User talk:Kudpung/Archive Aug 2011

Brad Herzog draft

Hi Kudpung- I am so excited because I think I have finally fixed this entry up and it will hopefully pass criteria. I know you are traveling, but I would appreciate if you would take a look. (I hope I've even sent you this message in the proper way.) Thanks! Amyherzog (talk) 20:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Please follow this link: Kudpung: Herzog archive to the advice I gave you in February, because most of the issues have still not been addressed. If you remove all the references to Amazon, and other publishers'/booksellers' reviews and basic listings, and the subject's own website, we are not left with WP:Reliable Sources that support the claims (particularly awards), and proof of publications (ISBN). The article still reads promotional or as a resumé, and the references have still not been formatted per WP:CITE. The only thing I can see Mr Herzog as having achieved that might meet our criteria for inclusion, is his minor success due to having been a contestant on a TV show; being a staff writer on magazines, or having published a few books does not necessarily put him in the same league as, for example, Bill Bryson or G. K. Chesterton. Please read again our policies at WP:AUTHOR to establish notability, and WP:RS to establish what sources assert such notability through multiple, in-depth media coverage of the author rather than his works and books, and do bear in mind again our policy concerning your Conflict of Interest. If you can address these issues, we may be able to avoid the article being deleted.--Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:28, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

This is harder than I thought. He is the author of 4 non-fiction books, and dozens of children's books, has won awards for his writing, and has written hundreds of magazine articles, done hundreds (not joking) of TV interviews and been interviewed by newspapers dozens of times. Even though I may have a conflict of interest, he certainly belongs here. Several months ago, you offered to take this over for me. Would you still be willing to do so? I can certainly provide the ISBN #s for all his books. And I can start you off with some links to reputable outside sources (San Francisco Chronicle, Minnesota Public Radio, People magazine, PBS TV in Chicago) and perhaps we can do it that way? Here are just a few of the links:

http://video.wttw.com/video/1560185722/ http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-03-06/living/28655480_1_small-town-latest-book-rv http://www.rvbusiness.com/tag/brad-herzog/ http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/arts/x792538138/Travel-author-Brad-Herzog-visit-Framingham-Thursday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuPo9fAFzVA http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20131241,00.html http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/08/31/herzog/

Thanks so much for your help!Amyherzog (talk) 17:44, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm afraid the focus of my work at Wikipedia has shifted to administration since we last corresponded. In any case I was unable to to find any suitable references and I feel that as you are so close to the subject you are best placed for locating the required sources. Please take a moment to read WP:RS, WP:AUTHOR, and WP:CITE as I previously suggested, because if we can't make a match, there can be no article. I'm sure that if Mr Herzog is as well known as you suggest, there will be ample top quality newspaper articles about him rather than about his books and it will be worth finding them. I'm certain also that you will be able to link to the sites of the bodies that have bestowed him with awards for confirmation. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:44, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Augmentative and alternative communication

Responding to RFCs

Remember that RFCs are part of Dispute Resolution and at times may take place in a heated environment. Please take a look at the relevant RFC page before responding and be sure that you are willing and able to enter that environment and contribute to making the discussion a calm and productive one focussed on the content issue at hand. See also Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Suggestions for responding.

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Augmentative and alternative communication. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! However, please note that your input will carry no greater weight than anyone else's: remember that an RFC aims to reach a reasoned consensus position, and is not a vote. In support of that, your contribution should focus on thoughtful evaluation of the issues and available evidence, and provide further relevant evidence if possible.

You have received this notice because your name is on Wikipedia:Feedback request service. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from that page. RFC bot (talk) 05:36, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Hi and thank you for the message =D

Hentaku La Blue Girl (talk) 15:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Editor assistance

Hey, thanks. I was just not sure. I knew the dome was notable for a variety of reasons, but the Wildcat Den seemed to stand on shakier ground. The picture came from commons:User:Martinpulido's CC0 dump of dozens of building photos in Chinle and Kayenta, Arizona, including pictures of all the schools in Chinle and the Wildcat Den. (And some more mundane items...let's go inside a supermarket!) Raymie (t • c) 19:28, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Amazing! I don't work in the files department, but one thing is for sure, Wikipdia is not photobucket.com :) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Where do they come from, long time passing...

So, I wondered where all the new extra random new page patrollers come from. Why do people start there? So I had a look at some recommendations.

If someone "adopts" a new user, and their first recommendations were the following, would you be worried?

"I'll also help you to identify the area you want to get yourself the most involved in. Here are a few:

Vandal fighting Recent changes patrol New pages patrol Usernames for attention Article work Creating new articles and adding content Improving articles by cleaning them up, fixing typos, etc. Creating articles which were submitted by IP addresses Deletion discussions Image maintenance

What are you most interested in? I suggest starting with some vandal fighting." (my emphasis)

I could format that as per the original, but it takes up a lot more space - hopefully the ideas are clear. Just casting around for some views. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:30, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

New Page Patrol is a complete trainwreck and that's why we've had to look into other methods of preventing the wrong pages from being made. An [by Fetchcomms] posits some theories as to why NPP is largely carried out by very young, almost totally inexperienced users. Personally, I would like to see New Page Patroller made into a user right such as reviewer and/or rollbacker. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:53, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, that essay doesn't really address the problem at all - it doesn't even mention new page patrol other than to assert that some members of a certain age group carry it out without problems. Instead of merely describing the problem, we should be looking at what factors are causing or contributing the problem, and how they can be addressed. New Page Patrol isn't linked from the Main page (Recent Changes is), so how are inexperienced editors getting there? It seems to be the case that it's actually experienced editors that are suggesting to inexperienced editors that New Page Patrol is what they should do.

That's exactly what happened in the case above. Then I stepped in and suggested that New Page Patrol wasn't a good place to start; so the adopter suggested that the inexperienced editor try working at AfC instead. That also caused problems - although not quite as many.

It would be good to encourage experienced editors not to throw inexperienced editors straight into New Page Patrol (or even AfC). That also leaves the question, if we don't want them to do that, what do we want them to do? If a new editor is an academic who wants to edit articles about dung beetles, that's what they should be encouraged to do - but the reality is that we get an awful lot of new editors who "just want to do stuff". "Create new articles" is the obvious thing to say, but it's not actually as easy as it sounds, for many of those who are completely new.

