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The Signpost: 24 September 2012

Talkback

Hello, Rschen7754. You have new messages at Talk:Alaska_Airlines/GA2.
Message added 22:50, 29 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jetstreamer Talk 22:50, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

TFA

You left thoughts on my talk. I responded in general there, but one item I want to point out here: what you called "sneakily scheduling TFAs in the hopes that Raul/Dabomb won't notice" sounds rather misinformed. When TFA scheduling was overdue last week I announced that I would schedule the stork if nothing happened within a day. Nothing happened, I scheduled that one, which had broad consensus. I would do the same again if needed, but hope that scheduling will not get behind in the future. It looks good today, two weeks in advance would be even better, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:18, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

But you do not have the authority to schedule TFAs. That is what the problem is. If I see this happening again, I reserve the right to take action, including deleting the TFA page created. --Rschen7754 14:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
I have a good idea: next time we are down to 4 days scheduling you do the next one! I don't need authority for help in emergency, nor do you. - Of course you have the right to delete a TFA page. This is Wiki, reverts happen all the time ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:53, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
"Down to 4 days" is not an emergency. --Rschen7754 00:57, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
It's damned close when there have been plenty of calls for things to be queued up a week or two in advance so interested parties have notice and time to buff up the articles and blurbs. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 01:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Again, I agree that it would be the ideal for Raul/Dabomb to schedule a week in advance. But it is by no means an emergency until we completely run out of TFAs. --Rschen7754 01:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
I remember Kathleen Ferrier, 22 April, author notified less than an hour before it appeared with an inadequate blurb on the day of her centenary. - When I scheduled, Dabomb had not edited in days. Call it a better name than emergency, it was a situation that needed something to be done, so I did, - you (and anybody else) could do the same --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Again, I think you misunderstand the protocol. In the event that we run out of TFAs, the emergency blurbs get used first. They're polished and good to go, and the nominators should be well aware that their articles are on the emergency page. --Rschen7754 16:55, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
that would be misuse of admin tools. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 18:48, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Seriously, we do deletions like this at GAN all the time. --Rschen7754 18:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Notifications

For the upcoming TFAs until 8 October, the bot notified one contributor. I notified the other seven, against protocol, please feel free to revert, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand "protocol." There are certain tasks that are restricted to the FA director and TFA delegates only. People got on your case because you were doing these tasks. However, notifying primary contributors is not one of those tasks. Sounds like the bot is broken; might want to message Ucucha. --Rschen7754 07:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
English is not my first language, sorry if I don't get everything ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
ps: I would think the bot is broken if nobody was notified, but Oct 7 was working normally, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Okay I see what you're saying, it didn't pick up the other ones. Still might want to message Ucucha, but it sounds more like a bug. --Rschen7754 07:19, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
I am not interested in that bot, but people, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Except that Ucucha's bot handles several tasks in a semi-automated fashion for the FAC/TFA process, one of which is notifications for TFA selections. The bot is programmed to post a message on Ucucha's talk page when there's an error in making notifications as well. 22:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Bzzt. Wrong answer, please try again. There are no such "restricted" tasks, there is merely arrogated authoritah. It's all bluster that was made up. Wiki's are about collaborative solutions, not fiefdoms. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 07:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Please read WP:IDHT. --Rschen7754 07:29, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Familiar; you, Raul, saying something does not make it true or worth listening to. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 07:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Projections

Fixing the stretching should be easy: there's a tiny button at bottom right that should pop up a box with the project properties related to the projection. Make sure "on the fly" rendering is enabled and then select an appropriated "projected coordinate system" underneath. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 08:36, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I finally decided on NAD83 California Albers. Made California look great, so problem solved there, but I'll need to come up with something else if I want to do maps for any other state. --Rschen7754 16:53, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Young & Talented School of Stage & Screen

Hi there. I saw your comments on TBrandley's page about this article's AfD. Just to clarify, is tagging with a CSD after an AfD has started okay in general, or only in certain cases such as G12? Thanks. —Torchiest talkedits 01:36, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is fine; the problem was that TBrandley also closed the AFD, which is not okay; that causes problems in the event that the CSD is declined. --Rschen7754 01:38, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. That was my concern with the close as well. —Torchiest talkedits 01:40, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Deletion review of AfD that you participated in

As you participated a few days ago in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flat Bastion Road, I thought you might wish to know that the result of that discussion (to keep the article) is being challenged in a deletion review. If you have any views on this (i.e. whether to endorse the result, overturn it or something else) then please feel free to comment at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 October 2. Prioryman (talk) 21:56, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Admin score

Following up on the RfA thread from last week, I'm sending a message out to a few people who seemed to have positive and/or constructive comments on the admin score tool. I created a subpage where editors could indicate their own preferences for the relative importance of various criteria, but I didn't get as much input on it as I expected. If you have time, would you consider taking a look at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Admin scoring workshop and adding your input? The most important section is the top section ("Relative importance"). If you have a minute, add a row to that table. If you have a few more minutes, consider adding input to the more specific tables on the rest of the page. Thanks for your help. -Scottywong| confabulate _ 16:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Take a look

As much as i like the work this user is doing i notice you blocked someone i welcomed for having a username associated with a group or organization. Take a look at User:HausofGagaWiki too if you don't mind. I didn't realise people could be blocked for such names, only forced to change them. Thanks ツ Jenova20 (email) 12:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

This name doesn't seem promotional to me... --Rschen7754 16:33, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Haus of Gaga is the same name as the organization/marketing arm of Lady Gaga, so while editing articles related directly to her charity organization (Born This Way Foundation) it seems like a similar conflict to me. That's all.
Also User:Rschen7754#My role in Wikipedia 👍 Like ツ Jenova20 (email) 22:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. That could be an excited fan too... --Rschen7754 23:28, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Deleted page in user space

Thanks for your message. The page you deleted was a test within my user space, not really intended as "promotional material" and not intended to be linked or made public at any time. I am curious to know why did you consider it promotional material and actually how did you come across it. Thanks! Miguel Andrade (talk) 20:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

We have a list of all the new userspace pages created within the last month, and regularly go through them. It looked like content unrelated to Wikipedia, which falls under "promotional." If it was just an editing test, I can undelete it if you want. --Rschen7754 20:46, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your offer to undelete that page. There is no need. Miguel Andrade (talk) 21:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 October 2012

An AFD you participated in has been relisted

After a deletion review, a recently closed AFD has been relisted. I am contacting everyone who participated the first time who hasn't found their way there already. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flat Bastion Road (2nd nomination) Dream Focus 08:07, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm a bit sick of the first AFD and the DRV, and the repeated sniping. --Rschen7754 08:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

You're invited! FemTech Edit-a-Thon at Claremont Graduate University

October 26 - FemTech Edit-a-Thon & Roundtable - You are invited!
Everyone is invited to the first FemTech Edit-a-Thon & Roundtable at Claremont Graduate University on October 26 from 3-6 pm. The event will open with a roundtable discussion about feminism and anti-racist technology projects, followed by an edit-a-thon focusing on feminists & women in science. Experienced Wikipedians will be on hand to support new editors. We hope you can join us!

