User talk:Pat Palmer: Difference between revisions

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== Schmitz ==
==Mount Evans to Mount blue sky==
Pat, thanks for redirecting that page about the mountain in Colorado.
[[User:Jack S. Byrom|Jack S. Byrom]] ([[User talk:Jack S. Byrom|talk]]) 09:17, 20 September 2023 (CDT)


Hi Pat,
:Glad to do it.  It's great to see you drop by and edit a bit in here. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 10:42, 20 September 2023 (CDT)


Great minds! I was just about to ask YOU if you approved of all my niggling little edits. Glad that you do! This, actually, is how CZ and WP IDEALLY should work, at least from MY point of view. Someone like you (or me, for that matter) starts putting in a LOT of basic material that maybe is jumbled and disorgangized and without precise sources and then someone else(s) comes along and dots the Is and crosses the Ts. I'm certainly happy to do so in the present case! [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] ([[User talk:Hayford Peirce|talk]]) 16:45, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
==Test Comment==
Hi Pat! Just testing out leaving comments on discussion pages. [[User:E. J. Diamond|E. J. Diamond]] ([[User talk:E. J. Diamond|talk]]) 15:47, 13 October 2023 (CDT)


== Templates for acknowledging contributors ==
:Commenting on your test comment. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 15:48, 13 October 2023 (CDT)


I've unearthed a couple of old templates [[:Template:Authors|here]] and [[:Template:Contribs|here]] that could be used for acknowledging article authors in the future. [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] ([[User talk:John Stephenson|talk]]) 17:57, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
== App ==
: Interesting, and yes maybe.  [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 18:05, 15 August 2020 (UTC)


== Data visualisation / visualization ==
While looking for something else, I serendipitously came across tipitaka.app. I think we should mention this, but I don't know much about this modern technology, in particular how to reference this. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] ([[User talk:Peter Jackson|talk]]) 05:29, 17 November 2023 (CST)


Hi Pat
:This looks interesting.  I have loaded it on my Android smartphone and on Windows and will try it out.  The smartphone version seems to be in the process of downloading a large dictionary of terms in the background, so it may be a while before it works.  The Windows version is tricky to install and also doesn't work yet, possibly for the same reason.  I will try again later! [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 09:11, 17 November 2023 (CST)


Thanks for your comments. I'll leave the spelling of visualis/zation up to you. I'm British so have my habits, no doubt those in the US have theirs :-)
:: Sadly, I never was able to get it to work. It's a great idea though. I'd love to be able to line up my favorite English translations of the canon and do a text search over the whole thing.  Too bad.  [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 10:18, 8 February 2024 (CST)


I didn't apply any links or citations at this stage as I was unsure if you believed the article was ready for that yet.
== Articles with subpages that require metadata... ==


Thanks!
I got your recent email, thanks.  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 20:26, 21 December 2023 (CST)
[[User:Andrew Watson|Andrew Watson]] ([[User talk:Andrew Watson|talk]]) 06:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


Hi Pat
:Hi George (and anyone).  I am moving the list of pages needing Metadata to [[CZ:Pages without metadata]].  Please add your newly created articles to that list.  I am trying to hire a programmer to get metadata creation automated when creating new articles.  We had that for many years in the past, but it was never rewritten after an old wiki upgrade broke it. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 11:58, 2 January 2024 (CST)


I've only just seen the message you left about images - all emails from this site (and quite a few others) were put into my spam folder. Agreed, images would help and I don't know how to add them. Is there a guide on how to do this?
== Doggie test pages ==


[[User:Andrew Watson|Andrew Watson]] ([[User talk:Andrew Watson|talk]]) 16:00, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Hi Pat. I found [[Doggie/Definition]], [[Doggie/External Links]], [[Doggie/Related Articles]], and [[Doggie1/Definition]] which are test pages you were using. You have already deleted the main [[Doggie]] article. Do you want to keep these four or delete them too? Btw, how much is the one in the window? [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 03:53, 12 January 2024 (CST)


== [[Pali Text Society]] ==
:Lol.  Please delete them.  I might need some test articles again in the future, and will let you know if I am using them. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 09:52, 12 January 2024 (CST)


Initial draft of article now complete, though I may well think of changes later. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] ([[User talk:Peter Jackson|talk]]) 09:44, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
== Lemma clusters ==


== Paris TN ==
Hi, Pat. I think I've made some progress with these by focusing on [[:Category:Lemma Subpage]]. I decided to action all articles with subpages other than Related Articles so we now have 599 in that category and the same 599 in [[:Category:Lemma Related Articles Subpage]]. As this has identified several oddballs and duplicates, I think we now have a level playing field. However, there are still 15,000 articles in [[:Category:Lemma Cluster]] overall and the overwhelming majority are about the sort of obscure subjects we've already discussed.


