User talk:Andrew Davidson

Dark blues

If you think this article about a blues genre doesn't belong in Wikipedia, by all means second the prod or flag it under some speedy deletion criteria I've overlooked, maybe even move it to a disambiguated title, but redirecting it to an alternate meaning of the term is not an appropriate way to get rid of it. --McGeddon (talk) 09:21, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

• @McGeddon: I disagree as the redirection is a sensible way of resolving the issue. The prod tag suggests and encourages such constructive edits. It also states emphatically, "If this template is removed, do not replace it." Please revert. Andrew D. (talk) 09:45, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I thought it was fair to IAR there, as it seemed perverse to remove a prod template from an article that both you and I thought should probably be deleted, but sure. I'll leave it to you establish talk page consensus for an immediate redirect. --McGeddon (talk) 09:58, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dark blues

Science Fiction

Black Destroyer

After you mentioned it ... I thought it worthwhile to do this. Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:24, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

• I thought you might. I may return to the topic but I have a variety of leads to follow. Only The Shadow knows ... Andrew D. (talk) 10:39, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Andrew Davidson. Black Destroyer, an article you either created or to which you significantly contributed,has been nominated to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page as part of Did you know. You can see the hook and the discussion here. You are welcome to participate! Thank you. APersonBot (talk!) 12:01, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Hello! Your submission of Black Destroyer at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 01:50, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

On 15 November 2016, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Black Destroyer, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the short story "Black Destroyer" was the basis for A. E. van Vogt's lawsuit against 20th Century Fox, as the plot of the movie Alien matched it so closely? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Black Destroyer. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Black Destroyer), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 00:21, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

History of science fiction

Since you mention it I thought I'd link to History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950, which is currently at FAC; no need to review it (it seems to have sufficient support) but I thought you might be interested. Most of the magazines linked in the article have also been brought to GA or FA standard. If you can find improvements to those articles as you did for Marvel Science Stories, that would be great! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:07, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

• @Mike Christie: Thanks, I've added it to my watchlist and will take a look in my copious free time. Note that there was a series of van Vogt stories going through DYK recently and so I started the "Black Destroyer", which was notable as the story that started the Golden Age. I like that you can often find such classics online now, like here. One of my favourites is Sheckley's 1955 story, "Cordle to Onion to Carrot". It's not quite SF but it helps in understanding Wikipedia... Andrew D. (talk) 16:46, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

• That's quite a coincidence -- I was thinking about that story on my morning commute; I've always liked that one. "Aspects of Langranak" and "Pas de Trois of the Chef and the Waiter and the Customer" are my two favourites of his; the first is beautifully self-referential about sf, and sad, in its way, and both stories are about the relationship between reality and perception in a way that few other writers have ever managed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:51, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

• I recall reading the second one but the first doesn't stick in my mind. I'll track it down again – it seems to be in print so Forbidden Planet (right) should have a copy. Thanks for the recommendation. Andrew D. (talk) 17:14, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

F&SF

Hi Andrew, a gentle nudge about this; no worries, if you do not have the time at the moment. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:02, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

• @Vanamonde93: Nudges are needed as my to-do list is bottomless here. Having dinner now but will have a rummage tomorrow. More anon. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:05, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

• Much appreciated. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:09, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

• @Vanamonde93: I'm getting warm as I found a box with a good run of F&SF and other magazines from the early seventies. The earliest issue of F&SF I've found so far is September 1960, when it had a British edition which cost two shillings. That contains a story by my namesake, Avram Davidson – "The Sixth Season". The difficulty is resisting the temptation to reread such buried treasures. I've brought out a few old issues of New Worlds too, as someone else is working on that. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:04, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

• I see you've gotten involved in a nasty dispute below, so there's no rush, but I thought I'd give you another quick reminder. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:55, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• @Vanamonde93: The 86 issue is simple stuff compared to the F&SF challenge because I can access good sources for it without leaving my seat. I'll take another dip in the box room and see what I find. In the meantime, I'm wondering why this stuff hasn't been archived in digital form yet. The Internet Archive seems to just have a few bits and pieces and F&SF itself only offers back issues back to the 90s. I've got access to the BL but they only seem to have the British edition. CUSFS had a large library of magazines when I was there in the seventies. I'll give more thought to such other resources too. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:40, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks, that's appreciated. I think digitization of old magazines has been very piecemeal; there's some fairly obscure fanzines that are very easily found, and fairly well-known magazines that aren't. I found many issues of both F&SF and Asimov's on various archival sites, but not the ones I wanted. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:46, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• @Vanamonde93: I've found three runs of F&SF from various decades so far but not the late 1970s yet. As I feared, it's hard work like a sliding block puzzle as they're in boxes rather than shelved. As I'm not sure I've got the issue in question, I'm not going to focus on this so please don't wait on me. Making another online search, I find that Books from the Crypt have copies for as little as $2. Shipping to the UK seems expensive but I suppose it would be a lot cheaper for you. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:44, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• Okay, thank you. I do appreciate the effort, and yes, they seem quite affordable. Best, Vanamonde (Talk) 18:11, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Self Defence Against Fresh Fruit

WHAT'S WRONG WITH FRUIT!
You think you know it all, eh?

I was thinking of sending this to AfD on the grounds it's got no reliable sources present, I can't find any of substance in a search except for this passing mention, and is basically a plot summary + trivia. However, I do remember Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Bishop (Monty Python) so I thought I'd ask you first to see if I'd missed anything, and in fact there is a salvageable article hiding in this. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:21, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Kumquat!?

• The page was already at AFD where the result was a unanimous Keep. The absence of sources is not an adequate reason to nominate for deletion because such sources can be readily found and, in any case, there are sensible alternatives to deletion. I have plenty more pressing topics while you might attend to our Chuck Berry content – pages like "You Can't Catch Me", which also don't have any sources. Don't make me release the tiger. Andrew D. (talk) 13:16, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

• such sources can be readily found ... which brings me to my favourite AfD put-down at the moment. Now look, Mr Damson, er, Davidson, I've added a bunch (a bunch? supposing he's got a pointed stick?) of sources for "You Can't Catch Me" (why nobody else found the 15 minutes to do this in the last 7 years is beyond me), so throw me some ones for "Fresh Fruit" and I'll do the same. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:34, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

• The page is read on average about once every hour. But people don't add sources because doing so is difficult and, per WP:BLUE, they don't see any need for them. I might add some to the page but am wary that it's a trap, "... just pull the lever and the 16-ton weight will fall on top of him." Did you know that this was the first time that they used this prop? I have a source which confirms this in detail but will need some more goading to risk charging at you with it... Andrew D. (talk) 10:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Ethical Society

I took a picture of today's lecture. I hope you can use this. Kelly is a great help in this sharing endeavor.

The Ethical Encyclopedia a talk by Andrew Davidson

Clinton (talk) 16:46, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

@Clinton45: Excellent – many thanks to you and Kelly for that. I usually take lots of snaps at such events but it was so hectic that I didn't think to arrange for someone to take any pictures or do it myself. That's a big favour I owe you, so please feel free to ask if you need any assistance with any of your endeavours here. Andrew D. (talk) 17:08, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

It advised about the 'Ethical encyclopedia' talk in the last 'Upcoming events at Conway Hall' email, but it didn't say the talk was by the legendary Colonel. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:51, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

• @FeydHuxtable: This is just the start. I'll now be writing it up as a paper for the Ethical Record so you can read it there. We're getting some good crossover with that society and the London wikimeet so others may be doing talks too – for example, Leutha is lined up to do a talk about positivism. You should do one too – food poverty – the sharing economy? Please share your thoughts with those hungry for knowledge... Andrew D. (talk) 18:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Wellcome Electricity

Hello. Good to meet at Wellcome. Henrietta999 (talk) 15:16, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help today, Andrew. I shall definitely be in touch in the future! Henrietta999 (talk) 17:34, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

• You're welcome. Be seeing you. Andrew D. (talk) 17:49, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

• Henrietta last edited Wikipedia in 2020 but continues to lecture elsewhere such as Neville Hall. She is chair of Jesmond Heritage. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:28, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

DYK for Constance Wood

On 16 July 2017, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Constance Wood, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Constance Wood was the first to install a cyclotron in a hospital, but was teased by one of her patients with a rat? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Constance Wood. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Constance Wood), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Alex Shih^Talk 12:02, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

2,603 views.

DYK nomination of Hilda Lyon

Hello! Your submission of Hilda Lyon at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 21:14, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

IronGargoyle (talk) 00:03, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

15,496 views.

Queen Victoria's journals

Colonel (it still seems wrong to call you Andrew!), I am developing an article in my user sandbox and it is making use of Victoria's journals online. That is how I came across Queen Victoria's journals. As its creator, did you get a notification that it has been newly linked to, or will that only happen when I move my draft to mainspace? I'm just curious – I aim to keep a low profile in draft, trying to avoid unwanted attention. By the way, I still have fond memories of Dog and Duck, St George's Fields, as it has quite properly become, and its hilarious AFD. Long, long ago in wikitime. Best wishes. Thincat (talk) 17:11, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

@Thincat: Hello again. I get lots of link notifications as I've written hundreds of articles but I've checked and your Glassalt draft doesn't seem to have triggered one yet. I think you're unwise to leave work for so long in your sandbox. If you should fall ill or otherwise be indisposed for a few months you might find that it has been deleted – there are fanatics combing through drafts and amazingly there is now a policy of deleting them after six months. My policy is to get work into mainspace as quickly as possible to avoid such deletionist disruption. This also avoids the waste of effort if someone else should work on the topic independently.

Queen Victoria's journals was started at an event at the Bodleian Library which helped to put them online. As a sequel, I started Queen Victoria's pets. There's some other Victoriana that I'd like to cover but need to visit the V&A to track it down and get some pictures. But there is another Victorian topic that I've been meaning to cover for some time and I'll take my own advice and get it started in mainspace before I forget. It's another place in Scotland...

By the way, I saw a reference to Longcat recently – any relation? That got deleted here but I'll keep any eye out for sources.

