User talk:DGG/Archive 116 Sep. 2016

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Barnstars, Awards, etc.

Reminders

Topical Archives:
Deletion & AfD,      Speedy & prod,        NPP & AfC,       COI & paid editors,      BLP,                              Bilateral relations
Notability,               Universities & academic people,       Schools,                       Academic journals,       Books & other publications
Sourcing,                Fiction,                                               In Popular Culture      Educational Program
Bias, intolerance, and prejudice

General Archives:
2006: Sept-Dec
2007: Jan-Feb , Mar-Apt , M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D 
2008: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2009: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2010: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2011: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2012: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2013: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2014: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2015: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2016: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2017: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2018: J, F, M , A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2019: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2020: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2021: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2022: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2023: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O

 

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Speedy deletion of CAWST

Could you clarify why the page CAWST was marked for speedy deletion and not other company history pages like WaterAid and Charity water? If the definition of notability is based on solely on the subset of knowledge and awareness from people in developed countries then yes CAWST may not be known as much as other louder organizations. But CAWST has had 15 years of impact and is changing the water and sanitation sector impacting millions in developing countries. Please advise on the best way to capture this appropriately as an encyclopedia article. Thank you. Oliviermills (talk) 13:30, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Oliviermills, considering that essentially your only edits have been in connection with this organization and the devices it promotes, it is very possible that you have some degree of conflict of interest. If so, please see our rules, WP:COI, including our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure . This disclosure is not optional. It ids very difficult for those with a COI to write without promotionalism. And note that by "promotionalism" we include the promotion of any cause at all, however meritorious-- we do not differentiate in this respect between commercial and non-commercial organizations.

The way Wikipedia judges importance is not merit, but the availability of references--specifically, references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. Essentially all references in all versions of this article from from the firm;s own web site or related pages. If you have them, rewrite the article in Draft space. Avoid promotionalism , and avoid any copying from theorganizations website or other pre-existing material.

The other two articles you mention are interesting examples of how not to write an article: they are highly promotional, designed to appeal to prospective supporters or donors, giving the information that the organization might want to say abiut itself. That's what press releases do, and organization web pages. But encyclopedias tell the general reader what they might want to know about an organization they've heard of. There are several hundred thousand articles in WP accepted in earlier years when the standards were lower that we need to either upgrade or remove, and I have added these to the list. DGG ( talk ) 04:34, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I was going to take a look at the page on CAWST, but can't find it. Has is already been deleted? EvMsmile (talk) 10:05, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

WorldCat library holdings

In an AfD where you nominated Andrew Peterson, you stated as part of your rationale that - WorldCat shows holdings of between 80 and 150 libraries - and later commented - Worldcat shows a total of less then 80 holdings for all of them together, however my search at WorldCat yielded a different result: 587 library holdings. Seems like a big difference. Nonetheless, I guess my point is moot now that the article has been deleted.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 18:46, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

there is usually some discrepancy in the counts when you go book by book, and when you go to the authorioverview record , but this is the hsarpest one I have seen--and it goes in the opposite direction--usually the author summary record one is smaller. I will reanalyze and get back to you, If I have made an error & it affects what I would say, I'll consider how to deal with the problem. DGG ( talk ) 00:06, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

troller right#rfc_4F5A3A2|Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right]] ==

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

FORM Holdings

There is a huge CSD backlog which I an slowly working thru. Could you please look at FORM Holdings. It's obviously a comisioned work but in spite of the plethora of sources it's only claim is that it's lised on a stock exchange but I'm not sure if that accords automatic notability. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:30, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

only for he most impt exchanges. We recognize NYSE and London as implying notability , provided their the major boards, not the subsidiary ones. We do not recognize NASDAQ as implying notability , altho many companies there especially technology companies, are quite notable. (notice I am now usually saing "imply" notability instead of the official "presume")

If people patrol properly, there will inevitably be an increased CSD background. We can't limit ourselves to reforming just one aspect of the system. DGG ( talk ) 18:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

RevDel needed

Can I get a RevDel on this attempt to label someone a "deadbeat dad"? Thanks. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:27, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

done. DGG ( talk ) 18:07, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank You!

David - Just a quick Saturday morning thanks for your thoughtful and helpful feedback! Appreciate it.

Djelky (talk) 18:03, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Please explain your tag of advert on WASH

You have added the tag of "advert" on this page: WASH. Can you please explain on the talk page why? Please point out which statements you object to. I did quite a bit of writing for that article, so I would appreciate your feedback, rather than just being lumped with the tag "advert". Thanks a lot. EvMsmile (talk) 11:44, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I changed it to the milder newsrelease. I consider it in large part advocacy for the importance of the issue. I agree completely about the importance of this, but WP does not do addvocacy, regardless of the worthiness of the cause. DGG ( talk ) 13:20, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

you deleted a page that i created with no good reason

Man you deleted the page i created. I put in the talk area all the references to newspapers that wshowed that it was a relevant person — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maurohpinto (talk • contribs) 08:01, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Id eleted the article primarily because it was an advertisement for her work, full of uncited claims about her intentions and artistic goals. If you want to try again, please use Draft space, and make sure that every sentence in referenced directly to a specific reference, and that all sentences involving judgement to a references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. And just in case you have any conflict of interest, see our ruleson that: WP:COI. DGG ( talk ) 08:16, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Windmill Organics

Hi. Thank you for reading this article. If it gets deleted, such a shame for those of us who only eat organic food not to know where our non-tax consumption money is going. Is there a way to let WikiProjects Food, London, and Companies know about this AFD without canvassing please? Could you please do this? Thank you!!Zigzig20s (talk) 08:47, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: (talk page watcher) You need to find reliable independent sources where the company has been written about. Has it, or any of its products, won any awards etc? I've looked around a bit for stuff on its 5 brands and am surprised and disappointed that I can't find anything much except a cashew butter recall! It looks a splendidly worthy company selling good food for a long time and I like the Bio Fair brand, I'd have loved to improve the article and rescue it at AfD, but I just can't find the sources. Keep trying. PamD 09:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Dear stalker: Thank you ever so much for your informative suggestion. However, it appears to be off topic. If you re-read the message above, you will see that that is not what I asked DGG. I encourage you to re-read it if you are confused. Thank you and have a nice day!Zigzig20s (talk) 10:02, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

But on an off topic tangent, I am addicted to their Biona red quinoa.Zigzig20s (talk) 10:08, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

It's already got banners for WikiProjects Companies and Food and Drink, so those projects should be alerted to the AfD. I thought about adding London but really it's not a London-specific company, just happens to have HQ there, so doesn't seem to me to be relevant to that project. PamD 10:35, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I disagree. I think it would be. Can someone please do this? (Thank you for adding more referenced info by the way; I am pleasantly surprised.)Zigzig20s (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, anyone can add a banner to a talk page: if you think it's relevant to London, then go for it. PamD 18:11, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

It's a shame my searches found nothing of any real note, as I'm one such person who eats organic. Adam9007 (talk) 18:25, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Adam9007: Surely they've taken your money then?Zigzig20s (talk) 18:45, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: I don't know about Windmill Organics, but Biona and many others have :). Adam9007 (talk) 18:53, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Adam9007: Biona is one of their brands. You're giving them money. Now do you really want them to remain a known unknown on Wikipedia?Zigzig20s (talk) 18:59, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: Of course not, but I just don't see how they are notable. Adam9007 (talk) 19:01, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Adam9007: They feed you.Zigzig20s (talk) 19:19, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

(by talk page stalker) @Zigzig20s: I am honestly disturbed how a ten-year editor with your history is going to recommend to another editor they support keeping an article against policy just because they like the brand. If anything, customers have a conflict of interest. I do not understand how you could have that sort of cognitive disconnect. I can only assume your account has been compromised because I cannot rationalize your statements any other way. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:24, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

No, it's called a joke.Zigzig20s (talk) 19:28, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Besides, what difference, at this point, does it make? The article will get deleted. I might as well joke about it.Zigzig20s (talk) 19:29, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello

Just a heads up, I've removed the PROD notices on KKHP-LP and KMEC-LP. You'll find my reasoning in the summaries of those edits.

Best regards,

Americanfreedom (talk) 03:48, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

• Americanfreedom, Thanks for helping; I have no objections. I'm clearing up the oldest of the unreviewed articles, and , since this is not my field, I wanted them to get proper attention. DGG ( talk ) 06:38, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Readers contributions

Hello, just heads up that a conversation around readers contributions is happening here and it might be of interest to you. Thanks!--Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 00:03, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Farwestern development region,Kanchanpur district

Could you take a look at Farwestern development region,Kanchanpur district? It has a misleading title as it's about a student. Non-notable to me, but I've been wrong before. Cotton2 (talk) 00:58, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

it's apparently a naive attempt at a personal wiki page. I left my usual message in such cases: We're not Facebook. DGG ( talk ) 05:22, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

September 14: WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting

Wednesday September 14, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. This month will also feature on our agenda, upcoming editathons, the organization's Annual Meeting, and Chapter board elections. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent (UN Women and CFR!) and upcoming edit-a-thons, and other outreach activities. We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities. Along with the main meeting, hummus and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday September 14 WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street Featuring a keynote talk this month to be determined! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 19:07, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

The Smiley Company new stub

Greets DGG. I created a new stub Draft:The Smiley Company 2, but couldn't move it to The Smiley Company due to page protection. Could you take a peek? Cheers -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 10:26, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Milstein pages inquiry

Hi DGG, it's been awhile. Hope you're doing well. I am writing today on behalf of Adam Milstein, a client of my company Beutler Ink (in partnership with another PR firm, coincidentally named Miller Ink). My focus is two pages: Adam Milstein and Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation. I have not yet posted on either talk page, but I have disclosed my interest by adding the {{connected contributor}} template to both.

In July you were briefly active on both articles. It looks to me like you undid some promotional edits by an SPA, and appropriately so in my opinion. After restoring each entry, you then also added the {{news release}} tags. What I'd like to find out, on Mr. Milstein's behalf, is what you think should be done in each case so these warning tags are no longer necessary. With your input, it would be my intention to prepare updates to these pages to be guideline-compliant. Please let me know what you think. Thanks, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:59, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I shall take a look. I was planning to look at related pages also. One of the things that concerns me is duplication among articles. DGG ( talk ) 16:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the quick reply. I haven't looked closely at the duplication issue, though that does sound like it would require rectifying. Please let me know what else you see, and I can start working on improvements. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:12, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

"Risher believes that ..." is a phrasethat always bothers me. And I;d integrate the awards section. DGG ( talk ) 04:16, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi DGG, I'm afraid I'm confused by your response. On neither the Adam Milstein nor the Milstein Foundation page is there any occurrence of the word "Risher", nor is there any awards section. Would you please look again and let me know what you find? Thanks, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 17:57, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Questioning your deletion of CURE Auto Insurance page

DGG, unfortunately I was away when you flagged my CURE Auto Insurance Article for deletion, which was seconded an entire week later and deleted. I am a new Wikipedia author/editor who likes to write about NJ topics in my spare time. I was very disappointed to see that you flagged my article for prompt deletion without providing me with any specifics as to your concerns. I modeled my article off of other existing Wikipedia pages: New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company, GEICO, and State Farm Insurance. The references that I used are all similar to those referenced by these companies' pages. Can you please give me some specifics as to your concerns and the opportunity to correct any deficiencies you noted? I'm having problems even locating the article since you and another deleted it. I am a software developer and I find this interface very difficult to navigate. As if the 3 second delay in typing weren't bad enough..... apparently I lost my first draft of this comment waiting for the system to catch up! (So if this ends up being a duplicate entry, my apologies!) Hmariez (talk) 15:44, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

The article was merely deleted via our proposed deletion process WP:PROD, which only applies in nobody objects, and therefore can be restored on request, which I have done. However, it is not satisfactory, both for promotional writing and for possible lack of notability. The advertising campaigns section in particular is based on youtube postings, which is not acceptable references, and on the huffington post, which is not considered fully reliable. The telly awards should only list actual winners, not second and third place. The rest of the article should avoid adjectives of praise. The firm's campaign about pricing must be sourced to references from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases. The firm has 200 employees, and you are comparing it against bigger (Manufacturere's) and much bigger (GEICO and State Farm) companies--see WP:EINSTEIN. I am not sure it is large enough to be notable--it will depend on whether there are references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. (I note that the Manufacture's article is also somewhat a problem, and will get some attention--there are hundreds of thousands of problematic articles in WP that have not yet been fixed or removed.

In addition, in case you should happen to have a conflict of interest--and frankly it is not clear to me why anyone would otherwise choose a small business such as this as a first article--, please see our rules about WP:COI and our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure. But we do assume good faith. DGG ( talk ) 16:50, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. I will review all within the next few days and make appropriate changes. Hmariez (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Help with a draft

Hi DGG!

Could you help me with a draft that I wrote? Its the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Majestic_Hotel_Group and it was declined because "This submission's references do not adequately show the subject's notability. Wikipedia requires significant coverage about the subject in reliable sources". However, on my references, I put well known newspapers such as La Vanguardia and El Mundo and also Review Pro, a company present worldwide. So why these sources are not reliable? Which type of source should I use ? Or the draft was declined because the references were not written in the right way? I sent a message to the person that declined the draft a few days ago but since I havent got a reply and I saw you replying a comment , so thatºs why Im writing to you now. Thanks in advance!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Revmchris (talk • contribs) 09:58, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The reviewer in question has been barred from AfC and has not edited simce 29 August. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Revmchris. The part of the firm which is important is the original property, the Majestic Hotel in Barcelona. You need to rewrite the article to emphasize that. Since the hotel dates from 1918, there should be good references available. The rest of the properties belong in a separate section called something like Other properties. DGG ( talk ) 06:02, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your help! :D I've just resubmit the draft. Can you have a loook on it ? Thanks again! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Revmchris (talk • contribs) 15:55, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Please assist

Hi DGG, I'm writing as you've assisted in the revision history of the article located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metapress. In my opinion, this was incorrectly nominated for deletion a few days ago. Please review the current conversation, and add to the discussion if possible. Potentially I need to add more references? There are many more that I could add. I truly believe this is a useful, descriptive, and appropriate page for continued inclusion. Please let me know what you think. Thank you! Mark54ems (talk) 11:08, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Please assist

Hi DGG!I work with Heathart on the Blacklunchtable . we are doing another edit a thon today at eastern illinois university. i conducted an edit a thon in banff alberta earlier this summer and i think for that iteration heather logged new users in since i didnt have permission to do so. we have a particularly large crowd today and it would be super helpful if i could also log new users. would you be able to help us with extra permissions for me? thank you!! Fishantena (talk) 16:18, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

sorry--I did not see this in time. DGG ( talk ) 05:31, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of CURE Auto Insurance for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article CURE Auto Insurance is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CURE Auto Insurance until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:53, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Was it intentional that you only restored the revision in which you added the prod? —Cryptic 20:09, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Original creator notified of AfD. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:34, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Some additional earlier versions should have been restored; I just now restored them. DGG ( talk ) 05:29, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Removal of Jacob Richard Morris

You deleted the page because lack of a reference for a living biography. But i am Jacob so i can't cite references. Cheers — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Appleseed12 (talk • contribs) 12:01, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

If you are the subject,please see WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY. DGG ( talk ) 17:50, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Notability of business people?