Dear Pat. I respectfully suggest that you perhaps have a "conflict of interest" regarding slavery / confederate statues connected with slavery in this town. [[User:Pradyumna Singh|Pradyumna Singh]] ([[User talk:Pradyumna Singh|talk]]) 18:09, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
I think I will take a break from housekeeping now and go back to normal writing as I might burn out if I try to keep going. Perhaps the best approach now will be to pick out anything that obviously needs a metadata, such as [[Bayeux Tapestry]] or [[Central America]], and deal with those. As for Howard's stuff, there are numerous groups of articles with serial numbers which are easily seen, such as ADM or AH or AMD, so they could be batched together for deletion. I'll do an occasional purge but I do think, despite 15,000 being no small number, that we've got things under control now. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 04:29, 14 January 2024 (CST)


== Signed Articles ==
== Redirects ==


I'm sure you've figured out by now that there is no official / approved policy on signed articles which gives anyone special priviliges to capture topics for themselves. So what say we edit collaboratively and mutually respect our respective editorial skills, inputs and feedback ? [[User:Pradyumna Singh|Pradyumna Singh]] ([[User talk:Pradyumna Singh|talk]]) 03:25, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Hi, Pat. I just thought I'd let you know that I'm going to start hitting redirects as I've been coming across lots of them which are unnecessary or are leftovers from page movement. Some still have metadatas and/or subpages which are just so much extra clutter. I've done a search and there are over 15,700 redirect pages including hundreds of double redirects. I'm not going to waste time adding reasons for deletion because of the timeout bug so I'll build a list for the day and go through them as quickly as I can. When I see any I think are at least useful, if not essential, I'll leave them be. They can easily be restored or recreated if I hit any that are needed.


== I'm a bit rusty... ==
I've also finished working through letter A of [[:Category:Lemma Subpage]] and many now have metadatas. The 22 which remain are in PropDel as I don't think they will be expanded. We currently have 46 under B and I'll start looking at those soon. These of course are the lemmas which have a related articles page so there's "only" 560-odd of them. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 04:10, 8 February 2024 (CST)


I'm a bit rusty...
:I agree that, while we definitely need some Redirects, the wiki has too many now, and too many double redirects, and that they are clutter which we would do well to reduce.  I look forwards to your efforts (I'm slowly working on them also). [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 10:12, 8 February 2024 (CST)


and I am having trouble uploading properly licensed images taken by other people.
::P S - But, please be sure to check What Links Here, and if things link to the Redirect, use the Replace Text tool (or possibly manual edits) to fix the redlinks that would be left by deleting a Redirect. It can be a bit of tedious work, which is why this work is slow and tedious. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 10:13, 8 February 2024 (CST)


The upload page tells me I have to select a license, but the field for doing so is blank.
:::I've been going through the [https://citizendium.org/wiki/Special:BrokenRedirects Broken Redirects] first, Pat. They were easily dealt with because there's a delete trigger for each one. We can't delete CZ pages for some reason. They produce an internal error.
:::I also want to work through [https://citizendium.org/wiki/Special:DoubleRedirects Double Redirects] which is a mess. There are 445 of those and I'll have to hold my hand up there because I can see several that are mine. I think that might be it for today, though, but I should be back tomorrow. It's snowing and settling here. First snow we've had this winter. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 11:12, 8 February 2024 (CST)


I tried putting an explicit <code><nowiki>{{CC-BY-3.0}}</nowiki></code> in the notes section, in case the upload page was clever enough to scan the pages for permissible licenses.  Okay, that was grasping at straws.  It didn't work.
== email ==


I considered initially uploading it as PD, and then trying to manually correct it later.
You asked me to send some kinds of messages to you via email.


What do you recommend?
Did you see I sent you an email on Saturday? [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 12:02, 12 February 2024 (CST)


Can I circumvent havin to go through the upload page? Do you recommend just filling out the template? I can do that.
:George, I did not receive it at either the CZ email or my personal email. Can you try again? [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 11:01, 13 February 2024 (CST)


Cheers!  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 16:44, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
== End of tether ==


* Oops. Pilot error. I seem to have clicked on "open access journals" , not from WMF. I think I would still like the option of just filling in a template though. Cheers! [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 16:50, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi, Pat. Please see recent talk page entries and recent corrections I have had to spend time doing. I think I've had enough for now and will take a break but, frankly, I'm calling Houston. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 16:55, 14 February 2024 (CST)
:Seen your message elsewhere, Pat. As it happens, I'll be very busy in home life for the next several days so I'll be stepping aside from the internet. All the best.  [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 03:49, 15 February 2024 (CST)


* Do definitions include wikilinks?  Thanks!  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 17:50, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
== Living persons ==
:They can do. I tend to use them, but a little more sparsely than in a main article. [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] ([[User talk:John Stephenson|talk]]) 15:40, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
:* Thanks!  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 03:09, 12 March 2021 (UTC)


== Help with footnoting ==
Hi, Pat. I've not a lot of time for the next three days because family are visiting but we've just been chatting about CZ and one of my daughters has made a useful suggestion.


My apologies if you're not the one to ask about this topic. If that's the case, perhaps you could point me in the right direction. I added an article this afternoon, but I have been searching in vain for how to add footnotes to it. Where could I get assistance for doing so?
She is puzzled by the Topic Informant classification and thinks we should simplify how we categorise living person biographies (BLP) by having a Biographies category with a Living Persons sub-category. On the face of it, this seems a good idea to me. I think we'd have to augment it by insisting that all BLPs must have a metadata completed and that no BLP can be a lemma. Also, of course, anyone creating a BLP must be able to demonstrate the subject's significance. For example, [[Joe Biden]] and [[Kamala Harris]] are significant, but is [[Jeff Zients]] (whose name I plucked out of a list)? I would add that everything we write in a BLP article must be verified by citation of a reliable source, especially if the person is controversial in some way. 
Thanks you! [[User:Scott Thompson|Scott Thompson]] ([[User talk:Scott Thompson|talk]])


== Adding photos ==
Just one for us to think about as it might be a way towards better control of BLP creation and content. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 04:22, 16 February 2024 (CST)


We do have a photograph of The Mother Church that can be added to the [[Christian Science]] article. Thanks for any pointers you can provide on that process. [[User:Scott Thompson|Scott Thompson]] ([[User talk:Scott Thompson|talk]]) 22:17, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
: I had never heard of Jeff Zients, either.  15 seconds with google taught me he is Joe Biden's Chief of Staff. That is a very important position.


