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More responses (from SPhilbrick to Yakushima regarding "influences" in infobox

You said:

How about finally reading my rationale for why you're committing WP:BLP violations, and responding to it?

As noted above I have, diffs on request. I even told you how to pursue it, if you really believe it.

All I have from you now is that you thought I was joking about it being WP:BLP vio. THAT'S ALL. And only just yesterday, not from when I started talking about it. Yakushima (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

We don't yet have liquid threads so I'll respond in green. As you know, I didn't simply call it a joke, I then realized you were serious, and suggested you take it to the proper noticeboard. Which you did, so your claim "THAT'S ALL" is not just false, but demonstrably false.

Surely you must be joking. If not: is there no hair you will not split? Yakushima (talk) 17:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

You said:

Sphilbrick initially removed useful material in violation of WP:PRESERVE,

You keep saying this, even after I quoted the relevant part of the policy.

Yes, but see where I wrote "initially"? Initially, you DID remove information in violation of that policy. You admitted the error yourself, AFTER I told you that you were in violation of WP:PRESERVE. Have you forgotten already? Go back to where all this started. Yakushima (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

No thanks. You have yet to respond to multiple requests that you identify the material in the policy and the diffs where I violated it. You haven't stopped making this claim, so please stop the weasel word "initially"

Over and over, on the talk page for WP:IBX, I admit in bold, after striking out my own words, that I was wrong to accuse of you of serial violations of WP:PRESERVE. Been over there recently? Accusing me of "weasel wording" in "initially" is violating AGF. A pretty minor violation compared to assuming I was joking, and assuming I was only throwing up walls of text to see what would stick. "Initially" means "initially", "at first", not "First and then ever afterward." Do I really have to explain that? Yakushima (talk) 17:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

One more time: If you think a page needs to be rewritten or changed substantially, go ahead and do it, but preserve any content you think might have some value on the talk page, along with a comment about why you made the change. Are there any words in this passage you don't understand?

I understand it perfectly. I HAD TO POINT OUT WP:PRESERVE TO YOU, REMEMBER? But if there's WP:BLP vio involved, it's incumbent upon us to back out the changes that caused it. THEN talk about whether it is really a BLP violation or not. I can't talk about it with you if, as you claim, you kept mum on the issue every time I raise it, under the assumption I was just joking. I. AM. NOT. JOKING. I AM EDITING IN GOOD FAITH. WHICH YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO ASSUME, REMEMBER? Yakushima (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

No I don't remember that you HAD to point it out to me. It doesn't matter, I'm familiar with it, I've quoted the relevant section supporting my edits many times, and you have yet to respond. A more serious question is whether you've read it, because you keep citing it incorrectly

Show me where I've cited it incorrectly. My beef with deleting those names is that it's WP:BLP vio. Once I finally saw you hadn't actually done serial WP:PRESERVE vio (thrown off initially by the fact that you'd started a new thread that was WP:PRESERVE-compliant, for reasons that still escape me), I sharpened the focus on the need to retain useful information. But that concern was implicit in my very first complaint about your behavior, which I'll reproduce here (also refreshing your memory about who put you into WP:PRESERVE compliance):

What about WP:PRESERVE? What about the imperative to improve articles? What about Being Bold? Simply removing Hicks as influential on Krugman is none of those things. Hicks' influence on Krugman is very much a matter of public record, see e.g., [1] Rather than remove obvious sources of influence, relying on some strenuously literal interpretation of policy [which actually turned out to be guidelines; for some reason I believed you for a little while there], why not add text and citations to the article to support them?

From the beginning, I was saying that obvious influences on Krugman should stay in the article. Obviously (or so I would have thought) leaving them out -- to the extent of making Keynes his only listed influence -- makes him look like he's only been influenced by a guy who died almost a decade before Krugman was born. I don't know how you make progress in whatever fields you've personally labored in, but in economics, reliance on contempory works is .... --oh, wait, I forgot: economics totally bores you. I can explain forever, but you'll either just see a "wall of text", or it'll evaporate from your brain two seconds later.

You said:

maybe that's why he keeps missing my point about WP:BLP vio

It is possible I'm missing the point, because it sounds silly. You honestly think readers come away with the view that Krugman is a dinosaur after looking at the entries in the influences line of the infobox. Seriously?