Warden (talk) 19:58, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions. I create rather few articles (apart from stubby ones) and they take me a long time. I'll do a practical experiment with notifications using my alternate account. I'm intrigued by your clues about a new Victoria topic. I'll ponder on what it might be. I've been reading around what she did in Scotland – she got around there (here, that is) quite a lot and the trains were a great invention. She also had the benefit of ponies, a yacht, and a whole load of servants. Thincat (talk) 20:25, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

... and no, I'd never heard of Longcat but I'll see if there's a suitable free image for my user page! Thincat (talk) 20:42, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Kim Cobb

Alex Shih^Talk 00:02, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

1,296 views

DYK for Roma Agrawal

Hello! Your submission of Roma Agrawal at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! BlueMoonset (talk) 02:45, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

10,234 views

DYK for Abbie Hutty

Hello! Your submission of Abbie Hutty at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Warofdreams talk 22:56, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Alex Shih (talk) 00:02, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

8,813 views

WP:EAGER

Hello Andrew: Thanks for your ongoing work to improve Wikipedia. Per your editing interests, you may be interested in the new WP:EAGER, an essay I created today. Cheers, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 18:53, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

• You're welcome. Andrew D. (talk) 17:05, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Northfield Allotments

Alex Shih (talk) 00:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

4,062 views

DYK for St Stephen's Church, Ealing

— Maile (talk) 00:01, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

6,804 views

CREEP

Mentioned you at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Admin_invoking_SCHOOLOUTCOMES_at_AfD. - Sitush (talk) 20:37, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

• I have responded there. I doubt that the discussion will be productive but it will provide a topical example for the coming discussion about the Future of Wikipedia. Andrew D. (talk) 23:35, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

You repeatedly reference WP:CREEP in your numerous comments on policy, RfCs etc. Recent examples include the AN discussion concerning SCHOOLOUTCOMES and the RfC regarding Wikidata. Why do you always phrase it as if CREEP is some sort of policy when in fact it is little more than an essay? It seems to me at best disingenuous and at worst downright misrepresentation. Bearing in mind that you very clearly did not read before jumping to conclusions in the AN thread, I wonder if you have actually read WP:CREEP. - Sitush (talk) 16:59, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, I've read it. It says that it's an explanatory supplement and this fine distinction is itself a good example of excessive rules creep. I saw some discussion recently about the huge number of policies and TLAs – they gave the amusing example of WP:LOO. DYK alone has 62 explicitly numbered supplemental rules. See also Parkinson's law. Andrew D. (talk) 17:25, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• At DYK, its long list of rules has been reorganised and now the veterans complain that they can't find them any more. But WP:IAR is still policy and WP:CREEP is still an explanatory essay. And Parkinson's law is still a good guide to the evolution of Wikipedia. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:52, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Columbine cup

Hello, Andrew Davidson. Columbine cup, an article you either created or to which you significantly contributed,has been nominated to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page as part of Did you know. You can see the hook and the discussion here. You are welcome to participate! Thank you. APersonBot (talk!) 12:05, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

On 4 March 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Columbine cup, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that a Columbine cup was a masterpiece resembling the shape of a cluster of doves? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Columbine cup. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Columbine cup), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Inclusionism

Hey, I thought it was a bit of a coincidence that someone whose user page declared them a member of that WikiProject would show up at that discussion when I had not notified anyone of it, and was going to ask you about that until I noticed that you were also a semi-regular at the Village Pump, so mystery solved. But while checking for that I noticed we'd actually interacted several times before. Sorry for not remembering you, but honestly looking back at some of those AFDs your !votes seem a little questionable. I consider myself to be a mild inclusionist (as I said in thw VP reply to you I think a true "deletionist" would probably happily target a lot of my recent work as being on obscure non-notable topics that no one in the English-speaking world, even top scholars, has ever heard of), but I don't think we should have POVFORKs or articles that exist solely to push fringe theories (I say this as someone who basically started their Wikipedia career being accused of creating a POVFORK to push a fringe theory, so I'm hardly biased), and I think most people who would self-identify as inclusionists would say the same.

Here you referred to a thoroughly discredited Victorian hypothesis as "disputed" but "notable" in a merge !vote that eventually led to the list being merged into the article on the discredited Victorian hypothesis, which is reasonable, but it doesn't look like you did due diligence in checking whether the theory the page was promoting was considered fringe.

Here you started with a textbook OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument and then started claiming that blatant works of historical fiction "seem fine" as sources.

And just last night you presented a "Buddhist concept" that no dictionaries or encyclopedias of Buddhism discuss as such.

In both of the above cases it seems like you didn't actually click the links provided or do the necessary legwork before !voting keep based on a philosophy that all pages must be kept as much as possible, without regard for the specific circumstances of the articles/topics in question (since in both cases the topics were already better covered elsewhere on English Wikipedia, and the lists in question were mainly non-NPOV WP:SYNTH forks). I don't know if you are still doing this at AFDs, as I am not a regular there either way, but could you please be a bit more careful in the future?

(Note that this is not a criticism of your general practice as an editor. In the above editorinteract search I noticed you and I had crossed paths elsewhere and both been in the same minority that I still think was very much in the right, although I'd rather not publicly disclose what that was. Just noting it here so you don't get the impression that I came here to attack you or that I think you're a "bad dude", at least not in the "save the President" sense.)

Also sorry for the length.

Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 00:39, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

• You're welcome and it's good to hear that you're an inclusionist too. But I didn't follow your reference to "Save the President" – is it this meme? I used to play the occasional arcade game but I'd never heard of Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja before. The one I liked best was Gauntlet which had an unusual collaborative format, in which you'd team up with strangers to complete the task. Rather like Wikipedia, eh? Andrew D. (talk) 08:16, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, you're on the money -- I figured if you didn't get it (and it's hardly aybabiquitous) Googling "save the president" would get it. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 10:40, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Huh. I completely missed this. You really need to read over WP:NOT and stop defending fringe theory articles based on your personal anti-"deletionism" policy. This is just the places where you interacted with me, and I've hardly opened an AFD in years, at least not where I meant for the page to be deleted rather than simply opening a community discussion while being essentially neutral whether the pages should be kept/merged/redirected; I'm really wondering what a more thorough search of your AFD !votes when your involvement, which was based on personal preference and a misreading of sources like the above examples, led to a "no consensus" decision would show up. Are you just going to continue to dodge the question? Do you regret saying that "tanka prose" was an actual ancient Japanese phenomenon, that the "spirit of mottainai" is a "Buddhist concept" (which claim, I'm becoming increasingly convinced, is tied to this guy's use of the word in a book meant to promote his wood construction business), that the mythicist "list of dying and rising gods" was worth keeping/merging despite everything in it needing to be rewritten and verified in reliable modern sources anyway, etc. or not? Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 04:06, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

• BTW, I would like you to apologize for, and retract, the groundless accusations against me you made here. I was very clear from the beginning that I had not been nursing a grudge for years -- I hadn't even noticed what happened in that AFD after I retired the alt account that opened it, until last week (and if I was really still holding a grudge for anything it would not be that the article survived AFD but that one of the "keep" !votes was advocating for a JoshuSasori sock, which I assume is not standard ARS operating procedure). Anyway, accusations of misbehaviour made without evidence are personal attacks, and are prohibited on English Wikipedia. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 10:04, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

• I did not say that Hijiri88 has been nursing a grudge for years. It is quite clear that Hijiri88's activity is current and is in the nature of a spike rather than being prolonged. The point is that the issue that he was complaining about happened 5 years ago and so is water under the bridge. What's good is that we now seem to be moving on and discussing more current issues. Andrew D. (talk) 10:23, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the above correction of your previous false accusation, but it would sound more sincere if you didn't deny you had made the false accusation in the first place. It may be water under the bridge for everyone who actually !voted "keep" in the AFD five years ago, but you didn't -- you showed up out of the blue a few days ago and said that I had wrong to post an article on a "Buddhist concept" (one I clearly didn't understand) to AFD and those who had !voted me down were right. (You still have not admitted you were wrong to call what in contemporary usage is more of a marketing term than anything deeper a "Buddhist concept", mind you; nor have you recognized that it's just a common Japanese word for "wasteful".) And (again) I wasn't aware that the AFD had not ended in "delete" until this week, because of the off-wiki harassment that forced me to retire that account. (The full history of how I happened across it is here.) I only just this week noticed that an AFD I had opened in good faith (not because I "am a deletionist", a point on which I note you have been very slow to correct your many comrades) and garnered some support (it was 3-1 in favour of deleting before the canvassing), was canvassed and steamrolled right before the one-week mark, then a non-admin showed up and completely botched the close -- and as a result five years later the article is still a mess. And ARS is still doing this -- with Swamp monster, you posted a "This article is at AFD -- you know what to do..." canvassing message after auto-!voting "keep" yourself, two more ARS members showed up and did the same, and all of you have been refusing compromise solutions, alternatives to the false "keep-delete" dichotomy, and requests to do the heavy lifting of fixing the article, even though fixing broken articles to save them from AFD is supposed to be the modus operandi of ARS. This all happened in the last two days; it is not water under the bridge from five years ago. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 13:41, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Joan Benesh

Hello! Your submission of Joan Benesh at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 17:10, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Hello! Your submission of Template:Did you know nominations/Joan Benesh at the Did You Know nominations page is not complete; if you would like to continue, please link the nomination to the nominations page as described in step 3 of the nomination procedure. If you do not want to continue with the nomination, tag the nomination page with {{db-g7}}, or ask a DYK admin. Thank you. DYKHousekeepingBot (talk) 10:42, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Hello! Your submission of Joan Benesh at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! BlueMoonset (talk) 19:24, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

On 3 May 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Joan Benesh, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that ballerina Joan Benesh married the man who suggested a better way of notating her dances? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Joan Benesh. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Joan Benesh), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 12:01, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Seeking advice; Anno Domini

Hello there. I'm an experienced editor who's mainly familiar with article creation and editing, and a bit confused when admin issues are raised, having rarely if ever come into the kind of conflict requiring admin warnings. I've just gone through what (for me) was a rather disturbing experience after trying to edit a page, but I can't see any policies that clearly apply to my problem. I noticed your neutral comments on the Dorothy Tarrant discussion I recently participated in, and since you seem to be fairly knowledgeable about the matters I need help with, I thought I might seek your advice. It's alright to decline to get involved, although if you could at least point me in the right direction I would appreciate it very much.

Yesterday I tried to place a usage note qualifying the statement on the "Anno Domini" article that "BC comes after the year". I'd wanted to do this for some time, as I'd noticed in older reference material (which, as a classics scholar I tend to use a lot) it often preceded the year. I wasn't able to find anything about this in style guides, so I looked for encyclopedic references, and found the same practice in older editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Not sure just how strongly I'd need to support what was meant to be just a usage note, I wrote it identifying the EB and another standard reference work that uses this style, but as I wasn't satisfied with what seemed like a general reference, in my edit summary I mentioned that I was going to take it to the talk page for further advice and opinion.

No sooner than I had started writing out a note explaining the issue and asking for help, than my edit was reverted by one of that page's guardians. I reverted the deletion of my note, with a further edit summary, "please wait until I've finished posting on the talk page," but it was immediately reverted again, with the rather unfriendly note, "talk first, then post, maybe". So I finished posting my explanation of the note and my question about the sourcing, which I thought might at least be enough to justify the note until better sources could be located, and then reposted the note again. At that point, civility seemed to take over, and there was a reply to my talk page message by the editor in question. I thought that all of the points raised could be easily addressed by obtaining specific examples from the sources I mentioned, and perhaps additional examples from other sources, so I spent a few hours gathering some and setting forth what I hoped was a cogent argument from various sources.

However, before I could finish posting this, the note was deleted a third time by a new editor, asserting that "not a single reliable source" supported it, and a comment on the talk page claiming that the note violated WP:SYNTH. I strongly disagreed, since observing that something was one way and is now another, if both are properly supported by reliable sources, necessarily means that it must have changed, and the idea that it's unacceptable to say so due to WP:SYNTH is just absurd; IMO the question was verifiability, not synthesis. Did the sources I'd mentioned in the original note, and then on the talk page, show what I said they did? I thought it seemed beyond question that they did, but I went ahead and finished my post detailing specific instances and responding to the first editor's concerns.

