User talk:SandyGeorgia/arch87

Happy New Year Sandy

Best Wishes for 2012, love from Graham Colm (talk) 00:00, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

...and a happy new year from me too! May 2012 bring more sanity to this place :) Geometry guy 00:07, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

...and a happy new year from me too! Glad to see you editing TS again. Wishing you and your TPS more content and less drama in 2012. Colin°^Talk 12:51, 1 January 2012 (UTC)== Your Arbitration evidence is too long ==

Hello, SandyGeorgia. Thank you for your recent submission of evidence for the Civility enforcement Arbitration case. As you may be aware, the Arbitration Committee asks that users submitting evidence in cases adhere to limits regarding the length of their submissions. These limits, of User:HersfoldArbClerkBot/Length header/Words words and User:HersfoldArbClerkBot/Length header/Diffs diffs maximum, are in place to ensure that the Arbitration Committee receives only the most important information relevant to the case, and is able to determine an appropriate course of action in a reasonable amount of time. The evidence you have submitted currently exceeds at least one of these limits, and is presently at 569 words and 6 diffs. Please try to reduce the length of your submission to fit within these limits; this guide may be able to provide some help in doing so. If the length of your evidence is not reduced soon, it may be refactored or removed by a human clerk within a few days. Thank you! If you have any questions or concerns regarding the case, please contact the drafting Arbitrator or case clerk (listed on the case pages); if you have any questions or concerns about this bot, please contact the operator. On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, HersfoldArbClerkBOT^(talk) 00:05, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It's crazy ... to stay under 500 words, I'm diluting my statement and changing its meaning ... pls re-check? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:14, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

You've made one of the most convincing cases I've ever seen for what I've always said about the unevenness of civility enforcement. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:05, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello SandyGeorgia, if you believe the word limit is preventing you from adding useful information, you can ask the Arbitrators to look into a length exception for you. Cheers. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 16:53, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that, but it's not about me-- this is a sprawling, huge case with a long backstory, and everyone is restricted to 500 words. I don't see how we can get there from here. I managed to rework and cut down my evidence (after some hypersensitive folks came in here with pitchforks over things I was never saying but that wasn't clear because of the word restriction), and I also wonder what good it would do anyone to go over the 500 words in a such a sprawling case. Why did the arbs accept this case, and what kind of evidence do they want to see? Hersfold very specifically asked for example, I gave one only because he asked, and I got pitchforks in return. It would be far more helpful for some arbs to say, in a case with this scope, what evidence is lacking, and then hope someone who hasn't already opined can cover it in their 500 words. But thanks :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:00, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Drama Llamas and IRC

Previously you've mentioned IRC. The relevant IRC channel (freenode#wikipedia-en-admins) appears to only keep private logs available to the Arbitrators: Per their off-wiki spiel. Would you like to go halves in requesting by motion that arbitrators seek and examine such logs (as the off-wiki organisation accords them this power?) The same availability of "secret" logs may be true for other "official" IRC channels that nominally discuss en wikipedia. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:51, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope, I'm done here. Experienced editors who should know better are either whining or grinding axes, and the whole place makes me sick All I do is work so others can get their top content on the mainpage, and all they do is shoot at each other, with a bunch of petty complaints. Of course, if I said Wikipedia is leaking cum out of its butthole, I'd be blocked or some admin newbie would come by to have a friendly chat with me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:55, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

You just did say it. :-) Malleus Fatuorum 23:10, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Watched talk pages

Thanks for your note. If I understand correctly, the fact that I have the page watchlisted means I probably saw the comment in question. Unfortunately, I have too many pages on my watchlist to follow every edit. I've got over 3500 user pages on my watchlist out of a total of 14,646 pages. I barely notice what people post to my own user talk page, much less what's posted elsewhere (though I occasionally see and respond to postings I do notice). Anyway, best of luck with your case and happy new year.   Will Beback  talk  00:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I know ... crazy that I had to notify everyone mentioned there, but there you have it ... understood ! Happy New Year, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:17, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Ditto. I have 5,300+ pages on my watch list. To suggest that there's an inherent unfairness in the way certain named admins treat people because they may not have looked at every diff on their watch list seems comprehensively unfair to me. If you find it crazy to notify everyone, why would you consider it evidence in the first place? The Rambling Man (talk) 15:57, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I could answer that question here, but what good would that do when the 500-word limit prevents me from answering it on the Evidence page, where it belongs? I'm going to try to wrap my brain around how to fix this problem within 500 words, and come back to it in the pm. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:20, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't care about the 500 word limit. I want to know (here or anywhere else) why I'm being personally cited for some level of negligence in missing out on another user's bad behaviour. I've had rare fallings out with Malleus, usually content rather than behaviour related. The concept that some talk on some page at some point that I missed makes me complicit in some kind of anti-MF behaviour is unacceptable to me. This is a really bad start to the year, what a shame. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:24, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I hope it won't reflect on your year, because if it does, you're starting off the New Year taking things much too seriously-- there is nothing there that reflects on you. As I said, I'll wrap my head around a way to address it within the 500-word limit, but I'm finding that limit to be ... absurd ... for reasons like this one. TRM, sometimes chilling out and keeping a sense of perspective really isn't a bad thing :) Happy New Year. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:52, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Hopefully you understand that citing an uninvolved admin's inability or inactivity in a case of serious abuse going unobserved is a bad thing. Perhaps you have your own perspective on the whole Malleus thing, and perhaps it's not worth dragging unconcerned and uninvolved editors into it. Yes, perhaps I have lost my sense of humour, but being cited in front of Arbcom because I happen to have admitted to watching a talk page and then being passively accused of double standards means I've have well and truly lost faith in, well, at least you Sandy. Maybe I've missed a bigger point, having spent Christmas with family and friends. Maybe you could enlighten me. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:59, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, just in simple words, why am I cited on an Arbcom case that has nothing to do with me? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

You are cited for nothing more than being a talk-page watcher: why you presume more than that is a mystery, and why you won't wait for me to address the issue considering the 500-word limit is an irritation and a reflection that you are being extremely thin-skinned. Not to mention, seriously demotivating me to figure out a way to fix it on a page where I'm restricted to 500 words and I'm at that limit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

So your presumption is a talk page watcher sees everything and should act upon every edit? Many of us watch 1,000s of pages, we can't see the odd indiscretion. What's your problem here, you are aware that you can use more than 500 words on your talk page, or my talk page or any other page other than the Arbcom circus you've added your evidence to, surely? And as for "seriously demotivating", take the first message of 2012 to be "you're incidental" and a link to yet another waste of Wiki-space. Seriously, where did the content go? Your message has been the most demotivating thing I've encountered for years. Thin-skin or not. Seriously. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

TRM, Sandy has asked for time to figure out how to cram a whole bunch of stuff into 500 words. Why not give her some space, say for 24 hours? She's obviously aware of your concern. Give her some time to work on it without seeing orange bars everywhere (sorry Sandy for the orange bar :). We've got one whole new year to go, and every one of us works one screen at a time. Franamax (talk) 23:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

TRM, I would like to heartily invite you to absent yourself from this discussion until you can gather your senses. There is nothing so discouraging as contemplating all the work I do for FAC and FA writers, than to realize that some folks really only care about themselves, first and foremost, and can't see the big picture or wait a few hours for something to be addressed. This reminds me of what I said when I took a break after Hawkeye's comments during the Malleus block: I have no interest in working for people who act like this. As you misstated eslewhere, no, I am not nearly as upset about what is being done in Malleus's name as I am in realizing how many people here are entirely self-serving. You may go away now-- I've removed your name from the evidence page, so we have nothing further to discuss. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:21, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for removing my name as I had nothing to do with this unpleasantness. I have my senses fully gathered, in "technicolor" (tm) in a tall jar, just by the front door, next to the stuffed dog (of course, that's standard in the UK, I added a Santa hat for the festivities but that will have to go by the 6th). Hopefully the MF and TCO situation will work out, I will spend the time reviewing potentially featured material and doing the odd peer review. That's all I've done lately. You may note that from my contributions. I'm not a hostile editor, but when I get suddenly drawn into something as terrible and terrifying as a case against/for Malleus, I feel the right to defend myself. I'm not self-serving, holy crap, I've worked here for six years deliberately not to be self-serving. What good would that do me? Do I frequent AN? Do I hover around AN/I or or the other crap? No. I just get on with it and do content stuff. That's why I got the hump when I was seemingly accused of neglecting my duty as an admin. Anyway. It's 2012 now, and despite my first Wikipedia message being an Arbcom notification from you, I wish you, and the rest of the Wiki-verse a happy new year. Christ know's we need one. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:29, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

An alternate response to a routine notification of a non-issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:32, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm busy prepping stuff for the main page so perhaps you could just let this go now? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:52, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Franco-Mongol alliance

Hi SandyGeorgia, FYI, I have nominated Franco-Mongol alliance for FA status. Because of our past interactions, it is probably best though if you are not involved with the nom, thanks. Best wishes and Happy New Year, --Elonka 19:29, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

W. E. B. Du Bois: quick question for someone with good eyes

Sorry but my eyes suck - I can't see the difference between an emdash and an endash. Can you or a TPS scan this page to see whether the dashes are emdashes or endashes (they look like emdashes to me), and let me know so I can strike this very minor MoS issue. Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 23:56, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

From someone else with awful eyesight, here's a cheat:

- hyphen

– endash

— emdash

You can find them on the "Insert" line below your edit window. So, go to the article, in edit mode, edit copy one of those, then edit paste it to do a ctrl-f find on endashes, then another on emdashes, then another on hyphens. That way, even if your "eyes" can't see them, your computer will tell you which they are :) In this case, my preliminary look says we're good. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I use the insert line, but hadn't thought of find function. That's a good trick. Thanks. I always have trouble with them unless it's a page I've been working on myself. I'll get back to the review later. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

You can also go to your gadgets tab and enable wikEd, which puts a little blue "n" above every endash in the edit window, and a similar "m" above every emdash. I fixed a couple of minor problems in W. E. B. Du Bois and I think it's MOSDASH compliant now. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 09:46, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

FAS

Could you please check my update of Wikipedia:Featured article statistics from the 1st - I just worry if no one double checks it for any stupid mistakes I might have made. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:28, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Will do ... and thank you so much, once again, for getting to that before I did! Happy New Years, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks good-- not sure what we can do to get the FAR folk to archive at month-end, though, since that link is typically red. I've raised it before, so maybe they're not concerned. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:40, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. Geometry guy and I take care of the monthly PR maintenance, so I usually remember to do or at least look at the FAS update each month as well.

I asked on Dana Boomer's talk page about creating the FAR archive. I wonder if a bot could do it - if each FAR had a category added when it closed (kept or demoted) and the bot ran once a month. I might ask on Talk:FAR, and then see if CBM could add this to one of his bot's tasks... Thanks again, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:33, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for following up on that-- I historically kept my hands off, even when updating the FAS page, because Marskell was fond of creating the FAR archive himself. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I will wait and see what the response is to my request to make the Dec archive. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:02, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Greetings

To you as well, Sandy! [1] If there's ever a FAC genuinely in the lurch, drop me a message and I'll try to stop by. Эlcobbola _talk 18:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

No can do-- then you'll be accused of being one of my groupies by the very same people who claim I should do more to reach out-- nice Catch-22, huh? :) Wonderful to see your face now and then, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:34, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Not being in your seat, I have the luxury of disregarding the opinions of those so woefully devoid of intelligence. :) Эlcobbola _talk 18:44, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

There are many kinds of intelligence-- foxes are sly and clever, for example! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The many varieties of intelligence are dwarfed by the infinite diversity of stupidity. MastCell ^Talk 18:49, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I doubt that Yoman can trump that for top billing! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, he has, the darn adorable one! [2] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

You Americans will forever remain a mystery to me, but I just popped in to say that "fox" where I live has two meanings, the most common of which is a sexy lady. There's a kind of dog-like animal called a fox as well I believe, but they're far rarer. Malleus Fatuorum 05:11, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Sadly where I live the animals are far more common, shitting in the garden every night. But I believe the ladies are an American usage originally. Johnbod (talk) 05:14, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

You want a mystery? LeadSongDog come howl! 05:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

FAC's and stuff

About what I said on the FAC talk page, I hope I didn't offend you at all. You really are doing a wonderful job, and don't often get enough credit. I was wondering, is there anything else I should do for Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Typhoon Gay (1992)/archive1? --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:27, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Me too hopes I didn't offend; it would be unfair to add to your stress level with so much poop flying in every direction. From what I saw of other processes that had such a poor track record of resolution, whenever people are yelling about something, it's best to get that off the table first before discussing more productive things. I will, of course, be supporting Raul, Ucucha and you in your roles. - Dank (push to talk) 17:56, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

From someone who does a lion's share of the work at FAC (along with a few others), that's appreciated! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:58, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks H and D. Hurricanehink, I don't think there's anything else you need to do on that FAC now—it looks like it's nearing the finish line. Ucucha (talk) 18:17, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Ucucha, I've finished reviewing the "older nominations", am breaking for lunch, and can continue 'above the line' after lunch, unless you want to take those on? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:19, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Not today, but I can look through those tomorrow. Ucucha (talk) 18:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I should be able to get through some of them today-- I'm prioritizing working from the oldest, since the rash of new reviews has meant there's a lot to read. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:22, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:Featured article candidates/Boeing 767/archive1

Spotchecks completed, ready for takeoff! Sasata (talk) 17:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Sasata, and thanks for all you do-- I need lunch and will resume after I've had nourishment! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Asperger Syndrome problem

The discussion I started [3] is out of control. I feel IP 96.49.3.223 has crossed the line. I'm making a call to action to stop this IP from personal attacks against people with AS. That is what IP is doing and it is insulting as hell. Please address this at the talk page or feel free to visit my talk.--Djathinkimacowboy ^BUCKSHOT 12:45, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I see that Colin has addressed your concern. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:52, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Question

is the use of the "alt" tag still a considered a good practice on images? — Ched :  ?  16:34, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I stopped following the discussions after it was removed from the FA criteria, so I'll give my opinion only, FWIW. Yes-- it helps those who use screen readers, but requiring it at FAC was placing a large burden on editors, because writing good alt text is an art and a science. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:36, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Sandy ... I did a couple cause I remembered it from times past. I never got into the political FA, GA stuff much - just read those things so I could do better on the articles that I worked on here. I guess I won't go revert myself if it doesn't hurt anything then. Thanks for taking the time to reply - it is appreciated (like so much that you do here). Cheers. :) — Ched :  ?  17:06, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