Sign up here - see you there! 01:00, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

First Mile Page

Hi there! Just wondering what the copyrighted material was that merited the removal of the First Mile page. The copyright holder may be a part of the project. Please let us know so we can work to resolve the issue! Best regards, First Mile.

So there's actually three problems here, and I only deleted because of one of them, but all three are grounds for speedy deletion. I googled a random sentence from the article and it came up on another site that is not a Wikipedia mirror site, so that is an obvious copyright violation. If you are the copyright holder, you must officially give permission through WP:OTRS.
The second issue is that of notability. In order to be included, it must have coverage in several independent reliable sources: see WP:GNG. I saw no evidence of that.
The third issue is a conflict of interest issue (WP:COI). Even if it is not a copyright violation and is actually notable, if you are associated with that subject, you should not be writing that article. --Rschen7754 06:16, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Warning on my talk page about copyright material.

I responded on my talk page to the warning. I copied an article into my sandbox to paraphrase or quote from in an ongoing discussion. It is ok to remove it. But it is, in any case, in the public domain. The article Anti-Semitism in the 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia has signature D (Professor of Jewish History at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati) and the whole work is in the public domain. quote: The Jewish Encyclopedia, which recently became part of the public domain, contains over 15,000 articles and illustrations. See here Regards, RPSM (talk) 08:49, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

My bad; I saw the copyright note at the bottom of the webpage. You are allowed to use material from it, and that does not violate copyright. However, you must properly attribute it, or it is plagiarism. See Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Attributing_text_copied_from_other_sources for more information. --Rschen7754 08:51, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the reference. RPSM (talk) 09:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Hello, i noticed you deleted my user. Wiki has several contributions a lready been verified. I was not advertising, but im new


at this. The information that i used in my bio were on the same guildlines that Craig Kallman used in his bio. Can you help me or explain who to make my bio within the guildlines.

Scott gordon. 10/13/12 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scott Russell Gordon (talk • contribs) 17:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that it was way too promotional, and had tons of stuff not related to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a free hosting service for your own webpage. If you want the name of one, I would be happy to refer you to one. --Rschen7754 17:52, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Country Music Charts for October 20, 2012

Could you delete again? The user's recreated and seeing as it wasn't a deletion discussion, G4 doesn't apply. Thanks, "Pepper" @ 00:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

 Done WP:SALT is next. --Rschen7754 00:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

California State Highway 99

Thanks for fixing my oops -- I don't know what happened when I tried to post my changes, but the entire article disappeared except the section I was trying to edit. I was in the process of trying to fix it when you did. Thanks again. OLEF641 (talk) 07:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem. --Rschen7754 07:06, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

California State Route 78

Is California State Route 78 ready yet for the main page?--Lucky102 (talk) 20:38, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I haven't had time to work on it yet. I will try to get to it soon. --Rschen7754 20:43, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
I think it's going to be at least a week or two. I have two articles I'm trying to get to FAC right now, and it's eating a lot of my time. --Rschen7754 04:35, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Kansas Turnpike

More a lack of time than anything else; I've been mostly editing in thirty- and fifteen-minute spurts at work, so I've mostly been working on removing unreliable sources from junction lists since I don't need many resources to do that. When I have more time to work on the project it feels like a better ROI to do stub expansion (especially since Kansas isn't my primary project). I'd really like the cleanup effort to involve most of the involved parties to collaborate on editing directly, rather than the usual ACR format of "list things for the primary author to do and he does them."

I have the feeling the time problem is going to get worse before it gets better; I am likely going to be in the process of buying a house in the next few months. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 10:10, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the problem is that nobody else seems interested in working on it either, and even if they are, they have their own projects and priorities. Meanwhile, the article could be sent to FAR. Speaking for myself, I have two articles headed to FAC at ACR (which I don't think I'll ever do again when in school), and I'm getting caught up in more site-wide issues, so my time's pretty limited. --Rschen7754 19:09, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Speaking from experience, buying a house is easier if everyone (realtor, lender, et al) is on your side. Lots of waiting. –Fredddie™ 19:54, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Unless you live in certain areas of the country. --Rschen7754 20:08, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I feel pretty good about my bank, since I've worked with them before on my car loan and they've indicated that they'd like to lend to me again, so hopefully they'll be pretty decent this time. Looks like there's lots of houses available on the market around here, so I can't imagine getting much resistance from a realtor.
Back on topic: if we can get the referencing and any MOS issues taken care of, I think that will be enough to guard against a FAR. I doubt that FAR will be that interested in demoting an article just because it doesn't meet WP:USRD/STDS, especially since the argument can be made that it exceeds the standards. I haven't seen an argument for the exit list table (instead of the interchange section) that isn't based solely on "Every other article has a table, so this one should too"; I don't see that being too convincing to anyone outside of USRD. We need to lean on everyone to improve the article now. The point should be made that it makes no sense for any USRD member to do a FAR, since it would hurt the project, and could be entirely prevented by a little work now. The saber-rattling from Dough is particularly tiresome; I don't think he gets that point. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 23:21, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I fear this is going to come across as pretty harsh, but it has to be said.
First of all, the RJL issue. Basically all the editors who have commented say that Kansas Turnpike needs a RJL table. Even Fredddie, who confirmed this to me today. This is starting to come down to a consensus issue; while you may not agree with the reasoning, you don't WP:OWN the article.
Secondly, it seems like you're not really interested in fixing the article. If this was a normal ACR, I would have failed it by now as stale. But it's not; it's trying to head off a potential FAR. Yes, as I've expressed before, I believe that USRD is one project and should help each other out; but we've given you sources and things to try, and you haven't even touched it for almost a month. We all have our own article-writing projects and priorities, and I know what it's like to constantly be busy (undergraduate and now graduate computer science degree), but some of the fixes are pretty small. As the FAC nominator, you're really in the best position of us to fix the article, since you're familiar with the content and sources. If this was User:Moabdave or User:Admrboltz's nomination, USRD would probably take a more active role, since those editors are mostly inactive, but you're here and apparently have editing time.
Your comments above lead me to think that you want to do the minimum amount of work to prevent a FAR, regardless of whether it meets the criteria. A FA should really be our best work; is this really Wikipedia's best work? That's why I'm going back and updating California State Route 78 when I get a chance, even though it passed FA 3 years ago; I've kept it fairly up-to-date, but my maintenance hasn't sufficed, and it needs some updating. That's why User:Imzadi1979 keeps his FAs maintained, even though he has several of them. When you bring something to FA, you basically take on the responsibility of keeping it at FA standards, or risk having it demoted, since you're probably the one most familiar with the subject. When an article no longer meets the FA standard, it gets sent to FAR, and can be demoted. Even Raul654, the FA director, has lost some FAs this way: see Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations. You say that no rational USRD editor would nominate a USRD FA for demotion instead of fixing the issues; however, I've even begun to consider sending it there since I'm not sure that the project has the resources to fix the issues (when we could be getting other articles to FA during that time). A deficient FA reflects badly on USRD and the other USRD FAs as a whole, and on the FA standard and Wikipedia as a whole. --Rschen7754 05:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Regarding the RJL issue, you're entirely correct. I don't own the article. If USRD wants it to have a table, by all means, it can have a table. But if I don't agree with adding a table, I don't have to add one. Anyone has the power to edit the article. I will not stand in the way of adding it, other than stating my opposition to it; I know the folly of edit warring and I won't kick it back out if the project wants it, even if I do still feel it's unnecessary.
You're also correct in that I am not really interested in fixing it. That's because what's wrong with it is all either referencing or formatting issues, neither of which appeal to me that much or which I feel that I am much of an expert on, at least not to the extent that I am uniquely qualified to fix them. Many of the references in the article at present were added by SPUI. (In particular, I have never seen or read Milestones; that was all SPUI's doing.) One of the things that needs to be done is to format the NBI refs to refer to individual bridges. How tedious can you get? FAC requirements have changed a lot since both this article and Chickasaw Turnpike have passed, and I haven't been tracking them, since FAC doesn't really interest me to the extent that it has in the past. Part of that is the bureaucracy that is up now to get on the Main Page—I guess that was the goal that I was going for with both FAs, and now it seems impossible to reach, so I don't bother, I guess? In any event I guess since I've achieved that, it doesn't feel like the article has anywhere to go at this point, so messing with it doesn't seem all that rewarding, at least not to the extent that working on other articles can give. But then again, I never did write Creek Turnpike despite having had 100 sources on hand since 2008... —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 06:26, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 October 2012

