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Very nice of you
...to respond to the "how to become a cardiology" at the WikiPoject Medicine. Your doing so, and the kindness of tone you show, is exemplary. Thank you for the good example. 98.253.16.20 (talk) 20:49, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
- There are a lot of kind people here. I think we just overlook the everyday kindnesses and remember the disputes instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
A beer for you!
For your comments at RS. Fwiw, I google-peeked at the 2 McFarland books, they mentioned Shakespeare a few times but afaict there is no SAQ. On the Journal of Information Ethics article, bonadea said in the original article-talkpage discussion that there's no Shakespeare in it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:40, 1 February 2022 (UTC) |
- Thanks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
- Do you drink beer? I’ve always thought of you as a red wine with cheese, or champagne on special occasions, person. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:26, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
- Beer is apt in the diplomatic context. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:36, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
- Do you drink beer? I’ve always thought of you as a red wine with cheese, or champagne on special occasions, person. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:26, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Varied vocabulary
Hi WaId, thanks for your comment at the Confederacy Rfc. You mentioned something that made me smile, and it's a bit o/t to address there. It's your comment about using all the terms, because "Didn't your English teachers tell you that a varied vocabulary, rather than harping on exactly the same word, was a sign of good writing?"
Yes, they very much did. I was persuaded, and at least for certain types of creative writing, and I adhered to it, perhaps to a fault. I only learned much later when I got to Wikipedia, that there's even a name for it, and learned that elegant variation is not always to be desired, and can even be problematic, especially in certain formal types of writing (certainly in a technical manual about how the nuclear plant control panel works, you want to use the same word every time for that big red button with the double locks on it; definitely not the time to be creative). In fact, here at Wikipedia, I think there are some articles which benefit from elegant variation, some where it's neither here nor there, and others where it could be problematic. To make an analogy to the article under consideration, if there's an article about a trans individual, say, where reliable sources have used various pronouns either pre- and post-transition, that would not be the place to use all the words, but rather to boringly, systematically, consistently stick to MOS:GENDERID and use the same gender markers and pronouns for all zillion occurrences.
With respect to the article, I have to think about your "use all the words" proposal, I'm honestly not sure what is best in this case. Is this a case more analogous to MOS:GENDERID's recommendations, in which case (after creating a successful pitch at MOS) we should start using a particular set of words and stick to them out of respect or preference of a group subject to persecution, or is this more like a contentious label with wide support among reliable sources, to which WP:DUE and WP:NOTCENSORED points towards echoing the label used in the sources? (Backing off 'contentious' a bit, my sense of how slave and similar words are used in academia isn't really "contentious" as I see it, as they use the term quite neutrally, but in the community, it's maybe more like "evolving", or "in transition", and that is probably starting to take hold in published sources in a small way; so far, anyway.)
I just made this edit to Negro, expanding the section on the evolution from the word Negro to Black in the United States, and there was definitely a transitional period involved, with the move to the new word starting with the most progressive or militant members of the community itself—no big surprise there—which eventually caught on with the larger minority community, and thence finally to society at large, but it took a while. I have a hunch that with enslaved we are roughly in 1967, transitionally speaking, and we don't know how the story will come out, although if I had to hazard a guess, I think in ten years it will be in general use, maybe even less. Anyway, wrt elegant variation at the Rfc article (and others like it), should we or shouldn't we be using it if we are in a transitional period of language use? I don't know. And how do we even know *if* we are in transition or not? Mathglot (talk) 03:53, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you for the link to the article. I thought about taking time to search for it, but couldn't think of any plausible search terms.
- I think that one reason to think that elegant variation will be functional in this article is that the words in question are so similar. A person unfamiliar with Romance languages might not grasp the connection between Negro and Black, but should be able to grasp the connection between slave and enslaved person. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:05, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
- Hm, I see what you're saying, but not sure if similarity is enough. Consider, for example the expressions colored person and person of color. There's a decent article (from 2014) at NPR about all this here. The Smith-2014 reference on JStor is quite good, and you should have access to it via TWL, try this TWL link: Changing Racial Labels: From "Colored" to "Negro" to "Black" to "African American". Mathglot (talk) 07:45, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
- There are certainly some differences in the language, but if you imagine someone who doesn't know these words – maybe a 12 year old, maybe someone reading English as a second or third language – they won't go far wrong if they assume that slave and enslaved person mean basically the same thing. The short word may help readers understand the longer one. You don't need to understand the subtle distinctions, or even to believe that the 21st century notions of individualism and identity apply to 18th century people, to figure out the basic information being conveyed by these variations. Therefore, I think we should feel free to use these variations, and I would think this even if we were fairly certain that the world wasn't transitioning to a new way of labeling the affected people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
- Hm, I see what you're saying, but not sure if similarity is enough. Consider, for example the expressions colored person and person of color. There's a decent article (from 2014) at NPR about all this here. The Smith-2014 reference on JStor is quite good, and you should have access to it via TWL, try this TWL link: Changing Racial Labels: From "Colored" to "Negro" to "Black" to "African American". Mathglot (talk) 07:45, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
Dyslexia
WAID I realize I haven't asked for your help before however in this case should you be able (have the time I would appreciate it), Dyslexia was difficult for me to bring to GA and more difficult to publish [[1]] there's an editor that insists on merging Characteristics of dyslexia :
- The first issue is Characteristics of dyslexia should have its own article (which I was trying to improve), it is not a stub
- Per the editors talk [2] I tried to explain MEDRS but they dont seem to understand, and this could hurt the article
If you might have the time to help with these two points (with the editor) I would appreciate it (if you cant, do to time constraints, etc) I would undertand, thank you for your time,--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:52, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for asking, @Ozzie10aaaa. I'll try to have a look at it this weekend.
- Do you happen to know whether there has ever been any discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dyslexia or on the talk page about making that article a little more accessible to people with dyslexia (for example, by breaking up long paragraphs into shorter ones)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
- No not to my knowledge, though it might be a good idea...I should be clear (on my original point) there have been certain additions to the text in the past, as it should be with any article. However Characteristics of dyslexia is not a stub, if it were to be included (particularly with non-MEDRS) it would be problematic at best, I want to thank you for taking interest in this, Ozzie --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:25, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
- [3] the editor is asking what MEDRS is despite my leaving a link on his talkpage, and article might you be able to help?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:15, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
- @Ozzie10aaaa, I've gone through about half of the article and made a few small edits. I left a couple of notes on the talk page, and you may want to start with the first one at Talk:Dyslexia#Please check, because the answer has the possibility of changing everything. done--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:19, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- Here are the rest of my notes for you.
- Questions:
- Should there be a ==Risk factors== section? Is that what the ===Associated conditions=== section is meant to be? (Comorbidities is only part of the risk factors, of course.)
- yes, that is what 'comorbodities' is meant to be...the problem with adding a 'risk factors' section is that Dyslexia seems to be a genetic issue (though that's not to say there aren't some risk factors in play), and while 'risk factors' would apply to Alexia that term is not covered to such an extent to warrant its' inclusion...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:33, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- Should ==Causes== and ==Pathophysiology== be moved lower down the page, since they're less relevant to most readers than ==Symptoms==, ==Diagnosis==, and ==Management==?
- while every article is different (be it Neurofibromatosis, Ebola or Dyslexia) they should have MEDMOS in common...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:48, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- Of course they should. But MEDMOS itself says that you're supposed to vary the order in these situations: "may be varied, particularly if that helps your article progressively develop concepts and avoid repetition. Do not discourage potential readers by placing a highly technical section near the start of your article." This order puts the most technical sections near the start. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- while every article is different (be it Neurofibromatosis, Ebola or Dyslexia) they should have MEDMOS in common...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:48, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- Should there be a ==Risk factors== section? Is that what the ===Associated conditions=== section is meant to be? (Comorbidities is only part of the risk factors, of course.)
- well, I suppose there's an exception to every rule...sure it can be rearranged--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:16, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- I thought one of the newer approaches was intensive, systematic instruction in the 100 or 150 most common words in English. (Many of these are sight words, such as would, their, and know, which don't have a strong correlation with their spelling anyway. This list has a different set of words.)
- I'll need to go through this[4] to be frank--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:58, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- A textbook for school teachers might be a more useful source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- I'll need to go through this[4] to be frank--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:58, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- The ==Assessment== section needs to be re-written so that it's not how-to instructions. Instead of "Avoid over-reliance on tests", it should say something like "Tests should not be relied on exclusively."
- done [5]...I'll look into re-writing the rest of this section --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:48, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- done [5]...I'll look into re-writing the rest of this section --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:48, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- I thought one of the newer approaches was intensive, systematic instruction in the 100 or 150 most common words in English. (Many of these are sight words, such as would, their, and know, which don't have a strong correlation with their spelling anyway. This list has a different set of words.)
