User:TimothyBlue

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
SEMI-RETIRED
This user is no longer very active on Wikipedia.
The Right Reverend Rabbi

Timothy Blue

The Abstract and Mischievous
Democratic Socialist
MovementMornings, I get slower as the day passes.
OpponentVogons
PartnerYes
ChildrenDefinitely No
ParentProbably
Call signRainbow Whiskey
WikiBreak Notice Greetings from Los Angeles
If we have a difference of opinion, I'm open to discussing it if the issue is meaningful, significant and worth my time. I ignore comments containing hyperbole, profanity, nonsense, attacks, and attitudes/behaviors I personally find offensive; I also ignore ones that I don't think are worth the time to respond. If you do not like this, click here. I have very strong feelings about the importance of notability, policies and guidelines, sources and evidence.
Best wishes from Los Angeles,   // Timothy :: talk 
West Hollywood Pride
Flag of the United States
Flag of the United States
Flag of Los Angeles, California
Flag of Los Angeles
Flag of California
Flag of California
Russian warship, go fuck yourself
Support a Kurdish homeland
Support Israel
West Hollywood Pride
Highland Towers Apartments
Echo Park Lake with Downtown Los Angeles Skyline
Echo Park Lake [1][2]
West Hollywood Pride
Whisky a Go Go
Whisky a Go-Go
Canter's Deli[1]
West Hollywood Pride
Roxie Theater at Night
Thailand Plaza, Thai Town, Hollywood
UCLA
West Hollywood Pride
Los Angeles City Hall
Los Angeles City Hall
Union Station Los Angeles
Union Station Los Angeles
The Sunset Tower on Sunset Boulevard
The Sunset Tower on Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood Pride
West Hollywood Pride
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles California
Hollywood Boulevard
South Olive Street
South Olive Street
West Hollywood Pride
Macarthur Park, Los Angeles
Macarthur Park, Los Angeles
Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center
Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center
Janss Steps in front of Royce Hall, UCLA
Janss Steps in front of Royce Hall, UCLA
Los Angeles Skyline at Night
Los Angeles Skyline at Night
Hotel Highland Towers, Highland Avenue, Hollywood
Glamda The Fabulous
The Red Line, Los Angeles Metro Rail
The Red Line, Los Angeles MetroRail
orpheum marquee
Orpheum Marquee
Hollywood Boulevard in Thai Town, Los Angeles
Hollywood Boulevard in Thai Town, Los Angeles
Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles
South Olive Street
South Olive Street
West Hollywood Pride
Echo Park Lake
Echo Park Lake
Olvera Street
Olvera Street
Stimson House
Stimson House
Los Angeles China Town
China Town
Pinks Hot Dogs
Pinks Hot Dogs
Pasadenca Civic Auditorium
Disney Concert Hall
Disney Concert Hall
Sixth Street, Los Angeles
Sixth Street, Los Angeles
South Olive Street
South Olive Street
Bradbury building
Bradbury building
Hollywood Sign
Hollywood Sign
El Capitan Theatre
Downtown LA Live
Stanford & Stage in Beverly Hills
Los Angeles Theater
Engine Company 27, LA Fire Department Museum
Fowler Museum, UCLA
Postcard, Olvera Street, Los Angeles
Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church, San Pedro
Altar of Dia de los Muertos, Los Angeles Grand Park (City Hall in the background)
Broadway, Looking South, Los Angeles
Echo Park Lake, Los Angeles, California
UCLA Kaplan Hall
Chinatown, Los Angeles
Lincoln Park, Los Angeles
UCLA
Hamburger Hamlet, Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood
Hollywood Blvd., looking west, Hollywood
Port of Los Angeles at sunrise
Los Angeles Roxie Theater
Spanish Steps Rodeo Drive Beverly Hills
Pasadena City Hall
Steam locomotive in front of the Los Angeles and Independence Rail Road Terminal (1875)
Pacific Design Center
Capitol Records Building, Hollywood
Downtown Los Angeles and 110 freeway
Downtown Los Angeles
Bob Hope Patriotic Hall
Los Angeles Labor Solidarity Mural
Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica Beach and Pier
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Spring and 1st (1920)
Alex Theater, Glendale
Paramount Studios
The Gaylord Hotel, Wilshire Center
Miracle Mile in Mid-Wilshire
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Melrose
Nisei Week Festival, Little Tokyo
I-10 @ US101 looking towards DTLA
Pershing Square
Globe Theatre
Hollywood Stella Adler Theatre
Nuart Theatre
Warner Bros. Downtown Theatre
Wiltern Theatre
Eastern Columbia Tower
Challenger Memorial, Little Tokyo
First Street bridge over the Los Angeles River
Hollywood American Legion Post
Bullock's Wilshire Store
Los Angeles Aqueduct Cascades
Chinatown Los Angeles
Continental Building
Eastern Building
Ukrainian genocide memorial, Grand Park
Hale House, Heritage Square, Los Angeles
Hollywood Masonic Temple
Hollywood Plaza Hotel
Hollywood United Methodist Church
La Placita Parish
5th Street and Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
Panoramic view of the park at the La Brea Tar Pits
Brockman Building, Broadway Commercial District
Crossroads of the World, Sunset Blvd
Wiltern Theater
Pellissier Building and Wiltern Theatre
Sears, Roebuck & Company Mail Order Building

TimothyBlue (talk · contribs · logs · block log · page moves · count · edit summaries · non-automated edits · articles created · BLP edits · AfD votes · XfD votes · admin score (beta) · CSD log · PROD log · no prior RfA)  •  Page curation log

Welcome To My Userpage

About

Current Status
30% Resigned, 50% Good, 20% Sleepy
Overall okay mood. Taking a semi-wikibreak.

