User talk:SlimVirgin/June 2013

Madeleine

In the first place, you are duplicating information unnecessarily. In the second, you're clashing with User:Xezbeth, who is diligently going around splitting off name entries from general dab pages. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:09, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I also notice that you've unlinked Madeleine (given name). Why? Clarityfiend (talk) 00:17, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Hi, I think readers will go to that page looking for names. It doesn't make much sense to direct them elsewhere, especially when it's not done prominently. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:18, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I believe you're going against the consensus here. How is this any different from Tropical Storm Madeline (disambiguation) and the other dab links? Madeleine (given name) could be listed more prominently as one of the entries. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:39, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't mind where you put Madeleine (given name). I placed it under See also, as that seemed easier to find (for a reader glancing at the page, trying to find the link) than buried in a sentence at the top. But if you disagree, you're welcome to move it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to move this discussion to the talk page, if that's okay. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

FGM progress?

Hi SV, it looks like progress toward GA on FGM has stalled... I'm pretty sure Doc James had said that article is on his priority translation list. Anything blocking the path at this point? Is there anything some random editor out there (me) might be able to do to help? Zad68 02:45, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Zad, I got a little burned out during the issues with Middayexpress and had to take a break. If you're interested in working on it, please feel free. I was in the process of checking text-source integrity, which is always a dull business. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:55, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I certainly understand that! Did you obtain all the resources you needed or were you waiting on anything else? Zad68 01:39, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I can't remember, to be honest; I just suddenly had to take a break from it, because the arguments had been going on for over a month and were leading nowhere. I will definitely return to it, though, and if there's anything you want to add/change in the meantime, you'd be most welcome. I'm not at all sure how much more work it needs for GA. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:17, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Relationship between Christian Science and medical treatment

Hi,

I had noticed your question to the IP user on the Christian Science talk about Christian Science and dental treatment. I wrote a lengthy response explaining the relationship between Christian Science and medical treatment. I was about to post it when I saw the most recent post: I'm tempted to hat this interlude - it is not compliant with WP:TPG. Personal stories and testimonials have no place here. -- Scray (talk). My feeling is that most of the regular editors on the Christian Science page aren't really interested in understanding Christian Science or presenting a factually accurate portrayal of the subject. However, you seem genuinely interested in both understanding the material and presenting it accurately on Wikipedia. So I figured I would post here. Hopefully I'm not violating one of the many confusing Wikipedia rules by posting here (hat this interlude??). From what I read their is more leniency in what is allowed on personal pages. Anyway what I had originally planned to post to the Christian Science talk page follows:

In general what Christian Science teaches is that what we experience as human life on earth is a distorted view of the spiritual reality. Christian Science says that any discordant condition which is observed in the world is really a distortion of the spiritual reality, and that this discord can be corrected right now in our human life, simply through a change in thinking. The idea is that things which are recognized as good are expressions of the perfect reality. Whereas bad things are the result of erroneous beliefs. An analogy that is often used to explain “error” (a word frequently used to categorize things like sickness, poverty, etc.) is to compare “error” to a false mathematical statement. For example saying that 2 + 2 = 5. The idea is that even though someone might mistakenly believe that 2 + 2 = 5, the statement is never true. Likewise although some discordant condition (such as cancer) may appear to exist, the argument is that it is never really true.

This background is important for understanding the relationship between Christian Science and medical treatment. Christian Science does not teach that there is anything bad about medicine per se. However, Eddy argues that medical treatment is ineffective because those in the medical profession do not understand that the root cause of disease is mistaken thinking (and of course in her day medical treatment was much less effective than it is now). Eddy says that doctors should be treated with respect, she just claims that their methods are ineffective.

However, Christian Science treatment and medical treatment are never allowed to be combined. This contrasts sharply with the role of prayer for most Christians. Eddy's view was that Christian Science and medical treatment operate from radically different perspectives. Using the math analogy, the doctor is essentially trying to fix the problem with 5 in 2 + 2 = 5, while the Christian Scientists is realizing that the 5 never existed as a result of adding 2 + 2. Eddy's view is that any success that medical treatment seems to have is only the result of the general belief of society in the effectiveness of medicine. However, she taught that the root cause of disease is erroneous thinking, and that only by addressing the root cause in thought could the problem really be healed.

If someone wanted to have Christian Science treatment, then she expected them to put their full faith in the power of Christian Science to heal. Only by doing that could the underlying erroneous belief, which manifested itself as disease, be healed. If a patient wanted to have medical treatment that was fine, but medical treatment could not be combined with Christian Science. She taught that to do so was unethical, and in fact would reduce the probability of success for the medical treatment, because the Christian Science practitioner was busy trying to correct the false material belief, while the doctor was relying on the belief that material laws exist.

Eddy taught that direct manipulation of things like broken bones was at times necessary as a temporary aid, but she although taught that in future even things like broken bones would be routinely corrected by Christian Science treatment. Furthermore she argued that Christian Science had already demonstrated those types of cures in some cases (including ones she was personally responsible for).

But for a broken bone it might be possible for a doctor to set the bone, while the practitioner was not praying specifically for that part of the procedure (although perhaps for the patient in general). Then after the bone was set the practitioner could directly address the underlying error in thought that appeared to be manifested in a broken bone. Other examples are similar and thing like glasses were regarded as a “temporary” material aid which would be discarded in the future when the underlying false belief was healed.

How the church has interpreted these teachings over the years is another story. At some point in church history there was a strong resistance to any medical treatment (except dentists). The theory was that Christian Scientists should be approaching spiritual perfection and so medical treatment should be unnecessary. For an individual to rely on medicine was an indication of lack of sufficient dedication to the task of seeking to understand man's spiritual perfection.

In recent years the church has made an effort to move away from that position. Individuals are allowed to choose any “temporary” medical means that they want to deal with specific problems without being judged. Individuals were always allowed to make the choice, but in the past they were more likely to be viewed negatively for accepting medical treatment. And while the Mother Church never required members to be free from medical care, some branch churches did have this requirement in their rules. For instance in one branch church I know of applicants had to have not used medicine for at least 6 months before they were accepted as members. I don't know if that rule is still in place, but my guess is that it is not.

However, although the church is more lenient in allowing individual choices, the fact that it is a choice remains. Which is why the NY Times article is wrong when it says “ the church now seeks to present Christian Science healing as a supplement to conventional medical care, similar to biofeedback, chiropractic and homeopathy.” Christian Science remains a distinct choice and the teachings of Christian Science prevent it from ever being used as a “supplement.” To do so would be unethical according to what Christian Science teaches.

