This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
The article Trellick Tower you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Trellick Tower for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Eric Corbett -- Eric Corbett (talk) 01:02, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
I want to go on one of the guided tours. The end of block penthouse is incredible, for a council flat. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 11:58, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Fuck off...
...a bit less? :) Good advice, Ritchie. What's this I read in your contributions? BILL BRUFORD RETIRES? Man. That means we're getting old. I still remember being blown away by Fainting in Coils somewhere in the early 1980s. Drmies (talk) 01:29, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
(Buttinsky) Here's what y'all remind me of...*LOL* Atsme📞📧 02:31, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Good advice, Ritchie, and thank you for mentioning my name in a way that had not to be censored! - Go see the best Main page, colourful and full of toys, today, on the day of pride and prejudice (talking about how to name arb cases). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:05, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
You had recently provided a statement regarding a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Joefromrandb and others.
This case will address the behaviour of Joefromrandb and editors who have interacted poorly with them. However, on opening, who those editors might be is not clear to the committee. Before posting evidence on the relevant page about editors who are not parties to the case please make a request, with brief supporting evidence, on the main case talk page for the drafting arbitrators to review. Evidence about editors already listed can be posted directly at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Joefromrandb and others/Evidence. Please add your evidence by February 11, 2018, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Joefromrandb and others/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Kostas20142 (talk) 18:26, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Given my statement was "don't take this case", I can't see doing much else. :-/ Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 18:32, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Yeah I know, just procedural (although you can always change your mind) --Kostas20142 (talk) 18:30, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Adopt-a-user
Hi. If you have the time (and the inclination), I'd welcome your observations on the Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user project. I've been tying to sort out what (to me) seems like quite a mess that newcomers can't navigate through, and where Adopters can't actually find people who want adopting. I know you've been working closely with CaroleHenson, who was heavily involved until recently, so maybe you have a view on it that a complete newcomer to the scheme like me doesn't.
I've made some suggestions (plus a few changes already) to make life easier for newcomers, and have posted my concerns down in answer to this recent post about inactivity of some Adopt-a-User contributors. So any feedback would be useful, I'm sure. Regards Nick Moyes (talk) 11:18, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
DYK for Arrest of Mark Kaminsky and Harvey Bennett
You should be able to just move it yourself by pressing the "Move" button. If you're concerned that might be controversial, you might want to consider filing a move request first. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 12:10, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
Preity Zinta
The article was promoted ten years ago, I'm sure it could use somebody checking it and fully ensuring it is FA standard for 2018. But all I know is that Shshshsh is an expert in all things Preity Zinta and every shred of text in the article would have had some thought behind it. If the date was a certain way there would be a very good explanation for it. If anybody would know her real birth date it is him. I know you mean well in your talk page post but it did come across as a little condescending.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:00, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry about that, there was no way it was supposed to be condescending or patronising. I just know from experience that women's dates of birth are one of the biggest minefields on Wikipedia (celebrities in particular lie about their age all the time), and to have that situation against the mark that says "this is a featured article" (and, by extension, "the very best of Wikipedia's work") devalues the prestige an FA is supposed to carry. I'm talking about how the outside world would see the article - I don't want casual readers thinking "well if Wikipedia's (open scare quotes) Featured Articles (close scare quotes) have got blatant problems with a date of birth, I don't think much of their sucky quality!" I am surprised nobody has come forward with a better source yet, though I know sometimes getting an accurate DOB for a woman is difficult (see point above). As for the threat of delisting, I saw a pass date of ten years ago, skimmed through the last 100 edits and found all manner of new and inexperienced editors mucking about with it, and assumed this was another backmasking. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 15:09, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Times of India says it's today. I've honestly not read this article since 2008. I'm sure it does need checking but Shshshsh has done a good job in protecting it over the years and updating it. It would be far worse without him. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:18, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Unfortunately nobody patrolling WP:ERRORS found that, and consequently the article couldn't be on the main page today. Hey ho. For all the trouble he gets into elsewhere, when The Rambling Man reports an issue there, he's generally right or making a valid point. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 15:43, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Did you know? comments