Hi DGG. If you have time, I'd appreciate your input at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffrey Storey where some interesting issues have been raised about the notability of business people. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:03, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that David, your input was very helpful, and pretty much what my instincts are. You're so right about the distortions of blindly following GNG, primarily because PR agencies can generate mountains of "press coverage" for utterly inconsequential people, businesses, and (yet to be completed) projects. this discussion was a prime example. The article was eventually deleted, but not without some stubborn resistance. Voceditenore (talk) 07:33, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Inquiry again re: Adam Milstein + Foundation

Hi DGG, I'm creating a new section since I think another reply on the above thread is too likely to be lost. As I asked then, I'd like your input on what you believe would need to be fixed on the pages Adam Milstein and Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation before the {{news release}} tags can be removed. Your initial reply concerned a different page than the either of the two I'm asking about. Please let me know what your concerns are about these two linked pages, and I can begin working on improvements. However, if you are too busy, I may seek another opinion from a volunteer editor next week. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:01, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

the main problem remainsduplication: the Campus Maccabees section is the same in both articles! And there's still promotional wording and promotional sourcing. In the foundation article, article:: 1/section 4 is sourced only to two PR sources. 2/Wording like "to submit personal videos letting the world see the positive things coming out of Israel" is advocacy; this or very similar phrases are used several times. The only reason I haven't fixed this is that since they are your clients, I want to leave it up to you to decide which article to put the duplicated material in--they could actually go either place, since though listed as independent, it's essentially his private foundation, as is shown by the fact that both he and it claim credit for the same things. If there is not major improvement I'm going to propose a merge on that basis to the article on him.

By the way, are any of the following accounts your firm or their contractors: User:Therowervz; User:MBurg1952, User:Leah757, User:70.161.231.157; User:Jewishsarah? None of them seem to have a declaration on their user page, which as you know is required. DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate the more detailed response. But first, absolutely no way is my firm in any way associated with those accounts. I have seen them in the edit history, and I certainly see why you are curious about them, but I don't know anything about them. We've started working with Mr. Milstein in just the past couple of weeks, and my inquiries with you are the extent of our on-wiki efforts so far. I'll begin working on better sourcing and separation of topics. As for a merge, I haven't looked into it and do not have an opinion about that, either. As I start working on it, I expect I'll have some thoughts about that. Also: another editor has made a number of changes to the Milstein biography as of this weekend, and has removed the tag from that page, so you may want to have a look at that. Anyway, more from me soon. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:28, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

User talk:Website2

In case you miss it, this user actually started another advertising article after your last message. SwisterTwister talk 19:02, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Iitca recreated shortly afterward your speedy promo, and it is also a copyvio. Meters (talk) 19:45, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

My experience with warnings on matters of this sort is they work about 3/4 of the time. But it is indeed amazing how foolish some promotional editors are about trying to repeat the same thing. People who write one bad article of sometimes not noticed; people who try the same one multiple times almost always are. One thing multiple watchers are very effective at is an excellent collective memory. DGG ( talk ) 22:22, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Onnit

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Onnit. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

David R. Paolo

Hey DGG, how are you doing? I have seen you around AfD opposing promotion on Wikipedia. I need your opinion on something. I came across this article that seemed promotional to me. I looked the guy up and found that he is not a saint as his article contend. Naturally, I add a few statements about him in the article, but someone keeps removing anything negative that I add. Someone is actively trying to keep the article very positive. On top of that, the guy is hardly notable. He hasn't had received so much press coverage, no major awards - was once finalist for EY, but I don't know if that makes him notable. I am inclined to taking on AfD, but I need your opinion on this first. Check the history.Susana Hodge (talk) 10:23, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

working on it. DGG ( talk ) 05:10, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Undone Edits

Hi DGG, I appreciate the recent edits you made to my article and marking it as reviewed. However I have undone the changes as there were lot of disconnects as to the flow of the details and spelling errors apparent as part of the edit. Please feel free to make further edits and suggest ways to better improve the article. Preetam.choudhury (talk) 00:54, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

The future of NPP

(to all those just joining this thread, please see also #AFC redux above - all of it.)

There must be some reason for the sudden huge and steady increase in the NPP backlog over the past few weeks:

NPP backlog July, Aug, Sep 2016

It's my assumption that the regulars have gotten fed up of being the only regulars. SwisterTwister has also significantly reduced his patrolling. The thing is, this just can't go on; in a few weeks we will be up to the levels that precipitated Scottywong, The Blade of the Northern Lights, and me to launch WP:ACTRIAL as the only (what we thought at the time) way to limit the deluge of thoroughly inappropriate new articles, thus giving patrollers time to breathe, on the premise that serious contributors would not be discouraged by having to wait 10 edits and 4 days to publish , or going through the non-indexed Draft namespace from the Article Wizard (or the new landing page that was promised), and trolls and spamers would think again before wasting their own (and their client's) time

However, we are having to address this problem on three clearly defined fronts: 1) the apathy towards wanting to work at NPP, 2) the low quality of the work of many of those who still do it. If we could could convince the community to agree to a merge of AfC (which also has its problems) and NPP, we might get more patrolers as a result; and 3) The reluctance of the WMF to understand the damage that is being done to the encyclopedia. That said, I'm more than convinced that a suitably worded lobby to the newly formed Foundation may make them rethink WP:ACTRIAL which after all was one of the most heavily subscribed debates in Wiki history and an overwhelmingly clear consensus. Please take a moment to read this fairly recent thread and let me have your thoughts because I'm getting tired of being practically the only motor behind these initiatives and as you can see from the current related RfC, in spite of my efforts, I sometimes get things wrong.

It's really time we got the WMF to finally engage with en.Wiki because in spite of my talks with Quiddity in Italy and the exchange on his Foundation talk page, and the 1-hour Skype with someone in the Foundation, to all intents and purposes, it appears that the WMF is still prioritizing non urgent gadgets instead of addressing the quality that Wikipedia tries to base its reputation on (you can't watch UK television these days without someone commenting negatively about Wikipedia).

What we need right now is that landing page Jorm was working on, it would have saved all the bad faith that I'm getting slammed with from some of your Arbcom colleagues and a lot of very time consuming hard work. So I'm pinging Robert McClenon, MER-C, Esquivalience, Boing! said Zebedee, and vQuakr for their information, and I'm also pinging Mdennis (WMF) who usually has a kindly ear for my concerns and is best placed to find out who is ultimately responsible in SF for pushing things forward. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:49, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Head, meet brick wall. While those responsible for this mess have been moved on and the WMF is starting to be (at least minimally) responsive to community concerns, three things remain true:

1. the WMF is still full of naive, idealistic dreamers, and/or people who have difficulty understanding the concept of encyclopedia (this being a recent example);
2. there are one-way community "liaisons" who do not effectively communicate our concerns to the WMF (if at all); and
3. there's 10 years of technical debt, neglect and software rot to catch up on (our CAPTCHA is totally broken, for instance).

Yes, I agree both extended confirmation for article creation and a landing page are warranted. It's proactive, the best form of abuse prevention. But I'm afraid we'll have to wait in line with everyone else -- I'll propose this at this year's Community Wishlist survey... along with five or more other things. My suggestion is to bypass the WMF whenever possible -- ACTRIAL is something we can do with an abuse filter or MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. MER-C 11:23, 19 September 2016 (UTC) Added reference to MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. MER-C 13:50, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• Hi Kudpung. Having seen your impassioned plea, I went over to Special:NewPagesFeed, but I couldn't access the Page Curation tool at all. When I click on the "Review" button, all I get is the article with no tool in the right-hand side bar, and no apparent way to mark it as reviewed, although it can be done manually via the [Mark this page as patrolled] link at the bottom and clicking that does seem to remove the page from Special:NewPagesFeed. However, that link doesn't appear on all the pages in the feed, especially the older articles. For example, Montell Cozart shows up on the feed, if set to show oldest first. It was created on 10 June 2016‎. Its logs show it as neither patrolled nor reviewed. It also fails to display [Mark this page as patrolled]. But it was tagged for clean up several months ago and even visited by an administrator who corrected a typo [1]. So it was clearly de facto patrolled. I'm wondering if that backlog list is being artificially inflated by these instances and if other editors are also experiencing difficulty accessing the page curation tool, which may make them decide to just give up. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 11:28, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• @Voceditenore: Just a thought, is the "Curate this article" link present in tools? (see right) -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 11:47, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

  

I don't know how I can help you there, Voce, it works perfectly for me (OSX 10.11.6, FireFox 48.0.1). In fact, ironically, it's one of the few things dished up by the groaning, creaking, steam and fire spitting WMF servers that actually takes less than nearly a minute to load.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:53, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• Kudpung and Samtar, right after I wrote the above, the Curation tool bar on the right of the article did begin magically appearing again. But on Montell Cozart "Curate this article" does not appear under the "Tools" listing at the left, and doesn't appear on newer articles either, e.g. Piano Trio No. 2 (Schumann). Voceditenore (talk) 12:06, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

  The 'Curate this article' in the left column has been missing since the NPP RfC began. Assuming bad faith as I always do, I imagine it was removed by someone who is determined to keep everyone away from the Page Curation system... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:27, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Kudpung, the key numbers are 1/ the proportion of new pages from non-autocpatrolled editors that do make it stably into WP and 2/the proportion of new pages from non-autopatrolled editors that could possibly make it into WP; this could be higher because not all rescuable articles are worked on, but might be lower, if not all hopeless articles are actually deleted. I cannot immediate see a way to measure the first except to take a snapshot manually and look at in a few weeks later,but there ay be a possibility for a report. To measure the 2nd obviously takes guesswork.

I looked at the first measurement about 6 years ago,and it was about 50%:2000 articles a day, half kep thalf deleted one way or another. (from memory--I'll try to find my actual data) . I can do a guess at the 2nd, and cross check it against other people's guesses.

My guess is that the workload is not higher than it was then. AfC is rarely more than 100 article a day, and I think considerably more than half get rejected.

What takes time is not going through the list--its the auxiliary work that this produces--dealing with the good faith authors, following up on the likely sockpuppets, checking that speedies and prods get deleted, taking articles to afd and arguing them there.

We need to get more people. I wouldn't advise the existing patrollers do much more work themselves, because if one does to much, then the extreme impatience at dealing with them leads to errors; that was SwisterTwister's problem, and is why he was requested (tho not required) to stop patrolling. I make the same sort of mistakes myself if I do much at a time. There's not really any technical solution that will completely solve the problem--the irremediably bad articles still need to be removed andthe removal explained; the bad but not hopeless ones need to be improved and corrected, which is much harder. We've had to delete thousands of articles on potential encyclopedic topics because no one capable of doing the necessary rewriting wanted to do it. But there are man small changes, some within our power, some requiring the WMF, that can improve it.

I understand why its not a priority for the WMF. The WMF is not directly concerned with the content of the encyclopedia , nor should they be. Their role is to improve the basic functionality of the site, with emphasis on the parts outsiders see. infrastructure that people see. they do not fundamentally care about whether good or bad content goes into the encyclopedia. But, fortunately, the do care that the community of users grows and the size & reach of the encyclopedia increases , and the only way to do that is to encourage people who will write and improve good articles, and stay with us for long periods. This does require making their work easier and more satisfying, and its here that we need to make the appeal.

But we also need to see what we can do without them. DGG ( talk ) 14:29, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

As several of my close colleagues know, I would (and frankly I believe a lot of others would too) patrol again but, if anyone else has actually noticed, WP recently has become quite heated, not simply because of one thing or another, but various things, and this has noticeably caused a lot of motivation-removal; I've even noticed longtime or otherwise experienced users exiting because of it; unfortunately what happens (something we'll all know), and it currently has, is that new users with no knowledgeable experiences, are then patrolling. As I mentioned with the last thread about this, we will certainly get through it, and fortunately there's a number of users, including DGG and myself, that specifically go through patrols to ensure quality. Something that would be beneficial by the WMF is to at least improve the overall WMF environment, fixing the longtime troubles such as the continuously overheated people, to quote DGG "they do care that the community of users grows and the size & reach of the encyclopedia increases" but I believe this would best happen if they ensured the beneficial people stay, and are not affected by the unpleasant environment caused by uncooperative people that come (because if an excessive number of beneficial people go, then it certainly affects the encyclopedia deeply and overall). SwisterTwister talk 17:18, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• One of the causes may be that the number of articles created is increasing, while the rate of patrolling may stay relatively constant. With Wikipedia Zero and other initiatives to increase Internet usage in the developing world, there will be more users and more article creators. But this theory may not hold, as the rate of new articles outpaces the growth of notable topics.

But currently, NPP is a relatively dysfunctional system compared to other review systems. The work is repetitive; without a good system in place (such as an AfC-like system where reviewers communicate with users), all NPP boils down to is the dichotomy of delete or don't delete. It gets tiring after a while, and the 99% of articles whose creators ignore instructions are not particularly inspiring.The instructions are vague: would many serious newcomers understand the hodgepodge that is "Content that violates any copyrights..." yada yada yada? Our article creation system attracts the newcomers who don't pay attention to instructions.

We can easily improve this system; if we subject new article creators to a review process based on feedback that they have to respond to if they want their article to be "published", then I am confident that our backlog will not only be cut, but populated by newcomers that actually care about what they're writing. I can assure that a fully-staffed team of programmers can develop such a system to a stable condition in less than a year. The WMF software department, despite solid funding, more than many other software non-profits that can actually develop more software that furthers their mission (e.g., the Internet Archive actually improved the interface of their website and grown their Wayback Machine considerably with $5M), primarily focuses on projects that do nothing to further the encyclopedia, almost like they are going to sell the projects they create. For example, 12 years to develop a system that provides only marginal benefits to newcomers; a year on the Knowledge Engine (trying to compete with Google?), and the list goes on and on. Yet, MediaWiki is outdated (I'd rather use Subversion or even CVS to maintain a wiki!), examples including no configuration panel on a stock installation, and the complicated process to swap articles; Wikipedia's interface looks like it comes from 2006. Also, many components use questionable coding practices (e.g., I'm not sure now, but AbuseFilter initally at least forwent using a parser generator and included its own homebrew parser for its own domain-specific language). In fact, NPP is not the only technical issue that plagues Wikipedia. As an example, look how grainy this equation looks: $O(g(n))=\{f(n):\exists c\,\exists m\,\forall n>m:f(n)<cg(n)\}$.

In fact, it is embarrassing for the most widely-used encyclopedia to give such vague instructions to new article writers, and for patrollers to use such outdated tools. Until the WMF can develop better technology, or accept that technology can be created if they refuse to create it, the backlog may keep growing. — Esquivalience (talk) 01:40, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Since I was pinged, I will comment. I will start with a question. There continues to be mention of somehow combining AFC and NPP. I don't really understand what is meant by that. AFC and NPP are different, although partly overlapping, functions. AFC is in draft space, while NPP is in all spaces, primarily in article space. Would combining mean that the option of taking drafts through review in draft space would be lost, and that drafts would be in mainspace? The merger talk presumably doesn't just mean merging of the two groups of volunteers, which already overlap. What is meant by combining AFC and NPP?

I know what some wrong answers are to a growing backlog at NPP. One is to offer NPP as a way for new editors to gain experience with Wikipedia and work off the backlog. Another is to lower the standards of quality for articles in order to work off the backlog. Another is to worry too much about biting the newcomers; unfortunately, a large percentage of those newcomers who wish to add new articles (rather than contributing to existing articles) need to be bitten. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:09, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

• I'll address a couple of the many valid points made by Esquivalience, and DGG (whose comments are perfectly accurate):

1. 'The WMF is not directly concerned with the content of the encyclopedia', but it should be very concerned in the quality of the content and how it is controlled and maintained, The donations depend on it. That money should be being spent on developments to do this especially where Wikipedia is exponentially becoming a platform for paid editors at the expense of our volunteer time.
2. Instructions to new article creators: This embarrassing absence is indeed the greatest enigma of all time during Wikipedia's history. What most people who joined Wikipedia post-2011 ACTRIAL are not aware of however, is that development of the Page Curation system was only half of the project. In 2011 an excellent landing page for new uses was concurrently being developed by the WMF that would have filled that gaping hole and completed the triangle, replacing Article Wizard, replacing AfC, and giving the regular editing community something to talk about which would have resulted in the same vibrant, coherent, collaboration that AfC has among its reviewers and more patrollers. Kaldari can tell us why that project was quietly shelved and why he NPP issues described on the recently created list at Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements were not completed.