Of course in practice this still leads to complications, as is likely to always be the case when dealing with issues related to disease. I knew someone who had been a Christian Scientists for a long time. Then at some point he got cancer and eventually decided to have conventional medical treatment including chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Unfortunately I guess that did not go so well. I was told that at one point before he died that he asked a good friend of his, who was also a Christian Science practitioner, to pray for him. But the practitioner had to turn him down because he was relying on medical treatment at the same time. The person who told me this story (his daughter) had some resentment about this fact, although I can understand the theological reasons which prevented the practitioner from taking the case. In any event this anecdote illustrates why it is factually incorrect to say that Christian Science is a supplement to conventional medicine.

I don't know if this helps clarify the relationship between Christian Science and medical treatment. I don't plan to try editing this part of the article unless I find some secondary source material to support my interpretation. I saw that Robert Peel wrote a book called “Health and Medicine in the Christian Science Tradition: Principle, Practice, and Challenge” which sounds like it might provide some explanation of the points I've described. I haven't read that book yet, but I read a review of it and I think it might be a good source to explain what I've described here. If I get a chance to look at it I'll see if I can incorporate any of its material in the article. Wikiuser1239 (talk) 02:36, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, this is very helpful. I did write to the Christian Science church at one point to ask if they could clarify their position toward traditional medicine – it was regarding the New York Times article – but they didn't respond. I agree it would be good to use Peel. There's a discussion on the talk page about the placebo effect in case you're interested. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:45, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Article drafts as a COI

Hi Slim. I thought I would share this as an example of our prior discussion about a PR person offering re-writes of controversial material. Naturally the editor is a little speculative that my motives as a paid editor may have led to some "positioning" or cherry-picking, however there is no better route for me to take.

I can't complain at COIN and expect a volunteer to swoop down and spend a dozen hours turning a stub into a 100-cite GA. The only practical option is to write the material myself. Also, who else would order an actual hard-copy book for a source and read it?

It is natural that this should make Wikipedians uncomfortable and if it doesn't, we're doing something wrong. My clients are uncomfortable too and they should be. If we're not all a little uneasy about it, then that's when we know something is wrong.

You pointed out that BP had written 40% or so of their article, but I wrote 100% of the article on YouSendIt. It was a stub with a banner saying "Reads like a news release" and now it's a GA and includes balanced reviews, two mild controversies and images, as well as material from an analyst report no volunteer would ever have access to. Offering content is also the de-facto at AfC.

I don't think there would be any practical way for PR people to make meaningful improvements without being able to offer draft material, but the issue is most Request Edits where PR content is offered are not remotely acceptable. CorporateM (Talk) 19:57, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I would like to share a somehow similar case with Puma Energy. The original article was a mess of pieces copied from the company's website. It needed to be rewritten; however, it was not in my priority list and not any other editor's list either. It happened that a representative of the PR company representing the company (COI was declared at the user page, article's talk page and the COI notice board) redrafted the whole article. Although the first proposed draft had some issues (for details please see the article's talk page) and although this is not a GA-class article, it was an improvement compare to the original article. It was further improved during the vetting. By my understanding it was a positive example as the quality of the article increased significantly. I don't know how the original article would be improved without a new draft. The proposed draft also triggered me to spend hours working with that article which otherwise probably should not happen. Beagel (talk) 17:46, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I find that in most cases, PR-written content is not acceptable. In fact, I find it very frustrating that the Request Edit queue has so many requests asking us to reword content into a more promotional version. And I know on my side that it's a lot of hard work to persuade clients to be genuinely neutral.

On the other hand, there have been cases where I copy/pasted large amounts of content and was very content that it made a huge improvement to the article.

So I consider the analogy. If the New York Times lacked authorship, PR people would ask if they could write their own articles. In general, NYT would say "yah right" but they would also be occasionally surprised. Additionally, much of Wikipedia's content is so awful, it's not difficult even for a bias PR pro to do better.

It seems appropriate to discourage it generally and ask PRs to point out errors, provide sources and let us be the editors. But we should also be willing to be surprised.

Also, going back to Beagel's point. I find it more useful in most cases for other PRs to draw my attention to the problem and let me fix it. In one case every sentence of the article was factually incorrect, which I was happy to fix, while completely ignoring the proposed copy. But it would be good to encourage PRs to point out problems instead of offer re-writes. The current Request Edit instructions are the opposite. CorporateM (Talk) 19:00, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

The test is whether a reader would feel betrayed if she were to learn that the company had written the article. In the case of a controversial multi-national, that's clearly the case. With other companies, less so, and sometimes not at all. Do you think HSUS ought to write Humane Society of the United States, or Pfizer Pfizer (whether directly or via drafts)? I would say absolutely not, even if their versions were in some sense an improvement, because we'd lose the trust of our readers. Sometimes it's better to have a bare-bones, poorly spelled honest thing than a beautifully constructed PR job. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:29, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

"The test is whether a reader would feel betrayed if she were to learn that the company had written the article." I think that's an excellent guideline! One thing though, I think BP is the best person to author content regarding their operations and the reader would not feel betrayed in this case. But the oil spills meet the criteria.

For example, I know that Kiethbob prefers to re-write any material offered by a PR person and I know there are certain controversies that are adequately sensitive such that I could be subject to endless scrutiny no matter how impeccable the edits are. So I suggested to him I might work with an editor willing to do proxy editing for the bulk of any given article, while asking for his participation in those areas that are best-left entirely volunteer written, to avoid even the appearance or speculation of cherry-picking and slanting. CorporateM (Talk) 14:21, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Have you seen this? A PR person got a DYK on the front page (possibly without pay; it's not clear), and is rewarded with an ad on the subject's website. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:33, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

RM/user rights/etc.

Thank you. I dunno if I'm perhaps overusing RM lately. I try to do moves myself if it's obvious, but given an overall tendency to overuse certain sources and not use other sources at all, certain things may not be as obvious to other users. Also not sure if the lack of discussion on most of these moves are due to the aforementioned, or declining lack of interest in actually doing this amount of maintenance. Cheers. RadioKAOS  – Talk to me, Billy 02:24, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I think in the case of Crystal Snow Jenne, I'd have gone ahead and moved it myself. If someone then objects, you can always hold an RM discussion. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:29, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Christian Science

Hello, SlimVirgin. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.— Marrante (talk) 00:22, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Marrante, it's all very interesting. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:17, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. I would appreciate an answer to my question, though (first note; hope it was clear). It would be great to get the answer via WPmail, that failing, on my own talk page. Thanks in advance. Marrante (talk) 10:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

It's probably best to keep the discussion on article talk, Marrante, so that others can join in. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:11, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't actually planning on discussing anything. I just asked a question and was hoping for an answer. Marrante (talk) 19:18, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

