User talk:Mr. Stradivarius/Archive 6

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Otto Ristorante article and Quay Restaurant addition

I am actually the writer of the web copy that i have used on Wikipedia, as i manage the media for the group that own these restaurants. if i change the wording can it not be deleted? Diorama Media (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:27, 2 March 2012 (UTC).

My Stradivarius, I am told you have removed our entry for Quay restaurant because it infringes copyright. I must correct you, as the author of the wikipedia entry to do with Quay is the author of the text on the Quay website. I am the copyright owner of the text, and I have asked Cris to create entries for both Quay and Otto. In both cases, I am the owner of the copyright material, and therefore have every right to use the text as an entry on wikipedia.

I am not very comfortable with using this system on Wikipedia, and I have no idea how to get a response from you. If I send you my email address, can everyone else see it?

Please let me know. I am contactable via the Quay contact page, my name is John and I am the General Manager of Quay and Otto.

Please contact me to explain your actions to me. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.225.43.190 (talk) 04:28, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello John and Angelica, and thanks again for getting in touch. You can send me email if you like, and I will receive it, but in general I will reply back on Wikipedia, as otherwise I would have to reveal my email address. So it's probably best to keep our communication on-wiki. I should let you know right at the start that you should give up on the idea of using text from your website. Even if you do own the copyright, and even if you go through the process to give Wikipedia permission, we still would not be able to use it in the article. This is because Wikipedia needs to be written from a neutral point of view.

Let's take a couple of sentences from Quay (restaurant) before I reverted it. Number one: "Peter’s use of texture and his exploration of nature’s diversity are key elements to his continually evolving original style." This is a nice soundbite, but what does it actually mean? If we translate this into Wikipedia-speak it would probably end up as something like "Peter cooks many different kinds of food" - just what we would expect from any restaurant. This is not to say that Peter's food isn't special, just to say that Wikipedia can't say that itself. Wikipedia can only report facts (although this does include facts about opinions).

You are really going about writing this article in the wrong way. You need to start with the sources, not with the text itself. First, I recommend gathering all the sources about the restaurants you can find that meet Wikipedia's guidelines for identifying reliable sources. Then write the article based on those, while still keeping the text neutral. I recommend using articles for creation for the next version of Otto Ristorante so that you can get more feedback before the article is created. For Quay, try posting the sources you find on the talk page, and then other editors can evaluate them. Also, you can try reading the business FAQ and the "Missing Manual" for more help. And let me know if you have any more questions. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 05:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Email is sent

Mr. Stradivarius, I have attempted to communicate with you via wikipedia, but I am not au fait enough to understand the process. I have set up an account so I can communticate directly with you in regards to my concerns.

Please respond to this email thanks Finkfilm (talk) 05:02, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

V

Hi Strad, thanks for your note. I've not been involved with V since November last year, and I don't think I want to get involved again, but I'll give it some thought so as not to hold things up for you. Thank you for taking it on, by the way. It can only benefit from a disinterested mediator giving the discussion some structure. It's very decent of you to give of your time in this way. Best, SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 06:45, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment

Hello, there. I'm working on a dispute on DRN that's turned quite messy (two threads were opened for the same dispute - I already closed one). I'm working on researching the situation so I can comment more intelligently. Your input here would be very valuable. Thanks very much. Sleddog116 (talk) 16:18, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Vyborg/Viipuri

The dispute has been left unsettled after the RfC [1]. You were suggesting that Viborg could be used as a compromise [2]. If there is no other way to resolve this then I think that name should be used. -YMB29 (talk) 16:44, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

The Gulf

No thanks, although i don't recognize the name "Persian Gulf".--Uishaki (talk) 14:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

MOTDs (This space for rent)

Hi Mr. Stradivarius, hope all is okay. You may have noticed that over the past few days (on 5–7 March) MOTD has displayed a red link or "This space for rent". Any help would be greatly appreciated! –pjoef (talk • contribs) 12:11, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Inre your WP:V mediation

Your introduction contains the following...

The tag is at the end of the sentence in the introduction that includes the text "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth", and says that this sentence is "under discussion", with a link pointing to Wikipedia talk:Verifiability.

As you are hopefully aware, that is no longer a fact as the sentence has been deleted from the introduction via persistent BRD editing, not system-wide consensus. JakeInJoisey (talk) 13:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that was true when I wrote it, but I know that the page has been edited (and full-protected) since then. Any compromise that the parties have found can always be incorporated in the mediation when the time comes - think of the mediation as the tortoise, and the BRD editing process as the hare. Mediation will get there in the end, even if BRD falls by the wayside. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 14:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Refactoring at the mediation

Hi there, according to the ground rules only the Mediator has the authority to refactor posts at liberty, yes? So please see this and aquaint us of whatever action or clarification as is necessary, this is disappointing, so far. NewbyG ( talk) 20:39, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I've left a note on User talk:Dicklyon. About the conduct issues you were writing about - I think these are important and it would help everyone involved for them to be discussed in a calm, rational way. However, the WP:V mediation is not the place to do this - the mediation is focused primarily on the content of the policy, and on the drafting process. Discussions about user conduct will only be had to the extent that they are necessary to facilitate the drafting process. If you still want to bring up these issues, then I fully support that, but I ask that you do it at a venue that is more suited to these kinds of discussions, such as WP:WQA or WP:RFC/U. Let me know if you have any questions about this.