I spend most of my time working on book articles, authors, and bibliographies about topics I'm interested in. The work I am most proud of are the

Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
.

The subjects I am most involved with are related to Russia the Soviet Union, World War I, II, and Cold War, and generally the swath of nations and peoples that run from Poland, the Baltics, and Russia, running southeast through Turkey and the Caucasus, Central Asia, and ending in Pakistan, northern India, western China, and Mongolia.

I enjoy working on the navigation elements and interconnectedness of Wikipedia, such as: Navigation lists such as indexes, outlines, timelines and years pages; See also and navigation hat notes; navigation templates and navigation sidebars.

I am a self appointed maintenance angel for

Timmy (given name)
; every Tim, Timmy, and Timothy has a place, and every Tim, Timmy, and Timothy should be in their proper place. This is critical for the survival of Wikipedia.

I watch articles generally related to:

  • History: the history of Russia and the Russian empire, the Soviet Union, and the Soviet bloc; the history of eastern and central Europe; Central Asia and the Caspian Sea; 20th century Germany and the Holocaust; World War I, II and the Cold War; the Sino-Japanese wars; general United States history.
  • Other: Los Angeles and California, UCLA and Los Angeles City College; The Doors, Velvet Underground, and Traffic; gold and silver age Russian literature; golden age science fiction; fascism and communism; Dungeons & Dragons and tabletop RPGs; Commodore PET and Altair 8800; accessibility and blindness; Blue holes; whiskey and tea; warships; colors, especially blue; bibliographies; glossaries. ...

I have some skill with MathML, LaTeX, C++, Python, Javascript, PHP, none with Lua. At one time I could write C well enough :) to make a living and had a painful 3yr encounter with 6502/6510 assembly language that left me traumatized. I've been casually learning about the Mediawiki software and the Wikipedia API, and investigating various database APIs. I also have some skill with Excel VBA. For the most part when I say "some skill", this should be interpreted as meaning "self taught hack that knows enough to be dangerous". It can be an embarrasing path but I occassionally arrive at the correct destination. My saving grace is knowing I'm a potentially dangerous self taught hack. Someday I might put a link up to my Github for Wikipedia tools.

I can "function" in Spanish (Los Angeles flavor), French, German, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Armenian (so so), and Georgian. By "function" I mean I know enough to work intelligently with the aid of a computer.

Much of the information here is to help my memory; if it helps others, wonderful. If you have a resource/page about Wikipedia or a good tool for working on Wikipedia, please let me know on my talk page, I hoard information.

My page on Polish Wikipedia My page on Ukrainian Wikipedia



Important thoughts, random musings, personal confessions, and fun facts

I also have this problem with: "memoir", "Caucasus", "succinct", "parallel" ...
  • Pro Russian POV editors think I'm a Ukrainian troll.
  • Pro Ukrainian POV editors think I'm a Russian troll.
  • Pro Azeri POV warriors think I'm an Armenian troll.
  • Pro Armenian POV warriors think I'm an Azeri troll.
I must be doing something right.
For the record, I'm a cranky old gay Polish Jew who has lived his entire life in Los Angeles. No connection to Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, or Ukraine.

Where I live

I'm reasonably well traveled, but I have been fortunate to have been born, lived, gone to school, and worked my entire life in Los Angeles; I plan on staying well into the future. None of the videos below are mine (none of the pictures to the right from Wikipedia commons are mine either), but I do think they are quality and may be find a useful place in an article.

DTLA

Skid Row

Hollywood

Thai town:

Koreatown

Weho

Venice

Santa Monica

West side

Parks

Thinks to watch while on a break

(If you haven't listened to the White Album you should)
(If you haven't listened to all the Beatles albums you should)
  • Listen and sing along to one
    Beatles
    album a day and you will be a happier person.
(If you're bad mood, sing along with Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da five times; it will help. Repeat as needed.)

Funny

Not Funny

Ponderables

Quotes from people much wiser than I will ever be

  • The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence, you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence, you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. —Martin Luther King.[3]
  • "The Russian Revolution was the most successful criminal conspiracy in history. The takeover of an entire nation by a shameless huckster supported by a hostile foreign power. And the revolution was also an object lesson in how liberals can lose, and lose catastrophically, from a position of great advantage, if they are divided in the face of a ruthlessly ideological foe."[4]
  • "I told you so. You damned fools".[5]
  • "Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow." H.G. Wells
  • “They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high,” she wrote. “To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone.” Barbara Ehrenreich[6]
  • "“No wonder that people are becoming passive sponges – absorbing but never creating. Did you know that the average viewing time per person is now three hours a day? Soon people won't be living their own lives any more." Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke

Observations

  • I think most portals exist to provide busy work for the bored.
  • Sarcasm is often the only effective response to absurdity.
  • Foolishness, and ignorance often win, but that's no reason to surrender.
  • I often find Wikipedia very amusing; its like a multi-national soap opera, generously mixed with black comedy, nth decimal place arguments, and the generally unbelievable, all set against a beige and gray backdrop splattered with virtual feces.
  • I hate grave dancing in articles about real life events

