I don't really object to either A7 or G11, but the idea that these bits of jargon justify a deletion is a problem. Especially since when new criteria are added, A7 may become A8, leaving anyone looking at the deletion log in future very confused. Most people wanting to know why something was deleted will have no idea what these codes mean and it gives a bad impression that you need to understand this sort of thing to get involved with the project. Blocking people for having usernames in non-Latin characters is the worst policy I've seen on Wikipedia. It's going to become even worse when we have single login and people from the wikis that use other alphabets find they need to log out before editing or risk a permanent block of their username. Other policies are sometimes fine, but their application is inconsistent which gives an appearance to unfairness, so perhaps the application of these ought to be looked at - not just the policies themselves. Angela.

On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 08:34:31 +0100, Angela &lt;beesley(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: <snipped> Actualy when new criterea gets added they tend to be given a higher number, also when criterea are removed or merged a placeholder is left spesificaly with links/references from the deletion log in mind (see for example Criterea 4 and 6 for articles). I do agree that writing just "a7" or "g11" and such in the deletion summary should be strongly discouraged though. It's just plain lazy and extremely confusing to people who are unfamiliar with CSD jargon. Most browsers have various types of auto complete or other ways to insert pre-prepared verbose "boilplate" text into web forms (I particularly love Opera's "notes" feature) with just a few keystrokes, and even without that typing 2-3 words (even if it's just "blatant advertising" or "non notable band" or whatever) or at least typing [[WP:CSD#A7]] rater than just a7 so people can at least follow the link to the actual criterea doesn't take *that* much longer. Maybe creating a "warning" template simmilar to {{Summary2}} to remind admins of this might be in order. -- [[:en:User:Sherool]]

Matthew Brown wrote: You're not the first person to claim this, but I've also never seen it to be true. It's a constant battle, and one I know I'm losing. -Jeff -- If you can read this, I'm not at home.

Jeff Raymond wrote: I have no idea what you mean by A7 and G11. The other three abbreviations are repeated often enough for me to remember them, but there is still a need to explain your jargon when you initiate it in a thread. Ec

On 11/3/06, geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I didn't even notice that... but yeah, that sounds like a bad idea. If there's a DMCA or other external reason for things, it should be made clear to everyone... -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 11/3/06, Andrew Gray &lt;shimgray(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: The problem is that the deleted stuff isn't being cleared from time to time any more with the result that many artices have deleted stuff. This makes it hard to do selective deletes and has the risk of stuf being acidentaly undeleted. This is a risk best not taken with DMCA stuff. -- geni

geni wrote: My objections about the ambiguity of whether edits by User:Danny were "office" or not has recently been resolved, but I'd still like to see a more intuitive username for the office action account than "Dannyisme". I suggest "User:Office Actions" as the obvious choice.

On Nov 3, 2006, at 4:48 PM, geni wrote: Except that keeps are frequently being overturned to deletes (Or simply overturned unilaterally and then upheld on DRV). There remains the fundamental imbalance that articles can be AfDed three, four, five, etc times, but that undeletion is a one-shot deal. This problem, while not the whole of the problem with our deletion system, underscores the bulk of the flaws. > Hmmm it would be quite odd to see a study that backed that claim up. > By easier do you mean "amount of effort expended" or percentage of > people in a certian area covered. > Pornographic actors tend to be better known and there are more > publications out there writeing about them. Though I should note, popularity is hardly the only concern of an encyclopedia, hence the coverage of academic topics in more detail than their popularity would imply. I should think it is not an excessively insane view to point out that in terms of "value to the world" (Which is really what we mean by notability, let's face it) pornographic actors rank far, far below many areas we are far more selective about. Even a Pokemon is more exceptional than someone who's claim to fame is mostly that they have had sex. > Mulitple independent sources. A great guideline, so long as you're willing to ignore all but the most pathological of articles. Unfortunately, that's a bad way to approach the topic. Unlikely - with several hundred admins, it could well be a very long time before problems promoting new ones move to the realm of explosion. -Phil

geni wrote: The one difference between these two topics is that Pokémon is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it's easier to confine all that could be reasonably said about it. Porn has been around much longer to the point that some would even consider the Book of Ruth in the Bible to be pornographic. This makes it a lot more difficult to determine what porn is notable. None of us would exist without sex, and that could have the effect that naming someone's parents is inherently pornographic. :-) Even I would admit that simply saying that someone had sex is not normally notable, but having sex publicly or on film could alter that parameter. I'm glad to see you mellowing with age. That's sad. As flaky as the leaves may seem they owe their life to the roots. Ec

