User talk:WhatamIdoing

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

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

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story · music · places

Happy new year 2025, opened with trumpet fanfares that first sounded OTD in 1725 (as the Main page has). -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:46, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good morning what can I help you with? Yes, the trumpets have sounded. 98.186.205.17 (talk) 04:32, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, BWV 123, my story today 300 years after the first performance, is up for GAN. Dada Masilo will be my story tomorrow. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:08, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My story today is about a composer who influenced music history also by writing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

... and today, pictured on the Main page, Tosca, in memory of her first appearance on stage OTD in 1900, and of principal author Brian Boulton. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:00, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Today, between many who just died, Tobias Kratzer on his 45th birthday who was good for an unusual DYK mentioning a Verdi opera in 2018, - you can see his work in the trailer of another one that I saw, and my talk page has a third (but by a different director). 2025 pics, finally. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I thought I'd write to you here regarding any requests for medical topics. Our students are pharmacy and biomedical science students so any topics that fall within these fields would be great. Of course the wider medical field is also OK. I apologise for not always being able to respond in a timely fashion but will do my best to keep checking back here. G.J.ThomThom (talk) 09:15, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@G.J.ThomThom, when does the class start (or at least start talking about Wikipedia)? Approximately how many students (or articles)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We've started! Pharmacy students are in the process of choosing topics. I ahve offered the 2 topics you have shared with me. Biomed students will start this process a little later. G.J.ThomThom (talk) 03:09, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I hope the class goes well. If you want to, you could post a list of the chosen topics for review at WT:MED. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:01, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there

Can I trouble you with a couple of questions? Students are at the stage of completing their articles. We are aware that primary sources are not desired and instruct students to search for secondary sources to support the information in the article. This is not always easy though. I am going through some of their articles and some of them have used primary sources. They have also used some commercial websites such as Mayo clinic etc. I'd be grateful for your thoughts about this. G.J.ThomThom (talk) 04:32, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sites like mayoclinic.com are usually acceptable only for uncontroversial information. See Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Other sources.

Can you give me links to a few articles that are the most in need of improved sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

story · music · places

Tout est lumière -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:50, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Christof May was hard to write. Please check for sensitivity. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My story is about music that Bach and Picander gave the world 300 years (and 19 days) ago, - listen (on the conductor's birthday) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:06, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I finally managed to upload the pics I meant for Easter, see places. - Also finally, I managed a FAC, Easter Oratorio. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:52, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I found myself thinking about this essay by Herbert Kohl today, and thought it might be of interest. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:49, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, it's an interesting essay.

It looks like Herbert R. Kohl could use some work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:07, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are so many pages that could use some work, and many others that would be good to create, and talk / noticeboard discussions that would be good to have. Maybe someday I'll work on improving the article on Kohl, but right now I'm not even getting to a couple of other educators already on my list (Philip Treisman and Lee Shulman), as I'm instead focused on improving articles about some of the things that are occurring in the Trump administration, where I'm also thinking about creating a couple of articles. At some point I also want to get back to the WP:SPS issue.

I find the Kohl essay useful in thinking about some interactions in discussions here, including my own occasional resistance to learning. FactOrOpinion (talk) 12:37, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we have plenty of opportunities to improve articles.

I've been wondering about the CTOP areas recently. Specifically, I've been wondering whether there are a handful of things that we have to explain over and over, and whether it might be useful to write them down somewhere. For example: Yes, the article Woman intentionally includes some information woman-because-gender-identity and not just woman-because-ovaries. No, Pseudoscience should not be used as a generic smear word just because you found one source that uses the word; give an accurate description, even if that means using sharp words like "perpetrated a criminal fraud" instead of "is pseudoscientific". Yes, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism are different things. No, we are not changing articles just because Trump issued a proclamation. (Why is there still no article about the No kings (slogan)? There was a spike in pageviews for the No Kings music album in February, but there is no hatnote pointing to the slogan.)

I'm not sure if it would help. I'm also not sure if we could keep it to, say, the top 10 basic mistakes, instead of a book-length exposition on all the ways in which a CTOP article can go wrong. I'm not sure that the community would have the willingness to defend such pages against POV pushers. It might even make it harder for consensus to change over time.

But imagine that I took an area like Wikipedia:Contentious topics/American politics, and I wrote a "How to stay neutral in CTOP/American politics" page, or a "First ten things to know about editing American politics articles". What do you find yourself repeating, especially to new editors and POV pushers in that area? Would it be useful to be able to say "Please read WP:10AP #4" just like you can already say "Please see WP:ELNO#EL4" or "I think this is WP:DISRUPTSIGNS #3"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think some of these things are more appropriately addressed with a Talk page FAQ or Current consensus section (like this one). As for more general issues, here are a few off the top of my head (if you disagree with any of them, please say):

