User talk:Lquilter/Archive 004

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LGBT WikiProject Newsletter

The LGBT studies WikiProject Newsletter!
Issue III - February 1, 2007

Announcement: If someone requests help or feedback on an article, please try your hardest to help them out if you are able. Thank you.

Project News
  • The LGBT Portal has once again been revamped and a work rota started. Efforts towards Featured Portal status are slowly coming together.
  • The assessment system has been a great success, we have tagged over 4000 articles! Please tag any LGBT related articles you come across by adding {{LGBTProject | class=}} to the talkpage. Please see the Assessment Department for how to assess an article according to the grading system.
  • The Translation department has changed its focus, to LGBT articles about non-English topics and people on which there may be more information on the relevant foreign Wikipedia. Please add your name if you are fluent in any language other than English.
  • Jumpaclass is picking up slowly, with nine people having entered. With over 2000 stubs we need to improve our article quality. Please sign up and get it going! Challenge another user to see how far you can jump a stub!
  • There is an ongoing discussion about the current LGBT categorisation system here, here, and a little bit here. A special page has now been set up here to deal with this.
  • A Watchlist has been set up to monitor controversial and/or highly vandalised articles. It can also be used for article disputes, just add a note explaining the nature of the dispute.
  • With the influx of so many active members, there is now enough support for a LGBT studies peer review, which may be found here. It's in the beta phase at the moment, so bear with us if we make any mistakes. Feel free to peer review any articles you have been working on.
  • It was agreed this month to start reducing the uses of the Notice board, as many members felt that it was not effective. An open tasks template has been created, bringing together important announcements, FAC/FARs, Peer reviews, XfDs, the COTM, and requested articles. You may desire to watchlist it. A Deletion sorting subpage is also now working to bring together XfDs - this should be bot-driven, but we have not currently tagged enough articles to make this fully automated, so please update the list with any LGBT-related XfDs you come across.
Article news
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Nadine Gordimer / misleading edit summary

One of your recent edit summaries in the article Nadine Gordimer did not accurately describe your edit. Changes to the content of articles should be accurately described in the edit summary. --lquilter 13:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC) (content copied, by 70.23.199.239, from warning message Lquilter placed on User talk:70.23.199.239)

Nonsense. I simply used YOUR misleading edit summary, word for word. If you didn't like it, you shouldn't have used it, in the first place.

Statements placed on editors' talk pages should not mislead readers unaware of the political agenda motivating the statements. 70.23.199.239 08:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The edit summary I used was "(Reverting recent assault info per discussion at talk page.)" The discussion at the talk page was overwhelmingly in favor of not including that information -- hence the use of the word "per". The use of the same edit summary to describe the opposite behavior is confusing; nobody would understand from looking at the talk page how the information was put back into the article "per" the talk page. Please see [1] which defines the usage as "in accordance with". (crossposted at User talk:70.23.199.239 --lquilter 14:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

"The use of the same edit summary to describe the opposite behavior is confusing; nobody would understand from looking at the talk page how the information was put back into the article "per" the talk page."

No. People who oppose the politically motivated censorship of essential information, and who take their irony supplements -- the kind who live in the spirit of the First Amendment -- will not find it at all confusing. 70.23.199.239 05:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Category types - response

Hi there. I responded specifically to something you posted last week at Wikipedia talk:Category types, and I'm not sure if you have the page watchlisted, so I thought I'd drop you a note to let you know. Carcharoth 10:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: MilHist CFDs

Ah, ok; that makes sense. Kirill Lokshin 02:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Animal rights redux

Thanks for the update. Is it ok to e-mail you? —Viriditas | Talk 05:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep. --lquilter 05:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Please, just let me say thank you so much for catching the vandalism to the Langston Hughes article.TonyCrew 17:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

FYI

In light of the debate about Category:Iranian polygamists, I have nominated Category:Polygamists for deletion. However, I've made it a separate nomination. Please see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_February_3#Category:Polygamists. Pascal.Tesson 16:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: science fiction studies

Hey, Lquilter.

Sorry, I had just noticed an empty page. On my patrols, I end up coming across a lot of empty articles and this appeared to be one of them. As a quick suggestion, you might want to add some content before you do the categories in the future - I know that might not be your writing style, but it may help prevent this in the future. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I've removed the speedy template, and wish you luck with your article. :-) Hersfold (talk|work) 01:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Hersford. I do usually put in text in the article, but this time accidentally hit SAVE instead of PREVIEW. --lquilter 01:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

overlaps etc.

