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4th GA Cup - Wrap Up

WikiProject Good Articles's 2016 GA Cup - Wrap Up Hello, GA Cup competitors! Saturday, April 1 concluded the 2016-2017 GA Cup. 64 reviews were completed by our finalists. Although the backlog increased by 42 over the reviewing period instead of declining, the increase suggests that the contest is encouraging editors to nominate articles for review. Congratulations to Shearonink, who is the winner of the Cup, finishing with 672 points! Once again, just as in last round, this is more than the point totals for all the other competitors combined! It was a close race for second place between Krishna Chaitanya Velaga, who achieved 164 points, and Sturmvogel_66, who earned 150. Though Sturmvogel_66 reviewed one more article than Krishna Chaitanya Velaga, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga managed to earn 14 points more due to reviewing older articles. Our two wildcard competitors, Kees08 and Chris troutman, came in fourth and fifth, respectively. There were some bumps in the competition this time: The sign-up deadline and the first round were both extended due to fewer competitors signing up then was planned for. And there were delays in tallying points and getting out the newsletter. The judges apologize for this latter difficulty. Lastly, mid-way through the competition we bid farewell to Zwerg Nase, who stepped down from their position as judge due to other commitments. Information about the Final can be found here. Thank you to all of our competitors, and congrats to our winners! Cheers from Figureskatingfan, 3family6, Jaguar, and MrWooHoo. To subscribe or unsubscribe to future GA Cup newsletters, please add or remove your name to our mailing list. If you are a participant still competing, you will be on the mailing list no matter what as this is the easiest way to communicate between all participants.

"DYK should probably be taken outside and shot"

Amen, brother. Amen.Dlohcierekim (talk) 21:10, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Meh, I remember, as a mere observer, when the 'front page' was just a portal. As if we'd get less page views for it now... — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 21:26, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Count me in. I'll help it on its way. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:32, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

The problem is to do a good enough job on Queue, you'd need to have a basic understanding of everything that turns up. I can't do that and I don't think anyone else can either. So we get the same drama again and again and again and again. Enough, already. Why don't we promote Today's Featured Picture in its place? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:35, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Nice to see I'm starting to get converts at last. FWIW, last year I managed to get the WMF to seriously consider an A/B test to find out whether the DYK/ITN/OTD alphabet soup on the main page would actually be missed if it vanished ("the tools to do this properly don't exist, and creating them would require a significant investment of dev time, which is not likely to be forthcoming any time soon" was the answer, rather than "no, we have an attachment to DYK etc").

Moving TFP up would cause its own problems; there's a fair bit of hostility to having it on the main page at all given that TFP is Commons content being promoted as a Wikipedia feature (I don't see Commons rushing to put TFA on their own main page in exchange), and it's fair to say that Commons is not universally loved among en-wiki's editors. A fair few people would consider moving TFP up into a space where it would dominate the main page as an open declaration of war. ‑ Iridescent 21:41, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Understand your point, but would the casual reader give a flying monkeys? It would certainly make the view closer to a broadsheet newspaper. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:44, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

The causal reader would be unlikely to even notice, but doing something that would cause that much ill-feeling among the editor community would need an extremely good reason, and "making the half-dozen people who dominate FPC feel important" isn't going to cut it. (Bitchy, but true; even more so than FAC, FPC largely consists of the same small group of people handing out awards to each other.) If you want to keep the same basic format but fill a DYK-shaped hole, either moving "sister projects" above the fold or moving the list of portals out of the title bar (where nobody ever notices them) would be a better bet. ‑ Iridescent 21:47, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

At least FPC is better than the (now-historical) featured portals project, where one of the "directors" (Cirt) once gave an award to himself.... We could lose the list of portals from the title bar - no-one would notice or complain. Bencherlite^Talk 08:30, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

On a related note (and The Rambling Man will back this up), OTD is frequently problematic, with many articles placed there containing major cleanup tags that have festered for years. I have occasionally tried to salvage the reports that turn up on ERRORS, but it's like Sisyphus pushing his rock up a hill. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:18, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

The upside of OTD is that there are very rarely "ownership" issues, although the odd disgruntled "disappointment" is issued by some religious/nationalist types when their observances are pulled for being crap. Generally the OTD issues are simply fixed, albeit usually after they've been posted to the main page... The Rambling Man (talk) 08:21, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

To give you an example of the problems I think DYK faces, consider The Sixth Lie. I'm not going to begrudge the existence of an article, but I can't honestly see anything there that I would bother to write a main page hook for. And on at least one nomination I've done in the past year, I've said "look, if these hooks aren't suitable, we should really give this up as a bad job" How long did Template:Did you know nominations/Élizabeth Teissier go on for? Jeez. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:30, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. I know that there never was a golden age of DYK, in that the first-ever DYKs were dull and awful, but that doesn't mean that we are condemned to live down to that reputation for ever. The first TFA was pretty awful too –it looked like this at the time – but FA/TFA has moved on a lot since then. Bencherlite^Talk 08:35, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

To make matters worse, there's a proclivity to create pointless spin-off articles usually in an attempt to gain points for WikiCup. Now I like encyclopedic expansion, but not if we're simply creating articles for the sake of a contest. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:36, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