- I have adjusted the 'assessment' section , (the sub section should remain the same...IMO)[6]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:26, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
- Things I want to know: WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- It says the interaction of genetic and environmental factors matter. How do these actually "interact"? Or is this just a case of you have to be genetically/neurologically susceptible, and if you're susceptible, then the environment matters? WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- Things I want to know: WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- " Susceptibility genes have been identified, but there is growing evidence that environmental factors, and especially stress, may act as triggering factors that determine an individual’s risk of developing DD" ..Theodoridou, Daniela; Christodoulides, Pavlos; Zakopoulou, Victoria; Syrrou, Maria (13 June 2021). "Developmental Dyslexia: Environment Matters". Brain Sciences. 11 (6): 782. doi:10.3390/brainsci11060782. ISSN 2076-3425. Retrieved 28 February 2022.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:16, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- What is is about the environment that matters? Pollution? How your school teaches reading? Whether your parents are abusive? The fact that English has an irrational spelling system? WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- same question, see above
- The medical model is diagnosis first, treatment second. One of the newer school-based approaches is the opposite: all students reading poorly get extra reading instruction, using the same methods that are used for newly diagnosed children with dyslexia. Only the ones who don't improve are sent for a diagnosis. (For some of these programs, many of the kids gain about a year's reading skill in 12 weeks.) WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- WAID I mostly agree with this statement...however if I'm not mistaken you indicated "Things I want to know" at this sections start, yet there is no query here(?)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:39, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- You're right. I apologize for the incomplete thought. This is partly a consequence of the changed definition. Should we emphasize the medical model, or should we talk more about the educational model (i.e., teachers provide extra reading instruction to struggling students, without involving a medical professional)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:59, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- no apology needed, I'm no exception,,,"Treatment consists initially of defining the disorder, advising parents, and possibly also advising teachers. Subsequent treatment depends on the severity of dyslexia and psychological symptoms or concurrent disorders... Only if a dyslexia sufferer also has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can drug treatment for ADHD also improve learning abilities inside and outside school"...Schulte-Körne, Gerd (October 2010). "The Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Dyslexia". Deutsches Ärzteblatt International. 107 (41): 718–727. doi:10.3238/arztebl.2010.0718. ISSN 1866-0452. Retrieved 2 March 2022.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:24, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- You're right. I apologize for the incomplete thought. This is partly a consequence of the changed definition. Should we emphasize the medical model, or should we talk more about the educational model (i.e., teachers provide extra reading instruction to struggling students, without involving a medical professional)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:59, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- WAID I mostly agree with this statement...however if I'm not mistaken you indicated "Things I want to know" at this sections start, yet there is no query here(?)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:39, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- The biggest question: WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- In nosological terms, is dyslexia exactly one thing (like SARS-CoV-2 infection=COVID), or is it a cluster of multiple overlapping things (like Da Costa's syndrome, which lumped together several different diseases)? Or is dyslexia a symptom (like a fever), rather than a disorder? WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- The biggest question: WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- its defined as a disorder (not a symptom) , however ...."A central theme in the history of dyslexia is the tension between the specificity of the disorder and its complex association with other forms of learning disability" Snowling, Margaret J.; Hulme, Charles; Nation, Kate. "Defining and understanding dyslexia: past, present and future". Oxford Review of Education. 46 (4): 501–513. doi:10.1080/03054985.2020.1765756. ISSN 0305-4985. Retrieved 28 February 2022.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:27, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- Is dyslexia really lifelong? If Alice is diagnosed with dyslexia as a child and learns excellent coping strategies, to the point that she is reading normally, would it be possible to diagnose Alice with dyslexia as an adult, assuming she didn't disclose the prior struggles? Or would the test results say that she no longer has dyslexia? If she has no symptoms as an adult, did she actually have dyslexia as a kid? WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- it's lifelong...Frith, Uta (November 2013). "Autism and Dyslexia". Perspectives on Psychological Science. 8 (6): 670–672. doi:10.1177/1745691613507457. ISSN 1745-6916. Retrieved 28 February 2022.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:51, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- What's the clinical difference between a kid who is a poor reader and a kid with dyslexia? Is there one? Julian Elliott thinks there isn't, at least for most kids who get labeled with dyslexia.How does a psychologist tell the difference between a kid with *mild* dyslexia and a kid with:
- a bad teacher or inappropriate teaching methods,
- limited access to school or educational opportunities (are we going to tell non-reading 7 year olds that they're all dyslexic just because the pandemic closed the schools in their country for the last two years?),
- ADHD (which makes it hard to focus on learning to read),
- non-education-related problems that interfere with learning (e.g., a child dealing with trauma, hunger, chronic sleep deprivation), or
- low interest in reading (especially at age 5, most kids would prefer to run around on a playground or a dig through a box of Legos)?
- WhatamIdoing 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- What's the clinical difference between a kid who is a poor reader and a kid with dyslexia? Is there one? Julian Elliott thinks there isn't, at least for most kids who get labeled with dyslexia.How does a psychologist tell the difference between a kid with *mild* dyslexia and a kid with:
- 1st question-that article is not Pubmed indexed[7]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:49, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- 2nd question (6 bulletpoints) -the one point that would pose a problem to distinguish is ADHD due to shared neural correlates per McGrath, Lauren M.; Stoodley, Catherine J. (21 November 2019). "Are there shared neural correlates between dyslexia and ADHD? A meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies". Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders. 11 (1): 31. doi:10.1186/s11689-019-9287-8. ISSN 1866-1955. Retrieved 28 February 2022.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:07, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- It sounds like the "old definition" had the problem of figuring out who had dyslexia and who had other neurological problems that produced reading difficulties, but we were all pretty certain that it was neurological. The "new definition" means that it could be anything. Under the new definition, if kids in your country normally learn to read at age 6, but your parents refuse to send you to school or read books to you until you're 8 years old, then you have "new-definition dyslexia" even if you have no neurological problems whatsoever.
- Is the "new definition" in use everywhere? https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/All-Disorders/Dyslexia-Information-Page still has the "old definition". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:37, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- yes your correct --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:02, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- The reason the definition matters: The article talks a lot about related conditions (e.g., ADHD, clumsiness), but all of that is based on the idea that the kid has reading problems despite having normal access to educational opportunities. With this new definition, due to the pandemic-related school closures, there are now millions of kids who have "new-definition dyslexia" but for whom none of the comorbidities, etc., are true.
- Also, if the associations with other neurological conditions are based on the old definition, then that research might be irrelevant. You can't study people with definition #1 and then claim your results apply to people with definition #2. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- yes, under those circumstances (" You can't study people with definition #1 and then claim your results apply to people with definition #2") you would be correct as well--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:07, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'd also like to see more information about dyslexia in non-English languages. I understand that some bilingual people are dyslexic in English but not in Spanish, and I'm not sure how that would be the case for a true neurological condition. (I can easily imagine it being true for an educational situation.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- finding Dyslexia articles may not be easy for non-english...however let me leave you with this review...Anderson, Alida; Sarlo, Gabrielle L.; Pearlstein, Hannah; McGrath, Lauren M. (2020). "A Review of Online Dyslexia Learning Modules". Frontiers in Education. 5. doi:10.3389/feduc.2020.00118/full. ISSN 2504-284X. Retrieved 28 February 2022....you may want to look at reference #4--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:12, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- PS added[8] per your request[9]...and let me know if there is anything remaining to do, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:03, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
- [10] still the same--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:57, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think the NOTPAPER argument is ...maybe not as relevant as it sounds? NOTPAPER encourages having a lot of articles. It does not encourage having extremely long articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:13, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- yes I agree ...BTW, Trypto closed the discussion :-) Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 02:22, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
Advancing towards fair and meaningful questions on WP:CORP flavoured WP:GNG compliance
At Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Clarifying the number of sources required by GNG, 20:01, 22 February 2022 (UTC), User:WhatamIdoing wrote: “I've … <stuff GNG about source count> … IMO the actual answer probably sounds more like (a) two different authors writing for two different publishers plus (b) a minimum of 500 words directly about the topic, across all [financially] independent sources, including at least 10 severable facts about the subject and at least one indication of analysis (e.g., comparison to a similar subject or classification as an instance of some larger notable subject). But I'd also ban editors from rejecting sources just because they personally feel that the source's linguistic style is insufficiently scholarly or because the newspaper reporter directly interviewed the subject (and therefore allegedly is no longer "independent"), …”
It wasn’t addressed to me, but I was pinged in the edit, so I think I was in mind.
I think our very long ongoing discussion is useful, but will be most useful if we can progress to agreeing on good questions to put to the community, probably at WT:CORP.
In the above, (b) I am soft on the the number to be stated as expected. I keep pointing to WP:100W, largely because it is a written essay with a shortcut I can remember (self mockery there). You stated “500 words”. At my softest, arguing deletionism against an enthusiastic content builder, I’ve set a line at two running sentences, but with the point being that anything less is to be firmly tossed without discussion. My question for you is whether you imagine these 500 words including primary source material repeated, or is it only the secondary source material? I suspect the first.
10 severable facts is interesting, a new idea to me. Would you agree to stipulating that these facts were written in prose? Not as a list?
At least one indication of analysis…. I think this is critical, it is implicit in everything about WP:N, as derived from WP:PSTS. But it has to be an independent analysis.
“But I'd also ban editors from rejecting sources just because they personally feel that the source's linguistic style is insufficiently scholarly”. Put like that I have to agree. What about editors rejecting a source that is presented completely non-scholarly? I am not sure there is a real question here, as this criterion is evaluated as “is the source reliable”.
“… or because the newspaper reporter directly interviewed the subject (and therefore allegedly is no longer "independent"), …”. Again, not fairly put. I want to reject as GNG-compliant a source where the author interviewed the subject, and every analysis came from the subject not the reporter. Rearranging the quotes, cutting lots of quotes, and dropping the quote marks to paraphrase into flowing prose does not change the analysis from being authored by the subject. So, trying to turn this into a question: do you agree with excluding direct quotes from the 500 word count on the subject? What about paraphrased prosified quotes?
My response on that thread included “I believe the crux is that for promotional topics, product reviews are to be presumed non-independent and GNG non-compliant. Exceptions are traditional encyclopedic topics, like the natural sciences, and distant history.” I read your fair criticism of editors rejecting sources as non-independent based on their personal reading and personal psychoanalysis of creative input by the reporter as balanced against subject-influence (such as word suggestions or financial incentive). As an idea for a fair question, how about: Should product reviews for commercial products be presumed by default to be non-independent? The presumption is to be read as rebuttable, including by a declaration of independence, a currently growing practice. I think yes, I think you think no, but the question is: is this a fair an objective question?
—SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:10, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
- I'm adding numbers, but it's not quite in order.
- whether you imagine these 500 words including primary source material repeated: 500 words about the subject, no matter what the words say, so long as the sources saying those words are part of "the world at large" and not affiliated with the subject. (To that end, I might exclude lengthy quotations, especially if the source is an interview transcript, and definitely anything that was absolutely, provably, I-have-the-link-to-prnewswire.com-right-here word-for-word written by subject, but not anything that an editor merely believes in his heart to have been written/influenced by the subject.
- The problem with excluding "paraphrased prosified quotes" is that it's too open to abuse. If it offends me that someone would sully my Wikipedia with that vulgar/silly/unencyclopedic subject, then of course every single word of every single source is just paraphrased prosified quotes. Good luck proving me wrong.)
- 10 severable facts...stipulating that these facts were written in prose? Not as a list?: No. I have some sympathy with this, but I wouldn't, basically because video is an acceptable source. We can't say that the source has to be prose.
- Also, does it matter? The goal is to write an article. If you can write that article from databases that don't contain a single grammatically complete sentence, then more power to you.
