I'm probably going to regret saying this, but I'm willing to pitch in at FAR, since you seem to have set yourself up with a pile of work. What's the best way for someone new to FAR to help out? Is there a checklist or a priority list? The more specific, the better -- I don't do well with vague instructions, but if you give me detailed requirements, I can be John Henry. JKBrooks85 (talk) 10:55, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well in short I list the ones that need review at User:Deckiller/FAC_urgents. Basically what happens at FAR is people tend to pick out the most deficient articles first (usually ones with no refs) and they make a very short nomination statement in maybe 5 minutes (since the articles are usually GA quick-fail standard there isn't a need to spend 40 minutes writing up every problem and subtlely if nobody cares). In most cases, nobody does care which is why the article hasn't changed for 3 years and is in such a state. If they do care, then they will do some fixes to get the basics in order and try to save it. This is where the problem is because most people do a five-minute review job of a way old FA because the deficiencies are so obvious, and in 75% of cases, nobody wants to fix the article up big time so then in the FARC voting stage they can just do a driveby "delist"; nothing else is needed really, it's just like PROD. But if they do some fixes and references often the reviewers don't check too hard to see if the references actually work or cover the material or things and so a apathetic keep often results due to incumbency. I've also ranted at the bottom of WT:FAR and linked to an earlier post about inertial/friction tactics at FAR. A lot of the time the article is all formatted inconsistently, and people will only fix up the exact examples of center/centre that one cites and then they come back and act blind again until you point out organise/organize and then June 3/3 June just do that until the reviewer gets pissed off and thinks "I don't want to fix this article for them" so they just fade away, and the article gets kept. Your FAs are way better than most of the old ones that have been half-shoddily-cleaned up so you can just do it analogously to a FAC and look for problems still outstanding and just deal with it in the same way. I should really get my FAR FAQ page done. It'll save a lot of time. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV05:31, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a plan. I've been doing my standard FAC review for most of the FARs I've looked at, and I'll be looking at the ones that aren't gathering any comments. I guess my pattern has been to put lots of citation needed and question tags in the articles as I do a quick copy edit and write up any questions that result. My main question is this: is the goal to keep an article featured, or is it to just check on whether an article is featured or not? JKBrooks85 (talk) 03:02, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally, the result is to keep an article featured but this is rarely followed these days. In the old days people would pick a substandard FA that they were interested in and helped fix it with the help of the WikiProject and the original author (if still present). Most of the worst FAs on WP at the moment are four years old and the author has usually left. With the rising standards on FAs today, it would take too much work for one person to fix unless they are genuinely interested in the topic. If nobody of that type from the WP cares, then it's pointless for the nom to do it all unless they too are interested. But people should not feel guilty about not fixing the article for others. If the critic was obliged to fix it then the owners would just sit there and force people to polish their stars for them and lots of bad articles. No problem with just doing it sweep-like on GAs either. On my part, I just go about cleaning up Australian ones and gradually nominating the rest and if the WikiProject doesn't care then it gets delisted. Nothing to feel guilty about. WikiProjects and authors claim stars, so they should contribute to maintaining their stuff. Just cleanup gridiron or fortress/military articles [if] you are interested in and review the rest. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV04:30, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I would say that the clean sheet by WP:AUS is pretty good but more pro-active stuff will have to be done. In the bit above I said to Aaron that I expect about 6-7 more Australian FARs this year....Fauna of Australia being the least referenced of them...is only a matter of time....We'll be hard pressed to keep the clean sheet going, but it would be good. All eminently doable really as long as we subscribe to a pro-active culture of self-improvement without waiting for the threat of the star-debt-collector. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV05:39, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There isn't, but I placed it on one of the award pages (Personal User one I think) - I was going to use this one, but I think I will reserve this for improvements on sourcing of fungi articles (mushrooms with sauces, hehehehe)...I am sure there are some good pix of nice curries...to improve the saucing of subcontinent articles..as there are over 500 sauce pix on commons... (gawd, I crack myself up sometimes...)Casliber (talk·contribs) 05:46, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Gee who wants to volunteer to be Pigsy? Hmm, Tripitaka has to be some pacifist who disapproves of my cynical and pro-active nature and likes giving me a headache... Is Sandy philosophical enough... Monkey says "Sandy, stop trying to think that you're a philosopher", Sandy says "That depends on your definition" Monkey says "That's exactly the kind of thing I meant!" YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV14:04, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In Spinners seal historic Bangladesh win is says: Shakib, hailed by the former Australian spinner Kerry O' Keefe as the "best finger spinner in the world". Were you listening when Kerry said this? He said something along the lines of best left arm spinner that bends him arm 15 degrees. I can't remember if he said it directly but he was meaning Vettori was the best, but said Daniel doesn't bend him arm. Journos toying with words..... Aaroncrick (talk) 22:02, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was in December last year between the NZ and RSA Tests. BANG were in RSA and Shakib took a lot of wickets and Karen Tighe or maybe Simone Thurtell was hosting Grandstand and they did a cross to the SCG for a Shield match and Kerry and Jim were on patrol. I don't know why he started but he was talking about how finger spinners generally are more limited than wrist spinners except then he started laughing [so it might be a joke] and said something along the lines "apart from my mate Shakib with his 14.9 degree arm extension" and starting saying that he would buy Shakib lots of beers the next time he came to Australia and then Jim made a comment about the "lemonade set" implying that Shakib was religiously restrained from drinking. I don't remember anything about Vettori. Kerry says a lot of things half-comic-cryptically like when a colleagues asked if some bowler could be considered legit, he answered that "Boy George would be deemed straight by the ICC" YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV02:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Man you have a good memory :) Yeah he said something about Vettori, I think when I heard him talk about Shakib it was on the 28th November 08. Shakib isn't as bad as Razzak though. Bangladesh finally won a test! Against a side so weak a Sydney/Melbourne grade side could have one. The quality of the attack was still too much for Ashraful to handle. Shucks a Sri Lankan pitch that assisted the pace bowlers! For a while anyway. Aaroncrick (talk) 02:54, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There has recently been considerable Chinese guerilla activity directed at the infobox for the article Sino-French War, aimed at replacing the conventional verdict 'French victory' with 'ceasefire'. Is there anything you can do to stop these terrorists from rewriting history without providing satisfactory argumentation for their views? I would certainly appreciate the latest such edit (see the discussion page for the article Sino-French War) being reverted.
The issue of victory and defeat in this particular war has been thrashed out ad nauseam. As one contributor has pointed out, all wars end in a ceasefire by definition. Given that we are required to make a shot at estimating the result of a conflict, the verdict 'French victory' has stood the test of time, and is accepted by all reputable encyclopedias and histories of the war. I could fudge the issue by using the formulation I used in my article Battle of Zhenhai, 'result and significance disputed', but that would just be a cowardly cop-out. In terms of what the war was fought about (see my last posting on the discussion page), France clearly won it, and we should say so.
hi David. I found that the two guys you argued with are the same guy who created two accounts to vote stack. I have blocked them. You can just treat them like vandals and keep reverting them. Also the other guy has about 20 accounts on the same IP and are probably the same guy creating extra socks to say that Chinese scientists are better than Japanese, assail the Dalai Lama, etc. If there are more problems a comment at WT:MILHIST will trigger some reinforcements against any single-purpose nationalist zealot. Anyway, I hope to see your articles at WP:FAC one day YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV04:33, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, Yellow Monkey.
Many thanks, and I'll revert the recent edits accordingly.