Also, you seem to be taking a very keen interest in the mediation for someone who has said they won't be taking part. :) Are you sure you don't want to join? You will be most welcome if you change your mind. Best wishes — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 00:40, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance at the Mediation page and etc. I had made up my mind a month ago to stop editing at wp:con wp:civ, wp:npa wp:iar wp:bold and Especially at wp:V – since then my clean block log after five years has two (2) entries. I have been advised for my health to leave Wikipedia-space. I have no interest in pursuing grudges, just seeking order on the page. I cannot write for peanuts, and so would be of no use in drafting another RFC. I can only do Fix Typo stuff. Of the versions collected at Verifiability/Workshop about half are defective in basic grammar, but they mean well. The idea of a page such as user:Steven Zhang outlined, or one you might have up your sleeve is excellent. When TMBox was being worked up it was done like that, if I remember correctly. Thanks!

PS I certainly recommend keeping "perpendicularis personalis" to one per sentence. You might wish to review the four perfectly legitimate posts of mine that were improperly excised. You see, the discussion has died down, status quo is maintained by stonewalling and threats in some quarters of wikipediaspace. NewbyG ( talk) 16:51, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

PPs Discussion appears to have picked up, perhaps it will really .. with .. this many experienced users, actually exceed one million.

Here's a further suggestion : Compute a sentence (S) over pronoun (I) ratio for each post, S/I

and then award jelly-beans for each percentile below unity=1. They can even be virtual jelly-beans - Brilliant! NewbyG ( talk) 21:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Further

Hi there, I won’t be able to participate at the MediationProjectPage for personal reasons, but thank you for your invitation. I will keep the talk:Mediation on my watchlist, but only would feel able to contribute there very occasionally if at all and of course in compliance of the ground rules. The (2) insults to myself , which have been allowed to stand at the top of the talkpage make it rather difficult for me to contribute, although I requested Dicky to withdraw, his refusal to do so puts them in a bad light. Nevertheless, those Magic Words PAR for personal attack redacted at two places would be of immense service in establishing that NO users are exempt from the ground rules, and that hypocrisy will NOT be tolerated as a tactic to thwart the formation of consensus.

I request action, Please do it for me, if you see your way clear, and apply the Magic Dust to those 45 words of Dick’s. Especially since this stuff gets archived etc. And hatted and all that high-tech stuff. Thanks NewbyG ( talk) 19:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you as to the further suggestions of dispute mechanism for dealing with a problem editor, those are not an option at the present, nor I hope will they ever become necessary. Thank you for supporting wikipedia's principles, as and where they apply, which is all we can each hope to do. NewbyG ( talk) 19:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Please.

• Hi Stradivarius,I have reverted you copyedits,please discuss on talk page what is not relevant,or your style of writing is best than others?.Thanks.Justice007 (talk) 14:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

• Readded.Thanks.Justice007 (talk) 09:47, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:V Mediation

I originally pulled out of the WP:V Mediation not wanting to deal with any more acrimonious discussions, but I am so impressed with the tone of the mediation that you've fostered and the structure you've outlined, I think I'd enjoy taking part. Is that a possibility? If its too late, I understand completely.(olive (talk) 18:18, 9 March 2012 (UTC))

Thank you. I see you've re added me.(olive (talk) 00:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC))

Hope all is well with you, user:Littleolive oil. For personal reasons, it is best for me to give wikiapediaspace the swerve for now, I posted too much to talk pages and got myself into trouble, though I never edit "conflicted" on a project page, just one (1) edit there. Which IRRC is the same tally as yourself at that time, to WP:V during 13-14 February 2012, to the lead section, that is, cheers Best of luck at the mediation. NewbyG ( talk) 21:29, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Newbyguesses, and I do find it doesn't hurt to take a break every now and then. Sometimes distance gives insights we'd never have while in the thick of things, I find for myself, anyway. Best wishes.(olive (talk) 22:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC))

(edit conflict) Hello Olive! Thank you for the kind words, and yes, you are most welcome to participate. I have re-added you, and given you your own section to write your opening statement. Do you have time to agree to the ground rules (again), submit your opening statement, and submit your draft by the step two deadline of 10am (UTC) tomorrow? Let me know if you'll have difficulties submitting everything on time. Oh, and you will need to check the archives for the instructions about making an opening statement. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 00:38, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I can do it by then. Feeling like the wind has been knocked out of me on hearing Sirubenstein has died. If you can extend this until tomorrow afternoon, I would be grateful. If that doesn't work, I'll pass on my involvement. Thank you.(olive (talk) 04:15, 10 March 2012 (UTC))

Ah, I'm very sorry to hear about that. I am definitely willing to give you more time, in that case. Anyhow, it appears there has been some confusion over the date: by "tomorrow" I meant Sunday 11. And even if you can't make that, nothing is set in stone. I could extend the deadline a little, or allow you to catch up later, or to skip a step completely. I'm sure we can work something out. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^♫ 04:36, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh I see....Sunday. No problem. I can handle that.(olive (talk) 05:34, 10 March 2012 (UTC))