• There's a difference between editorial bias and source bias. NPOV asks us to minimize editorial bias. Source bias is allowed, if use of the source is otherwise consistent with policies. Also, content from WP:NPOV that sometimes needs repeating: NPOV does not mean representing all views equally, but representing them in proportion to their treatment in RSs.
• GREL sources can make mistakes, so GREL ≠ reliable for everything it says. We shouldn't knowingly introduce false content, even if there are GREL sources saying it.
• Some sources present measures of news bias, but these are not as objective as they make themselves out to be; subjective choices influence where neutral is and how far from neutral a source is, even if these appear to be the result of a neutral math calculation. Subjective judgments about where neutral is may be different in different countries, different in different communities within a country, different between different editors.
• That you believe something strongly doesn’t guarantee that it’s true, and it may not even be a T/F kind of claim.
• That you believe WP's judgment about a source's general (un)reliability is due to editors’ CTOP views — rather than the source’s fact-checking, etc. — doesn't guarantee that that’s correct. That said, each editor should try to be careful about their personal values influencing their judgments about reliability.

I will say that I sometimes worry about my own biases / adherence to NPOV, in the sense that my choices about which sources to read aren’t themselves neutral, and my judgments about the proportionality aspect of NPOV are influenced by what I read. I’ll sometimes search for RSs with views that are different from my own, if I think they're underrepresented in an article relative to coverage in RSs, and I certainly don’t remove content just because it’s inconsistent with my political views, but other times I don’t feel like looking for RSs that promote ideas I disagree with. For example, in this version of the Response to the Department of Government Efficiency article, I believed that the Support section was shorter than it should be, but I just didn’t feel like putting my time into looking for RSs about that to make the article more consistent with NPOV. (Selbsportrait has since edited that article significantly, and I don’t know whether it’s as unbalanced now.) I doubt that I’m alone in these kinds of choices. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:58, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those points apply to everything, and a talk-page FAQ (of which I've written more than the average editor, so obviously I think they're helpful) is pretty narrow. I'm wondering if something should be in that in-between range. For example, big enough to cover all (or at least most?) of WP:AP2 but not so big that it covers every WP:CTOP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:13, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do edit a lot of AP2 articles, but nothing comes to mind for me at that in-between level. I'll try to keep the question in mind as I edit, and if I notice something, I'll let you know. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:50, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'd appreciate that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This still applies to everything, but I suspect the following kind of claim comes up more in AP2, or at least more in political topics (whether AP2 or not):

"WP editors are left-leaning, so in RSP assessments, editors are assessing left-leaning sources as reliable and right-leaning sources as unreliable, not because of their actual reliability but only because of their own political biases. You can see this RSP bias by comparing the RSP assessments with bias assessments from Media Bias/Fact Check, AllSides, and Ad Fontes Media."

What some editors fail to consider is that en.wiki's editors come from around the world, but these organizations use US raters, so their media bias ratings are US-centric. If the organizations used an international sample of raters, the direction of bias / degree of bias for any given news outlet might change. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:40, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just noticed that this is a variation on my third bullet point above. Never mind (hear that in the voice of Emily Litella). FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:46, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's that human tendency to believe that "I" have reasonable – and therefore moderate and centrist – views. It's the "and therefore" part that isn't actually reasonable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:51, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're an experienced Wikipedia editor. You know better than to post things like this. Your "summary" implies I'm trying to do something completely different from what I say I'm trying to do, and what I am in fact trying to do.

This is deeply unconstructive, and directly at odds with one of the most basic behaviour guidelines on Wikipedia.

We are discussing an article that does not represent reliable sources in a balanced way. Arguing that this needs fixing does not in any way imply that I (or anyone else) expects it to represent my own point of view. Oolong (talk) 07:52, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Oolong, I think that's exactly what's happening at Autism, and that it's been happening since long before your first edit there four years ago.

Here is the situation:

• There exist (in reliable sources; in the real world) a range of views on a given subject. For simplicity, we will say that the range is a continuum that runs from A to Z. Each source (and the Wikipedia article) can be placed on that continuum. Alice Expert writes a book that is "J"; Prof. I.M. Portant writes an article that is "Q"; a fringe scientist is "Z"; an activist's magazine article is "B"; and so on.
• A Wikipedia editor believes the Wikipedia article is unbalanced. This belief might be because the Wikipedia article actually is unbalanced, or this belief might be because the Wikipedia article is balanced but the editor's own POV, and (this is important:) therefore the sources the editor is familiar with, falls towards one end or the other. To use the continuum from the first point, the Wikipedia article (on average/taken as a whole; assuming there were some magical way to accurately assess it) might be "P" but be perceived as "H" by this editor and be perceived as a perfectly balanced "middle M" by another editor.
• The editor proposes moving the article somewhat towards what the editor perceives to be the middle. Note: not "to the middle in absolute terms", but "to the middle, according to what one human, with all their own biases, knowledge gaps, and limitations, understands the middle to be".

This is not specific to Autism. This happens in every WP:CTOP article. It is not a bad thing, so long as we understand what's going on. Specifically, we have to remember that an editor saying that an article isn't balanced on the "middle M" doesn't mean that the article actually has a problem, and even when we agree that it does have a problem, that doesn't mean that the editor's recommendation would produce an article at "M".

