User talk:WhatamIdoing

If you expected a reply on another page and didn't get it, then please feel free to remind me. I've given up on my watchlist. You can also use the magic summoning tool if you remember to link my userpage in the same edit in which you sign the message.

Please add notes to the end of this page. If you notice the page size getting out of control (>100,000 bytes), then please tell me. I'll probably reply here unless you suggest another page for a reply. Thanks, WhatamIdoing

A kitten for you!

Thanks for all you do!

NRodriguez (WMF) (talk) 04:12, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Your thoughts?

Following up on this discussion, I have drafted text to propose to add to wp:Consensus#Through discussion:

Lack of consensus, standing alone, only supports removal or reinstatement of content when the content is the subject of (a) a current discussion or (b) a prior discussion that reached consensus. In such cases editors should link to the applicable discussion. In all other cases editors should instead cite policy, sources, or another substantive basis for the removal or reinstatement.

I would appreciate your "pre-publication" thoughts and improvements. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:39, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow, can you tell me a story about a dispute, and the outcomes you imagine if we do or don't have this proposal in the policy? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

The text is designed to discourage "no consensus," "discuss first," and similar vacuous edit summaries and talk page assertions (I disagree so there is no consensus and I win) - the sort of activity that Francis Schonken engaged in. The recipient of such treatment could cite this text and say "got anything else?" At that point, one hopes, the discussion would turn substantive. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:57, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow, I don't think it will fit the scenario you mention.

• You: Bold edit
• Them: I disagree, so there is no consensus and I win.
• You: Policy says that's not good enough. You can only revert if it's the subject of a current discussion.
• Them: Yeah, well, this discussion right here is "a current discussion", so I win again.

It might be more pointful to try to convince people to adopt a rule that "'No consensus' requires at least two people on both sides of a dispute. When only one editor holds a viewpoint, the consensus is against that viewpoint." WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:05, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Okay, how about:

Lack of consensus, standing alone, only supports removal or reinstatement of content when the content is the subject of (a) a current substantive discussion or (b) a prior discussion that reached consensus. In such cases editors should link to the applicable discussion. In all other cases editors should instead cite policy, sources, or another substantive basis for the removal or reinstatement.

Is that better? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 04:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow, in practice, I don't think that will help. All of my objections are always, automatically substantive.

Also, you last sentence seems to rule out common sense. Is "bad grammar" a substantive basis? Or "confusing"? (What if it's perfectly clear to you, but I can't figure out what it means?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:28, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Boy, you are a tough customer. Let's say you're right and my proposal won't have the benefit that I think it will have. Do you have any concern that it will make things worse? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 06:37, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow, I see only indirect losses with this (e.g., loss of transparency, because a newcomer will read the rules and then have to discover that the written rules aren't the real rules). It's more pointless than problematic.

I think that there's some potential for doing something that's actually useful on this subject. If you want to explore this, try (off wiki, if you want) re-writing your idea into a series of if...then statements for both sides, and see if that produces useful insights. For example, "If you were a bold editor and you got reverted with an explanation of 'no consensus', then you may/should/must..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm trying for more of a generic policy statement rather than a how to. For that see Wikipedia:Don't_revert_due_solely_to_"no_consensus"#How_to_respond_to_a_"no_consensus"_edit_summary. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:16, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow, IMO generic policy statements tend not to affect behavior as much as a handful of "Do not" statements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

FYI

A discussion that may interest you: Wikipedia_talk:Editing policy#Edit summaries for reverts. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:58, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Parenthetical referencing editnotice

Template:Parenthetical referencing editnotice has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. --Trialpears (talk) 21:28, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Derogatory words

I'm concerned with your repeated statements about editors choosing wording in order to be derogatory. I also don't see relevant sanctions notices here on your talk page. Could you please stop making such statements, avoid the assumptions they are based upon, and make it clear you're aware of WP:ARBPS? --Hipal (talk) 18:30, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hipal, there are multiple sources saying that the word pseudoscience is derogatory and that is over-used to make a derogatory statement about things that aren't technically pseudoscience. I and other editors have cited some of them on wiki. You are not enough of a Pollyanna to believe that Wikipedia editors are somehow immune to this process. We need to stop using pseudoscience as a catch-all term for bad science, superstition, religion, and other subjects. Just because you can find two books by one author who says feng shui is a pseudoscience rather than a collection of superstitions doesn't mean that one author is correct or that putting his view in the first sentence of the article is WP:DUE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:41, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Lots of terms are considered derogatory by some. You really should indicate sources, rather than say that they exist in a discussion somewhere.

I didn't say that the term wasn't derogatory. To say that terms are being chosen to be derogatory is a problem. --Hipal (talk) 20:45, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hipal, I'm convinced that we have some editors who want to denigrate some subjects.

As for sources on the word, consider:

• "Since the derogatory connotation is an essential characteristic of the word "pseudoscience", an attempt to extricate a value-free definition of the term would not be meaningful. An essentially value-laden term has to be defined in value-laden terms." [1]
• "definitions of pseudoscience range widely among authorities depending on their personal criteria for an acceptable scientific method, and the only consistently clear quality of pseudoscience is that the term is derogatory" [2]
• "“Pseudoscience” is a derogatory term skeptics use to refer to a cluster or system of beliefs whose adherents, scientists argue, mistakenly claim is based on natural laws and scientific principles" [3]
• "Pseudoscience is a pejorative term used to denote practices, beliefs, or systems that appear on the surface to be scientific or “sciency,” but which are rejected by the mainstream of scientists." [4]
• ""Pseudoscience" and "pseudoscientific" are unavoidably defamatory words" [5] (p. 496)

I'm pretty sure that you can find more such sources if you spend a few minutes with your favorite search engine. I'm also pretty sure that you will not find any reliable sources that claim it's a term of praise or appreciation. I've never seen any that even claim the term is merely neutral. We use derogatory words to label things that we think are bad. So long as we're using the correct derogatory word(s), then IMO that is appropriate for an encyclopedia article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the refs, but it's not an issue. We don't avoid or whitewash content because something may be seen as derogatory.

