User talk:ColinFine/Archive 3

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 → Archive 10

Ping

i am sorry for this message: but my username is Acagastya and my real name is Agastya. But while writing my name: i prefer aGastya. You answered my question but i didn't even come to know. Well please don't feel bad for it and thank you for answering it!
aGastya  ✉ let's talk about it :) 17:51, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Next meetups in North England

Hello. Would you be interested in attending one of the next wikimeets in the north of England? They will take place in:

If you can make them, please sign up on the relevant wikimeet page!

If you want to receive future notifications about these wikimeets, then please add your name to the notification list (or remove it if you're already on the list and you don't want to receive future notifications!)

Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:26, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Sir

Sir, the book i referred to write Shri Gurukul Peeth is a relevant one, i have the original book, how can i make it prove as a reliable source to wiki? Ankush 89 (talk) 08:27, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Ankush 89. My problem is that I don't see enough information about the book that I can tell whether it looks reliable: you haven't clearly indicated either the publisher or the date of publication. This is important because it makes a big difference to the reliability if it was published by a major publisher with a known reputation, or (at the other extreme) if it was published by the author. It is also important to know if it was published by a general publisher or by an organisation connected with the temple: in the latter case, it may be reliable, but is not an independent source. The date is important because it can make a huge difference to reliability if a book was published in (say) 1856, 1906, 1956, or 2006. I suggest using a citation template such as {{cite book}}: this is not required, but it helps to make citations consistent. --ColinFine (talk) 11:31, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Sir, I have improved the citation as per your guidance Ankush 89 (talk) 13:50, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Any Wikipedia Meets in India

Sir, 

       Are any wikipedia meets conducted in asian nations or India specifically?

Ankush 89 (talk) 13:47, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea, Ankush 89. I have never been to India, and I have never (so far) been to a Wikipedia meetup. They seem to be organised by language: please see m:Meetup. --ColinFine (talk) 16:31, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Good reply

Good reply at WP:HD: It's clear, helpful and respectful to both posters. — Sebastian 18:03, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you

File:Teahouse Barnstar Hires.png CC BY-SA 3.0 Heather Walls Teahouse Barnstar
You have been a stalwart at the Teahouse for a long time now. Thank you. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:36, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Mutiny of Colours

hi dear colinfine I talked to Sandstein about this article "mutiny of colour" and he told me the problem was with links but i think there is Enough link to make an article about that topic so it will be nice if you tell me how can i recreate the article here is some links can you check theme for me thanks a lout

  • "imdb mutiny of colours".
  • "widewalls".
  • "LSD magazine".
  • "urbanshit".
  • "Hip HOP".
  • "Hip HOP".
  • "LSD magazine".
  • "funkhauseuropa".

i believe LSD Magezin and funkhauseuropa.de are good Enough thanks again (213.207.245.245 (talk) 19:55, 28 April 2015 (UTC))

Hello, Mahan khomamipur (I presume this is you). It would have helped if you reminded me what this is about. The first reference is to imdb, which is not regarded as a reliable source because anybody may edit it. Widewalls magazine looks as if it is reliable (they seem to exercise editorial control) but it simply mentions Mutiny of Colours in passing, so it is not a useful reference for anything. LSD Magazine looks like a reliable source; but on reading the article it appears it is written by the film-makers which means it is not an independent source. It can be used to support certain information in the article, but does not contribute to notability, because it is not substantial writing about the film by somebody unconnected with it. The same is true, I think, of urbanshit. Funkhauseuropa also looks like a reliable source, but as far as I understand the German, I don't think the article is really about the film, but about the situation the film is addressing. The HipHop item is only a few lines about the film.
So, from what I can see, No, you have not yet found substantial writing about the film (not about Iran or about graffiti, or even about graffiti in Iran, but about this film) written by people unconnected with the film; and until you do find this, the film will not meet Wikipedia's criteria for notability. Sorry. --ColinFine (talk) 22:35, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

thanks a lot now I understand what kind of link should I search for best regards (Mahan khomamipor (talk) 10:06, 29 April 2015 (UTC))

Questions about using the Teahouse re Missing or Empty | Title

Dear ColinFine, I've written my thanks on the Teahouse by using the "Join this discussion" link but had a few other comments. 

 1. Earlier, when I'd tried to thank first-responder KylieFantastic by editing, I ended up deleting everything above my response and 
 you had to restore it. The reason I did that is that I initially couldn't submit, and I thought maybe I needed to delete the other 
 posts.  Wrong.  
 2.  I had clicked on 'edit' next to the Teahouse discussion title and got a different conversation.  That's odd because when I hover
 over 'edit' it shows the right title.  Maybe I need to fix the link but I'm not going to make things worse YET.

