User talk:SlimVirgin/September 2015

Telanian SPI

Hi Sarah, since pings do not always perform reliably from within SPI reports I wanted to leave this permalink so you would see my note. Cheers,
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 19:06, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Berean Hunter, thanks for letting me know. Sarah ^(talk) 19:23, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Please see .....

User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#New_paid_editing_scandal_-_How_many_more_will_there_be_until_we_take_serious_action.3F

I'll probably write something up at Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:26, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, discussing the issue in those terms is long overdue. I'll look out for your edits to WP:DISCLOSEPAY. Sarah ^(talk) 19:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Need help

Please weigh in and close this acrimonious RFC [1]. Essentially all the veteran visual arts project editors are in opposition; several editors are in favor although it appears to also be several drive by votes in favor. An uninvolved administrators opinion would be greatly appreciated...Modernist (talk) 15:00, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Modernist, I'll take a look at it. I can't promise that I'll close it because I have limited time, but I've started reading it. One thing that confuses me is that one group presents it as old versus modern mode, and you present it as "mode packed versus non mode packed." If you can point to where that's clarified, that would help. I'm also not sure whether the threads under the RfC are also part of it. Sarah ^(talk) 19:31, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, it should be allowed to stay open for 30 days, unless everyone agrees that it can be closed. Sarah ^(talk) 19:33, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Sarah, I greatly appreciate your help. "Mode packed" is 'modern' and "non mode packed" is 'old' referring to galleries with images of paintings. All the threads down to the end of the page are part of it. Most of us who create these articles tend to use non mode packed galleries. Several of the opinions voiced in favor of modepacked galleries are from editors who have not done any significant editing on visual art articles, in one case an editor who voted 'modern' has edited on wikipedia only one day - August 11. Any insight that you bring will be much appreciated...Modernist (talk) 20:08, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thank you, that's helpful. I was about to close the RfC and post that I'd take some time to read it before summarizing, but I see there are a few days left, so it's best to leave it open for the default 30 days. Sarah ^(talk) 20:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:BURO bullshit

(As it has been termed.) Hello; you might wish to see and perhaps even comment on this at WP:AN/I. -- Hoary (talk) 02:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Jeff Berwick

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

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The revisions you have made to Jeff Berwick have resulted in an article which is "non-factual" and untrue.

In 2013, Berwick became the most successful promoter of John Cobin's Galt's Gulch Chile project,[1] a libertarian enclave in the Curacaví region of Chile.

This was explained in the previous edit.. $10,000,000 was raised by Berwick for a project with costs of $1,500,000, and the product was not delivered

Source Vice News -- http://www.vice.com/read/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10

Salon Magazine

So in fact he raised money that bilked investors as documented by a major news source

The solution is delete the wrong information or report the true information

In 2013, Berwick announced his plans to co-found the world's first Bitcoin automated teller machine (ATM).[2] He subsequently was pushed out of the project by its founders.[3]

This was also explained in the previous edit

Berwick was on CNBC with that announcement timed to the Cypress financial statement

One month later Berwick abandoned that announcement

Another major news source Business Insider - did a series of articles which spoke to the lack of credibility

The solution here is to print the story as exposed in major news outlets or delete because it does not meet BLP standards.

Pay for citizenship scam

We have two articles One from German the other from Paraguay in which this enterprise was shut down for the issuance of false documents.

Please make the proper determination; 1) Do you want to speak to fact? 2) Or do you want to have falsehood? 3) Does the article need to be in Wikipeida — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebcidic (talk • contribs) 04:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Ebcidic, please continue to discuss this on Talk:Jeff Berwick. If you think the article ought not to exist because the subject isn't notable enough, you can nominate it for deletion when the protection expires. There are instructions at WP:AFDHOWTO. Sarah ^(talk) 05:02, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

1) Hypothetically say Al Capone is alive today and Vice news along with others publish a story about his illegal activities and racketeering. Would Wikipeida publish a quote from that major news outlet?

