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    Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2011 March 21, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 March 19#Category:Television episodes by director, and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 April 2#Islamic Golden Age

    For files, would an admin (or admins) close Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2011 March 21#File:Thomas Hines.jpg and Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2011 March 21#File:Basil W Duke 2.JPG?

    For categories, would an admin (or admins) close Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 March 19#Category:Television episodes by director and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 April 2#Islamic Golden Age? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 07:10, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you, Mike Selinker (talk · contribs), for closing Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 April 2#Islamic Golden Age. The other deletion discussions remain open. Cunard (talk) 23:13, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Timestamp to prevent archiving. The other deletion discussions remain open. Cunard (talk) 18:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, Od Mishehu (talk · contribs), for closing Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 March 19#Category:Television episodes by director. The FfDs remain open. Cunard (talk) 22:52, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Future timestamp to prevent archiving. Cunard (talk) 23:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make prompting for a missing edit summary the default

    Would an admin close and summarize Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make prompting for a missing edit summary the default and Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Improving edit summary use? The related discussions have been open since 20 March 2011 and 21 March 2011, respectively. Thanks, Cunard (talk) 07:12, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you, NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs) for closing Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make prompting for a missing edit summary the default.

    Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Improving edit summary use has not been closed yet. Cunard (talk) 21:07, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Timestamp to prevent archiving. Cunard (talk) 07:00, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Timestamp to prevent archiving. Cunard (talk) 07:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Future timestamp to prevent archiving. 23:59, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

    Topic ban proposal re NRHP stubs

    I would like to propose that Doncram (talk · contribs) be topic-banned from creating stub articles in mainspace of the form he used here and here. More specifically, but not exclusively, he may not use the phrases "It was built or has other significance", "is or was a property", "It was designed and/or built by", or any other phrase which reasonable editors would presume to be answerable before starting the article. In addition, he may not add code designations without knowing to what they refer, as shown at Talk:SS John W. Brown#NRHP info.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:12, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    SarekOfVulcan, why did you pick the very first edit of the St. John's Block Commercial Exchange, rather than this version with pic and map that I edited a short while later, and gives a better look, well before you opened this here? It's now at this version after another editor's and my edits. --doncram 09:52, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps because (a) he was formulating the proposal above in the interval, and (b) your later revision in any event does not address the points he raises, which were about the text rather than co-ordinates etc ? I accept that you have edited it again since, perhaps because of the prompt here. However, the contributing building paragraph still seems incredibly awkward and arguably unnecessary. - Sitush (talk) 10:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    About the Grand Forks County Fairgrounds WPA Structures item, that is a thorny one, with first stub article correctly identifying it correctly as having ambiguous status in NRHP's database. Then why is it included in the county NRHP list-table? What is its relationship to the River Cities Speedway, also correctly identified in the first draft as being an associated place? These questions are best addressed at Talk page of the article.
    Indeed, using the customized "find sources" search for it, set up at its Talk page as for all other Grand Forks articles that I started, I find that indeed there is more information for it and that it has been reported as fully NRHP-listed, e.g. in this North Dakota press release. And I see that there is a database typo for the architect name, who is Theodore B. Wells rather than "Weels", so there is more development and linking possible, to connect to other Grand Forks NRHP-listed places designed by Wells. The article drive process is iterative and goes around in circles, as I discover need for related articles and develop them and come back. As I did develop articles for architects Joseph Bell DeRemer and Buechner & Orth in this drive, upon discovering need for them in multiple NHRP listings, and can come back to related articles add wikilinks and further info. The County Fairgrounds WPA Structures article needs a few hours existence in mainspace, and some Talk discussion perhaps, to sort out and develop what is needed. It would be better, but still wrong, to put it up for AFD. An AFD on this would fail, actually, I am pretty sure. I do strongly object to Orlady's abrupt removal of the Grand Forks County Fairgrounds WPA Structures article from mainspace. --doncram 10:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    In a few edits, I developed the Grand Forks County Fairground WPA Structures article, and now also SarekOfVulcan has edited it. SarekOfVulcan, can you now please acknowledge the article has merit? --doncram 16:59, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Not yet, no. It still lacks sufficient context for me to answer that question one way or the other.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Eventually it got returned to mainspace, because indeed it was a Wikipedia notable topic. Contrary to some claims that it would have to be merged with a separate Speedway article. Yay, the initial stub was eventually improved, by me and others. --doncram 20:04, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Note, it turned out the Grand Forks County Fairgrounds WPA Structures topic was unusual for 2 reasons: one it seems to have been NRHP listed after the cutoff date for the NRIS database I am using, and which Elkman's system relies upon as well. So the available info was odd, giving a "DR" status which would have probably have disappeared if I and/or Elkman were working from the more recent NRIS database version. So finding a press release becomes more important than usual. Also, among the Grand Forks county sites, it is unusual for not having the NRHP nomination document available on-line. In all the other 60 NRHP listed places in Grand Forks, most of which I have created articles for, I believe the NRHP nom docs are available online. --doncram 17:33, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict) Strong oppose because this editor seems to be being singled out for a restriction against creating mediocre articles. The ones you link to really aren't that bad and can always be improved, by yourself in particular. I wouldn't object if you politely asked Doncram to do more research before hitting 'save page' but is this seriously worthy of a topic ban? ╟─TreasuryTag►inspectorate─╢ 15:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose I received notice of this proposal, but don't have further time to discuss this today. Just to note quickly: that would be an extraordinary proposal. Creating stubs is encouraged by Wikipedia policy and is good to do. The stubs I create are generally within a WikiProject NRHP-sanctioned (well-discussed, consensus although not everyone is happy) program. Specifically my developing articles within Grand Forks County, North Dakota is a specific demonstration, not yet complete. The standard i am immediately achieving in my first edit is higher than that in a number of other stub creation campaigns, and I am working to develop the articles further. I do prefer to work in mainspace where categorizer-editors and others can help right away. I prefer not to develop articles in other areas and create extra work in moving them, linking to/from other articles, which is fine and good. There is no question about notability of articles. Sources are included. The "and/or" statements are accurately vague, an improvement upon others' overly precise and sometimes incorrect statements, e.g. when all that is at first known is that a building was either designed by or built by a given person or firm (when previously it would have been asserted, sometimes incorrectly, that the person or firm was the architect. The best form of initial draft articles is a fine topic to discuss at WikiProject NRHP, but previous consensus there is that the WikiProject cannot and should not stop article production. It can/should engage in "jawboning" about what can be achieved, in which I would and have participated willingly and respectfully towards others' concerns. Probably the majority of NRHP articles created out of about 25,000 now in the project, were started at a lower level at first. A topic ban on me, cutting at the center of what I do and contribute to wikipedia usually without dispute, is not an appropriate response. Again, I can't comment further today, do have to run. --doncram 15:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 47#just do it by bot now, where this sort of content creation was discussed at length. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes that is a fine discussion at WikiProject NRHP, which I opened and participated in, and in which I proposed the current article drive on Grand Forks NRHP articles, ongoing. --doncram 10:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Is it your opinion or contention that the "just do it by bot now" discussion linked above sanctions putting articles in this form (for example) into mainspace? I ask because I've read the entire discussion and I might be wrong, but I find it very difficult to believe that any editor involved in that discussion, much less the Project as a whole, favors doing so. Station1 (talk) 01:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Other than the fact that I don't see a major issue here or consensus that non-bots aren't allowed to create stub NRHP articles, many NRHP places have very little coverage other than that basic info and those basic phrases from the nomination information, so (as NRHPs are considered inherently notable) any article about most of those places would inevitably end up about the same. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 16:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      To be a bit clearer, I don't object to Doncram starting stubs on NRHP properties -- I object to him putting information in when he doesn't know what it means. If you don't know what 1923 means in a year field, look it up before you send the article live, or leave it out until someone can fill in the proper information. Note the 3rd ref in the St. John's Block article linked above -- it still says "___ (, 19). "NRHP Inventory-Nomination: St. John's Block Commercial Exchange". National Park Service. and Accompanying ____ photos, exterior and interior, from 19___ (see photo captions page __ of text document)" 4 hours after he created it. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I have filled out the author and date of preparation fields in that reference. It is in fact a great improvement upon the Elkman infobox generator used previously by many editors for first draft NRHP articles, that my /draft generator provides for an NRHP nomination document and accompanying photos documents to be included, up front, in the first draft of the article. That provides a good source for further development by editors and for immediate perusal by any readers. It is not possible to include the author and date of prep in the first draft; the blanks serve their intended role of calling for an editor to fill them out manually, as I do for articles that I create (with a few exceptions, such as when I am interrupted and don't notice i missed it for a while). Occasionally there turn out to be unexpected document problems which take a little more time to verify, such as for the accompanying photos doc for St. John's Block Commercial Exchange which seems to having a document error, and that might need to be commented out (which I have now done). To be clear, I believe that any blanks like those criticized should be addressed. I believe it is okay/good to start articles and allow the blanks to exist temporarily, until filled out as intended, as that leads to immediately better articles than avoiding that small amount of work by including no reference at all would provide. I am trying to develop pretty good articles efficiently. --doncram 10:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Opposeedit: changing vote based on new evidence below He's not doing anything wrong except starting stubs of articles which are clearly notable. That he doesn't write eloquent grammar is irrelevent; anyone else with that gift is free to come along and fix it. He's making Wikipedia better, and we shouldn't stop him. --Jayron32 16:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm not criticizing his grammar -- I specifically left a couple of annoying phrases out of my original proposal because they didn't fit my criteria above regarding should-be-known-before-article-creation information. "Is or was a property" - if you can't even answer that question, why are you creating an article on the subject?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Why not? Please can you explain how it is better for Wikipedia if these articles are not created. ╟─TreasuryTag►Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster─╢ 18:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Can you explain how is it better for Wikipedia that John M. Winstead Houses was created? Pay special attention to the references he cites. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Certainly. Wikipedia is the better for that article because it now contains the information that the John M. Winstead Houses are located in Brentwood, Tennessee and were inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. That in itself is a benefit. Surely you can see that? ╟─TreasuryTag►UK EYES ONLY─╢ 18:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      That information was already at National Register of Historic Places listings in Williamson County, Tennessee.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Look, the biggest battle we fight at Wikipedia is getting people to stop creating articles on stuff that should never have an article about it in the first place. I'm not about to start complaining about the creation of articles on notable subjects merely because we don't like how the person who created the stub formats it. If it bothers you, fix it. Deleting his work (or preventing him from doing it) merely so someone can come along and do it better is not how Wikipedia works. He's not creating any additional work for anyone, since its no more work to fix his problems than it would be to create the article from scratch, indeed it would take less work to fix the few mistakes he's made than to create it from scratch. --Jayron32 19:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Ok, Jayron, I'll bite -- what can I verifiably add to that article that's not already there? Can you even verifiably state that both houses are in the same location? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      (ec) It will be a repository of no more gobbledegook than already exists? - Sitush (talk) 18:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    NRHP stubs break 1

    • Oppose, but Doncram should be encouraged to research articles as thoroughly as possible even at the expense of slowing down the rate of creation. One B class article is worth dozens of stubs. Mjroots (talk) 17:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose The John M. Winstead Houses article is in no respect a good article, or even a well-put-together stub, but having it is certainly better than not having it, and the solution to its obvious problems is to fix it. It looks like Doncram should work a bit harder on making better stubs, but I do not see that his or her behavior rises to the level of requiring a topic ban -- that seems like overkill to me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose as unwarranted draconian solution to something far more easily remedied by asking him to provide more details and somewhat more informative wording than heretofore. At least the material meets notability standards, and has references. Collect (talk) 18:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Draconian? Maybe. Unwarranted? Did you happen to notice that one of the refs he supplied at the Winstead Houses article is a placeholder saying "record not yet digitized"? (Cue Doncram saying "well, if you really care about it, order the supporting documentation from the National Park Service")--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Tentative support Support - need a bit of time to think but have previously suggested elsewhere (before this AN thread) a moratorium on creation while discussions take place. I'm concerned that there is apparently no intention to develop them by doncram - see [1] - and that some of them are so bad that they have been moved back into his userspace by User:Orlady. - Sitush (talk) 18:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Changed to definite support: I've found it impossible to deal with Doncram in a collaborative way and this is causing at least as many problems with NHRP articles as benefits. - Sitush (talk) 21:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe that the ones moved back into user space by Orlady were ones he WAS in the process of working through, if you're referring to the recent ones in ND. As far as your second comment, it sure sounds a lot like, "Support 'cause I don't like him." to me Lvklock (talk) 02:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Uh, "Wikipedia is written collaboratively" is a pretty basic concept here. Sitush's concerns are completely valid; your criticism of them is out of line and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the project.
    If other editors find it difficult to work with you, then you either need to loosen up and act your age or leave. Take for example User:NYScholar. Here we have a user who was a good contributor to the project in the realm of copyright. However, he displayed misunderstanding of some key guidelines and policies, believing even in the face of strong opposition that he was right and everyone else was wrong. He was summarily banned because he could not and would not learn to play nice with the other kids. Now, Doncram is not as bad as NYScholar. However, there are valid parallels to be drawn, and Doncram must shape up or slide further down this slippery slope. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 10:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I know nothing about NYScholar. I have in fact worked diligently to maintain respect for copyrights in NRHP articles, including to avoid actual or perceived plagiarism vis-a-vis NRHP nomination documents at the National Register's website, often incorrectly perceived to be in the public domain.
    I also know nothing about Sitush, with whom I don't believe I have ever had interactions, except during the last couple days where Sitush commented at User talk:Orlady. I don't understand what personal experience Sitush is bring to bear, to comment that he/she "found it impossible to deal with Doncram in a collaborative way". We have never had opportunity to collaborate, AFAIK. --doncram 10:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I cannot collaborate because of the ownership attitude, as demonstrated in the discussion you refer to. I made perfectly reasonable suggestions and was shot down for them. Suggestions which, pretty much, are now the subject of this AN discussion. You will note that I specifically explained to you that I had not commented while doing my own research into the articles and history. Basically, you came across as being intransigent and unwilling to accept any alternative to your way. How can I collaborate with that attitude? Sitush (talk) 10:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You are projecting. I would be very glad to collaborate with you, if you are interested in developing the NRHP list-article for Grand Forks County, North Dakota, or another one. Perhaps you could help start some descriptions in the list-article? Please comment at the Talk page. Or what would you like to get started with? Are you able to develop maps, by any chance? --doncram 17:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    With what I have seen at talk-pages and here, your attitude makes you difficult to collaborate with. Even here at this thread, you display a brazenly unacceptable WP:OWN attitude which you cling obstinately to. Things like "Especially if you interrupt me, and effectively prevent me from taking an article further!" and "Articles criticized here include unfinished work in a bigger article drive, in progress, interrupted." indicate to me that you are A) rushing to create as many articles as you can and B) acting like these are your own personal territory and trespassers will be shot. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 11:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll reply more later, but yes there is an article drive going on, which is unfinished, about the Grand Forks County NRHP articles. Which I feel obligated to complete out, and to report back to interested NRHP editors about how the article drive worked, relative to previous article drives, now using the starter tool of the /drafts here. I would like to do some development of descriptions in the main list-article, and improve links between articles and new architect articles, and otherwise make some now feasible improvements, before it is review-ready. I have been working for a couple months at it, not in a terrible rush. I have been inviting others to be involved, and have happily noticed some contributions by Elkman and by categorizers. --doncram 17:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, it is a pretty big interruption, to be blocked for a week just now by SarekOfVulcan. I was just before then working on some Winstead house article, then was developing Winstead House disambiguation, and I didn't get back to them. He or someone is criticizing one of those in particular. And then when I start after the block, i was called out immediately by Orlady, and I have been responding to her accusations at her Talk page. And then it is a pretty big interruption for SarekOfVulcan to open this topic ban discussion. Aren't those pretty big interruptions? --doncram 17:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    No, because they are not your articles. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