   @Kudpung: Article Creation Workflow (ACW) was shelved for a couple of reasons. First, we wanted to concentrate on finishing the PageTriage Extension (aka Page Curation) which was considered a higher priority. We only had a limited amount of time to complete both of these projects, since my team (Editor Engagement) was slated to start working on Echo (aka Notifications) at the start of Q1 FY2012 (July 2012). We really, really didn't want to leave both of the projects (ACW and Page Curation) unfinished, so we concentrated on finishing Page Curation and never finished ACW. The other reason we didn't finished ACW is that there was talk in the community of creating a Drafts namespace, and this would have required significant refactoring of the ACW workflow (See Article Creation Workflow diagram). As it turns out, the community did decide to create a Drafts namespace the next year, so this was probably a good decision in retrospect. As for why the WMF has never revisited Page Curation or ACW, I think it basically boils down to limited resources and the fact that neither of these tools scale easily to multiple wikis (since they are tied to wiki-specific workflows). Kaldari (talk) 03:04, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

3. NPP does not actually 'boil down to a dichotomy of delete or don't delete.' That's the state it's in however, due to the lack of competency of those who are allowed to do it without control or supervision. In the period covered by the graph above, I have been patrolling as often as possible, for 2 or 3 hours a day and within the first few minutes of every session I already have to revert several mis-taggings, and 'friendly' ban at least one newbie from patrolling. Unfortunately, we can't even get the WMF to include in the New Page Feed header something like: If you are new to Wikipedia, please do not patrol new pages until you have significantly more experience. Instead, please consider a simpler task such as reverting obvious vandalism, and oddly there are still plenty of volunteers who still firmly believe that NPP should be the experimental ground for all wannabe maintenance workers.
4. What it does boil down to and which will eventually drive seasoned editors away for good, are the relentless accusations - sometimes even from holders of high office (as Arbcom) - that people like me and DGG don't know what we're talking about. Such detractors have never done a proper stint at NPP. They've looked at it but they do not have any experience that holds a candle to that of established editors who have done 1,000s of patrols over many years.
5. Statistics: The WMF considers itself primarily as a web app and server company and and like all IT people, it bases all its working knowledge on stats under the premise that if there are no stats for it, it doesn't exist. Hence the dichotomy: stats vs. empirical experience. Fortunately and miraculously, the decision to go ahead with Page Curation was based on findings drawn from live streamed NPP sessions by experienced patrollers to an audience of very senior WMF staff.
6. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit referred to the contributing of content; it was never implied that no conditions can be imposed on how and when that content can be published; indeed in 2006 the WMF removed the right from IPs to create articles, thus proving that the project is organic, which contradicts their refusal to implement ACTRIAL.
7. Within the WMF, nobody appears to accept responsibility. They overlap each other's work but no one, including the three or four 'community liason officers' can tell us who is really in charge, and that's why this issue of encyclopedic quality is sufficiently critical to involve the CEO, and Ryan Kaldari who still knows all about mw:Extension:ArticleCreationWorkflow (the landing page project). Nick Wilson was being of some help but he appears to have stopped responding.
8. In the absence of any help from the Foundation, MER-C's suggestion to bypass the WMF may become the option. Otherwise within less than five years Wikipedia will suffer the same fate as MySpace while the WMF is complacently telling itself 'it will never happen to us'.

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:34, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

#3: You don't need the WMF to put that in the header. Any admin can do it at MediaWiki:Newpages-summary. (Or MediaWiki:Pagetriage-welcome for the curation tool version.) —Cryptic 07:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Bad as we are, still the enWP has much stricter rules for quality (including notability, documentation, and freedom from promotionalism) than almost all other WPs. Rgwue doesn't bother the WMF, so why should we expect them to care about our problems in these areas? I've consistently advised that we should do what we can on our own. To the extent we ask for something ,it should be the tools for doing additional things on our own. The principle of the entire system is that people in informal groups will do things on their own, and that the central facilities are only a service. DGG ( talk ) 08:05, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that the WMF likes to interefere when things don't go their way. If a volunteer adds some code, for example, that implements proper quality control to Common.js, the WMF will quite possibly nuke the page out of existence, or implement Superprotect again. The only problem is: the WMF has little organization into a unified organization so while a part of the WMF won't care about what happens to the encyclopedia, another part will overreact. — Esquivalience (talk) 11:55, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Hi, I haven't heard from you in a while, hence my quietness. I see you pinged my volunteer account above, which explains why I didn't get a notification for that edit (I don't always check that account's email daily). I'll take some time now to read the above discussion and links. Let me know what other pages I should be looking at? Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The problem is, Nick, and which has precipitated all the ensuing discussions on en.Wiki, that we are all still waiting since 10 August for you to reply on your MediaWiki account talk page at mw:Topic on User talk:Quiddity (WMF) and act on it or let us know who is, or should be, responsible for the immediate topic under discussion, and for feedback from Jonathan Morgan WMF (Jtmorgan) who called me on Skype to discussed these issues for an hour nearly two months ago. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:16, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Ah, sorry, I think we both misunderstood who was going to take the next step. You had mentioned "probably the easiest thing to do would be for me to send you my minutes of that meeting." so I was waiting for that, in order to get clarity on what you (and everyone you had consulted) wanted in your own words (rather than from just Jonathan's notes, which I have read), so that I could then continue. I should've pinged you soon afterwards, when I didn't hear back; sorry. Please do email them to me (or share however desired).

You said at Wikimania that you primarily wanted: (1) to get the user-rights sorted out, and (2) to adjust the list of options in the curation toolbar, so that they more closely match the list of options that Twinkle provides - please also send me that list, if you've compiled it now. (3) You did also say that wou'd be requesting 1 or 2 small tweaks to the general PageTriage software - I now see you've compiled a massive list at Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements. Egads. Can you prioritize the top 3-5 items that would have the most benefit for everyone? Then we can start creating phabricator tasks for those at least, and getting exact details where missing. Thanks!

As Cryptic suggests above, one good and immediate step would be to amend the MediaWiki:Pagetriage-welcome message, giving clearer instructions/guidance/warning/etc at the top of the feed. You or any admin can do that.

As suggested above, some part(s) of this might make a good candidate for the m:2016 Community Wishlist Survey, as long as it is very clearly defined, whilst also applicable to all language projects. (They'll be asking for the proposals in November, and I can probably help you draft something before then, if desired?) Those additional Article Creation Workflow/Landing Page details look particlarly intriguing. Kaldari's reply above is also helpful to know.

In the meantime, I wonder if we could make the link to the Article Wizard more prominent (or even unavoidable?) in MediaWiki:Newarticletext (as seen at e.g. example redlink foo) - It's currently linked at the end of the 3rd line, which seems very obscure...

Re: #7 above, the Collaboration team is the logical inheritor of the PageTriage extension, along with 6 or 7 other extensions, and a large number of core features. That's the team who requested the research-interview that you participated in! Sadly there are only 3.5 developers on the team, and a few thousands tasks (including many epic/herculean tasks) to work on. They're currently working on mw:Notifications and mw:Edit Review Improvements - the latter (what the interview with you was intended to focus on) is aimed at helping all types of RecentChange patrollers, and editor-mentors in particular (i.e. experienced editors who want to find (separate out) the newcomers who are making good faith edits that are problematic - people that need and will benefit from friendly mentoring) - I hope this will give everyone who collaborates on the possible changes, a clearer understanding of how we can improve both this more general aspect of reviewing all edits, as well as the more specific use-case of reviewing new pages, and thereby enable more comprehensive work on that, in the future.

Best wishes, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF), the massive list at Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements was again my initiative after one user simply created the blank page without attempting to expand on his initiative or to even make the page visible anywhere. The list is nothing more than a compilation of all the items that various users have brought up which are mainly things that the WMF 'forgot' to do during the development, some things which neither of us thought about at the time but which have revealed themselves through use of the system as being essential, ans some items which the Foundation's messenger unilaterally decided were not sufficiently important to pass on. I do realise that in making that list I will be accused by some yet again of running a one-man show, not involving 'a larger community' and creating more 'idle talk' (per Robert McClenon who I nevertheless invited along), but someone has to prime the pump to get it it started.

I'll try to make a short list for you, and I'll send you (again at the risk of being accused of running a private cabal) the minutes of the Skype meeting with Jonathan. Perhaps it would also be good if some people here would also look at that list and comment on it - the only person who has really taken an active interest in it so far is WereSpielChequers who at the time was also one of the active forces in our community work group that convinced Erik Möller in 2011 following the ACTRIAL kerfuffle to get the Page Curation / Landing page developed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:18, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I haven't read all of the above, but I have two ideas about this: I think it would be worth giving serious consideration to re-proposing ACTRIAL. Most of those in the WMF who rejected it have moved on, and I think there is less of a "increase editor numbers at any cost" attitude there now.

But I believe there is something we could do locally. Much of the new-page rubbish comes from newbies who are not malicious or incompetent, but simply do not understand what an encyclopedia is for. There are two main classes: those who think it is a social-networking site and want to write about themselves, and those who think it is a free notice-board for promoting their company, good cause or tiddlywinks club. A suitably-worded notice on the sign-up page, explaining what Wikipedia is for and what it is not for, might deter a proportion of those, and I understand that MediaWiki:Signupstart could be edited by any admin to provide such a notice.

It would need an RFC to agree to do that, and no doubt a long argument to agree wording; but I think this is a practicable way to make some reduction in the torrent of no-hope articles. JohnCD (talk) 22:30, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The set of newbies who utterly defy instructions are not the newbies who will follow whatever is on the signup page. Just like until I added a dashed-line notice, there were still numerous NOTNOW nominations; or the users that defy the instructions for new pages patrolling. — Esquivalience (talk) 01:38, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with User:Esquivalience that no signup page or landing page or whatever you want to call it will deter many of the completely clueless good-faith new editors (let alone the bad-faith editors) who have no idea what an encyclopedia is. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:58, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

No, many would not be deterred, but if even a quarter of them were that would make a significant reduction in the NPP/CSD workload, including time spent explaining to aggrieved newbies why the "article" they have put a lot of work into never had a chance, because Wikipedia is not for what they want to do. JohnCD (talk) 08:48, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

• Within seconds of JohnCD mentioning the page at MediaWiki:Signupstart, it was deleted. Does this tell s something? And if so, what? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:38, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
  • It was actually deleted almost a year ago. It doesn't seem to be used anymore in any case. If you go to log out and go to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CreateAccount&uselang=qqx (and compare it to what it looks like without the uselang=qqx) you'll be able to see the MediaWiki namespace strings that currently get used for it. Whoops, no, it just defaults blank, and I overlooked it in the qqx view. —Cryptic 23:04, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Restated Question: What Is the So-Called Merger of NPP and AFC

I haven't yet gotten an answer to my question. Some editors continue to talk about the planned merger of AFC and NPP, but I haven't yet gotten a statement as to what that will involve. Is that because the talk of the merger is just idle talk that hasn't been definitized, or why haven't I gotten an answer? If it is just idle talk, then maybe it shouldn't be referred to as a plan or anything like that, but just as idle talk. If there really is a plan, what is it? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:58, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

It's not idle talk, and it's something that has been under serious consideration for quite a long time. However, like all major restructuring at Wikipedia, one has to make baby steps. The current RfC to first make patroller permission a policy is one of those steps. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:14, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

User:DGG, User:Kudpung - I hear and read that it is not just idle talk, and that it has been under serious consideration for a long time. However, when I see the comment that baby steps must be taken first, and I do not see a description of what the overall plan is, I become cynical (especially since I know that the primary interest of the WMF is increasing its donations and increasing its cash rather than the actual service of the existing communities such as the English Wikipedia). I haven't gotten an answer to what the ultimate plan is about the merger. Will AFC articles still go in draft space and NPP mostly be in article space? If so, what is meant by the merger? Where is the RFC? What are any other steps? What is the overall plan? As long as a plan is mentioned, in a way that seems to me intended to sound grandiose, I will consider it to be idle talk unless I can see at least parts of the plan. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:17, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Robert, most of all the best ideas in the history of mankind began as idle talk or a shoebox with wires coming out of it in someone's dad's garage becoming the world's richest company. Dismissing what gets discussed as simply 'idle' just because you are not in the loop, is, well, dismissive - we've kept you in the loop with a ping because we considered you to be one of the people who might have had something positive to offer.

Some of us have been working on this project on-and-off for five (5) years and you can be sure that the most interested and motivated parties will be invited to help draft an RfC proposal statement as soon as we know what we are going to propose and to what extent we can ask for any required coding to be done by those who are paid to it. The disadvantage with our consensus gathering system is that it takes 30 days for each successive proposal - when one fails, we try the next one. It's well known that RfCs that try to discuss too many issues or options in one sitting wind up way off topic and die out without even reaching a formal closure. As you can see from the current RfC, very typically those who won't make suggestions are happy to heckle from the sidelines and make condescending remarks about those who work in the background in smaller task forces without all the background noise.

This quadriga: AfC—Draft—NPP—Landing page is going to be, hopefully, one of the best advances in quality control since Wikipedia's creation, and because all the while we have to appease those who are resistant to change, it won't be rushed Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:25, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

I understand that often idle talk does come to fruition. I have seen the original RFC, which will authorize standards for New Page Patrollers, and which hasn't yet been formally closed. However, from my standpoint, I am just being told that something good will happen, and it appears that no one wants to tell me or can tell me more than that something good will happen. It isn't obvious to me how a merger of AFC or NPP will address the fact that both are understaffed, and both are criticized from both sides. If you ask me to expect great things in the future, please in turn expect me to be cynical and to think that I am being made empty promises and expected to rely on them. Or please answer my specific questions rather than just referring to a plan that cannot be stated in detail. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:21, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

the basic idea is that people creating new articles will be directed to a landing page, and then to one of two appropriate places, depending on whether they are new editors. Those needing to work in draft will be told that. Approval from draft and approval from direct creation we be unified, and organized in such as way that patrollers can focus on their areas of interest, and so their work can be audited. There will not be much less work overall (except for adding the absurd cycles of resubmission at AfC), but the work will be comprehensible and rational, and will try to involve the larger community. . As for the details, good ideas will be very welcome. DGG ( talk ) 13:55, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for providing an explanation rather than more empty talk. Does this mean that new editors will be sent to work in draft? You mention adding "the absurd cycles of resubmission at AfC". Are you implying that those cycles are absurd because the AFC reviewers are too demanding, or because new SPA editors persist in trying to resubmit over and over? What thoughts are there so far about how the larger community will be involved? What forum is the place for further discussion? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:24, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

This is the link again (already posted above), Robert, to the WMF project that was shelved which was the other half of the Page Curation / Landing page project. Please check it out. Together, they would have solved not only the technical problems of quality control and made AfC redundant, but in doing so would have saved Wikipedia's reputation which by now is on a downward spiral. Community engagement rests on those who are prepared to get involved instead of criticising those who are at least trying to do something. At present, other than perhaps WT:NPP (or a dedicated sub page of it) there is no official forum for discussing these issues. Again, a user initiative could create one - it's time we gave DGG his talk page back - but earlier efforts to involve the 'larger community' have failed. Unlike AfC, New Page Patrolers are largely incommunicative. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:58, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Idle talk centre

A neutral, centralised discussion area is being currently created for the idle talk where only those who are truly actively concerned with improvements to the way new pages are handled at both AfC and NPP can sign up for the action. A link will shortly be posted. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:47, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

• A dedicated venue for combined discussion about NPP & AfC where a work group is also proposed has been created. See: Wikipedia:The future of NPP and AfC --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:51, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Re: Battle of Anabta

You declined the CSD on this article previously, but this is a fork of Battle of Nur Shams, where discussion on the name is taking place on the talk page, and was created by a sock. Therefore, in the interest of centralizing the discussion and not letting socks get their way, I've re-CSDed it as G5. The fundamental issue is still one of whether its significance has been overstated, whatever it is called. MSJapan (talk) 19:44, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to delete the Bamyan Media article

Hi, First I'm a bit new to Wikipedia editing and am not sure I'm writing this in the correct place? Is there some place where this Bamyan Media - deletion proposal is discussed before the people who recommended it, or do I need to put separate posts on the page of every person who wants to delete this article? I gather from reading your page that you take great pride in the number of articles that you delete, and I suppose many of the editors do, viewing it as a "cleaning up" of a messy situation which has been created by trolls, sock puppets, and other people who make a living out of using the Internet for shams and delusion. I am certainly sympathetic to that problem but that is not the case here. ... Please advise if I should be posting this in a different place, and how the deletion of this article might be avoided.

