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The arbitration committee "assuming good faith" with an editor.

The Destroying Angel and Daemons of Evil Interrupting the Orgies of the Vicious and Intemperate scheduled for TFA

This is to let you know that the The Destroying Angel and Daemons of Evil Interrupting the Orgies of the Vicious and Intemperate article has been scheduled as today's featured article for April 23, 2018. Please check the article needs no amendments. If you're interested in editing the main page text, you're welcome to do so at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 23, 2018, but note that a coordinator will trim the lead to around 1100 characters anyway, so you aren't obliged to do so. Thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:26, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

An article about Arbcom is being featured on the main page? Wow! E Eng 11:51, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

The opposite is featured today. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:54, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

EEng, you really made me laugh!! Thanks!! Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 14:19, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Have to say, you have the best article names. --GRuban (talk) 18:58, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

No, I have the best article names. E Eng 22:15, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Lord-a-mercy. I am especially amused by the fact that your article about the specific instance has half-a-dozen paragraphs, a quotation, and three illustrations, while the generic case is one sentence long and that with a grammatical error. --GRuban (talk) 22:34, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I forgot to call your attention to the DYK. How neglectful of me. E Eng 23:08, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Because this is a very cluttered painting and it's impossible to discern what it's about at standard TFA size (see right), I've taken a slightly drastic approach here; I've replaced the image with a crop of a small part and an "expand" link to view the whole thing, and slashed the blurb down to absolute bare bones (919 characters) to allow the image to be resized larger than is usual, to give readers at least a fighting chance of seeing what it's actually a picture of. Paging Dank to confirm this is OK, as this is something of a departure from usual practice (although we took the same "crop the image, enlarge what remains, and reduce the text" approach when the equally-cluttered Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm was TFA). I'm unlikely to be around on the day; anyone who is, had probably better watchlist this as unless you run Pig-faced women it will almost certainly be the most-viewed TFA of the year thanks to that goofy title, and will consequently get the usual flood of vandals and good-faith 'improvements'. (To pre-empt an obvious 'improvement', the absence of an infobox here is entirely intentional; when I've written in the past about "very elaborate artworks where the importance of having the lead image at a large enough size for detail to be visible is more important than repeating information which is already in the first paragraph of the article anyway", this is one of the two articles—the other being Beaune Altarpiece—I had in mind.) ‑ Iridescent 10:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Iri, David gets all image requests. Pinging David Levy. - Dank (push to talk) 13:04, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree that this is the most suitable approach (and the custom code appears to have been applied correctly). —David Levy 17:21, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for another work by William Etty who "had acquired a (deserved) reputation for thinly-disguised pornography masquerading as art, and tried to address this with The Destroying Angel…, in which assorted loose-moralled types receive a thorough smiting. The "Reception" section is slightly longer than is usual on painting articles; because it was painted specifically with how it would be received by critics in mind, the critical response on its initial unveiling is more significant than for most visual arts articles"! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:19, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Roughly twice as popular as Earth. If anybody feels like cleaning up the assorted stupidity it's accreted on the day feel free, although it probably makes sense to wait until it's dropped off the main page altogether rather than try to hold back the tide. ‑ Iridescent 2 08:22, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Well done! No. 10 at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Visual_arts/Popular_pages for this update. Over 200K over a few days. Johnbod (talk) 18:10, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Help

I am being ATTACKED - WP:STALKING and WP:HARASSMENT by this person - User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz for many months, he apparrently hates me and the visual arts. Please get this guy off my back. Thank you...Modernist (talk) 15:34, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

OTD

Re the Kishinev riot entry, your removal of my comment indicates you didn't get the point: Even in 1903, riots causing the deaths of 50 people, in this case Jews, would certainly not have attracted worldwide 'positive' attention (except perhaps from racist lunatics). Thus the word "positive" was redundant, particularly since the blurb refers to "persecution of Jews." Embarrassing. Sca (talk) 20:51, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Iridescent didn't remove your comment. I did. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:54, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah, so it was TRM. Look, my brief language comment re "negative" was not a big issue and I wasn't trying to make it one, but I really think you should have left it to see if others would comment. Sca (talk) 16:58, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

As The Rambling Man is too polite to say in as many words, if you're going to adopt a "righteous indignation" posture you might want to perform the most basic fact-checking before you start throwing around accusations. The nature of Wikipedia means it's not difficult to see exactly who has edited what and when, and when it takes all of two mouse clicks to see who removed your comment but you just pick someone apparently at random and accuse them of removing your comments it just makes you look either incompetent or lazy.

As regards your other point, the late 1880s and early 1900s were the zenith (or nadir) of scientific racism and colonialism, and both overt racism and more subtle notions of cultural superiority were the mainstream consensus, not the preserve of "racist lunatics". (As an obvious example, even in bastion-of-liberty cradle-of-democracy mother-of-parliaments etc-etc-etc England Jews were only permitted to enter Parliament in 1858, to become fellows at universities in 1871, and the response of the British government to the pogroms of the 1900s wasn't to threaten Russia or impose sanctions but was to ban Jewish refugees from entering British territory; the reason the US and Argentina have such a high population of Russian Jewish descent isn't because East European Jews had any particular desire to live in culturally alien countries thousands of kilometres from their homes and families, but because similar restrictions on Jewish immigration were imposed by almost every European country.) The significance of the Kishinev pogrom was that it did attract significant negative coverage in other countries when other pogroms had been ignored or in some cases tacitly or even overtly supported. (If you want a modern analogy, consider the overwhelmingly negative coverage—outside some Israeli and pro-Israel US media—of the 30+ and rising Palestinian deaths in the 2018 Gaza border protests, compared to the more usual "well, it looks bad but it's their own internal affairs and we shouldn't take sides" or "they were probably all terrorists and had it coming" attitude towards I/P violence.) If you seriously don't understand that not only have there have been periods in relatively recent European history in which the deaths of 50 Jews would have been positively received by many, but that the Russian pogroms and other Tsarist atrocities in the Pale of Settlement were—along with Ottoman atrocities in the Balkans, Japanese imperialism in Asia and Leopold II's outright lunacies in central Africa—seen at the time by many in the west as the necessary imposition of order in territories which the German–Austrian bloc and the Anglo–French alliance each feared would break away from crumbling imperial control and fall into the other's sphere of influence, then I would respectfully suggest that you're not competent to be commenting on 19th- and early 20th-century European history.

This is hardly the first time that you've waded in all-guns-blazing based on your own misreading of something rather than any actual error by anyone other than yourself, and I'd urge you to stop commenting on topics you don't understand or throwing around unsubstantiated accusations against other editors without evidence. I have no doubt you're acting in good faith, but eventually you'll waste the time of enough people that you'll end up becoming the sequel to this. Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors is a page To report an error on today's or tomorrow's Main Page, not your blog or a forum for you to offer your personal opinions of and commentary on whatever happens to be on the Main Page. ‑ Iridescent 15:30, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks, Iridescent, for your 583 words of righteous indignation regarding my eight-word comment. You could have said everything you had to say much more succinctly without stooping to snide personal comments about my degree of understanding or cultural literacy. Good bye. Sca (talk) 16:58, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Tbh, if one does insist on referring to other editors and/or their edits as "embarassing," then one should probably expect one's position to be forensically dissected, since one has staked so much upon it. —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 17:23, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

What? Serial Number 54129, it was the WORD "negative" that was, IN CONTEXT, embarrassing. It was used by whoever wrote the OTD blurb, not by Iridescent. – Sca (talk) 17:36, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

PS: Charming image on your page. – Sca (talk) 17:46, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, It's a Goya, and probably one of the most famous of the Black Paintings; quite a lot of people have heard of it, actually. Some have even seen it before. —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 18:47, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

You're too modest; "one of the most famous paintings of all time" is probably nearer the mark, to the extent that an obscure website of which even Sca may have heard uses a variation of it—without the need for explanation—as their top-level award to editors. (If you Google most famous paintings of all time you get one of their nice little carousels at the top, and yes it's there.) ‑ Iridescent 18:55, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I think the integer's point was that when you go around to another person's user talk page, make an accusation that they did something they didn't, and end it with Embarrassing. you can generally expect a negative response. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:52, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni:, just so. It is rather—asking for it, I believe the vernacular is. —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 18:47, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I believe "can dish it out but can't take it" is the phrase you're looking for. ‑ Iridescent 18:53, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Sca I suggest you read all of this seriously; your repeatedly pointed failures at ERRORS added to the concerns above really mean you're in danger of becoming a persona non gratia in these parts. After all, I should know. The Rambling Man (talk) 03:34, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Isn't that usually Persona non grata, Rambler? – Sca (talk)

Again, this was a minor issue, and the fallout seems out of proportion. But I do apologize for mistakenly addressing my concerns to the wrong person. Sca (talk) 14:27, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

At least you got something right here, perhaps that's some positive outcome from the whole debacle. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:39, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Q regarding Jews being allowed into parliment: would a lack of repeal affected Disraeli? Our article says he was rased Anglican from the age of 12, would this be enough or int he eyes of the "law" was he Jewish? Conversion to Christianity enabled Disraeli to contemplate a career in politics. Britain in the early-nineteenth century was not a greatly anti-Semitic society, and there had been Members of Parliament (MPs) from Jewish families since Samson Gideon in 1770. But until 1858, MPs were required to take the oath of allegiance "on the true faith of a Christian", necessitating at least nominal conversion. Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 03:25, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Disraeli wouldn't have had any issue; in all four of the then constituent countries of the UK the notion of religion-by-descent didn't exist and religion was always based on practice not ethnicity, and thus a Jewish convert to any other religion immediately ceased to be Jewish. The issue was that admission to Parliament required an oath "upon the true faith of a Christian", an oath that Disraeli as a convert was able to make but Lionel de Rothschild wasn't. There's a list of the relevant dates for each country which previously had specific anti-Jewish laws at Jewish emancipation#Dates of emancipation; many of the repeals are much later than you'd think.

