User talk:Iridescent

My first arbitration

My second arbitration

Archives [Jan 06‑Oct 07] [Nov 07‑May 08] [Jun 08] [Jul‑Aug 08] [Aug‑Sep 08] [Sep‑Nov 08] [Nov‑Dec 08] [Jan 09] [Feb‑Apr 09] [May‑Jul 09] [Jul‑Oct 09] [Oct 09‑Apr 10] [May‑Jul 10] [Aug‑Oct 10] [Nov 10‑Apr 11] [May 11‑Apr 13] [May 13‑Apr 15] [May‑Aug 15] [Sep 15‑Jan 16] [Feb‑Apr 16] [May‑Jul 16] [Aug‑Sep 16] [Oct‑Nov 16] [Dec 16‑]

Your reverts of TOCleft

Hi Irridescent - can you please explain why you object to my use of TOCleft? Thanks Mark^Dask 14:38, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

As I've already explained at the thread you've started, and is explained in the documentation of the template itself, this template is very rarely appropriate in article space. Not every reader has the same browser-monitor setup as you, and you've no way of predicting how narrow their screen width will be; as a rule of thumb, if an article contains any one of (1) an infobox, (2) a bulleted or numbered list, (3) a right-aligned image near the beginning of the article or (4) a section heading within the first five paragraphs of text after the TOC, this template will never be appropriate as it has the potential to cause the text to sandwich. Wikipedia's layout may appear arbitrary, but it's the product of fifteen years of testing what works and what doesn't, not something the devs just made up one day. ‑ Iridescent 14:43, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining, and apols for taking your time. It just seemed so obviously sensible to me I was willing to use Random Article and apply where works. Mark^Dask 14:48, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

No problem. Incidentally, I have no idea what is going on here but you probably shouldn't be doing it, as it looks decidedly creepy. If you want to see someone's edit count, just click the "edit count" button on their contributions page. ‑ Iridescent 16:00, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Decidedly creepy?. I discovered this Stats tool on 18th November, (13.56), and I was so impressed by the wealth of information it provided that I Pasted it to my own Userpage so others could learn more about me as a wikipedian. It provided far more than my edit count, (seemingly your primary measure of the worth of your fellow Wikipedian). It provides info on an editors' status and rights, as well as their committment from when they first joined. So you see my first use of the tool was the opposite of creepy, rather I sought to promote openness on my own page. At 17.12, approx 4 hours later, I added the tool to my sandbox because it seemed a good place to apply the tool, where else to run it? Since then, using that tool, I became acquainted with the name Iridescent who, I learned, is a sysop. If I had not known that you are a sysop, just imagine how freaked I might have been today when at 14.37 you began reverting my edits en masse. Suddenly I was getting alerts - 5 - 15 - 40 - 48 - but because I knew, from the User Stats software, that you are a sysop I knew to ask you calmly for an explanation and - QED - you explained, for which thanks, I learned a lot.

So what's creepy about an informative tool that I first used on my own page to inform others of who I am as a wikipedian, that I subsequently used in my sandbox to better inform me about those on here with whom I interact? Rather than seek to regard me as creepy, Iridescent, perhaps you should go check out the work I did recently on Lucia Zedner. An eminent academic, internationally renowned, and yet her page was trash. I did not seek to write about her - because I know nothing about her, but I knew enough to format the existing, and add many other refs, knowing that if I do the technical stuff in advance then others, more acquainted with the person, might be inclined to contribute. I've also watched several of her lectures and noted her on my mainspace as "things to do".

I will continue to use the Stats tool to inform me about those with whom I interact, and with the same good intent I demonstrated when I first installed the tool on my own page.

With thanks again - wish I understood templates as well as you do. Decidedly Mark^Dask 20:44, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Recording other people's moves can be considered stalking, hence it's creepy. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:53, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

• Markdask, perhaps you don't understand that when you click "edit count" at the bottom of someone's Contributions page, you get exactly the same thing as you're getting via successive versions of your sandbox. And the edit history of your sandbox does look like a creepy list of "investigations", so you should stop doing that. EEng 21:13, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

• Yup, what they said. We can't stop editors (or anyone else) stalking other Wikipedia editors—the "edit count" button is there for a reason—but we take a very dim view of editors who keep a rolling log of who they're stalking. ‑ Iridescent 01:48, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

• Jeez-Luiz talk about paranoia. I am not “Recording other people's moves”, (horrible thought). It might look like that when my sandbox edits are presented as a standalone list but that's only cos I don't use my sandbox much. In any case, I've just bookmarked the tool on firefox, much easier to use than in sandbox, so chill, I've deleted it from my sandbox. Mark^Dask 03:20, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

The irony of being accused of paranoia by someone who last week was claiming that the Huffington Post, the BBC and the Archbishop of Canterbury were "not real" and had been replaced with substitutes in a sinister plot to fool Wikipedia into hosting a biography of a low church missionary in Chorleywood, and that the fact that AOL's website uses AOL search as its search function is proof that it's infecting users' computers with malware is not lost on me. ‑ Iridescent 10:12, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