- I specify 10 severable facts because some people's "500 words" contain a whole lot less information than other people's, and because if the 500-total-words amount to 50 different sources repeating the same ten words ("...said Bob Business, vice president of Big Corp's widget division"), then you can't actually write an encyclopedia article. Ten is a rather small number, at least for people and organizations, and if someone said we should aim for 12 or 15 instead, I wouldn't object. I also wouldn't object to a requirement that the said severable facts needing to be something that has practical value in writing the article. Presumably we can all agree that "Bob Business is head of Big Corp's widget division" is useful and that "Bob got quoted in the newspaper 50 times" is not.
- it has to be an independent analysis: I agree, but we don't seem to agree on how to figure out when/whether every analysis came from the subject not the reporter. So far, your method is utterly opaque to me, and if I had to tell a promising newcomer how to use your method, I'd probably have to suggest that they develop mind reading skills. Presumably the instructions for my method sound like "first, you need to deeply believe that nobody in the world is a greedy, manipulative huckster".
- rejecting a source that is presented completely non-scholarly? ...as this criterion is evaluated as “is the source reliable”: Think about how you would apply this to a subject that is basically famous for being famous. Completely non-scholarly sources are exactly what I'd expect, and if the goal is to prove only that "the world at large" spilled barrels of ink on the subject (as opposed to, e.g., that the world took the subject seriously), then those completely non-scholarly sources are proof of the world's attention.
- Should product reviews for commercial products be presumed by default to be non-independent? Are books, films, and restaurants "commercial products"? WP:PRODUCTREV gives this answer: "editors should use reviews only from sources with well established reputation for independence and objectivity." This suggests that you should evaluate the publication (e.g., are we talking about a fashion magazine that has been revewing clothes for the last decade or two, or is this an influencer account?), not the individual review itself. It also suggests that you need to evaluate the overall reputation rather than the presence of disclaimers in the review/document itself.
- whether you imagine these 500 words including primary source material repeated: 500 words about the subject, no matter what the words say, so long as the sources saying those words are part of "the world at large" and not affiliated with the subject. (To that end, I might exclude lengthy quotations, especially if the source is an interview transcript, and definitely anything that was absolutely, provably, I-have-the-link-to-prnewswire.com-right-here word-for-word written by subject, but not anything that an editor merely believes in his heart to have been written/influenced by the subject.
- I don't think we can ask a useful question until we have resolved some of these questions of implementation. Without that, we'll have a rule that says "Rebuttable presumption that commercial product reviews are guilty until proven innocent", and someone will claim that we've just banned The New York Times Book Review. Books are "commercial products", they're writing "product reviews", and they don't stick disclaimers in each review. (Worse that that, they probably received the book as an Advance copy. Who cares about a 125-year-long history and their stellar reputation when you can claim they're hopelessly entangled because they involuntarily received a copy of a book with a long-term value of compost (or recycled into cardboard egg cartons, if they're lucky).) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:41, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- On books and films: The SNGs are permissive. It has to pass one, not all. If it passes NBOOK or NFILM it doesn’t have to pass NCORP. There’ll be a boundary zone. Book writing services, and streaming companies that make and exclusively distribute their own movies, these may both be held to the higher NCORP standards, I expect, if they fail NBOOK and NFILM. SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:41, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- This thread was prompted by a discussion about the GNG, and WHYN applies to everything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- WP:WHYN applies to everything? I disagree that WHYN is equally applied to everything. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:24, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- I think that within certain areas, WHYN is rejected in favor of editors' personal prejudices. NSPORTS (at least the old approach) and NPROF reject WHYN to increase the number of articles, and NCORP rejects WHYN to decrease the number of articles. In both cases, I think it harms the encyclopedia. The harm isn't equal (over-inclusion results in bad/NPOV-failing articles; over-exclusion results in readers not finding the information they need), but both extremes are harmful.
- Do you think that WHYN should be applied more or less equally to every subject? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:58, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- I note NSPORTS as a contentious issue. On one hand, inclusionism creates a permastub directory of brief sporting careers. On the other, it is a never-ending gateway for new editors. The permastubs are BLPs, but are not problematic BLPs.
- Extra inclusivity for PROF, and less for NCORP, is good for Wikipedia. For PROF, the few NPROF-passing GNG-failing stubs are not really biographies but are about the prof’s work. Like NSPORTS, I think these will slowly become merged to parent articles. For CORP, it is a partial counter to abuse of Wikipedia by secret inclusion of native advertising.
- I don’t think WHYN “applies”. It’s more an explanatory supplement. Application or enforcement happens via individual SNG. So many AfD nominators and participants develop their thinking based on an SNG. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:19, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- The problem with GNG-failing subjects is that you can't write an encyclopedia article that complies with the core content policies. A sparsely populated infobox with two sentences ("He played once. Nobody knows his last name") is not an encyclopedia article. An article written from an employer's website does not comply with the core content policies. An article that cites an academic's own research to produce a good encyclopedic description of the prof's work ("The main theme throughout his 47 years of published research was the relationship between...") probably violates NOR.
- I think that all of our policies should be based on shared principles (shared = principles shared by the core community, not necessarily the same principle being used for every policy). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:13, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- You are a GNG purist. So am I, except for NPROF. I once took much that argument to WT:PROF, and engaged, mostly with DGG and David Eppstein, and after a while had to yield that the Davids won the debate against me. Also noting that NPROF wins arguments at AfD, I adjusted and rationalised. Eg: GNG-failing NPROF-passing pages are not really prof biographies but are proxy articles for their science (and I note, it is always science, not engineering, not humanities, that are these cases); or WP:PROF had consensus pre-dating the GNG and indeed the entire WP:N; or The notability guidelines are merely predictors of AfD outcomes, and that is their job, and NPROF succeeds very well on this measure.
- On WP:CORP, I note that it is entirely consistent with the GNG, but it emphasises black letter reading of the fine text. NCORP also precedes WP:N chronologically.
- I do think hard reading of the GNG is appropriate for currently trading and advertising companies, and soft reading for once discovered species and once-mentioned mothers of ancient Roman nobles, as long as WP:V is met.
- I think that the community thinks that native advertising in Wikipedia is present and needs countering, or else the reputation of Wikipedia, of independence of sources used, will suffer. WP:UPEs are quite active, some are skilled (they write compliant article), some are not (they write hopeless and get blocked until they improve), and there’s a dangerous middle ground. SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:59, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- The story about why NPROF exists, and which of the great wrongs it is meant to right, is a nice story, but I don't think it matters. It is extremely unlikely that an editor can write an decent-length article, based entirely on what Alice Expert and her employer say about herself, and end up with a fair representation of what all the significant views in the world are – including the views of people who are not Alice and not her employer. How many of those GNG-failing articles have you seen that cite the subject's academic rivals, or that point out that the subject's ideas are only one of a dozen ideas, and probably not the best? I've seen zero. Look at articles such as Robert Soost and Albert Overhauser. The articles say their work was "important", but they cite nothing written by anyone unconnected to them.
- We are succeeding with NPROF only if we think that success means pages exist that comply with WP:IMPARTIAL and ignore everything else in NPOV (plus parts of NOT). WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:15, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- Albert Overhauser would be a definite “keep” AfD !vote by me, based on the two external links. I agree and so fixed the “important” issue [11].
- He has a large number of incoming links, but I can’t find the link on the pages linking? SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:54, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- @SmokeyJoe, I think those incoming links are primarily the result of him being listed in Template:National Medal of Science. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:16, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- Robert Soost is a deceased academic citrus expert. The article has a lot of incoming links, but they appear to all come from the navigation templates at the bottom. Do you have influence or insight into technical issues? Navigational templates polluting whatlinkshere results is very annoying. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:00, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- Everyone wants it fixed, but nobody wants to do the boring and difficult work of restructuring MediaWiki to make it convenient. This search link, which uses the
insource:your keywords here
format, should help you narrow down the links. - I'm not really questioning whether these men are important. I'm questioning whether you could realistically write a decent article about them – where "decent" is defined partly as "actually showing what the world at large thinks of these men". The articles we have seem to show what they think about themselves. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:20, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks! The workaround [12] works great. I prefer to start with quotes. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:37, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, it is true, I think, that there are important researchers on whom nobody published personal comment. Maybe there are low circulation books that cover them? SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:39, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- Everyone wants it fixed, but nobody wants to do the boring and difficult work of restructuring MediaWiki to make it convenient. This search link, which uses the
- WP:WHYN applies to everything? I disagree that WHYN is equally applied to everything. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:24, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- This thread was prompted by a discussion about the GNG, and WHYN applies to everything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- On books and films: The SNGs are permissive. It has to pass one, not all. If it passes NBOOK or NFILM it doesn’t have to pass NCORP. There’ll be a boundary zone. Book writing services, and streaming companies that make and exclusively distribute their own movies, these may both be held to the higher NCORP standards, I expect, if they fail NBOOK and NFILM. SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:41, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- I feel our discussions point to the base question being: “Should articles on for-profit, currently-advertising companies, and their products, and CEOs, be held to a higher notability standard than other topics?” —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:42, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think that's the key point for me. I think the key point for me is whether our standard for some subjects is so low that we're just repeating and endorsing the subject's own self-promotional content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- This answer was a surprise. I've been suspecting that you've been at times playing devils advocate with me, where I lean deletionist on commercial topics, but now I am feeling almost sure.
- I like your ideas of "is there enough information to a write a decent article". However, this might be a bit immediatist, I like eventualism, especially how it invites random drive-by readers to add obscure content. 10 separable facts? Does that mean deleting topics with only 9 separable facts?
- What sort of topics are you concerned about having low standards?
- 1. Do they include 18-21 year old athletes and sports players who get occasional sports journalism coverage during their brief career?
- 2. Do they include ancient people with one or two mere mentions as relatives or wives to someone famous?
- 3. Do they include newly found species of moss, described once, belonging to a single mountain?
- 4. Do they include 18th century American west pioneer businesses?
- 5. Do they include Nigerian, or Indian subcontinent topics, where Western biased editors label all their sources as unreliable?
- Repeating and endorsing the subject's own self-promotional content? That sounds like a WP:NPOV-based need for multiple independent sources? SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:53, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think that the human tendency is to assume that our own views is so rational that we must be the middle of the spectrum. Within that context, I would say that I'm neither deletionist nor inclusionist. (I do self-identify as a m:Mergeist, though in this increasingly mobile-centric world, I will add that the separatists are not completely wrong; there are limits.)
