out of curiosity. Your user page seemed to follow the model of what I jokingly call "pages from the times of the beginning", with essays and what not and indeed your userbox seemed to confirm that. I was surprised to see an active member from more than 15 years ago so I take my hat to you for that. :P :)
Besides the common salutation, I wanted to know if you can operate the IA Bot. I'm an admin at SqWiki and I'm the only person I deal with everything citations-related on our community. I look after the CS1 module, its categories, link rot in general, IA Bot and its contributions. In the last couple of months I've been reporting many minor bugs to Cyber about IA Bot but he doesn't have enough time to address them. Maybe you can help? :/ The two main problems we're dealing with these days at our community regarding citations it's making the IA Bot run smoothly and make people more aware of how to use citations properly. Unfortunately the referencing process with citation templates looks far too complicated for new users and that's what halts the progress for many of them (I also deal with outreach programs). Not to mention the hassle to keep the CS1 module up to date (especially the configuration page). I've talked with Trappist the monk many times about the idea of the module to be part of the core Mediawiki software and for the updates to be handled automatically for each language and not maintained by 1 single user. I was thinking sort of the same thing about the archiving process. Wouldn't it be a better idea if Wikimedia had an internal archive and wouldn't need to rely on outsourcing and robots to fight the link rot phenomenon?
So, to recap: My question is if you can help with IA Bot but since you're an experienced user I thought maybe I could exchange some opinions for these other subjects too. :P :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 04:30, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
- Hello, wish I had some good answers but I am in the same situation with IABot waiting for help. The core is written in PhP, which I do not do (much/yet), so we are waiting for more help. Integrating user-created systems into MediaWiki is something I am not familiar with but that would probably require commitment from the Foundation to hire the staff and management, it needs full-time developers IMO. So long as things are kind of working with volunteers and sponsors like IA they might not see it as a priority, but "working" is a matter of judgement when there are some problems like you say. -- GreenC 12:59, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
- I see. Cyber is being a bit overwhelmed as I've seen. He only partly-does/postpones requests while new requests from all over the world keep piling up in his talk page. More than once I've seen requests about IA Bot being archived automatically without an answer. It happened to me 3 times in a row and even the fourth time that I stopped the auto-archiving process, I still didn't get a good solution to it. It's still there in his talk page with some other bugs that I've found since that day. This thing is really frustrating, since I know this is all volunteering but there are some things that have a sort of higher importance than the others, like the EnWiki Main Page, a biographical fact about a living person, etc. IA Bot is one of those things, being that is one of the most effective tools we have to fight link rot and it's already global. And you have nowhere to go for support regarding it... :/
- That's why I was suggesting integrating important stuff like that in the Mediawiki core. I mean, maybe I'm wrong but as far as I know, this thing has happened in the past some times with gadgets in EnWiki. The "Gadget evolution": User Script -> Gadget -> Part of MediaWiki core. But anyway... Thank you for your answer! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:42, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
Barnstar for you
editYour contributions are appreciated. | |
"A succulent Chinese meal" was well earned. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:30, 23 March 2020 (UTC) |
DYK for S.W. Randall Toyes and Giftes
editOn 29 March 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article S.W. Randall Toyes and Giftes, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that after 50 years in business, S.W. Randall Toyes and Giftes is both a landmark and a stop on "Haunted Pittsburgh" tours? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/S.W. Randall Toyes and Giftes. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, S.W. Randall Toyes and Giftes), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
My apologies
editI made the wrong selection on the "ping or no ping" question. It won't happen again. Schazjmd (talk) 16:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
- Hi, I dunno must be a miscommunication all is well here. -- GreenC 02:30, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Another request to call off your bot
editA while back your bot began making change overs from google books to those on archive.org. We had a discussion about this where I was told, "When you revert the bot it will learn and respect that and not restore the IA links", but this is not happening, at least not in the American Revolutionary War article. Since our discussion the bot has been back at least twice. Once again, there is no consensus for this and switching over to archive.org books forces the reader to stop and make an account there if he or she wishes to view a given book. Respectfully, could you keep your bot from making changes in the American Revolutionary War article? Also, out of respect for contributors, I would recommend that you first have a discussion on the Talk page of any article you would like to change over, esp on GA and FA articles. Thanx, -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
- Arg.. there was a typo in the last patch which was hot (untested). -- GreenC 22:18, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
DYK for Democracy Manifest
editOn 3 May 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Democracy Manifest, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that "Democracy Manifest" is a top Australian viral video and meme? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Democracy Manifest), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
GreenC bot again incorrectly labeling links dead
editHi GreenC,
The bot is again marking links as dead when they're not, resulting in linking old archive links (previously mentioned here). Specifically I've noticed it in this change and this change.
A202985 (talk) 05:09, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
- A202985, thank you. This is a permutation the bot was not programmed to skip (empty archiveurl but a value in url-status). It is fixed. BTW
|url-status=
is only used to indicate which order the URLs are displayed (|url=
or|archive-url=
first) so if archiveurl is empty then url-status doesn't do or mean anything it is superfluous. -- GreenC 17:06, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
GreenC_bot/Job_12
editHi. I'm hoping you can make an issue vanish, to help avoid reigniting some very ugly drama between factions.