The main page is a victim of the encyclopaedia's success. Since 8-9/10 of the top search results are links to here, people don't even need to find out what they want through the main page. They go straight to the article! Not many websites actually encourage their readers to avoid their own front page, and even provide a back door to avoid it, now I come to think of it. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 08:50, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Well the main page still gets around 15 to 20 million hits a day, so someone (or something) is still making frequent visits there. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:14, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

It gets 20 million hits, but that doesn't equate to 20 million readers—I suspect the overwhelming majority of those "views" are 'people who've just typed "Wikipedia" into their browser bar and as soon as they land there use the search bar to get to where they actually wanted to go', with 'people who accidentally clicked on the logo' a close second. The most viewed TFA of last year was only read by 1⁄200 of the Main Page's viewers (even if one assumes that every one of those readers was coming from the Main Page, rather than from people who enjoyed it posting links to it on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook etc), and for any given DYK hook to get 1 in 800 of the MP's readers to actually click on the link is considered such an unusual achievement that Wikipedia hosts a dedicated page to list the hooks that managed it.

The Main Page seems important to Wikipedia's editors because a disproportionate amount of work goes into maintaining it, but all the evidence suggests that readers couldn't care less what appears on it. The mobile version of the Main Page omits DYK, OTD and TFP, and if there's been a swarm of angry readers complaining that they miss them, it's certainly passed me by. Likewise, even the most offensive or obviously erroneous content rarely gets more than a couple of complaints, either at WP:ERRORS or elsewhere. ‑ Iridescent 15:45, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Of course, that last statement is true of pretty much all content. I shouldn't need to say that I share the concerns about quality problems, but I disagree that no one cares about these features. Good DYKs routinely get 10-20K hits, and my favorite OTD got 60K last year. Regardless of the proportion that represents of all main-page visits, that's not nothing. And there's an important subtlety to those numbers. I agree that 60K is an unusually high number. But for even the occasional item to get that many clicks, a lot of people have to be looking at that section of the page. So a lot of people apparently like to look, whether they always click or not.`` EEng 15:57, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to plough a lonely furrow here if it's alright with you folks. Like I said at the RFA, I've worked on some GAs and FAs, but most work that I do is on topics in which GAs and FAs are not feasible. (I won't even get into the problems with GAN, which are worse, in many ways). DYK allows me to bring scrutiny to articles in generally neglected areas, and by putting the articles on the main page, to ultimately draw attention to these neglected areas. Here's an example; Carlos Enrique Díaz de León, a DYK I nominated a few months ago. Chief of the Guatemalan armed forces, and briefly President; but nonetheless probably impossible to get to GAN unless a dedicated user spends weeks trawling through Guatemalan hard-copy newspaper archives. Spent a while at the DYK process, during which it had to have been checked by a minimum of three editors (+ TRM, because that's what he does, and does well). And then ~3700 people clicked on it from the main page. Not huge, but articles outside the staple of US/Europe popular culture and politics, not trivial, either. Also, are we really going to argue that this is the only process with a problem? We've had at least one Wikicup participant who builds all of their points on recent deaths at ITN; we have several who subsist on sub-par GA nominations. OTD has been supplying >50% of the errors at ERRORS in the time that I've been there, which is admittedly short. There are problems, serious problems, with literally every content-related process that I know of. We need to plug the holes in these processes, rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 18:21, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

The idea that the Wikicup is a positive is, um, noteworthy. IMO—and I'm certainly not alone in this—the main purpose of the Wikicup is that "I am a participant in the Wikicup" on a userpage is second only to the {{User wikipedia/Administrator someday}} template as a convenient shorthand for "you can safely disregard anything this person has to say". (There's a reason Wikicup participants have to display a Mark of Cain at FAC so the reviewers know which nominations to ignore.) I have no idea where the whole MMORPG mentality that "content creation" has to involve some kind of award originated (actually, that's a figure of speech as I know perfectly well where the MMORPG mentality originated), but Wikipedia would be a considerably better place if the display of FA stars, GA blobs, DYK ticks, those ludicrous crowns, and everything like them were banned on userpages, and I wouldn't be in the least sorry if every element on the Main Page were sent the way of Featured Sounds and we had a main page that looked like Google's. (This ridiculous high-score table would be thoroughly unmissed, for starters.) ‑ Iridescent 19:32, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

This is a subset of The Obnoxious T Shirt Theory, I think. Those things aren't marketed because the sellers have no sense of decorum; actually, they are doing it as public service, so the sociopaths mark themselves....Anmccaff (talk) 20:43, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