:{{Image|Gertrude stein-1.jpg|right|150px|Part of [[Pablo Picasso|Pable Picasso]]'s famous 1905-06 portrait of Gertrude Stein.}} There is an '''Upload file''' link in the menus on the lower rightWhen you upload the image file, the wiki will ask you questions about permissions, such as whether the image can be reused by anyone else, with or without attribution.  Fill out everything you can, and then at the end after you've saved the page with the image on it, it will show you the code which needs to be added to the article to display the image, something like this: <nowiki>{{Image|Gertrude stein-1.jpg|right|150px|Part of Pable Picasso's famous 1905-06 portrait of Gertrude Stein.}}</nowiki>, which would display as shown on this comment. The parts are: <nowiki>{{filename.ext | placement (left,middle or right) | pixel width of thumbnail | caption}}</nowiki>.  Whatever you do, don't lose the link to the image before you get it placed on the article; it can be difficult finding those later. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 23:23, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
: His wikipedia article has 48 references.  and [https://xtools.wmcloud.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Jeff_Zients has been edited over 750 times].


== Wakefield article ==
: His wikipedia article has been read something like [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2023-01-20&end=2024-02-15&pages=Jeff_Zients 316,000 times].  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 11:42, 16 February 2024 (CST)


Thanks for the welcome and the assistance. This is my first attempt at an article so any help or advice is appreciated. I actually have a number of pictures, some of my dad and his shipmates, some of the ship and some of the ports they visited. I will see if I can figure out how to move the part about my dad down to a "Talk" section as that sounds like a good idea. I want to do another article on an interactive TV project I was involved in 1994-1998 in Orlando Fl. I think it would fit in the computer section of Citizendium. I tried to get it on Wikipedia but kept getting it rejected because of various reasons. There is an article there on the Full Service Network but it is about a different company but does include a section on the FSN I was involved with. I digress. Sorry for being so wordy. Thanks again for the assistance.
::[[Wikipedia:Jeff_Zients]] is important for the moment, yes, but Wikipedia already has an extensive article about him, and it's actually not bad, so I'm reluctant to leave the one we have unless someone is going to invest the time to make it better than WP's. Thus, his name and function might well appear in our Joe Biden article, but instead of linking to  a CZ stub article on Zients, we can just add a Footnote/Reference pointing to WP, or one is actually able to link directly to Wikipedia like this: <nowiki>[[Wikipedia:Jeff_Zients]]</nowiki>. That would be my preference in cases of minor figures like this. Oddly, WP's Notability policy gets anyone mentioned in the press a lot an article, but makes it damned difficult to add articles about people who, in life, are probably important to many people but are being ignored by the press, such as (just for example) [[Paul Prestopino]], a man who played on tracks from dozens of leading rock musicians in the 60's through 80's and was well-known across the music industry. After he passed away, it took me six months to get the article about him approved in Wikipedia (because Paul never sought the limelight), even though 70 articles in Wikipedia were already pointing off to a non-existent article about him. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 13:07, 16 February 2024 (CST)


I tried to add the first part of the article to a talk section but now can't seem to get back to the original article to take that section out so it isn't in 2 places?
::BTW I agree that Topic Informants is not a helpful Workgroup at this point, but we need some method of grouping together all the articles about living people, and reengineering Topic Informants is beyond my capacity at the moment.  The code implementing Workgroups is tough to deal with.  I like the idea of a Living Persons Biography category, but if we're going to create that, we need to decide what the criterion is for it.  I think it's important not to keep adding mid-level professionals to the wiki, confining ourselves to people with tangible accomplishments: books, recordings, films, other works of art, writing plays that have had a long successful run (not necessarily beginners who have won a single award but whose work has not withstood the test of time), holding high office  (senator, congressperson, member of parliament, head of state, cabinet member, etc.).  This is an incomplete list; being the top general in a war, state or federal judge, etc. should also count.  Being White House chief of staff is a very powerful position in that this person can to some extent gate who has personal access to the president, but the position is temporary, and that person is, at least in theory, not really the one "driving the bus", so to speak.  After his/her president leaves office, that person becomes (once again) just another party loyalist available for hire by others, unless they decide to run for office on their own (as did, for example, Rahm Emanuel who became mayor of Chicago, which probably does warrant having a bio in here. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 13:07, 16 February 2024 (CST)


I think I figured out how to delete the first paragraph but did I add the talk section correctly?
:::I think I'm going to copy this thread into the [[Forum_Talk:Content|Content forum]], where we can continue discussing the matter, resulting in some eventual revision of [[CZ:Content_Policy]] as well as, possibly, other documentation etc.  Let's move the discussion there. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 13:13, 16 February 2024 (CST)


I will start checking out the public dominion pictures and compare them to what I have and try to determine which ones to add. Thanks again. [[User:Warren William Mahan]] Mar 28, 2021
== Vietnam ==


== CZ: ad blurb ==
Hi, Pat. I see you're working on this and it looks to me like a very good article in the making. One thing I'd ask is how much anti-war protest should be included? Or perhaps we could have a separate article to cover protest. Country Joe and all that. I once took part in a demo in London, marching on the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square and chanting "Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!" Looking back, I cannot believe I ever did such things. I especially remember "The Greatest", Muhammad Ali, denouncing that war by defying the draft and saying he had "nothing against them VietCong" because they never called him N-word.