    • Oppose per WP:TIND (my own personal opinion, not policy), I see why this must be frustrating but a topic ban seems far too harsh and wikilawyerish. - filelakeshoe 19:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment (toward a cautious "support")Support This sort of falls into Wikipedia:Redlink territory, where it is suggested that having a redlink to a potentially notable subject may encourage that article to be written - and goes on to say that creating a sub-stub simply to turn a redlink blue is not sufficient. This may be argued in this matter, that having a generic work in progress stub might discourage another editor from working on it in the belief that someone else is about to. The other view is that someone might search for a particular subject to find that there is a stub and decide, especially if they have an interest in it, that they could do (far) better. My personal opinion (only) is that "Something is NOT better than nothing at all". We remove test edits as well as vandalism because it makes the project look bad, and having poor stubs with ambiguity on the current status of the subject reflects poorly upon the project. I would rather there be less but better stubs, because sometimes a stub is all that notability can support - so it had best be a good one. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC) Changing to Support, after reviewing doncram's response to Orlady's (and others) reasonable commentary. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:57, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Partial response: I am strongly in favor of wp:Redlink policy, and in fact am one of the principal builders of the system of NRHP list-articles that currently provide about 55,000 redlinks (out of 85,000 NRHP-listed places) in good context, encouraging article generation. I was involved, productively though with considerable long dispute between Orlady and myself, in addressing one editor's campaign to redirect NRHP topics in Connecticut to town topics, specifically to preserve redlinks. However, in fact there is little NRHP development going on in many geographic areas, and the campaign to do all the articles in Grand Forks County, North Dakota, was meant as a demonstration possibly encouraging North Dakota editors including students at university there, to become involved. The prevailing theory among NRHP editors, in past discussions, has been that newbies are more likely to contribute to already-started articles, and that they find new starts daunting. Indeed they should, given present reception for me and for other editors. In [[the recent "just do it by bot now" discussion I describe and link to one shameful example, of editor GrapedApe's chilly reception upon starting several NRHP articles, and his being hounded out of that. The "pretty good" stubs that I aim to provide, get over the obstacle of getting started, and usually provide links to good NRHP nomination documents that are difficult for new editors to find documents and reference them properly. (The NRHP search system for documents is maddening: it provides means for you to find articles and it asserts documents are available, when in fact they are not.) --doncram 01:27, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Weak oppose. While these articles are, by any standards, quite poorly put-together, I am not sure if this is really grounds for a topic-ban. This is either a case of hastily trying to throw together lots of articles or just plain incompetence. For now, I'll assume the former. That said, the comments by Sitush and LessHeard have given me pause. Perhaps it would be better to have him create these stubs in his userspace, then have them checked by an admin if and when they are ready to be moved. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 20:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC) Having actually reviewed the user in question and his contributions, I am changing to firm support. The testimony by Orlady below is very telling. Doncram seems to be just going for some record number of articles by churning out as many horribly mangled stubs as possible. This discourages legitimate content-building by editors (see WP:REDLINK) and should not be condoned, excused, or tolerated. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 20:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strong support This isn't a case of a newbie creating inadequate stubs in good faith, but rather a veteran contributor who creates garbage stubs by the hundreds, does not clean them up {they remain for months), has been repeatedly asked to create his pages in user space if he doesn't have solid info for an article, but refuses to cooperate -- and pitches fits if anyone touches his work. I will say more later -- my web access is limited right now. Orlady (talk) 20:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I and other NRHP editors discussed the option of developing draft articles elsewhere, in the "just start them by bot" discussion. I do reject, for multiple good reasons, that approach. I seek to promote collaborative development of articles involving local editors, with pretty good starting information and links to good sources. It is inefficient and attracts no interest to start articles elsewhere, is my view from experience. It is not possible to add categories and attract categorizer editors and to build links between articles from the getgo, if articles are not in mainspace. And for more reasons, when proceeding in an article drive such as for Grand Forks County NRHP articles.
    I resent the term "garbage stubs" and other negativity in Orlady's characterization of me here. That constitutes incivility, by my reading of wp:Civility#Identifying incivility which specifically covers use of the term "crap" within statement on belittling a fellow editor. I do not refuse to cooperate. In the context of coming off a block for perceived incivility myself, I am naturally a bit sensitive. --doncram 01:11, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Please think very, very carefully before going further down this path. I've read the discussion of this past December on your drafts system at WT:NRHP, and I really don't see any support for you to reject the compromise developed there. You and I have both been around since 2005. We've seen a lot of water under the bridge, and we both know that no matter how good a person's reasons are, trying to single-handedly defy consensus here is a quick route to blocks, burnout, disenchantment, and disgust. Your tool is a great tool, but I think what a lot of people feel is that you've invented the electric nail gun and insist on using it to try and screw things in. Please be a little flexible about how you want to achieve your goals, or I fear this will end very badly. Choess (talk) 02:19, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support topic ban based on new evidence (struck through my vote before.) Let me make this very clear; my support of the topic ban is unrelated to the creation of the stubs per se, and everything to do with doncram's interaction style and apparent WP:OWN attitude towards these stubs. When people do try to improve his stubs, he throws what can only be described as a fit. That is unacceptable, and clearly the sign of someone that needs a break. --Jayron32 21:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. The mass creation of stubs and substubs (especially when they're completely unsourced, like this one and the mass of similar ones that were created on monastic foundations in Britain) is something that has irked me for a long time, without my saying anything. I agree wholeheartedly with LessHeard vanU's comments above; it's time for this activity to be explicitly discouraged. Deor (talk) 21:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. That stub [2] was of no use whatsoever; it was not so hard to write a rudimentary article. Mathsci (talk) 00:18, 26 April 2011 (UTC)noting that this stub on an English monastic community was not created by doncram[reply]
    I have no association with either of those articles, for English places. I am aware that for historic sites in England, usually only Grade II+ listed buildings are deemed by British editors to be usually Wikipedia-notable. And that supporting documents for them are not regularly available. The U.S. NRHP-listed places in North Dakota are different: there are usually full NRHP nomination documents available online in fact. The NRHP docs are often reliable good sources written by architectural historians, include multiple other sources, and have passed through multiple layers of review. It's out of my area and I wouldn't want to go against the current views of British historic sites editors without understanding more, but I would probably not support wholesale stubbing of articles like the British one you refer to (again not started by me), if there were not good sources likely available for further development. (Relatedly, see Talk:Order of Women Freemasons#Merge request for my position against split/separate existence of a stub article that involved material by me, whose split and separate existence was/is supported by editor SarekOfVulcan, contrary to at least one British editor's preferences.) --doncram 11:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support, as per the arguments above. For those suggesting we just "fix it," please tell us how to fix 10,000+ stubs of this sort. Bms4880 (talk) 21:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      How do you do 10,000? You do it one-at-a-time, slowly and patiently. Bear in mind that according to the Wikipedia vision, those articles would eventually each be created anyway. What's the difference? ╟─TreasuryTag►presiding officer─╢ 22:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Unfortunately for that line of thought, WP:DEADLINE cuts both ways. From "View one": "Wikipedia is not Wikinews and has no need to scoop anyone. Turn this into a strength by working on your article in your userspace or scratchpad until you have the best possible article, fully referenced, a masterpiece of neutrality." Just as there is no deadline for improvement, there is no deadline for these articles to be created, either. In my opinion, it's better that someone who is willing to put time and effort into creating a quality article creates the article, rather than the user in question's blunderbuss approach. As has been brought up by Orlady, Doncram actually takes offence to editors who attempt to fix his half-assed sub-stubs "one-at-a-time, slowly and patiently" into something that looks remotely presentable. Defend that. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I do not take offense to development of articles I start; that is exactly what I want. I do take offense at a pattern of what i feel constitutes wikihounding, involving repeated derogatory statements and repeated accusations against me. --doncram 01:38, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    NRHP stubs break 2

    • Support, though it's pretty pointless for me to do so. I've told Doncram and other NRHP editors repeatedly about how these sub-stub size articles are embarrassing for Wikipedia. I've encouraged him to actually read the reference material and explain why the subject is notable. Take a look at St. John's Block Commercial Exchange with phrases like, "The listing is described in its North Dakota Cultural Resources Survey document," with a reference of, "___ (, 19). "NRHP Inventory-Nomination: St. John's Block Commercial Exchange". National Park Service. http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/82001338.pdf. and Accompanying ____ photos, exterior and interior, from 19___ (see photo captions page __ of text document)" This indicates that Doncram hasn't even read the document. (It's four pages, written in 1981, with one postage-stamp sized photo, and there's no photo captions page.) There's also this initial revision of Art Troutner Houses Historic District which gives us the knowledge that, "The houses are, indisputably, houses. At least one looks like an A-frame. At least one has a carport."
    About the Art Troutner example with "indisputably" and otherwise joking language, that is an article created in 2008, which was revised by you to this version within a few days. You have brought up that example numerous times in previous discussions. I am sorry that in 2008 I made a joking first draft. I announced the articles creation in regular process at WikiProject NRHP and it attracted editors (including you) to further develop it. I believed then that editors would collaborate in developing the one new weekly featured NRHP listings each week, and I had made a quick start on that one. You have quoted from that, I believe without providing appropriatre context, a number of times in other discussions that I recall. I really am sorry I offended you back then, but could you please give this one a rest, please?
    More specific response to substance of Elkman's comments on St. John's Block are given below, by me, in several "To Elkman:" replies. --doncram 20:15, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I've voiced my objection to sub-stub articles like this over and over again, and I've pointed out that creating a bunch of these stubs leaves a lot of work behind for other Wikipedia editors to clean up. My complaints have fallen on deaf ears. I've largely given up on the concept, which is why I think my support for this motion is pretty much pointless.
    By the way, under these standards, I probably could have written Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Depot Freight House and Train Shed to say, "The CMStP&P Depot in downtown Minneapolis is a train station that, indisputably, had freight trains stopping there. It was built or otherwise expanded or something was done to it in 1879 and has Renaissance and Italianate architecture." I could have saved myself some time and not had to buy books about railroads in Minneapolis. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 21:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Here's another piece of brilliant prose at Pierce County Courthouse (Wisconsin): "Pierce County Courthouse in Ellsworth, Wisconsin is a building." No kidding! I now feel enlightened. This sub-stub article has existed on Wikipedia since September 2008, and nobody has come back to indicate what kind of building it is, what its function is, or whether you can get married by a justice of the peace there. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 22:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've expanded the article slightly. Nyttend (talk) 00:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. How long did that take? Less than three years? Thought so. I'm pretty sure no one here would argue against Doncram creating a stub of this quality; why is it so hard to take 15 minutes to do a quick Google search or look through an NRHP nomination form. That was, in fact, part of the loose consensus gathered at WT:NRHP a while back.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    About Pierce County Courthouse, as indicated in my edit summary creating that Wisconsin article, I created it to defend the disambiguation page Pierce County Courthouse, mediating between determined WikiProject Disambiguation editors and determined NRHP editors. The disambiguation page was needed to resolve article name conflicts. The only workable solution as of a few years ago, was to create at least one article, against preference of some NRHP editors including Elkman, but meeting demand of Disambiguation-focused editors. It happens I have been the main developer of disambiguation covering NRHP-listed places: My talk page displays 0 articles in Category:NRHP dab needing cleanup out of 3,686 articles in Category:Disambig-Class National Register of Historic Places articles overall, which I maintain. (And I am the sole signed-up participant in this NRHP dab cleanup drive, though User:Sanfranman59 actually helps.) Since then, there has been recognition by some Disambiguation editors that a disambiguation page can exist with all redlink entries (but with properly formed supporting bluelinks), in part given clear support for the practice by a German wikipedia editor. At this point, I would not now create the stub article, if i was just creating the disambiguation page. It was required, then, to stub one, and at random i picked the Wisconsin one. I am sorry no one chose to develop the article further, sooner. --doncram 11:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Note: the German wikipedia version of Pierce County Courthouse disambiguation page contains all redlinks currently, with no supporting bluelinks, and would not be accepted by English Wikipedia disambiguation editors. When I developed the english language dab page, it was required that a stub be created for at least one article covered. Now, though there are occasional disagreements, it suffices to have supporting bluelinks for each redlink entry. --doncram 12:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Is this not approaching the entire concept of disambiguation from the wrong end? As I read WP:Disambiguation, the purpose of the pages is to disambig articles rather than to disambig all possible uses of a name etc. You are creating articles in order to justify the disambig page. Am I misreading? - Sitush (talk) 12:57, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Your first reaction is like many others: that disambiguation is to distinguish among existing articles only. So all redlink entries should be deleted? Many have started ahead deleting them. Many have started deleting any dab page that has all redlinks (whether or not there are supporting bluelinks establishing context and notability of the topic). Many have started to redirect dab pages that have just one bluelink. There are, over time, dozens of persons, some quite determined, who start to tear down disambiguation that I have set up. It takes time to convince the new arrivals that in fact the dab pages comply with policy (and it also takes a lot of time to get the Disambiguation policy updated for some matters). The Disambiguation policy is about topics, and Wikipedia-notable topics need disambiguation. Given a system of 85,000 NRHP-listed places in lists, with many sharing the same name, it is necessary to resolve article name conflicts so editors can proceed, and so that readers can discover whether a local NRHP they are looking for has an article or not. See User:Doncram/NRHP disambiguation for some reading, not recently updated. One pivotal past discussion with dab-focused editors was what is wp:NRHP doing wrong RE disambiguation? in 2008.
    Dealing with the Disambiguation editors in 2008, negotiating for the NRHP editors, the best I could do was to get consensus that a dab page could exist if at least one article existed. So, I created a stub article each time necessary, probably a few hundred. It had to be done. I worked at getting the policy changed, because NRHP editors like Elkman and Dudemanfellabra really disliked the stub articles, but it took a year or two or more to do so. Meanwhile I gave courtesy notice to Elkman if I created a stub in Minnesota and I gave courtesy notice to User:Niagara if I created a stub in Pennsylvania, as they preferred to be notified and would improve them. Finally sometime I completed out the creation of all dab pages needed for 2 or more NRHP places of the same name; there are 3,686 articles with one or more NRHP entries in Category:Disambig-Class National Register of Historic Places articles now.
    Sitush, would you have been the type of editor seeking to remove the redlinks, or would you have been on NRHP editors' side that the disambiguation is needed but a stub for one should not have to be created? --doncram 22:30, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I wouldn't go so far as saying that Doncram's approach to disambiguation is entirely wrong (I've created several articles for purposes of disambiguation -- typically after discovering situations of mistaken identity in the destinations of links, and most often for people of the same name), but it does seem to be a case of misplaced priorities ("the tail is wagging the dog," instead of the other way around). Doncram has become single-minded in his focus on disambiguation, to the point that he loses track of the main point of creating content. Another example of what I perceive to be inappropriate emphasis on disambiguation over content is displayed at Talk:Old Town (Franklin, Tennessee), related to an article over which Doncram has repeatedly asserted ownership and where he maintains (among other things) that an prehistoric Indian mound complex known as "Old Town" and a 19th-century house built on top of the Indian mounds and also called "Old Town" are actually unrelated topics with the same name that must have separate articles that may be connected only via disambiguation hatnotes (and do not discuss the relationship between these two entities). --Orlady (talk) 13:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I have a certain amount of sympathy for that point of view -- as a database geek, I want a primary key to refer to one and only one thing. The mounds are notable for one reason; the house (presumably) for another. Therefore, they should be in separate articles. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    They are in separate articles. The current issue is doncram's insistence that there is no relationship between the different instances of "Old Town" other than coincinot allodence of name, so he will not allow the different articles to discuss the relationship between the various features called — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orlady (talk • contribs) 12:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC) posting incomplete comment as i lost view of window where i was typing[reply]
    Much thanks to whoever added the unsigned template on the above. The rest of my comment was going to be "...features called 'Old Town.' He will only allow the different articles to disambiguate between them as coincidentally similar names." --Orlady (talk) 23:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC) [reply]
    I resent the side discussion here, in which Orlady is making negative claims about me on tangential issues. I am not "single-minded" in my focus on disambiguation. I have done a lot of disambiguation, to support development of NRHP in Wikipedia, and I continue to do it, to respond to pressures of Disambiguation-focused editors, specifically a continuing cleanup campaign specifically to mollify editor Station1 (which seems not to have converted him to a personal fan, but I continue nonetheless). It is in fact false that the Old Town house is built on top of mounds; let me state it clearly: I believe that Orlady is lying with that statement, for effect here, and I resent it. She may think it is an allowable stretch of the truth, an exaggeration for effect, because there exists a photo of at least one historic Tennessee house perched ridiculously on top of a mound, but it is not true here. Instead, there are in fact two small burial mounds on the house's property, which are lesser mounds within a larger area of multiple mounds, per the NRHP nomination document describing the site. Her mischaracterization has the effect of suggesting that I am wrong in my views in that discussion unrelated to the present proposal. I perceive it as another negative comment chipping away at my reputation. I expect that others may chide me for making this comment, which is itself negative. Her comments will not be seen as obviously negative to many readers here, but in context of a long program, it is one more instance. I am frustrated; I don't know how to get Orlady to stop focusing upon me and chipping away at me in a wikihounding way (that's what i perceive); she has refused Mediation several times and it is exhausting to contemplate an RFC/U or an arbitration requiring diffs to cover years of this. --doncram 00:52, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    As near as I can determine, I am not making negative claims about you as a person, Doncram. Single-mindedness is often considered to be a virtue, but it can sometimes affect people's perceptions and judgments. I thought I was observing that you truly are focused on disambiguation, that that your creation of stubs about topics for which you have no solid information is just one of the ways in which you get carried away in your determination to disambiguate article titles. The situation with Old Town (Franklin, Tennessee) is one that has generated at least 74,178 bytes of discussion (counting just one talk page) over a year's time. I persist in seeing it as a situation that you perceive to be a disambiguation issue, but where several topics with similar names are in fact related. It is somewhat ironic to note that you started that page as a minimal stub (but not one with the "could be this or could be that" attributes that are the subject of this WP:AN discussion) that asserted that "Old Town" was a house. The title you created was (appropriately) clearly intended to disambiguate from other "Old Town" topics. Less than 24 hours later, I came upon the stub, researched the topic and greatly expanded the article to discuss three different co-located National Register properties (the house, the Indian mound site, and the Natchez Trace bridge) that share the "Old Town" name. You have been most vehement in your insistence that the three National Register properties must be addressed in three separate articles. I long ago gave up arguing that they should be covered in just one article. However, until now, I did not realize that the primary reason for your intransigence is that (although you have no sources indicating that the three properties are unrelated) you still refuse to believe/accept the various cited sources that other users have found -- not to mention the lengthy discussions of latitudes and longitudes -- that indicate that the three properties are at the same place. Didn't Bms4880 email you the sketch map from the Tennessee Anthropologist article that shows the house and its driveway in the midst of the mound site? (I am not aware of what you refer to when you mention a "photo of at least one historic Tennessee house perched ridiculously on top of a mound.") It appears to me now that I was giving you too much credit when I ascribed your behavior on that talk page to single-mindedness in pursuit of a worthy goal. --Orlady (talk) 02:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    If you are doing anything to mollify me, you have my permission, indeed encouragement, to stop immediately. I will be delighted to edit any pages myself. Just let me know on my talk page what you prefer. Station1 (talk) 02:08, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support as clearly warranted per user LessHeard vanU. Writegeist (talk) 00:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    and others which I brought up to a reasonable state that I am proud of (though others looking to find fault, might still find fault). It happens that I took on the thankless task of creating disambiguation, and dealing with wave after wave of editors on issues with that.

    Recently a main effort of mine has been to proceed within Wikipedia guidelines to create articles using a new NRHP article starter system. In compliance with a program to do so, indeed and well covered recently in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 47#just do it by bot now discussion. Several dissenters in that discussion have commented here; I do believe the consensus there was and is that stub article development is okay. Using an external database program that I wrote myself from scratch, drawing upon NRIS database, to develop better starting points for NRHP articles than have heretofore been used. To reduce tedium in edits, and to serve as basis for a trial to see if it could serve mine and other editors needs discussed in that "just do it by bot now" discussion.