I honestly think that, because

• The infobox is there for casual readers, and the article is very long and not very well organized, so the infobox is doubly important. Seeing only Keynes and Hicks there annoyed me no end, because I knew it was wrong; as I've written more than once, I was always on some other more pressing editing mission with this article, and never got back to it. Then you deleted Hicks. Hicks! Leaving it as just Keynes! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE DOING!
• Economists are readers too, and most of them will find a list of only a few names as influences quite ludicrous because they know the truth.
• Paul Krugman has been criticized by yet other economists (some of whom are pretty ignorant of his work) as not really knowing macro, simply because none of his Nobel prize-winning work was in that area. A reasonably complete list of influences, especially when backed by references, provides evidence aplenty that this latter group of economists are either not doing their homework on Krugman, or simply slandering him. Wikipedia needs this information about him. You keep deleting it.

Are you familiar with the phrase "weak tea"?

That's a gibe, not a line of reasoning. It's definitely not a line of reasoning that stands up under a review of even the most recent controversies (besides ours) on the current Krugman Talk page, much less the enormous archive. It's definitely not a line of reasoning that stands up when you read economists who are critical of Krugman. But you don't. And you won't. "Weak tea"? You haven't even tasted the tea out there. It would knock you on your ass. Yakushima (talk) 17:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

You said:

ALL of the "influences" names are those of genuine, and quite strong, influences on Krugman's economic thinking.

I've never disputed this. Nor am I agreeing. I has more than a passing familiarity with the views of Krugman, but I've never spent any time considering who may have influenced him, It just doesn't interest me.

Then get the fuck out of the way of people who ARE deeply interested, and who have some idea of what to do with this information. He's an economist first and foremost Actually "foremost" is debatable. Probably true in the narrow circle of economists, but not in the public at large (our audience). They may be aware he is an economist, but most of his works read by the public are more politics than economics. One would hope someone working on Krugman's page would know this. -- but you're not interested in what put him in the front ranks?! Not just his own effort, but QUITE A NUMBER OF OTHER GREAT ECONOMISTS. You'd never have heard of him otherwise. He'd be nothing without them, and he clearly knows that, because he has said so, over and over. Wikipedia readers should know it too. Yakushima (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

That said, it may interest some readers. So I support the inclusion of it in the article, if the influences are material and can be properly written and sourced. At which time I'll support the names in the summary. This isn't rocket science, it is easy to understand.

I support the inclusion of it UNTIL it can be properly written and sourced -- which I'm trying to do DESPITE your constant interference. I see no harm, and plenty of good, in including it. You haven't explained how readers interests are harmed by inclusion. Who's going to come to an incorrect conclusion from reading that list? Who's going to navigate to useless or misleading material by clicking on those names? Does it slander Paul Krugman? No harm, no foul -- just clumsy, non-guideline-compliant play, which I'm trying to remedy -- and which you are doing nothing to help, only hinder, and largely because of a confessed lack of interest in the topic, and an overriding interest in your pet guidelines. Yakushima (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Or come up with a cogent rational for violating the guideline.

I already did that about zillion times. You complain about my "walls of text." Look, deal with it: BLP + technical (econ) + controversial = a lot of complexity in most issues with this article. This isn't a high school basketball player bio. Yakushima (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Either one, and the BLP claim doesn't cut it with me.

Too bad. You're too ignorant of economics to see it. Others aren't.

You have absolutely no basis to comment on my understanding of economics. How conversant are you with the strength and weakness of hedonic indices? Don't answer, I'm not interested in what you may or may not know about economics. I'd rather you concentrate on improving Krugman, in accordance with the Five Pillars.

Look, I could go over to edit Albert Einstein on the subject of his ambivalent attitudes about quantum mechanics, and if somebody reverted my edit on what seemed a purely technical point, saying my edit was slanderous, I'd have to listen to them -- physics and all. And if I couldn't follow the physics part of their argument, and nobody showed up on my side of the debate who COULD follow the physics part of the argument, I have to back down and admit that I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about.

