Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:08, 13 September 2006

Note: I strongly prefer to keep conversations intact. I'll usually respond only here to comments made here unless you request me to do otherwise. Likewise I will respond on your talk page to any comments made there, and I'd request doing the same. Thank you, and happy wikiing.

For older discussion see: Archive1, Archive2

Request

To anyone reading here, please peer review an article to help it reach a higher quality level. Keep in mind the featured article criteria and consider my featured article advice, both of which should help give you ideas of where an article needs improvement. Thanks - Taxman 15:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikicite

Just wanted to update you on the status of the Wikicite project- parts of the software are already functional, and I have modified the Cite extension to pull bilbiographic data from open catalog servers (e.g. Library of Congress) based upon unique keys like ISBN number. Technically this component is the data import function of the bibliographic catalog sub-project Wikicat. Here is a live screenshot of the software. There is actually not too much to be done, software-wise, before this can be rolled-out on Misplaced Pages. The real effort is making sure that the bibliographic catalog is designed correctly, which requires researching the professional cataloging standards out there.

I announced the first phase of the project- the bibliographic catalog- on the foundation list about a week ago and though the response was fairly positive, I would appreciate it if you could help drum up support to help push this through (it seems like there's an official non-offical policy of rejecting any new project proposals at this point). The endoresement of a Wikiproject group would be especially valuable. BTW- an essential component of Misplaced Pages 1.0- stable version designation- is ready to be rolled-out so there's something else to lobby for.

Jleybov 23:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the update, it's great to hear the code is ready. I'm a little confused why it would need a separate foundation level project. I didn't have a chance to check yet, but did you post to the Misplaced Pages:Wikiproject fact and reference check, and the WP:V talk page? Those would be the places to gather like minded people. - Taxman 13:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I posted a while ago to Wikiproject Fact and Reference Check, both the main page and the talk page; I also posted to Wikiproject Forum for Encyclopedic Standards- again, both main page and talk page. Very little response from either. I am not really an active member of either project, though, so perhaps if someone who was drew attention to Wikicite again there would be more interest expressed.

The reason for having a stand-alone project is that one component of Wikicite- the bibliographic catalog, Wikicat- is logically a separate resource that should be cultivated in its own right. For example, in the long-run I envision the ability to follow an in-article citation from Misplaced Pages to Wikicat, and then use Wikicat to see which sources that source itself cites. This could be used for the purposes of strengthening an article, or a user could come to Wikicat directly when in the process of performing independent research. In addition, the technical changes to support all this are major enough that a separate project is pretty much required anyway- we are adding a bibliographic catalog database that is much more complex in its structure than Misplaced Pages, and which will eventually require its own UIs to enter and change data, plus cataloging rules documentation to ensure the data users enter is consistent, etc. ....

So anyway, if you could help raise awareness of the project and build support for it that would be very very useful. Even adding names to the "People interested in joining" list on the project proposals page would be a big help.

Jleybov 18:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do to publicize Wikicite. I think it's a clearly good solution to our reliability problem, and I think once more people are aware of it it will pick up momentum. If you're confident that Wikicat is the way to go to support wikicite, then that should also be eventually evident. But as a pragmatical solution partial steps are often much easier to implement. Try to figure out a way to decouple Wikicite from anything that needs a separate project, at least enough to get it lanched and working. Then once that change has been sent through, if Wikicat is truly needed then the need for it will become obvious to everyone. But trying to change to much can be a problem and stall the whole process. Have you talked to some of the mediawiki developers to see if your code for Wikicite can be smoothly merged in? Most patches supplied are rejected because they don't fit in with the current codebase in a smooth way. - Taxman 18:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Luckily all of my changes should fit within the existing Mediawiki architecture and in fact are being implemented as extensions. Wikicat and Wikicite are separate but very inter-related, with Wikicite in fact being dependent on the former (though not vise-versa)- to cite you need someplace to store bibliographic data, after all. I have tried to roll things out in stages, though, such that useful functionality becomes available as soon as possible. For example, Wikicat would be rolled-out as initially "import-only": no UIs would be provided to manually enter data, but data would still come in from open catalog servers in response to users citing particular works. In fact, I think most of the features of Wikicite could be enabled on top of this initial release of Wikicat.