1b) Al then issues press releases, and publishes his own blog, telling us he is an outstanding citizen "Dollar Vigilante in this case"

2) Would edits be rolled back without "editors" even reading the content? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebcidic (talk • contribs) 14:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

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

TOC limit on FGM page

You removed the TOC limit that I had added on the Female genital mutilation page and said "it doesn't seem to be working anway". What do you mean? It does work. But the article didn't have many level 4 headings, that's why it's not so obvious. I learnt from the WikiProject Medicine that such a TOC limit is preferred. Just look at all the featured articles, they all tend to have short TOCs that do not show the lower level headings. EvM-Susana (talk) 19:51, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

This discussion should be on the article talk page. The version of FGM with {{TOC limit|3}} is at permalink. The difference is in the ToC at 8.4. With the limit, the table of contents does not show 8.4.1 to 8.4.3. It's an inconsequential issue because that is the only place in the ToC that a difference occurs, so I don't think adding another mystery template is warranted. There are articles with lots of sub-sub-sections where a limit makes sense. Johnuniq (talk) 23:59, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Follow up from WP:AE

Hi Sarah, Apologies for the interruption. I wanted to follow up on your reply to me at WP:AE, to make a clarification, but find that the section is now closed.

I do first note that I appear to have gotten the diff ID numbers wrong, and that may have caused some confusion for admins & editors; for which I humbly apologise. The diffs that I should have linked are: here & here, each following the diff to which I mistakenly linked. I should like to add a clarifying note to the AE page, but fear it might not be appreciated.

The follow up that I wanted make was to the comment But I still maintain that closing this without sanctions, and hoping that the break will solve the immediate problem, is preferable to imposing a sanction just because we need to be seen to do something., only to clarify that I was not suggesting that a sanction should be imposed on the basis that something needs to be seen to be done.

I agree that it would be improper for administrative decisions on sanctions to be made based on perceptions - either perceptions of bias in the administrative decisions taken thus far; or the threat of public perceptions influenced by editors potential comments in the press & on social media.

I fully agree that the decisions should be made on the merits of the matter at hand - My assertion was that on that basis something actually needs to be done.

I realise and accept that our opinions differ in that regard.

Many thanks for your time taken in reading this. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 05:10, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Money for programming

This, for example, is one of the most ridiculous disbursements of funds I've come across in a long time - especially when some of the junior WMF devs are constantly reminding us that there are insufficient funds and priorities to maintain the servers and existing tools and NPP software. If we would get this kind of grant money to properly maintain the Labs we could be 3/4 of the way to getting our essential tools back up and running that were destroyed by the Labs devs. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung, it seems that Cyberpower that resigned from X tools, so we need to find someone else who can coordinate what needs to be done to get things back up. Sarah ^(talk) 18:46, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I know, I saw the email. Even with AGF, I saw that coming. He's been looking for a get-out for a while. I can't blame him really, he was just too young and too enthusiastic when he took all that work on and the failure of the WMF to properly complete the takeover from ToolServer and inability to service Labs was the last straw.. I think he feels pretty awful at having let us all down but let's not dwell on that and try to find someone else instead. Some of the problems are due to the fact that Technical 13 got himself banned and TParis retired. What about the other people on the mailing list? How about trying to drag Scottywong back out of retirement for a few days? I think this is a classic case of where the WMF should shell out some grant money, but for various reasons (and having met the people in that department) I'm not confident it would work. The problem is that due to Orangemoody all this has just gotten ten times more urgent. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:32, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm thinking of writing this up somewhere and pinging some Foundation people. I would like to know why Wikimedia Labs doesn't work, but I haven't found anyone who can explain it. These are essential services and they haven't worked for a long time. Sarah ^(talk) 01:36, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Template:Paid

Hey,

You recently asked me on ANI (I think!) about Template:Paid. However, it already appears to have the functions you mentioned. Can you clarify what the issues were please? Mdann52 (talk) 08:05, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Mdann52, there's a discussion about this at Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure#Paid template. Basically we need a template similar to {{connected contributor}} that says something like:

The following editors have declared, in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use, that they have been paid for their contributions to this topic:

• User X. Employer (i.e. who paid for the contributions): John Smith PR. Client: Acme Ltd. Affiliation, if relevant: (whatever).