Comments by Moonriddengirl

Would you be willing to explain what she meant in her comments, since she refuses to elaborate? I don't understand her meaning, other than the record doesn't count but subjective memory does. That's what it seems to me she meant, but if not please clarify. I'd appreciate it. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 21:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I haven't been following this too closely, but it seems that there are concerns that the copyvio might not be fully removed, and Moonriddengirl was consulted as the primary force behind WP:CCI. I haven't had that much interaction with Moonriddengirl, but she seems to be reasonable and well-respected, and accusations of bad faith aren't helpful. She was reluctant to get into the matter since there was sensitive information. Just because FAC/FAR/TFA is mystifying doesn't mean that it is corrupt; it took me years to figure out the system, but once you understand how it works, it's fairly easy to get what you need. For the record, the only FA that is blacklisted is Jenna Jameson; Raul has said that publicly before.
What concerns me is the way you interact with other editors; you assume everything's a conspiracy, and when anyone criticizes you, you go "OH A CONSPIRACY! ABUUSEEEE!!!!!!!" so nobody can actually criticize you. Maybe slightly exaggerated, but you get the point. That's the quickest way to get on peoples' bad sides and sent to ArbCom. Just slow down, and calm down, and assume good faith, and you won't get into these unpleasant situations. Gotta run out the door, but those are the thoughts off the top of my head. --Rschen7754 22:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Protection...

To which I'd say "No problem" and "yes, that's odd"... BencherliteTalk 08:34, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

You, sir

are a prince among men. Thank you. --Dweller (talk) 08:59, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey, check this out. --Dweller (talk) 09:01, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
(ec) You're welcome! I was just working at our own statistics a few days ago, so I thought I'd save you the work of going through the U.S. and Canada road FAs. --Rschen7754 09:03, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Request

I'd like to take a look at the TFA arb request case filed in August and can't find it. Would you by chance be able to point me in the right direction? Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:11, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Here you go. --Rschen7754 02:12, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Uggh, wrong one. Try [1]. --Rschen7754 02:13, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:49, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
No problem. I sort of look like an idiot there, and to provide context, I was hoping to be just a filing party only, and that Raul654 and Brer and whoever would bring all their complaints and it would be aired out. Raul apparently hates ArbCom, and Brer posted a meaningless statement, so that failed. --Rschen7754 02:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
The thing is, if the arbs had taken the case TFAR wouldn't be where it is now, I wouldn't have had such a terrible few days, Br'er most likely wouldn't have been community banned - but the way to go, honestly is by the community, imo, and I was surprised to see that happen. I still think what you did was on the right track - it was a problem then and continues to be a problem. It's about the main page, but no one seems to care. All anyone cares about is whether or not Malleus has said yet another bad word. Anyway, thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I've been monitoring TFAR for a while now and am aware of the problems. ArbCom could have banned Brer, so I wouldn't count on that. I'm sufficiently concerned about both Raul and Dabomb being mostly inactive, but unfortunately my efforts to ask them about this have not been fruitful. --Rschen7754 02:59, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
That's where the double standard is. They could have banned Br'er, but they didn't take the case. And the underlying problem still exists. You've probably seen that I've left a message on Raul's page. At some point something will have to break over that situation, and I'm just a little peeved that the main page gets so little attention from the community when troubles are brewing. Truthkeeper (talk) 03:03, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, it's clear to me that something needs to happen with the levels of TFA staffing. I've thought of several options, but none seem to really catch my attention right now. I hope we don't have to purposely let the TFA go red to get people's attention. For the record, there is some truth to there being a serious divide between the "admins" and the "article writers"; not as far as the article writers claim, but it exists. I have 2 FAs and several GAs, and am a quite active admin, so I'm trying to see the whole picture here. --Rschen7754 03:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh, there's clearly a divide, but it's not a small problem. I have limited time to devote to this on a volunteer basis and have been an admin and main site admin on a busy board in the past and it's frankly something I wanted to leave behind. Here I'm happy to dip in and write when I have time, but it does seem hard to wade through the drama. There's been a lot it lately. Truthkeeper (talk) 03:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

You've got mail.

Hello, Rschen7754. Please check your email; 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 remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 20:34, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee of Vietnamese Wikipedia

I don't know the link to Arbitration Committee of Vietnamese Wikipedia. Please help me. Saboche (talk) 06:22, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The Vietnamese Wikipedia has no Arbitration Committee. My best advice would be to briefly ask for help at m:Babel. --Rschen7754 06:26, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

M-1 ACR revisit

Can you drop by the ACR to field a query? Imzadi 1979 → 09:27, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Fleming

Thanks for the ban - much appreciated. I smell a sock at work on there now - is there a way this can be proved? Cheers - SchroCat (^ • @) 05:45, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem. In obvious cases like this, we can just use WP:DUCK and block it. --Rschen7754 05:46, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

User:Rschen7754/ACE2012

I have started writing my ArbCom elections guide. I'll be posting the experience part soon; a lot has changed this year. --Rschen7754 20:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

What is your problem?

What on earth did I do to warrant a threat of being blocked? --JoBrLa (talk) 03:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, where you have to work with other users. Frequently, you have ignored the concerns of other users and have plowed ahead with whatever you wanted the article to look like. Kansas Turnpike is a featured article, meaning that you have to be especially careful, since that is considered "our best work" already. Interstate 335 (Kansas) is another example, where you have decided that you know better than everyone else and have gone to AfC to create the article, and have ignored concerns that Kansas Turnpike contains the material already. WP:BRD exists for a reason. Please discuss with other editors and come to a consensus. --Rschen7754 03:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

"Rm scheduled"?