If the adopter can spend serious amounts of time with the adoptee, and thinks they're ready for it, then finding them a promising unsourced BLP to reference and expand, is one good option. For the rest, I am thinking that there are many of even the basic housekeeping tasks can be a minefield for new editors (CSD tagging, AfD nominations, RCP because of BLP issues), but there are some backlog-related tasks that are much less controverial and thus a much better place to start. Dealing with a category of "articles of type X needing an infobox" seems to be one such place, but I'm sure there must be others. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:53, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Making NPP a userright won't make a difference. Anyone can manually stick a {{db}} on a page whether they have the right or not, the difference being that the page doesn't get patrolled. I personally think that everyone should have a general understanding of templates, and that we don't have enough people skilled with parser functions, but I digress. --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 00:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Websites with images

Hi Kudpung. Many thanks for your prompt advice to me at WP:EAR in response to my question about Websites with images, and for the Talkback banner on my Talk page. I have perused the policy pages you listed. Another User alerted me to {{External media}} and I have now made use of that template in a new article I am developing. See my diff. I believe this application of the template is compatible with the advice at WP:HOTLINK. Cheers! Dolphin (t) 04:14, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the documentation at {{External media}} demonstrates the need to observe our rules for linking to outside images. These policies are based on both copyright and technical considerations. In practice, the template is rarely used. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:08, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Welcome template

Hi, Kudpung. If you get a moment amid your travels, would you take a look at this? I think an earlier request got lost in the archives. Thanks, Rivertorch (talk) 03:37, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Autoconfirmed trial

Kudpung, I have created a MediaWiki interface page which will be displayed to non-autoconfirmed users who try to create an article during the trial. However, I don't have access to create new articles in the MediaWiki namespace so I can't put the page in the right place. It's currently at User:Snottywong/MediaWiki:Noautocreatetext. Can you check it over, make sure it looks right, and then move it to MediaWiki:Noautocreatetext? Keep in mind that there's a lot of template logic going on inside of it which will change the way it looks depending on the namespace of the article. While it's in my userspace, it will always appear as if you're trying to create a User: page. I think I have a bugzilla account already, so I'll try and start a request there shortly. I'll post a link to it if I get it done. —SW— ^chatter 21:58, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

See bugzilla:30208. —SW— ^gossip 22:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all this SW. It's mid morning here and I've just got back in the house. I'll check this all out after lunch. Dunno what time you're on in Oregon. Catch up with you later. Cheers, --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:11, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Need some support on the bugzilla thread. Someone is trying to say we don't have consensus to implement the trial. —SW— ^babble 14:10, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I guessed we would run into problem. I've been wondering for weeks why I could find nobody o do it. Of course there is consensus for the trial - the original consensus foe the new policy was overwhelming and so is the consensus for the durtion of the trial, what more do we want? Who is the most senior person that voted on either RfC? Unfortunately ne of the people I trust most was not entirely in favour of it. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:29, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The link to Bugzilla is not working - can you give me another one or a full URL? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:35, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Full URL —SW— ^converse 15:05, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Still can't link to it. Through Ffox it just times out, and from Safari I get this message: Safari can’t connect to the proxy server. Safari can’t open the page “https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30208” because Safari can’t connect to the secure web proxy server (HTTPS). To change your proxy settings, open Safari Preferences, click Advanced, and then click Change Settings. For help with this problem, contact your system administrator. I've tried connecting through http, same story. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Do you have any kind of weird firewall that might be blocking that site for some reason, or blocking https traffic? It looks like bugzilla only works over https. While you're figuring it out, here's what was said: —SW— ^verbalize 16:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The discussion so far

The dissenting user (probably User:Maxsem) said this: "Call me dumb, but don't see any strong consensus here. If we simply sum the number of people supporting and opposing this change in principle, it will be something closer to 50/50. Also, lots of people opined on the need in an article creation wizard in software proper, as opposed to wiki pages. Can this possibility be seriously discussed before making such serious step?" And my response was: "I don't think this is the time or the place to second-guess the way the proposal was closed by an experienced admin. Note that over 500 editors participated, and the closing admin notes that "In this broadly attended discussion, more than two-thirds of those expressing a clear 'support' or 'oppose' opinion supported the proposal to limit article creation to autoconfirmed editors, either as a trial or on a permanent basis." No one has disputed the way this proposal was closed (and bugzilla is certainly not the place to do so). There is very strong consensus for this trial. As for a software version of an article creation wizard, that's a great idea but completely unrelated to this trial; linking the two is unnecessary and inappropriate. While this is a serious step, keep in mind it is only a trial. The trial will last for 6 months, and then this change will be reversed for 30 days while a discussion ensues on whether to make the changes permanent or to abandon the idea. Many editors have planned and worked for months to organize, propose and implement this change. I (and they) would be highly disappointed if it got hijacked on bugzilla, at the very last step of implementation."

• Could you please move the mediawiki interface page from my user space into the MediaWiki namespace so that the devs can see it? —SW— ^squeal 16:58, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Call me dumb if you like, but I'm not sure what the move is you want me to do. You don't need admin rights to do moves, why not just paste your template proposal into the tech discussion page below my fake examples, and link it to the devs?

The Bugzilla people have no right whatsoever to question a consensus that was clealry reached by due process, a long cooling off period before it was summarised by a particularly expert, neutral admin, and a further overwhelming consensus for the trial on the basisd that I proposed after long discussions with you and the others to reach a mini consensus on the best way to go about obtaining consensus for the trial. I think your response is perfectly apt, and it would be proper to tell the author of that message that if s/he is against the project, then they should have voted/commented with the others in the previous RfCs. Now is not the time to relitigate a policy that was recently adopted by established process. I would go so far as to accuse delaying tactics at this stage as disruptive editing whoever they are. I still can't get on to Bugzilla. The offer to vocal/video Skype me is still open - I've never been able to get the Wikipedia IRC channels to work. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you completely. Regarding my request to move the page, I can't create new pages in the MediaWiki namespace or move pages into the MediaWiki namespace because I'm not an admin. I just need an admin to move User:Snottywong/MediaWiki:Noautocreatetext to MediaWiki:Noautocreatetext. Moving the page there won't cause anything to happen, but it'll just make it available for the devs to see and eventually use when they implement the trial. Also, I'm currently at work and so won't be able to use skype or IRC. There has been some more activity on the bugzilla page: —SW— ^babble 18:51, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

More comments

Comments from a different person than the first one: The right way to deal with this is to cut to the root of the problem: we throw brand-new potential editors directly into shark-infested waters, then yell at them for splashing at the sharks. :) I agree with the basic concern -- putting newbies right into that environment so easily often ends up harming everyone -- but I don't think it would be ideal to simply cut off new article creation without actually providing a safe place for them to go instead. This needs to be paired with a *really good user-friendly way* for new accounts to create provisional articles, have them reviewed, get mentored by real people, and get their articles moved into real article space (or at least end up finding something better to do in a less confrontational way than a scary template and speedy deletion). I would recommend at least a serious beefing up of the requests for article creation pages before trying this; a newbie attempting to create a new article definitely needs to be shepherded through some checks, and should end up with the opportunity to at least create a page -- even if it's in a sandbox area. (In the future, please consider actually reaching out to developers for feedback as well before the final stages!) And I made two responses. My first response: Can you define "beefing up"? The current en:WP:Articles_for_Creation and en:WP:Article_wizard have existed for quite some time and, in my opinion, do a good job of shepherding new users through the process of creating a new article. In addition, the error page which will be displayed to the user when they try to create a new article will give them clear instructions on how to get their article created despite being non-autoconfirmed: 1. It will direct them straight to Articles for Creation with instructions on how to use the Article Wizard to create a new article and have experienced editors review it. This process has worked for IPs creating new articles for years. 2. It will also provide a link to start the article in their userspace, with clear directions on how to get the attention of an editor to review the article and move it into mainspace for them when they're done. Or, they can just wait 4 days and make 10 edits, which is a very low bar to achieve. Can you identify the specific deficiencies in the current Articles for Creation and Article Wizard systems which you believe need to be "beefed up"? My second response: Overall, I think we're thinking too hard about this. We're trying to figure out all of the problems that this change might cause and fix them beforehand, when in fact one of the major purposes of this trial is to actually identify what problems are caused (if any), what the nature of those problems are, and what the most effective way would be to fix them. If we're just blindly guessing that problems will be created at en:WP:AFC and vaguely insisting that we need to "beef up" something before the trial starts, then we might be implementing non-ideal solutions to non-existent problems. I think a far better idea is to actually implement the trial for a limited amount of time, collect some real data about its effects, and implement the most effective fixes to solve any problems caused.