And thanks. Posted something in time. :O} (olive (talk) 16:06, 11 March 2012 (UTC))

Let's play rugby

Punt! Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) | DR goes to Wikimania! 00:24, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Mediated RFC listing issue

Hi, Whenaxis (now retired, his talk page says) was mediating this dispute and started a structured RFC for us at WP:Requests for comment/Indians in Afghanistan‎. This was listed on 13th February but the bot removed it on its own on 22nd February. Since then unlike expected, it has drawn a few editors only from an Indian noticeboard informed by an involved editor and editors viewing the talk page of article other than involved editors. This has been ever since an unlisted RFC and consensus with not so much input from uninvolved. Can you please fix this issue and relist the RFC with an increased time period so that community input can be acquired? --lTopGunl (talk) 17:23, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

If few comments have happened, you probably need a watch list notice. Lemme know if you want to set one up. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 20:55, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Sure, that would do as well since users from Wikiproject India have commented only other than involved users... this was aimed to get a community consensus to fix the complicated issue. Can you relist it in the RFCs and add a watchlist notice? The expiry date will have to be changed though as most of the time was lost without the RFC on a list. Thanks. --lTopGunl (talk) 21:04, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Stradivarius, I think Steven is away, can you do this? --lTopGunl (talk) 17:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry that I've been silent on this issue so far. I have just had a little look at the RfC, and it seems that there have been a few comments by outside editors, even though the majority have been from those involved. Also, I notice that the 30 day RfC period has ended. I think it would be worth asking an administrator to close the parts that can be closed, and mark as no consensus the parts that need more discussion. We can decide any further steps after that process has finished. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 03:22, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Implied preferred version

At wp:ver mediation.... Not sure how others read it but I read Andrew Lancaster's comment as saying that his preferred version is simply that one. (rather than reading it as a comment) North8000 (talk) 16:03, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree - I just thought it was a bit long considering it wasn't a draft itself, and that it didn't really fit with the "art gallery" concept I outlined. I like the new, shorter, version much better. I left a comment on Andrew Lancaster's talk page, if you haven't read it already. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 05:07, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Verifiability

I was looking at the page on verifiability. Some of the drafts were quite good but I want to offer a suggestion regarding usage and grammar. Specifically, the word "check" does not mean "do" or "find out" or "determine whether." It basically means "look." So in my own work I would never write, "One should be able to check that such and such has happened." Instead I would write, "One should be able to check and find out that such and such has happened." Or, better yet, "One should be able to confirm that such and such has happened."

The best known example of this problem (written by programmers who should have some idea of logic trees) is, "Checking if your computer has the latest version of Windows Update." OK, fine. If my computer has the latest version of Windows Update you are going to check something or other. But what are you going to do if my computer does not have the latest version of Windows Update?

Just a thought and a suggestion for building the road without potholes. kcylsnavS{^screech_harrass} 16:16, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, that's interesting, thanks for sharing it. I personally wasn't aware of that distinction before. I was curious so I had a look at the various definitions of "check" on onelook.com, and many of them include both the senses of "verify" and of "search through". Still, perhaps you're right that using "confirm" or something similar may be a better approach. In any case, it's not like I'm going to have the final say on the policy wording - I am just a facilitator, and it is the mediation participants themselves who will decide. (And then the whole lot will go to an RfC before it goes into the policy page.) If you feel strongly about this, why not become a participant in the mediation yourself? Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 05:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Wp:v

Hi and thanks for the note. i am in a rush but I would be fine with a shortened version of the post you deleted if that would be suitable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:57, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's absolutely fine. Thanks for letting me know. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 05:00, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Internet slang

Hi Mr. Stradivarius,

Thanks for your support! We are actually a group of three completing a Linguistics project by improving the Wiki page. Your timing couldn't be better. Any kind of feedback is truly appreciated as we would really like to contribute to the Wiki community, and of course, get a good grade for our project. We are all new to Wikipedia so this is our first time editing anything. Please let us know if there is any section that does not conform to Wiki guidelines, or if there is anything that could make it better.

Glammy123 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Glammy123 (talk • contribs) 14:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Cornerstone Barristers