(I like formatting -- indents, lists WITHOUT blank lines around them, etc. -- although I understand that the inventors of html didn't. That amazes me because surely they were visual thinkers and appreciated skimmability. But maybe not. Anyway, for some odd reason, my attempt at tabbing points 1 and 2 put them in a gray box in courier font and pushed additional lines of each item off the screen. I solved that by adding a hard return and some more blanks. Now I'll preview it again. Yes, carriage returns and leading blanks render all the text visible.) These observations did not seem worthy of Teahouse inclusion so I am using talk. I apologize in advance if that's wrong. And thanks again for your good information and your patience. If I figure out Barnstars, I'll add one! RitaBook (talk) 14:28, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for replacing the title here (or was that done by a bot?) Also, I discovered the CHEATSHEET. It doesn't answer the gray box question but now I can indent. Yay!RitaBook (talk) 14:43, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Hi, RitaBook - thanks for the appreciation. You've got the grey box and the indent because you started the lines with blanks. To get a numbered list, use # at the start of the line (and * for a bulleted list).
The issue with getting the wrong section when editing the Teahouse is an annoying bug (which often hits me too). The trouble is that it identifies the section by number; but the Teahouse is the only page (as far as I know) where new questions are supposed to go at the top, so if a new one has come in since you last refreshed the page, the numbers will be off, and your edit will call up the wrong section. The workround is to refresh the page before picking Edit. I have moved your last reply on the Teahouse to the right section.
As for HTML: a fundamental principle of SGML (that HTML was a bastard child of) was to separate the logical structure of the document from its presentation. HTML initially muddied that to some degree, having a number of tags which were about presentation (such as b and i); but in recent years it has moved back towards that ideal, with the presentation usually being expressed separately in CSS. Blank lines around them are firmly in the area of CSS: there is a lot of default CSS in the "skin" in Wikipedia, but I believe you can override most of it if you wish. See WP:CSS. --ColinFine (talk) 17:21, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

A cuppa tay for you!

NIce work in the Teahouse! BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 07:00, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Welcome to STiki!

Hello, ColinFine, and welcome to STiki! Thank you for your recent contributions using our tool. We at STiki hope you like using the tool and decide to continue using it in the future. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Here are some pages which are a little more fun:

  • The STiki leaderboard - See how you are faring against other STiki users!
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We hope you enjoy maintaining Wikipedia with STiki! If you have any questions, problems, or suggestions don't hesitate to drop a note over at the STiki talk page and we'll be more than happy to help. Again, welcome, and thanks! West.andrew.g (developer) and Widr (talk) 05:07, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Recent edits to Why This Kolaveri Di

Information icon Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. I noticed that you made a change to an article, Why This Kolaveri Di, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so! If you need guidance on referencing, please see the referencing for beginners tutorial, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you! ColinFine (talk) 18:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Do you know this tag: {{fact}}? If you feel the article has several issues you can use {{refimprove}}. Please give users some time to revert/change what they had done. Is this how you welcome new users? (I'm not new to WP, btw) --Joseph (talk) 21:20, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I do know that tag and have sometimes used it. But I'm dubious as to its value - there's an awful lot of tagged statements in Wikipedia, and I don't believe the clean-up rate is very high. Is it better to have unsourced and possibly wrong information rather than not have it? As for welcoming new users - yes, actually, it is. I think the message explains in a friendly way what is wrong and what to do about it: surely it's better to teach new users how to do it right than just to let their errors go? (Actually, I've just downloaded STiki, and have been using it for the first time: I think it encourages me to take an all-or-nothing approach, which may not be the best way to proceed). --ColinFine (talk) 22:48, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Joseph, now I've read more about STiki, I see it was my unfamiliarity with the tool and how to use it that led me to be too draconian. I apologise, and thank you for calling me on it. --ColinFine (talk) 07:46, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Draconian? :) I just wanted to say there are other options. Tout est pardonne... --Joseph (talk) 19:49, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for clearing things up for me and providing a clear path on how I can have a presence on Wiki. It's honestly appreciated :-)

Thank you for your kind words, AaronLA2012. I have taken the liberty of moving your thanks to the bottom: every talk page other than WP:Teahouse/Questions adds new material at the bottom rather than the top, and it's a bit confusing. Also, please sign your contributions on talk pages: if you insert four tildes (~~~~) the software will replace that with your signature and the date. --ColinFine (talk) 15:09, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

A belated thank you, and some things

Hi, Colin. Thanks for the barnstar. You may not realize it, but I've been at the Teahouse pretty much since it started. I've become quite concerned of late about the quality of help we've been dispensing. I'm sure you too have noticed. We are not alone. I call your attention to a thread started today at WT:Teahouse by Liz. Also, I'd like you to keep your eyes open for any new replies by the user signing himself as "Cedrick". After receiving a host decline template yesterday he promised yo stop answering questions only to start up again today, giving such fine advice as telling someone to upload a logo to commons and telling someone with a totally promo draft with no RS on it that it was a sure fit in the encyclopedia. I gave him a final warning template on his talk and fully intend to follow through on it. Only problem is I just got home from work (3am MT) and have to be back at 11 for another 16 hour day. Please keep an eye out if you could. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 10:28, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I've corrected him at least twice. It's tricky when somebody so clearly wants to be helpful, but doesn't have the knowledge to do so. And yes, I recognise your John from Idegon over a long period. Thanks for pointing me at the talk thread: I'm not sure I've more to contribute than those who have already. --ColinFine (talk) 16:52, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Co-op Pilot Results & Mentoring