And a categorization system that uses the template to keep track of both paid contributions and the employers. Sarah ^(talk) 18:26, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

That can be done by {{paid}} already, the only thing that needs changing is the categories (it currently puts them into a generic one, which is mostly ok, if we need more specific cats, I'd prefer to visit that as and when it is an issue). Mdann52 (talk) 18:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Mdann52, I'm not sure what you mean by "can be done by". It can be done by that template, but hasn't been, and I don't know how to fix it without breaking it. I'm looking for someone who can do it, so if you're able to help that would be much appreciated. The current template doesn't say what it needs to say. Sarah ^(talk) 18:44, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Ah, you want something that combines the userbility of {{connected contributor}} with {{paid}}? I could probably whip something up, give me a day or two. Mdann52 (talk) 18:49, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Mdann52, thank you. We need something like {{connected contributor}}, but with the focus on paid contributions, rather than general COI.

There needs to be space for the disclosures – who is paying (employer) plus client (often the subject of the article), plus any relevant affiliation. There should be space to fill in who is paying and client even if they are the same entity.

The template will have to stay on the talk page even after the paid editing is over. It should therefore avoid the present tense, so not "User X declares that they are paid by". Better would be: "The following editors have declared, in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use, that they have been paid for their contributions to this topic:" Then entries for each paid editor, because there is often more than one, and the paying entity can change. Sarah ^(talk) 19:09, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Suggest automatic visible datestamping: "As of September 2015, User:PollyPaidEditor is being compensated by...." Thataway, if at first polly was being paid by X, and later is being paid by Y, she can just insert a new {{paid}} entry. Optionally, have a field that specifies an end-date for the paid disclosure, so that when polly changes from X to Y, she can mark the X-related-contract finished: "As of September 2015 through December 2015, User:PollyPaidEditor is was being..." If there *is* an optional |end_date= param, however, it should be an error to fill it out with a date in the future; Polly might *think* she is only going to get paid by X for the months of Sept-to-Dec as of mid-September but we don't want her filling out the |end_date= information until the contract actually *ends* (since it might be extended and we don't want polly to have CYA troubles). 75.108.94.227 (talk) 17:25, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi

Hi SlimVirgin. How can I get someone to go over with me a dilema I have in a conversation I posted in this article talk page? Thanks. (N0n3up (talk) 20:21, 6 September 2015 (UTC))

Hi N0n3up, you can ask for a Wikipedia:Third opinion. Sarah ^(talk) 01:37, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Interaction with another editor

Hi Sarah. On Jytdog's Talk page, there is a section called "Remove my name and the accusation." This is a discussion Jytdog is having with a third party - I am not involved in the slightest. In this discussion, Jytdog has chosen to provide a series of diffs with comments. Several of these comments link my name to my topic ban or other subjects which Jytdog portrays in a very negative light, e.g. "3 contribs on DrChrissyy's bogus (snow closed) ANI over scrambler". These comments are totally unnecessary and irrelevant to the subject matter of the thread. (There are several other editors that also might be concerned by this behaviour, e.g. Atsme). I consider this to be an uncivil use of his talk page to attack me (and others). Jytdog banned me from his Talk page sometime ago, so I can not contact him there (and this is also why I have not pinged him here). Would you be willing to consider posting as an impartial admin on his talk page to convey my thoughts about this? If you do not wish to become involved, I will totally understand. All the best.DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:37, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I've left a comment. Sarah ^(talk) 17:47, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much.DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:53, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I watch JD's talk page, hence I'm here. It isn't nice to be banned from a Talk page, is it Doc? -Roxy the dog™ (Resonate) 18:46, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I doubt his complaint is that he is blocked from Jytdog's page, but that he is being discussed there. petrarchan47คุก 01:36, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

• That ANI thread is here]; the close was "trouted instead of boomerang". I made only four comments there and two of them were a call to "trout and close". Which is exactly what happened. You also should look at the last comment in that ANI by Stalwart, DrChrissy. Jytdog (talk) 02:14, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Your Overreach re Berwick and Ramifications

Your overreach in regards to Berwick has the following ramifications;

the entry now contains incorrect, misleading, and biased information.'

Wikipedia’s administrators YOU have become an entrenched and over-powerful elite, unresponsive and harmful to authors and contributors. Without meaningful checks and balances on administrators, administrative abuse is the norm, rather than the exception, with blocks and bans being enforced by fiat and whim, rather than in implementation of policy. Many well-meaning editors have been banned simply on suspicion of being previously banned users, without any transgression, while others have been banned for disagreeing with a powerful admin’s editorial point of view. There is no clear-cut code of ethics for administrators, no truly independent process leading to blocks and bans, no process for appeal that is not corrupted by the imbalance of power between admin and blocked editor, and no process by which administrators are reviewed regularly for misbehaviour.