Whoa, wait. I'm confused. What's the meaning of [2]? The nomination has been there for a few hours or so. I thought we were still discussing stuff. Will the article appear tomorrow or something? • Jesse V.(talk) 00:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Dabomb87 already scheduled it, so there's no need for further discussion. Usually a bot sends out notifications, but it hasn't lately. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 1, 2012 --Rschen7754 00:27, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
It just felt really abrupt was all. I had an edit conflict in the section, and then everything was gone! Anyway, I'm glad it was scheduled. I'll be really happy to see my work on the Main Page. :) • Jesse V.(talk) 00:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Rschen7754. You have new messages at Mrt3366's talk page.
Message added 09:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Mr T(Talk?) (New thread?) 09:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Fort McHenry Tunnel

I do not understand what your copyright violation claim is referring to the article on the Fort McHenry Tunnel. The last time I edited that article was four years ago, and the only thing I did was add another picture, an additional photograph of the entrance that I took when I was driving when I approached the tunnel. Presumably, I own the copyright in photos I take and I have the right to donate them for public use if I choose to do so. Please explain exactly what copyright you believe I violated so that I can understand what I did wrong. Also, I'm curious why your link includes what I believe to be a superfluous colon in front of it, the only reason I understand for prefixing an entry with a colon is when you're doing a template include from an entry in the main namespace as opposed to the template namespace. So I'm wondering if it's just you do it that way or there's some special feature by doing that. I'm always interested in learning things. Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) (talk) 01:10, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm using WP:TW. I've also responded on your talk page. --Rschen7754 01:12, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your apology and I can understand about errors caused by using a bot to check things; the size of Wikipedia makes checking for things that are unacceptable manually too large unless we import people from China to do it! This is one of the reasons that they recommend against running unattended bots unless you know exactly what you're doing. And if you're running a supervised bot, you should either back-check it, or modify it to have back checking, because otherwise it's going to do to the next guy exactly what it did to me, either confuse or anger them. Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) (talk) 01:39, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Note

I spilled soda onto my laptop keyboard in August,but it's really gotten sticky and difficultto type this last week. Pleaseforgive any errors. --Rschen7754 22:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

IBAN

FYI, I've asked Dennis Brown (YRC's former mentor) to make the IBAN official, as we've both agreed to it, and I have also offered to withdraw my proposal for a site ban of YRC to help resolve the situation. Prioryman (talk) 08:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure how much that will resolve the situation, but I will leave that for ArbCom to decide. --Rschen7754 08:22, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2012

Unprotection request

Could you please unprotect Wikipedia:List of administrator hopefuls (or at least lower the level of protection from "Protected" to "Semi-protected")? It says that anyone can add their name to the list, but I can't edit the list because I am not an administrator (irony! ). Anonymouse321 (talk • contribs) 07:03, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Would you mind pinging User:Rick Block? The reason it's protected is because the bot is broken, and we didn't want to block the bot as it does other tasks. If the page was unprotected, it would break the page. --Rschen7754 07:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 Doing... Anonymouse321 (talk • contribs) 07:19, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 Done I posted this message to his talk page. Anonymouse321 (talk • contribs) 07:27, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration request declined

A request for arbitration in which you were named as a party has been declined.

For the Arbitration Committee, Lord Roem (talk) 23:11, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

RF Block

I was actually talking about the 30 March 2012 block by Elen, which was before the ArbCom restrictions were valid, but was for the case discussed in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive233#Mindless creation of "suspected sockpuppet" categories from years old, with resulting problems, which resulted in a month long block for violating the mass creation restriction. It was lifted a frw days later for the sole purpose of participating in the ArbCom case about him.

I don't think it is necessary to change the current block, but just wanted to point out that this one was longer, more recent, and for the same restriction, as the one from September. Just in case someone comes along and complains that after more than a year, you shouldn't have escalated it or some other similar argument. Fram (talk) 10:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Mmmmph Elen should have used a better block summary :/ I'll let it be for now but will keep an eye on how people react, and if someone increases it while I sleep that's fine too. --Rschen7754 10:22, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 November 2012

alcatraz full protection

Left reply on talk as well. I think its probably unneeded. blofeld "retired" so war is over? Gaijin42 (talk) 03:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Glad to see that the full-protection was rescinded. I was just coming over here to post and ask the reasoning for the full protection, when the article hadn't been touched in over 7 hours and Blofeld has retired. Shearonink (talk) 04:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Internet issues

My internet's gotten very slow tonight, likely due to the increased traffic due to the election. It's taking me several minutes to load my watchlist. I apologize for any delay in responding. --Rschen7754 05:04, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough/Kumioko AN issue

If anyone's wondering if I'm angry with how the discussion's going, yes I am. I knew full well that placing the block would be controversial simply because of who Rich is, and expected to get backlash regardless of the merits of the block. I can take that. But what infuriates me is bringing Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads, which I founded, into it. I don't care if you harass me publicly on AN, or try to get me desysopped, or whatever. But don't bring USRD into this. They're entirely innocent in this manner, and shouldn't be harassed or disparaged just because of my admin actions. I should be free to make whatever admin actions I need to for the good of the site and not have my project or my friends suffer the consequences. I only hope that Kumioko backs down or the community takes proper notice of his actions before I say something I shouldn't. --Rschen7754 08:48, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I haven't really looked at it - I don't care much for AN - but could I suggest that if you are aware that you are being riled, you just walk away? Unwatch AN all together and leave it alone for the sort of people who want to fight there. It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. WormTT(talk) 09:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, this discussion's particularly bad for AN; I've been involved in some pretty intense discussions there before. The root issue is a user who has been at odds with the project that I founded, and decided to somehow link that project with a block I did that was completely unrelated. It's more an issue of "You can mess with me, but don't mess with my kids." --Rschen7754 09:10, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
But now I know that people stalk this page, and that I can now post Jimbo-style on this page and it works --Rschen7754 09:11, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm always watching, it's what I do WormTT(talk) 09:17, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Just for clarification on the issue. I was also very angry with the situation. A whole lot went wrong with that AN starting from the time it was started, not notifying the user and on and on. But yes, I also have issue with that project and several of its members because they have had and continue too, have severe article ownership issues and a long history of abusing editors who would dare touch a US roads article and not be a member of their "group. That project and this AN are just more examples of the toxic atmosphere that is running rampant throughout WP these days and is the reason I'm no longer doing what I originally came to WP to do which is edit articles. Because no one does that anymore....its no longer what WP is about. And that is why I left. The only reason I even edited this AN was because of the balatant abuses of Fram and you Rschen in this AN against Rich. If that wouldn't have happened and you would have followed the policy, I would still be happily using my time in a more useful fashion playing minesweeper! Kumioko (talk) 20:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Do you plan to label every admin action I make as a problem with USRD? BTW, you still haven't shown how Fram is involved with USRD. Still waiting; that "revelation" is astounding even to me. --Rschen7754 20:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
To provide diffs and spend time with the research required would be a waste of time. Even if I presented a rock solid case I do not have even the slightest faith in the system to think even for an instant that it would amount to anything. I have done this many, many times in the past with many, many editors and do you know what happened. The discussions werer closed, nothing happened and some of those editors are still up to the same antics. In one case I was blocked for my trouble. Providing diffs is only worth the time if there is some indication that the problem would be corrected. You are an admin and so is Fram so because of that, it will not, nor do I think you would really accept them anyway and I have no doubt you would continue to argue about it for weeks to come. But as a general mention, simply compare your edits to Fram's using AWB, I am limited to 25000 per and I see a lot of intersects. I have seen you both, many times, working in tandem, one blocking, the other supporting, one submitting to ANI, the other taking the action to give the illusion of an unbiased action. Kumioko (talk) 20:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
That's absolute crap. Over 90% of my article-space edits are to U.S. road articles, and I have never seen Fram edit a U.S. road article. Fram has never been a member of the U.S. Roads WikiProject. Please stop making these unsubstantiated allegations immediately, or I will pursue further action. --Rschen7754 21:04, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Rschen, there is nothing you could do at this point that would hurt my feelings. I deeply beleive in this project. In the purpose of Wikipedia and I know in my heart that its dying and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Largely because of the actions of users like you and Fram. So I stopped editing because no matter how hard I work, no matter how many edits I do, I always have some editor who's crying about something. But that makes me the bad guy. I am the one who can't be trusted. I am the one who is being mean to the other editors because I am calling them out. If you want to block me, go ahead, if you want to send me to ANI, go ahead, if you want to submit my name to Arbcom, feel free. The travesty here is that editors like Fram have become admins and they are systematically destroying Wikipedia by targetting the most active editors. Fram is like a plague and unfortunately you are not much worse because you are jsut following along to his cadence. Do you know I made a list of about ten editors who, if they all stopped editing Wikipedia, the place would instantly be a better place. You, Fram, Imzadi and several others (not all from USRoads) are on that list. You know who else is on that list? ME. Kumioko (talk) 21:31, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I can't really tell if this is serious or not. I can't say for sure that Fram has never edited a USRD article, but I can say that Fram has never contributed to USRD at the level of our average editor. –Fredddie™ 00:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Fram claims no connection to USRD: [3] Interesting. I also find it interesting that you want to ban the author of 14 FAs. --Rschen7754 07:59, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Having 14 FA's has nothing to do with it. I have several myself as well as about 30 GA's. I think its interesting that he wants to get an editor banned who has done something like 5 million edits between him and his bots. I think its interesting how he seems to always be the one that knows when Rich does something that might be a violation of something. I find it interesting that he can forum shop, violate AN policy by not notifying the user about a discussion and no one seems to care. I think there are lots of interesting things about this user. That doesn't mean they are beneficial to the project. Kumioko (talk) 12:02, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Noting that Kumioko has withdrawn his claims regarding USRD's involvement in this block: [4] --Rschen7754 21:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Arb