RFPP unprotection requests

Hi SlimVirgin. I saw that you declined all the requests that I had made to RFPP and quite honestly, I don't think that was the right way to go. I'm not sure if you know that there is a section regarding my requests on WP:AN. But if you have not yet seen it, you should take a look at that section and see what other users think about it. Anyways, i'm not understanding why you declined my requests to unprotect and or to add pending changes to the pages instead. I choose to add those requests because I truly felt it was the right thing to do. Those pages were originally semi-protected indefinitely because of BLP violations or excessive vandalism. Then an admin removed semi-protection and added indefinite pending changes instead. After the pending changes trial was over, an admin replaced pending changes with indefinite semi-protection. Now that pending changes is back, why not re-enable it to those pages? These pages cannot be protected from IP users forever. Please clarify why you declined my requests and please tell why you think these pages should remain semi-protected and not pending changes protected instead. Webclient101^talk 02:58, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

If the pages were protected for BLP reasons, there may be no pressing need to unprotect them, and bringing lots of requests at once means people may feel under pressure to unprotect without checking carefully. It would be better if you were to bring pages individually if you really think semi-protection isn't needed, although bear in mind that semi-protection is almost always better than PC for BLPs. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:11, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Pressuring admins into unprotecting all of those pages was not my intent at all. I just thought it would make logical sense to unprotect and enable pending changes based on all of the protection reasons on those pages. But if you don't want to unprotect or enable pending changes on those pages than I absolutely understand. I'm just going to request unprotection to those pages individually as you suggested. Cheers, Webclient101^talk 03:42, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I've been looking out for your request on RfPP, but haven't seen them yet. Please feel free to post one or two, although prominent BLPs should probably be avoided. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:45, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

RFPP of Eurovision Song Contest 2014

Hi SlimVirgin,

Apologies for the delay, but you asked for examples of problematic edits on the above named article via Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Rolling archive#05 June 2013. I thought I would highlight that the article was semi-protected a couple of weeks ago due to problematic editing from a wide variety of IP's. This is becoming a normal thing every year around this particular time of the contest. IPs (who one can only assume are Eurovision Fans) have tendencies to add countries to the article stating that they have confirmed participation for the next contest. However, they do not provide sources, or they quote original research as their "source". Some have even used Wikia as a citation in the past.

These edits got so disruptive at the early stages of the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 and Eurovision Song Contest 2012 articles, that the official website 'Eurovision.tv' as well as 2 other websites published reports accusing Wikipedia of publishing false participation details; even though the false details were being added by IP's and quickly removed by project members. The Eurovision Song Contest 2013 article was semi-protected at the same early stage last year until 1 December 2012, and disruption/vandalism was reduced 100%. Now the 2014 article is a victim to IP editing, with most adding countries that do not even have EBU membership (which is a requirement for any country to take part in the Eurovision Contest). Some IP's have also engaged in edit warring by repeatedly re-adding previously removed disruptive edits.

Problem edit examples

1 - Unsourced content. 2 - Unsourced content. 3 - Unsourced content. 4 - Unsourced content.

If semi-protection is not feasible, then perhaps pending changes protection could be a better solution!? I look forward to your response in due course. Feel free to drop a note on my talk page just in case. Wesley♦Mouse 12:05, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Wesley, thanks for the explanation. I've semi-protected for three months, which can be extended if needed. Hope it helps. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:09, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Sarah_Brown_(wife_of_Gordon_Brown)

I happen to agree with you substantively, and you have a whole week to make your argument to the community. However, until that time, I think it is unfair to move it right now, without a discussion at the Requested Moves board. Bearian (talk) 19:58, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Bearian, sorry I didn't notice this, and didn't intend not to respond. It's a moot point now, but just to say that I agree. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:36, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Possibilities template removals

Resolved

For circum and cut you removed Template:R with possibilities through a simple undo without explanation. In both cases when I added the template, I provided an explanation for why it was appropriate. I don't think it was right for you to remove them like that. The FGM article is about a broader topic matter than cutting so both of these terms do have potential for expansion. What justifies their removal? Ranze (talk) 23:29, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Those articles would be POV forks if created. The dominant term is female genital mutilation and there's consensus for that title. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:32, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

(tp stalker) I happen to agree with Ranze here. (1) not using edit summaries for a revert like that is a bit rude and (2) it wouldn't necessarily be a POV fork, instead it could be a split out of relevant content. In any case this discussion is best moved to the talk pages of the redirects in question. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:49, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Please raise it on Talk:Female genital mutilation, rather than spreading the discussion across different pages. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:52, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

see WP:SPINOFF for a description of a valid content fork. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:53, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

canvass

I suggest per WP:canvass that you notify a broad spectrum of projects if you are notifying individual projects. You should start with all of the projects listed on her talk page. Then you should consider balancing the other selected notifications with equivalent projects that might take another view. Best, --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

2014 FIFA World Cup qualification – AFC Fourth Round

Hello! I've found that you semi-protected this page indefinitely, but, per your comment on WP:RPP, it looks like you meant to semi-protect the page for 1 week. Please fix this mistake. Thanks! -- Cloudyjbg27512 (talk) 05:38, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, Cloudy. I've fixed it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:38, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Erected defences

Haha. And your attempt to drag in erections is also incredibly inappropriate. :-) Bishonen | talk 16:09, 8 June 2013 (UTC).

That was the red mist writing, not me. :) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:40, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

fwiw

Your assertion that I was dragging FGM into something, or that my edits to FGM were somehow related to the Sarah Brown article, couldn't be further from the truth. You should know better than to make baseless accusations. I make many edits to many articles in many domains, and just because you happen to be watching two of them doesn't mean my edits are therefore linked. So please stop your accusations which only serve to poison the editing atmosphere and make it a non-welcoming place. Thanks for your consideration. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:42, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

help with page move

Hello SlimVirgin, I noticed you're editing now. I'd like to move the page Coronavirinae back to Coronavirus. Someone moved the page in May thinking that the two are the same. They are not. One is the species of virus in the subfamily Coronavirinae and it's an important distinction. I'm writing the separate article for Coronavirinae so I would need that to show as a redlink and not be redirected anywhere. I tried moving it myself but the message came back that the page Coronavirus already existed. Can you help? Thanks. Malke 2010 (talk) 05:33, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Malke, I see this still hasn't been done, so I can look at it now. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:43, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake, I see Malik's got it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:46, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Citing sources - going too fast?