As far as I can tell, that's where you are in this debate: just too ignorant and apathetic to follow it. Except for one thing: even though you basically admit you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, when it comes to Krugman's economics and the influences on it, you seem to think you don't even need to care, to boss other editors around. That doesn't cut it with me. And it doesn't cut it with economists. Or with lay readers interested in his economic influences. Who ALSO form part of the audience for this article, in the same way that a fourth-year physics student or a professional physicist might start with Wikipedia's Niels Bohr when they wanted to learn more about him.

Cognoscenti are part of Wikipedia's audience too. All they have to start with is a name in a list? So what? They're grownups, they can click on a link. If the Wikipedia trail goes cold, at least it got them a start, and there's the rest of the web (including Google scholar) to fall back on. Yakushima (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

--SPhilbrickT 14:22, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes it just isn't worth the time sink.

For the record though, I think I've responded to every legitimate question you've asked. If I've missed something in the wall of text, please ask it clearly. I'd like to see the same courtesy extended to me, but I fear that's too much to ask.

However, if you'd prefer to spend time cleaning up the mess you are making at Paul Krugman, that's' understandable. It still isn't in compliance, but I'd rather you fix it, than waste time arguing that it doesn't need fixing. I'm going to let it go for some time.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:14, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Vaagdevi College of Engineering again

Appears there may also be a WP:COI issue here.--Shirt58 (talk) 11:41, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up--SPhilbrick(Talk) 13:30, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Big game tonight

Best of luck to your Huskies. Always like to see the best go up against the best. Rikster2 (talk) 23:16, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Hey thanks for the thought. We had a viewing party with some friends, so it was mostly a good night, but a good game anyway.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:31, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Lorem

Hi. I hope this is OK. It was added here. the {{lorem}} was accidental? Cheers,  Chzz  ►  05:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh thanks, I went to a template page and copied something, and forgot to remove that. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:29, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

RAN CCI

YOu stated that this was not a copyvio. However, reproducing a complete short article[1] in a quote seems to me to be very excessive use of the "fair use" rules. Fram (talk) 14:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I invite your input at Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#.22brief_verbatim_textual_excerpts.22_revisited, where I am wrestling with what is allowed, specifically in quotes in footnotes.

The quote is two sentences, easily within Masem's 2-3 sentence suggestion. However, as I said, that strikes me as on the long side, and proportion of source (which I frankly missed) argues for reduction. In many cases, the link to a NYT reference only displays the first couple of sentences, so I missed that this was the complete article.

I started off generally opposed to any quotes in footnotes, but have come around to accepting them in some circumstances.

I may have swung too far the other direction, allowing more than I would personally use in such a situation.

It is common, in many written works, to use footnotes to contain fairly extensive amounts of material. Wikipedia generally does not do that, but I'm unclear whether that is just community practice, or spelled out specifically. I tend toward MRG's formulation "there should be clear reason why we need to". While her comment was posted before my acceptance of the quote, I read it afterward. In retrospect, I should have gone back, and either removed or shortened the quote.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:19, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I've commented at that discussion, using this example. Fram (talk) 15:40, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I saw it, thanks.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

re:New Article Feedback

Hi Sphilbrick,

Apologies for bugging you here. I edited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IvanV following your advice and guidelines from Wikipedia helpdesk page. I trust it is much better now. Can you maybe please tell me how and when will "new unreviewed article" get removed from the page?