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Resysoping of FCYTravis / Polarscribe and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

Thanks, Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Your ArbCom candidate questions

Hi. Your question #3 reads: (Question replaced by question 8a of the general questions). But the general questions this year appear to stop at #7. — Richwales 08:15, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Uggh. That means they got changed between when I last checked them a few days ago and now. :( I'll take a look. --Rschen7754 08:16, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Fixed. Good catch! --Rschen7754 08:18, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 November 2012

Suppressing the discussion of the Paula Broadwell edit history censorship was inappropriate

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Improper_restoration_by_admin_with_RL_consequences

The rush to censor is ALWAYS important to censors! It was not nice of you to close a discussion after a mere 14 hours of discussion on the topic. The news media will shortly figure out that Wikipedia is now censoring its own logs on the issue (they are already reporting screenshots of the article history that include the removed information, so the attempt to censor the allegation is meaningless). They will also figure out that you are the one who cut off the discussion of the censorship before it could reach any useful conclusion. I recommend that you reopen the discussion - at least that would show good faith.

There is more discussion on Talk:Paula Broadwell.

I have appealed the whole mess to the Arbitration Committee. Gnuish (talk) 07:31, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but no. I think Beeblebrox's OS decision was a good call - the Foundation can get into legal trouble for this sort of thing. OS decisions are not reversible by the community and are not bound by consensus. The problem with that discussion is that it was causing plenty of editors to repeat stuff that was already oversighted by the community. The big deal with oversight is that you're not supposed to mention the stuff again - that's why it was oversighted. If it goes to the media, sure, I have no problem defending my actions, but I think that's just a scare tactic. WP:AUSC's doors are open if you want to continue this there, but when the community has no power to overturn a OS decision, per policy, there was no point for discussion. --Rschen7754 07:38, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
"oversighted by the community" is rather Orwellian language when you are simultaneously telling the community to butt out of this and leave it powers unaccountable to the community. What's been "already oversighted" here again? Would that be something that's already front page news in much of the English speaking world? I would hope that someone exercising oversighting powers would take a minimalist approach, instead of endorsing its use when the horse has long since left the barn such that suppression at this point is just suppression for its own sake. With respect to your holding yourself out as authorized to speak for WMF General Counsel, would you care to share with us that authorization? Wikipedia admin status is not equivalent to being Wikimedia's lawyer. If WMF Legal has a problem they can take an Wikipedia:Office actions without you.--Brian Dell (talk) 09:51, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
There's only ~30 people with oversight capabilities who can even undo the oversight. I can't. WP:AUSC is the place to go if you have a complaint. There's a difference between revdel and oversight: admins have revdel, not oversight. And the WMF General Counsel stuff is neither here nor there; since when did I claim to speak for them? I'm just regurgitating the BLP and OVERSIGHT policies, which are freely available on this site. --Rschen7754 09:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Retract the personal attack in your candidate guide

Starting to repeat myself, so we're done here. WP:IDHT. --Rschen7754 06:22, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Go ask User:Bishonen or anyone who has worked with me over the years and they would tell you I'm a good-faith editor not a troll. If you can't assume good faith, perhaps you are better off stop writing these candidate guides and keeping your opinions to yourself.--YOLO Swag (talk) 09:09, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm only commenting on your recent actions, not on you, so it's not a personal attack per policy. Also, WP:AGF is not a suicide pact: it's clear that you only returned in time for the ArbCom elections to disrupt the process. --Rschen7754 09:13, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Last year Bishonen told you guys I was a serious candidate. I am this time around too. I decided to leave Wikipedia last year after Sven Manguard's harassment and character assassination campaign which included a baseless SPI investigation yet he was still name-dropping me everywhere in the RfC a year later. I came back to defend myself because most of the old-school editors know my reputation. I did some editing last month and also caught a sockpuppet with Jehochman. What you said about me only returning for the election to "disrupt" is patently false.--YOLO Swag (talk) 09:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
If you want to play the "old school" card, I've been here since 2005, so... you ran in 2008, left, returned in 2011 solely to run, left again, returned in 2012 solely to run... you may be a serious candidate, but it's clear what your purpose here is. --Rschen7754 10:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
If I could actually run a campaign without getting blocked by another candidate during the election (a block even arbitrator User:FT2 deemed inappropriate and controversial [5] or getting harassed and bullied by voter guide writers (such as this completely baseless sockpuppet investigation Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/NWA.Rep/Archive), I wouldn't be leaving every time after the election.--YOLO Swag (talk) 01:35, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Again I'm asking you retract your groundless accusation of me being a troll as well as publicly calling me to get indef blocked with no violation whatsoever.--YOLO Swag (talk) 01:47, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I never said you were a troll. I may have said that you were trolling. --Rschen7754 01:55, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Let's get not into semantics. I am asking you to remove the groundless accusation and personal attack. Thank you--YOLO Swag (talk) 01:56, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Neither of which are in my voter guide. And please stop hounding all the writers who have decided to oppose you in their voter guides. --Rschen7754 02:01, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm not hounding everyone even though everyone opposes me. I am only asking all the ones who made personal attacks toward me such as calling me "trolling".--YOLO Swag (talk) 06:21, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
It's not a personal attack. --Rschen7754 06:22, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikidata weekly summary #32