Hey there! The Co-op has been on a hiatus for a bit, but we are planning on opening up shop again soon. When you're able, please read over and respond to this update on our talk page. We have favorable results from our final report regarding the pilot, and we are interested in seeing who is available to mentor when we reopen our space and begin to send out invites again. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:16, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

This message was sent by I JethroBT (talk · contribs) via Mass Message. (Opt-out instructions)

Talkback

Hello, ColinFine. You have new messages at Mentalist karan's talk page.
Message added 03:19, 25 June 2015 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks colinfine Mentalist karan (talk) 03:19, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Problems

I've moved your question to the bottom of my talk page. Everywhere on Wikipedia except the Teahouse, new sections go at the bottom, not the top.

Hi, I asked question on talk page but I think you didn't understand it clearly. Please try to understand this. Suppose, when you search John Cena on Wikipedia, result comes and you join to John Cena article on Wikipedia. There will written at top" American professional wrestler, body builder, actor and rapper ". Likewise, if there is actor's article on Wikipedia, it will be written "Nepali actor" or like this. So can you tell me how to add such description in page in Wikipedia?? Noxboy (talk) 11:37, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, Noxboy, I'm still not getting what you're talking about. Can you give an example that shows it? As far as I know, what appears at the top of a Wikipedia article is the article's title; which for a person is that person's name (eg Tom Baker) unless there are different people with the same name who need to be distinguished (eg Tom Baker (Nebraska politician). Our rules say we must not add that description unless it is needed to distinguish people of the same name. If that is not what you are talking about, then you'll have to explain and give an example. --ColinFine (talk) 11:50, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Frida prods

I noticed your prod on To Turn the Stone. I've also proded Tell Me It's Over and Here We'll Stay They hijacked the article I See Red (Clannad song). I have a feeling an AfD will be happening. Bgwhite (talk) 08:35, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

They are reverting I See Red (Clannad song). I've warned them. They also removed the Prods. This will be fun tomorrow. I'm going to bed. Bgwhite (talk) 09:07, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Meetups in Liverpool and Manchester

See you there?

Hi there! Do you know that there will be meetups in Liverpool on the 27th of September and in Manchester on the 25th of October?

We have sent you this message because you signed up at meta:Meetup/Manchester. If you would rather not receive such messages on future, please remove your name from the list.

Yaris678 via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:51, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Two semi-unrelated topics

  1. Not sure if you've seen Tania Peitzker's latest comment at WP:HD (it was just left a few minutes ago), but she says Tried to reply to you directly but your talk function not working. Any idea if there are problems with this page, or should we chalk it up to her misunderstanding something?
  2. When I tried to come here and ask this question, I initially went to User talk:Colin Fine. Have you ever thought of registering this username as a doppelgänger account? Nyttend (talk) 17:22, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

in defence of my wiki entry

Dear Colin

The reason third parties could provide evidence is that the "coverage" (including citations of my academic writing and also media reviews of my plays) is held in the archived collection.

As you must be aware, pre-Internet times ie when a lot of newspapers were not online in the 1990s and of course even earlier, are very hard to document with regard to historic "coverage" online today. Thus I suggest people consult the INDEX or Contents Page of the Tania Peitzker collection at the Fryer Library - all the claims and evidence can be found listed in that re. the plays, writing, academic work.

On the matter of substantial 3rd party coverage, it is the quality of the coverage not the quantity. If you and other Wikipedia editors consider that 1000 tweets about someone or 1 million likes for a YouTuber is more "notable" than being listed in Bloomberg, having your plays performed & reviewed, your writing published and cited for years after, or having a university collect your papers, then go ahead and delete the entry. Would simply rather not be in it.

I also find the definition of being interviewed and therefore connected to the article or publisher nonsensical. I thought Wikipedia was about the niche, small players, not just the people who are already in the limelight which then generates more mainstream media attention for them, rather conveniently. How disappointing with regards to your Quality Standards and definitions. A lot of important, valuable knowledge will go missing as a result.

Tania Peitzker (talk) 07:38, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Tania. If the material in the collection has been published (whether online or not) then it can be referenced in an article. If it has not, then it cannot. If the index to the collection points to such sources, then they can be used - but should be cited to their individual publication, not to an index or an unpublished collection. It is the responsibility of the person putting them in the article to do that, as the burden of proof of notability is with that person.
Absolutely, the quality of the coverage is more important than the quantity: tweets, social media, blogs, forums, in fact anything that is user-generated, are almost never acceptable as sources. What we require is material published by somebody with a reputation for fact-checking: see Reliable sources. But a mere listing in a reliable source is just that: reliable, but not evidence that somebody has thought the subject worth writing about.
Wikipedia is not about the niche, small players. Nor is it about the big players. Nor is it a collector of indiscriminate information, however valuable that information might be to somebody. It is about subjects which have already been written about in substantial degree in independent reliable sources. All this has been determined by long consensus: you are welcome to try and change the consensus, but I think you will find it hard in this instance. The place to argue the case is at the WP:Village pump/Policy. --ColinFine (talk) 08:59, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I am not challenging the consensus, just some editors' application of the guidelines

Dear Colin

Pls remember in all of this I have been a published journalist in highly regarded newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Times Higher Education Supplement. I have a well-recognised PhD that won international awards. In other words, I fully support the "consensus" that all facts must be substantiated by verifiable independent and neutral sources. Absolutely, no question about it.