I read your last comment at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources as indicating you didn't read the comment directed specifically at you that starts "I think I know what..." [ - and not much of anything I wrote after my first post.]--Elvey (talk) 00:44, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I think you're right. I'm finding it all a bit bewildering. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:59, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Page you protected

Hi -- you protected the entry on Harold Bloom after an edit war between 174.49.172.92 and some editors who'd worked on that page for a while, and suggested that 174.49.172.92 try to come to some more accommodation with people who'd been working on the page. Unfortunately, you protected the page AFTER 174.49.172.92 once again cut 7k characters from the page. Would it be possible to revert that before protecting the page? Nightspore (talk) 02:54, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Nightspore, I've left a note on the talk page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:08, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

User:Nathan Johnson

In light of the continued discussion on Nathan Johnson's talkpage, I have posted to ANI requesting review on the unblock request. Please feel free to comment on the thread, here. Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:08, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Teamwork Barnstar
	For efforts at promoting teamwork on the BP article where teamwork and trust were broken down. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:34, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Robert, that's very much appreciated. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:26, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Question

In regards to this edit Those discussions need to be closed. calling them "Stale" isnt a good reason to ignore them. Werieth (talk) 15:07, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Werieth, these were old discussions that didn't seem to need formal closure. If a discussion needs formal closure, one of the participants will request it when the discussion ends. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:03, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:NFCR is just like a XfD, all discussions require closure. Werieth (talk) 00:50, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

These discussions are old and the participants didn't request closure. I looked at a few and there didn't seem any reason to comment on them. It's best to leave closure requests to the person who initiated the discussion, and if she doesn't do it, then one of the other participants. If there's a discussion you think is not stale and needs closure, by all means bring it, but bringing a lot of old discussions at once means they're unlikely to be dealt with. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:08, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

What about other templates?

Since the cons you listed concering citation templates at WT:CITE also apply to {{Persondata}} and {{Authority control}}, I wonder whether edits like [1] and [2] are actually discouraged. If so, I will no longer waste my time on doing this, because it takes a lot of effort and I wouldn't do it if it gets reverted after all. --bender235 (talk) 19:14, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Bender, I can't see how those edits would be problematic or connected to citation templates. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:53, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Not connected to citation templates, but if citation templates are bad because they slow down load times or clutter up the source code, then these two above are, too. And basically all three templates have the same purpose: create hidden machine-readible information, whether it be unique identifiers, hCard microformat, or COinS. --bender235 (talk) 07:13, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The difference is that citation templates are repeated many times in the article, sometimes hundreds of times, which can seriously slow things down. In addition they produce an inconsistent style in read mode, and often have unnecessary parameters filled in, leading to extra citation clutter that makes the text hard to edit. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Advice

Your protection of Abkhazia has expired, and the first thing that has been done since then is a user reinstating again their disputed very bold edit. Lfdder opened a discussion on the talkpage before your protection, but the users supporting the edit have failed to do anything other than point to the article history and give a general accusation of bias. If a user fails to follow BRD in any way, then what is supposed to be done? CMD (talk) 15:38, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I've restored the protected version and added another week's protection. Someone should start another discussion on the talk page, perhaps via an RfC, so that a consensus can emerge. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Nice advice. RfC should be OK. Recent info (talk) 20:17, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, SlimVirgin. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.
Message added 16:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 16:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Tea Party movement/Moderated discussion

A few more voices experienced in NPOV editing would be useful at the Tea Party movement moderated discussion. I appreciate it's a big ask, and no worries if you find you haven't the time or inclination, but your opinions are respected and valued, so input from you would be helpful. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:21, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

User:Bender235, cite templates, harassment

I've repeatedly asked User:Bender235 to stop contacting me, he persisted, I brought it to WP:ANI, and instead of instructing Bender235 to stop contacting me (which is a simple request), the microscope is turned on me rather than stopping his harassment. If you're interested, please help at WP:ANI#I have asked a User:Bender235 to stop contacting me, user persists..

It was obvious the AN/I post was ridiculous. Trying the WP:MEAT tactic won't help. --bender235 (talk) 15:53, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

RfC on including the 2008 percentage of women's vote

You recently closed this discussion. Could you clarify your close a bit? I read the consensus as not including the 2008 statistic. Two editors are claiming that the consensus is to not include either the 2012 and 2008 data. Thank you.Casprings (talk) 03:49, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks. That does help.Casprings (talk) 19:02, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

If you look at the response by RightCowLeftCoast they said that none of it should be included. Several other editors agreed with RCLC. There is no way you can come to your conclusion based off that. Arzel (talk) 01:29, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

That's not my reading of the replies, Arzel. If it's an important issue for the article, you could set up a second RfC that explicitly asks about the 2012 figures. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:22, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Surnames?

Has there been a larger discussion on matronymic/hyphenated or combined surnames somewhere? I found it unimaginable that our naming policies and guidelines seemed to completely ignore the concept, and had planned to raise the issue after the move discussion at hand was resolved... user:j (talk) 06:40, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not aware of one. It would be a good idea to raise it somewhere once this latest example is dealt with. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:42, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Chennai Express

Hi SlimVirgin, I saw on WP:RPP that you have protected the article for two weeks but unfortunately you've protected indefinitely, which is not necessary in this case. So, I am requesting you to unprotect the article. The article has been protected since June 3. If the vandalism starts again, I'll request for protection again. Thanks — Tolly4bolly 11:02, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, that's unprotected now. Thanks for letting me know about it. I've been finding recently that the drop-down box is sometimes not registering the chosen protection length. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Matzoon

Hi, Thank you for the block in the article. However, you are protecting the conflict version of the article. You can not bring her back to the beginning of the conflict.--Lori-m (talk) 07:37, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lori, if you want a particular version to be protected, I would need a reason, such as vandalism, serious error, or sometimes 3RR violations. Without something like that, it's the latest revision that's protected. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:26, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

AC Omonia

Ηello SlimVirgin, I saw that you protected the article AC Omonia, and that today the protection has expired. If you please can you re protect it would be very useful because only this will help avoid vandalism. Thanks – Cyprus 22513 Football 12:05 (UTC +3) —Preceding undated comment added 09:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, what length of protection did you have in mind? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:26, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe semi-protection. Look on the edit page how many edits had been made after the end of the protection by non wikipedia users. What do you suggest for such kind of situations? Cyprus 22513 Football 22:52, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I can't really tell what's happening here. If it's vandalism or people constantly adding mistakes, we can semi-protect for a period of time – usually starting with one or two weeks – or longer (even indefinitely) if it's very persistent. That will stop IP addresses and very new accounts. If it's a content dispute – that is, a legitimate disagreement – we can fully protect for a few days or maybe a week, to start with anyway; that effectively stops all editing, which is why it's only done for short periods. So you would need to give more details, and the best place to do that is with a request at WP:RfPP. Hope this helps. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:19, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

The Mind the Gap Barnstar

...is awarded to User:Slim Virgin who has dilegently worked to close the gender gap on Wikipedia and related projects through content contributions, outreach, community changes and related actions. ```Buster Seven Talk 18:41, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

		Mind the Gap Award
		For saying the right thing, at the right time, in the right place, to the right people.