As I was posting, and before I'd done anything else with the article itself, I received a warning on my talk page from the second editor involved, stating that I was engaged in an edit war by undoing other editors' contributions to Wikipedia without seeking consensus on the talk page, and was in danger of being blocked from editing Wikipedia for violation of the three-revert rule. Since I hadn't removed anyone else's contributions, and had only reverted twice, and had initiated the talk page discussion before the other editor had even gotten involved, I was shocked to be warned that I was in danger of being blocked from editing Wikipedia—something which I don't recall ever having been told before, despite having been involved in much more contentious discussions in the past.

What made the situation still more frustrating was the fact that the editor giving me this warning seemed to be an interested party, and had posted no similar warning on the talk page of the editor who had aggressively reverted the note as I was already taking the matter to the talk page. And, while I'm not sure if this is an issue, although it seems like it should be, the editor threatening to have me blocked from editing Wikipedia for edit warring isn't even an admin! Well, I finished my evidentiary post on the article talk page, then replied to the warning, saying point-by-point why I thought it was unjustified and improper. And then I went back to the article, looked at the note that had been deleted three times, and decided to revise what I was saying to a much shorter note, 1) avoiding the synthesis issue, and 2) cite clearly and directly to a number of reliable sources demonstrating that the usage had been different in the past (but without asserting that it had changed since then, since that was what apparently constituted "synthesis").

That was immediately reverted, instead of what seemed to me would have been the ideal solution (either helping me find better sources for something that abundant evidence clearly demonstrated was true, or tagging it with CN or Better Source tags), and the following description of my note added to my talk page: "I suggest that tagging as disputed, unsourced, and unimportant would be overkill; but all three tags would be justified". Now, by this point it's clear to me that collaborative editing seems to be out of the question; whatever I write and however I phrase it, no matter what I cite to, is simply being deleted as I add it, with no help whatever from the guardians of the article's purity; I pointed this out on the talk page, but since I didn't want to be blocked for edit warring I declined to make another attempt on the note itself, as I had no idea what I could come up with that would satisfy them.

I spent a restless night without nearly enough sleep, and still don't know how to respond. As far as I know, there's been no direct violation of a rule I could report; this doesn't seem to rise to the level of an administrator incident as far as I understand the concept (which is not very well); mediation also seems to be a step above the current level of the dispute; and a third-party opinion seems to be ruled out since there are three editors involved, and I'm not sure how to find someone neutral who'd want to get involved, but who'd be able to evaluate the evidence. Basically I'm at sixes and sevens when it comes to what to do here. So my bright idea was to find an admin who isn't connected with the discussion, but whom I might have bumped into from time to time, who could either have a quick look, or at least tell me what I ought to do next. Hopefully other than just abandoning the field, although that may just be my only option at this stage. P Aculeius (talk) 15:00, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

@P Aculeius: Editors on Wikipedia can be quite fractious, stubborn and vexatious about any issue on Wikipedia – see WP:LAME for an amusing list of examples. Issues of style like this are especially likely to give trouble and you will find that the archives for our Manual of Style are full of intense battles. Anyway, my advice is to take it easy. An RfC may be the best way forward, was done at the Dorothy Tarrant page. They typically stay open for 30 days and so will take some time to arrive at a conclusion. I'll take a look myself when I get a moment. More anon. Andrew D. (talk) 15:47, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Meteor III (yacht)

This is my latest yacht article that I created.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:12, 19 February 2018 (UTC) This is a case where my Newspaper.com subscription really came in handy. The Wikipedia library is a good place to get some excellent subscriptions.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:44, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you for trying :) Jesswade88 (talk) 20:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Indian castes

This message contains important information about an administrative situation on Wikipedia. It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date.

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

~ Winged Blades^Godric 06:36, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Please read this notification carefully:
A community discussion has authorised the use of general sanctions for pages related to South Asian social groups, such as List of General Caste in Sikhism, which you have recently edited.
The details of these sanctions are described at Wikipedia:General sanctions/South Asian social groups.

General sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimise disruption in controversial topic areas. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to these topics that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behaviour, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. An editor can only be sanctioned after he or she has been made aware that general sanctions are in effect. This notification is meant to inform you that sanctions are authorised in these topic areas, which you have been editing. It is only effective if it is logged here. Before continuing to edit pages in these topic areas, please familiarise yourself with the general sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date. ~ Winged Blades^Godric 06:38, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• These overblown templates claim that I have recently edited List of General Caste in Sikhism. This claim is false as I have never edited that page. What's going here is harassment – "the purpose is to make the target feel threatened or intimidated, and the outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine, frighten, or discourage them from editing." This seems to be part of pattern in which Winged Blades of Godric makes personal attacks on me. For the record, it's worth noting that these seem to date from an incident at WP:NOT when I reverted their attempt to change policy without consensus. Tsk. Andrew D. (talk) 08:26, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• No, they relate to your silliness at the AfD for the linked article. They are also valid notifications based on your intentions expressed there. You really do need to stop wikilawyering and wasting yet more of everyone's time before someone decides to topic ban you - a decision that I would happily support. - Sitush (talk) 11:11, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
• Given the number of years that you have edited WP, (a few of them with a sockpuppet), you ought to know that issuance of DS notifications, in the very exact manner I've done, are mandatory per ArbCom requirements.If you wish to seek an exemption for regulars from the templating, ARCA is that-way.And please provide diffs for makes personal attacks on me or retract your baseless accusations.And, for the record, it may be prudential to note, that despite your hyperbolic edits, the RFC was re-closed with the same result days later, resulting in the creation of the same policy.Cheers!~ Winged Blades^Godric 12:07, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• In that first incident at WP:NOT, WBoG made the edit summary "Cut out the attitude...". This seems to be a personal attack because it suggests that I have an "attitude" – what the OED describes as "Aggressive or uncooperative behaviour; a resentful or antagonistic manner." My position is that I was reverting a change made with inadequate consensus – a fairly standard action per WP:BRD. Now, in WBoG's post above he makes reference to "a sockpuppet". This seems to be an irrelevant slur or smear. My alternate accounts are respectable per WP:VALIDALT which states "For example, editors who contribute using their real name may wish to use a pseudonym for contributions with which they do not want their real name to be associated, or long-term users might create a new account to better understand the editing experience from a new user's perspective. These accounts are not considered sockpuppets." WBoG should please avoid such hostile language as it may be considered to be casting aspersions. Andrew D. (talk) 15:41, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• Care to explain this? Or your memory is a bit hazy on the aspects?!~ Winged Blades^Godric 15:49, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• Again WBoG makes a personal attack, suggesting that my memory is poor. I do, of course, recall the incident quite well. The admin who blocked me was desysopped for their improper action. Andrew D. (talk) 15:55, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• KWW was desyssoped for a host of reasons that included one bad block on CW but not the one I linked to.I think that you can do better than stating something roughly equivalent to--All blocks by desysopped admins are universally bad.~ Winged Blades^Godric 16:00, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• No, Kww was censured for his block of CW in 2012. He was then desysopped for his block of my AD account in 2013. Andrew D. (talk) 16:08, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sup, AD. Just a refresher, yes the admin was desysopped—but only because they were WP:INVOLVED. And in the course of your unblock request you agree[d] to retire Colonel Warden, something you patently have not done. Two things, then, come to mind. Firstly, that if another admin had blocked you, they would not have been desysopped, and secondly, that you lied in order to be unblocked another refresher: I will retire the Colonel Warden account and you expect this to be minimal). Cheers. Happy editing! ...SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 16:09, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I gather that "Serial Number 54129" used to edit as "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi". I'm still not sure why that name was changed but the point is that we should AGF in such cases and suppose that the change was made for good reasons. WBoG should avoid casting aspersions. Andrew D. (talk) 16:22, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I know, fascinating isn't it; you see what I did there though—change my username, rather than operate multiple accounts?  :) ...SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 16:42, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• Please provide diffs to support the WP:BLANK comments you made in the AFD. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:06, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• Done. Andrew D. (talk) 16:08, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:13, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