It all fell off when some pro came on & said we were doing it entirely the wrong way, & Eubulides dropped out. That's my recollection anyway. I don't think it was ever settled what sort of info should be given subsequently. Johnbod (talk) 19:00, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't say for certain, since the loss of Eubulides (on medical articles) was a huge loss for Wikipedia, so I lost track of exactly what caused it, never heard a peep from Eubulides again, but suspect that the alt-text issue may have been part of him leaving. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:05, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Yogo reshoot

Your attention is requested here: Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Reshoot_of_Yogo_sapphires. PumpkinSky talk 23:24, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Wikiquette Assistance discussion

Hello, SandyGeorgia. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lumastan (talk • contribs) 03:41, January 9, 2012‎

You're going to need to supply some diffs there, Christiano, to back up your (wrong) assetions, and yes, you're very welcome for trying to help guide you. I'm afraid if you don't speak English well enough to understand what is being written to you, you're going to have a rough ride here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:49, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I speak perfect English, thank you very much, and I can see what is being written to me, and I can see it is insulting! Cristiano Tomás (talk) 04:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I prefer not to think of it as a comprehension issue, or selectively picking out certain words and taking them out of context, because that would not assume good faith. By the way, you should supply diffs to back your assertions at WQA, and this is the diff you're looking for. I'm sure you're familiar with the use of "if" at the beginning of clauses, and that taking one small portion of a quote out of context can lead to misunderstanding, in fact, it might even be considered deceptive? But you're welcome for pointing you to a forum that might help resolve the issues occurring on the Portuguese articles. While we're on the subject of rudeness, which is a cultural concept, on the Internet, hollering at others in bold letters is rude, and on Wikipedia, having a sig that differs substantially from your user name is rude and irritating too. Hope this helps, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I was following you until my username, How is my signature and its pertinence to my user name rude? I would love to hear your explanation for that :) thank you, Cristiano Tomás (talk) 04:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, look at my sig for example. When you want to communicate with me, or when you see a post from me, you know that I am User:SandyGeorgia, that's what my sig shows, you don't have to figure out if I'm editor Whatchamacallit, Fulanodetal, or Hijodeputa. I'm SandyGeorgia, as in my sig, and that's how you can find my talk page, and recognize me in edit summaries. You are User:Lumastan but your signature is Cristiano Tomás. I know you as Christiano, but your edit summaries show as Lumastan, and some of us old farts have limited brain cells for stroring extraneous random and useless data. What that means in practice is that when people see your signature in a discussion, they have to dig around to figure out who the editor behind the sig is, they might not remember your editor name and have to go look it up when they want to talk to you ... and so on. On Wikipedia, it's an irritating factor. Of course, we're all free to irritate others here if we wish ... it seems to be the most popular pasttime of some editors, in fact. I hope you've added that diff to WP:WQA, because you won't get much feedback if you don't give an example via a diff of how terribly rude I've been to you. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Seems like a Kobayashi Maru type scenario to me SG. I don't really think there is anything to say. But I'll try. Prodego ^talk 05:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Prodego but, but ... that won't help. Look, I know dealing with these issues-- especially when there are cultural differences and language barriers-- is exhausting, there's a good chance nothing can be done (having seen one or two of these before), but Christiano seems legitimately confused, trying to figure out where to get what he perceives as a problem looked at, was sent to WQA and from ANI, and just dumping the whole thing is bound to be demotivating. Now, I know he asked for it to be removed, but sheesh-- will this help turn any of that crowd into better and more productive editors? They've been editing around Lecen, so have I, I know what he's like, and when editors are new, they're influenced by what they see. I don't think he'll listen to me-- could others try to explain to Christiano what the problems there are and how to proceed? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I thought that removing that section (especially since it was requested) and engaging more personally on the user's talk page might increase the chances of an outcome he finds favorable. Prodego ^talk 05:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see, caught in multiple edit conflicts-- yes, dealing with it on editor talk may help, if you can keep out the peanut gallery and the one who did the misrepresenting to begin with long enough to have a real conversation. I thought you were just removing it, as in "done"! There's a lot going on there, going way back including two threads at ANI. Good luck. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Congratz! You won. You have insulted me and my lack of knowledg on effectively opening some sort of come back has left me wasted. It is a true shame that no one will see the true you. You have not come out right, but do not think I did not sense the tone of your messages towards me, and quite frankly, I dont care anymore. If I may speak freely, you are ill-mannered and rude, and if I may not speak freely, go a head and report me, you have effectively made me lose interest in trying to help wikipedia. I hope you feel some sort of satisfaction, else everything would have been in vain. I hope you do see the error of your ways and start behaving a bit more civilly, but I guess you dont care how you come off to others. Well, have a nice day and I am sorry for having had bothered you with my "complaints". Cristiano Tomás (talk) 05:19, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

After two edit conflicts, trying to post my response to Prodego when I saw the WQA removed at your request after I asked for help for you there. The tone of my message is from someone who was accused of rudeness by you because you followed Lecen's (mis)interpretation of my posts, and who is now upset at me even after I entered a plea for you at WQA. I guess Prodego was right-- no way to deal with this except remove it, as you requested. If you see it differently in the light of a new day, please do feel welcome to come here and calmly discuss with me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Signpost

Hey Sandy, I took the liberty of expanding the SP's coverage of the recent kerfuffle over at FAC, as I didn't think TCO's failed RfC deserved half the coverage, with your resignation getting the other half. Would you take a look and ensure I haven't misrepresented your views in any way, shape, or form? I think I have them all correct, but I'd rather address any issues before publication. I don't normally write for the SP but I assume it's a bit easier beforehand. ;-) The link is here. Thanks, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey, now that is one of the most clever indirect attacks I have ever seen on Wikipedia, and as you can imagine, I've seen some pretty good ones in my time. I see that was written well before you came along-- you tried, but you might want to remove your name from that byline, since the piece is one fine indirect slam. Do ya think they might find a picture of a rocking chair for my retirement? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:51, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Erm. That's not what I was hoping to hear. ;-) The resignation paragraph is mostly the same as before, but I rewrote everything else. Is there an issue with what I wrote? I'll tweak the resignation paragraph now. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:36, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Is this more accurate? [4] Rereading what you said above, I hope that wasn't directed at me, as you know I go to great pains to not attack people... (it just causes drama and insanity and is really not worth my time, sigh) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry Ed, it's not you. Those who did what they did did it very well, so if'n I were you, I'd take my name off and walk away. It's a masterpiece, but not the kind you should have your name associated with. You tangle with the DYK regulars and The Signpost-- they get the final word. That's life, that's the press, that's the Internet, that's Wikipedia, and that's The Signpost. We all sign on for this when we volunteer our free labor. Carry on :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

If it gets severely modified from its current state, I'll take my name off, but if it stays the same and accurate, there's no harm in it. Maybe my name will become a synonym for accuracy there! (ha) Anyway. I need sleep, if you couldn't tell by the mild rambling here. I'll be back on tomorrow. If you get bored and want a respite from all the clamor of WT:FAC/ANI/etc, there's always FACs to review (shameless self-promotion, of course!) Peace, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Sounds just up my alley. If The Signpost hasn't buried me out to sea, put me in the nursing home, or put up a tombstone across my talk page before I get to it, I may just review that one! Of course, you're assuming the sun will rise after it sets. G'night. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:10, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

.... just realized what your issue was with the SP article. That's fixed now. Sorry for being blind! Night. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Nothing to be sorry for ... wasn't you. And a lot can happen between now and when it goes to press. Hey, we can have a contest: find SandyGeorgia's best edit to a FAC review from 2005. G'night! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:22, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Condolences; you'll be missed. --GRuban (talk) 14:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Heh, okay, so you didn't start editing until 2006. You also didn't become a delegate in 2008, but 2007. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The 2005 was most funny, since I wasn't even a registered user then, but I wouldn't worry about the 2008 vs 2007-- what actually happened was that I was slow to take up delegate duties as I took an unfortunate tour through ArbCom, thanks to a now-cracked cabal :) I didn't really start work til 2008, so that part is fine. I see everything is fixed now-- thanks Ed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:12, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

That sounds ... entertaining. I thought Karanacs' resignation was not announced until a few days ago? She's still listed as a delegate on the FAC page, incidentally. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:53, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

And there's no need to remove her name in the midst of this-- who knows, maybe we can convince her to stay on until those who want to conduct 85,000 RFCs so they can get less FAs written by alienating FA writers are done doing their thing. Anyway, there is a statement on User talk:Karanacs and there is a statement from Raul on WT:FAC-- Karanacs resigned a month ago, Raul delayed accepting her resignation. There was no problem as Ucucha and I were able to keep up. Please do not conflate her resignation with what is going on at FAC, as it creates a false impression, on top of the false impression that is already given there about my resignation, which is that I had also planned to resign anyway and realized it wouldn't be fair to let an RFC run, and then announce that. And that is in my statement, and yet, this piece conflates issues to create ... bias and journalistic sensationalism, which is what I've come to expect from the signpost. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Gotcha. I'll remove it then, as it's outside the purpose of this article, though I'll probably keep it in the resignation paragraph. I've rewritten the whole thing now, so if there's bias and sensationalism, it's both unintentional and my fault. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't think it's your fault. Why has Tony1-- who knows FAC-- turned the writing of this over to Crisco 1492-- who doesn't, and who has had run-ins with me at DYK? And why is Wehwalt-- about whom there is a campaign for the directorship-- editing the piece? Is there any leadership at The Signpost? And why aren't diffs given to statements so readers can judge for themselves? If you make a statement about what Raul said or thinks or did-- link it! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:43, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You forget that I'm not a SP regular and can't answer that question! I've been watching Wehwalt's edits and will keep a close eye on it, don't worry. I'm not going to let a particular person's POV in. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:22, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I didn't-- that's why I said it's not your fault ... I know you're trying to do your best, but really, when the postulants are in there editing, so should be The Signpost regulars, and they should be reading diffs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:25, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Things like this [5] really do make me think that it's about time that someone started an RfC on the Signpost and its role on Wikipedia. Before it ends up in an AbrCom case. It's becoming more and more of a forum for particular editors to pursue grudges, has de facto abandoned any pretense of journalistic objectivity while still trying to maintain an image of impartiality and has ... generally gone to the dogs. It's been getting worse and worse. Part of the problem is just plain ol' lack of competition (it's the only Wikipedia "newspaper") and part of it is just the regular Wikipedia phenomenon that "that which is not actively defended and improved depreciates towards crap over time".VolunteerMarek 02:19, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

There are other newspapers, like Milhist's Bugle, but they aren't 'national' papers. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:22, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes Marek-- and I can say (and provide diffs) that I have been complaining-- vociferously-- about that FOR YEARS, so it's not just now when the bias affects me. Yes, there should be an RFC. The Signpost is regularly used to push POV (first noticed it with ArbCom bashing during the Marskell desysopping), and I just scream every time they try to claim real world journalistic standards or principles. For gosh sakes, this is not the real world, it's the f'ing internet, and we're all just paid volunteers, and anyone can edit and put in their POV. Tony1 has just bowed out, and he's the only one in there who can write this piece correctly. But they want to claim professional journalistic standards. Right. I'll help you with an RFC if you want, but it certainly has to be after this kerfuffle. The Signpost should have been shut down after Ral315 and Ragesoss left-- it's been a wreck ever since. And thank you for noticing how utterly offensive that page was to me, since few "get it". I resign so I can go back to regular editing, and they put the sun down on me? Lovely-- get my rocking chair and tombstone now. Send denture paste. You're welcome very much. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:34, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah but that's project specific which is probably what saves it from being taken over by folks with an agenda. Personally I think that while Malleus is voluntarily away from his usual editing he should devote his energies to starting his own "national" paper to compete with the Signpost. It'll be subjective and represent his line on things, but at least those things will be straight up out there.VolunteerMarek 02:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• Regarding the draft, it was not meant as even a remote dig at you; I tried to write as neutrally as possible to avoid any accusations of "holding a grudge". As for the picture, it was meant solely as a tribute, not as a way of implying that you'd passed away. We may not see eye-to-eye, especially regarding the purpose and practices of DYK, and we definitely got off on the wrong foot, but I don't have a grudge against you and I'd be a fool to belittle your contributions to the encyclopedia, especially after seeing how much work it is to bring an article to GA or FA class.

As for the Signpost, Tony did not hand me the mantle; I picked it up and ran with it, and with positive feedback from both Tony and other editors (both within and without the newspaper), I feel fairly pleased to be contributing in a less-recognized area of Wikipedia. I've tried to bring something different to the table (and hopefully can do something entirely new this week). Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for coming over here and letting me know that, Crisco; it's appreciated. What troubled me much more was that someone who knows me, my editing, and FAC quite well-- Tony1-- made an edit summary commending the choice of picture and the notion that the "sun had set on me" without any apparent recognition of how dismissive and offensive that would be to an unpaid volunteer who resigned to continue editing content. It was insensitive at least, and quite surprising to me, following on his other words about my tenure at FAC posted to WT:FAC. I haven't looked at what eventually ran in the SP today, but the last time I looked (yesterday), I did see that you had made a good effort to clean up what was there, and thank you for that. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:30, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you for the kind words. I must admit I was surprised when you took it as a dig at you, since I did not mean it that way; we coincidentally had a new featured picture of a sunset, which for ages has symbolized the end of a period or era, and to try and avoid connotations with death, I used "for" instead of "on" in the title. Anyhow, I think Ed's version is great and more in-depth; kudos to him. Also, I'm sorry for our past arguments, and hope you won't hold them against me. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:20, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

FC report

Sandy, I got an e.c. with The ed; in any case, I've got to close down my puter and take it back to the techs for the third time in four days, so it's not a good time for me. Please liaise with The ed if you think the story is not balanced after he has finished. Tony (talk) 02:12, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

ANI thread

Hey Sandy - don't drive yourself crazy over the ANI thread. Go get a good night's sleep, spend tomorrow doing something relaxing, and come back in a couple days feeling better. Raul654 (talk) 06:39, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Somebody I've never heard of just said he's going to block me and Wehwalt-- let it be known that if he does that, I do NOT want anyone to unblock. The block would be without consensus, and it will go to ArbCom, so let it stand, no wheel warring. Thanks, Raul, for the kind words; I'll take your advice, because this is "batshit crazy" to quote someone else :) Time off. By the way, I cleaned up the FAC archives. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Well played.