    You can point to selected incomplete articles that are brand new, or you can find a stray from 2008 that has apparently been long bothering an editor, where in fact my editing is interrupted and patchy. Especially if you interrupt me, and effectively prevent me from taking an article further! I do not hold out the set of Grand Forks County articles yet as being well-developed; I have considered myself partway through development there, which so far has yielded:

    • this United Lutheran Church
    • this Telephone Co. Building
    • this Ost Valle Bridge
    • this Building at 201 S. 3rd St.
    • and numerous others. You could also find other articles further developed by me which would give a different picture if you looked at those ones selectively too. Out of 92,000+ edits contributed by me. I'll stop now. I would be pretty offended, personally, if this topic ban is passed. --doncram 01:05, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • You have failed to address the complaints about your WP:OWN attitude. In fact, with remarks such as "Especially if you interrupt me, and effectively prevent me from taking an article further!", you have provided further evidence of it. The number of edits you have doesn't help you here. You'd think that with over 92K edits, an editor would have the clue to not dump out shoddy articles like this, this, and this to the mainspace. So many of your articles are heavily laced with ambiguity ("was built or has other significance", "may or may not", etc.) that one wonders if you put any care or second thought into what you write. People are usually offended by topic-bans, but that doesn't stop them being handed out to those who deserve them. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:47, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    This is pretty much a tangent, because the 3 items Lothar von Richthofen notes are not NRHP articles. About the first, the St. James' Church one relates to this addition of that item about St._James%27_Church,_Međugorje in Herzegovina to the St. James' Church dab page, back in 2008. When cleaning up St. James' Church|the dab page, I first fixed up all NRHP entries with the supporting bluelinks that are now required. Another editor was deleting all imperfect entries. In broad terms, i believe that items added by newbies and IP editors to dab pages are often about notable places, and it is unnecessarily unfriendly to delete them for not complying with complicated Disambiguation and other guidelines. I was willing to do some work to improve some non-U.S. entries. I invited editor Peter I Vardy to fix up British entries, and he did. I created articles for several other non-U.S. ones, with quick Google results, including that one I guess (I can't see it, it has now been deleted by SarekOfVulcan). I created St. James Church, Kerikeri in New Zealand, about a clearly notable historic church, for example. The other option I saw was to allow these to be deleted; i thought that creating stub articles with what sourcing I could find was better for Wikipedia and was respectful of other editors' contributions. The now-deleted stub might have attracted attention of Herzegovina editors, but did not I guess. I think no harm was done by creating that article. No great harm was done by it being speedily deleted, either, but I think a PROD or an AFD would have been more appropriate, and could have led to improvement of the article. --doncram 14:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    (outdent for display purposes) In full, it was 

    '''St. James Church''' in [[Medugorje]], [[Herzegovina]] is a significant church.

It was built during 1934-1969.

== External links ==

*[http://www.sacred-destinations.com/bosnia-herzegovina/medjugorje Medjugorje as a sacred destination], website

[[Category:Roman Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina]]

{{church-stub}}

    The only difference between the way you left it and the version I deleted was the addition of the category.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:50, 26 April 2011 (UTC) [reply]

    Thanks for displaying that. The source included, http://www.sacred-destinations.com/bosnia-herzegovina/medjugorje, does suggest some notability for the topic of the church or churches here. Like I said, i think a PROD or AFD woulda been more appropriate, and coulda led to improvement especially if notice posted to the Herzegovina wikiproject or wherever. It's not an NRHP article though. --Doncram
    P.S. User talk:Peter I. Vardy/Archive 15#possibly notable churches shows evidence of collaboration and outright appreciation for the disambiguation set up by me for U.S. NRHP topics ("I'm very impressed by the way this is organised in USA; we are miles behind!..."). --doncram 14:33, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Why are your organizational skills relevant to a discussion about your stub creation?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:39, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Others have asserted that I am not collaborative, or that my disambiguation efforts are "misplaced". This speaks to those charges. Should I respond or not to the many assertions and implications made in this discussion by others? --doncram 16:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    One could take this as an answer to that question... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Your link doesn't work. I will agree that the George Hancock (architect) article needed development and further that I regard leaving <pre>...</pre> lists in mainspace more than briefly is not acceptable. I wasn't aware of the status of that one; i've now fixed it up somewhat (and SarekOfVulcan also edited it). --doncram 22:57, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Update: I and another editor or two developed the George Hancock (architect) article somewhat. SarekOfVulcan had moved it to userspace. This causes overhead: specifically 2 needed redirects from Hancock Brothers and Hancock Bros. were since deleted as being cross-namespace redirects. Linking between the architect article and buildings/NRHPs it itemizes is made awkward if in userspace. I moved it back and restored the needed redirects. It doesn't work to put articles in Userspace, in general: no one ever pays attention to them; categorizers and others will not find them; categories are often turned off; necessary redirects naturally created during development can't be created or will be deleted if they are, etc. --doncram 14:35, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Doncram, are you asserting that the "overhead" at George Hancock (architect) was caused by SarekOfVulcan, rather than by you creating this original version in December, leaving it in that state for four months and then, 11 minutes after SarekOfVulcan cleaned it up and prodded it in mainspace, restoring the original version? If so, can you understand how others might disagree with that assessment? Station1 (talk) 16:18, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    About the second of 3 items Lothar von Richthofen comments upon, Double_pen_architecture, that is also not a NRHP place article. It is a needed article, or probably better there needs to be a redirect from it and from Single pen architecture to some common article (perhaps Single pen and double pen log house architecture?) to cover the styles of log house architecture described for numerous NRHP-listed places in Williamson County, Tennessee. And we need a corresponding category or two. A big advantage of doing a focused article drive in one county in a state, or on one type of building like List of Elks buildings, is to discover the need for supporting architectural style articles and architect articles that are relevant. I get to observe that there are multiple articles needing the architecture style or the architect to be described. An individual editor, especially a newbie, would not notice the commonality. Do let's develop that one, please! I'll add some to it now. Happily Central-passage house article was recently developed, serving need for some other Williamson County NRHPs. --doncram 22:57, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    About the third of 3 items Lothar von Richthofen comments upon, Leland Hotel (Springfield, Illinois), that is a short stub which I created as a courtesy for newish(?) editor GregCampbellUSA, who added it as an item with footnote in this edit to Leland Hotel dab page (his edit summary was "Springfield IL had several major downtown hotels, including: The Leland Hotel, Abraham Lincoln, The Governor, and the St Nicholas. Sorry - no time to create a new article for the hotel itself".) I was there to refine the NRHP entries in response to other Disambiguation-editor pressure. It is claimed to be "home of the Horseshoe sandwich". A disambiguation-focused editor would have deleted the reference in one edit, then another would have arrived to delete the then-unsupported item. Six editors have since edited the article, including Orlady just now to support it with a different reference. Seems good to have saved it, IMO. --doncram 23:27, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unclear I am strongly opposed to the creation of these meaningless stubs; much of my "new" article writing for a long time has been the conversion of NrhpBot stubs into decent articles (e.g. Josiah Kirby House), largely because having such minimal pages is rather disgraceful to the encyclopedia. I'd much rather have 9 redlinks and 1 decent article than 10 substubs, since at least that way we'd have one article that actually tells the reader a bit about the topic. However, I'm uncomfortable with telling Doncram that he isn't allowed to create pages like this: I fear that the remedy for the problem may be overly harsh. Nyttend (talk) 01:43, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Note that the wording of my proposal doesn't prevent Doncram from creating stubs. It only forbids mainspace creation of stubs containing I-don't-know-what-this-data-means-but-I'll-mention-it-anyway language. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:51, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      The topic ban as proposed does not prevent the user in question from creating articles and stubs per se, it merely bars him from creating useless ones, thus encouraging him to actually put time and thought into what he adds instead of just substub-dumping at his leisure. If he accepts the terms of the ban (should it pass), I am sure he would be a valuable contributor. But if we let him go, he will inevitably lapse into his previous dumping behaviour. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:55, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Obviously I wasn't clear in my statement: sorry. I'm uncomfortable with absolutely forbidding him from creating articles in any format that wouldn't qualify for speedy deletion. I really wish that he'd stop, but I'm not a fan of topic bans because of the many ways that restricted editors can avoid them and the many ways that restricted editors' opponents can misuse them. This comment isn't meant to denigrate Doncram or anyone else here; I simply fear that a topic ban isn't going to help because of its nature as a topic ban. Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Wishing only gets one so far...
      Ah well, I suppose you're entitled to your opinion. I'll leave it at that. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 02:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      I know that it doesn't really help; my point is that topic bans generally succeed at solving the problem at hand but are liable to producing other problems. Too often the result is a Pyrrhic victory — the immediate difficulty is solved, but only by taking an action that results in worse issues — and thus not a good idea. I'm afraid that wishing is the best thing that can be done here. Nyttend (talk) 02:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      I've spent a good deal of time here navigating the minefields of Eastern Europe On En-Wiki, which has produced at least three ArbCom rulings and innumerable topic-bans. I've never as of yet found myself on the receiving end of such restrictions, but I've watched them be variously debated and implemented. I can understand them being used against editors in such partisan environments where people's political beliefs and perceived ethnic conflicts exist. But this is a case of one single established editor churning out worthless stublets en masse, then responding in a recalcitrant, hostile manner (crossing the border into the land of WP:OWN) to attempts to remedy this situation. If no restrictions are placed on his article creations, then it is difficult to curb such disruptive behaviour. Even revoking his autopatrolled rights would be a step better than just wishing that a highly obstinate editor would change his evil ways. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 02:57, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      "Churning out worthless stublets en masse"? That's hardly all he does. What en masse production are you referring to? Is a "masse" a county? I think that what he was doing most recently was starting a counties worth, then going back through to improve them somewhat. Is a "masse" all the ones for a given architect? I think he may have done that at some point. Is it all the ones that fit in some list article he's working on? My point is that I have most often seen him creating stubs to support some other type of development he's involved in. I don't see that as a situation that needs to be remedied. But, the people who follow around after him do not care what his purpose is. They are not interested in the development he's working on. And, they are not forced to do it. But, they want him to spend his time doing things their way to the detriment of his being able to work on the development he's working on. They follow him around from area to area from project to project, not caring at all what he is carefully building that THEY are disrupting. I "wish" that the people who follow him around and search his old edits looking for things to fuss at him about would stop. I find them "disruptive" and "evil". They ruin my enjoyment of Wikipedia. Lvklock (talk) 03:27, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Wikipedia doesn't work for your enjoyment, Lvklock. It's an encyclopedia. Also, if you don't know what en masse is, wikt:en masse can help you out. As far as I can tell, the only thing you do on Wikipedia is to come out and support Doncram, so I'm not sure why you're even participating in this. Now, if maximizing editor satisfaction was one of Wikipedia's goals, then maybe I could state the reasons why I haven't been satisfied with Wikipedia editing, and the whole National Register of Historic Places project for many, many months now. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 04:27, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      To clarify, supporting Doncram appears to be the only thing Lvklock has done recently. I presume has been on a wikibreak. - edit history - Sitush (talk) 09:25, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Thank you, Sitush. Elkman, I began my recent set of contributions by noting that I had been on a business trip, gotten some new pictures and stuck my nose back in hoping to find that the environment had improved around here. That initial post was directed in exasperation at both Doncram and Orlady. No, I haven't been contributing, because this stuff takes all the fun out of it. I know Wikipedia doesn't exist for my enjoyment, but why would I bother if I didn't enjoy it. As far as my "wish", it was a direct response to someone else's "wish". It was to point out that many people wish many things, but that, just as you say, Wikipedia isn't here to grant people's wishes. There is nothing about my post that indicates that I do not know what "en masse" means. I was ASKING which set of articles he was referring to, and providing examples of why different sets of articles were created. I was pointing out that he was not creating them just to create articles, but in support of some other development. And, even though maximizing editor satisfaction isn't one of Wikipedia's goals, I'm pretty sure that I recall hearing some of the reasons why you haven't been satisfied with Wikipedia editing, and the whole National Register of Historic Places project for many, many months now. And some of them may be the same, and some may be different from why I feel the same way. But Wikipedia doesn't work for your enjoyment, Elkman, so I guess that's not something we need to go into here. Lvklock (talk) 13:30, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Lvklock is a fine contributor who I hope will be finding time to add more content to Wikipedia. I want to believe that his return to support Doncram is coincidental, but I must note that past conversations on Wikipedia talk pages have indicated that Lvklock and Doncram are personal friends, both at Wikipedia and in real life. I wish that all of us could get along as well as they apparently do. --Orlady (talk) 13:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    So what if Lvklock did return specifically to support me? I appreciate the support. I am sure many real-life friends share similar views in Wikipedia discussions. You seem to be insinuating something negative, not relevant to this AN topic. --doncram 00:58, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    NRHP stubs break 3