• Ah, a thread in which I can become even more unpopular for my views, rather than going to bed on time. And even be linked to from an AN/I thread about threats of murder! Whooot. I liked DYK a lot. It served a lot of good purposes all at once: encouraging both creation of non-stub articles and expansion of existing micro-stubs; giving new editors both a bit of recognition and assistance in learning the ropes of formatting, referencing, and all the rest of it; encouraging free-wheeling collaboration, including giving the newbies a taste of how helpful Wikipedians can be; giving Main Page readers some interesting things to read, rather than the sometimes deadly dull fare of the FA or the gloom and doom and sports scores at ITN and OTD; and letting weirdoes like me share peculiar stuff. I don't like FA or especially GA because of the one-upmanship involved ("My article is better than all of your articles!"), but I know that's a minority view, as are my views on the tendentiousness of the criteria and the prevalence of mutual backscratching in the article reviews. They're useful ways to stimulate article improvement and they do promote collaboration. But DYK did both of those and more, and from my perspective, better. Then the GA crowd muscled their way in and now it's not "Here are some interesting articles we've created or expanded recently" but "Here are some of our new articles and also some that have recently passed our arbitrary internal assessment process!" So I'm out. But I really miss it. As to the Main Page as a whole: I've observed what Iridescent points out, that most of the readership is clearly not coming to articles via that portal, or if they are, only incidentally, and the majority aren't clicking. They may be looking at some of it, but it's mostly for those who are interested in one section or another, and for us. However I disagree that it should be done away with. I like it the way it is. The sections are reasonable things for an encyclopedia to have on its front page (except possibly for the Featured List and the stuff about how many other versions of Wikipedia exist), they offer appeal to a range of tastes, and that includes DYK. Our main page isn't a search page; I believe most readers go straight to the article they searched for on Google or whatever. But the processes for selection for the various sections are all crumbling under their bureaucratic weight, not least because (in particular DYK, the one I was personally attached to) they're beset with constant criticism including repeated aspersions cast at the competence and motivations of those participating. I speak as an embarrassingly non-competitive person who did the WikiCup for fun three times, each time only with DYKs (because that's all I like out of the ways to score in the cup), and never once thought of displaying a participation user box or anything like that. I also speak as a former admin who put in quite a bit of effort updating the DYK queues (and I saw it as part of my job to give the articles and hooks a last check, and in fact kicked a few back for addition of a needed reference or something while there was still time); that represented a lot of my breaks at work until I had to leave DYK; and I also did my share at WP:ERRORS. So it just ain't true that these processes appeal only to glory-seekers, and I disagree strongly with the calls to terminate DYK. You can tell what two changes I'd recommend instead, but I'm not the boss of anyone. Now back to your conversation, apologies for butting in, and I will indeed go to bed. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:28, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

To save re-typing, I'll just cut-and-paste a comment of mine that (at the time of writing) the bot hasn't got around to archiving from my talkpage. Back in 2004 when the elements of the MP were created, there were clear purposes to all the sections—DYK to demonstrate that the project was growing, ITN to demonstrate that the project was current, OTD to demonstrate that the project wasn't recentist and TFA/TFP to demonstrate that not everything on the project was as shitty as the contents of DYK, ITN and OTD. The problem is, it's not 2004 any more and none of the four are fulfilling their intended purpose. The intrusion of GA coupled with the fact that most of the low-hanging fruit has gone means DYK is a mix of stubby articles on hyper-niche topics, and bloated articles that have been puffed up to meet a set of arbitrary criteria none of our readers can be expected to understand; the loss of "from Wikipedia's newest articles" just means readers think it's a "fascinating facts" section and wonder why Wikipedia has chosen such a boring mix. ITN is redundant, since readers know by now that Wikipedia covers current affairs as well as traditional encyclopedic topics, and if they want to read about the Kentucky Derby are perfectly capable of typing "kentucky derby" in the search bar. There's no longer the need to illustrate "look! not every article here is either a poorly written stub or overly-detailed essays on pop culture!", as the readers nowadays have had a decade to get used to what Wikipedia is and understand that the quality of information and writing is variable; consequently TFA/TFL/TFP are just a "here's something that a small group of people decided met some arbitrary criteria" section. Ironically, that leaves OTD—traditionally the weakest of the main page section—as probably the only part that's actually succeeding in its purpose, of demonstrating that Wikipedia covers topics of significance to the whole world not just its Anglosphere heartlands.

I'd have no issue with DYK if the criteria were significantly changed ("the article has been significantly changed recently and the proposed hook is genuinely interesting", with the arbitrary expansion requirement dropped completely and a zero-tolerance approach to boring hooks), but as it stands in about three hours the Sum Of All Human Knowledge is going to have "Did you know that Chinmoy Sankar Dey developed an insulin-resistant in-vitro skeletal muscle model for screening anti-diabetic medication, for which he holds a U.S. patent?" on its main page and then wonder why it has a reputation for being dull. ‑ Iridescent 22:28, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I'll say for the 100th time: DYK should run the top 33% most interesting of all items submitted, "interesting" judged by straight voting each day to select 8 out of a randomly assembled group of 24. (Well, there are some other details, but that's the general idea.) EEng 22:35, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely. If I had my way, DYK would look like this. ‑ Iridescent 22:44, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I hope not. The very first item is incorrect. EEng 12:06, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Sup, EEng? — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 12:18, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Too early for that. I could stand a light breakfast, though. EEng 12:26, 11 May 2017 (UTC) Oh Foruna! Don't you cry for me! For I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee!