[6] Lara 04:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Access dates on book citations

Are access dates mandatory for book citations with a URL? The article in question is Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. Thanks. Albacore (talk) 21:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

No. In fact, when the URL is Google Books, I tend to advise against them. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Any particular reason why? Albacore (talk) 03:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Many. Retrieval dates are preferred by some style guides for sources which lack publication/update date (mostly websites), which would not apply to books. In fact, even where such guides allow for convenience links, they tend to avoid suggesting access dates for books. Google Books URLs cannot be properly archived, so retrieval dates are not helpful for that purpose, and GBooks pages tend not to change over time anyways. Theoretically, GBooks pages, like printed book pages, are static (though in practice that isn't true, but retrieval dates would not help with this anyways). They are not recommended by WP:CITE, though for whatever reason the citation templates allow for them. Finally, and more subjectively, they just look weird in book cites. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:05, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Civility (again)

SandyGeorgia, you know that with edit summaries like this you are just giving me more diffs, right?[7] --Elonka 01:59, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Elonka, you seriously need to stop trolling my talk page and harassing me ... that edit summary MOST clearly refers to myself, as anyone can tell you who follows my edits, and I OFTEN say it about myself. [8] STOP the harassment-- it's boring as heck. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:01, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, could you please just try to disengage? There's no reason that you needed to jump into the discussion I'm having with Nev1. Best would be to just stay out of it, please? --Elonka 02:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Stop The Harassment, Elonka. It's not that hard-- I'm sure you can do it. I most certainly will respond on an arb case when you've done the same thing to me two lines above doing it to Nev1. Have you not noticed that every time you come to my talk page, others correct your egregious behaviors, yet you continue to harass me, and every time you come here, it's with false accusations? And every time I tell you the same thing-- do not come back here unless you can come back with good faith. And I notice you didn't strike your false allegation above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:28, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, to be clear, the only times I come to your talkpage are to diff the fact that you are complaining about me on yet another page around the project. If you want me to stay away, it's pretty simple, please stop commenting about me, please stop jumping into conversations that have nothing to do with you. Please just disengage, thanks. --Elonka 02:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

The only time you come to my talk page is with false accusations that you never remove (including that your assertions wrt Nev1 had nothing to do with me, since you did the same to me), no matter how many people correct you while you're here. I will ask you for the final time to remove or strike the false assertion about me above-- which is the gazillionth time you've done this on my talk page since your disagreement with Jbmurray (talk · contribs) and Tony1 (talk · contribs) after they opposed your prose on the Dirty Dancing FAC. One sample, it went on all over the place, then Elonka deleted it all, but never let go. If you post here again, without striking the latest in your long string of false assertions about me, your posts will be removed. Come here in good faith, exactly as I explained to you last time you did this, or stay away. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Elonka, you are painting yourself in a very poor light here. Instead of having the grace to say "oh, sorry I misunderstood" when Sandy explained the self reference, you ignored her response and moved on to to the next accusation. I encourage you to think seriously about modeling the behavior you hope to encourage. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:56, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

When you frequenlty find yourself in positions such as 1 out of 164, and people are tying to ask you to Just Stop, that might tell you (Elonka) that letting go and trying to remember that not everything is always about you all the time might be in order. I am not your perpetual punching bag because two of Wikipedia's finest copy editors opposed your FAC. For gosh sakes, let go, and try to AGF when you read an edit summary that I use frequently as self-deprecation, as I have most clearly indicated to you above. An apology might work every now and then, too. You do this regularly, e.g.; User talk:SandyGeorgia/arch83#Revert. Please review Wikipedia policies that you should be familiar with by now, and if you are unable to AGF, then stay off of my talk. AGF posts are welcome. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Elonka, take a suggestion from a TPS: just stop it. You should have assumed good faith and accepted Sandy's explanation of her edit summary. You should have done that, and dropped this. Imzadi 1979 → 04:00, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Mischaracterizations abound: the "discussion Elonka is having with Nev1" is a discussion Nev1 initiated about Elonka's representations on an Arb Case, and she did the same to me on the same page. For Elonka to think I shouldn't engage on that shows ... a mindset I'm not accustomed to. At any rate, until such time as Elonka reviews and understands WP:AGF and refrains from false accusations on my talk, I will remove her posts. I've showed her in the past how to approach other editors with good faith and asking for clarification, but it doesn't seem to sink in. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:35, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Franco-Mongol alliance (2)

Hi Sandy, you may not have noticed, but I asked you a couple weeks ago, very nicely I thought, to please avoid my FMA FAC, so I was a bit surprised to see you suddenly start participating there today. It's really probably best if we both try to disengage from interacting with each other, thanks. --Elonka 22:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

You have been uninvited to continue assumptions of bad faith on my talk page, but because this is a FAC-related query, I will entertain it even though the assumptions of bad faith continue. First, you're welcome for the helpful feedback [9] (and edits [10]) on the FAC. Second, please justify "suddenly" considering my daily five-hour run-through of FAC.[11] Third, if you make any further failures to assume good faith in any of your responses, they will be removed. Think carefully now-- AGF is policy here, and most of us really don't find it that hard. And by the way, since you haven't engaged a single response from me, it doesn't appear that you are making any attempt to resolve anything regarding your behaviors on this page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:25, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

When I heard that you were stepping down as delegate, I debated whether or not to post a positive comment on your talkpage, thanking you for your service. I chose not to, but I would like to remedy that now. SandyGeorgia, thank you for all the work that you do on FA articles. I have long been impressed with your dedication to this part of the project, and the amount of time that you volunteer to this endeavor. In no way am I trying to say that you should stop reviewing FAs. My only request is that, in order to minimize disruption to the project, that perhaps it would be best if we disengaged from interacting, and allowed some other delegate to deal with the FMA FAC. Thanks for your time, --Elonka 22:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Why thank you, your social graces are improving! Now, to FAC business: my query is something in your (and the article's) best interest, to avoid future disruption or misunderstanding based on the article name. This would, then, be the best time for you to ask if I plan to promote or archive the FAC, and I can respond with either "I wouldn't dream of it" or "It's what I live for". The answer is, I raised the one question I had wrt that FAC, I'm done there, "I wouldn't dream of it", I don't need to be told the obvious, but it is neither in your interest nor in the article's best interest to stifle helpful commentary. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

We seem to be witnessing the development of a new tactic: you're not allowed to review Elonka's articles and I'm not allowed to review Lecen's articles. Interesting. Malleus Fatuorum 00:30, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't say if we're "witnessing the development of [that] tactic", but I will not quietly let FAC be compromised thusly. All commentary is worthy of consideration, and delgates can weigh whether commentary is valid or actionable, and whether personal "grudges" are being brought to bear on the FAC. I don't think Elonka can claim in any way, shape or form that I repaid the kindness of her attentions in my commentary on that FAC, but I will not quietly acquiesce to censorship of FAC reviews. I am not saying this was Elonka's intent, but it most certainly could be the outcome if such things occur. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Similarly, Lecen can dream on. Malleus Fatuorum 01:00, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Turning Point (2008)/archive4

I have responded to your issues at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Turning Point (2008)/archive4.--WillC 23:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Autism Not a forum reply

The reply I gave on the talk page I am a little uneasy with. While I wanted to alert the user concerning the Talk page not being a forum, I also felt it inadequate to only reply with 'not a forum' and that there should be at least a brief answer to his question to end the thread with. I gave a brief answer, but I feel it is overly simplified (I'm not too comfortable with giving incomplete answers that might lead to a false impression). The other thing I was uneasy with was giving an answer rather than just 'not a forum' (so I'm generally conflicted on my reply in whole). My question is did I — in your opinion — reply in a proper WP way, or should I have answered that differently. Your thoughts/criticism/recommendations greatly appreciated. — al-Shimoni (talk) 00:14, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

That is a constant dilemma on talk pages such as that one, and that you asked shows that you are striving to be the best editor you can be. In this particular case, it appears to be that editor's first post to that talk page, so I might not have referenced NOTAFORUM just yet-- that's not intended as criticism of you, since editors with an agenda on those talk pages (autism, asperger's etc) crank up so quickly into SOAPBOXING that it can be very hard to know when to give up. But that editor is fairly new, and it was his/her first post there, so that part of your response may have been premature. All of those talk pages desperately need FAQs so we can just refer those with that never ending line of questioning to the FAQ, but in an environment of declining editorship, who can find the time to write an FAQ ... Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Image Gallery in Giraffe

Is there really a problem with the image gallery? A user has revered it back feeling that it fits WP:IG. LittleJerry (talk) 11:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The user was me ;-) I just saw the gallery, which I sometimes have used as fast reference material when I'm in a forgetful mood, had been removed without any edit summary. Quoting WP:IG:

• may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images – gallery with all giraffe subspecies side by side, showing their differences in patterns
• the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject –
• the gallery should be suitably captioned to explain their relevance – each subspecies named in gallery
• the gallery should be appropriately titled – the theme of the gallery should be clear from the context. It's in a subsection called 'Subspecies', just below a text description of the subspecies. If someones believe it isn't clear enough, a gallery title can easily be added.

I'd be interested in knowing if anyone disagree with the above assessment and if so, why? (the G. c. camelopardalis photo perhaps isn't optimal for subspecies comparison but the others are fine.) –RN1970 (talk) 12:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Image galleries are typically discouraged, but that's a matter for reviewer consensus, and discussion belongs on the FAC, not on my talk page. IMO, image galleries are sometimes appropriate-- for instance, in an article about a painting or a series of paintings or where the images are what the article is about. That is precisely what "may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images" speaks to, and is not the case for giraffe. In this case, IMO, it's just adornment, adds nothing to the article (don't we all know what giraffes look like), and accomplishes nothing that can't be seen in the Commons category. They also set up issues as occurred at the Lion FA, where everyone and their brother wants to add their favorite picture. We aren't a picture book, we're an encyclopedia, and images should be carefully selected to display our best work, not a picture book. The text is cluttered with pictures, and text is squeezed where it is sandwiched between images (and that's against MOS). But that's just my opinion, as one editor, and consensus is formed where the discussion of that belongs-- on the FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Forgot something?

FYI, I saw this and this, but Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr./archive1 has no {{FACClosed|promoted}} tag, so it's still technically open? :) María (yllosubmarine) 15:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Maria ... I'm not sure where the notion that the template had to be used crept in, but this is the diff that defines whether an article is featured (if a delegate omits any other step, that's still the determining one). I add the FACClosed template often, but not always-- mostly when there may be some confusion, which there wasn't in this case. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Sorry for the presumption -- I thought the template was needed in order for an article to be recognized by the bot. If nothing else, it's useful for the nominators/commenters who don't watch WP:FAC or WP:FA. María (yllosubmarine) 16:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

No, actually this is what triggers Gimmetrow to activate the bot. There was a time when I promoted daily, but for more efficient bot processing and coordination of schedules between Karanacs and me, for a while we switched to bi-weekly promotions. The bot then was run on Tuesdays and Saturdays, which meant that if we withdrew or closed a nom on Wednesday, the bot wouldn't go through for four more days-- so that template came about when delays in bot processing were expected. That's no longer the case-- with the extreme lack of reviews at FAC, and the growing backlog due to lack of reviews, we're now promoting pretty much whenever we can, and the bot goes through fairly quickly. I could still add the template, and I do whenever I'm concerned in a contentious FAC that it might not be clear, but that's the history. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Sandy! Very interesting to get a sneak peek into the delegate process. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to try and drum up some attention on my lonely FAC before Wikipedia goes black. Sigh. María (yllosubmarine) 00:06, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I always add the template—it makes it clear to people watching the FAC and not WP:FA or the monthly log that the FAC is closed and what its result is. Ucucha (talk) 00:37, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

FAC ping

Hi Sandy, I've finished reviewing here and am pinging as requested. Cheers, Sasata (talk) 17:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm just catching up, and will see how far I can get today before that dumb-ass SOPA thing happens. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

"Technical" reviews

Hi Sandy. Just wanted to let you know that I've done a few "technical" reviews of the longer-running FACs, found a surprising number of issues. Anyway, if you wanted me to focus on any FAC in particular when reviewing against MOS etc (in particular articles which incorporate lists, such as highway or wrestling articles) then don't hesitate to ping me. Naturally, I'm a bit of an impostor at FAC so if my intrusions are unwelcome (I'm sure some of the comments will be unpalatable, but hey) then let me know, but hopefully I'm net-gaining the project. All the best. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I've noticed (and appreciated); typically, lately, it's fallen to me to pick up all of that sort of thing, and I can't get it all. There is so much needed every where I look, that I can't ask you to focus on any particular one-- maybe just start at the bottom whenever you have a moment, since some of them have been up for months. Thanks again, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:28, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries, that's kind-of where I started. As I said, I'm sure some of the ideas we take very seriously at FLC seem to be completely overlooked at FAC (and no doubt, vice versa), so if I ruffle a few feathers, my apologies in advance. I'll report the facts and move on, with my recently received thicker skin ;) The Rambling Man (talk) 21:30, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

You are invited to Stanford's WikiProject!

As a current or past contributor to a related article, I thought I'd let you know about WikiProject Stanford University, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Stanford University. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks and related articles. Thanks!

ralphamale (talk) 22:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Who spilled the beans? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:17, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Must be my fault, Sandy, for when you helped me with MemChu. I got the same notice! ;) Christine (talk) 17:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Mattisse must be climbing the walls

[12]. Anyone got a shilling for the meter? Malleus Fatuorum 23:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I was musing the same thing, maybe the thread shorted out the website when there were too many posts from the one user. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Is there any particular reason to pay attention to Wikipedia Review of late? --Moni3 (talk) 23:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's where you can find out if my dog died, my basement flooded, or I ran out of synthroid. It's the SandyGeorgia OC support group. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and apparently you've been having some problems with your kitchen. Malleus Fatuorum 23:29, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

It's all done, and gorgeous ... I shall send you pics sometime. The dog, however, is still very dead. And the steam shower door seal isn't working. There, all the news that's fit to print! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:31, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I suppose that might depend on whether or not you were up for one of their "Dick of Distinction" awards. I thought I might be in in with a chance for the "Miss Incongeniality" award, but ... Malleus Fatuorum 23:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I just wish some of the Dicks were Distinct. Or Distinguished. Or something worthy of all the fine attention a good dick deserves. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:31, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Remember, Somey and co never owned WR - the domain was always owned by "Selina Kyle", who hasn't shown the slightest interest for months. I'm surprised nobody's yet hijacked the name.