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Implemented patching and automatic resolution of edit conflicts so you wont get as many edit conflicts anymore
    • Worked on $.valueview system for DataValues editing in the user interface
    • Started implementing DataType constructor in JavaScript
    • Added ValueValidator and ValueFormatter factory
    • Improvements to Diff extension
    • Construct PropertyValueSnak objects in the create claim API when needed
    • Improved Entity serialization (is now more concise and better encapsulated)
    • Added newFromArray to all DataValue objects and created DataValue factory using this
    • Worked on development environment distribution with Vagrant
    • Improved code that handles changes from the repository and reporting them in the client’s RecentChanges
    • Fought with broken selenium tests & refactored/fixed them
    • Reviewed tons of JS code
    • Set up QUnit test coverage report (will be online soon)
    • Updated demo system
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
    • Wikimedia Conferentie and hackathon
    • ISWC
    • Wikidata intro and Q&A in Cambridge, MA
    • Wikidata intro and Q&A in Vienna
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Open Tasks for You
  • Hack on one of these
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 15:36, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Poke needed

Hi Rschen, would you mind explaining to an editor why adding comments to a year-old ANI archive is not a good idea? I've already reverted him with an explanation, but because I've been having a disagreement with the editor in question elsewhere he insists I cannot possibly be right. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Done, and I've watched the page just in case. --Rschen7754 04:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:35, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Malaria good article review

Thanks for your comment. I didn't want it to take this long, but I figured if any article deserves some special treatment on Wikipedia, it might be malaria. I moved your comment to the comments section and I replied. Best. Biosthmors (talk) 15:57, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

The Special Barnstar
California State Route 56 was probably the first article I've ever touched, it being a road I've lived within a mile of for all of my life. I have to say, I screwed it up quite a bit, and even took it to GAN, when it was not even at Start-class standards yet. But now I see that you're taking the article to FAC, and it is quite an impressive piece of writing. I am very appreciative that you've taken so much work to improve this article. I'm also thankful for the advice you've given me to help me become somewhat of a better editor, even though I'm not really active anymore. — PCB 05:04, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
You're welcome! I feel kind of bad since I sort of took all the highways close by you (52, 67, 78)... but if you get a chance we can help you start editing again! --Rschen7754 06:23, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
There's no problem with that. After all, it's you who has access to valuable historical resources. — PCB 05:17, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
The trick is getting access to newspaper databases. There's a few freely available Arizona ones. If you get a San Diego County library card you get access to Newsbank, which is at least the Union Tribune after 1984. --Rschen7754 08:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Rain of pebbles

Hey, Rschen. You never seem to let an opportunity to say something negative about me go to waste. I game the system; I need to be desysopped under a cloud; I hound people; I make bad-faith accusations. Have I offended you in some way? Or is it just my annoying personality getting up your nose? Bishonen | talk 15:14, 16 November 2012 (UTC).

I'm not following you around and/or picking on you, if that's what you're asking. I do comment on quite a few meta issues happening on Wikipedia, and you've come up in a few of them. If you look at my history, I comment on ANI and Arb case requests that I see, including some that you have been involved in.
However, I have noticed that you have a pattern for making admin decisions that are a little too bold, and that is a bit concerning (block of FT2 during his term?). I have also noticed that you tend to come up to admins who perform actions that you don't agree with, torch-and-pitchforks style. The last one is something that I am firmly against; see Coren's quote on my userpage. It's passive-aggressive behavior. You'll see me using some variant of this line a lot: Either bring it to ANI/ArbCom and to people who can actually do something about it, or drop it, but don't make life hell for the admin in question. It's bullying and harassment, and is detrimental to the purpose of creating an encyclopedia; this isn't a social network, so don't try to get revenge on people, as it only creates drama. No wonder we have nobody wanting to be an admin anymore. I believe strongly in this, and I plan on standing against the abuse of admins many more times.
Don't take this the wrong way: I believe in admin accountability too. But nowhere in the definition of "admin accountability" does it say that hounding or badgering admins is okay. --Rschen7754 20:01, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Butting in cause I am a pain......I don't feel that Alexandria has abuse their tools in anyway, but think that controversial admin actions are only made that much more controversial if done by an admin who is generally awol for the past year.--MONGO 04:51, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

China National Highway 228

You protected a problematic version of the page. 1. The 228 incident is completely irrelevant with the hypothetical highway. 2. "Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China" is a controversial term, and has not much to do with the highway. Other China national highway pages don't have links to the Province it is in either. I suggest to remove the link. 3. The infobox on the right does not make sense. "Loop around Taipei, Taiwan" is irrelevent to "Major Junctions", and a loop around a city cannot be 956km in length. Also, the length is unsourced. The infobox doesn`t have much information other than these, so I suggest to remove the whole infobox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.219.36.191 (talk) 10:02, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

You were blanking content, which is clear vandalism. You're lucky you weren't blocked. --Rschen7754 10:07, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Then tell me what does the 228 incident have to do with the highway?61.219.36.201 (talk) 10:33, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I was deleting problematic information. Please read my reasons above.111.243.12.43 (talk) 04:18, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Please don't delete other editors comments. –Fredddie™ 04:51, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Basically no, and if I see this happening again, I'll protect the page again. --Rschen7754 08:17, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Good article reviews

Aren't these comments appropriate for a good article review, in general? [6][7] Best. Biosthmors (talk) 21:33, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that you were holding the review to FA standards. Please read WP:WIAGA before you do another GA review. --Rschen7754 21:34, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
But what I'm saying is that I am convinced I was addressing good article criterion 2 by making those comments. Biosthmors (talk) 21:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
There were other problematic comments. To be a bit frank, you've only done three reviews; how then can you claim to know everything about reviewing? --Rschen7754 21:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that is what I'm claiming. I was asking for constructive criticism in case I'm missing the point of a good article review (if what I thought mattered really didn't). I happily concede I haven't always made the best comments. Sometimes they've been quite stupid.[8] Best wishes. Biosthmors (talk) 21:47, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom guide

Hi Rschen, just so you know, I won't be standing in the ArbCom elections this year. Thanks for your kind words about the Racepacket case though. PhilKnight (talk) 01:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thanks for your service. --Rschen7754 01:35, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

I've done a first pass on your questions. I guess my nature is to be as succint as possible, so if you feel I didn't fully answer something prod me. The Matt Honan question threw me for a loop, but I really liked it—nice way to connect wider issues with site-specific ones. Some great questions there, thanks. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 05:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. --Rschen7754 05:09, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Structured programming

BEGIN Bitch

I formatted my entry to clarify its semantics, following my having corrected others' errors that were hard to diagnose because of the incompetent language and the incompetent coding style.
Please don't reformat my text, particularly since you state that you have studied computer science.