Excuse me EEng. That is clearly a credible death threat against banjos. See you at ANI :p — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 12:32, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Any time, you Latinate prick! EEng 12:35, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

English poof. Latinate prick. Talk about the Last of the international playboys :) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:05, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir:, if people can come here and say "why did u delete my article u nazi", then you are perfectly entitled to come here and express whatever views you like. What I would say is that I think your experience of DYK is atypical of what we normally see. I've logged over 100 DYKs myself, mostly as a device to get people to look at them at fix mistakes, for a similar reason, but as I said above I think I'm in the minority by deciding that certain DYK nominations should just be closed as "not listed". Just because I think the current process needs a revamp before I will even consider getting involved in an admin capacity towards it, that doesn't mean we shouldn't think about new ways to basically achieve the sort of content improvements you've been using DYK for. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:28, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

• I've done about 100 DYKs too and most of them are listed at a user page. I like to maintain that as a portfolio of my work but it has taken some effort to assemble and maintain. One detail that I've yet to add is the number of hits which each page got when it appeared. That's a reasonable measure of the success of each hook and so might help improve their impact. The overall DYK process could use more feedback of this kind and, when I have more time, I might help make this happen. For example, as a one-off, I provided some comparative stats for OTD vs DYK for a day, which was a good discussion point. If we make more of such stats then this might encourage nominators to do better. Andrew D. (talk) 12:50, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

• Nominators won't "do better" while a core element of the DYK group consider "interesting to a broad audience" not to be part of the DYK guidelines. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:57, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

• DYK is presented as an assortment and the mix seems adequate. Today, for example, the only dud seems to be "...that the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens was selected for the United States' National Register of Historic Places?" which is too pedestrian for my taste. It's no worse than TFA though – Belgium national football team (sic) – which seems quite arbitrary and anodyne. But people who like art, gardens and football may find those topics to be intrinsically interesting and they seem reasonable for a general audience. Andrew D. (talk) 14:33, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

• Ritchie, if you have concrete suggestions on how to operationalize "interesting to a broad audience" that is better than ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT, but at the same time does not reduce our output to Western pop culture, I for one would be very glad to hear it. Honestly. I've been wrestling with this concern for a while; I've made proposals that haven't been accepted; and I've rejected hooks based on the interest criterion; but I've made no real headway here. Vanamonde (talk) 18:01, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Why does it need to be better than ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT (or, ITINTERESTSME/ITDOESN'TINTERESTME, I suppose)? If interested editors register their likes and dislikes in the form of votes, we'd have an imperfect but very workable system. If you want I'll link to a very detailed outline of a procedure for doing this from Talk:DYK somewhere in the last year or two. EEng 18:09, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I've seen that proposal. My problems with it are the following. It rejects 50% (yes, we've been over this, it is fifty percent) of the hooks. It does not have an explicit method to avoid worsening the systemic bias issue; we're going to have systemic bias in our product no matter what happens, but right now, at the very least our selection process itself is relatively neutral. A voting system is likely to make DYK even more of an experienced editors' fiefdom than it already is. And any such process is going to involve a two-step review, which is increasing bureaucracy significantly in an already bureaucratic project. There are workarounds for these problems, of course. I'd be happy to discuss such in more detail, and maybe we'll actually get somewhere. I'd still like to hear any ideas Ritchie or any others have, though, simply because I've already heard your ideas before. Vanamonde (talk) 18:24, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

• Ritchie, Ritchie, Ritchie!
• The parameters can be adjusted to make the acceptance rate anything we want. And note that if we set the bar high -- e.g. taking only the top 30%? -- that would hugely reduce the load downstream, allowing for higher-quality reviews. (The interestingness step would be the very first hurdle for new noms coming in.)
• We could contact random editors each day and ask them to vote. RfCs and ANI don't give people enough to do.

EEng 18:49, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I would suggest reconfiguring DYK to be more like AfD / FAC / FLC. All new nominations can have Support and Oppose comments, anything that doesn't have a clear consensus after 7 days drops off the list, just like a FLC that has zero comments will de-facto fail. Anything that has too many opposes can also be closed. After 7 days, any uninvolved admin can take anything with sufficient consensus and put it on the queue. ERRORS get reported as usual.

QPQs are no longer required. Preps are redundant. Not obviously interesting hooks will die a death, but in a manner that's not personal. Admins will have a far easier time by being able to point to a discussion and saying "teh communiteh said it was okay - blame them!" just as they do now when they get dragged off to DRV because somebody didn't like them deleting an article with the full weight of consensus at AfD. I understand them complaint that experienced editors will shout down nominations they don't like, but that's exactly what happens at AfD and RfA, and I don't see a huge barrage of complaints that obvious NOTNOW RfA candidates should be given the tools.

As for the likelihood of this change happening, well there's far too much inertia around here, so I'm sceptical. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:01, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

...I'll go get the papers, get the papers...