Things I've learned to live by on Wikipedia (or try to)

  • Think before you type. Then type. Then think again before you press Publish. "If you see a man hasty with his words, there is more hope for a fool than for him." Mishlei 29:20
  • When in doubt, don't press Publish.
  • If you're uncertain, Ask.
  • When you're wrong, you're wrong. Accept it gracefully.
  • I try and abide by a personal 2RR rule (except in cases such as vandalism, copyright, or BLP violations). If I've reverted twice and things continue, I'll leave it to another editor to pick up where I stop. If it's important someone else will come along. If important or the article is not watched,
    WP:EW
    territory.
  • Think if something can be Improved, rather than Reverted or Deleted. If it can, then either Improve it or leave it for someone else.
  • Don't engage in petty reverting. See above.
  • Sometimes it's best to disengage from a quarrel and return later rather than keeping it going. "Just as without wood, the fire goes out, so without a grumbler the quarrel quiets down." Mishlei 26:20
  • Use polite and meaningful but short edit summaries.
  • Use warning templates sparingly. A note often produces better results.
  • Some topics I am too emotionally close to and I choose generally not to edit in those areas. At best it will be frustrating, at worst it will result in a ban or block. Everyone has to know their limitations. Wikipedia should be enjoyable and edifying, not frustrating and exasperating.
  • Don't stick your nose into situations you know nothing about. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt." Abraham Lincoln
  • Don't stir the pot.
  • Don't hold grudges.
  • Not every editor is able to constructively edit/review every article. Know what articles are best left to others.
  • When you've dug yourself into a
    just walk away
    .
  • Beating a dead horse with a lead pipe is messy and unnecessary; just walk away
  • There is often no right or wrong answer. If you don't feel strongly about something and others do feel strongly, you probably have better things to do than arguing about it.
  • Editing should generally be fulfilling and a positive part of your life.
  • Some areas on Wikipedia are very contentious, and often very unpleasant experiences arise. You can only deal with so much unpleasantness beyond which it isn't worth the personal toll and the impact on the other areas you edit. Pick and choose the unpleasantness you decide to involve yourself in carefully; you only have so much time and strength. It is better to deal with some difficult situations and leave others to others and keep your enthusiasm for editing than to try and deal with all difficulties and burn out and drop out.
  • There is a line between passion and obsession, commitment and crusade. The farther your keep from the line, the more enjoyable your experience. Easy to say, hard to follow.
  • Every editor should read Law of holes, Inverse consequences, Unintended consequences, The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Sayre's law, No good deed goes unpunished, Law of triviality, and Hoist with his own petard, Self-destructive behavior, This too shall pass
  • Some problems need an axe to fix, others needs a scalpel.
  • The kitchen sink often complicates a discussion and distracts from your main point.[32]

Simple Wikipedia things I wish I knew sooner

  • When I first started editing Wikipedia, I was under the impression that it was a mellow, cordial, quite place to do something. <:)=
  • I couldn't figure out why the Thank option appeared sometimes, but other times was unavailable. It was because I had a VPN running.
  • You don't need to have the Page Mover user right to move a page. The right just gives you the ability to move without leaving a redirect.
  • There is a glossary of all those Wikipedian abbreviations people use at Wikipedia:Glossary and Wikipedia:Wikipedia abbreviations
  • When you see
    !vote
    it doesn't mean a Negative or Oppose vote. It means Not voting and refers to the process of consensus-building as opposed to polling.
  • Twinkle is the most helpful thing on Wikipedia.
  • Wikipedia:Tools and Wikipedia:User scripts/List.
  • RefScript automatically creates refs from webpages.
  • On Wikipedia, if something sounds straightforward and self-explanatory, you're wrong, it's not.
  • There are important differences between
    essays
    . They are not the synonmyns. Editors use the terms far too loosely and interchangeably, sometimes unintentionally and innocently, other times...?
  • Special:CategoryTree - displays a tree for a category
  • When you remove vandalism with an inappropriate edit summary, make sure to remove the default edit summary on your revert, or else the inappropriate edit summary will appear on the revert and in your user contributions.
  • Help:Cheatsheet, Help:Wikitext, Help:Magic words
  • Zotero [33] - citation manager with Wikipedia support.
  • Help:Cheatsheet

Things about articles I do not like

  1. Excessive inline references per
    WP:BUNDLING
    in a footnote with an explanation.
  2. Too many sections
    MOS:OVERSECTION
    . Article creation is not a contest to see how many sections an editor can cram into a stub.
  3. Substubs. These are not articles: they are PAGE SPAM. Shame on any editor that creates them and doesn't expand them (unless there is a good reason); if an article is worth creating, an editor should write 350 words about it, create a couple of incoming links, add two references, add categories. Minimum effort.
  4. The idea that having a separate article is always somehow better. Nothing is improved if content is unnessarily fragmented and placed in a more obsure stand alone article.
  5. Completely empty sections; if an editor creates a section, they should at least write one sentence about that section's topic.
  6. That its much easier to be considered notable as an athlete or entertainer, than it is to be considered notable as an academic, scientist, or author.