In WP:Bot_requests/Archive_78#Population_of_Austrian_municipalities the submitting editor made a false claim of consensus that "they should be replaced by WikiData figures".
In Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/GreenC_bot_12 xaosflux notes the consensus-claim was false.
You responded it didn't seem like something that would be controversial. -- Oops.
Wikidata has been controversial to extreme levels of disruption. In merely one instance, wikidata-enthusiasts without consensus completely deleted the infobox content of 1700 articles. (Their new wikidata-infobox would then exclusively pull from wikidata.) When objections were raised and a consensus reached, the people responsible walked away and it took over half a year for other editors to repair the damage and reconstruct the infobox contents on those 1700 articles. There was open warfare, leading to an ARBCOM case. The ARBCOM result (slightly condensed):
(A) Whether and how information from Wikidata should be used on English Wikipedia is an ongoing subject of editorial disputes, and is not specifically addressed by current English Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Aspects of these disputes may include disagreements over who should decide whether and when Wikidata content should be included, the standards to be used in making those decisions, and the proper role, if any, of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) in connection with this issue. (B) ...recommends that a request for comment (RfC) be opened. (C) While the RfC is being prepared and it is pending, editors should refrain from taking any steps that might create a fait accompli situation (i.e., systematic Wikidata-related edits on English Wikipedia that would be difficult to reverse without undue effort if the RfC were to decide that a different approach should be used). (D) Standard discretionary sanctions are authorised... (for one year, now expired, but nothing has been resolved.)
That massive RFC was run, and got three-admin close. The result was 911 words of squat & good luck with the next RFC.
I'm hoping you'd be agreeable to removing the ~2100 copies of {{Austria population Wikidata}} on the basis that the other editor submitted a deceptive request for it, and that you were unaware that a systematic scale deployment of a wikidata template was inadvisable without consensus. Alsee (talk) 22:47, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
- How "deceptive"? The TfD (link) shows there was an attempt by the editor to not use Wikidata, to use local data files, but that idea literally got deleted by community consensus (the 4 people who voted). As a next step, and per the TfD recommendation, they posted a WikiData proposal at BOTREQ (link) along with the BRFA (link) in total open for review for 15 days. Xaosflux's "primary concern" (link) was there are eyes on the data, that it was in good condition (read what he says further on). No one said anything during trial runs, or during or after the production run. In the 14 months since it was done not a single person but yourself raised an issue. Look, had we been made aware of the ARBCOM "recommendation" things might have gone differently. Partly this is your (or whoever) responsibility to participate in these forums. I don't see a requirement to reverse working templates that have been in place for 14 months and that have BRFA approval, unless there is consensus for it. -- GreenC 01:26, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Sports Reference Olympics and IAB bot
editHello, I was forwarded the conversation relating to the Sports-Reference.com/Olympics site going dark. I have changed the setup, so that our server now returns 410 service gone rather than a 200 redirect. LMK if this is satifactory.
--Sforman71 (talk) 19:13, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
- Sforman71. I tested the bot on a page and it successfully detected the link as dead. The bot requires multiple passes before it decides it is dead, so it takes a while, but it will in time convert them. Enwiki is an exception, I plan on running a separate tool WaybackMedic which will complete the work quickly. The other languages as noted will take longer as they are dependent on IABot. Thanks again for your help. -- GreenC 00:38, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
- Many thanks GreenC for working on this. Do you have an update on progress - IE how many more pages to fix? Thanks again. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 12:52, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
- It's done I'll post an update on WP:URLREQ -- GreenC 12:57, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
- Many thanks GreenC for working on this. Do you have an update on progress - IE how many more pages to fix? Thanks again. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 12:52, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
- Wow! Incredible. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:02, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
- It was a lot the bot was doing 75+ edits a minute for long stretches. This is the easier part, harder to switch to a new site. Hopefully the switch will only need to be be done once, recall seeing they may switch twice. -- GreenC 13:12, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
- Wow! Incredible. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:02, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
Automatically update
editHello. I am from kkwiki. Can you update these statistics: Template:Wikipedia rank by size and :kk:this template. Best regards --Arystanbek (talk) 15:48, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
"Projekt Gutenberg-DE" listed at Redirects for discussion
editA discussion is taking place to address the redirect Projekt Gutenberg-DE. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 June 7#Projekt Gutenberg-DE until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Wikiacc (¶) 21:40, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Warn vandals
editThanks for reverting that vandalism on Meghan McCain, but in the future, please use the appropriate warning template on the user's talk page. Especially in cases like that, as that vandalism is a serious BLP violation that I used revision deletion on. Sometimes, one warning will deter future vandalism. In other cases, it makes it easier for us admins to block them. Thanks. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:00, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Your thread has been archived
editHi GreenC! The thread you created at the Wikipedia:Teahouse,
|
Backlinks?