I just stood in a line behind Sue Gardiner today. She looks much smaller IRL than on TV. 173.164.243.154 (talk) 06:40, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

• their own way of protesting SOPA? — Ched :  ?  23:24, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

• Well, aren't we fresh? Did I invite you here? Don't we have some things to talk about? [13] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

• I see your partner in that venture has good sense. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:18, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

OK

I'd be more than happy to talk Sandy. I'll even offer an apology if you're willing to accept it. I never meant to hurt anyone's feelings. I never meant to "taunt" .. I was only trying to stop the fighting. Now if you want to chew me out for that - then feel free. If you want me to never again post to your page, then I'll honor that request as well. go ahead. — Ched :  ?  00:28, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not really about feelings, is it, Ched? If you think it is, I'm worried about why you have the tools. It is-- and always has been (ref Malleus case)-- about admin abuse of regular editors, and the failure of ANI to let discussions run until conclusions can be reached-- hence escalation of problems to ArbCom that should have been addressed at ANI. Anyway, sure, let's talk after the SOPA blackout-- that is, if any of us still dare show our faces in here after That Stupid and Embarassing Stunt. I don't want to start a discussion now, when we're about to get cut off, and I want to make one more review of FAC in the remaining hours. Stupid, stupid, stupid SOPA blackout-- embarassed to be part of this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:31, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd be glad to Sandy, and thank you for being so gracious. Talk to you soon. — Ched :  ?  00:36, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Welcome back Sandy - while I agree that the whole blackout thing was stupid, I hope you had a good day anyway. Also, I didn't notice at first, but that "Kill 'em all" graphic was good ... I tip my hat to ya on that one. Anyway, I'm not sure about the "feelings" part. While I agree that it's bad to act only on feelings, I think we are always better if we try to consider that there are real people on the other end of each post. Yes, we want folks to write and act in a dispassionate way, but I think it's important to remember they are people. Now, to what I think the whole crux of the issue is. Did I abuse anyone? I would like to think not. I tried to take all sides and treat them equally. I didn't pick a side. I also didn't block anyone. I tried to calm things down and reduce disruption; at least that was my intent. If I failed at that, then I do apologize. I won't pretend that I'm completely oblivious to the issues at FA stuff, but I also won't pretend that I know exactly what's going on either. I know there are issues in regards to the whole director thing, but not being a FA writer, I'm probably lacking some particulars there. Yes, I agree that TCO has said some pretty crude and uncouth things; and I also noticed in the ANI thread that he admitted that it was wrong. I simply didn't see the thread as getting anywhere other than going in circles. I wasn't trying to stifle anything, I just didn't see any consensus or resolution coming out of it, rather it just seemed (to me) to be an escalating back and forth. I know that all parties involved are great writers, and it's not a good thing to have our best people at each other's throats. (IMHO). I didn't mean to rattle on like this, so I'll just say that you are an incredibly talented and gifted writer that I admire tremendously; and if anything, I feel intimidated by you. I'll shut up now and let you talk. (I'll be in and out for the rest of today and tonight, but will try to respond to anything when possible). Oh, and yes, I'm aware of the AC case, and I actually agree with Malleus on the entire issue. ... but I'm getting started again .. sorry .. your turn. — Ched :  ?  17:44, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I always have good days; it's just the stupid internet, remember, where anyone can say anything and you get what you pay for :) It's unfortunate that unpaid volunteers were used to violate neutrality and make a point, more disturbing still were the numerous statements parroted by the press from Jimbo and Sue to the effect that we don't host copyright infringement, when we in fact host amounts that we will never be able to deal with, even if we wanted to, and most don't want to. Perhaps someone with some money will commission a study of the contributions from those at the top of Wikipedia's list of most prolific DYK contributors and have a look at how many articles listed for copyright investigation have gone unaddressed for how long. Three years since I rounded up a team to write "Let's get serious about plagiarism"-- no change except the loss of some fine FA writers who gave up in disgust. One place on Wikipedia took a serious stance on copyvio following the Halloween 2010 debacle-- Featured article candidates-- and those who want "quantity over quality" (easier FAs) will have its neck for that, with cries that standards increased and FAs aren't growing fast enough. But, again, it's the internet, anyone can say anything and be anything, and we all knew we could be used as unpaid volunteers when we signed on.

So, back on topic. There's a lot to talk about here, so rather than dig in to the beginning and answer each of your questions (yes, I do think you abused of someone, but that's water under the bridge, so let's try to work backwards to some sort of understanding) and all that is wrong with ANI and how it doesn't typically do anything helpful, often escalates disputes, I'll instead start at the end, where you said you "just wanted the fighting to stop". You admit you know little of FAC, and yet several times during the discussion, you made statements critical of FAC like "No wonder people stay away". Do you think it fair to make statements like that about a place you know little of, and without knowing who is agitating, creating the impression of a leadership crisis, creating and fomenting the discord, alienating FA writers and reviewers alike, and for what purpose? Or let me put it this way ... have you given any thought to just who might be benefiting from making it look like there are problems at FAC? Hint: consider who is looking for someone else's "job" compared to who resigned so they could get back to editing. Who doesn't want the fighting to stop? If you can answer that, you might understand why ANI never resolves disputes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

You make an excellent point, and one I was going to get around to mentioning. On one hand, when I see our top editors bickering, then yes, I don't want to jump into that particular area (meaning FA). I'll also add that the best writers should be the best communicators, and so should be able to work through disagreements with the least amount of drama. NOW - the thought did occur to me, when I first saw a "pole" for choosing/voting/electing (whatever) someone as director - (currently Raul if I'm correct); then yes, I thought it was a good idea to let one of the others share the position as well. NOW comes the part that really threw me ... resoundingly, the people who would most benefit from rotating the workload (the FA reviews and delegates etc.) seemed to support the status quo. I was really shocked. I would have though that you, or Malleus, etc. would have wanted to have that position - but when so many folks that do the leg-work jump up and say they want to keep Raul where he is ... well, I admit - it said a LOT. OK .. now let me ask. What do you think would have been different if I had never posted to that ANI thread? What could I have done to make things better? Granted; I was working outside the box, and tried something a bit unheard of (but I thought it was worth a try). How do you think this can all be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, or as close to that as possible? — Ched :  ?  01:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'll bite. Ched, you still don't seem to grasp that what you're seeing isn't an internal dispute, but an attempted putsch; look at who is agitating for change, and consider why (with reference to their histories). Until you understand the internal dynamic in which you're interfering, any intervention is just going to irritate those who've made the effort to understand. 173.164.243.154 (talk) 01:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

And that's fine .. IF I had come to FAC and tried force my point of view on anyone, but I didn't. I responded to an AN/I thread. I read what was there, walked away for a couple hours to spend some time with my grandkids. I came back and the same arguments were being presented over and over. I tried to come up with something that wouldn't hurt anyone, would resolve the immediate problem, and move on. I've also been doing some back reading on things - but history as you say is far harder to comprehend from a distant standpoint. Tell me what it is that you think my best course of action would be. I won't promise that I will just do it - but I will read links, and I will listen, and I will do my best to offer the best input I can muster. — Ched :  ?  02:08, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

And one serious question: What is there to be gained by said putsch? Honestly, what is the motive? Does someone want to promote poor articles? Does someone want to put some political candidate on the front page to influence an election? What am I missing - and if you would rather email me an honest answer .. that's fine too ... just tell me why? — Ched :  ?  02:14, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, well, those are questions you shoulda asked yourself before you threatened to block. Yes, some do want to promote poor articles, and I've been gettin' in their way for a very long time. No, I don't do e-mail or backchannel-- but they do. Yes, some who can't aspire to ArbCom think that Raul's job is the next most powerful on the Pedia, and those who care about FAC will tell you that Raul has never abused of that perceived power, which is why we don't want to lose him in favor of someone who will "politic" favors. If you had studied the entire conflict, you'd see we have someone aspiring to Raul's job who 1) doesn't review other FACs, because 2) he can't "judge other people's work" and 3) doesn't want to risk alienation (those are HIS words)-- in other words, politics-- don't oppose unworthy FACs so you can be "electable"-- something that has never been seen at FAC. Ever. Who gains in this fighting? Not articles, not FA writers, not FA reviewers, not Wikipedia. Only those who perceive that Raul's position is powerful, and aspire to that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:20, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

First, Ched, do not make the mistake of thinking something that the wise old Yomangani has always (I mean, for eons) cautioned against of thinkging that WP:WBFAN has some correlation with who are Wikipedia's finest editors. And even if they were, being a great communicator or writer doesn't necessarily make one good at dealing with brazen dirty politicing.Second, yes, that most people who know the FA process well know that Raul is as good as it gets, and you'd have to be NUTSO to replace him, should tell you a lot. So, if we can start from this basis, why do you think a "shoot them all" approach does anything except escalate the conflict-- eventually to ArbCom? That is precisely what happened the last time one of the same players supported one editor who disrupted FAC to the point of desperation. How is it helpful when ANI denizens do nothing to understand what is going on, and shoot 'em all? If we can agree on that, then we can talk more about the specifics of how very wrong your particular "shoot 'em all" was, but the point for now is why the heck do admins feel the only way to solve issues is by blocking people, and why don't they keep their bloomin' mouths shut when they know nothing of conflicts, and allow time for all evidence to come forward so meaningful conclusions can be reached? You were part of shutting down a thread ... along with Scott Mac and The Ed 17 ... even though many were telling you there was an issue to be dealt with-- one that remains unresolved. What happened to consensus? Yes, you "read what was there"-- did it cross your mind that some folks don't always present, ummmm ... the full story? And that by waiting things will become clearer? Not everyone is around all the time-- I for one, was busy-- why the rush to close off threads before anything can be resolved? HOw about careful deliberation. Sheesh, thank goodness I can't/don't close FACs at the speed that ANI closes things. I'm saying-- why don't admins stop bludgeoning people with blocks or threats to block, and do their homework first. And how on Earth do you come to the conclusion that a threat to "block 'em all" doesn't hurt anyone? What about the ill will (OK, I happen to be big enough to take it, but it gets to some others), and the conflict that went unresolved. And how about, while you were off with your grandkids, I was also out, so of course the thing was still going on hours later-- people don't LIVE on this thing all the time-- why not wait until everyone has time to weigh in? Never mind that I had just returned from an evening out or that Diannaa (because she's an admin) is allowed to say whatever she wants about me and I'm apparently allowed no defense ... the real kicker was the threat to block Wehwalt, when he had long gone to bed ... how is that preventative? That's the sort of thing that got us to where we are with Malleus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:15, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

First, please don't start yelling at me. I will talk. I will listen. As I said from the get go, if I messed up then I'm sorry. AN and ANI are places where it's a "quick - put out the fire" area, and that's the way it's been for ages. And perhaps I was wrong to try to stop the arguing (I don't know), but let's be a bit more accurate please ... I might have said "bang - bang" .. but I never pulled the gun out of the holster, let alone pulled the trigger - can ya please give me some credit for that? huh? Geesh .. I didn't even close the thread. I didn't even make a smart remark at the couple responses to my efforts. Just because there are a lot of admins. that think "admin" is something special, doesn't mean I do. I'm supposed to be helping you, I'm here by your authority - and it's something I'm keenly aware of. Yes, I played the game for the popularity contest, I admit that. I didn't realize as much then as I do now. It wasn't a deliberate attempt to get some faux power on some website. It was an honest desire to want to do good things here. I didn't realize all the stigma that went with it, and I doubt I'd ever do it again. But don't shut me out .. please. Ask Malleus, well .. maybe some other time when he's not being so beat upon and kicked and stabbed in the back would be better ... but he may tell you that I'm an idiot, he may tell you he doesn't particularly care for me - but I think he'd tell you that I am an honest, and a fair person. — Ched :  ?  02:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not hollering-- I just type fast and sloppy :) :)

No, ANI wasn't always that way-- in 2006 and 2007 it was a very deliberative place, but we had more adults around then. Now it's got the attention span of an average 16-yo (and that has extended even to the adults) ... maybe because of declining editorship we are ALL overworked, and that includes admins, who want quick fixes. Well, maybe you think that you threatened to block but didn't is a good thing to do-- did you do that on purpose, or did someone talk you down before you pulled the trigger? I'm not shutting you out-- I'm trying to get folks to understand how badly broken ANI is, and how that destroys editors like Malleus and has made Wikipedia a horrid place. Maybe if I can get through to one person, it will get better. Bottom line: not everyone wanted the fighting to stop. Some are agitating for it because destabilizing FAC makes it look like there's a problem and hence will lead others to think they need to throw out Raul. Understanding complex conflicts before weighing in on them is a good thing. Things aren't always what those involved present at ANI, and it takes more than a few hours to get to the bottom of things. Again-- what happened to the concept of consensus? Read that ANI thread now, and tell me there weren't plenty of people saying FAC is being disrupted. So, it still is ... no thanks to ANI. Best, going to bed now, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:38, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I think your heart's in the right place Ched, but now is not the right time to be asking for a character reference. Malleus Fatuorum 02:44, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

• OK .. a lot here for me to digest. Thank you for taking the time to talk. I'm off to bed as well. Best to all. — Ched :  ?  03:04, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
• OK .. the more I read, the more I see that I need to read. I've also become aware of another editor(s) that I knew I'd one day need to read up on as well. Thank you all for your time, and I hope I'm welcome to stop back in a few days. And FWIW - if I were to come upon the same situation again, I would handle it differently than I did a few days ago. Thank you all for your valuable time and input - it is appreciated. Cheers. (and if you really did lose a pet Sandy, I'm truly sorry - I do know how much that hurts - I've been there, and I love my dog.) Oh .. and best of luck with all the plumbing issues too folks. — Ched :  ?  15:15, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Poke (NY 319)

Waiting on you, both of us responded. :) Gotta take the Jeopardy! online test in a few minutes though, so we'll see. Mitch32^{(Never support those who think in the box)} 00:50, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm apoplectic, plus comment on "Halo"'s FAC

I'm apoplectic about this proposed remedy; ArbCom cases certainly seem to ferret out the arseholes.

I've just seen your FAC comment at Beyoncé's "Halo". I came up against the same problem with chart numbers in text in her previous FAC, "Put a Ring on it", and I came to the conclusion that chart positions should always be given in digits, not words. IIRC I went through and made that change but got reverted. It's a difficult article to keep on track copyedit-wise, as the text has been insufficiently stable. Malleus Fatuorum 18:53, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Please remember that he has withdrawn most of his comments and proposals, with self-criticisms, and in any event none of them have gained support or seem likely to gain support. I am certain that he means well, and is trying to be helpful, and I would consider your continued forbearance and good-humoured tolerance a personal kindness to me.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:29, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm all out of "good-humoured tolerance", but I'll say no more for now, as a personal kindness to you. Malleus Fatuorum 20:41, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Primary studies

Thank you for the suggestions. Clearly, I share an interest with the user you mentioned, though counter to what you seem to be suggesting, this is my only account. I am quite capable of backing up my qualifications.

It seems that you have misunderstood/misused the Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine), as it states not that primary sources should be deleted, but that they should be improved with the addition of reviews or textbook sources. In addition to the fact that it explicitly states that primary research is acceptable when no reviews exist. I have published papers in these areas, and I can assure you, no reviews or secondary sources exist to address many of the changes you deleted.