In recent years things are more complicated than the traditional "a Jew is a member of the Jewish religion and ethnicity doesn't come into it". The 1983 case of Mandla v Dowell-Lee set case law that a group meeting both "a long shared history, of which the group is conscious as distinguishing it from other groups, and the memory of which it keeps alive" and "a cultural tradition of its own, including family and social customs and manners, often but not necessarily associated with religious observance" as meeting the definition of an ethnicity as well as of a religious group, thus bringing Jews and Sikhs under the umbrella of racial discrimination legislation (the significance was that at the time religious discrimination was legal but racial discrimination wasn't; thus, post Mandla one could legally say "sorry, no Catholics" but not "sorry, no Jews"). The Equality Act 2006 outlawed religious discrimination and meant that discrimination on the grounds of religion and ethnicity were treated the same under UK law, rendering the distinction largely irrelevant; the 2009 Supreme Court case of R (E) v Governing Body of JFS (the first case ever tried before the Supreme Court, and consequently quite high-profile) established that it was down to the courts and government and not the Jewish community(ies) to determine who was a Jew, and that membership of a religion depended on whether the person in question was observant in that religion rather than their ethnicity.* Well, you asked. ‑ Iridescent 05:58, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
*E v JFS was a complicated case, revolving on whether a Jewish school had the right to deny admission to a child of Italian Catholic descent who was an observant Jew but who wasn't Jewish in Talmudic terms as neither the child nor his mother had formally converted; it split the Supreme Court 5–4. The text is here if you're interested in such things and have too much time on your hands.

Fascinating, especially when you factor in some of the current scholarly views of religion as a form of race (as an overly simple example, someone named Kennedy in the United States will be assumed to be Catholic by many, regardless of if they are or the time the last entered a Church. You could substitute it for something such as Qureshi in Islam in some regions, etc.) TonyBallioni (talk) 22:33, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni, you have to consider the unusual status and history of Britain. It's a country that for all practical purposes was populated entirely by mass migration (while there are probably still some genetic vestiges of the Beaker People, they'll to all practical purposes have been bred out of the population); the Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans were all invaders from Continental Europe, and the national culture is and always has been one of assimilation and absorption of waves of mass migration from Europe, with multiple mass conversions (of varying degrees of brutality) taking the national culture from Druidism, to Roman paganism, to Roman Christianity, to Anglo-Saxon/Norse paganism, to Celtic Christianity, to Roman Catholicism, to Lutheranism, to Catholicism again, to Anglicanism, to Puritanism, to Anglicanism again. Consequently, the dominant religion has for the last few centuries been Anglicanism in various forms in England, Methodism in Wales and Presbyterianism in Scotland, all of whose adherents are all by definition converts or the descendant of converts. When one takes that into account, it's easy to see why "your religion is what you personally believe (or profess to believe), and has nothing to do with descent" pretty much by definition had to become both official orthodoxy and the general popular attitude; the whole "follow the faith of your forefathers" mentality that's so central to American culture (and most Continental European cultures) would in the English context be legitimising the Roman Catholic culture to which the country has spent 500 years defining itself as the superior alternative. (For anyone wondering what British culture would look like if it did have the "religion as ethnic identity" culture one sees in the US and the Middle East grafted onto it, those shouty people across the water have helpfully volunteered to demonstrate and it's not a pretty sight.) ‑ Iridescent 15:01, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually the fashion in genetic studies at the moment is to show considerable continuity in the genetics of the British (often going even back before the Beaker culture - and they tend not to be seen as a large-scale migration today), and in any case the British have been very good at entirely forgetting such immigrant status as they may actually have. The CofE doesn't accept that switching to Anglicanism involved conversion, and seems now busily to be forgetting that it was ever anything to do with Protestantism. And indeed, the religious changes you mention really mostly only affected professionals and some lay enthusiasts - the Vicar of Bray's congregation took little notice most of the time. Johnbod (talk) 15:13, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the British have been very good at entirely forgetting such immigrant status as they may actually have, well sort of; even the most knuckle-dragging I-have-the-cross-of-St-George-tattooed-on-my-genitals members of the Tommy Robinson tendency are generally at least dimly aware both that the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans came from somewhere else originally. Whether the CofE formally considered the religious swings and roundabouts of the Tudor and Stuart eras as mass conversions or as repeated redraftings of the course of the One True Path isn't really relevant; there certainly was (and is) a strong tendency, particularly in the Low Church, that sees the RCC as continuity, albeit continuity on the wrong path, with Henry and Edwards goons and the inhabitants of the Book of Martyrs as revolutionaries. (If you happen to be in Liverpool, there's a distinctly creepy display currently in the Derby Transept of the Anglican cathedral explaining in great detail why all those not following every word of Luther are destined for the Pit.)

My main point, that British culture and religion were and are an ever-shifting (and often internally contradictory) syncretic highlights package of Western European, Mediterranean, Celtic, Nordic and more recently Asian traditions, rather than a coherent and continuous narrative in their own right, and that as a consequence "this is how we've always done things" carries less weight than in otherwise comparable countries like Spain or France, I think is sound. (Try the experiment of asking some of your friends to name a family tradition. In the (white) US you'll get regaled with stories of obscure cultural practices, recipes and religious observances brought over from the Old Country and cherished for generations; in Britain, unless your social circle consists of either super-posh old money, or a tiny backwoods village where the same families have resided since the ice shelf receded, you'd be lucky to get anything more than "Nan says 'pull my finger' when she farts".) ‑ Iridescent 18:12, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Attention all TPS: The questions must now be, of course, of the first instanter: "Does she"?! :D —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 18:29, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps the most beloved Christmas tradition in my family when they first moved to the States was taking pictures in shorts and t-shirts and sending it back to the Old Country to make snowed in relatives jealous. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:36, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Mind you, those Vancouver nuclear winters might still turn out to be good preparation :o ;) —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 18:43, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

hanged, drawn and quartered

hey, i checked before i made my changes to the Hanged, drawn and quartered article... undoing my revision with "British topic, British spellings" is an extremely poor excuse... even other wiki articles linked do not have the double "l"... check your dictionaries, too... the Cambridge, Oxford, Collins and Miriam-Webster dictionaries all show one "l"... none of them other than Collins even mention two ells for a British form of the words...

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/disembowel https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/disembowel https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/disembowel https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disembowel

in any case, I'm not going to argue about it but yeah, you're not correct...

Wkitty42 (talk) 11:28, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Wkitty42: Not "an extremely poor excuse"; WP:ENGVAR is well-established within the manual of style; specifically, see WP:TIES: An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation, and various examples are given. So, the article about the electric chair uses American English, whilst HDQ uses British English. hope this clarifies, —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 12:01, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

The policy you’re looking for is MOS:ENGVAR. Especially helpful is American and British English spelling differences. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:03, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Um, yes, @Wkitty42: The issue is that those are inflected forms, not the simple verb. See the article Ealdgyth pointed to, under "Doubled consonants". Yngvadottir (talk) 21:19, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

What they said; this is an article on a British topic and as such is written in British English. A couple of links to specifically US English dictionaries have no relevance when it comes to BrEng spelling (what did you think the /us/ in the URLs meant?). Incidentally, if you're going to tell lies at least tell lies that take more than two seconds to fact-check; the relevant entry in the OED lists only the double-l version of "disembowelled" and doesn't even give "disemboweled" as a variant. ‑ Iridescent 14:53, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Western Governors University

As a current or past contributor to a related article, I thought I'd let you know that I've started WikiProject Western Governors University, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of WGU. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks and related articles. Thanks! Paul Smith111977 (talk) 08:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

A thank you

		The Reviewer Barnstar
		Thanks very much for helping to review Mowbray—thanks to your helpful suggestions, it passed. I appreciate you taking the time and trouble to look in. Cheers! —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 14:50, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Should wrestling promotions that wrestlers competed in be listed in their infobox