Do you really think that articles containing controversial things like Flag of Trenton, Georgia, Flag of South Africa (1928–1994), coon hunting or Fucking Hell would have got onto the main page if it was a !vote? People would just respond with IDONTLIKEIT and prevent controversial topics from appearing on DYK and essentially give DYK regular contributors or DYK stalkers ultimate power of veto over nominations. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:19, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I do actually, as I can picture a crowd making sure the guidelines are met, as they did for Gropecunt Lane and vaginal steaming. As it would be a discussion like AfD, simple IDONTLIKEIT !votes could be discounted by the closing admin. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:21, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Ritchie: Interesting idea, similar, I think to EEng's. How, in this situation, do you think we can verify accuracy, and how would we avoid systemic bias within the selection process itself? I'm not asking this simply to make a point: I've been watching ITN, which has a very similar system, for a while (though I'm not a very active participant); and there's a very substantial anglospheric tilt there, particularly in the list of items that are guaranteed to get onto the main page once every so often. Vanamonde (talk) 17:54, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think you would verify accuracy any more than the existing GAN / FAC / FLC procedures do, but if enough hooks come in for criticism, we could expect to see people making a point of !voting oppose on hooks. As long as they are civil and their opposes are policy based, I don't see the issue - doubtless the first serial opposer will get yanked to ANI with an "off with their heads!" but I am optimistic nothing will actually happen there (aside from a load of hot air, and what else happens over on ANI if not that?) Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:36, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Assuming that the list of items that are guaranteed to get onto the main page once every so often you mean Wikipedia:In the news/Recurring items, where are you getting a very substantial anglospheric tilt there from, as I'm not seeing that at all. The only areas I'm seeing a bias towards English-speaking countries are literary prizes (understandable, since English-language readers are likely to be primarily interested in English-language books), film awards (where the systemic bias is a reflection of reality; the US, UK and India utterly dominate film-making, so their awards are more important) and the hyper-niche topic of elite marathon running (where realistically, NYC, Boston and London are the only races most readers will even have heard of in non-Olympic years). If anything, by giving every nominally-sovereign mound of seagull-shit with a lower population than Macclesfield equal weight to the US, UK and Canada when it comes to elections, and including sports which are completely unknown in the English-speaking world like handball and sumo, ITN/R currently has a systemic bias against the English-speaking world. ‑ Iridescent 17:13, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

@Iridescent: Yes, I mean ITN/R, as well as the staging areas of OTD. I'm not sure how you fail to see this tilt. Take the sports section of ITN/R, for instance; look at those events that are not global in nature, and look at the proportion of them that come from Europe or the US. Or, look at the people we list for births and deaths on a given day. The tilt is most pronounced. This is not the fault of OTD or ITN per se, but a reflection of the editor body; but the main page processes, at the very least, should not make the problem worse. I do not buy your premise that we should cater to the tastes of the English speaking world. We should present stories based on global importance, because we are a global encyclopedia, or at least that is our stated aim. Vanamonde (talk) 07:07, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I stop by about once or twice a year and critique DYK science articles, usually when something lame makes it onto the front page. Wikipedia really over rates the ability of "anybody" to edit technical articles. Geology seems to be one of the worse areas for DYK pure garbage. The reviewers spend time on "is it in a source they don't understand," is it cited to that source, or they don't check the facts at all. A current example, Toilet plume cites the idea that disinfection and bleach doesn't kill plume deposited norovirus to an article whose abstract says it does. You have editors writing articles on topics they don't understand, creating hooks that are promoted by editors who can't read the sources for understanding, meanwhile ignoring contradictory statements in English within the articles because they can't tackle anything with technical words in it. I think cutting it down to 2 or 3 hooks a day might help. Also, only unique facts. --2601:648:8503:4467:BD8D:A6B0:350B:3F11 (talk) 16:56, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Question

Hello Ritchie. I don't think we've interacted directly, though I've got your talkpage on my watchlist as a result of generally seeing you around. With regards to the signpost image that you inserted into this thread above, I wonder if you have thought much about what it says to other readers/editors, especially seeing as they are unlikely to sift through the edit history to read your edit summary? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 21:58, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

It shows I like having a laugh with EEng and put silly banter on this page to lighten the mood, and if I happen to be influenced by a few friends that are not just out of the closet, but have stuck the closet on eBay and have just watched it disappear in a Transit .... then I guess it just means I'm open-minded and down to earth. I identify mostly with asexuality and that's all I really want to say on here. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:34, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I do not doubt your intentions, but as I implied above, I am wondering if the effects and impressions will be different to what you intended. The reason I looked up the history was because I wanted to discover who was the ignorant person contributing to your talkpage. I read your edit summary and realised where you were coming from, but even so, using abusive words is tricky territory. People within oppressed minorities often themselves use the language that is used by others to demean and oppress them, as a way of diminishing the power of that language and that oppression. Look at it another way: if you were friends with Chris Rock, would you have inserted the phrase "Caution, niggers 300 yards", or would you consider that to be potentially offensive? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 09:49, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Ritchie333, the word "poofs" used in its clearly deliberate defamatory sense on a Wikipedia talk page is not acceptable. I can see you are defending your action here as a joke, it is not. If you continue to defend your unacceptable use of "poofs", then I think it reasonable for the community to proceed with a vote on whether your judgement, when it comes to complying with basic Wikipedia policies, is adequate for you to be trusted with sysop privileges. Whether you identify as LGBT+ or not is irrelevant. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 22:28, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

You're in my all-time top 10 list of clearheaded admins, so please don't think I'm gratuitously piling on. I don't want to see this create any kind of blemish on your tenure here, to see your reputation sullied even a little, or to see you get distracted you from your good work on the 'pedia—but I fear that one or more of those things will happen if you don't respond more seriously. Please consider: people coming by your talk page for whatever random reason aren't necessarily going to read the wall of text surrounding the image and its caption to determine context or try to fathom intent. On a policy level, it's disruptive, which is bad enough. On a human level, it's jarring and unwelcoming to many people regardless of sexual orientation. The easy solution is simply to remove it, and I hope you'll consider doing that. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 23:24, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• The very notion that a third party can happen upon a civil and friendly discussion between two others taking place at a fourth party's talk page (with that party's implicit permission) and take offense at the use of a term that can also be a slur against homosexual men, despite the fact that the text immediately surrounding it demonstrates that it was a reference to effeminate men of no specific sexuality (but such a broad group of them that the presumption of heterosexuality is implicit), and then go on to threaten them with reprisal if they do not bow to your demands is anathema to every aspect of civility.