Pat, I just read this little bit on your Sandbox (and removed a word that looked to be left over from a previous sentence). It's a nice, sincere, gentle, welcoming statement. Good work! [[User:Roger A. Lohmann|Roger A. Lohmann]] ([[User talk:Roger A. Lohmann|talk]]) 11:48, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
In Britain, people of my age are virtually unanimous in our gratitude to Harold Wilson, who refused to involve us despite LJB begging him to send British forces. If only Blair had done the same on Iraq, although he was right about Afghanistan.  


== [[Talk:Gaius Iulius Caesar (name)/Draft]] ==
It's very late here. I should be able to help out more after tomorrow afternoon. Great to see the family, though. Good night. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 16:27, 17 February 2024 (CST)


For some reason the system won't let me edit that page. (Maybe all Draft talk pages?)
:Anti-war protest around the Vietnam War would probably make a good second article (though I don't have the interest in writing it), and I was tempted to bring up the Kent state killings (4 students shot by the Ohio Nat'l Guard) and the vilification of Jane Fonda, but I didn't want to make that section too long. I included the section of American culture because younger people these days have no idea how formative the Vietnam War was on our outlook on life.  The only march I ever attended was a Women's March on Washington once in the 1980's about the time the Equal Rights Amendment for women failed to pass.  It did no good.  I'm just not a marcher or someone to throw myself before a bulldozer. Good on you for having marched at least once! [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 08:48, 18 February 2024 (CST)
:That's an error which I'll fix. [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] ([[User talk:John Stephenson|talk]]) 13:26, 11 October 2021 (UTC)


Someone seems to have mixed up different things. Czar/tsar and Kaiser are derived from Caesar, but that didn't originally mean ruler or anything like that. It meant something like hairy. Chess comes from Persian Shah, king. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] ([[User talk:Peter Jackson|talk]]) 10:15, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
== Articles needing action ==


== WikiIndex ==
Hi, Pat. At various times in the last few days, you requested action on these articles but nothing has been done:
* [[Tomlin's Creek]]
* [[Charlotte Wise]]
* [[David Brant]]
* [[Alberto Mora]]
* [[Michael Lohr]]
* [[Michael Gelles]]
* [[Peter Murphy]]
* [[Slawko Klymkiw]]
* [[Horseshoe Moraine]]
* [[Paris-Galt Moraine]]
* [[Fraser River]]
* [[Caroline Kepnes]]
* [[Aimee Bessada]]
* [[Lewis Burwell]]
* [[Insula dell'Ara Coeli]]


You might want to have a look into updating [https://wikiindex.org/Citizendium]. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] ([[User talk:Peter Jackson|talk]]) 11:37, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
Would you like me to deal with them? I think you wanted Klymkiw to be a speedy, but please confirm. The others are all renames.


== your assistance please... ==
I'm going to start removing the 38 January PropDels. I think they are all lemmas so it shouldn't take too long but I'll probably do them in batches. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 14:42, 18 February 2024 (CST)


I saw you have been active recently, maybe you can help me.
:Let's just put [[Slawko Klymkiw]] on the PropDel list; it isn't actually harmful material, and it will give the author a chance to move the information to another more appropriate place if he would like to.  Feel free to work on any of the others that you have time for.  I added a couple things to speedydelete today.  Thank you for working on the January deletions! [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 15:30, 18 February 2024 (CST)


I ported a few articles yesterday.  I was a bit rusty, but the special skills for Citizendium are coming back for me.
== People ==


I first signed up over a decade ago. I spoke to my young neighbour about encouraging him to sign up, build some good skills...
Hi, Pat. Would you be okay with a People Workgroup and, affiliated to it and perhaps other WGs, a Living Persons Subgroup and a Historical Persons Subgroup (I'm not sure about the name for the latter)? We currently have one WG, Robotics, which is empty so I could move that to People. I'll leave you to think about it. All the best. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 09:46, 19 February 2024 (CST)


But when I checked out the signup page, to see what has changed, it seems to be out of service. Do you know what that means? It doesn't mean the Citizendium is closed to new contributors, does it?
==Templates==
Hi, Pat. Do we have any kind of "article reviewed" or "article passes muster" template that we could use at the top of pages that have been reviewed or revised and can be classified as satisfactory or better? The reason I'm asking is that I took the bull by the horns earlier today and reviewed [[Islam]]. I had seen there were several HB edits in its history and I expected he would have turned it into the usual soapbox. However, I was pleasantly surprised because it is within scope and is quite good. His input amounted to minor edits only, like adding links.