On the point at issue, there is indeed a case to be made that China did less badly in the Sino-French War than in its other nineteenth-century foreign wars, and it is for that reason that I have highlighted Lung Chang's conclusion in the lead paragraph. China stood up to a European Great Power for eight months and escaped from the conflict without loss of territory. Not bad by the standards of the Sino-Japanese war, but also not a victory by any stretch of the imagination. The verdict of the European powers makes this clear. Britain struck while the iron was hot, and the loss of Chinese suzerainty over Tonkin in 1885 was followed in 1886 by the detachment of another tributary state, Burma, by the British (a point I should mention in the final section of the article, by the way). Chastened by the result of the Sino-French War, China did not dare to fight another war over Burma.
By the way, I still intend to use that book you sent me on the Cochinchina campaign to expand the articles I created a few months ago. There's some very interesting information there that is omitted in the standard French accounts. My Wikipedia editing has tapered off a bit recently because I'm spending most of my time doing the final revisions to my book.
Thanks for your input regarding the complaint by another user. I am an American and I did not move to the USA from any other country. Please assume good faith in my account. I am not a sock, and any admin can verify this fact. I do not know who Mr. V is. Please help me and please protect my account and interests on WP. This is my sincere request to you. Please also note that I am a new user and am unfamiliar with the WP culture. Please enlighten me with methodology and ways of communication, if you would like to, so that I can be a strong, happy, editor. Please do not block me. This is also a sincere request to you. Please assume good faith in me and please do not bite me. I am a newcomer.
Again, please note that I am an American and I did NOT move to the USA from any other country in the recent past. I do not understand why User: Ravichandar84 is blindly accusing me. I live and work in the USA and am a proud American. I respect all the editors at WP and I expect the same from all editors. I request you to protect my account User: Svr014 and interests on WP. Please tell [User: Ravichandar84] not to accuse newcomers as sockpuppets or meatpuppets. Please note the following pages which state some principles on WP. They are:
Again, please protect my account. Please do not block me for no reason. Please tell [User: Ravichandar84] not to accuse me. I do not know who Mr. Vyaghradhataki was. I am an American citizen and I am new to WP. The reason why I retired from WP is mainly to avoid blind accusation from Ravichandar84. Hope this explains my side of the story in a very professional manner. Have a nice day! Awaiting your help in this regard. Svr014 (talk) 14:24, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hey YellowMonkey, when you have a moment could you please clarify your reasons for blocking this user (with a message at his talkpage, or whatever)? His recent edits to Mao ZD were pretty POV-pushy (I didn't look at his recent edits to Sino-Tibetan War) and he is pretty hated at July 2009 Urumqi riots, but I wasn't sure if they were quite blockable yet, and as far as i can tell his sock puppeting was confined to a few days ago when he was blocked (if you have found other sockpuppets, then of course you can post them on his SPI page). I myself have no love of this user (he's insulted me several times and when he was blocked last time he started a pretty lame blog to rant about how much of an evil terrorist sympathizer I am), but I just wanted to make sure the block was done right. Thanks, rʨanaɢtalk/contribs02:19, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, his other sock was AMJORG (talk·contribs). I think the PRC is making a great mistake and doing us a great favour by blocking WP. They think that the people will see stuff that will embarrass them but the truth is that if they allowed it we would have about 1000 of these guys on every Tiber/Uighur/FLG article filling it up CCP propaganda, and on all history articles involving disputes with every country. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV02:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not entirely sure (I think that's one of Roger's), but I'd say it's a general 'how to' guide to help our members who want to join in with reviewing a featured article candidate. However, if you've got a better idea please feel free to add it to the wishlist (and write it too if you like!). Thinking about it, something on what to expect during an FAC and the nuts-and-bolts of the FAC review process itself (ie how to nom, who does what, how to handle opposes etc) might be more useful to our members. EyeSerenetalk16:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sure thing, if a Wikipedia user looks up Playboy writer to use as a source to prove how good a certain cricket writer is, then the user is probably the subject himself who kept news/mag cuttings of praise of himself in a folder. Who else would look up playboy and porn magazines to find out information about cricket history? And if the original motive was an interest in pornography, I doubt it would suddenly motivate them to look up and write a 100k cricket history article. Personally I also wonder what inside knowledge they would need to know the subject's university results. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV01:23, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The content of the YellowMonkey post was a speculation that an internationally successful Australian author (22 published books and numerous awards) was posting some sort of vanity advertisement on a Wikipedia bio page without declaration. This was duly refuted by a declaration of identity of myself as the user posting this content in what I am learning will need to be a more Neutral-POV style as the bio of a living person.