See also Capgras delusion. EEng 10:20, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Troll kalla mik, trungl sjǫtrungnis, auðsug jǫtuns, élsólar bǫl, vilsinn vǫlu, vǫrð nafjarðar, hvélsveg himins. Hvat's troll nema þat? ‑ Iridescent 10:30, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Who you calling troll, buster? EEng 16:59, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Godsy's RfA

"I know you can't reply here—feel free to reply on my talk and I'll cut-and-paste it across"

I think we both know what would happen if I took up your offer, which is that the "broadly construed" Kirill Lokshin – or whatever his bloody name is – would be down on me like a ton of bricks with a six-month block. What I find rather ironic is that he regularly appears on my Facebook "people you might know" list. "People you might detest" list would be nearer the mark. Eric Corbett 18:30, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

The offer stands, if you do want to take it up. If you want to comment there, post a comment on my Commons talkpage (so it's not "anywhere on the English Wikipedia" and thus outside Arbcom's remit) and I'll ask NYB to cut-and-paste it across, which I'm sure he'd be willing to do provided the comment is reasonable. I don't think even the most clod-hopping members of the Defenders Of The Wiki would be stupid enough to pick that particular fight. ‑ Iridescent 18:46, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

You have more faith than I do. Eric Corbett 18:49, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

'sides, I have the impression that RfA !voting has always been treated like a sacrosanct entitlement. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:51, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Err, yes and no. My cynicism lies probably on the side of Eric with this one in terms of just leaving it and potential risks of anything broadly construed with a very long bowstring....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:25, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah—while Eric is allowed to vote at RFA (albeit not discuss them), there's certainly precedent for banning people from voting at RFA altogether—it's not an inalienable right. ‑ Iridescent 20:30, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Really? From reading the latest ANI argument on the topic it seems like a lot of people treat it like an entitlement. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:59, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

So far as I'm aware I'm still allowed to do more than simply vote: "Malleus Fatuorum [my previous name] is topic banned from making edits concerning the RFA process anywhere on the English Wikipedia. As an exception, he may ask questions of the candidates and express his own view on a candidate in a specific RFA (in the support, oppose, or neutral sections), but may not engage in any threaded discussions relating to RFA." That restriction, which has been in place for well over four years now, is just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Eric Corbett 17:22, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd nominate is indefinitely prohibited from discussing any dispute in which he is not an originating party as the most draconian topic ban from the old days still in force (although if you've ever had any dealings with Abd you'll understand why it was considered necessary), with is forbidden, indefinitely, from summarizing any discussions held elsewhere a close second. FWIW, I think the block-at-any-costs contingent have actually demonstrated common sense with regards to your topic ban, and have been following the intent rather than the letter of the law; note that Chillum & co haven't tried to claim that this thread constitutes "threaded discussions relating to RFA". ‑ Iridescent 20:31, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

At least not as yet. Eric Corbett 21:07, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

JordanBaumann1211

Thanks for your help in identifying (and repairing) the disruption caused by this user; your having already invested so much time in it I almost hesitate to ask this but, could you look at User:JordanKyser22 and offer your thoughts on a possible relationship to User:JordanBaumann1211? I noticed a funny sequence of interaction between the two - JordanB has edited JordanK's Talk page, and JordanK edited his own User page to add what appeared to be a barnstar from JordanB. There are of course obvious graphical similarities between the two User pages, and a common focus on graphic images & color variations, as well as extensive Sandbox work - but I can't tell whether that's because JordanB is a sock of JordanK or just found inspiration there. The former seems more likely (they're both "Jordan" for goodness' sake) but JordanK has been around for 4 years and if they're related it's a fine little mess to sort out with JordanK.

I'm sorry I didn't notice this before the ANI thread was closed! Anyhow your views would be helpful. Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 04:45, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the accounts are related—JK is a reasonably well-established user who's been active for four years, while JB appears to be so young I'd be surprised if he could even reach the keyboard four years ago. Plus, JK has a respectable history of mainspace contributions, while JB does nothing but goof around with images. (If you're not already aware, there's a mass deletion nomination open for his oeuvre at Commons.) I think it's far more likely that JB has seen someone else called "Jordan" and gravitated towards him. Even if the accounts are linked, AGF implies that in the absence of evidence we treat them as different. ‑ Iridescent 09:29, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't disagree with anything you say (especially AGF) and am content to let it go - even though I'm still skeptical that there's no relationship here. I appreciate your help - thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 13:19, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Bank to St Paul's (along Gresham Street)

Back on 23 November, you pointed me to the 'supercount' tool at the wmflabs. What X! tools does provide which that doesn't, is a statistic that I found quite surprising. Apparently I've uploaded 983 files to Commons. Quite a few of those will be crops of images by others (or images by others under a free license elsewhere and uploaded here), as I discovered CropTool at some point and now cut out the interesting bits of photos where people didn't realise what they were photographing. Not sure how many of the uploads are actually mine (i.e. I released them under a license, rather than just uploading them), though I'm sure there would be a way to find out.