I'm convinced that we have some editors who want to denigrate some subjects If that's going to be your argument, you better provide strong evidence to avoid finding yourself facing sanctions. --Hipal (talk) 00:30, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I doubt that any editor who has spent any time around the noticeboards could disagree with me. We assume good faith; we do not assume that editors are unbiased or unmotivated to have articles reflect their disdain for politicians from the "wrong" political party, for subjects on the "wrong" side of geopolitical disputes, etc.

I don't think that representing the majority POVs as being the majority POVs is "whitewashing". I think that representing a minority POV as being the majority POV is a violation of NPOV. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

If you are going to continue to use such bad faith assumptions as rationale for your discussions, expect that they'll be used as evidence of your assuming bad faith of others in order to influence policy or content. --Hipal (talk) 15:34, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hipal, would you like to explain how you think I'm making bad-faith assumptions?

"Bad faith" on wiki usually means that someone believes that another editor is deliberately trying to harm Wikipedia. I've been saying that editors are deliberately trying to improve articles, to the best of their ability and knowledge, under the belief that their edits are fully supported by every policy, by saying that bad things are bad. Where is the bad faith in my statement? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:03, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I started this discussion with, I'm concerned with your repeated statements about editors choosing wording in order to be derogatory. --Hipal (talk) 21:11, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I still don't understand why you think that editors would use a word that, according to the reliable sources above and elsewhere, is "value-laden", "derogatory", "pejorative", and "unavoidably defamatory", if editors don't actually intend to disparage the subject. Most experienced editors are good writers, and we don't normally use a derogatory term when we don't want to derogate the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:01, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Don't assume bad faith. Don't make such statements without evidence. These are policies. --Hipal (talk) 15:24, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hipal, are we agreed on these statements of fact?

• The word pseudoscience is a derogatory word (see, e.g., all the sources above).
• Editors are using that word in articles.

Separately, do we agree on this assumption?

• Editors are using that word in articles intentionally, rather than accidentally.

Do you disagree with any of these statements? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

This line of discussion appears to ignore the relevant policies entirely. I don't want to see you dig yourself any deeper. --Hipal (talk) 00:26, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hipal, it would help me understand why you say that it is a violation of some unspecified policy(ies) for me to say that editors are intentionally using derogatory words in some articles.

Some of the logical options include:

• you don't personally believe the word is derogatory, no matter what the reliable sources say about that;
• you don't believe that editors are using this word in articles (I include this merely for completeness); and
• you believe that editors are using the word accidentally, or at least without being aware that it is a derogatory word.

It's just a guess on my part, but I suspect that the real disconnect is:

• you worry that editors maybe aren't supposed to use any of the thousands of derogatory words in articles

but that's not actually true. We're supposed to use derogatory words such as criminal, disinformation, and pseudoscience – if and when those terms are well-supported by and given due weight according to reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Again, this line of discussion appears to ignore the relevant policies entirely. I'm assuming you are familiar with WP:ARBPS. Given your experience editing Wikipedia, that should be enough.

Please do not continue making comments that contain accusations or insinuations that editors are adding content in order to further their personal biases rather than presenting the viewpoints verified in reliable sources. --Hipal (talk) 16:29, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hipal,I'm not willing to pretend that some editors spend a huge amount of time on fringe and pseudoscientific topics, and to fight tooth and nail to get certain labels in articles, merely out of a disinterested, impersonal desire to present whatever viewpoints happen to be present in reliable sources. We are not such angels, and their editing patterns don't align with it. We have editors who add "it's pseudoscience" whenever they can find a source for it, and who never agree to remove that statement, no matter what other sources say. (We also have editors with the opposite viewpoint, although they seem more likely to limit themselves to a single field.)

I think you need to quit threatening editors who don't share your viewpoint. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not willing to pretend No one is asking you to.

I think you need to quit threatening editors who don't share your viewpoint I've made no threats and expressed no viewpoints other than to follow policy. I'd hoped that would not be in question. --Hipal (talk) 18:04, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

You are asking me to pretend that some editors aren't motivated to denigrate subjects, and your comments about my belief (doubtless one shared by anyone who's spent any time at Donald Trump) being block-worthy violations of policy and sanctionable under ARBPS are threats. If you didn't intend to communicate these things, then you need to work on the clarity of your writing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

MOS:LABEL is quite clear that such contentious labels are "best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution." Terjen (talk) 05:59, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Please do not continue making comments that contain accusations or insinuations that editors are adding content in order to further their personal biases rather than presenting the viewpoints verified in reliable sources. What's unclear about this? --Hipal (talk) 15:29, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hipal, what's unclear is why you keep telling me to do what I'm already doing. This makes me believe that you don't think I'm assuming good faith. In reality, I am fully convinced that every editor who adds a sourced statement about something dubious being pseudoscientific is acting in good faith. I believe that it's possible for an editor to say, with the absolute best of intentions, in a deliberate attempt to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the subject, that nearly all forms of altmed are a long list of disparaging, derogatory, belittling words. Pretty much everything ever listed at Alternative cancer treatments deserves those labels. I cheerfully and in the best of faith disparaged and derogated a number of them myself some years back, when the article was in much worse shape (and more of a list) than it is now.