    • Strong Oppose Stubs are allowed. If it were someone else creating these stubs, we wouldn't be here. He has sometimes created bunches of stubs to support some other aim, such as setting up a nationwide network of disambiguation to help new editors get NRHP articles properly named. The disambiguation folks wouldn't allow him to set up the disambiguation pages with all red links, so he had to start stubs for some to support that. This editor takes on huge ambitious projects that he sees as important. Isn't that the whole point of a wiki? For editors to choose to work on what's important to themselves? I understand that many others don't see the point, but he does. I don't see the point of a lot of things people do here, but I don't try to stop editors from writing about every cartoon character that ever existed or to stop people who are very interested in categories from adding them just because I'm not interested in them. As long as they don't make me stop every time I do something and try to figure out every category it could fit in, then I applaud their efforts. But, if they wanted to bog me down with the details that are important to them, I'd just stop. Doncram has proven over and over again that he's not going to just stop just because some people aren't interested in the same things he is, nor is he going to spend all his time attending to the details that they personally find important. It seems to me that Wikipedia is losing a lot of the original vision, that by letting each person contribute what he/she enjoys contributing and is good at, then together a great thing can be constructed. In my opinion, driving people away because they don't attend to the details you think are important is going to turn Wikipedia into just another failed project. Lvklock (talk) 03:12, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Looks like someone failed to read the fine normal sized print. This is not a topic-ban from creating stubs or articles outright, this is a very specific one which seeks to prevent the creation of articles that are just "XYZ is or was a significant building. It may or may not have been built in 1903. Something significant happened in 1915." Nobody ever said that Doncram was 100% worthless, only that he rushes unnecessarily to create sub-stubs with little to no meaningful content. We are not asking him to stop contributing, we are asking him to hold his horses and make his contributions less [vague] by taking the time to take more than a superficial look into the subject of the article. We are also asking him to cease his WP:OWNERSHIP attitude towards that which he creates. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 09:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Looks like someone has failed to grasp my point in this and other comments on this page. Not everyone agrees that the stubs convey "little or no meaningful content". Not everyone objects to what are factual, supportable statements based on the information available from the source being used at that time. The stubs are not the main point of the contribution for him. They are suppoting some larger development he is working on. You are basically asking him to abandon what he is working on in order to develop what you want done in the way you want it done. And doing so in a nasty and sarcastic way to he and his supporters. Lvklock (talk) 13:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      Could you provide examples of "nasty and sarcastic" comments made about User:Doncram, and to those you might indicate are his supporters, as they would be violations of Wikipedia:No personal attacks - specifically "comment on the content, not the contributor"(s) - on this page or the discussions that lead to this proposal? I do see many comments describing various editors opinions on the quality of some stubs that doncram has produced, that are the issue at the centre of this issue, in forthright language and also in respect of doncrams history of producing stubs of such quantity and alleged reluctance to improve or allow others to improve said stubs, but that is permissible as it is in reference to content concerns. However, personal attacks on the editors involved does hinder the proper conduct of this discussion and I would be keen to try and ensure that those who have transgressed are properly warned about their future conduct. I would end by commenting that accusations of personal attacks without grounds is in violation of Wikipedia:Assume good faith and may be itself a personal attack upon the named editors (except, of course, where such claims were made in mistake.) You may respond on my talkpage, rather than clutter up this page further. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment (I've already !voted support) - The problem with far too many of Doncram's stubs is not that they are stubs, but that they are elaborate embroideries upon a near-total absence of information. One Doncram-created stub (first pointed out on my talk page by Station1) that I found particularly offensive in the last ~36 hours (and, indeed, that I consider a "poster child" for the problem with all-too-many Doncram stubs) is Grand Forks County Fairgrounds WPA Structures, which Doncram created in article space and which I userfied -- and then move-protected after he immediately moved it back to article space with an edit summary that provided the nonreason that "Deletion/move by Orlady is unacceptable." That article is one of many that Doncram has written solely on the basis of a terse database entry in the National Register Information System. In this particular case, the article makes it clear that it is nothing more than a description of a database entry, with the lead sentence that says it "is or was a property ... that had a status change in the National Register of Historic Places NRIS database in 2008." Outside of a fairly decent photo, there is no substance on that page more meaningful/solid than that lead sentence. In contrast, Argyle Flats is an example of one of Doncram's contributions (in this case, from December 2010) that I was able to trim back to become a sensible one-sentence stub (and a relatively attractive stub, since it includes a nice photo). I've interacted with Doncram frequently for about 2-1/2 years now, and I know he has contributed some high-quality work, but his persistence in creating and defending garbage -- like that Grand Forks County Fairgrounds article -- or his "maybe this, maybe that" version of Argyle Flats -- is counterproductive and disruptive to Wikipedia. Experience like the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject National_Register of Historic Places/Archive 47#just do it by bot now demonstrates that no benefit will be derived from further discussion of Doncram's approach -- other than Doncram (who dominated the discussion with his verbose and frequent comments), nearly every participant in that discussion expressed significant reservations about his proposal, but Doncram's assessment is that the consensus supported his proposal. --Orlady (talk) 03:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    "Elaborate embroideries upon a near-total absence of information." In your opinion. And my often voiced opinion is that I would rather know an ifobox worth of information about an NRHP in a town that I'm visiting than nothing at all. And, since you bring it up, I found your "move-protect(ion) after he immediately moved it back to article space" to be objectionable. It had just been brought up in a discussion of which you were well aware. There was an extremely high likelihood that if you'd left it, it would have been improved. Instead, you not only userfied and move-protected that one, but after I specifically asked if you were purposefully goading Doncram you went and userfied more of the batch he currently had in process. I find your following, goading and high-handedly imposing your standards on Doncram to be "counterproductive and disruptive to Wikipedia." He "dominated the discussion with his verbose and frequent comments"? The reason you find them "verbose" is that you aren't interested in hearing anything about the reasons WHY he does something. You often tell him so. So, he can't explain why it's important to what he's doing to create the stubs, because you don't care. You just want him to do it your way or not at all. Frequent comments? Of course there are frequent comments. There are frequent barbs and incivilities toward him and his work and he comments back. SURPRISE!!!! Lvklock (talk) 03:48, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    As above, could you please provide me with diffs of these "barbs and incivilities". Thank you. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Nothing is preventing Doncram from improving pages in his user space. Regardless, the histories of pages like User:Doncram/Clifford_Annex (which sat in article space, untouched, for 4 months before I moved it to Doncram's user space -- after determining that there wasn't enough content there to allow the article to be trimmed to a solid one-sentence stub) and Mansfield Center Cemetery (also not touched by Doncram for 4 months) do not support the theory that these insubstantial stubs would have been quickly improved if only they had been left in article space. --Orlady (talk) 04:34, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. This is a narrowly tailored proposal. Unfortunately, this appears to be the only method to prevent articles such as User:Doncram/Grand Forks County Fairgrounds WPA Structures from appearing in mainspace. Normal methods suggested by some opposers above, such as appeals to Doncram by other editors, or simply editing after the fact, have been tried and have failed. The creation of tens of thousands of similar automated articles has been proposed, and despite the objections of numerous other editors, Doncram has in the past claimed or thought that he has had consensus to proceed when others reading the same discussions come to the opposite conclusions. There is a danger that thousands of these articles will be created if there is not forceful and clear community disapproval. Station1 (talk) 06:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reluctant Support While in general even the idea of banning someone from creating articles is repulsive to me, it appears this user is not willing to take sound advice on-board, or even willing to work within their own user space to flesh out articles that while notable, are simply not ready for prime time. It appears that "edit count" and "articles created" is their primary goal here; and that just isn't what the project is supposed to be about. @Doncram, work on some articles in your userspace for a bit, get some feedback and collaboration from other editors, then roll them out when they have some meat behind them. Perhaps then we can revisit/lift this proposal. (if it does indeed pass) — Ched :  ?  06:27, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I just don't feel comfortable supporting this. I completely agree that some changes need to be made, but considering everything "en toto", I don't feel right about a "BAN". I'd rather find another solution here. — Ched :  ?  22:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Edit count and articles created are not my goals. I have worked on many focused drives, and the Grand Forks article(s) being criticized are part of an article drive whose natural discussion point should be Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Grand Forks County, North Dakota#Article drive, not here. The following shows Recent Changes to Grand Forks County NRHP articles (during last 30 days, so not including majority of my edits). It shows a pattern of my making multiple edits developing articles over a day or two. And, before completing an article drive, as I did for National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut or National Register of Historic Places listings in Henrico County, Virginia or others, I would develop some or all descriptions in the NRHP list article and in the process revisit many individual articles and make further edits. Articles criticized here include unfinished work in a bigger article drive, in progress, interrupted. --doncram 09:52, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    doncram, I would absolutely love to have you convince me to change my stance here. First you would need to understand and accept the reasons behind this proposal, and second you would need to vow to make adjustments so as the concerns would be addressed. I honestly don't care if you delete comments from your talk page, or prefer to carry on conversations on another person's page. It is the articles that are of concern here. ex: "The XYZ building was built (sometime) by (somebody) and was mentioned in the New York Times"ref" just isn't the type of stub that's ready to be pushed into article space. This proposal is very narrowly construed, so I don't think it would be difficult to find a solution. I don't understand why you're not willing to work on things in your own user space, but I'm willing to listen. To be honest, I have maybe a half dozen articles which could probably exist in article space at this time; a couple which have been sitting in my user-space for well over a year. From my point of view, the condition of the article reflects directly on me as a writer, so I want them to be as good as I can possibly make them, especially if the history is going to show that I am the one who created them.
    How about this suggestion: start putting these articles in our Incubator project until they have been worked through a bit. To be honest, I am flattered when either someone asks me to help with an article they are working one, ... OR ... someone else is willing to help me with an article. There's nothing wrong with collaboration, in fact it can be a very enjoyable experience. Just pushing out "It Exists", and "Here's the ref that makes it WP:N isn't really helping the cause here. Just a thought, and best of luck. — Ched :  ?  11:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you all totally don't get it. Doncram was instrumental in building great huge parts of the NRHP project. The tableizing, first of NHL's, then of every county of NRHP's. The hours and hours of disambiguation to get identically named NRHPs in different locations named properly so that new editors would know how to proceed when confronted with something like Main Street Historic District, which probably exists in some form many multiple times in the country. Working through issues where projects clash with other projects like Ships, disambiguation, etc. He works in big scope. He's not INTERESTED in working in the small scope you all want him to. Do you really want to drive away such an experienced and prolific editor? I get that you don't care that you pretty much drove me away. I don't get it with him. Lvklock (talk) 13:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I drove you away? .. To be honest, I don't even recall ever editing with you Lvklock. I offer my apology, and ask how I can make amends for this. As far as "what I get" or "don't get" - all I can say is that if his/her efforts are causing disruption, then I'm in favor of limiting that disruption. I'm also in favor of encouraging and assisting any editor in improvement so there will not be any further disruption. — Ched :  ?  14:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Anybody who has watched NRHP coverage on Wikipedia in recent years should surely recognize Doncram's great contributions. But the good stuff he's done doesn't excuse his ownership of these subpar substubs. Nobody is insisting that he "work in the small scope" or engage in any other Wikipedia work he's not interesting in volunteering for. Nobody's asking him to do anything, rather to refrain from doing something that harms Wikipedia. He's been requested not to put these embarrassingly bad stubs in mainspace before they're ready, and the plea has fallen on deaf ears. So the community is now being asked to impose it as a requirement. Ntsimp (talk) 15:54, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    No, Ched, I'm sorry. I was not replying directly to you. You are one of the saner voices here. I refer to the change from a "live and let live" culture that Wikipedia seems to have had in the past to this conform or go away culture I see now. I'm sure I did something wrong by not outdenting, or not starting a new section or something. The truth is, I don't have time for this, but I hate seeing everything so one-sided here. And heaven forbid Doncram should defend himself at length...that would just feed into the criticism that he is verbose and too frequent in his comments.
    Ntsimp, no one seems to be listening to the crux of what I'm saying. Stubs are often part of the framework of the bigger, more ambitious projects Doncram undertakes. He cannot undertake those projects without building stubs, a task which I presume is not his favorite thing to do. He cannot build the stubs to your standards while achieving appreciable and enjoyable progress on the things he is good at and enjoys. Therefore, take away his ability to generate quick and easy stubs and you take away his ability to chieve the big ambitious projects that have helped grow the NRHP project so much. HE CAN'T DO WHAT HE DOES WITHOUT GENERATING STUBS! He couldn't have built what he has helped to build without being able to generate stubs. I believe that when he began in Wikipedia and the NRHP project, these stubs would have been considered more than adequate. The stub DOES provide a great starting place for new editors. If you put it in userspace, new editors cannot find it. The reference with blanks in it provides a proper reference framework for a new editor that might otherwise be clueless about what was being looked for there, or how it should be coded. The sentences that he puts in are a response to those who didn't want a stub with just one sentence saying that the place is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Every time he has tried to evolve something to please someone else, it angers four other people. Is it any wonder he is seen as being recalcitrant? If I were he, I'd go by the "you can't please everyone so you may as well please yourself" rule myself. The bar is being raised on how good the stubs need to be to the point that it will make it impossible for him to undertake the focused, widespread, ambitious kind of thing that are what HE enjoys contributing to the Wiki. So, instead of the community working to incorporate his strengths, you're going to insist that he either do a lot of work in the areas of his weaknesses in order to do the things that are his strengths, or that he not do anything much at all. Maybe he'll still be like me, and take some pictures once in a while. What a waste. Lvklock (talk) 16:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Wait a minute, I thought the long-running consensus was that newcomers tend to create articles, not build upon existing articles. Also, what "bigger, more ambitious projects", becuase I haven't seen any. –MuZemike 20:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe some people, but as a newbie I wouldn't have started with a whole new article off the bat. I certainly started with smaller scale contributions to existing NRHP stubs before I began a whole new one myself. Lvklock (talk) 21:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Bigger more ambitious: NHL and NRHP tableizing, large scale NRHP disambiguations, working with other projects like ships and disambiguations, all mentioned elsewhere on this page. I doubt anyone has seen all of what he's done. It's nearly 100,000 edits. Lvklock (talk) 21:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You said, "He couldn't have built what he has helped to build without being able to generate stubs." My reply to that is that yes... he definitely could. It just would have taken him longer, and fewer people would have ostracized him. As has been brought up numerous times in this debate and the thousands previous, There. Is. No. Deadline. Why is it imperative to set up thousands of disambiguation pages now? (Never mind the fact that the pages don't exist yet) Why is it imperative to get something rather than nothing about every single one of these places in North Dakota now? It isn't.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:45, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, here, I'll give y'all some more to pick apart. He could not have helped to advance the project as far as it has come as quickly as it has come without being able to generate stubs. Better? Satisfy the semantics police? It's not imperative it be done now, but it IS what he enjoys doing, while filling out stubs to your standard apparently is not. HE DOESN'T LIKE DOING IT!! He's a volunteer, just as we all are. Why the heck would he volunteer to do something he finds onerous? It's also not just a matter of looking up the online document to fill out the stub a little more so that he can support the thing he's working on. You want the project he's working on to grind to a halt every time it needs a stub while he requests a nomination document and waits for it to arrive? That's not just slowing things down a little from the way he enjoys working, that's STOPPING it entirely. Next, it's easier to set up disambiguation pages ahead of time than to sort out the mess afterwards when people who don't know any better get them titled inappropriately. It doesn't have to seem important to you. All the gobbledy-gook you spent hours and hours on coding for the infobox variations meant nothing to me, but I appreciated the time and energy you put into it. Doncram does lots of things I couldn't care less about, but HE is passionate and enthusiastic about them. I say let him continue to work in the way he has historically done. Lvklock (talk) 21:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Re "HE CAN'T DO WHAT HE DOES WITHOUT GENERATING STUBS!": Once again you demonstrate your disastrously incomplete understanding of the proposal. How many times does this have to be repeated? Doncram would still be allowed to create stubs. He would be prevented only from making them unencyclopaedically vague. Is that really unreasonable to ask that we report solid facts in an encyclopaedia? ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 21:51, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Once again you demonstrate your disastrously incomplete understanding of my point. Lvklock (talk) 01:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    NRHP stubs break 4

    Doncram asked me to comment and I do so reluctantly - mainly because I think almost everybody is acting badly.

    Please see the substub article Belcoville Post Office. There are at least a couple of folks who put these out on a regular basis. My first reaction when I saw one was that they should be deleted, but then couldn't find a reason in policy to delete these, then I learned to live with it. Now, I'd still prefer that they weren't written, but as long as they are there, I make a point to hang some of my pictures there. :-}

    The moral from the above, is that folks can write NRHP substubs without upsetting too many people and we can all learn to live with it. There's no policy against it.

    Two major differences from the Belcoville Post Office article and Doncram's

    • 1 Belcoville has less content, but is written in more natural language.
    • 2 Doncram didn't write the Belcoville article.

    So, I think we can all politely ASK Doncram to please make the language a bit more natural, and to update the articles a bit more quickly. I'll also ask him not to put out too many of these before he updates them - maybe only one county at a time. If there are really more serious issues, perhaps we could set up a special page at WT:NRHP, i.e "Substub review" and userfy or delete anything that is too offensive after a given time, say 2 months after creation.

    I will also TELL Doncram. I think you are bringing much of this onto yourself by ignoring the wishes of other editors. You've done some great things at WP:NRHP, and you will continue to do some great things if you can avoid silly arguments like this.

    To the editors on the other side. If you are going to topic ban somebody, please specifically identify which policy you think they broken. WP:Own might apply here, but I don't think it is the crux of the issue. I think the crux is that you've let Doncram's sometimes acerbic style get to you. Could you just relax a bit? I don't think Doncram will react too well to threats and banning and the like. And I really do not think that we want to end up throwing out an editor with his record of contributions (which is the likely ultimate end of this).

    That's all I have to say.