Anyway, I ended up with a large set of photos (80) that resulted one (long) lunchtime from a trip to London Bridge and then to Bank and walking from Bank to St Paul's along Prince's Street and then Gresham Street. I had only meant to take photos of two things, but ended up taking a lot more. Some things we surprisingly don't have articles on. Can I ask you which you think might be the most obvious ones where an article would help?

• Starting with The Shard (again), towering over buildings in Borough High Street, we have File:WH and H Le May Hop Factors and Lloyds bank in Borough High Street with the Shard.jpg. I was actually there to photograph the Lloyds Bank branch (designed by Philip Hepworth), but took some photos of the listed building next door as well, and gathered some images together at Category:WH and H Le May Hop Factors building. Do you think that can sustain an article, or are lists of listed buildings better? (Similar to the lists of public monuments and public art in various London boroughs.)
• Moving next door, I created Category:Lloyds Bank, Southwark for the photos. I think going inside and photographing the staircase was overkill. Still, some more files added to the 'staircases' and 'lifts' categories... (I also now know why professional photographers take photos at strange times of day - to avoid the traffic and crowds messing up their photos).
• Across the road was an entrance to Borough Market, which has an interesting history. I took File:Art Deco 1930s entrance to Borough Market in Southwark.jpg, and created Category:Borough Market (Southwark Street entrance) and Category:Floral Hall portico (Borough Market). The latter is listed, and a fascinating bit of history. Now slightly better explained at Borough Market#Architecture.
• Moving on to Bank, I got distracted by the Royal Exchange, and was (later) shocked by the state of the article we have on this building. We have a lovely hi-res photo of the pediment, taken with a Wikimedia UK camera (see File:EH1064713 Royal Exchange 01.jpg). But the angle is not quite right. I made a start at Royal Exchange, London#Portico and pediment, but quite a bit more is possible.
• The London Troops War Memorial article (this memorial is in front of the Royal Exchange) is in OK shape, now with a few more photos. So not much to add there.
• Walking along Prince's Street, you are passing the western side of the Bank of England building. This is the Herbert Baker building from the 1930s, infamously replacing the John Soane building (one of London's lost architectural gems). Our article on the Bank of England has just a single paragraph on the architecture. Surely two whole articles could be written about the two buildings? I want to know more about the massive door (1, 2). There is also a Charles Wheeler statue (of Ariel) on top of the Tivoli Corner: File:Bank of England Ariel statue 02.jpg.
• Finally arriving in Gresham Street, I made very slow progress as there was such a lot to photograph! I'll speed up a bit now: Category:History of Gresham College has some photos I took of the 1912 Gresham College building, which Gresham College doesn't really mention at all (obviously now redeveloped into offices/flats as is the inevitable fate of the whole of London it seems). I think this building was listed (can't remember), but not sure about an article here. The foundation stones have some names, but none of much note it seems. Next door is the Mayor's and City of London Court, which does have an article. The foundation stone there has a great name: Japheth Tickle!
• Skipping past the blue police telephone box and mostly ignoring the Guildhall (lots of photos of that already), there is St Lawrence Jewry, with a war memorial on the outside and a memorial chapel inside, which I took far too many photos of (see Category:Interior of St Lawrence Jewry and the stained glass windows category as well). I'm sure someone knows what all the flags and heraldic emblems represent. Hopefully there are sources out there about the chapel as well.
• Finally, near the western end of Gresham Street, is a modern (early 2000s) office building at 25 Gresham Street (1), towering over the garden of St John Zachary. The garden (former churchyard) has an article. The modern building doesn't. Should it? It is the headquarters of what was the Lloyds TSB Group, which has since de-merged and is now Lloyds Bank Group again. I was there to photograph a set of memorials (1, 2), and the memorials use the name Lloyds TSB. Banking groups have been fairly good about preserving war memorials following successive bank mergers, but I'm not sure they planned for de-mergers!
• OK, not quite the final picture. I couldn't resist taking File:Mouse on a London Underground tube station platform.jpg later that same day. Sadly, the mouse wasn't silhouetted against the yellow line. As you doubtless know, these are commonly seen on the tracks (scurrying in the space underneath the rails), but I've only rarely seen them up on the platforms. I suppose someone will tell me this is a baby rat, rather than a mouse?