Hi there! I'm a long-time U.S. editor in good standing and not associated with barristers in any way. I stumbled onto the deletion discussion while going through old discussions and have after a reasonable search asserted a keep outcome. I ask politely if you'd be so kind as to look at my assertion in the deletion discussion to see whether the sources I've found and the argument I've made might sway your opinion. I've taken the liberty of inviting the ip address recently improving the page to find sources which describe the chambers under the old brand name "2-3 Gray's Inn Square". No big deal if you choose not to agree with me, or even follow my request. Thanks for your efforts to improve the pedia. BusterD (talk) 16:21, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The procedure closed before I could reply, so I'll reply here. I'm mildly surprised at the keep outcome; a reasonable case could be made that insufficient consensus existed for keep. I'll confess I used some presumption, though in my opinion the sources I presented marginally reached the barrier of GNG. First, I wasn't dealing with a Magic card or a movie actor; the subject had been working in its field of endeavor for over 125 years. Second, the address is one of most prestigious locations in the field, much like Savile Row is to tailors and Wall Street is to finance. So a chambers operating out of that address for that length is not "run-of-the-mill". Next we had the book, which is of course by a connected party, but a barrister in an historic law firm doesn't pull such a book out of thin air. Without looking at the book I can presume the author used sources, some of which can be presumed to meet IRS. Then we had the presented sources themselves. Chambers and Partners isn't likely to use the kind of rhetoric it chose to use for a chambers which isn't in fact a leader in many fields of law. Put together, all of this led me toward a keep outcome. As an aside, I thought it humorous that someone in Mark Lowe's office had to go to the QC and say "our Wikipedia page is up for deletion." Apparently that editor was trying to "play it straight" when he or she started editing the page under the chambers name, then was blocked. As I said to the ip editor, it must be an awkward situation. For my part, I'll do the cleanup and find some better sources over time. I might be able to get a copy of the book from NYPL. Since IMHO the page meets NOTE and V, connected sources could be used to flesh out the page. BusterD (talk) 11:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your rationale - that sounds fair enough to me. I have to admit that I was a little surprised at the lack of sources considering the set's age, and I also thought that doing more searching might turn some up. I just like to be a stickler for the rules laid down in WP:ORG, especially when there's a chance an organization may be trying to use their Wikipedia entry for publicity (not that I'm saying that was necessarily the aim in this case). Now that we've decided that we're going to keep the article, then we can use the sources we've turned up, like The Lawyer, etc. to help us write it - no-one is claiming that those sources can't satisfy WP:V. Of course, having sources that definitively prove notability would be nice, and I would also like to have a look at that book to see what sources were used to write it. But there's nothing stopping us from having a neutral, sourced article even if we don't go that far. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 12:11, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

For fullest disclosure, I should point out this thread. As part of WikiProject:Cooperation, I've been mentoring an established editor who sometimes gets paid for his work. I know this is a sensitive issue with many editors, including myself, but I believe the next wave of improvement will be asking content experts to join the editing process. GLAM has already demonstrated the benefit of such cooperation, WP:Coop is a new phase. That said, I made my best effort of assessment on Cornerstone, not related to my mentoring. BusterD (talk) 12:36, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

New Page Triage newsletter

Hey all!

Thanks to everyone who attended our first office hours session; the logs can be found here, if you missed it, and we should be holding a second one on Thursday, 22 March 2012 at 18:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office. I hope to see you all there :).

In the meantime, I have greatly expanded the details available at Wikipedia:New Page Triage: there's a lot more info about precisely what we're planning. If you have ideas, and they aren't listed there, bring them up and I'll pass them on to the developers for consideration in the second sprint. And if you know anyone who might be interested in contributing, send them there too!

Regards, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:29, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

DRN

Is MiszaBot not archiving again on DRN [3]? Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 15:05, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to set up ClueBot III to start archiving the threads. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 15:10, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Does ClueBot III support {{DNAU}}? Because if it doesn't it would break the board pretty badly. Otherwise, yes, that sounds like a great idea. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 15:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I've done some hacking to make sure that it doesn't screw up DRN :P. So we'll see how it goes, if worse comes to worse, we'll just have to go to manual archiving. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 15:36, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Language pages in progress

Mr Stradivarius, You had visited a page that my students are working on in January and provided us with a valuable discussion opportunity regarding what can be cited and how to maintain a NPOV on Wikipedia. The students are just now moving their work onto the public pages. I will note (as I'm sure you know) that these pages are very much works in progress. Since you were earlier interested, and since I think the students would value earlier rather than later feedback about how they are doing NPOV and newby error-wise, I am inviting you to have a look. They should be moved by Monday (in Canada). The pages are Vocabulary Development and Joint Attention. I would appreciate it if you found time to have a look. We are aiming for Did You Know submission this week and Good Article submission shortly after that. There is a bit of work to do yet, but I think they are doing good work and with guidance, might be successful! I do have the support of Neelix as an on-line ambassador but I think the students benefit from knowing that many people are reading their work. Thank you, Paula Marentette (talk) 21:14, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Paula, it's good to know that you are making progress! I have some bad news for you about Did You Know - the rules say that you can only submit an article where "the prose portion has been expanded fivefold or more within the past five days". That means that it is already too late to submit Vocabulary development, and that today is the last possible day to submit an entry for Joint attention. I might have a look at nominating the latter in a little while when I have a spare moment. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 05:44, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Stradivarius,

Thank you for nominating Joint Attention for DYK status! The students will be thrilled that someone did it for them. I assume your concern about when the changes were made has been addressed. Neelix just moved the contents to the live pages yesterday so it for sure hasn't been 5 days yet! The students had been working in a sandbox and I was pretty sure that didn't count so I hope things can work out for vocab development too. Paula Marentette (talk) 20:09, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, now it makes sense! I was confused because the content was added to the vocabulary development article by history merge rather than simply being copied in. You're right, that means it is definitely still eligible, but it has a high chance of confusing the Did You Know reviewer in the same way it confused me. In that case, I suggest thinking of a good hook per the DYK rules and nominating it within the next day or so. We will need to leave a comment in the nomination that it was added via history merge, and it would be a good idea to get Neelix to leave a comment on the nomination page too. If you want, I can do the nomination for you once you've thought of the hook, or if you're feeling adventurous you can have a go yourself. Let me know what you want to do. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 23:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