Regarding this comment: I imagine "WIR" refers to Wikipedians-in-Residence. isaacl (talk) 17:54, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Okay, for me the only thing that comes to mind is Women in Red, and the World Contest had prizes in it. I've reverted the comment on the assumption that I've misunderstood. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 17:57, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
The discussion has mentioned Wikipedians-in-Residence multiple times, as typically occurs with any discussion involving limits on paid editing, regarding giving them an exception, and so Kudpung's comment is in line with that. isaacl (talk) 18:00, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Bob Snodgrass
I would so love him to be notable! A bong maker for the Grateful dead! But in 2008 he was the subject of an AFD here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bob Snodgrass can you tell me if there is a difference between the 2 versions ? Dom from Paris (talk) 18:24, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
I’ve restored the entire history so anyone can check. The current article is much better, with some actual sources this time around, so I don’t think G4 would apply. A7 is a pretty low barrier to clear, in your shoes I’d have gone straight to AfD. Certainly the source I added is not brilliant. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 18:52, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
I think I'll leave it as it is and try and find some sources myself. I would love to see the Grateful Dead's bong maker have a page here! Cheers Dom from Paris (talk) 20:13, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Page Deletion
Hello hope all is well. May i ask why you deleted the page Calvin Ross singer. Can you please restore it or make it back into a draft Reddrhino101 (talk) 02:31, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Restored to Draft:Calvin Ross. Drafts expire and get deleted when they haven't been worked on for 6 months, although in this case it appears to have been moved from draftspace to mainspace at some point. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 09:23, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Moorgate station you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of SchroCat -- SchroCat (talk) 23:01, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
First prose run through done. It's all in good shape and nothing too much to worry about. I'll be back later to do some of the other checks. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 09:50, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Since you probably tuned out the TDYK discussion long ago
The article Moorgate station you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Moorgate station for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of SchroCat -- SchroCat (talk) 20:21, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
I guess you know most of the above 'advice'. Still, DYK is a good place to trump-et your articles... cheers - SchroCat (talk) 20:53, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the review, let me know when the crash article is up to date and I’ll return the favour. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 21:06, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Ouch... I think I just was, by the unpuniness of that! - SchroCat (talk) 10:04, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
The Original Barnstar
Thanks for your work on improving articles to a better state, including the recent Moorgate station. Thanks a lot! VKZYLUFan (talk) (Mind the Gap!) 12:26, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm a bit busy off-wiki at the moment, but if you're collecting evidence, power~enwiki, you might want to look into how many times WP:STICK has been mentioned when closing infobox RfC / discussions - I can see me using it on Noel Coward and twice on Cary Grant, and those are far from the only examples. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 10:53, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Personally, I'd never use a stick on Cary or Noel. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:27, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
User:Roarschaq has asked for a deletion review of Quasamodo. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. —Cryptic 10:33, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm just an artist trying to see if I can get my article back but realized I'm not that important. Thank you for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roarschaq (talk • contribs) 10:39, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
Regardless of whether or not the edits are justified, this is exactly the type of behavior that led to the topic ban. Does blanking-and-redirecting fall under "deletion activities, broadly construed"? –dlthewave☎ 15:08, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
@Dlthewave: I would say not, simply because that blanking and redirecting can be reverted by any editor if they disagree, so any discussion about it is not directly related to an administrator action, unlike deletion discussions. I would recommend going to WP:ANI as a first point of complaint for this sort of thing. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 15:09, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
Just a quick note, as I don't intend to get involved. I would have thought that most folks would have understood blanking and redirecting to be the main part of the topic ban because that was the concern raised, and that concern has been raised previously. Blanking and redirecting is TPH's method of avoiding deletion discussions. If you didn't intend including blanking and redirecting then it would need to go back to ANI, because without that inclusion the topic ban is inadequate. SilkTork (talk) 12:35, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
I think when you close a discussion with a consensus to implement sanctions, you need to err on the side of not banning. Give the editor the restrictions that people have clearly asked for, but no more. If TPH blanks and redirects, revert. If he continues to blank and redirect on the same article, we have the usual channels of WP:AN3 etc available. The key aim here is we want to implement corrective action to change TenPoundHammer's behaviour, not constructively dismiss him off the project. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 12:41, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