That probably enough. Which articles yet-to-be-written have most potential, do you think? I think five building articles: the listed building in Southwark, the two Bank of England buildings, the 1912 Gresham College building, and 25 Gresham Street. But maybe only the Bank of England buildings? Carcharoth (talk) 10:59, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

My my, grandma, what a long list you have! Running through them in order; obviously, the "this is just my personal opinion" disclaimer applies. As a general rule, IMO if you can't find enough reliable sources to write a minimum of 500 words specifically about any given topic, said topic is better off as part of a list rather than a stand-alone page. Within London, and particularly within central London, don't take listed building status as meaning anything as far as notability goes; London local authorities (in particular Westminster, Southwark and the Corporation) hand out listings and conservation area status more readily than women in miniskirts hand out free samples at railway stations, as it costs them nothing and gives them ammunition to prise bribes local infrastructure funding from property owners and developers.

• WH and H Le May Hop Factors could stand alone, provided you can find a source about the company, since the building isn't architecturally interesting enough to warrant an article in its own right.
• The bank just looks like a generic bank building for the period, and at most warrants an entry in List of Lloyd's Bank branches. (I'd have said that would be a ridiculously indiscriminate list, were it not for the fact that List of condominiums in the United States was recently kept at AFD so apparently "ridiculously indiscriminate" is the way to go.)
• Borough Market is an obviously notable topic, but the article is such a mess it probably needs wiping and rebuilding from scratch. It would make sense to wait before trying to do anything with it, as there's so much rebuilding going on in the area at the moment that nobody really knows what the end result will look like, or whether the market will even exist in its current form in a decade.
• I personally think the Royal Exchange is wretchedly ugly and looks like a suburban railway station in one of the grimmer areas of the North (unsurprisingly, as it was designed by William Tite who made his living designing cod-Classical stations in the coalfield cities). You probably want to poke Giano out of retirement if you intend to do anything with that one; he has a good deal more sympathy for 19th-century monumental architecture than I do. I'd be surprised if the Guildhall Reference Library doesn't have more sources than you'd ever want on its history.
• The war memorial is fairly generic and noteworthy mainly for its location, so the existing article probably says all there is to say on the matter.
• Re the architecture of the Bank of England, repeating my comments regarding Giano, who likes this kind of thing. IIRC there's a museum in the building (entered from the Lothbury side), who probably have a book about the history of the building. The Lothbury entrance is a staff entrance—the public entrance to the museum is on the other side, on Bartholomew Lane. ‑ Iridescent 09:35, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
• I doubt the Gresham College building will warrant an article, as it's too similar to virtually every other building in the area that survived the war. Mayor's and City of London Court could do with some serious attention, as is the case with every other court article on Wikipedia. From an architectural point of view, I'd put this as fairly low priority among the London court buildings, especially when compared with wretched stubs on genuinely architecturally notable court buildings like Wood Green.
• If the church themselves don't have a booklet on the history of St Lawrence Jewry, the shop at the Guildhall Art Gallery next door almost certainly will. The Corporation may have many faults, but they can't be said to skimp on self-publicity.
• I'd say this doesn't warrant an article, as architecturally it's completely generic, although it should probably go in the main Lloyd's Bank article. Regarding the memorials, as I understand it (and don't take this as gospel) following the demerger Lloyd's has responsibility for England and Wales, and TSB has responsibility for Scotland, as the legal fiction following the split is that Lloyd's is an English bank which happens to have some branches in Scotland, and TSB is a Scottish bank which happens to have virtually all its branches in England.
• Definitely a mouse; with the exception of the Jubilee Line Extension, the LU network is infested with them. (The platforms are typically hollow; the mice nest underneath.) They're a fairly common sight on the platforms, as they come up to scavenge vomit, dropped food, and old newspaper as nesting material. We don't have an article on them, although we do have London Underground mosquito.

Regarding which will be the best to write, iff sources exist on the company I'd say the hop factor, on the grounds that the BoE and Royal Exchange are sufficiently well documented that anyone who really cares about their history will be able to find a book.

City churches are a Sisyphean task, as there are so many of them; I'd personally say the highest priority ones are St Margaret Pattens (for its unusual design), St Sepulchre-without-Newgate (for its stunning interior), St Giles-without-Cripplegate (a rare survivor of both the Fire and the Blitz, which is today completely isolated amidst a sea of concrete) and St Edmund, King and Martyr (which now doubles up as the London Spirituality Centre, so gets a fairly significant footfall but isn't particularly well documented architecturally online), but everyone will have their own opinions. Most of them could probably be brought up to at least adequate standards just with a copy of Pevsner.

IMHO, the most glaring redlink of all City buildings is London Roman amphitheatre—the only significant remnant of Londinium other than the Wall, the Billingsgate Roman House, the Temple of Mithras, and the crypts of St Bride's and All-Hallows-by-the-Tower, but at the moment only covered by a paragraph at Guildhall Art Gallery (which itself could do with some serious attention). In fact, I may do those two next time I find the time. ‑ Iridescent 12:20, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the long answer! We do seem to have a large number of pictures of Lloyds Banks designed by various architects. They are in the Lloyds Bank (no apostrophe, btw) and Lloyds Banking Group articles. I make it eight in total: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. It is not that indiscriminate. Though limiting it to "architecturally significant" branches will be a thankless task. Thanks for the tip about the Bank of England museum, I'll try and look into that and get a book on it. Writing an article on Mice on the London Underground network would be worth it to add Tube Mice (and I somehow failed to ever be aware of Underground Ernie). May add some more follow-up thoughts later if time. Thanks again. Carcharoth (talk) 15:47, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Some Lloyds branches are singularly non-notable and their photos will never serve any useful purpose.