Wikipedia’s numerous policies and procedures are not enforced equally on the community — popular or powerful editors are often exempted. Administrators, in particular, and former administrators, are frequently allowed to transgress (or change!) Wikipedia’s numerous “policies”, such as those prohibiting personal attacks, prohibiting the release of personal information about editors, and those prohibiting collusion in editing.

?

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

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I cannot believe how wildly wrong this is. Where are you coming from? Please explain. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 18:42, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

This is the third page you've started this discussion on. Please stick to WT:COI. Also, please stop posting personal attacks and thinking they don't count if you remove them minutes later. They do count, because you're not removing them from people's minds. Sarah ^(talk) 18:47, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

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

Talk:Jeff_Berwick

Uh... seems that one of the bangvotes has gone missing, apparently due to some kind of LTA thing. There were some rewrite-suggestions, at the bottom of the talkpage, which aren't necessarily native-language-English and thus need some cleanup, but the 'did not come to fruition' sentence seems reasonable to my wiki-eyes. Is there cause to revert all contribs, or is reverting the bangvote enough, and I am okay to respond to the rewrite-suggestion, and the questions at AfD and such? If my query for guidance here is unclear, I can elaborate on what I'm talking about further. Thanks, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 02:40, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

75.108.94.227, I'm not sure what you mean. If you're talking about the blocked user, you can respond to anything s/he wrote, of course, but if you want to restore something, just be careful that it's not a BLP violation (e.g. an insult, an unsourced or poorly sourced allegation). Sarah ^(talk) 16:51, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I am just making sure, that in "talking" to the now-blocked folks, i.e. responding to what they said prior to said blocks, and appropriating-with-attribution some of their CC-BY-SA prose-suggestions, I'm not going to invoke the ire of the blocking admin.  :-)   And yeah, I'll be extra careful with prose about this Berwick stuff, seems to be a touchy subject. Thanks, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 17:17, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Invitation to subscribe to the edit filter mailing list

Hi, as a user in the edit filter manager user group we wanted to let you know about the new wikipedia-en-editfilters mailing list. As part of our recent efforts to improve the use of edit filters on the English Wikipedia it has been established as a venue for internal discussion by edit filter managers regarding private filters (those only viewable by administrators and edit filter managers) and also as a means by which non-admins can ask questions about hidden filters that wouldn't be appropriate to discuss on-wiki. As an edit filter manager we encourage you to subscribe; the more users we have in the mailing list the more useful it will be to the community. If you subscribe we will send a short email to you through Wikipedia to confirm your subscription, but let us know if you'd prefer another method of verification. I'd also like to take the opportunity to invite you to contribute to the proposed guideline for edit filter use at WP:Edit filter/Draft and the associated talk page. Thank you! Sam Walton (talk) and MusikAnimal ^talk 18:22, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Help

Please advise, This guy just does not stop: [2]...Modernist (talk) 23:07, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Modernist, I see things have calmed down. Sarah ^(talk) 19:44, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Sarah, yeah thanks; that guy was driving me crazy, he seems to have moved on for now...Modernist (talk) 20:51, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Why?

Simple, because the same group responsible for the creation of said article have been vandalizing countless articles to "smash the patriarchy." Fair is fair, wouldn't you agree? Feel free to block if you wish. ForwardObserver85 (talk) 03:27, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Please don't do it again regardless of the reason. Sarah ^(talk) 19:47, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Fowler and Fowler advocating AmE style -- typo?

I was working on Full stop and noticed something strange:

The aesthetic or typesetter's rule was standard in early 19th-century Britain; it was advocated, for example, by the extremely influential The King’s English, by Fowler and Fowler.

The article used to say "the grammatical rule was advocated, for example..."