Hi, I have noticed that I had seen on wrestling articles such as these The Road Warriors, The Steiner Brothers, The Fabulous Freebirds, The Bushwhackers, The Rock 'n' Roll Express, and The Powers of Pain that it had formerly listed the promotions that they had wrestled in in their infobox, but now that info has been removed. Should it have been removed or do you think it should be in their infoboxes? I personally think that it is good information to have which should be included. Davidgoodheart (talk) 06:03, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the articles in question, it appears that the information is in fact there, but that the {{infobox wrestling team}} template doesn't support a "promotions" field and consequently it doesn't display. This is a discussion for Template talk:Infobox wrestling team or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Professional wrestling, not for my talkpage, as changing the template will affect the appearance of 539 pages (at the time of writing). I imagine the question you need to consider is whether you treat professional wrestling teams as sports teams (for which the infobox generally only includes the competition/league in which they're currently active, not those in which they've historically participated); as actors (for which the infobox typically doesn't include a "notable works" section at all), or as performance artists (for which infoboxes can—but by no means must—include a brief no-more-than-five-at-most list of their most notable works). Wrestling isn't something in which I have the slightest interest, so I have no opinion on what the most appropriate way to handle this is. I'd caution that anything relating to infoboxes is almost certain to lead to arguments, as whether infoboxes are appropriate for any given page and if so what should be included in the infobox is one of the most contentious areas on Wikipedia, so don't make any changes to the infobox coding unilaterally without establishing that there's consensus to make the change. ‑ Iridescent 14:52, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Religion in infoboxes

Hi, do you have any idea if this RfC has been superseded? I know time seems to speed up as I get older but I thought the consensus to remove religion from bio infoboxes was much more recent! - Sitush (talk) 16:24, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Not that I know of...is there an issue? Ealdgyth - Talk 16:43, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Just to add, the consensus was to remove religion from that specific generic infobox (which hasn't been superseded) there may have been subsequent rfcs to remove it from other more specialist infoboxs. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:50, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, folks. No issue as such - it is just something I mentioned in this thread and I want to make sure I'm not imagining things etc. - Sitush (talk) 16:53, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

My close specifically and explicitly only applied to the vanilla {{infobox person}} as that was what was being discussed in the RFC. Expanding it to cover other infoboxes would require a fresh RFC, as it's reasonable to assume that at least some of those who supported removing it as an included-by-default field for general biographies would have felt that on at least some infoboxes (clergy, politicians in places like Lebanon where there are parliamentary quotas for members of different religious groups, the leaders of the German states during the Thirty Years War…) it would still be appropriate to include the subject's religion as a key fact, and consequently would have voted differently had the RFC been understood to apply to all biographical infoboxes. ‑ Iridescent 14:51, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Notability of engravers, painters....

Since you seem to have an expertise on the locus of paintings et al, can you please let me know about whether a biography at British Museum like this, this et al or mentions over Royal Academy like this automatically guarantees the passage of our notability guidelines? Thanks,~ Winged Blades^Godric 08:57, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Note to TPWs; this relates (I assume) to this walled garden. See the recent talkpage history of its creator for an idea of some background here.

Certainly not; those are just generic bibliographical entries (and the Barenger one explicitly states "information provided via email", to boot). If you have specific examples in mind, Johnbod is probably better qualified than me to speak as to the notability of individuals. (As a rough rule of thumb, when it comes to figures in the 19th-century arts in England the easiest way to gauge viability in Wikipedia terms is to drop the name into Google Books. Because they have most of the arts/culture periodicals of the period digitized, if nothing substantive comes up it's usually a fairly safe indication that nobody cared enough at the time to write about them.)

In the three specific cases you link, Charles Pye arguably scrapes notability in Wikipedia terms because he's mentioned in the ODNB, albeit only as a footnote to the entry on his far more successful brother. Samuel Barenger doesn't seem to have left any trace other than the occasional one-line entry on lists of engravers, and almost certainly is non-notable. Frederick Rudolph Hay probably scrapes notability in Wikipedia terms as he was one of the founders of the Artists' Benevolent Fund, and seems to have been very successful in his business, but he would be a nightmare to source; engravers, typesetters, bookbinders etc were never documented anywhere near as well as the painters, authors etc themselves. ‑ Iridescent 09:17, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, none are listed on the Union List of Artist Names (bizarrely at AFD btw), which is pretty conclusive evidence of notability for historical artists. John Pye is there. So probably not notable (as artists). But refs like these can be used on the list at Draft:Britannia Depicta, which seems harmless. Since people have gone through the dreaded Bryan's Dictionary in the past, I think early 19th-century British printmakers is one area where we already have pretty much the right articles, & all we need (but nearly all just sourced from Bryan). Johnbod (talk) 13:53, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Mind you, all are listed in the Benezit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators, Volume 1, an offshoot of the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, which (the parent) is strong evidence for notability. Not sure of the status of the offshoot. User:Ewulp? All seem to be purely reproductive engravers, mostly of topographical prints like Britannia Depicta. Johnbod (talk) 17:18, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Even if one considers a Benezit entry to be proof of notability (questionable; we don't even consider an ODNB entry as automatic notability, and the ODNB is far more selective), most engravers other than the high-profile ones who bought the rights to renowned artists would fail the "500 word test", of "if not enough information exists that it would ever be possible to write 500 words on any given topic, it almost certainly should be an entry on a broader list rather than a permanent microstub". This may not be Wikipedia policy, but it's certainly good practice (and, as the cricket project is finding out, The Wikipedia Community is starting to lose patience with vast swathes of microstubs). At some point someone probably ought to trim the worst of the weeds at Category:English engravers, much of which appears to be verbatim cut-and-pastes from assorted 19th-century directories. ‑ Iridescent 18:20, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Even though Britain hardly features in the history of the Old Master print, what with the once highly-collected 18th-century mezzotinters, the caricaturists, the stamp-designers, the book illustrators, not to mention lots of painters who dabbled in etching etc ("engraver" of course here means "printmaker") ... and so on, I expect most deserve articles, but better ones. I'd imagine the notability of Britannia Depicta actually depends on the road-map element rather than the extra pictures added in the 19th century. The early editions certainly don't come cheap, even in an Oxfam shop! Johnbod (talk) 21:15, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

About the Benezit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators ... I don't know the status of that one either, and would want to round up at least two additional RSs. Ewulp (talk) 01:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks to the t/p owner and everybody else who participated in the thread, for their help as to the relative betterment of my understanding of the issues of notability.

@Iridescent:-You were absolutely correct as to the locus of my question.~ Winged Blades^Godric 10:58, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Re: Possible Wikipedia-integrated publication

Note: replying here to an email from User:Evolution and evolvability inviting me to submit a Wikipedia article through external, academic peer review for publication in the WikiJournal of Humanities, to save anyone else who has received this invitation from having to type up the same reply. As a general note to E&E, sending Wikipedia-related correspondence by private email rather than on talkpage posts, unless there's a specific reason it can't be discussed publicly, is irritating to the recipient (who ends up getting Wikipedia-related notifications when they're 'off duty'), diametrically opposed to Wikipedia's culture (as you're implying that you're only interested in that person's opinion and not of anyone else who may want to comment) and about the quickest way there is to get a reputation as a troublemaker short of openly vandalizing and disrupting.

I don't really feel such an approach would be appropriate for Wikipedia articles. The primary principle of Wikipedia is that it's constantly evolving, and the existence of "approved versions" of articles would drastically change the internal dynamic. Aside from anything else, it would lead to interminable arguments over whether the public-facing page should be the most recent (and thus most up to date) version or the approved (but potentially dated) version. While obviously en-wikipedia is unique owing to its scale, to the best of my knowledge every publicly-editable wiki project (whether WMF or not) that's attempted to implement flagged revisions has collapsed soon afterwards; even the hyper-watered-down Pending Changes creates a huge maintenance backlog on any page where it's used.

I also don't feel peer review really works with the wiki model. In the arts and humanities, it's an obvious non-starter; academic peer review in the "is this article accurate?" sense doesn't really exist in the humanities, and when journals do operate a peer review model it's on the basis of "is this paper worthy of discussion?", not of accuracy. A formal peer review in the sense you describe for an article in arts and humanities would essentially be "does this article agree with the personal prejudices and theories of whoever you happened to select to do the peer review?". In these cases, Wikipedia's model of open and continuing peer review makes considerably more sense than formal peer review in the academic sense. In the hard sciences it would be workable in the ultra-short-term, but unworkable over a timescale of more than a year or so; the only scientific articles where facts are likely to be in dispute are those dealing with recent discoveries or innovations, and those by definition are the ones where the articles will change rapidly and consequently peer review would be meaningless. (I'm aware that User:Anthonyhcole has been trying to do something of this nature for medical articles, but if that does work it will be because WP:MED watch the articles in their remit like hawks—e.g. the reason it will work will be the crowdsourcing aspect, not the invited individual expert's input.)

Having the project hosted on Wikiversity doesn't exactly fill me with confidence either; I understand why you've done it, to allow people to insert their own opinions and OR without falling foul of the rules governing every other WMF site, but Wikiversity is a joke of a site whose primary function is to serve as en-wiki's penal colony now Commons and Simple English Wikipedia are losing patience with being the fallback sites for en-wiki's banned users, and any association with it will be meaningless to anyone who isn't familiar with the WMF, but have you automatically pegged as cranks by those who are.