Thank you. Lilifrancklyn (talk) 21:20, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Lilifrancklyn, The question of whether the article should be deleted is being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bamyan Media. This will discuss only whether the article should be kept in wikipedia, not whether it is in the wrong category, That question should be discussed on the article talk page if the article is kept in the AfD discussion. DGG ( talk ) 02:47, 20 September 2016 (UTC)[[123RF

123RF Draft

Hi DGG, I've re-drafted the 123RF Page. Please check to see whether it's fulfill Wikipedia requirement and ok to re-publish.

Thanks! Angelina Lee (talk) 10:55, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I will look, but it will not be till later today. . DGG ( talk ) 14:46, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

no longer so promotional as to be deleted immediately, but the references do not show notability --see your talk p. DGG ( talk ) 05:03, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I'll remove the one that stated not a reliable sources. Reason I put

a. Ref 5, 6, 7 is due to

i. Information of 123RF operates other business entity.

ii. Reliable/Notable sources.

b. Ref 4 is to show that the total amount of content is accurate. {As per Shutterstock Wikipage}

Basically, I'm referring to Shutterstock and Dreamstime to come up with the content and references. However, I noticed that Shutterstock has listed quite an amount of press release and blog as their references such as Ref 3, 6, 8, 9, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 30, 33, 38, 42, 43, 46, 47 while Ref 9 is press release from Dreamstime. Just wondering why Shutterstock is able to do it.

Please advise whether the other sources are feasible to use as a reference point below:

a. http://www.stockphotosecrets.com/agencies/123rf-com-stock-photo-agency-review.html

b. https://www.microstockman.com/microstock-agency-reviews/123rf-review/

c. http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=260118829

d. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/123rf.com

Thanks Angelina Lee (talk) 10:25, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Deleted LeHo Page

Hello DG It seems you have deleted a page I finally finished and moved out of my sandbox last week. This was my first ever article on Wikipedia and as you can imagine, it is pretty soul-destroying for me to see it compeltely gone. Some person has even decided to delete my sanbox!!!! Anyway, as I am completely new to this I would really have welcomed some discussion before the deletion so that I could have made any necessay changes and not lost what was actually days of work! Is there a way to retrieve it and review it to meet whatever rule I violed. I would very much welcome your help with this. Kind regards. Suzanne (Starfishdiver)Starfishdiver (talk) 11:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Starfishdiver I will look at it later today, but regardless of the page, don't let anything at WP destroy your soul. Like many people, at least one one of my own first articles was deleted. DGG ( talk ) 14

40, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the article draft is pure advertising , such as might be found on an organization website, and has no place in an encyclopedia. A company website provides the public with the information that the organization would like them to know; it is normally directed towards current or prospective donors, sponsors, staff, and clients. [An encyclopedia article] in contrast is directed to a person in the general public who has heard of the organization and wants objective information. As is common for a press release, the article is written in organizational jargon, with adjectives of praise and redundant wording,: "outputs" , "due to the fact that", "within an educational framework", "to clearly identify", "presented and discussed", "tapping into the expertise and competences ", "implement strategies that contribute to greater engagement", "was therefore perceived as a tool of choice for creating a socio-constructivist path that respects the needs of the child." -- all of these but a few of the multitude of examples that permeate the article.. Encyclopedia articles are written in ordinary English. As is common for a website, there are repeated suggestions for the reader to get involved: "It can be found here: LeHo Glossary" ; "available to download from the LeHo website" ; "available to view at any time on the LeHo website" and even a list of forthco,ing webinars , each with a ling "Attend the webinar" --alllof these just some of the examples.

There is also a problem about notability and sourcing . The only material sourced is the general information about the need for additional health information; there is nothing at all referenced about the actual work of he organization. Most of the specific information is speculative, about activities that have not yet taken place and the goals rather than the accomplishments.

Of even greater importance, the nature of the prose makes it very likely that it has been copied from various prior publications of the organization. Wikipedia considers that as WP:copyvio. (I have however not tried to trace the particular parts to their origins).

Furthermore, as this is the only article you have written, it seems likely that you may have some connection with the organization, and your user page confirms it. This would amount to a conflict of interest--our rules about that are at WP:COI, and at our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure. Our experience is that people with a COI are generally not able to write satisfactory articles about their own organizations. DGG ( talk ) 02:08, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

New York Times disproving notability

I'm trying to comprehend your statement "The NYT article is a fairly good explanation of that; far from proving the notability of the company, it disproves it."[2] But no matter how many ways I twist my brain, I am unable understand what you are trying to say, nor am I able to put your statement into any valid context relatable to wikipedia policies or guidelines. Could you explain your reasoning when you typed that statement? Thanks! -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 06:01, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

The material in that article shows the company is not yet notable. Sometimes a newspaper -- even a very good newspaper -- covers something because of some human interest hook, or because it's a typical example--as, to take an example, the instances selected for coverage in the articles in the NYT Neediest Cases Fund drive. Such coverage is not notability. Here, it overs the firm, and the coverage is directed to saying how completely un-notable the company is, except for the human interest in its founder, along with similar insignificant companies serving similarly as hobbies by wealthy young people. The only meaning of notability in a WP context is what is suitable to be in the encyclopedia. If there's coverage in good sources showing it is not suitable, then it is not notable., just as much as if there were no coverage at all . The GNG is a useful general rule, but has to be used with judgment about what is actually in the source. DGG ( talk ) 06:32, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

(For any talk page stalkers, we're discussing this NYT ref[3] and its coverage of the company Appboy) - Thanks DGG, that helps me understand your reasoning a bit more. My first reaction is that your argument is based on WP:Original Research, ie: your personal view of what is the meaning of the text published in the New York Times. I welcome further discussion on this issue in general, might even be essay-worthy. Cheers! -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 08:12, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

We can't use OR in writing an article. We certainly can and do in evaluating a source.We evaluate using a source by examining it, not taking it for granted that the headline describes the content. A great deal of our evaluation of sources as RS for content and the more stringent RS for notability or RS for negative content on BLPs is done by OR, and claimed expertise. and sometimes by pure opinion. Or, as in this case, a claim to take a common sense view after reading the source carefully. DGG ( talk ) 15:31, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Do you see this as a failure/weak point of the GNG policy? -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 16:15, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

It's a strength. To see the importance of being able to discuss sources in detail see the voluminous archives of the talk p for WP:RS and the RS noticeboard. The GNG if applied without qualifiers would produce truly absurd results. We deal with it by arguing about whether the references are "substantial" "third-party" "independent"and "reliable" and, to be frank, for many disputed cases I could probably make an equally good argument about these criteria in either direction, depending upon what result I wanted to achieve. Other people of course do this also, and the net result is we accept or reject whatever the consensus wants to do for whatever reason which need not be actually stated.

Personally, I consider the entire GNG criterion a failure of notability policy. Notability should be decided on objective criteria. The most important reason we haven't done this is the disputes we would have on just what the criteria are to be. DGG ( talk ) 16:51, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Mfrm123 from LPA - last article-moving request

Hi DGG, could you take a look at my article and, if you think it is ready, move it to the mainspace? This will be the last time I am bothering you with this, as school is getting just too busy. Just little edits from now on. Thanks much! Mfrm123 (talk) 23:55, 21 September 2016 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mfrm123/Arthur_Batelle_Whiting

I will do some of the necessary copyedits & accept it. Anyone with a ufll article in Grove is qualified to have a WP entry also. DGG ( talk ) 00:36, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

page with title Rohit Khattar

Hello DGG,

The page does not deserve to be deleted. It is a genuine page with correct information. Request you to go through the references once again and evaluate. (unsigned post by Thanks User:Anc2017

Anc2017, The place to make your arguments is the AfD discussion page, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rohit Khattar. DGG ( talk ) 20:38, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Request for Feedback

Hi David, as per our discussion & your suggestions, I have updated the sections on draft with summary notes via sandbox, I know you said you will review and comment there but I have not found you on IRC in recent two days around same time, so just wanted to touch you here. Thanks Skdwived (talk) 01:44, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I am never on IRC. I will take a look tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 09:07, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

(at your peril ;) --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:36, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I apologize for the IRC mention above, I was in talk with SwisterTwister (User:SwisterTwister) on IRC to discuss the things related with updating the draft, just got a bit confused since you both have the same First name.

I've looked. see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Teacher1943. DGG ( talk ) 09:36, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Rohit Khattar

Hi DGG, Please tell which references are to be removed from page of Rohit Khattar. The page doesn't need to be deleted.

You could retain own ref to prove he owns a film company, and one to prove he owns a restaurant, but what you need is to find some actual reliable non-trivial sources. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rohit Khattar. DGG ( talk ) 09:41, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

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

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

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

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

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

About the paired deletion of these articles

In your close of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of professional football players who spent their entire career with one franchise, you stated, "Delete both. The error in listing of the NFL list is harmless, because if the main list isn't notable, the lNFL subsidiary list certainly isn't". While I agree that the issues on both List of professional football players who spent their entire career with one franchise and List of NHL players who spent their entire career with one franchise were similar enough to warrant deletion on the same grounds, I'm not sure what you mean by "lNFL". Was this a typo? a misread? wiki-lingo I'm not aware of? The list nominated for deletion was the NFL list, and the one I suggested in my deletion rationale was for the NHL. Again, I'm not arguing your decision; just confused by the closing comment. Lizard (talk) 21:00, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

my misreading--sorry. I re-closed. The NHL list should be nominated separately, because it will probably attract different set of people to the discussion. Thanks for calling this to my attention. . DGG ( talk ) 00:52, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Adam9007: Surely they've taken your money then?Zigzig20s (talk) 18:45, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: I don't know about Windmill Organics, but Biona and many others have :). Adam9007 (talk) 18:53, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Adam9007: Biona is one of their brands. You're giving them money. Now do you really want them to remain a known unknown on Wikipedia?Zigzig20s (talk) 18:59, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: Of course not, but I just don't see how they are notable. Adam9007 (talk) 19:01, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Adam9007: They feed you.Zigzig20s (talk) 19:19, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

(by talk page stalker) @Zigzig20s: I am honestly disturbed how a ten-year editor with your history is going to recommend to another editor they support keeping an article against policy just because they like the brand. If anything, customers have a conflict of interest. I do not understand how you could have that sort of cognitive disconnect. I can only assume your account has been compromised because I cannot rationalize your statements any other way. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:24, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

No, it's called a joke.Zigzig20s (talk) 19:28, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Besides, what difference, at this point, does it make? The article will get deleted. I might as well joke about it.Zigzig20s (talk) 19:29, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello

Just a heads up, I've removed the PROD notices on KKHP-LP and KMEC-LP. You'll find my reasoning in the summaries of those edits.

Best regards,

Americanfreedom (talk) 03:48, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

• Americanfreedom, Thanks for helping; I have no objections. I'm clearing up the oldest of the unreviewed articles, and , since this is not my field, I wanted them to get proper attention. DGG ( talk ) 06:38, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Readers contributions

Hello, just heads up that a conversation around readers contributions is happening here and it might be of interest to you. Thanks!--Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 00:03, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Farwestern development region,Kanchanpur district

Could you take a look at Farwestern development region,Kanchanpur district? It has a misleading title as it's about a student. Non-notable to me, but I've been wrong before. Cotton2 (talk) 00:58, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

it's apparently a naive attempt at a personal wiki page. I left my usual message in such cases: We're not Facebook. DGG ( talk ) 05:22, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

The Smiley Company new stub

Greets DGG. I created a new stub Draft:The Smiley Company 2, but couldn't move it to The Smiley Company due to page protection. Could you take a peek? Cheers -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 10:26, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Milstein pages inquiry

Hi DGG, it's been awhile. Hope you're doing well. I am writing today on behalf of Adam Milstein, a client of my company Beutler Ink (in partnership with another PR firm, coincidentally named Miller Ink). My focus is two pages: Adam Milstein and Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation. I have not yet posted on either talk page, but I have disclosed my interest by adding the {{connected contributor}} template to both.

In July you were briefly active on both articles. It looks to me like you undid some promotional edits by an SPA, and appropriately so in my opinion. After restoring each entry, you then also added the {{news release}} tags. What I'd like to find out, on Mr. Milstein's behalf, is what you think should be done in each case so these warning tags are no longer necessary. With your input, it would be my intention to prepare updates to these pages to be guideline-compliant. Please let me know what you think. Thanks, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:59, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I shall take a look. I was planning to look at related pages also. One of the things that concerns me is duplication among articles. DGG ( talk ) 16:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the quick reply. I haven't looked closely at the duplication issue, though that does sound like it would require rectifying. Please let me know what else you see, and I can start working on improvements. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:12, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

"Risher believes that ..." is a phrasethat always bothers me. And I;d integrate the awards section. DGG ( talk ) 04:16, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi DGG, I'm afraid I'm confused by your response. On neither the Adam Milstein nor the Milstein Foundation page is there any occurrence of the word "Risher", nor is there any awards section. Would you please look again and let me know what you find? Thanks, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 17:57, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Questioning your deletion of CURE Auto Insurance page

DGG, unfortunately I was away when you flagged my CURE Auto Insurance Article for deletion, which was seconded an entire week later and deleted. I am a new Wikipedia author/editor who likes to write about NJ topics in my spare time. I was very disappointed to see that you flagged my article for prompt deletion without providing me with any specifics as to your concerns. I modeled my article off of other existing Wikipedia pages: New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company, GEICO, and State Farm Insurance. The references that I used are all similar to those referenced by these companies' pages. Can you please give me some specifics as to your concerns and the opportunity to correct any deficiencies you noted? I'm having problems even locating the article since you and another deleted it. I am a software developer and I find this interface very difficult to navigate. As if the 3 second delay in typing weren't bad enough..... apparently I lost my first draft of this comment waiting for the system to catch up! (So if this ends up being a duplicate entry, my apologies!) Hmariez (talk) 15:44, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

The article was merely deleted via our proposed deletion process WP:PROD, which only applies in nobody objects, and therefore can be restored on request, which I have done. However, it is not satisfactory, both for promotional writing and for possible lack of notability. The advertising campaigns section in particular is based on youtube postings, which is not acceptable references, and on the huffington post, which is not considered fully reliable. The telly awards should only list actual winners, not second and third place. The rest of the article should avoid adjectives of praise. The firm's campaign about pricing must be sourced to references from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases. The firm has 200 employees, and you are comparing it against bigger (Manufacturere's) and much bigger (GEICO and State Farm) companies--see WP:EINSTEIN. I am not sure it is large enough to be notable--it will depend on whether there are references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. (I note that the Manufacture's article is also somewhat a problem, and will get some attention--there are hundreds of thousands of problematic articles in WP that have not yet been fixed or removed.