Bravo!! Not only does Slim say "the right thing, at the right time, in the right place, to the right people", but also, in the right way. I continue to watch, learn and enjoy. petrarchan47tc 22:17, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks for the barnstar, Buster, and to both of you for the very kind words. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:05, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Petition to Pardon Bradley Manning and/or commute his sentence time already served.

Greetings,

Why did you delete my post? For the petition is indeed posted on the white house web site

HaroldHarold Darling (talk) 19:03, 24 June 2013 (UTC) Harold Darling (talk) 19:03, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I've replied on your talk page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:26, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I am going back to he drawing board regarding a reference to Manning's petition - will probably rewrite the petition reference as part of a more comprehensive passage about the public response to Manning's disclosure of classified information - what is the protocol? Start a new discussion? or post Manning's talk page? I am new to wikipedia editing and your assistance is appreciated Harold Darling (talk) 18:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Georgia-related issues

Hi! There's a content dispute involving User:Giorgi_Balakhadze about the Georgian–Armenian War article similar to the conflict that took place with Abkhazia article. I'm writing to you as you've been involved there and because other methods (talkpage discussion, 3RR vio report) have not helped. Could you please take a look at the discussion? Alæxis_¿question? 17:17, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Alæxis problems are making only you, I clearly wrote why I changed that incorrect map. 3RR report is your provocation to me. --Balakhadze 17:25, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I've restored the pre-edit war version of the article, and have left a note for Giorgi and Chipmunkdavis. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:18, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello, SlimVirgin. You have new messages at Chipmunkdavis's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

• Hi there - this same editor seems to be attempting to edit in what may be a POV-pushing manner (on the same topic) on Reprua River, as I've reverted him there I'm a bit leery of WP:INVOLVED if he continues, could you keep an eye on that if it's not a problem? Thanks. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 18:26, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I've put it on my watchlist. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:07, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, SlimVirgin. You have new messages at Kudpung's talk page.
Message added 05:15, 26 June 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Replied again. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:24, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

persistent COI tags

Two questions.
I feel your views at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29/Archive_104#Outing_and_obvious_COI were valid - that sometimes a persistent COI tag is appropriate - where there's a strong public-interest argument making it important to alert the reader with the COI tag indefinitely. Yet when I tagged such an article, I was reverted, with what seems to me to be an irrefutably valid justification:

"If there are currently no "significant or substantial problems with the article's neutrality as a result of the contributor's involvement", the tag should not be used. It "is not meant to be a badge of shame" - Template:COI. (source, context in a helpfully short talk page discussion)

So my question to you is do we need to change policy? Because, based on policy current, I don't see how we could justify keeping the COI tag on the BP or EBSCO articles indefinitely (w/o resorting to IAR). Also, I saw you posted on WP:AN/RFC on June 8 asking for a formal close re. the extent of coverage of Deepwater Horizon in BP and never got one, was thinking of providing one, and have read the relevant content. Should I leave it to an actual admin, or would a non-admin closure by me be OK? (Alternately, I could leave it and close the latest one on almost the same issue.) I'd appreciate your opinion. --Elvey (talk) 17:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Elvey, I agree that the issue of persistent COI tags is problematic: on the one hand it's important to warn readers if issues remain unresolved, but on the other they can't stay there forever. Perhaps Template talk:COI is the place to raise it. I'm not suggesting you go ahead and do that, but I can't offhand think where else to discuss it, except perhaps WT:COI.

As for the BP RfCs, the one I posted about was closed, and the same editor is lined up to close the current one, but thank you very much for offering. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:11, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Elvey, after the BP mess surfaced I set aside a sandbox, User:Coretheapple/sandbox, to explore possible COI labels to cover instances in which the COI is persistent. The aim would be to close the loophole that currently exists in COI guidelines, so as to cover situations like BP and Chevron, where corporate employees have a stranglehold over the talk page. That was a serious problem with the BP article and remains a problem with Chevron. However, it never gained traction. Coretheapple (talk) 19:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) SV - Ah, OK. (I see I may have read more implied support for persistent COI tags in your comments than you really have - that you felt that as long as extensive material an editor with a COI had contributed in an article, and there is a strong public-interest element to the issue, a COI tag can remain.) I can't seem to find an obvious way to search recent RfCs, but Arbcom said: Passed 13 to 0 :

The community is encouraged to open a Request for comment on the "Conflicts of Interest" guideline with a view to reconciling some of the apparent contradictions discussed in the applicable finding of fact above.

Found, somehow. There was an RfC: WP:Requests_for_comment/COI ~1.3 to 1 years ago; went nowhere.

And thanks for the BP reply. No sweat. -Elvey...

Coretheapple - Thanks for the info. As far as I can tell, by saying commercial paid editing is allowed (which I think WP:COI does) we're misleading people into criminal activity by making them think it's allowed by law. See Talk:Wikilegal#Must_we_forbid_paid_editing on Meta. I can't think of any COI editing that's resulted in clear enough (financially quantifiable) harm to result in a strong legal case against someone paying for endorsement on wikipedia, but I bet there's been lots. --Elvey (talk) 23:01, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Here is an example of how amazing things have become in that area: [3] Coretheapple (talk) 23:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I just added 'legal' to my above comment to clarify what I meant (the link makes it obvious too, but did you follow it? In terms of a successful legal case, I think it would be tough to find a causal connection strong enough for the legal system (in the US, that is) to see the apparently illegal promotional activity on wikipedia as leading directly to financial harm. I think a court would have a hard time avoiding finding a pharmaceutical company that pushed information on dangerous side effects off its wikipedia articles that turned out to be true liable under the FCC regs if said side effects resulted in deaths. OTOH, I doubt a court would find an oil company liable under the FCC regs for edits resulting in income that allowed it to stay in business through the next environmental disaster it causes. Note: Let's be careful not to run afoul of the policy against legal threats. No need to send me talkbacks. Hopefully the discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Paid_editing_%28policy%29#Legality_of_paid_editing_and_hosting_paid_promotional_content. makes the issue ripe enough for an RfC about it. If so, let's start drafting one somewhere and get off SV's page. --Elvey (talk) 17:28, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I think an RfC is a good idea, but my sense is that the community is so clueless on this issue that it will either do nothing or make COI easier. That's the mentality that we're dealing with, which is why the COI editors can be so feckless in their arrogance. Coretheapple (talk) 20:04, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I suspect SV's new Ghostwriting essay is wrong. It says, " The practice is not against Wikipedia's rules". There's a policy that says that anything that's illegal in the US is also against wikipedia rules, surely? And unless I'm mistaken, Ghostwriting violates the FCC regs. SV?--Elvey (talk) 21:56, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't recall offhand what the FCC says, Elvey. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:17, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