That said, Wikipedia articles are all free to re-use under CC By-SA 3.0 and GFDL. If you genuinely feel such an effort is worthwhile, nobody's stopping you from using whatever Wikipedia articles you like, provided you attribute them appropriately. ‑ Iridescent 16:46, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

(adding) Now I've seen you have a self-appointed Editorial Board, you've lost me for good. A self-appointed elite declaring themselves the arbiters of what is and isn't allowed is about as far from what Wikipedia is about as one could get. ‑ Iridescent 16:52, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

I guess Sarah M. Vital is in charge of the vital articles. E Eng 21:04, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm more intrigued by what a "coordinator of Wikipedia initiatives at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University" could possibly do. ‑ Iridescent 23:02, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Usual Wikipedian in residence stuff I expect. I imagine the editorial board were not so much "self-appointed" as approached on bended knees by the WikiJournal User Group. Johnbod (talk) 09:27, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

So we're spending donor funds on embedding a WiR within a cult that teaches that God is an alien from the planet Kolob; wonderful. Maybe we can sign up Applied Scholastics next. Regarding the editorial board, since clicking on the highlighted usernames (e.g., where one would expect on any WMF project—or any wiki-based project for that matter—to go to find out more about any given editor) is in most cases taking me to a form inviting me to hand over my personal details to Microsoft if I want to see the information in question, I'm not particularly inclined to investigate whether these are legitimate respected academics or just a bunch of random Wikipedians. As EEng points out, there's nothing stopping any of these people creating accounts and following the processes every other editor already manages to follow if they want to point out errors or omissions in any of our articles. ‑ Iridescent 10:03, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

So we're spending donor funds on embedding a WiR within a cult that teaches that God is an alien from the planet Kolob; wonderful. That's extremely offensive and I suggest you strike that. Natureium (talk) 17:16, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Which part are you suggesting I strike, exactly? BYU is 100% owned and controlled by the LDS. "A cult in which there's some dispute over whether Kolob is God's home planet, the star around which God's home planet orbits, or the solar system nearest to the Throne of God which is a celestial body in its own right" would technically be more accurate but wouldn't scan so well. "According to the traditional, literal Mormon interpretation of the Book of Abraham, Kolob is an actual star or planet in this universe that is, or is near, the physical throne of God. According to [Joseph] Smith, this star was discovered by Methuselah and Abraham by looking through the Urim and Thummim, a set of seer stones bound into a pair of spectacles." if you want it in Wikipedia's own NPOV voice. (Thanks to the combination of Kolob Records and Battlestar Galactica, Mormon cosmology is one of the few goofy LDS beliefs which is widely known outside the bubble, at least among those old enough to remember the 1970s.) ‑ Iridescent 11:43, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I very much doubt any WMF donor funds are being spent on the co-ordinating- no doubt one could find out. Ah, yes "I am the Coordinator of Wikipedia Initiatives at the Harold B. Lee Library. I am employed by Brigham Young University to improve Wikipedia" - from her user page, linked from the edit bd page. Most of the links I tried went to faculty pages (but not the art historian - easily googled). Johnbod (talk) 10:09, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I have had a lot of problems with BYU-employed and -sponsored people in the past here, pushing the LDS POV. It often seemed unduly promotional but I've got enough problems handling the effects of Hinduism without getting involved too deeply with Mormonism also. - Sitush (talk) 11:52, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, Rachel is actually one of the better WiRs/education people we have, and I've been plenty critical of that part of the Wikimedia movement (I find the idea that people who have not once edited should be made exempt from all local policies simply because they have some external affiliation bizarre to say the least.) I'm not familiar with the religious POV bit (similar to Sitush, I have enough problem cleaning up Catholic articles that were created in the early days of the project), but personally I'd rather have someone who is actually engaged with the on-wiki community and is trying to help than someone who [Insert national Wikimedia Chapter here] has hired to yell at me about how I don't get their job. TonyBallioni (talk) 12:07, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your comments! Maintaining a neutral POV is definitely one of my concerns. I consciously try to find sources for Mormon history that are independent of the LDS church, but I'm aware that sometimes I or my sources are just plain biased or overly detailed. Nominating articles for DYK and GA helps me get another perspective on my writing. Some of the pages I work on are unrelated to Mormonism. I'm so grateful for Wikipedia's collaborative process. Please feel free to contact me if you have specific concerns. In regard to the WikiJournal of Humanities, a peer-reviewed publication can attract contributions from academics, who could potentially be excellent Wikipedia contributors. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:05, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

A couple of comments, since I had an article (radiocarbon dating) in the recently published WikiJournal of Science. The sequence was that I wrote the article for Wikipedia first and took it through FAC, then submitted it to WikiJSci and got a very useful academic peer review. At least a couple of the reviewers are prominent in the field, and really helped to improve the article. I’d tried to get some academic review a year or two ago before WikiJSci existed but had had much less success. Just the other day I took the revised text from the paper in WikiJSci and pasted it back in over the article, with a note to that effect on the talk page. To me this seems like a win-win. The article is now much improved, but I’ve no expectation it will stay a copy of the paper — no doubt it will continue to be improved. The paper can be improved too, if anyone wants to, but I see much less value in that. Wikipedia has a better article, and WikiJSci has helped it become that way. I knew nothing about Wikiversity before I was invited to submit the article, and very little now; I gather they do other things than publish the WikiJournals but I haven’t looked to see what that might be. Is there some problem with this model that I’m not seeing? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:13, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Radiocarbon dating is a natural science topic where "is this accurate" is a much more clear-cut matter than humanities. There is also a practical point - made by Iridescent a while ago, if memory serves - that unfinished articles signal to potential editors that one does not need to be an expert to contribute to Wikipedia. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:35, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Why don't your experts come to Wikipedia and participate in the normal process? At some point they can pick a permalink they like and "publish" that. EEng 21:09, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
- Because the "normal process" is "experts are scum"? --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:28, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

That attitude does exist to some extent, but that is the end result of a number of problems, the main 3 being: 1) Academic 'experts' wanting to work on wikipedia how they work in academia, and being unwilling to change. 2) Academics wanting to push their pet theory which hasnt been accepted by the general consensus but is obviously right, 3) Academics attitude often come across as arrogant, mainly due to an expectation on their part that their opinion should be valued more. Since no editor is required to show deference due to their position (unlike their usual venues for discussion), the lack of it being automatically given eventually results in conflict. These 3 ultimately mean that academic experts get treated on a similar level as other editors (which they dont like) or more harshly compared to normal editors depending on their behaviour (which they really dont like). There is a marked difference compared to experts from trade, industry or other 'working' specialists, in that they acclimatise to the wikipedia environment much better. Probably as a result of having to work in a more antagonistic environment on a daily basis, they have more experience in dealing with conflict. But ultimately the key is in the word 'anti-elitism'. The average academic 'expert' considers themselves the elite (rightly or not). In a project that is based around collaboration and everyone being equal, there really is no place for someone who considers themselves above others. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:43, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

This matches the inside-Wikipedia view pretty well, and I'm sure there is some truth to it, but it feels like there's a little bit of "blaming normal humans for being normal humans" here. I think we probably agree on what you said pretty closely, except about which attitude "exists to some extent" and which attitude is more prevalent. After some time away from the place, it's pretty jarring to me (a non-academic) when I poke my nose in, how unwelcoming the place feels to people who don't love fighting with other people. It doesn't feel like conflict in the service of improving an encyclopedia, it feel like conflict for the sake of conflict. Collaboration exists, but I don't think it's the most likely condition.

Of course, part of the problem is that when I periodically check in to see what's been going on, I often look in on WP:ANI. I should probably stop doing that. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:56, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@Floquenbeam: But in the humanities, and especially in the arts, "the war of all against all" is the academic model. There's no empirical way to measure whether the late-19th-century increased use of bright colors in European painting was primarily (a) a reaction against an increasingly gray external environment owing to industrial smog, (b) the increasing influence of Asian culture which traditionally used a brighter color palette, (c) the gradual abandonment of traditional religious iconography giving artists more freedom to depart from traditional schemes, or (d) just an artefact of an improved chemical industry meaning artists no longer needed to mess about with mumia, crushed beetles and ground rocks to make bright paints. Thus, "academic consensus" on the matter doesn't consist of theory, experiment and verification; it consists of academics all pushing their point of view and seeing who can shout the loudest. Consequently, if I ever got around to finishing Victorian painting any academic peer review wouldn't be checking whether the article is accurate; all it would do it test whether the article conformed to whichever hypothesis the chosen reviewer happened to subscribe to. The same issue exists, albeit to a lesser extent, in the hard sciences as well. The example given above of Radiocarbon dating is atypical, because that's a field where little is disputed, but get the same physicist to review Causal dynamical triangulation, String theory and Loop quantum gravity and they'll explode in disgust, since no physicist will accept the evidence for more than one of the three, but Wikipedia neutrally describes all three models without passing judgement on which is correct.