You happen to believe that the Autism article is not "M". (I agree.) You probably think it's not even close to "M". And you have proposed two solutions to get Autism to "M", or at least as close to "M" as humanly possible:

1. to "rebalance this entry" so that Autism matches your perception of the middle "M", or
2. to "split it: we could have one entry on autism as a medical concept (i.e. Autism Spectrum Disorder)".

You have proposed (as one of two options) that Autism represent your viewpoint about where "M" actually is, and that other content can be shunted to a separate article.

About Wikipedia:Assume good faith: I assume that you have made this proposal out of a deep desire to help Wikipedia. Have you read that guideline? It begins this way: "Assuming good faith (AGF) means assuming that people are not deliberately trying to hurt Wikipedia, even when their actions are harmful." I am convinced that you are not deliberately trying to hurt Wikipedia.

What I'd like you to understand about AGF is that it is possible to try to help Wikipedia and still engage in POV pushing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your summary claimed that what I want is for the article to "represent my POV, and if necessary, other POVs should be shunted to a separate article."

Can you see how this is a gross misrepresentation? Can you see how the accusation that I simply want it to represent my point of view is a clear accusation of bad faith - even with the caveat you've flagged up here?

'My POV' strongly suggests my POV on autism, not my POV on what a balanced article about it would look like; these are completely different propositions.

Many of your contributions to this discussion have been constructive to some degree, but this is, I think, at least the third time that you have posted something claiming to be a 'summary' which has completely misunderstood or misrepresented what people broadly aligned with the idea of neurodiversity are pushing for. Oolong (talk) 17:02, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, I cannot see that how saying someone wants an article to represent the POV that they believe to be true and correct, or the balance of POVs that they believe to be neutral, is an accusation of that person deliberately trying to harm Wikipedia.

Can you see how saying that you'd like to have most of the medical content to be taken out of Autism and relegated to a separate page (Autism spectrum disorder) would have the effect of downplaying the medical POV? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:36, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a very basic difference between wanting an article to represent 'the POV that they believe to be true and correct' and 'the balance of POVs that they believe to be neutral', which you have repeatedly elided.

My preferred resolution for the autism article has always been for it to reflect the views of major bodies of opinion in a balanced way.

If people insist that there must be an article which is all about the medical condition, autism spectrum disorder - i.e. autism, as seen by medical professionals - which is the position several people have explicitly taken, to justify excluding other perspectives - then that cannot be the main entry on autism, because reliable sources very clearly confirm that other perspectives are prominent and important. Oolong (talk) 08:38, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Consider the possibility of having an article dedicated to Autism (medical condition). What other articles, from the non-medical POV, would represent similarly significant views? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Should we list every terrorist who visited a mosque, or got married there, on the article about that mosque? It is a bit weird because we don't really do that for famous people who are not terrorists.

Even some dude who turned out to be innocent was listed.

I know religious people who visit their preferred type of place of worship where ever they go. Polygnotus (talk) 08:20, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would expect articles about Catholic churches to mention whether the Pope visited. I would expect the same to be true for some other famous people. Isn't there a church in Washington, DC that a lot of presidents attended over the year? It would be strange not to mention it. If the Kardashians were members of a notable church, or one of them got married at a notable church, I can't imagine the article about that church not mentioning it.

I would also expect church-related criminals to have that mentioned (e.g., sexual abuse perpetrated by church staff) and for at least "celebrity" criminals (e.g., Wild West gunslingers) to be mentioned if they have a connection. Think of it as the George Washington Slept Here phenomenon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I checked, and we don't do that for followers of other faiths. And we don't do that for notable people who aren't alleged terrorists.

And religious people who travel around a bit during their lives attend a bunch of different places of worship.

I would expect the same to be true for some other famous people. It is pretty difficult to figure out which notable people went to which synagogues or churches or gurdwara or whatever. Polygnotus (talk) 21:12, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I checked a "Churches in x" category but I found nothing comparable. There are a few "Notable congregants" sections on Wikipedia (mostly unsourced), but they list mayors and judges and the like; not the criminals and alleged terrorists. The sources about the mosque also don't mention those people, and it appears to be a WP:SYNTH problem. Polygnotus (talk) 21:39, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square will be exceptional in this regard; it's a bit like asking whether St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle will mention that the British royal family attends services there. Looking a little further, Trinity United Church of Christ has a paragraph in the lead about Obama having been a member, and the refs indicate that Oprah is also a former member. Christ Church (Oyster Bay, New York) says that Teddy Roosevelt attended. All Souls Church, Unitarian (Washington, D.C.) claims three early US presidents. Reagan's church in California was Bel Air Church#Congregation, and it names four famous members.

See also Religious affiliations of presidents of the United States. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't that prove my point? Obama and Queen Elizabeth are slightly more famous than Hassan Almrei. Oprah may be a horrible person but she is very very famous. Early US presidents get worshiped by people who don't understand history and are very famous. I don't think Hassan Almrei has reached the level of fame of, for example, Teddy Roosevelt. What I don't see is a comparable situation where an article about a place of worship (church/synagogue/whatever) lists all the (marginally) notable crimimals/murderers/rapists/terrorists who attended that church/synagogue or got married there. Polygnotus (talk) 22:55, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I was checking for very famous people, because it was an easy thing to search for.