I've finally been able to get myself registered with Bugzilla and I'm in the process of drafting a comment about their concerns. I still don't understand what you want me to do with this page move. I can edit the en.Wikipedia interface, and I guess that includes any templates that are used sort of like edit notices together with all their embedded php and sub-template calls, but I don't wnt to do anythig that will go live just yet. I think the template you propose should be copied and pasted in <pre></pre> tags to the tech page and it should be up to the Bugzilla people to look at it there. Superfluous however, considering that it's not their mandate anyway, because I can do it without any further discussion as part of a policy that has already been agreed. If we get much more resistance to this software implementation, we'll have to consider writing to Gardner. However, I'm sure that among the staunch supporters of this new policy and its trial, there are other admins whose voices carry more weight than mine. Finally, as the Bugzilla disuccion is not a policy debate, perhaps one could canvas for support from some of the participants of the main and the trial discussions. without infringing on WP:CANVASS - after all, they've already !voted for what they wanted and it's been greed by consensus. Who are these Bugzilla people anyway? Some kind of state security agents or MI5? Are they volunteers like us or are they paid? It's nearly midnight here, but if you want to talk, the laptop will be on my bedside table. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

BTW: Bugzilla is showing my personal email and not my user name - heck, why is everything so damn complicated? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:38, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I've found the bugzilla interface to be horrible. FYI - I just posted a message to the Head of Reader Relations at the Wikimedia Foundation. See User talk:Philippe (WMF)#Help with implementing a trial. I heard from some very experienced editors that he would be a good WMF contact who might be able to push this change through. I don't know who this Gardner guy is, but it may be worth starting a dialogue with him as well. Attack things from both sides. Also FYI - I'm going to be out of town away from computers for the next 2-3 days, until around this time on Sunday. I might be able to check in once or twice during that time, but I might not. I also have another 7-8 hours left today before I go to bed. So, after that, this will probably be in your hands for a few days. —SW— ^yak 22:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't hesitate to tell Philippe you've been working with me on this project - I've done some stuff in the past for the WMF that he was seemed pleased with. Sue Gardner is the CEO of the WMF. Meanwhile I'll have a word with Blade. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I dropped your name there. —SW— ^gab 23:37, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I've commented over there as well; I'm 3 hours ahead of you, Snottywong (CT), and I'll be around this weekend. I'll see if I can't catch you on Skype after I get back from work (which'll be about 8:00 your time, Kudpung). Also, if you'd like to read the decidedly forceful message I left Sue Gardner a few months ago, check Archive 2 of her talkpage; if you can't find it I'll link you to it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:04, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I remember that conversation and the comment Philippe chimed in with. They may have cut their Wikipedia teeth on NPP, but they were not aware of the 1,000s of pages falling of special:new pages after 30 days, or re-patrollig the patrolled pages, or patrolling the patrollers. They won't necessarily have been following the discussions nor be aware of the trainwreck that NPP actually is, nor of the work we have been doing for nearly a year to identify the problems. With the exception of a tiny handful of established editors and admins having an occasional stab at it, NPP is the playground of totally inexperienced new editors, many of whom are either extremely young, and/or are not even native English speakers, and are impossible to educate, short of topic banning them from NPP. The WMF, IMHO with all due respect, are looking down the telescope from the wrong end. They appear, from the tone of Sue's comments' to be far more concerned at a possible loss of the 0.2% of new article creators who might one day become regular editors (in the face of a natural decline anyway), than the 1,000 creators per day who inundate the Wikipedia with sheer unadulterated crap, vandalism, spam, copyvio, and attack pages. Thing is, since Oct 2010, SN and I have been doing both the math and the first hand empirical study with a blind control based on the work of users such as Blade. The WMF has been doing it bit but has been playing with either outdated stats, or the wrong kind of stats. Bottom line is, this trial has consensus and must go ahead and preventing it by attempting to negate the perfect, long, and well summarised consensus, or to block the software requirements, will be gross breaches of Wikipedia's own policy. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:57, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

It's the basic problem Malleus spelled out at that RfC; established editors can't be left behind in the quest for new editors. Although in hindsight I came off a little stronger than I intended in my comment there, I'm sick of being treated like a Karen in Burma because I'm an NPPer (which won't endear me to many to start), I happen to see the extent of the problem, and I want to force the issue to resolve it (not that I'm anything on the order of Zoya Phan, but I like to use her story to draw parallels on Wikipedia because I wrote almost all of that article). I eagerly await the commencement of this, and in a related vein I hope I didn't come off as snarky to the second person I responded to at the Bugzilla page. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:54, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

