User talk:SlimVirgin/October 2013

NFCRs at WP:AN.

Slim-- I agree about the clutter, but at the very least, I can try to close a couple of these that seem non-contentious. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 02:08, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for closing those, Jethro. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Flow

Just a quick note to ask for your attention to the question of making the whole comment-editing thing configurable on a per-wiki basis, later on the Flow talk page. I can't understand why WMF wants to decide this issue for everyone. The idea that there's a solution that would make us and the Germans and the Spanish all happy seems a bit pollyannaish.—Kww(talk) 00:16, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try to pay more attention to that. I'm confused about the whole thing at the moment, so it's hard to know what to ask. I'll read your posts through and see if that helps me understand the arguments. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:44, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Hulda Stumpf

Gatoclass (talk) 08:03, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

responded

I responded on my talk page. Go for it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

CENT notice for BRIGHTLINE

Would you object to some clarification on the CENT notice for the discussion on WP:BRIGHTLINE? Not everyone viewing that would necessarily know that "BRIGHTLINE" covers paid advocacy. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:24, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Sure, good idea. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Reverts

If you are going to revert my edits to Disappearance of Madeleine McCann could you please at least state why you are doing so, since all my edits have been made in good faith and in my view improve the article. Reverting with edit summaries such as 'expanded, tidied, moved a section' is in my view bordering on disingenuous. Celuici (talk) 16:22, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Celuici, I left you a note on the talk page explaining. It's better to continue the discussion there. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:33, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Comments/questions

Hi Slim. I noticed there are three different paid editing proposals and I came across one you started. I was curious how you felt about stuff like this. Do you think it is ok for me to make the edit in that case? Or should I run around pinging folks until I find an editor willing to make the change? The same goes for the entire article, which I added after getting a Request Edit | G. CorporateM (Talk) 01:24, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi CM, sorry for the delay in replying. Yes, I think you could make that edit if it's not contentious, especially as someone else agrees. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:08, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. CorporateM (Talk) 18:26, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

RfC

It seems to me that the "No paid advocacy" RfC is going down in flames because editors are projecting grotesque fantasies onto the simple wording. Rather than simplicity being an advantage, it seems to have weirdly turned into a source of hysteria. There is a longer version of that same proposal, which I guess can be tinkered with to allay the concerns that have been expressed, but personally I believe that this entire thing is an exercise in futility. As I understand it, "NPOV" is mandated by the Foundation on all projects. If the same is not done with COI it just is not going to happen, because editors simply don't have a clue as to how destructive it is and are beyond rationality on that subject. Coretheapple (talk) 17:34, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Core, I haven't had a chance to read through the responses. I'm hoping there are useful pointers in there for how to handle a policy proposal in future. But I agree that the objection to the simplicity of it is odd. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:08, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly, there seems to some interest in the subject by the foundation. I think ultimately that's where anything is going to be done. If left to Wikipedia editors, there would be no conflict of interest rules whatsoever. Coretheapple (talk) 14:52, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I also wanted to mention that I agree with your oppose of the paid advocacy policy proposal, and found your rationale persuasive. I think that generally speaking there is little point in pursuing this subject on Wikipedia. It is a waste of time as well as a lost cause to try to persuade people who simply are without a clue on the impact of paid editing. Either the WMF establishes "no paid editing" as a bedrock principle for all projects, on a par with neutral point of view, or nothing will happen. Coretheapple (talk) 15:47, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I was encouraged by Sue Gardner's statement that the WMF sees paid advocacy as a black-hat practice. That's definitely a step forward. But it's important to make the paid editing/paid advocacy distinction, because the former is now spread throughout the encyclopaedia. There are WMF staffers, contractors, grantees, there's GLAM and Wikipedians-in-residence, the Education Program staff, chapters' staff and grantees. Even the students editing as part of the Education Program are being paid with grades, and are editing only to obtain them (and editing in a particular way, not the way articles are normally edited). So "no paid editing" won't gain consensus. You can see we're struggling even with "no paid advocacy." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:55, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

When I say "paid editing" I'm referring to the kind of thing that I've observed on the BP/Chevron pages, and in the Articles for Creation process. I'm not convinced as to the sincerity of either Jimbo or the Foundation in dealing with this. Jimbo is inconsistent, and the Foundation is AWOL, but it is really their organization and their reputations that are at stake. So "what, me worry?" Coretheapple (talk) 21:08, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

