User talk:Honbicot/2007

Category:Articles with unsourced statements

I am preparing a new CfD for the category known as "Articles with unsourced statements" (i.e., articles with one or more fact templates). Given the increasing demand for more sourcing, this cat could quite foreseeably ultimately grow to encompass the vast majority of articles on the wiki. In my estimation that's far too broad to be an effective category. But perhaps more importantly, this cat was reinstated virtually unilaterally by an admin after a successful CfD, after which another CfD was short-circuited with a very arbitrary "speedy keep" only two days after it was opened. I probably will file it this week, after I further research the background of the issues that attend to this situation. Some of the attending issues can be found in a recent exchange at Category Talk:Articles with unsourced statements#This_category_should_not_even_be_here.2C_AFAICS.

Among the various issues involved are: 1) overly inclusive categories; 2) categories that constantly change in response to minor issues in individual articles (such as when fact templates are added and removed throughout the wiki); 3) the impossiblility of ever clearing such a massive list as new fact templates are placed and removed throughout the wiki; 4) the arbitrary nature of citation-needed templates throughout the wiki--there are many facts in need of citing, and such a category only accounts for those that have been actually noted as a template; 5) administrative truncating or short-circuiting of community process as happened with "Category:Articles with unsourced statements", and what properly is the range of admin discretion in closing AfDs, CfDs and DRVs prior to seven days under the "speedy" criteria; 6) how to properly deal with mistaken or abusive admin procedure after the fact when it is later discovered after having gone "under the radar"; 7) the related widespread use of User:SmackBot, which under an initial broad grant to use the bot for "various categories" has now managed to tag fact many tens of thousands of fact templates throughout the wiki as "February 2007", thereby letting us all know nothing more than that the bot was active in February 2007.

Thought you might like to know about it. Thanks, ... Kenosis 00:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

This category is now up for deletion review at the following location: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_February_20 . ... Kenosis 12:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Women Screenwriters AfD

To answer your possibly rheotrical questions at the start of your nomination, yes, the nominator has ultimate control if they wish to end the debate early, it's their name on the starting line. There is nothing to stop someone else from picking up the nomination and running with it, which I see you've done. Mallanox 23:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

That situation is completely wrong and should change. What it does is give the nominator the right to void other users' contributions. It is absurd, it ignores consensus. It can change, and it must change. Honbicot 19:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the note placed on my talk page, no opinions were voided, the debate still exists. I closed my CfD, you've opened a new one, you're free to refer back to it and use comments from there to gain a consensus on the new CfD. Of course things can change, this site is a wiki, everything changes. I'm well within my right to withdraw a nomination, you're within your rights to make the same nomination, there is no problem. Mallanox 22:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I've had a discussion about this with another user who has pointed out that while there's nothing specifically against the action I took, it's messy. I just wanted to apologise to you for appearing high-handed. Although it seemed to you that I was trying to void other people's opinions, that was not my intention, I was just under the impression that if a re-nomination was to occur, it would happen as a fresh debate. Ah well, I don't like a day to pass where I don't learn something. Mallanox 00:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

An alternative possibility

There has been a proposal for renaming to "series" some of the nominated categories in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 April 12#Comedy films by actor. If you think it is a correct way out of the dilemma, please assist. The prospect of nominating the whole of Category:Film series is, of course, very scarry. Hoverfish Talk 07:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

You showcase yourself to be ignorant

in terms of musical history by your insistence that the Peel Sessions artist classification is not important. It is important, and the category needed to stay, and I am very angry that you took it upon yourself to foist your lack of knowledge about the topic at hand via your vote to delete the category. The category was necessary and valid and needed to stay on Wikipedia for the site to be full in scope. Peel Sessions artists were by and large artists who were marked by a sense of innovation and musical experimentation, and the fact that you discounted that in favor of your chosen ignorance of the subject matter means that your vote, as well as the vote of the other individuals who chose to vote for deletion, was and is tainted. (Krushsister 04:47, 13 May 2007 (UTC))

I understand the topic perfectly well thank you, and I also understand categorisation. Wikipedia operates by consensus, and there was a consensus for deletion. Please read Wikipedia:Civility. Honbicot 19:27, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Change of Greek Member lists