It's difficult enough getting anything changed for the better at Wikipedia through our process of of gaining consensus. Too many crackpot ideas are posted at the VP while too many editors prowl round the discussions and contribute to them in the hope it will look good on their future RfA, instead of getting on with content; while many who missed or weren't interested in the main RfC barge in at the last moment (as they did at BLPPROD), wanting the whole thing re-debated because they couldn't be bothered to read through the RfC and all its preceding research and discussions. Even here on the autoconfirmed issue, we have one regular policy !voter who says a lot at all RfCs but rarely commits clearly to one direction or another - they even claimed at one stage that NPP is an unnecessary process. I'd like to see what alternative solutions they could come up with, but they never do. I've racked my brain for 10 months for another solution to the 1,000 or so useless pages that get created every day, and I think it's an insult to the intelligence of the established users to expect them to repair those pages and find sources and arguments to keep them, and mollycoddle those SPA who create them. I am wholly committed to this new rule of ours and I'm convinced that it is a most positive step and the only solution possible until Wikipedia adopts the same controls over registration and posting that are exercised by any common or garden web forum. I would even go one step further and have an automated script that vets every new registration for sockpuppetry. The camp that insists on preserving the right of absolutely anyone to post live to mainspace (and patrol new pages without any experience or maturity whatsoever), are going to be responsible for the ultimate demise of Wikipedia as a respected knowledge base. There is also the fact that because nothing ever gets physically deleted from our servers, there are roughly 1000 times more 'deleted' pages and millions of deletion discussions harboured on WMF hard discs than live articles. That costs a lot of the money that all the annoying begging banners are yelling for and which some of us even donate together with our voluntary editing time. Rant over. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:58, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• Things are not looking good. See the latest comments on bugzilla where someone is essentially instructing the devs to not implement our request. It's time to pull out all the stops, and contact anyone at WMF who might be able to make a difference. It might even be worth contacting Jimbo, who (I think I read somewhere) supports the concept behind this trial. However, it's probably best to not contact him on his user talk page, unless you want to drag another 200 editors into the discussion in one fell swoop. —SW— ^squeal 14:23, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm leaving in an hour or two, and won't be back until Sunday evening (Pacific time). I'll check in if I can find internet access out in the desert... —SW— ^squeal 14:24, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know whose authority he is operating under, but in my opinion there is a strong possibility that Brendon might be in serious breach of Wikipedia ethic, and may be undermining one of the fundamental pillars of policy by banning the devs from addressing the community's request. It's the kind of action that could cause the mature, dedicated editors and admins who strive to maintain quality of the project to retire from Wikipedia. NPP has proven to be irreparable - the simple solution of making new creators wait for a day or two before their new pages can go live is extremely deserving of the trial that has been agreed by double consensus. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:55, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, the last Bugzilla comment there answers that question, so hopefully that will calm things down a bit. I'm around for the rest of the day (it's 4:20 PM my time), so give me a few minutes and I'll see if I can't get you on Skype. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:19, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

FYI, take a look...

I know you are just mentoring Assassin's Creed with respect to NPP, but take a look at User talk:Bill william compton#Wikified articles. He seems to go from being problematic in one area of WP to another. LadyofShalott 22:37, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up - I'll leave him a message. I've already warned him some while ago that his good intentions are in fact disruptive. I hate the thought of having to block someone who is editing in good faith, but at the end of the day a short block might be our only option. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:52, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've left a message here. Taking him to ANI won't help, so if he still does not understand, a short sharp block by any admin (I don't really want to have to be the one to do it though) may be necessary to help him understand that even good faith editing can be highly disruptive. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:11, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Kudpung. You have new messages at Assassin's Creed's talk page.
Message added 07:14, 7 August 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

—Assassin'S Creed ^(talk) 07:14, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding RfA reform

Hi, Kudpung. Please take a look at Wikipedia talk:RfA reform 2011#What has happened. Thank you, Swarm ^{u | t} 04:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Your message to me???

I received a message on my talk page that you had a message for me on your talk page. But I couldn't find it. Puzzled in Toronto. Bellagio99 (talk) 00:01, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm sorry, but that was a long time ago and I really can't remember what it was. You may wish to search my talk page archives, but it probably wasn't important. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:10, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

List of Old Guildfordians (Royal Grammar School, Guildford) FL

Hi Kudpung, any chance you could revisit the FLC page for this article. I think I have resolved all your comments, but the FLC is currently rather stagnant as there are still officially unresolved comments. Thanks, Glanis^Talk 18:09, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, can you revisit this again? The image in question has been removed. Thanks, Dabomb87 (talk) 21:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

New page patrolling and something I noticed whilst doing it

It's almost as if every user with a redlinked talk and userpage who creates an article is just another SPA. Take Toshofbarra and Interactive.data for instance.

Just a bit weird, isn't it? --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 07:36, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Not weird. Just an undeniable fact. That's why consensus passed a new rule to allow only autoconfirmed users to be allowed to post new articles live to mainspace. However, in spite of the research, stats, and overwhelming consensus reached by an RfC with a 500+ participation, it seems that some devs are refusing to authorise the site software change. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:16, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Check your email

There's an OTRS issue we need your help with. Dougweller (talk) 14:45, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Status of autoconfirm trial

I've been emailing with Jimbo about the trial. He's in support of the trial and it sounds like it will eventually be implemented, however he had some good points about the implementation. We have some more work to do for planning the trial. Besides, the better we can plan the trial, the better chance we have of making it a permanent change. I'm going to create another working page for a few of us interested editors to discuss some more aspects of the trial, mostly concerning the user interface and giving non-autoconfirmed users good alternatives to get their articles created. I'll probably have some time to do this in the next day or two, and I'll let you know here when I do. I think it would be good to have 4-6 editors contributing to this, I'll invite the devs on bugzilla too. —SW— ^{spill the beans} 15:06, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

This is welcome news; even if there is more work to be done. If you need me along I'll be happy to contribute. I hope the consensus will be upheld. My faith in Wikipedia has however been severely shaken by the blatant refusal on the Bugzilla thread to accept a new policy that was adopted by due process. This is inadmissible and is just as big an issue as the trial we're trying to get implemented. What the detractors completely failed to realise is that were are talking about an absolutely necessary trial, without which neither they nor we will know the outcome. Silly really - maybe the WMF ought to rethink the qualities of management of the people they've got around them. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:30, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree in part. Jimmy brought up some valid points, basically that we have an obligation to plan the trial well before devs implement it. But, the devs who initially responded on bugzilla could have handled the situation a lot better. They could have been a lot more sensitive to the fact that a lot of work had already been done to pass the proposal and plan the trial to the extent that we had, in which case they would have responded a little better than "Naah, that's a stupid idea, we're not going to implement it." In any case, it looks like it will eventually be implemented, it might just take a little longer than we thought and require a little more work. I'll let you know when I organize a work page for the additional planning. —SW— ^spout 18:38, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I've been thinking about e-mailing Jimbo myself, so it's good to hear that. Do you think an e-mail from me to him as well would be beneficial, or do you think you've got this under control? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:09, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Blade: I think it's under control. I'd be happy to email you the exchange I had with him if you're interested. I have one more email out to him, I'm not sure if he will respond to that one though. —SW— ^express 00:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Kudpung & Blade: See WP:ACTRIAL (work page for additional trial planning). —SW— ^express 00:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Good; I'll pop over to WP:ACTRIAL a little later on. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:18, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all you've done SW. Late here. I'll check out the new page in the morning. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:41, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I note the lack of devs commenting, despite the carping at the Bugzilla thread and the subsequent invitations from Snotty and I. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:07, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I've noticed the same lack. I hope to able to put more work into it later in the week, I've just been absolutely swamped with other things. It's going a lot slower than I had hoped. I think the suggestion to split out the idea for the express path to autoconfirmed status is a good one; it will just hold up the trial otherwise. —SW— ^squeal 20:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

All right, I'm back in business. I'll catch up with everything and go from there; Irene didn't do much damage to us personally (just a few downed trees), but took out our power until about 5:30 today. Glad to be back. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:AGF

WP:AGF. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 16:39, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

