User talk:Uncle G/Archive/2021-04-17

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Various thoughts on biographies of living and very dead people

Dropping by your talk page to leave a couple of thoughts, and as usual utter amazement at some of the articles you and others work on. The latter prompted mostly by the comment you left here (which I agree with absolutely, I find lists of awards from various science, medical, engineering and other learned societies are a good source of redlinks for people that it is easy to write about and where plenty of sources are available). It was really good to see some of the surgeons you mentioned there now have articles (thanks to Aymatth2), as that is an under-represented area and I've done a couple of articles on surgeons as well. But working on articles like that, where someone has lived a full and long career, and had much written about them, and there are sources in abundance to draw on, convinces me all the more that our approach with currently living people is wrong, that the bar is set too low, and articles can be created prematurely. My thoughts on this are at an ongoing AfD that you commented on, so you may have seen them already: thought, thought, thought. I was thinking of trying to expand on these thoughts at some suitable discussion venue or talk page. I am aware of the essays in your userspace, but would you have any thoughts on what I said there, or advice on where would be a good place to discuss such matters further? Carcharoth (talk) 03:32, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • We can at least start here if you like. The page is all empty now that the 'bot is well again. (Three replacement motherboards, two replacement hard discs, replacement ATA cables, a replacement PSU, a replacement CD-ROM drive, and a replacement operating system.)

    It's been acknowledged pretty much right from the first version of

    Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies (here) that there's a difference between very dead people and living people, and that things are a lot simpler for the very dead. Although for the very dead there is, still, a spectrum between the likes of Frederick William Sanderson (AfD discussion) and the likes of Douglas Syphax (AfD discussion), for the living, there is a far broader spectrum. I wouldn't even put Riin Tamm (AfD discussion) at the low end of the spectrum. The true low end of the spectrum is the sort of stuff that I was addressing in User:Uncle G/Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Unsourced biographies: children whose lives and works are undocumented. Above that come the likes of Eva Lazzaro (AfD discussion), whose life is close to undocumented, even if one can find lists of her works.

    I'll take your Jack James (fencer), and I'll raise you Arvydas Juozaitis. You might think from the article alone that it's an entirely analogous situation: a sportsperson who is likely simply an Olympic statistic and otherwise unrecorded in history. In fact, as you can see from User talk:Drmies#Credibility, the situation with M. Juozaitis is not what'd you expect. This Olympic competitor is in the history books. I know because I found him in two.

    Uncle G (talk) 11:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply

    ]

    A nice empty page to fill up. :-) I do like the way you describe the living spectrum of notability as broader than that for the very dead. I was a bit disappointed with this proposal you sent me to, but I do see your point about how some articles on children can be examples of edge cases where you see the beginnings of the accrual of sources. Even Justin Bieber was unknown once, though some children (begat of royalty or modern celebrities) do seem to spring forth fully notable (some are written about before they are born). On a more sombre note, when people die young, strange things can sometimes happen to notability, but that might be best left for another discussion.

    One thing I did want to mention was the presumed dead and the maybe dead. The ones in limbo. Your Lithuanian Olympic swimmer has a birth date and a photo. Jack James has neither, though I see that since I last checked, someone has added a middle name, and that he might have been 1929 British champion (commented out). Maybe this crowdsourcing lark does work after all! But what lengths is it reasonable to go to find out death dates? You would presume the fencer is competing on the other side now, but if he was 18 in 1928 he would be 102/3 now. Not likely, but easily possible, so you can't really presume. And if that is the case, no amount of searching for a death date will work.

    There is a similar case with one of the redlinks at Stuart Ballantine Medal, the David George Croft Luck one. Born 1906, enough about his life and career around (I left some notes at User talk:Newyorkbrad because of an intriguing legal connection that may be a dispute over the status of his parentage), but if still alive he would be 106/7 now. The current list of redlinks I am working my way down is from that awards article (the ones created so far are Jack James (rocket engineer), Robert J. Parks and Leroy Chang). Those are ones where the death dates were easy and sources in abundance.