Searching for a comment
Hi Ritchie! I'm trying to find a comment that someone made a while ago on Wikipedia. I thought it was very interesting and wanted to link to it as an example for another user. I only remember a few key words. How would you go about searching that? (Is it possible to just search, or am I going to have to trawl for it???) Thanks! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:30, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
It would be helpful to know what the keywords were! Anyway, searching on pages involves typing "expression" prefix:Page into the search box - for example : "is it cos i is ip" prefix:User talk:Ritchie333/ will take you here. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 09:12, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Something Anything lede
I added the line about it containing two of his biggest hits to the lede because, yes, even though it's mentioned elsewhere, I thought it was important enough for the lede. IMO the lede is focused solely on the production and the context, and deserves a reference to the two hits. Frank Lynch (talk) 02:27, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
I didn't remove it, I just merged it with another paragraph. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 09:13, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Help on getting London Underground related books
Hey Ritchie! I live in Southeast Asia and it's a red tape to obtain London Underground related books, such as Badsey Ellis' book and Day's book which are available in the UK. Any suggestions to retrieve them more easily without paying through my nose? Thanks :) VKZYLUFan (talk) (Mind the Gap!) 12:29, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
The easiest way is to visit London and pick them up in any number of bookshops! Iridescent has recently recommended Ian Allan Publishing next to Waterloo, though I've heard (including through that article) that they've stopped publishing since Allan's death, so I'm not sure if they're still there. There are companies like TransglobalExpress who can guarantee prompt delivery across the world, but I suspect they charge an arm and a leg. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 18:10, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
Ian Allan was definitely still there as of two days ago. Robert Humm is very good for out-of-print material, and there's a surprising amount available on Amazon Marketplace—if you're in Asia and don't need the books urgently make sure you opt for surface delivery, as otherwise you'll end up paying more for the shipping than for the books. TfL's own bookshop is frustrating as they (a) keep changing what they stock and (b) are aimed primarily at people with no previous knowledge so what they stock tends to be quite simple, but often has some gems. Bear in mind that a lot of books about LT—particularly about the tube—are either written for tourists and both over-simple and riddled with errors, or are written for diehard trainspotters and have insane levels of detail. As a rough guide, anything published by Capital Transport will be excellent but expensive; anything published by Middleton Press will have pretty pictures and be scrupulously accurate but will be a bit short of detail; anything published by Oakwood will be mind-numbingly over-detailed; anything written by any one of Jim Connor, Antony Badsey-Ellis, Tim Demuth, Clive Foxell or Ken Garland will be of such high quality it will be the only source you need on its topic. ‑ Iridescent 18:23, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
Tim Demuth was the designer of the original "London's Railways" map, which forms the basis of the present-day standard network map (and yes, the 1973 date is right; before this time it had never occurred to the authorities to show all the lines on a single diagram); Clive Foxell was Clive Foxell. ‑ Iridescent 19:51, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
I popped into Ian Allan yesterday, but didn't really find much that would be suitable as a Wikipedia source - while there were a lot of books, they were split between "London Transport policy for Dummies" and incredibly technical detail - there was a book about the Waterloo and City line which looked promising but just seemed to be a copy/paste of the London Gazette and Hansard on closer inspection. I ended up going in Foyles on Charing Cross Road, where surprisingly (given it's a general purpose bookshop) there was a better selection. I treated myself to a copy of Christian Wolmar's "The Subterranean Railway" which is a great read and a good place to start on history of the Tube if you don't know much at all. I forgot about 23-24 Leinster Gardens. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 09:21, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
If you've got a moment...
Would you be able to look over Andy Schatz? I've never really written a BLP before, and I know you've got more experience, so I was wondering if you'd be able to skim over it to see if everything's in order. Thanks, Anarchyte (work | talk) 04:54, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
I'll have a closer look when I've got a mo, but in general if there's nothing in the article you'd feel uncomfortable about if it was said to you, you're probably alright. It's not like he's a closet white supremacist or anything, is it? Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 09:14, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
I sure hope not. :) I've discussed the article with Schatz over email and the information is accurate (besides parts of design philosophy, which I'm still working on). I just need some help with the Wikipedia side of it (formatting, writing, etc). Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:15, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
On the formatting side, I've repositioned the images in the career section to make it altogether more readable and put the images near the relevant paragraph. Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:37, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
New Page Reviewer Newsletter
Hello Ritchie333, thank you for your efforts in reviewing new pages!The NPP backlog at the end of the drive with the number of unreviewed articles by creation date. Red is older than 90 days, orange is between 90 and 30 days old, and green is younger than 30 days.