- I am not consciously playing devil's advocate with you. However, I do tend to pursue a claim to its logical end, especially in the context of policy writing, and I believe that could look the same. I'm also concerned with what you might call the theoretical or philosophical basis for a rule. Wikipedia's ruleset needs to hang together. It should not be a mass of internal contradictions.
- About #1, it looks like you didn't participate in the recently closed Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability. I believe it demonstrates that I am not the only person concerned about having separate articles for athletes about whom next to nothing can be written. (My concerns are not age-based, though I believe that Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing, and I especially feel sorry for people who get stuck with a separate BLP when they're young, because that article is likely to plague them for life.)
- For #2 and #3, I have no concerns, because those subjects do not produce self-promotional content and therefore we can write the article without being stuck repeating and endorsing anything written by the ancient dead people or various species of moss in question.
- For #4 and #5, I am concerned only when the article is WP:Based upon the subject's own sources.
- I do believe that we have an NPOV-based need not only for multiple independent sources to have been published somewhere in the world (which is what the GNG requires), but also for those independent sources to form the main basis for the article. It's not good enough to prove that Prof. I.M. Portant has been profiled in three magazines, using those sources to prove notability, and then tossing them out the window and writing the whole Wikipedia article on the basis of his own self-written, self-published, self-promoting CV/press releases/book/etc. This is not clear in the policy at this time. NPOV says that WP:Balancing aspects is important and that we must give WP:Due weight to all relevant viewpoints, but AFAIK it does not say that we should not have an article if the only available viewpoint is the subject's own viewpoint (e.g., weak NPROF articles) or clearly state that independent POVs should be given more weight than the subject's own viewpoint.
- I think that one difference between our views is that you believe you can reliably identify which facts came from the subject but passed through the hands of independent authors/publishers, and you want to reject any information that ultimately originated from the subject and treat that information as irrelevant to the question of whether "the world at large" paid attention to the subject. I believe not only that I don't have that ability but also that even if I could do that, the fact that a reputable independent news outlet voluntarily chose to repeat a given fact is IMO evidence that "the world at large" thought that point worth paying attention to, and therefore that it is evidence of notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:34, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
- On #1. I wasn’t aware of Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability. On NSPORTS there’s already many people saying everything that I can think to say.
- On #2 and #3 I agree. The biggest concern is citogenesis.
- On #4 and #5, basically we agree. No, I do not “believe you can reliably identify which facts came from the subject but passed through the hands of independent authors/publishers”, change “reliably identify” to “discern”, which I consider to be an historiographical technique of thinking about “why this writer is writing this to whom” ahead of what they actually write. Eg something gets written in stone because it is frequently disobeyed; maybe it was never true. It is subjective, “reliable” is not an applicable word. Our discussions have taught me that my explanations are not easily understood. Usually I find that my WP:SIRS analyses are loved by my deletionist friends and bewildering by my inclusionist friends. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:24, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
- I would be happier with SIRS if there were an agreement that it's "all or nothing" approach applied to every subject (there's that desire for a logical and coherent ruleset again), and if its examples weren't so weak.
- For example, it rejects the "Profile in Forbes" because "most such posts are company-sponsored or based on company's marketing materials". Okay, but what about the ones that aren't company-sponsored? The table should probably have a Maybe rather than a red X there.
- Then there's the question about whether using information from the company is an absolute bar to being independent. The authors of SIRS apparently think it is. I say it's not, especially for notability purposes. If a news organization voluntarily decides to spent the equivalent of a barrel of ink and a roll of paper saying something about someone else's business, they are indicating that this business is worthy of their readers' attention. And, of course, you think you are confident that you can "discern" when this happens, which I'm skeptical of. Even if you can do it, most editors can't. So far, the community's track record amounts to people claiming that anything that isn't negative about a company that I dislike is pure marketing materials.
- Also, who says that Forbes is not reliable? RSP disagrees with the table in SIRS. Some editors would struggle to see how you could decide whether the source is "reliable" when you don't know what kind of content the source is supporting. (All sources are reliable for something.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
- I too would be happier if there were a formal discussion on WP:SIRS. My position is that the all or nothing approach should be applied to topics that are actively advertising commercial topics or their products or their CEOs, and not to any other topic such as not-for-profits and charity or advocacy or political topics. I know that this draws a line right through WP:CORP. I would split WP:ORG from WP:CORP.
- I agree with you on Forbes. I believe that reliability (still thinking reputable is a better word) depends on the publisher, and the author, and even other things that change. I try to evaluate each source on its merits, but having installed User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/CiteHighlighter.js, I can't help but be hugely influenced by the colour coding copied from WP:RSPSOURCES. I find myself tempted to accept anything green without even reading it.
- As I have tried to explain, with surprising difficulty, my considered opinion is that secondary source material from the company poisons the content as non-independent, but only on a paragraph by paragraph basis, and primary source material from the company is irrelevant to the GNG, it neither contributes evidence, not poisons what it is mixed with. Secondary sources that go to the source for fact checking is to be *encouraged*, not discouraged; and company self-promotion blubs repackaged is to be *discouraged*.
- I do think I can "discern" native advertising, and articles ghost-written by the PR department. I should be more clear that when I do this it is my subjective opinion in the absence of facts, and it can be changed by new information or explanations. Perhaps instead of "discern" I mean "surmise". I am happy to provide examples of this on any real source to care to test me on. There is a process to it. What is the perspective of the writer? Who is the writer speaking to? What is the intent of the writer? What are the writer's opinions, and how did the writer come to that opinion?
- "Even if you can do it, most editors can't". I get that. But many editors can, but even then they use sometimes very different explanations. To even begin, we have to agree on language and the meanings of words. Your essays on source typing, third party sources, etc, are very good and have made a positive impact.
- "people claiming that anything that isn't negative about a company that I dislike is pure marketing materials". There is a large component in that that I support. A review that gives 0 or 10 out of 10 is unlikely to be critical analysis. It takes a lot more intellect to justify a score of 4 to 8 out of 10. What about it is good, and what is bad. PR employees just can't bring themselves to sign off on admitting the flaws, although they do sometimes try to introduce fake flaws (fake flaw example: the underwear are so comfortable that you don't know they are there).
- -- SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:28, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
- There was a formal discussion on SIRS. There was a bit of "Do you support this, or are you an evil person who hopes Wikipedia will be destroyed by COI and UPE editors?" in the air at that time. What I don't remember happening was the part in which people said that there were nuances and complexities and that editors always needed to use their brains, not just trust their automatic, unthinking responses.
- I think that, in terms of the practical necessities involved in writing articles, that for-profit businesses (especially publicly traded ones) are more likely to be suitable for Wikipedia articles than non-profit organizations.
- Speaking of language, I think it would be good to consider formally dividing "reliable" and "reputable". How does this strike you?
- Reputable source: A source that, on the basis of what we know about its contents (e.g., it's a non-fiction book), its author (e.g., not a notorious crackpot), and its publisher (e.g., their reputation for peer review or fact checking) is likely to be a useful source for writing an encyclopedia article. It may or may not be independent/secondary/reliable for any specific sentence.
- Reliable source: A source that is adequate to support the specific sentence/content in question. It may or may not be independent/secondary/reputable.
- Notability-conferring source: An independent reputable source. (You would add secondary to this, but I have long wondered whether the GNG should actually say secondary at all. The people who picked that word almost certainly did not know what it means. Others would add significant coverage, but that takes us back to the question of whether the significant coverage must be in a single source vs adding up smaller bits of coverage in all sources to see whether the total results in significant coverage.)
- If this were established, then notability-related pages would primarily talk about reputable sources and verifiability-related pages would primarily talk about reliable sources. Of course, you know better than I how hard this would be to get adopted. Our traditions are more important than clarity.
- For any "test" of your ability to identify sources that originate from a PR department, I'd have to be certain of the origin myself. Otherwise, it'd just be your opinion vs my opinion, and no way to know which of us is correct if we disagreed. I therefore don't think that such a test would be feasible.
- I like your most recent description best. However, I don't think that editors want to evaluate the primary/secondary status of sources on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. Also, I don't think that they should, because separating individual sentences/paragraphs/sections doesn't seem to serve the main point. We don't need hundreds of words of analysis ("secondary"); we need hundreds of words of attention, including at least a little bit of analysis.
- About anything that isn't negative about a company that I dislike is pure marketing: What I see is this:
- An editor hates a company.
- A newspaper says something neutral, factual, and boring about it: "Next Monday, Big Box will be opening a new store in City. With 293 locations, Big Box is one of the biggest retailers in the country. The new store has hired 50 employees from the greater City area. Mayor Morgan, whose campaign centered on bringing jobs to the county, will preside at the ribbon-cutting ceremony next Monday morning."
- The editor demands the the newspaper article not be used in Wikipedia because the newspaper article "obviously" copied a press release – an alleged press release that can't be found at any of the usual press-release websites or on the corporate website, but the editor knows that it was all written by the corporate PR office. The editor knows this because the only thing that truly independent sources would write about the company is about how awful they are.
- This is bad, and it's where I see us ending up if we encourage Wikipedians to guess at ghost-writing. We start off with an assumption that almost sounds reasonable ("all commercially available products have significant flaws, and all reputable sources will be quick to point out those flaws"), and we end up by excluding all sorts of sources, including sources that actually use the whole range from 0 to 10, instead of confining themselves to the middle. We also exclude all sources that only choose to publish positive reviews (e.g., glossy luxury magazines, which have some of the strongest reputations for active fact-checking and yet almost never publish anything except a glowing review, because their audience is aspirational, not trying to make a hard-nosed business decision).
- I don't think your list of questions works when you are looking at a product review in something like Elite Traveler. The goal of their writers and editors is to continue to get paid for writing about luxury travel products; they are speaking to people who are willing to pay money in exchange for feeling in-the-know and feeding their aspirations (or, to put it another way, for the opportunity to stoke envy in their own hearts); and the intent of the article is to make the readers feel fancy enough, informed enough, and trusting enough that they will continue subscribing. The writers' opinions are likely formed on the basis of both direct experience (e.g., using the product, looking at the product in a store, touring a factory) and whatever indirect information they can find, including information from the product's manufacturer and sellers as well as anything posted online.