"Good faith" means that I'm trying to improve the article, including trying to improve the article by saying that the subject is bad/immoral/pseudoscientific/quackery/racist/sexist/scam/every derogatory (but still formal/encyclopedic) word you can think of.

"Good faith" does not mean that I succeeded in improving the article. "Good faith" does not mean that I am unbiased. "Good faith" does not mean that I'm not POV pushing. "Good faith" does not mean that I don't pull up Category:Alternative medicine and see how many of those I can find a WP:PARITY-compliant source that calls it my favorite derogatory label. (Or, in other contexts, Category:Religious belief and doctrine and figure out how many I can call heresies, or Category:Political people and see how many I can call fascists, or whatever subject area interests me.) As long as *I* believe that my edits improve Wikipedia (e.g., by labeling as much altmed as possible as being quackery), then I'm acting in good faith.

I do not believe that any editor has ever added a sourced statement that a subject is pseudoscience without that editor believing this statement improved Wikipedia. I believe that every single one of those edits was made in good faith.

Having (hopefully) read this, do you still believe that I have accused anyone of adding these claims in bad faith (i.e., for the purpose of harming Wikipedia)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

[6] I don't get the impression that editors care whether they are using the word precisely, so long as they can use this derogatory word. I should have left diffs from the start.

I don't see any good coming from continuing this discussion. Sorry I didn't include diffs with my very first statement. --Hipal (talk) 22:07, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hipal, using words imprecisely ≠ trying to hurt Wikipedia. That is not a claim of bad-faith editing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

As I said, I don't see any good coming from continuing this discussion. --Hipal (talk) 00:25, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Courtesy notice

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in pseudoscience and fringe science. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

--Hipal (talk) 20:31, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

mail

Hello, WhatamIdoing. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

· · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 12:03, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you

... for what you said on User talk:SlimVirgin - missing pictured on my talk, with music full of hope and reformation --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:24, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

I/O Psychology

WhatamIdoing, I write, once more, to ask your help. I view you as a neutral editor. I am involved in a dispute with another editor, Patriciamoorehead. She has reversed a particular edit I made in the i/o psychology entry. And reversed a compromise edit I offered. We go back and forth. I don't see a way out of the dispute without calling upon an experienced, neutral editor. Thanks. Iss246 (talk) 03:50, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

@Iss246, sorry for the late reply; I'd overlooked this. I wonder if this dispute might benefit from the application of some time. Let it be m:The Wrong Version for a little while (even a couple of weeks), and work on another section of the article. Then go back and try the smallest possible edit to the disputed area – even a slight copyedit. Let that rest for a few days and see what happens. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I value your advice. I tried a compromise edit but the other editor even reversed the compromise edit. You have many more edits than I have. I respect your experience. The disagreement is about the content of one sentence, not of a magnitude that a "wrong version" complaint should be filed. I will follow your advice and leave the sentence alone for two or three weeks.

In May and June, I worked a little every day editing the psychology entry. It is not that the facts were wrong although a small number were. The writing needed to be clearer. My thinking is that clear, informative writing will attract readers, readers who won't quit reading after they get through the first paragraph. Clear, informative writing could even attract high school and college students who use WP to consider psychology as a major. Iss246 (talk) 21:10, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

If attracting students to the field were the goal, I wonder whether it'd be effective to consider working on related articles. Articles like Friendship or Control (psychology) might be interesting to that audience, and psychology has a lot to say about them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Verifiability versus due weight in medical topics (and science more generally)

I'm trying to stay away from that page for a bit (I've sunk enough of my limited wiki-time into it), but I wanted to say that I found this comment of yours insightful. XOR'easter (talk) 17:28, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, @XOR'easter. If you have thoughts on what we should write for a "MEDDUE" or "SCIDUE" page, please let me know. There is the general issue (let's call it WP:Verifiability and due weight), but I think that it's simpler in the hard sciences, because facts about a source (e.g., the reputation of the publisher, whether it's a review – information that's independent of what the source says) give you a bigger clue about the overall level of acceptance in the field. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I'll mull it over. Spelling out the different categories of sources that one finds in the hard sciences could be useful for multiple purposes, and offhand I don't think we do that explicitly anywhere. (There have definitely been times when I've been cleaning up articles and wondered, "Why is this cited to a random website when textbooks exist?!") XOR'easter (talk) 18:38, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

One of my goals in starting Wikipedia:Biomedical information was to address the idea that systematic reviews are best. They are best – if you want to know whether a treatment works. But you're never going to get a systematic review on whether the best name for a certain medical condition is X or Y, or whether the first description was published in 1919, or whether a treatment is socially acceptable.

I'd usually rather have information cited to a website than to nothing, but textbooks are great. I wish that Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library could get access to a couple of reputable medical textbooks. Imagine how much we could do, even if only one editor was allowed to use it at any single point in time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:36, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Have a look at Template:COVID-19 pandemic and open up all the collapsed boxes. I'm not sure how many links there are, but my text editor says the wiki text has 1539 pairs of open brackets. Wrt Covid, DUE left the building and went somewhere nice on holiday quite some time ago.