Backlog update:
The new page backlog is currently at 3819 unreviewed articles, with a further 6660 unreviewed redirects.
We are very close to eliminating the backlog completely; please help by reviewing a few extra articles each day!
New Year Backlog Drive results:
We made massive progress during the recent four weeks of the NPP Backlog Drive, during which the backlog reduced by nearly six thousand articles and the length of the backlog by almost 3 months!
General project update:
ACTRIAL will end it's initial phase on the 14th of March. Our goal is to reduce the backlog significantly below the 90 day index point by the 14th of March. Please consider helping with this goal by reviewing a few additional pages a day.
Reviewing redirects is an important and necessary part of New Page Patrol. Please read the guideline on appropriate redirects for advice on reviewing redirects. Inappropriate redirects can be re-targeted or nominated for deletion at RfD.
If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. 20:32, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
"I am confident that we will be able to tackle the New Pages backlog of 300,000 articles!"
I suspect we could eliminate the backlog very quickly if you paid people to do it. Jus' saying. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 11:36, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
We'd just have to have volunteers check all their work anyway. Give someone an incentive, and they'll find a way to game the system. GMGtalk 12:12, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Well you'd do the same as any job interview. Test them for experience in WP editing, integrity, and see what they've got to lose if they game the system or mess it up. Anyone who you don't think can do the work responsibly doesn't get the job. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 12:30, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
But the link to the tv episode needs to be kept - have added a hatnote. PamD 10:28, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
It seems to be one of those articles that we should have, and without them we would not have frozen peas, but it's not easy to find sources - a search for the topic just brings back a huge number of cold stores. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 12:10, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
cite book
Hi. It has been a long time. Hope you are well. Recently I have been coming across many books that are written by organisations and/or they dont have an ISBN; like this one. Is there a way to turn it into {{cite book}}? Something similar to this: {{cite book|last=Richelson|first=Jeffrey T|title=The Wizards Of Langley: Inside The Cia's Directorate Of Science And Technology|publisher=Hachette UK|year=2008|isbn=978-0-786-74266-0|ref=harv}}. —usernamekiran(talk) 18:24, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
@Usernamekiran: In that case, it appears to be that Studied in Intelligence is a periodical, not a book, so it won't have an ISBN. It might have an ISSN or it might have a OCLC number in WorldCat. In this case, a search on WorldCat gives back an OCLC number. DGG and Megalibrarygirl are experienced librarians and may be able to give further advice. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 18:31, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Most older books don't have ISBNs—they only came into use fairly recently, and even today some books are published without them (although this is becoming rare). There's absolutely no obligation to include the ISBN field in a citation; I generally include the OCLC number (you can find it by searching the book's title at Worldcat) as a service to readers to ensure they're seeing which edition you're using, but there's no obligation even to do that. ‑ Iridescent 18:31, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
As Bill Clinton might say, it depends on what your definition of the word "old" is. Alan Jackson's London's Termini 2nd Edition, which I have used all over the place in London railway station articles (the clue's in the title), published over 30 years ago, has an ISBN. I'd certainly expect a periodical from 1997 to have one. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 18:36, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
It depends on the country and the publisher; the registration fee (usually $125 per book) isn't much to a big firm, but to a small specialist press which is likely to sell only through mail-order and specialist shops it isn't always going to be worth their while. As a general rule, anything published before 1975 is unlikely to have one, while anything published after 1980-ish in North America or Western Europe almost always will unless it's a hyper-niche publication. The numbering scheme began life as WHSmith's warehousing system, so for books that were of broad interest to the 1960s UK market you sometimes find them earlier than usual. ‑ Iridescent 18:50, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
I found an odd one the other day: The isbn seems not to exist, even though it was in the frontispiece as both hb / pb. Bizarre! >SerialNumber54129...speculates 18:57, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Yup, everybody is correct. And yes, "Studies in Intelligence" is a journal actually. BTW, I didnt get your ping Ritchie. —usernamekiran(talk) 19:02, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Park Lane
Hi, do you really think that my edit on the Park Lane article was not an improvement? The previous version, which is also the current version after your rollback, doesn't mention the most important thing, i.e. "The Adventure of the Empty House" being a Sherlock Holmes story, while it mentions something not very important like the name of the victim of the story. --Newblackwhite (talk) 15:44, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
This is an article about a street - keep cultural references to a minimum otherwise they get out of hand and accumulate a large bunch of unsourced or poorly sourced content. IIRC I trimmed enough getting the article to good article status in the first place. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 15:46, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Trimming is ok, but why does trimming involve keeping the name of a non notable character like Ronald Adair, while removing the more important Sherlock Holmes name? --Newblackwhite (talk) 15:57, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
True, I didn't use the edit summary, but I thought my intent was super-obvious. I mean, mentioning a SH story without mentioning SH at all is obviously incomplete, since not everyone will click on the "The Adventure of the Empty House" link, and not everyone is expected to know by heart the title of every single SH story.