Thanks so much for your time.

```` Future Beats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Future Beats (talk • contribs) 20:35, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the template, but please do not treat this as a measure that everything is fine. I have an extremely low threshold for what can pass an initial review. My quick glance at the references did not identify any that clearly qualify as reliable sources. Maybe some do, but if some other editor proposes this article for deletion due to lack of adequate sources, you won't be able to cite me as support.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, no need to apologize for "bugging" me here. This is the place to do it, and I'm happy to respond. I wish I could do more, but I have a couple items on my to-do list, however, feel free to ask any questions, and I'll try to respond.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I am still very new to Wikipedia and I am really trying to adhere to common Wikipedia standards but I do understand what you are saying. I hope that my article will not get "blacklisted" as it is not better or worse comparing to a few other musician articles I was using as comparison when creating mine : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Digweed , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Goode , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_State, etc.

Cheers --Future Beats (talk) 08:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a big, complex place, with its own jargon, for better or worse. The article will not be "blacklisted" because that is a term we use for external sites on the internet that should not be used as references. If you meant you hoped it wouldn't be deleted, I hope not as well, but you can help by making sure it is well-referenced and well-written. I urge you not to bring up other articles as comparison. With almost 4 million articles, there are some articles in pretty bad shape, and the threshold for inclusion is not to be simply as good as the worst. This view is so pervasive, there is even an essay on the topic, called Wikipedia:Other stuff exists. One final note, while it is understandable that you would refer to it as "my article" because you've put almost all the work into it, we do discourage that mindset. This isn't just an essay it is policy : WP:OWN. No big deal, many new editors feel that way, but I'm pointing things out to help you avoid pitfalls. Hope you enjoy editing here and keep it up.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:07, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Speedy of York Subidivion

I personally re-wrote all of this content from scratch. It was clearly not "non-ambiguous". The article will be restored, and further deletions or requests will result in administrative action. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Ever heard of AGF? I take reviewing possible copyvios seriously, but I do occasionally make mistakes. The deletion was five days ago, and I honestly do not recall my exact thought process, except I recall that there was a bad link for a reference. I think I looked for other evidence, but I can't recall exactly what I did, but it wasn't cavalier, although it may have been a mistake,. The phrase "further deletions or requests will result in administrative action" is unnecessarily confrontational. On a more positive note, I see you are from Toronto, a place I've visited twice in the last few months, once for two weeks. Enjoyed it quite a bit, except for the traffic.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:49, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, AGF is precisely the problem. I see no evidence that you checked the article, the reference, or my own edit history. Had you done any of those, I assume that you would have assumed AGF, and the deletion would not have occurred. I do not have a problem with your own AGF, I have a problem with lazy deletions. Next time, check the actual content and the editor's history. We're here to write an encyclopedia, not delete it, and your fail-safe position should always be towards content retention. Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm honestly not sure why you are expending this much energy on this, when it took seconds to restore, but I don't like being accused of laziness, so I'm looking at the history. The article was tagged for deletion on 9 December. Do you disagree it was a problem at that time? It was deleted on that day, by someone else. Then you restored it at 17:10 on 15 December. The restored article still had the copyvio template, so popped up in this cat. It was still a copyvio at that time. I looked at the article, some time between 17:10 and 17:18. I tried to look at the reference, but couldn't because it was a bad link, so grabbed a phrase from the article and did a Google search. I didn't record precisely what phrase I used, but "It was built between 1959 and 1965 to connect the new" is a typical phrase I might have used. That brings up this site, and the words on the article were a copy paste of that site. Convinced, I deleted it at 17:30. Coincidentally, you edited the article at 17:18, so were repairing it, even while I was looking at it. It is very common that it takes me a few minutes to confirm that an article is a copy vio, because I don't take the responsibility lightly. When I find convincing evidence that an article is a copyvio, I delete it. What I do not do, is load the article one more time to see if it has materially changed in the few minutes I have been investigating. If you can get a community consensus that admins should take this extra step every single time, then I'll do it. I'm sorry I deleted the article, even as you were working on it, but it wasn't laziness, it was a good faith effort to find a violation, which I did find.