We all need to be careful not to say "paid editing" anymore, though, and train ourselves to say "paid advocacy" or "paid advocacy editing". Otherwise you instantly and automatically get many people thinking of Old Professor Smith who only wants to share his knowledge of medieval tapestries and so forth. This is rather silly but it is what it is. Herostratus (talk) 00:35, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

My problem with "paid advocacy" is that it implies that editors engaged in advocacy are overt POV-pushers, while most are far too smart to do that. Coretheapple (talk) 14:24, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

FGM

I could not help but notice the selection of image in the recently-published FGM-related story in The Lancet (here). It's great to have the article complete with the most up-to-date information, so thank you for your continued edits. Kind regards, LT910001 (talk) 07:00, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback, LT. I must admit that I'm flagging a little. I keep thinking I've read enough only to find another mountain ahead of me, but I'm going to try to keep working on it. Thanks for letting me know about that article. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:08, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Template-editor right being granted

Another FYI. The RfC passed (144/21/=87%), and a new protection code is being placed on many semi-critical templates (but not all). As Step 1, to allow more people to edit some protected templates, various pages are being re-protected with the new level, and about 20 of us new wp:Template_editors have been authorized:

• See: wp:Requests_for_permissions/Template_editor

Of course, none of the full-protected pages can be edited, but as more semi-critical templates are lowered, half-way, to the new protection level, then there should be many more bugfixes, or feature enhancements, among hundreds of current templates which have gone unimproved for years (often 3 years of no updates). It was just too tedious to keep requesting {editprotected} on so many pages, and people became demoralized when a reasonable change was abandoned because tech-admins were too busy to re-try all the suggested improvements. In fact, for me, I began to dread writing any new utility template, which would soon get protected so that I could no longer update it without weeks of request, try, re-request, retry, etc. The mere fact that about 20 people have already volunteered, to edit these semi-critical templates, shows the pending bottleneck which thwarted dozens of tech-editors. I even began to think of WMF as the major source of new tools, like VE, when instead, the enwiki tech-editors could create so many powerful gadgets, and proof-reading templates which address real tedious concerns of the experienced users. In fact, I would like to have a tool which moves all upper reftag footnotes, cluttered in the top text, and auto-names the footnotes under {{Reflist|refs=<ref name=n1>...</ref><ref name=n2>...</ref>}}. Then, I would be more willing to copy-edit articles when collecting 150 massive footnotes scattered across the page. I don't need a VisualEditor, I just need all those upper footnotes auto-moved into the References section. More later. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:40, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Wikid77, I'm glad to hear that's going to work out. It makes much more sense for you to be able to edit those directly. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:08, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

The progress has been rapid, and I have already fixed several complex problems which had remained for years. Also, I was stunned to hear other template-editors saying they had basically abandoned improvements once the templates had become admin-only. In my case, I knew the {editprotected} requests were tedious, but I had underestimated the intense chilling effect on improvements by other template authors. All the talk of "bureaucratic delay" can be proven by looking at WP edit-patterns, even though I know WP is "not a grand social experiment" it acts just like one(!), showing how some bottlenecks can be caused by centralized controls. I think hundreds of long-term users have been pleased by the good news of authorization of the wp:Template editors. However, remember ~74% of monthly editors are in the wp:Silent majority, not posting to talk-pages at all during that month. Meanwhile, I keep thinking of an "automated copy-edit assistant" (to write in Lua script) which will spot all the tedious typos, such as no-space at end-of-sentence dot, ".The" or similar. Of course it couldn't detect all typos, but I think people would be happier if they could activate a tool which reminded them of perhaps 20 current common typos when editing an article. I am also encouraged by ideas I have seen in the JavaScript-based wp:user scripts, now that more people can update protected JavaScript pages. Ironically, having the template-editor right has encouraged me to copy-edit more article pages while seeing how templates are used, not just updating the templates alone. Something very big has just happened, when many thought massive progress in WP was no longer possible. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:39, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:AN#Ban Appeal of AKonanykhin

Hi SV. You may want to consider the CEO's appeal at Wikipedia:AN#Ban Appeal of AKonanykhin. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:36, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know, Anthony. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:55, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

October 2013

Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia. We always appreciate when users upload new images. However, it appears that one or more of the images you have recently uploaded or added to an article, specifically Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, may fail our non-free image policy. Most often, this involves editors uploading or using a copyrighted image of a living person. For other possible reasons, please read up on our Non-free image criteria. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Werieth (talk) 17:24, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey

Hey there SlimVirgin! I received a message "SlimVirgin thanked you for your edit on Wikipedia:Conflict of interest." for the policy shortcut|WP:EXTERNALREL I posted. Did you mean to then remove the policy shortcut|WP:EXTERNALREL I posted at COI?[1]? -- Jreferee (talk) 12:40, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I'm sorry, I definitely didn't mean do to that! (I wasn't saying thanks, but no thanks.) :) I intended only to restore university; I must have looked at an old version and saved it by mistake. By all means restore what I removed, or I'll do it if I get to it first. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:01, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Restored; my apologies again. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:14, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Funny, I was all ready to reply with, "You mean 'thanks, but no thanks'" if you indicated that you intended to remove the shortcut. We seem to have the same sense of humor. However, I figured it more likely was a mistake. Either way, I was fine with what you decided. Thank for fixing it. -- Jreferee (talk) 14:34, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Discrimination

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.149.35.242 (talk) 13:28, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Non-free image policy wonks

These people have a sacred cause, and advancing the encyclopedia is not it. They spend their time and waste countless hours pole vaulting over rat turds, and I think a discussion on updating image policy is long overdue. When reams of discussion fails to dislodge files such as https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Naser_al-Din_Shah_slide_1.jpg, yet articles such as History of painting are deprived of images that are readily available across the Internet because "policy must be obeyed because it's policy", something is seriously wrong.

Just thinking on the keyboard. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:49, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I was looking at that deletion page today, and the same three names keep cropping up with policy interpretations that seem very extreme. I was thinking of opening a discussion about it somewhere (e.g. WP:AN), but haven't formulated my thoughts yet. I'm not sure it's the policy that's the problem, but more the way they're interpreting it. If you or someone else starts a discussion before I get round to it (or in case I don't), please ping me. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:53, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm leaving for three weeks at the beginning of next week, but when I get back I'll be up for it. I just read your comments and thought we might be simpatico on this. If the goal was to be all free content, there would not be non-free content policies; all non-free content would just be banned. Read my comments in the History of painting discussion. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:03, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both for stepping in here, much appreciated, and Modernist has been arguing this for years. Ceoil (talk) 12:07, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Hyam, Empire and Sexuality

I'll look at the book next time I'm in the library, to get footnote 29. Probably a few days away. But let me know if you have it already. Zero^talk 07:57, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't have it, so that would be very helpful, though there's no rush. It's about the death of Hulda Stumpf. That footnote may have information in it about who was suspected, and I've seen Google snippet views suggesting that someone was prosecuted, but I've never seen enough to make sense of it. So anything that footnote can add would be very interesting.

I've been meaning to reply to your move suggestion about Kastner, so I'll do that now. It seems fine to me. I was wondering last year if it ought to be moved, but couldn't work out where best to suggest, so your suggestion seems good. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:24, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

The footnote is just an archival reference. But check your email. Zero^talk 08:33, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

More in email. Zero^talk 05:27, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

MM article

Thanks for your message. I think my changes were actually very subtle, and were fixing quite obvious attempts to mislead readers, so am surprised at the constant reverts by yourself.

I think the article is actually pretty bad, in regards to bias, balance, interpretation of opinions as facts, POV etc etc, as well as important omissions from the investigation - I really could have spent all day changing things and held back quite a lot.

so I plan to revert this entire article to third opinion/community input/editor assistance so they can decide who is right and wrong here.

To make it clear, for the last time, the three things I changed was:

1: The incinuation that the sole reason the police arrested the McCanns was because they misunderstood DNA samples 2: The fact that you were referring to the witness statement of the McCanns as actual events. Without making it clear it was merely their version of events 3: That "abductors" were actually "potential abductors"

Cjmooney9 (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter

Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013

by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...

New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian

Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.

New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??

New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges

News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY

Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions

New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration

Read the full newsletter

Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 20:10, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Policy draft

What do you think of this? Wikipedia:Paid editing policy proposal/2nd draft I'm looking for a compromise version that most people could support. Jehochman ^Talk 23:13, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Is that not basically the same as Wikipedia:No paid advocacy? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:04, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

It uses different nomenclature. It has a few extra details. Do you like it? Jehochman ^Talk 09:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

It's fine, but it's the same as the one I proposed that people are currently commenting on. Best to let that discussion close after 30 days, and then someone can re-propose words that take the main concerns into account. There are people who will oppose anything along these lines, but there are others who will support if their concerns are taken into account, and the discussion has offered lots of good feedback. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:55, 31 October 2013 (UTC)