AGF yourself please, or at least read up on some of our policies about discussing things first. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:49, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Gracie Films. I am so sorry for shooting myself in the foot which would leave me unable to walk. How bizarre. Also, Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship does say to complete the questions, but it doesn't say that it is compulsory. As it isn't, please remain civil. You should always assume good faith, everyone makes mistakes, I simply forgot about this and forgot to discuss this. Everyone makes mistakes sorry. I had no malicious intentions, however with your reply you imply that I do, this is wrong and inaccurate. Also, I quote from the guide "In general, it is usual to avoid substantially editing another's user and user talk pages other than where it is likely edits are expected and/or will be helpful. If unsure, ask." I was not unsure, I knew that I wasn't going to completely redraft the whole page. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 16:54, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL don't apply here as Kudpung did not assume bad faith and was not incivil. You made an honest mistake, but there's no need for such a cagey response and jumping to pages such as WP:CIVIL. Nev1 (talk) 17:06, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I did not have malicious intentions, They called my comment "stupid" here

They told me to "keep off their talk page." [1]. I did not have bad faith edits and the words they chose seem to imply to confirm this suspicion. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 17:10, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Replying to Kudpung's perfectly reasonable request not to edit their essay with "WP:AGF" was nonsensical as Kudpung had not accused you of acting maliciously. In a nutshell, it was a stupid comment. Kudpung is perfectly within their rights to ask you to stay of their talk page. Nev1 (talk) 17:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Kudpung's reaction is perfectly acceptable. You would be best off to drop the issue now instead of roaming the site complaining about Kudpung. Ryan Vesey Review me! 17:19, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I admit my honest mistake and I am sorry for having my opinion but consensus in this case has overruled my own opinion so I assume that the issue is now resolved and that the guide improves greatly, I will not talk about this matter anymore as it is solved and no further discussion is needed. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 17:32, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

RFA reform

Is there a page for RFA reform for a list of things that have happened as a result of the reform? If this page doesn't exist, it should be created. Ryan Vesey Review me! 19:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

As a reform group, we haven't brought any official propositions forward yet for debate by the broader community. AFAICS, the only things that have happened are that the situation has got progressively worse, with:

• The number of mature, experienced candidates is still on the decline.
• Incivility and personal attacks still ever present.
• Unqualified users attempting to tranclude their RfAs, and ending up getting bitten, and wasting their and our time.

Someone created a project sub page here where I guess our proposals for RfC were supposed to be listed when they were more or less ready to be launched, but I don't see much action on that page yet. What we really want to do is to encourage people not to go off at half tack and create their own projects, but to provide and stimulate a collaborative environment for promoting change - its what usually works best.

--Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I know that Worm's nomination program is a direct result of the reform project. If we can get a few more tangible reforms, I think it will be important to list them. Ryan Vesey Review me! 20:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Worm's programme is highly commendable and I'm all for it. However, it's not part of the scope of RFA2011 whose goal it is to bring about visible change to the behaviour of the RfA'voters' in order to offer a less humiliating 7-day ordeal, and thus attract more mature, experienced users of the right kind to the idea of being admins. Worm's nomination scheme is no more part of the RFA2011 project than the WP:RFAADVICE essay that I wrote. We have however both been campaigning for RfA reform long before I started the WP:RFA2011 project. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:05, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Just noticed this. I've actually said that WP:REQUESTNOM and the change to the group notice are both direct changes, but I suppose they are indirect. I did run REQUESTNOM by the task force and it came about as a result of the research I did for the project, but it was more of a branch on my own. However, I'm tempted to create a "progress" page, which shows milestones since the task force was set up. I'm also tempted to fiddle to make an archive, and to make things a little more readable. I'll get back to you both on that.

The only point I would like to make is on the goal of RfA reform. It's to "make RfA more attractive for experienced editors, whilst reduce the number of unsuccessful candidates". Voter's tendencies is part of that, but not the be all and end all. As such, I would say that WP:REQUESTNOM would have been in scope, had I put it there. Worm^TT · (talk) 08:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't express myself too well up there. What I meant was that although some things have arisen, such as your nomination essay and my advice essay, during the RfA reform project, they are not the result of clearly defined reform items that would need community consensus. They are nevertheless no less valuable to improving the RfA environment overall, but the problem is in getting people to read them. They wont even read the glaring edit notices we've put on the transclusion page! I was forgetting that essays like yours and mine are nevertheless a reform in a kind of way. One of our other problems now is going to be that any reforms needing site software tweaks will be subject to the new trend that devs are now allowed to refuse any new requests they personally don't like, even if they have been passed by a large community debate.

BTW, I'm right now in the process of extending this table to cover a full period of 12 months, to be used for stats in the proposal for minimum bar. I hope to have it finished this evening UK time. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:11, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll have a check of the table when you're done (certainly over the next few days), but do let me know if there are any NOTNOWS that have snuck through above the criteria. Otherwise, reform comes slowly but surely, the winds of change are there - and our essays could be considered trailblazers in that respect :) - Nice thought anyway. I'd like to see some graphs of NOTNOWS or indeed other failed candidates to see if its moving up or down. I'll think about doing them myself at some point. Worm^TT · (talk) 13:18, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Online Ambassadors: Time to join pods

Hello! If you're planning to be an active Online Ambassador for the upcoming academic term, now is the time to join one or more pods. (A pod consists of the instructor, the Campus Ambassadors, and the Online Ambassadors for single class.) The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) explains the expectations for being part of a pod as an Online Ambassador. (The MOU for pods in Canada is essentially the same.) In short, the role of Online Ambassadors this term consists of:

• Working closely with the instructor and Campus Ambassadors, providing advice and perspective as an experienced Wikipedian
• Helping students who ask for it (or helping them to find the help they need)
• Watching out for the class as a whole
• Helping students to get community feedback on their work

This replaces the 1-on-1 mentoring role for Online Ambassadors that we had in previous terms; rather than being responsible for individual students (some of whom don't want or help or are unresponsive), Online Ambassadors will be there to help whichever students in their class(es) ask for help.

You can browse the upcoming courses here: United States; Canada. More are being added as new pods become active and create their course pages.

Once you've found a class that you want to work with—especially if you some interest or expertise in the topic area—you should sign the MOU listing for that class and get in touch with the instructor. We're hoping to have at least two Online Ambassadors per pod, and more for the larger classes.

If you're up for supporting any kind of class and would like me to assign you to a pod in need of more Online Ambassadors, just let me know.

--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:33, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

PS: There are still a lot of student articles from the last term that haven't been rated. Please rate a few and update the list!

Why did you delete my page?

I am trying to recreate a page (Kjarposko) I have made before (I was originally Ronnietse), which was deleted because I accidentally added semi-ads in. I didn't mean to add ads anyway, and I did not add any ads in this time. I already said in a big font 'This page is under construction', so why did you speedy delete it?

P. S. I am a kid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TseRonnie (talk • contribs) 14:44, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I realised immediately you are a kid. We've got nothing against kids editing here as long as they read the rules first. Click here on Kjarposko and you'll find out why it was deleted three times already and why you unfortunately won't be allowed to recreate it again. Please read Advice for younger editors, read some of our editing instructions, sign your messages, and then don't hesitste to ask me for help when you have something to write that meets our criteria for encyclopedia articles. ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:07, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello!