It's worth remembering that one of the reasons academics have so much trouble fitting in on Wikipedia is that when there's doubt regarding something, Wikipedia gives all the schools of thought and doesn't pass judgement on which is correct. This is diametrically opposed to the way academia works, in which one is expected to research to a conclusion, defend it against all comers, and either see off all challengers or conclude that your opponents are correct and embrace the new paradigm as the One True Path. If you want a concrete example of this, as I write a highly respected academic (and inventor of the optical mouse) is going absolutely batshit crazy on Talk:Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine because Wikipedia won't accept his theory that the computer in question isn't called that, even though there's a large sign attached to it saying "Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine" and both the museum where it's on display and the institution that built it call it that. I've always maintained that Wikipedia's outreach programs to universities are misguided because of the fundamental opposition between the way academia operates and the way Wikipedia operates, and that if the WMF really want to spend money reaching out externally they'd do much better trying to recruit the people who write children's books and the people who write museum labels, as it's the ability to summarize material for people with little prior knowledge of the topic, not the ability to defend a point logically, that Wikipedia needs. (The ideal Wikipedia editor would be the authors of Cliff's Notes and the For Dummies books.)

Plus, aside from anything else there's the very obvious point that 99%+ of Wikipedia's articles don't fall into traditional academic disciplines. Who would be the appropriate authority to conduct a peer review on Pig-faced women, Tukwila International Boulevard station or Taylor Swift? ‑ Iridescent 23:02, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Kanye obvs. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:39, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I don’t see the relevance of some of the points made above. For example, there are plenty of academics who work on Wikipedia; I’ve met several and know of others, and there must be many more I don’t know of. They presumably edit for the same reasons we all do. Asking “why don’t the experts come here and edit normally, and they can pick a permalink to publish” mixes up two processes; straightforward editing, which they often do participate in, and academic review, for which the question is, why should they? Well, if you were an academic, would you respond to a request for academic review from a random Wikipedia editor? I would, if I knew the editor’s work and knew my time would not be wasted. But that’s not going to be the case for most academic peer reviews. Making the forum a peer reviewed journal means that it’s something that an academic can put on their resume, and the evidence so far is that they are indeed willing to contribute. But that doesn’t have anything to do with Wikipedia directly; WikiJSci is just another journal, up to that point. However, the publishing terms mean that the article can be used to update Wikipedia, which means that material submitted there is available to be pasted into Wikipedia if we want it. That’s our choice as editors as it is with any other free source.

Personally I think that the model fits with encyclopedic review articles such as radiocarbon dating, and ice drilling, which I plan to submit next. I also hope to find a collaborator for history of ice drilling, which is missing secondary sources for a big chunk of key events. If I can get that published in WikiJSci I will be able to put the article in Wikipedia, which was my original goal. Somewhere in an essay here someone says “if you have original research or synthesis, get it published first, then we can use it”. For history of ice drilling, at least, I would like to follow that advice.

As for the editorial board and the overall process not fitting the Wikipedia model: quite right, it doesn’t. I don’t see why that matters to us as editors, though. Wikiversity and WikiJSci can do what they want, and then editors here can do what they want with the results. If WikiJSci is determined not to be a reliable source then that’s another issue of course, but there seems no reason to assert it is not reliable.

Finally, yes, it might be harder to follow the model for humanities articles, though again encyclopedic review articles such as History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950, which I took to FAC, seem perfectly good candidates. But that can be assessed case by case. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:28, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

The whole "experts are scum" chant is bullshit. Only in death's points (1,2,3) are bang on. I'm a recognized expert on a highly specialized academic topic, and with patience I've worked with other editors – varying from other real researchers to a few fools worthy of a Galilean dialogue – to produce a first-class article on the subject, even if I do say so myself. And it's definitely a better article for the participation of the fools. E Eng 23:42, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Clearly I'm not as adept at wringing value out of Randy from Boise. At Talk:Manhattan Project I keep getting requests from people who not only haven't read the article, they haven't even read the FAQ. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:17, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, I didn't say the fools' participation was worth it from a cost-benefit perspective, but when life hands you lemons you make lemonade. The participation of the not-fools was definitely worth it (IMHO), and unfortunately there's no process for keeping the not-fools and sending the fools on their way. E Eng 01:04, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Even the fools can add value in Wikipedia terms. We write from the perspective of experts (or at minimum, from the perspective of people who've read a few books about the topic) and most of the people commenting on talkpages are by definition people who know enough about the topic to be expressing an opinion—but the readers are Giano's hypothetical intelligent fourteen year olds with no prior knowledge of the topic. Sometimes it can be valuable to see what the readers aren't understanding even though it seems perfectly clear to us, or even just to see what isn't engaging the readers.

On the broader point, I agree that the "experts are scum" mantra doesn't have much basis in fact. It's a meme propagated by the old Wikipedia Review, egged on by a couple of disaffected former employees, and based on the experiences of a handful of academics who were shown the door for persistently refusing to follow the rules. Wikipedia has many problems, but "clamps down on people who try to insert their original research or push a particular POV" isn't one of them. If anything, Wikipedia goes too far the other way when it comes to trying to accommodate blatantly problematic characters on the grounds that they have specialist knowledge to bring (how many times did we unblock Ottava?); the entire sprawling bureaucratic melange of individual-specific restrictions only exists because Wikipedia bends over backwards to find ways to accommodate problem editors when it's thought they have something useful to add. ‑ Iridescent 07:20, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with this point. It is true that academics working in the humanities will, in their usual 'line of work', have to construct narratives and argue to a conclusion often to participate non-neutrally in a scholarly debate. But it is also true that a good academic has to be self-aware enough to acknowledge that debate and broader academic significance; many academics will not just author books or articles, they'll also contribute to encyclopedias, textbooks or literature reviews which typically take a much more neutral stance and are often aimed at non-experts looking for an overview of academic debates around the subject. While there may be some academics who cannot comprehend the neutrality issue (and it says something about a person's character when they try to use their job to claim superiority over others in a volunteer encyclopedia), I think our core policies are fairly straightforward: our articles are meant to be a neutral summary of reliable secondary sources which provide our summaries with verifiability and confer notability on them. I'd be surprised if most academics could not get their head around that or see the ultimate point of these policies.

I actually think the reason so few academics edit here is that the academy doesn't encourage it. In the UK at least, academics are supposed to generate 'research outputs' which are now assessed for the Research Excellence Framework; the 'quality' of research is used to allocate funding, so academics are incentivised to publish frequently, on internationally significant topics and in the best journal they can muster (and journals are becoming the norm over books for this reason). Most of these journals in the humanities are not open access, and there is little movement that way (which is odd for a profession often considered 'left-wing'). Most academics wouldn't want to jeopardise the opportunity to write an article, encyclopedia entry or review because they posted their best work on Wikipedia. And that assumes they even have enough time; I won't pretend academics are hard-done-by compared to many people, but especially at the junior end, fixed contracts, poor pay, long teaching hours and the aforementioned pressure to research in a non-open-access way all conspire to mean that for most academics, even if they wanted to join in, Wikipedia is not a priority outlet for their time, effort and intelligence, especially when considering the conflict mentality of this place discussed above and public and professional concerns about Wikipedia's reliability. It's a real shame and contributes in part to the many, often overlapping, systemic biases we have here. But I don't see it changing anytime soon. Anyway, my 'two cents' as the Americans say. Cheers, --Noswall59 (talk) 09:07, 13 June 2018 (UTC).

Hello Iridescent (and the others in this thread), sorry about being a bit late to this discussion. Firstly, I didn't mean anything untoward by emailing you. I've mostly been emailing non-Wikipedians, so I was continuing to use the same email templates where possible so as to not be treating Wikipedians differently. It might just be me, but I get talk page messages and emails about Wikipedia in about a 1:3 ratio, so perhaps I've a skewed view as to how common it is! Either way, I'm happy to explain why I think that WikiJournals are in line with Wikipedia's ethos (and the abundant guidelines codifying that ethos). Thank you for yourt thoughts - I'm genuinely interested in your opinions and feedback, since the journals genuinely want to improve Wikipedia. I'll address some of the points below.

Approved versions: After peer reviewer comments are addressed, the journal article is integrated into Wikipedia so that it is not a particularly forked version. It is treated as an approved version in the same way that there is an approved version of Featured articles. The Wikipedia page continues to evolve after the journal-organised peer review just as any GAs and FAs do. The public facing version in Wikipedia should 100% be the most recent and up to date version. The stable version of record can be used for citation. I absolutely oppose any special protectionism of Wikipedia pages (also embedded in the journals' ethical statement).

The value of peer review in this scenario: Obviously, I come from a sciences background so can't comment hugely on the humanities. If the community feels that a peer review has been mishandled (all reviewer comments are are publicly recorded), the Wikipedia article can still be updated. If nothing else, it is a way of getting input and recommendations from beyond the established Wikipedian community which, though large, is still limited.