On 11/5/06, Phil Sandifer &lt;Snowspinner(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Britannica is only one opinion. An encyclopedia of childrens toys would probably come to a different conclusion. Most legal systems are based to a far degree on president. This works better than you might expect. -- geni

Phil Sandifer wrote: I don't agree with that at all---I think we should be precisely a compendium of subject encyclopedias, albeit woven together in a way that the general reader can navigate from general to specific articles and back again in a reasonable manner. -Mark

Phil Sandifer wrote: Well I was thinking in terms of subject matter treated, not necessarily wording. What I had in mind with the "woven together" is to make things more accessible and fit in better with the rest of the encyclopedia. Look at our math articles, for example---surely lots of them have no business being in a general-purpose encyclopedia. Some do, but as you drill down to more and more specific things, the language gets more and more technical and the content approaches that of a specialist mathematics encyclopedia. -Mark

Phil Sandifer wrote: I disagree, I see no reason why Wikipedia can't be considered a compendium of subject encyclopedias. Wikiprojects already treat it that way in a lot of regards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Highways springs to mind, I would normally expect to find this sort of thing only in a specialist collection.

On 06/11/06, Phil Sandifer &lt;Snowspinner(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Concur entirely. Our articles should be written from the standpoint of a general reader; in the unfortunate but rare event the topic is sufficiently obscure that the general reader isn't going to be able to understand it, we should have the decency to frame it in a way that still says "we are a general enyclopedia", to make it clear what it's a subset of and what knowledge you need for it to make sense. So this will mean we restate "the obvious" a lot of times; we define or avoid jargon; we talk about things in a wide context rather than keeping within a purely biographical remit, or a purely legal remit, or a purely historical remit, or so on; and, if in doubt, we assume we're the first thing they've ever seen about the field and they need a decent and comprehensible primer on it *now*. We shouldn't be assuming a common subject-related context from our users, which a specialist encyclopedia can afford to do; this is, when you think about it, just a corrolary of another of our basic principles, that we don't assume a cultural or national context on behalf of our readers. We are an international encyclopedia, not a compendium of an American one and a British one and an Irish one and an Indian one (&c, &c) - and, likewise, we are a general encyclopedia, not a compendium of a historical one and a biographical one and an engineering one and a legal one and an art one and (&c, &c). ---- As an aside, I have an encyclopedia on the shelf which - whilst general-purpose - is sufficiently thorough in dealing with Matters Imperial to have entries somewhat resembling (from memory): "'Powerful'. First-rate cruiser launched in 1895. Currently in the Mediterranean Fleet." I would be curious to know what the most obscure entry anyone else has found in a general-purpose work is... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

geni wrote: At the risk of breaching Wikiquette I think you mean "precedent" rather than "president". ;-) I basically agree. Precedent allows for some flexibility in distinguishing between cases because often unexpected differences in circumstances. Trying to legislate the result of a precedent setting decision destroys that flexibility, and too easily makes the new rules apply in unintended places. Ec

Speedy deletion criterion A7, which states: "Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is controversial or there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead. Note: Avoid the word "vanity" in deletion summaries since it may be insulting." I've just removed the tag from articles about a Hollyoaks actress, a Compuserve Vice President and a band broadcast on the BBC. Someone beat me to the line in removing a tag from an article on a bloke who had written number one singles. I'm staggered at what some people think is not an assertion of importance or significance. The criterion has to go. It was proposed as "An article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or significance - people such as college professors or actors may be individually important in society; people such as students and bakers are not, or at least not for the reason of being a student or baker. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead." which at least gave some examples, but they quickly fell out. Most of us who opposed this felt it would prove to be ambiguous, but the majority had their head. If our CSD truly are supposed to be limited, this has to be bashed with stick. Repeatedly. Ah well, rant over. Steve block -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.13.29/520 - Release Date: 06/11/06

