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Dorothy Kilgallen
Having read several biographies, I corrected her birth city to Chicago from New York City in the first section with her birth and death information. Her actual birth city was already listed in the content of her bio here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:FFC0:6:795C:58FB:D1EE:36B7 (talk) 22:07, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the corrections. I have self reverted the two edits. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:04, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
RfC question
I read the RfC and I wonder if you could clarify -- why not just apply PROD? I assume PROD applies to any article; why not use the existing process? K.e.coffman (talk) 01:12, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the question. The answer is that PROD can be taken down without condition or explanation by anyone. There is no requirement to make any improvement or fix anything. And once the PROD comes down you are stuck with rolling the dice in AfD and hoping you will get people to actually respond to your nomination. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:16, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
- Ah, makes sense. You are also right that participation at AfDs is very low; the article can linger for weeks, and the a single "keep" vote results in "no consensus". Wikipedia definitely does not need more low quality content. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:37, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
I too am following the RfC closely and – while I'm very sympathetic to Ad Orientem's concern – I haven't voiced an opinion in favor (or against).
I think being a bit WP:BITEy is the biggest problem here. New editors should concentrate on creating articles that don't have to adhere to our strictest guidelines (ie. no BLPs), and we warn them about BLP concerns virtually every step of the way. Their only other option is to create non-BLP articles, and the suggested process would make that more difficult for them than it already is.
I take issue with the Wikipedia:There is no deadline crowd: WP:V does set a deadline (challenged information can and will be removed), but leaves the precise time of that deadline to editor discretion. Indeed, it's the lack of process toward the other end of the timeline of articles that are completely unsourced and are tagged as such (ie. claims are "challenged" to use WP:V lingo) that's disheartening. I have seen articles that are some 12 years old and have been tagged as lacking sources for more than 10 years! Surely by this time is it neither BITEy against anyone nor does it fall under WP:V's "editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references" when they have been warned about it a decade ago! I am shocked to find that we do not have a process for deleting old articles that consist of unreferenced, challenged, material in entirety.
I have tried to argue that by following the logic of WP:V, those articles can be deleted. Now, as correctly pointed out in the RFC, WP:V does not advocate deletion, but what it does advocate is removal of claims. If an article consists of unreferenced, challenged, claims only, removing those claims would lead to blanking the page. Wikipedia:Page blanking says that should blanking leave the article with no useful content, one should not blank the page but take it to WP:PROD directly. In effect, then, completely unreferenced articles that are old enough should be deleted via PROD. Unfortunately, when I've tried this people have completely missed the point and resorted to claiming that the article subject is notable and so it should not be deleted.
On that note, I don't agree with the views in the RfC at all that those who want to introduce new deletion processes are somehow WP:NOTHERE. Remember, this is what we started with when we did not have notability ("Do not delete anything that might in the future become an encyclopedia topic") and hoaxes, spam etc. allowed. Surely the people who have since then added the aforementioned to our set of deletion criteria improved the encyclopedia rather than doing the opposite.
(ping: K.e.coffman) – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:04, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you. I have added a qualifier under the 5th support comment to address the BITE concerns. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:23, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
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- Sorry it did not go as intended. The "keepism" movement is strong at Wikipedia! I get this from certain contributors who do not agree with my "deletionist zeal". For example: "You obviously have no interest in building the encyclopedia, you are just deleting information that was probably put in the article in good faith many years ago by someone who didn't know how to cite. Where is your good faith?" -- this is about material from an article tagged Refimprove since 2012. Or here the editor acknowledges that the material was "uncited or poorly cited", but states that if I "take this sort of action [remove uncited material] on articles on my watchlist, expect to be reverted and asked to provide reliable sources that contradict what is in the article" — right, because that's not a completely impossible task to do. :-)
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- @Finnusertop: It's funny, but the argument that there's "no deadline" always comes from people who are intent on keeping articles on non-notable subjects and dubiously cited or uncited material. Oh well. Please feel free to ping me if there are any other "deletionism" proposals in the works. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:57, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
- I think the writing is on the wall and sometime in the next few days I will likely bow to consensus and close the discussion myself. But I am deeply disappointed. Wikipedia is not here for its editors, even new ones. We are here for our readers. And allowing articles to make claims that our readers cannot verify quickly by looking at a clear citation, is a serious "fail" in my book. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:12, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Finnusertop: It's funny, but the argument that there's "no deadline" always comes from people who are intent on keeping articles on non-notable subjects and dubiously cited or uncited material. Oh well. Please feel free to ping me if there are any other "deletionism" proposals in the works. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:57, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
A cup of coffee for you!
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Your "Requiring at Least One Reliable Source for All New Articles" proposal is the voice of reason. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:11, 26 July 2016 (UTC) |
- Thank you, though I fear the proposal is not going to pass. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:24, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Admin de - sysop
Do let us in on the secret. 81.134.89.140 (talk) 00:25, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I don't think there is any recourse in this case. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:30, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
Hillary Clinton ITN nomination
In my opinion, given the obvious good-faith nature of the nomination, it would've been worthwhile to wait a bit longer before closing. It's not likely to pass, but getting snow closed within 30 minutes and with only one oppose vote is not very encouraging for a would-be new editor. Waiting for 24 hours, with something like 5-6 opposes and no supports, would make invoking WP:SNOW more reasonable to the newcomer. My $0.02. Banedon (talk) 02:28, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note. I am sorry if you feel stepped on by my SNOW close of your ITNC nomination. It was not my intention to offend. But I can assure you, as someone who has been around ITN for a while, that the proposal was not going to pass. ITN guidelines and longstanding precedent restrict political news to actual changes in administration and government. It's possible a few more comments might have accumulated before another editor shut it down, but not many. This was not going to last 24 hrs. I honestly doubt it would have survived another 30 minutes. If I had not closed it, someone else would have, and it was going to happen quickly. The editors at ITNC tend to be quick with the hook when a nomination is obviously DOA. It serves no purpose to keep it open just so other editors can pile on with their Oppose votes. All of which said, please don't get discouraged. Only about half of my own ITN noms have gotten through and I have had one or two shut down quickly. I hope you stick around. Best regards... -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:52, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
- Of course, it wasn't going to pass (it's also not "my nomination", and I've been reading ITNC for something like one year). But from the point of view of the IP editor ("Peter") who originally proposed it, I think it would've been better to let it run a while longer. Banedon (talk) 05:19, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, and an invitation
I wanted to say thanks for being clear in your RFC at WP:VPP that you mean "non-affiliated" when you mentioned WP:Independent sources. Some editors struggle with the concept ("non-independent" means "any source I don't respect", right?). I have a fantasy in which I will actually merge WP:3PARTY and WP:INDY. I've talked about it for years, and maybe this will be the year. ;-)
I would be happy to have you watching those pages if you aren't already, and especially to get your comments at Wikipedia talk:Independent sources#What is an independent source?. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:50, 31 July 2016 (UTC)