There are too many editors with Covid blinkers on and agendas to promote (on all sides) for there to be any chance of a reasonable debate on this issue right now. I think better to accept Covid-19 is an outlier and just make sure that what people write about is as accurate and fair per reliable sources as we can. The dogma that works for both common-or-garden and controversial biomedical topics is broken for Covid, and not proving to be acceptable to a large number of editors. If we are too dogmatic about Covid, then that mob will wreck the guidelines and good practice used and seen elsewhere. -- Colin°^Talk 14:25, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Ideological contributions to Wikipedia

Hi there, it's a long time since we've really been in contact, and I've been mostly absent from Wikipedia, so I'm sorry for making a comment out of the blue. I'm very concerned about a small number of editors - generally just 3 - who are systematically making changes to Wikipedia articles to align them with 'gender critical', anti-gender perspectives. These perspectives generally introduce an undue certainty about specific narrow norms in relation to the meaning of biological sex. Affected pages include sex, gender identity, intersex, hermaphrodite, specific traits like 5α-Reductase deficiency and true hermaphroditism. I've just reverted a set of changes to 5α-Reductase deficiency. Because there are 3 editors, it is easy for them to team up on other editors, and change pages with low numbers of active editors. I'm not sure what to do about this, and I hope you might have some ideas - thank you. Probably I should ping User:Alison as well. Trankuility (talk) 08:03, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

@Trankuility, thanks for the note. It's always good to see you on wiki.

Short-term, it may be helpful to post notes at the obvious WikiProjects (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies).

Long-term, we probably need to update Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles to mention intersex. I started an informal list on its talk page for all the things that we should remember to discuss. Feel free to add a line to the list.

For the general articles, I suspect that the old-fashioned approach of WP:YESPOV is going to be the only functional path forward. This means something like "In East Asia since forever, a woman is anyone who dresses and behaves that way. In the Western world since the 1990s, a woman is anyone who claims to feel like a woman. In Africa and the Middle East and for nearly all of recorded history in the West, a woman is anyone with the female genitalia" – in other words, presenting all the beliefs, without anointing any culture's belief as the One True™ definition of sex or gender. Usually (not always, but usually), when people see their personal beliefs represented fairly alongside other beliefs, then they quit trying to cram their beliefs into the article. This requires a certain amount of intellectual capacity on the part of the editors (enough intelligence to understand that some people see bacon and think "unclean" and others see bacon and think "yum!" – or, in this instance, that different people have different conceptions of sex and gender, and that these other definitions aren't wrong), but most Wikipedia editors are smart enough to do that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:02, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your reply. I will look at the Manual of Style page when I have time. In the meantime, thanks for putting your oar in on several of those pages. Trankuility (talk) 09:36, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Remember context matters

Keep in mind about the whole WP:CONTEXTMATTERS policy.CycoMa (talk) 03:41, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

CONTEXTMATTERS does not mean that you can reject a med school textbook because you've decided that it's a "biology" article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Do you need to be an expert in biology to doctor?CycoMa (talk) 05:08, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

The physicians I've talked to believe themselves to be experts in biology; the biologists I've talked to believe themselves to be an expert at most in a narrow subset of biology.

I don't think it has anything to do with your insistence that a MEDRS-compliant med school textbook cannot be used to define human biological sex, however. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:20, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Are you aware that article is talking about sex from various species. Yet you are making an argument we need to focus more on humans. I’m surprised you understand why that’s problematic.CycoMa (talk) 05:23, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Also do you have sources for that? I mean do you need to understand more than human biology to be an doctor?CycoMa (talk) 05:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Do I have sources for what? For my personal conversations with other people? For MEDRS saying that medical textbooks are "excellent secondary sources" and recommending them whenever we want to present the "prevailing medical or scientific consensus" in an article? For something else?

As for whether you need to understand more than human biology to be a doctor, the answer is yes. Specifically, you need to understand both the non-biological "arts" of medicine (e.g., how to help people gain confidence in your advice; the many different things that people mean when they say "no"), and you need to understand non-human biology (e.g., how to culture various bacteria; what conditions promote or inhibit common fungi; how radiation affects DNA). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Let me just clarify I’m not saying medical sources shouldn’t be included in that article at all. It’s just they aren’t ideal. Not to mention I don’t think the sources you provided are due weight for that article.CycoMa (talk) 06:21, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I’m sorry about this.CycoMa (talk) 06:28, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions alert - gender and sexuality

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in gender-related disputes or controversies or in people associated with them. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

Firefangledfeathers (talk) 05:05, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Page size

Hi there! Just FYI, this page recently passed the 200kb mark, and you may want do some archiving. Only mentioning it since I saw your note at the top. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 05:06, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for this, @Firefangledfeathers. I really enjoyed the discussion with User:SmokeyJoe, but it did turn out to be long. If we say twice as much next time, and if I listen better, we might someday solve all the world's problems (or at least all of Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)'s problems).  ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Solving global problems takes at least 600k bytes and three tables I'm afraid. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:20, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry about that

I really am sorry about what I have said back there. Medical sources are fine for articles like sex.

It’s just some medical sources on the biology of sex and gender contradict each other at times.CycoMa (talk) 08:12, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Actually I went to some wiki projects and notice boards and I guess the sources are fine.CycoMa (talk) 18:07, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Let me recommend WP:YESPOV to you. Sources that look at a question from different disciplines will often have slightly different viewpoints. It's often best to include all the significant viewpoints, rather than trying to declare that one profession has the One True™ answer, and all the others are wrong. Evolutionary biology can tell you which size gametes means male or female; medicine can tell you that you can "diagnose" the biological sex of an individual human, even if that person isn't producing any gametes, and that the diagnostic method has nothing to do with gender identity. (This, of course, is why we specify "biological sex" in some articles, because that lets us clearly differentiate between independently measurable aspects of the physical body vs. other definitions.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Honestly I guess how I said came off as aggressive. I’m not really against the inclusion of medical sources in general for that article. I probably should have worded it better.CycoMa (talk) 20:50, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I was honestly thinking about including medical information. Like maybe a section for it.CycoMa (talk) 20:53, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@CycoMa, I don't think you want to have a separate section about medical information. I'll leave a note on the talk page with an idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Eight years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:42, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