Articles and investigative reports about Wikipedia

  • Paling, E. (21 October 2015), "Wikipedia's Hostility to Women", The Atlantic, retrieved 15 January 2023
  • Page, S. (17 October 2022), "She's made 1,750 Wikipedia bios for female scientists who haven't gotten their due", The Washington Post, retrieved 15 January 2023
  • Qaiser, F., Zaringhalam, M., Bernardi, F., Wade, J., Pinckney, E. (23 May 2022). "How academic institutions can help to close Wikipedia's gender gap". Nature. . Retrieved 15 January 2023.
  • Gardner, R. (9 January 2023), "Wikipedia operator denies Saudi infiltration claim", BBC, retrieved 15 January 2023
  • Wikipedia tackles alleged conspiracy to distort articles on Holocaust, 2023, retrieved 5 February 2024
  • Antisemitism on Wikipedia: Distorting the History of the Holocaust, retrieved 5 February 2024
  • How Wikipedia is being changed to downgrade Iranian human rights atrocities, 2024, retrieved 6 February 2024

The worst part of Wikipedia

The seemingly endless, repetitive, and ultimately meaningless time sink discussions where editors constantly repeat themselves over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Usually accompanied by walls of text that begin to blur into each other like a mental quagmire. See all the move requests related the Russo-Ukrainian war or renaming Turkey, or any high level article about Armenia or Azerbaijan as an example.

The second worst part of Wikipedia

Walls of text. In any and every context except your own user page.

Don't like them. Don't read them. Don't encourage them. Don't build them. Shun those that do.
Yes occasionally lots of text is needed, and when it is it should still be as concise and organized as possible.
Nothing justifies >500 words in a paragraph.
Nothing justifies >50 words in a sentence.
Nothing justifies >10 sentences in a paragraph.
Violating the above should be a Wikipedia felony, the offenders beaten mercilessly with rabid squirrels until they repent. Habitual offenders should be sentenced to live with feral cats and no wifi.

What Wikipedia is not

  • Wikipedia is not a directory of every athlete mentioned in the news.
  • Wikipedia is not a directory of every game or season mentioned on the internet.
  • Wikipedia is not a directory of every actor or musician with a credit.
  • Wikipedia is not an directory of every music single and television episode ever made.

Kyiv and Kiev

If it were up to my personal preference I'd change every occurrence of Kiev to Kyiv just to make the point many are trying to make, so I understand those that want to change it. But its not up to me and should be a matter of personal preference. The Wikipedia community has a consensus on historical Ukrainian names, read

WP:KIEV
.

What to do if you have been blocked or are facing being blocked

You have two options:

Option 1

Continue the fight until the bitter end. Don't accept defeat. Tell everyone else why they are wrong and why you are right. If you really think your right and won't abide by the consensus because you think its wrong, this is the option to take. Make sure you are very clear about your future defiant intentions. Use walls of text to make your point, with liberal use of copy/paste. Respond promptly to every comment made regarding the issue, with liberal use of copy/paste. Make sure to be very clear about where you stand in every reply. Blame others and point out their faults to distract from your editing.

This has never worked, but you might be the first!

Option 2

Admit defeat. Stop the behavior that created the problem. Post your accept the consensus to stop. Total white flag. This will work wonders for most people facing a block; this will not work for repeat or egregious problems, but if you've just made a mistake and taken it too far this will work wonders.

You need to consisely:

  • Explain what the problem is so others know you understand the reason behind the (potential)block.
  • Explain that you accept the consensus that what your were doing is unacceptable; you don't have to '''agree''', but you do have to accept to '''abide''' by consensus.
  • Explain what you will do to avoid a repeat (if needed and not implicit in the above).

Don't:

  • Use weasel works to try and minimize your problem.
  • Set conditions for your acceptance of the consensus, policy, or guidelines.
  • Try and offset your responsibility by pointing to others problems.
  • Attack or criticize other editors.

This works once, maybe again if you gain invisible Wikipedia brownie points.

Left aligned images

Images that are aligned to the left are an absolute pain for people that need significant screen magnification. It is much more accessible to place the images all to the right and avoid breaking up the flow of the text. This isn't true for simple low level magnification, but for individuals needing magnification at 500%+ while using a low resolution on a large display, it is an enormous and almost always unnecessary pain.

Unsourced material in BLPs

BLPs need clearly

WP:BURDEN

  • "All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution."
  • "Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source."
  • "Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living people or existing groups"

Be aware of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons also Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Legal persons and groups. Per

WP:BURDEN
, I removed unsourced content from BLPs. BLPs need clearly IS RS with SIGCOV addressing the subject directly and indepth for both content and notabilty to avoid abuse. Abuse can work in many ways:

  • BLP abuse occurs when unsourced (or poorly sourced) negative information is placed in an article.
  • BLP abuse occurs when unsourced (or poorly sourced) promotional information is placed in an article.
  • BLP abuse occurs when unsourced (or poorly sourced) information is placed in an article with language that modifies or qualifies the information in a way that violates
    WP:WEIGHT
    .
  • BLP abuse occurs when opinions in otherwise IS RS are presented in Wikipeda as facts or given more
    WP:DUE
    and neglects other viewpoints.
  • BLP abuse occurs when unsourced (or poorly sourced) information about private individuals makes its way into Wikipedia, either as part of another article or as a
    WP:BLP1E
    .