I agree that it would be very odd to have a list of notable attendees restricted to notable terrorists, especially for a large outfit. (Some tiny outfit might only have one 'claim to fame', after all.) I'm not enamored of ==Notable alumni== lists in university articles, so I think my bias against such lists extends to other organizations. But it is concerning that someone thinks only Bad™ people should be listed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here ya go. You can do Cambridge. Polygnotus (talk) 22:10, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see how long that change sticks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Probably won't be long because people who have strong opinions generally speaking don't care about consensus; but it is worth a try. I see no reason why WP:SPLIT and WP:SUMMARY and WP:UNIGUIDE should be ignored. Polygnotus (talk) 22:29, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking about starting a WP:AN discussion about an editor who has repeatedly been disruptive (personal attacks, refusing to drop the stick, purposefully introducing GUNREL sources into a talk page discussion as an "experiment" to see how other editors would respond, perhaps more. I've already twice gone to their talk page to raise choices they're making that are inappropriate and to say that that behavior needs to stop. I haven't ever started a discussion at WP:AN about an editor. I'm wondering if you have any advice re: what to consider in deciding whether or not to do it (for ex., I know that it will take up my time, and I'm already wondering whether I really want to spend time on that; I know that my own behavior will also be looked at) or the most productive way to approach it if I decide to move forward with it. Thanks, FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:36, 24 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to "I'm thinking about starting a WP:AN discussion" is usually "That's probably a bad idea". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @WhatamIdoing, I hope you're doing well. I would appreciate your valuable insight in addressing the recent vandalism of the article Coptic identity [1] by User:Turnopoems, where he/she:

• Reinserted many references that he/she erroneously paraphrased in contradiction with what the original sources say.
• Removed a lot of referenced material
• Reintroduced many broken links and references

Thank you again for your help. Epenkimi (talk) 19:53, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've listed the Talk:Copts RFC at Wikipedia:Closure requests. I think it will be more effective to deal with this stepwise than trying to address everything at the same time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. A while back I offered a compromise to remove the word "direct", but the other party refused to meet halfway with their other edits that I found to be unreasonable. Looking forward to your insights on Coptic identity. Thanks again. Epenkimi (talk) 01:22, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, you recently commented on a discussion at WP:Village Pump (misc) on changing the way information about Wikidata edits is shown on a Wikipedia Watchlist / Recent Changes list.

We'd like to invite you to a 45 minute ~ 1-hour interview with our UX researcher. The interview will be conducted in English and compensation is available. If you would like to participate, please register your interest as a reply to this post. Thank you, - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 08:35, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, but thanks for asking, @Danny Benjafield (WMDE). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I take a minute to thank you for your compliment about my recent edits of the occupational health psychology entry. I appreciate receiving a compliment coming from one of the best editors in all of Wikipedia. Iss246 (talk) 21:13, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the kind words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:41, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can be entirely open and transparent about it. Yes, I deleted the lot willy nilly because no evidence was provided to justify the presence of any of them. None were cited in the article. No reason was given to justify their inclusion in the article. Uncited material anywhere in wikipedia may be deleted without further ado. Not being entirely cavalier (or puritan?) about it, I moved the list to the talk page, as suggested by WP:ELNO, where anybody can use them as a starting point for source-based research.

Patrick Welsh expresses the issue very well in this comment: I would like to say that I too am almost always frustrated by sheer randomness of books that appear in "Further reading" section. Most editors can properly clean up an "External links" section, but only editors with some subject-matter expertise will be sufficiently familiar with the secondary literature to know what is and is not appropriate to recommend to our general audience. Hence the lists just grow and grow—frequently with an inconsistent format and sometimes not even in alphabetical order.

Do I expect you to concur? No, as clearly you are more relaxed about the junk factor than I am (and tbf, 15-minute city was by no means the worst I've come across recently, it was just the last straw). Will I object if you revert? No, because BRD and the issue is much wider than that article. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:48, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Further reading sections, like Wikipedia:External links sections, are not expected to provide "evidence" to "justify" our editorial judgement that the included sources might be interesting or informative for readers who are looking for further information. Frequently, in a well-written article, the ==Further reading== section is a book that the editors would like to have used, except that it turned out to be unnecessary or not readily available.

I think you should self-revert to the extent of restoring the only English-language book in that list, especially since the article has a whole section explaining its author's importance to the subject of the article. I think you should also consider restoring the LSE website that opposes the concept, so that the section will not be 100% "pro". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yo, this is pretty weak, you can do better. I've seen you do better. Polygnotus (talk) 18:12, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that you should spend some time (i.e., more than a few minutes) thinking about what your beliefs are about suitable content for Wikipedia. Once you understand and can articulate, e.g., why you believe that "encyclopedias are not in the business of giving book recommendations", even though some encyclopedias (including, but not limited to, this one) provide book recommendations, we might be able to have an interesting conversation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Condescending, ABF, word games. Bad day? I get it, I am having a bad day too. Polygnotus (talk) 18:23, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not playing word games. I know your account is only a few years old, but you know that if you write about something being "notable", then people can – and should – assume you are using Wikipedia's jargon, and not a synonym for subjective importance.