RfC/U closure

While I'm not ruling out the possibility to "change course", whatever that means, in the future, such a decision assuredly won't be based on your closing comment. You have made several problematic conclusions that I absolutely disagree with, and would like you to possibly reconsider them. I'm going to proceed in the order you wrote them:

1. "Twenty-five editors supported the general position of the RfC" : Your count doesn't seem to make any reference to the suspicious endorsement from a user that came out of a de facto retirement specifically for this RfC. Nor to his own admission that the endorsement was a reaction to a (successful) AfD of mine and based on his own inclusionist prejudices. I have detailed the issue in my response, and an endorsement also noted it.
2. "and two asked him not to be tempted to post personal attacks or innuendo." If think you read it wrong. Per #Comments_by_TheRedPenOfDoom, it seems the "personal attacks or innuendo" are not from me, but from "the trivialist in the D&D discussions". That I'm asked not to respond to them does not mean I have indulged in them. You seem to be missing the point that my accusators have been noted to indulge in them, and thus you fail to provide an accurate summary of the debate. I'm inviting user:TheRedPenOfDoom for clarification on this.
3. "Overall there is consensus that FdF's focus on seeking the deletion of other editors' work, combined with the absence of other contributions, is problematic". You seem to equate "consensus" with "headcount", to which I disagree. It is my opinion that you've ruled out arguments in my favor based on numbers only, which is not supported by Wikipedia:RFC#Suggestions_for_responding which states "The outcome is determined by weighing the merits of the arguments and assessing if they are consistent with Wikipedia policies. Counting "votes" is not an appropriate method of determining outcome, though a closer should not ignore numbers entirely".
   Your conclusion does not enough take into account #Outside_view_by_Flatscan, which discarded most accusation of bad behavior on my part and the evidences provided, and actually underlined severe failings (consensus violation) from BOZ, who opened the RfC/U. You point out (and rightly so) the difference in number of endorsments with other comments, but that alone does not justify that you entirely discard a well-constructed comment in my favor.
   Besides, your conclusion significantly diverges from Kudpung's, as it goes from a probable "no consensus" to a full-on FdF blame. There is obviously a problem.
4. You also seem to have completely ignored the numerous diffs I have provided in my response of Jclemens personally attacking me (notably when he disagnosed me with "mental illness"). You don't need "consensus" to read the diffs and see these for what they are.
5. You also seem to have completely ignored the issue of canvassing I have noted in the RFC/U talk page.
6. "Rather than agreeing to make concessions, FdF's response to the RfC has been dismissive" Why should I make concessions, and not BOZ, whose behavior has been found fautly in a comment you've chosen to ignore ? If the merits of the arguments determine an RFC/U outcome, I don't see why I should be the only one to make concessions.
7. "Although he argues that it is unfair to raise issues that occurred on other-language Wikipedias, it would be foolish to ignore them when the complaints are so similar and the French ban so recent": As a non-French speaking person (as far as I can see, my apologies if I'm incorrect), you do not have enough knowledge of other-languages issues to be able to take them into account. You (apparently) are not aware of the fundamental differences between the various Wikipedias (the French one, for example, didn't have an equivalent for WP:GNG until december 2012). You are forced to to take foreign complaints at face-value, without any possibility to verify them. I'd recommend against incorporating them in your closure. You can make note of them, sure, but to entirely depend on what other-language Wikipedias are willing to disclose here for your own view of the case is problematic.
8. "if you're not willing to agree to a topic ban, please at least consider significantly reducing your activity in this area": I'm not ruling out the idea of reducing my activity, however it won't happen unless wrongdoings are properly attributed. This RfC/U (and particularly the comment and endorsements at #Outside_view_by_Flatscan) allowed to underline serious misbehavior from a general group of users who defend articles from deletion, and most notably from two admins, who have engaged in various personal attacks, innuendos, consensus violations. Of that, not a word from you. Had you required of BOZ and Jclemens to step down as well, maybe I would have agreed to it, but I'm sure you'll understand I can't let myself be bullied and harassed, and called a "sockpuppet" and "mentally ill" and "clueless", and just leave D&D and AfDs as if nothing had been done to me. No.

I'm also sure your statement is not going to please the few users who take part to the daunting task of cleaning up WP of non-notable articles. All your statement has done was to legitimize the bullying and harassment done to them, and to complicate their task further.

In conclusion, I'm not asking to ignore every complaint about me, but to be fairer in your assessment of the situation. Folken de Fanel (talk) 18:28, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Folken, this is why people don't want to close RfCs, because it becomes a full-time job for the forseeable future. :)

The bottom line is that you've behaved in a way that has caused problems. That's evident from your contributions alone. I closed the RfC by offering you advice, which it's in your own interests to take. Wanting to wait until "wrongdoings are properly attributed" is not a good attitude, because it's about other people. The way forward is to focus on yourself. What can you do differently and better? I understand that that will feel like an unsatisfactory close, but the consensus was clear that most of the issues stemmed from your approach. If you would change that approach, and also diversify a little, it would make your life on Wikipedia a lot easier and probably more pleasant.

The one point I will look at from above is the personal attacks issue. If I misunderstood that point, I'll reword it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:47, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Folken, now that the RfC has been closed, I'll be bold and make a few observations. I probably unfairly passed the buck to SlimVirgin to close that RfC because I know how long it takes to read and assess a thing like that. She probably spent several hours on it (I know I did) and I admire her for that, and one cannot fault her for having taken a different approach to the closure than I may have chosen. My close would have been different simply because in my opinion (at that time) the RfC had become stale and could have been simply closed and archived without comment. The thing is however, my proposal for close precipitated a last minute flurry of comment, albeit mainly from those who had not paid much more attention to it, and comment about the RfC in other places. What we have to remember however, is that the RfC was about you and not about the other participants, and although there are probably ample grounds to criticise them too, these are matters that are best addressed separately and elsewhere. To compound an RfC/U with counter offensive rather than focusing on straightforward defence is one of the reasons why potential closers shy away from the task. Oh, and BTW, I have a command of French that is possibly better than that of many of the natives ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:30, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, thank you both for your input here (and also for the time you took in reading the mess that was this RfC). These comments have helped me to put things into perspective. Kudpung provided the little bit that was necessary to move forward (sorry, nothing personal here, SlimVirgin). Here's my conclusion on the whole matter:

If this is a problem of "approach" (and the actual summary doesn't say otherwise, in my opinion), then I guess my opinions on notability and AfD recommendations, in themselves, are fine and within the norms. I think that is backed up by my AfD stats of 54% (and it would actually be 64% if it accounted for "merge" outcomes). I have been involved in 113 AfDs, and do not think it an excessive number considering Jclemens was in 2262 AfDs.

