User talk:68.239.76.49

My current Primary Project is helping a newbie employed by the Victoria and Albert Museum … they came to my attention when their recent contributions were being discussed at the WP:COI/N#Victoria and Albert Museum (2):

• VAwebteam (talk · contribs) - the nugget
  • User:VAwebteam/To do list (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - Project workspace
  • User:VAwebteam/Sandbox (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - newly proposed article:link pairs
  • User:VAwebteam/COIN archive (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - backup copy of discussion (1st part)

We are currently being assisted by:

• Athaenara (talk · contribs) - Administrator
• Beetstra (talk · contribs) - 1st part
• EdJohnston (talk · contribs) - 2nd part
• Jehochman (talk · contribs) - 2nd part
• Johnbod (talk · contribs) - 1st part
• SEWilco (talk · contribs) - 2nd part
• Tyrenius (talk · contribs) - Administrator

See User talk:68.239.79.82/Watchlist for prior IP list

Secondary OCD projects …

• Books written by Jonathan Raban (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

1. Arabia Through the Looking Glass (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
2. Coasting (book) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
3. Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
4. Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
5. Soft City (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
6. Surveillance (novel) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
7. Waxwings (novel) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

• Other WP:BK articles associated with Ivankinsman (talk · contribs)

1. A Good Man in Africa (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
2. An Ice-Cream War (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
3. Any Human Heart (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
4. Armadillo (novel) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
5. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
6. Brazzaville Beach (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
7. Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
8. Restless (novel) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
9. The Blue Afternoon (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
10. The New Confessions (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Associated editors:

• Artur Weinhold (talk · contribs)
• Fraserspeirs (talk · contribs)
• Ivankinsman (talk · contribs) - authored most of the above articles
• Nabarj (talk · contribs) - user account for Jonathan Raban
• Tikiwont (talk · contribs) - NPP/Gnome

The gang from Hong Kong is back …

• Jing Ulrich (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - articles are being added so this will not be {{orphan}}
  • CLSA (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - tagged for DB-INC
  • Gary Coull (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - tagged for DB-BIO

Editors to watch (sockpuppets?):

• pulrich (talk · contribs)
• BTjian (talk · contribs)
• Breezer84 (talk · contribs)
• Chance in HK (talk · contribs)
• 867xx5209 (talk · contribs)
• 202.82.31.75 (talk · contribs)

After numerous personal attacks by User:867xx5209 on Talk:Jing Ulrich and Talk:Gary Coull, I have decided to file this report on Suspected sock puppets. —72.75.85.234 14:13, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

These are editors whose User Talk pages I monitor for conversations …

• In the interest of demonstrating my willingness to remain LoJacked, these are the IPs I've used for edits since December, 2006 (in numeric order ... dates don't really matter):

• 68.239.79.82 (talk · contribs)
• 68.239.79.97 (talk · contribs)
• 68.239.79.136 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.70.147 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.70.207 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.72.174 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.85.159 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.85.234 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.96.83 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.100.232 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.104.44 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.105.165 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.114.41 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.115.46 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.120.168 (talk · contribs)
• 72.75.126.37 (talk · contribs)

• 65.219.235.164 (talk · contribs) - anonymous vandal

See User talk:68.239.79.82/sandbox for full list

[edit] Essays regarding my draft protocols for deletions

• What to do after your speedy delete has been restored
• What to do when a speedy delete tag is removed
  • Draft protocol to minimize friction during speedy deletions
• It's not YOUR article
• Dirty Dozen ... tagging twelve articles for speedy deletion in a single one hour session.

[edit] Background information essays

• Not a topic for conversation ... why the Senior Partners say it's OK for me to me an anon-IP editor, period.
• Anonymous WikiGnome, or Sockpuppet? ... for when I have to come out of the closet.

[edit] Miscellaneous work in progress essays

• /scratchpad disposable sandbox for viewing edits
• Memorable quotes
• User:The Bipolar Anon-IP Gnome/filmographies Discussion page boilerplate for pruning filmographies

[edit] Legacy essays

1. The HarleyQuinn.com Argument ... an early essay on bootstrapping notability using Alexa and Google statistics ... one of the reasons why I no longer actively participate in AfD discussions like this, except maybe (occasionally) to Comment in ones where I may have initiated a speedy delete that was overturned ... see the protocol I try to follow these days.
2. My contributions - a tale of research ... I added information about members of Mensa International obtained from a query to the Library of Congress to accurately populate a category, but ultimately, it was a waste of energy because of a Categories for Discussion that I missed (that's what happens when you eschew watchlists.)