Yes, I've been noticing your edits for a while, including the ones which correct my errors (smile). If you email me we can exchange some more details.DGG 07:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

DGG, I don't recall correcting your edits! Hope I haven't been snippy. I feel I sail along cordially for a while & then I get very annoyed by something -- the academics thing for instance. The only articles & categories that I've had to defend have been about academics who were clearly notable to people who know the field. Anyway -- you mention emailing you, but I didn't actually see your email on your user or talk page? (am I blind?) --lquilter 13:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Salting and other things at Categories for Discussion

"Salt" is short for "salt the earth", a slang term for blocking the recreation of deleted content. See WP:SALT.

I am also not worried about some of these renaming debates surrounding astronomical images. I am more bothered by the categorization of animals by country, state, and province at the moment. The system needs repair. See boar and cougar for example. Keep in mind that those two animals have not been placed into all possible categories yet. Dr. Submillimeter 09:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

SALT - Ah, I'd stumbled on that practice already in maintaining a wiki; I just didn't put 2 & 2 together .... The animal thing is nuts, I agree. I really think part of this is because people don't get categories, and insist on trying to use them as keywords/tags. --lquilter 13:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

cat intersect

Ah. Well I guess he was viewing it rather differently than I was then. "Point making largely". You're quite right. I guess AGF got the better of me this time. As I recall it came up toward the end of a deletion discussion where he said "well all these other interesections should be deleted too then" and I said "you're right, let's do it, help me find them". But he just intended point-making, I see. — coelacan talk — 18:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

A scond opinion

Hi Lquilter. Sorry to bother you but I'm having some bother with an IP user he made a selective post to Gender from a book critcising Gender Studies diff. he's also added this book to the to do list on the talk page Talk:Gender. This peson is aggrevating me. he made a post 4 times, on talk:feminism; the same on WP:GS, same comment again on Talk:women's studies, and once more on WP:GS. I mentioned it to an admin - they want some diffs but the way this person edits makes it very difficult to find a "clean" diff. Sorry for sucha long winded message, I really need an outside opinion on this user's behaviour in case my judgement is clouded--Cailil 00:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey Cailil -- I'll look at it. One thing: You say the problem finding clean diffs. Do you know how to get a diff that covers multiple edits? For instance [2] ? If you go to the history, and in the left-hand column ("cur" choose the last edit prior to the editor X's edits; and in the righthand column ("last") select the last edit of editor X's edits; and then click "compare selected version" -- that gets you a diff showing all the edits made between those two selections. That's the way to show the cumulative effect of a series of changes. So long as only one editor has made those changes, you get a clean picture of that set of edits by that editor. There's some way to associate all the addresses used by the same person together. I'll ask on the person's talk page, first.
Frankly I wonder if this is the same person who was making basically the same sets of edits to the WikiProject Gender Studies previously (128.111.95.217); given the similarity of the IP addresses, I would say so.
On the substance of the edits: I completely agree that these are inappropriate for the project page, and an obvious attempt to interject anti-feminist POV into an encyclopedia article on gender etc. On the gender etc articles, probably we just need to find some way to substantively address the issue without giving undue weight etc. On the project page it's wrong. I'll keep an eye out too.--lquilter 01:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help lquilter, I'll try and get some diffs tomorrow.--Cailil 01:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Women's studies

Hi Towsonu2003 -- Thanks very much for helping to work on the women's studies page & being bold. I think you can see that there is some significant differences in POV happening. The anonymous editor basically reverted your changes; I worked from there rather than engaging in a revert war. Right now, the editor is talking on the talk page, which is a good sign, so I'm AGF with the anonymous editor, and trying to work on compromise versions. It would be great if you would stick around the page and help out too. Best, lquilter 05:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm pretty sure you won't like the idea, but I think the article is too hostile to itself as it is now, and so it should be deleted and re-written from scratch, keeping in mind that there should be balance between criticism and definition, not between criticism and other criticism... I do not see it being fixed, because the backlash against fixing it is just too strong. I marked the article db-attack and presented my arguments there. Thanks for taking the time :) Towsonu2003 16:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that any article created fresh is going to be subject to the exact same problems -- the folks who come on to attack women's studies, feminism, and so on, are not going away. I've been trying to figure out how to handle these kinds of issues, looking through harmonious editing, and so on. So at the moment my approach is to politely acknowledge their points and AGF like crazy; point out uncivil things but not make a big deal out of it; and, most important, focus the efforts of the editors on substantive overall improvements. In other words, by trying to keep the dispute itself proportionate to the real work of the encyclopedia in writing the article. From watching a few article disputes, I feel like the bad-faith political attack editors get bored when serious edits working out the history, statistics, and so on, are happening. I'm trying that approach on women's studies, and we'll see how it goes!
On this article, btw, I edited down the substantive criticisms that were previously there to two sentences, and added rejoinders, as well as criticism/influence from the left and responses. I think it's much more balanced.--lquilter 16:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Categorization debate at Talk:Roman Catholic Church