Medical review: I'm a big fan of the work that Anthonyhcole did getting the BMJ to help organise peer review of Parkinsons disease (organisation page). One constraint on that is that, the reviewer comments took a long time to implement (to my limited knowledge), and BMJ halted its collaboration for subsequent articles. Peer reviews by Open Medicine, PLOS, Gene, RNA Biology and WikiJournals WikiJMed and WikiJSci have proceeded more smoothly and I think that, in part, that is because of the external dual-publication (examples). Perhaps it will turn out that the norms of the humanities differ so greatly that WikiJHum fails due to personal prejudices, but that remains to be seen. I do not expect that content will be of lower overall quality than that contributed by e.g. editathons, GLAM collaborations, AfC, new editors, or even many experienced editors.

Editorial board: The editorial board bylaws are based on those of the WikiProject Med Foundation, again with public votes that are open to anyone that wishes to cast an opinion. Having a specific editorial board is standard practice for journals, and necessary to also comply with recommendations of COPE, OASPA and to be indexed by services like DOAJ, Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science. I hope that editors don't feel that they were approached on bended knees. The aim has so far been to get a mixture of expertise across Wikipedians, scholars, open-access advocates, librarians, teachers and other professionals to encompass a range of perspectives and experience and so far they seem to have been keen on the format.

Wikiversity's reputation: This is certainly a limitation. The original WikiJournal (WikiJMed) was set up within Wikiversity as the most logical location at the time. Indeed, the journals have an application to be a sister project. Nevertheless, the external peer review is intended to address the risk of fringe theory or crackpot-ism. Any content integrated into Wikipedia can be challenged and updated by the community just as any other content. Indeed, it my hope that WikiJournals will generate a reputation for careful peer review that can counter the common (though markedly decreasing) view of academics that only fools contribute to Wikipedia.

Original research: Although the journal articles can contain research/perspectives/opinion/conclusions, those sections are not integrated into Wikipedia (example). We encourage authors to favour secondary sources where possible, comply with relevant Wikipedia guidelines for any content to be integrated into Wikipedia. I am less pessimistic about academics abilities to take a step back and provide an NPOV when asked to. Often manuscripts, books and treties are specifically intending to propose a hypothesis, however I think that when requested, many academics can write a balanced overview of a topic (for example, there is a section in this article on disputed roles where uncertainly still exists). Any pet theories would have to pass review by external experts and material copied over to Wikipedia will be just as editable as any other material.

Why don't experts come to Wikipedia: Much has been written about this. For the part of WikiJournals, there is no wish to supplant or compete against normal Wikipedia systems. The journals will always be an adjunct; an alternative route in for new information, and a way to review the accuracy of existing information. Although anyone can edit Wikipedia, many don't. Reasons for academics/researchers/scholars/doctors include that the format is unfamiliar and that contributions are citable or indexed. The journals provide a format that can be a bridge for any experts that want to work how they work in academia and are unwilling to change. Having editors able to advise contributors with no Wikipedia experience can be valuable to new users who can otherwise end up bitten by AfC. Producing a citablble version can be an incentive to contribute (just as much as barnstars, FA badges, cash prizes, or the GA cup). It is both an academic output, as well as a quantifiable unit of outreach that can be used to justify the time spent on it as opposed to other competing academic duties.

I've tried to be succinct (you can judge how successful I've been!). I'm happy to discuss further, I should be able to provide references for some of the statements above, but I'm trying not to spam! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 13:12, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, T.Shafee(Evo&Evo). For the record, I suspended the BMJ collaboration - for a number of reasons but mainly because it's not worth proceeding unless two elements are in place - the simple diff (that may be technically possible soon) and permission from the community for a prominent link. (I think I can take this current Village Pump discussion as permission to prominently link.) The last time I spoke with BMJ, six weeks ago, they seemed receptive to further collaboration and I'll propose that once I can offer the reader a simple diff.

@Anthonyhcole: Great news! The visual editor diff viewer has come a long way, so I hope that it does the trick. Will it focus on the initial set listed at Wikipedia:BMJ/Expert review? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:36, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

WikiJournal as an RS???

Above, Mike says, Somewhere in an essay here someone says “if you have original research or synthesis, get it published first, then we can use it”. For history of ice drilling, at least, I would like to follow that advice. Mike, that advice relates to publication by a reliable publisher. WikiJournal isn't a reliable publisher. I outline why that is so in the above-linked VP discussion, so I won't repeat myself here. T.Shafee, do you share Mike's view that one can publish original research or synthesis in WikiJournal and then use that article to support claims in Wikipedia? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:48, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I believe I speak for everyone here assembled when I say that the answer to that is not just "No" but "Hell, no!" E Eng 18:17, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

That might be the majority view, but it's not universal. I used the WikiSciJ article on radiocarbon dating as a citation in this edit, and left a note on the talk page to that effect, for transparency. The citation was to support a phrase added to the article during peer review -- the reviewer was A.J. Timothy Jull, a prominent expert in the field. I didn't add a separate citation to the WikiSciJ version to support it -- it didn't seem necessary -- but I wanted to include that phrase in the article, and the WikiSciJ version seemed the appropriate citation.

I asked about it at WT:FAC; see here for the reponses. I believe the question has come up at WP:RSN or perhaps WP:VPP, though I can't now find the discussion. It's clearly not as high-quality a source as a well-established journal, but the peer reviewers, for the article I'm citing at least, included respected scholars in the field, and I don't see how it would fail the definition of an RS. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library)

Please link the RSN discussion and any other discussions you know of bearing on this. E Eng 20:05, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I can't find the one I'm thinking of, and don't recall where it was. If I remember correctly, it wasn't well enough attended to stand as a community consensus on the question; and I don't even remember whether it came to a consensus. If you start a discussion at RSN, let me know. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:44, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm embarking on some travel so I'll let others comment here. To be blunt, the idea is preposterous. The two respondents at the discussion you linked said (in essence) "It's an RS if it qualifies as an RS" (in the case of a modestly experienced editor) and "Definitely yes" (in the case of an editor with essentially no experience). E Eng 21:00, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that it's not as simple as dismissing WikiJourals as RS. They're certainly not yet MEDRS (requires PubMed indexing; discussion link). However I do not think that just because material also appears in Wikipedia that it invalidates subsequent external peer review. For example Dengue Fever has been cited 33 times. Approximate bayesian computation has been cited >200 times. I think it would be hard to distinguish between the peer review done for Approximate bayesian computation and the peer review done for Radiocarbon dating. The main difference in this case is established reputation, hence their inadmissibility for MEDRS. However I can't see anything in the letter of RS that precludes them, and I think that they are inkeeping with the spirit of RS. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:27, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

No one' saying "just because material also appears in Wikipedia that it invalidates subsequent external peer review". I'm saying that WikiJournals doesn't have anything like the "external peer review" or other editorial oversight we rely on for RS. I don't understand what your citation counts have to do with anything. E Eng 07:06, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I'd thought that one of the criticisms was wp:citogenesis. I think that the external peer review is actually quite comparable to other journals. By editorial oversight, is the worry that the editors are insufficiently knowledgeable to organise peer review, or is there a different aspect you mean? A more reasonable criticise for WP:RS would be that WikiJournals are not yet PubMed or Scopus indexed (which would provide an independent audit of editorial processes). I think it's also worth clarifying whether the case is that a WikiJournal is currently not WP:RS, or` whether it could never be WP:RS. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 07:43, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

The editorial boards appear to be random volunteers. I just published a paper in [Prestigious and Highly Selective Journal] after six rounds of revision and proofing and I sure wish I'd known I could have just submitted it to a volunteer group knowing nothing of the subject to see if it seemed OK to them. What's a radiologist doing editing a humanities "journal" anyway? E Eng 08:12, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

EEng, seeing you are referring to my role for the humanities journal; I created WikiJournal of Medicine, the first journal, whose system has been adapted to apply for the humanities journal as well. I've clarified that my relevant expertise for my board membership in the humanities journal lies in wiki organization rather than my radiology work. Now, regarding your doubts about the boards, what system for forming editorial boards do you regard as acceptable? Taking "reliable" journals as example, what makes their editorial boards less "random" than WikiJournal? Mikael Häggström (talk) 04:02, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, it certainly wouldn't be this process [1][2], in which apparently anyone who wants becomes an editor. But hey, let's get down to brass tacks. WP:SOURCES requires that sources have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". When WikiJournals has built such a reputation, we can talk more. E Eng 04:52, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Ealdgyth, what's your opinion? You've spent more time thinking about what makes a reliable source than most editors. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:20, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Given the two links given by EEng about how new members of the editorial board are selected, I'd have to say that no, I would not consider this a reliable source. Generally, academic peer review is centered around specialization ... and I'm not seeing that here. There is no focus on the journal, except for being part of the wiki movement, which is not enough to make it reliable. There is also no history of being cited and used by other academics or similar. I'm all for breaking the academic journalism stranglehold but ... so far I'm not seeing how this could possibly come close to being a RS, much less an RS suitable for FAC. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:26, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