What I am questioning, with growing concern, is the inept application of your quality guidelines in terms of what qualifies as "substantial coverage". If you and the guidelines agree, this means we do not all need to be discussed in the tabloids with the biggest circulation, so that means we can then go back to the trusted quality journals and sources.

It is incredibly frustrating that I keep giving your editors - over and over - neutral, 3rd party sources to substantiate every single claim and they are not being accepted for reasons that are simply not clear or acceptable. I have given them the source of the doctorate when published - how is that not acceptable? A lot of crucial Humanities research is relatively obscure and will #never# have a large audience or lots of reviews as you seem to be demanding. That is simply impossible and will destroy knowledge if that is the criteria.

As to the individual items in the archive "Tania Peitzker Collection", yes I can get the details of the newspaper reviews of my plays and the journals and books that have cited my dissertation and academic work. But that will take longer than 7 days to get hold of because, as I pointed out, there was a time before the internet and everything being documented on the web.

Finally, I must point out that the cultural contributions and business achievements listed in my Wiki entry are about the wider societal impact they have created and not about me, nor my career. I am not that egoistic! I wanted to have them documented in Wikipedia for these important reasons

1. the significance to women composers and how their history and music has been ignored, though efforts like mine attempt to remedy it

2. the significance to Artificial Intelligence which is what my co-owned company velmai has contributed to and which 4 independent sources have verified (3 media and 1 business analyst firm and directory)

3. the fact my plays were produced and had a great reception, leading to a second production, is noteworthy because they had an impact on the audience that saw them and wanted to see more of my work (which until this year, I have been too busy to publish and get known for - am changing that through publishing with Kindle on Amazon)

4. my PhD actually helped rewrite Australian literary history, which you can see in the "Dympnha Cusack" entry on Wikipedia - my first doctoral dissertation on her caused her books to come back into print, a revival of her reputation and she got included in the Sydney Writers Walk of fame as a result of my academic work restoring her role in Australian cultural history.

So it really is not about me. I am an academic, a writer and a businesswoman who doesn't really need to be in Wikipedia for my "career". I was just trying to give something back in terms of "community knowledge". Note that my upcoming talks about my ebook "Artificial Intelligence as 3D Literature and Suspending Disbelief when Chatting with Bots" are all for the COMMUNITY.

I am not being paid, and am trying to help the public understand what AI is and how this technology will affect their lives. I've been asked to run public forums on this emerging tech and explain digitisation to people who are not in the know, many who've never been to university and don't understand the jargon about Artificial Intelligence. Am doing all this tech PR for free and not for fame & glory!

To verify that, pls look at the events listed already at www.amazon.com/author/taniapeitzker Only today I was asked to be part of a writers festival in Germany and speak at one of the world's top universities in the UK. So will be adding that to my Authors Page on Amazon for the public good, not self-aggrandisement.

best wishes, Tania Peitzker (talk) 12:23, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Tania. I don't know what more I can say. I can point out that your thesis is written by you, and is therefore unable to contribute to your Wikipedia notability. I can point out that "trying to help the public understand" something is not part of the purposes of Wikipedia, except in the limited sense of summarising what published reliable sources have already said about something.
I have no doubt that your publications can be valuable sources for articles about AI, or about Australian literary history: what they are not acceptable sources for is an article about you. But what is being debated here is an article about you. To contest the deletion you will need to present some sources of the requisite kind - from what you say, there are some in the collection. If you offer the bibliographic details of a couple of these, I suspect that that would be enough to move the consensus in the direction of "keep", though I can't say for sure. I'm not a spokesman for Wikipedia - I'm not even an administrator. I'm just an editor who has tried to help by explaining the working of the rules of Wikipedia as I understand them. --ColinFine (talk) 16:29, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

here are the original citations that were deleted by some of your editors

Dear Colin

Let's just get this fixed accurately and efficiently. Here are doctoral dissertation citations that show my work was widely acknowledged at the time of first publication. If you are a professional academic you will understand that this is the Holy Grail for writing a PhD - that even if only one national library collects your doctorate. This is more important for "notability" than if the work was reviewed in a newspaper or journal (which it also was, see the link below).

In my case, as I substantiated way back in 2007, 3 national libraries acknowledge ie. cited as well my work by collecting the dissertation (Germany, France and Australia). This was documented through the web citations of several research associations & the national libraries:

http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1878099

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/33960074_Dymphna_Cusack_Elektronische_Ressource__%281902-1981%29__a_feminist_analysis_of_gender_in_her_romantic_realistic_texts_

http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A7947?mainTabTemplate=agentWorksBy

http://www.abstrakt.lib-ebook.com/abs-philosophy/758263-47-dissertation-von-tania-peitzker-eingereicht-000-der-philosophis.php

You already have the citation for the Oxford University review of my Cusack work. Here is an additional one from the prestigious, independent, peer-reviewed literary journal SOUTHERLY.