Given I have nominated only 10 articles for AfD in 6 years, and, counting "merge" outcomes, with a success rate of 55% (plus 22% "no consensus"), I conclude there is no concern over bad faith, disruptive, or excessive nominations. The RfC/U did not make any reference to that anyway.

As such, I see no reason to stop nominating or participating in AfDs, nor in debates around sources and notability, though I will keep on making sure I don't nominate articles without good "chances" of them being deleted/merged. I see no reason to change the nature of my AfD recommendations either.

However, I agree to diversify so that my entire activity is not centered around AfDs and notability questions. I will also modify my approach regarding these discussions, here is how:
1) I'll limit, as much as possible, the volume of my participation so as to make my point clear in one comment/recommendation, while keeping an absolutely civil tone. I will not try to convince users of agreeing with me if they don't want to be convinced.
2) I will not go to closing admins talk pages or request DRV. In case I disagree with a close and consider there are strong grounds for deletion, I'll renominate the article after 6 months. I'll not go beyond 2 renominations per article (provided I'm not the nominator, in that case, only 1 renom).

I have a few provisions on this, though. The main being that per your involvment as closer and potential closer, I'd like you two, if you accept, to be responsible for overseeing my participation in AfDs/notability debates, and for my overall "wiki safety".
1) The "1 comment per AfD" limit doesn't apply to discussions requiring productive back and forth between users, mostly in cases when a new source is brought up and needs to be assessed. In that case I'll keep an absolutely civil tone, my comment as short as possible, and the volume at a minimum (ie I won't try to convince users who don't want to be convinced). that kind of comment, from a user in the RfC/U consensus, is what I'm aiming for. If that happens, I'll provide you both with a link to the discussion so you can review my participation and assess it as reasonable/excessive. Also, if a sub-debate has naturally started among other users, I will provide my input.
2) If I experience a grossly erroneous AfD closure (ie 5 deletes, 1 keep, unmotivated outcome "keep") and if no one else does it first, I'll come to either of you and ask you to start a DRV process in my name if you deem it reasonable.
3) when one of the user involved in the RfC choses to personally attack me as a revenge for my participation to a discussion, as it happened in the past, I will report the user right away at WP:ANI and will invite both of you for comment there. That is, provided I haven't breached my promise to diversify (in that case I'll just report it to you personally so that you can informally admonish the user for making a personal attack, and me for not having kept my promise).
4) I'll reject any direct involvement in my oversight from either BOZ or Jclemens. If these two have any ground for complaint, they should go to you first before any action (and that includes WP:ANI).
5) Similarly, unless they want to notify me of a particular discussion, or to answer to one of my comments, these two (but especially Jclemens) are definitively forbidden to make any reference to my username or my person, even in elusive terms, in any discussion in which I don't already take part.

Provided the consensus is far from unanimous (12 to 6, with respectable users and one admin also on my side) and with my accusators having been accused themselves of uncollegial behavior by uninvolved users, I cannot reasonably go beyond the above agreement.Folken de Fanel (talk) 22:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

number 4 seems a non-starter to me. Any attempt to reframe the close as a prohibition on any party seeking future sanctions on any other party through any appropriate Wikipedia channel or venue would be beyond the scope of an RFC/U. My sincerest hope is that nothing further will be necessary, but SV did not sign up to be a perpetual guardian of anything, certainly not as a prior restraint on filing any potential future requests for sanctions on anyone's behalf. Jclemens (talk) 06:15, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

N°4 is only a necessary provision to ensure you'll not make abusive reports at WP:ANI just whenever I participate at AfD or a notability discussion, even when my behavior is not at fault. Per WP:INVOLVED, I see no other way. You do not get to be at the same time party and judge in the dispute. Any control over my areas of activity and approach is now beyond your reach, whether SV agrees to supervise me or not (by the way, I don't foresee this to be a massive work overload, given my overall average/low participation in AfD). You remain free to report any objective breach of conduct (personal attacks, 33R violations...). Had the RfC outcome been any different, I might not have made the same proposition, but with no unanimity (and phantoms users...) and your own share of uncollegial behavior, that's the way it's going to be.Folken de Fanel (talk) 09:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Both of you, please take your possible disagreements somewhere else. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:48, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Closure of Sega Genesis title discussion

Hi sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you could go into more detail over your closure here [[4]]. To my mind while the numbers are pretty even between the two sides of the debate, when looking at the quality of the arguments the keep side had only 4 arguments presented:

1) Attacks on the nominator. The attacks seem to rely on an assumption of bad faith, but they may have been warranted. Either way, they should have no bearing on the outcome imo.

2) "Keep per all the reasons in the FAQ". The FAQ was heavily disputed at the time and has since been revised heavily to have a more fact-based and less defensive tone. Both before and after the revision the FAQ had no reasons to keep the title per se, other than "this is what consensus was previously". As I understand it existing consensus is not in itself a reason for consensus to never change.

3) "The original name in English was Genesis". The main proponent of this first argued that the original name was メガドライブ and this was translated into English. He was contradicted on this point because Japanese models say Mega Drive on them, not メガドライブ. He then argued that "Mega Drive" is not English, which was again heavily opposed, and he no longer argued the point.

4) "WP:TITLECHANGES dictates Genesis". I disproved this one in my !vote, and was not disputed.

Ultimately I guess the whole debate is too much of a mess, partly due to the way the RfC started, but I honestly don't see how the "Keep" can possibly stack up to the "Change". <Karlww _{(contribs|talk)} 20:02, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Karl, I've added more to the close here. Best, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:55, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Holocaust to GA?

This may come out of left field, but back when I was doing the review for Christian Science, I noticed you had previously done some work on both the Holocaust and Holocaust-related topics. I'm interested in trying to bring Holocaust to GA some time this year, and I was wondering if you could offer me any advice or if you might like to collaborate on it. I don't mind doing as much or as little of the research and writing as necessary, but I suspect it would help to have another experienced editor on hand to work through the inevitable talk page controversies. Is this an article you'd be interested in working to improve? (Any talk page stalkers are, of course, invited too.)

Thanks as always for all you do here! Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 06:32, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Khazar, I'd have to think about that. I'm not sure I'd want to take on the job. I haven't looked at the article for ages, but when I last checked it was pretty sprawling – people couldn't agree on the parameters and kept adding other groups. I now see that it's over 18,000 words. I just saw the last GA review: "its use of language consistently betrays a bias towards the belief that the Holocaust was a bad thing." Hmmm.