tl;dr It was not said to you and it was not used in a derogatory manner. So it is none of your fucking business -and I absolutely require the use of the word "fucking" to convey just how much of your business it fucking isn't. I will fully support Ritchie in any attempt to impose sanctions upon him for this and strongly urge whomever is listening to boomerang said request over the completely unnecessary disruption of both this talk page and whatever forum you take this to, as well as the blatant canvassing done at WP:LGBT. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:06, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

That's a nice response. Thanks for your concern. Who are you to tell people what is offensive to them? I have requested no sanctions be imposed on Ritchie, though I am disappointed at his lack of concern at my initial query. I have canvassed no-one. This is not a vote. I asked a question at WT:LGBT because I wanted to see if I was alone in finding the image objectionable, not just to myself but to other editors who may see it without any explanatory edit summaries. If Ritchie and others fail to see why this is image and caption is problematic, I shall remove his page from my watchlist, not interract with him, and regard him as hostile. I already regard you as hostile. Thanks to all concerned for wishing to make this a pleasant environment in which to contribute. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:13, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@PaleCloudedWhite: As I said yesterday on another thread, I have a real life outside WP and get to questions as and when I can. I didn't respond to your last message immediately because I couldn't think of a reasonable reply that didn't sound like "I have never beaten my wife" or "I'm not racist, some of my best friends are black" so I just put it in the back burner for a while because I couldn't think of anything positive to add. I don't deliberately set out to cause offence and it always surprises me what some people get offended by. Anyway, I've removed the picture for now as it's a silly joke and it doesn't need to be there if it's causing disruption. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:25, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

The reason I assumed you weren't going to reply any more is because you said "that's all I really want to say on here", then went silent. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:41, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't recall telling anyone what is offensive to them, nor even suggesting that something should or should not be offended at something. I do, however, distinctly recall expressing judgement over the way such offense was handled here by the two most recent complainers. In point of fact, your first comment was the only reasonable one, and I didn't aim any part of my comment at you (though I disagree with parts of your second comment, I didn't find it objectionable enough to reply to). But you can assume that Ritchie and I are "hostile" if you like. Not sure it's a great way forward, however. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:30, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

You said "it is none of your fucking business", which seemed to be directed at me, seeing as you later referred to "blatant canvassing done at WP:LGBT". I interpreted "it is none of your fucking business" as meaning that you were asserting that I wasn't allowed to object to anything here. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:51, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

PaleCloudedWhite I was confused about who posted the message. From my brief glance at it (which brought me here) it looked like Fæ had posted it. I see now that you did, and I have to extend some apologies. What looks like canvassing when coupled with a combative attitude and threats looks more like a neutral notification when coupled with your more reasoned post. And again; my comment wasn't directed at you. While I stand by my assertion that the image is the business only of those involved in the discussion, it's nonetheless acceptable to make a polite interjections such as yours. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:05, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Thankyou. A problem with the "it's their business" argument is that nothing on Wikipedia is private, and we are effectively at a workplace. There are other workers to consider too. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 00:29, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Which is exactly why I excuse polite commentary like your comment above. It's also exactly why I have no patience for threats and demands (and further foolishness at a noticeboard). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:57, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Threats and demands tend to be counterproductive, and aren't really my style. Though I'm not convinced that my polite approach was particularly productive in this instance either. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:16, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• I fully fucking endorse Mr. Pants' analysis and position, and join him in his pledge of support. I've had it up to here with crybaby nannying of intelligent people interacting happily on user pages.

And for the record, it all started here [1], so please toss your brickbats at me, not Ritchie. I'm used to it. EEng 15:47, 17 May 2017 (UTC) I'll be offline a while starting now.

Discussion at WT:WikiProject_LGBT_studies#Use_of_word_.22poofs.22_on_user_talkpage

Shaping up just as you might expect. EEng 16:20, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I identify as hetero, (though I'll be the first to admit that there's a spectrum and that I'm not all the way at the hetero- end) and I am, undeniably an American. But I really really want to add Category:Poofy Brit grammar sticklers to my talk page... I suppose I should wait until someone closes this RfC in favor though, first. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:33, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm about 75 - 80% straight, but more importantly I am in a stable relationship and family that I want to last forever and have no intention of ever running off with any other man, woman or sheep. Indeed, when I improved Graham Chapman's article to GA during Wiki Loves Pride I made a point of mentioning he was in a stable relationship with David Sherlock for the majority of his adult life. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:37, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

You stupid bastard, you've got no legs left!