Hi lquilter

As a real world librarian and a Wikipedian who likes categorization, I was wondering if you could add some outside perspective on a categorization debate at Talk:Roman Catholic Church that could use your expertise. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 20:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey Wassupwestcoast - Your point on categorization was really good. I was going that route too, trying to explain the distinction b/w categories & names, but some of you had already done that very well, to no avail. I swung a different approach which may be terrible but, if it gets people working together constructively, maybe it will be of use even if it doesn't end up bearing fruit. (And as an also-(former)-librarian / Wikipedia categorizer, I think you can imagine where I stand on the "denomination" term.) --lquilter 21:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Constitutionalists

Hm, yes, it does look kind of weird at the moment, even though the discussion was pretty much unanimous about upmerging Category:American constitutionalists to Category:American people by political orientation. I think that the best idea would be to match the libertarians, socialists and segregationists by merging the by-state cats into American constitutionalists. Would that help? >Radiant< 08:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would be better -- I can help; I don't mean to swamp you with more requests. I just wasn't sure if I was reading the discussion correctly, or if I misremembered the original state. --lquilter 14:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Swamp ahead :) though the 'official' place to make such cat merge requests is WP:CFD. >Radiant< 08:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

MZB edits

Hello, thanks for the comments. It was my first attempt at editing and I'm better acquainted with the facts of the case than with wiki editing protocols. I'll include the citations as noted. It's a sad case, but I don't believe in keeping that sort of behavior a secret. Chief1 00:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Marion Zimmer Bradley article

Hello, thanks for the comments. It was my first attempt at editing and I'm better acquainted with the facts of the case than with wiki editing protocols. I'll include the citations as noted. It's a sad case, but I don't believe in keeping that sort of behavior a secret. Chief1 00:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

bias in WP

I wouldn't call it white male, exactly, I'd call it white adolescent male. And other groups have their own strongholds here as well, and it goes tolerably as long as one of the many groups does not attempt to judge another. I never make comments on popular culture discussions. I never even read them. (Unless it happens by accident to overlap into something I have read or seen). :) DGG 02:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for your comments. I feel much the same, that even wheb we disagree your comments are well thought out and eloquently expressed. Otto4711 04:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

women psychologists

It's not an argument against the category, so I'm not including it in the CFD. But as an aside... I hate looking at a category full of scientists and seeing only men! And then having to click down to get to women, as though women should be set apart in their own little sandbox so they don't get in th way of the men doing real science. I know that's not how this category is intended, but it's the feeling I always get from these women scientists subcats. Bleh. — coelacan talk — 02:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The cat guidelines make it clear that it's not supposed to be a segregating thing, but redundant categorization. I know it doesn't always work that way. If you ever see a woman scientist who is not included in the basic scientist category, please add her. I've gone back & forth on these, and -- for now -- I feel that they are very useful. That doesn't mean they don't have problems, like the tendency of people to diffuse, not duplicate. More than anything, I think all of the issues of identity categorizations (and by that I include beliefs, etc.) need to be addressed comprehensively again. --lquilter 02:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parents of the Prime Ministers of Canada

Hi, thanks for your help in voting to keep the article on their children, but they also put Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parents of the Prime Ministers of Canada on AfD. -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:LGBT Coordinator Election Notice

This is just a quick, automated note to let you know that there is an election being conducted over the next 7 days for the position of "Coordinator" for the LGBT WikiProject. Your participation is requested. -- SatyrTN (talk · contribs)


Re: Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#"tags" & tagging versus categorization