In addition, in case you should happen to have a conflict of interest--and frankly it is not clear to me why anyone would otherwise choose a small business such as this as a first article--, please see our rules about WP:COI and our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure. But we do assume good faith. DGG ( talk ) 16:50, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. I will review all within the next few days and make appropriate changes. Hmariez (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Help with a draft

Hi DGG!

Could you help me with a draft that I wrote? Its the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Majestic_Hotel_Group and it was declined because "This submission's references do not adequately show the subject's notability. Wikipedia requires significant coverage about the subject in reliable sources". However, on my references, I put well known newspapers such as La Vanguardia and El Mundo and also Review Pro, a company present worldwide. So why these sources are not reliable? Which type of source should I use ? Or the draft was declined because the references were not written in the right way? I sent a message to the person that declined the draft a few days ago but since I havent got a reply and I saw you replying a comment , so thatºs why Im writing to you now. Thanks in advance!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Revmchris (talk • contribs) 09:58, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The reviewer in question has been barred from AfC and has not edited simce 29 August. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Revmchris. The part of the firm which is important is the original property, the Majestic Hotel in Barcelona. You need to rewrite the article to emphasize that. Since the hotel dates from 1918, there should be good references available. The rest of the properties belong in a separate section called something like Other properties. DGG ( talk ) 06:02, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your help! :D I've just resubmit the draft. Can you have a loook on it ? Thanks again! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Revmchris (talk • contribs) 15:55, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Please assist

Hi DGG, I'm writing as you've assisted in the revision history of the article located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metapress. In my opinion, this was incorrectly nominated for deletion a few days ago. Please review the current conversation, and add to the discussion if possible. Potentially I need to add more references? There are many more that I could add. I truly believe this is a useful, descriptive, and appropriate page for continued inclusion. Please let me know what you think. Thank you! Mark54ems (talk) 11:08, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Please assist

Hi DGG!I work with Heathart on the Blacklunchtable . we are doing another edit a thon today at eastern illinois university. i conducted an edit a thon in banff alberta earlier this summer and i think for that iteration heather logged new users in since i didnt have permission to do so. we have a particularly large crowd today and it would be super helpful if i could also log new users. would you be able to help us with extra permissions for me? thank you!! Fishantena (talk) 16:18, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

sorry--I did not see this in time. DGG ( talk ) 05:31, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of CURE Auto Insurance for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article CURE Auto Insurance is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CURE Auto Insurance until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:53, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Was it intentional that you only restored the revision in which you added the prod? —Cryptic 20:09, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Original creator notified of AfD. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:34, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Some additional earlier versions should have been restored; I just now restored them. DGG ( talk ) 05:29, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Removal of Jacob Richard Morris

You deleted the page because lack of a reference for a living biography. But i am Jacob so i can't cite references. Cheers — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Appleseed12 (talk • contribs) 12:01, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

If you are the subject,please see WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY. DGG ( talk ) 17:50, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Notability of business people?

Hi DGG. If you have time, I'd appreciate your input at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffrey Storey where some interesting issues have been raised about the notability of business people. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:03, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that David, your input was very helpful, and pretty much what my instincts are. You're so right about the distortions of blindly following GNG, primarily because PR agencies can generate mountains of "press coverage" for utterly inconsequential people, businesses, and (yet to be completed) projects. this discussion was a prime example. The article was eventually deleted, but not without some stubborn resistance. Voceditenore (talk) 07:33, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Inquiry again re: Adam Milstein + Foundation

Hi DGG, I'm creating a new section since I think another reply on the above thread is too likely to be lost. As I asked then, I'd like your input on what you believe would need to be fixed on the pages Adam Milstein and Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation before the {{news release}} tags can be removed. Your initial reply concerned a different page than the either of the two I'm asking about. Please let me know what your concerns are about these two linked pages, and I can begin working on improvements. However, if you are too busy, I may seek another opinion from a volunteer editor next week. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:01, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

the main problem remainsduplication: the Campus Maccabees section is the same in both articles! And there's still promotional wording and promotional sourcing. In the foundation article, article:: 1/section 4 is sourced only to two PR sources. 2/Wording like "to submit personal videos letting the world see the positive things coming out of Israel" is advocacy; this or very similar phrases are used several times. The only reason I haven't fixed this is that since they are your clients, I want to leave it up to you to decide which article to put the duplicated material in--they could actually go either place, since though listed as independent, it's essentially his private foundation, as is shown by the fact that both he and it claim credit for the same things. If there is not major improvement I'm going to propose a merge on that basis to the article on him.

By the way, are any of the following accounts your firm or their contractors: User:Therowervz; User:MBurg1952, User:Leah757, User:70.161.231.157; User:Jewishsarah? None of them seem to have a declaration on their user page, which as you know is required. DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate the more detailed response. But first, absolutely no way is my firm in any way associated with those accounts. I have seen them in the edit history, and I certainly see why you are curious about them, but I don't know anything about them. We've started working with Mr. Milstein in just the past couple of weeks, and my inquiries with you are the extent of our on-wiki efforts so far. I'll begin working on better sourcing and separation of topics. As for a merge, I haven't looked into it and do not have an opinion about that, either. As I start working on it, I expect I'll have some thoughts about that. Also: another editor has made a number of changes to the Milstein biography as of this weekend, and has removed the tag from that page, so you may want to have a look at that. Anyway, more from me soon. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:28, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

User talk:Website2

In case you miss it, this user actually started another advertising article after your last message. SwisterTwister talk 19:02, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Iitca recreated shortly afterward your speedy promo, and it is also a copyvio. Meters (talk) 19:45, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

My experience with warnings on matters of this sort is they work about 3/4 of the time. But it is indeed amazing how foolish some promotional editors are about trying to repeat the same thing. People who write one bad article of sometimes not noticed; people who try the same one multiple times almost always are. One thing multiple watchers are very effective at is an excellent collective memory. DGG ( talk ) 22:22, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Onnit

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Onnit. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

David R. Paolo

Hey DGG, how are you doing? I have seen you around AfD opposing promotion on Wikipedia. I need your opinion on something. I came across this article that seemed promotional to me. I looked the guy up and found that he is not a saint as his article contend. Naturally, I add a few statements about him in the article, but someone keeps removing anything negative that I add. Someone is actively trying to keep the article very positive. On top of that, the guy is hardly notable. He hasn't had received so much press coverage, no major awards - was once finalist for EY, but I don't know if that makes him notable. I am inclined to taking on AfD, but I need your opinion on this first. Check the history.Susana Hodge (talk) 10:23, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

working on it. DGG ( talk ) 05:10, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Undone Edits

Hi DGG, I appreciate the recent edits you made to my article and marking it as reviewed. However I have undone the changes as there were lot of disconnects as to the flow of the details and spelling errors apparent as part of the edit. Please feel free to make further edits and suggest ways to better improve the article. Preetam.choudhury (talk) 00:54, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

The future of NPP

(to all those just joining this thread, please see also #AFC redux above - all of it.)

There must be some reason for the sudden huge and steady increase in the NPP backlog over the past few weeks:

NPP backlog July, Aug, Sep 2016

It's my assumption that the regulars have gotten fed up of being the only regulars. SwisterTwister has also significantly reduced his patrolling. The thing is, this just can't go on; in a few weeks we will be up to the levels that precipitated Scottywong, The Blade of the Northern Lights, and me to launch WP:ACTRIAL as the only (what we thought at the time) way to limit the deluge of thoroughly inappropriate new articles, thus giving patrollers time to breathe, on the premise that serious contributors would not be discouraged by having to wait 10 edits and 4 days to publish , or going through the non-indexed Draft namespace from the Article Wizard (or the new landing page that was promised), and trolls and spamers would think again before wasting their own (and their client's) time

However, we are having to address this problem on three clearly defined fronts: 1) the apathy towards wanting to work at NPP, 2) the low quality of the work of many of those who still do it. If we could could convince the community to agree to a merge of AfC (which also has its problems) and NPP, we might get more patrolers as a result; and 3) The reluctance of the WMF to understand the damage that is being done to the encyclopedia. That said, I'm more than convinced that a suitably worded lobby to the newly formed Foundation may make them rethink WP:ACTRIAL which after all was one of the most heavily subscribed debates in Wiki history and an overwhelmingly clear consensus. Please take a moment to read this fairly recent thread and let me have your thoughts because I'm getting tired of being practically the only motor behind these initiatives and as you can see from the current related RfC, in spite of my efforts, I sometimes get things wrong.

It's really time we got the WMF to finally engage with en.Wiki because in spite of my talks with Quiddity in Italy and the exchange on his Foundation talk page, and the 1-hour Skype with someone in the Foundation, to all intents and purposes, it appears that the WMF is still prioritizing non urgent gadgets instead of addressing the quality that Wikipedia tries to base its reputation on (you can't watch UK television these days without someone commenting negatively about Wikipedia).

What we need right now is that landing page Jorm was working on, it would have saved all the bad faith that I'm getting slammed with from some of your Arbcom colleagues and a lot of very time consuming hard work. So I'm pinging Robert McClenon, MER-C, Esquivalience, Boing! said Zebedee, and vQuakr for their information, and I'm also pinging Mdennis (WMF) who usually has a kindly ear for my concerns and is best placed to find out who is ultimately responsible in SF for pushing things forward. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:49, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Head, meet brick wall. While those responsible for this mess have been moved on and the WMF is starting to be (at least minimally) responsive to community concerns, three things remain true:

1. the WMF is still full of naive, idealistic dreamers, and/or people who have difficulty understanding the concept of encyclopedia (this being a recent example);
2. there are one-way community "liaisons" who do not effectively communicate our concerns to the WMF (if at all); and
3. there's 10 years of technical debt, neglect and software rot to catch up on (our CAPTCHA is totally broken, for instance).

Yes, I agree both extended confirmation for article creation and a landing page are warranted. It's proactive, the best form of abuse prevention. But I'm afraid we'll have to wait in line with everyone else -- I'll propose this at this year's Community Wishlist survey... along with five or more other things. My suggestion is to bypass the WMF whenever possible -- ACTRIAL is something we can do with an abuse filter or MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. MER-C 11:23, 19 September 2016 (UTC) Added reference to MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. MER-C 13:50, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• Hi Kudpung. Having seen your impassioned plea, I went over to Special:NewPagesFeed, but I couldn't access the Page Curation tool at all. When I click on the "Review" button, all I get is the article with no tool in the right-hand side bar, and no apparent way to mark it as reviewed, although it can be done manually via the [Mark this page as patrolled] link at the bottom and clicking that does seem to remove the page from Special:NewPagesFeed. However, that link doesn't appear on all the pages in the feed, especially the older articles. For example, Montell Cozart shows up on the feed, if set to show oldest first. It was created on 10 June 2016‎. Its logs show it as neither patrolled nor reviewed. It also fails to display [Mark this page as patrolled]. But it was tagged for clean up several months ago and even visited by an administrator who corrected a typo [4]. So it was clearly de facto patrolled. I'm wondering if that backlog list is being artificially inflated by these instances and if other editors are also experiencing difficulty accessing the page curation tool, which may make them decide to just give up. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 11:28, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• @Voceditenore: Just a thought, is the "Curate this article" link present in tools? (see right) -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 11:47, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

  

I don't know how I can help you there, Voce, it works perfectly for me (OSX 10.11.6, FireFox 48.0.1). In fact, ironically, it's one of the few things dished up by the groaning, creaking, steam and fire spitting WMF servers that actually takes less than nearly a minute to load.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:53, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• Kudpung and Samtar, right after I wrote the above, the Curation tool bar on the right of the article did begin magically appearing again. But on Montell Cozart "Curate this article" does not appear under the "Tools" listing at the left, and doesn't appear on newer articles either, e.g. Piano Trio No. 2 (Schumann). Voceditenore (talk) 12:06, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

  The 'Curate this article' in the left column has been missing since the NPP RfC began. Assuming bad faith as I always do, I imagine it was removed by someone who is determined to keep everyone away from the Page Curation system... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:27, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Kudpung, the key numbers are 1/ the proportion of new pages from non-autocpatrolled editors that do make it stably into WP and 2/the proportion of new pages from non-autopatrolled editors that could possibly make it into WP; this could be higher because not all rescuable articles are worked on, but might be lower, if not all hopeless articles are actually deleted. I cannot immediate see a way to measure the first except to take a snapshot manually and look at in a few weeks later,but there ay be a possibility for a report. To measure the 2nd obviously takes guesswork.

I looked at the first measurement about 6 years ago,and it was about 50%:2000 articles a day, half kep thalf deleted one way or another. (from memory--I'll try to find my actual data) . I can do a guess at the 2nd, and cross check it against other people's guesses.

My guess is that the workload is not higher than it was then. AfC is rarely more than 100 article a day, and I think considerably more than half get rejected.

What takes time is not going through the list--its the auxiliary work that this produces--dealing with the good faith authors, following up on the likely sockpuppets, checking that speedies and prods get deleted, taking articles to afd and arguing them there.

We need to get more people. I wouldn't advise the existing patrollers do much more work themselves, because if one does to much, then the extreme impatience at dealing with them leads to errors; that was SwisterTwister's problem, and is why he was requested (tho not required) to stop patrolling. I make the same sort of mistakes myself if I do much at a time. There's not really any technical solution that will completely solve the problem--the irremediably bad articles still need to be removed andthe removal explained; the bad but not hopeless ones need to be improved and corrected, which is much harder. We've had to delete thousands of articles on potential encyclopedic topics because no one capable of doing the necessary rewriting wanted to do it. But there are man small changes, some within our power, some requiring the WMF, that can improve it.

I understand why its not a priority for the WMF. The WMF is not directly concerned with the content of the encyclopedia , nor should they be. Their role is to improve the basic functionality of the site, with emphasis on the parts outsiders see. infrastructure that people see. they do not fundamentally care about whether good or bad content goes into the encyclopedia. But, fortunately, the do care that the community of users grows and the size & reach of the encyclopedia increases , and the only way to do that is to encourage people who will write and improve good articles, and stay with us for long periods. This does require making their work easier and more satisfying, and its here that we need to make the appeal.

But we also need to see what we can do without them. DGG ( talk ) 14:29, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

As several of my close colleagues know, I would (and frankly I believe a lot of others would too) patrol again but, if anyone else has actually noticed, WP recently has become quite heated, not simply because of one thing or another, but various things, and this has noticeably caused a lot of motivation-removal; I've even noticed longtime or otherwise experienced users exiting because of it; unfortunately what happens (something we'll all know), and it currently has, is that new users with no knowledgeable experiences, are then patrolling. As I mentioned with the last thread about this, we will certainly get through it, and fortunately there's a number of users, including DGG and myself, that specifically go through patrols to ensure quality. Something that would be beneficial by the WMF is to at least improve the overall WMF environment, fixing the longtime troubles such as the continuously overheated people, to quote DGG "they do care that the community of users grows and the size & reach of the encyclopedia increases" but I believe this would best happen if they ensured the beneficial people stay, and are not affected by the unpleasant environment caused by uncooperative people that come (because if an excessive number of beneficial people go, then it certainly affects the encyclopedia deeply and overall). SwisterTwister talk 17:18, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• One of the causes may be that the number of articles created is increasing, while the rate of patrolling may stay relatively constant. With Wikipedia Zero and other initiatives to increase Internet usage in the developing world, there will be more users and more article creators. But this theory may not hold, as the rate of new articles outpaces the growth of notable topics.