I am in a stable relationship and family that I want to last forever and have no intention of ever running off with any other man, woman or sheep.<Heaves a sigh and walks away slowly> ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:55, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Dare I say the sheep are breathing a sigh of relief? And really, folks, can't we like... work on the encyclopedia or something rather than patrol other people's talk pages? I thought that was what we were here for... Ealdgyth - Talk 16:58, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Funny I saw this, as there was recently some hoo-ha on my TP about my use of the word "gay" :). Adam9007 (talk) 17:21, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• Help, help! Eeng's being oppressed! I'm not really suggesting this needs to be reverted, else I'd revert it myself. But it was a good excuse for another MP reference. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to find a brick wall to bang my head against, and it seems I'm not the only one. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:18, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Wow, That Escalated Quickly, I mean, that really got out of hand fast. There must be some place in the future where people are allowed to have personalities and talk between friends is allowed. It's clearly not the case on Wikipedia, and I'm now afraid that this will result in you becoming a "normal" editor again. It looked more David Moyes than Ron Atkinson to me. But hey, it's all about spectra. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:28, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm still just waiting for someone to realize that having that image at that page with that caption is much more likely to offend someone than having it here ever was. I doubt that'll happen, though. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:53, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Deleted page HWP Labs

While i do agree with A7, however the editorial was purely based on facts and not "unambiguous advertising or promotion". That said, how can i make it better? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2gbeh (talk • contribs) 08:35, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link requests.

Please fix the link to the disambiguation page Electric organ that you introduced to Diversi and Nord Stage. You may not have been aware of the decision of the community that "Electric organ" refers to the electricity-producing organs of electric eels and other fish with this characteristic. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:22, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Since I happened to be in the area, I've fixed the problem R333 had with his organ...

New Page Review - Newsletter No.4

Hello Ritchie333,

Since rolling out the right in November, just 6 months ago, we now have 804 reviewers, but the backlog is still mysteriously growing fast. If every reviewer did just 55 reviews, the 22,000 backlog would be gone, in a flash, schwoop, just like that!

But do remember: Rather than speed, quality and depth of patrolling and the use of correct CSD criteria are essential to good reviewing. Do not over-tag. Make use of the message feature to let the creator know about your maintenance tags. See the tutorial again HERE. Get help HERE.

Stay up to date with recent new page developments and have your say, read THIS PAGE.

---

If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:43, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of H to He, Who Am the Only One

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article H to He, Who Am the Only One you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Carbrera -- Carbrera (talk) 16:40, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Katie Hopkins

User:Ritchie333, see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Daily Mail where the appropriateness of quoting Hopkins is being discussed. Philip Cross (talk) 14:45, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I have a concern about your ability to remain neutral while editing Katie Hopkins. The Hopkins BLP is extremely negative in tone, which is understandable considering who she is. However, with this edit you removed a highly positive comment made about her by Donald Trump. You also stated here, "personally, I think Hopkins is a troll". I have no particular positive or negative opinion about this person, but I do feel strongly that editors have a responsibility to remain free of bias. This is also policy, which as an admin you certainly know. I would suggest you refrain from editing that article. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 14:43, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I removed it because I felt it made the lead unbalanced; it is already in the body. Another editor has since moved it. If the relationship between Trump and Hopkins can be expanded in the body to include several paragraphs, over multiple news items, that would be an appropriate time to include it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:24, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of H to He, Who Am the Only One

The article H to He, Who Am the Only One you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:H to He, Who Am the Only One for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Carbrera -- Carbrera (talk) 20:20, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride 2017

You are invited to create and improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects throughout the month of June as part of the fourth annual Wiki Loves Pride campaign. Feel free to add new and expanded content on the project's Results page. Happy editing! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:23, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Sorry

I didn't notice the dates on the comments I replied to. Your thread was (apparently because of the tendency of the user in question to blank rather than archive) only two threads up from the Harington GA review notification I had noticed (and which had led me to go to the article and attempt to address the specific problem you were talking about). It didn't help that your comment really stood out because of the large image of a mythological figure that I used to literally worship when I was a stupid teenager who didn't realize that treating ancient mythological texts as literature was acceptable and admiring the characters in those texts did not necessitate actually attempting to worship those characters like the ancients did.

I don't know what the text looked like back in early April, and I didn't mean to imply I was criticizing you for any action you may have taken against the IP you were discussing.

As an aside, if we are honestly speculating that the subject of the article might be coming to Wikipedia to blank the information, then we should if anything be even more suspicious of the claim that the subject himself "confirmed" that information.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:37, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of H to He, Who Am the Only One

The article H to He, Who Am the Only One you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:H to He, Who Am the Only One for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Carbrera -- Carbrera (talk) 22:02, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Ritchie333. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 13:52, 19 May 2017 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Anarchyte (work | talk) 13:52, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Quick ping, in case you missed it. I understand you haven't been on that much over the last few days, though. Anarchyte (work | talk) 08:09, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I did get it but I haven't digested it properly yet. As you can see, I'm busy this week - maybe next week will be quieter. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:20, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

@Anarchyte: Right, now kids have gone back to school I have had a look at this properly, and I don't think you've got anything to worry about there. Suggestions in the discussions were all over the place and when you apologised for treading on toes, they were immediately accepted and everyone assumed you were working in good faith. Certainly I cannot see anyone active there who would bear any grudge against you, let alone one serious enough to warrant opposition at an RfA. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:18, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

🎶🎸"Ritchie gives the game away, doo- dah, doo-dah!" :D 🎵 🎵🎵 — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 11:36, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Alright, great! Cheers, Anarchyte (work | talk) 11:40, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

71.81.74.166 is me and only me!