And I see that the same goes for the joint attention article, so it looks like I was a little hasty in nominating it myself. If you want to think of a better hook for that article, then you are most welcome. I thought that one up in a bit of a hurry... — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 23:46, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Stradivarius, With Neelix's encouragement the students submitted Vocab Development to DYK on their own. Thanks for your help. Once they are done editing, do you advise we just go ahead with GA nomination in order to receive feedback about how well the article meets Wiki standards? I'll ask Neelix the same thing. Given our earlier discussions about primary and secondary sources, I thought I'd ask you too. As always, we appreciate your engagement and support. Thank you,

Paula Marentette (talk) 19:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

New page on Proof Compression

Dear Mr. Stradivarius,

I have just added some citations in the page I have recently created. Therefore I will remove the "unreferenced" template. If you think this is a bad decision, please let me know.

In the upcoming weeks, I will try to coordinate a group of students to improve this page beyond the "stub" level.

Best regards,

˜˜˜˜ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceilican (talk • contribs) 13:36, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Ceilican! And yes, it's totally fine to remove the tag now that you've added references. By the way, have you considered joining WikiProject Mathematics? I'm sure they would appreciate your help. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 13:46, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Can you please.

• Hi,please can you assist me what to do to stop someone adding promotional content at British Lingua and its related articles.I realy helped to create that article,it was twice deleted per WP:Promotional and WP:Copyvio. It seems to me someone is to eager to promote that subject as like WP:Advertisements.Would you please clean-up and copy edit all of those,if I am right.Thanks.Justice007 (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Verifiability drafts

Hi there! Several of them are good, but my personal favourite is probably Blueboar's one.

The only thing I would tweak in it would be to change this:

All information in Wikipedia must be verifiable. Editors should not add unverifiable material, even if they are convinced that the material is true. In this context, the initial threshold for inclusion is Verifiability, not truth. However, Verifiability is not the only threshold for inclusion.

to this:

All information in Wikipedia must be verifiable. Editors should not add unverifiable material, even if they are convinced that the material is true. In this context, a fundamental requirement for inclusion is Verifiability, not truth. However, Verifiability is not the only requirement for inclusion.

I don't like "threshold" as (for me) it has nuances of stepping in through the door, and a "once you're over the threshold, you're in the house" feeling about it. Adding further thresholds seems weird – bending the metaphor. It doesn't flow the way it should. (If you imagine a real house, yes, there's a threshold for each room, kinda thing, but different doorways lead to different rooms, you don't have a whole row of doorways, one after the other, and then just one big room (the 'pedia).) Requirements are more like qualifications for a job, or for your car to pass its MoT test, all of which have to be ticked before one can progress.

Cheers! Pesky (talk) 21:13, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Diasystem note

While this edit makes sense, I'm not sure it would be a good idea to simply delete Dale Chock's (and others') comments. Should we move the thread to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 13:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds like a good way of dealing with it - sorry if I trod on too many toes there. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 15:20, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

April Fool Motto

April Fools Day is just around the corner. As such please could you nominate a new motto or comment on existing suggestions at Wikipedia:Motto of the day/Nominations/Specials? Simply south...... facing oncoming traffic for over 5 years 16:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

help triage some feedback

Hey guys.

I appreciate this isn't quite what you signed up for, but I figured as people who are already pretty good at evaluating whether material is useful or not useful through Special:NewPages, you might be interested :). Over the last few months we've been developing the new Article Feedback Tool, which features a free text box. it is imperative that we work out in advance what proportion of feedback is useful or not so we can adjust the design accordingly and not overwhelm you with nonsense.

This is being done through the Feedback Evaluation System (FES), a tool that lets editors run through a stream of comments, selecting their value and viability, so we know what type of design should be promoted or avoided. We're about to start a new round of evaluations, beginning with an office hours session tomorrow at 18:00 UTC. If you'd like to help preemptively kill poor feedback, come along to #wikimedia-office and we'll show you how to use the tool. If you can't make it, send me an email at okeyeswikimedia.org or drop a note on my talkpage, and I'm happy to give you a quick walkthrough in a one-on-one session :).

All the best, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:42, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Beat me to it

You beat me to the punch here. Poor guy - he can use the encouragement, I guess. I just hope the others haven't scared him off permanently. Sleddog116 (talk) 01:57, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm glad I didn't spend that extra minute drafting my message. ;) I'm sure Whenaxis will be sticking around, though. You don't spend much time doing dispute resolution without developing a thick skin. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 02:11, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks both of you for this. Yes, that's very true, when you deal with disputes you definitely develop a thick skin and learn to adapt to new situations, this just happens to be another one. As I said all over my talk page in response to your kind gifts, "Wikipedia is definitely a new learning curve for me". By the way, may I ask how you found out what happened? Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) 20:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I was browsing one of the other involved editors' histories (from a completely unrelated issue; don't remember which editor) and came across it. To be honest, I don't know exactly what happened as far as details are concerned. It just seemed like you were having a really rough time with something; that was all I could really tell. Sleddog116 (talk) 21:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, thank you for the effort. Really appreciate it. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) 23:38, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

And I have your talk page on my watch list, of course. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 23:46, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

do-support

Hey man,

I've attempted editing (actually have entirely rewritten) that do-support article two or three times over the past few years and every time it's led to an edit war in which anything other than what's in that article now was labelled original research and/or fringe theory.