As expected

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dementia_with_Lewy_bodies&diff=next&oldid=1034524426 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:41, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Greetings

I hope you are well. I was wondering whether you might be interested in becoming an administrator? I think the project would benefit if you were one. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:43, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote of confidence, @Ncmvocalist. I am not interested in becoming an admin. So long as I'm still at the WMF, I don't really want to have advanced user rights on any of my accounts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Psychology

User:WhatamIdoing, I write to ask you to look into a disagreement I have with editor Brokenrecordsagain. The disagreement is in the psychology entry. They are inflating the contribution of i/o psychology to research on work and health, echoing past disagreements with another editor. Another user, Psyc12, is involved in the disagreement. Although I don't see eye-to-eye with Psyc12, they are more knowledgeable about psychology and more reasonable than Brokenrecordsagain. The disagreement involves text in the Health, well-being, and social change section of the psychology entry. The talk page documents the nature of the disagreement. Thank you. Iss246 (talk) 01:12, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@Iss246, assuming that the remaining dispute is the difference between "about half" and "most", then you can't use that source to make either claim. "Here are the names of some graduate programs" does not allow you to make any claims about how many of them are organized this way or that way. If a better source can't be found, then you all will have to remove the sentence.

At this point, given the history, I think you should assume that all "new" accounts are the same guy. The long-term solution to his problems likely lies in getting multiple "formal" sources to take Cato's approach to Carthage, and just endlessly repeat that OHP isn't just a part of I/O because it's illogical to think that any interdisciplinary field could be just a part of one field. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:27, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you user:WhatamIdoing. I explained my original edit regarding justifying the sentence that about half the OHP programs in the U. S. are within i/o programs. I placed the explanation on bottom of the psychology talk page.

But there is a larger issue in the Health, well-being, and social change section of the psychology entry. I would like you to weigh in on that larger issue.

Echoing disagreements with a previous editor, BR keeps using the psychology entry to inflate i/o psychology's contribution to research on work and health in the twentieth century. If i/o psychologists were so keen to improve worker health, why was there a need for OHP to develop? I/o psychologists, in the few occasions when they were interested in health, they focused on fatigue because fatigue reduces productivity. There are rare exceptions. Arthur Kornhauser is an example of an exception. Unlike most i/o psychologists, who were on the side of management, Kornhauser was on the side of the health of labor. I would appreciate your applying your editorial judgment on this larger issue. Thank you. Iss246 (talk) 22:27, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Could you continue to monitor, and weigh in on, the edits in the Health, well-being, and social change section of the psychology entry. It needs the help of an experienced editor like yourself. Thank you. Iss246 (talk) 21:14, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing, I ask you to weigh in on a discussion taking place on bottom of the psychology talk page. I value your judgment. I don't know what your judgment will be. I was hoping that there could be some resolution to a disagreement. Thank you. Iss246 (talk) 17:49, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Irish people

Hi, I reverted your edit to the article, because it refers to people living in the Caribbean, not in Ireland. Denisarona (talk) 15:34, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, @Denisarona. I've moved it to the correct section as a result of your clarification. The existence of modern generations never explain the "Origins and antecedents" of our ancestors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Courtesy note

This is just to let you know I will not be responding to your e-mail. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 22:19, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

No problem. I don't need any sort of response, not even to say that you read it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:00, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Sources that superficially seem ok, but are not

Hey WAID. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:21, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

(Sometimes, if I switch tabs to check things, this tool loses everything written)

I hope you don’t think I am obsessed with male genital regions, or think that I think you you have a particular interest, but I want to ask for your further opinion, relating to Manscaped MfD. It compares with Tommy John underwear. I think the reason for similarity is that superficially impressive sources, including Bloomsbury, Forbes, even The Wall Street Journal, let slip sub-standard journalism sometimes.

I think the theme is that the typical (male) journalist/contributor, probably with unusual confidence in personal knowledge of the subject area, and a feeling that this is not a critical topic, and a sense that things “men’s-health” should get an easy pass, is prepared to write these things with a lower-than-usual threshold. This, in particular, reads to me like a tongue-in-cheek parody of journalism. An article about the over-the-top YouTube saturation promotion on a giggly topic, with giggly images to match.

Our recent discussions have considerably depressed my confidence in explaining what exactly is wrong with these sources. I think that we agree that something is wrong, but it is a challenge to explain it in simple terms to others?

What do you think of the sources for the Manscaped draft? Do you agree with my conclusion of “not suitable”? What would be your reasoning?

—SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:37, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi, @SmokeyJoe. I spent about five minutes looking at the article and a couple of sources, and so far I have two questions for you:

• Do we really want Wikipedia editors to decide when a reliable source is engaging in "sub-standard" work? It's one thing to say that Source 1 is contradicted by Sources 2, 3, 4, and 5, or that Okay-ish Source should be rejected in favor of Much Better Source, but the part where we say that, based on our personal experience of media over the last couple of decades, we think these sources (although apparently getting all the facts right) were wasting their ink on this subject is a problem.
• Is there anything about WP:WHYN that isn't met by this collection of sources? Based on the draft, it seems to be possible to write an article that accurately and fairly describes the subject to a reasonable level.

As for what to do with this draft, I'm a m:mergist, and turning it into a one-paragraph entry in a List of male grooming companies or a List of razor manufacturers would suit me/my biases. Another approach might be to name-check them in an article about the charity they promote or in Manscaping (merged to hair removal as a result of this 2009 AFD, which non-mergists might wish to reconsider the wisdom of).