Hey -- how's everything going? I hope RFA Reform is going great. I check in every now and again, but it's all Drama, Drama, Drama, ohh and did I mention, Drama. I hope you're doing well, and will be back as soon as I get the time for it again! All the best, Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 01:38, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, nice to hear from you. Yes, drama. I've been an admin for getting on for 6 months already and I get the distinct impression that building an encyclopedia is 95% drama and 5% new content. WP:RFA2011 is making progress, it's slow, but I knew it would be, but we have a strong suggestion for one item already - an entry threshold of 3000 edits/6 months - that might soon be a central RfC. It's designed to prevent noobs and cranks from making a fool of themselves, but of course there are people who are saying our intention is to make it harder to become an admin. Hope everything is fine for you in RL. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:05, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Glad all is _mostly_ well. When RFA Reform does go to RFA RFC, leave me a message on my talk page, or email me. All messages posted on my talk page are emailed to me as well. See you soon! Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 19:29, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

There's a long and interesting thread today on User talk:Jimbo Wales . I do wish however that people would keep discussions like this on the right project pages. Still, it's nice to get some comments from Jimbo and to hear him reconfirm his opinion that RfA is a broken process. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:13, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I've got to say that the whole Jimbo thread has rather bugged me. For one thing, it appears to me that it was started from the point of view of "Some editors can't become admins, is that fair"? Which is wholly missing the point. Since we've been looking at RfA over the past few months, I've personally found that whilst there are problems with it (not enough candidates, people trying when they shouldn't, people feeling savaged etc), I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that it isn't broken. I'm all for an alternative method to adminship, especially to encourage more people to run, but not to circumvent the current process (IE, if the community says no, you shouldn't be able to go and ask a committee) Worm^TT · (talk) 12:22, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The thread annoys me because it was started by someone who has now failed two RfAs and still can't understand why. That person may have a talent for eloquent speech but the community has twice decided that the candidate does not have the skill set for adminship, and I don't personally think that person has sufficient emotional balance to take on the challenge of adminship if they had the tools.. The thread annoys me because we have people posting on it who are simply surmising because the haven't/can't/won't consult the stats we have provided at RFA2011, who are themselves some of the worst drama mongers at RfA, who have no intention of actively pursuing any of the suggestions for reform, and who are wannabe admins who don't stand a chance of passing an RfA even if they tried. I went through hell week, and it was absolute sheer bloody hell - mainly because I had been around long enough to upset people by just doing my job, and they resorted to every kind of personal attack, incivility, lies, deceit, and pile-on of the very kind that turn RfA into a fiasco. And that's the problem the mature, experienced potential candidates of the right calibre are faced with and why they won't come forward. I've never said I'm against any completely different system for selecting our sysops, in fact I would be all in favour of a new system that would work and I spent hours discussing it yesterday at a face-2-face meeting, but I'm so convinced that it would be impossible to implement through our normal process of RfC and consensus, that I have personally ruled the possibility out, and probably won't take part in any discussion on radical alternatives until we've at least had a go at making some concrete changes that vastly improve the environment of the current system, and if we get consesus on some of those changes, giving them time enough to see if they are taking effect. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Would you mind linking me directly do that thread (or if it's long in the archives, don't bother). This is what I mean...too much Drama for me now. I liked it when it was laid back, and people didn't stick a ten foot pole up your ass every time you spell something wrong :P. All the best, Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 00:40, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Y Kudpung, cuantos español sabes? Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 00:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Kudpung. You have new messages at WP:Editor review/Σ.
Message added 04:58, 25 August 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I need a more global view of my speedy deletion tags. --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 04:58, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Iv'e aded something to the comments: Review of speedy/prod tagging by ErikHaugen. NPP is a broken process and in complete disarray, and there appears to be no easy remedy. Meetings and discussions are therefore currently taking place to find alternative ways of controlling the quality of newly created pages and possibly completely avoiding the creation of totally unsuitable ones. This will significantly change the way NPPatrolles work, if indeed there will be new page patrollers in the future. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:38, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Worm told me you work with High School articles a lot

There is relevant discussion on the notability occuring at User talk:Jimbo Wales#Notability of High Schools and Talk:Salmon High School. Ryan Vesey Review me! 08:10, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I cannot offer any comment to this issue. I was completely wrongly accused of being a school article deletionist on my RfA where the proof is that I have saved 1,000s of school articles from deletions, created many others, and redirected 100s of non notable schools to their schools districts or localities. Jimbo seems to have done a volte face on his earlier statement about high schools which has been interpreted for years as meaning that they enjoy inherent notability. Since my RfA I have refrained from getting involved in any contentious discussions on this subject. I have rewritten much of the WP:WPSCH/AG pages together with the other project coordinators in an attempt to lead editors to the respective policy, guideline, and essay pages, from which they can make up their own minds. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:53, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Apologies. It appears I misdirected Ryan. I must have read your RfA and linked you incontrovertably to schools in my mind - I will do my best to undo this! Worm^TT · (talk) 10:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Hey, no need to apologise whatsover Worm - you did right. In fact I am probably one of the most active Wikipedians on the WP:WPSCH school project, school articles, and new school articles. I also follow CSD, PROD, AfD, and merge proposals for schools very closely. However, due to the fake accusations conjured up by one or two participants at my RfA, or who , as per usual, put their own spin on my syntax, I have since refrained from getting involved in controversial deletion issues concerning schools and leave it up to others to battle them out. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:25, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

All I would like is a clear policy statement to be issued now, either as a fiat from JW or from a new RfC, that I can work from without having to second guess what we are supposed to be doing with nn schools. I'll be leaving a kind of neutral statement on the JW talk page thread in a few minutes.--Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd be happy if schools were treated the same as other organisations ;) Worm^TT · (talk) 19:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I think they probably should, but I've been happy to follow what I genuinely thought was an established exception. If there can be a clear statement of policy to clear up the notabilitiy ambiguities, I'll be quite happy to abide with whatever decision is made, so I'll not be arguing for either side. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan to me ;) Worm^TT · (talk) 19:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability: Schools

Hi, many thanks for the heads up. TerriersFan (talk) 22:23, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Ironic post

Is there anything you felt particularly wrong about the ideas I laid out or what was the purpose of your comment? I am curious. Ryan Vesey Review me! 02:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

It is never wrong to present new ideas, particularly when they have been as well thought out as yours are. Nevertheless, because the problems must be considered from two different angles: 1. the tens of thousands of existing school articles, and 2. the school articles that are still likely to be created, it can also be a good idea to see if solutions have been suggested before, or if similar solutions have been tried and tested in other areas. We need to be wary of changes that may incur ex post facto mass deletion, as much as we need to avoid preemptive mass deletions of the kind that moved us to propose and create the WP:BLPPROD. We also lack the manpower to review each and every one of the existing school articles for relevant notability policy, as much as we also lack it to send every new school article for debate at AfD because we don't have a clear policy to follow, and because school articles are mostly created by WP:SPA who never read the instructions and who very rarely, if ever, come back to address the problem issues with their new articles.

