User:Jbhunley/Essays/Identifying nonsense at NPP

This grew out of a discussion with a New page patroler. These material reflects answers given by that editor to the specific examples given. I may work to generalize this later. Seven, made up, examples are discussed.

Discussion of nonsense examples

In discussing these remember, you should let the editor who created the article know what issues you found with their article. Always be polite, helpful and assume good faith. I am, for simplicity's sake, assuming these come up at the back of the queue so are some days or weeks old. The point of this exercise is to show you there is much more you should be looking at in an article to even make decisions about whether nonsense is nonsense by Wikipedia's criteria.

• Remember, I am explaining what I would do. Others may do things differently. The other editors watching your talk page are more experienced than I am and may have rather critical things to say about my methods. There might even be comments where I am dead wrong or at least not fully 'proper'. I hope they will chime in if so, or even if not.
• In point of fact none of the material in these samples belong in the encyclopedia. All but #3 and #7 are actual nonsense but only #4 and #6 can be tagged as obvious nonsense ie {{db-g1}}.
• Please comment in each section.

Overview

When you looked at these last night you described how you would handle them:

Understood. I'll include all of my responses in this single message. For Example #1, tagging it with {{Not English}} is likely the most appropriate option, as per WP:NOTCSD #16, which indicates a page should be translated first and then speedy deletion review can occur. On Example #2, I'd be inclined to mark the article under WP:A1, as I don't believe it provides enough context in regards to the materials, and it does not adequately provide information regarding the subject whatsoever. Example #3, I cannot seem to find which language it is, so I would mark it as {{Not English}}, but leave the article open to review still. I would mark Example #4 for deletion, as per WP:G1, as it is quite clearly gibberish. Example #5 is Latin, so I'd mark the article as {{Not English}}. The same for Example #6, however both of the articles' possibility of future acceptance is dubious." [1]

This is not, in my very firm opinion, even close to handling this patent, though not always obvious, nonsense material in specific or NPP in general. NPP is not just about looking for tagging or CSD criteria it is the first look and sometimes last look an article gets before becoming lost in the ~5 million other articles on Wikipedia. When you start examining an article the first thing you need to do is figure out what it is about. Even if the article is not in English there are things you can do like Google Translate, cut/paste and search on the title, look at the references and run the copyvio detector.

If you can figure out what the article is about you should do a quick check for notability and if it is about a person see if you can find out whether they are alive or dead so you can apply WP:BLP. You should check to see if it looks like advertising and for indications it might be a copyright violation. There are tips on how to do that on the NPP page. I also like to run the copyvio detector on pages.

If after reading the article and looking for problems, if you you are still unsure about it, you should do a WP:BEFORE. If after doing that you think it should be deleted PROD it or AfD it. Use the information you have, contact the author if it looks like a good faith attempt to make an article. When you put an article up for deletion you need to be sure, don't say 'maybe', 'probably' etc. Say 'based on my research' and mean it make a couple bad calls after claiming you have looked into the matter will get you a poor reputation and possibly banned from nominating articles.

Right now you are not able to apply these techniques to nonsense. You are not looking beyond the surface of an article to find what information and clues are in it. These examples are not iffy content but you need to be able to see why they are not and know how to deal with them. Assessing notability, with its general and specific criteria and navigating the intricacies of WP:BLP can be hugely more nuanced. Figuring out organizational notability and dealing with advertising is a specialty in and of itself. There are other things that should be done as well and they are detailed on the NPP project page.

There is really no way to learn to do this other than through reading, editing and fixing existing articles - fix bare links, add categories, de-orphan etc. If NPP could be done with a script or check list a bot would be doing it. What you are checking for should be second nature. You need to have a feel for how the community applies the rules and criteria - a lot of stuff works because it works not because of a rule. Just because you read a criterion one way does not mean that is the way it is actually applied here. Sticking to your guns in the face of community consensus is a good way to get blocked or topic banned. How can you tell what the consensus is, you asked, it is simple - other editors tell you - either informally or at a noticeboard like the Biographies of living people noticeboard, the reliable sources noticeboard or the Incidents noticeboard for behavior/disruption issues.

Now let's take a look at the examples you addressed.

One

Example #1
конкльюдатюрквюэ Мэя элитр адипижкй но, ан конкыптам котёдиэквюэ мэдиокретатым квуй, эи жят видишчы жанктюч. Продыжщэт зэнтынтиаэ еюж но, хёз альяквюам долорэж мныжаркхюм ты. Дуо аугюэ льаборэж ножтрюм эи, нэ этёам ратионебюж прё. Вёртюты фюйзчыт дуо ку. Лыгимуз вэртырэм эюрйпйдяч ан жят, форынчйбюж ылаборарэт еюж эа. References

You could just tag this {{not English}} and move on but that is just pushing the problem down the road. If you are not familiar with a Cyrillic using Slavic language - even if you are - playing around with GTranslate for a bit will show you something is going on. As we will see later not being able to ID a language in GTranslate does not mean it is nonsense.

If you Google the title nothing shows up but there is a reference. Try to find the reference in Worldcat or look at Oxford University Press. (An untranslatable title published by OUP is a clue as well) Since you find nothing you should check out the author who created the page. At this point I would {{not English}} and {{prod}} it explaining the language is unidentifiable, the source is un-findable and the subject is indeterminate. This puts a clock on the article. Notify the creator and explain why you PRODed the article.

• The text is in fact Cyrillic Greeking and the reference is made up by copy/pasting text into a citation template. Someone with decent fluency in Cyrillic based languages would likely be able to tell this is obvious nonsense and tag it as such with an explanation on the talk page.