Also, I suspect that you will be interested in this Wikimania talk about the risk of relying on independent reliable sources, when some entities have both the incentive and the power to influence the sources we're using. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Three sources

I didn't want to really discuss this at VPR because I did not intend it to be a general discussion on notability. Regarding three sources or more, that is from my interpretation of "multiple reliable sources". Multiple means several, several means "more than two but not many". Ergo, three as a minimum. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:31, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@CaptainEek, it's been discussed many times over the years at WT:N, and the usual interpretation is "two" – often with the caveat that if there are only two, they need to be strong (or the case needs to be obvious, e.g., a newly identified organism), but the potential for two sources to be sufficient is rarely disputed.

Also, wikt:multiple#Adjective says that the word means "more than one", and if that didn't accord with professionally written dictionaries such as this one, I might wonder if that definition were written by an editor during a notability discussion.  ;-) But since it seems to be the primary definition elsewhere, then I think we'll have to accept it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Intriguing. I've definitely been in corners of the wiki where the standard is three, thank you for enlightening me. It seems that perhaps here could be clearer guidance on the actual notability page... CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:46, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@CaptainEek, it is my impression that clearer guidance is not exactly wanted. After all, if everyone knows what the actual rules are, then how will I impose my preference on your article? Clearer guidance could result in someone writing an article on a subject that I think is inherently unsuited to Wikipedia. The section immediately above this one asks a similar question: What if the sources do technically exist, and we could technically write a decent, non-stub encyclopedia article about this trendy men's fashion company, but the subject just doesn't feel encyclopedic to us, and we (rationally) expect that nobody will care about the subject at all in ten years? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi!

Here's that notability essay page I threw together. I think "guideline" was the wrong word to use in the discussion.Americanfreedom (talk) 23:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

@Americanfreedom, I don't think your proposal works (as a practical matter), and I am convinced that it has no chance of being adopted.

Your item #2, for example, says that every single patented product deserves a separate, stand-alone article, because getting a patent for your product requires that your product be "novel" (i.e., a new idea, or "unique" in your wording), and the patent itself is a reliable primary source for the fact that the product is unique. Millions of patents have been issued. More than 1,500 have been issued on products that use smiley faces. I'm going to guess that you didn't intend to say that the English Wikipedia should have separate articles on each of those. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing Well it's only a early rough draft hastily thrown together to illustrate a point. If it was a no-go I would've just abandoned it. Americanfreedom (talk) 21:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

@Americanfreedom, would you please tell me what kind of product you'd like to be writing about? I've spent a lot of time writing Wikipedia's policies and guidelines over the last 15 years. One of the things I find is that people with a particular "thing" in mind can be entirely correct about it, but they hadn't thought about how the sensible thing for their subject area doesn't work for other things. So, for example, you'll get an editor who writes about history saying that books are the best possible source, because in history, a scholar's best work is usually a long book, and the academic journals are less important. But then an editor who writes science-related articles says the opposite: journal articles are best, and books are worse, because books aren't peer-reviewed and are often out of date. They'll both try to make the rules fit "their" subject, because they don't understand the needs of the other subjects.

I think you might be dealing with the same sort of situation, in which the rules that would be perfectly reasonable for commercial products like (e.g.,) prescription-only medications make no sense for commercial products like (e.g.,) designer clothing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:25, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@User:WhatamIdoing Well, I guess all I really wanted was a general notability essay for products/services. There wasn't a specific TYPE of product/service I was trying to write about. I have broad interest in all kinds of products and services and would like to take a crack writing about a variety of them, but I didn't have a notability essay to consult. Also, sorry for the late replies. I have a life outside a digital encyclopedia. (Not to imply you don't).Americanfreedom (talk) 18:39, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@Americanfreedom, we already have a set of notability rules for products and services. The rule is at Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), and it basically says that the standards for products and services are the same as the standards for writing about a business. That is, you basically need:

• Independent sources written by at least two different people (separately)
• At least one source must be from someplace other than the subject's hometown (if it's a local business/product)
• The sources need to contain a lot of information about the product.
• The sources must not be certain specified low-quality sources, such as product reviews on someone's blog.

There are no "if it has X objective quality, then it's notable", but it's also true that there are no such rules for businesses, either. We could easily say that every publicly traded corporation with a billion dollars in profit is notable – because all of them actually are notable – but we don't write the rules like that. We write the rules to focus on what you need to write a decent, neutral article, which is sources.

(I don't need quick responses; please do live your real life.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:28, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@WhatamIDoing (Kinda wondering that myself at this point), I guess ultimately I was trying to propose a that particular section be split out into it's own essay which sounds pretty unnecessary now that I type it out. Sorry for inadvertently stirring the pot.Americanfreedom (talk) 02:27, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

No problem. It's good to have people ask questions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Your thoughts? Part II

Wikipedia_talk:Consensus#Fresh_take_on_"unless_the_reason_for_them_is_obvious". Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:59, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

rules that say gay editors can't be blocked

Hi WhatamIdoing I noticed on Iridescent's talk page that you said you prefer rules that say gay editors can't be blocked. I'm not comfortable inserting myself in that conversation, but I'd like to note that the UCoC doesn't prevent blocking users for saying that they are gay. It lists sexual orientation as one of a list of characteristics for which no expectations shall exist in regards to the respect, civility, collegiality, solidarity and good citizenship as the foundations of behavior. That does not offer protection against discrimination, and no protection against laws that criminalize homosexuality. In fact, the ToS explicitly says that applicable laws may include the laws where you live or where you view or edit content. In Mauretania, Nigeria, Saudi-Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan saying that you are gay has dire consequences, including the death penalty. Local administrators might well be in compliance with the UCoC and the ToS if they ban someone for saying they are gay. Such admins would simply be applying the local applicable law.