Censoring of primary peer-reviewed university peformed and published objective research is counterproductive for the furthering of scientific knowledge. If you think an objective peer-reviewed citation is insufficient, then improve it. NutritionalNeuroscientist (talk) 19:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Snow

So after saying what a mild winter it's been before my latest trip down to Vegas...I wake up to 3" of snow outside before the 9 hour drive through the desert! As I shoveled that snow on monday, it hit me..."Sandy must have cancelled her ski trip!", Mountains are loaded with powder now and we're expecting more tomorrow! DOH!--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 10:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we cancelled twice, and sure 'nuf, it started snowing after our second cancellation. Oh, well! Now we can't get away until March :( Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:06, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

A question

Greetings Sandy. Hope everything is going well for you. I saw this note here. Hmm, I was a bit confused and want to ask you if I can request people to do the spotcheck? Jivesh1205 (Talk) 05:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I listed it at WT:FAC as needing a source check, but no one has responded yet. Yes, you're welcome to go out hat in hand, but it's important to be sure the reviewer knows how to do a spotcheck. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay Sandy. Thanks. Jivesh1205 (Talk) 15:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Greetings Sandy. The spotchecks are done. Thanks. Jivesh1205 (Talk) 16:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Ahalya FAC

Hi. This FAC was recently closed, but the issues raised in the FAC are fixed or answered, where some comments are invalid. I am unsure what I possibly can do before another FAC. What do you think? Would PR be a good option? --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:01, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Opening a peer review-- and then attempting to engage Saravask or RegentsPark there-- might help. It can be hard to satisfy Fowler, so you'll probably need a good deal of collaboration. Good luck! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:15, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:15, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Qui?

[14]. Giacomo Returned 18:01, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Poppy Meadow FA

Hi, I feel you archived this to early, as I have finished all the points listed. :) MayhemMario 18:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The FAC had been up for several weeks and received no support; you'll have an easier time having it promoted if you start a fresh FAC than if it would be kept at the bottom of FAC. Good luck with your work on the article! Ucucha (talk) 19:45, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it had no support, because after 2.5 weeks only one commenter had commented, User:J Milburn, now I dont think he has been on lately, so as I had done all his points, he may of said yes... MayhemMario 19:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Also ive already finished the "work on the article" beacuse I had finished it just after you archived it! So, can it be unarchived? MayhemMario 20:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I could answer all of these queries much faster here if I had a link to the FAC :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

To the FAC? Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Poppy Meadow/archive1 :) MayhemMario 20:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It's here. FWIW I looked at this while the FAC was open and thought that it needed more work, and still does. Malleus Fatuorum 20:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for all the edits, what more is needed!?!?!? MayhemMario 20:23, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the link! Mayhem, if you can get clearance from either Laserbrain or JMilburn that their concerns have been addressed, I would grant permission for you to bring back the FAC in one week instead of the usual two. However, Laser indicates that his problems are samples only, and Malleus indicates above that more work is needed, so your efforts would probably be better spent in locating collaborators who will help you copyedit and do MOS fixes, etc. This statement from Laser

A complete audit by an independent editor will be needed, to check for plagiarism and mis-attribution

indicates that peer review might be a better place to pursue article development. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review it is then! Thank you very much AND I WILL SEE YOU SOON!!! :D MayhemMario 20:38, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Milhist FA, A-Class and Peer Reviews Oct-Dec 2011

		The Content Review Medal of Merit
		By order of the Military history WikiProject coordinators, for your devoted contributions to the WikiProject's Peer, A-Class and Featured article reviews for the period October–December 2011, I am delighted to award you the Content Review Medal. Buggie111 (talk) 17:29, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

		Thanks for helping
		Thanks for your help getting W. E. B. Du Bois promoted to FA status. He was a great man, and deserves a great article. --Noleander (talk) 03:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Thanks for all the help with Poppy Meadow! MayhemMario 20:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

MOS

I had a couple questions:

1. where can I find the MOS page or section that deals with acronyms? sample. Meaning does the clarification get linked the first instance, the acronym put in parens, and then the acronym get used from then on in the article.
2. caps. when dealing with a vehicle name or nickname example: Bell UH-1 Iroquois = Huey. Does "Huey" always get capitalized?

thanks, — Ched :  ?  18:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

1. I don't know where to find it (MOS is indecipherable). Yes, define the acronym on the first occurrence in parens, then use the acronym from there on.
2. I don't know-- see for example, diesel engine, which was once a proper noun (and capitalized) because it was named after Diesel (the person), but later came to be a common noun.

Guess I'm not much help! Make a post to WT:MILHIST? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:50, 24 Janu

(ec) MOS:ABBR; I think the style you mention is correct. I'd capitalize nicknames, since I'd classify them as proper nouns. Ucucha (talk) 19:51, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Huey would always be capitalized. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:29, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• ty all. was pretty sure of second being proper noun - wasn't quite so sure about acronyms. Between government, technology, military, medical, etc ... way too many of 'em in life. best — Ched :  ?  01:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Admiration

FAC loses a lot in losing you as a delegate, but I am full of admiration for the work you have done there, and for your dedication to Wikipedia in general. Your heartfelt desire to make the best positive impact you can in whatever way you can, in the face of the many challenges Wikipedia faces, is inspiring. Geometry guy 05:00, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

While we often disagree, I admire all of the work you do for the FA process and and Wikipedia in general. --Guerillero | My Talk 05:05, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Guerillero-- I don't remember often disagreeing with you (one of the benefits of age)! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

We're going to miss you, right now this could've come at a worst time. I'd rather resign with peace, but thus is not to be. Hopefully the quote on my talk page is a fluent transition. We'll miss you. :( Mitch32^{(Never support those who think in the box)} 05:08, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Have faith-- FAC is practically polluted with some of Wikipedia's best editors, and there will not be any problem. Thanks for the kind words! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I was going to come offer some chocolate, but perhaps it's best to suggest the entire category, now that you've got more time to enjoy it. Thank you for your service. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:20, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Best. Idea. Ever! Thanks, Nikkimaria-- your work is an inspiration! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Whatever you do here is simply excellent. Losing you as an FAC delegate is undoubtedly a big and regretful loss. I don't know who will replace you but I can only hope that he/she will be as good as you. It's difficult to get someone better than you. As far as my opinion is concerned, you are Irreplaceable. Take care Sandy. Jivesh1205 (Talk) 06:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Jivesh! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I will miss you dearly, Sandy. In the few direct interactions I have had with you, I found you provided me with excellent advice on how to proceed with nominations that had either stalled or failed. Your experience and dedication is second to none, and all of the time that you have put forth into FAC was time well spent, I believe. Wikipedia is far greater as a result of your dedication and effort. I wish you luck with the maintenance of all of of the medical articles. Take care. Melicans (talk, contributions) 06:41, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Melicans, most kind of you! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Sandy, you can never be replaced. I hope you will continue work on other aspects of the project. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Hawkeye7-- your kind words are most appreciated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

• Call me weird, but I think this is good news for you. I personally would much rather be editing medical articles than arguing with folks who disrupt Wikipedia processes. So Congratulations! –OneLeafKnowsAutumn (talk) 06:56, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

• Whatdyamean, you don't think I'm going to be arguing with folks who disrupt Wikipedia processes on Venezuelan articles? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:45, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

• You are wierd, Leaf, but in this case you have it spot on. I've said it before, but Sandy, if you ever want a justification for your years as FAC delegate (for much of that time solo), just consider how far the standards for what makes a featured article have risen during your stewardship. If your career as a content creator matches your achievements as a delegate, Wikipedia has much to look forward to. FAC will survive, no doubt, hopefully building on your legacy. So, if in future you need a review, a copyedit or any such cooperation, please don't hesitate to contact me. Brianboulton (talk) 13:46, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

  Thank you Brian; you probably know I am awestruck by your prolific and excellent work. All the best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:45, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Goddamn motherfucking cocksucking son of a bitch fuckface shit shit shit twatdiddling fuckdamn. --Moni3 (talk) 14:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm gonna tell my better half you're making eyes at me! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:20, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I've been biting my tongue for about a week, and unfortunately am very aware how this started and where it came from. I thought you've shown great fortitude in the face of intolerable hostility. You've dealt with it better than I could have any day - but I'm only a thinskinned wiki writer, you're the one who makes the hard decisions. Personally I'd like you to reconsider. I think being forced into something like this is a bad way to go, but if it's what you feel is right then grudgingly I'll tell you good luck. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:37, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the well wishes, I won't be reconsidering, but TK, I'd personally be pleased if we could keep the f'ing c comments off of FAC-- I don't think we need to get this mess tangled up with the Malleus case, as I've already seen allegations elsewhere that I resigned over the Malleus situation. Would you mind redacting that post at WT:FAC? Thank you for your support over the years. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:40, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for striking, TK-- appreciated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

FWIW - I wasn't referring to Malleus at all. I'm very much to blame for this and have been feeling guilty about it for a long time. Time for me to go. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:54, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

No you're not to blame; there's a campaign under way, dirty politics and all, and no one of good faith could have been expected to have seen that back in November considering that FAC was previously free of such politics. Now, stop putting up wikibreak notices. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:00, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I was used by a lot of people and I foolishly let myself. The result was "proof" of how bad and cliquish the FAC writers and by extension FAC is, leading up to this which was well-orchestrated. I don't suffer fools and can't forgive myself for having let that happen. The only excuse is that I had a lot going on IRL and wasn't totally hooked in. Truthkeeper (talk) 15:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Your excuse, TK, is the same as mine; when you have a clean conscience and pure mind, you just don't think that way, or imagine that others are capable of such advance orchestration. Now, I'd like for this tangential discussion to end ... I resigned because it was time.  :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:12, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I just wanted to add that the wikibreak had nothing to do with you or Malleus. I've just come through a truly terrible year that was capped off by a lot of unnecessary wiki drama at a time when I was stretched as thin as could be in real life. I should have taken a break a long time ago (had a page at FAC that kept me here) but I'm better now. My feeling about all of this is that we should be proud of our accomplishments, (let's face it, this is a hobby and should be a pleasant escape) and sometimes that perspective gets lost in all the noise, fwiw. Best, Truthkeeper (talk) 17:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I was very pleased to see you and Graham on my watchlist in the new year editing your FAs keep them tip top. I'm so glad your edit on my talk page was "I'm back!" rather than "I'm gone!" even though you were announcing your resignation. My mind boggles to think how many (thousands of?) hours you must have spent on this over the four years. To commit that much time as an unpaid volunteer is amazing. Over 1400 promotions? That's a heck of a lot of judging consensus. Bravo! Colin°^Talk 15:11, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Colin, it's the privilege of working with excellent individuals (like you) that keeps me here-- hence, "I'm back"! It's 1,423 precisely-- well beyond the point I discussed with you years ago :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, adding my two cents of appreciation for your presence here. You're valuable to this site in whatever form you choose to contribute. Very best wishes for the new year, JNW (talk) 15:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, JNW; Happy New Year to you, too! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Sandy you are an amazingly good editor here - amazingly good, thanks for all of your hard work...Modernist (talk) 15:54, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to you for same, and Happy New Year there. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

SG, after our nice chat yesterday, I was really surprised to see this when I woke up. Given the timing, I suspect there is much more to this than medicine, but that's your business. Best wishes. PumpkinSky talk 16:25, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Let me know if you need help on the sapphire-- my time should settle down in a few weeks, but you're in good hands with Casliber. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm really sorry to see this. Your work at FAC has been perceptive, tactful and insistent - a set of qualities rarely combined. Gimmetoo (talk) 23:20, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Working with you was always a pleasure, Gimme. How about this? [15] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Is that new stuff related to the 2006 mediation? Gimmetoo (talk) 18:42, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Not at all, just a re-appearance of an editor after a three-year absence right after I announced my intent to re-engage POV on Venezuela articles. It's been a nice break over there :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Dear Sandy,

I have been shown in the files on the Military history Project a statement from a member of our current coordinator tranche that you are to be retiring from your position within the next 30 days. I understand how powerless we are in the face of these changing times on Wikipedia, and I know that all good things must eventually end, yet I can not refrain from posting here my admiration of your skills and conduct while you were working as an FAC delegate, nor the sorrow I feel as our community loses yet another skilled volunteer due to project apathy. In my eyes, you represent that which is greatest in us all, and I consider myself honored to have received your input on the articles I ran through FAC. Wherever you will go, and whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck and fortune, and pray that you always remain faithful to yourself and and your beliefs.

Your sincerely and respectfully,
TomStar81 (Talk) 10:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how exactly to respond, but I do know this much: FAC has lost an extraordinary editor. Among all the turmoil that plagues Wikipedia from time to time, you have always been a rock, Sandy. Thanks for all that you've done, and give 'em hell. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Sandy, I always really respected and admired your work at FAC a lot. The rigour that you brought to the process has kept the level of new FAs very high. And thank you for your guidance during the FACs I was involved in. I'm sorry to see you leave your post as an FAC delegate. But I'm also happy for you that now you're going to have time to work on medical articles. I'm sure that's going to be great for you to just be free to do lots of fun editing without having to worry about the responsibilities of FAC. Good luck with all your future projects! Moisejp (talk) 05:24, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Happy New Year. I just wanted to thank you for all the great work you have done at FA over the years (and all the help you have given me), and I hope we get to work on some articles together soon. I hope you have been able to spend more time on writing that is enjoyable for you. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It's always good to see you around here again ... one is known by the company one keeps. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:21, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Recent comments

Bleh my mistake, I didn't see the full history that went back months ago. I thought the recent attack on FAC by TCO and friends had slightly to do with the Malleus ArbCom case because of his involvement with FAC and the bullshit claims (which I heard from quite a number of users, including administrators who should know better) of "favoritism" in the FAC reviewing. Also I been a bit out of touch with the FAC community, as I never seen such drama in the FAC talk page, and this being discussed the same time as the Malleus case, it seemed like it was radical editors adding fuel to everything Malleus is involved with. We are here to build an serious encyclopedia first and foremost, and not drive away our best editors and article writers or attacking our policies and guidelines. Some users obviously don't seem to get the point and need to stop.

It's very sad to see you leave FAC, as you are the no nonsense editor this very important process needed, and you are among the best in reading consensus and understanding policies. Enjoy being a regular editor and I hope you still leave your feedback on certain FACs.