I have revised my proposed and speedy deletion warning protocols, and I am requesting comments from the following administrators, with whom I have had contact in the past on the topic of moderating the proposed deletion and speedy deletion processes:

• DESiegel (talk · contribs)
• DGG (talk · contribs)
• Nishkid64 (talk · contribs)

Introduction: I believe that sometimes the deletion of newly created articles can occur Too Quickly, often with negative consequences.

The current process is to tag an article for deletion, and then to notify the author with a very impersonal {{nn-warn}} template as a (optional) courtesy. Often, an author will return after a few days (or in just a few hours) only to find that their article has been deleted with either (a) no warning or explanation, or else (b) a boilerplate message containing instructions that it is too late to follow, from an editor lacking the authority to either delete or restore it. Either of these situations can be very frustrating and intimidating, especially to nuggets. ("Chew 'em up, yum!")

Proposed solution: I believe that New pages patrol, Recent changes patrol, and Counter-Vandalism Unit activities should adopt the following simple protocol:

1. Notify the author of the pending deletion on their User Talk page.
2. Document the reasons for the deletion on the article's Discussion page.
3. Tag the article for deletion with either a {{prod}} or a {{db}}.
4. MOVE ON.

To make the first two steps easier for editors, I have created two boilerplate message templates, {{Warn-editor}} and {{Warn-article}}, that are keyed to the most commonly used CSD (A7) templates and their associated notability guidelines. Note that the first one greets the user by name, and the second one provides links to relevant articles, guidelines, and policies. Both may be targeted for a specific guideline (e.g., "Biographies," "Companies," or "Web content") instead of just being broadly generic.

Field testing: To test their use, I have identified two articles that have been around for a while, but would probably not survive an AfD, or would be deleted upon the expiration of a PROD:

• Ironman Live (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - test case for Warn-web protocol
• Don Fernando (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - test case for Warn-pornbio protocol

The first article (that I discovered while doing cleanups after a vandal) is about a website that is not notable enough for an article of its own; at best it only deserves a brief mention in the existing article for its parent organization.

The second article (that came to my notice on the Conflict of interest/Noticeboard) is about a pornographic actor. It asserts their Notability, but fails to provide any Verifiability for the assertions; I have not objections to it being retained if they are provided. (The bulk of the previous edits to it, including those by the subject, were additions to a Very Long list of their film appearances that I deleted and replaced with links to IMDb and IAFD.)

Because of the infrequency of contributions by the articles' authors, I plan to follow the protocols using a PROD rather than a CSD. I'm requesting that you (a) add the two articles to your watchlists to monitor what happens, and (b) comment on the templates either on their Discussion pages or in this section of my Talk page.

Epilogue: Needless to say, I have undergone an "attitude adjustment" and am much less of a deletionist than I was six weeks ago (notice the placement of "proposed" before "speedy" whenever deletions are mentioned), mostly as the result of two events; the first one was when my account was briefly blocked from editing as a result of my new pages patrol activities, and the second was an epiphany about the lack of any Attribution in newly created articles that is best summed up by this quote:

I realize that what I am proposing is nothing less than a paradigm shift, and (like any change in direction) it will face resistance, but I also think that upon due deliberation, most will agree that it is a Good Thing ... I suppose that the "proper" way to present these modifications of the proposed and speedy deletion processes to the community would be as an Essay (that might evolve into a Guideline accepted by consensus), but there is still much work to be done and experience to be gained before it is ready for general discussion ... OTOH, if there is some reason of which I am unaware that makes this entire enterprise a colossal waste of time, I wish that someone would let me know before I expend any more energy in this direction. :-)

Happy Editing! —72.75.70.147 02:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] general comments

Before we get to details I want to comment both on the current situation, & strategy. My views are altered a little by, first, my experience of my first month as an admin, second, the decision of a number of excellent active edits to stand for adminship, and the bursts of activity that results, third, the evidence that there is not really total agreement among WPedians amount the stringency of the N & V standards, both in general and in all sorts of special cases.