Regarding the BoE, this pamphlet alone would probably be enough to give at least an adequate potted history of the modern building. On reflection, I think a list of Lloyds branches would need at least some kind of overarching theme explaining why one bank in particular needs a dedicated list, rather than just a generic List of notable bank buildings in England. (Commons has 148 images of Barclays branches in England alone, although for some reason 65 of those are of a single branch in Sutton; Barclays also has the advantage over Lloyds that their head office is a landmark in its own right rather than just a generic office block.)

I've realised that I actually have a (slim) book about the amphitheatre, so will do something about that redlink when I get the time. Unfortunately, it's published by our old friends at MOLAS so it will take at least as much time translating from gobbledegook to human as it will take to actually write the thing—MOLAS publications work on the "if it was hard to write, it should be hard to read" principle and are peppered with phrases like "cullet dump", "smithing hearth bottom" and "ostracod recovery" without any explanation for non-specialists. ‑ Iridescent 17:15, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

65 of a single bank building? That is a lot. Did I ever point you to this page I threw together over a couple of months. 300 examples of the same structure (but all in different places). I gave up halfway through the examples France. I may go back to that one day, if only to see how many different examples we have of that architectural motif (I think the overall numbers is definitely over 1000). Most of the missing ones will be from the UK, ironically. Carcharoth (talk) 18:21, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes—there's a discussion about the Crosses of Sacrifice somewhere in the archives of this page. I can see the argument for 65 photos of the exterior of one building if it's something like Hampton Court which genuinely does appear radically different from every angle, but a provincial bank branch in the no-man's-land between Surrey and London really doesn't cut it IMO. (But you try getting Commons to admit that a stack of useless images is actually worth deleting; I give even this stack of nonsense at most a 50% chance of actually being deleted.)

Suggesting this probably violates the "doing anything for a multinational is prima facie evidence of evil" Wikipedia covenant, which leads to all our videos being in a format nobody can read rather than sullying our purity by using formats like mp4 or avi which were developed by Evil Corporations, but if you have a bunch of photos which you don't feel will be useful for Commons, you could do a lot worse than put them on Google Maps. The photos on GMaps populate the little boxes in the top corners of a Google search, and while GMaps have plenty of photos uploaded of tourist attractions and obvious landmarks, most of their photos for businesses, parks, monuments, cemeteries etc are grainy images from Street View vans or ropey outdated images lifted from localdatasearch.com. Thus, something like the File:Lloyds Bank, Oxford Street, London (25th September 2014).jpg would potentially be quite useful to someone doing a Google search on lloyds bank 399 oxford street, by showing them which building they should be looking out for. (You can add a photo to virtually anything on Google Maps; just click on its name or icon and select "add a photo".) If you don't think anyone else will ever have a use for a photo, it's a better use of it than just leaving it on your hard drive to rot, and people do look at them—a decent-quality photo on there of something like a park or cemetery can easily get a couple of thousand pageviews per day, as everyone searching for it will see it. ‑ Iridescent 18:51, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Am not convinced about contributing photos to Google Maps. Am quite happy with occasional uploads to Commons. There are lots of sites out there, more than I realised, with my continuing perambulations around various memorial databases. Thanks, btw, for the link to the BoE pamphlet - I may well visit the museum. The BoE apparently has two war memorials - a statue in an inner garden not open to the public, and stone tablets in the "inner entrance hall" (no idea if that is accessible to the public). Lots here as well (plus the related links). What I'm really interested in is finding mentions of those with Wikpedia articles (or potentially with Wikipedia articles). Sometimes the connection is more tenuous (they may have a father with a Wikipedia article). Carcharoth (talk) 12:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC) PS. Forgot this: I know Baker's penchant for self-promotion or self-references was legendary, but this is astonishing: " a small red tile marks the village of Cobham in Kent, the birthplace and home of the architect, Sir Herbert Baker". Carcharoth (talk) 13:01, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

If you visit the BoE museum, make sure to nip around the corner to the Guildhall Art Gallery if you've never previously been. Because they don't advertise, nobody knows it's there so it's generally deserted, but it has a genuinely world-class collection. ‑ Iridescent 20:23, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

• On a related Lloyds/TSB note, regardless of the legal fiction involved, the practical division of the split was branches that were previously TSB (regardless of location) re-became TSBs, and Lloyds stayed Lloyds (with some geographical exceptions). Customers who had legacy TSB sort codes on their accounts/products were automatically moved to TSB, those originating with Lloyds stayed Lloyds and so forth (again with some exceptions). The Scottish/English split was rather a ridiculous fiction when it was raised anyway - mainly because Lloyds kept hold of entitites like Scottish Widows and Halifax/HBOS - which are both undoubtedly Scottish. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:29, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