Just because information is on the internet does not make it notable, true, or worth adding to Wikipedia.  // Timothy :: talk  18:57, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Legitimate uses I've found for ChatGPT

Using ChatGPT to write articles is repulsive. It should be a Wikipedia felony and a shunnable offense.
But there are some great legitimate uses for ChatGPT. I've been using it inside VSCode (via Github Copilot) and on their website. Here are some useful things I've found (in no particular order). Obviously you should check the results and never assume.

  • Give it a list and ask it to order it chonologically or alphabetically.
  • Give it a list of ISBNs and/or DOIs and it will create a bibliography or references in the format you request from the list. It will even use Wikipedia citation templates if you ask it to.
  • Give it a list of bare URLs and it will create references.
  • It can create and modify Wikipedia tables.
  • Checking (NOT creating) translations. Its about as good as Google translate (poor), but is another tool that can help check translations.

Grammarly is much better for writing assistance.

I'm sure there are more things it could help with. When you have it use Python scripts to expand its reach, it can do some pretty interesting things.

Things I have to repeat often

Sourcing

On

verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than editors' beliefs, opinions, experiences, or previously unpublished ideas or information. Even if you are sure something is true, it must have been previously published in a reliable source before you can add it.[34]

Before continuing to add content to Wikipedia, please read Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Citing sources, Wikipedia:Reliable sources, Wikipedia:No original research

Any questions you have regarding sourcing can be answered at

the Wikipedia Teahouse
.

Basics

Here are some resources to answer your questions.

Any questions you have can be answered at the

WP:TEAHOUSE
.

If you are going to edit Wikipedia, especially creating articles, you need at a minimum to undestand the above. It will take time to learn them, but your time will either be spent productively learning about the above, or wasted here at AfD.

Here are some resources every editor on Wikipedia should understand. Please read:

Any questions you have can be answered at the

WP:TEAHOUSE
.

  • WP:ARTICLETITLE
    (article structure)

BLPs

BLPs need clearly IS RS with SIGCOV addressing the subject directly and indepth for both content and notability to avoid abuse per well known core policy (

WP:SIGCOV
).

Add references to restored content

Please be certain to add references to all the restored content at the above article (See

WP:RS
).

New articles lacking sources for notability

Recently you have created new articles which lack references clearly showing

notability
.

  • Please add references showing notability to the article. Articles that fail to show notability may be deleted; adding references will improve the article and assist in preventing deletion. Once you have added references showing notability, please submit to Articles for Creation (see article for link).
  • Before proceeding, please read the following guidelines
    Notability
    .
  • Please pay particular attention to the
    significant coverage
    guideline, to show notability sources need to have multiple sources which address the topic 'directly and in detail.
  • Articles which do not have sources showing notability may be
    merged/redirected
    to other articles.
  • Sources connected to the subject (in anyway) cannot be used to show
    notability
    .

If you have questions, please feel free to ask them at the

WP:TEAHOUSE
,

Unreferenced cleanup talk page discussion starter

There was a great deal of unsourced material which appears to be either

WP:V
, anyone can place any information, positive or negative, into an article based on nothing but opinion, bias, or belief. Insisting on independent reliable sources for article content ensures the subject is not abused or exalted, and readers are not misinformed.

Independent

WP:BLP
and I firmly believe currently active organizations. For most articles there is not a possibility of unsourced information having a real world impact; this is not the case with BLPs and currently active organizations.

WP:SECONDARY
sources are needed for all other article content.

Tags have been added for other problems.

A place for stuff I need a place for

  • WP:RPRGM
  • class="wikitable" style="font-size:75%;"
  • ==Notice about Wikipedia conventions regarding Ukrainian place names==
  • {{:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ukrainian places)|transcludesection=kievkyiv}}
  • Please read [[WP:KIEV|Wikipedia conventions regarding Ukrainian names]] for further information. ~~~~
  • Regarding [] and similar edits, the preponderance of English language [[WP:RS|reliable sources]] do not use this spelling or name. Per Wikipedia guidelines, in cases when different possible spellings or names exist, the [[WP:COMMONNAME]] and spelling from [[WP:RS|reliable sources] and the subjects article title (if one exists) are used. Names and spellings should be as consistent as possible across Wikipedia.
  • <onlyinclude>{{#invoke:transcludable section|main|section=TCNAME|text=
  • }}</onlyinclude>
  • {{:PAGENAME|transcludesection=TCNAME}}
  • {{:Template:Template parameter value}}
  • Template:Excerpt#See also
  • Cleanup entries not meeting article criteria, "List of ***wars***"; entries such as battles, uprisings, individual incidents, feuds, etc are clearly not wars (they may have been a part of a war) and have no sourcing (WP:V) stating they were wars in themselves.
  • Article as written meets
    WP:NOTTVGUIDE
    and needs cleanup to comply with guidelines and policy.
  • {{talk header|search=yes}} {{WikiProject banner shell|1= }} {{American English}} {{British English}} {{Australian English}} {{Indian English}} {{pageviews}} :
  • {{short description|}} {{Use American English}} {{Use British English}} {{Use Australian English}} {{Use Indian English}} {{Use mdy dates}} {{Use dmy dates}} {{notability}} {{citations needed}}