- The editors at luxury magazines know that they can't meet their audiences' goals by including negative reviews or by reviewing common, widely available products. Thus if the editor decides that it's time to review suitcases, the common brands of suitcases are ignored (such magazines can endorse only a very small number of "surprising" lower-cost items before they lose their cachet). Any low-quality or poorly designed suitcases by the desirable luxury brands will be silently omitted instead of being panned. The magazine's editors also know that they need to produce an air of omniscience, infallibility, and exclusivity, so they must be correct every time (this is why glossy magazines hire all of those fact checkers), and that they must not disclose the sometimes pedestrian sources of their information through statements like "According to the manufacturer's website, this suitcase is available in four colors" or "We know it's easy to clean because one of the the interns accidentally spilled a soda at the store, and the clerk whipped out this spray bottle and cleaned it up in less than two minutes flat" or "We found 174 customer reviews across four different e-commerce sites, and several of them said that the latches feel solid". In fact, to increase the appearance that they have exclusive knowledge, they are likely to create the false appearance that they have a very close relationship with the foremost experts on the subject – namely, the manufacturer's senior management.
- I suspect, though, that the end result is a product review that you would hate. They're too close to the company! They don't disclose any real flaws! You're not doing a critical analysis unless you criticize! It must have all been secretly written by the manufacturer! Except, you know, that's just the convention for that range of sources. You don't want to copy their style into an encyclopedia article, but it's still attention from the world at large, and the magazine is still not owned or controlled by any of the many products' manufacturers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:30, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- <working backwards>
- I try to avoid hate words. When talking review articles as sources, I think all single-brand product reviews should be treated with scepticism.
- I am not sure that high-end whatever magazines make good sources for demonstrating sufficient Wikipedia-notability for borderline notable topics. However, once the notability threshold is met, they are good-enough sources for me. I think luxury magazines should be treated the same as trade magazines.
- I think Elite Traveler reviewing a notable topic that has no other notability-attesting sources is a contradiction that points to undeclared non-independence.
- Picking https://elitetraveler.com/finest-dining/restaurants-finest-dining/ava-brings-the-magic-of-the-med-to-florida by random. Dated March 2, 2022. AVA Mediterranean, Winter Park, Florida doesn't currently have an article. The restaurant has lots of reviews. Close to the same date, a bunch of similar articles appeared, syndicated I guess. Obviously, this restaurant advertises.
- Scoring points +~- (positive, for notability, neutral, or negative for independence)
- Author KIM AYLING, no magazine profile. No Wikipedia article. ~ neutral
- First image is "©AVA MediterrAegean". Negative. A real reviewer will use their own camera.
- This:
- “Meaning life, water, island, bird in Greek, ‘AVA’ is a celebration of splendor, freedom, escapism and joy. With this new concept, we want to bring Winter Park the first multi-sensory experience in the area, a home away from home that transports guests to the beauty of the Mediterranean and the Aegeans,” Riviera Dining Group co-founder Marine Galy said. “The community has been very supportive and has inspired us to push the envelope, and we cannot wait for them to start the journey and to create amazing memories with us.”
- The entire 3rd paragraph is 100% Riviera Dining Group co-founder Marine Gal and 0% article author. Bad form, lazy review, Negative. Every subsequent word is also supplied content.
- Chef. I don't believe KIM AYLING wrote a word of this. Same with Menu.
- Interior. Surely KIM AYLING has personal comment on the interior? Nope. It's promotional poetry, the exact same tone and style as the 3rd paragraph, and Chef and Menu sections.
- The only words I can believe that the author wrote are the first two paragraphs. These two paragraphs contain 121 words that I consider worthy of consideration towards Wikipedia-notability. These two paragraphs contextualise and introduce in time and space, connecting to the previous business on the site, and is comment/opinion, and is decidedly a different style to everything after. I would accept this 121 word section as one source attesting notability, despite the next 974 words being non-independent company-sourced content. I'm unimpressed with the Restaurant owed and supplied photos, and the link to the restaurant website, but these are not killed negatives. Had've the review given prices for popular and praised menu items and cocktails, that would have killed it for me.
- I think sources like Elite Traveler are very difficult for Wikipedians to assess, but it can be taught. I would barely pass it on the 121 words. I don't know about 10 separable facts. Would you count and use the facts in the 3rd paragraph onwards? If someone else called "delete" on the bases of a lack of 500 words, I would not argue back.
- I think you are right about editors developing a hate to some companies. I believe that these editors are typically experienced in blocking UPEs. On one hand, one might say they are well experienced in knowing native advertising when they see it. On the other hand, they have become accustomed to blocking quick with no follow-up process that reviews them.
- NB. KIM AYLING and Elite Traveler have done nothing wrong. They have written good content for their readers. The have selected a good restaurant for exposure to people who like to meet good new restaurants. They are not trying to squeeze it into Wikipedia.
- RE: "identify sources that originate from a PR department, I'd have to be certain of the origin myself."
- For actual evidence, I look for the same words, the same phraseology, in other output from the PR department. Old PDFs are really good for this, google doesn't scrub old PDFs from its cache like it scrubs old rewritten web pages.
- I have long thought that the concept of reputable sources should be introduced as separate from reliable sources. I like you definitions of reputable and reliable. I would add that it is non-sensible to discuss the reliability of an opinion of a secondary source author.
- I think secondary source belongs in the GNG, but only for cases where it matters. I didn't push it hard, largely from fear that it would be misused on ancient people and single mountain mosses.
- On for-profit businesses (especially publicly traded ones) vs non-profit organizations, I have noted that non-profit organisations do not employ paid writers to add promotional content to Wikipedia. Their employees spontaneously and unilaterally sometimes do it themselves, but there is no serious concealment of what they are doing, and they already get given short enough shrift. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:19, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
- > I am not sure that high-end whatever magazines make good sources for demonstrating sufficient Wikipedia-notability
- Why not? (It shouldn't matter whether the subject is borderline or not; either a source supports a claim for notability, or it doesn't.)
- > non-profit organisations do not employ paid writers to add promotional content to Wikipedia
- I think you just don't happen to see it on your watchlist. There's an open request for many changes at Talk:Families USA#COI edit requests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- > > I am not sure that high-end whatever magazines make good sources for demonstrating sufficient Wikipedia-notability
- > Why not? (It shouldn't matter whether the subject is borderline or not; either a source supports a claim for notability, or it doesn't.)
- Because they are prone to undeclared non-independence. Companies that supply text to journalists for the journalist to put their name to. The more I look, the more I recognise it, company PR ghost authoring. The following simple rule seems to hold: For a single-product review article, if independence is not declared, it is not independent.
- > > non-profit organisations do not employ paid writers to add promotional content to Wikipedia
- > I think you just don't happen to see it on your watchlist. There's an open request for many changes at Talk:Families USA#COI edit requests.
- You're right. I meant, do not employ short-contract UPEs that use throwaway accounts and try to hide who they are. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:30, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- How do you prove that this specific article is an instance of "Companies that supply text to journalists for the journalist to put their name to"? It's not really good enough to say that you're skeptical of whole swathes of the industry; you'd have to show that this specific source is one of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:23, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- It's a judgement that can't be proved. So I prefer to say, in the context of GNG-notability discussion, that the source reads as not sufficiently independent. Some people have got upset at me for impugning the honour of a journalist or newspaper, and it is a good idea to honour WP:BLP in all namespaces and discussions and limit comment to the point, GNG-pass or GNG-fail.
- I am convinced that this poor journalist practice occurred in the EliteTravelor article. It see it as commonplace all over journalism and magazines, associated with single-product reviews, where underwear, bags, jackets, cruises, airlines. I am convinced, but I do not believe that all have to be convinced. I'm talking to you at length because you appeared interested, and replied with challenging counter-points. In my judgement, in the EliteTravellor AVA MediterrAegean restaurant review, the first 2 paragraphs or 121 words are independent, and the 3rd paragraph onwards is non-independent. That would be part of my !vote in a hypothetical AfD discussion. It is not hard logic or mathematics, I can't prove that my reading is correct.
- There are plenty of sources online that talk about this practice, so it should come as no surprise to have someone believe it as happened. I also have seen it happen in the real world. I don't blame the journalists, they are understaffed increasingly, with every year. The blame lies with the decline in classified income to newspapers. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:47, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- How do you prove that this specific article is an instance of "Companies that supply text to journalists for the journalist to put their name to"? It's not really good enough to say that you're skeptical of whole swathes of the industry; you'd have to show that this specific source is one of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:23, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'm thinking right now about your claim that First image is "©AVA MediterrAegean". Negative. A real reviewer will use their own camera.
- I looked at The Guardian's business section. Here's where the images came from:
- The Guardian doesn't have real journalists, I guess? Let's go look at The Times, and specifically at reviews instead of news:
- [22] image from Alamy stock photo company
- [23] image from a freelance photographer who works for the newspaper
- [24] image from a photographer whose LinkedIn profile says he works for the restaurant
- [25] has one image credited to a photographer and one without an image credit; the credited photographer's website says he works for the restaurant
- [26] and [27] images are uncredited
- [28] image from a photographer whose website says he works for the business
- [29] uncredited images plus one that appears in multiple sources, by a photographer who owns a studio in Bristol
- If the folks at The Times aren't real, then let's try this side of the pond. I had better luck here, with photographs in restaurant reviews largely coming from staff photographers (not the restaurant critics themselves), but not exclusively:
- Sending a staff photographer to get photos means that the photos are all done with the blessing of, and on the schedule approved by, the restaurant. At least here in the US, private businesses have the right to tell reporters and photographers to leave – and also to invite them back when the restaurant has been staged the way they want it to appear in the review. If you are looking at this as a marker of distance from the subject, it is flawed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:15, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- Which of these reviews do you think are demonstrating Wikipedia-notability? Guardian news stories are not in the scope of this discussion, of fake independent reviews of non-notable high-end products or services, or the company or its CEO. TUI Group maybe, but it is notable, without needing to rely on a single-product review article.
- The Times' reviews are what I am talking about. Generally, I don't believe they are independent and will begin skeptical.
- The New York Times and The Washington Post look easily rejected as GNG-complaint.
- In judging the independence of a review, the ownership of the photo is not decisive. Did you note that for EliteTravelor's AVA MediterrAegean restaurant, in the end I gave it a "yes", despite the photographs and much of the text looking like it was company-supplied? SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:53, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- I want to understand how you arrive at this conclusion. What makes you believe that The Times – note that we are talking about The Times itself, which is one of the most respected newspapers in the history of the world – is not an independence source? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:19, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- I am not considering The Times to be a single entity, but consider each story to be a separate story, probably with one journalist, one or more key subjects interviewed, a little bit of research and talking on the street, and probably only one editor, and each story allocated only hours of journalist time.
