User talk:Gun Powder Ma/Misuse of sources

Invention of escapement mechanism in rotating wheel

There are three volumes of Roshdi Rashed & Régis Morelon, Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, so the problem is probably that the citation's volume number is wrong and should be given as volume 3, rather than 2. I can check this later this week if you want.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 16:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Never mind. You are right that it needs anyway more of more recent cases. But if the practices continues, and a couple of users provide 5 to 10 recent diffs each, I don't see why we should not bring the case to the attention of an admin anytime soon. If we wait another half a year or so, even the current diffs will be outdated then. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Very true. I'll continue checking and see if there are any recent problems.

But given the impressive but sad list of bad edits that we have managed to dig up so far, perhaps we should write something on the editor's talk page, to let him know what we have found and asking him to take more care in future? If he then makes any further such edits, we could move on to more formal complaint channels.

In any case, many thanks for your work with this. All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 17:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. Could you do that? Given the recent discussions, I believe, a short note would be sufficient. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

As I was looking at the Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science for another purpose today, I checked the "escapement mechanism" claim.

There is also an indication that he [that is, al-Jazarī] knew of a method for controlling the speed of rotation of a wheel by an escapement of some kind. [There follows a long description of a Spanish clock from 1277 with a "mercury escapement".] This type of timepiece, however, with its effective mercury escapement, had been known in Islam since the fifth/eleventh century (vol. III, p. 792)

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 17:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Too weak a case; there is an almost unlimited wealth of problematic material elsewhere. I'd say we need to arm ourselves with 5-10 diffs each, then we can take the case to the fore. But much more important is to bring more editors onboard to join our case, just the three of us seems to me still not enough people. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Dialectric (talk · contribs) has contributed some material (see User talk:Syncategoremata and I've tried to alert a couple of other apparently sympathetic editors (e.g. dbachmann (talk · contribs)). I'm waiting to see what they might suggest.

If you know any more editors who may be able to contribute in some way, please let them know, as I'm sure you would. I'll be doing the same (after I've had a decent sleep).

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 23:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I also meant to mention that I've found a couple of problematic edits in the last month now. So we have recent material too if it comes to it. (I notice you have found some too.)

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 23:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

User:SteveMcCluskey/Misuse of sources

Hi,

I've started to dig out a few of my old problems here. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Steve, let me know when you've dug out what you have and I'll put a note on the editor's page, mentioning all three collections, if that's okay by you?

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

In looking deeper at my history with Jagged, most of his edits had reasonably clear claims, although from marginal or superseded sources. I won't have much more to add to my Misuse of sources list. I have, however, put together a listing of past incidents where Jagged's edits have been challenged. Unfortunately, that is not always productive. Witness this case where an editor criticized Jagged's edits to history of Inventions in the Islamic world and, in response, Jagged was named best participant of the month in WikiProject Islam. Oh well!

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam/Archive 7#history of Inventions in the Islamic world 23–4 January 2008
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam/Archive 7#Best participants of the month 25 January–3 February 2008

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I have found an infallible method of finding new relevant diffs. Forget your memory of past cases, just take any one of his series of edits (like these 23 subsequent edits), check some of the more dubious claims, and, voilà, you hit on misuse as certain as sunrise.

You can take a look at such strings of edits at Astronomy in medieval Islam, Inventions in the Islamic world, Islamic Golden Age or Science in medieval Islam . Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Stats

A. Is there some tool which sorts the edits of a given user by the number of edits done on individual pages? Like:

• 1. Marilyn Monroe 1000 edits
• 2. Clark Gable 500 edits
• 3. Rita Hayworth 200 edits

B. Where is that global edit counter again which lists the top contributors of WP by edits? I know there is one. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm guessing from your recent edits that you've found these tools. (I'm glad, as I'm not sure I can remember offhand.)

Your collection here is looking increasingly impressive but in a very depressing way.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 17:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I haven't found that particular one yet, but it is not that important. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• See X! edit counter and Wikichecker. Unfortunately X!'s was crippled by a "privacy concern" recently, so it doesn't work anymore unless the editor opts in. Could ask Jagged to opt in. Amazing that the guy has made 65,000 edits in articlespace. I'm real glad you guys are looking into this. My only experience is verifying someone else's observation that Jagged made absurd claims in Ancient economic thought, including the claim that Islam had introduced the "innovation of startups".,/ Whenever we want to do a RfC User (which I think is completely necessary), I'll chip in. II | (t - c) 01:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for digging those up II: I'm bookmarking them.

Unfortunately, X! says: "Sorry, but in order to consume my fair share of toolserver resources, Top Edited Articles are disabled for users with over 45000 edits." and wikichecker says: "Analysis for over 30,000 edits is not recommended."

(II: I hadn't noticed your contribution here before adding something to your talk page just now. You are obviously already aware of this.)

–Syncategoremata (talk) 09:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thx. But there is really a list somewhere, I remember the top contributor is some dude with 900,000 edits and the said user ranks among the top 100. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah! List of Wikipedians by number of edits is the one. –Syncategoremata (talk) 20:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Found A. too: [1] Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

diffs

tell me how to collect thos diffs and I´ll do it right away--Knight1993 (talk) 18:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The usual way is to go to the user page [[2]] and click on "E-mail this user". For that, you have to activate your address first in "my preferences" (top), but considering your last post, you do not seem to be overly troubled by privacy concerns anyway. ;-)) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)