Note this was in the Wiki entry originally and your colleagues have wrongly deleted it! http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=607132030901075;res=IELLCC


They have also unfairly deleted a 3rd party German article written by Potsdam University on my first business EU PR in Berlin.

http://www.uni-potsdam.de/portal-alumni/06-08/alumni%20insight/peitzker.html


On the extra sources required for my work for the Wall Street Journal

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1031773609302637635

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1031761227807290475

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1031768866516719195

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1031765669314218075

http://careerjournaleurope.com/jobhunting/usingnet/index2.html

and the citations for my Times Higher reporting and contributions to the World Rankings of universities

https://www.naric.org.uk/naric/documents/contributions/Comparative-Study-of-New-Bachelor-and-Masters-degrees-Germany-Italy-and-UK.pdf

http://www.readabstracts.com/Education/Equality-but-not-for-poor-Swiss-to-balance-gender-scales.html

www.math.utah.edu/~davar/ps-pdf-files/Ranking.pdf

cited in academic work by Professor Hess in Switzerland http://www.germanistik.unibe.ch/personen/hess/pdf/schriftenverz.pdf

50 2003 "Swiss log on to lobby for change" (Hintergrundgespräch mit Tania Peitzker am 5.9.2003 für den Artikel von Tania Peitzker), in: The Times Higher Education Supplement v. 14.11.2003

And most recently, my book published only 2 weeks ago has had the following international attention already (am going on a speaking tour for it in 2016)

http://akimion.space/b/artificial-intelligence-21st-century-english.html

https://www.facebook.com/224944327547104/photos/pb.224944327547104.-2207520000.1442485640./957105817664281/?type=1&theater

best wishes Tania Peitzker (talk) 10:29, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Tania. This is the last time I intend to reply to you. I'm not sure why you are posting this stuff on my user talk page: I know nothing about you or the fields you work in, nor am I an academic. I have no more weight in the deletion discussion than any other editor, and in fact I don't intend to express an opinion there. As I said above, I replied to your request for help, and I have now replied four times, explaining how Wikipedia works and how it is different from the academic world. I get that you are frustrated, but it appears more and more to me as if you are determined how Wikipedia should be and are unwilling to acknowledge how it is. That is just my opinion, of course.
This latest tranche of references you have posted here might indeed establish your notability for Wikipedia's purposes, but I have no intention of looking through them. Like everybody else here, I am a volunteer, and work on what I choose to work on. Please take any further discussion to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tania Peitzker, which is the proper place for it. If the deletion does go ahead (which looks likely from the contributions there so far), the place to contest it afterwards is at WP:deletion review.
Best, --ColinFine (talk) 16:08, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
This is also why we strongly discourage autobiographies, because we deal with WP:COI and WP:POV concerns. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 12:36, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Help us improve wikimeets by filling in the UK Wikimeet survey!

Hello! I'm running a survey to identify the best way to notify Wikimedians about upcoming UK wikimeets (informal, in-person social meetings of Wikimedians), and to see if we can improve UK wikimeets to make them accessible and attractive to more editors and readers. All questions are optional, and it will take about 10 minutes to complete. Please fill it in at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD

Thanks! Mike Peel (talk) 17:05, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#All Star Mr & Mrs

Hi, ColinFine, and thanks for your fine (pun intended) work at the Teahouse. I think you may have made a miscalculation in responding to the IP user at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#All Star Mr & Mrs, however. Specifically, it appears as though the user you gave a level 2 warning to is actually the same human as came to the Teahouse under a previous IP address. They even used the same edit summary when reverting, and IP 74.15.186.97's edits were mostly changing the apparent vandalism back to reading Martina Navratilova etc. If I haven't read this wrong, it might be best to remove that warning? I already used {{subst:Welcome-unconstructive}} to warn the talk pages of the IP addresses that seem to have been used to replace reference to Navratilova and her wife with a heterosexual couple. I do think the other IP edits (that is, those not made by the human behind 66.130.12.185 and 74.15.186.97 who came to the Teahouse for help) were likely all made by one human, since the text of the repeated change is identical in each instance.