editHi GreenC! I've been enjoying receiving the Backlinks emails and fixing a bunch of articles every day. I did not receive any email yesterday or today, so I'm just stopping by to see if it's still running. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 15:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
- GoingBatty, d'oh. I accidentally commented it out of the crontab, it was next to something else I thought was related. Fixed, new emails should arrive shortly. Thanks for letting me know, crontab is rock solid, a stoppage would be unusual. -- GreenC 15:39, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
- Emails received - thank you! GoingBatty (talk) 15:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Hi again! Today, I received 26 emails (one for each link), and each one stated something like this (numbers between 1200 and 1206):
Backlinks Watchlist ------------------------------ 1204 new backlinks for Blackberry Additions over 100 List not sent in email nor added to /data/project/botwikiawk/bw/Blackberry.add To see changes: grep -vxF -f '/data/project/botwikiawk/bw/Blackberry.old' -- '/data/project/botwikiawk/bw/Blackberry.new'
I'm struggling to believe that there were about the same amount of new backlinks for every item on User:GoingBatty/Backlinks. Any idea what happened? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 22:11, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
- @GoingBatty: Do not know what happened, but the bad data is now cleared out and it will run as normal next time. I was able to capture some diffs from today, and will post them to your talk page. I increased Maxlag on the theory there are API problems due to server load, and added a delay between API requests. Should intermittent bad data happen again, it is self-correcting and will clear out on its own after receiving two more rounds of good data, but it's still good to have a report so I can try to figure out what happened. -- GreenC 00:13, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Your bot on Commons
editHi, GreenC. Your bot uses an outdated language code when updating c:Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab. It uses be-x-old.wikipedia
(which is now redirected) instead of be-tarask.wikipedia
(line 729 of c:Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab). This statistics is called by m:Module:NUMBEROF/data and used on m:Wikipedia article depth/Table which displays that be-tarask Wikipedia has a depth of zero and number of articles -1. Could you, please, update the bot code to solve this issue? Thank you. --Meno25 (talk) 06:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
- Meno25, fixed. -- GreenC 14:30, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
- m:Wikipedia article depth/Table is still displaying -1 but NUMBEROF is working
{{NUMBEROF|articles|be-tarask}}
= 87924 .. table might require a purge. -- GreenC 14:42, 21 June 2020 (UTC)- Purged now working. -- GreenC 14:45, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:LDS
editTemplate:LDS has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page.
100 thousandth edit
edit[3]. This is 100,001. -- GreenC 18:26, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
100,000th edit!
edit100,000th edit award | |
Let me be the first to congratulate you on your 100,000th edit! You are now entitled to place the 100,000 Edit Star on your bling page! or you could choose to display the {{User 100,000 edits}} user box. Or both! Thanks for all your work at the 'pedia! Cheers, — MarnetteD|Talk 18:30, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
|
- MarnetteD: Cool yay! :) -- GreenC 18:35, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
- You are most welcome GC!!! MarnetteD|Talk 18:54, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
Mistakes
editYou fix my mistakes so many times, for which I am very grateful. Thanks so much for your help! Jacona (talk) 13:04, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
Jacona , this is an important thing. Don't make misteaks! LOL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.100.139.52 (talk) 09:06, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Because you have contributed to the {{LDS}} template in the past, I just wanted to give you a quick heads up that I have proposed a revamp of the template to use the Wikisource versions of LDS scriptures as its default source. Any feedback you may have would be welcome as part of that discussion. Thank you. ― biggins (talk) 23:31, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
Precious anniversary
editFour years! |
---|
Cheers!
editAs promised. Thanks for your work on Abner-Drury Brewery—much appreciated. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 16:45, 4 August 2020 (UTC) |
You've got mail!
editIt may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. at any time by removing the
Merge?
editYou deleted the "New Republic" section cuz it was redundant. Which is true, which is why there's a merge proposal current. --Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 16:10, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
- I don't know what you refer to. -- GreenC 16:12, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
- Sorry, should have specified the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Guo_Wengui&diff=974043766&oldid=974043512 Not that big a deal, but kinda bad form. --Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 18:26, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
- Oh yeah, it duplicates material already elsewhere in the article, and the separate section gives it more WEIGHT than it really should have imo. But I see what you mean about the merge, I didn't read that discussion and should have. -- GreenC 18:31, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
- NBD. I do sympathize with your desire to get rid of cruft like this. But some cruft is just too popular. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 00:09, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
- Oh yeah, it duplicates material already elsewhere in the article, and the separate section gives it more WEIGHT than it really should have imo. But I see what you mean about the merge, I didn't read that discussion and should have. -- GreenC 18:31, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
- Sorry, should have specified the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Guo_Wengui&diff=974043766&oldid=974043512 Not that big a deal, but kinda bad form. --Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 18:26, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
Dahmer
editI have added the information into the article, as a note, GreenC. Cut a long story short, I neglected to mention that, where I live, I cannot access New York Times articles, so have had to trust the content you added in the talk page on April 29. A quick check of the content I added, and how it chimes with the two sources, would be appreciated. Best regards,--Kieronoldham (talk) 22:08, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
I just realized that this module is linking to the wrong hebcal.com page from citations in Rosh Hashanah. Can you help? --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 03:16, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
- @Coffeeandcrumbs: Fixed. -- GreenC 03:22, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