Cheers!  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 15:01, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
I've started my own list of satisfactory articles now and I think it would be useful if there is something in the article itself to say it is okay after being reviewed. If we don't have a suitable template, could you suggest a wording? Thanks. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 11:04, 21 February 2024 (CST)


== Intel 4004 ==
:@John, What would you think about using a Category, as shown in the following list?  If it doesn't fit one of those, it would be either <nowiki>{{PropDel}}</nowiki> or <nowiki>{{speedydelete}}</nowiki>. Maybe also, you should make me actually do any the speedy-deletes so you can always claim that I knew about it.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 13:15, 21 February 2024 (CST)


Let me know where I should ask questions like this.
::Here are the new Categories I am starting to use. Could you use them too, for now? [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 14:27, 21 February 2024 (CST)
* [[:Category:Flagged for  Review]]
* [[:Category:Reviewed Passed if Improved]]
* [[:Category:Reviewed Passed]]
* [[:Category:Living Person]]


I worked on the [[Intel 4004]] stub article, in 2012.  I looked at it again, and saw one of the two references I provided, in 2012, had gone 404.  So had webcitation.org, the cite where I thought I could mirror those references.
== Stray articles ==


Luckily archive.org had archived versions, as well.  However, the {{tl|cite web}} template does not seem to have field to force the link to the archive to show, instead of linking to the original 404 location.  Am I doing something wrong?
Hi, Pat. How much of a problem are articles like [[Stanley Cup]] which have no subpages, no useful categories, and are outside lemma catchment? I found this by chance because it happens to contain a link to Kandahar. If there are loads of these strays floating around, I think it will be difficult tracing them and rounding them up.
And, can you tell me where I should ask questions like this?


Cheers!  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 18:54, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
Stanley Cup is definitely a copy of the WP version in 2008, btw. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 02:25, 28 February 2024 (CST)


== Deferring to the big cheese ==
:One possibility is add the article to the list at [[CZ:Pages_without_metadata]] (which I did in the case of [[Stanley Cup]] just now.  A better option might be to bring over the current WP article and, if needed, write a better intro for it and add the Provenance section to the bottom of the article with the <nowiki>{{WPAttribution}}</nowiki> template. These are for when there are links to the article.  If unlinked, we might just delete it instead. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 13:15, 29 February 2024 (CST)


Back when I was active here, a dozen years ago, I remember one contributor discussing with Larry his option to follow the Nelson Mandela / George Washington model of leadership...  He explained, and I think he agreed, that Jimbo Wales generally did not follow this model.  Both Washington and Mandela had fans, often who had worked closely with them, who first praised them, and then encouraged these two first Presidents to forget about all this democracy nonsense, and re-elections.  They told Washington and Mandela that the only way to really make sure their vision came to fruition was to hold on to power, and declare themselves "President for Life".
== Double redirects ==


Since reading that discussion I saw many instances where I thought Mr Wales was holding on to too much power.  Discussions where he voiced an opinion stopped being about the original substantive issue, but instead polarized between whether one supported Mr Wales.
Hi, Pat. There are two of these relating to your own pages:


Larry, my hats off to him, saw the wisdom of the Mandela / Washington model.
* User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Proposed Impartiality Policy (edit) →‎ User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Impartiality Guidance →‎ User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Objectivity Guidance
* User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Impartiality Guidance (edit) →‎ User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Objectivity Guidance →‎ CZ:Objectivity Guidance


Nevertheless, you took on the official leadership cap here.  Thank you very much!  And, I think I need to tell you I will do my best to defer to suggestions from you.
Do you need them for anything or can they be deleted? [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 17:29, 28 February 2024 (CST)


I don't know you, but so far you seem to be a very tactful considerate leader. So, thank you for that!
:These are old and can just be deleted, since [[CZ:Objectivity Guidance]] is linked on the main page.  Thanks for noticing them. Actually, I'll take care of it. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 13:17, 29 February 2024 (CST)


I am sure you remember Howard BerkowitzHe was extremely critical of many things about my contributions here, including, he didn't like me choosing to write about topics that he considered of relatively low importance, just because they were things that interested me, until after the topics he considered of higher importance had been written.
::I thought I deleted them both, but if one is still there, it can be deletedThanks! [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 13:49, 3 March 2024 (CST)


Right now I have been porting articles from the wikipedia because I am concerned my bad faith challengers will try to delete articles just because I wrote them.  which means, of course, I have ported a lot of articles that are way down the hierarchy.
All DDs have been cleared now, Pat. Not an easy job with quadruple/quintuple redirects and even 360 degree loops! Anyway, we just need to keep an eye on them now, and the same for broken redirects. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 16:41, 8 March 2024 (CST)


Pat, I don't want you to notice this, get concerned about it, yet feel uneasy about raising that concern with me.
== BC/AD or BCE/CE ==


If you think it would be better to have additional people weigh in, in one of the fora, feel free to say so.
Hi, Pat. Where do you stand on this? I'm asking because I've got [[1 CE]] in my review list. Are you happy with that or would you prefer 1 AD? I'm happy with either, although I tend to ''say'' BC/AD because that's what I grew up with. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 16:54, 8 March 2024 (CST)


I guess I am repeating, a third time, my thanks for you taking a leadership role...
:It's a strange article title, but let's leave it for now and deal with the more egregious stuff. It probably needs renaming but I'm not sure to what. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 09:19, 11 March 2024 (CDT)


== Cordell Hull ==


Cheers!  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 23:44, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
Hi, Pat. If you should ever need to feel justification for our cleanup operation, see [[Cordell Hull]]. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 01:33, 31 March 2024 (CDT)