Pages that attract POV problems

Lists prone to cruftification

My Work

New Articles Created

Bibliographies

Books

  1. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
  2. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941
  3. Stalin: Breaker of Nations
  4. Stalin's Peasants
  5. Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942
  6. The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944
  7. Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945
  8. The Pacific War Trilogy
  9. Everyday Stalinism
  10. Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties
  11. The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933
  12. The Triumph of the Dark: European International History 1933-1939
  13. The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia
  14. Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century
  15. Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914–1921
  16. Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928
  17. The Empire of the Steppes
  18. The Russian Revolution: A New History
  19. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia
  20. Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950
  21. Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the Twentieth Century
  22. The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932—1939
  23. Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917—1921
  24. The New Life (2022 historical fiction)
  25. In Isolation: Dispatches from Occupied Donbas
  26. Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy
  27. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945
  28. Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920
  29. Collaborationism in France during the Second World War
  30. Red, White, and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life
  31. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
  32. Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus
  33. The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region
  34. Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South Carolina
  35. Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848–1849
  36. The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life
  37. The Trans-Appalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and Institutions, 1775-1850
  38. That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500
  39. The Creation of Dangerous Violent Criminals
  40. A History of Algeria
  41. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962
  42. History and the culture of nationalism in Algeria
  43. Kentucke's Frontiers
  44. Citizenship between Empire and Nation: Remaking France and French Africa, 1945-60
  45. Christian Ritual and the Creation of British Slave Societies, 1650-1780
  46. Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition
  47. El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America
  48. A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent
  49. A Modern History of the Kurds
  50. Barons of Labor: The San Francisco Building Trades and Union Power in the Progressive Era
  51. The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896
  52. Belorussia under Soviet Rule, 1917–1957

Biography

Navigation

California

Arts

Geography

Other

Set indexes

Disambiguations

Ukrainian Wikipedia

DYK Entries

New Templates Created

Articles and Pages I've made significant contributions to

Needs expansion

New Articles

  • History of Hollywood

NPP, AfD, and cleanup notes

I keep a personal list of pages I've come across that need unsourced content referencing and cleanup work or work for an AfD at User:TimothyBlue/cleanup.

Other stuff

About books

  • If you are looking for a citation or to verify a citation from one of these works, just ask me on my talk page. I'm happy to help if I can. Many of these are on Kindle, so I can provide a Kindle location and chapter, but not always a page number.
  • If you are looking for a citation about Soviet history, I have ready access to many of the books on the lists at Bibliography of the Soviet Union and Bibliography of Russian history.

Journals

Serious things

How to evaluate claims of off-wiki status as an expert or scholar

  • If someone feels the need to tell you they are expert or scholar, they are rarely an expert or scholar.
  • If someone feels the need to tell you they are expert or scholar, and therefore you should respect their opinion/contribution even though they don't have
    WP:RS
    , they are very rarely an expert or scholar.
  • If someone feels the need to tell you they are expert or scholar, and therefore you should respect their opinion/contribution even though they don't have
    WP:RS
    , and they have "Dr." or "Ph.D." anywhere in their username, you can be completely certain beyond any doubt they are not an expert or scholar.

The Unspoken Sixth Pillar of Wikipedia

A stub article shall be created for each and every male football (soccer) player, who has ever been on a roster for a national team for even one game, regardless of how obscure they are or unlikely it is that the stub will ever be expanded, if even one bare entry in a statistical database site can be found as a source for the aforementioned male football (soccer) player. If challenged,

WP:NFOOTBALL
shall be invoked with the authority of the gods to override any objection, policy or guideline.

Anyone who foolishly deviates from this sacred standard, even ever so slightly or inadvertently, will be declared an apostate and banished forever, doomed to create stub articles for baseball players.

Proposed new CSD criteria

The following is a list of proposed new CSD criteria that will make everything much more interesting.