The way to take the disputed standards into account--the only way we can take them into account for detailed procedure, is to ensure that the disputed cases are not decided by the opinions of whichever editors and admins happen to get to the articles first, go to the community procedure of AfD. What the consensus there ought to be , and how well Afd works--these are other questions.

the burst of activity the last few days has cut down the passage time at Speedy from a matter of 8 or 10 hours to a matter of minutes. This isn't enough time for "hangon" to work. We simmply have to do something rational here.

As an admin, I've seen that many people who put on speedy tags do not pay the least attention either to the criterion or to reading the articles. (a former head of state was given a speedy a few days back, just to illustrate), and I can also now see for the first time what I suspected all along--that some few admins do not use a two-step procedure when the really should. I also see the presence of a great many pages that do not actually need two opinions: I am the brightest junior high school school student in town, and by girl friend is the most beautiful. (Image), This technically is not nonsense, and asserts notability, but it obviously should go, fast, image & article both. But nonetheless the young person should be treated much more gently than our templates are worded, and given some personal advice, And the straightforward : NNNNNNN XX which are surprisingly frequent, and need no personal consideration, because the almost always young person in this case knows perfectly well what he or she is doing.

Strategy. Before reforming the times and the steps and so on, we should get back to work on the templates,both you new ones and existing one , for both speedy and user warnings, and establish a more human tone.

But this discussion and the more general one should take place in WP space, not user space. DGG 20:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thnx fer the quick response, DGG, and the background about what's going on in the Greater Community ... I admit that I'm working in isolation with a kind of tunnel vision, so I wanted to solicit the opinions of a few admins with whom I'd had contact on the subject before tossing it out for consensus ... to do otherwise would be like the poor newbies who post a work-in-progress stub of an article for the NPP zealots to pounce upon ... I mean, isn't this why God created sandboxes? :-)

So I guess I'd like to keep it in user space just a little while longer, until it's at least been sanity checked by "a few" admins, if only to catch the occasional copy&paste errors or misstatements by my evil twin.

BTW, I just stumbled across Peer trainer, a perfect example of something that should probably go to AfD rather than a PROD or CSD, so I'm using it as another test case for the templates and the Warn-web protocol , and I've found a Serious Bug that I have to fix before I can use it again ... the subst: is creating headers that include the #ifeq and such directives, so I'd better RTFM instead of just copying and modifying things that I think I understand just from examples of use. <Sigh!>

I'm pretty sure that the three of you hold divergent opinions on some philosophical points, e.g., more or less of a deletionist/inclusionist, which is a Good Thing for my purpose, given I wish to keep the initial reviewer pool as small as possible ... I get the feeling that you are also frustrated that some editors and admins are not taking enough time on the "borderline" articles ... I don't expect to get much use out of the "not for things made up in school" protocol and template, but I included it for completeness, and as a "no-brainer" that I could use for testing with broader exposure than the "Academics," for example ... yeah, in the spirit of IAR, there are some new pages that don't need the warnings, and admins should zap 'em "on sight" without a Second Opinion ... having mentioned that, I'll add it to the "intro" for the Master Protocol ...

"These protocols are for the borderline cases, not the obvious never-to-be-seen-again, unsupervised, public access IP adolescents ... no need to waste the time on warnings and audit trails with the obvious cases."

WP:BITE does not apply, either ... "Chew 'em up and spit 'em out!" :-)

But I digress ... what I'd like to know, DGG, is how strongly you feel about the "warn&wait" shift in emphasis ... I have come to think of the "flag then tag THEN frag" philosophy as being Very Much in line with "assume good faith" and Hanlon's razor, and we should make a collective effort to perpetuate it as part of the Consensus ... your thoughts, please? —72.75.70.147 22:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] next round

Where to go: What I think you are saying is that we need another classification scheme--and my current model is 3 groups.

1/obviously unsuitable --any admin can delete on sight, and priority for nonadmins to mark & send. reason why non-admins cant delete on sight is they haven't been screened, and we'll get malicious deletion. I see 1 or 2 a day., so there might be about 20/day. This will get about half the current speedies= 2000/day.

2/in urgent need of a fix. Warn, give some specific suggestions, check in a few days. If not improved mark, 2nd person deletes. The actual delete has to be an admin, as above. This will get the other half. This will include the present speedy a11 advertising, which are never obviously hopeless

eliminate prod--the only good use is abandoned and dubious though people do use it in the hope it will go under the radar. -- there is no good reason to use a prod on something that someone is likely to care about. Most go to the new class 2, some to class 3. (half of the present use is abandoned user pages, which can really have a separate speedy procedure since they should not be controversial)

3/AfD, with provision for relatively speedy closure as now if something obvious gets there. 7 days. no repeats for 2 or 3 months.

finally, an easy appeal mechanism. But there is one big type of stuff that does not fit.