I very much liked your suggestion here. I've been waiting for some responses from others before I chimed in. It seems that there is little interest these days in discussions about categorization policy (the exception being WP:OCAT). I think you should write something about tagging, and post it. I don't think it will be very controversial. As for my category typing, I'm thinking we should just start doing it on a small scale, and see if it catches on. I replaced a {{catdiffuse}} tag with one of mine and there requested feedback and there was none. The true test of consensus is if changes survive. -- Samuel Wantman 21:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll start drafting, & when I have something approaching discussable, I'll repost on the page. It might be a couple of weeks -- I'm wrapping up a big work project. --lquilter 16:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

merging of oral topics

If you remove the merge tags, I suggest you go ahead and also fix the articles. You seem to have a clear idea of how to separate their respective scopes, but if you look at what's actually in them, you see that they confusedly bleed into one anothers scope. I am not suggesting a merge because the cocepts are identical, but because the articles at present address the same scope and confuse issues. The best way to address this is to merge them, sort out the duplicities into a clean WP:SS article, and then branch out individual articles again if there is sufficient material. If you are going to fix things now, that is perfect. If you're just going to let it lie in the current state, I'm afraid I'll have to add back the templates, and clean things up along the lines I give above when I get round to it. regards, dab (𒁳) 13:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that merging entirely disparate sets of subjects would be the "best way" to address confusingly written articles. It would be better to delete the confusing content from the individual articles. WP:SS is appropriate for articles on a single topic that grow larger. Merging these three topics would be like creating one page for "football" and "footwear" and explaining the differences. We do that on disambiguation pages where the same spelling means different things, but it is not really a good model for substantive content. I and other editors can work on these articles, especially if you cogently explain your concerns with them on the respective talk pages, and give people a chance to address them. Adding unexplained "merge" tags just confuses people and gives them no chance to fix whatever it is you see as the problem. See WP:MERGE which explains how to do merges (use both mergeto/mergefrom tags; explain on talk page) and when they're appropriate (nowhere does it suggest different topics that use the same words should be in one article). --lquilter 13:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Also -- I did some fixes, but it's really not correct to hijack someone into working on an article on an emergency basis through incorrect use of procedure. Merge proposals need to be tended to quickly; but disucssions about content can be handled more slowly. --lquilter 14:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
    • hm, it's not like I'm trying to merge apple and hippopotamus here. The scope of the articles in question is clearly overlapping. It is perfectly permissible to collect them under WP:SS as long as there isn't too much material to fit in a 50k or so article. I grant you that oral history should stay strictly separate, but then it should focus exclusively on academic usage, and restrict acknowledgment of "popular usage" to a single dablink to oral tradition. In this sense I withdraw that merge suggestion, but the article would need a cleanup tag instead. I still maintain that "oral literature" is an oxymoron, and the present article does recognize this and merely discuss terminological issues. A merge into oral tradition is still required here. dab (𒁳) 15:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
      • I really suggest you raise these points on the relevant articles, where the regular editors have a chance to discuss them and remedy as they see fit. The talk page at oral literature suggests that there has been some dissension around renaming it from orature, which might have made the distinction clearer. Your points would feed into that discussion. Again, WP:MERGE says you need to explain your proposed merge on the talk page. --lquilter 15:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

CfD LGBT Scientists

Is it worth bringing this up for review? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 09:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Shrug. I argued harder for LGBT scientists initially, but I think African American scientists is at least as worth reviewing. There are numerous encyclopedic works that focus on the topic of "African American scientists", and there should be an article about them. LGBT scientists will be little harder, because there are relatively few out scientists, most of them modernly, and the ways that their queerness affects their work is going to be hard to demonstrate -- involving speculation or personal knowledge. (For instance the fact that every queer scientist I know basically limits themselves to the northeast or the west coast in terms of looking for jobs.) ... I haven't done the review process before, either -- have you? --lquilter 15:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi, Lquilter!