==New Server Feedback==
:Ugh.  Flagged for deletion, and I unlinked it. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 07:17, 31 March 2024 (CDT)
Pat,
Received the memo on the trial of the new server and the separate second mailing.
Log-in worked well with no problems. Everything else seems as it should be.
[[User:Roger A. Lohmann|Roger A. Lohmann]] ([[User talk:Roger A. Lohmann|talk]]) 07:38, 17 March 2022 (CDT)


* Thanks to everyone who is working hard on the upgrade!
::Best thing to do, I reckon. I'll add it to my to-do list and recreate it someday. I've had an interest in Cordell Hull ever since I saw George Macready playing him in ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'' — an example of how a good acting performance can raise the profile of a real person. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 08:55, 31 March 2024 (CDT)


: I tried creating a new article...  [[John Wordsworth (1776-1805)]].  No problems there, until I tried creating the subpages.
:::In that case, unflag it for deletion and mark it [[Category:Reviewed Passed if Improved]]!  I'll look forwards to seeing it.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 09:10, 31 March 2024 (CDT)


: [[Template:John Wordworth (1776-1805)]] got created on the old server.
== Excess baggage ==


: I tried cutting and pasting that here. Maybe I did that wrong. It doesn't seem to work.
Hi, Pat. So you know, I'm starting a new approach to dealing with the thousands of articles already in PD or needing to be in PD. I got the idea from the [[Ho Chi Minh Trail]] as a complex but integrated network of paths. Working through the PD articles, I've found that the same ones constantly recur in both page links and related articles. So, I'm copying all link and RA titles and adding them to a list in one of my workshops as I believe this will eventually provide a near-comprehensive collection of articles we need to review and, for the most part, send to PD. To help with the process, I've opened some new pages in the PD category which currently list the main subpages of the March articles (RA/Def/Meta).  


: So I went to leave a description in the Technical Forum. But that sent me to the old server too.
The method is to check all RA pages and list the contents in the workshop for later investigation, and then delete each RA. Then, same with the article links and delete those. Definitions are not really useful in this but they are nearly always present so I'll delete those with the articles. Finally, the metadata pages which need to be last because, as you know, an article with subpages and no meta is virtually unreadable. Other subpages like approvals and whatnot have already been deleted ''en masse'' as there are very few of them, even among the March collection.


: I am not complaining. I know it is growing pains, from the port. You might already be well aware. But I thought I should document it, somewhere.
The advantages are that the 1,300 March PD items will be deleted very quickly and we will be left with all their links and RAs. As more and more PDs disappear, the links and RAs will become increasingly red, and most of the remaining blue ones should be articles in the review process. The one slight disadvantage is that the process will resemble a production line and some articles that shouldn't be in PD might not escape. However, I think potential losses will be minor and, of course, providing the title isn't forgotten, an article can easily be restored.


: Again, thanks for all the hard work everybody!
Among the checks to be done on each PD are its history page which will speak volumes about whether to delete, whether to revert to an earlier version, whether to review, or whether to leave alone. The biggest problem is with articles that we need but which are currently unacceptable, because time must then be used to address the issues, even by rewriting.


: Cheers!  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 12:51, 17 March 2022 (CDT)
I think this is the best approach to dealing with the volume. It is certain, I think, that the large March tally will be dwarfed by the April one, so we need an effective way of clearing the dross quickly and doing the best we can with the exceptions.


:* Looks like the upgrade is complete(?)  Let me repeat my thanks to everyone who worked on that!  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 13:05, 19 March 2022 (CDT)
By the way, see [[Fourtheenth Naval District]]!


== Got it... ==
All the best. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 05:49, 4 April 2024 (CDT)


Um, sort order is in the metadate pageDuhGot itThanks...  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 02:53, 26 March 2022 (CDT)
:I have my own method of tallying up what needs to be checked.  And don't forget to look at "What Links Here"!  Also, remember if a longer article is NOT written solely by HCB and is not a stub, do not just automatically delete it, but instead probably run it by me for safety.  I've found a whole lot of treatises that HCB wrote about history--as though he is some kind of history expert--including hidden gems such as Vietnam Wars (notice the s), which is really an alternative version of Vietnam War which contains all his personal views about the warIt has to go, but not until I've managed to mine its links in-out and Related Articles several branches deepSighHe was worse that I had ever imagined. He also wrote similar alternate histories around World War II (often disguised with World War Two instead of II)--apparently, dozens of them. They need to be rooted out and removedTalk about violating the original research rules! [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 10:25, 4 April 2024 (CDT)


https://citizendium.org/wiki/index.php?title=Kate_Macdonald_Butler&diff=next&oldid=865761
::And if you are listing the Related Article contents somewhere, please make them available to me. I want to keep at eye on what is being deleted, and if you are mass-deleting hundreds of articles at a time, I cannot do so. It's not that I don't trust you, but more that I need to be able to defend what we are doing, so please keep me in the loop.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 10:28, 4 April 2024 (CDT)


:Yes!  Good spotting.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]])
:::Sorry, Pat, I should have said it is "What Links Here" that I use for gathering page link titles — and the rest from each article's RA pages. At present, it's all going into [[User:John Leach/workshop3]] but I agree it would be best to set that page up in the deletion area. Your [[CZ:Suspect article list]] is similar to mine except that you're using related article links and mine are direct links. My workshop3 is being rebuilt at the moment to integrate everything I found this afternoon — currently about 3,000 titles but about 90% will be duplicates.