- The Times is not "a source", but is a company that publishes stories and sources. I am not so familiar with The Times, but I am a decades reader and subscriber of The New York Times. I don't respect it as an independent source, but a newspaper with journalistic integrity, and a fair number of journalists and editors still on its payroll, but this does not mean that it will not publish sponsored review articles that fall below Wikipedia's WP:GNG standard.
- The Times articles that you linked, such as the one of the Carousel restaurant London in London, do not appear to even pretend to be unbiased independent coverage. I don't see any such claim. I read the article as being a collaborative publication between the newspaper and the restaurant, no pretence otherwise, and the purpose is to provide material of interest to the newspaper's readers. I doubt very much that the Times' staff would believe that their review is a sufficient basis (or half of one) for a standalone Wikipedia article on the Carousel restaraunt, London. I'm pretty sure there is no article, although there is at least one passing mention, eg at Romy Gill#Cookery demonstrations and other events.
- In short, the WP:GNG standard for independence is not the same thing as a reputable newspaper's reputation for independence. The newspaper is more concerned with political bias in the news than in the source of opinions on the quality of a high end restaurant. I expect the newspaper is concerned that the opinions they published on the restaurant will be borne out when readers visit the restaurant. SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- Your phrase do not appear to even pretend to be unbiased independent coverage suggests that you might be associating a lack of bias with independence. I wonder whether you are actually looking for unbiased sources instead of independent sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- Bias versus independence? Interesting. They have a lot of overlap, but I think it is independence that matters for the GNG inclusion criteria. Biased sources should be avoided for NPOV reasons, but independence is what is called for the GNG. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- Then let's go back to your sentence: You complain that The Times do not appear to even pretend to be
unbiasedindependent coverage. Where is your evidence that The Times does not pretend to provide independent coverage of the restaurants they review? I've got your reasons for thinking that it's biased, but that's a separate question. What I'm looking for is some reason to believe that the newspaper or their food editor, who is a full-time employee of the newspaper, is beholden to Carousel (and presumably the other couple hundred restaurants he's reviewed there over the years). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 15 March 2022 (UTC)- Beholden? Beholden is not a synonym of non-independent, it is much more extreme. “Independent” does not mean “not getting paid by the subject (directly or indirectly)”. Have we been working with different meanings of “independent”?
- If the newspaper reporter and the restaurant manager worked together on the review, eg they both contributed text and both edited the text, then they have collaborated, both are authors, and the review is not independent of the restaurant. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:55, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
- If they both contributed text and both edited the text, then both are authors – but where's your evidence that this actually happened? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:04, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
- If it’s a topic on which Wikipedia is prone to being misused for native advertising, I think Wikipedia rightfully tends to err on excluding the source as on of the two minimum GNG-meeting sources. There is no proof, no certainty. It’s a level of suspicion.
- on reflection, I don’t think the level of suspicion is high for restaurants. People don’t go to Wikipedia to help choose a restaurant.
- On whether the source helps to write good content, with reviews, I am now thinking it is better to look at perspective (near is bad, far is good), and whether it includes contextualisation (broad treatment is good), or is hyperfocused on a single product/company, especially timewise. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
- I agree with you about the value of contextualization. I love compare-and-contrast sources, because they make it possible to write encyclopedia articles. You want to be able to write "Subject is more ____ than Other", regardless of whether you're writing about frogs or frogs or frogs or frogs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
- If they both contributed text and both edited the text, then both are authors – but where's your evidence that this actually happened? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:04, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
- Then let's go back to your sentence: You complain that The Times do not appear to even pretend to be
- Bias versus independence? Interesting. They have a lot of overlap, but I think it is independence that matters for the GNG inclusion criteria. Biased sources should be avoided for NPOV reasons, but independence is what is called for the GNG. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- Your phrase do not appear to even pretend to be unbiased independent coverage suggests that you might be associating a lack of bias with independence. I wonder whether you are actually looking for unbiased sources instead of independent sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- I want to understand how you arrive at this conclusion. What makes you believe that The Times – note that we are talking about The Times itself, which is one of the most respected newspapers in the history of the world – is not an independence source? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:19, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think that's the key point for me. I think the key point for me is whether our standard for some subjects is so low that we're just repeating and endorsing the subject's own self-promotional content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
Negative reviews suppressed
I ran across an interview published yesterday that acknowledges the reviewers' version of Publication bias: food critics intentionally do not publish reviews on most less-than-stellar restaurants. Here's the relevant bit of the transcript:
- Terry Gross: "It's a real responsibility to know that you have a restaurant's fate in your hands, depending on whether you give it a good review or a bad review. How do you deal with that responsibility?"
- Frank Bruni (food critic for The New York Times for five years): "It is an enormous responsibility. And I think if you're any kind of moral person, you think about it. And one of the main ways you deal with it is if you are visiting a kind of mom-and-pop restaurant or a restaurant that not everyone's asking enormous questions about or has great curiosity about but that is more a kind of restaurant that would be a discovery if you liked it, but, you know, would just not be in anyone's consciousness if you didn't, you don't pan those restaurants. If you go to that kind of restaurant hoping to find a hidden gem and it's terrible, you move on because there's not an audience clamoring to know what that restaurant's like. Taking it down could literally shut it down. And you don't want that responsibility. And you don't want to be that kind of force.
- But when it comes to the better capitalized restaurants, the ones that are advertising heavily, that are the subject of great reader curiosity, you have to remember that when you're disappointing a restaurant by giving an honest but negative review, you're also doing an important service to a lot of customers who are spending hard-earned money, you know, sometimes making decisions to spend money that's not easy to spend. You are saving them from a broken promise or an experience that they shouldn't have to have. And so the moral calculus is a little bit more complicated than just propping up or shutting down a restaurant."
From the POV of the reader, this could come across as a sign of bias: the food critic "only" or "mostly" writes positive reviews, so that's evidence that they're colluding with the restaurants, right? But the reality is closer to the critics selecting only good restaurants as being worth of getting any space in their paper at all, and leaving the rest of languish in obscurity (unless the restaurant is spending lots of money and the critics believe their readers need to be warned away).
Think, too, of the POV aspects of how a fact is framed in a review. These two descriptions communicate the same basic facts:
- "Lively, energetic crowd with non-stop live music Friday and Saturday evenings"
- "The crowd is so noisy you'll have to shout to be heard, especially on the weekends, when the bands play without any pause for eight solid hours"
Is the positive framing or the negative framing the "true" one? If you're working from the mindset that all reviews are promotional fluff, then you'll read the first as confirmation of your belief, and the second as proof that the reviewer is independent. But it's the same facts, and the only real difference is that the second reviewer sounds like he stayed up past his bedtime.
I think we have to give up on the idea that a positive review, including an all-positive review, is a sign of non-independence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks. I think it is more important to look at whether it is a “single product review”, and of whether the perspective is too close.
- This reviewer feels a responsibility, and thus a kind of relationship, with the people of the restaurant, and his readers. This means the reviewer is straying into advocacy and away from independence.
- I don’t feel there is a problem with restaurants’ promotion on Wikipedia. I think the problem is more with companies that sell products that are ordered online internationally. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:38, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
- Why do you think that feeling a moral responsibility to avoid unnecessary harm and to respect his readers is "straying into advocacy and away from independence"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
- If avoiding moral harm means skipping or glossing over negatives, then I think this sounds like injecting positive bias. For context on why we are talking about this, it flows from deletion discussions where notability is in doubt, and this source is critical in getting the topic over the notability line. If the GNG minimum source is a positive spin source, then that’s a problem. For me, while not diminishing the importance of NPOV, the GNG question comes down to “is the source independent”. It may be biased, biased doesn’t mean non-independent, but it raises suspicion of non-independence. The following questions I may have overemphasised, but I consider them: Do I think the restaurant paid the reviewer, whether in cash, or by buying advertising space in the newspaper?; Do I think the restaurant ghost-wrote their own review?. But, as I mentioned before, I think I should emphasize instead the following two related questions: is the source written from a distant perspective; and does the source contextualise.
- (I think that promoters like to place the reader close to their product, and keep the entire focus on their product to the exclusion of alternatives, so I think these questions are sufficiently anti-promotionalism).
- I do not want to discourage use of sources that value moral responsibilities. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:36, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
- That takes us back to one of our long-standing themes: independence fundamentally has nothing to do with bias. You can be independent and heavily biased, and you can be non-independent and as unbiased as humanly possible.
- Also, the situation that we're talking about here is "there is a source that exists only because it was possible to say something positive about a hidden gem of a restaurant", contrasted with "there is no source for this other restaurant, because the food critic decided not to write the source". You're turning a refusal to publish dead ends in research into a sign of bias for the productive lines of inquiry. This seems false to me.
- Professional reviews seem to have a positive bias because you're seeing only part of the process, and not because they are biased, much less because they are letting the restaurant ghost-write the reviews. It is similar to the fitness studio paradox: You visit a gym and mostly see very fit people there. You sign up, and you even show up and work out a couple of times a week. But you don't look like the other gym-goers there. Why? Because you are seeing a skewed selection of members, not the average. Many members do not show up at all, and most gym-goers are there for a couple of hours a week. The ones you see the most are the members who spend hours and hours and hours working out. Similarly with independent professional reviews, more information is collected than sees the light of day, and the ones that you do see are mostly positive results – the ones worth recommending.
- I think editors need to be wary of using their own gut feelings about positivity to decide whether an article in an independent publication is being ghost-written. I also expect "distant perspective" to be something that most editors get wrong. It will turn into "I don't like it because it's too positive, so I'll claim that it doesn't have a distant perspective". If anything, we ought to be telling editors that if the author has written dozens of restaurant reviews, then the author definitely has a distant perspective, in the same way that we would expect any subject-matter expert to have a distant perspective on their field. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:36, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
- Only publishing positive stories is a bias. There are biases and signs of bias everywhere. I’m not sure why you draw attention to this. A bias is not a reason to reject a source as meeting the GNG, is it?
- I think bias is natural, and a bias may be mistaken as a hint or indicator of non-independence.