    The others may not be so easy, as they include those who are still alive, who have personal websites, and I'm not at all sure about creating articles on them. The articles would essentially read like modified CVs/resumes and have to be redone in any case when the time comes that someone (hopefully) issues an obituary. It doesn't help that one of the awards lists is in an area I know very little about (education): the redlinks at James Bryant Conant Award. Some of those redlinks are very interesting, but will take a while to get a handle on. Carcharoth (talk) 13:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    You need to archive Uncle G. Current size of this page is 0 GB (49,883 bytes). Oh! Wait! --Senra (talk) 13:21, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe off-topic, Douglas Syphax seems marginally notable at best. I only found one article giving a short bio, although others mention him. There is only fragmentary data about his life: civil war service, real estate ventures, veterans relief committee. But his family is much more interesting to me: his grandmother, father-in-law and son. One approach could be to merge the bio into an article about the Syphax clan. But I would not completely rule out letting Wikipedia include genealogical entries - as long as they were sourced - for non-notable people. Or perhaps non-notable dead people closely related to notable people, to keep the numbers down. Digging around on the Bloodgood clan got me thinking of that, and checking the Syphax clan reinforced it. That goes beyond the scope of a traditional encyclopedia, but there would definitely be interest... Stray thought. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Md Sabur Khan

Isn't this a G4?

talk) 15:14, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sabur Khan. Looks like. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lynette Nusbacher

Hi, I quoted a post of yours at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Lynette_Nusbacher. Insomesia (talk) 11:23, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jaine Green

Your prod of this was contested at

WP:REFUND, so I've restored it. I'm letting you know in case you either want to work on cleanup or take it to AFD. LadyofShalott 15:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

Another for the new article creation committee

I am probably not competent to create Vagindra script but it clearly demands to be created. (Ignore the editor's mention of the little section at Agvan Dorzhiev; that was my doing after I finally found what name we had him under). Yngvadottir (talk) 21:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Possible Conradi sock

It's been brought to my attention via email that User:AsianGeographer may be a current Tobias Conradi sock. Though I had dealings with him back before he was blocked, I'm not up to date on the recent ways of identifying his socks. You appear to be more familiar with his recent activities, so I figured I would toss this your way. - TexasAndroid (talk) 19:58, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion sorting

Hello Uncle G, when you add an AfD to a delsort page such as you did with Paul Jefferys at United Kingdom (step 1), you need to tag the AfD by adding the relevant tag (step 2), in this case {{subst:delsort|United Kingdom|~~~~}} , which will inform editors that it has been listed there & avoid it possibly being listed more then once. Regards ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 06:50, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ucycoin's sandbox

Hello. Your action in clearing the contents of

(❝?!❞) 13:06, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

About IP's and stupid admins

How can anybody misuse "dialup" to mean "ISP customer"? (That's some diff, you must be compulsively tidy. :-)) What is it they are distinguishing "ISP customer" from? I thought everybody was one. Now I feel even stupider. :-( (Please use words of maximum one syllable in reply.) Bishonen | talk 18:38, 17 January 2013 (UTC).[reply]

  • Not all customers of ISPs use dial-up Internet access. Some use DSL, and some use cable, for example. So it's an error to classify an IP address as "dialup" when what one really means is "ISP customer". Uncle G (talk) 20:17, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I knew that, that's not what I meant. Sorry I wasn't clear. Please look at WhatisMyIPAddress, for instance here. There's a field called Type, which is in this case given as "Dial-up". You say that's an error, they should have said, or meant to say, "ISP customer". But isn't ISP customer always the answer? Isn't everybody an ISP customer? How can there be a field where something that's always the case is supposed to be the answer? Or, to put it another way: isn't the Type field supposed to contain a subgroup of ISP customers, i. e. dialup or DSL or cable? Are you saying "they didn't think it through, they just put dialup for all their customers"? Bishonen | talk 11:30, 18 January 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Jargon

I notice you complaining about -ista again. Shouldn't that be -ist? No-one talks about deletionista's or eventualista's do they?

My pet peeve is

refactor
as we're supposed to be writing English not algebra or code.

Warden (talk) 12:43, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ken Hoang

Hello again Uncle G, I see that you removed the AfD template from Ken Hoang's article & deleted the deletion discussion due to repeated bad faith nominations by a user who was ultimately blocked as a sockpuppet. A deletion discussion has now been created for a 7th time see here by a new user NNN1102 (talk · contribs). You may also want to check the user who voted in that same discussion, I thought I'd bring it to your attention & let you do what you deem necessary. Regards ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 20:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

. . . and again, with creative misspelling, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ken Hoang (6th nominatien) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ken Hoang (7th nominatien) . Best, --Arxiloxos (talk) 17:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gold5Digger66

Hi Uncle G, by any chance would

SagaciousPhil - Chat 16:34, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

Seconding this, same userpage, same contribution pattern (keeping articles at AFD as 'looks good'). He also un-struck a !vote at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/American_Bullnese that you had previously struck.--TKK bark ! 16:43, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