- Funny, I had just found it but you beat me to it. This is an amazing module! I am think about how it can be integrated into WP:OTD templates such as Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/September 19, so we don't have to move the holiday to a different date each year. That is to check if Rosh Hashanah is on September 19 this year and display the link. If not, don't display it. Can it spit out the date without the citation or anything else? --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 03:35, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
- Perhaps a bot generates the holidays and dates for the entire year and posts it to a Commons Tabular file (JSON), then a Lua template displays it on the OTD page, with the option of manually adding additional via template args. And a manually editable config file (also Commons Tabular) that lists which holidays are suitable for automatic inclusion. Changes to the cfg file are monitored every X hours and if there is a change, the main tab file is re-generated which automatically cascades into every OTD page. For example if a new holiday is added to the cfg file, it will display right away on every page that uses the template including older pages (assuming it is the right date). -- GreenC 15:54, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
- BTW this is not trivial and not sure if/when I would have time, but it's a way of solving the problem. Without a new higher level template there would be problems with formatting the line and some other things. -- GreenC 16:19, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
- There is no rush. Just something I was considering to save Howcheng from some work (Howcheng, is this worth the effort?). The fact that we can choose
which holidays are suitable for automatic inclusion
is nice. - BTW, there are only 366 templates, one for each day. There are no such things as
older pages
. The same page template page used in 2019 is recycled in 2020. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 21:28, 17 September 2020 (UTC)- I assume this would have to be a Lua module or something because I don't think you could do with just templates. —howcheng {chat} 02:07, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
- There is no rush. Just something I was considering to save Howcheng from some work (Howcheng, is this worth the effort?). The fact that we can choose
- Funny, I had just found it but you beat me to it. This is an amazing module! I am think about how it can be integrated into WP:OTD templates such as Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/September 19, so we don't have to move the holiday to a different date each year. That is to check if Rosh Hashanah is on September 19 this year and display the link. If not, don't display it. Can it spit out the date without the citation or anything else? --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 03:35, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
very blantant
editCan you please explain how this doesn't violate Wikipedia rules against canvassing? Please remove the notice. Regards, TryKid [dubious – discuss] 22:34, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
- ARS is a noticeboard (project technically) about deletion discussions it is not limited to AfD. -- GreenC 22:47, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
- That is not relevant. You added a notice to a page urging its followers to !vote a certain way. It is also known how ARS members who use the page are going to vote in discussions regarding sources used on articles that are threatened with deletion. That to me seems like the definition of canvassing. I'm asking you to remove your note because it violates Wikipedia policies, not the rules of ARS noticeboard. Regards, TryKid [dubious – discuss] 22:57, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
- Not at all. The last time I posted a RSN RfC tmore people showed up !voting delete than keep. Furthermore many silent watchers follow that board who dislike ARS and !vote accordingly. Finally the people who usually participate in AfD don't normally take an interest in RSN. So don't jump to assumptions. It is risky to post there, I have no idea what will happen, but it does bring wider community attention to the debate either way which is a good thing. Also add that making a hullabaloo about it could end up creating a Streisand effect it otherwise would not have had. -- GreenC 23:04, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
- Out of an abundance of caution I removed part of the statement because you believe it urges votes in a certain direction. It states the obvious anyway and is factual. -- GreenC 23:17, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
- And this post which is also canvassing "in order to get it listed at RSP" ie. pointing readers in that direction even though there are two options that don't involve a RSP listing. Leading stuff like that is all over WP including COIN and RSN. -- GreenC 23:33, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
- Not at all. The last time I posted a RSN RfC tmore people showed up !voting delete than keep. Furthermore many silent watchers follow that board who dislike ARS and !vote accordingly. Finally the people who usually participate in AfD don't normally take an interest in RSN. So don't jump to assumptions. It is risky to post there, I have no idea what will happen, but it does bring wider community attention to the debate either way which is a good thing. Also add that making a hullabaloo about it could end up creating a Streisand effect it otherwise would not have had. -- GreenC 23:04, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
- That is not relevant. You added a notice to a page urging its followers to !vote a certain way. It is also known how ARS members who use the page are going to vote in discussions regarding sources used on articles that are threatened with deletion. That to me seems like the definition of canvassing. I'm asking you to remove your note because it violates Wikipedia policies, not the rules of ARS noticeboard. Regards, TryKid [dubious – discuss] 22:57, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
Edit: the martian (film)
editHi, I've noticed that you disagreed with my edit on the movie the martian. Adding arbitrarily a politician's opinion isn't fit to the accolade section of a movie at all. Irrelevant in a world with billions of people. There are millions of politicians on the planet, are we going to start adding their opinion about movies to the wiki as well? It just looks very amateurish and completely arbitrary. Thanks. Wikieditor1377
- The sitting President of the United States is not an arbitrary opinion or just any of millions of politicians. He's also the guy who decides how much to fund NASA the world's largest institution for exploring Mars. That I even have to say this [obvious] means we are about as far away from agreement as one can get. Also, recommend discussing this on the article talk page where others can see and participate. -- GreenC 00:02, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks, I've added to the page's talk page as well. The sitting president of the united states isn't a professional film critic. His job doesn't require any background or studies in the film industry whatsoever. Being involved with NASA's funding is an irrelevant criteria in the film criticism field. User:Wikieditor1377 01:35, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Elizabeth Holmes edit
editHi GreenC,
You suggested that one citation was not sufficient - is four citations not sufficient? This phrasing is already "out in the wild," so to speak, as mainstream media uses it frequently. There is also a TV series about her being a con artist - I am not sure what more I can do here to legitimize this. For reference, the Bernie Madoff article uses the word "fraudster" in the first sentence and he is still alive.