• Slightly economical with the truth, though. You end that sequence of diffs with that's where we are now, omitting a shedload of changes over three years that include reverts back to the blanked state by Widr, MusikAnimal, Rsrikanth05, Bgwhite, Serols etc. Given your encyclopaedic knowledge of encyclopaedic policy, do you not have a concern that so many regular contributors thought WP:BURDEN more important that WP:BLANK? One clue might lie in your ability to comprehend caste wars. Then again, never let truth get in the way of a good story, eh? - Sitush (talk) 01:02, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• It's a summary rather than a recapitulation of the entire edit history of the page and the point was to highlight the blanking not the edit-warring. The other point worth summarising from the edit history is that I have not edited the page in question myself. The statement made above by WBoG in his harassing template is therefore false and has still not been retracted. Andrew D. (talk) 09:28, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• It is a disingenuous summary that presses home your ill-considered point that I was being disruptive at that article. As I say, several other people followed in the same vein. On the other hand, you have a history of poor behaviour at caste AfDs - there is even User_talk:Andrew_Davidson#Caste_issues above - and, frankly, if no admin is prepared to exercise their discretion here (or are sufficiently uninvolved to do so) then I think the next step is likely to be WP:AE. - Sitush (talk) 10:16, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• Sitush stated in the AfD that "your mention of BLANK above is the first time ever I have seen it". If it helps, I am quite happy to accept that Sitush made their actions in good faith, not being aware of the WP:BLANK guideline. My point about disruption is that such actions tend to disrupt development of the article by removing all the content and so providing no sensible structure for further improvement. It appears that Sitush is now editing the page in question in a more restrained way and so the issue seems adequately resolved. Andrew D. (talk) 12:45, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• No, the issue is not resolved. You are once again trying to side-step things. I specifically said that I was giving you a chance to develop the article, as you suggested you might. But as it stands now it is no better than it was when you misled people at the first AfD using the same irrelevant sources that you are now claiming should once again ensure that the article is kept at the current AfD. BLANK is a guideline, despite your apparent disingenuousness in positing it as a policy, and you have been made aware that your argument for PRESERVE holds no water. Are you seriously suggesting that we should keep information that is wrong just because a topic might be notable? It is bollocks and you know it. This matter is going to WP:AE unless you agree not to become involved in caste-related matters because you are utterly incompetent in the topic area. - Sitush (talk) 12:57, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• I state clearly in the para above that WP:BLANK is a guideline. That doesn't mean that it doesn't matter or that it can be freely ignored. WP:PRESERVE is full policy being a shortcut to our editing policy, which I cited in the previous AfD. That policy explains our general method and makes many points. Among them, it explains that we contribute in different ways, "each one bringing something different to the table, whether it be: researching skills, technical expertise, writing prowess or tidbits of information, but most importantly a willingness to help." In this case, I have brought several sources to the table and am the only editor to do so. The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies is not irrelevant because it contains significant material about the role of caste in Sikh society. It is from a respectable university press and was published fairly recently. To reject such sources seems to set an impossible standard. How on earth does Sitush suppose we can develop our content if we can't have a reasonable discussion about such material. Andrew D. (talk) 14:27, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• Squirming again, trying to back away from past deeds. BLANK was first mentioned by you at the AfD and that is where I announced that I had not seen it before. It was me who had to note that it was a guideline, rather than the policy that you implied, causing you to scramble around to find PRESERVE, which does not even support your point anyway. See you at AE. - Sitush (talk) 18:11, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
• And how dense can you be regarding Oxford? Caste in Sikhism is discussed at Sikhism etc; the source does not discuss "general castes" in Sikhism, which does not mean "all castes", as has been explained to you previously. Honestly, I am astonished that you persist in highlighting your incompetence. - Sitush (talk) 18:14, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• Sikhism#Sikh_castes actually contains a list of Sikh castes including the mercantile Arora caste which I provided in the AfD as a specific example. The Dalit castes are identified specifically and so the whole is consistent with my vision for this content. My position is that there are reasonable alternatives to deletion. For example, we might merge the page in question with List of Other Backward Classes in Sikhism and, while the material is still small, have it in the Sikhism#Sikh_castes section. As and when the content expands, the material could be split into a page such as Castes in Sikhism as suggested by Cesdeva. This is the point and guidance of the policy WP:PRESERVE -- that we develop and improve the content by such means, not by deletion and blanking. Andrew D. (talk) 18:33, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• Actually, the very bog-standard and in no way harassing template says "for pages related to South Asian social groups, such as List of General Caste in Sikhism, which you have recently edited.", i.e. "pages related", and one doesn't have to take a giant leap of faith to imagine that editing an AFD about such an article falls under "pages related" to such a topic. There's nothing false, and nothing to retract. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:34, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• That template provides a link to the page that one has supposedly edited. If the AfD was meant then that should be the link. Is he now going to officiously warn everyone who participates in that AfD? Will he now drop these templates on the talk pages of TRM and SN54129 for participating in this discussion about the matter? Andrew D. (talk) 10:00, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• Won't it be good if you drop the wiki-lawyering stuff and instead move on to answer the query posed to you at the AFD and/or improve the article?! And, I never knew that if I choose to drop the sanctions-notice on a part. editor's t/p, I must follow it up by dropping them on the t/p(s) of all related editors.~ Winged Blades^Godric 10:02, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
• The point is to pay attention to DS, and the warning is just to let you know that your edits will be subject to Arbcom's scrutiny, whether you believe the templates or your editing are valid or not. It's a favour to you to help you from getting blocked over something simple. I'd be thankful rather than rail against it. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:09, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I have opened a case at Arbitration Enforcement that concerns you. Please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Andrew_Davidson. - Sitush (talk) 19:20, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• I have responded there. Andrew D. (talk) 20:53, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Andrew dont be fearful of mean wolfs. they are teamtagging and gameing system. Just ignore — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.74.74.77 (talk) 20:36, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Hey, out of curiosity, what are you planning on doing with User:Colonel Warden/List of Indian castes? You asked Sandstein to undelete and userfy it so you could work on it "soon" more than five years ago,[1] but the page has only been edited once, minor-ly, since that time. I'm considering MFDing it if you are not planning on working on it, as userfying pages that were deleted by community consensus and keeping them in your user space permanently is not helpful. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 23:17, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Colonel Warden/Event admission where a similar page was easily kept. There are many demands on my time and, per WP:CHOICE and WP:DEADLINE, I am free to work on this at my own pace and priority. But, as it happens, I have some material fresh to hand and so this is a good opportunity to make an update. Andrew D. (talk) 07:04, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, in that MFD no one seems to have noticed that there was prior consensus to delete the page, and that you then requested the page be userfied specifically so you could do a particular task with it.[2] The wording used by both the nominator and User:Kudpung seemed very strongly to imply that they believed it to be an article draft you created in your user space and never got around to finishing.

Anyway, you should get consensus before restoring a page that was deleted by community consensus (the consensus to delete had nothing apparently to do with article cleanup or anything that AGF would say you must be able to address alone); if you do in fact intend to "finish" the draft, that is definitely something to bear in mind.

Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 08:08, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Andrew. The WP:AE discussion here has been closed with the following warning: Andrew Davidson is advised that before commenting further in the Caste system in India topic area (broadly interpreted), they need to gain a deeper understanding of the subject. They are warned to only offer comments or article edits supported by directly relevant sources judged to be reliable and of high quality. Sources without recent consensus must be presented for review first. If the user intends to work on the draft User:Colonel Warden/List of Indian castes, which has been languishing for five years, that work is to be exempted from the restrictions mentioned, i.e. Andrew Davidson is allowed while it's still in userspace to offer weaker comments and sources there, provided this work gradually leads up to acceptable quality and sourcing, before it's offered for mainspace. Failure to comply with this warning will result in a topic ban or other sanction. Bishonen | talk 23:12, 20 March 2018 (UTC).

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Sending positive vibes and recognising your contribution! Thank you. Srsval (talk) 21:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks. The Women's Classical Committee has been good fun and I hope to do more for it when time permits. Andrew D. (talk) 07:55, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Naomi Parker Fraley

Gatoclass (talk) 00:03, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Copyeditor's Barnstar
	A joy to review. Your article on Nicola Thorp, while short, sets an exemplary standard for start class articles in sourcing, writing style and layout. Please make more articles. I'll be following your contributions. Great work! Edaham (talk) 09:50, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks though it's The joy of all things that has done most of the work in this case. I started the page when rescuing another page about high heel policy which made a good DYK. Having been prompted by the many incoming link notifications, I'm now thinking to nominate Nicola Thorp as a sequel as it will make a good Where Are They Now?. Andrew D. (talk) 10:02, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I did not neglect to add a barnstar there also :) Edaham (talk) 10:37, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Also I enjoy reviewing articles which are good eye openers. Living as I do in China I had no idea about how current the high heel issue is. Ludicrous that women are still being bludgeoned with forced stereotypes in developed countries! Edaham (talk) 10:41, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks for the review and barnstars. It's interesting that you live in Shanghai now. Note that there's an interesting page about China's own Foot Emancipation Society. Andrew D. (talk) 10:58, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

De Pace, BMG movement

Hi Andrew, I just wanted to thank you for looking over the Bernardo De Pace article. It was the first time I have been tempted to try a did you know for quite a while. I had forgotten anything I ever knew about the process and your feedback and quick response to its existence on the list was great. I just found two places to link to the BMG article you wrote. Thank you for writing it.Jacqke (talk) 00:56, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in study of civil behaviour

Hello,

I am E. Whittaker, an intern at Wikimedia with the Scoring Team to create a labeled dataset, and potentially a tool, to help editors deal with incivility when they encounter it on talk pages. We are currently recruiting editors to be interviewed about their experiences with incivility on talk pages. Would you be interested in being interviewed? The interviews should take ~1 hour, and will be conducted over BlueJeans (which does allow interviews to be recorded). If, so, please email me at ewhit@umich.edu in order to schedule an interview.

Thank you E. Whittaker — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ewitch51 (talk • contribs) 17:47, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks for the invitation. I have replied by email. Andrew D. (talk) 06:37, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Tammie Jo Shults

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Tammie Jo Bonnell is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tammie Jo Bonnell until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. WWGB (talk) 10:57, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Andrew Davidson, it's been nearly three weeks since Cwmhiraeth pointed out that the nomination of the two articles cannot proceed with the template affixed to the Tammie Jo Shults article. As far as I can see, you have two options: work on the article to remove the excessive use of blockquotes (which, while not added by you, are nevertheless in the article, and with the template it cannot be promoted at DYK to the main page) or drop the article from the nomination (by unbolding the link, which would be a shame since it's Tammie Jo who's the focus here). Please decide what you'd like to do within the next several days and post to the nomination, so the review can continue. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:29, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• I was waiting for activity at the article to subside and have updated it now. Andrew D. (talk) 06:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

On 6 July 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Tammie Jo Shults, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Tammie Jo Shults (pictured), captain of Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, was one of the first female tactical fighter pilots in the US Navy? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Tammie Jo Shults. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Tammie Jo Shults), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 00:01, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

• 26,176 views. Andrew D. (talk) 06:47, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

On 6 July 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Tammie Jo Shults (pictured), captain of Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, was one of the first female tactical fighter pilots in the US Navy? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Southwest Airlines Flight 1380), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 00:01, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

• 13,505 views. Andrew D. (talk) 06:48, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Many thanks for your email, Andrew. Your support is very much appreciated and will give somethought to what you said. Thanks again, Stinglehammer (talk) 12:18, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Campanino

Please see note on your DYK review. Yoninah (talk) 18:06, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

UK First Women

Thanks for creating Anita Corbin. Have you got a source for the list you added to the talk page? If "personal communication with the artist" it would be useful to say so. If anything published, it would be great to be able to link to it from a newly-created article to say that they were included. I'm looking at Sharon Nesmith who certainly ought to have an article... but must get on with some Real Life stuff first. PamD 10:46, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

And how come there are 103? I thought it was a list of 100! PamD 10:49, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

@PamD: The list was compiled in stages from online coverage. I then got a picture of the list on display at the exhibition. I noticed the number 103 too but haven't fully reconciled the various sources. I started articles about Becky Frater and Katy Cropper (the shepherdess that got you started on this). I'll make some more passes through the list to check for missing links but not right now as I'm busy too. Andrew D. (talk) 11:00, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Ah, thanks: well done! I've created a redirect for Nan McCreadie to the article where she already got a mention. Too busy too. PamD 11:56, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Frogmore Paper Mill

I had a DYK all good to go "... that Frogmore Paper Mill is the oldest surviving mechanical paper mill in the world?" but I've missed the cut-off point by one day, unless I 5x expand it to 3.6K (over double the current size). Aaaaaargh! Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:30, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

D'oh, the creator moved from draft space yesterday. Hallelujah, we're back on! Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:35, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• Ok. Note also that D9 gives you some wiggle-room. Andrew D. (talk) 20:43, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I've filed it. Hopefully somebody will SNOW close the AfD soon, and that'll be that. It's not often an obvious DYK hook smacks me in the face like that! Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:48, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Godfrey's Cordial

On 10 September 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Godfrey's Cordial, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Godfrey's Cordial, a popular infant sedative in Victorian Britain, led to numerous fatalities? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Godfrey's Cordial. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Godfrey's Cordial), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Alex Shih (talk) 00:02, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

List of cottages in Dorset listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect List of cottages in Dorset. Since you had some involvement with the List of cottages in Dorset redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so.  » Shadowowl | talk 16:14, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

La Manga club

Greetings Andrew. I'm puzzled about your recent edit on La Manga Club. I don't normally request deletions but this is one of the poorest 'articles' I've read on Wikipedia and 'delete' was the most positive thing I could say. I note, but wasn't influenced by, the fact the originator has had most other articles deleted. I don't know if you believe I failed to follow proper procedure or you really think the article is worth saving AND can be improved. If the latter then I beg to differ and think it should go to a vote. Regards JRPG (talk) 14:11, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

• @JRPG: I am familiar with the place as it is a notable resort and sporting facility. The article is far from the worst that I have seen and is certainly improveable. Before starting a deletion discussion, please familiarise yourself with the deletion process WP:BEFORE. For example, alternatives to deletion should be considered. One sensible alternative would be merger to its location: La Manga. I would still prefer to retain the page separately though.