    Smallbones (talk) 21:55, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The Belcoville article doesn't show any of the problems relating to the topic ban proposal. If Doncram had created the article, it would have read something like: "Belcoville Post Office is a property that is or was located in Weymouth Township, New Jersey. The building was built or has other significance in 1918. It was designed and/or built by Vivian Smith. It was added or had other action taken on the National Register of Historic Places on March 14, 2008. The listing has one contributing building on an area of 2 acres. The building is described in its National Register listing."--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:04, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Smallbones for commenting. I'd be happy to talk about improvements to specific phrasing that can be put into starter articles, for future county or other batches. SarekOfVulcan doesn't understand the variety of phrasing actually used. The "is or was located" phrasing only was put into the relatively few starter articles where ambiguous listing status is present, i.e. where it is appropriate/crucial to question the continuing existence of a building, for example. The "is described in its National Register listing" phrase is only a placeholder to hang the NRHP nomination document upon. Other placeholder wording have been vehemently discussed previously; this was relatively innocuous and actually survived a lot of scrutiny so far. I would absolutely include the NRHP nomination for the site, if it is available online, which is a huge advance on what Elkman's system, (the alternative provider of NRHP stub articles) serves up. --doncram 00:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The link to the NRHP nomination form is really only useful if you read it. I found at least one article you created where the NRHP nomination form said, "This record has not yet been digitized." Or, how about St. Michael's Church (Grand Forks, North Dakota), a typical article where you provided a link, but didn't include anything from the nomination form. Had you read it, you would have noticed that it's the oldest parish and the largest church in the state, and that it's a source of pride for the neighborhood. If you spent a few minutes to read the nomination form (or at least glance at it), you could come up with a few sentences that would make the articles mean something to the reader. In any case, it looks like I'm going to have to get on the stick and start creating articles on the Minnesota side of the river, so we don't end up with articles such as, "The Crookston Carnegie Library was built or has other significance or something in 1907. It presumably housed a collection of books sometime in its existence." --Elkman (Elkspeak) 01:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, I am happy to facilitate a substub review system, perhaps to implement the "virtual holding pen" concept that I offered up in the "Do it by bot now discussion". In the batches started so far, I implemented a different system, the use of Recent Changes review for a batch, to accommodate what Dudemanfellabra wanted instead. --doncram 01:07, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    To be clear, Doncram, my suggestion to use the Recent Changes feature was to monitor moving these articles into mainspace.. not to monitor the work being done on the substubs. When I originally proposed the idea, I envisioned someone browsing the Related Changes list, seeing a new article created, and checking to see whether it was an acceptable quality. If the new article was of an acceptable quality, then that's great.. the person browsing may even help flesh it out. If the new article wasn't acceptable quality, however, the person browsing would alert the user that created the new article of this fact and possibly report them to the project. (Remember the whole jawboning thing?) Again, the Related Changes idea was to keep people from creating the articles prematurely.. not to monitor their slow but steady progress after being prematurely created.
    I think every single person here would be fine with you developing these articles in the /drafts subpage (i.e. having all of the code on the same page like my subpage User:Dudemanfellabra/NRHP) and moving them to mainspace only after they were acceptable quality. The problem everyone here has with what you're doing is not the fact that you are developing the articles.. it's the fact that you're doing it in mainspace. If you would simply do your little tidy-ups on the draft page itself instead of in mainspace, I sincerely believe that no one here would have any problems with that.
    We are not trying to keep you from developing the stubs. Let me repeat that: We are not trying to keep you from developing the stubs. We are simply asking you to do it in a different place so that these ambiguous statements are clarified before going live. While yes, the statements are correctly ambiguous because of the ambiguity of the NRIS database, it takes only minutes to do a quick search (through the NRHP document or even Google) to clarify the statements. We ask that you do that search before moving the articles to mainspace. If you can't find anything, post a message on WT:NRHP or on a few individuals' talk pages, and we will try searching ourselves. If - and only if - neither you nor other members of the project can clarify the ambiguous statements, we can do one of three things
    1. Keep the statement in (possibly elaborating on why it is ambiguous) and move the article into mainspace
    2. Remove the ambiguous statement and move the article into mainspace, or
    3. Simply keep the article on the /drafts page until something can be figured out, possibly by requesting the NRHP nomination form.
    In summary, no one is saying you shouldn't be allowed to develop these stubs. In fact, we want you to develop them. We are simply saying that you should put a little more thought into them before moving them to mainspace, and the bulk of the initial work should be done on that /drafts page. Is that reasonable?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:47, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know where best to have this argument. But,
    1) You implicitly prefer overly precise statements that may well be false, instead. Elkman's system, though he states he doesn't want it to be used to create stubs, it is widely used to create stubs. The stubs created from Elkman's system appear precise but often are actually factually wrong in the statements made. Elkman's generated infobox makes unjustified assumptions, i.e. that a builder is an architect, that the first in a series of significant dates is actually a built date and the other dates are irrelevant. A topic ban on me is not the right place to discuss refinements to the /drafts system.
    Don't put words in my mouth. I don't use Elkman's infobox generator to create stubs.. I use them to create infoboxes – their intended purpose. I do not prefer false statements to "accurately ambigous" ones.. I prefer clarified, true statements with a non-ambiguous source to back them up. The output of your bot is not at question here. I agree with you that the statements your bot outputs are "accurately ambiguous." The problem that I–and I assume several other editors, thus this ANI discussion–have is that, for many of the articles you have created with these statements in them, there already exists a source or multiple sources that can indisputably clarify that ambiguous statement. Because that source exists and clarifies the statement better, I am asking you to read through that source and clarify the statement before putting the article into mainspace. If, after you have read through the source(s), you still cannot clarify the statement, we can choose one of the 3 options I listed above.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I know you know this, Dudemanfellabra, but the reason you can say that, that others can see that there is such a source, is because I put the source into the article. In the very first edit! It is very inconvenient for new editors to search for the NRHP documents in the unfriendly National Register search system. It is very convenient for the references to be set up already, and clickable for reading the reference. Which I do, and then I enter at least the author name and date of preparation, and usually I characterize the importance of the place, in a following edit.
    The /drafts system could possibly be set up differently, so that the /drafts page was more suited to being edited and including an already-clickable reference there, rather than it being activated only after being copy-pasted into the mainspace article. I see mostly disadvantages of going with an alternative way, especially as I do not believe anyone else would edit there, but I would consider designing it differently in a real discussion somewhere else about improvements for new batches. You have less credibility with me in that future discussion, though, if you have not once tried the current /drafts system. --doncram 03:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I actually agree with you that the /drafts page should be more suited to be edited there and include an already-clickable link to the NRHP document (if it exists, of course); that is in fact exactly what I was asking for above. Anyone that has tried to search through Focus knows how confusing it is if you aren't accustomed to the syntax, so I agree that these links are a considerable improvement over the Elkman infobox generator in that regard. The part I don't agree with about your system is that it requires the stubs to be pasted in raw form into mainspace first before being fleshed out. Making the /drafts page more editable would allow you (and/or other editors) to fill in these placeholder links to the NRHP documents and flesh out the ambiguous statements on that page–the /drafts one–before moving them into mainspace. If you would, on the next county you run the bot on, make the /drafts page editable–and actually edit there–I believe that would definitively silence this topic ban discussion. If you would like me to, I can go to the ND county /drafts article and make it more editable to show you what I am talking about/how I would support it being done. I will personally go through and flesh out a few of the ND articles to show you how I envision the bot process going. (time permitting of course.. the next two weeks for me are full of presentations and finals, but after that I'm out on summer break, so I'll have more time) And btw, don't take that as me saying "I'll help you out as you go through the entire country and create 50,000 stubs." I'm still against stub creating, but if it takes me churning out a few to suggest to you how it should be done and end this discussion with at least some sort of compromise, I'm fine with that.
    If you agree to make future /drafts pages editable and agree to edit the stubs (as I will do with a few in ND if you accept) on the /drafts page instead of in mainspace, only moving them into mainspace once the ambiguous statements have at least had the chance to be clarified (i.e. you search or alert the project of it), I will withdraw my support for this topic ban. If that seems like too much of a stretch for you, then I have no other choice but to continue to support the ban.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see why you can't just agree the topic ban proposal is unreasonable. But, sure, actually, I am happy to try a different version of /drafts in a new batch, for a county in a state where NRHP docs are available on-line (I was thinking Utah, if Ntsimp would be interested in having articles started for some county or counties, and if you would care to edit some there). In which the /drafts will be designed to have the articles edited there, before being copy-pasted over to mainspace. And I would try it out in terms of editing some there. In advance, I think that will be less efficient in several ways, but I am willing to create what any specific editor actually wants to use for development of articles in a given county or for a given architect or in some other set. I personally would want my edits to count in mainspace, and for my contributions of writing to be forever recorded in the article history, which would not be achieved in your preferred model. Also I don't in advance much believe that anyone will edit articles not in mainspace (certainly categorizers won't), but okay to try. Not sure exactly what you mean about what happens if the articles are not developed in a reasonable time, like if you are suggesting i could give an ultimatum to others that they need to develop them by date X or else I will paste them into mainspace. If that's what you mean that is fine by me. And then for discussion of improvements for future batch after that is done. I do want to finish out the already started demonstrations and would appreciate actual positive help in doing so. I would like to have Elkman's actual cooperation in programming coordinates and otherwise, if he could see his way to that, but can do without if he can't. I would also appreciate your supporting me in publicly discounting others' future criticisms in general, if they have not seriously tried doing /drafts both ways, but I can do without an advance promise. --doncram 05:19, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    To clarify, I am not suggesting that the articles on the /drafts page are under some sort of deadline.. I'm saying they're under a "quality-line," meaning they must stay in the /drafts page until they meet a certain quality–specifically that the ambiguous statements your bot outputs are clarified, and no blanks are left in the stub. As far as future criticism goes, I can make no promises here. I believe that if you stick to the system that I will implement later today with the Grand Forks /drafts page, you won't receive as much criticism. If you, however, dip back into your mass substub creation, I won't blindly defend you.
    I have created a new section below detailing our compromise. I invite you to read over it there, and if there is anything you would like to clarify/comment on, do so below.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:48, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    2) The deliberately ambiguous statements are accurate and sourced and encyclopedic. You implicitly want to assert that Wikipedia knows all, is finished. No, we don't in fact know whether a named person is an architect or is a builder or is an engineer associated with a building. It is proper to state what we know and it is proper to reveal the ambiguity, what we do not know. I know this bothers some editors; I have had similar disagreements with Orlady previously about accurately ambiguous statements about relationships of historic districts to unincorporated villages several times; it obviously bothers SarekOfVulcan. But the ambiguous statements are accurate and sourced and I believe it is best to provide them. It provides a good prompt to other editors to dig in and find out the facts, to make more precise statements with sourcing. In my version of /drafts, I have been including the infobox line suggesting a person is the architect, but including the deliberately ambiguous statement in the text, prompting the additional research to be completed (and I hope that when an editor who refines the text to clarify a person is a builder, they will remove the infobox assertion of architect).
    Again, I agree that the statements are "accurately ambiguous." The whole point of this discussion is that other sources exist–chiefly the NRHP document–that explicitly clarifies the ambiguity. Instead of "prompting... additional research," I am asking you to do that research yourself since you are the one creating the article. It takes at maximum 15 minutes.. that 15 minutes would avoid all this discussion. 15 minutes. Really.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think it needs to be required, but actually I think i have put more than 15 minutes in, on average, on articles created in the /drafts process. It takes some time in the very first edit copy-pasted from a /draft, before I hit Save on that, so the clock started sooner than you understand. Probably a lot more than 15 minutes is put in by me on average, if you allocate credit for my developing supporting architect articles and architectural style articles and building inbound links from other articles and disambiguation pages. There are many articles completed to a pretty good status. The examples focused upon here are least-developed ones, naturally including problem cases where a document that is reasonably expected to be available is not in fact available, etc. --doncram 03:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    3) Your statements are your own opinions. I don't know who you mean to include in your "we" statements, and I do not accept that you speak for others except where you specifically support such statements by diffs or otherwise. There have been plenty of other views.
    4) Others in this discussion have at times seemed to be saying I should not be allowed to develop these stubs. Whatever the original proposal here is, there are persons who would be happy to expand the proposal and cut the drama short by just banning the stubs or me or whatever. Many other ANI proceedings have been cut short by more strict bans than originally proposed. You can't speak for everyone, to say what "no one" wants.
    Even though people may be happy to extend the proposal to ban you–maybe even indefinitely–that is not the proposal we are discussing. All this proposal is asking you to do is spend a little more time on these stubs before putting them into mainspace. If you did that–though as you point out I can't speak for everyone–I am extremely certain that 99% of the people here would have no more to argue with you about.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    5) I don't want the drama and am only partially, at best, responsible for all this drama. I have opened channels of communication. Specifically, i opened and ran the "let's just run the bot" discussion at wt:NRHP, and opened article drive discussions at each of the batches, and applied for bot approval and gave notice at wt:NRHP, and so on.
    6) I have some expertise and some experience and some goals for collaborative editing that you, Dudemanfellabra, and others do not have. I did all the programming to create /drafts, and I have gotten scant cooperation in developing articles from the first batches. I asked for others to use the /drafts system to test it out. Only one editor, Pubdog, did, giving me useful feedback that I incorporated into subsequent batches. You, Dudemanfellabra, have not created one article from a /draft, AFAIK. You are telling me how you want me to edit over in the /draft page, and you do not have the experience of the inconvenience that that causes. For one thing, it separates edit history. I think you, Dudemanfellabra, are unusual as an editor in personally preferring to draft articles in your own userspace and then to copypaste them to mainspace, with no edit history and, usually, with no help from others in drafting the articles. I strongly prefer to start articles in mainspace, to immediately add redirects and links that work from the getgo, to immediately get help of categorizer editors, to invite involvement of local editors, and to otherwise work in a collaborative, open way which I think is good for Wikipedia. You don't have to share my views, but I am not crazy to have them.
    That's right that I have not created any articles from your /drafts system, and that is because it is something I am not interested in doing. I would prefer to work on my on-going projects (some in my userspace, and some in mainspace–though none in the shape of these /drafts substubs) instead of starting new ones.
    As for your method of editing, I don't agree with it, and that is well known. That is not, however, why I am asking you to do a little work before putting these in mainspace. If I were the one working on these stubs, I would spend a much more considerable amount of time on each individual stub before moving it to mainspace–probably more than many here would spend; that is just my style. Me working in userspace a lot is not, however, requiring others to clean up my mess. You working in mainspace is... especially since when you say you are "working" in mainspace, it actually means that you are creating 20 stubs at a time and then getting criticized and claiming they interrupted you while you were working so you can't go back and pick it up now. Instead of creating 20 at a time (which is a random number not based on any facts.. more suitable is the word "multiple"), try creating one at a time and working to improve it before moving on to the other(s). As I have said many times before, that may not be what you want to do, but if you suck it up and just start doing it, you won't have to read these mile-long conversations anymore. I understand that it may be hard for you to accept, but sometimes you just have to do things the way others want you to, even if that's not how you want to do them.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    This doesn't completely respond, but one thing I don't get, is your expressing no appreciation for how I did run with your suggestion on the Recent Changes monitoring tool, which you suggested/requested for use in a somewhat negative reviewing way, which I fully assisted in providing, though I hoped it would serve more positive use, too. That's one example of me doing things the way you wanted. I would be glad to avoid the long conversations, but I am on trial here and I can't avoid it. --doncram 03:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    7) I will be happy to run a new discussion of possible improvements to the /drafts system, after completing the Grand Forks and other batches that remain open. I will again give consideration to your suggestions and preferences in that process.
    I will participate in any discussion at WT:NRHP or elsewhere about improvements to the system, but for now, let's focus here and get this wrapped up. Too many times with you, discussions never end, and people just lose interest or get frustrated and go away. Then you go on about your daily grind as if nothing ever happened. I hope that this discussion will not end like that but that something actually substantive will come out of it. Please stop trying to demonize the people that are commenting here; maybe actually listen to what they are saying and try it out. Showing at least some flexibility in your methods can go a long way, believe it or not.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I expect you will have good suggestions that i will try to work with, in future discussion. For now, I would appreciate if you could help wrap this up with a decision not to accept the proposal. I am not in general demonizing others, i don't think. I really welcome and invite others' participation, including, notably, that I appreciate Elkman's continuing reluctant-but-positive contributions in the Grand Forks articles. I am fed up with long-running all-negative all-the-time commentary from one or two other editors, though. --doncram 03:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    That's all for now. I can't comment much further today. --doncram 15:33, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    So, now my infobox generator is suddenly on trial here? For the record, and for the benefit of other editors who haven't used my infobox generator, here's what it says on a query: "The infobox is NOT enough for a standalone article. You need to enter some more information about where the property is located, its history, and why this property is notable. In other words, don't use this infobox generator to create one-sentence stubs." I have said, from the beginning, that the infobox generator is just a tool to create infoboxes, not to create full articles. I never said anything about not creating stubs using my infobox generator. My position has been that, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we need to do more than just regurgitating information from the NRHP database. Anyone can just present it and add a few bells and whistles around it. I've seen plenty of references to these at city-data.com, pubcrawler.com, and nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com. My position has also been that any editor using my infobox generator is responsible for the content. I'm not taking responsibility for someone else's edits.
    To Elkman: You're not on trial here; I am. However, many commentators here are not aware of wide usage of the NRHP infobox generator you make available, and how it has been used by many editors to create stub articles on NRHP places that are inferior in several ways to the /drafts that I provide. I always have been, and remain, grateful that on your own dime you provide the tools for NRHP editors on your own website. Your statement that you quote illustrates what I meant by your wishing for other editors not to create stub articles. You indeed want them to provide more. I do too, but I have a different approach. I believe it is better to provide more so that they can improve the articles using that additional info, and avoiding some kinds of errors they might introduce. You believe it is better to provide less, demanding more of the other editors to meet the standard you want them to achieve. I believe my approach, broadly, will yield far more articles more efficiently at the standard you want met. --doncram 18:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    However, if you would be willing to consider improvements to your infobox generator, I would have several suggestions, that would generally lead to better articles. For example, I think it would be better if you could provide some caution within the generated infobox or text that the architect= field does not necessarily report an architect, and that the built= field does not necessarily provide a built date. I have other suggestions too detailed to state here.
    Also, if you were willing to collaborate, I would be grateful if you would share your copy of the coordinates database, and otherwise work with me for both our systems to include improved coordinates (better coordinates in KML files are available for many/most sites, than the coordinates that your system uses). And I would share some information and some other coding that I have done (probably still useful though i bet we are programming in different languages), if you chose to collaborate to improve both of our systems. Either way, I am glad you provide what you do.
    As far as the accuracy of "built or designed by", "was built or has other significance in the year", and so on, a little research into the NRHP nomination or other source documents should provide more context into these details. That's the part I have issue with: You still continue to generate articles on a semi-automated basis without actually doing any more research to flesh out the article. Even when the NRHP document is conveniently available online, you often haven't read them. I've seen a couple NRHP nomination documents cited in your sources that actually lead to a page saying, "This nomination has not yet been digitized."
    To Elkman: You are absolutely correct that when i place the first /draft into mainspace that I have not read the nomination document. I have created a reference which links to it, and then it is convenient to look at the document and to refine the reference (filling out author and date blanks) and hopefully to use it to characterize the importance of the place. It is NOT convenient to find the documents and read them beforehand; that is not practical and not necessary in the first edit. I agree that a batch of new articles should not be deemed complete if the NRHP doc links have not been checked, and if the author and date blanks have not been filled out. I have developed a process that gets these good references into articles efficiently, saving vast amounts of time for local editors who do not need to learn how to get frustrated with the crazy National Register web systems, and greatly advancing Wikipedia in these areas. --doncram 18:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Here's something else I have an objection to: In these edits to Sorlie Memorial Bridge, you added some automated edits that included material that already existed in the prose, or that should have been added to the prose. The article now mentions twice that it was built ("or has other significance in") 1929, that it was built (or "designed and/or built") by the Minneapolis Bridge Company, and that it was listed on the National Register in 1999. Do you have an objection to integrating your changes into the existing text? --Elkman (Elkspeak) 16:32, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    To Elkman: Thanks for bring that up. It is a great example of the /drafts system providing information that can be easily used to improve an already existing article. The Sorlie bridge article lacked NRHP nomination document and the MPS document and other stuff which my edits added, though i did not integrate them immediately. My edits were on April 24 and included "Under Construction" tag. I went off in next edit to add Sorlie bridge to Red River Bridge disambiguation article, and didn't get back right away. Note I was already being raked in User talk:Orlady#Stop and discuss and this topic ban proposal opened the very next day. See my last 500 contributions and search where "Sorlie" is located. I use the Under Construction tags as a quick way to remind myself to come back; I would usually notice the UC tag removal by a bot a week later, and return, if i did not return sooner. Thanks for taking care of it fully already, in your improving that article, doing that obviously necessary integration, immediately after you posted this comment. Don't you agree that the article is substantially improved? --doncram 18:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Aha, so that's why you are sticking Under Construction templates onto so many pages! That recently adopted practice of yours is something that I have been bothered by. The intended purpose of that template has never been entirely clear to me, but because I believe that it causes many contributors to think twice before editing the article, it is easy to perceive it as a declaration of article ownership. As I see it, that template has value in two distinct sets of circumstances: (1) when someone is in the middle of a major reorganization of a complex article and (2) when the creator of a new article is aware of serious shortcomings to the article, is actively working on fixing them, and wants new page patrollers to be understanding of the situation. I sympathize with the desire to keep track of your current projects, but using such a highly visible tag to remind yourself that you intended to continue working on the article is not a good use of a that tag -- and is arguably an expression of WP:OWN. I know that you also use User:Doncram/CertainCats and possibly other personal/project templates as personal reminders. Would it be possible for you to expand your use of those types of "private" reminders -- so you can refrain from using publicly visible article space to make notes to yourself? --Orlady (talk) 00:21, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I object to the familiar tone, and the chiding in that suggestion. Orlady, you're on the record here in this discussion to ban me creating NRHP articles. I prefer the more civil tone to your other more recent rude-in-my-view comments at your Talk page and elsewhere, but I don't want to chat amiably about this side topic here with you, thank you. To others, for the record, I use the Under Construction tag in compliance with policy, largely in what Orlady describes as function (2), to signify serious shortcomings, exactly as was appropriate for the Sorlie Memorial Bridge article which needed reorganization. It also has the side benefit of providing a reminder for editors who watch their watchlists. I am on trial here, and I resent the new implication that I am out of synch with proper practice is some tangential way. --doncram 00:36, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Two comments to clarify the record: I can't find a "familiar tone" in my comment that anyone would object to. Are you referring to the fact that I indicate familiarity with your editing and with your user page?
    As for your comment that I am "on the record here in this discussion to ban me creating NRHP articles," I didn't say that here. I supported SarekOfVulcan's proposal to ban you from creating stubs containing language that indicates an absence of actual information or serves as a blank to be filled in, such as "...is or was a building", "has some significance in 1843 and 1902," etc. Please re-read the actual proposal. --Orlady (talk) 03:01, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    In general, this template should not be used for new articles with little content. Instead, the sandbox should be used to develop the article so that it has reasonable content when it is copied into namespace. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:16, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose While I was one of the stronger opponents to creating these stubs, I don't think that a topic ban is necessary. I think and hope that Doncram has got the message. Topic bans should only be used in clearly defiant cases; this is not a clear-cut scenario. We need people like Doncram here to help build Wikipedia and I don't want to see Doncram leave. Doncram, I hope that you read the many excellent suggestions posted here for you and take them to heart. You said that you're not here to get edit counts. Then spend the 30 minutes that it takes to find additional sources on the internet! I rarely have trouble finding many reliable sources for a NRPH article. You're concentrating on turning out articles instead of turning out start/C-class content. Royalbroil 02:42, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - I've compiled a list of some of the article pages that might be affected by this proposed ban, if it is implemented, or other resolution that may emerge from this discussion. See this page. Note that some of the items on that page could be cleaned up by removing the problematic language. There are many more articles that contain some of the language identified in the proposed ban, but also have solid information content. --Orlady (talk) 05:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You have put in considerable effort to identify arguably problematic articles, selectively. I object to the negative thrust of that, and to the negative, wikihounding type of following of me that you have pursued, in general. This is one more instance to add to the list. (Others, please allow me some liberty here; I am not going to provide diffs here, but many here have seen a long history of Orlady following my edits and a long history of disputes, and will have observed deterioration in tone.) I am naturally going to perceive your creation of such a list as biased. It is not irrational for me to do so. You are suggesting reviewing just the problem cases, not the scope of a whole campaign. You are, I presume, identifying just articles that I created or edited. There are many worse articles in wikipedia in general, and NRHP articles in particular.
    Thanks for providing a cleanup list, however. I am not able to review them all right now; i can't really comment more today. I or someone else should put some kind of cleanup tag in them that will attract attention of NRHP editors. Elkman has used one cleanup tag that has not generally attracted any interest, though I posted its category within the ToDo list (which I created) that displays at wt:NRHP. I have created other cleanup tagging systems that worked better. It's a topic for wt:NRHP i think. Also, if you have some specific searches that you could share the specifics of, about how you found these, it would be helpful for you to share those specifics, so that others interested in cleanups can follow those procedures and improve those articles. --doncram 15:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose at least as long as the creator of this stub won't be banned for creating stubs. --Matthiasb (talk) 10:32, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • People seem not to be understanding this proposal. There is nothing in it that prevents Doncram from creating stubs. What is being proposed is that the stubs are initially placed in his userspace until such time as they are suitable for inclusion in mainspace. With a decent review system and/or further development by Doncram to eliminate issues which even he seems to agree sometimes exist, those stubs could soon be moved over in the vast majority of cases. - Sitush (talk) 10:48, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Of course, if you are being frivolous then please strike through your !vote. No-one is suggesting that Doncram be banned, let alone Jimbo. - Sitush (talk) 10:49, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, the point is: At least as long as it is not depreciated to create stubs no user should be critizised or whatsoever when creating stubs. Don't like stubs? Then ban stubs consequently and thoroughly but not under certain circumstances only and/or not on certain topics only. --Matthiasb (talk) 10:10, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I feel compelled to make some sort of comment here, as I've been impressed by Doncram's NRHP work before, but I've also been involved in a similar situation dealing with an editor prolifically creating substubs. I'm very wary of setting a precedent about minimum standards for articles, in part because of the possibility that such a bar would keep on getting raised. But from my past experience, I feel that systematic creation of article, as seems to be the case here, should involve a higher standard. It's one thing to polish up a few one-liner stubs someone tossed off on a busy afternoon. If they're cranking out, say, ten a night, it tends to burn up the people polishing very rapidly—high rates of article creation make a higher, rather than a lower, standard of article quality necessary.
    • I generally endorse Smallbones' remarks above, and the idea of having these articles flow through some sort of draft location in userspace or projectspace rather than entering mainspace directly seems like an excellent one. I do, regretfully, have to say that the previous discussion makes me worry about Doncram's compliance. This discussion was very civil (in comparison to the current one), and, to my uninvolved eye, generated a consensus that the output from the bot shouldn't go directly into article space without some sort of rewriting exercising human judgment. We appear to be re-fighting that issue right now, to very little profit.
    • Perhaps it would help if Doncram and the other members of WP:NRHP took a step back and discussed their goals for the project, without reference to specific articles of contention, and tried to reach some sort of consensus? I can't help but think, in looking over this, that part of the problem is that people's implicit goals seem to be quite different, and exposing some of those goals and assumptions to fresh air might improve understanding on both sides. Choess (talk) 12:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You summed it up nicely, and most of us would agree with Smallbones's solution. However, the NRHP project has continuously brought this issue to Doncram's attention, and he continuously ignores it. I seriously doubt there is anything the NRHP project can do at this point to convince Doncram that these proto-stubs don't belong in the mainspace. Bms4880 (talk) 15:20, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Many people have asserted that Doncram thinks Wikipedia policies don't apply to him. I don't think that's the case. Rather, he truly believes these stubs are NOT against Wikipedia policy. I am in agreement with him on that in most cases. I think he sometimes includes some things that could be moved to the talk page. But, in my opinion a stub with the infobox and a reference, especially if it has a picture in it, and a simple sentence saying that "Such and such was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 19??." is enough for a valid stub. Enough people had a problem with that, so that Doncram started trying to put in more, and that's where all this trouble began. He WON'T say something he can't be absolutely certain of, so he writes those factual but ambiguous statements that so bother everyone. Have any of these stubs that so bother some people been taken to AfD? I would really like to know whether they are, indeed, against Wikipedia policy. I would like to know whether the old one sentence stubs I used to make in order to add pictures are against Wikipedia policy. I pretty much quit creating stubs when they started "requiring" more than that bare sentence. Now, unless the documentation is available online and it's something I'm particularly intrested in, if there's not already an article, my pictures go only in the list article. Seeing my pictures in little tiny form on a list article is not all that exciting, so I don't post as many pictures as I used to. That's what raising the bar and forcing editors to do things they don't enjoy accomplishes, IMO. Lvklock (talk) 03:17, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