• successive usually commercial spam--people can do dozens in an hour or two. Remove+warn+block if continues is the only thing that works here. I have never needed to block, except for this.

and three disputable points that not everyone will agree

A/ copyvio of articles on important subjects--we need a rule that they be stubbified not deleted if at all possible--most can.

B/ stubs. Simply permit a stub on an obvious subject, indefinitely. Project to upgrade, not to remove.

C/ BLP--I think obvious attack page speedies can deal, and anything else can get blanked and sent for regular process.

And two overall problems

I/ Auditing deletions by admins

II/ How to get it to work in sync with progressive warnings.

and an overall problem

• the general problem of how to fit in with warnings--we still have to have a way of blocking the vandals

How to get there. 1. I strongly advise against an explicit overall policy change as step One. It will probably get rejected and set things back half a year. The way to try to change consensus is inch by inch. 2. I continue to recommend small changes that would fit into the present system so that people get used to things. 3. Continuing to refine notices is even easier.

Detail: PeerTrainer will survive AfD, because of the NYT article and the People article, and CBS. It's been improved and is shown to be notable. not a good test case. Definitely needs a number of cuts, to make it less of a how-to-do-it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs) 09:01, 15 June 2007

My apologies, DGG ... I completely missed your (unsigned) post from a few days ago in the flurry of activity over the anon. vandal from Jakarta (see below), and just noticed it ... lemme step back for a second and think about what you've said, as you've touched on some points that I have never considered, e.g., are PRODs really that useful? I never thought to eliminate any of the current options for deletion; just modify the order in which things are done, and maybe emphasize "proposed" over "speedy" in the borderline/questionable cases.

I'm in the middle of a family emergency at the moment, and just dropped by for a diversion to kill some time ... will think about what you've said and get back Real Soon Now ... yeah, Peer trainer is looking Much Better and has dropped off my radar as a test case (I'm considering Ironman Live (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) instead) ... I guess I took a page from your book and invested some effort to improve it instead of just trashing it. ("Damaged" vs. "Broken" :-) —72.75.70.147 01:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternatives

OK, I've gone back and re-read Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Processes (something I didn't even know about two months ago :-), and had some time to digest your comments above, so let me see if I can restate both your points and mine to make sure we're on the same page:

• WP:NPP editors can encounter several kinds of "bad" articles that probably don't belong:

1. "Obvious" delete on sight candidates (WP:CSD).
2. Incomplete "stubs" that could/should be improved (WP:PROD).
3. Others that may or may not be worth trying to improve (WP:AFD).

Note: Copyright violations don't need any additional protocols/warnings.

• Assume good faith has its limits, and there are "persistent vandals" who must be dealt with outside of the "moderating" influence of my draft protocols/warnings (e.g., WP:ATTACK was never on the list.)
• The WP:COI issues associated with WP:BLP, WP:INC, and WP:WEB kinds of articles make them different from the other kinds of articles (e.g., WP:POV things like religious, philosophical, or geo-political subjects), and thus the protocols/warnings may be more appropriate for one kind and less so for the other.
• The current mechanism (i.e., the lack of any protocols for guidance in applying the existing policies) can create Serious Bad Karma if applied in Too Hasty a manner.
• No "mechanism" will solve any of the problems unless there is a general "paradigm shift" in the collective consensus attitude regarding the application of this "iron fist in a velvet glove" that is the deletion policy.

I feel very strongly that one of the things provided by my protocols/warnings is a higher level of documentation (paper trail) for use during the deletion review process, either by a sole admin or by consensus discussion ... some cases are "obvious," but it's the not-so-obvious ones that I'm concerned about.

I'm still Too Distracted to respond more right at the moment, but I wanted to get these thoughts posted ASAP. —72.75.70.147 11:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that many eds and even some admins seem to do as they please, regardless of policy. Please see todays discussions at Deletion Review for an example of the problem, and expressions of despair at WT:CSD from very experienced people at the possibility of procedural changes to stop it. So while something concrete to propose might be useful, I still fell this isnt the time yet .DGG 04:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• Hm, this seems rather interesting, Ill look everything over and let you know what I think. Wizardman 14:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)