- I think the perspective of writing is much more objectively assessed than other things we’ve discussed and you’ve led me to back away from. Perspective of writing is a characteristic of the output, not of the mindset of the author. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:38, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
- Did I mention that for these restaurant topics with reviews in reputable newspapers, while I note reasons for them not being perfect sources, I was in the end leaning on a “keep” !vote at the hypothetical AfD? Bias is certainly a negative from a perfect source, but is not a reason to reject as a GNG source.
- Having judged the source is biased, I consider it necessary to ask why the source is biased. Noting (not with surprise) that high profile restaurant reviews seek out quality restaurants that their readership are interested in, is quite a satisfactory explanation.
- It’s possible that a restaurant may post fake independent reviews in the NewYorkT1mes.com; luckily we already agree that the reputation of the publisher matters. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:39, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
- On the one hand, you tell me that being biased "raises suspicion of non-independence" and " If the GNG minimum source is a positive spin source, then that’s a problem" and that you ask yourself whether the source is non-independent – a state that you determine on the basis of whether or not it sounds biased in favor of the subject.
- On the other hand, you tell me "A bias is not a reason to reject a source as meeting the GNG, is it?"
- In practice, I don't see how these are compatible viewpoints. If bias doesn't impinge on independence, then why do you keep bringing up bias when you're talking about independence and the GNG? You don't bring up other irrelevant subjects (e.g., whether the author has The Right™ Qualifications to be a food critic, or whether restaurant reviews are routine coverage). If you believed bias were actually unrelated to independence, then why do you keep talking about bias? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:55, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
- The GNG requires sources to be independent. Bias raises suspicion of non-independence, but doesn’t mean non-independent. I didn’t mean to focus on bias. I think I was lead into talking about bias by you. I think of bias as an NPOV issue, and I don’t think of NPOV having much input into notability.
- I think I’ve lost track of what the question is, sorry.
- ”Negative views suppressed”. That’s a good explanation for why the reviews seem so positive, and seems a better explanation than that the reviewers are being paid or are receiving a kickback. So, I need to backtrack on “all positive reviews” being a red flag on the independence criterion. It’s just a logical bias. SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:34, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think that we should be judging the independence of sources according to the POV the source expresses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- Definitely agree. I’ve been talking about bias and POV as confounding attempts to infer whether the source is independent. I had been straying into thinking that pro-bias or pro-POV is an indicator of non-independence, but I am now convinced that this is a poor method, both for it being subjective, and because there can be many other reasons for a pro-bias or pro-POV. Bias and POV are not reasons to exclude a source from meeting the GNG.
- I am now inclined, in close call cases, to look at whether the source contextualises (with which you agree), and whether the source is distant-perspective (with which I think you have not agreed, and for which I am not aware of any written guidelines or essays). SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:34, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how to identify near- vs distant-perspective descriptions in a product/restaurant review. I therefore can't decide whether it's a practical idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:43, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think that we should be judging the independence of sources according to the POV the source expresses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- Why do you think that feeling a moral responsibility to avoid unnecessary harm and to respect his readers is "straying into advocacy and away from independence"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
Costs
Anyting that could be added, removed or worded betterr?? Drawbacks.Moxy- 01:47, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
- @Moxy, I suspect that the clause "that would require monitoring that the markup is sustained" has a grammar problem.
- Do you mean "section title" (not sure what that is) or "section heading" (e.g., a ==Section heading==)?
- I assume that the overall goal is to say that while this is technically possible, that it's almost always more work than is either necessary or desirable. You might consider just saying that. Also, splitting this into more than one paragraph (or bulleted lists with summary points, e.g.,
* '''Extra work:'''
or* '''Coordination problems:'''
) might be more readable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:28, 7 March 2022 (UTC) - Ok agree just comeout and say it....will let it sit for a bit and do so.--Moxy- 19:41, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
A barnstar for your efforts
COVID-19 Barnstar | ||
Awarded for efforts in expanding and verifying articles related to COVID-19. Awarded by Cdjp1 (talk) 8 March 2022 (UTC) |
The Medicine Barnstar | ||
Awarded for efforts in expanding and verifying articles related to COVID-19. Awarded by Cdjp1 (talk) 8 March 2022 (UTC) |
- Thank you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:05, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
You've got mail
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Can you please answer back so I can reply with the there-mentioned photo? Thank you! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 17:06, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
Ongoing arguments?
[32] I like to think that our ongoing discussions are not arguments, but digging into contentious differences, and that these differences are not personal, but entrenched in the community. I was criticised for my WP:SIRS hardline presentation of an argument, and I came here to discuss. And it has certainly been interesting and helpful. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:16, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
- I appreciate your willingness to keep talking to me about this subject. I have been thinking that parts of the conversation may be hampered by the communication format. It may be easier for me, in plain text without tone of voice or facial expression, to focus on the minutiae and miss the big picture. Thank you for holding on to those bigger points through all of this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks.
- I think the big picture goal is deletion policy, deletion arguments at AfD, and how to better communicate to others. The bigger picture for that is to make WP:N SNGs useful for editors in making wise choices for what new topics to attempt to write. I find AfD heart-breaking when I see a newcomer has invested months into an article attempt that gets deleted. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:26, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
- Perhaps I am more hard-hearted than you. I don't feel bad when impossible subjects get deleted. I do some times encourage newcomers to contribute in more appropriate ways. (I don't know whether they ever take my advice.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:00, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
Might be time to archive
Looks like your talk page is over 100,000 bytes again. It's about 236,000 bytes right now. It might be time to archive the talk page. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:4CAE:9DE2:30BC:86D9 (talk) 03:12, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you for the reminder! WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Addiction RfC closed
Update: It's been a month since anyone commented on RfC re: is addiction a "biopsychosocial disorder" or a "brain disorder"?, so I closed the discussion. I left a message on Tryptofish's talk page asking them, "Would you like to edit the introduction to the article with the very well-written compromise language you crafted? (Click here to go directly to the intro you wrote)." Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 05:59, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
- Update #2: Tryptofish has been uber busy, so I went ahead and replaced the current lead paragraph with the consensus-based paragraph Tryptofish crafted (diff). I retained most of the citations present in the previous paragraph, even if I disagreed with their relevance. A couple of citations no longer supported a statement in the lead because the sentence no longer exists. I omitted one instance of a reference that had been cited three times in the lead paragraph. - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 04:13, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
- Sounds good to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:44, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
- Update #2: Tryptofish has been uber busy, so I went ahead and replaced the current lead paragraph with the consensus-based paragraph Tryptofish crafted (diff). I retained most of the citations present in the previous paragraph, even if I disagreed with their relevance. A couple of citations no longer supported a statement in the lead because the sentence no longer exists. I omitted one instance of a reference that had been cited three times in the lead paragraph. - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 04:13, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
Perceived Disruptive Editing
This is an attempt to address perceived disruptive editing of the biography for Martin Kulldorff. The diffs provided below indicate to me a pattern of disruptive and uncivil editing. Together the quotes seem to be a campaign to drive away productive contributors.
I would like you to consider voluntarily leaving this article to editors who do not seem to be as unwilling to include all the information.
— diff
and...
I do wonder whether we need to consider a TBAN
— diff
I do hope that we can continue to have constructive discussions and even constructive disagreements about content and policy and that we can, moving forward conduct ourselves in a more civil manner.
If I have misunderstood your intentions with the above quotes, please let me know.
Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Edits) 01:52, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I can no longer agree that you are a productive contributor at this article. In fact, I suspect that if you were a brand-new editor, people would probably be wondering whether Kulldorff or his political allies were paying you to whitewash his image on Wikipedia and dropping messages like Template:Uw-paid1 on your talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
Creating articles
Hello, Lajmmoore, Somebodyidkfkdt, BeauSuzanne, Hatchens, Imcdc, Das osmnezz, DareshMohan, Elijahandskip, RPSkokie:
You are all among Wikipedia's most active editors, and you created an article in the Draft: namespace today. Because of a question from another editor, I am curious:
Did you know that you can create articles directly in the mainspace, and skip the Wikipedia:Articles for creation process?
I suspect this is not widely known among people who started editing in the last couple of years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: Thank you for the ping. I'm aware of creating articles directly in the mainspace (and skipping the AfC altogether). But, if you want to know my personal opinion, I would not recommend that. Why? Because "draft-to-AfC-to-namespace" brings "checks and balances" and guarantees the quality (to a large degree). It is more important for editors like us (holding AfC and NPP rights) to adopt this route as it brings desired consensus, discipline, and team coordination (in working with other AfC reviewers, New Page Patrollers, and Admins). Also, it provides a level-playing field to new editors and institutes a culture of "healthy editing." - Hatchens (talk) 01:47, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- It sounds like you think of this as a type of Dogfooding – if you're going to put other people through the process, then you should use the process yourself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:11, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing hmmmm... you're quite correct. And, if it brings in desired consensus and boost the quality of articles, then why not? But, at the same time, there is a certain disadvantage also if everyone adopts it. The drafts will start piling up and many of us might keep on disagreeing with each other. So, I would rather suggest it to be adopted at individual level with discretion (as a choice). Mass roll out and adoption is neither feasible nor justifiable. - Hatchens (talk) 02:01, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
- I agree. If you (any individual editor) feel like you get value from this process, then I think you should use it. If you don't (and you are a reasonably successful editor), then I think you should not use it. I am mostly curious whether the people who use it are already aware that they are not required to use it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:57, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing hmmmm... you're quite correct. And, if it brings in desired consensus and boost the quality of articles, then why not? But, at the same time, there is a certain disadvantage also if everyone adopts it. The drafts will start piling up and many of us might keep on disagreeing with each other. So, I would rather suggest it to be adopted at individual level with discretion (as a choice). Mass roll out and adoption is neither feasible nor justifiable. - Hatchens (talk) 02:01, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
- It sounds like you think of this as a type of Dogfooding – if you're going to put other people through the process, then you should use the process yourself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:11, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- I knew I wasn't going to finish the article in one sitting, so I used Draft space to begin. I like that articles begun in draft as have a time limit. I also like that other editors (who search draft) can see if there's one underway. My articles don't go through AfC though, since I've got whatever level that avoids that. Sometimes I use my sandbox to start a draft, sometimes I copy and paste from the sandbox, just depends. Lajmmoore (talk) 08:20, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
I remember now why I worked from Draftspace near exclusively...