  • A8. No indication of importance (things you don't understand and don't feel the need to try)
Wikipedia is not about learning new things and its just rude for someone to create an article that you don't understand.
  • A12. Stuff you don't like.
Applies to stuff you don't like or don't agree with, or stuff that makes you uncomfortable, hungry, restless, or fatigued, regardless of
WP:RS
. Because Wikipedia is here for you.
  • A13. Stuff someone you don't like is enjoying working on, so you want it deleted.
Applies to people who have offended you in the past, may offend you in the future, or someone you just have a funny feeling about. Also can be applied if someone you don't know and have never interacted with, is obviously bothering/harassing/stalking you, even if you are uncertain which editor is doing this.
  • A14. Too many typoes mispellings or grammer errors.
Available only to WikiGnomes and to WikiElves helping them. Because Grammer Speling and Punctuation is the very MOST immportant thing; an if anyone disegrees their WRONG! and trying to Destory Wikipedia and MUST be stoped; before the werld comes too an end..
  • A14(a) The hyphens-dash clause
This applies when hyphens are used instead of en-dashes or especially when used instead of em-dashes or visa-versa. This can potentially cause a fatal case of what is referred to as Gnomish CE-OVERLOAD, if a WikiElf is not present to help them calm down. In severe cases, all the offending editor's articles and edits shall be reverted and they shall be issued an infinite block for
WP:DE. Available only to WikiGnomes with SuperGnome
powers.
  • A15. Someone stole your idea.
Something you've been planning on writing for years now and was almost ready to think about considering starting it, but someone stole the idea and beat you to it. The offending editor obviously is a mind reader and this is the same as plagiarism.
  • A16. Obviously not notable.
You did a Google search in English and nothing came up on the first page, so it can't be notable and it's too much trouble to go to AfD and plus someone might disagree with you there.
  • A17. Its a stub. You hate stubs.
A stub. You hate stubs. Why are there so many stubs? Also applies to start articles that look too much like stubs and to featured articles that at one point were stubs.
  • A18. Something that could be merged, but you're too lazy to do it.
Applies if you are too lazy at the moment to do the work or feel you might be too lazy when you get around to thinking about maybe doing it later.
  • A18(a). Something could be redirected, but you forgot the correct syntax for a redirect.
Syntax is hard. Why can't you just wish for a thing to be and it is? This way you just have a couple clicks to perform. Everything on Wikipedia should be done by clicks and not require typing. Typing is hard.
  • A19. Articles with references in languages other than English that obviously cannot be verified.
This is English Wikipedia so everything should be in English. Google translate is hard and some of those non-Latin characters are scary.
  • G15. You're having a bad day and something just absolutely must pay for it.
Applies to all situations where real-life issues are upsetting you and the best solution is to take it out on an innocent article, category, template or other random page or two. Please note: this only applies to real-life off-wiki situations that are upsetting you. If you are upset due to an on-wiki situation, other CSD criteria may apply, such as A12 or A13. If you are both having a bad off-wiki day and something on-wiki is also bothering you, please contact an Oversighter and have something suppressed.
  • G16. You should get credit for something, but won't unless it's deleted first so you can claim the credit.
You found something and think you could improve on it, but want credit for creating it, so you want it deleted. Can be literally anything from a new stub to the five pillars.
  • G17. You just feel something should be deleted.
Feelings are more important than facts, policies, and guidelines. You should
WP:IGNORE
and go with your gut.
  • U6. A user page that meets the criteria for a user page, but that you don't like.
A good way to express exactly how involved you are in the lives of individuals you don't know.
  • U7. User page deletion anger management
Available when you are having a disagreement with another editor, need to vent your anger, but don't want to be blocked for a personal attack. You can repeatedly have their user page deleted until they acknowledge you are always correct and agree not to challenge you in the future. Use with caution due to the possibility of this developing into a U7(a) situation.
  • U7(a). User page deletion anger management delete war
When two editors need to vent their anger over a disagreement on an article but don't want to edit war at that article or engage in personal attacks, they can engage in a delete war against each other's user pages, repeatedly having the other's user page deleted and when the other user refunds their page and deletes your page, you simply delete again until someone surrenders. Canvassing your clique to create a delete war army to assist you is acceptable. If the delete war appears to be at a stalemate, an uninvolved admin can decide to close the delete war by having a Wikipedia drone strike carried out on the editors accounts to end the situation.

Bored?

Free tools for editing Wikipedia

These are some of the tools I use, your millage may vary, but these work for me. Suggestions welcome. Items available for Linux, may be available for Windows and Mac. All work well for individuals with visual impairments, and most work well with dark themes.

Text Editors

  • Visual Studio Code: This text editor has a Wikipedia extension (by Jason Williams) with code coloring, a great snippet tool, autocomplete, code folding, robust find and replace within/across documents, workspaces, write scripts in any language, and a reasonable spelling engine that doesn't flag code. I find this very useful for working with new articles and bibliographies.
  • Sublime Text: Another great text editor, all of the features above, except spell check and code coloring. I usually use this as a notepad, to compose or edit short passages, edit talk page messages. Biggest drawback is no spell check. I prefer VS Code for snippet management. There is a plug in that allows you to directly open, edit, and save Wikipedia pages which is very useful.
  • Brackets: Another great text editor.

I usually have all of the above open and just switch between them depending on what I'm doing.

Grammar and writing tools

Python modules for text processing and data analysis

(These are useful for cleaning up raw bibliographic data, working with tables, geographic data, etc)

Office Suites

  • LibreOffice: Word Processor and Spreadsheet. Minimal bloat, all the tools someone might use in a more expensive and bloated Office suite. Doesn't have an easy to switch to dark mode :/
  • Open Office: Very very similar to Libre Office.
  • Google Docs web applications. No my favorite. There extension system is awkward, but this is useful. Best dark mode.

Fonts

  • Input: I prefer Input Mono Thin. Works well with color coding on dark backgrounds.[7]

References and notes'

  • Evernote: online note taking. I use this but below items are great
  • Joplin: if I wasn't so used to Evernote, I'd probably use Joplin.[8]
  • Simplenote: Made by WordPress.[9]
  • Zotero: reference manager. Someone told me this would change my life and it did. Has browser plug ins for Chrome and Firefox. Lacks some accessibility customizations I like.

Web tools

Online repositories

  • Github, online storage and versioning for projects that aren't yet ready for prime time or anything else you want.

Databases, indexes and bibliographies

Historical Associations

Wikipedia Editor Information Pages

These are items I either have or continue to find useful. I post them here for my reference and in the hope they might help someone else find something.