Feel free to continue the discussion with me here - I won't fight you on the Elizabeth Holmes article anymore until we come to some sort of consensus.
Cheers mate, Bigtrick (talk) 22:13, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
- Discuss it on the article talk page, which is ongoing. Also, Madoff was found guilty by a court of fraud - he literary is a fraudster. Holmes has been charged with fraud, but the case has not even started yet, she has not been found guilty or innocent. -- GreenC 22:23, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
Polite incivility is also incivility
edit^^ –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:34, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Calling someone names like "dishonest" is not cool. WP:AGF and recognize this stuff is highly subjective everyone has different opinions and POVs and you will often clash, but that doesn't make the other person dishonest. Once you start throwing names around it becomes a behavior problem. Stick to the content, not the person. -- GreenC 15:38, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Fair enough, but following that up with the stupid "I'd just ignore him, look at this ANI thread" is juts as uncool. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Alright you removed the fuck off, I will AGF and remove that linkage. It doesn't mean anything. -- GreenC 16:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks, and sorry for that; I was acting too impulsively there. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 16:18, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Alright you removed the fuck off, I will AGF and remove that linkage. It doesn't mean anything. -- GreenC 16:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Fair enough, but following that up with the stupid "I'd just ignore him, look at this ANI thread" is juts as uncool. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
adding resource on Barrackpore Trunk Road
editHello sir,
Your bot (GreenC bot (talk · contribs)) had added a note on this article that there is no resource on this article. But I have added some resource on that article. Please see, verify and remove the notification of unreferenced message. Even I can do that but since I'm a new editor I didn't remove that. Only an admin can remove this. I hope you understand. 🇮🇳DRCNSINDIA (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
- 🇮🇳DRCNSINDIA, I'll remove it for you, but I am not an admin, anyone can remove the banner when it becomes outdated. Or really any time they want to. -- GreenC 14:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for helping me and I will try to contribute more references on this article.🇮🇳DRCNSINDIA (talk) 07:28, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Alexa and copyright
editI've noticed now your comment on Alexa. I agree these are valid problems in general, but I doubt it's exact to write that the Alexa rankings are copyrightable: they're almost certainly copyright-ineligible per Feist. Copying them all would probably violate sui generis database rights in EU, but it's fine in USA.
Nowadays there are alternatives; for instance we could try and keep up to date on Wikidata a copy of the ranking of the top Nth websites in the Tranco list, which I've found quite useful in the past. The exact rank is less important than the order of magnitude of the rank. Nemo 08:40, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
- Well option 3 I thought is best, similar to your suggestion, no one went for it. I agree relative ranking is significant information but the community seems anti-ranking. Honestly I was surprised by the outcome of that RfC, rankings had almost no support even when used in a database. Apparently most people find rankings objectionable, probably because it assigns a sort of soft value judgement based on methods that are obscure and not objectively accurate. -- GreenC 13:56, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
- I think the reason is simply that destructive decisions are easier than constructive decisions. It's easy to decide we don't like Alexa, but much harder to decide we like something else. (The most obvious aid for an alternative, Wikidata, has its share of sworn enemies on this wiki.) Nemo 18:41, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
Remaining instances of VisualEditor.bug inquiry
editHello. I was wondering if GreenCbot could help with the remaining instances of the VisualEditor bug with cite%20note per Job 18 of your bot. Currently, there are only 100 instances of this issue in mainspace. Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 18:34, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
- MrLinkinPark333, after running the bot there are 33 left. It can't determine a fix not sure why - maybe the syntax of the mangled cite is unrecognizable or it can't find the original cite in the revisions. Suggest manual deletion as the fastest/easiest solution. -- GreenC 21:33, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
- @GreenC: Hmm. I noticed that a lot of the leftover ones are using cite notes to themselves i.e. List of prime ministers of Nepal#cite%20note-8 in List of prime ministers of Nepal. Would that make any difference? Also, yeah probably some of them have typos in them. I don't think manual deletion is the right solution here. I could go through them to see if there were any mispellings so the bot could correct them. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 21:42, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
- My memory of this code is no longer sharp, it is a messy problem is what I most remember. There are lots of exceptions and special cases. Yes, I recall those cases that reference themselves but not much beyond that. At some point the work to fix the code is not worth it because the work to find them manually is less ie. 5 hours of hard coding labor vs. 1 hour of manual searching for cites in diffs vs. 30 minutes of deleting mangled refs. I recall there were some cases that were unsolvable for reasons I no longer remember. -- GreenC 21:51, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
- @GreenC: Fair enough. In that case, I think a consensus with others should be done for what to do with the remainder 33 articles. Some like 1983 United Kingdom general election have numerous cite notes issues. I also do realize it'd be whack a mole if userspace/draftspace ones are published into mainspace without corrections. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
- My memory of this code is no longer sharp, it is a messy problem is what I most remember. There are lots of exceptions and special cases. Yes, I recall those cases that reference themselves but not much beyond that. At some point the work to fix the code is not worth it because the work to find them manually is less ie. 5 hours of hard coding labor vs. 1 hour of manual searching for cites in diffs vs. 30 minutes of deleting mangled refs. I recall there were some cases that were unsolvable for reasons I no longer remember. -- GreenC 21:51, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
- @GreenC: Hmm. I noticed that a lot of the leftover ones are using cite notes to themselves i.e. List of prime ministers of Nepal#cite%20note-8 in List of prime ministers of Nepal. Would that make any difference? Also, yeah probably some of them have typos in them. I don't think manual deletion is the right solution here. I could go through them to see if there were any mispellings so the bot could correct them. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 21:42, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
COI tag
editIt's impossible to prove definitively, but the IP address in question only edits two articles: those of Isabel Wilkerson's books. Wilkerson, the author, resides in Atlanta. The IP address is from the Atlanta area. Anamelesseditor (talk) 20:22, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
- Who knows but it is a very famous person lots of supporters and fans. -- GreenC 20:31, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 18
editNews and updates associated with user scripts from the past three months (September, October, and November 2020).