But currently, NPP is a relatively dysfunctional system compared to other review systems. The work is repetitive; without a good system in place (such as an AfC-like system where reviewers communicate with users), all NPP boils down to is the dichotomy of delete or don't delete. It gets tiring after a while, and the 99% of articles whose creators ignore instructions are not particularly inspiring.The instructions are vague: would many serious newcomers understand the hodgepodge that is "Content that violates any copyrights..." yada yada yada? Our article creation system attracts the newcomers who don't pay attention to instructions.

We can easily improve this system; if we subject new article creators to a review process based on feedback that they have to respond to if they want their article to be "published", then I am confident that our backlog will not only be cut, but populated by newcomers that actually care about what they're writing. I can assure that a fully-staffed team of programmers can develop such a system to a stable condition in less than a year. The WMF software department, despite solid funding, more than many other software non-profits that can actually develop more software that furthers their mission (e.g., the Internet Archive actually improved the interface of their website and grown their Wayback Machine considerably with $5M), primarily focuses on projects that do nothing to further the encyclopedia, almost like they are going to sell the projects they create. For example, 12 years to develop a system that provides only marginal benefits to newcomers; a year on the Knowledge Engine (trying to compete with Google?), and the list goes on and on. Yet, MediaWiki is outdated (I'd rather use Subversion or even CVS to maintain a wiki!), examples including no configuration panel on a stock installation, and the complicated process to swap articles; Wikipedia's interface looks like it comes from 2006. Also, many components use questionable coding practices (e.g., I'm not sure now, but AbuseFilter initally at least forwent using a parser generator and included its own homebrew parser for its own domain-specific language). In fact, NPP is not the only technical issue that plagues Wikipedia. As an example, look how grainy this equation looks: $O(g(n))=\{f(n):\exists c\,\exists m\,\forall n>m:f(n)<cg(n)\}$.

In fact, it is embarrassing for the most widely-used encyclopedia to give such vague instructions to new article writers, and for patrollers to use such outdated tools. Until the WMF can develop better technology, or accept that technology can be created if they refuse to create it, the backlog may keep growing. — Esquivalience (talk) 01:40, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Since I was pinged, I will comment. I will start with a question. There continues to be mention of somehow combining AFC and NPP. I don't really understand what is meant by that. AFC and NPP are different, although partly overlapping, functions. AFC is in draft space, while NPP is in all spaces, primarily in article space. Would combining mean that the option of taking drafts through review in draft space would be lost, and that drafts would be in mainspace? The merger talk presumably doesn't just mean merging of the two groups of volunteers, which already overlap. What is meant by combining AFC and NPP?

I know what some wrong answers are to a growing backlog at NPP. One is to offer NPP as a way for new editors to gain experience with Wikipedia and work off the backlog. Another is to lower the standards of quality for articles in order to work off the backlog. Another is to worry too much about biting the newcomers; unfortunately, a large percentage of those newcomers who wish to add new articles (rather than contributing to existing articles) need to be bitten. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:09, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

• I'll address a couple of the many valid points made by Esquivalience, and DGG (whose comments are perfectly accurate):

1. 'The WMF is not directly concerned with the content of the encyclopedia', but it should be very concerned in the quality of the content and how it is controlled and maintained, The donations depend on it. That money should be being spent on developments to do this especially where Wikipedia is exponentially becoming a platform for paid editors at the expense of our volunteer time.
2. Instructions to new article creators: This embarrassing absence is indeed the greatest enigma of all time during Wikipedia's history. What most people who joined Wikipedia post-2011 ACTRIAL are not aware of however, is that development of the Page Curation system was only half of the project. In 2011 an excellent landing page for new uses was concurrently being developed by the WMF that would have filled that gaping hole and completed the triangle, replacing Article Wizard, replacing AfC, and giving the regular editing community something to talk about which would have resulted in the same vibrant, coherent, collaboration that AfC has among its reviewers and more patrollers. Kaldari can tell us why that project was quietly shelved and why he NPP issues described on the recently created list at Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements were not completed.

   @Kudpung: Article Creation Workflow (ACW) was shelved for a couple of reasons. First, we wanted to concentrate on finishing the PageTriage Extension (aka Page Curation) which was considered a higher priority. We only had a limited amount of time to complete both of these projects, since my team (Editor Engagement) was slated to start working on Echo (aka Notifications) at the start of Q1 FY2012 (July 2012). We really, really didn't want to leave both of the projects (ACW and Page Curation) unfinished, so we concentrated on finishing Page Curation and never finished ACW. The other reason we didn't finished ACW is that there was talk in the community of creating a Drafts namespace, and this would have required significant refactoring of the ACW workflow (See Article Creation Workflow diagram). As it turns out, the community did decide to create a Drafts namespace the next year, so this was probably a good decision in retrospect. As for why the WMF has never revisited Page Curation or ACW, I think it basically boils down to limited resources and the fact that neither of these tools scale easily to multiple wikis (since they are tied to wiki-specific workflows). Kaldari (talk) 03:04, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

3. NPP does not actually 'boil down to a dichotomy of delete or don't delete.' That's the state it's in however, due to the lack of competency of those who are allowed to do it without control or supervision. In the period covered by the graph above, I have been patrolling as often as possible, for 2 or 3 hours a day and within the first few minutes of every session I already have to revert several mis-taggings, and 'friendly' ban at least one newbie from patrolling. Unfortunately, we can't even get the WMF to include in the New Page Feed header something like: If you are new to Wikipedia, please do not patrol new pages until you have significantly more experience. Instead, please consider a simpler task such as reverting obvious vandalism, and oddly there are still plenty of volunteers who still firmly believe that NPP should be the experimental ground for all wannabe maintenance workers.
4. What it does boil down to and which will eventually drive seasoned editors away for good, are the relentless accusations - sometimes even from holders of high office (as Arbcom) - that people like me and DGG don't know what we're talking about. Such detractors have never done a proper stint at NPP. They've looked at it but they do not have any experience that holds a candle to that of established editors who have done 1,000s of patrols over many years.
5. Statistics: The WMF considers itself primarily as a web app and server company and and like all IT people, it bases all its working knowledge on stats under the premise that if there are no stats for it, it doesn't exist. Hence the dichotomy: stats vs. empirical experience. Fortunately and miraculously, the decision to go ahead with Page Curation was based on findings drawn from live streamed NPP sessions by experienced patrollers to an audience of very senior WMF staff.
6. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit referred to the contributing of content; it was never implied that no conditions can be imposed on how and when that content can be published; indeed in 2006 the WMF removed the right from IPs to create articles, thus proving that the project is organic, which contradicts their refusal to implement ACTRIAL.
7. Within the WMF, nobody appears to accept responsibility. They overlap each other's work but no one, including the three or four 'community liason officers' can tell us who is really in charge, and that's why this issue of encyclopedic quality is sufficiently critical to involve the CEO, and Ryan Kaldari who still knows all about mw:Extension:ArticleCreationWorkflow (the landing page project). Nick Wilson was being of some help but he appears to have stopped responding.
8. In the absence of any help from the Foundation, MER-C's suggestion to bypass the WMF may become the option. Otherwise within less than five years Wikipedia will suffer the same fate as MySpace while the WMF is complacently telling itself 'it will never happen to us'.

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:34, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

#3: You don't need the WMF to put that in the header. Any admin can do it at MediaWiki:Newpages-summary. (Or MediaWiki:Pagetriage-welcome for the curation tool version.) —Cryptic 07:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Bad as we are, still the enWP has much stricter rules for quality (including notability, documentation, and freedom from promotionalism) than almost all other WPs. Rgwue doesn't bother the WMF, so why should we expect them to care about our problems in these areas? I've consistently advised that we should do what we can on our own. To the extent we ask for something ,it should be the tools for doing additional things on our own. The principle of the entire system is that people in informal groups will do things on their own, and that the central facilities are only a service. DGG ( talk ) 08:05, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that the WMF likes to interefere when things don't go their way. If a volunteer adds some code, for example, that implements proper quality control to Common.js, the WMF will quite possibly nuke the page out of existence, or implement Superprotect again. The only problem is: the WMF has little organization into a unified organization so while a part of the WMF won't care about what happens to the encyclopedia, another part will overreact. — Esquivalience (talk) 11:55, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Hi, I haven't heard from you in a while, hence my quietness. I see you pinged my volunteer account above, which explains why I didn't get a notification for that edit (I don't always check that account's email daily). I'll take some time now to read the above discussion and links. Let me know what other pages I should be looking at? Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The problem is, Nick, and which has precipitated all the ensuing discussions on en.Wiki, that we are all still waiting since 10 August for you to reply on your MediaWiki account talk page at mw:Topic on User talk:Quiddity (WMF) and act on it or let us know who is, or should be, responsible for the immediate topic under discussion, and for feedback from Jonathan Morgan WMF (Jtmorgan) who called me on Skype to discussed these issues for an hour nearly two months ago. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:16, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Ah, sorry, I think we both misunderstood who was going to take the next step. You had mentioned "probably the easiest thing to do would be for me to send you my minutes of that meeting." so I was waiting for that, in order to get clarity on what you (and everyone you had consulted) wanted in your own words (rather than from just Jonathan's notes, which I have read), so that I could then continue. I should've pinged you soon afterwards, when I didn't hear back; sorry. Please do email them to me (or share however desired).

You said at Wikimania that you primarily wanted: (1) to get the user-rights sorted out, and (2) to adjust the list of options in the curation toolbar, so that they more closely match the list of options that Twinkle provides - please also send me that list, if you've compiled it now. (3) You did also say that wou'd be requesting 1 or 2 small tweaks to the general PageTriage software - I now see you've compiled a massive list at Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements. Egads. Can you prioritize the top 3-5 items that would have the most benefit for everyone? Then we can start creating phabricator tasks for those at least, and getting exact details where missing. Thanks!

As Cryptic suggests above, one good and immediate step would be to amend the MediaWiki:Pagetriage-welcome message, giving clearer instructions/guidance/warning/etc at the top of the feed. You or any admin can do that.

As suggested above, some part(s) of this might make a good candidate for the m:2016 Community Wishlist Survey, as long as it is very clearly defined, whilst also applicable to all language projects. (They'll be asking for the proposals in November, and I can probably help you draft something before then, if desired?) Those additional Article Creation Workflow/Landing Page details look particlarly intriguing. Kaldari's reply above is also helpful to know.

In the meantime, I wonder if we could make the link to the Article Wizard more prominent (or even unavoidable?) in MediaWiki:Newarticletext (as seen at e.g. example redlink foo) - It's currently linked at the end of the 3rd line, which seems very obscure...

Re: #7 above, the Collaboration team is the logical inheritor of the PageTriage extension, along with 6 or 7 other extensions, and a large number of core features. That's the team who requested the research-interview that you participated in! Sadly there are only 3.5 developers on the team, and a few thousands tasks (including many epic/herculean tasks) to work on. They're currently working on mw:Notifications and mw:Edit Review Improvements - the latter (what the interview with you was intended to focus on) is aimed at helping all types of RecentChange patrollers, and editor-mentors in particular (i.e. experienced editors who want to find (separate out) the newcomers who are making good faith edits that are problematic - people that need and will benefit from friendly mentoring) - I hope this will give everyone who collaborates on the possible changes, a clearer understanding of how we can improve both this more general aspect of reviewing all edits, as well as the more specific use-case of reviewing new pages, and thereby enable more comprehensive work on that, in the future.

Best wishes, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF), the massive list at Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements was again my initiative after one user simply created the blank page without attempting to expand on his initiative or to even make the page visible anywhere. The list is nothing more than a compilation of all the items that various users have brought up which are mainly things that the WMF 'forgot' to do during the development, some things which neither of us thought about at the time but which have revealed themselves through use of the system as being essential, ans some items which the Foundation's messenger unilaterally decided were not sufficiently important to pass on. I do realise that in making that list I will be accused by some yet again of running a one-man show, not involving 'a larger community' and creating more 'idle talk' (per Robert McClenon who I nevertheless invited along), but someone has to prime the pump to get it it started.

I'll try to make a short list for you, and I'll send you (again at the risk of being accused of running a private cabal) the minutes of the Skype meeting with Jonathan. Perhaps it would also be good if some people here would also look at that list and comment on it - the only person who has really taken an active interest in it so far is WereSpielChequers who at the time was also one of the active forces in our community work group that convinced Erik Möller in 2011 following the ACTRIAL kerfuffle to get the Page Curation / Landing page developed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:18, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I haven't read all of the above, but I have two ideas about this: I think it would be worth giving serious consideration to re-proposing ACTRIAL. Most of those in the WMF who rejected it have moved on, and I think there is less of a "increase editor numbers at any cost" attitude there now.

But I believe there is something we could do locally. Much of the new-page rubbish comes from newbies who are not malicious or incompetent, but simply do not understand what an encyclopedia is for. There are two main classes: those who think it is a social-networking site and want to write about themselves, and those who think it is a free notice-board for promoting their company, good cause or tiddlywinks club. A suitably-worded notice on the sign-up page, explaining what Wikipedia is for and what it is not for, might deter a proportion of those, and I understand that MediaWiki:Signupstart could be edited by any admin to provide such a notice.

It would need an RFC to agree to do that, and no doubt a long argument to agree wording; but I think this is a practicable way to make some reduction in the torrent of no-hope articles. JohnCD (talk) 22:30, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The set of newbies who utterly defy instructions are not the newbies who will follow whatever is on the signup page. Just like until I added a dashed-line notice, there were still numerous NOTNOW nominations; or the users that defy the instructions for new pages patrolling. — Esquivalience (talk) 01:38, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with User:Esquivalience that no signup page or landing page or whatever you want to call it will deter many of the completely clueless good-faith new editors (let alone the bad-faith editors) who have no idea what an encyclopedia is. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:58, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

No, many would not be deterred, but if even a quarter of them were that would make a significant reduction in the NPP/CSD workload, including time spent explaining to aggrieved newbies why the "article" they have put a lot of work into never had a chance, because Wikipedia is not for what they want to do. JohnCD (talk) 08:48, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

• Within seconds of JohnCD mentioning the page at MediaWiki:Signupstart, it was deleted. Does this tell s something? And if so, what? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:38, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
  • It was actually deleted almost a year ago. It doesn't seem to be used anymore in any case. If you go to log out and go to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CreateAccount&uselang=qqx (and compare it to what it looks like without the uselang=qqx) you'll be able to see the MediaWiki namespace strings that currently get used for it. Whoops, no, it just defaults blank, and I overlooked it in the qqx view. —Cryptic 23:04, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Restated Question: What Is the So-Called Merger of NPP and AFC

I haven't yet gotten an answer to my question. Some editors continue to talk about the planned merger of AFC and NPP, but I haven't yet gotten a statement as to what that will involve. Is that because the talk of the merger is just idle talk that hasn't been definitized, or why haven't I gotten an answer? If it is just idle talk, then maybe it shouldn't be referred to as a plan or anything like that, but just as idle talk. If there really is a plan, what is it? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:58, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

It's not idle talk, and it's something that has been under serious consideration for quite a long time. However, like all major restructuring at Wikipedia, one has to make baby steps. The current RfC to first make patroller permission a policy is one of those steps. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:14, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

User:DGG, User:Kudpung - I hear and read that it is not just idle talk, and that it has been under serious consideration for a long time. However, when I see the comment that baby steps must be taken first, and I do not see a description of what the overall plan is, I become cynical (especially since I know that the primary interest of the WMF is increasing its donations and increasing its cash rather than the actual service of the existing communities such as the English Wikipedia). I haven't gotten an answer to what the ultimate plan is about the merger. Will AFC articles still go in draft space and NPP mostly be in article space? If so, what is meant by the merger? Where is the RFC? What are any other steps? What is the overall plan? As long as a plan is mentioned, in a way that seems to me intended to sound grandiose, I will consider it to be idle talk unless I can see at least parts of the plan. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:17, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Robert, most of all the best ideas in the history of mankind began as idle talk or a shoebox with wires coming out of it in someone's dad's garage becoming the world's richest company. Dismissing what gets discussed as simply 'idle' just because you are not in the loop, is, well, dismissive - we've kept you in the loop with a ping because we considered you to be one of the people who might have had something positive to offer.