• I think it's fair to say that given the timing of the split, the decision there was squarely "how can we create jobs in a part of Scotland that's wavering between Yes and No, while forcing the minimum possible number of the Cityboys who subsidise the party to endure forced relocation to the barbarian wastelands to the north?" Cameron's high-profile subsequent unpleasantnesses with regards to the referendum and his unusual uses for pork have somewhat obscured the fact that prior to 2015 he and his circle were ruthlessly cynical PR operatives. ‑ Iridescent 20:23, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Well that is overly cynical even for me ;) TSB prior, during LBG ownership and post split has been primarily a retail bank (rather than investment) catering to the UK market. Very few jobs would have been created/moved to the north regardless the way both TSB and Lloyds are set up. Branch/retail staff would stay where they were and just put on a different costume... To be honest (and as an insider), I suspect the split has actually decreased jobs in Scotland given the subsequent performance of both entities. I suppose you could make an argument that the PR aspects to the public-at-large over mythical job creation might have some sway, but I doubt anyone who looked at the division for more than 5 minutes would have been fooled. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:23, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Heh, you think it's unduly cynical that despite the historic TSB being based in London and the West Midlands, it miraculously became Scottish exactly a year before the referendum, before being flogged off to the Spanish six months after said referendum? Next thing, you'll be saying there's something fishy about a navy which doesn't possess any carrier aircraft commissioning two aircraft carriers from Scottish shipyards. ‑ Iridescent 20:40, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

An user...

I recently came across a user Tahia Akter Chowdhury (talk · contribs) who seems to be entirely non-proficient in the English language and perhaps as a result don't understand the need of providing sources for any addition on any article(esp. when the additions are to cast names of films,telly-serials etc.).

In spite of several warnings on the issue of adding non-sourced content (Now,I really doubt whether she got the meaning of the warning templates) and even a request to change to a wiki of her probable mother tongue, she seems non-reluctant and went on her activity as usual.

I am at crossheads since her edits are not vandalism-based(Hence,reporting may be would not be a good idea) but reverting her repetitive unsourced additions to a particular genre of articles everyday can prove tedious and to an extent disruptive.(Just see the revision history of "Bhutu" and "Goyenda Ginni-two Bengali telly serials.)

Can you devise a plan to tackle the issue?

Thanks!!Aru@baska^{❯❯❯ Vanguard} 09:47, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Sitush, User:SpacemanSpiff, Dr. Blofeld, Bollyjeff, you're probably better placed than me to advise on this one. I'd note in passing that if you think the rules on normal sourcing are complicated, the rules on sourcing fiction articles are doubly so, as there's always a complicated balancing act regarding which aspects of any given work can reasonably serve as citations for themselves and which require external sourcing, so I wouldn't hold it against anyone for failing to understand them at the first attempt. ‑ Iridescent 20:15, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb is the resident cleaner upper of Indian TV show articles after TRPoD left(?) —SpacemanSpiff 13:31, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Husband is an Insulting term for gay couples. Please stop using it.

Husband is an Insulting term for gay couples. Please stop using it. Please stop Insulting gay partners by using the term husband for their type of relationship. Husband is only used for straight couples. Gay couples prefer to be called each others Life Partner as it is more fair and equal than the dominating sounding term husband. Please stop undoing edits that correct this.75.174.112.26 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

You don't get to make up your own definitions of words just because you don't like the existing definition. If you want chapter and verse from the OED, it's a. The (or a) male partner in a marriage; esp. a married man considered in relation to his spouse. b. In other (esp. same-sex) relationships in which the two partners are regarded as occupying roles analogous to those in a traditional mixed-sex marriage: the person assuming the role regarded as more stereotypically masculine, i.e. as being equivalent to that of the husband. c. Used to denote either partner in a (generally long-term) relationship between two men. ‑ Iridescent 19:12, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, you can't say you didn't see that coming. ‑ Iridescent 19:19, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Wow, I thought I was having a bad day. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

To be fair, if you insist on hanging around WP:ERRORS and WT:DYK, the two most dysfunctional and incompetent-narcissist-infested pages on the whole of Wikipedia (and I include ANI in that), you're going to have bad days. Come over to the dark side and start planning for how best to ease the problematic sections off the main page and what should replace them, rather than continue trying to polish ITN and DYK's turds. As I once said to NYB (albeit he obviously hasn't taken the advice), if something won't fall apart without you it doesn't need you to save it, and if it will fall apart without you it's not worth saving. ‑ Iridescent 20:04, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

ITN's doing ok. DYK is a fucking omnishambles. Or an omni-clusterfuck. Or a Mongolian fucking omni-clusterfuck. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