Phil Sandifer wrote: I think the thing that continues to bother me about DRV is that, as much as we harp about not being a democracy and not voting, it's the msot blatant vote counting mechanism out there. Someone can point out five problems with a deletion, and as long as the people in favor of deletion can dredge up one more person than you, it stays. Patently absurd. I haven't found that so far, but I'm relatively new to the world of FA. I'm also highly critical, so maybe I'm part of the problem as opposed to the solution. -Jeff -- Name: Jeff Raymond E-mail: jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com IM: badlydrawnjeff Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else." - Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.

On Fri, 3 Nov 2006 16:35:26 -0500, Phil Sandifer &lt;Snowspinner(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Rarely. Few are overturned and deleted, I think slightly more are overturned and undeleted, but in most cases it seems to me to be people bitching about deletion of fundamentally unverifiable articles. Again, I think this is nonsense. Most of them seem to be written by the people who want the crud *included*, which is why we have such a farcically low bar to porn "stars". Yup. Never managed to get an article to either, mainly I think because it needs a number of interested editors who are determined to see their article in lights; not many people are interested in [[Giovanni Punto]]. What, people's refusal to find decent sources? Sure is. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 17:36:07 -0500, Phil Sandifer &lt;Snowspinner(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: In other words, there was consensus to delete, a strong majority to endorse deletion, but you "know better". Maybe you do, but doesn't it strike you as just the *teensiest* bit arrogant? Seems to me that when DRV endorses the process because it's valid then DRV is "broken", but when it overrides AfD supermajority it's "broken". I've been watching DRV for a while, most of them seem pretty uncontentious, I am having trouble finding the brokenness. AfD is, without doubt, problematic, but the issue there is essentially that it doesn't scale properly to encompass the sheer volume of crap articles being created. I personally feel that an article tagged for cleanup as unsourced should be deleted if not fixed within 14 days, that would remove a lot of the problems. That's compromise, not consensus. Compromise on which everyone can agree, that's consensus. And in the end, what's so wrong? We see with [[WP:SCHOOLS]] what happens when people *refuse* to compromise: pain, absurdity. PORNBIO sets the bar too low, I guess others might be too high, but I see no real informed dissent form the view that there should be some significance bar to inclusion. Debate on where the bar lies is, of course, perfectly legitimate. Maybe, but that's a pendulum thing. In the end the best result for the project is if people talk about stuff, rather than hurling accusations of wanting to delete "everything" or keep "everything". The most frustrating thing for me is this: there is absolutely no shortage of places where you can find crap off "teh internets". I was attracted to Wikipedia because of the aspiration to be rather better than that; setting a higher standard than "I heard it on teh internets". Sure, people pick the low-hanging fruit, but much of the most contested stuff is well beyond low hanging and into well-rotted worm-ridden windfalls. Do we *really* need articles on every Flash cartoon and porn "star" on the planet? Or should that perhaps wait until we've taken the trouble to document those subjects which require a bit of work to find out about? Those where a Google search is not going to give an immediate and compendious answer? Every now and then we should actually take a trip to the library, to save someone else having to. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 00:25:05 +0000, "David Gerard" &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: There are those who consider "academic expert on webcomix" to be an oxymoron. There are also others who claim expertise in DRV right now who support deletion. We have an ongoing RFAR on pseudoscience where an expert has been pushing his novel theories. How am I supposed to ell if Phil is using a novel interpretation of what is significant? Secondary sources, not "I know better". And actually I trust Phil's judgment, just as I trust Tony Sidaway's, but Tony usually brings better arguments than "I know better". Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 19:43:45 -0500, Phil Sandifer &lt;Snowspinner(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Some of which I think are a bit iffy. But the fact that the author makes appreciable money form it, and the availability of a print version from a non-vanity press, are certainly persuasive. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 01:27:20 +0000, "David Gerard" &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: For sure. I have asked Dragonfiend to calm down, these comments are out of line. And I apologise to Phil for not doing that yesterday, because I certainly did notice. Like I said, I trust Phil's judgment, but the style was excessively brusque. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Phil Sandifer wrote: Fortunately, unlike the rest of the problematic policies and guidelines you mention it's easy and harmless to just do what I do and ignore the entire concept. I don't care whether articles I work on get the little star sticker or not, improvements to an article are worth making purely for their own sake. I do the same thing with "stub sorting" these days. I added a bit of CSS to my skin to make stub templates vanish from my sight and let other editors waste their time as they see fit. :)