Anyway, best of luck with it, and feel free to ping me if you need to throw around some ideas. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:08, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, my first priority is to return this to a manageable length (ideally, around 60-70kb prose; it's at something like 110kb right now, with extensive block quotations on top of that). I assume some sort of RfC will be needed early on to resolve issues of scope and weight.

In a perfect world, I feel like the best approach would be for an editor or small team of editors to create a solid replacement draft of about half the current length, that could then be refined and expanded by other editors as needed; it seems like that would be both a faster and more productive process than trimming this monster version down piece by piece. In terms of Wikipedia politics, however, that's probably not practical.

So once I've done more prep research, I'll open a general discussion there about making cuts and see what people think. Some prolific editors on Nazi/Holocaust topics have indicated they'll try to look in, too, so perhaps we can get some positive momentum going toward a consensus version. This is probably still at least a month off, but I'll ping you when I get properly moving. If you're interested in looking in, I'd welcome your opinions; if not, no worries. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:50, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

RJL

I kind of get the feeling that this disruption by Martinvl and Pigsonthewing isn't going to go away once the protection expires, so I thought I'd mention this now. In regards to your comment "But in the meantime, the result of the recently closed discussion is what the page should reflect." - The current version of the page is the result of the recently closed discussion.

I'll try to explain this the best that I can since I know you're probably not familiar with road issues.

• The difference between the old version before Nathan Johnson closed the discussion, and the current version, is here.
• Nathan Johnson closed the discussion with the statement Per a request at WP:ANRFC, this discussion is closed with a broad consensus to remove the UK-specific deviations.
• There are three sections that were modified in the diff:
  • The first section is the part of the table saying "UK specific colors", which is a UK specific deviation.
  • The second section is "Example 3, UK colors", also a UK specific deviation.
  • The third section converts the M5 motorway (a UK road) example to conform to the other examples on the page, thus removing the UK specific deviations.
• Pigsonthewing's primary issue is coordinates, which was not addressed in the discussion at all, and is a result of his longstanding grudge relating to roads and coordinates as can be seen at this FAC and this FAC.

I realize you don't know me except for that I'm just another sysop, and you have no way of knowing that I'm "right" on this or not. I also get the feeling that other editors will follow me here and try to confuse the issue. Should WP:RJL be reverted after the protection expires, I believe that it would be counterproductive to protect it as anything but the current version, as Martinvl and Pigsonthewing will gladly keep fighting for months on end, and this would result in us having to start another discussion, and then having them revert war over the results, and on and on, until this goes to ANI or ArbCom or whatever. --Rschen7754 06:29, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Rschen, I can't really make head or tail of the arguments. The one area where Andy and Martin have a point is that the discussion wasn't advertised by the RfC bot. It stayed open long enough (well over 30 days), but if few people knew about it, it makes the consensus shaky. I've therefore suggested on talk that someone open a formal RfC about the same issue. The question(s) would need to be framed carefully so that people can support or oppose clearly, which will help the closing editor pin down the consensus.

It wouldn't have to last the full 30 days given how long this has been debated – so long as you announce in advance when it will close, you could make it shorter; or you could have a full 30-day one if you wanted. Does that sound like a way forward to you? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:03, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't see a new RfC as anything more than a filibuster or stalling tactic, but I'm willing to go forward with one to get some finality on this issue. I think a week is sufficient for the involved parties to register their opinions, given that they're pretty well known already. I don't foresee this garnering much outside attention or participation given the subject matter, but there's a part of me that's willing to extend the RfC out to 10, maybe 14, days if there is a need based on new participants. To drag this out to a full 30 days is just delaying the inevitable. I also have concerns over potential inappropriate canvassing, so I'd like to ask SlimVirgin to help monitor things, if possible. Imzadi 1979 → 19:28, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I had a feeling that it would come to a full RFC. Would you mind keeping an eye on things though? I've had very bad experiences with canvassing and RFCs - in fact, one of the close friends of Pigsonthewing managed to canvass 130 user talk pages with a very provoking statement, which of course greatly affected the outcome of that RFC. Yeah, Imzadi1979 remembers that ill-fated RFC...--Rschen7754 19:31, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd be willing to keep an eye on it. Given how long this has already lasted, you can choose any length of time (minimum seven days, though I'd advise longer) so long as you make clear in the RfC – before the signature so that the bot picks it up – that it will close after X days. Then people are forewarned. It's probably going to be mostly the same people anyway, as Imzadi pointed out. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:36, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, that didn't last long: [5] --Rschen7754 05:09, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Which a major reason why I said last night notification should be done, it would have pre-empted risk of POV notices by supplying neutral ones first. We want involvement from UKRD as quality engagement is the best way to remove the charge that its Americans forcing their style on the Brits, and as it affects articles in their remit they are more likely to have a view on the matter.

Should I adjust the notice to a more neutral version, similar to that left at HWY?--Nilfanion (talk) 09:29, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't for leaving them out entirely, but I can understand the reasoning behind it. But anyway, I think that would be fair (though obviously SV, your input would be appreciated :) ) --Rschen7754 09:32, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

A neutral notice to replace Martin's would certainly be a good idea. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:59, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I've added one. [6] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:10, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

IIMSAM

Thanks for semi-protecting IIMSAM and your note. Just wanted to let you know that I plan to bring it to AfD if no sources are revealed in the next week. I wanted to take a bit of time for that to counter the drive-by "it is UN accredited, so it's already almost automatically notable" by a clear possibility of all involved to get produce sources; sadly not with much effect.... L.tak (talk) 18:15, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I think AfD is a good idea. Or you could PROD it (on the grounds that the article doesn't assert the notability of the subject and no secondary sources can be found), so long as it hasn't been prodded already. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:51, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Antonio Arnaiz-Villena‎ protection

Hi SlimVirgin,

You placed Antonio Arnaiz-Villena‎ under indefinite semi-protection in 2010. Given the low rate of edits to the article, I would request that you review whether pending-changes, or just totally opening the article up would be a better choice at this point. Regards, Crazynas ^t 18:23, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Also would you take a look at Urartu the page appears slow enough that PC would be approprate. Regards, Crazynas ^t 18:28, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the wisdom of lifting semi-protection from problematic BLPs, and the second was vandalized a lot. It's probably better to make these requests at RfPP so that others can look too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:32, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Hans von Ohain

If possible, please also protect Frank Whittle‎ until this matter is solved - thank you. --IIIraute (talk) 19:14, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Done. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:27, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. --IIIraute (talk) 19:29, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Transport of delight

I have rewritten animal transportation as a stub, following a fuss about the topic, but I'm going to bed now. This seems to be your sort of topic so perhaps you'd like to take it from here... Warden (talk) 22:49, 30 June 2013 (UTC)