The auxiliary DO in English is quite simply the aspectual auxiliary used for marking the non-durational aspects -- nothing more, nothing less. Do-support is an erroneous attempt to explain the use of do in some forms and not in others. It is based in the flawed perception that DO 'appears' in some forms whereas the truth would be more correctly said that it 'disappears' in some forms.

Auxiliaries in English can be classified by their syntactic strength with the strongest never being changed in form by the auxiliary preceding them and always changing the form of the auxiliary or vector ('main verb') that follows them. There are a few levels between the strongest and the weakest auxiliaries with them having varying resistance to change and propensity to change others. At the bottom are weak auxiliaries which instead of being changed by the preceding auxiliary are actually displaced entirely; they have no effect at all on the vector following them and cannot precede another auxiliary; and their own inflection for person, number, and tense may be appended onto the vector with the auxiliary itself seemingly disappearing. In English, the only weak auxiliary is DO when used as an aspectual auxiliary. It is this final attribute of weak auxiliaries -- lending their endings to the vector forming a linguistic shorthand representing the longer form -- that creates such confusion among those studying English and which the idea of do-support is attempting to account for.

Thus the reason I've said that do-support attempts to erroneously explain who DO appears rather than explaining why and how it appears to disappear.

I can certainly understand why some people including grammarians and linguists have a hard time grasping this and primarily that's because no one's every published anything on linguistic shorthand. In fact as far as I know, I'm the only person who's proposed an actual name for it. Basically, it's just a blanket term for when a shorter or typologically simpler form represents a more complex one (or more complex idea) but doesn't in fact fully replace it. In the case of DO, most people mistake the linguistic shorthand for inflection but if it were truly inflection, then the change would hold for all forms. The fact that - DO (zero ending) + walk = walk (zero ending) - DOES + walk = walks (3rd Pers Sing Ending) - DID + walk = walked (praeterite ending) - only occur in affirmative statements and only in those three forms shows that this is indeed not inflection because otherwise those changes would hold in negative statements and questions and the like.

Anyway, I just thought I'd send you a note regarding this topic. I too think it needs to be changed because as both a linguist specializing in English and someone who's taught and worked in the ESL industry for nearly two decades, I know that that particular wikipedia article has and has had a very damaging effect. However, until people with some sort of subject matter expertise are given a way of overriding or at least getting past the various admins on here who admit no real knowledge of linguistics other than what they've read online who keep editing and reediting the linguistics articles, I don't see much chance of rectifying the situation.

Cheers,

Drew — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drew.ward (talk • contribs) 01:33, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Drew, and thanks for the message! I can sympathize with your plight - no-one likes to see an inaccurate article on Wikipedia. Having said that, I am in no way qualified to say whether the do-support article is inaccurate or not - I would much rather defer to the opinions of the professional linguists here. Since you, Angr, and Cnilep are all professional linguists, but you disagree with what should go in the article, that doesn't leave me with much input to give, unfortunately.

I had a look at the contributions you made to the article, though, and I'll let you know what I noticed. Most importantly, I saw that your contributions to the page were all unsourced. I think you have been around Wikipedia long enough to know that we are not allowed to include original research and that all our contributions should be verifiable. If you can source the content that you put in the article, I think it will be a lot more acceptable to the others. I actually have no idea about the acceptance of do-support in mainstream linguistics, but if it has been rejected as you say, then it shouldn't be hard to find criticism of it in reliable, published sources. How about starting off by searching to see if such sources exist? Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 02:28, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick reply. You've hit on one of the biggest issues facing the language ed / academic publishing / linguistics fields today. Simply put, there exists a huge disconnect between those who teach languages and the people and companies who author, edit, and publish language learning texts, grammar guides, and the like, and linguists who research the structures, workings, and grammar of those languages. English tends to be the boldest example of this and understandably so because while being the world's most commonly taught language, it lacks a modern grammar. What I mean by this is that as is common knowledge, the original published grammar of English which appeared in Johnson's dictionary around 300 years ago was his attempt to force English into the mould of Latin grammar. We know today (and actually they knew back then) that this can't possibly work because the two languages belong to entirely different language families which have entirely different characteristics. Add in the sprinkling of opinionated usage rules (prepositions at the end of a sentence and such) favoured by Johnson and you have a grammar of English with as many exceptions as rules. We know in Linguistics just as in any other science that a rule that requires exceptions (in other words, doesn't work 100% of the time) is in fact not a correct rule (a basic tenet of scientific method). However, we've yet to go back and analyze English anew and give it a modern (as in by the rules of modern linguistic understanding) grammar in line with those issued for more recently researched tongues. Instead, that original grammar of Johnson's has been revised and revised time and again (about once every 50 years) little by little to try and rectify the many situations where it fails to work (but always keeping the flawed original as its core meaning that every newer version was simple a less incorrect incorrect grammar than the last, but is still incorrect).