END Bitch

Thanks! Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:26, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I won't, but I almost cried when I saw all that extra white space (okay, that's a slight exaggeration). Indentation is good, but I've always seen breaking things up into too many lines as making code even harder to read. It actually caused me to make an error when I was going through and changing the mod number. --Rschen7754 21:29, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
BEGIN QueryVariableWriting
You should want to cry :.( anyhow, because you have to change the modulus for each guide. Do you or anybody know how to write a variable (e.g., "NumberOfCandidates") whose value can be updated once?
END QueryVariablewriting
Thanks! Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:17, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
The two ideas I came up with were PAGESINCAT-1 (referring to the voter guides category) and doing some sort of subtemplate for each row, then counting transclusions of that template. The first one is not error-proof though, and I suspect that purging might be necessary for both of them (or null edits, which might be worse). Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/2012 goals is a victim of this, as is WP:USRD/A/L - MediaWiki is dumb enough to make you purge every time to get the latest data. --Rschen7754 01:47, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

10 REM I wish I knew what all of this meant.... Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:39, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

TINC. Thehelpfulone 02:44, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Questions

Hi. Once the election is over (my understanding from the read of your guide is you don't want to reveal anything until later) I'd like to discuss with you how you feel I could improve my responses. (Though there are some things that obviously I won't be commenting on, like question 8, for (presumably) the reasons you asked the question.) I'm curious as to how you read my responses. In the meantime, I am on editor review and would welcome your review, should you have the time and/or inclination. - jc37 23:59, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, sure. I'll usually post the rubric once all the questions have been answered, but if you have any questions beyond that, let me know. Ping me if I forget. --Rschen7754 00:01, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I think I've finally managed to answer all the questions on that page. I also slightly expanded on a few of yours along the way. - jc37 20:36, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Concerning splitting the processes

I had initially intended to not comment on what I'm reading in the guides. but I just find that a bit constricting. Wikipedia is by it's nature a collaborative, discussion environment. (I preferred when the elections were done like this). And so I'm not going to let me being in the Arbcom election prevent me from commenting. If I kills my chances, oh well. There's more to Wikipedia than Arbcom : )

I've already explained my perspective of the various arbcom things this year in answering the questions. But there is an assertion you made concerning FA that I thought I should clarify. My comments concerning MfDing FA was with the idea of what was once known as the "Messedrocker solution" (comes from when esperanza - a project with great goals which became too bureaucratic - was MfD'd).

I've been "around" a long time, and have read over quite a bit more things in Wikipedia than may be guessed (as I might guess is true of more editors than we might first think.) And along those lines, I've been a reader of the various things going on at FA for some time (And I'll have to find the link, but I seem to remember being there, "voting" for Raul in the straw poll for director around the time of the merger).

Anyway, my opinion is that the FA process should be split. The page review process should not be in arm's reach of the process which decides whether a page should be displayed on the main page. They're two separate things, and should be separate community discussions (processes), not under the same umbrella.

And if that's done, then I think a fair amount of extant bureaucracy could be culled.

Anyway, I obviously have no interest in changing your mind about me, but I thought I should at least clarify my thoughts since you were commenting about them. - jc37 19:36, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