Hello, Uncle G. You have new messages at Surajt88's talk page.
Message added 10:20, 21 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

Suraj T 10:20, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Canvassing - use of indirect quotations

I wonder if you would care to express an opinion at Wikipedia talk:Close paraphrasing#Proposal: Quotations. This seems the sort of topic you would be interested in. Personally, I am not particularly concerned about what is decided (see my ALT1 and ALT2 suggestions - I can live with either) but am much more concerned that we have clear guidelines with plenty of examples. Thanks, Aymatth2 (talk) 18:49, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge by Admins

Opps, seems I can't merge articles without an admin. If you have time, could you look over the talk page for

Temperateness and see if this can't be merged and redirected to Temperate Climate. Watchwolf49z (talk) 13:27, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

Looks like someone else got to it ... but thanx anywho Watchwolf49z (talk) 11:53, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to deleted M.O.P comment at
WP:AN/I

[1] Maybe you can restore it?--

WP:RX 08:59, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

About this discussion

Hi Uncle G. What the flipping heck? Best regards, --Shirt58 (talk) 10:46, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On the notability of dogs

A

Newfoundland dogs, gentle giants. Some are the subject of articles, and at least one has been eulogized in a poem. One lives in my house. She has been the subject of a photo essay on water rescue in the newsletter of a newfie owners' association, with a short biography and a character sketch, available online. She has also featured in a community newspaper with a circulation of several thousand copies for her key role in a Santa Claus parade. This paper also gave a character sketch and biography, and is also available online. Two reliable and independent sources is good enough for me. But I am not entirely confident about the response if I were start an article on this notable dog. I suppose AfD is the worst that could happen. Just a stray thought... Aymatth2 (talk) 01:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

  • I don't really see it. For a singing cowboy the Gibson could be more interesting, but where have all the singing cowboys gone? For a child struggling in the water, a Newf is what is needed. I must admit that just possibly the notability of this particular Newf may not be entirely clear-cut. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:15, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

don't change the meaning

I don't know why you came to the AfD for Rah Crawford, but your edit there changed the meaning by improperly showing that one of my posts was a reply to the immediately preceding post.  There are two priorities in such a case, (1) we are here to build an encyclopedia, and (2) don't change the meaning.  Thank you, Unscintillating (talk) 09:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Uncintillating, your grasp of MediaWiki list markup is terrible. As is your grasp of common courtesy. Badgering people who merely fix your broken list markup without touching a single word of meaning whilst you're busy removing and refactoring other people's discussion contributions wholesale is rather high on the irony scale. And your clear inability to just remove the one asterisk character, instead of ineptly hitting the undo button and re-botching all the list markup for the entire page again, shows an unconstructive and unthinking approach. There are more than enough people who are unable to use anything but the undo button, and demonstrably unable to actually edit. Don't be yet one more. Uncle G (talk) 09:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is that your idea of an apology?  Why are you dumping on me?  This is the second time in a month, and I have yet to start to talk to you about the first incident.  I know you to be one of the editors involved in the foundation of the current WP:Notability, so I have reason to respect you, and would prefer to work constructively with you.  A few months back I requested another editor to invite you to WP:CORP because we valued your opinion.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:10, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You seem to take negative feedback poorly, but you also need to consider that your "tidying" came 36 minutes after an edit that removed one of my comments, and an edit that restored text without documenting for readers that a change had been made.  So in addition to changing the meaning, your edit confounded a compromised talk page, and has led to complicating the discussions on two other talk pages.  Your timing appears to show poor judgment.  Do you have an explanation for getting involved with discretionary edits 36 minutes after a talk page incident?  My priority was to cut back to the compromised material and get to work.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:10, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have noted and reviewed the link you provided to "Help:List".  Thank you, Unscintillating (talk) 01:10, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

YGM

Hello, Uncle G/Archive. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{
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To infinity ...

Someone recently referred to your article

User:Uncle G/Wikipedia is not infinite. We could use some enlightened thinking like this at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1 metre. Please take a look. Warden (talk) 16:32, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

Lest I be typecast ...

I had the cheek to create Vagindra script. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In case you're interested...

I'm trying to see if the Babes in the Wood article can be further beefed up. You did some great work there, though I don't know how busy you are now. Perhaps you could look at the article's talk page. MezzoMezzo (talk) 11:10, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Lua requests

Hi Uncle G, I noticed you've been a prolific Lua script contributor at

Wikipedia:Lua requests and it'd be great if you could watchlist it to assist anyone who needs help with Lua scripts. Thanks! Dcoetzee 00:31, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

WikiProject Cleanup

Hello, Uncle G.