The problem lies in the money to be made. There are a LOT of books, workbooks, course materials, and grammar guides out there and more printed and sold each year built on linguistically unsound treatments of English. There are thousands and thousands of teachers, teacher trainers, certifying bodies, and language schools whose careers and businesses are centered around claiming expertise in this language as well. None of these entities want to hear anything from anyone that could cause them to admit that what they think they know (and what they are writing, printing, publishing, selling, teaching, etc) is in fact incorrect and that they perhaps don't actually know the right answers.

This is further exacerbated within the field of linguistics in that first, most linguists don't like to admit they may be wrong and tend to challenge anything that differs from what they think they know. Second, native speakers of a language, and especially linguists who are native speakers of a language, rarely understand the linguistics of their own language because having naturally acquired it and thus having never actively learned it, they've never had to effectively analyze it as they would another language; and, they NEVER want to admit this. Third, linguistics is a large field with the majority of linguists focussed on linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, neurolinguistics, and anthropological linguistics (putting them closer to being in the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, and medicine than to the traditional syntax/semantic/Chomsky/etc picture of linguistics that most people think of in the field. What it amounts to is that most professional linguists don't focus on the sort of work that deals with things like do-support and the like, and that many never learn much about these specialties beyond the general overviews of grad school (and since they don't really need that knowledge to successfully work in the other subfields, that's perfectly ok). So, there aren't that many people out there actually working on this stuff.

What this all boils down to is that there really isn't that much out there that's been published or is actively being published along the lines we're talking about. The biggest thing holding that back is that the majority of linguistics journals focus on those other subfields discussed above and have little interest in filling their pages and conferences with such writing. Likewise, journals and such within the ESL/Language Education fields have a vested interest in not including anything that rocks the boat too much. So, what unfortunately has happened is that there are few linguists working on this and much of the work that has been done, has either been unpublished or is only a primary source, neither of which qualify for WP's secondary sources policy. The secondary sources policy fails horribly within the field of linguistics in general because unlike say literary criticism, linguistics doesn't spend much time writing about what the last guy just wrote about. This means that the writing out there that discuss things like the fallacy of do-support would likely be considered original research. The added downside with this is that the cited references for many of these articles that do pass WP's sourcing guidelines get cited not because of their academic integrity, but simply because of their longstanding existence (many of them are these very grammar guides and such that would be considered in error...).

With do-support specifically, one of the reasons you don't find much written about it is that it's just a totally asinine idea in the first place and considered unworthy of even focussing on. The reasons it's seen in this way is because it fails linguistic standards in so many ways including: 1. it's a proposed phenomenon that is unique to only one language. 2. it only 'works' part of the time. 3. it only works if you completely ignore many key linguistic universals such as mood and aspect. 4. it requires a second follow-on theory which labels DO as a 'dummy verb', again a concept purported to exist only in English and even in English, only in the three specific instances in which 'do-support' supposedly manifests itself. Simply put, you'd have to choose to ignore everything you know about language in general in order to buy into 'do-support' on blind faith. In other words, the reason you don't see a lot written disputing do-support is the same reason you don't see a lot written disputing that bananas are red -- they're not red, it's completely obvious, and thus not worth bothering with.

The bad thing for Wikipedia regarding do-support and the like though is that while linguists and such may simply disregard such articles on WP as a silly idea, lay people, students, and language learners (and often ESL teachers) DO view Wikipedia as a valid resource and reference and generally don't question what is written herein as anything but the total truth, which just exacerbates the problem.

When I get a chance I'll try to look around for articles related to do-support as I have read a few in the past, but it may be a while with (real-life) research taking precedence. Conundrum huh?Drew.ward (talk) 03:48, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

My Scattered comments at wp:ver

Please feel free to more or delete anything I write as needed to keep organized. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for the barnstar. Happy to help out however I can. Keep the requests coming. GabrielF (talk) 18:27, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

A big NPT update

Hey! Big update on what the developers have been working on, and what is coming up:

coding

• Fixes for the "moved pages do not show up in Special:NewPages" and "pages created from redirects do not show up in Special:NewPages" bugs have been completed and signed off on. Unfortunately we won't be able to integrate them into the existing version, but they will be worked into the Page Triage interface.
• Coding has been completed on three elements; the API for displaying metadata about the article in the "list view", the ability to keep the "patrol" button visible if you edit an article before patrolling it, and the automatic removal of deleted pages from the queue. All three are awaiting testing but otherwise complete.

All other elements are either undergoing research, or about to have development started. I appreciate this sounds like we've not got through much work, and truthfully we're a bit disappointed with it as well; we thought we'd be going at a faster pace :(. Unfortunately there seems to be some 24-72 hour bug sweeping the San Francisco office at the moment, and at one time or another we've had several devs out of it. It's kind of messed with workflow.

Stuff to look at

We've got a pair of new mockups to comment on that deal with the filtering mechanism; this is a slightly updated mockup of the list view, and this is what the filtering tab is going to look like. All thoughts, comments and suggestions welcome on the NPT talkpage :). I'd also like to thank the people who came to our last two office hours sessions; the logs will be shortly available here.