o Has worked with Tim Burstall and Roland Perry on film development projects
o Is a novice Wikipedia editor. Has never added Wikipedia content before, and would welcome assistance with the technical aspects of doing so.
o Collated factual sourced material on Roland Perry and posted this on Wikipedia in July 2009 using journalistic style to bridge the sourced material and some opinion. Material is not contested by Roland Perry, even though it includes a good deal of sourced criticism of Roland Perry along with the overwhelming positive reviews of Roland Perry’s broad writing career which includes journalism and 22 published books on US politics, British espionage and history (WW1), along with a variety of biography, fiction as well as cricket history.
{extract ends}
YellowMonkey's speculation was false -- and the persistence of that speculative material continuing to be published on Wikipedia imputes that the reviews of Roland Perry's works were only from Playboy magazine -- when this was only one example extracted in an unrepresentative way by YellowMonkey from a list of over 150 references.
Playboy article was coverage of Roland Perry's first fictional thriller novel, Program for a Puppet. There was also a Penthouse article on Roland's inside interviews at the White House. Roland has had a broad literary career, including cricket commentary. All of this is covered in the material that I believe should be posted, edited and contested as required for balance.
Well, it's not again -- it's the first time you're asking that, isn't it? A good question, though. Let's take it to the Roland Perry page where the quality and veracity of sources can be contested as required. That would be a productive way forward. Haruspex101 (talk) 02:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC) (novice user)[reply]
Off-topic comment: I don't know about Penthouse, but Playboy has published original writings of some all-time-greats. See for example this compilation : I read it years back and IIRC it contains no pictures. :-) Sorry for jumping in without even knowing the context but I saw YM's edit summary and had to comment Abecedare (talk) 02:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hello YellowMonkey, as a novice user I am finding the Wikipedia site quite frustrating to navigate and communicate basic concerns in good faith.
As I have posted (or attempted to post) on a number of occcasions now: I would very much appreciate Administrator-level advice on how to more effectively communicate and see that the sorts of inappropriate material that the YellowMonkey user [you] is posting in relation to Roland Perry is removed from Wikipedia.
Can you please help me with this or direct me to who could help me?
To date my experience has been that Wikipedia users (including Administrators who have been blocking me) are active and vigilant with regard to violations of the form of editing rules (deleting; blocking; third-reversions; strike thru; talk page dominance; etc); but not attentive, in my opinion, to the content that I am flagging should be removed because it is inappropriate for its reputational damage on Roland Perry. Clearly the removal of inappropriate material from Wikipedia is a priority over any contraventions of the mechanics of editing (which in themselves are unintentional editing rule breaches on my part as a novice user).
I would appreciate any assistance you or other users could please provide.
o In Jan 2009 YellowMonkey user added a series of selective sourced criticism on some of Roland Perry’s publications. There was no balance to the criticism. YellowMoney is a highly experienced Wikipedia editor and self-discloses as a cricket writer. What is YellowMonkey's motive for posting only selective critical/negative material? Is there a Conflict of Interest (COI) here?
...
o YellowMonkey please declare any Conflicts of Interest. Are you a cricket writer seeing themselves in competition with Roland Perry in cricket writing?