    Support ban; this would seem to b e the best course all round. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 14:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • Provisionally voting support. For me, it is not the content-less stub creation that is most bothersome, it is that Doncram insists that these sub-stubs are the only way to discuss the topic and also his near fanatic insistence that they be left alone. In many cases, consolidation of some of these sub-stubs (like when they are part of a MPS) or merging to locality articles (when they are historic districts representing the core of the locality) seems like an appropriate course of action pending further development. If Doncram is willing to loosen his ownership of his sub-stubs by allowing them to be developed not necessarily the way he likes, I am willing to put some of my time to actual article development of these sub-stubs that Doncram creates and leaves untouched for months. --Polaron | Talk 22:33, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Recent article work

    I'm breaking this off into its own section, because it's not directly relevant to the proposal we started with.

    Doncram started George Hancock (architect) on December 18, by pasting in a large unformatted list of NRHP properties, many of which had no relation to George Hancock. No substantial work on it was done until yesterday, when I removed the list and PRODded the article, as it didn't have any sourcing in it, and merely asserted that he was an architect who worked in the Midwest. Doncram removed the PROD, which was natural, but then proceeded to restore the list with the edit summary "restore a table in development. This architect designed many notable buildings". I then moved it to userspace, where he finished trimming the unformatted list. Later that evening, he created a redirect from Hancock Brothers to the userfied article with the edit summary "set up temporary redirect, until target is moved to mainspace". He then set up Hancock Bros. as a redir to Hancock Brothers, but a bot fixed the double redir to point to userspace. After those was speedied as a cross-namespace redirect, he moved the article back to its original location (now at least tolerable in mainspace) with the edit summary "restore to mainspace a) because needed in mainspace b) related redirects being deleted c) userspace location causing disruptions and overhead". He then recreated the Hancock Brothers redir, with the edit summary "recreate needed redirect that was deleted. Overhead caused by an editor having put the target into Userspace, now returned to Mainspace", and recreated Hancock Bros., again as a double redir.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:23, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I see Doncram already put his take on this above -- I hadn't read it before writing this. Naturally, our opinions on where the disruption lies differ slightly. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:26, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe that particular conflict between SarekOfVulcan and Doncram is explained in part by Doncram's belief (documented in this talk page discussion from January, wherein Doncram informed me that I am wasting my time when I fix the double redirects and disambiguation problems that are created when I move a page) that misdirected links and double redirects are not a problem. --Orlady (talk) 00:39, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Here is copy from above: (begin copy from above)

    One could take this as an answer to that question... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
    Your link doesn't work. I will agree that the George Hancock (architect) article needed development and further that I regard leaving <pre>...</pre> lists in mainspace more than briefly is not acceptable. I wasn't aware of the status of that one; i've now fixed it up somewhat (and SarekOfVulcan also edited it). --doncram 22:57, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
    Update: I and another editor or two developed the George Hancock (architect) article somewhat. SarekOfVulcan had moved it to userspace. This causes overhead: specifically 2 needed redirects from Hancock Brothers and Hancock Bros. were since deleted as being cross-namespace redirects. Linking between the architect article and buildings/NRHPs it itemizes is made awkward if in userspace. I moved it back and restored the needed redirects. It doesn't work to put articles in Userspace, in general: no one ever pays attention to them; categorizers and others will not find them; categories are often turned off; necessary redirects naturally created during development can't be created or will be deleted if they are, etc. --doncram 14:35, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

    (End of copy from above) Yes, i developed the architect article further, and in the process of going to and from the articles that turned out to be bluelinks to get pics and otherwise, i added links in those articles. It is part of the process, to go back and forth and add links. It doesn't work to have some articles in mainspace and some in userspace, and bots interfering. Thank you for agreeing that the article is "at least tolerable in mainspace". Hopefully no more needs to be said, this is done. Thanks. --doncram 16:02, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC?

    This discussion is getting very difficult to follow. Does anyone else think that an RfC/U would be a more productive method of discussing this? Indicate support/opposition below. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:31, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    That would be an RFC about what? I don't welcome an RFC/U about me, if that is what you suggest. I am just off a one-week block by SarekOfVulcan, only to run into accusations at my Talk page by Orlady on unrelated-to-the-block topics (then moved to her Talk), which SarekOfVulcan watched and then opened the present proposal here focused upon me. SarekOfVulcan also previously opened an RFC/U about me. Elkman also previously opened an RFC/U about me. I am feeling a bit persecuted here. I don't welcome quadruple or octuple or whatever number of jeopardy that would be. I was considering asking for arbitration, to address my perception of a pattern of wikihounding, and where there would be active management by arbitration rules to stop tangential discussions about whether sourced articles on notable topics are allowed in Wikipedia or not, and about other tangents. I would appreciate advice, separately, about that possibility.
    I would welcome this AN proposal being closed with rejection of the proposal. About the NRHP articles, which I was starting in a generally approved program, I will welcome comments in appropriate discussion for improvement of starter /drafts, and will seriously take implied or explicit suggestions from all comments here into account. --doncram 01:48, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not suggesting this as a way to "persecute" you, and I resent being painted in such an antagonistic light. I am proposing this as a way to organise debate so that it is easier for users to present concerns about your conduct AND for you to respond individually to their concerns without having such a nightmarish web of tangled discussion threads as above. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:53, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Again, one has to wonder... if there has been so much discussion about you, maybe you should start thinking.... "Maybe it's me?" Just my observation.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:00, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think an RFC/U would help. I tried that once, and it went absolutely nowhere. Another RFC/U about Doncram would generate more, but different walls of text, and would never achieve a behavior modification. Just politely telling Doncram to stop creating mechanically written, thinly populated stubs hasn't worked either. I'm starting to think that only a request for arbitration would solve this problem. (Either that, or I could go completely insane and run screaming off the end of the end of Bridge No. 5757, but that probably wouldn't help.) (Or would it help if I went completely insane and ran screaming off the end of the Seventh Street Improvement Arches?) --Elkman (Elkspeak) 04:12, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Personally, I'd recommend the Canton Viaduct. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:25, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Arbitration would be fine too, perhaps better. What I desire here is some form of organisation in the "walls of text" in addition to a decisive outcome one way or another. The current threads here are so convoluted that I've lost track of much of the debate. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 09:21, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Problem is, without the RFC/U first, the ArbCom will just kick it back to the community. Given that Doncram just posted "I would also appreciate your supporting me in publicly discounting others' future criticisms in general" (click the link for context, but it's almost as horrifying with context), I think things should be moved along without delay. I didn't realize quite how far out of step with community editing norms he was before that line.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:36, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Please do click that link and see the context. In that comment, I agree fully to what critic Dudemanfellabra requests. It's not horrifying. I am becoming horrified that SarekOfVulcan can take this comment, mild in larger context and not a personal attack, and use it to justify a week-long block. Or watch an adversarial conversation at User talk:Orlady started by her pouncing upon a first draft which I updated in subsequent edits before she posted her blast, to justify a Topic ban request. Or now seizing upon one comment towards justifying something else. Is this a big game of "Gotcha"? What SarekOfVulcan seems to object to is my acknowledging that there is likely to be continued dispute about the fully sourced accurate new articles about NRHP sites. And I am mildly irritated by some various shortages of understanding, including about the difficulty of setting up better program to support NRHP editors, than the system which Elkman provides, which is the main thrust of what I am doing. Not one editor here, besides me, has tried using the demo system, set up during the WikiProject NRHP discussion. So some mild frustration on my part is justified, and I should not be hauled away for saying it.
    I agreed to what Dudemanfellabra wants. Please consider that. --doncram 13:39, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't understand your objection to that bit; I see it as essentially saying "I'd appreciate it if you'd help me to show that others' criticisms are invalid". On the RFC thing, I reluctantly agree that this is the best option. Contrary to what Doncram seems to be saying up above, there haven't been tons of RFCs about him: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Doncram exists, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Doncram 2 was deleted, and there was never a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Doncram 3 or a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Doncram 4. Assuming that there wasn't one whose creator skipped several numbers, there have only been two. You'll notice that the first one was somewhat related to this, as the introduction mentions disputes over Doncram's inclusion of statements of "The district has some significance" in very miniscule NRHP stubs. I really wish we didn't have to go this way, since Wikipedia isn't officially a bureaucracy, but if we must, we must. By the way, Doncram, this isn't double or triple jeapordy, as that applies when you're brought up multiple times for the same thing; if you do something, are brought up, and do it again, it's new charges and not double jeapordy. Nyttend (talk) 11:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that's exactly what my objection is. How about waiting for the criticisms before asking someone to decide they're invalid? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:52, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Fine, I agree to wait for future criticisms before responding to them. But it seems rational to anticipate future criticism (given perennial complaints about stubs not being perfect at once (which will always be a feature of wikipedia in biographies and in science articles and in every kind of topic area) and it seems rational to ask/pressure likely future critics to do some actual testing, within the rationally designed, approved demonstration program, before they offer their criticisms of the next demonstration trial. --doncram 13:39, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Resolution

    Above, Doncram has agreed to a solution that I think accomplishes the goal of this discussion without technically "banning" Doncram. The details of the proposal are as follows:

    • Later today, I will go through and make editable (i.e. remove all the <pre>...</pre> tags) Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Grand Forks County, North Dakota/drafts, which is the source of many of the articles in question here. Then I will develop a few of the stubs on that page (not in mainspace) to remove ambiguous statements and fill in the NRHP document references. After developing a few there, I will post back here and make sure the quality to which I bring the stubs (though obviously not FA or even Start-quality status) is acceptable. If they are, I will move the few stubs I develop into mainspace (and possibly tidy up a few that have already ben created by Doncram or others on the list).
    • While I am editing these stubs, Doncram agrees not to create any stubs, though his help in developing stubs on the /drafts page is welcomed.
    • In future counties on which Doncram uses his bot output, Doncram agrees to make the /drafts page editable and develop the articles there. The articles he develops using the bot in the future will be required to match the quality that I put out later today. If it is impossible (e.g. no NRHP document or other source online) to clarify the ambiguous statements outputted by the bot, he will notify the WP:NRHP project, and members will look over the stub–which will still be on the /drafts page and not in mainspace–before deciding what to do.
    • The "Recent Changes" feature (e.g. this one for the Grand Forks stubs) will be used to make sure than Doncram is not promoting stubs of questionable quality any more. Anyone interested in keeping an eye on the process can periodically browse this list (and later, other counties' lists) to check up on progress.