• A tussle over this would be tiresome. It would be more congenial to discuss other topics mentioned on your user page such as Fortran and Chess. I myself started my career using Fortran at an engineering business. That was a while ago but, more recently, I partipated in the Mind Sports Olympiad where I was pleased to meet an old acquaintance, Bill Hartston. One of the events there was diving chess! As you have swimming experience too, perhaps you should give it a try next year.

Andrew D. (talk) 14:55, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

• We should note that matters have moved on as an observer has escalated and is now edit-warring about it. Tsk. Andrew D. (talk) 15:09, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

In the meantime, thanks for a speedy reply Andrew -a tussle was unlikely if it's not an advert though contents still seem bizarre. On a different topic I've played Glenn Flear though I don't remember the result. To my shame I turned down a request for a large English white pig breeding database circa 1972 largely because our machine was optimised for maths and had a grossly inadequate memory for such a task. I might add a bit to my talk page -pity there's no reminiscences page for geriatric software engineers! JRPG (talk) 15:33, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Greetings!

Hello Andrew,

Good meeting you yesterday and learning about your interests.

Here are links to my Wikidata presentation containing the examples I showed and my user page with some of my artwork.

See you around,
cmɢʟee⎆τたうaʟκかっぱ 02:26, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Doria Ragland

hi there, as you actually inserted this photo claiming it was better than nothing I am linking you to the rfc. Talk:Doria_Ragland#Photo Govindaharihari (talk) 17:53, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi Andrew. I see you reverted back to your photo without discussion, with an edit summary of fix image when what you realy did was change the long term stable image https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Doria_Ragland&diff=929237212&oldid=928741871 I think the photo chat thread on the talkpage opposes your change. Please feel free to open a new chat, for the time being I have replaced what was the consensus in the previous chat from 18 months ago and was stable as I understand it. Thanks Govindaharihari (talk) 08:32, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

• The situation was not stable as an IP editor had changed the image link on 30 Nov. The link was then to an image at Hello magazine and that was not valid for several reasons. As the article image was then broken and not displaying, I fixed this by changing it to a valid free image. I made a fresh search for free images but didn't find any new ones and so changed the link to an existing version. The more tightly cropped version which Govindaharihari has now placed is inferior in my view but that's a matter of taste and de gustibus non est disputandum. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:05, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Barbara P. McCarthy

On 12 November 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Barbara P. McCarthy, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Barbara P. McCarthy disagreed with philologist Rudolf Helm about whether or not Lucian originated a particular form of satiric dialog? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Barbara P. McCarthy. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Barbara P. McCarthy), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Alex Shih (talk) 00:01, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

One-armed versus one-legged cricket

On 14 November 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article One-armed versus one-legged cricket, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Greenwich pensioners played one-armed versus one-legged cricket? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/One-armed versus one-legged cricket. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, One-armed versus one-legged cricket), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Alex Shih (talk) 00:03, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Pictures at an Exhibition

Gnome cricket

Sorry I tried to improve your personal article. Silly mistake on my part, best to leave it going against the MoS and with horrid formatting on smaller screens. Opencooper (talk) 01:32, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

• De gustibus non est disputandum. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:09, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

• The fact that you think these are matters of taste betrays your ignorance. Maybe after another 15 years. Opencooper (talk) 22:58, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Here's one of the pictures in question. I reckon it needs to be even bigger to fully appreciate it and so let's admire it here in all its glory.

Deletion discussion for Sarah Knauss

An editor has started a deletion nomination for Sarah Knauss. Because you were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion discussion. 96.253.25.35 (talk) 12:42, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Deletion discussion for Nabi Tajima

An editor has started a deletion nomination for Nabi Tajima. Because you were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion discussion. 96.253.25.35 (talk) 12:42, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Move review: Paradisus Judaeorum

(sent out exact copy to all AfD participants - apologize if you are aware) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heaven for the nobles, Purgatory for the townspeople, Hell for the peasants, and Paradise for the Jews which you were involved in is in discussion at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2018 December. Input there is welcome.Icewhiz (talk) 07:05, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Freddie Stockdale

Thanks for reviewing Freddie Stockdale, Andrew Davidson.

Unfortunately Winged Blades of Godric has just gone over this page again and unreviewed it. Their note is:

I'm not sure about she passes our notability guidelines. Please add more references.

To reply, leave a comment on Winged Blades of Godric's talk page.

∯WBG^converse 11:41, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, and I just moved it back to Andrew's userspace. There's no way an article in that state should be left in the mainspace, especially by a user with a record of creating substubs with as many problems as water roux. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 11:51, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

BTW, the source is here. Most of it is behind a paywall, but it's pretty clear Andrew picked up a copy of The Times, read an interesting obituary, and decided to sum up the subject's life in a single "X (birth-death) was a British Y" statement and throw that statement out into a Wikipedia article. It's pretty insulting to the rest of us who go looking for topics who have their own entries in paper encyclopedias but not here, carefully build articles based on what can be gathered about those topics, and only put them into the mainspace once they've reached a certain wordcount and/or have a certain number of citations of a certain number of reliable sources for you to pull stuff like this, Andrew. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 11:59, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Its a different philosophy, that's all. Some editors like to take ownership of a subject, hone it to perfection and then post it. This leaves very little for others to add, and can be quite intimidating. Others see value, in marking a subjects notability by adding a one line stub and letting the article develop, this allows other editors to feel valued and to develop their skills 'wiki-wiki' working co-operatively. Both are valid- both are needed.ClemRutter (talk) 12:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't see it as a matter of "liking", though; I don't doubt that in real life I am every bit as lazy as Andrew, and this can be seen (or in theory could be seen) in my earlier articles like the speedy-deleted "1st draft stub" of Utsunomiya Yoritsuna. I would "like" to be able to leave shitty one-sentence drafts in the mainspace and then walk away but the community hates it when I do that, and I haven't seen anything to indicate they feel differently when Andrew does it. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 12:25, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Andrew for creating this stub which a quick Google search showed to be highly notable. I have made a start expanding it and will try to do more later. Perhaps others will help out too. Philafrenzy (talk) 18:06, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@Philafrenzy: I don't get it; the concern is not about "notability" but about abominable, one-sentence sub-stubs being left in the mainspace. If you are content to 100% of the work of creating an article but let Andrew have the "article creation" points that's your business, but where were you when the water roux debacle happened? And where will you be the next time? The only reason I'm confident that Andrew's single sentence in this instance was not completely wrong (as everything he wrote in the water roux "article" was) is that I'm fairly confident the one source he consulted probably did say that the person was British. (I'm pretty sure in this case the page as Andrew left it was a potential A7 candidate.) I'm increasingly of the mind that Andrew should have his autopatrolled rights revoked, or be placed under an "AFC only" restriction or the like, given how often this seems to happen. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 05:24, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes it was short but it had the essentials 1) clearly identified the subject 2) made an assertion of notability as an "opera impresario" 3) cited a reliable source. If anyone reviewing it still had doubts all they had to do was quickly Google him to see that he was notable. It took seconds. I often try to catch the obits in The Times but I missed this one and it may have remained missed if Andrew hadn't taken the trouble to get the ball rolling. The evidence for the correctness of Andrew's initial course of action is in the current article. Philafrenzy (talk) 08:39, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. There is no rule against having a one line stub if that line actually asserts the claim to notability, and is sourced. The fact that this has now been expanded into something reasonable demonstrates that there was value in Andrew starting this one off.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:00, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

The above comments make no sense. In both this case and the water roux incident, nothing was done about the article for several days after Andrew's initial problematic 1st draft stub, and then something was only done after I or WBG made a fuss about it -- you might as well thank us for bringing it to the fore. Andrew's initial one-sentence stub didn't assert a claim to notability (no indication was made that the Times obituary was more than a single line, and nothing in the line of text made the person sound particularly notable). The fact that both Amakuru's reversion of the userfication and Philafrenzy's above comment talked about whether the subject "is" notable rather than the actual complaint that the article as Andrew left it (for three days) was only one sentence that didn't make a claim to notability appears to indicate that this is more about issuing a "gotcha" to those who have a problem with Andrew's editing than actually improving the encyclopedia with good articles on notable topics. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 09:28, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Philafrenzy, highly notable? You might want to recheck that. ∯WBG^converse 12:19, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: As you are well aware, "notable" in Wikipedia deletion discussions (which apparently this is...!?) means something different to what it means in everyday speech. If a quick Googling brings up enough hits to constitute "significant coverage" (a phrase whose meaning changes depending on how many editors like Andrew happen to have noticed this or that particular AFD) then the subject is "notable", and if it brings up more hits than expected it is "highly notable". The problem here is that no one was talking about notability, article deletion, or anything like that until Amakuru and Philafranzy brought them up (and also that the more "articles" I see Andrew "create" the more convinced I become that he is one of that class of users whom the community will probably decide sooner or later is not allowed unilaterally publish standalone articles in the mainspace). Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 12:30, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

• The OP's concern was "I'm not sure about she (sic) passes our notability guidelines." Andrew D. (talk) 12:43, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. Your article didn't make a claim to notability. That's what I said above. That's different from whether or not the subject is notable. WBG's first comment (and part of my last one) were about a claim to notability, but Philafrenzy and Amakuru were focused on whether the subject was notable in-and-of itself.

Anyway: have you gotten around to re-reading my RM rationale at Talk:Mottainai Grandma? You !voted on the RM without apparently having understood the rationale for moving the page, as you gave a WP:UE rationale when in fact the "English" title refers to a different topic (the barely notable bilingual edition of the first book), not what the article should be focused on (per the prior discussion between myself and User:Curly Turkey.

Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 13:55, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Monica Ross

Hello! Your submission of Monica Ross at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 17:44, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi, it's been over 2 weeks since this notification. Are you pursuing the nomination any further or should I close it? Yoninah (talk) 12:39, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@Yoninah: When I last checked this I thought it was back on track but, if there's more needed, I'll take a look tomorrow. More anon. Andrew D. (talk) 16:40, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Andrew Davidson. You have new messages at Template:Did you know nominations/Monica Ross.
Message added 00:47, 22 December 2018 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:47, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello! Your submission of Monica Ross at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 23:34, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

On 12 January 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Monica Ross, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the final work of artist Monica Ross was completed on the day of her death? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Monica Ross. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Monica Ross), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 00:02, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Sue Jelley

FYI Someone uploaded one of your images to commons as their own image - c:File:Sue Jelley PPSWA SPF.jpg. I've tagged it for deletion, and I've copied your one to commons (and left the local copy here as requested). Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 01:26, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for the notification. The issue seems related to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sue Jelley PPSWA SPF. Andrew D. (talk) 10:09, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

The Sustainability Initiative

The Sustainability Initiative

Hello Andrew Davidson: An invitation for you to check out the Sustainability Initiative, which aims to reduce the environmental impact of the Wikimedia projects. If you're interested, please consider adding your name to the list of supporters, which serves to express and denote the community's support of the initiative. Thanks for your consideration! North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:47, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

• I planted several trees recently as part of the Trees for Cities programme. I started the plogging page and will go for a pick-up run now to further improve the environment. Andrew D. (talk) 11:19, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk to us about talking

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.