We are in agreement that there is a failure of AGF. Did you even consider asking me why I deleted it?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:44, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I just can't let this "We're here to write an encyclopedia, not delete it, and your fail-safe position should always be towards content retention" pass. I consider myself closer to the inclusionist end of the spectrum that the exclusionist, in most cases, but not when it comes to possible copyvios. We probably have thousands of copvios in Wikipedia, and detractors of Wikipedia would find it easy to assemble evidence including a large number of exhibits. On the chance that someone does make such a ruckus, I want to be able to present evidence that the community is making a good faith effort to remove copyvios, and that the community is working hard on this, not just lip service. In close calls regarding copyvio, we err on the side of exclusion. We do not need some outside body concluding that Wikipedia is cavalier about addressing copyright issues.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:59, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Feedback on Meaning of Liff draft

Hi Sphilbrick - not sure where things stand with my draft as above - I left a comment in response on the Help desk page, but haven't heard anything from the volunteers there since?--Davescanlon (talk) 19:49, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Just recording here that I responded to you, and contacted three editors to see if they would help. At least one responded.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The Perpetual Misunderstanding Agreed, but the misunderstanding is one-sided

Let's see if you understand economics.

Nice start.

I have something I value: my time.

Ditto. Stop wasting mine.

I am planning to spend some of my time doing a couple hundred CCI edits – in economic terms, I am exchanging my time for the edits.

I seem to remember it was in the thousands. Thousands is the number that need doing. I'm only proposing that you to do a small percentage Look, I don't even know what a CCI edit is, and right now, I don't fucking care.which means you are rejecting a deal and you don't even understand it. This is volunteer work. Nobody has enslaved you to be an editor on Wikipedia.

Why? Because I value the edits more than my time. Both sides are better off.

You still haven't given me a reason to care.

You claim to care about improving Krugman, and I'm offering to help. What word don't you understand?

You have hinted that I should work on adding influences to the Krugman article.

No, I have not hinted. I have said outright: if you're going to work on Krugman, you could more productively spend your time getting the article into compliance with the economist infobox "influences" guideline by adding to the main text rather than by deleting useful information, moreover in a way that violates WP:BLP. ADDRESS THESE POINTS, AS WP:BRD REQUIRES.

That might well make me better off, but I could do so only at the expense of not doing a 100 or so CCI edits, so it is a bad trade-off.

I don't know what a CCI is, and it's not my problem anyway. It's your problem. So I don't care.

However, if you did 100 CCI edits, and I worked on the Krugman article, I would get what I want, so it would be a Pareto optimal exchange for me.

I'm not interested in whatever would be a Pareto optimal exchanges for you. I'm interested in making Paul Krugman better. Deleting most of his influences, even after I've provided solid citations for them, just gets in the way of that accomplishment. From what I can tell so far, it's not even an accomplishment you're capable of. From what I can tell, you don't ever care. YOU HAVE SAID OUTRIGHT THAT YOU'RE NOT PARTICULARLY INTERESTED WHO INFLUENCED PAUL KRUGMAN. REMEMBER?Of course I remember. It is still true. Is it beyond your comprehension that someone can work on something and do a credible job, even if they don't particularly care about the content?

That doesn't mean you should agree; you might find CCI edits beyond your abilities, and could not agree to do them, or maybe you can do them, but it would be so onerous, that the cost in time to do the edits would not be worth the gain you would get with my help.

I don't care. I only care about improving Paul Krugman,obviously false, as you are turning down an opportunity to improve it. One might think you care more about making arguments you actually think you are winning without interference from people who show vanishingly little knowledge of the content issues at stake.

Only you can answer whether the trade-off is Pareto optimal for you, but why not address the economics, rather than decline using some mage up argument that I am betraying principles.

You offered me your little horsetrade in lieu responding to my points. WP:BRD requires, if nothing else, that you stay on topic. I made a case that leaving a vestigial "influences" list plays to perceptions that reasonable people might have, after reading the comments of esteemed economists who might be thought reasonable. I DID NOT WRITE ALL THAT ABOUT BARRO AND PRESCOTT AS A JOKE. Either supply a response (better than "this makes no sense", or "no reasonable person would believe this"), or leave a debate that you're basically just evading at this point.

If you conclude that CCI edits aren't for you, that's fine, then we can't make an exchange, because we wouldn't both be better off.

You shouldn't be horsetrading on a matter of principle in the first place.that's twice you've accused me of violating principle. Twice, without a coherent explanation You should be trying to reach consensus on the actual issues.Here's a hint: When every single editor disagrees with you, then there's a consensus, and it isn't for your position. Consensus is resolved. If you really want to improve the article, either do it yourself, or discuss my proposal

So far, you offer to me, in economic terms, has been: I should give up doing what I want to do, and work on something I do not want to work on, in exchange for ….nothing. In economic terms, can you see why I am not jumping at your offer?