Fortunately, where several hundred BLPs are created every day, school articles now only get created at the rate of one or two every couple of days or so (and most of them now from the Indian sub continent), and are neither a likely source of libel, nor a serious priority issue. We have bots catching and listing most new school articles (which always have problems) at WP:WPSCH, and CorenBot catching the G10 copyvios. Also, the vast majority of schools are run by the government of the country they are in and therefore will not benefit from G11 blatant advertising - all the puffery and hyperbole in school articles is more as a result of student/teacher/parent pride in their establishment than for advertising purposes aimed at financial gain.

What happens to new school articles in the future is a matter of establishing a clear policy or an official guideline for the notability of schools once and for all, and educating new page patrollers to do the job properly. WP:NPP, because it is largely done by the least experienced of all editors, is a broken system, and possible solutions for its replacement have been closely researched now for nearly 12 months. Discussions on what to do about new pages are now taking place at a higher order. Schools are therefore low on the priorities, but as the editor who did a lot to bring the all but dead WP:WPSCH project back to life last year, I am very pleased to see that the recent discussion has finally stimulated some much-begged-for comment from our founder, and I hope that suggestions such as yours will now continue to be discussed at the appropriate venue. Much depends however, on your availability over the coming months to follow through on your own suggestions, and whether you will have time to dig in and help with the clean up list at WP:WPSCH. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:58, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

First, a little explanation on my essay. I am not advocating any sort of mass deletion of school articles. What I am doing is trying to create an essay which describes what a good school article is and what we should do with the bad ones. Jimbo, and many editors, have made it clear that an article which only states "... High School is a school in nantucket" is not notable. The argument I am trying to get across in my essay is that if those articles are brought to AFD, they should be deleted if they are not improved. I am also arguing in the essay that the possibility of improvement is not a valid argument for keep. The article must be improved for it to be kept. On a side note, corenbot is down and has been down for a month or two. Ryan Vesey Review me! 12:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

For nine years, schools have enjoyed what was considered to be a clear statement from JW that all high schools are generally to be considered notable. This week he has made volte face - the first time he has, to my knowledge commented on schools since his famous statement in 2003. He may be right, the situation could be very different now from what it was nine years ago. In that time, thousands of school articles have been created based on that 2003 premise; if you change the rule now to strictly apply WP:ORG, you will get a stampede from gleeful deltionists wanting tens of thousands of school articles to be summarily batch deleted. Such is the nature of Wikipedia, and it's happened before, hence my citing our experience with BLP last year as an analogy. Thus one needs to be careful that any new essays or suggestions don't cause certain people to jump for glee and send 100s of articles to AfD - we just don't have the human resources to cope with it. I've said many times over the last two years that I don't mind what the notability rules are for schools - I'm an admin and I just want a clear set of rules so that I know when to press my delete button, without fear of having the inclusionists calling for my resignation, and when not to press it without feqr of retribution from the deletionists. My personal dilemma is that as one of the most active members of WP:WPSCH, and the one that galvanised the project back to life, I'm not comfortable with the vagaries of the !voting patterns at school AfDs. I know CorenBot is down - I reported it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:35, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Anger displayed at RfA reform 2011

Hopefully you will take my extended hand in friendship

I am aware of the fact that you started the task force in its infancy and have worked to create the machine it is today. Things that may have appeared pushy to me are things that to you would be "taking care of your baby" (see my essay). You have a vision for the task force, and then I showed up and while we might have the same goal, we both have slightly different ways of getting there. As a new contributor to the task force, I realized that it was organized in a much different way than other projects I have taken part in. As I re-analyze the parts of the talk page that I have taken part in, I see much less disagreement with you than I first imagined there was. The angry post came from a combination of off wiki stress (I am packing for college at this very moment), some issues with the goals of my essay, and some issues I had with the ironic post from the other day. I apologize for the nature of my comment and will be striking. Ryan Vesey Review me! 00:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I created it on my own initiative and after doing a lot of initial research, but RFA2011 is absolutely not my baby. I also rewrote and got the WP:WPSCH project back on track that had been dead and inactive for a couple of years, and I am sincerely hoping that others will now finally clear up the ambiguities over school notability. I'm sure there was some misunderstanding, and I appreciate your apology. I also do not forget how you defended my position on another unconnected matter, for which I was most grateful. Good luck with your studies - fortunately I have all that behind me a very long time ago - and stay in touch as much as possible :) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand the concept of ownership. I just meant that you want to make sure the task force doesn't go astray. I am trying as hard as I can to remember the unconnected matter you are referring to, but I can't remember. Care to give me a link? Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:17, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Ahh, I think I remember the instance, if we're talking about the same one. Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:18, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

RfA reform archiving

Hi Kudpung. I've been looking at the RfA reform pages and I do think they could be improved to allow better flow. What's more, some of the talk pages are enormous and I was thinking that archiving them would be a good idea. I'm trying to decide what the best archival idea would be though - I'm quite tempted to make one big archive, where all the sub pages archive to. Do you have any thoughts? Worm^TT · (talk) 07:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I've been in a quandry over this myself. At least the mass of data and discussion that has taken place since the project was created is more than enough to prove to the idiots who think it's dead that it's still very much alive. One of the reasons why WT:RfA never got beyond a Rover's Return discussion, was because threads were indiscriminately archived, so the same topics kept getting brought up anew over and over again by newcomers to the neighbourhood. As you know, I tend to chide people for not checking on what's already been said, and for starting spontaneous 'support/oppose' polls and making sweeping statements without consulting the stats we've spent hours providing. Nowhere is this more in evidence than with the recent discussion on setting a bar to stop newbies and cranks from transcluding, and where the tables at Wikipedia:RfA reform 2011/Candidates#Metrics from the vetted numerical criteria essays, and WP:RFA2011/U - which I've just spent 2 whole days manually extending, are ignored by people commenting, people creating new pages on RfA reform outside the project, and people cresting random new pages in the project and just adding more confusion to the link map I made and people trying to jeopardise the show without even the courtesy of joining the task force. I'm sire they are contributing in good faith, but matter such as setting a minimum bar have to be based on the facts rather than subjective point of view. I keep stressing that the RFA211 is for people who are in favour of reform and that there will be ample opportunity for people to vote against it when we release our proposals for community debate. I think probably the best solution is to collapse some sections of talk rather than archive them, and for the coordinators to make a concentated effort to point those sections out to errant newcomers to the project who rather than moving it forward, are inadvertently giving us reasons why it should not succeed., and asking other commentators politely if they would like to display the courtesy of either joining the task force, or shutting up. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply - I'll have a think about what's best to do next... Worm^TT · (talk) 09:56, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

One idea that I've had for quite while is to make a special TOC for all the stats, tables, and their extrapolations and analysis. We also need to link heaviliy to the very recent thread about RfA reform on Jimbo's tp - or even copy it to the project. It got a lot of valuable comment from Jimbo again in support of reform, but MyStrat did not do us a favour in taking the focus away from the project itself - it's meant a whole bunch of new comments from people who don't know we have a dedicated project for RfA reform. The point being, that we already know RfA is broken, and don't constantly need reminding. We have to stem this Rover's Return style talk and do some action. We need to be extremely careful how we word any proposals though - especially where the devs are now allowed to unilaterally allowed to refuse any site software tweaks if they don't like them, even if there has been a vast consensus for them.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Hey Kudpung. I'm afraid you're going to have to blame me for many of the points in your first post - I created a proposal off the bat, suggested Ryan do the same, I was the one that put the Sysop on request page in the pink box and even created a straw poll on the minimum requirements page. Heck, I'm fairly sure that if you were nearby with a baseball bat that I should be ducking . However, I've been looking at RfA reform from a slightly different angle, trying to get commentary on proposals, and whilst straight opposition is not likely to be helpful it can give us ideas of how the community might react. Also, I did bring up the fact that Cerajota hadn't joined the task force at his talk apge, something he did a couple of days ago.