In any case, please let me know what additional features you would like to see in Wikicat. I have already followed, for example, your suggestion to extend the Cite.php extension citation mark-up rather than introduce a new one.

And again, just let me reiterate the importance of having community support for rolling out new features. The stable version feature has been code-complete since last year, but no move seems to have been made to take it live on Misplaced Pages yet- this despite the fact that its author, Magnus Manske, is one of the main developers of Mediawiki!

Jleybov 21:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

San Francisco, California Article

Hi, another editor and I have put in some mega-hours over the last two weeks trying to knock the SF article into shape for a Feature Article nomination. Since you have been active in other Geographic articles nomiated for FA, I was hoping you might be intersted in looking at the SF article? Also, the current editors are a bit cross-eyed and could use some recommendations for other Wikisouls who might be willing to proofread or copyedit the article. Thanks for any help!--Paul 02:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I'll see what I can do. - Taxman 12:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! I appreciate any help.--Paul 16:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

We have completed all of the suggested changes and have re-submitted the article as a FAC. Thanks for your help.--Paul 05:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

My adminship

Thanks for the welcome, and I'll be sure to watch where I step! Larry V (talk | contribs) 05:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Carnildo

Hi Taxman. You wrote "We therefore reinstate Carnildo's adminship, on a probationary basis, for a period of two months, after which his activities will be reviewed by the arbcom" Have the arbcom agreed to that? Regards, Ben Aveling 10:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, enough of them. :) - Taxman 13:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

JPD's RfA

Thanks, Taxman, for giving me the sysop rights and the good advice! JPD (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Wondering if you could...

Use your oversight powers to delete my user page history? There is sensitive personal information on there that I would like removed. Everything up to the most recent edit? Magic Window 14:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

All revisions with personal information have been removed. The rest are simply deleted. Just FYI and FOI, in the future these types of requests may be denied since you chose to put your personal info out there. - Taxman 15:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Politely registering protest

Hi Taxman,

I support Carnildo, and am very happy he got his adminship back, something I just became aware of after reading the Signpost. However, I write to you to express my shock at the closing of his RfA.

I appreciate the arguments have all been aired, and that being a bureaucrat is a very hard thing to do. I respect you, and don't wish to belabor my point, so I'm going to put this very simply. Objectively, Carnildo's RfA closed as "consensus not reached." To say anything else is sophistry of a very low order, equivalent to saying that the sky of the planet Earth is "Pink with Purple polka-dots." Despite his RfA, he was promoted. I understand why, I even agree with the reason why (forgiveness), but I am nevertheless distressed at the apparent effort of the b'crats to make "2+2" equal "5".

B'crats have the authority to promote, you did so, and it was the right thing to do. B'crats do not have the authority at assert that the "sky is polka-dotted," and they shouldn't embarass themselves by trying to do so. Twisting plain facts only harms the integrity of the bureaucratship.

I hope you see my point, and I hope the bureaucrat corps in general is wise enough not to repeat this error. Re-promotion of Carnildo should ideally have happened through ArbCom or Jimbo; absent that, if the bureaucrats agreed promotion was right, they should done have so, clearly and plainly despite the RfA.

As I say, I supported Carnildo, and yet even my "common sense" is a little bit offended by the notion that 61% is an RfA consensus. Such a suggestion is so far from reasonable that I feel justified in applying analogies from the schoolyard to it.

In short, good job in promoting; not so good in explaining the promotion. If (Jimbo forbid) there ever is a "next time" like this, I'm sure you b'crats will do better. Good luck :) and best wishes, Xoloz 16:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the polite effort to register your disagreement, and your points are duly noted. - Taxman 19:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Script

Per your IRC request, I wrote it up today. Clear your browser's cache, then go to the history page of any RFA candidate page. There should be a "data" tab.Voice-of-All 23:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's to Looking!