You are invited to join WikiProject Cleanup, a WikiProject and resource for Wikipedia cleanup listings, information and discussion.

To join the project, just add your name to the member list. Northamerica1000(talk) 15:47, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:Citation needed span

Template:Citation needed span has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. ‑Scottywong| gossip _ 15:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

fyi

I have made mention of your prior actions in an AN/I discussion here.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:17, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion

sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Eduemoni↑talk↓ 03:21, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Just stumbled on Grammarians' War; a fantastic article on a rarely-covered but fascinating subject. A barnstar for you :). Ironholds (talk) 22:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A note regarding User:Mishae and AN/I

User:Mishae was brought up in this discussion at AN/I, and (following his being blocked as a result of the discussion) invoked your comments on his talkpage in a way that appears to me to be erronious. Thought I'd give you a heads-up. - The Bushranger One ping only 06:03, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • My goodness. That was May 2012 when I pointed out that the database size is never decreased by this. So xe's been at that wrongheaded whitespace removal for roughly a year. Uncle G (talk) 18:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to join the Darius Dhlomo Drive

Hello. You are invited to join Darius Dhlomo Drive, a project which aims to cleanup and resolve one of the oldest copyright investigations on the sire. We hope that you will join and help to clean what's left of the copyright violations. You are getting this invitation because you have helped out previously, and I am inviting you back to hopefully wrap this up. Wizardman 01:37, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't mess up thread formatting on Talk:Kurgan hypothesis

The way you ended your message with a list made it very difficult to add a reply in a manner that would be clearly distinguished as a reply, and your subsequent tinkerings completely smooshed together and conflated your message and mine, and so were hardly useful. AnonMoos (talk) 23:53, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Apology Invitation

You are formally invited to place an apology to make up for your rambled confusion over at the administrator's noticeboard, which I've only now just seen. Second, I highly suggest you familiarize yourself further with this topic before continuing. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:57, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ping:
User:Writ Keeper/Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh

Hey, Uncle! I've been working on another article from your list, and I was just wondering if you would mind taking a look. There's a little bit of discussion on Drmies's talk page for it, too. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:19, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Uncle

Are you faring well, dear Uncle? Drmies (talk) 17:16, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Help with a citation dispute in article Talk:The Last Temptation of Krust#Title related to "The Last Temptation of Christ

Hi. I read your page on sources and content and would really appreciate it if you could help us out as an objective point of view. A few editors (including myself) are in the middle of a strange discussion about the title of a The Simpsons episode and it's relation to a novel and film as shown in the title of this section. I suspect that the discussion will not be resolved unless someone with more experience in these matters provides some advice. Thank you! Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 18:01, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you know

You have been mentioned at Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians. XOttawahitech (talk) 21:37, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes. Where art thou, dear uncle? Drmies (talk) 19:48, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not writing may well suggest not reading. Yet, you read and wrote. I think the previous two questions have been answered. I hope you have more? All the best, dear uncle. Drmies (talk) 21:25, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wolf House

Thank you very much, Uncle G, for your assistance. I may not be able to complete all of your assignments immediately, as I am a slow and plodding worker. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 16:42, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Blue Wing Inn

How on earth do I move that into article space while preserving attribution to you? I am having a stupid day anyway ... Yngvadottir (talk) 23:58, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for writing that article, Uncle G. I am sure you saw the topic on my list of possible future articles. Like Yngvadottir, I have no idea how to move the article to main space. And if you return to active editing, I hope that you will give me some tips on research skills. Yours are formidable. Thanks again. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:21, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I did attribution the old-fashioned way, with a zero edit. Soon there will be a lovely DYK template on this page. Uncle, I hope you're doing well. Remember my schedule: I don't teach Wednesdays, and lunch would be great. Drmies (talk) 02:29, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And thanks for The Grave, on behalf of poetry lovers everywhere. The grave's a fine and private place. I can have lunch with you tomorrow also, if Monday is better for you. Drmies (talk) 04:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Scott Peterson (writer)

Hello Uncle G,

This is just a courtesy visit to apprise you that I took the liberty to slightly expand your article citing relevant sources to back it. Hopefully you'd like my little effort. Best regards, (MrNiceGuy1113 (talk) 17:59, 16 September 2013 (UTC))[reply]

  • It was definitely in need of some serious attention. Uncle G (talk) 10:15, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Blue Wing Inn