== Returning ==
:::If the article history shows the work was partly done by another editor, then it either goes into review or else I revise it myself and keep it, so it's sole HCB ones only which go straight into PD (sole HCB includes those where another editor might have made minor edits — corrections, in the main). If an article by a different editor should be unsatisfactory, I put it in PD too, and that is useful because it illustrates how PD will work in the longer term when all the excess is gone.


Thanks for the welcome message! I tried unsuccessfully to create a subpage tothe Montana article. Oh, well, I'll try again. Meantime, so as to not delay actual content creation, I decided to start the bibliography on the main article page. It can easily be moved using the cut and paste tools later when I figure out how to createt the subpage. [[User:James F. Perry|James F. Perry]] ([[User talk:James F. Perry|talk]]) 14:56, 5 November 2022 (CDT)
:::I'm aware of Vietnam Wars. I renamed it a while back and I remember thinking it needs much more than that, but I decided to reconsider it at a later date. As you have said above, the problem is much, much worse than we could ever have imagined, which is why I've decided to take a hard line against him. I honestly believe drastic action is necessary but it includes rooting out the less obvious inputs too. One thing he was diligent about was piling everything into RA pages ''ad nauseum'' and that is actually our way into and along the trail. Something I see nearly every time is a new name, usually a person like a journalist, on each RA page. I always think I should follow that to see if it opens into a clearing but they are always dead ends!


==Login / logout problem==
:::I will keep you informed as I understand your concerns. Let me rebuild the workshop3 first and then recreate it in [[:Category:Articles for deletion]]. I'll write to you again later on. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 13:11, 4 April 2024 (CDT)
Every so often (like right now), I get logged out (repeatedly) while trying to make edits. [[User:James F. Perry|James F. Perry]] ([[User talk:James F. Perry|talk]]) 14:50, 14 November 2022 (CST)
 
::::John, I can use the replace function in the editor to convert all the links to redlinks instead of templates if you like.  As of HCB, it's theoretically okay for someone not a historian to write about history, but given the overall behavior and past record of his mis-representing his credentials, and also not having any kind of formal expertise in history, and also bullying people to take over topics he thought he knew best about, and then not even providing adequate sources for his accounts of history, I am inclined to delete any long "history" he has written as being of suspect reliability.  And then, one doesn't have to look very hard at these treatises to see that they are not objective and also exhibit an extreme obsession with war and militarism.  This is probably several months of sustained effort now.  8000+ stubs?  The vast majority of those came from him and will likely need to go.  And incidentally, I am also tackling 600+ articles flagged as "External", which means they were copied from WP often more than 15 years ago and never improved, sometimes not ever linked.  Each of those (not necessarily from HCB) require review.  In the end, I don't want to have ANY articles left  with "External" (#4)  status.  They either need to be deleted or improved, possibly having WPAttribution added near the bottom, and  reclassified as internal. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 13:26, 4 April 2024 (CDT)
 
:::::Hi, Pat. For now at least, I've recreated my workshop3 file as [[CZ:PD target articles]] and placed it in [[:Category:Articles for deletion]]. I hope you don't mind, but I've put [[CZ:Suspect article list]] into that category too. I think we should keep all files concerning deletion or investigation together. I've copied everything in Suspect into Target. Nearly all of it was duplication but I've outsorted the duplicates and what we have left in that file is some 2,250 items, although a good many are redlinks. We'll have to decide how to take the investigation process forward but it is an adjunct to deletion. [[:Category:Articles for deletion March]] has 1,200 nominations and it looks as if all of them need to go.
:::::I like to write about history myself but, unless a passage is something indisputable or common knowledge, I really do think it should be sourced and I also think an alternative view should be presented if there is one. I'm currently watching Ken Burns' series about Vietnam which has just been re-run over here. One thing I really like about it is how it presents both viewpoints and has a number of VietCong veterans speaking, as well as the American veterans.
:::::I've seen several examples of HCB's overbearing attitude on talk pages. One that has annoyed me is his insistence that any codename must be fully capitalised. Until I came across his stuff, I have NEVER (sorry!) seen Operation Market Garden written in capitals. My father-in-law took part in Market Garden (he was a paratrooper) until he was arrested by those nice chaps in the Waffen SS. As you may imagine, everyone in our family is very interested in the Bridge Too Far, but Jim himself would rarely talk about it.
:::::HCB did create many of the lemmas, but I worked through the As a while back and a lot were done by Daniel Mietchen, especially scientific terminology, so we might not be too bad on lemmas as a whole. Also, because of his desire to overfill every RA page, the HCB lemmas are easy to find.
:::::If you like, I'll try and help with the externals, but I think the deletions have to be my priority for now until we have cleared a substantial chunk of the excess.
:::::Are you happy for me to carry on as I have been doing today? Deleting the March noms and listing all links and relateds?
:::::I'll have to sign off now, but I'll be back tomorrow. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 17:20, 4 April 2024 (CDT)
 
::::::Yes, carry on and thank you. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 18:06, 4 April 2024 (CDT)
 
== A bit of progress ==
 
Hi, Pat. I've checked all articles that start with a digit (year, ordinal, or other numeric) and they are all accounted for. Some need to be reviewed but there are none in PD at present. I've got a list of 60-odd coded titles from AAQ to AVR in my workshop4 file, all lifted from PD. I'm working through those and finding a lot of extra suspects among their links and relateds, meaning the big picture is becoming more complete.
 