On Fri, Nov 03, 2006 at 04:35:26PM -0500, Phil Sandifer wrote: OK, I passed on 4 of your [[WP:TLA]]s and failed on 2. Please write in english. [[User:Bduke]] -- Brian Salter-Duke (Brian Duke) b_duke(a)bigbond.net.au - NB New! Old still works Post: 626 Melbourne Rd, Spotswood, VIC, 3015, Australia Phone 03-93992847. http://www.salter-duke.bigpondhosting.com/brian/index.htm Honorary Researcher Fellow, Dept. of Medicinal Chemistry, Monash Univ.

I'd just like to throw in a few cents here: 1. Notability: Pathetic. Verifiability already keeps out junk, why do we need an icredibly subjective set of guidelines based on some old essay? 2. RFA: Don't expect any second chances here. Made a copyvio four years ago? Too bad. Don't use edit summaries 100% of the time? rejected. Don't vote on AFD? rejected. 3. Not written down, but the community isn't very forgiving for past policy violations or for little slips. If some admins out a bunch of pressure and provocation on a user, if they go a little batshit in response, then they can't wait to block them. This is also why RFA is bad: Genuinely good editors get rejected, bullies stay in.

On 03/11/06, Phil Sandifer &lt;Snowspinner(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Seconded, of course, because it leads to some over-keen individuals creating loony things like [[Wikipedia:Admin school]]. I had the displeasure to just discover this prime example of instruction creep, which begins: "Prerequisites and required reading... 1000 edits on Wikipedia encyclopedia articles and/or lists 1000 edits in the Wikipedia and/or Help namespace Familiarity with Help:Contents, 2-levels deep Familiarity with Wikipedia:Contents, 3-levels deep Familiarity with Wikipedia:Department directory, 2-levels deep." (I'd never even heard of [[Wikipedia:Contents]] before, let alone [[Wikipedia:Department directory]].) RfA seems to have assumed a near-cult-like status with a certain group of people, and has developed a toxic culture that is spreading outwards to choke other areas, much like kudzu. It needs to be killed at the root. -- Earle Martin http://downlode.org/ http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/

On Nov 4, 2006, at 5:15 PM, Earle Martin wrote: I am sorely tempted to add "Has displayed sufficient common sense as to have not read the inordinate amount of crap on this page and its subpages" as a criterion. As always, helping Wikipedia to demonstrate a point. -Phil

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: That was initially my view, but as of late I've taken the more expansive view, and vote by: 1. Identifying votes on RFA which seem to be anything other than 90%+ in favor 2. Doing a quick spot check to see if the nominee in question seems reasonable 3. Voting yes if so The only way to counter the process-wonk culture at RFA is for a number of non-process-wonks to consistently vote "yes" every time any of them try to vote "no" for some bullshit reason, after first checking that the nominee really isn't someone completely insane. It's not like we're making any sort of lifelong commitment or appointing Wikipedia dictators. IMO, anyone who's been around Wikipedia for a few months and not done anything crazy should automatically get access to a few additional admin tools. If they turn out to misuse them, we can always de-admin them. Now that images can be undeleted, literally every single admin action can be undone, usually easily, so it's not really a problem. -Mark