Two

Example #2

Agony and angst But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee. References

Your idea to tag this {{db-nocontext}} is wrong. There is enough information here that you can figure the article is likely about a poem Agony and Angst. What you should notice is it looks like a complete extract of a poem with a footnote. No additional text. This makes it look like a copyright violation. When you run the copyvio detector on the text a few sites show up with an exact match to a few lines of the text. At this point I would assume copyvio and tag {{db-copyvio}}. It is impossible to extract the apparent copyvio text and it looks to be part of a whole.

• The text is in fact from an English Greeking application and fragments happened to show up on line. The text is not a copyvio, there is no 'creative expression' in it.
• While the source title is plausible it and everything else are made up. You would be unable to locate book, author or poem, if you can not verify the topic of an article this should be a big clue to look deeper to confirm if it is a hoax. In this case {{db-hoax}} would be the correct tag.

Three

Example #3
A fond farewell Tapadh leibh a chairdean. "Dy jig Skeab Lome ort hene, er dty hiollagh, er dty hlaynt, er dty chooid as er dty chloan!"

I would tag this {{not English}}. The text is unidentifiable. A large portion of it is a quote with no citation. I would {{prod}} this, particularly if it was created by a hit-and-run editor, as well but that is a judgement call.

• This is in fact a message an editor who really does not like me left on their user page. I have no idea what language it is or what it says. Likely it says something like 'Good life to my friends' and "Go pound sand and piss up a rope you futtering wanker" in some dialect of ancient Celtic or Scots-Gaelic.

Four

Example #4
Damina Roth djkncvjn nfvik jdilmsdc nkfkmsmcjnd jipjdlcmsd cojq[odjcpnv qoijk[dkjf[kf]]] nfvpednvpewjnvpwenvpoewjviowejv kdnipwenvjnwev qijeipewjvienv

This is obvious nonsense. Tag it {{db-nonsense}}

Five

Example #5

Gaius Heminus Denique eloquentiam id mea, ad vix viris possim virtute. Eu corpora facilisi pri, ea vel unum tibique sententiae. Qui te facete eripuit, sed labore facete quaestio in. Ea illud gloriatur est. Eos id assum maiorum, cum eruditi legendos instructior no. Ipsum fuisset ne eum. Ex posse vituperata scribentur mea, probo melius laoreet ea mea. Ius no dicant scripta elaboraret, labitur suscipiantur sed ad, vim at sint mediocritatem. Ut usu meis dicam accumsan. Vix explicari temporibus ex. In corpora pertinax recteque mel, an commodo tacimates disputando vix. Nonumy scriptorem efficiantur nam in, per magna libris detraxit te. Adhuc illud fuisset te vis, dico mutat eloquentiam in ius, audire dolorem in sed. Ne mutat debet aliquid sed. References

Here you sort of have Latin. You could just tag it {{not English}} but there is more you could and should do. Running the text through GTranslate gives nothing that makes sense. In this case the title makes it obvious it is about a person. There is nothing that even looks like a claim of notability, the web site cited is bogus and there is nothing on the person or his 'Works' to be found. I would feel comfortable tagging this {{db-person}} but I would place a machine translation of the text on the talk page along with a note explaining my reasoning. Just tagging it {{not English}} simply makes another editor have to do the checks you should have done.

• This is in fact Lorem ipsum text. A form on nonsense Latin used for Greeking. The citation is a made up website.

Six

Example #6

Lorem ipsum dolor sit Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, virtute apeirian ea mei, pro at cibo voluptaria. Posse inermis per cu, mel an quod vidit animal, ea duo graece dissentias. Utinam scripta dolorum in nam. Ornatus volumus percipitur est eu. Pri ex lorem imperdiet intellegam. Nec no meis quidam laoreet, purto explicari adipiscing duo cu. Eos an consequat assueverit, mel lorem philosophia ne. Vim ea eleifend tractatos erroribus. Omnis propriae euripidis duo no, sit in vide inermis petentium, diam cibo eos et. In per quis nominati, omnis consulatu reprehendunt usu et, quo in primis phaedrum prodesset. No quando malorum probatus vix, his habeo alterum id. Usu modus dolore consulatu id. Vix et dicit partem vituperata, ut verear intellegat interpretaris vix. In doctus volumus scripserit usu, postea sanctus id sit, ad omnes pertinax scribentur est. Te veri temporibus eum, prima autem philosophia est te. Ut invidunt scriptorem vis, ei cibo nullam fuisset nec.<

Again, if you do not recognize the subject of the article Google it. In this case the article is obviously Lorem ipsum text. There are many applications which generate arbitrary amounts of this type of text. The default first few words are "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet". You can run it through GTranslate to make sure but the article title makes it definite. This should be tagged {{db-nonsense}} because Lorem ipsum text is nonsense by definition. I would also leave a note for the CSD reviewer explaining what it was and a machine translation on the talk page. Tagging it {{not English}} just wastes another editor's time doing the checks you should have done in the first place.

Seven

Example #7
WokkyJ Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

If you do not recognize the text Google it. In this case it is the opening line to Lewis Carrol's 'Jabberwocky '. The poem is in the public domain so it is out of copyright. I would still tag it {{db-copyvio}} since it is a cut/paste and there is nothing else on the page or likely to be added. Adding a proper citation in this case is pointless. If it was an early edit of a new account {{db-test}} would be a possibility too but you must be very careful about labeling something as a test. It is not a catch-all for dumb stuff.