We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.

We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.

We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

1. First, sign up your group here.
2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
3. Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
   1. When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
   2. What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
   3. What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
   4. What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
   5. What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
4. Finally, please go to Talk pages consultation 2019 on Mediawiki.org and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.

Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell us how your group communicates.

You can read more about the overall process on mediawiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you.

Trizek (WMF) 15:08, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Infinity Gauntlet

Hi Andrew,

About a year ago, you read Infinity Gauntlet and reviewed it for a DYK. I've put it up for FAC, and I'd appreciate any comments you may have. The discussion is here.

Thanks, Argento Surfer (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

• I'll take a look and comment if I have anything to say. Andrew D. (talk) 19:22, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Decline in insect populations

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

In addition to the discretionary sanctions described above the Arbitration Committee has also imposed a restriction which states that you cannot make more than one revert on the same page in the same 24 hour period on all pages relating to genetically modified organisms, agricultural biotechnology, or agricultural chemicals, broadly construed and subject to certain exemptions.

Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:37, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

• GMOs and pesticides seem to be Kingofaces43's hobbyhorse not mine, but I shall bear this in mind. Note that there are similar strictures about climate change as a result of another case. Andrew D. (talk) 09:00, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

You've already been warned multiple times, so I'll be blunt. Since you're chosen to edit war content and violate the discretionary sanctions instead, you need to undo your recent edit warring, and if I or others have to remove the content again and you reinsert, the discretionary sanctions will be enforced this time. I've been very patient with you since you're new on that front, but you've had enough warnings now. Arbs were very clear that what you are trying to do would be considered gaming and still violate 1RR, so it's time to knock it off and actually gain consensus for something like we're supposed to. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:50, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

• Kingofaces43 has tried this line of argument before and it failed when AE found that this topic of insect decline was not within the scope of the GMO case. In any case, it's Kingofaces43 that is most out of order – repeating disruptive edits without consensus, using weak sources, misrepresenting the precedent, making threats, &c. And, let's remember what this is about. Sources such as National Geographic explain Why insect populations are plummeting—and why it matters. There is clearly a notable topic here and so it's quite puzzling that Kingofaces43 is so hostile towards such reputable sources. Andrew D. (talk) 23:33, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

That AE did not find that the topic was out of scope. The content specifically does involve pesticides, though some admins were initially confused by the case name thinking it only applied to GMOs, so please don't try to circumvent the DS anymore, especially the expectation that you don't edit war your content back in as means of avoiding getting talk page consensus. Also, please don't blatantly misrepresent me, especially since WP:ASPERSIONS is part of the DS. I've already told you multiple times how the topic of insect decline was already being handled at insect biodiversity and needed more fleshing out there, so to characterize me as otherwise is just getting into poor drama raising. If you're really interested in working on the content, we've already been discussing it significantly at other pages on what is actually needed for proper sourcing (which you went around during your article creation), and the diversity page is waiting for someone to actually work on it more than I gave it an initial revamp to. Kingofaces43 (talk)

• The AE close is "The article edits in question do not fall within the scope of discretionary sanctions." Q.E.D. Andrew D. (talk) 10:15, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Luquillo Experimental Forest

When you first nominated your article at DYK, I was very sceptical of a wholesale decline in insects, and I still do not like a review stating, here are the results of a small number of studies - these show that insect populations around the world are collapsing. However, I accept there are some declines and I looked into the Puerto Rico study. I wrote an article on the Luquillo Experimental Forest with this result, and I thought the hook might please you. The Puerto Rico researchers attributed their findings to a rise in temperatures over the period of 2°C and thought tropical insects might be particularly susceptible to a rise in temperature. Being cynical, I think that attributing an effect to climate change is a good way to get your research study accepted for publication. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:00, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

• @Cwmhiraeth: Thanks. It's good to clarify the locations of these studies but I reckon that we already have an article for this one. I shall suggest a merger at the relevant talk page. Andrew D. (talk) 22:53, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Decline in insect populations

On 21 April 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Decline in insect populations, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that some insect populations have declined dramatically? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Decline in insect populations. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Decline in insect populations), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 00:02, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

• Yeah, climate change is a real thing. Just wait and see what happens when the bees continue to die off. Without pollination, food supplies will be affected: see No Bees, No Food. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:53, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

	The Resilient Barnstar
	Decline in insect populations deserved a DYK and a place on the main page. It wouldn't bee there without your persistence in the face of adversity. Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:21, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks. It's an interesting topic which we can all relate to. I suppose that there's lots more to come as more studies are done but we shall see... Andrew D. (talk) 12:47, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

• Just to say hello, Andrew, a little bit about the insects in my life. I mostly follow a lazy gardener method, so have to know a little about increasing diversity. My garden rewards me with some organism I have never before as poke, pile and scatter my green 'waste' around, and because I live next to a biodiversity hotspot there is always new and extraordinary insects taking advantage of re-opened habitat. All this gets me a lot of reptiles (and, or including, birds) visiting or residing, but most remarkable of all is that I now have bats foraging overhead for insects in the evening. The highlight of my year so far, I try to count the wins and ignore the losses as best I can. Kudos for your admirable efforts on the article. cygnis insignis 03:58, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: That's good. When I used a bat detector in our local area, I found that there were more than I expected or could easily see in the twilight. There are very few reptiles here but there are plenty of amphibians. After a recent parkrun, I noticed that there were thousands of tadpoles in the lake there. I must upload a picture while I remember... Andrew D. (talk) 14:34, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

a star

		The Special Barnstar
		You are a great editor! Lubbad85 (☎) 02:30, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

"incipient deletion spree"

Andrew, I expect a response to this. It is absolutely unacceptable for you to use ARS as a forum to attack other editors. I honestly don't know what kind of place it was before 14 months ago, and I don't much care to find out, but badmouthing good-faith AFD nominators who (in at least one of the cases you linked) are 100% right on the policy is not an appropriate use for it in 2019. Hijiri 88 (聖きよしやや) 11:52, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Resilient Barnstar
	A WORKIN' MAN, A WORKIN' MAN, Hurray Hurray for a Workin' Man He'll navvy and sweat till he's nearly bet, THE GIFT OF GOD IS A WORKIN' MAN! — Jem Casey Keep up the good work. Illegitimi non carborundum 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:16, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks, you're most welcome. That poet needs more recognition and so I have made a start... Andrew D. (talk) 13:39, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Wholesomeness listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wholesomeness. Since you had some involvement with the Wholesomeness redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 18:45, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Golden

From what I can tell Golden is a for profit company? If so I'm not so interested in creating free content for them even if I do like elements of what's going on there. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:36, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• All the content you write for Wikipedia is made available "for any purpose, even commercially". So, Golden can freely take your fine articles, such as Wolf in the Snow, and republish them. The significant differences seem to be that they will make it easier to write such content and that they won't so lightly delete it. Andrew D. (talk) 08:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah I get that (and really they could find better articles of mine than Wolf in the Snow) and they are publishing under a CCSA 4 license themselves. But it feels different writing for something which is being used for a for-profit rather than non-profit motive. YMMV. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019

Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019 Text mining display of noun phrases from the US Presidential Election 2012 The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page. To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer. Back numbers are here. Semantic Web and TDM – a ContentMine view Two dozen issues, and this may be the last, a valediction at least for a while. It's time for a two-year summation of ContentMine projects involving TDM (text and data mining). Wikidata and now Structured Data on Commons represent the overlap of Wikimedia with the Semantic Web. This common ground is helping to convert an engineering concept into a movement. TDM generally has little enough connection with the Semantic Web, being instead in the orbit of machine learning which is no respecter of the semantic. Don't break a taboo by asking bots "and what do you mean by that?" The ScienceSource project innovates in TDM, by storing its text mining results in a Wikibase site. It strives for compliance of its fact mining, on drug treatments of diseases, with an automated form of the relevant Wikipedia referencing guideline MEDRS. Where WikiFactMine set up an API for reuse of its results, ScienceSource has a SPARQL query service, with look-and-feel exactly that of Wikidata's at query.wikidata.org. It also now has a custom front end, and its content can be federated, in other words used in data mashups: it is one of over 50 sites that can federate with Wikidata. The human factor comes to bear through the front end, which combines a link to the HTML version of a paper, text mining results organised in drug and disease columns, and a SPARQL display of nearby drug and disease terms. Much software to develop and explain, so little time! Rather than telling the tale, Facto Post brings you ScienceSource links, starting from the how-to video, lower right. ScienceSourceReview, introductory video: but you need run it from the original upload file on Commons Links for participation http://sciencesource-review.wmflabs.org/, review tool link in the left-hand sidebar at http://sciencesource.wmflabs.org/wiki/Main_Page The review tool requires a log in on sciencesource.wmflabs.org, and an OAuth permission (bottom of a review page) to operate. It can be used in simple and more advanced workflows. Examples of queries for the latter are at d:Wikidata_talk:ScienceSource project/Queries#SS_disease_list and d:Wikidata_talk:ScienceSource_project/Queries#NDF-RT issue. Please be aware that this is a research project in development, and may have outages for planned maintenance. That will apply for the next few days, at least. The ScienceSource wiki main page carries information on practical matters. Email is not enabled on the wiki: use site mail here to Charles Matthews in case of difficulty, or if you need support. Further explanatory videos will be put into commons:Category:ContentMine videos. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Derrick Morris

On 23 May 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Derrick Morris, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that when Derrick Morris received a new heart in 1980 his chances of survival were slim, but he lived another 25 years? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Derrick Morris. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Derrick Morris), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:01, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Game of Thrones

I notice you've closed the AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Myrcella Baratheon after the discussion was only held for fewer than four days. This is despite the discussion having not met any of the conditions for early closure. I believe the discussion still had value as, even if no pages were deleted as a result of this discussion, a course of action was being decided on to show what articles were notable and which weren't. --TedEdwards 15:47, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

• The discussion was closed per the Snowball clause. There was no consensus to delete but a general feeling that the subjects would be best considered individually. Such further discussion should therefore take place on the separate talk pages for those articles. More general discussion can continue at forums such as Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire which did not appear to have been notified. Andrew D. (talk) 16:52, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh sorry, didn't notice the link in the pun. Thank you anyway. --TedEdwards 17:41, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts

Hello, Andrew. I'm planning on a rewrite of decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts, and I've written up a draft of what's going to be the central section at User:A. Parrot/sandbox. The final article will cover the nature of the scripts, the pre-Rosetta efforts on hieroglyphs, and the work done after the mid-1820s, but as this is the section that addresses everything from the discovery of the Rosetta Stone to Champollion's Précis, it's the crucial one. I think I've managed a pretty careful examination of which scholar accomplished what and when, and an even-handed treatment of the priority dispute between Young and Champollion, but I'm seeking second opinions. Given that you worked on the article on the Rosetta Stone, your opinion would be valuable.

Please ignore anything contained between percent signs; I use them to denote text I'm unsure of, or notes to myself.