Hi there WhatamIdoing,
So now I remember why I work from the Draftspace near exclusively, back in October, when I first started working on building some new articles, I put them right in the main space (even with several sources, written from a NPOV standpoint, etc. etc. but they got quickly shot down. Anyway, I tried again per your suggestion of first doing some cleanup and then moving a small stub-like article to the mainspace, and within moments, it was nominated for deletion by user Bbb23. If you want to take a look and let me know what you think, please do so here. Thank you. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 23:32, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
- Some editors are very concerned about articles involving anything commercial. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:37, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- I see. Thank you for letting me know, and for your comment. I'll try and see if I can incorporate the sources that you mentioned into it. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 02:07, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- Question also for you. Are all the results from Wikipedia Library citable? Or is it a real smorgasbord? I just signed up! It looks like a really great resource for more senior editors! Thanks again! ♥Th78blue (talk)♥
- Th78blue, it's definitely a mix. Some are useful, some are useless, and many have limited value. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:08, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- Interesting. Thanks for the tip. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 01:10, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- Related to that AFD situation, I've wondered whether a List of US ammunition manufacturers would be feasible. If you decide to explore that, read WP:LSC. Many editors don't read it, so they think that lists must only include items for which a WIkipedia article already exists (the optional "blue links only" rule). You can look through Wikipedia:Featured lists to get an idea of what the ideal list looks like. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- I spent a lot of time today digging and adding more RS'es. Apparently though the group seems to still keep pushing for "Delete" though. If you'd like to have a say on the current and more recent AfD for the article, feel free to do so here, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Underwood Ammo. I think you are more aware of what should pass muster or not than I given your long term tenure working on the encyclopedia. Thank you. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 00:40, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- If you need a copy of your work, you can ask for a WP:REFUND. I think you should consider working on the "integration" aspects of editing. Start a list, or mention different subjects/details in existing articles. So, e.g., you said in the AFD that they make "solid-copper-monolithic-fluted projectile rounds with lead free components". What are the most closely related articles? There's an article on Monolithic bullet. Should any individual company's version(s) be mentioned in that article? (Also, that article looks like it needs more links to other articles. Just at a glance, it feels like it doesn't have as much "blue links" as a typical article.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- I spent a lot of time today digging and adding more RS'es. Apparently though the group seems to still keep pushing for "Delete" though. If you'd like to have a say on the current and more recent AfD for the article, feel free to do so here, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Underwood Ammo. I think you are more aware of what should pass muster or not than I given your long term tenure working on the encyclopedia. Thank you. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 00:40, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- Related to that AFD situation, I've wondered whether a List of US ammunition manufacturers would be feasible. If you decide to explore that, read WP:LSC. Many editors don't read it, so they think that lists must only include items for which a WIkipedia article already exists (the optional "blue links only" rule). You can look through Wikipedia:Featured lists to get an idea of what the ideal list looks like. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- Question also for you. Are all the results from Wikipedia Library citable? Or is it a real smorgasbord? I just signed up! It looks like a really great resource for more senior editors! Thanks again! ♥Th78blue (talk)♥
- I see. Thank you for letting me know, and for your comment. I'll try and see if I can incorporate the sources that you mentioned into it. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 02:07, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
Help please
Hi there Waid, I hope all is well with you. Not so much for me (Gandydancer). I was in an accident and lost my computer and my pass word, and was even unable to type for some time. I had to start all over with this name but I really miss Gandy! Surprisingly, I'm really quite fond of her after 15 years of working here. Anyway, I am slowly getting back into working on some of the political articles that I used to work on and monitor. But my new account does not have a visual editor option and no matter what I tried I cant add it. Can you help me? It seems to me that the instructions said to uncheck something...but actually it was already unchecked on my page.
Waid, I don't think that I've ever kept it a secret that I think so highly of you. After I get my visual editor I plan to work on the Elizabeth Warren articles that really do need trimming, updating, etc. I really do admire that woman. I've actually come to see you in that same class of exceptional women. Very sharp and able to put their thoughts into words, very quick and able to see through to the heart of the question, up to date rather than stubbornly attached to old thinking, and all of that and more and yet able to come across never harsh and always without fear of ego harm...meaning a very good grip of their own ego strength... or however I would put that.
Waiting to hear back from you. Best, Gandy Sectionworker (talk) 15:31, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
- @Sectionworker, I'm sorry to hear about your computer problems. You need to go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-editor. First, make sure that "Disable the visual editor" is un-checked. That reveals a dropdown menu called "Editing mode". I prefer the option for always showing two tabs, but pick the one that you like best.
- While you're there, scroll down to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion and turn on everything except maybe the auto-signing "Quick topic adding" (which takes away the regular toolbar if you click 'Add section' on a talk page) and the "Automatically subscribe" option (Subscribing basically pings you for every new comment, even if the person doesn't ping you; automatically subscribing sets you up for this if you use the [reply] tool). If you don't see an "everything" (five options?), then you might need to go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures to turn on Discussion Tools first. Also, I warn you that they're planning to change the appearance of talk pages. It might be a good thing overall, but you know how it is when someone changes the appearance: Even if you are convinced that it's a good thing, it can take a couple of weeks to get used to it. You can take a semi-secret sneak-peek at the design here (that page's content is in Vietnamese). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
At long last I got around to doing this and much to my surprise it worked! Now I will try and get some housekeeping done on some of my articles. Waid, is there any way on earth to get my old passwork back? I really do miss being Gandydancer. BTW, did you ever figure out how to make round cake balls? If not here is a hint. Think about what happens to the moon each month. Best, GandySectionworker (talk) 04:35, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- The two ways to recover a password are to have a working e-mail address attached to your old account, and to be personal friends with one of the devs (and I think only certain devs can do it). Is there any chance of recovering any part of your old system? A backup somewhere? Passwords unexpectedly saved to the cloud?
- I haven't tried to make cake balls for a while. My next cake might feature freeze-dried strawberries. I need to use some up, and the library had a cookbook that said you can crush them to make pink, strawberry-flavored powdered sugar glaze.
- Looking at your recent contributions, you might be interested in the table I added to Pregnancy#Timeline recently. We need to double-check the numbers, which are all taken from other parts of that article and/or the linked articles, but not yet cited in the table itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:11, 9 May 2022 (UTC) s
- Well I don't even know what a dev is so I doubt I know any of them. I will say this, if one of them would look at my password I am almost certain that I could take a pretty good guess that would convince them of my identity.
- Waid, as you know there is presently a baby formula shortage going on here. On TV someone made a smart ass comment about maybe those mothers will now have to start nursing their babies. So here we are in the U.S. the only developed nation in the world that does not give new mothers paid time off - a period in which to establish breastfeeding. In fact, in the U.S. even at unpaid they still get only 12 weeks off but most new mothers cannot afford to take even that as they need to return to their minimum wage jobs (and once again we come out almost on top - biggest gap between richest and poorest people) just to try to make ends meet. So here these mothers are with the determined ones even just barely having established nursing every 2 1/2 to 3 hours, including at night and they are supposed to have figured out how to pump every 3 hours at work at Burger King, for 30 - 40 minutes per session. [33] As if that wasn't enough to worry about, the babies may well refuse the breast preferring the easy sucking from a bottle. My second daughter went on a nursing strike after her first bottle and absolutely refused any thing but after that. And so what do we in the U.S. do to help these mothers? We tell them that an accidental pregnancy will be paid for for the next 20 years and don't expect any help though you can barely manage to pay for the ones you've got...
Waid, this all leaves me feeling like such a hypocrite. The entire article says babies deserve breast milk when it will be next to impossible for poor and even many other women to manage it. It is very good to have known you for so long and I know how smart and kind you are. Do you have any thoughts on this? Could we add something to the article, perhaps not so much for new mothers than to be used by someone using our article for information. Could a new article be worth the effort? Or whatever...what do you think? Sectionworker (talk) 23:12, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think anyone can see the passwords.
- The thing that struck me about the unkind comments is that it's all well and good to say "breastfeed" when the baby isn't here yet, but what about the ones who stopped breastfeeding six months ago? Milk supplies do not reestablish the moment you need them (which has always been unfortunate, given how many families run out of money before they run out of month), but which now leaves thoughtless people effectively telling families that months beforehand, they should have magically known that infant formula would not be readily available for sale, and either stocked up back then or continued breastfeeding, instead of making the best choices they could with the information and resources they had at the time. Also, if we're going to suspend reality here, mothers should never need to be separated from their babies for more than a couple of hours – no more "selfish choices" like earning money for food and housing or having major medical problems – and all of them should have ample milk supplies, and babies healthy enough to breastfeed.
- I have hoped that the unnecessary "toddler formulas" would stop being produced during this time, but I haven't dared to look, for fear that I would learn that they're churning out more of that less-regulated, simpler, nutritionally worse artificial milk instead of focusing all available facilities on infant formula.
- Another useful public health message might be to encourage the parents of healthy toddlers (including healthy-but-picky toddlers) to quit buying infant formula, or at least to reduce their use of it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:22, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Pointless essay and granite
You would be well advised to do a WP:BEFORE search before declaring certain subjects have only one point of view. There are a fair number of hits in gbooks for the search term "granite controversy". Admittedly, the argument is largely resolved today. SpinningSpark 14:33, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, that's long since been resolved, and there is realistically only one viewpoint on the formation of granite during the current century. Of course, a new controversy could appear in the future, for any subject, and there are tangential controversies for others. There is basically one POV about Algebra, for example, but there are multiple POVs about the specific detail of whether all teenagers should be required to take a class in school about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:41, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
- My point was that there are often differing POVs in science/technical subjects and one can easily look silly when the opposition points this out in a specific example. I largely agree with what you said in the discussion. Nevertheless, relying on a single source is risky unless you are absolutely sure it is mainstream. SpinningSpark 16:54, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think I would want to write a long article from a single source. I think the closest I've come to that was Cancer-related fatigue, which had two sources at the time of creation – one excellent, and one that was basically redundant. A stub would be feasible with a good source, but I can't imagine it working out in practice for a longer article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
- My point was that there are often differing POVs in science/technical subjects and one can easily look silly when the opposition points this out in a specific example. I largely agree with what you said in the discussion. Nevertheless, relying on a single source is risky unless you are absolutely sure it is mainstream. SpinningSpark 16:54, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
Policies, guidelines, essays
Regarding this edit: just fyi, the original poster linked to the essay in the initial post. isaacl (talk) 04:23, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks. I should have checked the links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
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