A more principled stand, should the WMF want to take one, would be to say: These are the protected classes (age, mental or physical disabilities, physical appearance, national, religious, ethnic and cultural background, caste, social class, language fluency, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex or career field), and kind of discrimination against a member of such a class is prohibited, regardless of what the local law says. I would welcome a such clear, unequivocal statement. But the UCoC doesn't do that. Vexations (talk) 15:05, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello, @Vexations. The paragraph you refer to says "behaviour will be founded in respect, civility, collegiality, solidarity and good citizenship. This applies to all contributors and participants in their interaction with all contributors and participants, without expectations based on [...] sexual orientation". Deciding that people who say they're gay must be expelled from the community because of that statement does not sound like "behaviour...founded in respect, civility, collegiality, solidarity and good citizenship" to me, and it does sound like negative "expectations based on [...] sexual orientation" to me.

I am not aware of any law that requires volunteers to block out and proud folks from editing Wikipedia. Are you?

If you are looking for the WMF's policy, rather than the movement's policy, then you may be looking for m:WMF Resolutions/Nondiscrimination. It applies to users (including editors) as well as staff. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:57, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

There are no laws that specifically mention Wikipedia, as far as I know, but there are laws that criminalize normalizing homosexuality, such as the Russian gay propaganda law for example. Vexations (talk) 00:08, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

If we are unaware of any laws requiring volunteers to take action against an editor who says that he is gay, then I think that we should not be claiming that admins would, even hypothetically, "simply be applying the local applicable law" by doing something that we have no reason to believe is actually required by any local law. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:47, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not buying that. No country writes laws specifically requiring Wikipedia volunteers to do anything. But there's the Hungarian anti-LGBT law. The idea behind those laws is similar. Children may not be exposed to homosexuality. If such a law has been already for something as idiotic as removing a gay character from a videogame, it's reasonable to consider the effects such laws can have on the rights of LGBT people to express themselves on a website that is accessible to children. It is good that we have the Non discrimination policy, (I had forgotten that it exists) but rather unfortunate that it doesn't appear in the UCoC in any meaningful way. Vexations (talk) 14:13, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

AFAIK, no country has written any laws requiring volunteer moderators on any website to do anything if any person posting there says "I'm gay". The politician Péter Ungár is gay and did not vote against the law you linked to, which seems to mostly be about daytime television, children's toys, and corporate advertisements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:25, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Came here wondering the same thing as above. I have to say, that that interpretation of the UCoC text really seems like a stretch to me. ("respect, civility ... without expectations based on [...]" as meaning that admins can't block based on the listed attributes.) :/

Incidentally, the mentioned WMF policy has been specifically for staff and contractors since at least 2017. See wmf:Non-discrimination policy.

(The dialogs between you and Iridescent are always super-informative, by the way. I feel like it's one of the most interesting-information-dense sources around.) --Yair rand (talk) 21:45, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

That example was one of the reasons that the UCOC was proposed. It was not the most significant – AFAICT the biggest reason is because the small affiliates and event organizers asked for a more generally applicable version of the m:Friendly Space Policy as a time-saver for themselves – but it was one of the known problems that people thought needed to be addressed by the UCOC.

I don't think it's a good idea to back down from requiring "behaviour...founded in respect, civility, etc." to "You can't have a rule that says you block anyone who discloses that he's gay, but you can still revert all his edits, call him names, report him to parental/educational/religious/governmental authorities, and otherwise do anything except blocking him that you think might be effective at driving him out of the project". It might take us a while to figure all this out, but I do think this is a step in the right direction. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

It is hardly helpful to have a code that is so open to interpretation that to go from what it says to what it means in practice requires an advanced degree in hermeneutics. I find that translating something, as I've done with the UCoC, forces one to really carefully read the text. After spending several days wrangling with it, I still don't know what "altering the correct way of composing editorial content" or "imposing schemes on content intended to marginalize or ostracize" means and neither does anyone else, as far as I can tell. Vexations (talk) 11:13, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Most of us wikilawyers have the practical equivalent of that degree, so I'm not too worried about that. Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is open to interpretation. The Wikipedia:Five pillars are open to interpretation. What Wikipedia:Civility means in practice is a regular source of disputes here. We seem to muddle along somehow, though, and I imagine that will be true under the UCOC as well.

I'm not sure what "altering the correct way of composing editorial content" means; the rest of the sentence indicates that it's something about creating non-neutral content. If the draft was created by someone on wiki, we could figure out who wrote it and ask for more information. It may be a reference to WP:DUE and WP:BALASP. That would be "composing" a bit more in the visual arts sense or the philosophical sense, rather than in the sense of how to write brilliant prose. (I suspect that the original author is not a native English speaker.)

The second seems easier, though: Don't declare that certain groups of people (e.g., women, indigenous people, adherents of the "wrong" religion) are never notable or have to meet unusually high standards; don't put Category:Gay men inside Category:Criminals; don't systematically put disparaging banners on articles about people with the "wrong" beliefs or from the "wrong" group. Those are all "schemes on content" that could be used "to marginalize or ostracize". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

You touch upon an interesting point there; as far as I have been able to tell, the UCoC was not written as a wiki, and its authors have never responded to requests for clarification. Vexations (talk) 17:42, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

My impression is that it was drafted by committee off wiki. Several of our policies and guidelines were also drafted that way back in the day (the first revision of WP:RS had two thousand words, and begins with a claim that it is a settled rule), and they seem to work for us, so that's not necessarily evidence of a problem, but it does make it difficult to know which person to ask if you want to know what the intended meaning is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:52, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

PEarley (WMF) was able to provide some additional clarification, quite similar to your understanding. I agree, that must have been what the drafters tried to say. Vexations (talk) 20:50, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad that you followed up on that.