Hello everyone and welcome to the 18th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:
Scripts Submit your new/improved script here
|
|
- Twinkle has made a number of improvements, including using a change tag to identify actions made with it and automatically filing edit requests for protected XfD nominations.
- SD0001's shortdescs-in-category is now compatible with scripts modifying category listings, such as Equazcion's CatListMainTalkLinks
- GhostInTheMachine's TalkHelper2 is a newer version of their prior script, TalkHelper
- GeneralNotability's spihelper updated to 2.2.10, fixing a number of small bugs, automatically tagging globally locked socks as such in the sockpuppet template, and restoring open cases following an SPI history merge.
- Enterprisey's script-installer gadget has been updated with more internationalization of messages, as well as addition of a user preference,
window.scriptInstallerInstallTarget
to allow controlling where new scripts are to be installed.
- Enterprisey is looking for beta testers for their new section-watchlist user script. See the announcement.
- The second edition of the m:Coolest Tool Award will be taking place in December.
- Enterprisey's links-in-logs script has now been implemented as part of MediaWiki core, see gerrit:640761 and phab:T207562.
My apologies for the delayed issue. As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, help is appreciated. Stay safe, --DannyS712 (talk) 18:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
Statistics on changes to references and identifiers
editI've given a quick look at this paper:
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.03083
- Zagovora, Olga, Ulloa, Roberto, Weller, Katrin, & Flöck, Fabian. (2020). Individual Edit Histories of All References in the English Wikipedia [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3964990
Do the numbers sound legit to you? I think one of your bots at some point added more ISBNs to existing citations on its own than figure 10 claims was done by all users combined, didn't it? Nemo 18:56, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- I'm tracking citation additions at xCite and for example
{{cite journal}}
increased by about 6 thousand in one week, or 24k a month. If half contained a DID that would be 12k which is the ballpark of the highest peaks in Figure 10. I suspect it's more than half. And that is just journals. So, I think you are right it is undercounting, maybe by a lot based on given information. -- GreenC 22:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Liking Your User Page with Old and Historic Books - Sustainability?
editHello GreenC, I liked seeing your very unique User Page with historic books, as a endeavoring and failing bibliographer. Sustainability mentioned as you like and announce. Peace, 'Roy'Robert Jan van de Hoek (talk) 17:11, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
I updated the rename request to use the original title as per your comments. Please review the new request and update your vote accordingly. Octoberwoodland (talk) 22:41, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Alphabet sorting
editThank you for helping me with this sort things! It is indeed helpful. CyberTroopers (talk) 07:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- You are welcome. -- GreenC 15:06, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 19
editNews and updates associated with user scripts from the past month (December 2020).
Hello everyone and welcome to the 19th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:
Scripts Submit your new/improved script here
|
- Voting in the m:Community Wishlist Survey 2021 is ongoing until December 21, 2020. There are 15 proposals in the "bots and gadgets" category that may be of interest.
- A script to help list discussions at WP:ANRFC (request)
- A script to allow undoing edits despite conflicting intermediary edits (request)
- ...and many more, all available at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests
- The Watchlist Expiry feature worked on by the Community Tech team has been enabled on Wikipedia. For scripts that include watching or unwatching pages, developers may want to update their code to take advantage of the new functionality. See the documentation on mediawiki.org.
- As noted in the prior issue, Enterprisey's links-in-logs script has now been implemented as part of MediaWiki core. By my count, this is his third script that was replaced by implementing the code in MediaWiki core or an extension, along with link-section-edits and abusefilter-hide-search. Additionally, his reply-link script is being converted in part to mw:Extension:DiscussionTools. Are there any other scripts that might be worth integrating directly in MediaWiki? Thoughts would be welcome at Wikipedia talk:Scripts++.
As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, help is appreciated. Stay safe, and happy holidays! --DannyS712 (talk) 00:19, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
Librivox templates
editHi there,
I'm helping fellow LibriVox volunteers clarify a couple of things about the great LV templates you created.
- There's a post in LV forums from someone who chatted with you back in 2015, which says Wikipedia has approved a project to include links to LibriVox recordings on the associated Wikipedia "book" page. [...] In fact, LibriVoxers have permission from wikipedia to link every book possible. I couldn't find a WP community discussion about this. Currently, new LV templates are added manually by LibriVoxers who generally aren't seasoned Wikipedieans. Sometimes they get reverted by over-zealous editors. Is there some standard link they can point to to demonstrate WP consensus for use of the templates?