Do you know if the template I used counts as a first warning against vandalism? If not — or if you think all the IP addresses used ought to get the level 2 warning — I'll gladly go put that on the relevant pages. Do you think {{subst:uw-error2}} or {{subst:uw-vandalism2}} would be more appropriate? (Obviously, I am new to leaving formal warnings!) Thanks, GrammarFascist contribstalk 14:02, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Oops! Thank you, GrammarFascist. I have removed the warning from the talk page. I don't know the answers to your questions. --ColinFine (talk) 21:32, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
That's fine, ColinFine. Glad I could help. —GrammarFascist contribstalk 21:58, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

courtesy explanation of ref desk action

Hi, Colin. You answered a question by the new user Jandown who is almost certainly a sock of user Bowei Huang 2. The modus operandi of asking about two abstract terms, one an ideology (Catholicism, Communism, the Christian Right, e.g.) and some vague issue like "inequality" is his defining characteristic. The recent consensus on talk (probably in the most recent talk archive) was simply to erase his posts as they appear. μηδείς (talk) 18:23, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me, μηδείς. I realised it was probably a troll, but wanted to AGF. I didn't realise it was a sock, and I rarely look at the talk page. --ColinFine (talk) 19:21, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Cheryl Lehman

Could you please check to see if enough has been added there to clear out some or all of the cautionary tags. Many thanks in advance.

Dreadarthur (talk) 02:49, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

No, Dreadarthur. The only references that even might be substantial and independent are the acknowledgment in Roslander (but I'd be surprised if it was substantial) and the reviews by Hughey and Lindblohm: I can't see these, so I can't be sure, but unless they are contain quite lengthy material about Lehman they will do nothing to establish her notability (though it is possible that the book reviews might establish notability for the book in question). Links to resources behind firewalls are acceptable, (and it is now possible to get access to them through the Wikipedia library; but as I've said, I doubt that it is worth my making the effort to access them, for the reasons I've given.
All the rest are either from Lehman herself or from organisations connected to her, and most of them are mere mentions. The Emerald Insight link is to a commercial publisher's site, and should never be used in a reference: the book may be cited with proper bibliographic information, (though, again, it cannot do anything towards her notability) but should not be linked unless the text is available online. --ColinFine (talk) 12:28, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I guess I am missing something here. In the academic world that I am familiar with, peer-reviewed publications in ranked journals within a particular scholarly domain contribute to one's notability. It is not book references, but rather refereed journal publications, that are significant contributors to notability. Citation frequency in relation to peer-reviewed articles enhances notability, though it is the initial peer review of one's research, leading to acceptance for publication, that remains of particular importance. Also, it would seem that if her book is subject to international translation, that that also contributes to notability?

Dreadarthur (talk) 16:36, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are missing something, Dreadarthur. Wikipedia is indeed different from the Academic world. A Wikipedia article must be close to 100% based on what other people, unconnected with the subject, have published about her. Neither her publications nor even citations of her publications contribute to that. "Notability" is an unfortunate word, because it has a different meaning in the wider world. No matter how well thought-of a person is, if there has not been significant writing published about her, by people unconnected with her, there is essentially nothing which may be said in an article, so we do not accept such an article. Please see WP:42. Having said that, it is possible that one of the wider criteria in WP:NACADEMICS will apply; but as it says in that guideline "It is possible for an academic to be notable according to this standard, and yet not be an appropriate topic for coverage in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject". --ColinFine (talk) 20:44, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:07, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:32, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year, ColinFine!

Happy New Year!

ColinFine,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. Peppy Paneer (talk) 13:55, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Wyoming Senate Files 12 and 80 'Trespassing To Collect Data'

The above article is now live! It was rejected first time (rightly so), but has now been accepted. Thanks for any help. Wyoming Senate Files 12 and 80 2015 'Trespassing To Collect Data'. Richard Nowell (talk) 08:18, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Next meetups in North-West England

Hello. This is just to let you know that the next wikimeets in North-West England will take place in:

Please sign up on the relevant wikimeet page if you can make them! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:06, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Teahouse talkback: you've got messages!

Hello, ColinFine/Archive 3. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by — Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:40, 29 January 2016 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template).

Please help

Hi Dear ColinFine! Thank you for the opportunity that through the Teahouse I can write to you. I am very new here, I am working now on a 6 years old article that was not properly sourced, I am improving it, but I have almost no one who would help me a bit to control what I am doing. I found more than 40 new sources, I built them into the article, and now I am kindly asking you, would you take a glance to my work? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolt%C3%A1n_Deme and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Zolt%C3%A1n_Deme My other problem is that this tag "Find sources: "Zoltán Deme" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images" proved to be useless for reaching the sources of the 1960-1980 decades, especially the sources of the past communist countries in East Europe where most of the libraries very poorly digitized. For example "Scholar" gives 1 citation, though just with 10 minutes research I got immediately 20 citations! [[1]] page 65 [[2]] p.2 [[3]] p.23 [[4]] p.1 [[5]] p.289 [[6]] p.5 [[7]] p.2 [[8]] p.353 [[9]] p.35 [[10]] p.1 [[11]] p.46 [[12]] p.75 [[13]] p.63 [[14]] p.84 [[15]] p.64 [[16]] p.1 [[17]] p.48 [[18]] p.317 [[19]] p.196 [[20]] p.101. (Plus I got many items, as "required reading" in the universities, like [[21]] p.1 [[22]] p.1 [[23]] p.48 [[24]] and so on). For other example, Books, Google Books gives 3 items, while this site (and others) show the pictures and data of more than 20 items! [[25]] [[26]] [[27]] This misleads almost everyone, presents the subject non-notable with only one citation and three books, thus, I had to go over this problem and collect printed material. Would you kindly investigate the refreshed article, is my work now sufficient? I saw your contributions and you seem to me an expert of Wikipedia works with erudition, would you please help me a little bit? If you would have any advice, any proposal, any suggestion please let me know. Sincerely yours, Norbert.89.133.187.29 (talk) 12:06, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Norbert. Thank you for your appreciation, but I think this would require more time from me than I am willing to devote. Perhaps if you ask at WT:WikiProject Hungary you might find somebody who could help you. --ColinFine (talk) 00:09, 14 February 2016 (UTC)@

