User talk:SlimVirgin/September 2016

Noel Coward; dirty work afoot

I see that you have some familiarity with the recent discussions here. Would you please review this closure? Note Wikipedia:WikiProject Quality Article Improvement/Infobox (and the related Talk page), where editors have set up a WikiProject whose goal is to force infoboxes into articles over the objections of the principal content contributors. Why would the closing adminn give content contributors' opinions less credence than a band of editors who go around trying to force infoboxes into articles? It seems to me clearly a violation of the spirit of the Arbcom infobox case. I hope you will return the article back to the pre-infobox state. Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:19, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi Ssilvers, I'm not familiar with any of this, but I've left a note on AN that the best thing is to re-open the RfC and let it run for the full 30 days. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:42, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Please review your own edits on the Noel Coward page. I hope you will return the article back to the pre-infobox state that existed before the RfC. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:46, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Sarah, I do think you've locked the article at the wrong version. The close is clearly contentious and needs to be protected at the last stable version, which was without the infobox. That version was happily sitting without an infobox for the past 7 years. Cassianto^Talk 18:53, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Ssilvers and Cassianto: I protected the article on the version on which I found it, which was without an infobox. However, during the same minute that I protected (but presumably seconds before), Floquenbeam restored the infobox, so that became the version to which I added protection. I realize that this is irritating to those who said no during the RfC, because the RfC was closed prematurely and now the new version has been locked in place.

The best thing is to ask Guy to re-open the RfC, then perhaps Floquenbeam will revert himself so that the article returns to the status quo ante before Guy's closure. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:05, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Floquenbeam, your thoughts bearing in mind the above? Cassianto^Talk 19:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

If JzG reopens the RFC, then we should have the article in the state it was in during that discussion. If that state was no-infobox, I will certainly be happy to revert myself (or, if I am not around - which is quite possible - and JzG reopens the discussion, Sarah or any other admin has my permission to revert to the state it was in during that discussion). My goal was not to lock in the infobox (as, I hope, Cass knows, I am a long-time' agnostic about infoboxes), it was to focus discussion away from the flash RFC, and towards appealing JzG's close. Until JzG's close is overturned or re-opened, the article should stay in the state of his closure. To do it any other way seems likely to breed long-term instability. The same theory holds if the RFC is re-opened, it should go back to the state is was in during the RFC. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:14, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the stable version since 2009 was certainly without the infobox, the consensus for which can be found at the archived FAC. I do think it should be restored to that version which was the version it was at during the discussion. I'm loathed, Floq, to drag both you and Sarah into this, but you're the only level-headed admins who are associated with this mess, unfortunately. Cassianto^Talk 20:16, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Sarah, I don't want to labour this point, but seeing as the original RfA has now been opened, I feel as if the infobox should now also be removed and re-protected seeing as it was that version under discussion. Cassianto^Talk 23:58, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Ssilvers, Cassianto, and Floquenbeam: I've re-opened the first RfC and closed the second. I've also removed the box, per Floquenbeam's agreement above, and the protection, which I assume is no longer needed. I think it's important at this point just to let the RfC run, without further comment from people who've already expressed a view. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:16, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks, and I'm sorry to bother you. Cassianto^Talk 00:19, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:39, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

• I tried to ping you on the Noel Coward talk page but, as ever with pings, I'm not sure if it worked. Please would you consider having a look? I appreciate admins are given far more leeway so I expect a blind eye will be turned yet again. SagaciousPhil - Chat 16:44, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

• I've left another note. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:06, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. SagaciousPhil - Chat 17:12, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Sarah, I'm not sure if you got my ping and had a chance to review the timeline I posted in the Discussion section of the RfC. It may help clarify things a bit as to when the original image was updated to a different image w/infobox, its expansion, and eventually its removal. ^{Atsme📞📧} 03:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Atsme, thanks, that's helpful. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:41, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Atsme, looking again at your post, it might be helpful if someone were to open a section briefly detailing the article's history of infoboxes (when the article was created, when a box was added, did it have a box when promoted to FA, when it was removed, when first raised on talk, etc). I had a look through the history, and it's the kind of thing a closer might want to see. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:41, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

 Done See what you think SV. I added it at the end of the !Vote section. ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:47, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

^{Sorry, SlimVirgin aka lil Ms Speedy Gonzales - once I realized the earlier versions of the infobox could only be seen in edit view, I went back to add the diffs but by the time I had finished the new timeline in preview mode and hit save, I got an EC error and saw that you had already made your edits. *lol* Atsme📞📧 21:17, 3 September 2016 (UTC)}