To quote the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, we should "assess research on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which the research is published". Whether WikiJournal or any other journal is an RS is not a particularly meaningful question: at best, a journal's reputation only gives a weak hint about the reliability of a given article. In particular, for a journal that practises open peer review (with reviews and sometimes reviewers' identities made public), there is no excuse for relying solely on the journal's reputation. (Disclosure: I am involved in WikiJSci.) Sylvain Ribault (talk) 20:10, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Whether WikiJournal or any other journal is an RS is not a particularly meaningful question – here at Wikipedia, it's not only a meaningful question, it's the only question. E Eng 21:59, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Just a quick note on the editorial board composition (mostly relevant to Ealdgyth's comment above): The editorial board are not the ones doing the peer review, they merely are in charge of inviting suitably qualified peer reviewers. e.g. for v:WikiJournal_of_Science/Radiocarbon_dating, the three external peer reviewers were specialists in the subject. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:38, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

In most journals (at least the ones that I publish in), the editorial board also are experts. They have to be able to recognize suitable (and unsuitable) reviewers, know the field well enough to arbitrate split decisions between reviews, and so on. All of these duties require a high level of expertise in the journal's topic. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:00, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

the ones that I publish in – That would be http://www.farmmachineryjournal.co.uk/? E Eng 16:42, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

…where the editorial board know the field well enough. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 19:05, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Wow, I must be slipping. I overlooked that completely. E Eng 19:08, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Enough with the corny jokes, OK? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:30, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

We're separating the wheat from the chaff. E Eng 21:47, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

How is Wiki*Journal independent? (Or, how is a particular article in such a journal independent?) Does it have a reputation [for fact-checking]? I don't think we can answer either question in the affirmative--certainly not the latter at this time, and probably not the former for any number of subjects touching on the topic on which an article was written (because the author of an article in the journal ostensibly, and likely significantly, contributed to the article on Wikipedia). --Izno (talk) 11:55, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I can see why the links EEng posted are a concern, and I follow Ealdgyth's line of thought. I don't think I've seen this particular argument used before to dismiss a source as not reliable. The usual assessment in source reviews at FAC and elsewhere is: is editorial control exerted over the contents? Are the authors people known to have expertise in the field? And for journal articles: is there credible peer review? The article on radiocarbon, for example, meets the first and last of those two criteria; I'm not someone "known to have expertise in the field", so it fails that criterion, but the expert peer review, I would think, makes the article reliable, if not the author. That is, if I wrote a blog post about radiocarbon dating, it would not be a reliable source despite the existence of this article, but if Tim Jull wrote one, it would be citable (within the limits of what blogs can be used to cite).

To be specific, I added the bolded text in this sentence to the radiocarbon dating article, cited to WikiJSci: Soil contains organic material, but because of the likelihood of contamination by humic acid of more recent origin, and the fact that the organic components can be of different ages, it is very difficult to get satisfactory radiocarbon dates. You can see the comment by Jull that led to this in the peer review, at point 12 under "Second peer review", here. To me that phrase is reliable because Jull supported it, not because it's published in WikiJSci. Should I cut that citation and that phrase? Or is that a reliable source for that phrase? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:27, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Meta-aside about Wikijournals and en-wiki culture

On the reliability (or not) I've commented at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Reliability of WikiJournal of Science, since it's a more sensible place to have the discussion than here. On the more general point of relations between Wikipedia and WikiJournals, it's worth looking at the history of Wikipedia to understand just why so many people are so sceptical. (Apologies in advance for those who already know this, but I'm seeing a lot of unfamiliar names here who may not be aware of all the background. Wikipedia has changed so much, so quickly, that the existential crises of the 2000s are now semi-mythical to many editors.)

The concept of "scrape the best Wikipedia articles, submit them to external peer review, and then re-insert the reviewed articles" isn't a new idea; it's been tried in the past by Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger and Danny Wool, and all three crashed and burned, but not without creating a good deal of conflict and bad blood in the meantime. Inasmuch as English Wikipedia has a creation myth regarding how a bolt-on accessory to a porn site became the world's fifth most visited website, it's a story of opposition to the top-down approach; the people who supported the vet-and-review approach in general went off to Citizendium, and the ones who became Wikipedia's main writers and admins remained, and consequently shaped the project during the 2005–07 growth spurt. (It's worth mentioning inter alia that Nupedia wasn't some kind of lost paradise—their much vaunted peer reviewed articles were in general complete garbage. New Zealand, Irish Traditional Music and Genotype and Phenotype are typical examples of articles after they'd been through all Nupedia's vetting, peer-review and copy-editing processes.) Additionally, during those formative years, we had high-profile (one very high profile) cases of people claiming to be experts and bringing the site into disrepute when their credentials were found lacking, and we had too many examples to count of admins who felt the admin bit gave them some kind of super-user status and tried to throw their weight around.

Thus, the principles of "be sceptical of anyone who claims to be an expert", "go with what printed sources say not with what people say no matter how much of an expert they are" (commonly, if inaccurately, summarised as "verifiability not truth"), "while a particular user may earn respect or disrespect through their actions, no user should be considered more or less important than any other user by way of which permissions or jobs they hold", and "how much you know about the subject doesn't matter provided you know enough to give due weight to sources and attribute them correctly" are all—for better or worse—baked into English Wikipedia's DNA. It's a self-reinforcing set of values since people who don't subscribe to them to at least some extent, and try to play the "do you know who I am?" card (either in terms of "I'm the world's leading expert in Foo-ography, you should rewrite the article to reflect my views" or "lots of the checkboxes on my Special:UserRights page are ticked, you should do what I say") tend either to develop a reputation as troublemakers, or find the environment unpleasant and leave of their own accord.

This doesn't necessarily mean those are good values to have—Wikipedia has serious difficulties reconciling "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs", "everybody should be considered as of equal ability in the absence of evidence to the contrary" and "competence is required", and in reconciling "no conflicts of interest" with "anonymity should be respected"—but they're unlikely to change, and as a result English Wikipedia—to a far greater extent than the other-language Wikipedias and the other WMF projects—has a collective knee-jerk antipathy to anything resembling editorial boards. (Specifically at the WikiJournal people: if you're unfamiliar with the ACPD and Esperanza debacles I'd recommend reading Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Advisory Council on Project Development and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza to get a feeling for how anything resembling editorial boards or management committees is likely to be received by the broader en-wiki community.) ‑ Iridescent 11:44, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
Also at this point pinging @SlimVirgin, Tony1, Newyorkbrad, and Alison:, all of whom were there through the events in question but all of whom will presumably have very different perspectives to mine.

Thanks for the ping but I don't have much to add here. The Esperanza debates were taking place right around the time I became active and I wasn't part of them. I never had a strong feeling about Esperanza one way or the other, and the main thing I remember thinking at the time of the last debate was that "miscellany for deletion" seemed like a fairly odd place to be having the discussion.

I was on the ArbCom at the time of the "Advisory Council" announcement but was not one of the arbitrators who pushed the initiative. I didn't oppose it either; it struck me at the time as a well-intentioned effort, and I certainly didn't anticipate, let alone agree with, the level of outrage it generated. (For example, it certainly wasn't meant to reflect "ArbCom's expansion ... into the Wikipedia Politburo," as someone familiar to the readers of this page put it at the time.) When the idea proved unpopular, it was dropped, and in nine years no one's come up with a better one, so make of that what you will. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:24, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I really should re-read the emails from back then at some point. To refresh my memory and maybe to vainly try and set the record straight as to the intentions, as a lot of what has been said subsequently has been by people with strong views on the subject. The actual public starting point is here. It did kind of snowball after that. I don't remember why I abstained. I agree with NYB's point that no one's come up with a better idea. Bit like the main page (re)design discussions, really, or RFA reform... I suppose it does beg the question: what have been the most radical proposals ever proposed for en-Wikipedia (or even the entire WMF), both those that failed and those that went ahead? I suppose the answer to that would be a potted history of Wikipedia. That will take a while. Carcharoth (talk) 17:03, 18 June 2018 (UTC) Actually, re-reading those discussions is a bit depressing. Too many people are no longer with us. Three in just a few minutes of reading. Carcharoth (talk) 17:06, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: While that's the first public appearance under the ACPD name, it had a long gestation—Kirill's original proposal (then calling it "The Wikipedia Assembly") was here. Unless it's been deleted in a pre-emptive body-burying exercise, there's a lengthy discussion on Arbwiki prior to the announcement of ACPD, in which its supporters debate the pros and cons of who deserved to be raptured into the ruling council and who would remain a mere mortal, which makes entertaining reading with the benefit of hindsight. (IIRC—and I may not RC after all these years—someone nominated me and someone else blackballed me, but I can't remember who or why.).
@NYB, the RFC was mostly sound-and-fury and the real action was at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 5#Advisory Council on Project Development convened and Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Advisory Council on Project Development. I'd say ArbCom's expansion ... into the Wikipedia Politburo, is pretty much exactly what Kirill intended ACPD to be, protests to the contrary once the committee realised how unpopular the land-grab was notwithstanding; how else does one interpret ideas that the Committee might choose to pursue (Kirill), a way that will help the Community find better ways to develop solution to broad issues (FloNight), or a body of experienced users helping to generate ideas, consider the ideas of others, and fast-track proposals on crucial issues (Carcharoth)? (As you presumably know, I don't necessarily see a Wikipedia Politburo as a bad thing—I've long argued that at the very least we need a formal RFC Closing Committee with the authority to make binding rulings, to replace the current "closures reflect the opinions of whoever happens to be active at the time the 30 days expires" model, but don't try to pretend that the arbcom circa 2010 wasn't actively considering how a transition from Arbcom to Govcom could be managed.) ‑ Iridescent 16:57, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Digging around a bit... I had forgotten how many failed proposals there are around. Some people can just get on with things (living in 'the present'). Some get drawn to the past and, well, spend time there and maybe (rarely) find things of use. Maybe you had to have been there at the time. Carcharoth (talk) 22:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Esperanza died not long after I became active. It had a heavily bureaucratic feel to it from reading the talk pages. The ACPD had a lot more personal issues going on that I really don't want to put into print that contributed to its demise (I have to go read it again sometime when I have free time...which is seldom...) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:53, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I've been around since 2006, so in theory I should remember both Esperanza and the Advisory Council, but in fact I only vaguely remember the former and had never heard of the latter. Perhaps if I had paid more attention then I would be more sceptical about the WikiJournals now, but as it is I see them a little differently to the way you characterize them. The peer review radiocarbon dating went through, which included at least two reviewers who are well-known figures in the field, led to multiple improvements. The Wikipedia article now reflects those improvements, all cited to an RS, with no need to cite the WikiJournal directly. I haven't looked at the relationship between each WSJ article and its corresponding WP article, but I hope something similar is going on with them. If that's the normal experience the WikiJournals should be a real benefit to us. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:31, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret scheduled for TFA