Some of us have been working on this project on-and-off for five (5) years and you can be sure that the most interested and motivated parties will be invited to help draft an RfC proposal statement as soon as we know what we are going to propose and to what extent we can ask for any required coding to be done by those who are paid to it. The disadvantage with our consensus gathering system is that it takes 30 days for each successive proposal - when one fails, we try the next one. It's well known that RfCs that try to discuss too many issues or options in one sitting wind up way off topic and die out without even reaching a formal closure. As you can see from the current RfC, very typically those who won't make suggestions are happy to heckle from the sidelines and make condescending remarks about those who work in the background in smaller task forces without all the background noise.

This quadriga: AfC—Draft—NPP—Landing page is going to be, hopefully, one of the best advances in quality control since Wikipedia's creation, and because all the while we have to appease those who are resistant to change, it won't be rushed Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:25, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

I understand that often idle talk does come to fruition. I have seen the original RFC, which will authorize standards for New Page Patrollers, and which hasn't yet been formally closed. However, from my standpoint, I am just being told that something good will happen, and it appears that no one wants to tell me or can tell me more than that something good will happen. It isn't obvious to me how a merger of AFC or NPP will address the fact that both are understaffed, and both are criticized from both sides. If you ask me to expect great things in the future, please in turn expect me to be cynical and to think that I am being made empty promises and expected to rely on them. Or please answer my specific questions rather than just referring to a plan that cannot be stated in detail. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:21, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

the basic idea is that people creating new articles will be directed to a landing page, and then to one of two appropriate places, depending on whether they are new editors. Those needing to work in draft will be told that. Approval from draft and approval from direct creation we be unified, and organized in such as way that patrollers can focus on their areas of interest, and so their work can be audited. There will not be much less work overall (except for adding the absurd cycles of resubmission at AfC), but the work will be comprehensible and rational, and will try to involve the larger community. . As for the details, good ideas will be very welcome. DGG ( talk ) 13:55, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for providing an explanation rather than more empty talk. Does this mean that new editors will be sent to work in draft? You mention adding "the absurd cycles of resubmission at AfC". Are you implying that those cycles are absurd because the AFC reviewers are too demanding, or because new SPA editors persist in trying to resubmit over and over? What thoughts are there so far about how the larger community will be involved? What forum is the place for further discussion? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:24, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

This is the link again (already posted above), Robert, to the WMF project that was shelved which was the other half of the Page Curation / Landing page project. Please check it out. Together, they would have solved not only the technical problems of quality control and made AfC redundant, but in doing so would have saved Wikipedia's reputation which by now is on a downward spiral. Community engagement rests on those who are prepared to get involved instead of criticising those who are at least trying to do something. At present, other than perhaps WT:NPP (or a dedicated sub page of it) there is no official forum for discussing these issues. Again, a user initiative could create one - it's time we gave DGG his talk page back - but earlier efforts to involve the 'larger community' have failed. Unlike AfC, New Page Patrolers are largely incommunicative. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:58, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Idle talk centre

A neutral, centralised discussion area is being currently created for the idle talk where only those who are truly actively concerned with improvements to the way new pages are handled at both AfC and NPP can sign up for the action. A link will shortly be posted. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:47, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

• A dedicated venue for combined discussion about NPP & AfC where a work group is also proposed has been created. See: Wikipedia:The future of NPP and AfC --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:51, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Re: Battle of Anabta

You declined the CSD on this article previously, but this is a fork of Battle of Nur Shams, where discussion on the name is taking place on the talk page, and was created by a sock. Therefore, in the interest of centralizing the discussion and not letting socks get their way, I've re-CSDed it as G5. The fundamental issue is still one of whether its significance has been overstated, whatever it is called. MSJapan (talk) 19:44, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to delete the Bamyan Media article

Hi, First I'm a bit new to Wikipedia editing and am not sure I'm writing this in the correct place? Is there some place where this Bamyan Media - deletion proposal is discussed before the people who recommended it, or do I need to put separate posts on the page of every person who wants to delete this article? I gather from reading your page that you take great pride in the number of articles that you delete, and I suppose many of the editors do, viewing it as a "cleaning up" of a messy situation which has been created by trolls, sock puppets, and other people who make a living out of using the Internet for shams and delusion. I am certainly sympathetic to that problem but that is not the case here. ... Please advise if I should be posting this in a different place, and how the deletion of this article might be avoided.

Thank you. Lilifrancklyn (talk) 21:20, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Lilifrancklyn, The question of whether the article should be deleted is being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bamyan Media. This will discuss only whether the article should be kept in wikipedia, not whether it is in the wrong category, That question should be discussed on the article talk page if the article is kept in the AfD discussion. DGG ( talk ) 02:47, 20 September 2016 (UTC)[[123RF

123RF Draft

Hi DGG, I've re-drafted the 123RF Page. Please check to see whether it's fulfill Wikipedia requirement and ok to re-publish.

Thanks! Angelina Lee (talk) 10:55, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I will look, but it will not be till later today. . DGG ( talk ) 14:46, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

no longer so promotional as to be deleted immediately, but the references do not show notability --see your talk p. DGG ( talk ) 05:03, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I'll remove the one that stated not a reliable sources. Reason I put

a. Ref 5, 6, 7 is due to

i. Information of 123RF operates other business entity.

ii. Reliable/Notable sources.

b. Ref 4 is to show that the total amount of content is accurate. {As per Shutterstock Wikipage}

Basically, I'm referring to Shutterstock and Dreamstime to come up with the content and references. However, I noticed that Shutterstock has listed quite an amount of press release and blog as their references such as Ref 3, 6, 8, 9, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 30, 33, 38, 42, 43, 46, 47 while Ref 9 is press release from Dreamstime. Just wondering why Shutterstock is able to do it.

Please advise whether the other sources are feasible to use as a reference point below:

a. http://www.stockphotosecrets.com/agencies/123rf-com-stock-photo-agency-review.html

b. https://www.microstockman.com/microstock-agency-reviews/123rf-review/

c. http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=260118829

d. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/123rf.com

Thanks Angelina Lee (talk) 10:25, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Deleted LeHo Page

Hello DG It seems you have deleted a page I finally finished and moved out of my sandbox last week. This was my first ever article on Wikipedia and as you can imagine, it is pretty soul-destroying for me to see it compeltely gone. Some person has even decided to delete my sanbox!!!! Anyway, as I am completely new to this I would really have welcomed some discussion before the deletion so that I could have made any necessay changes and not lost what was actually days of work! Is there a way to retrieve it and review it to meet whatever rule I violed. I would very much welcome your help with this. Kind regards. Suzanne (Starfishdiver)Starfishdiver (talk) 11:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Starfishdiver I will look at it later today, but regardless of the page, don't let anything at WP destroy your soul. Like many people, at least one one of my own first articles was deleted. DGG ( talk ) 14

40, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the article draft is pure advertising , such as might be found on an organization website, and has no place in an encyclopedia. A company website provides the public with the information that the organization would like them to know; it is normally directed towards current or prospective donors, sponsors, staff, and clients. [An encyclopedia article] in contrast is directed to a person in the general public who has heard of the organization and wants objective information. As is common for a press release, the article is written in organizational jargon, with adjectives of praise and redundant wording,: "outputs" , "due to the fact that", "within an educational framework", "to clearly identify", "presented and discussed", "tapping into the expertise and competences ", "implement strategies that contribute to greater engagement", "was therefore perceived as a tool of choice for creating a socio-constructivist path that respects the needs of the child." -- all of these but a few of the multitude of examples that permeate the article.. Encyclopedia articles are written in ordinary English. As is common for a website, there are repeated suggestions for the reader to get involved: "It can be found here: LeHo Glossary" ; "available to download from the LeHo website" ; "available to view at any time on the LeHo website" and even a list of forthco,ing webinars , each with a ling "Attend the webinar" --alllof these just some of the examples.

There is also a problem about notability and sourcing . The only material sourced is the general information about the need for additional health information; there is nothing at all referenced about the actual work of he organization. Most of the specific information is speculative, about activities that have not yet taken place and the goals rather than the accomplishments.

Of even greater importance, the nature of the prose makes it very likely that it has been copied from various prior publications of the organization. Wikipedia considers that as WP:copyvio. (I have however not tried to trace the particular parts to their origins).

Furthermore, as this is the only article you have written, it seems likely that you may have some connection with the organization, and your user page confirms it. This would amount to a conflict of interest--our rules about that are at WP:COI, and at our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure. Our experience is that people with a COI are generally not able to write satisfactory articles about their own organizations. DGG ( talk ) 02:08, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

New York Times disproving notability

I'm trying to comprehend your statement "The NYT article is a fairly good explanation of that; far from proving the notability of the company, it disproves it."[5] But no matter how many ways I twist my brain, I am unable understand what you are trying to say, nor am I able to put your statement into any valid context relatable to wikipedia policies or guidelines. Could you explain your reasoning when you typed that statement? Thanks! -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 06:01, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

The material in that article shows the company is not yet notable. Sometimes a newspaper -- even a very good newspaper -- covers something because of some human interest hook, or because it's a typical example--as, to take an example, the instances selected for coverage in the articles in the NYT Neediest Cases Fund drive. Such coverage is not notability. Here, it overs the firm, and the coverage is directed to saying how completely un-notable the company is, except for the human interest in its founder, along with similar insignificant companies serving similarly as hobbies by wealthy young people. The only meaning of notability in a WP context is what is suitable to be in the encyclopedia. If there's coverage in good sources showing it is not suitable, then it is not notable., just as much as if there were no coverage at all . The GNG is a useful general rule, but has to be used with judgment about what is actually in the source. DGG ( talk ) 06:32, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

(For any talk page stalkers, we're discussing this NYT ref[6] and its coverage of the company Appboy) - Thanks DGG, that helps me understand your reasoning a bit more. My first reaction is that your argument is based on WP:Original Research, ie: your personal view of what is the meaning of the text published in the New York Times. I welcome further discussion on this issue in general, might even be essay-worthy. Cheers! -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 08:12, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

We can't use OR in writing an article. We certainly can and do in evaluating a source.We evaluate using a source by examining it, not taking it for granted that the headline describes the content. A great deal of our evaluation of sources as RS for content and the more stringent RS for notability or RS for negative content on BLPs is done by OR, and claimed expertise. and sometimes by pure opinion. Or, as in this case, a claim to take a common sense view after reading the source carefully. DGG ( talk ) 15:31, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Do you see this as a failure/weak point of the GNG policy? -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 16:15, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

It's a strength. To see the importance of being able to discuss sources in detail see the voluminous archives of the talk p for WP:RS and the RS noticeboard. The GNG if applied without qualifiers would produce truly absurd results. We deal with it by arguing about whether the references are "substantial" "third-party" "independent"and "reliable" and, to be frank, for many disputed cases I could probably make an equally good argument about these criteria in either direction, depending upon what result I wanted to achieve. Other people of course do this also, and the net result is we accept or reject whatever the consensus wants to do for whatever reason which need not be actually stated.

Personally, I consider the entire GNG criterion a failure of notability policy. Notability should be decided on objective criteria. The most important reason we haven't done this is the disputes we would have on just what the criteria are to be. DGG ( talk ) 16:51, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Mfrm123 from LPA - last article-moving request

Hi DGG, could you take a look at my article and, if you think it is ready, move it to the mainspace? This will be the last time I am bothering you with this, as school is getting just too busy. Just little edits from now on. Thanks much! Mfrm123 (talk) 23:55, 21 September 2016 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mfrm123/Arthur_Batelle_Whiting

I will do some of the necessary copyedits & accept it. Anyone with a ufll article in Grove is qualified to have a WP entry also. DGG ( talk ) 00:36, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

page with title Rohit Khattar

Hello DGG,

The page does not deserve to be deleted. It is a genuine page with correct information. Request you to go through the references once again and evaluate. (unsigned post by Thanks User:Anc2017

Anc2017, The place to make your arguments is the AfD discussion page, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rohit Khattar. DGG ( talk ) 20:38, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Request for Feedback

Hi David, as per our discussion & your suggestions, I have updated the sections on draft with summary notes via sandbox, I know you said you will review and comment there but I have not found you on IRC in recent two days around same time, so just wanted to touch you here. Thanks Skdwived (talk) 01:44, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I am never on IRC. I will take a look tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 09:07, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

(at your peril ;) --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:36, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I apologize for the IRC mention above, I was in talk with SwisterTwister (User:SwisterTwister) on IRC to discuss the things related with updating the draft, just got a bit confused since you both have the same First name.

I've looked. see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Teacher1943. DGG ( talk ) 09:36, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Rohit Khattar

Hi DGG, Please tell which references are to be removed from page of Rohit Khattar. The page doesn't need to be deleted.

You could retain own ref to prove he owns a film company, and one to prove he owns a restaurant, but what you need is to find some actual reliable non-trivial sources. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rohit Khattar. DGG ( talk ) 09:41, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

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

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

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

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About the paired deletion of these articles

In your close of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of professional football players who spent their entire career with one franchise, you stated, "Delete both. The error in listing of the NFL list is harmless, because if the main list isn't notable, the lNFL subsidiary list certainly isn't". While I agree that the issues on both List of professional football players who spent their entire career with one franchise and List of NHL players who spent their entire career with one franchise were similar enough to warrant deletion on the same grounds, I'm not sure what you mean by "lNFL". Was this a typo? a misread? wiki-lingo I'm not aware of? The list nominated for deletion was the NFL list, and the one I suggested in my deletion rationale was for the NHL. Again, I'm not arguing your decision; just confused by the closing comment. Lizard (talk) 21:00, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

my misreading--sorry. I re-closed. The NHL list should be nominated separately, because it will probably attract different set of people to the discussion. Thanks for calling this to my attention. . DGG ( talk ) 00:52, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Rohit Khattar

Hi DGG, Please tell which references are to be removed from page of Rohit Khattar. The page doesn't need to be deleted.

You could retain own ref to prove he owns a film company, and one to prove he owns a restaurant, but what you need is to find some actual reliable non-trivial sources. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rohit Khattar. DGG ( talk ) 09:41, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

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

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

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

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

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

About the paired deletion of these articles

In your close of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of professional football players who spent their entire career with one franchise, you stated, "Delete both. The error in listing of the NFL list is harmless, because if the main list isn't notable, the lNFL subsidiary list certainly isn't". While I agree that the issues on both List of professional football players who spent their entire career with one franchise and List of NHL players who spent their entire career with one franchise were similar enough to warrant deletion on the same grounds, I'm not sure what you mean by "lNFL". Was this a typo? a misread? wiki-lingo I'm not aware of? The list nominated for deletion was the NFL list, and the one I suggested in my deletion rationale was for the NHL. Again, I'm not arguing your decision; just confused by the closing comment. Lizard (talk) 21:00, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

my misreading--sorry. I re-closed. The NHL list should be nominated separately, because it will probably attract different set of people to the discussion. Thanks for calling this to my attention. . DGG ( talk ) 00:52, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:University of Queensland

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:University of Queensland. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Clandestine Reporters Working Group

Hello DGG! I just discovered that you had deleted a page I created a while back, Clandestine Reporters Working Group. I did not notice any discussion so I missed it. It was accused of being too promotional in tone. While I don't really agree with that interpretation, I at least think I should have been given a chance to improve the page. Just to be clear, I have no connection to CRWG; it just seemed like a very interesting article and had plenty of reliable sources. Would you endorse a deletion review? DaltonCastle (talk) 06:07, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

• DaltonCastle, As for promotionalism: the article is devoted primarily to advocating for the seriousness of the problem, the need for their particular solution, & a decription of their techniques. The first 2/3 of this is straight promotion. As you know, WP defines promotionalism to include promotion or advocacy for any cause or organization, no matter how worthy. The basic characteristics of promotionalism is that it provides the readers with what the organization would like to tell them, and is typically addressed to prospective customers/investors/donors/students/applicants/ etc. In contrast, an encyclopedia article is addressed to the general reader who may have heard of the organization, and wants to know what it is and something about what it does. . A useful rule of thumb is if it reads like an organization's web site, it isn't suitable for an encyclopedia .