And to say that the cited source doesn't mention Holmes is very reductive, since the source is a book is titled "The London of Sherlock Holmes", and the whole point of the book is listing places appearing in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Still, if you feel we need a source to prove that "The Adventure of the Empty House" is a SH story, there's no problem, since there are thousands of sources saying that. Hopefully the reference will not be removed, since it's far from trivial: SH is one of the most famous fictional characters of all time, as certified by countless sources, and the Park Lane Mystery from "The Adventure of the Empty House" is one of his most famous stories. --Newblackwhite (talk) 16:18, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
It's fundamental policy - source it or lose it. Not only is this "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", it's "the encyclopedia that anyone does edit" and I've seen enough cases where I've picked through 10 years of changes thinking, "if only somebody had sourced this originally, I could work out what the intent was". I've seen enough incidents (both on here and in real life) where "the assumption of something obvious" causes a major problem. (eg: "It's obvious 'Remain' will win the EU referendum so I'll vote 'Leave' to stick it to Cameron!") As you can see from the above thread, "Help w/UK Roads", the presence of sources also helps you judge the opinion of whether or not something has an appropriate weight in an article where it's not directly the topic, so having a source that's geared towards locations in London is better. This is why, despite trying to put Oscar Wilde in every London street or landmark article I come across (he seemed to get everywhere), he isn't mentioned in this article despite Park Lane being name-checked in one of his stories. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 16:31, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Sigh. I wish Wikipedia was less about burocracy these days, since I think this is a factor that has driven many contributors away. Regardless, I have a hard time understanding your point, Ritchie. First you imply that my intent of adding the SH name to the article wasn't obvious because I hadn't wrtitten an edit summary, even though I plainly added the SH name to the article. Then, you imply that it would be unsourced to write that the story is a SH tale, even though the article about the story says that, not to mention the tale is in public domain and can be found even at Wikisource, and that there are countless sources about that. I don't know if the Oscar Wilde reference is significant or not, but the whole Sherlock Holmes story is about solving a murder that happened at Park Lane, as per the sources in the last link. --Newblackwhite (talk) 16:53, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
The only advice I can give you is "walk a mile in my shoes". Once you've written 100 GAs, you'll understand why experienced editors sometimes seem to be a bit bitey around the edges, and why when you complain at ANI, nothing happens - although I'd like to think I am more tolerant than some. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 16:57, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I'll keept that advice in mind, and hopefully we can solve this without any ANI with a bit of common sense. For the time being, I am adding the Sherlock Holmes name to the article since he is mentioned in the given source. --Newblackwhite (talk) 17:08, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
And that's fine. Like I said, "cultural references" sections are a minefield, not because what one individual editor does, but rather what the cumulative effect is of 100 editors, none of whom communicate with each other. It might seem counter-intuitive that 100 editors can make an article worse than one, but just look through the backlog of featured article removal candidates for evidence. However, you're right about one thing - adding sources is too hard and the user interface should make it easier to add them, and make it impossible for an article to be tagged {{db-a7}} unless you jump through several "are you really sure?" boxes. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 17:14, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I have added the Sherlock Holmes name to the article since he is mentioned in the cited source. The section now reads:
Both versions have a similar word count: 35 words for the current version, 39 words for my proposed version. Why do I think that would be an improvement? Well, essentially for two reasons:
Saying that in the story Holmes solved a murder at Park Lane is more informative that just saying that a murder took place at Park Lane.