I've tried to write the article in British English because the only English-speaking participants in the story were British, but Americanisms have probably crept in. Feel free to correct any you find. And a final question—should Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy be called "Silvestre de Sacy", "de Sacy", or "Sacy" when referring to him by his surname? The sources I'm using can't seem to agree! A. Parrot (talk) 23:26, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

• "De Sacy" seems sufficient. I'll take a look at your draft and watch those pages. I recall some recent related activity at the WCC so there may be some useful connections there. Andrew D. (talk) 08:43, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. A. Parrot (talk) 01:59, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, now I feel like an idiot—the Andrew who worked on the Rosetta Stone article was Andrew Dalby, not you. I'm afraid I've always confused the two of you. (I suppose this is the advantage of usernames: more varied names mean less chance of errors like mine.) Anyway, I've given him the message I gave you. If you want to comment on the article text, feel free, but if not, I encourage you to forget my silly mistake! A. Parrot (talk) 15:08, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Eton Shirts

Hi Andrew, I just saw that you opposed the deletion of the article about Eton Shirts. Since I am trying to understand why it was proposed to be deleted in the first place I just wanted to ask you if there is anything to be done to remove the proposed deletion tag and get the article fully accepted? Or does it, according to you, work as it is without any further changes? Swe jon (talk) 12:42, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Swe jon: The reason stated was "Does not meet WP:ORGCRIT requirements of in-depth analysis in multiple media. A smattering of routine business transactions and exec transitions does not satisfy." I have rejected that proposal per WP:DEPROD and so it is done. Other proposals of a stronger sort might be made but the article is on my watchlist now and I would continue to defend it. The most pressing need, IMO, is some images for the article, especially historical ones. The copyright issues can be challenging so I recommend that you study Help:Pictures. Andrew D. (talk) 17:39, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your support and your thorough answer. There is a lot of historical pictures from the 30's, 40's and 50's which could be uploaded since they, as far as I understand when I read about it, is ok from a copyright perspective? The photographer is most likely dead as well as unknown to anyone alive today, the only information available is roughly the year (or decennium) when they were created. With my COI I'm a bit unsure how to proceed with the updates of the article. Is it ok for me to upload pictures to Wiki Commons and ask someone else to add them to the article or could I even do it all the way by myself? I'm very keen not to violate the rules of the Wikipedia-community. Swe jon (talk) 10:36, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi Andrew, Coming back to you on this topic. There is now some historical pictures from the 1930s available at Wiki Commons. They have recently been added to the swedish page for Eton Shirts. Since I'm keen on not overstepping any boundaries on Wikipedia (I have a declared COI) I just wanted to reach out and ask you for your advice. Should I upload the pictures or ask for help?Swe jon (talk) 07:23, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Swe jon: Thanks for the update. I looked at the Swedish article and have added most of the images to the English article. I have not formatted these as a gallery because these are sometimes attacked by editors who don't like them. Me, I like lots of pictures and it's good that we have some now. Thanks for your contribution. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Andrew Davidson: Thank you! I agree with you that it's nice with pictures and will let you know if I stumble upon anything else that could be interesting for the article. I'm not even sure that the shirt on the picture is an Eton shirt so that could be a good starter. Swe jon (talk) 07:46, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Andrew Davidson: Hi Andrew, Coming back to you on this topic. There is now some new Eton pictures available on Wikimedia and I wonder, considering my COI, if you would like to help exchange the current picture showing a shirt and a tie to this picture showing a white Eton shirt? "File:Etonstore GOT 1.jpg". Since the picture is from Gothenburg Airport and the Eton store there I know for a fact that it actually is an Eton shirt. There is also a nice picture of the store ("Etonstore GOT 2.jpg") if you would prefer that one or use them both. What do you think? Best. /JonathanSwe jon (talk) 10:33, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• @Swe jon: I've looked at the pictures (right) but am not convinced that they are an improvement. The shirt in the picture does not stand out so well -- partly because it is white and partly because the background is busy and in focus. Perhaps a crop might help. And the long shot of the store seems unsatisfactory because there's no frontage. But I seem to recall that I took a photo of the store in South Molton Street (an article that I actually started myself) when I passed by about a year ago. Let's see if I can find that and then we can compare. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:05, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Sounds good! The shirt is indeed white which is a bit hard for the standing out part but at the same time it is really the core product and a big part of the sales. I will reach out to the photographer though and see if he can upload a cropped version. Or can you crop it if you were to upload it? My main problem with the current picture is that it is hard to see if it is even an Eton shirt. It is also quite old. Looking forward to see your image. Swe jon (talk) 14:34, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• I've made a cropped version (right)so let's try that. I can't find a picture of the London store right now but will try again when I'm down that way. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Looks great - thanks!Swe jon (talk) 20:34, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi Andrew, hope you're well and that it's ok that I'm reaching out here. I would like to make some minor changes to the Wiki page about Eton Shirts but since I have a COI I'm not sure that it's ok? The changes are minor:

1. Eton is, since a couple of years, no longer present at TsUM in Moscow so I would like to remove that.

2. Secondly, Sebastian Dollinger has resigned as the Creative Director so he should be removed. Is that something you can help me with or do you think I can do it myself? Best, Swe jon (talk) 08:08, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll update the article. But we can't expect to maintain such fine details continuously as the business evolves and so the article should aim to present a historical view. I'll consider how that might best be done. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:15, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Membership renewal

You have been a member of Wiki Project Med Foundation (WPMEDF) in the past. Your membership, however, appears to have expired. As such this is a friendly reminder encouraging you to officially rejoin WPMEDF. There are no associated costs. Membership gives you the right to vote in elections for the board. The current membership round ends in 2020.

ReJoin Wiki Project Med Foundation

Thanks again :-) The team at Wiki Project Med Foundation---Avicenno (talk) 05:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Tall buildings in Jersey City

If you are going to remove Prod templates en masse, at least have the courtesy to provide an explanation. Although I know it is not a requirement, WP:DEPROD states "You are strongly encouraged" to "explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page." It would really help me to actually believe that you are acting in good faith if you did so. Also, if you do have legitimate reasons to remove the PROD, could you at least do so in a reasonable amount of time? (ie. not mere hours before the seven day period is about to expire)--Rusf10 (talk) 15:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

• Twinkle makes it easy to propose or nominate lots of articles like this. Opposing such deletions is more laborious because it has to be done manually, without any scripted assistance. For a bundle of that kind, with common features, it is more efficient to discuss them centrally. As for the timing, this is unimportant because the WP:REFUND process applies regardless. I patrol CAT:ALLPROD and that sorts the articles alphabetically, not by day. Andrew D. (talk) 16:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

How laborious is it to remove a PROD? All you have to do is revert and type an edit summary, seems pretty easy to me.--Rusf10 (talk) 19:16, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

• I do that and more besides but you seem to want something more. That usually happens when you escalate by starting an AfD. It would save effort for both of us if you cut out the Prod step altogether. Per WP:PROD, it "must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected" and you should expect opposition in such cases. Andrew D. (talk) 20:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Richard Haine

— Maile (talk) 00:02, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

A star

		The Civility Barnstar
		Keep up the great work! You are valued here! Lubbad85 (☎)(Edits) 19:59, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

WP:CEN is now open!

To all interested parties: Now that it has a proper shortcut, the current events noticeboard has now officially opened for discussion!

WP:CEN came about as an idea I explored through a request for comment that closed last March. Recen research has re-opened the debate on Wikipedia's role in a changing faster-paced internet. Questions of WP:NOTNEWS and WP:Recentism are still floating around. That being said, there are still plenty of articles to write and hopefully this noticeboard can positively contribute to that critical process.

Thank you for your participation in the RFC, and I hope to see you at WP:CEN soon! –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:09, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Maria Grzegorzewska – Help with a resource?

I am struggling to find a non-digital resource and Ritchie333 thought maybe you could help me? While creating an article on Józefa Joteyko, I discovered a stub on Maria Grzegorzewska, on which the only ref link was dead. As you can see, I have now virtually finished Joteyko and Grzegorzewska, but I am looking photographs. This thesis (images on pages 20 and 28), has some photographs which indicate they were taken from a non-digitized book Maria Grzegorzewska. Materiały z sesji naukowej-7.XI.1969 r. published in 1972. If indeed they were published in 1972 without a copyright notice, they would be usable because Polish photographs published prior to 1994 without a notice are in the PD. So, I am on a quest to find the book and basically need to know what photos are in it, the page numbers, and if it is copyrighted.

Supposedly, there is a copy of it at the The British Library, St. Pancras, London, NW1 2DB United Kingdom This seems to indicate that it is part of the Library "system" and can be delivered to other locations??? Ideally, if there is no copyright, any photos of Grzegorzewska in the book can be uploaded as in the PD in Poland. I am keen to have the 1913 one of her when she arrived in Belgium for the Joteyko article and a later one of her for her own article. I totally get it if you don't have time, but will be thrilled if you can make time to help. Thanks! SusunW (talk) 21:26, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

• @SusunW: I have access to the Reading Rooms at the British Library and so can look at the book there and copy any pictures. I was there just two days ago while attending another event next door but I don't have any immediate plans to go back. I'll give some thought to when I might go again. Do you have a particular timetable or deadline for this work? Andrew D. (talk) 21:57, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Drat, wish I had known. Such is life. Not particularly urgent, but I don't want to nominate either article for GA without photos. SusunW (talk) 22:10, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

• @SusunW: I'll try to fit it in in a week or two. It will also be an opportunity to consult other offline sources needed for other articles so I'll review what else is pending. More anon. Andrew D. (talk) 22:44, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Gracias mi amigo. Very much appreciated. SusunW (talk) 22:46, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Hey Andrew Davidson, just thought I'd check in, not pressuring you, to see if you have been able to schedule a trip to the Reading Rooms? SusunW (talk) 18:07, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Finally my backlog of GA nominations has cleared and I think I can get Maria Grzegorzewska ready to nominate, but I still have no photos. Any chance you are planning on going to the Reading Rooms at the British Library soon? SusunW (talk) 22:26, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

@SusunW: I don't have any immediate plans but will see what I can do. Let me think on't. More anon. Andrew D. (talk) 23:23, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm currently in the LSE Library and have tried their catalogue but no joy yet. In the meantime, I've added an image of a statue which is a start. More anon. Andrew D. (talk) 13:39, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Fingers crossed. SusunW (talk) 14:41, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

A star

		The Purple Barnstar
		You endure it and keep on making Wikipedia better! Lightburst (talk) 03:52, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Susan Beschta

On 30 July 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Susan Beschta, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Susan Beschta was a punk rocker and federal judge? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Susan Beschta. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Susan Beschta), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

valereee (talk) 00:02, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• 8,937 hits. Andrew D. (talk) 08:37, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Anna B. Eckstein

Hello! Your submission of Anna B. Eckstein at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Enwebb (talk) 18:19, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

— Maile (talk) 12:02, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

9,165 hits.

Birds and the bees – sourcing help please.