I'm sorry -- I don't quite understand what you are saying here. Are you saying (1) you do not write any biographies; (2) you do not write biographies of "Australians, old or new"; (3) you don't write any materials on "Australians, old or new" or (4) you don't write anything in the same subject field as Roland Perry (which includes US politics, British espionage, history (WW1), sailing as well as 10 of his 22 books on cricket history)? YellowMonkey, you do consider yourself a cricket writer don't you? And Roland Perry is certainly a cricket writer. So you do write in at least the same field as Roland Perry as far as the subject of cricket is concerned don't you? Even if the form of its expression is different -- say online articles vs international multiple print runs in hardback and paperback. Haruspex101 (talk) 15:43, 12 July 2009 (UTC) (novice user)[reply]
"the overwhelming positive reviews of Roland Perry’s broad writing career" On Wikipedia the expert opinions trump those of novices. The opinions of Einstein and Feynman trump those of the high school physics teacher. The opinions of science scholars trumps the large section of people in the street who believe in creationism. 40% of people might believe in creationism but they don't get 40% of the space because among scientific publications, almost nobody believes in creationism. Thus, the opinions of Haigh and Frith and Guha trump the opinions of the other people, as they are critically acclaimed cricket historians who widely read other cricket literature and know what is out there. The other people you quote are not cricket experts. That is why Haigh and Frith know that Perry's work is filled with errors on almost every page. The random reviewer from a newspaper who reviews all the books is not an expert and would have no clue. The random review also does not have 100s of cricket books in their collection and doesn't read all the books they can find, which is why unlike a world-class cricket historian knows that Captain Australia is just a paraphrase of Ray Robinson's On Top Down Under (per Frith) or that Miller's Luck is just lifted off Miller's autobio and Whitington's "Golden Nugget" book [Guha] and that the Bradman's Invincibles is just lifted off Fingleton's "Brightly Fades The Don" (per CricketWeb). People like Teri Louise Kelly in the Independent Weekly might not have read these old classics so they might not know (Kelly is a chef). In a recent piece, Ron Reed (who you describe as a "doyen" of journalism) claimed that Chanderpaul is captain of WI and Ishant is a left armer. If you can find independent booksales stats that say that Perry sells so much, then by all means add it, but in no way does this change the fact that he is regarded extremely poorly by the world of cricket scholars. When you look up google scholar, see how many citations there are for Haigh and Frith and compare it to how many there are for Perry. Also go to the library and check the bibliography and see how many cite Haigh, Frith, Pollard, Whitington and Robinson compared to Perry. The deluge in favour of the former is massive, just like Einstein or Feynman's of any Nobel winner's papers are cited thousands of times. Perry sells well but the likes of Andre Rieu and Bond (band) do too; those two probably sell 10 or 100 times more than the likes of Joshua Bell, Maxim Vengerov and Gil Shaham but no serious critic rates them anywhere but the bottom of the pile; Rieu is famous for gimmicks and the latter for mini skirts and sex appeal and find their supporters among people who don't know what a rondo or a coda is. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV14:04, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"...Captain Australia is just a paraphrase of Ray Robinson's On Top Down Under (per Frith) or that Miller's Luck is just lifted off Miller's autobio and Whitington's "Golden Nugget" book and that the Bradman's Invincibles is just lifted off Fingleton's "Brightly Fades The Don" (per CricketWeb)."
These comments are inappropriate as an ordinary person would say that they malign Roland Perry. Please remove them; or alternatively I will flag them as items to be deleted from Wikipedia. I don't know my way around here very well but I'm sure that this could or at least should be done.
+With your high level of Wikipedia editing expertise could you also please refer me to a good Administrator so that I will be able to work on disputed content with you in a more effective way. I would appreciate that. Or if there any other users who might be reading this post, could you please direct me to an Administrator or even the basics of how to do that myself because it's just not clear to me.
Stop playing games. I've already cited the cricket historians who have pointed this out that Perry just paraphrases other old people's classics. There is no grounds for deleting this except to whitewash Perry or so as to render debate impossible. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV15:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hello YellowMonkey. I do contest your assertion. Let's take it to Roland_Perry#Dispute_resolution to sort it out or at least what is in dispute for further polling and arbitration. I'm sure we both agree that the facts will win out. And that's even a foundation of the hypothetico-deductive method you seem fond of. Haruspex101 (talk) 16:02, 12 July 2009 (UTC) (novice user)[reply]