As for me I'm going to participate in FAC more often, including image reviewing and online source/fact checking (though not much in prose as that's a weakness). I couldn't in the past few years because of my poor health and my online spottiness but I have more time this year. Thanks Secret ^account 07:26, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem at all, Secret: I just happen to be a TPS and didn't want the notion that I resigned over the Malleus situation to take hold. Malleus is a huge net positive at FAC. As to "favoritism" in FAC reviewing, cowards can say anything anywhere on the internet, but they rarely say those things out in public and open forums, where the truth gets dissected. I'm glad you'll be reviewing more often! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:52, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

For you

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		Awarded for your considerable service to Wikipedia, especially for your work at WP:FAC. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:01, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, it's most kind of you to think of me now. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		given with respect and admiration to SandyGeorgia for all your work on Wikipedia, especially that upholding standards and especially at WP:FAC. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 17:54, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

The respect and admiration is mutual, my dear fisch! There's a FAC delegate opening coming up I'm told :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:08, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Alas PR would be at a loss without Ruhrfisch. You are both irreplaceable editors in everything you do. Geometry guy 00:36, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.

It's been a while Sandy, but I'm sorry to see the recent FA circumstances. Anyway, I just want to thank you for all you've done in helping with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre FACs, even if it wasn't ultimately promoted for, like the 6th time? :) You were great in helping out the article.--Tærkast (Discuss) 17:59, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you-- perseverance, you'll get there, I'm sure! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:09, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I feel quite gutted by your decision; understand your reasoning; regret your decision; thank you for your hard and continuous work in that position; and, wish you well in your chosen areas of editing. If I am still editing in future, please feel free to request assistance over RS/N, citation, weight, or any other issues where you feel my help may improve the encyclopaedia. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Just a note

Sandy...we haven't always agreed of course, less so lately than I'd like. However, I have always appreciated your efforts in the past to do some copyediting on my FAC's and to provide a generally neutral assessment of my research and especially my admittedly mediocre quality prose. If indeed, as you have stated, we have a core topic area that is suffering with an influx of inaccurate data and your time would be better spent helping to correct that issue, then, as one who is primarily a researcher, I applaud your desires to refocus your energies towards helping ensure we maintain reliability and accuracy in our articles...I have always believed that such is far more important than prose, even in at the FA level, though I recognize that it is prose that is a determining factor (and should be) for any bronze star.--MONGO 18:51, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Mongo, do not pick on anyone's prose in my house, since mine is worse !! Thanks for the note, and best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:11, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Resignation

I just saw. Sorry to see you leave, you were great in that role. At the same time I can see how it is a lot like herding cats and can be a bit much. Good luck, it will probably be more enjoyable to edit without the stress and headaches from FAC.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 11:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

It pisses me off, this, and I haven't even been active at FAC for months. I'm still not entirely sure what happened either. Personally, I'm just waiting for everything to cool down and hoping that when that happens, you'll pick back up the mantle there. I most certainly never ragequitted from anything myself, only to join back soon after... Sven Manguard Wha? 13:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm absolutely certain it's not a "ragequit", that wouldn't be Sandy's style. Malleus Fatuorum 17:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Bwaaaahaha ... nice concept, though! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Good for you :) You are/were a far better delegate than I ever was, but you deserve the break. Karanacs (talk) 17:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

And we at WP:MED are really looking forwards to you rejoining us. So much important work to be done.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:32, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Resilient Barnstar
	For all your hard work on FAC, you definitely deserve more than this, but presenting you with this barnstar is the least I can do. Remember (talk) 14:13, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

for all your work on FAC, good luck on the medical articles Tom B (talk) 17:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

Sorry to hear about all the frustrations at FAC, with the state of medical articles and all. :( I can't thank you enough for your contributions in keeping the FAC process going and raising the quality. I hope to get back to doing more FA writing and reviewing at some point. I am also curious and hopeful efforts like WP Medicine Translation Task force (80 articles to GA or FA) can be helpful, though not sure what I can personally do to help with that. All the best. --Aude (talk) 04:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

ANI thread

Sandy, a recent edit by Lecen caught my attention. I've started an ANI thread about it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Unacceptable edit. You may wish not to get involved (as may become clear once you see the edits in question), but I thought you should be aware of the edits made and the ANI thread. I'm aware there is quite a bit of background to this, and have seen it rumbling on over several talk pages, but these latest edits crossed the line as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to check back in an hour or so to see what the situation is then. Carcharoth (talk) 23:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC) Update: Agree with Manning, best to let things calm down right now. Carcharoth (talk) 01:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Nothing much good ever comes out of AN/I, but he's been over the line for a very long time-- these latest certainly are disturbing. Here, he tells another editor to "learn his place", and here, he encourages BATTLEGROUND for a young editor who had just made his peace with another editor. What's particularly strange about this latest unraveling is we don't seem to have anything akin to "no legal threats" to address such a disturbing post. It's even more disturbing when one considers that I once worked in Brasil, and most certainly could easily travel there. It would be so nice if folks would leave my poor dead dog alone LOL !!! And my better half would like to take this moment to inform folks that he's not a "boy"-- he's quite the man, thank you :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

It's surprising even for this madhouse that Lecen is being given a chance to explain such edits, rather than being given the usual indefinite block for sexist insults.

I'm sorry that this behavior is enabled.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:56, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm sure you're not surprised at Diannaa showing up to censor ANI and defend Lecen ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:59, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I never heard of her, I am glad to say.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:02, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Where is The Ed17 when a speedy thread closure is needed? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Working. ;-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Sandy, Lecen appears to be accepting his block. I am participating only to put out the fires. Hence I am requesting that we all just allow this matter to die down. If Lecen (a) redacts and apologises for his conduct and (b) presents a formal grievance of some kind about your alleged wrongdoings, then we can proceed to examine the matter objectively (with full consideration given to the arguments from both sides, naturally). Until then, there is nothing to be done, and nothing to be achieved by talking about it further. Regards Manning (talk) 01:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Sensible-- but to be sure the fire doesn't stay lit, you might want to keep en eye on Diannaa (talk · contribs) and Alarbus (talk · contribs). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Alarbus's comments about some woman spewing poison "with every breath she takes" does not set a good example. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 01:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Let it go here, please-- others can deal with that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure Diannaa needs watching... I think she's a much better editor than you give her credit for. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Sandy, I know I took an extended Wikibreak, but I hope you remember me well enough to know I am both impartial and thorough when it comes to these sorts of things. Manning (talk) 01:22, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Fuzzy memory, because there was another Manning somebody who was <strange> years ago, but my recollection of you is positive. I wish I could say I remember more, but six years in here is a long time! And I'm glad to see sensible folks showing up at AN/I-- it hasn't been that way for a very very long time. If it had been up to me, I never would have even gone there, but on the other hand, it is disturbing how often things like this happen on Wikipedia and no one says or does anything, so I can't blame Carcharoth. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't remember why we interacted (it was several years ago) but I also recall it being positive. Regardless, if Lecen has a valid grievance then I would judge accordingly, as I would with any grievance against any editor (I trust you would expect no less). Lecen has just indicated he is retiring, so this may all well come to nothing. Regards Manning (talk) 01:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to prolong this discussion, but he's done that before, and there's a larger pattern. This won't end. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I have just recently learned how to use the page history button. A wonderful tool. Manning (talk) 02:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

And I found the other Manning! The reason for my long-standing confusion is that he is also from Sydney, Australia, but since his real name is not related to Manning, I always wondered why he had a username similar to yours-- particularly being from the same city and registering after you. From his editing, it's abundantly clear you aren't Wiki-related :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Can I please have link to the request, [16]? Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:32, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

On this page, in this section, here:

Update: Agree with Manning, best to let things calm down right now. Carcharoth (talk) 01:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

and here:

Hi Sandy, Lecen appears to be accepting his block. I am participating only to put out the fires. Hence I am requesting that we all just allow this matter to die down. If Lecen (a) redacts and apologises for his conduct and (b) presents a formal grievance of some kind about your alleged wrongdoings, then we can proceed to examine the matter objectively (with full consideration given to the arguments from both sides, naturally). Until then, there is nothing to be done, and nothing to be achieved by talking about it further. Regards Manning (talk) 01:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Please. When Ceoil's typing includes that many typos, he's beyond upset-- in this case, with reason, even though his anger doesn't excuse his posts. But now there are posts on his talk page (from Carcharoth) which will only bait him into even more anger. If the baiting and feeding continues, Ceoil will get angrier and angrier (he doesn't do well when he's looking at obvious injustices) and end up with a much longer block. Please-- everyone should be encouraged to just stop. That means TCO, Alarbus, Wehwalt, Diannaa, Lecen, Carcharoth, you, me-- everyone. I do not want any further posts on this matter on my talk; it is not in Ceoil's interest to continue to feed this when he is so clearly beyond upset already. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Noting removals for archival purposes:

• Truthkeeper88
• Carcharoth
• Epipalegic
• Truthkeeper88

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

source checking

So how much source checking do you what before you check it out? LittleJerry (talk) 20:01, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I left samples from two sources only of how to spotcheck sources, results unclear to me, and I'm hoping another reviewer will come along and do the job. It's listed at WT:FAC as needing a spotcheck.[17] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Kolkata edits by citation bot

The citation bot that was run in Kolkata inserted the following in several citations : ref=harv|postscript=!-- Bot inserted parameter. Either remove it; or change its value to "." for the cite to end in a ".", as necessary. --{{inconsistent citations}}}}

What does this mean? How to correct this? Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 03:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Ack, I *hate* those bot-activated citation corrections. OK, here's what it means. Some citation styles have a trailing period, others don't. We either change the value to "." if we want all citations to have ending punctuation for consistency, or we delete the postscript parameter. I'll go have a look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, all of the other citations there have ending puncutation, so we have to add a period to all of the bot-inserted stuff, and make sure citations all consistently end in a period. [18] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Understood :) Thank you. Working on the refs, gradually. Will work on demographic section as well, and update the numbers in the lead, as needed. Thanks for the thorough scrutiny. Bye the way, how are you?--Dwaipayan (talk) 04:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Just great-- haven't seen you in a long time! Are you still at UConn? I thought of you when I had to take my father their a few years ago to see a specialist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes I am in UConn. Completed my residency in Internal Medicine, and doing fellowship in Geriatrics. Are you from the area (need not answer if too private info for wikipedia).--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Please go ahead on Kolkata (Inuse tag). --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

RichardMills1965

I gave him IPBE. Despite having only opened the account a week ago, he seems to have amassed enough productive edits, and this is just easier than trying to figure out a way through the rangeblock. Daniel Case (talk) 04:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey

Just wanted to let you know that I've pinged you and I wish you all the best. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

From Portugal, with love

I think you gonna like this. And don't resignate of nothing, that is what they want. The trouble is that these guys came, I think, more or less all from vulgar genealogy sites, and they have all the respectiv defects.

Abraço, Saint George, also known by Jorge alo (talk) 09:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the kindness, but whatever it is that I walked into, I am (thankfully) unaware of what is going on in the Portuguese and Brazilian suite of articles, what the agenda is, and what Elonka (talk · contribs), Durova (talk · contribs), Wehwalt (talk · contribs), The ed17 (talk · contribs) and a returning editor who has a history with most of them are all doing in there. I have no idea what it's about, I do not engage in off-Wiki dealings, I have no intention of getting involved, so there is no need to fill me in. Thank you for letting me know (someone) was after my resignation, but I resigned for my own reasons, and that would have made no difference. I appreciate the notice, but I'm sorry I'm unable to help in whatever is happening; this looks like Wikipedia's next battle zone-- to rival the Eastern Europe wars. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:51, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry about, this was just to let you know, and not to get you involved. The thing is not of particularly concern, and all will be quietly settled. My best wishes to the continuation of your excellent work, Jorge alo (talk) 13:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• Found.
• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alarbus/Archive SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:30, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused, why is my name alongside those three? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:37, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know-- you closed that requested move on a Portugal article, Alarbus's first sock was Portuguese Man o' War (interesting name, then he created other socks, each targeting articles from different groups of FA writers), then the group supporting "Wehwalt for FA director" and wanting to politicize FAC suggested you should be FA director-- do you feel that this list puts you not in good company? I didn't put you there-- they did. Adam Cuerden (talk · contribs)/Shoemaker's Holiday (talk · contribs) has a historical basis for a grudge against Raul654 and me (disagreement over coding and layout of Featured sounds and list on mainpage, Talk:Main Page/Archive 157 which continued elsewhere), and there are some very interesting connections emerging here. Alarbus coded the blackout template-- cool (if you happen to support Wikipedia making a point in spite of being a massive host of copyright infringement). Sumbuddy needs to ask the right WP:CLEANSTART questions, and then ... find out who knew what, when.

Adam/Shoe cited Learned Hand; Alarbus et al cleaned up citations and sources when new account. Adam/Shoe and Wehwalt have a long-standing nexus on theatre/opera articles. Adam from UK; Alarbus mentions folks from US being puritanical. Adam/Shoe had a dispute with Durova, who shows up at MilHist about a Portuguese conflict (wha?) in the midst of all of this. And there's more ... but I digress ... the real question is, why did Alarbus create multiple socks, why is he behind "Wehwalt for FA director", and is he abiding by CLEANSTART or evading scrutiny to take on FAC after a dispute over Featured Lists and Sounds on the mainpage? I'd sure like to hear from The Rambling Man. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Me for FA director? That's a hoot! Any link?