Thank you for being a voice of reason in the debate about deleting "Category:Erdös number 1". As a math guy, I appreciate your willingness to invite mathematicians to the party. If you see such a debate in the future, and you want to hear from the mathematicians, please send the invitation to this talk page. We'll be there in droves. ;^> DavidCBryant 13:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Favor

I saw your username listed as part of the WikiGenderStudies project. You wrote that one of your interests was making sure that women were more represented. I recently rewrote the Mary Wollstonecraft article (which has now attained FA status) and am now trying to achieve the same feat with A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. It is currently up for GAC right now and I was wondering, if you had time, if you might look over it. It is a difficult text to write on. I would, of course, be willing to help you out with anything you might need as well. Thanks. Awadewit 11:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, well, don't freak out at the lengthy comments. I honestly think it's very good right now, but have given it suggestions that I think would make it FA quality. So I gave it as thorough a review as I could. --lquilter 16:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I was greatly relieved by your comments. I am on the hunt for good reviewers right now. Clearly I have found one! Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments. I knew the page had some problems but I couldn't quite pin them down. Awadewit 20:57, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm a lawyer, so we're used to numerous revisions! It's very good as it stands but things can always be improved. --lquilter 21:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Lquilter, I've revised A Vindication of the Rights of Woman quite a bit now and was wondering if you would be interested in copyediting it with me. I have put it up for peer-review as well, but that does not usually elicit a close copyedit. I have done the first few run-throughs, but it needs a close eye and certainly the eye of a person who did not do most of the writing. I would really appreciate it. Thanks. By the way, I wanted to give you some sort of award for your extremely helpful comments - they were so insightful - but I couldn't find an award for "helpful commentary" or "helpful review." I think that I'm going to have to suggest one. (By the way, I looked at your website. We seem to share a lot of the same concerns about copyright and intellectual property.) Awadewit 14:55, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Helping out with the Unassessed Wikipedia Biographies

Seeing that you are an active member of the WikiBiography Project, I was wondering if you would help lend a hand in helping us clear out the amount of [unassessed articles] tagged with {{WPBiography}}. Many of them are of stub and start class, but a few are of B or A caliber. Getting a simple assessment rating can help us start moving many of these biographies to a higher quality article. Thank you! --Ozgod 21:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I just crossed paths

and swords (i voted the other way) with you at the IWW name change, went to your user page and thought I'd ask a question. If it is too much like what you do for work, it's not a problem. I can take NO for an answer pretty well. I know (or THINK I know) that 1923 is the cut off date for most copyright stuff published in the USA. So if I find a picture from say, 1888, published in a 1974 book, is that picture covered as of 1974 or 1888? Life is supposed to be interesting. Oh yes, and while I have you here, this is a non-legal (if there is such a thing) issue that I would like your opinion about. In my research into women sculptors I often learn that particular artists were lesbians or at least wore men's clothes and smoked cigars and that sort of thing. At what point should I mention it in the article? My daughter and I argue about this and I'd like a second, well, third, opinion. Carptrash 18:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

On copyright - As a general matter, in the US, a photo duplication of a public domain work is not going to have sufficient originality for a new copyright. So,if it was an exact photoduplication of an 1888 photo, then it wouldn't get a new copyright, and would be PD in the US. But that's as a general matter, and other considerations may apply -- if the photo was cropped etc. Wikipedia has its own set of policies so if this is a wikipedia matter you should read through Wikipedia:Copyright.
On women sculptors I think it very much depends on the issue, but especially if it was non-gender-normative behavior and was something they were known for, then it should be mentioned in the rest of their biography. What's the argument against?
And btw -- I will likely be offline for a few days so if I don't respond again that's why. --lquilter 18:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
The argument against (as presented by Lola from Lafayette, as she is occasionally known as on KLDK), is that such details (lesbianism) are sometimes added to women's biographies to somehow either discredit the artists or to titilate (or something) the male readers. That it is their work that is important and such information is a distraction. I have a long time affinity (though it has not yet shown up on wikipedia) with two sculptors, Frances Loring and Florence Wyle aka The Girls. Their first biographer insists that they were "just good friends", though they lived together for 50 years (carpmath) and died on Jan. 13 and Feb 3 of the same year, proving (well, perhaps not to an attorney) something. Harriet Hosmer is another one, and there are more. One of the truisms (yet another word for opinion) is that women sculptors - we are talking 19th and early 20th century here - is that their careers often ended when they got married. Augustus St. Gaudens cried when Mary Lawrence got married. Anyway, this was not really the case for lesbians, which is why (another opinion) there seems to be a higher number of them in sculpture. And so it goes. Don't worry aboput getting back to me in a hurry, I'm operating largely in shamanic time. Carptrash 19:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)