If you don't like dubious new articles, you may want to give Wikipedia a miss tomorrow. I note that nowhere in those instructions on how to add text and images is there any mention of something as boring as "sources", "notability" or "accuracy". ‑ Iridescent 21:16, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind dubious articles. I just dislike shit articles with errors that we promote on our main page, pushed there by a massive group of incompetent individuals who want nothing more than their name in lights. And yes, sourcing, etc is boring as shit, so why bother it? It's not like this is an encyclopedia or anything.... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:19, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

DYK was a great idea when Raul set it up in 2004 and we actually wanted people to create more articles. Now, when we can't even maintain the ones we have, not so much. As I've said many many times, it would make far more sense to throw it open to any article of any age which hasn't previously appeared, with an ITN-style nomination process in which only those with a consensus that they're interesting get to appear; it might mean people actually read the things if the hooks weren't so boring and we didn't include so much garbage that readers reasonably assume that anything appearing there isn't worth clicking. Since the half-dozen people who own it are scared of losing their precious high-score table and ability to plaster their userpages with little blue ticks, it will never happen. ‑ Iridescent 21:29, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Well hell yeah. The fight for QPQ and badges is really killing DYK. My first impression of DYK was that it was designed to encourage new Wikipedia editors to start something up and see how it floated. Right now, the average number of edits of DYK nominators is something like 20,000. Point lost. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:33, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Could someone please tell Elton not to be quite so "happy". Martinevans123 (talk) 20:02, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I suspect Elton wasn't quite so happy with David Furnish a couple of weeks after that interview. Unless, of course, he was in the UK in which case he won't have been able to find out. ‑ Iridescent 20:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Did someone mention extra virgin? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

• Wow, Iridescent, you're this year's raciest homophobe! Congratulations! EEng 00:28, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• My personal aspiration for life is to be racy in all I say and do, and I'm pleased and humbled that our friend in Boise has chosen to award me with this recognition.

  I can just about see "homophobe" if one genuinely considers option b from the OED definition as the primary usage; the person assuming the role regarded as more stereotypically masculine carries the rather patronizing implication that all same-sex relationships have a top-bottom/butch-femme split. (There is a legitimate argument that Wikipedia does have a systemic bias problem when it comes to sexuality and relationships, as we've taken a conscious decision to use the language and values of Anglo-American culture when discussing the topic. If we were genuinely giving equal weight by head-count to the views of the entire world, we'd be giving considerably more prominence to the "filthy deviants who will burn for eternity and need to be identified and suppressed before they corrupt our children" hypothesis. However, I think it's safe to say that 75.174 has not come here to engage in a debate about the interaction of cultural, academic and religious pressures and the responsibilities and ethics of new media in an era of mass communication.) ‑ Iridescent 08:31, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

What? EEng 08:52, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Same-sex intercourse illegal:

  Death penalty

  Up to life in prison

  Imprisonment

  Unenforced penalty

English Wikipedia reflects the values of Europe, North America and Aus/NZ/SA on social matters; it's always been one of the paradoxes of Wikipedia that "that girl in Africa who can save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around her, but only if she's empowered with the knowledge to do so" who's Wikipedia's target market is statistically quite likely to hold opinions which the majority of Wikipedia editors find morally repugnant. The argument has always been that our purpose is to show her that there's a better way, but playing devil's advocate one can certainly make the case that our not giving due weight to the arguments in favor of homophobia, FGM, nushûz beatings, child marriage etc are a case of western cultural imperialism. ‑ Iridescent 09:24, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, I happen to think that giving lower status to advocates of homophobia, genital mutilation, beatings (of any kind), and child marriage is no form of imperialism. EEng 09:39, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

No more do I, but the fact that we disregard their views is a conscious decision, not a natural law. Remember, those parts of the map marked "death penalty" and "life imprisonment" are explicitly where the WMF is actively trying to increase Wikipedia participation. ‑ Iridescent 09:48, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

^[FBDB]OK, but you're still the raciest of homophobes. EEng 09:56, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

It looks like Wikipedia:Randy in Boise really exists! —SpacemanSpiff 11:06, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Please leave my husband out of this. We are very happy here among the lofty pines of coastal BC. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:27, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

When it comes to Boise, one really doesn't need to expend any effort to find comedy names. ‑ Iridescent 17:43, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Undelete Dr. Sellappan Nirmala

@Iridescent: can you please undelete the article Dr. Sellappan Nirmala or provide it as a draft.--Satdeep Gill (talk • contribs 08:46, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Satdeep Gill, I'm afraid not. This was a cut-and-paste copyright violation, and for legal reasons we can't host copyright violations on Wikipedia, whether in the article or the draft namespaces. ‑ Iridescent 08:49, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Iridescent: I am trying to help BBC staff to work on these articles and improve them according to Wikipedia standards.--Satdeep Gill (talk • contribs 08:52, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Iridescent: Can you email the article to me in this case.--Satdeep Gill (talk • contribs 08:55, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

✓ Done. Obviously, don't restore it—whether to the mainspace, the draft space or your own userspace—with the copyvios still in place. ‑ Iridescent 09:04, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

The new version still has a lot of phrases and sentences from the deleted one. I haven't done a full copyvio check though. —SpacemanSpiff 11:13, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Someone else can clean it up in that case. I hadn't realised this was part of the BBC's "create an article on any topic you like provided it's about a woman, and you don't need to worry about notability or sourcing" campaign, and I'm not going to be the one to try to put the worms back into that particular can. I have no desire to have the "Wikipedia's notability criteria shouldn't apply to women" contingent* (or their converse, the Men's Rights lunatic fringe) descend en masse on my talkpage. ‑ Iridescent 17:39, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
*No, that's not hyperbole; they genuinely exist.