I have no beef with any of the named editors, but being somewhat randomly named here made me curious (I'm not named in the link he gave, that I saw). I realized that Alarbus is some sort of returning editor awhile back, but really haven't had the inclination to enter into another drama-laden discussion. ;-) Why Durova's few edits are about a Portuguese conflict are intriguing. I'm familiar with the Durova/SH dispute, but not much more than that. I don't think they are the same person though? Unless I've missed something, which wouldn't be surprising. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Out of time, you can look for your name in here. Surprising? It's clear that Alarbus is a returning editor. It's clear that he used alternate accounts in a way that shows he knows CU, CLEANSTART and alternate account use well. It's clear that he knows coding. He has some most strange overlap with Shoe/Adam (including but not limited to Learned Hand, and the nexus with Wehwalt in theatre/opera articles). It's clear that his first sock was a Portuguese name, that something is going on in the Portuguese realm that led to this strange post to my talk and Durova's post to MilHist, and Alarbus's various socks edited different areas of different established FA writers. It's clear that he aligned himself with the TCO/Wehwalt FAC campaign. There's more, but I'm out of time for today. Question is, if an abuse of CLEANSTART is being used to disrupt FAC and further an agenda, why are we having an RFC when no one but Wehwalt, TCO, Alarbus and Lecen seem to think there's a problem (still waiting to hear from TRM, since he was involved in the initial mainpage dustup). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:01, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting reading here. After the first SPI I've always wondered about this conversation. But if Alarbus coded the SOPA blackout template, then it explains a lot. In my view FAC is being disrupted and has been for about a month, fwiw. Truthkeeper (talk) 22:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

If Alarbus coded the blackout template then he's no coder worthy of the name. That was just about the most amateurish and incompetent thing I've seen on the Internet for some time now. Malleus Fatuorum 23:14, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't review enough articles to even dream about something like that. There are more people who have issues with the current system, though. I voted for an RfC because it will bring discussions on this to a halt, no matter the outcome – now that the cookie jar was opened, people would have continued taking the cookies until a definitive end point. As for Alarbus being a coder, I don't think so. It was my understanding that the WMF did it. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

It is soooo irritating when misinfo is spread on my talk :) Diffs, The ed, diffs ... check 'em. One of the wonders of Wikipedia is that, when people don't conduct campaigns off-Wiki, the evidence is there for you to see. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:22, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Why was the cookie jar opened? That's the issue. Other than Alarbus, and his alt accounts, I don't know anything about the other users but have to say the reading is interesting. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Just as a point of information, the SOPA blackout was implemented via javascript, not a template, and Alarbus evidently wrote {{Blackout}} in order to blackout his own user and user talk pages, not for anything else. Geometry guy 01:27, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes ... good enough :) And why "was" the cookie jar opened, anyway ... and how long ago? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:30, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand. For what is the "cookie jar" a metaphor here? Geometry guy 01:36, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The ed17's post above, at 00:19, 20 January 2012. I don't know what he meant, but I believe that a campaign has been underway for several months (the "cookie" being the perception some have that Raul's job is powerful-- which is frightful, since he's never used the job that way). Featured Lists and Sounds and Pictures wanted mainpage space; Raul and I opposed it based on design/layout issues (it was awkward)-- not the concept (we supported the concept, but the layout was poorly designed, and it seems that kerfuffle continued long after we stopped paying attention). Now it appears that feathers were ruffled. And "Papers" looking at "data" were written, The Signpost got on board-- and voila-- a campaign to toss out Raul and politicize FAC was born. I've got a pretty good idea what the Portuguese connection is/was, but unless one of them decides to tell me, I can only guess. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Heh, using a metaphor was a bad choice. My apologies. All I meant was that once the subject was broached and received attention, it will need a definitive conclusion before fading away. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

With The Signpost feeding it, that's true. How often do you see less than a handful of people get this much attention? And bring FAC and WP:TFA/R to a standstill, to boot! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:39, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Uh, quite often. This is Wikipedia, m'dear. People who like to type loudly and often (e.g. people who write awesome literature articles but disrupt every other place) get all the attention. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:44, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles. Thanks for the clarifications. Geometry guy 21:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately. Now I have a bad feeling that we're going to make cookie metaphors at each other if/when we cross paths in the future... ;-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Definite maximum article size?

In the discussion about Elvis Presley as TFA you wrote that it is too long. I agree that articles should not be too long. Would you be for a definite ceiling as FA criterion? My main interest here is (of course) that I think it would take less effort to write and maintain a shorter text. But as you say, there is also the aspect that more text and images waste the time of the person waiting for them to load. There is also the server and data transport costs for Wikimedia. My intuition is that on average people read a very small percentage of the longest articles (per download). --Ettrig (talk) 19:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm trying to get out the door-- I suggest you search the FAC talk archives (there's a button for that somewhere in there) for the lengthy discussions of same. It's not up to delegates or director to decide that-- it's a consensus matter, and it's different case-by-case ... depends on the article. In many cases (like Presley), my personal opinion is that it's clear that summary style can be better used, but precisely the reason that writers don't use summary style more is your page view argument-- they're afraid editors won't click on daughter artices, so they try to cram everything into the main article. It's another reason I'm against this page view meme ... your arguments above are good and right IMO, but the page view thing is why editors don't use a more appropriate summary style. Sorry for the fast answer, I really need to get out the door here :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:04, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting and quick answer, yet you apologize. I really wish I (we?, Wikipedia) knew more about what the readers normally do. My intuition is that in most cases they look at the first few sentences and the top image, then move on to something else. If this is true, there is no point in cramming more into an already long article. To a cost, Wikipedia could study this by studying where, and after how long readers click in articles. --Ettrig (talk) 05:55, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you're right, Ettrig. Speaking for myself, I'll review articles of any length if they are in an area that I'm interested in, otherwise length is a definite factor in selecting what else I review. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Although I'm not an experienced Wikipedia editor, I have used W. in my own research for nearly 10 years now, and I have to jump in here and say I like the longer articles just as they are! They are set up perfectly for me: the intro. gives me a sense of the whole subject, and the table of contents that follows tells me exactly where to go to follow up on what most interests me. And often, when scrolling between sections, I discover useful tidbits I might never have encountered. It is like letting people roam around in library stacks. For me, and I suspect for most researchers, more will be lost than gained by breaking up your long articles. - Babel41 (talk) 21:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that most readers will just skim the lead and images before moving on, but I'm sure that there are a dedicated minority who like the topic or are researching in the area and find the longer articles useful to ensure they have all the information and aren't missing anything. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Someone to take care of prose

Hey Sandy I am hopeless when it comes to prose. Wondering if you knew of someone who could help me here at the GAN for Hepatitis C http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Hepatitis_C/GA1#GA_Review

Thanks Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:43, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review for Pope John Paul II

Hi Sandy, I was wondering whether you'd be interested in this? Kind Regards -- Marek.69 ^talk 19:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Tay–Sachs disease

Hi, so as you have de-promoted and re-promoted the article, you might want to have a look at the talk page for a request to promote the article to A class again. ~~Ebe123~~ → report on my contribs. 20:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the problem there before was a failure to follow WP:MEDMOS (in terms of comprehensive-- all sections covered), and WP:MEDRS (primary sources vs. reviews). A medicine article can't be rated above GA without those (and shouldn't be rated GA if it overrelies on primary sources). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Wondering

I was just wondering if there was anything that was preventing Turning Point (2008) from being promoted? Judging from the review pages, it seems to be ready to promote.--WillC 09:29, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

See Sandy's query at the bottom of the page. Also, a quick look at the page shows some prose issues—for example, the last paragraph of the lead repeats the word "event" four times. Ucucha (talk) 14:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

First I've heard of the source issues, none of the reviews have made any mention of problems with the sources. I explained reliability at the subpage. Of course it mentions event, it was an event. It wasn't a tv show, a movie, etc. It was an event. What else would be used? Reviewers haven't seemed to had an issue with that after 3 separate reviews this time around and 3 or 4 in the past.--WillC 16:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I see you're now discussing the source issue with Sandy. As for the prose, it was of course an event, but good writing avoids repetition. It was not only an event, but perhaps also a show, a performance, a competition, or whatever else you can come up with. Ucucha (talk) 19:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

This series of edits is a great improvement, much less repetitive. Ucucha (talk) 19:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Alright, did some digging in the article regarding the WrestleView situation, made some edits. I believe the sourcing issue is solved. The article relies on Slam, Wrestling Observer, and PW Torch now. Any WrestleView sources left handle extremely not controversial information that logically would be accurate and taken at good faith. Used in much the same way as they were in Lockdown 08.--WillC 07:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Alexander technique

The article about the Alexander technique (about improving movement efficacy and relieving pain through better posture) needs work. It combines a lot of true-believerism and a smattering of reference to scientific studies.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I corrected the one medical statement to a secondary review, but I don't find it as awful as many articles making medical statements. AT is taught in every pre-professional, professional and University-level performing arts program-- it's not quackery, and the medical text that was there was poorly sourced, but I have now sourced it to a MEDRS-compliant secondary review. The article needs citation, but it rings accurate based on my knowledge of AT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your great changes to Alexander Technique. Professional editing made a difficult article much better. I didn't know it was so widely taught. Bellagio99 (talk) 22:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, it might not be accurate for me to say it's taught in every program (how do I know that for sure), but it is taught in every program I'm familiar with-- which is quite a few. If someone could add citations to that article, it would be greatly enhanced :) :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Source spot-checking

What are the requirements for source spot-checking and is this something anyone can help with? If I review an FA, what proportion of citations should I check for it to be considered properly spot-checked? How much information should I then post to the FAC page? SpinningSpark 11:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for asking, Spinning-- this is the kind of question that would get broader attention at WT:FAC, and whose response belongs in FAC archives, not on my talk. Would you mind asking over there so the community can work on a comprehensive response-- it's the sort of thing that eventually belongs in an FA Newsletter-- not buried on my talk. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't mind - done it.SpinningSpark 17:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Asperger's

Hi SG. May we discuss your recent revert?

Personally, I think that the portal at the start of the References section looks a little odd. Usually it's in the See also section if one exists, I understand. Moreover, having it in the Refs section means each of the 200 lines that follow it are squashed to the left. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trafford09 (talk • contribs) 19:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Hence, why not have a See also section? I'm aware some may view having a See also section as a slight on the quality of an article, but that's not a view I subscribe to much.

Now, isn't the idea of a See also section to bring to the reader's attention articles which relate to the article, but weren't mentioned on the page itself? I'd argue that a percentage of readers of the AS page may wish to follow the lead to the 2 articles I included.

You say there there are scores of books on AS. That may well be so, but there is just one notable enough to have its own WP article, with AS in its title. Unless there's a deluge of books being added, I think that the one book does some good - to a percentage of readers.

I'd be interested to read your views, though.

BTW, which part of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles did I not adhere to?

Best wishes, Trafford09 (talk) 19:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry I missed this post while I was archiving yesterday, but these questions are better raised on article talk. All too often, I find by responding on my talk instead of article talk, issues aren't resolved according to broader consensus. I'll post an explanation over there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Noteworthy FARC reviewing

		The India Barnstar
		Given to SandyGeorgia for your hard work reviewing Kolkata FARC, given now independent of the outcome. AshLin (talk) 05:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Why thank you! As you said, "independent of the outcome" :) The nice thing about working at FAR is that, even when the bronze star can't be saved, articles can emerge in better shape, and editors can feel the reward of honoring the work of previous FA writers who may have moved on. And often, one is working from a decent starting place. At the same time, I've pinged in MilHist editors to one FAR, music editors to another, astronomy to another, LatinAmerican music to another-- and only in one case did anyone care to engage, even though in a few of those cases, rescuing the articles doesn't appear insurmountable. In the current reward culture environment-- where so many editors are chasing stars and awards-- maybe we need to institute a "Save of the Month" award at FAR (if the FA process ever stops bickering and someone puts together a Newsletter to take on items like this). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It's an interesting phenomenon. I helped save a few articles at FAR before I got pissed off with the atmosphere there, and one in particular sticks in my mind: Roy of the Rovers. It's not a subject I had any particular interest in, but it was in the run-up to the football World Cup. And I had absolutely no help at all. It's a complete fiction that Wikipedia articles are written by loads of editors; anything worth spit is actually written by a very few editors. Malleus Fatuorum 19:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't always that way. In 2006 and 2007 (even into 2008 a bit), FAR was a place where too many editors to remember (but particularly active was Ceoil) ... worked to save articles with no concern for whether we would be "rewarded". I guess, as has been charged (elsewhere), I am out of touch. Contemporary Wikipedia edtors want contests, competitions, rewards, stars and recognition. It's easier to climb up WP:WBFAN by writing on a niche topic, that you won't have to defend from deterioration, than to save a big old popular FA that was once in fine shape, even though they can often be restored with a bit of elbrow grease. I suppose there are very few of our up-and-coming crop around here who have any idea ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

We're obviously just dinosaurs, waiting to be put out to pasture. Malleus Fatuorum 19:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Says number 11 on the WBFAN list .

In all seriousness though, I think that this is just a function of the shift in editors from 'believers in the idea of mass collaboration' to 'a number of pockets of specialists'. Back when most of the project was unwritten, just about anything constructive was an improvement, so mass collaboration... well... worked. Wikipedia has now reached the point that an editor, even if they're trying to be constructive, can do a great deal of damage to the quality of an article if they aren't highly competent or don't have a high level of knowledge in the area they're working in. This lead to collaboration becoming less valued, except by members within a specific expertise pocket working with other members from the same expertise pocket. Collaboration still works, it's just different. I'm about to make a major push to improve the article Liao Dynasty, which is in shit shape, and will probably do the bulk of the writing myself. At the same time, however, I have a small network of people whom I can turn to for assistance. While they aren't necessarily going to do the writing for me, I have a few users I can rely on if I need help translating a source, or getting me a source I don't have access to, or copyediting (once I've done the re-write). I have an even larger network of people I can turn to and say "Look at this article and tell me where it needs improvement". That's the collaboration of today - a primary writer and his or her team of specialist that can be called on when needed. It's not the libertarian paradise that some of the early Wikipedia believers might have wanted, but it works. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Sven, I think that theory is a bunch of huey, and there is nothing fundamentally different about the work done at FAR today vs years ago. I don't know anything about Kolkata, but I can do MOS checks, point out prose issues, raise queries of things that aren't clear in the article, etc. As long as knowledgeable editors are willing to engage, others can pitch in to help no differently than they could pre-2009. The only thing that changed was environmental-- that is, in 2009, it became difficult to work on saves because of some interpersonal issues that went down there. And, on Malleus being #11 at WBFAN, you may have missed that I said "by writing on a niche topic" (contrasting it to some giants that could be saved at FAR). Do you really think Malleus "writes on niche topics" (that is, templated articles that no one else will ever look at, hence need very little maintenance)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Work at FAR might not be that different for the old days, but I think Sven's theory is a lot closer to the reality for the FAC side of things. For the wider topics, the collaboration model is still happening and viable; only a few authors can taken on a high-profile article and bring it to FA. I suspect it's similar at FAR, where articles that don't need a lot of work can be beaten back into shape by a few dedicated editors, even if they aren't specialists. However, for the middle- to low-level topics that are being written now, Sven's theory is pretty accurate. For something like South American dreadnought race, which is pretty important in the context of modern SA history (it defined a generation and was a major cog in the quest for naval power that lasted from the 1880s to the late 20th century) but low-level here on-wiki, I'm the only author who has the knowledge and sources to write it, but I can call on other Milhist and ship editors for advice, thoughts, reviews, and similar help. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, yes, I meant it was huey with respect to the change at FAR vis-a-vis pre-2009 (which was the topic I was on :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

In my defense, my general argument made much more sense in my head...

The comment on Malleus being number 11 on the list was in response to his comment about being put out to pasture, not on niche topics. Reading over the conversation again, I can understand where my comment could lead to confusion.