Hi there, I met you at the insect population decline article. You seem to be a very experienced editor and perhaps you can help me. I know that WP prefers secondary sources but it is my understanding that in certain circumstances a primary source is OK to use as long as it is used correctly. Today this source has been removed from the Neonicotinoid article [3] Considering that it was published in such a prestigious journal I feel that it would be reasonable to include at least one or two sentences that mention the study when the alternative is to wait years and years for a review to come out. What do you think? Gandydancer (talk) 16:54, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

• @Gandydancer: That's quite a fine level of detail so I'd want to review the overall context for the issue first. I recently noticed a report of a significant decline in bird populations in North America – see Decline of the North American avifauna and BBC coverage. I was thinking that an article about a general decline in bird populations would be appropriate, following the pattern of the similar articles for amphibians and insects. The most relevant page we have currently seems to be bird conservation. I'll put these pages on my watchlist and take it from there. Andrew D. (talk) 17:37, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. If you check the neonic talk page you can see that the efforts to get any new findings into the article have been going on for years but using one reason or another -- it's too soon, it's a primary study, and it does not pass our WP:MEDRS guidelines (as though birds and bees are tiny little humans), and such, it has been a struggle. As for using a primary study, both MastCell and WhatamIdoing say they are OK if used properly.

I hope you do make an article to address the decrease of the bird population. I've seen the decrease over the years and even in the last 12 years, going back to the time we bought our farm here in Maine, I'd see a small number of bats fly out of the barn every evening for the first few years but it went down to zero bats. Same thing for mud swallows -- the barn is plastered (inside) with their nests so clearly at one time they were very numerous. The first few years I saw a few pairs but it quickly dwindled to nothing as well. It really is quite heartbreaking. Gandydancer (talk) 22:16, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gage Creed (character)]

Your critique is spot on MrCleanOut (talk) 19:42, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Hotel Montclair

With regard to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hotel Montclair, FYI: the building was demolished and replaced by apartments. Djflem (talk) 13:27, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

• So I gather. But the relevant principle is that notability does not expire and so this is not significant. Most buildings are demolished at some point – see Blossom's Inn for an example which I worked on. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:05, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Man's best friend

Dogs at polling stations

Pip at a polling station

Hi Andrew, I was patrolling the new files feed and came across this image. I mainly looked at it because I love dogs, however I did notice you palces the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license on the image. The image is actually CC-BY-2.0. I updated the license so it was correct on the file. Just wanted to drop you a note to explain the change. Happy editing! --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 04:16, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Cameron11598: Thanks for the explanation and it's good of you to fix the issue rather than just tagging it as so many other patrollers do. Here's some further explanation.

The image was uploaded for a new article which I started at an election editathon. This was sponsored by Wikimedia UK and was covered by multiple journalists looking for an novel way to cover the election results from one location. I was naturally keen to make a good impression by getting this done quickly.

I checked the licence when I found the image. I usually upload images via the upload file page. This has a dropdown menu for the licensing options. It seems hard to get the selection exactly right because, for example, it only lists CC 4.0, not earlier versions. So, I selected what seemed to be the best of available options and pressed on.

I was able to get the article off to a reasonable start and so it has received attention in the journalistic coverage and on social media. I have used the same image on other platforms and they typically make the process of attaching images much simpler and easier. Wikimedia needs to keep up and so perhaps the dropdown menu can be revised to make this clearer. I'm not sure where it is maintained though.

The article helped generate some light-hearted, feel-good banter at the event which was helpful as the election was naturally a sensitive, political issue. Studies have found that "dogs may provide social support, improve performance, and increase social interactions" and so "Google, Amazon, and Etsy have well-publicized policies permitting their employees to bring their dogs to work". We need more dogs at Wikipedia too!

Andrew🐉(talk) 13:27, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Andrew! I definitely agree Wikipedia needs more dogs :). Additionally I do think the image upload form could probably use an overhaul. Not sure if you'd be interested but perhaps we could work on getting that on the 2020 community wishlist? A bit of an interesting fact California's previous governor Jerry Brown actually used to bring his dog into the office with him a few times a week. Unfortunately Sutter passed away during the governor's term in office. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 19:15, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Media coverage of cats

Hi Andrew Davidson, thanks for your input regarding the above. The Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Media coverage of cats (2nd nomination) The discussion was IMO terribly one-sided. I also believe that "tunnel thinking" by some of the others and the following of the leader kind of approach didn't help either. Your comment of "This seems to be a reasonable start on the topic and the worst case should be merger with a page such as cultural depictions of cats or cats and the Internet" was one that made a lot of sense. I accept that what I have an opinion of is not always correct. In saying that the cat media is to cat lovers a valid and important source of news for these people. To these people, "Cat News" is important as what they would hear on CBS News. Some of the strongest passions that can be invoked are ones that involve cats. Sadly I believe some people will never be able to think outside the general view that cats are furry creatures that purr and you feed them at meal time. Anyway, I have re-done & redirected The Purrington Post to Cats and the Internet. Thanks again and best wishes for the upcoming holiday season.
Cheers Karl Twist (talk) 04:49, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

• You're welcome. I'm currently working on articles about dogs, myself. If you want to do more work on cats, then tiger versus lion will always provide a challenge! Also noticed that herding cats is just a disambiguation and so maybe there's more we can do there... Andrew🐉(talk) 00:22, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Chalky (dog)

Perhaps you might like to explain why you deproded this useless article? William Harris (talk) 22:05, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Using https://www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?pid=11522&pop=1#n4 where is the motion by Andrew Pelling regarding the death of Chalky?

Condo951795 (talk) 06:57, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• I have updated the article to cite the parliamentary record. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:32, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Chalky on Rick Stein's boat.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:29, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Barking

Please ignore that man behind the curtain. The great and powerful Oz has spoken!

You have recently removed {{notability}} and others, such as {{original research}}, {{more citations needed}} and like from several articles (ex. [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10] etc.) citing the essay WP:TAGBOMB. An essay is not sufficient to overturn best practices. Additionally, a single tag added to the article (as was the case here, here here, here and here) is not "bombing" it, so even the cited essay does not support your actions there. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:10, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Piotrus' edits often seem contentious and so they should not be surprised if they are reverted. What is especially puzzling is that they continue to use the {{prod}} tag in such cases when this "must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected". Why do they not expect opposition in cases such as Toto (Oz)? Piotrus prodded this and then took to AfD where it was found that there was "Not a snowball's chance in Hell that it will result in a Delete outcome". Piotrus should please not waste time when there is much work to be done. Right now, I have an article on the main page and so should focus on protecting that. Someone tried to prod that article too and so we see that there is a pressing need to protect our content from inappropriate tags. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

DYK Buckhound

Many thanks for the review at Template:Did you know nominations/Buckhound, it is a better article for your scrutiny. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 22:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC).

• You're welcome. Every dog has his day and I look forward to this one's. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:01, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Nigel

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Nigel the gardening dog.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 06:15, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• I am not free to add my opinion. Audi alteram partem ... Not! Andrew🐉(talk) 06:32, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
• For the record, the result was keep. Woof! Andrew🐉(talk) 08:39, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

One of editors at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 74#Non-free images of animals said that File:Nigel the gardening dog.jpg, which you uploaded, fails WP:NFCC#8. Do you concur? George Ho (talk) 17:57, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Well? I'm close to taking the image to FFD if I don't see a response soon. --George Ho (talk) 06:30, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Newspaper bag

A newspaper in a protective plastic newspaper bag.

In the US home delivery newspapers are usually wrapped in a plastic bag to protect them from rain and being spread by the wind. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:58, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

And now there is a stub-article on this topic :) — xaosflux ^Talk 21:32, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Xaosflux: That's good to know. And well done on creating the article – we're one closer to six million now. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:22, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Page moving – request for assistance

Resolved

I saw, your a currently active page-mover, DolbyPedia has been moving stuff around erratically, and obviously I can't move it back so I could use your help. Most of those pages are also semi-protected so if you could help in reverting as well I would appreciate it, thanks.

I don't see any need to report this user just yet unless they remain unresponsive as they are still new. 2604:2000:8FC0:4:68BA:3B32:8613:8B6D (talk) 20:04, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• I'm rather busy with the six millionth article currently and, in any case, am not sure of the details of this case. I'll take a look when I get a free moment but suggest you try some more general forum like WP:ANI if it's urgent. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:19, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Last I checked they'd stopped, I'll check back and contact an admin if it has resumed, thanks. 2604:2000:8FC0:4:68BA:3B32:8613:8B6D (talk) 20:27, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It resumed, but an admin is on it, so nothing further needed, thanks for the fast response. 2604:2000:8FC0:4:68BA:3B32:8613:8B6D (talk) 20:41, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Swietenia Puspa Lestari

A shocking deletion; there are clearly plenty of sources, albeit many not in English. In case you haven't seen, it's been parked at Draft:Swietenia Puspa Lestari. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:51, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Leonard Montefiore

Hi, thank you for the support; I just published an article about Leonard on dewiki. I used many sources, but trough an unknown, unreproducable error on the Oxford DNB I could read the whole entry without being logged in. So that's where many information come from. Best wishes --Keks by 20:29, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

@Der Keks:. Thanks for the update. I can look after the English version as I have full access to the DNB normally. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:39, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh really?! I requested a free account over their PR-email address via my wikipedia email address. Maybe they give me one :) The WDO for the right Leonard is Q75850309 --22:05, 31 January 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Der Keks (talk • contribs)

Hello! Your submission of Leonard G. Montefiore at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! — Maile (talk) 20:21, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

On 9 April 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Leonard G. Montefiore, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Leonard Montefiore organised an airlift of hundreds of Jewish orphans who had survived Nazi concentration camps? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Leonard G. Montefiore. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Leonard G. Montefiore), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 00:01, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

3,385 on the day; over 6,791 over 7 days -- unusual pattern

DYK for Edda Tasiemka

On 7 February 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Edda Tasiemka, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Edda Tasiemka was known as the "human Google"? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Edda Tasiemka. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Edda Tasiemka), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 12:02, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

5,141 + 113 = 5,254 hits in 12 hours

DYK nomination of Clarice Phelps

Hello! Your submission of Clarice Phelps at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 19:03, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Ann Clarke

What were the "possibilities" with which you created this redirect? There seems no mention of an "Ann" at the target page. It's now been retargeted, but I just wondered. PamD 13:16, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

• I suppose that the name is a common one and that the title should now become a disambiguation page. The person I meant was covered here. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:13, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Ah, that explains it. It would have been helpful if you'd included that source and a mention of her name while making the redirect, wto give us a clue. I've now added her to her husband's article and to Frozen Ark, and mentioned her at Anne McLaren, and made the redirect into a dab page... though I suspect we'd be better off if we combined Ann/Anne dab pages. PamD 18:27, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus

Add your opinion here please. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:10, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of deaths from the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic (2nd nomination) - snow close". Thank you. Thryduulf (talk) 12:39, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Henry Speller

Andrew Davidson, I was wondering whether you could return to your review of this nomination and see whether the sources subsequently provided by Gerda Arendt have addressed your concerns. Thank you very much. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:51, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

• Ok, I'll take another look. Thanks for the prompt. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:00, 20 March 2020 (UTC)