(Although, The early discovery leveraged the government with enough time to develop a paradigm deserves some kind of award for "best gratuitous use of meaningless buzzwords in a medical article". Assuming this counts as history of medical conditions, influential leaders, etc it falls under WP:MEDRS, and I don't give it much chance once Doc James or RexxS spots it.) ‑ Iridescent 17:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Draft Space

In these instances of Julie Huber, it's clear that the article is not appropriate for mainspace. I cannot, as a new page reviewer, add 200 pages to my watchlist just to wait 5 days to have them removed. The draft space is more appropriate for articles of this nature until users can become more comfortable with our policies. biting new users is never good, but policies should not be compromised just to avoid a nip. That is, of course, my opinion, which generally doesn't matter in the large scale of things. But if you believe that new page reviwers should simply create some kind of running list, I don't see how that is an effective way to do that role, not to mention, unless policy has changed in the 4 months I've been away (sans IAR), is definitely not going to be an effective strategy to clear a backlog. Sorry for the rant, but this is what pushes me, as an editor, away from Wikipedia. --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 19:43, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Anyways, sorry for the trouble --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 19:51, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia operates according to our policies, not according to what makes you happy, and you don't get to make up your own speedy deletion criterion just because you don't feel any of the existing ones fit. WP:CSD#A7 only applies when there's no claim of significance (explicitly not notability), and Associate Scientist and Associate Director of the Josephine Bay Paul Center[1] at the Marine Biological Laboratory,[2] Associate Professor of Marine Microbiology at Brown University[3] as well as the Associate Director and Co-Investigator of the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations is unquestionably a claim of significance. To be frank, if this isn't just a one-off and you're making a habit of tagging newly created pages for deletion without good grounds to do so, I'd be tempted to formally warn you for disruption and block if it continues; WP:NPP isn't a videogame, and there's a reason the lengthy block of instructions at Special:NewPages are there. (As a new page reviewer, the only things from the front of the queue which you should be tagging are serious breaches of policy; there's a reason we tell patrollers to work from the end of the queue, not the front.) Almost every long article starts life as a short one. If you leave this thread a few minutes, Ritchie333 or Kudpung will turn up shortly to say what I've just said a little more politely. ‑ Iridescent 19:56, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Julie Huber may meet the notability guides for academics, and may be expandable into a full article using the sources from the university websites. You should only tag an article as A7 if you are absolutely certain nobody could ever possibly improve it to survive a deletion debate. This is clearly not the case here. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:01, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Spent a little bit of time typing, but I will instead just say, Okay, and thank you for your contributions to the site. --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 20:06, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately we have our hands tied. The New Page Reviewer Right which was supposed to improve the quality of patrolling hasn't made the slightest impact. Due to a large faction of the community insisting that all users, children and clueless newbies included, should continue to be allowed to MMORPG away at their heart's content at new pages, all that the new Reviewer right does is allow some users to decide whether or not a new article is fit for indexing by Google. It does absolutely nothing to address the long-standing serious issues that let the spam in and scare potential good faith new users away. The only thing we can do to errant users is take away their coveted hat if they have one, or topic ban them from patrolling if they haven't. Or, as Ritchie333 suggests, if the disruption bad enough, just block them - preventative, of course, which would give them time to read the instructions at WP:NPP which I and Fuhghettaboutit have spent hours rewriting (and also with a bit of help from xaosflux).

I've asked MusikAnimal (FYI: Jbhunley) if he (or someone) can come up with some much needed up to date NPP stats. The detailed research I did in 2011, targeted around 3,000 patrolers. About 1,400 responded to the poll, of which 1,100 proved to be trolls or users who had actually never done any patrolling despite their claims. It left us with 300 usable respondents which was no longer a representative sample, but which the WMF cleverly used to publish, with great aplomb, a completely false profile of the average patroller. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:51, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Understandable, pissing me off is ultimately better than pushing away valuable new editors, and I would generally agree with your sentiments, despite basically filling them myself. Hopefully, the community at large will be able to take a closer look at this issue, though I won't keep my fingers crossed. I won't dramallama any further. (though, by saying that, am I only continuing the issue...discussion for another day) --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 21:26, 8 December 2016 (UTC)