I've also just heard that the first functional prototype for enwiki will be deployed mid-April! Really, really stoked to see this happening :). We're finding out if we can stick something up a bit sooner on prototype.wiki or something.

I appreciate there may be questions or suggestions where I've said "I'll find out and get back to you" and then, uh. not ;p. I sincerely apologise for that: things have been a bit hectic at this end over the last few weeks. But if you've got anything I've missed, drop me a line and I'll deal with it! Further questions or issues to the usual address. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

You're mentioned

Hi! You are mentioned in a post that will run on the Wikimedia Foundation blog this week describing some of the editors who signed up for HighBeam accounts and their motivations for doing so. I just wanted to let you know. If you'd rather not be mentioned, please respond below or on my talk page. Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 18:41, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Ooh, sounds like fun. :) Do I get to see it before it goes out? — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 18:55, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Your highlight reads: "User Mr. Stradivarius was keen on accessing resources related to linguistics". That's it :) This is part of the longer version of the draft; the shorter one mentions linguistics but anonymously. I'm hoping the long one runs, but apparently WMF likes to keep these brief and newsy. Enjoy the post, and your account! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 19:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I will. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 19:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

resource request

Hi Mr. Stradivarius,

I've uploaded the article you requested at the resource exchange. You can find the link at that page. Best, GabrielF (talk) 19:55, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 00:39, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Reformat list of drafts at group 4

Hi. At group 4, I would suggest archiving drafts 1–5 and renumbering:

Draft 0

Draft 0.1

Draft 0.2

Draft 0.3

etc.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 02:25, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I see a problem with that - we have already discussed these drafts a lot, and if we rename them then it will be a lot harder for people looking back over the discussion to figure out which drafts we were talking about. I can collapse drafts 1-4 if you like, but we should probably just carry the numbering on from draft 5. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^♫ 08:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't mean that 1–5 should be renamed, just moved out of the way to the archive. The new numbering system that I mentioned in my previous message would be for only the new drafts since they would only be versions of draft 0. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:49, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I'm a bear of very little brain, though, so suddenly starting to count in decimals would confuse me. :) I think I'll just collapse drafts 1-4 - I've made too many archive pages in this mediation as it is. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 15:48, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Looks fine. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Protection

Why'd you have the drafts page protected? I wanted to add a footnote on copyright as that seems to be the developing consensus. B^e——C_ritical 17:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, it looks like you were just a little late. The deadline I set had passed, and I've moved the mediation on to step five to start to find the final drafts for each work group. That doesn't mean that it's too late to add the copyright footnote, though, and depending on the result of step five we might well end up having another round of drafting. For the moment, follow the instructions and make a note in your statement that you would like to see a footnote about copyright for group three. If there is consensus for it, we can put it in after the step five discussion has finished. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 17:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay great (: B^e——C_ritical 18:06, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Tell me when anything happens with the WP:V process, okay? Hard to keep track of... Thanks (: B^e——C_ritical 17:56, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank u! :)

• U Sagayam (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hiee , thank u for helping me by editing my article ! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Narthana V (talk • contribs) 09:39, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Always a pleasure. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 15:49, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mr. Stradivarius ,

Thanks again !

Please go through the revised version of my article and feel free to make any changes :)

And also please let me know how to upload an image for the page .

Narthana V (talk) 06:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC)Narthana V

Hi Narthana. Do you have any images that comply with Wikipedia's copyright licence? It needs to be either your own work, in the public domain, or submitted under a free license. Have a look at our image use policy for the details. If you have an image that we can use, then we can talk about how to upload it. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 06:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Transcension Hypothesis

I would like to know why you have gone out of your way to delete the article I was in the process of writing despite the nomination for deletion being withdrawn. Also why you have blocked my ability to log into wiki to continue to write my entry on the transcention Hypothesis? This is vandalism. 86.29.2.155 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:30, 10 April 2012 (UTC).

At least one of your recent edits did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, please take some time to familiarise yourself with our policies and guidelines. You can find information about these at the welcome page which also provides further information about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. If you only meant to make some test edits, please use the sandbox for that. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Technetium Siamendes (talk • contribs) 22:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello Technetium. The problem is that contrary to popular belief, you cannot write about just anything in Wikipedia. For a subject to have an article, it needs to pass the notability guidelines. These guidelines say that to be notable a subject must be covered in multiple reliable sources that are independent of the subject. The YouTube video that you linked to on the page, unfortunately, does not count as reliable for our purposes. The article you linked to is reliable, but it is written by John M. Smart, the originator of the transcension hypothesis, so fails to be independent. I had quite a thorough look for other sources on the subject, and I couldn't find anything that would meet our guidelines. The other user commenting at the deletion discussion agreed with me on this point. The reason the page wasn't deleted outright is because it is useful to keep it as a redirect - that is, it is useful for readers to be taken to the relevant section of Fermi paradox when they type "transcension hypothesis" into the search bar. Just because I withdrew the nomination for outright deletion doesn't mean that it is ok to have an article on the subject. It means that I thought keeping it as a redirect would better serve the project. I will restore the redirect now, but please feel free to ask me any more questions about this. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 23:51, 10 April 2012 (UTC)