    Pending Doncram's acceptance of this proposal here, I have decided to withdraw my support of this topic ban and Oppose it. I now ask all those that !voted in support of the proposal to consider this resolution and change their !vote to "Oppose" as well.(Redacted after Doncram's comment below and then reinstated after clarification) A watchful eye will still be needed, but for now, I think this suffices to wrap up the discussion.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:48, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I agree to try to provide meaningful trial of a different form of /drafts, accomplishing what Dudemanfellabra wants in substance. I don't specifically agree to extremely specific details that Dudemanfellabra is specifying here or that he will dictate by edits on one page. He cannot exactly dictate, in detail, what i must do. I assure you that i will accomplish the substance of what he wants for a future trial, which I was suggesting for a different county in a different state. The substance is that the /drafts in a new trial should facilitate edits on the /drafts page (not in mainspace) before stuff is copied over. I am willing to honestly try to make that work, and D is willing to try testing out the existing way, I thought he agreed.
    I have received plenty of input here in this discussion, which I will take into account. I do not promise to meet specific quality standards and I do not promise to satisfy Dudemanfellabra's ongoing concerns or to submit to some process with sanctions if someone else judges an article is not up to their standard. That's too overreaching. Read what I agreed to further above. However, I can't talk more now, really have to go. Something here should work, but you cannot contract on it in exact terms probably. I will try to meet D's concerns and to do a trial as he wishes, is what i said. --doncram 18:01, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Unfortunately, Doncram's reply does not indicate acceptance of this proposal. Also, I note that the proposal does not provide a path for addressing the many deficient stubs he has already created, such as the collection I compiled at User:Orlady/List. When I've put cleanup templates on pagebuildings like those in the past, or userfied them, edit warring and tantrums have ensued. I'd like to know that doncram will not pitch a fit if those sorts of measures are employed. Orlady (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Doncram, the entire purpose of making the /drafts page editable is so that the stubs can be developed there and not in mainspace. While I am thrilled that you are agreeing with the idea of making the page editable, that only provides a framework to solve the problem at hand; it doesn't actually solve it. If all you're agreeing to is to make the /drafts editable, then nothing is stopping you from creating the "accurately vague" stubs which are the focus of this discussion.
    To solve the problem entirely and end this discussion would require your agreement to only promote stubs that didn't have the "accurately vague" phrases in them and the promise of ongoing arbitration by other editors. Without that requirement, making the /drafts pages editable serves little purpose.
    I have struck out my !vote change above in light of your response, but the strike doesn't have to stay. Maybe you're fearing that my standards (after being agreed to by editors here, of course) will be too high for you to follow? If that is the case, I would suggest waiting until a few articles are developed on the /drafts page. If, after seeing what we suggest minimum development should be, you still think the bar is too high, then we will have to find a different method to resolve this conflict. I think, however, that you will be pleasantly surprised by how little this proposal is asking of you.
    In a county where I am implementing the version of /drafts you prefer, to facilitate editing there, I will abide by that mode of operating. I wasn't expecting to go backwards and manually change the /drafts page for Grand Forks. It is almost done; it is not worth investing manual edits there. But, if you want to convert it manually, I will abide by that there, and i will program a next batch for some other county implementing that type of approach (and better, as my programs are already better than the Grand Forks /drafts version). I think this is the thrust of what you want. I will cooperate in allowing you to prove to me that that way can work. I am perfectly willing to provide batches that facilitate other editors to more easily create good articles; that is the point of all the hours I put into programming already. That is fully agreeing to what you want, I believe. (I now see Dudemanfellabra's clarification far above, and accept that, including "As far as future criticism goes, I can make no promises here. I believe that if you stick to the system that I will implement later today with the Grand Forks /drafts page, you won't receive as much criticism. If you, however, dip back into your mass substub creation, I won't blindly defend you.") I just can't promise, either, to never create any other NRHP stub articles. There are various good reasons why I create scattered short articles, not part of a county-based campaign, using the Elkman generator if it is a NRHP article (for example, to resolve a naming issue or to defuse a situation where a new-to-disambiguation editor takes issue with one redlink on a dab page). I believe Dudemanfellabra and I have been talking together about the main thrust of article generation campaigning using my programming. I agree to direct my effort within that to accommodate his and others' preferences for a while at least. I cannot agree to something putting broad restriction upon me alone, among all editors, not to ever offend any judge on quality. This is agreeing with Dudemanfellabra, but not accepting over-arching, open-ended restrictions with unintended consequences. I believe Dudemanfellabra can recognize this, and can recognize that my word is good. But simply put, to head off future misunderstandings, I am not agreeing to a broad editing restriction, which would not be justified, for my building Wikipedia by creating sourced articles on notable topics. --doncram 22:32, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I never said that you shouldn't be allowed to create stubs, and that is not the focus of this discussion. The focus of this discussion is that the stubs you create shouldn't include ambiguous language in them like "was designed and/or built" or "has other significance in ____." This restriction would not only apply to you, as you seem to think from your above comment; it would apply to anyone using your /drafts bot. I do believe the restriction (that no stubs that come out of this bot can still include the vague language when moved into mainspace) will be longstanding, and failure to comply with the standards drafted will probably result in future hardships.
    I have now removed that strikethrough and will begin working on the Grand Forks articles later tonight. After I develop a few to the minimum standard I believe they should be before moving them into mainspace, I will post back here.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Replying to Orlady now, I agree that this proposal does not address those stubs already created by Doncram (or other editors). To further show willingness to compromise with Doncram, how about you join me–after I have developed a few stubs from Grand Forks–in cleaning up those articles listed on your userpage? Doncram is invited to help as well, of course, but he can't be required to scan through six full years of work and find every single problem article out there. As these problem articles are found in the future, the project can work together to bring them up to the standards we set here or at some later discussion at the project. If Doncram agrees to create future stubs at or above that standard, eventually all the problem articles will be repaired. Sound like a deal?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:06, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I hope no one takes that to mean Dudemanfellabra is suggesting that there exists six years of all-bad work out there. Not sure if I have been editing six years, or if that is the start-date of the WikiProject NRHP (before me). I have done a lot of great work, and the articles that I started or developed or encouraged others in the development of, comprise a pretty good chunk of Wikipedia now. At some point I assessed that NRHP articles make up 1 percent of Wikipedia, about 30,000 out of 3 million articles. About scattered articles that could be better, sure those do exist, and can be tagged for cleanup. Even though probably all could have been fully compliant with all standards and even to have represented best practices of their time. Dudemanfellabra has worked with me on several huge cleanup campaigns of NRHP articles on various specialized matters, and is aware of other huge cleanup campaigns i have pursued. Cleanup campaigns are fine and good. I facilitate NRHP cleanup campaigns, including by use of the ToDo list posted at the NRHP wikiproject. --doncram 13:48, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd be willing to help clean up the vague sub-stubs in Connecticut (assuming Doncram relinquishes his de facto ownership of these sub-stubs). As Connecticut NRHP documents are all online, this would be fairly straightforward to do. --Polaron | Talk 22:25, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I am glad to have your help developing the Connecticut articles, Polaron. Your and my past disagreement was mostly about your hijacking the NRHP article titles in Connecticut to redirect to town/village/other articles which did not describe and were not the appropriate place to describe the NRHP topics in detail. This disagreement seems largely resolved, by a long mediated discussion leading to some development of articles and some removals of the redirects (to restore the redlinks), and then since by my creating most of the missing NRHP articles. Please do help develop them further. Thanks. --doncram 13:48, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Just be aware that cleaning up of some of these vague stubs can sometimes mean merging when a locality and historic district are essentially the same. I hope you're fine with that option now. --Polaron | Talk 14:03, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    If you are suggesting you are going to proceed with undiscussed unilateral merges, contrary to specific previous discussion in mediation about each contested one of those, please don't do that. You should be fully aware that redirects and mergers of those topics are basically contested. If you are suggesting there are cases where additional research provides new information which you are now willing to share, that can and should be discussed at Talk pages, in merge proposals, and I look forward to the organization of topics being improved by such discussions and decisions, sometimes for mergers. Thanks. --doncram 14:37, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, but that "offer" doesn't work for me, Dudemanfellabra. I hasten to say that I have had some very pleasant and productive collaborations with Doncram, but there have been way too many negative interactions -- and I am utterly uninterested in becoming his designated cleaning lady. The fact that he creates scores of deficient pages about obscure topics, and I notice those pages, should not obligate me to devote my personal life to making them into decent articles. I have no interest in the vast majority of the topics about which he has created his ridiculous stubs; my interest is in ensuring that these deficient articles don't remain in article space in their dreadful condition (and I've discovered many of them by searching on peculiar text strings). Even though I don't care about the topics of most of his stubs, I've cleaned up plenty of Doncram's stub creations over the years. Because of his attitude of ownership toward those stubs, far too often I've gotten grief for my cleanup efforts (for example, on multiple occasions he has castigated me for not writing to the state authorities to request copies of the National Register nomination forms so I could fix his articles to his satisfaction, instead of doing it my way). When I identify a page like the current version of Noel Owen Neal House or the current version of Red River Bridge (Arkansas) as inadequate for article space, I believe that I should be able to either (1) insist that it be moved out of article space until it is improved to minimal quality for article space, (2) remove the offending language, or (3) insert appropriate cleanup templates (for example, inline templates such as {{what}}, which generates a request to "clarify", {{vague}}, and {{by whom}}) on the page to give it a chance of appearing on somebody's "to do" list and to notify users and newbies that it's not exactly deemed to be an example of Wikipedia's best work. I am tired of having those kinds of efforts be rewarded by accusations of pointyness and by pointless edit warring (for example, see the 2-3 February 2010 counterpoint in this page history over my effort to remove Doncram's deliberately vague sentence "The district and the village are substantially similar"). I've been through this sort of thing way too many times with Doncram already. --Orlady (talk) 01:43, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed it is fair to call for you to get the NRHP document that would reasonably be expected to resolve some informational issue, on several occasions, when you have battled unreasonably-in-my-view on small points. You have sometimes emphasized your disdain and dislike for the topics and the related sources: then, why on earth are you focusing upon them? And if choosing to be involved, I think you should defer to others who are actually interested, and not make a big deal to find fault in small matters. It often seems to me that you are following me to find fault (which you acknowledge), and in your eagerness to find fault you make biased judgments. I observe that you are sometimes absolutely wrong about content facts and about Wikipedia policy, and my former respect for you as an editor is diminished each time that happens. Also, you have different subjective opinions on how best to write something, which are subjective, and your following me and battling on subjective matters contributes to making Wikipedia a more unpleasant place. It seems like wp:wikihounding. The exact term you cite, about district and village being substantially similar, is one I already mentioned somewhere else in this AN discussion, as an example of an accurately ambiguous term which you disputed. As Orlady fully well knows, that was negotiated language used to settle, between Polaron and me with help of a mediator, a lot of dispute about Connecticut NRHP topics where Polaron had battled to redirect/force mergers, where in fact the relationship of a district to a village was not known. Accurately stating the ambiguity in that way, was part of settling a bigger problem. Orlady's role throughout that mediation was, in my opinion, that of a spoiler, seemingly trying to prevent settlement and to extend dispute and unpleasantness. As here, IMO. --doncram 14:37, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


    I have now developed a few stubs to what I think should be the bare minimum standard for copying them into mainspace. The two examples I did can be seen here and here. Though, obviously, the stubs can be developed much more using the references given by the bot, I think they are a big improvement over the raw output/vague statements that are the focus of this discussion. Doncram, that is all we are asking you to do.. nothing too grand; just a little effort. It took me about 15-20 minutes for each of those two; one would assume that the process would go faster after a routine was formed. Can you agree to do at least that much (and ideally more, though that's only my wishful thinking) for future stubs that you create using your /drafts system? And to others, do you agree that those two examples–though I agree not ideal–are at least acceptable to be copied to mainspace?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:20, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I believe they are fine and i edited them further, to add see also links to one another (which show as redlinks because the targets are not at the mainspace intended locations, and to add coords. Please do copy them to mainspace. --doncram 13:25, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Working off Orlady's list I just did something similar here, here, here, here and here in under 45 minutes. If Doncram does not revert these it will be a good start. Station1 (talk) 06:36, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I've expanded on Station1's work here so that it is now Grand Forks Woolen Mills. IMO, the point to which Station1 took the article is the minimum that is acceptable for mainspace (although perfectly acceptable - what I have done merely proves Doncram's argument but I suspect this is an exceptional example in terms of info immediately available). - Sitush (talk) 08:25, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I am happy to see the further development of the Grand Forks Woolen Mills article. Extraordinary interest has now been shown in the NRHP listings of Grand Forks County. Thanks for contributing there. --doncram 13:25, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Sitush does remarkable work in researching and documenting industrial history. --Orlady (talk) 00:20, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Washington School (Grand Forks, North Dakota), Midway Bridge (Johnstown, North Dakota) and St. Michael's Church (Grand Forks, North Dakota) got straight reverts, followed be a little cleanup. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:35, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, they are improved articles now, don't you agree, including that they have the somewhat-complicated-for-newbies inline ref in complete form for the NRHP docs, and some more factual development from the NRHP doc. It was easier to revert Station1 and then work ahead, than to reconstruct. I did add back a topic sentence Station1 had composed (though it was only based on info I had already put into in the article) to the Midway one. These edits by Station1 were all of the type showing that he did not read the NRHP nom doc, and removing accurately ambiguous statements rather than resolving the ambiguity. Some other edits, including by SarekOfVulcan and by Polaron in various of these ND and CT articles, have shown some actual reading and positive contribution. --doncram 19:45, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Obviously I do not agree. I believe Doncram just doesn't get it. Based on his extreme ownership tendencies, inability to stop reverting certain editors, contentious and defensive responses throughout this proposal, and rejection of Dudemanfellabra's proposed resolution, I will not be changing my Support !vote above. Station1 (talk) 20:27, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    There are some ways of editing these that amount to negative editing, and some which are positive and building. I have in the past often viewed Orlady's just-again-self-described as resentful, fault-finding editing, as detracting from articles in progress. Her behavior is, in my opinion, hateful and shameful. Station1's edits here may be well-meaning, but I view this "cleanup" by Station1 of one here, as taking the article backwards. Specifically, instead of reading the NRHP nom and adding the author and date of preparation to the inline reference, and beginning to develop from the reference, instead Station1 removed it as an inline reference, stripped out the date and author blanks, and moved it to an external link. So my first step in further improving the article would be to revert his edit. I think the quality of edits depends on your purpose, whether you are trying to build and provide information for the local and other readers who might then dig in and add more, or if your purpose is to find fault and complain and tear down. If you don't like the article, I would prefer you take it to AFD. --doncram 13:03, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Actually, since that listing is not being used to reference any specific information in the article at present, Further Reading is a perfect place for it. Then, when it's used to source information in the article, it can be moved back into an inline ref. I'd suggest adopting this format in your program going forward. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:25, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Which would defeating the purpose of facilitating locals and other editors in further development of the articles. I agree that there should be some information used from the reference; that is why I am providing it. There is no requirement in Wikipedia that articles must meet any particular quality standard in the first edit. You can add a cleanup tag if you want; you can prod or AFD it (though, if you know the topic is wikipedia-notable, you should not because you are wasting many editors' time). --doncram 13:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't understand how that prevents further development of the article, when the information is right there, and clearly tagged as being something you'd want to read for more information. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Providing a fully formed complicated reference to the NRHP nomination document is a help to most local editors who don't know how to format that. Dudemanfellabra, in this AN discussion, acknowledges that providing that is a big advance in my /drafts over what the competing system (Elkman's system) provides, and it is obviously beneficial. The NRHP nom doc reference is often/usually going to be the main reference to be used in developing a lot about the topic, and should be invoked repeatedly in the article. Removing it as an inline reference is a step backwards. If you don't understand this, you are showing that you are not interested in NRHP articles, and you should not be making AN proposals to micromanage in that area, IMO. --doncram 14:46, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    If you are going to use the nomination document as an inline source, then at least pull something out of it, as I did here with the information about the architect, John W. Ross(btw, the linked guy is in Iowa.. same person?). In this edit, I used the nomination form as an inline reference, mostly for the word "built" instead of your "built or has other significance." Doing something like that would allow you to use it as an inline reference. If you don't do something like that, though, I agree that the reference should be in a "Further Reading" section. I didn't think about that when I was editing those two, but I now think the MRA document (not the nomination form) should be in a Further reading section on those two as well. I'll go ahead and do that and move them into mainspace.
    As to the proposal, will you accept the terms and at least do this much work on the /drafts page before moving the stubs into mainspace?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 15:59, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I've given my substantial agreement to what Dudemanfellabra wants, already. I don't want wikilawyers following and saying, in the future, that some article I created does not exactly meet "at least this much work", whatever that means, in the first edit in mainspace, in all future edits of mine. More specifically now to I do agree, for articles in the /drafts of Grand Forks and in at least one yet-to-be-created /drafts of some future demonstration for a different county, to include the NRHP nomination document as an inline reference (which I was already doing) and to work awkwardly in non-mainspace for an edit or two which would include some information from the NRHP doc, so that the inline reference can hang on a specific fact, rather than on a placeholder statement that was always meant to be replaced eventually. In many/most articles in Grand Forks I already did that, just not in the first edit. I hope this clarifies for Dudemanfellabra that I will cooperate in developing a batch of NRHP articles in the way that he is suggesting, so he can try to show that works better. I am not going to try to sabotage those trials. If I am questioned too much, I begin to think you are doubting my agreement is good. I said I would do what I understand you want, Dudemanfellabra, in substance that will probably involve more than is written out here in wikilawyerspeak. --doncram 17:55, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't mean to sound like I am doubting your agreement, Doncram, but I think many people here really need a clear-cut statement from you saying that you will refrain from creating stubs with those vague statements in them. I acknowledge that you have done so lately, with at least two examples of that on my talk page right now. I notice you reference above to "the /drafts of Grand Forks and in at least one yet-to-be-created /drafts of some future demonstration for a different county." That's a big step, I know, but I think what will definitively put to rest the idea of this ban (which seems to already be falling apart due to your cooperation anyway) would be a statement saying that you will not only develop to the minimum standard the remaining stubs in Grand Forks and one future county, but indeed for all future counties. Like I said, I trust you will do so, but without the pure, set-in-stone evidence of a single statement from you, I fear many others that have supported the ban will not.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:39, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Btw, I've updated the links above, and the two articles can now be found at Grand Forks Mercantile Building 1898 and Grand Forks Mercantile Co..--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:12, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    new issue: false proposals

    SarekOfVulcan has now opened Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John W. Ross, towards deletion of an article linking to/from several of the Grand Forks articles. It appears to me to be a possibly "false" proposal, in that he does not believe the article should be deleted, but is opening an AFD to force further development of the topic. If so, IMO that is bad practice: one should use a cleanup type tag and discuss informational issues at the Talk page instead (where SarekOfVulcan is indeed commenting). SarekOfVulcan could reply here and in the AFD to assert he really does believe it should be deleted, which I would accept as meaning this was not a false proposal.