Saying that a character from a 1903 story was murdered in 1894 is misleading, since many people reading the article will assume that Holmes investigated a 9-year old murder, while in fact the whole story took place in 1894 despite being published in 1903. Not that the article is about the story, but anything that potentially misleads the reader should be avoided IMHO. Incidentally, I don't think it is absolutely necessary to mention the year 1894, but since it was there even before my edit I saw no reason to remove it.
If you think 39 words rather than 35 is too much, we can change "locked-room murder" into "murder" and/or remove one werb from the "investigates and solves" expression and/or remove the reference to 1894 which, as I said, I don't think it's really important.
If you think my proposed change is not supported by the current source, we can still change it to another one. Do you think Wikisource is good enough for this proposed edit? Or do you prefer another source? --Newblackwhite (talk) 17:44, 12 February 20
I'd go for the John Christopher book published by Amberley mentioned by Serial Number 54129 above (assuming the prose above is backed up by the book itself - I don't have the book myself to check). I have used other Amberley books extensively (eg: to write Fremlin's Brewery) and in my experience they provide plenty of detail and have a reputation for being factually accurate. The key with Wikisource, and indeed other sources such as British History online (which I cite a lot) is to cite the original work, not Wikisource itself. That's another problem with Wikipedia being "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" - you come to a claim cited to another article or a WP mirror, or some other self-published source, wonder if it's actually true, and find that the fact you question has been repeated all over the internet as gospel without actually being able to tell if it's correct or not. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 17:50, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
If that's the source you prefer I have nothing against that. But beside the question of which source could support the text of my proposed edit, do you think the text itself is good or not? --Newblackwhite (talk) 17:58, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
In that case, I assume there is a consensus, so I'll add that text to the article using the source you mentioned. --Newblackwhite (talk) 18:11, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
We could really use a serious answer. All we need to hear is your specific opinion on the policy-compliance of ALT6A. Because of the trouble over this I want there to be no room for doubt that that specific point was addressed. And it would be a shame to have gone through all this trouble for nothing. While I've got you, though, I'm thinking maybe the second slot could be
What think you? EEng 19:00, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
(Buttinsky) Run, Ritchie, RUN!!! ❤️ the $5 bill DYK. A lil pee-o'd that my ALT7 on the other was ignored. Atsme📞📧 22:12, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
I never thought I would see the day when EEng would say "be serious, dammit!" If you mean "DYK that Trump is directly connected to Russia (map pictured)" - it's fine, anyone who doesn't like it should never come into contact with a copy of Private Eye because their head might explode. As for the Hillary hook, sure, I laughed more at the uranium one but that's not actually based on reality. I recently heard somebody say that choosing between Clinton and Trump is like choosing between Theresa May and Nigel Farage - damned if you do, damned if you don't. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 11:43, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Martinevans123, you might want to download the updates to your 2016-2017 views...get latest upload here. Funny how, of late, polls have been consistently wrong and not in-sync with RL views. Hmmmm...what to do, what to do...(rolling fingers on desk). Atsme📞📧 21:38, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Tenberry Software deletion
A7 deletion tag gone for "good evidence of pre-internet paper sources"
The page issues for tagging for deletion is:
Too short (under 200 words)
No or very little notably
No infobox
Next try for tagging for deletion is PROD or Afd, but which one should i try? Proposed deletion or Articles for deletion? 2A02:C7F:9659:4500:606D:C6BA:A351:3BEA (talk) 09:11, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
You should try searching for sources and improving the article! I remember the dark old days of real mode DOS where 640k was enough for everybody[citation needed], so extenders like this were a godsend in the early 90s. At the very least, the article could be turned into a redirect somewhere. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 09:15, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
I’m not telling you - we are here to write an encyclopedia, not to demolish one. If you don’t have fond memories of booting up DOS/4GW to play network Doom with your friends - well you had to be there, I guess. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 09:25, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Zaid Ali
Zaid Ali (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaid_Ali) page was deleted because it was incorrectly categorized as "not importance or significance". which is not the case. He has millions of followers on youtube and facebook. I am putting some reference for your review. I will re-write this article so that.