BTW, one of my favorite on-wiki bad-day remedies is to read Wikipedia:WikiSpeak or other pages in Category:Wikipedia humor. If you've got time, perhaps you'd find something fun. I haven't read them all, so if you find a good one, feel free to share a link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:30, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please read more carefully. Quickly posting an attempt at a gotcha gets awkward when you are misinterpreting someone.

My account may be only a few years old, but my knees are not.

you know that if you write about something being "notable", then people can – and should – assume you are using Wikipedia's jargon, and not a synonym for subjective importance.

I wasn't using the word notable as a synonym for subjective importance. Polygnotus (talk) 22:37, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let's continue the discussion over there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:09, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you are right and you know something I don't or have a pov I hadn't considered then I will immediately steal your opinion and adopt it as my own. If not, then you are wrong (or at least that is statistically likely) and I will probably be too lazy to really put much effort into trying to convince you. Neither feels satisfying. Polygnotus (talk) 00:19, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Wikipedia should try to give book recommendations because I believe that one size fits all recommendations for books are basically worthless.

We only know the topic, but we know nothing about the potential reader. We don't know their:

• level of maturity (not the right term, but something like that, it is more complicated than simply their age)
• level of experience with the topic at hand, and underlying topics
• how skilled they are reading various languages
• if they have access to those books (some are very expensive or hard to get depending on where you are geographically)
• what their approach to the topic is/which aspects they are interested in

Lets say the topic is a military conflict. Do you want a dry overview of gear and formations used? Should I recommend the diary of a civilian who lived through that period? A historian who studied the military tactics? Are you interested in the politics, the type of weapons used, the suffering of the people? Would you like a story of betrayal and redemption, or a book that lists the tank variants?

Lets say the article is Java (programming language). Maybe you are curious about Java's place relative to other programming languages, maybe you are an expert programmer who wants shave milliseconds of transaction response times, maybe you are a child who barely knows what a programming language is and just needs to write a book report on a rainy afternoon.

Without asking a bunch of followup questions a book recommendation is very unlikely to be suitable, because people are incredibly diverse.

Another problem is that it is very very difficult for others to maintain a list of book recommendations; you'd need to have an overview of which books are available that deal with that topic to know which to recommend and which not to recommend. If someone adds a book to the Further reading section of an article about a topic I know little about, it is near impossible for me to check if that is a worthwhile addition or not. I'd have to read all those books to know how much it overlaps with the others, and I'd have to do a serious amount of work to figure out how respected the author is in her field. Brittanica does book recommendations, but they do not have the same problems because the articles are written by people who are (allegedly) experts.

Polygnotus (talk) 20:43, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Britannica has all the same problems about the one-size-fits-some recommendations that you decry above.

The fact is that the community has decided to have Wikipedia:Further reading sections, and unless you can get them banned, we are (sometimes) doing this. If you don't like them, you can close your eyes and pretend they don't exist while you scroll past them. You're a WP:VOLUNTEER; if you don't feel capable of maintaining the list, then you don't have to. There is no requirement for you to "to check if that is a worthwhile addition or not" or "do a serious amount of work to figure out how respected the author is in her field". One of Wikipedia's strengths is that people can contribute what they can, and can ignore the things they don't feel competent at. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Brittanica does book recommendations, but they do not have the same problems because the articles are written by people who are (allegedly) experts, and set in stone when published, and their book recommendations are clearly aimed at a specific group which does not at all match with Wikipedia's readership (Wikipedia's is far far more diverse). Polygnotus (talk) 23:30, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What is the "specific group" that Britannica is "clearly aimed at"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:57, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure how familiar you are with Britannica but compare for example https://www.britannica.com/art/drawing-art with Drawing. Those texts are clearly aimed at different groups of people, and on Wikipedia the barrier to entry is far lower.

See also the "Additional Reading" section, go to https://www.britannica.com/art/drawing-art/additional-info and scroll down a bit. Polygnotus (talk) 00:05, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If these articles are "clearly aimed at different groups of people", you should be able to say which text is being aimed at which group. If you can't, then it's not so "clearly" aimed, right? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't appear to be relevant. You can read the texts and draw your own conclusions. This text:

Drawing as formal artistic creation might be defined as the primarily linear rendition of objects in the visible world, as well as of concepts, thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and fantasies given visual form, of symbols and even of abstract forms. This definition, however, applies to all graphic arts and techniques that are characterized by an emphasis on form or shape rather than mass and colour, as in painting. Drawing as such differs from graphic printing processes in that a direct relationship exists between production and result. Drawing, in short, is the end product of a successive effort applied directly to the carrier. Whereas a drawing may form the basis for reproduction or copying, it is nonetheless unique by its very nature.

is aimed at a different audience than this text:

A drawing instrument releases a small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, vellum, wood, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, have been used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard. Drawing has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating ideas. The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.