I noticed you changed a majority of Greek Member list names. I was wondering why, as most of them seemed to have reasonable names. Some I can agree with but some I can not, mainly lists of notable alumni of greek organizations. You changed the names from things such as Notable Alumni of Fraternity X to List of Fraternity X members. I don't agree with it because it is not a list of members, it is a list of notable members. Please refer me to what policy you used to make these changes. Acidskater 18:16, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

The names were not in line with Wikipedia style guidelines on capitalisation, and they were not consistent. Use of words like "notable" and "famous" is deprecated in Wikipedia, and the vast majority did not use them, so I was just doing a little tidying up. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) Honbicot 19:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Your desire to tidy up is appreciated, however, these organizations have several thousand, if not hundreds of thousand members, and a standard needs to be set. Use of "notable" and "famous" may be depreciated in your opinion, but not in the opinion of the WikiProject that those pages should be part of. People are in the process of correcting the lists to be more in-line with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) and still deliniate notability. Justinm1978 17:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

"Notable" and "famous" do not set a standard, they just provide a pretext for disputes. They are a total waste of space. I suggest that an appropriate and enforceable standard would be to insist that there are no red links. That way the standards applied will be those agreed by the whole commuity on Wikipedia:Articles for discussion. Honbicot 02:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Animal rights activists

Actually, the category was deleted once via CFD and was recreated outside of process. The majority does not support this category, especially those who know anything about the subject matter. This is why there is a banner at the top of the talk page pointing to a deletion review. Unilaterally re-introducing it, regardless of the long history and discussion is not a good thing. Please stop and discuss.-Localzuk^(talk) 22:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It is hardly surprising that the category was recreated, when it is an obviously useful category in the same form as many others. Cfd discussions just represent the views of a tiny number of people in one particular week, so they are not permanently binding. The issue about activism/support is no different here from any other kind of activism; the only thing that is different is that a handful of people have got it totally out of proportion. The last discussion showed a large majority in favour of using it. Point me to the discussion that created a consensus to block use of the category, and comment on whether it occurred before or after the discussion in which there was a large majority in favour of using it. Honbicot 23:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Wealthy fictional characters

I strongly agree with you that the "Wealthy fictional characters" category should be kept. It's high time that the prosecution stopped altogether. Angie Y. 14:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_May_21#Category:Armigers

I'm a bit disappointed at this deletion. In particular since it happened without anyone letting me know (since I created the category) that it was up for deletion I had no opportunity to comment, or to invite the WikiProject on Heraldry to comment. In fact the category was populated only by people whose arms were actually shown on their page, so there is no question of unverifiability. Populating the category took some time and effort, too. And being armigerous is not the same as being noble. It does not seem to me that there should not be a category for this. -- Evertype·✆ 18:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted unanimously. It is not even close to being a defining characteristic. As for the arms on the pages, we don't categorise people by the type of image on their pages. I don't think there is any chance that you would have persuaded any of the users who take an interest in categories that this was a valid one. Indeed if you had contributed, you might well have provoked more of them to argue for deletion, to ensure it went through (only so many people will bother to contribute to a discussion that looks like it will produce a unanimous result). We can have categories for every possible aspect of every person, and this category was not even close to falling into the marginal band. Honbicot 14:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Are there not categories for various kinds of honours that people may hold? Being armigerous is not so common these days, but I don't see how the category was in any way harmful or inappropriate. The arguments given by the people who unanimously voted to delete this category did not, in fact, give me much reason to believe that they really understood what bearing arms means. -- Evertype·✆ 16:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

There are far too many categories for honours. There was a big clear out of minor award categories recently, and it wouldn't surprise me if minor honours are next. The range of types of categories in use is now being reduced, not expanded. Honbicot 12:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Marshalsea

Hi Honbicot, a quick question -- do you happen to remember where you got this image? I'm using it in Marshalsea, but I'd like to to know the provenance to make sure it's historically accurate. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid not, but a google image search might unearth it. Honbicot (talk) 22:29, 23 December 2007 (UTC)