Regarding Betty X

Thank you for the additional information. As I am not connected/affiliated with Betty X, but am simply a fan of her work, it was disheartening to refer people to her Wiki page, only to find that it has been removed. She recently toured with Ministry, as per this article [1] from On Tour Monthly. She is also featured on the new Surgical Meth Machine album (Al Jourgensen's new project) and is collaborating with Al Jourgensen on her fifth solo album. I have been able to find this type of information, am aware of her current involvement in the female music scene, and know about her past contributions. Now that the Wiki page has been removed, I am no longer able to direct aspiring female artists to her page to learn more about her ... which is what I thought an encyclopedia was supposed to do ... inform interested parties about individuals that have have made an impact in particular fields (in this case, post-apocalyptic rock, conceptual art, etc.). I've been using Wikipedia as source material for years, but it sounds like maybe that isn't the intention of this "encylopedia". Thank you again for the clarification.Terivangogo (talk) 21:34, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

The intention of this encyclopaedia is to summarise and collect information which has already been reliably published. Anybody can put anything up on the internet, and misinformation goes round the world in no time. Wikipedia tries to counter that, by requiring that everything on it is cited to a reliable source; so that even if somebody comes in and vandalises, or slants an article, a reader can see where to go to check the truth. We don't achieve that standard everywhere, of course (and with five million articles, it's hardly surprising), but we try. The article on Betty X wasn't summarily deleted: if you look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Betty X, you'll see that somebody "PROD"-ed it ("Proposed deletion", a shortcut process) last November, claiming that it was just advertising puff, and somebody else put some work in to clean it up, and then looked for good sources, and couldn't find any. The article you mention above only mentions her in passing, it doesn't say anything about her, so it does not help establish her notability or provide the basis for an article. Please see WP:42.
I'm sorry that you feel bitter about this, and I understand why you might; but Wikipedia has its own purposes, and does not take note of other ways in which people might use it. (I'm in no way a representative of Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation, by the way: I'm just a volunteer editor who hangs around the Help and Reference desks a lot. I'm not even an administrator) --ColinFine (talk) 22:48, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Jews for Jesus Wikipedia: Opinionated or Not Opinionated

Mr. Fine,

Thank you for your explanation. I appreciate your civil tone, as opposed to the tone of some others who responded to my question. If you were to look at the Jews for Jesus Wikipedia page as a whole, I think you would see that it is filled with anti-Jews for Jesus statements. Yes, they are all sourced, but the site is so badly weighted against Jews for Jesus that I noticed that even commenters on the "Talk" page who have no religious stake (pardon the bad pun) in the matter think it's a sham. One person said it is the worst Wikipedia site they have ever seen. My efforts were in good faith to give an accurate depiction of who we are and what we do. I notice the guidelines say I should not use a lot of links to our own website. I can understand that. But Swordfish took down every single thing I posted, including our Statement of Faith. Even if I didn't post it, whoever posts it on Wikipedia would have to footnote the link to our website. I have seen at least one other Wikipedia site which included the organization's statement of faith.Messianicmatt (talk) 20:15, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Messianicmatt. Thank you. I'm sorry you found other people's responses uncivil. Civility is one of the basic policies of Wikipedia, as is WP:Don't bite the newbies; but a lot of us are very sensitive to people coming here to promote something (whether a company, a band, a religious view, or anything else), and your talking about authority may have come over as belligerent. I don't think people were uncivil to you, but I accept that you found them so.
I realise that your efforts were in good faith (as does Fuhghettaboutit), but the fact remains that in Wikipedia land it is not your business to tell anybody what your organisation is, or does, or believes. If you think the article is unsatisfactory, you are very welcome to suggest changes on the article's talk page; but what you will essentially be doing there is trying to enrol an independent editor into making the edits you want; and references to your own publications are far less likely to achieve that than pointing to published sources independent of your movement. (Unpublished material is never acceptable). --ColinFine (talk) 00:19, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Mr. Fine, I have posted the following on the Jews for Jesus Talk Page. I received one response from Seraphimblade, but after a week or more I have still not received a response to my suggested change to the lead sentence (see end of this post). Can you help move this along? Thank you!