RfB

I "closed" it because the ending date had long passed, notice ram-man's comment "is anyone going to close this?" in an edit summary. I did not finalize the tally, make the promotion decision, or archive anything, I left that for a bcrat. Voice-of-All 16:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I know that's what you did it's just that people's comments are valid as part of the consensus gathering up until the point a bureaucrat closes it. He apparently didn't reallize that either and should be patient too. Like I said it was one of the few grey area RfBs in years, so it shouldn't be surprising it would take more time to decide on. - Taxman 19:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I always though of the closing date as a hard number. People could added something just a few minutes after the time is up maybe but not hours after, which is why I closed it. If the ending date doesn't really matter (so its not really an "ending date" but more of a "ending around this time most likely" date), then I am fine with that, as long bcrats pass it only when they deem it necessary. I just wan't aware that that was current policy. There seems to be a lot of confusion and lack of clarity about how RfA really works, perhaps this could be clarified.Voice-of-All 20:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That's why we have bureaucrats for it, it's fairly clear for us. :) And when you say tally, I'm assuming you mean closing date. But it's never been a hard time limit and especially not in close cases. We've mentioned a few times on WT:RFA that comments up until a bcrat closes the nom are valid even if after the listed closing time. - Taxman 21:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Roni Lynn Deutch

Dear Taxman: Your input could be valuable regarding the article Roni Lynn Deutch at

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Roni_Lynn_Deutch

My personal view is that the article is pretty much an advertisement, even if the article wasn't put there by Ms. Deutch herself -- but you may have a different perspective. Yours, Famspear 19:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

template cite book

Hi. May I ask you: what was your intention of this edit on template:cite book? (which you reverted afterwards). We normally discuss changes on the talk page. Also, experiments should be conducted in a sandbox (especially for such high use templates, as these two edits invalidated the cache of 19,207 pages twice). Cite book applies the template doc page pattern. --Ligulem 17:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hence why I reverted it. It was an accidental edit that I reverted as soon as I could, so I'm confused why you are asking. I was copying that template over to the Hindi Misplaced Pages and initially didn't see that I was about to hit save on the wrong project first. If your intent was just to say be more careful, that is surely noted and perfectly reasonable. - Taxman 17:46, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

This is in no way meant as bold critique. But sometimes someone is trying to achieve something and it might help to understand what that was. I also didn't find a notice on the talk about your accidental edit. The doc page pattern is relatively new (I wrote it). So I am interested in any problems this might cause. Also for me as a poor (or should I say lucky? :-) soul who can no longer edit cite book since its protection (which was a bit a frustration for me first), I'm a bit sensitive to admins dropping by without a notice on the talk. But no harm done. Everything is fine and thanks for your explanation. Cheers, --Ligulem 17:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Jharkhand

Hi Taxman. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk:Jharkhand&diff=prev&oldid=75345964 Thanks. --Bhadani 19:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Taxwoman. Thanks for the information. You have good knowledge of Hindi, as also of suitable wikipedians for making matches. All the best! --Bhadani 16:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary request

नमस्ते Taxman, कैसे हो आप? Sorry for the delay in replying, was caught up with my college stuff. Anyway I reviewed the list you gave me & have found that a majority of the listings are correct. I have found a few errors in the list but instead of plunging in & correcting them, I'd prefer a second opinion from some other editor who is a bit familiar with the language. Despite being able to speak Hindi fluently, my knowledge of pure Hindi is rather limited. So I'll discuss some of the stuff with people like Aksi_great on IRC before I make any concrete changes. Anyway this list seems a good place to start with the pronunciations. What d'you think? Hope to see you on IRC sometime. Cheers --Srikeit 18:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

कोई बात नहीं, that sounds like a good plan. I forgot you may or may not read and write in Devanagari so much either. But thanks for looking into it, and yes those would be a perfect place to start with the pronunciations. Though some on that list are certainly not the most common words. Start with the ones that are the most common I guess. Thanks again - Taxman 19:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Carnildo's RFA

Hi Taxman

I have not been here before, in fact I have deliberately waited a while as I did not want to leave a message here in anger I would later regret. I have always respected you, especially your work on the FAC page, in fact I always thought a support from you was worth three supports from some other people. However, following your advocacy and support of Carnildo's promotion to admin status, I feel I can no longer trust or have confidence in the arbcom to do what is right and best for Misplaced Pages. In my opinion you and your colleagues have seriously let down the factory floor of the encyclopedia and made a huge error of judgement. It no longer seems worthwhile expressing an opinion towards consensus on any Misplaced Pages matter because ultimately one knows the result will be decided behind closed doors regardless of (what one of your colleagues calls) the "fickle and ill-informed populace." . Well I am not fickle or ill-informed, I am very consistent and very well informed. I don't call for your resignation, but in all honesty I can no longer respect your judgement. Sorry. Giano | talk 22:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)