And that's where the problem lies. The problem is that TFA needs to be heavily integrated into the FA process. Unfortunately, many of the old FAs are not ready for the main page, and that needs to be sorted out. We also need to make sure that anything that is passed at FAC is ready to go on the main page. From what I can tell, your criticisms of the FA process are largely because you have no idea how it works. I don't expect ArbCom candidates to have written FAs (though it's helpful if they do), but I do expect that they have some understanding of the FA process and aren't going to destroy it out of process just because they don't like it or they don't understand it. To be frank, I suggest that you write an article and take it to FAC before you go start bashing the process; it's not all that it's crapped up to be. (And no, it's not just you; I don't think a lot of the "admin culture" understands the FA process, or why there's a director and delegates, etc. See my comments to Truthkeeper above; there is a definite gap between the "article writers" and the "admins"; falling in both categories, I see that quite clearly). --Rschen7754 19:53, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
As one of those article writers without a foot in the other camp I too see a divide that's been widening for some time. As for FA, I've never had much of a problem with the process, and even find it to be a haven of practical common sense on occasion. There are of course procedural problems with TFA, notably the lack of timely notification, and I think the problems with many of the older (pre-2006?) FAs should perhaps be addressed, as a similar problem at GA was with the sweeps project, which delisted many hundreds of articles; I delisted 147 myself. Like you, I think that all FAs ought to be fit for the main page all the time, but there's no harm in providing the opportunity for a last-minute wash and brush up by giving adequate notice. Malleus Fatuorum 20:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
In my opinion, FA as an assessment of an article, should of course be reviewed periodically. The encyclopedia is constantly changing. We should never let some assessment force editors into a situation where an article is to be considered "set in stone". This is a "living" encyclopedia after all : ) - jc37 20:53, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
As a veteran of the GA Sweeps project I'd be very much against any kind of regular re-reviewing process, and there clearly isn't the manpower for it anyway. There are clear red flags for FAs, promoted pre-2007 and nominator(s) no longer active being two obvious ones. Malleus Fatuorum 21:55, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I can understand the concerns about "promoted pre-2007" (the presumption being a change of criteria, and possibly a degrading of the article over time), but why should it matter whether a nominator is still active? Anyone can edit. We shouldn't care who past edited a particular page. Merely that we appreciate their contributions to this encyclopedia. I hope it's not that the idea is that a past nominator will "shepherd" a particular article, for obvious WP:OWN concerns. But rather than guess, why do you consider that a "red flag"? - jc37 22:19, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
It's a matter of entropy. Without an active guardian articles slowly but inevitably revert to the grey goo that is the rest of Wikipedia. Malleus Fatuorum 03:49, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
To elaborate on that a bit, one of the strengths of FAs is that they're likely to present a reasonably balanced view of the topic, due to FA criteria 1b and 4. That is, the most important aspects of the topic should be covered in greatest detail, and the less important aspects more briefly. Additions by editors not deeply involved in the article often have an unbalancing effect–at best, they tend to increase the emphasis on one aspect of the topic to a degree greater than the article can bear. At worst, they could involve tacking on a mention of the topic in this week's favorite electronic ephemeron, some academic's bizarre pet theory about the topic (it's all an elaborate metaphor for lobsters!), nationalist lunacy, or what have you. While having the past nominator active and watching the article can potentially metastasize into OWNership, it's also very valuable in that the nominator has clearly thought about the subject as a whole and has a good idea of how to maintain the proper level of balance and organization in the article, and not be led off on centrifugal tangents. When no one is doing that, articles tend to be slowly tugged off on various tangents by the accumulation of those unbalanced edits. (And if there really is a WP:OWN problem, WP:FAR is available as a tool to evaluate perspectives different from those of the maintaining editor.) Choess (talk) 05:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, I actually have had experience with the GA and FA processes : )
(As I like to say: my contribs are my contribs - strengths and warts and all : )
But as I said, I'm not out to convince you of anything. I'll merely disagree with your assertion.
I think that whether something is on the main page is something which could be decided by a simple straw poll discussion. (This of course presuming that what we want on the main page is a showcase of what we as a community feel is the best Wikipedia has to offer.)
The question is simply: Is it ready for presentation on the main page? yes? then add it to the rotation. No? Then no. It's just that simple.
Of course the review process can be a guidance/help, adjunctive to that straw poll, but honesty much of FA is merely a form of WP:Peer review. And I think having peer review is more important than whether some page happens to be displayed on the main page. The goal should always first and foremost be to improve the encyclopedia. And if the process at FA is better, then I would think that combining the best of the FA process with WP:Peer review would be a win-win? Especially since it would bring the editors from each process together to collaborate together.
And if the process of the review part of the process is so fundamental, then obviously it should easily be able to exist as a stand alone process.
Part of the problem (in my opinion) is the conflation of these two separate focuses. (improvement of an article vs. determining whether to present the article somewhere.)
I think once these two separate foci are split from being in the same umbrella, then each part would be better and clearer and more focused to each process' goals. And of course there is the benefit of removing/reducing BURO, and maybe even reducing the learning curve for new editors. After all, new editors tend to just want to help out editing, whether some article is displayed somewhere is a behind-the-scenes thing, which is so not required to improve an article.
I understand the benefits of having carrots to help motivate editors, but obviously the carrots can still exist even if the processes are split.
All that aside, please let's not let discussion devolve into an us vs them (FA process regulars vs admins) - even if you place yourself on both "sides" : ) - We're all Wikipedians. And I would like to hope that we all have the same goal of the creation of an encyclopedia. We all just help out in different ways : ) - jc37 20:30, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
The question I have to ask is, what's broken? There's quite a few things broken about the FA program, but FAC isn't one of them; the delegates have repeatedly been praised. The issues more or less relate to partisan interactions as well as issues at TFA. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. At the roads projects, we didn't initially set up WP:HWY/ACR into a form of peer review, but that's what happened... the problem is, nobody gives a rip about peer review because it's not mandatory, and because once you've got the hang of writing FAs, you generally know if it's FA standard or not; it just needs minor corrections here and there. I've seen plenty of peer reviews archived with nothing other than a notification that someone ran a JavaScript on it.
I don't think we should shy away from talking about this divide, because it is a real problem. The biggest example of it was the Raul/Jack Merridew request. Many of the "admins" went "what the heck why's there a FA director/delegates!??!" and I had to explain it quite a few times following that. Unfortunately ArbCom declined it, which was really poor in my opinion, and we wound up with the same outcome except for Raul654 being chased off the site for a few months; I've already talked about it on Newyorkbrad's blog, so I won't elaborate here. For the record, I don't think either side has it entirely right, and I know there's plenty of editors like me who do both (referencing Fluffernutter's quote on my userpage).
Wow... everyone's stalking my talk page now... this is weird. --Rschen7754 21:07, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Peer review may currently be optional, but if the (proposed to be separate) "should it be on the main page" discussion process required a peer review, suddenly it wouldn't be seen as "optional". Also imagine if the GA review process and the FA review processes were combined. Then after a review, assessers would have the choice of whether it makes GA but not FA, or if it makes FA. This also would avoid wasting people's time with a clearly FA article, but someone may have well-meaningly submitted to GA. Yes the different processess have different criteria. But that should be easy enough to ennumerate : )
And problems? You noted a few just now. Confusion being a definite part of it. If you have Wikipedians wondering why there is a "council"/"leadership team", then obviously alarm bells start ringing for exactly the same concerns people had about esperanza.
No one, presumably even those well-versed in the FA process wants anything which seems like a cabal (TINC : )
Anytime a Wikipedia page/process becomes more seemingly "enclosed" than merely having page regulars, and that enclosure is reinforced by a bureaucratic process, then that process should at least be investigated.
you're welcome to disagree, but anytime anything hinders the sense of "anyone can edit", then that should be reviewed to see whether that limitation on this foundational principle is worth it.
For example, we accept admins as janitors (with not "everyone" being admins) because it's clearly for the good of the encyclopedia. But adminship is constantly analysed, reviewed, and so on. If FA can't stand up to similar scrutiny (I'm not saying it cannot), then that too is a problem.
And if splitting the umbrella up into separate parts deals with community concerns, then that's another win-win.
Look at even how we talk about these things. We have to clarify which aspect of FA we're talking about. Is it this piece or that piece, etc. Straight-forward discussion is complicated even on knowing the wiki-speak terms.
Look at how many times you've suggested that I don't understand the process - even if that were true - what other article-related process would you consider to not be plug-n-play, as you seem to presume that this one is not? XfD? Is it really that much easier to go through the process to delete an article than to assess it "featured"? Is it any wonder there are those who look at this and see BURO?
And by the way, if simple discussion of XfD can be split amongst separate processes (cfd/tfd/mfd/etc), I don't see why the various parts of FA can't be split.
Anyway, let's set the above aside a moment. You mentioned that you also see issues with "parts". I'll ask you what casliber asked me earlier this year. If you had a magic wand, and could resolve things, what changes would you make? - jc37 22:13, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Reading through your proposal, it seems like you're wanting to replace one bureaucratic system with another. There's nothing broken with FAC. Just because you don't understand something (and it's clear to me that you don't) doesn't mean it's bad; just because there's forms of authority or "control" on this site doesn't mean that it's bad. This brings me back to the Paula Broadwell situation a week ago - oversighters had to make the decision, and the community had to put up with it; I had to forcibly shut down a discussion on ANI. There was quite a bit of backlash a few threads up because of it. Not everything's a conspiracy (and that's another problem the site's going through, and again it's not just you). In fact, I've even thought about the possibility of a GAN director, because that place is spiraling out of control.
As far as your other question, there's no easy or clear-cut answer to resolve this divide. We can try different things and see if they work, but there's no blanket or textbook answer. --Rschen7754 02:16, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
No. combine, while (hopefully) eliminating (at least some) BURO.
And I never said that having forms of what you are calling authority or "control" to be "bad". I'm saying that they should stand up to close scrutiny.
And not sure what you mean "an again it's not you". If you are implying I suggested some sort of "conspiracy", no I didn't (and not sure where that came from)
And I was asking what things you would suggest, even if as a trial.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. - jc37 02:53, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
@Reschen. There used to be an unofficial GA director, Geometry guy (talk · contribs). Every process needs leadership, a truth that Wikipedia seems to find hard to swallow. Malleus Fatuorum 03:44, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I figured. It's just gotten annoying that GAN's gone downhill and there's nothing that we can do about it; it's mostly Wizardman and sometimes me taking care of the bad reviews that crop up. I tried closing a six month-old review and look at the grief I got a few threads up. --Rschen7754 03:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Kansas Turnpike

I think you're starting to see why I was hoping for more collaboration here. The map archive wasn't available when the article was written, and I don't believe Milestones was either; I think SPUI got it through interlibrary loan. I've never read it myself.

You mentioned the need for a total rewrite on the ACR page. What exactly led you to this conclusion? If we merge the interchange list with the RD, we should have just polishing left, correct?

We should set up a project sandbox, perhaps at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Kansas/Kansas Turnpike, so we can work on the major refactoring without having to worry about leaving the article trashed. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 09:43, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that the interchange list needs to be merged with the RD, and will need to be polished as doing a straight merge will look horrible; that might be a total rewrite. There's details missing from the history, and there's a lot of uncited material as well, so that might be a rewrite too. --Rschen7754 18:56, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
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