Now that I have read the Conflict of Interest policy, I realize that as a paid employee of Jews for Jesus, I do have a COI. Therefore, if I understand the policy correctly, it is inappropriate for me to make any edits to this page, and I will abide by that (unless you advise me otherwise). Having said that, I would like to begin to work with you in small pieces on this article. The opening statement of this article is currently as follows: "Jews for Jesus is a Messianic Jewish evangelical organization that focuses on the conversion of Jews to Christianity." One major problem I have with this statement is that I don't see any source (footnote). The other problem is that "conversion" is a highly-charged term, due to atrocities like the Spanish Inquisition in which Jewish people were forced to convert under threat of execution. As a Jewish person myself, I can assure you that there is a visceral reaction to the term "conversion" because of the past atrocities. That's why Jews for Jesus prefers not to use that term, yet is still very clear on the fact that we want to present the claims of Jesus to Jewish people for their consideration. And I hope nobody on this forum is going to go the route of disputing whether I am a Jew or not. My parents, grandparents, their parents, etc. are Jewish. Almost all of my grandmother's family from Lithuania were killed in the Holocaust. The Nazis had no question we were Jews. Ethnically, I am Jewish. I didn't suddenly become ethnically not a Jew when I came to believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. With that out of the way, I would like to suggest that the editors of this page replace the opening statement with this one: "The stated mission of Jews for Jesus is 'to make the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide'"[1] Please note that this is a third-party source, a feature story on Jews for Jesus in the Atlantic Monthly. Please let me know if you as editors can agree on this change and, if so, if one of you can go ahead and make the edit. Finally, I would like to place the "connected contributor" template on the top of this Talk Page to disclose that I am a paid employee of Jews for Jesus, but I don't know how to do that. Can someone show me how! Thank you!Messianicmatt (talk) 17:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

References

Jump up ^ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/hanukkah-with-the-jews-for-jesus/383780/ Thanks for making the required disclosure. I've put the template above the page as you requested here. So far as your suggested language, that's a bit puffy and marketese for a neutral article, and the language is a bit over the top. I don't really see attempts at conversion as saying something negative; certainly Jews for Jesus does, in some way, seek to change people's religious beliefs or convince them to follow different religious principles. We don't normally have references in the lead, since the lead should always be supported by the article text, so you generally should look to the article body for references rather than the lead. There is a lot that does need done, like yanking out verbatim marketing materials and unreferenced criticism. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:58, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I would like to suggest an edit to the lead sentence for this article. Regarding the use of the term "convert," I am not alone in my reluctance to use this term. The following website gives this advice about talking with Jewish people about Jesus: "'Convert' implies leaving behind one’s Jewishness. It is better to speak about 'becoming a believer (or follower) of Jesus.' But it is appropriate to explain that biblical conversion was spoken of by the prophets as meaning “turning back to God” rather than “changing one’s religion” (see Isa. 44:22; Jer. 4:1; 24:7; Joel 2:12).[1] Here's a similar thought from another website: "Many Jews don’t like to be called converts since they already believed in God, and in their religious observances, they were already responding to that part of the Word of God in the Tanakh, or what we call the Old Testament. When we recognize the Messiah and enter His Church, we fulfill or complete our Old Testament Faith. But we do not lose our ethnicity, who we are."[2]

'Here's my suggested lead sentence: "Jews for Jesus is a non-profit organization founded in 1973 which seeks to share its belief that Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Jewish people."

There are several other things that I believe need editing, but I would like to first get the editors to agree to changing the opening sentence. What do you think of my suggested change?Messianicmatt (talk) 22:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC) Jump up ^ http://www.equip.org/article/how-to-share-the-gospel-with-your-jewish-friends/ Jump up ^ http://www.hebrewcatholic.net/are-jewish-converts-still-jewish/§ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Messianicmatt (talk • contribs) 18:03, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Messianicmatt, but that is not an article I am interested in working on. I got involved simply to answer your question on the help desk. I suggest that you continue discussion with Seraphimblade, to see if you can achieve consensus, or else follow the further steps in WP:Dispute resolution. As Seraphimblade says, disclosing your relationship will stand you in good stead in the discussion. --ColinFine (talk) 23:18, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

How to design a learning software?

I wanted to someone to help me design a software for kids to learn how to read, write and learn different languages Bianca Levine (talk) 07:26, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining what you mean, Bianca Levine. I am afraid that this is nothing whatever to do with Wikipedia, which is an enccyclopaedia. Nor can I think of another Mediawiki project where it would fit. I am sorry. --ColinFine (talk) 10:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

My Apologies

I am the Creator, some call God. I apologize for going to the teahouse. I will be dping my.luft in a bit...some call it The second coming of Christ, etc. I prefer to be called simply the Creator. I was merely asking assustance to.put a page up. Your rude reply prompted me to remove the magnetism on your spirit Mr Fine. You are not welcome at my place for everlasting life for free. It is all documemted dear. A lovely day to you Colin Fine.... The Creator of Earth and this Solar System, BK 11:40, 21 February 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barbara Luella King (talk • contribs)

Thanks

Thanks for your answer, Well which means I will go to Browse the website that can help me design my software and I have just got a degree for becoming an IT Bianca Levine (talk) 15:53, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://www.ontourmonthly.com/ministry-spreads-the-word-at-the-bomb-factory-in-dallas/
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