• Many thanks for your evenhanded efforts to steer the conversation to a calmer place. Noted and appreciated. FourViolas (talk) 05:13, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• Do you not think that some of the collapses you made cut a little too deep, hiding perfectly acceptable refutations of points raised, while living in place some equally acceptable comments? There seems to be an inconsistent rationale in some parts your edit (I'm looking particularly at my response to No such user, for example). I appreciate you are trying to keep the discussion 'clean' but to hide valid counter arguments from one side of the discussion leaves an awkward impression and doesn't give the closing admin - or any read the arguments prior to commenting - the full picture. - Gavin (talk) 07:52, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• FourViolas, thanks. Gavin, I mistook the second response from No such user as the end of his first post, which is why that was only partly collapsed. But in the interest of consistency and to make the RfC easier to read for the closing admin, I've collapsed all the threaded replies in the survey section. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:17, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Quite right Sarah, well done. That's a nice liberal piece of work there; who'd have thought RfC stood for "Request for Comments" when comments are hidden away. Maybe we should rename it "RfCuyCatici", broadly translated to "Reguest for comments, unless you're Cassianto and then I'll collapse it". -- Cassianto^Talk 17:34, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Cassianto, speaking of collapsing, what is your opinion of the infobox style used on Peter_Sellers? ^{Atsme📞📧} 18:35, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• That is quite obviously a loaded question; why don't you cut to the chase? Cassianto^Talk 19:13, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• Not intended to be "loaded". I think the format is a good compromise, and just wondered what your feelings were in that regard. ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:43, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• No, it's not. The Coward box does not work collapsed or otherwise. The same goes for Sellers. Cassianto^Talk 19:45, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• Ok, I didn't get any further down the TP than here so I'll leave it at that, and thank you for your response. ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:53, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Books & Bytes - Issue 18

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 18, June–July 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi, Samwalton9, UY Scuti, and Sadads

• New donations - Edinburgh University Press, American Psychological Association, Nomos (a German-language database), and more!
• Spotlight: GLAM and Wikidata
• TWL attends and presents at International Federation of Library Associations conference, meets with Association of Research Libraries
• OCLC wins grant to train librarians on Wikimedia contribution

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:25, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Can we hold off for the full 30-days of the RFC

There is NO CONSENSUS on the Talk page for Jane Austen for any of these edits by these 4 users. All editors must follow the Open RFC to the letter until it ends. Could you hold your editing until the RfC is completed to avoid possible administrator review and possible administrator recall. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 17:05, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

SlimVirgin has edited the article as any editor would do. Her work there was not done in an administrative capacity, so there's no need to mention that you would consider her actions worthy of a review of her admin status. — Diannaa (talk) 03:19, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Well yeah: bullying, or what. Pretty poor, Fountains-of-Paris. _Muffled ^Pocketed 05:21, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Diannaa and Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, many thanks for this. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Sarah, I just noticed the statement above about possible administrator recall re your recent edits to Jane Austen (sorry, I'm still lagging behind). I'm very sorry to see that suggestion here. I'm happy to take over if you've had enough or we can revisit some other time. Victoria (tk) 20:00, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Victoria, thanks. Just to be clear: that comment wasn't the reason I've stayed away from the article for the last day or so. I took it off my watchlist a while ago, but I look in daily. But I didn't know what else to say in that thread, so I was waiting for others to chime in. I do support a revert and the addition of your years. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:08, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I've made some headway in adding some of the dates but put it back to the templated version for now. I'm running into some issues with finding page numbers for chapters, reconciling page numbers (I have the 2014 Copeland and McMasters), etc. All that said, the more I look the more problems I find with the long version (templated) and I've begun to mark some issues there. I might add to the "Summary of the Issues" section later. Victoria (tk) 21:21, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I changed my mind because that makes no sense. Anyway, I have to go offline now, so we'll see what happens. Victoria (tk) 21:47, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Victoria, these are good changes. The dates do make things clearer. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:58, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Yet another Coward RfC Question, Sigh and Sorry!

Greetings. As I was walking through the Bio RfC requests this morning (and wondering why the hell I'd ever consider doing so again ;) ,) I noticed that the second counter RfC is listed top of the page and the re-opened original is listed further down. Ordinarily I'd just be bold and delete the first listing. In this case though, I want to be sure that leaving the closed-out one wasn't some intentional compromise.... Plus, I really don't want to take any action that may give other editors fuel for another "stupid text" style comment. Can you handle it? Thanks. LaughingVulcan 11:46, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I've removed it manually, though the bot may overwrite me. I thought that perhaps I'd archived it with the RfC tag still on it, but the tag is gone, so I don't know why the bot didn't remove it. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:28, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

User talk:Dank#WT:FAC

I replied. The bottom line is: I'd like for you to make an effort, and I'm going to make an effort too. If I want to close something and I think there's any chance you might oppose me as a closer, I'll come talk with you first on your talk page. If I offer to close something, and I don't talk with you because I didn't think there would be a problem, but it turns out there's a problem, then please let me know right away. - Dank (push to talk) 19:59, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