I am not sure why you appear to be asking me to defend that claim, because you know that I am correct. Polygnotus (talk) 02:55, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I actually think you are incorrect. You assert that they're "clearly" undertaking a behavior, but it's not clear to me at all, and it's not clear enough to you to identify concrete facts to support your claim. You speculate on an intentional behavior at both sites ("aiming"), but that's almost certainly incorrect about Wikipedia. And you say that Britannica is aiming their text at a different group than Wikipedia, but you can't identify what any of the alleged aimed-at groups are, so how could you possibly know that they're different? If you asked the authors of the two articles, you might well get identical answers (e.g., "anyone with access to the internet who can read English" or "mostly high school and university students").

(You may be interested in Wikipedia:Readability tools.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I actually think you are incorrect I do not.

it's not clear to me at all It is to me.

it's not clear enough to you to identify concrete facts to support your claim You have no evidence that I can't.

almost certainly incorrect about Wikipedia That claim is certainly incorrect, and you are almost certainly unable to read minds.

you can't identify what any of the alleged aimed-at groups are You have no evidence that I can't.

I don't think it is relevant and it would be a waste of both our time, and perhaps even a distraction, to dwell on something so unimportant.

I love spinach. Spinach lasagna is one of my favourites. Polygnotus (talk) 04:57, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you were able to, you would have already.

I've been through enough arguments about our WP:AUDIENCE over the years to be confident that the (many) authors of Drawing did not have any particular audience in mind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:21, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you were able to, you would have already. Knowing me that seems unlikely.

But we can't move an inch in the direction of absolutism and proof, because ultimately words do not map 1:1 on reality, your senses are lying to you, borders become gradients, language grasps at shadows and everything and nothing is static, fluid and in flux.

How can an audience be different when there is none, and differences are figments of our lack of imagination? Polygnotus (talk) 06:42, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That might be an interesting metaphysical question, except that you're the one claiming that Wikipedia and Britannica have different audiences. Are you abandoning your prior assertion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am abandoning the idea of knowability as a whole; the dream of a shared objective truth. I really hope this is going somewhere. Polygnotus (talk) 17:00, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that works out for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:03, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Same. Thank you. Polygnotus (talk) 17:06, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was a little surprised at your revert here, given the discussion has been open for only two days. Yes, the current leaning for consensus is "yes", but RfCs are usually open a minimum of 7 days, and I don't see the benefit in removing the discussion from T:CENT before it has been closed. Thanks, Cremastra _talk 01:17, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Start reading here.

CENT, as with all other notices, is most effective when it is shortest. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I have replied there. Happy editing, Cremastra _talk 19:46, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Getting the impression that you would like Wikipedia Library to be more well known and well used, you might be interested in this[2] which puts an indicator on a reference that you can access if through the Wikipedia Library. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 21:20, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I've joined the discussion there. Alenoach was also advocating for more free-to-read sources recently, and might therefore also be interested in a way to detect sources that could be accessed through Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:35, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, even though I know that the Wikipedia library exists, it takes some time to search on the library if a source is available. So I only use it when I really want to check a particular reference I believe is available on the library. But since the library is only available to experienced contributors, I believe the solution should not be something that is visible to all Wikipedia readers, as it would be if it were integrated in the references. Maybe there could be (or there is) a Wikipedia gadget that makes it more user-friendly? For example, if in a Wikipedia article there is an ISBN (or the DOI of a paywalled article) for a book or article that is available on the library, the gadget could indicate that? Alenoach (talk) 22:20, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've been putting {{Wikipedia Library}} on the talk pages for notable books/journals/sources/publishers that are available, as I run across them. But there are tens of thousands of sources available, and the list changes regularly. I think we need some way to automate at least some of this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:25, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your efforts on this. Any further input from me might be limited for the next couple of weeks as I have just realised I am meant to be travelling next week and have a lot of non-Wikipedia things to do to get organised for that. Doesn't mean I won't be on Wikipedia in that time, but (a) I shouldn't be, and (b) I can't take on anything that requires a lot of commitment. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:20, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am not entirely sure it is fair to characterise me as one of the "editors are trying to move forward with mass removal". All I have done is ask for where the requests were made, and when one request was made, provided some lists. I have not otherwise engaged with the process outside of the original RfC, where I left one initial note of unsure thoughts, and two weeks later two additional comments as part of a !vote. CMD (talk) 02:44, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I actually intended to contrast one group ("Some editors") against you ("An editor" who "kindly split out the list"). Perhaps I can make that clearer by changing "An" to "A different". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:43, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think you used a couple of wordings, I haven't gone around and checked them all, but this wording I saw at the WT:CRIC post (one of the more active WikiProjects, although not what it used to be). CMD (talk) 12:12, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Someone's already replied to that comment, so I'd rather not edit that one now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:39, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's a bit disappointing. No good listing of 2000s first class country players (without Windies) goes unsomethinged. CMD (talk) 16:00, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just want you to say thank you for giving me guidance. Actually his page was incorrect and filled with less details unlike his era's other celebs pages are well written. Currently, the page is not revised that's I contributed. You are all experienced than me so I really need your support. Gooshh (talk) 18:30, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Gooshh, one thing you could do is to try to build some trust on the page by making just one small edit to the article. A simple edit would be best. It could be something as small and simple as a spelling correction. If you are changing a factual claim, then be sure to add a good source. After that, wait for a day or two, to see if anyone reacts. If there are no objections, make another small edit and wait again. Yes, it could take a very long time to improve the article at that pace, but you'll learn more about what's accepted when you move slowly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:02, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank u so much for your guidance. I won't give up I am just fixing the page of a notable figure. But Orangemike words are really pathetic I am sorry to say "deleting all this fluff". I really like the way you guided me this what I needed Gooshh (talk) 07:19, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Gooshh, I am disappointed by your response. I suggested making one (1) small edit. You have instead made 33 (thirty-three!) edits. That is too many edits for the current situation. If you want to be successful, you need to slow down. Really, really, really, painfully slow. You need to approach this situation as if it were a tiger. The tiger is smart, and it would like to leave you alone, but if you make big or fast motions, it will feel threatened and attack you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