If you actually wanted to work on getting the influences into compliance (beyond simply deleting names and citations, the easy way out), why haven't you done it yet? I gave you place to two places start: Stiglitz and Dornbusch. In the case of Dornbusch, I did most of the work for you. You still didn't lift a finger, when you could have made progress with little more than finger-lift, as I left it. So you have no credibility left with me, when you claim you want to do real work on the article. Yakushima (talk) 03:29, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Why do you keep claiming that I "want to do real work on the article"? I don't want to but I'm willing to. I'm offering a proposal that makes us both better off. The problem is, you can't accept it without conceding that you might be wrong about me, and that is too high a price for you to pay. More's the pity.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:35, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

In summary, I couched a proposal in economic terms and you...punted.

I made a good faith offer, to give up some of my time to help you, if you would agree to work on something the project needs. Your counter-offer? That I should do what you want in exchange for...nothing. In negotiation terms, that's not considered a good faith counter-offer. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Re:A barnstar for you!

Re:A barnstar for you!

Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates (pages 1 and 2) + find "meta/" + twinkle :) Bulwersator (talk) 15:51, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Templates restored, and no barnstar from me

I do not believe that those templates met the criteria of WP:CSD#G8. Those templates existed as metadata which can be used by templates, are part of a series of similar templates used by templates related to UK politics, particularly those which display election results (they are used in the "political result" column of Template:Compact election box). There usefulness depends in large part on the series being reasonably complete. Deleting those which are currently unused degrades the utility of the set as a whole.

As the creator of most of those templates, I was notified about only one of them, Template:British National Party/meta/abbrev, at 15:43 today, and it was deleted less than an hour later at 16:39. That is remarkably little notice at the best of times, but even more so in the runup to christmas, when I and most editors are likely to be taking a break. It is made worse by the fact that no attempt was made to explain that this was part of a series of similar deletions.

The reason given for deletion was clearly inappropriate. G8 refers to "Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page", but all /meta templates fit this definition; G8 should not have been used unless all /meta templates were to be deleted, and I hope nobody is contemplating that. In any case, G8 provides an exemption for "page that is useful to Wikipedia", and I see no evidence that any attempt has been made here to asses the usefulness of these templates.

I will now restore all of those which were deleted. If either of you still believes that the existence of these templates is damaging to wikipedia, please nominate them for deletion en masse at WP:TFD, and allow a discussion to take place. If you decide to do so, please be kind enough to a) wait until xmas/new year holidays are over, so that more editors will be around; b) to include with the nomination a link to my post here; c) to notify WT:WPUKPOL.

Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:09, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Note: the same issues apply to all the other /meta templates which were deleted in this exercise, because they all function as sub-templates of a series of standardised political templates. I will therefore restore them all, and suggest that they should be tagged in future as {{G8-exempt}}. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:21, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I see that you are hard at work restoring the templates. Many thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

PS I noticed that the pages I had restored still have the Speedy tags on them. Those should really be removed.

Also, I took a closer look at what happened. On further examination, I see that both Bulwesator (who tagged the templates) and you as deleting admin both apparently omitted to check whether the templates were used. For example, {{Conservative Party (UK)/meta/abbrev}} was tagged for G8 here, and deleted 4 minutes later. However it is currently listed as being used in several dozen article-space pages. as well as being transcluded in the documentation of {{Compact election box}}.

Whatever methodology either of you is using to select templates for speedy deletion, please revise it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:11, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I had it all cleaned up, but Fastily came along and deleted them all again. I'm writing to him to see if there's a better way of fixing this.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 03:13, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

i love this page

Oscar45596524 (talk) 17:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks --SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:01, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:Ambox/uncyclopedic

Curious, why did you restore this page but not remove the speedy deletion tag? I'm not sure what to do, since I don't want to redelete and thus revert you, but since you didn't decline the speedy, I don't want to decline it based simply on your actions. Nyttend (talk) 00:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I accidentally deleted a couple hundred templates, that I thought had a valid delete rationale, but did not. It was brought to my attention, not long before I had to run out to a family obligation, so I went through the delete log and restored virtually all the templates I had deleted. I was rushing because I was late to leave, so I think that one happened to be in the list, but was a valid deletion, so it got caught up in my assembly line undeletion action. I just got home, and was going to check to see if I needed any cleanup. Looks like it has been deleted. Sorry about that.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 03:01, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Template:Blank/meta/shortname shouldn't have been undeleted. Three different editors edited it before you: two of them blanked the page after their own edits, and the third one tagged it for deletion — every single user who's edited this page either blanked the page or tagged it for deletion. To answer your question — no, I don't. I know virtually nothing about automated methods; the only script that I've ever used at a WMF website is the nominate-this-file-for-deletion script at Commons. Thanks for restoring Template:Communist Party of Great Britain/meta/abbrev, which I shouldn't have deleted in the first place. Nyttend (talk) 03:49, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok, but I screwed up when I deleted it so I'm manually undeleteing everything. Any thoughts on how to do it faster? I'll redelete that one, I thought maybe it was a template for a template.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 03:52, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