General

AFD

  • WP:FUTUREEVENT
    : "expected future events should be included only if the event is notable and almost certain to take place. "

Contentious topics

ECP General sanctions

Writing

Punctuation

Commas | Semicolons | emDashes | enDashes | Hyphens

Prepositions

General grammar

Noticeboards

MOS Style Guidelines

Layout and sections

Lists

Details

  • Section titles use sentence case, not title case. See
    MOS:CAPS
    .
  • Everything about using
    dashes
    properly on Wikipedia.
  • Wikipedia's style for an Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Ellipses ellipsis is three unspaced dots (...); do not use the precomposed ellipsis character () or three dots separated by spaces (. . .). Generally, use a non-breaking space before an ellipsis, and a regular space after it
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles of works

Editing policies, guidelines, essays

General

Lists

Categories

  • Category Sort Keys
  • Ordering names in a category
         {{DEFAULTSORT:Last, First}}
  • Special:CategoryTree
  • Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality

About policies, guidelines and essays

Deletion, Merging, Splitting

Notability

Articles for Deletion related processes

Useful guidelines and essays related to deletion criteria

  • Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates
    Talks about the importance and individuality of Categories, Lists and Navigation templates and how they work together on Wikipedia.
  • Wikipedia:Summary style
    Talks about what Summary style is and the pattern of topic development that follows: Summary Overview Article/List >> General Subject Article/List >> Specific Topic Article/List
    eg: History >> American History >> History of the American Civil War >> History of the Battle of Gettysburg

Copyright

Citations

Wikipedia Citation Information

Citation Guides

Citation Tools

Citation Templates

Citation Essays

Wikipedia Reference

Tools and Scripts

Lists

Individual items

Copyright tools

Online writing tools

Wikipedia Sorting and Indexing Lookup Pages

Templates

General

  • {{tl|Template:Anchor]]
  • {{subst:Anchor|Old name}}

Text

Calculation

General Page

Page Cleanup

Style of writing

  • {{repetition}} This article may contain too much repetition or redundant language.
  • {{peacock}} This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.
  • {{buzzword}} This article appears to contain a large number of buzzwords.
  • {{cleanup-PR}} This article reads like a press release or a news article and is largely based on routine coverage or sensationalism.
  • {{essay-like}} This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay
  • {{like resume}} This biographical article is written like a résumé.
  • {{review}} This article reads like a review rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject.
  • {{verbosity}} This article's text uses more words than are necessary.
  • {{advert}} This article contains content that is written like an advertisement
  • {{cleanup}} This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
  • {{cleanup rewrite}} This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards.
  • {{cleanup section}} This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
  • {{too many see alsos}} This "see also" section may contain an excessive number of suggestions.
  • {{very long}} This page may be too long to read and navigate comfortably.
  • {{lead rewrite}} The lead section of this article may need to be rewritten.
  • {{POV lead}} The neutrality of this article's introduction is disputed.
  • {{cleanup red links}} This article or section's use of red links may not follow Wikipedia's guidelines.
  • {{external links}} This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines
  • {{off topic}} This section may stray from the topic of the article.

Structure

  • {{cleanup reorganize}} This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia's layout guidelines.
  • {{importance section}} This section contains information of unclear or questionable importance or relevance to the article's subject matter.
  • {{sections}} This article should be divided into sections by topic, to make it more accessible.
  • {{subsections}} This section is too long to read comfortably, and needs subsections.
  • {{Expand section}}
  • {{Summarize section}} This section may be too long and excessively detailed
  • {{summarize section}} This section may be too long and excessively detailed.
  • {{Too many sections}} This article may have too many section headers dividing up its content.

Inline cleanup templates

Talk pages

Infoboxes

Miscellaneous

Topics/Articles that interest me

Names

  • Timmy (given name)

Timothy (disambiguation), Tim (disambiguation), Timoti (disambiguation), Timotheus (disambiguation)

History

Bibliographies

Contents, Indexes, Outlines and Glossaries

Indexes

Contents

Glossaries

Outlines

Timelines

Portals

Literature

Authors

Technology

Music

Artists

Works

Movies

The Bride of Frankenstein
, ,

Places

Other

Other

Maintenance tags navboxes

About Me

TThis user is a Timothy
not a Tim and never a Timmy
PMy pronouns are either
he, him, his or they, them, their
This user was born and lives in the U.S. State of California.
This editor was born, raised, lives in and loves Los Angeles
This editor uses Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)
This editor uses Apache Open Office to contribute to Wikipedia
This editor uses Sublime Text 3 to contribute to Wikipedia
This editor uses Visual Studio Code to contribute to Wikipedia
This user is a WikiElf.
This user has visited or driven through 46 of the 50 States and the District of Columbia.46

Not visited: Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina.

Jewish-American.
This user has
Polish ancestry.
This user is a member of the LGBT community.
This user identifies as a gay male.
This user identifies as a
Democratic Socialist.
This user has publicly declared that they have a conflict of interest regarding the Wikipedia article Chocolate.

Notes

References

  1. ^ Greg Gilman (2 November 2023), Antisemitic Graffiti at Canter’s Deli Under Hate Crime Investigation, retrieved 6 November 2023
  2. ^ Jones, Herb. "Herb Jones tells it like it is".
  3. ^ Martin Luther King Jr. (1967). Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?. p. 67.
  4. ^ * Gove, Michael (3 June 2017). "The Russian Revolution: A New History by Sean McMeekin". Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Preface to the 1941 edition of The War in the Air". Archived from the original on 22 December 2008. Retrieved 11 February 2008.
  6. ^ "Barbara Ehrenreich, 'Nickel and Dimed' author and activist, dies at 81". NBC News.
  7. ^ site https://input.fontbureau.com/preview/
  8. ^ [Joplin Note taking https://joplinapp.org/]
  9. ^ Simplenote https://simplenote.com/
  10. ^ DeepL https://www.deepl.com/translator