This is to let you know that the Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret article has been scheduled as today's featured article for July 9, 2018. Please check the article needs no amendments. If you're interested in editing the main page text, you're welcome to do so at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 9, 2018, but note that a coordinator will trim the lead to around 1100 characters anyway, so you aren't obliged to do so. Thanks! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:31, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the steady flow of articles, some with enormous titles, and thoughtful conversations here! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:03, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak No specific objections other than the usual "fuck, not me again, someone else can do the reverting this time". You might want to delay this one for a while, since if you run it in July then following Candaules and Destroying Angel that will make three TFAs on paintings by the same relatively unknown artist in a period of less than six months.

As with most of these cluttered 19th-century history paintings, if you do run it it would make sense to blow the image up as large as reasonably possible, even if it means slashing the blurb text; at the standard TFA size (see right) it just looks like a plate of shrimp as it's impossible for readers even to discern that the three figures are people, let alone what they're doing, or that this is on the—very unusual for the time—subject of a woman in full military kit fighting and defeating a man. ‑ Iridescent 11:53, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

About half of the unrun picture pages are your Etty articles, but I take your point. I think I'll run this one, which I like for the reasons you've stated, and because Dank has already edited the blurb, and then make sure I don't run another for a while. That said, do you want to do have a go at the image— I think only you and David Levene understand the coding? Perhaps it could be top-cropped as well to concentrate on the figures? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Not a problem, Iri and Jim ... I agree that we want to cut back the blurb text if the image is larger. - Dank (push to talk) 12:34, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I'll sort out the image, but it might be a couple of days. I assume there's no rush. ‑ Iridescent 14:20, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

✓ Done blurb text slashed to absolute bare bones in order to make the image as visible as possible (something that should be par-for-the-course for arts and architecture articles, since in 99% of these cases it's the image and not the text that readers will use to decide if this is a topic about which they want to learn more). ‑ Iridescent 16:04, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at User:Kudpung/What do admins do?

You are invited to join the discussion at User:Kudpung/What do admins do?. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:26, 19 June 2018 (UTC)Template:Z48

While I have no problem with taking part in surveys etc, I'm not really comfortable putting my name to anything that's going to be included in the Signpost. While it used to serve a useful function in documenting Wikipedia's internal debates and serving as a neutral discussion venue, IMO in its post-Tony incarnation the Signpost is a thoroughly unpleasant project, comprising an unhealthy mess of sub-Wikipedia Review sneering and backbiting on the one hand, painfully unfunny and often actively & needlessly offensive attempts at comedy on the other hand, and the in-crowd of friends of the management slapping each other on the back and congratulating each other about how clever they are on the third hand. It's not something with which I really want to be associated. Besides, I do very little admin work these days; I tend only to dust off the admin bits when a neutral admin-of-last-resort is needed to perform difficult closes (or closes of debates involving Wikipedia's more colorful personalities) which nobody else wants to touch. ‑ Iridescent 16:15, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Fun

Because most of this looks awfully serious [3]. I’m certain you already know this, but whatever. Kafka Liz (talk) 11:41, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Half Man Half Biscuit are a national treasure, and their ability to satirise all manner of popular culture is just brilliant. I particularly like "Vatican Broadside". Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 21:26, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Help

I am being ATTACKED - WP:STALKING and WP:HARASSMENT by this person - User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz for many months, he apparrently hates me and the visual arts. Please get this guy off my back. Thank you...Modernist (talk) 15:35, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Please note that a short time ago Modernist was warned by User:NeilN about using invective like this to characterize ongoing content disputes [4], a warning Modernist has repeatedly disregarded. This comes out of a longrunning content dispute regarding the use of nonfree images of visual art, where Modernist is among those who strongly reject NFCC policy (see, for example, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts#Under attack, and the related deletion discussions at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2018 June 18 (where many of the disputed uses that Modernist advocated for have already been removed). The underlying issue is whether certain articles on the visual arts are exempt from (or subject to much more relaxed application of) basic WP:NFCC, WP:V, and WP:RS policies. With his side not prevailing in the dispute, he is again personalizing the issues rather than substantively addressing serious policy concerns. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. (talk) 16:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

There is a good deal more to it than this: HW has been removing large amounts of text from various articles, and making provocative talk comments. Johnbod (talk) 16:15, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Poor Modernist has been stalked and baited (and indeed "under attack") with increasing intensity for the best part of three weeks over fair use image of modern artworks being used

on the articles about the artist themselves, or the article on the museum that holds the work (apparently having a separate article on an artwork means there is no scope to include an image of it in the article on the artist themselves or the museum: that is, improving our content on artworks damages our content on artists or museums)
as examples of periods or styles in articles on art history (even when the rather simple and binding parts of the fair use policy - already stricter than law would allow - are complied with, so-called "violation" of a secondary layer of byzantine non-binding guidance with alarming initials seemingly strikes out almost everything; because, you know, a notable work by a leading artist such as Picasso or Rauschenberg or Bacon etc can be replaced by some daub by a third rank artist without any loss; in much the same way as we delete album covers and screen captures from soap operas without a second thought, right?)

So Modernist has cried out, and been blocked for his pains. How the blocking, or the removal of the images, or indeed the snarky commentary or tendentious edit warring, improves our enyclopedia is not so clear, but no doubt being an admin helps one to see such ineffable facts more clearly :-/ 213.205.251.58 (talk) 18:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@@ Line 293: / Line 293: @@
 :Please note that a short time ago Modernist was warned by [[User:NeilN]] about using invective like this to characterize ongoing content disputes [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:NeilN#AN3_about_Madrid], a warning Modernist has repeatedly disregarded. This comes out of a longrunning content dispute regarding the use of nonfree images of visual art, where Modernist is among those who strongly reject NFCC policy (see, for example, [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts#Under attack]], and the related deletion discussions at [[Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2018 June 18]] (where many of the disputed uses that Modernist advocated for have already been removed). The underlying issue is whether certain articles on the visual arts are exempt from (or subject to much more relaxed application of) basic [[WP:NFCC]], [[WP:V]], and [[WP:RS]] policies. With his side not prevailing in the dispute, he is again personalizing the issues rather than substantively addressing serious policy concerns. [[User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz|The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo).  Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.  ]] ([[User talk:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz|talk]]) 16:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
 ::There is a good deal more to it than this: HW has been removing large amounts of text from various articles, and making provocative talk comments. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 16:15, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
+Poor [[User:Modernist|Modernist]] has been stalked and baited (and indeed "under attack") with increasing intensity for the best part of three weeks over fair use image of modern artworks being used
+#on the articles about the artist themselves, or the article on the museum that holds the work (apparently having a separate article on an artwork means there is no scope to include an image of it in the article on the artist themselves or the museum: that is, improving our content on artworks damages our content on artists or museums)
+#as examples of periods or styles in articles on art history (even when the rather simple and binding parts of the fair use policy - already stricter than law would allow - are complied with, so-called "violation" of a secondary layer of byzantine non-binding guidance with alarming initials seemingly strikes out almost everything; because, you know, a notable work by a leading artist such as Picasso or Rauschenberg or Bacon etc can be replaced by some daub by a third rank artist without any loss; in much the same way as we delete album covers and screen captures from soap operas without a second thought, right?)
+So Modernist has cried out, and been blocked for his pains. How the blocking, or the removal of the images, or indeed the snarky commentary or tendentious edit warring, improves our enyclopedia is not so clear, but no doubt being an admin helps one to see such ineffable facts more clearly :-/ [[Special:Contributions/213.205.251.58|213.205.251.58]] ([[User talk:213.205.251.58|talk]]) 18:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)