- I chanced upon an old discussion on your talk page where you mentioned that you were adding LV templates automatically at some point. What's the status of this effort? I could potentially help with coding or running a bot for this.
Thanks. Eperoton (talk) 03:13, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- Eperoton Hi. Thanks for making contact, yes I did a lot of LV -> Wikipedia work years ago. The post 55938 is incorrect there is not a Wikipedia discussion that gives blanket approval. External links are managed by WP:EL which says in effect every link can be challenged at any time and the burden is on the person adding it to justify usage on that page. If someone removes it they are often not targeting LV but just trying to reduce the number of ELs in the page, so if you re-add it later it may be OK and if not you can explain on the talk page this is Open Source content, that Wikipedia is also Open Source, that WP gives priority to Open Source, and there are no other audio versions that are Open Source, and issues of accessibility for blind readers. Generally LV links are well accepted on Wikipedia but like anything can't be too aggressive lest it appears like spamming and occasionally might have to bend for certain users.
- Six years ago I wrote a program to map authors in the LV database with the names of author pages on Wikipedia but have not run it since. https://github.com/greencardamom/LV2WP .. this generates a CSV file which can then be fed to a bot that adds the template to the author pages thus interlinking LV with Wikipedia. The bot itself is not public, but I could make it so if you were interested. You would need an AWB account. Or you could use the mapping file as input to write and run your own bot, the challenge is to find/create the external links section and the right line within that section to insert the template. I also wrote https://github.com/greencardamom/PG2WP same purpose for Project Gutenberg. Hope this helps, feel free to ask any questions. My time right now unfortunately doesn't allow running the bot myself but I can support the code. -- GreenC 04:16, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks, that makes sense. You've got some impressive awk there. What language and framework does the bot use? Eperoton (talk) 13:42, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- Awk is a great language, and thanks for the appreciation :) The bot added external links for Internet Archive, WorldCat, LibriVox, Gutenberg, and some others. It's in two parts, the driver is tcsh which does the file I/O; the adding of the link in the article is done with a fairly short awk script which is mostly self-contained as a CLI utility. It used AWB for uploading, as an external script. There is no framework or libs. How about I post the awk portion and you can see how it works. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P13620 The file I/O of articles your choice the tcsh bot or possibly create something. -- GreenC 20:25, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- Great, thanks. I'll to start by helping to streamline the current process at LV, and will hopefully get to the bot eventually. Eperoton (talk) 03:08, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Awk is a great language, and thanks for the appreciation :) The bot added external links for Internet Archive, WorldCat, LibriVox, Gutenberg, and some others. It's in two parts, the driver is tcsh which does the file I/O; the adding of the link in the article is done with a fairly short awk script which is mostly self-contained as a CLI utility. It used AWB for uploading, as an external script. There is no framework or libs. How about I post the awk portion and you can see how it works. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P13620 The file I/O of articles your choice the tcsh bot or possibly create something. -- GreenC 20:25, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks, that makes sense. You've got some impressive awk there. What language and framework does the bot use? Eperoton (talk) 13:42, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Mass killings under communist regimes
editIn light of your comments and thoughts about List of totalitarian regimes, I am curious and would really appreciate your thoughts on Mass killings under communist regimes because they suffer similar problems. The fact some regimes have indeed been called "totalitarian" and the concept of totalitarianism has been applied to them is used as an excuse to keep the article, even though "[i]t is missing the point. Totalitarian is a matter of controversial opinion. This list is highly POV by favoring the sources that say yes, while completely ignoring sources that say otherwise."[nb 1] Similarly, this other article uses the fact that killings and excess death under Communist regimes indeed happened as an excuse to keep the article, even as it violates NPOV, original research, synthesis and weight. Just like the other, this article's main topic and scope is not clear. Is it about mass killing or excess deaths under Communist regimes? But scholars do not lump them all together (some only lump Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot; others add Kim and Ho; others add Afghanistan and others do not; there is no clear consensus) and we need a clear link, other than being Communist states, for the list; nor do they have a clear, universal terminology for the events.
In addition, we already cover all these events individually and we need a clear link, like the ideology, to not violate synthesis, but scholars and genocides experts do not see a link between communism and mass killing, and only a very selectively, sometimes fringe, few do. It violates our policies and guidelines because these individual events are not called mass killing, or mass killing under a Communist regime, in their individual articles,[nb 2] because actual experts on the country and historians of Communism do not use these terms or concepts, and in general give less simplicistic explanations. Like the article about totalitarian regimes, it consistently violates our policies and guidelines in ignoring the concept is controversial and a minority view, only discussing the proponents and in some cases even misrepresenting the proponents themselves:
- Courtois was about the equivalency between class and racial genocide, or of Communism and Nazism, and Rummel was about killings by government in general.
- Neither Rosefielde nor Valentino see a link between communism and mass killing, while Rummel see the link being totalitarianism, not communism, with the main argument being the democratic peace theory, not a Communist mass killing theory, that democratic governments engage in less killings and wars
- Neither of these authors's book's main topic was about mass killings under Communist regimes.