As for the other, longer part of my comment, the transition I was talking about applied more to Wikipedia in general. The shift though, effected all of the processes here, because it changed how the users here functioned. Yes, you're right, for basic MoS and prose cleanup work you don't need subject expertise, just skill in writing. However most of the FARs I've seen have required fundamental rewrites, and that does mean expert knowledge is required, which means that the collaboration that you're going to see is going to be closer to the model that I laid out than to the traditional model. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Just because most of the text is written by a single editor does not mean that there was no collaboration involved. I consider my reviewers, copy editors and FAC delegates to be collaborators too.

I haven't participated in a successful FAR for a while; most editors think that FAR spells doom. I pitched in to help save Harry S. Truman, but it really needed expert attention. I was able to restore Robert Oppenheimer to featured status by a process akin to rewriting it, but it required a great deal of expertise. I would not call describe these articles as "middle- to low-level topics" though. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, re-thinking the whole argument, I still think it's huey (and tossed around often as a cover for the fact that Way Too Many Editors these days are simply looking for baubles for their talk page, rather than collaborating). I don't think it's because so much content has already been addresssed: I do think it's because too many editors are engaged in the Reward culture. Look at all of the articles in these samples that are start or C-class, and could at least be raised to B-class easily:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Popular pages
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Popular pages
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Popular pages

Or take your pick from Category:Lists of popular pages by WikiProject-- I list Medicine because I work there, and MilHist because Medal of Honor is at WP:FAR, I pinged them, and no one cares. And Psychology because-- with the exception of Casliber and Fainites-- they've never written an FA (most FAs tagged as Psych were written by medicine editors, and the rest of the Project is a mess). There is still plenty of work that can be done in here; going for the easy rewards is what motivates many contemporary editors here, and that simply wasn't the case to such an extent in past years, IMO. There is less work at FAR now because there's no "bauble" to display on one's user page or contest to be won-- that wasn't the concern at FAR in 2006 thru 2009. In other words, I still dislike the Reward Culture and what it's done to Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Et tu, Sandy? I expect the tongue lashing from TCO, but I didn't think you were given to painting with a broad brush and condemning all of FAC writers. When I read the above, I thought "great, now Sandy's on everyone's case about not writing about high page view articles"... All I can say is... writing on something like William the Conqueror isn't easy - I've had to assemble huge numbers of books to read and journal articles to read, in order to get as far as I have. It's not easy to write an article about a subject that is well covered in literature. But I suppose I'm just motivated by rewards or something when I write about bishops ... not by any desire to make our coverage complete on a subject. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:53, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Ealdgyth, since when did you get the impression those were my views of most FA writers, or specifically, of you? I'm talking about the lack of activity at FAR. And the "Popular pages" link is inadvertent, unrelated to TCO (for gosh sakes, since when do I have to say something this obvious?)-- it came up recently on my watchlist (which prompted my rethinking post here) because it is what is driving the current issues occurring with poor student editing on Psych articles, as it's the one used by some Psych courses. If my use of it offends you, I can go dig around and find the other ways WP articles are listed, but I didn't know I needed to take such great care not to be misunderstood in a casual conversation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:03, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Allrighty then, now I've dug around, and I can't find any other listing by Project that gives article names in a chart along with article assessment-- everything else I can find is grouped by assessment but doesn't list article names. I am sooooooooooo sorry for accidentally replaying the "popular pages" TCO meme: Sue Me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry - it just seems like every time I turn around lately someone is telling people high up on the "evil list" that we're awful evil people who are doing everything wrong. Note that above, some folks were discussing that list - so it was easy to assume the subject had changed to all FAs, not just FAR. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was well established that "page views" were no reflection of importance: I haven't changed my mind. If any doubt remains, look at Religion. I think it's a sorry state of affairs that we can no longer discuss anything in here without it going back to <that mess created by those people>. They win. Boo-hoo. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

So, back to FAR: I looked at another area I work (just as an example of what "dismal" looks like, and how much more can still be done and why I think that meme is huey-- Wikipedia:WikiProject Venezuela/Popular pages (seriously, Angels Falls or Tepui can't be improved by anyone???) -- but that led me to next look here:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Brazil/Popular pages

where the two most popular FAs (which are waaaaay down the page) are 1) a Marskell FA (not Brasil at all, but Mr. FAR and FAC), and 2) a medical article written by WT:MED and restored at ... FAR! The discussion was about FAR ... that we used to work hard to restore work, even if no "baubles" were accrued. Has nothing to do with page views, except that page happens to list each article, where other assessment pages don't seem to-- at least not that I can find. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I have asked an expert editor to have a look at Medal of Honor and see if it can be saved. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Hawkeye! I see help has arrived ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Question on comment in Kolkata

While the city's name has always been pronounced "Kolkatā" or "Kolikatā" in Bengali, (I don't know how to fix this, but these spellings give us no idea of the pronunciation they reference)...

Do you suggest IPA pronunciation should be given? How about audio files? Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm really not sure, or I would have fixed it myself. The text references pronunciation, but folks like me have no idea what the local pronunciation is. So, either reference to pronunciation can be removed (rephrased somehow), or something needs to be added. I dunno how to fix it :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:51, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Ahalya/archive2

An comment at the PR reads: "Per SandyGeorgia at Kolkata, reference titles should either all be in sentence case, or they should all be in title case". Just wanted to clarify about this. The capitalization styles of books differs and at Ahalya, it is as printed. So should I change it? Any wiki-policy about this? --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The capitalisation style within a Wikipedia article should be consistent, doesn't matter about the typography used on the book cover. After all, we don't insist on using the same typeface. Malleus Fatuorum 17:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Red, negotiating the ever-changing MOS pages is a full-time job-- could you please ping Tony1 (talk · contribs) and ask him where that text resides these days? Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Malleus and Sandy. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

MOS:CT perhaps? Using the title as it actually appears on the book isn't workable, since titles often don't appear in a form that works for citations. We don't want to have all-caps titles in our citations, for example. One of the books you cite using sentence case, Splitting the Difference, actually uses title case on its title page (at least according to Google Books). Ucucha (talk) 21:37, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, a bit rushed by RL work at the moment, so I haven't searched for guidelines. I would always harmonise the casing of reference items, as all other aspects of ref formatting. The original formatting is irrelevant: they'll be all over the place. Please see, by analogy, MoS's "Allowable typographical changes". Tony (talk) 00:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Ucucha and Tony1. My book version has a similar cover to [19], the Google books cover is surprisingly different. I will convert all titles to title case. Just 1 more doubt. Newspaper article names eg. "Week-long drama festivities end" need not be in title case. right?? --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

FAC

Sorry to bother you... but it's just that I missed the "two weeks window" part of WP:FAC, and restarted a nom after just 2 days - me and another user just finished the copyedit, and after all the previous one was killed partly because the only Oppose in that would not answer me. Is it okay to keep the nom or it's better for me to wait? igordebraga ≠ 23:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Responded at User talk:Ucucha; CUP issues have to be resolved in a way that we're fair to all. Glad Ucucha gets to make those decisions, not me :) :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Alright, then. (and you resigning as FA delegate means I have to find another name to put in my intro once I nominate this for Featured status...) igordebraga ≠ 17:33, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't decipher your meaning, so I'm engaging AGF and not taking that as some sort of indirect. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Improvement and translation of medical articles

Would love to see you come and join us here Wikipedia:MED/Translation_project :-) --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:30, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Doc, it seems like a natural fit for my abilities (Spanish), but there is so much work to be done here on the en Wiki, and I don't actually support the notion of translating Wikipedia articles into other languages, since Wikipedia is not a reliable source. You have to read every source to write an accurate article in another language, and why should we do that when en Wiki itself has boatloads of articles that are dismal? There is work to be done in English before we start translating, and I hardly know where to start on the amount of work needed! That said, I also believe that anyone writing such important articles as medical articles from other-language sources should have translator level proficiency in a language. I'm fluent, but not at a level of being confident of medical translations on such a large scale. Since I'm a layperson, there are times I have a hard time parsing the English in highly technical sections of medical journal articles-- pretending I could do that without being a native Spanish speaker would be wrong. I do hope to just get my watchlist back and work more on our core English-language articles, which are deficient, finish my overhaul of TS, and move on to helping Colin with Epilepsy and writing some other articles we had long planned, as well as doing more to help with issues that come up on WT:MED, and keeping up with the student editing problem. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:53, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't planning on asking you to do the translation, Translators Without Borders, will be taking care of that part. I am hoping you can help with the improving of all the article to at least GA or FA in English before translation is considered by others. The thing with many languages such as Swahili is that there is almost no medical content at all in them as there are not enough rich people to warrant paid translation and the rich that their are already speak English, the same applies to Hindi and Nepali. There are basically no sources in those languages either, thus we need to rely on English sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that's a different story, and not something I'd be opposed to but my goodness: improving of all the article to at least GA or FA in English? I've been overhauling Tourette syndrome recently, and am reminded that medical FAs are a whole world apart from many other content areas. We have much more to read and process, much more to keep up with, and we can't just write them and be done-- they need constant tending. I can't imagine that we could aspire to a whole lot of medical FAs unless we had about 50 more medical editors working on them, similar for GA, and that doesn't mean student editors adding copyvios we have to revert. How can I help in that effort? Maybe at reviewing stage? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:30, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The list for the first round of articles is here Book:Health_care. I assume that this effort will take three to five years. Have about 70-80 important articles here. I have managed to bring about ten to GA over the last couple of years and have made significant improvements to a bunch more. This is basically a list of our top importance articles tweaked a little bit. I have two at GAN right now Hepatitis C and Diabetes mellitus type 2. They could use a little more fleshing out I know but historical, societal and cultural aspects of diseases do not interest much. I am sure they could also us a good copy-editing even though some others have helped already.

Once they pass GA I am forwarding them to a professional company that has offered to translate to simple English for us for free. They are excited to be involved and are working on "dengue fever" right now. After this the articles will be double checked and reintegrated into simple English and than translated by TWR tens of thousands of volunteers. Wiki volunteers will finally reintegrate back into Wikipedia.

I am trying to get MastCell out of semi retirement :-), trying to push JFD into working on some of them, and then I am redirecting my effort here. Hopefully with you on board that will bring us up to four! That is only 15 articles each or 5 a year for three years... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:04, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Something

I'm mulling over a potential dispatch on FPOC writing. In the meantime perhaps you could tell me how close Hawaii hotspot looks to sticking (round four sometime in the future). Cheers, ResMar 02:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

What is FPOC? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:40, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Featured Portals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.164.243.154 (talk) 03:46, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Si. ResMar 03:00, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I took a stab at a Dispatch. It's not nearly finished, as the bulk of it remains to be written (what's there right now is just some introductory material), but I feel as though we can get this published in the next week's Signpost. I'm hoping a Dispatch could help users get used to writing Featured portals, and perhaps draw some more attention to the process. ResMar 04:44, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

ResMar, what do you mean by "next week"? I don't know what their publishing deadlines are any more, what day of the week-- and don't like to rush things. I can have a look, work on it, but don't want to be working towards a Monday deadline, if that's their current deadline. Will glance at the HotSpot if I get a chance in the next few days ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

By next week I was referring to 1/30/2012. I want Cirt to do something with it first, he's "most experienced portalmongerer". ResMar 14:16, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI

I'm "tendering" this for publication next week, but probably as a special report, because I'm one of those dirty "caterers" who wants to put the silliness that is FCDW behind themselves. Although perhaps not as enthusiastically and frantically as Sven had, hehe. ResMar 02:54, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I had planned to help. Gee, wonder why I might have changed my mind. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:00, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

FCDW is pretty much done, but rest assured! I'm sure people other than me or you might submit something, sometime. I just don't want to deal with external proprietaries with binding editorial arrangements anymore, sorry. As I said to Sko, I'm tempted to historical the 'ol heifer, I just want to avoid a verbose beating from a certain user. To much bloody drama. ResMar 03:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Res Mar, it would have been nice to help you, but two things. First, I've seen too many attacks from Cirt to go anywhere near anything s/he works on. Second, right off the bat, I would not write that thing the way you and Cirt did. I'd never write something like "The highest award for any piece of content on Wikipedia is recognition is 'Featured" status'." (furthering Reward culture, and well ... just offensive to so many editors). But that's moot. That's the kind of editorializing The Signpost seeks and has encouraged, and that is probably why the Signpost's readership is declining and most Projects have their own publications, where they can control quality, accuracy, deadlines better. I don't care what happens to FCDW: FAC needs its own publication, independent of The Signpost, FAC needs to pull all of its info together in one place, away from WMF's playground and biases (yes, all too many good Wikipedians are suddenly becoming WMF employees, and their priorities then seem to change, and I have no doubt that has an effect on Signpost editorializing). You need not continue to post to me about FCDW: it's dead. I hope FAC will get its own newsletter, and not be beholden to the WMF and the Signpost. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Now that you're not director anymore, you might even have time to realize that dream. And as it stands the whole thing is my contribution; Cirt hasn't really done anything with it. But what's wrong with Cirt? I like him. He's a solid Wikipedian as far as I know, and I generally ignore anything by ArbCom, so administrator, not administrator, whatever. Is that not true, that the highest reward is that bronze star? Reward culture, shmeward culture, whatever gets people writing, be it a shiny bronze star or their wet dreams, is a good enough motive for me. ResMar 03:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Request for comments on an article?

I can tell you are busy, but I’m looking for someone who has a better critical eye than I have, and you are my first choice.

I ran into User:Beebuk a year and a half ago, when he was working on some articles as a new editor, and running into some challenges from other editors. He specializes in pantomine related topics, an area I know very little about. (And I’m not presuming you do have or do not have expertise in this area, I’m looking for your expertise as an editor)

He recently asked me to take a look at Pedrolino. I’m happy to note that he is well beyond the basics, so I am struggling to be helpful. I offered some comments at Comments_on_Pedrolino, but I realize I need the big guns. If you could find the time to make a few comments, it would be appreciated.

As an aside, I plan to work on bringing some articles to GA and FA eventually, but in my area of interest, the low-hanging fruit is still ungathered, so I confess to lack of knowledge of those areas. That said, I’m surprised to see Pedrolino as start class, and Charles Deburau as C class. I wonder what I’m missing, as both articles seem well written to me.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

If now is a bad time, could you point me in the right direction? MF is at the top of my list, but I'm thinking this is bad timing. Is there a list of FAC reviewers somewhere? I could ask one of them.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:40, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I've been busy-- I'll try to get to it! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Most assessors grade articles purely on length, and a broad impression of their look, as far as I can see, and if you see an inappropriate grade just change it. Plus of course most writers hesitate to upgrade their own efforts, & the grade (like any reader's grades at the bottom), may have been based on a much earlier version. C and C, or C and B, even B & B would seem appropriate to me here. Johnbod (talk) 14:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)