P.S. I mentioned your suggested vote on an alternative style manual in my last post at WT:FAC ... not approvingly or disapprovingly, I'm just letting you know I mentioned it. - Dank (push to talk) 21:23, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for letting me know. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:29, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

The COI discussion

I now understand why the editor who is the catalyst of the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#Self-promotion_via_images, and why it created such a stir. I stumbled across this article: Gage Skidmore which clearly doesn't meet GNG. ^{Atsme📞📧} 05:53, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Image edit warrior

Wanted you to see a perfect example of what I was trying to explain at COI talk. See Thunder (horse) - I did not upload the image and don't own the copyright. The editor who keeps removing the image despite the fact the article is FA seems to think only images with the horse in them belong in the article. Had that been my image, and the COI guideline included restrictions on copyright owners, I would have been subjected to those guidelines, and it just wouldn't be fair because it has nothing at all to do with a COI. ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:42, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

ANI and RFC

Hello. I don't understand why you made this announcement [1] ? Apparently you misunderstood - this had nothing to do with discussing the RFC. It had to do with discussing several things - but not a general discussion about the RFC in particular. By the way - that is water under the bridge at the moment. Did someone ask you to make this announcement at ANI or bring it to your attention? (because this was totally unexpected). I followed up with this [2] ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:39, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Steve, it wasn't an announcement, just a link to another discussion in case anyone else was interested, now or in future. It's routine to do that. WP:AN is the best place to talk about this. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:33, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

OK thanks. Apparently I am not familiar with how it goes - now I know. Steve Quinn (talk) 18:37, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Got a question today that stumped me

I got a message today asking where would a second admin find the closed RfC on Noël Coward? I guess they are saying its no longer transcluded at the noticeboard?..... there basically asking me where admins will find it to give it a proper close. I normally have the answers to most questions...but this was a stumper for me. -- Moxy (talk) 23:00, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

"the closed RfC on Noël Coward"? Well, there's Talk:Noël_Coward/Archive_2#Should Noël Coward return to its original FA state with no infobox? and there's Talk:Noël_Coward#RfC:_Should_an_Infobox_be_added_to_the_page? (and its precursor which isn't really an RfC but was closed like one, Talk:Noël_Coward/Archive_2#Needs an infobox?) - if you don't mean one of these, you might need to be more specific. --GRuban (talk) 14:46, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Moxy, thanks for the note. There's an RfC on Talk:Noël Coward that is closed but waiting for an admin to sum up the consensus. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:27, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, SlimVirgin. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

• Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
• A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Austen, again

I kept reading a lot about genres, and my sandbox was getting stuffed, and the clock is ticking on the library books, so I've made a start here. It's very rough and really only a discussion of her deviation from modern styles of fiction, which I think will need quite a lot of refinement, but it's a springboard to towards themes and then styles. I thought I'd touch bases in case you're still interested. Researching and reading takes a long time; once I get it sorted in my head, writing takes less time. But at this point anything I add is still in the rough, needs-much-copyediting, stage. Hope you're well, btw. Victoria (tk) 00:47, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Victoria, that looks great. I've lost interest somewhat in that page since the commotion, but I've been doing some reading, so not entirely. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:36, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

It was definitely a commotion. I ordered books that have arrived and I can't bring myself to send them back without using them, so I think I'll keep picking at it. Victoria (tk) 17:14, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Sophie Morgan

Hello, I was directed to the Biographies page by someone at the Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests notice board. I wanted to post up some of my concerns about the content of a BLP article, Sophie Morgan, and get a second opinion. I saw your name listed as an editor interested in BLP so thought I would come here to ask for help. Please feel free to refer me on if I'm in the wrong place! I'll start by posting three issues up here that I have been unable to resolve through the usual channels ie. editors talk page or article talk page. There are others, but I'll start with these three so as not to confuse you.

Firstly, I have several concerns about the quality of the sources which I have already raised on the article's talk page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sophie_Morgan) As the subject began her career as a reality tv contestant, many of the early sources quoted come from Tabloids or are low quality references. There are enough references within the article as a whole to now be able to dispense with some of the Tabloid ones or use them more cautiously: for example, The Daily Express and The Sunday Mail are cited several times and both are classified as Tabloids by wikipedia. Would you be happy to look through the refs to see whether you think they are all independent reliable sources and if there are any in your opinion that can be dispensed with?

Secondly, many of the references (which were originally free references before the recent extensive re-write) are now pay to view. I don't see the necessity to change references that were originally available as 'free to view' to 'pay to view'.

Thirdly, I would like to post up some referenced content but have been told that the quotes are not relevent when I've suggested them. May I please run these quotes past you so you can advise me on this?

Thank you. Transparentfish (talk) 15:30, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

• Comment See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vaishal Keri (talk) 20:31, 27 September 2016 (UTC)