look I started my journey on January by fixing small edits in Wikipedia. Then I have discovered that this page wasn't well written. Thank you for your message and guidance. I understand your concerns about making large edits early on. I genuinely appreciate the effort experienced editors like you put into maintaining the quality of Wikipedia. I just want to clarify that my intention was never to override community norms. I’ve been working hard to improve the article on Sunil Dutt because I noticed it was incomplete and had a few inaccuracies. Since the article hadn’t received much attention for a long time, I tried to gather well-sourced and verifiable content to enhance it. I completely welcome corrections, improvements, and feedback. If it’s better to propose substantial edits on the Talk page first, I’ll gladly follow that approach moving forward. I’m here to collaborate and learn from the process.

Thanks again for your time and support. Gooshh (talk) 07:32, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My advice is not about what to do because you are "early on". My advice is about what to do when someone has recently made a big complaint about your edits at that article.

When someone is already mad at you, try:

• Not editing that article at all, or
• Making one (1) small edit at that article and then stopping.

The option that sounds like:

• Someone complained that I did a poor job at that article last week, so I decided to make a huge number of edits again this week

is the option that is most likely to lead to you getting in trouble.

When reviewers see your name, you want them to think "Oh, it's that nice person who slowly fixes up articles. He might still be learning a few things, but his edits are usually good, and it's easy to revert or fix the one or two bad ones". You do not want them thinking "Ugh, him again! Some of this is okay, but he made literally dozens of edits today, and I don't have the patience necessary to sort out which ones are good and which are truly bad". WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:22, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are roughly 16k pages in Category:Wikipedia pages about contentious topics, if we count an article and its talk as a single page.

If I understand Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Extended_confirmed_definition#Numbers correctly these are good hunting grounds for socks.

So what I would propose is a bot that follows the eventstream and gets the editcount of each user who edits one of those ~16k contentious articles.

(Optimize it a bit so that you don't repeatedly get the editcount for the same useraccount, wait a reasonable amount of time when people have very few edits before checking again, and store the usernames of accounts above a certain threshold so that you don't have to get their editcount. Maybe add a list of accounts with many edits so you know they are not suspicious.)

And then it outputs a list of edits made by people whose editcount is just high enough (lets say 500 to 700) to edit for example, Israel/Palestine stuff. Am I making sense? Polygnotus (talk) 07:00, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the idea, but once you've got the list, then what? We can't checkuser the whole lot of them just to see which ones are actually socks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:54, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

True, but experts in that particular field can use it in addition to their watchlists.

I don't know how to make an infallible sock detector without seriously infringing on everyone's privacy (and committing various human rights violations), but I think that a tool like the one I describe could make it easier to identify problematic newcomers to contentious areas (who may not be new or independent).

And you could even add some code that figures out what percentage of their post-ECP editing is in a particular CTOP field.

The pattern of 500 unrelated edits and then almost exclusively CTOP edits is an interesting one. Polygnotus (talk) 23:03, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've been studying JS for many years, and now I'm struggling with the problem of how to draw rain in Canvas/

But I didn't know that markdown is not equal to markup, but I haven't even heard about wikitext and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Babel (it's a pity that Wiki doesn't understand its internal link. And it doesn't show it in the 1st place in the search.). It happens that way too. Tnx Seregadu (talk) 04:15, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you use the button on the toolbar, it will convert the URL into a link for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:05, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings. I have been working in the "External links" section for a good while. The section is often overlooked, even in some higher-quality articles, and can frequently grow very large, including multiple subsections. I have run into counts of thirty or more. Sometimes they appear to be just links to add to a page,sometimes POV pushing, or both.

I have recently been working towards external links cleanup. The tags go back to 2015.