And also c consider that in the deleted article: 8 of the 11 references come from the group itself. Of the others Punditfact & The Intercept do not mention the group; the only 3rd party source is In these times, which, interesting as it is, can not really be considered a NPOV news source. Unless you have much better references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements, it's not going to pass AfD no matter how free it is from promotionalism.

If you do have good sources, I'd suggest trying again in Draft space. DGG ( talk ) 14:35, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

• DaltonCastle, also here's one example of the type of sources the draft needs:

• A Spy’s Guide to Protecting Whistleblowers by Brandon Smith from In These Times

If there's more like that to be found, then making a new Draft:Clandestine Reporters Working Group might be appropriate. -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 07:26, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Kindercare Learning Centres - New Zealand

Hi David. I am new here. You deleted the article I wrote even though I had contested the deletion and you didn't reply to my talk or anything. Is there some way you can let me see what I wrote even? It's just gone. Is there somewhere I can look at it? Can you help me with this? I looked at the similar page I mentioned and really don't see what is different about it. Please tell me, please help. Thanks David.Insight ′′′David.Insight′′′ (talk)

David.Insight, first of all thank you for following our rules about identifying conflict of interest. But the article is promotional throughout. We're an encyclopedia , not a guide to organizations. The basic characteristics of promotionalism is that it provides the readers with what the organization would like to tell them, and is typically addressed to prospective customers/investors/donors/students/applicants/ etc. In contrast, an encyclopedia article is addressed to the general reader who may have heard of the organization, and wants to know what it is and something about what it does. A useful rule of thumb is if it reads like an organization's web site, it isn't suitable for an encyclopedia . Consider "Staff are well cared for. Full registration as early childhood teachers is preferred and for those staff in provisional training, Kindercare offers support and resources in their path to full registration" only those contemplating sending their children there would want to know this, and your web page is whee they expect to find it.(It's furthermore a claim to excellence without a third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements, so there's not even a reason anyone should believe it. The "Kindercare philosophy" section os furthermore straight advertising, again without a third party source. Sentences such as " You can read more about their education programmes and curriculum on their website." are again advertising. All that an encyclopedia does is list the website, because people assume they will find more information there.

As for the other article you mention, it isn't altogether satisfactory,and I've done some editing there.

Our experience is that those connected with an organization are almost always unable to write objective non-promotional articles about them. As you said on the talk page "We hope that having this article on Wikipedia about the New Zealand company will mean that search results in New Zealand will return more relevant information." I interpret that as a desire for promotional coverage. You will need to wait until someone without conflict of interest decides hat the organization is important enough and has enough references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements sources to write an article.

I also noticed in your sandbox the beginning of a drat on a telecom company. That article too is promotional ,emphasizing their low cost & their satisfied customers. Are you connected with them also? DGG ( talk ) 07:32, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi DGG David, Thanks for your response. Okay I do accept that. We are still left with the same problem. By the way, is there some way I can find a copy of what I had done? I spent all day on it and it's just gone. Maybe I should save things in the sandbox first before asking for them to be published? Thanks David ′′′David.Insight′′′ (talk)

I sent you a copy to your email address as specified in you user preferences. DGG ( talk ) 14:30, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Amnesia before AFD

I think that WP:AMNESIA could be applied to AFD, and should be encouraged as a "best practice" when participating in AFD discussions. Would you agree? -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 10:27, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Vandalism of a registered user

Vandalism of a user registered in the article :Barranco de Badajoz.--83.55.88.100 ([[User talk:# User talk:Gnangarra [at] en.wikipedia.org 0|talk]]) 15:23, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

83.55.88.100,I've made a proper edit, and another admin. protected the p. DGG ( talk ) 13:17, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

01:04:14, 29 September 2016 review of submission by Solodev

• Solodev (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Solodev (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Can you please tell me why this is not being approved? We have added several new links from important independent 3rd parties that have written about us. We are the only US based CMS company listed in the US federal GSA contract, The governor of Florida wrote a press release about us. We have been listed in the inc 5000 for the fastest growing companies in America for the past 2 years. This page is very important to us, so I ask your help to resolve whatever issues you see. We have included numerous relevant 3rd party references, I have read the Golden Rule and we believe we have met this rule. (User:Mattmclaren)

The criterion for accepting an Article for Creation is that it will probably pass an AfD discussion in main space. This almost certainly will not, because the sources are either more notices or pressreleases or from the firms own site. The GNG requires not just references, but references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements  ::Even more important, since this is your only contribution (besides a very premature attempt to add this to the list of notbale content management systems), it would appear possible that you have some degree of conflict of interest. See our rules for that at WP:COI, and, if it applies as it possibly does, our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure DGG ( talk ) 01:16, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Not sure I am replying properly, but the issue is we have had this page for well over a year and someone decided to delete it. Most of our references are from independent 3rd party sources. They are not from our website and they are written by other people other than ourselves. We are getting involved to get our page up. We are looking for help and not just quotes from WP. This is not pay to play and we deserve to have a page. Being the only US company to be on the GSA contract for selling CMS software is very notable. We are listed by the authority on CMS systems here: https://www.cmscritic.com/wordpress-joomla-and-drupal-are-not-the-best-cms/ At the bottom of the page as an enterprise CMS. There are so many other CMS systems listed on WP with less relevant links. Please help. – Solodev

Also, please note this page which references our company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Central_Florida_Board_of_Trustees. Seems like if other important pages reference our page we should have a page. Does this help? – Solodev

I'll chime in here and say no company is automatically inherited an article; with this said, I also had commented it was not going to be acceptable until there was some actual news substance, meaning it's not any information that has been touched by the company, be it PR, interviews, etc. Being the only US company to be this or that is also not an inheritance of an article. Even then, simply because the page itself existed for over a year, despite that it is still in itself an advertisment is also not an inheritance of accepting it; we take articles for companies seriously and, to be honest, of all the articles listed, quite few actually get accepted, because it's that challenging. Clearly this is to ensure only the best articles, with substance that is of course, are accepted. As mentioned, it sounds like you are intent with having a company article, or even say, a business listing, and that's simply not what's acceptable here. SwisterTwister talk 03:15, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Probably time to stop writing and go back and only concentrate on finding good sources. Here's examples of the type of stuff you want, bylined news reports from reliable sources with editorial oversight:

• Solodev to add 25 jobs in Orlando in the Orlando Sentinel
• Orlando tech firm Solodev facing penalty for not creating promised jobs on time from Orlando Business Journal

Those are not enough yet to show notability, but a good start. You'll also have to politely ignore other editors who attack reliable sources based on a misunderstanding of what significant coverage is in relation to a company or organization. -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 05:09, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Worldcat holdings

Hi, I wonder if you could help determine if this would considered a notable author? Ronald Smelser. Are there any tips or guidelines on how to evaluate such holdings in general? I've seen holdings mentioned at several AfDs but I'm not sure how to apply them. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:24, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Hello K.e.coffman, happening to look, he is certainly notable in that the numbers exceed 8,000 and the largest book of which is at 861 libraries (imaginably, reviews will exist and those would ultimately help of course); usually the best convincing ones are going to be at least 1,000 as that's sufficient to suggest major; it also then varies by what the highest held book is, and whether he was the primary or at least secondary, and also whether that said book is a majorly published and major book, in that case, the person would be notable, yes. Also, closely related, there are some that may still be notable by a special case, for example, one author may have 860 library holdings, and they only published one book, but that one of them is held at, say, 850 libraries, that would be sufficient for notability, especially if reviews exist. Cheers, SwisterTwister talk 04:57, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

K.e.coffman, SwisterTwister, it is not quite that simple. An arbitrary figure makes no sense whatsoever, )(any more than there is a single arbitrary figure for h-index.) Library holdings of books are very field dependent, and very language , date, * country dependent.

First, field dependency: In esoteric fields with a small number of people working, such as notably archeology or linguistics, some aspects of academic religion, even 50 or 60 holdings of a book is quite significant. In other academic fields, such as the study of mainstream literary figures, 300 of so would be needed. I can think of not academic field whatsoever where 800 copies would be needed to indicate notability of the book or the author. In popular non-fiction or fiction, the genre has to be considered--some fields can have very high holdings, such as science fiction or mysteries, or childrens fiction series, or bios about people in popular culture or current politics or about how to succeed in business or current vogues in spirituality-in many of these it would take several hundred to be even mildly significant. But remember that WorldCat figures measure only books in libraries some of these fields, including radical literature or alternate sexuality are rarely held in libraries, even now and almost never before the 21st century.

Second, date: popular and childrens fiction of earlier generations is very rarely kept by public libraries. They concentrate almost entirely upon what people are likely to ask for, which is what has been published in the last few years, and discard them when they no longer circulate--Even important popular or childrens fictions from the first half of the 20th century will have very low library holding.

But the most important variable is country. WorldCat includes essentially all academic and most public libraries in the United States, with somewhat less intense coverage of those in Canada, and only the major ones in the UK. Elsewhere there is a sprinkling of public libraries is Australia/New Zealand, and a few major university of national libraries elsewhere, but essentially no public libraries. A few European countries have good national listings, but I am not familiar with using them. Elsewhere in the world there is for all practical purposes nothing accessible. Therefor even UK fiction is represented less than US, and the most popular childrens book in Italy may have a few dozen WorldCat holdings at most, and one published in India in Hindi, essentially none.

This is relatively little problem in evaluating academic work, as the general rule is that we consider notability under WP:PROF as international (tho this is unfair to fields that are inherently national, such as political science or agriculture of a particular country) . For publicculture in the usual sense, it's critical.

There are also peculiarities in publishing practices,and in WorldCat: Books published in e-book packages are often bought by libraries as a package, just as e-journals are, and even high holdings may indicate little. Worldcat is erratic in combining forms of authors names, even for Western authors. Some books are published in multiple editions or versions, and Worldcat does not do well in combining them.(and earlier eds. of many sorts or works are routinely discarded by libraries) Worldcat counts from the individual book pages and those from the author summaries are often widely divergent even up to ±50, for reasons I do not understand . Libraries in the past have rarely bought textbooks; nowadays if they do, they almost never keep the older eds. So for this genre,they may be a drastic undercount or overcount. I would be very reluctant to sum up holdings of different books in worldcat as a number because of these anomalies. Doing it right for a major author is a research project.

There is a very sensitive bibliographic technique which can be used in some cases:comparing the book with others in the field. (These needs to be done with great care, not just relying on LC subject headings, which, by and large, are much more erratic than even WP categories) .But I have used this to show, for example that a particular dictionary of a very minor language is the most widely held one in that subject. I'll do this sort of analysis on request if i thin it important enough.

And, as Swister Twister mentioned, there is the question of publisher. For academics, only the university presses and the academic societies and the few specialist commercial publishers count at all (this is not just a recent phenomenon--its been true from the 18th century on at least). For popular works, only established publishers count, but there can be confusion with the multiple imprints of major houses, which usually do count, and with the very few fields whee self publishing may occasionally be significant, such as sci-fi.

There is another trick: if you look up the author search page in WorldCat eg. [7] (not the author summary page, eg. [8] at the very end, aftre the books and the journal articles he wrote in JStor and Muse journals --which are the only ones WorldCat sually analyses for articles--, are the book reviews of his books, at least those in the Jsstor and Muse journals

Now, the case you brought up, Ronald Smelser, has multiple books with extremely high counts even considering that the Nazi era is a widely populr topic in modern history. , mostly from academic publishers of importance. There is no question whatsoever that he is notable. Had he even one such book with such high counts, he probably would be, but WP:PROF usually requires two, which is the standard of the highest quality research universities for tenure. This is not the same as showing that his views are widely accepted--that requires other sources. That we have no article on him is incredible. His book The Myth of the Eastern Frontpublished by Cambridge University Press. is a major work, and worth an article. Based on the article, the question is whether his view is the academic consensus. It can not be determined solely fro the reviews, but by other major publication on the subject. (It is not uncommon for reviews in the humanities to be written by other specialists in the field , who are necessarily owe's rivals) But it is certainly enough to qualify him as an expert, if not necessarily the expert. DGG ( talk ) 14:27, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

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All the best, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 10:51, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Samir Becic - recreation review?

Hi DGG,

First, thanks for all your hard work on Wikipedia. You'll probably never get enough praise for all that you do. My question is regarding the curious case of one Samir Becic, who does meet Wikipedia's notability criteria but has one heck of a deletion history.

The deletion history log is here: [9]

There appear to be multiple deletions as late as January 2015. However they all rely on a 2012 deletion vote, which was valid, when the subject was on the margin of notability.

No conflicts. Thoughts on lifting the admin template so I can take a shot at a reasonable page? DavidWestT (talk) 22:42, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

What additional references do you have? Just tell me the 2 or 3 strongest. DGG ( talk ) 03:58, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Full profile / feature pieces SINCE the latest deletion vote down the line:

[10] (Houston Chronicle) [11] (Houston Chronicle) [12] (Christian Post) [13] Novovrijeme [14] HuffPo [15] (KHOU local Houston news) [16] (ABC)

[17] (SF Gate)

[18] (Undefeated Magazine)

There are a bunch of brief mentions from LAT, NYT and so on. Part of the issue is that he's a journalist, really:

- focus.de (biggest German digital daily: weekly columnist, main health expert) - 89.3 KSBJ Radio Station (weekly appearances) - Health and Fitness Sports Magazine (contributing writer) - More Magazine (contributing writer) - Men's Journal (journalist) - NBC's Channel 2, "Behind the Headlines" - WB39 News -Fox 26 "Tips for Houston" - Radio 96.5, "The Roula and Ryan Show" - Sunny 99.1 with Dana Tyson - 104.1 with Sam Malone

DGG, let me know what you're thinking? DavidWestT (talk) 21:40, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

give me another day or two. DGG ( talk ) 02:16, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Drury Hotels

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Drury Hotels. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Contest deletion of Chieh Huang

I wish to contest this deletion. But as the action occurred so quickly there wasn't an opportunity to. Zerofourzero (talk) 18:17, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Zerofourzero: the reason given was unambiguous promotion or advertising; in such cases there is nothing to contest I'm afraid. A fundamental tenet of Wikipedia is 'neutrality', and we are not a version of LinkedIn, where a CEO is automatically noteworthy. We rely on third-party, independent sources. If the gent is notable enough for the encyclopaedia, then someone will already have written on him, and we can follow them. And attempting to advertise him on the front page was pretty specialist I have to say. _Muffled ^Pocketed 18:32, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

actually , there can be something to contest, because the inerpretation of "unambiguous" can be disputed. But looking at the article, "Huang declared that he seeks to create a workplace culture where "people actually enjoy going to work and going after a goal." Huang has made headlines in major media outlets for generous perks offered to his employees" is about as unambiguous advertising as it gets, and the entire article is written in that fashion. There are indeed sources, but the sources seem based entirely on his own PR, and the places that published them should be ashamed of themselves. DGG ( talk ) 02:21, 1 October 2016 (UTC)