    However, SarekOfVulcan has opened other false proposals where he will not take a stand, and I think it is not helpful. Specifically, SarekOfVulcan noticed dispute between Orlady and me and others about the name of an NRHP historic district in Tennessee, and opened Talk:Jonesboro Historic District (Jonesborough, Tennessee)#Requested move in an open-ended way, without taking a position. I objected and asked him to state his actual view, and he has not. If you are not in a position to support your proposal, I think it is unhelpful for you to try to force many other editors to address the topic in a way satisfactory to close the proposal. My view is that the timing of the rename proposal was not helpful, rather that the issue was already being discussed, and that it would be better for time to go on and for editors to collect more information and to develop material in the related articles which would likely settle the issue (that is my view, the timing was wrong, which will not change if someone chimes in to say they think the timing was right to). Let's not argue the specific merits of the naming for that district here; my point is that he opened a proposal that he did not himself support.

    Another instance is the RFC/U which SarekOfVulcan opened about me previously, which he did not himself endorse within the 48 hour requirement, and there was only one other endorser within the time limit, so, after some mean-spirited-in-my-view discussion here at AN, it was, correctly, deleted.

    This AN proposal, also, seems to be somewhat of the same nature. SarekOfVulcan put forward a proposal directed at me, in a trial way perhaps, that has attracted both opposition and support. Just because a proposal can be made, doesn't mean it should be made. There are considerable costs involved; these put demands on other editors and force discussions at times when the proposal is not "ripe". For example, the present whole AN proposal is not timely in the sense that it forces earlier discussion than would have happened more naturally in expected review at WikiProject NRHP of the Grand Forks and other /drafts program trials, upon the completion of the trials. This forum unnecessarily attracts editors who are not familiar with NRHP articles and sources available and the competing system (Elkman's system) and the past discussion, and seems, broadly, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    I don't appreciate having multiple proposals made repeatedly about me. It only takes SarekOfVulcan a few keystrokes to open a new proposal; this is imposing a lot of costs on me and others. Of course there will be persons attracted to any proposal to ban stubs, such as two British editor voting Support for this proposal, with reference to some stub campaign in Britain that I had nothing to do with (one of the editors removed his/her Support vote, when that was clarified). Particularly if the proposals are "false", just testing the waters to see if someone might agree, without the proposer putting some credibility and commitment into actually supporting the proposal, the proposal should not be made at all. --doncram 18:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Who is the other British editor? I do hope that you are not referring to me. - Sitush (talk) 21:29, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Deor's support diff and this 1st and this 2nd step in Mathsci's support and Mathsci's reversal after i explained no association. --doncram 22:01, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for clarifying. I do not habitually look at the nationality of contributors - it is their contributions that matter, not their origin. - Sitush (talk) 22:16, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    WikiGuide RfCs

    Would an admin (or admins) close the following RfCs CSD criteria for new articles, being templated, and socialising on WP? Crossposted to WP:VPP. Thanks, Cunard (talk) 03:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not sure these RfC's should be "closed". I'm not saying they shouldn't, but I am raising the question. Not all RfC's are closed (I think) and not all RfC are necessarily looking for a GO/NOGO decision -- they are just that, requests for comments and conversation about a matter. In the case of Wikipedia:Wiki Guides/Allow socializing for instance, the proposal is
    "Wikipedia should allow some amount of non-article related socializing on talk pages and possibly increase the visibility of Wikipedia's IRC channels."
    It's quite possible that this is designed to foment further discussion that might lead to specific proposals for specific changes. If a person were to close this RfC with a result of "accepted", how exactly would the person then implement "Wikipedia should allow some amount of non-article related socializing"? Changes to the WP:NOT page and other pages, writing a new policy, or what? Similarly, at Wikipedia:Wiki Guides/Minimize talk page templates, the proposal is
    "When dealing with new users, we should discourage excessive templating and encourage more personal messages."
    If a person were to close this RfC as "accepted", how would she then implement this? The proposal at Wikipedia:Wiki Guides/Change CSD to userspace drafts is more specific and perhaps is amenable to a close. If closed as "accepted", though, implementation would require some changes to Twinkle as well as text changes at policy/procedure. Herostratus (talk) 17:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree. I think stuff like this needs more discussion, and if someone is going to close it, the close should mainly summarize the main points and arguments and not try to locate some consensus for something. –MuZemike 20:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. Not every RFC asks for consensus; these seem more like organized discussions, and as such should be closed by summary and not by consensus. --Jayron32 20:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with the above comments that the closes should be summaries of the above RfCs, rather than than implementations. Cunard (talk) 22:48, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes a summing-up would be welcome. Herostratus (talk) 00:11, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Future timestamp to prevent archiving. Cunard (talk) 23:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    overuse of speedy deletion

    It's been a while since I came back, but I really must deplore some of the "overly quick" decisions some people have been using when speedy deleting something when really, these articles should be put through afd. I see no reason why a museum director and Ivy League graduate's arts magazine should be deleted with the same prejudice as some punk who wrote an article about his skatebook. I wanted to put that article up for afd at the time, but I was in class but had no time to do so.

    Before speedy deleting, I at least ask that people look at the clues... if some people had googled "Tin Pei Ling" before speedy deleting her, they would have seen that the Singaporean national discussion of her online was immense. I only worry about all the legitimate stubs that get deleted because of lack of research.

    For example, yesterday I contested the speedy deletion of some band's article at talk:RT N& (because of technical issues, the speedy deletion template failed to create a talk page title that matched the article's name, and I am unable to recover the actual title of the article that has been presumably since deleted, but I did not know it at the time). Based on my own judgment (and the fact that five different interviews with five different media outlets were cited) I thought it should be put through afd. When articles are created with such background (and obvious citations!), I believe administrators should be compelled to do research rather than take the lazy way out. I mean, I couldn't judge for myself how notable those five different media mentions were, but that's what community process is for, right?

    In general, speedy deletions should be reserved for articles with no claim to notability, right? If the article makes a weak claim to notability -- like "so and so is the ruling party's candidate for so and so constituency" -- shouldn't the discovering administrator use afd? Why then does there seem to be a rampant culture of speedy deleting things without the slightest bit of diagnostic research (like a quick google)? Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 16:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Actually there are several regimes where speedy deletions are appropriate, you can see them at WP:CSD. As to Tin Pei Ling, thanks for bringing her to attention since I've now proposed deletion as a NN candidate for election (per WP:POLITICIAN and WP:GNG). So someone could say the same thing about you, that they are worried that illegitimate stubs are kept because of your unclear grasp on deletion criteria...tho I personally wouldn't say such a thing. You were clearly acting in good faith to improve the encyclopedia, just as those people who are nominating the articles for deletion are as well. Syrthiss (talk) 17:29, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Natalinasmpf appears to have a good grasp of the speedy deletion criteria. It is not appropriate to speedily delete an article about a political candidate on A7 grounds, because that does constitute a credible claim of significance. Thparkth (talk) 17:56, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    (1) who? why does La goutte de pluie have a different username and talkpage? and (2) I never said A7 applied. Syrthiss (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    She is definitely of clear importance -- she has so many articles in the press talking about her -- I am just at the moment overwhelmed with exams and I do not have time to write in factual statements citing those articles. But she is obviously notable. (She is also a member of the national executive council of the Young PAP). Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 19:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    And I would much prefer that prod be used much more than speedy. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 19:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    To answer Syrthiss's first question, Natalinasmpf changed names to La goutte de pluie (back in 2007) but apparently only half the signature was fixed to reflect the change (which isn't a big deal because the old account name redirects to the new anyway). As to using WP:PROD instead of WP:CSD, that's not a reasonable request. Proposed deletion serves one purpose; it allows for the uncontroversial deletion of articles (articles where nobody objects to deletion, even the author) when CSD doesn't apply. It saves all the work of an AfD. If one of the CSD criteria apply, that should be used instead of PROD, in fact sometimes when I see an article with a proposed deletion tag, if it meets one of the criteria at CSD I will delete it right then (citing the criteria of course). One is not a substitute for the other. -- Atama頭 18:37, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    It would be preferable if you tagged for CSD in such a case and allowed others to make a decision, instead of being nominator and deleter. Anyway, CSD is only essential for BLPvios and copyvios. Anything else, then no harm is done by allowing a little time. DuncanHill (talk) 10:37, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Per WP:POLITICIAN, status as a candidate for office is not an assertion of notability; mere candidates are not notable; so "so and so is the ruling party's candidate for so and so constituency" is not an assertion of notability. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes but she's not a mere candidate. The candidacy is unique partially because of the way elections work in Singapore. She has been mentioned many many many times in the press -- this would be obvious if the original deleter (or the person who proposed the speedy) had googled her in the first place! Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 19:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    And of course A7 asks only for an assertion of importance or significance, NOT notability.--Arxiloxos (talk) 20:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I can see that she has been mentioned many many many times in the press. She even has her own music videos, just like Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black! So this could be the article on a someday notable politician, or could be free advertising for a candidate for an election. A bunch of press articles remarking on a single event doesn't signify that someone is notable. In any case, Nuclear Warfare deprodded it and I'm not spun up enough to want to take it to afd. She will either be elected and notable, or not elected and possibly notable, or not elected and not notable and deleted. Syrthiss (talk) 11:42, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if she fails to be elected (and I hope she does), she remains notable because she remains an example (to most Singaporeans) of how a complacent ruling party was so arrogant as to offer such a weak and incompetent candidate because of perceived lack of strong opposition (or feeling confident to be co-running her with for prime minister Goh Chok Tong). Her notability has been the public outrage online against her -- but I don't have time to research really good resources to summarise this online backlash. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 10:29, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    WP:DRV is the proper venue where you'll be told again to pound sand. Tijfo098 (talk) 13:18, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Multiple accounts

    Just noticed a new user with apparent multiple accounts and claims of being an administrator:

    I suspect more to do with being a new user rather than socks, any suggestions or help appreciated, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 22:27, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I have opened an SPI case at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Ramesh_Hart --| Uncle Milty | talk | 01:14, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for that. MilborneOne (talk) 11:36, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I wouldn't normally ask, but...

    Can we please have some input at WP:ANI#Persistent editing abuse by User:TrackConversion, where there is possibly a sock of a banned editor causing major problems for WP:TWP members to sort out. Mjroots (talk) 05:27, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Current case-only redirect policy

    Hi, i am just an IP, but bear with me… What is the current policy regarding redirects that differ from their targets only by their titles' case? I have seen the village pump proposal about that, but did not see it come to any kind of solution. So, are they deleted, are they inserted, are they just left as they are?

    A few examples:

    Thanks for any advice you are able to give. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.70.81.136 (talk) 19:56, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Redirects are cheap. If it can be plausibly typed or linked that way then it's a valid redirect and won't generally be deleted. That doesn't mean a bot should go around creating redirects for all the alternative cases, but if it's done where appropriate then nobody will care about them. The guideline at Wikipedia:Redirect probably has more. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:09, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    If a redirect had no inbound links, would it be "eligible" for deletion or, without anything for or against it, would the status quo be upheld? I read the page in the Wikipedia namespace, however, it wasn't particularly enlightening (but maybe that's just me). Specifically, the point that "Go and Search ain't all there is" is brought up several times, but never actually explained in any sort of detail. Let's keep count:
    • Go (which has no problem with case)
    • Search (which I use case-insensitively all the time)
    • browser plugins which invoke a Search URL (which behaves pretty much like plain old Search)
    • internal links (which can be found and changed, trivially so)
    • external links (which cannot, at least not feasibly)
    • direct links like en.w.o/wiki/appd (which do not redirect to APPD like Go or Search would)
    The last case is arguably a Good Thing™, for a user does not generally expect URLs to be rewritten for case (except on Windows hosts). Which brings me back to my question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.70.81.136 (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Inbound links are generally not relevant, only whether it might get used by someone somewhere at some point. If someone's thought it useful to create one it'll generally be left alone. Consensus or reason can dictate otherwise of course. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:59, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your insight. In fact redirects seem helpful and if they don't, to someone else they surely will. Redirects are cheap, after all, and there is not much reason not to use them. There is but one problem with them, and that is inconsistency.
    Typing "metal gear 2: solid snake original soundtrack" in some Mycroft plugin (or Go, or Search) does the right thing, but "usb flash drive" does not. It gives redirects for nothing but upper or lower case a non-zero cost. There are a lot of cases where the benefits of a redirect outweigh this cost, but it can be argued that in many or even most cases the value of a redirect is questionable and does not justify that.
    That's just my opinion, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.70.81.136 (talk) 21:25, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Secondary vs. Tertiary Sources

    Hi,In section Allegations of Disagreement with Ali of article Fatimah I am running into two not-so-agreeing sources. One is Verena Klemm's Book Chapter titled: "Image Formation of an Islamic Legend: Fà†ima, the Daughter of the Prophet Mu˙ammad" published by Brill in this book. The other source is a tertiary one, i.e. Encyclopedia of Islam.

    The Tertiary source emphacises that Ali was rude and harsh (Shiddah and Ghelaz) to his wife during their marriage life without showing support (primary or secondary source). The secondary source however, mentions one occasion in the history where the wife complains about her husband's rudeness (Shiddah) to his father, i.e. Muhammad. Due to which the husband promises not to do anythig that his wife dislikes. The author of the secondary source provides primary sources to this incident.

    My question: Can I write just the secondary source and not the tertiary? Considering the following guideline of Wiki: ((Base articles largely on reliable secondary sources.)) [3]Kazemita1 (talk) 01:18, 29 April 2011 (UTC) p.s. I already posted it on reliable source notice-board but no one replied (yet)[reply]

    You should probably wait for a reply on the reliable sources noticeboard or post on the article's talk page. This noticeboard isn't really for questions about article content, so there's no need to fragment the discussion where it shouldn't be. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:25, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Question about recusal in unblock requests

    My question really stems from the following comment made by an administrator to me, during an unblock request.

    You do not get to choose which administrator reviews your unblock request, but you are free to make a new one if you do not like my review. -- Sandstein 14:00, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

    I've turned to Sandstein in times past, and had a reasonable response, and so when an opportunity arose for him to help diminish a dispute at another article, knowing he was an admin, I asked for his help. The response I got was filled with spite and vitriol, leading to a lot of acrimony from uninvolved editors and generally a big mess. Consensus eventually decided to let it drop, but in light of that incident, I decided that I would not turn to Sandstein for help ever again.

    My question is this. If an adminstrator has demonstrated actions that show a personal conflict with an editor, it only seems reasonable that you should be able to ask that they steer clear. To quote the WP:INVOLVED page:

    "In general, editors should not act as administrators in cases in which they have been involved. This is because involved administrators may have, or may be seen to have, a conflict of interest in disputes they have been a party to or have strong feelings about. Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute."

    So is Sandstein right in saying I can't request his recusal for certain things based on past actions, or is this possible? Thanks. -- Avanu (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    He's right that you should be entitled to request another admin, if you think there is a 'conflict' that matters, but I don't think that should stop them reviewing it in the first place if they think the conflict doesn't matter. From your perspective, it's a bit like a free roll of the dice. -- zzuuzz (talk) 17:35, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think that I'm involved (let alone engaged in any sort of conflict) with respect to Avanu. My sole interaction with them (that I remember) was in an administrative capacity: they asked me for administrative assistance in a dispute and I proposed a solution that Avanu did not agree with, that is, topic-banning all editors participating in the dispute.  Sandstein  19:08, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    My question is specifically about the ability of an editor to request recusal. The other information is an explanation of reasoning, but really isn't the question here. -- Avanu (talk) 19:29, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Then the answer to your question is "No." Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:28, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Request for this noticeboard

    At the top of this noticeboard there is a big blue box with a lot of text that essentially tells me what this board is not for. It wasn't until I clicked the "edit" button just now that I actually saw a notice telling me what exactly AN is for. Could someone copy that one-sentence statement into that big blue box? Without that clarification, I have no idea what the difference between AN and AN/I is, and I doubt I'm the only one. —KuyaBriBriTalk 18:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I've done this, as I don't see why not to, and it's fairly useful to have the purpose of the page in the page heading. Although this section should have gone on the talkpage really... ;) - Kingpin13 (talk) 22:53, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Regular Show

    The same thing happens every time with the Regular Show article: it gets locked, and then the instant it's unlocked, fanboys swarm upon it and add trivia, fancruft and other nonsense. Is there any way to put an end to this, or are we just going to keep playing whack-a-mole forever? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 02:26, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Three ideas:
    1. Permanently semi-protect the article
    2. Block any IP for adding such miscellany to the article
    3. Add an WP:Editnotice advising anyone editing the article that this is a serious encyclopedia and describe the undesired content and warn them that it is forbidden and preventative measures (such as the above) will be taken if they persist.
    —Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:39, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    2011 Yemeni protests move request pending

    I'm one of the main page editors over at 2011 Yemeni protests. I put in a move request on 28 April (UTC) and have since received consensus support. As this is a high-profile article (it has been featured in the News section of the front page multiple times, and recently) and I haven't encountered opposition to my request to move it to 2011 Yemeni uprising, citing verifiable sources and employing WP:COMMON as a guidepost, I was wondering if the move could be expedited rather than waiting several more days. I would certainly appreciate it. Cheers. -Kudzu1 (talk) 02:00, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Speedy keep determination request

    Please could an uninvolved administrator take a look at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 April 29#Recent deaths and either speedy keep it or make a comment explaining why you feel speedy keep is not appropriate. Full disclosure: I am one of the six users who have commented so far, all of whom are requesting a speedy keep. Thanks. Thryduulf (talk) 02:42, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd support immediate speedy-keeping. To anticipate two obvious questions, (1) I think Thryduulf's bringing this request to this board is an appropriate invocation of IAR, and (2) I'm not closing the RfD myself because I've never closed an RfD, and I'm not up to figuring out the templates at 11:00 p.m. on Friday night. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:48, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&oldid=426665416"