Above are few, there are many more pages on him. --Spasage (talk) 15:49, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
(talk page watcher) Well yeah, but it's also been deleted five times and protected from creation three, in its colourful history, so that's a pretty strong consensus against having it here...On a different note, Ritchie, were they all created by the same editor? >SerialNumber54129...speculates 15:57, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
@Serial Number 54129: The various versions of the article were created by different accounts, for what it's worth. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 16:49, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
I think, we need to see, if we can actually create this article. What I know form his following, he deserves a wikipedia page. You can do a simple google search and you can see. He is not unknown and has very large following. Above references are from very well known media houses, both print and electronic. --Spasage (talk) 16:08, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
There is a draft article, Draft:Zaid Ali. Follow the instructions therein, and if the draft is successfully reviewed, it will be moved to mainspace. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 16:30, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Help w/UK Roads
Hello! I'm slowly working through some old unreferenced aticles and coudn't help but notice tons of UK road articles with no references (e.g. see the first couple dozen of Category:All_articles_lacking_sources. Categories are bit inconsistent here, but you can grab bunches of these with searches like this as well). It looks like you were involved in improving/cleaning up UK roads articles in the past so I wanted to reach out for some advice. I'm happy to do the leg work here, but do you know any common UK road sources, or have suggestions for how to proceed? I'm having trouble finding sources besides the SABRE wiki. Thanks for any help! Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 04:50, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
@Ajpolino: Here's what I think. Most road articles of the variety "Axxx (road)" are not notable and fail the general notability guidelines. To give a practical example, if I walk into my local library, I get two full shelves of railway books, with more history on the Kent and East Sussex Railway than you can shake a stick at, while there are only two road books - Mike Parker's Mapping The Roads and Joe Moran's On Roads. An article that consists of nothing other than "The A1234 goes from High Barneyton to Lesser Crumpet, London. It passes the B543 at a set of traffic lights by Joe's Kebab Shop, curves right towards Parallel Park where there is a 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) footbridge ..." is ridiculous - this is why we have maps. Navigating via a route description fell out of favour when John Ogilby published his strip maps about 450 years ago; as the old saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words".
Having said all of that, there is definitely potential for more road-related articles to be expanded and improved, it's just the road number is a bad choice for a source search. A1232 road doesn't sound exciting until you do a bit of creative searching and discover it's actually a former historic coaching route and a waypoint for the English Civil War. A431 road isn't very interesting until you work out its better-known title of the Upper Bristol Road and dig out the history for an alternative turnpike route between Bath and Bristol, and the creative use of a field for a toll road about five years ago (indeed, one might suggest that the spin-off Kelston toll road be merged into the parent). A82 road is a rare example of a road that's both of great historical significance and well-known by its actual number.
What I would do for now is take any road article that has no references and has no claim to notability (eg: just a route description) and turn it into a redirect to the main list article. eg: A110 road -> A roads in Zone 1 of the Great Britain numbering scheme. If it turns out it's actually a former 17th century haunt for highwaymen, we can revisit it then with a proper title. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 11:35, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the input! I'll just go ahead with that assuming this is fairly uncontroversial (since many of these have sat uncited for a decade). If anyone has a problem they can just revert and I'll bring it up at the UK roads project page. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 23:42, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
I'd be amazed if anyone cared enough to revert, but stranger things have happened. :-/ Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 00:01, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
; see Talk:Trellick Tower for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Eric Corbett -- Eric Corbett (talk) 01:02, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of SchroCat -- SchroCat (talk) 23:01, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
—usernamekiran(talk) 19:02, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Damned if you do
Damned if you don't
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Buttinsky) Run, Ritchie, RUN!!! ❤️ the $5 bill DYK. A lil pee-o'd that my ALT7 on the other was ignored. Atsme📞📧 22:12, 11 February 2018 (UTC)