The fact most historians of Communism ignore the concept (even Conquest "did not write about mass killings under Communist regimes, he wrote about the Red terror, the Holodomor and the Great purge in the Soviet Union. He treated these as separate subjects and did not develop a theory of mass killings under Communist regimes. We should not put together a group of events and create an article when no one else has.")[nb 3] should be seen it is not even a notable concept, at least as structured. If historians of Communism and genocide scholars disagree, we cannot act like there is consensus on this link or that it represents the majority view; and most of the content is already present in Communist-related articles, so it is a content POV fork. My proposal is a complete rewrite, restructuring and perhaps renaming to "Victims of Communism" (this is a POV but common name, which is acceptable), with the scope and main topic being the concept, theory and narrative that 100 millions of people were killed by Communist states and that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause (small-c communism) and that communism represents the greatest threat to humanity, or is the deadliest ideology in history. This is what its proponents actually say; we would present this as a theory, not fact, and provide scholarly criticism. This would be a nice summary.
References
- ^ In general, I see most of our list articles as synthesis and uncyclopedic. I believe they would be better if written in prose, whether as standalone articles or as a subsection of an article's main topic.
- ^ The only exception may be Cambodia and the Cambodian genocide, but in this case several scholars dispute it as a Communist regime, arguing that rather than communism, it resembled fascism such as Nazism.
- ^ Another interesting quote by The Four Deuces is that "[i]t's not a different topic, it's the same topic written in neutral tone. At present, the article presents the POV of the CG/VOC interpretation that MKuCR occurred as a direct result of communist ideology. We could have an article called mass killings under fascist regimes and include the Holocaust, Ethiopia, Spain and Argentina. The reason I would not create one is not that I am pro-fascist, but I would need a source that linked them to fascist ideology. Arguments such as we have to tell people how horrible fascists aren't part of policy and all the events in such article already are described in other articles." The article similarly fails this.
Another is "I notice that no one has grouped together the genocides that were carried out by Christian nations and said 'Christians are responsible for most victims of the genocides in history including the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and the massacre of indigenous peoples. For balance, we could have an article about Muslim genocide. If you did, you would need a source that explained how genocide is a part of the Christian religion. It would meet your standard that no one could disagree over what was a genocide.'
As I pointed out above and was agreed in the AfD discussions, we cannot create articles that group unconnected events. We need to establish why why these events are connected using reliable sources. For example, the Holocaust and genocide against indigenous peoples in the U.S. were carried out by Christians. But if we want an article called Christian genocide, we need sources that draw the connection and explain the degree of acceptance in reliable sources. Otherwise it is just propaganda, listing crimes committed by Christians with the implication that Christianity is a genocidal religion. And the same applies to Islam. This is the only mass killings article that groups the killings by ideology. It could be as the VOC Memorial Foundation says, that 'Marxist socialism is the deadliest ideology in history.'
But it is not our role to promote their views, but to explain them in a neutral manner. There was a website, Jew Watch, that had sections on Jewish Communists, Jewish murderers, Jewish sexual perverts and other anti-social Jews. While all the information appeared accurate, the site was considered anti-Semitic, because it's aim was to villainize Jews by assigning collective responsibility to Jewish people for what individuals had done. In fact, we had a number of similar articles in Wikipedia, which fortunately have been deleted."
An example of how the article is synthesis is this similarly synthesised-on-purpose mockup article by Buidhe about Genocide in Muslim countries.
Davide King (talk) 16:40, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
- This is one of the more contentious topics in history. History has a number of these great contested questions. I've found a good approach for Wikipedia is to divide it into two subjects: the history, and the historiography. Examples are Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire vs. Fall of the Roman Empire. Or, Dark Ages vs. Early Middle Ages. Or, Feudalism#History vs. Feudalism#Historiography. This way you can dispassionately document the facts/multiple-POVs without falling in the trap of a single POV which can result in many disputes. -- GreenC 18:50, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
- While this is not the answer I expected (I wish you would have expressed your thoughts on whether my charge of some, or all, violations of our policies and guidelines is accurate or 'correct'), I really appreciate you for taking the time to read and answer my comment. That is a good solution and proposal but I do not think this solves the issues. The problem is that article is not about historiography, we already have Soviet and Communist studies, Sovietology, etc. for it. The main topic should be about the concept/theory/narrative of "Victims of Communism" because that is a notable topic that can actually be written respecting our policies and guidelines.
- As things stand, the article is a synthesis and content fork of the events, which we already cover individually (not calling them mass killing or a mass killing under one Communist regime) and the link that connects them is not clear, the same way it would be synthesis Mass killings under capitalist regimes and/or Mass killings under fascist regimes. Yet, only for Communist regimes do we do that and misrepresent sources in doing so. Davide King (talk) 01:56, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
- This is one of the more contentious topics in history. History has a number of these great contested questions. I've found a good approach for Wikipedia is to divide it into two subjects: the history, and the historiography. Examples are Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire vs. Fall of the Roman Empire. Or, Dark Ages vs. Early Middle Ages. Or, Feudalism#History vs. Feudalism#Historiography. This way you can dispassionately document the facts/multiple-POVs without falling in the trap of a single POV which can result in many disputes. -- GreenC 18:50, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Happy New Year!
editThanks for your contributions to Wikipedia, and a Happy New Year to you and yours! North America1000 05:44, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
- – Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year}} to user talk pages.