There are many RfA reform detractors, including members of the task force, making things slightly more difficult but I think that's something we're going to have to accept in RfA reform. I'd actually rather someone was actively voicing dissent than not discussing things at all. At the moment, I think there are less than 10 editors who regularly contribute to the discussions, whereas there are 40-odd who I think may not even watchlist the page!

Having thought a bit about archives - I think the best idea would be to create one large archive - which is searchable, and summarise each of the threads on the relevant talk page with links. This will be a bit of an overhead, but I'm willing to do it and I think that it will help with readability. I'll also have a look at tidying up the data a bit more - partially by doing some transclusions. I can understand why there would people out there who do not understand the data, due to it's complexity, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try to make it more digestible.

Although we know RfA is broken, anyone new to the project is likely to want to air their views. I'd rather we didn't close the project to new users, especially given how little 3/4 of the current ones are actually doing. Perhaps it might be a good idea to set up a talk page for people to air their thoughts about how RfA is broken - meaning it doesn't seep into the conversations elsewhere. It's all well and good saying that things have been discussed before, but editors are human and often impatient - so when someone says "there's a lot of backstory to read", they are unlikely to put in the time.

Another thing you must consider is that there is a portion of people who are joining RfA reform in the hope of making RfA easier for themselves. The fact that they think it's a viable "in" for adminship means they are editors who are looking for a shortcut and therefore unlikely to read lots of data. Worth remembering. Worm^TT · (talk) 12:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Just four points: 1. If you are going to do any archiving rather than just folding threads in a collapse box (which I tstill thinks would be the best solution), I think it would best to archive the individual talk pages rather than shove everything to ether somewhere. 2. I am only too aware that many may have joined this project in the hope f getting an easier process for themselves - that's one of the reasons I keep telling detractors that those of us who run this project who are already admins have nothing personal to gain from investing their time and energy in it. 3. We already have a talk page for people to air their thoughts about how RfA is broken, at WT:RFA - the sysop soap opera of a local pub. 4. I'm slowly getting disenchanted with the whole thing - not with those of us who have worked so hard at it, but at the people who come in, know it all better, and do nothing but criticise but won't roll their sleeves up and help, especially the one who won't have the decency of joining the task force. I've drafted a newsletterto send not only to the members of the task force, but to all who have commented on the talk pages. I'll mail you the text before I send it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I can understand the disenchantment - if you fancy taking a backseat for a while, I'm happy to try and hold down the fort. I'll have a word James, see if I can get to the bottom of his thinking - some of the stuff he's come out with is just plain unhelpful. The reason I want to archive is that we have such a horrible TOC on the main talk page, 60 sections plus another 24 subsections, with titles that go over the length of a page. It's no good for navigation and makes the project look amateurish. I'll hold back on the "whinge" page for the time being - it may be that we don't need it. Worm^TT · (talk) 13:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

You can always put __NOTOC__ on the page. The most important nav aid is the pink box I made, and that can be updated for all pages because it's transcluded. I don't really want to take a back seat - I've just spent two full days manually updating one table that is the most important feature of all for an objective estimate that the bar for admin transclusions for newbies should be at least 3,000 if not a lot more, but James does not appear to think it's important t take stats into account. This is what gets me fed up - all that hard work for nothing, and to be discounted by someone who chimes in just to wreck things. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

True, that will improve things, but the TOC is a useful tool in most cases. Glad you don't want to take a back seat, I think it would have really hurt the project - but I did want to allow you the option. I'll have to look for that quote by Jimbo about "too long have we relied on emotion, and not stats", make sure that we reference it. And for now, I'm going to review that table that you've sorted out. Worm^TT · (talk) 14:33, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't hesitate to improve it. I'm no good at making tables, that's why it takes me so long. The most important thing is that it's searchable. It certainly needs no rocket science to understand the picture it paints. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly, 41 editors don't meet the criteria I suggested (32 under 2000 + 9 under 6m), with only an extra 5 editors if we increase it to 3000. I'd say that's convinced me further that 2000 is a better bar. At 1000 (and 3 months, because 1000/6m doesn't meet many people's idea of "active"), we go down to 21. I'll have a look at any fixes for the table when I get a chance. Worm^TT · (talk) 14:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget that this table is only for failed candidates. Perhaps we should also remove the failed RfAs from it from established editors to avoid giving undue bias to the stats. Everyone seems to be forgetting that the current proposal is to prevent newbs and cranks from transcluding - not to set a higher bar to prevent serious, mature editors of the right calibre. Interesting to note that almost all the SNOW/NOTNOW are self-noms, and many of them from children and people who joined Wikipedia with the sole intention of being an admin. I firmly believe that 3,000 is the right bar, and anything less should have a nomination from an establiushed user (and not just another fan club member). I had to read every single RfA to make that table. BTW, I've just left a stinking message on Sandy Georgia's tp because of the scathing comment she made about our work at WT:RfA. My patience is drawing short with some people. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:00, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

So I see, have replied to Malleus there. It's probably best not to engage, if people hold a certain opinion of the project but consider themselves too busy to help out, you're only going to get yourself into a mess trying to argue with them. I think that removing other failed candidates would be an issue actually, making it look like we are trying to taint the statistics. It might be worth making an extra table regarding the SNOW candidates - especially checking the "self nom" stuff. Worm^TT · (talk) 15:10, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

When setting a bar to prevent newbies and children from transcluding when they only have a couple of weeks and a couple of hundred edits, it would obviously not be intelligent to mix those stats with failed RfAs of established editors who failed for reasons other than being new and clueless - that's why it would be unwise to pull any averages out of those figures. Almost all the NOTNOW/SNOW were self noms, there were about two that were nominated. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

FYI

Hey. Just dropping by to let you know that I created WP:RFA2011/COORD, which is just a talk page for coordination-related matters. The main talk page is just too cluttered and all over the place and things frequently get swept off topic, carried away, etc. Swarm ^{u | t} 15:27, 31 August 2011 (UTC)