My only suggestion is tabbed browsing — I'll often up almost twenty tabs in my browser when there are lots of pages to delete or undelete. Nyttend (talk) 04:37, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

User_talk:Fastily#The_Templates_with_meta

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For manually cleaning up that mess. Major props. -FASTILY <sup>(TALK)</sup> 21:16, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks :) I love those cookies. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:35, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

"Storms"

...refers to named storms, as in "Nesat" and such. 71.175.53.239 (talk) 17:24, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't find that satisfying. I bet there are thousands of uses of the term "storm" in Wikipedia, to mean something other than named storms. If the intention is that "storms" as the section heading, is short for "Named storms" then a lot of editing is needed. "Named storms" strikes me as a reasonably defined term. Why not use it, if that is what is meant (although I'm not convinced that is what was meant).--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:30, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

The statement in Storm (disambiguation) A storm is a severe weather condition. is in conflict. Which is right? My money is on the dab page.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:32, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Then I'll do it. 71.175.53.239 (talk) 17:37, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Something to watch for

There's an unpleasant software bug to watch for when you're deleting old version of files. If an old version of the file itself is corrupt, what the system does when you try to delete the corrupted revision—by a script or by manually clicking [delete] for the revision—is that it deletes the edit history but leaves the current version and the corrupted version of the file alone. So you have the file still visible, but it has no edit history attached. You can spot these errors after the fact easily: the deletion summary will be (Reduce supplied) when using the script. There will be no mention of a revision. To correct this, you restore the file so you can delete all of it (using &action=delete without any reference to a file version (ie use the [delete] tab as if it were an article)), then you do a selective restore to the versions you want left. I've just fixed a bunch in both mine and your deletion log. It is very tedious. Maxim<sub>(talk)</sub> 21:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. What a pain. I confess I'm not yet completely following, but I'll cease my deletions until I get a handle on it. Would you be so kind as to identify an example? I'm glancing at your recent deletion history, and not sure I'm following. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

For example, I ran the script against File:Timalliwant.jpg. In the edit summary "? (Deleted old revision 20101019045858!Timalliwant.jpg: Reduce supplied)" I see the string "Reduce supplied" but I see that in all summaries. I'm looking at the file, and don't see an obvious problem. I think you are suggesting that if the problem occurs, the edit summary will include only the string "Reduce supplied"? If so, I'm not seeing such an example.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:59, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I also think we should let Fastily know, for a couple reasons, indulgence the possibility that the script could be modified.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:05, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Funnily enough, we had this same software bug a few years ago as well, and I was told it had been fixed. I guess I'll create a new bug report. As for the userscript, AFAIK, it's coded correctly and would perform the job consistently if the mediawiki software wasn't bugged. That said, just check each file after you run the script for any abnormalities. Should you find anything unusual, restore the page and get ready to manually delete old revs :o -FASTILY <sup>Happy 2012!!</sup> 22:48, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll try to explain again. For example this log entry:

• (del/undel) 12:15, 25 December 2011 Sphilbrick (talk | contribs | block) deleted "File:Fender logo.svg" ‎ (Reduce supplied) (view/restore)

It doesn't mention anything about deleting a revision of a file - it's because the edit history only was deleted. This is the string you search for: exactly (Reduce supplied), as above in the example. The script's alright, actually; it's the software. This sort of problem occurs about 1–5 times out of 2000 log entries, so it's something that's easier to fix after the fact than carefully looking for it. Just doing a find for a log page is faster. PS: It's not a reason to stop deleting stuff, but it's something to check for when done a batch. Maxim<sub>(talk)</sub> 02:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

My point was that "Reduce supplied" appears in ones that are OK. I now see that I want to look for "(Reduce supplied)", becasue legitimate ones won't have the opening parens. Thanks, I'll watch for that.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 03:16, 2 January 2012 (UTC)