Everything else I've heard or read about Fowler and Fowler on this issue says that they're the ones who started or at least heavily promoted the current British practice of placement according to sense. After a little searching, I found the edit that inserted the change: [3]

I know you're strict about using sources that you've actually seen. Did F&F really advocate what is now called American style or was this a slip of the finger? Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:51, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Darkfrog24, that edit seems to have been a light copy edit, so I wouldn't have looked at the sources unless something jumped out as odd. As it was five years ago, I have no recollection of it, sorry. The text was added in 2007 by PBS, so he may still have access to the source. Looking at that sentence again, perhaps he was distinguishing between the typesetter's rule and what he called the grammatical rule. Sarah ^(talk) 18:01, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

"The grammatical" rule seems very likely to mean "placement according to sense"/"what we now call British practice" because so many sources use the term "grammatical sense." I'm confident that PBS did mean "F&F advocated what we now call British practice," and now that I know you weren't saying that was wrong, I'm going to put it back to its previous meaning. Thanks for the confirmation. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:22, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it, Darkfrog. Sarah ^(talk) 20:36, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Is it time to make peace with Professor Hewitt's colleagues?

Is it time to make peace with Professor Hewitt's colleagues?

They have a new book Inconsistency Robustness that is being censored on Wikipedia. (talk) 17:55, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Not aware of the background on the Hewitt issue, but "inconsistency robustness" as described in the book's blurb sounds like something WP needs more of. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:51, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

A few years ago Professor Hewitt wrote an account of his adventures in Corruption of Wikipedia.(talk) 04:25, 16 September 2015 (UTC

This is going to be tricky because User:SlimVirgin is mentioned in Hewitt's article above. You might want to contact Professor Hewitt to correct any possible inaccuracies. (talk) 04:52, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

The situation is beyond ridiculous:

• On Actor model, user:CBM has refused to allow inclusion of an important reference to Professor Hewitt's article on the Actor Model and instead personally attacked Hewitt.
• The Carl Hewitt article is seriously out of date and calls to update in the talk page have been called "spam". (talk) 14:00, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
• On Gödel's incompleteness theorems, user:CBM has refused to allow inclusion of important articles by Professor Woods and Hewitt published in Vol. 52 of the prestigious Studies in Logic series.45.79.220.246 (talk) 14:56, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

The interesting thing is that the articles by Professors Woods and Hewitt published in the book are probably the most important that have been written about the incompleteness theorems.76.102.7.120 (talk) 23:54, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

"Editwarring"

Re: this – I'm not "editwarring"; I restored all the template improvements you nuked (all you had to do was comment out the dash!), other than I did not restore the auto-dash, and I then opened a talk page thread about how to resolve the dash issue. That's not "editwarring".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:42, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Stalker?

Hi SlimVirgin. I'm dealing with a stalker who keeps constantly editing edits in previous pages. I have a feeling user JuanRiley has been stalking my edits on articles such as France, United Kingdom and the American Civil War and more recently in the talk page of an article recently edited by me. And all this since our first dispute. And after telling him that his edits don't seem coincidential, he simply deleted my messages [4] [5]. (N0n3up (talk) 01:35, 19 September 2015 (UTC))

hello do you no starwtf? P.S please call me steve:)

Hello bro we are awesome! :) Buttfacejim (talk) 19:30, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Tools

I think the tools problem is based more on this than anything else. Whatever, I'm slowly learning to do without them but it's certainly holding up some stats required for urgent policy changes. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:38, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Bundesarchiv pic at Ludwig Wittgenstein article

Hello SlimVirgin,

Just wondering if you could confirm that the link to a picture at the Bundesarchiv that you inserted at Ludwig Wittgenstein about 5 years ago (your diff), which is now a dead link, is the same one at a different Bundesarchiv page that I replaced it with, (my diff).

Hope you have a photographic memory! Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 14:07, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Guess what, now that link isn't working either. It just worked when I tested it before changing it! I'll try and find out what happened. Hamamelis (talk) 14:12, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Addressing, considering removing, COI template placement

Here. Swliv (talk) 08:46, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Beautifully: Fixed, there. Not sure about below, User:Core.... Swliv (talk) 19:31, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

While we're on the subject of COI templates, I just noticed something while whiling away a little time using STiKi. I noticed that {{welcome-COI}}, which is the form used to greet editors who are blatantly COI, including obvious paid editors, makes no reference to the paid editing policy. Not quite familiar enough with the ins and outs of such things to directly deal with it, but thought I'd bring it to your attention in case you're so inclined. Coretheapple (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2015 (UTC)