Hello. I have been having problems with an admin and I have some questions. I am not sure where to turn for answers so I was hoping that you, who is someone who at least was involved enough to "procedurally" decline my unblock request, might be of some help. I realize that I replied with a very snarky rude response to your decline and for that I am sorry. I am still raw over this whole thing and I am hoping that you didn't take it personally (if you saw it all).

Assuming you read the unblock request, you probably still need your memory refreshed as it all started back in March: The unblock request is still on my talk page followed by some discussions below it if you need to review anything.

Also at the bottom of my talk page in the section 'Signing up' is a recent short exchange between Yamla, myself and another editor who raised the question at Yamla's talk page of why I had a suspected sock puppet banner on my page.

In addition, here is a recent post trying explain my situation to Yamla. Below is my comment and he immediatly reverted it on sight:

Well you got this all wrong except yes Bromley, this is a case of mistaken identity. I have been using this IP since December of last year. It is the only IP address I have used since the first edit in December. All of the edits made by it are mine. To be clear. No one. Not a Lewis sock or anyone else has made a single edit from this IP address except myself. As explained in detail on my talk page, I made those women's basketball updates in March, and was blocked for it because some of the edits involved basically reverting to versions of the page a Lewis sock had last edited. These edits made it appear as if I myself was a Lewis sock. Despite my IP geolocation to a location thousands of miles away from every other Lewis sock, I was blocked. But not only that. Every outstanding edit I made was reverted up until you, Yamla, saw all the plant related edits.

This story goes on but I would really like to clear the air here. Yamla, I don't suspect you are going to easily believe anything I'm telling you know because you didn't believe much I said during my unblock request. In fact, you pretty much ignored me. But I'm telling you the truth!

I am 71.81.74.166 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

I have been 71.81.74.166 since last December

Before that I was 96.35.4.134 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Before that I believe was one of my extended breaks because the next one I'm aware of is 71.81.72.158 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

I have never used more than one IP at a time. I have never seen another user use any of my IP's.

I am NOT a sock of LewisJayhawk or any other user!!

Yamla, your block on me, and all your reverts of edits made by me, were mistakes. As difficult as that may be for you to accept.

I am curious if you cannot for whatever reason believe what I'm telling you. What you really think is going on here. Do you think my IP was hijacked? And I got it back? Do you think I am now pretending to be the very person who hijacked my account? Do you still think somehow I am a Lewis sock to this day? I really can't possibly speculate on what you may or may not be thinking. All I can say was extremely dissappointed in my block, the ridiculous number of reverts of my hard work, and poor reponse and lack of effort by anyone to even look at the evidence I provided shows I was innocent. Sorry I was so rude but basically I was "railroaded"!

Apparently Yamla now thinks that my IP is being used by an innocent and productive editor (me), but is "certain" that my IP was being used by a LewistheJayhawk sockpuppet in March. This is simply not true and the evidence I have provided on my talk page should clearly show that I am not, nor ever have been a Lewis sock, nor has my IP address ever been used by a sock puppet. A comparison of my contributions to the sock in question shows that it is extremely unlikely if not impossible for one person to make both sets of contributions. We were editing almost simultaneously from locations thousands of miles apart. This is just one example. This rest is on my talk page. Thing is, Yamla does not believe anything I tell him if he reads it all, and has not responded to the majority of the evidence I provided to convince him to believe me.

Now my questions. Several editors have suggested that I register for an account. This sounds like a good idea now, but I have some questions before I do. It seems to me that it would be very easy for someone, like Yamla for example, to see that my registered account belongs to me. I mean I would like to edit similar pages as I do currently, and make similar types of edits. If he does suspect who I am, will he block me again when I start editing college basketball articles next year? Being as that was all I did to get blocked in this first place. I would rather not change my entire editing style just avoid getting blocked.

I seem to have made an enemy out user Yamla. He responded with bizarre offense to this edit on my talk page. I wonder why he was so shocked that someone he wrongly blocked and blanket reverted without warning would be "rude" to him. But I really sailed into him with this reply though it's possible he never read that one. Given that exchange, I think I am justified in the concern that Yamla might target me in the future. Do you have any suggestions about what I should do? Should I just create an account and not worry about all this? --71.81.74.166 (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I think in this case you're probably best off registering for an account - for one thing, I can't ping you as an IP and let you know I've just got round to writing a reply. Editing without registration is fine if you just want to write the encyclopedia and not do anything else, including settling content disputes, but as soon as you do that, it's worth getting account to build up a consistent reputation and be able to be contactable easily. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:40, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Agree. I will create an account if I decide to make any future contributions. Thanks. --71.81.74.166 (talk) 21:31, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

GA review advice

Hey! You're listed at Wikipedia:Good Article help/mentor as a GA mentor. I'm working through my first GA review, and any feedback would be appreciated. TheDragonFire (talk) 02:23, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@TheDragonFire: I think you're going about this the right way, and failing the review for being "broad in coverage" is a fair comment. As the article only has about 4.5K of prose, it could be selectively merged to a section on Exascale computing in its current state. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:20, 8 June 2017 (UTC)