Patrick's pretty awesome. It looks like he hasn't updated his enwiki user page since about two promotions ago. I should pester him about that some time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Requesting some article expansion help

Greetings,

Recently you seem to have edited in Psychology related topics.

Requesting you to visit Draft:Irrational beliefs and inputs and expansion help for the same.

Thanks and warm regards

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 08:13, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with JHelzer and several other editors at Draft talk:Irrational beliefs#Related Articles, that this concept is better handled as a small part of a larger article. It might also make a reasonable disambiguation page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:29, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Cite web

Thanks for the note; I'd forgotten how TemplateData worked. I had "Name of the website" already included but with no value set for the parameter, so when I searched for work naturally it didn't return anything. Out of curiosity I just tried searching in the "Add more information" search box for other fields that I already had - "last1" and "URL access date". The former gave me "No unused fields", and the latter gave me "Unknown field", presumably because "URL access date" isn't a valid parameter, even though it's the displayed name of the parameter. Wouldn't it be more sensible if (a) searching for the string used as the name of the parameter worked just as well as searching for the parameter; (b) instead of "No unused fields", all used fields matching the search string, headed by "Fields already used" or something similar, were displayed; and (c) if a search string such as "work" matches some used and some unused fields, it should still list the used fields, though after the list of unused fields? In the case of "work", because I had not used e.g. the "format" parameter, there was a list of unused parameters matching "work" and no indication that some matching parameters were already used. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:28, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I think that Johanna Strodt (WMDE) will be interested in your idea. Wikimedia Deutschland is working on some changes to the template dialog box. Among other things, they're changing a medium-sized box that looks like this into a large box that looks similar to the existing complex transclusion dialog box to make it easier to add some parameters. ("Complex transclusions" are multiple templates stacked together; you'll see it in Altruism#See also, if you try to edit the columns in the visual editor.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:54, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

That looks like it would be an improvement; thanks for the links. Johanna, happy to give specific examples & screenshots to explain why I was confused with the existing dialog box, if that would be useful. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:45, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: I'm very sorry for replying so late! We're actually already very far along in our development process. If everything goes well, the improved VE template dialog will be deployed to a few wikis next week. It would be wonderful if you could then have a look at it and tell us if the changes we made are actually improvements for you. We plan to take the feedback from these few wikis and improve the dialog some more, and will then deploy our changes on all remaining wikis probably in the first months of next year. Hopefully, that'll make the lives of many people easier when it comes to working with templates. -- Best, Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 15:17, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I'll take a look when I can; thanks for letting me know. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:29, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

As long as it's still possible to edit all of a complex transclusion, and assuming that we're talking about the wikis that have already put thousands of hours into defining TemplateData, then I agree that it will be an improvement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:58, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Nomination for merger of Template:Reliable medical sources please old

Template:Reliable medical sources please old has been nominated for merging with Template:Reliable medical sources please. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 10:33, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Following up re: posting external link

Hi!

I'm not sure if this is the right way to contact another (please let me know), but I've followed your helpful instructions regarding asking someone else to add my external link to the Dish Network wiki, however, no one has replied despite some time. The original post you had kindly replied to is this: [links/Noticeboard]. Please help?

Thank you! GebienD (talk) 14:41, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Your (?) Red Hen Press Maintenance Tag

Dear WhatamIdoing,

I've made a good faith effort to address the (your?) 2017 maintenance tag on the Red Hen Press article requesting:

"This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources."

I've added reliable citation sources, but not for every single person mentioned (e.g., in the list of authors participating in their reading series), which seems excessive, and ridiculously time-consuming. I'd like to remove the maintenance tag (or have you remove it), but only if you agree.

Thanks!Books2read (talk) 11:40, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

This is  Erledigt, @Books2read and @JBW. Thank you for adding citations to that article. When I tagged it, there were zero cited sources in the article. I appreciate the substantial efforts you made to improve the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:04, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, and you're welcome! I see that there's still a "citation needed" in brackets after footnotes 10 and 11... Books2read (talk) 01:19, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

@Books2read, I didn't look at that section. You should feel free to remove that yourself. In general, that tag is meant to be replaced by a footnote in the same edit, without waiting for someone else to check. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:56, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I will do it, thank you. Books2read (talk)

DYK nomination

Hi WAID, as you know, several of us were impressed by HLHJ's work and when you suggested a DYK nomination I thought it'd be good to act on your suggestion so I went ahead and did it, never having done that before. But looking at what's going on at the nomination discussion now, I'm surprised by how much hassle this has been. I'm really struggling to understand the arguments of the 2 editors who are opposing it. It looks like they're very experienced at this DYK thing, and if they're opposing it I imagine there must be good reasons, but I'm struggling to understand them. Are things normally this difficult? Dr. Vogel (talk) 15:42, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi, @DrVogel. I don't think that DYK is normally this difficult, when such a well-written and well-sourced article is presented. (Perhaps the nitpicking over the hook explains why so many of the hooks are boring, though.)

I'm not certain that you actually need to do anything else with it. The process should theoretically be able to finish without anything else from you. I am certain that you could step away for a day or two without any irreversible harm. Sometimes it helps to let a discussion sit for a bit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:49, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Could you help me as usual ?

Hello, I want to continue administering the Haitian Wikipedia. Can you help me by inciting contributors to vote? Thanks!--Gilles2014 (talk) 20:25, 15 November 2021 (UTC)