While I suppose there is no maximum accepted amount, it seems that three or four will not garner objections. When performing maintenance, I usually don't bother with links of five or fewer unless I see no benefit to the article. When the number is excessive, I will move all but three or four to the talk page for discussion. Generally, I do not receive much backlash and do receive thanks for trimming the section.

You made mention at Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard#Blogs_in_external_links that "Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum" and that "WP:ELBURDEN is quite strict". I agree with this. I also don't think WP:BRD applies if someone contests one or more links.

I moved excessive links at Code 128 to the talk page. Because I did not return a reply fast enough for the editors timeline, it was reverted. The editor liked the old version, which is "helpful". If you get the chance, could you please take a look at this? I suppose this is a request for a third opinion. -- Otr500 (talk) 14:12, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, @Otr500. I'll take a look later, but I have a couple of suggestions in general:

• You are correct that there is no single maximum accepted amount. However, it's very unusual for more than 8 or 10 to be a good idea. By the time you're looking at EL #11 in a list, there are usually duplicates. I also would not usually bother with links of five or fewer, though keep in mind that for films, there is a standard set that can easily exceed that level.
• I find that fixing formatting (e.g., WP:ELCITE), removing WP:ELDEAD links, copying an official link to the infobox, and adding appropriate descriptions is helpful, even if the result is a somewhat larger number of links remaining. About descriptions, I mean that people often copy the official title of the linked page or the website's name, even if it's uninformative. Sometimes what you need is a description of the contents, like "Photos of the historic house" or "Obituary tribute written by his political opponent" or "Oral history collection by soldiers surviving the battle", so readers can figure out if they want to click on it.
• Arguing about inclusion/exclusion can be time consuming. If you get reverted, you will probably find it faster to ignore the reversion and move on to other articles. You can clean up ten messes in the time that it takes to argue about one.

Also, thank you for weeding the link farms. I appreciate your efforts to improve this part of Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the detailed reply and your positive acknowledgment. It is proof that we are never too old to learn. I hadn't considered copying the official link to the info box if it is not included. I think 10 years of "career" tags is too long. If I take too long on individual articles, possible improvements in tag removal might take longer than my expected lifespan. Most of the several hundred tags don't have talk page discussions. I started transferring excessive links to the talk page, including some policies and guidelines, especially WP:BURDEN, for any possible discussion. With so many tags (and the time-consuming factor), moving links to the talk page seems like a less-than-ideal but workable solution over some indiscriminate removal. I will not be concerned with some re-additions to the list, and so far, only a couple of concerns have been raised. Usually, any interaction means there is an active editor taking interest, which I consider a plus, so I am not going to be overly concerned, as incremental progress is still progress.

The example above added back too many links, and the rationale for reversion seemed pretty much nonsensical. Again, thank you for your comments and advice. -- Otr500 (talk) 14:59, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for Wikipedia:Article titles and scopes. I've encountered the issue of deriving scope from title too many times, so it's good to see this written down. Now the real issue, I'm trying to think of a shortcut I'll remember. CMD (talk) 04:13, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. I kept seeing the problem at Ketogenic diet. "But the fitness influencers all say they're doing a keto diet, so why shouldn't adult weight-loss diets be on this page?!" Um, because it's about medical treatments for refractory pediatric epilepsy, not about lifestyles. Your thing is over at the page on low-carb diets. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:08, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I recently saw it on Overseas territory (France) vs Overseas France, and you know, they're not the most distinguishable names. Actually, I should add hatnotes... CMD (talk) 06:44, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if you need an example of the boundaries of scope, but perhaps Cutter (boat) is one? There are several different types of boat termed "cutter", but Cutter has many more subjects. The article scope is everything under that name that is a boat or ship. Part of the decision-making is that several of the boat types do not really have enough material to make a reasonable article on their own. (Avoid over-short articles that don't have a lot of potential content.) The rest of it is if a reader sees the word "cutter" in a maritime context, they need a quick way of discovering what it means. (Reader based scope. Hopping between several articles would be tedious.) But this might just be me championing the significance of an article on which I have worked, so not a problem if you don't think it fits the bill. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:23, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ThoughtIdRetired, it sounds like Cutter (boat) is a WP:SETINDEX. If you agree, it would be a good example for the SETINDEX page. Most articles tagged as a set index are not what you'd hold up as a good example, so the possibility of finding another article to recommend as a model is always exciting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I do agree. Cutter (boat) tries to give complete coverage of each meaning in the one article, which surely makes it different from an index from where you can follow a link to an article on each individual meaning. (Perhaps I have misunderstood the concept of WP:SETINDEX?)

The decision-making on this article structure included considerations like:
(a) The reader may need a relatively full explanation in order to learn which meaning of the word they had encountered.
(b) Most of the meanings would, in an individual article on that meaning, be a particularly short article. Maritime subjects in Wikipedia already have too many articles that are very short. I found one such article a little while ago where the article was shorter than the corresponding entry in Glossary of nautical terms. Typically, I failed to make a note of which term it was and now have little hope of finding it again. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 10:07, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]