Just one worry, though. You may have noticed that I've edited [[5-fluorouracil]] and [[breast cancer]] today. We certainly must ensure that medical information is reliably sourced or has been written by a qualified practitioner. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 08:36, 5 April 2024 (CDT)
 
:Your methodical approach is great and allows you to feel a deserved sense of accomplishment.  Since [[Breast cancer]] is now many years old AND is External (never improved since copied from WP), I will delete it.  I know literally dozens of women who've been treated for breast cancer, and two have died of it (one a man, actually), and I can safely say that treatments and understanding of it have continued to evolve.  Treatment nowadays is VERY different that it was back in the 1990's, and they are more able to determine exactly which ''kind'' of cancer it is these days and use a targeted treatment.  Thanks for pointing that article out. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 08:56, 5 April 2024 (CDT)
::Oops, now I see that [[Breast cancer]] is NOT external and has been worked on by really good writers.  I will leave it.  Anyway, congrats on reaching a milestone!  As we go on, the cross-links among these militaristic treatise will be fewer and so deletions will become simpler, I hope. [[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 09:02, 5 April 2024 (CDT)
 
== Decision ==
 
Pat, I am sorry about this but, having considered the benefits and constraints of CZ membership for several days, I have decided to move on and I will no longer be contributing to the site. The cons heavily outweigh the pros, I'm afraid, especially the amount of time that is needed to try and knock thousands of articles into shape. Sorry again, but there it is. I wish you well and I hope you will eventually succeed in making CZ into a good site. All the best. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 07:00, 9 April 2024 (CDT)
 
==A heads-up==
 
I sent you an email a few minutes ago...  About 850 words.
 
As the person paying the Lion's Share of the bills, and for other reasons, I will defer to you as the ultimate decision maker.  I won't undermine your decisions.  I would, however, appreciate having my input taken into account, to the extent you feel you can do that.
 
If you want to respond, and want to respond here, you have my permission to republish that email on the citizendium, or to merely quote it here...
 
Cheers!  [[User:George Swan|George Swan]] ([[User talk:George Swan|talk]]) 16:50, 16 April 2024 (CDT)

Latest revision as of 16:50, 16 April 2024


Mount Evans to Mount blue sky

Pat, thanks for redirecting that page about the mountain in Colorado. Jack S. Byrom (talk) 09:17, 20 September 2023 (CDT)

Glad to do it. It's great to see you drop by and edit a bit in here. Pat Palmer (talk) 10:42, 20 September 2023 (CDT)

Test Comment

Hi Pat! Just testing out leaving comments on discussion pages. E. J. Diamond (talk) 15:47, 13 October 2023 (CDT)

Commenting on your test comment. Pat Palmer (talk) 15:48, 13 October 2023 (CDT)

App

While looking for something else, I serendipitously came across tipitaka.app. I think we should mention this, but I don't know much about this modern technology, in particular how to reference this. Peter Jackson (talk) 05:29, 17 November 2023 (CST)

This looks interesting. I have loaded it on my Android smartphone and on Windows and will try it out. The smartphone version seems to be in the process of downloading a large dictionary of terms in the background, so it may be a while before it works. The Windows version is tricky to install and also doesn't work yet, possibly for the same reason. I will try again later! Pat Palmer (talk) 09:11, 17 November 2023 (CST)
Sadly, I never was able to get it to work. It's a great idea though. I'd love to be able to line up my favorite English translations of the canon and do a text search over the whole thing. Too bad. Pat Palmer (talk) 10:18, 8 February 2024 (CST)

Articles with subpages that require metadata...

I got your recent email, thanks. George Swan (talk) 20:26, 21 December 2023 (CST)

Hi George (and anyone). I am moving the list of pages needing Metadata to CZ:Pages without metadata. Please add your newly created articles to that list. I am trying to hire a programmer to get metadata creation automated when creating new articles. We had that for many years in the past, but it was never rewritten after an old wiki upgrade broke it. Pat Palmer (talk) 11:58, 2 January 2024 (CST)

Doggie test pages

Hi Pat. I found Doggie/Definition, Doggie/External Links, Doggie/Related Articles, and Doggie1/Definition which are test pages you were using. You have already deleted the main Doggie article. Do you want to keep these four or delete them too? Btw, how much is the one in the window? John (talk) 03:53, 12 January 2024 (CST)

Lol. Please delete them. I might need some test articles again in the future, and will let you know if I am using them. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:52, 12 January 2024 (CST)

Lemma clusters

Hi, Pat. I think I've made some progress with these by focusing on Category:Lemma Subpage. I decided to action all articles with subpages other than Related Articles so we now have 599 in that category and the same 599 in Category:Lemma Related Articles Subpage. As this has identified several oddballs and duplicates, I think we now have a level playing field. However, there are still 15,000 articles in Category:Lemma Cluster overall and the overwhelming majority are about the sort of obscure subjects we've already discussed.

I think I will take a break from housekeeping now and go back to normal writing as I might burn out if I try to keep going. Perhaps the best approach now will be to pick out anything that obviously needs a metadata, such as Bayeux Tapestry or Central America, and deal with those. As for Howard's stuff, there are numerous groups of articles with serial numbers which are easily seen, such as ADM or AH or AMD, so they could be batched together for deletion. I'll do an occasional purge but I do think, despite 15,000 being no small number, that we've got things under control now. John (talk) 04:29, 14 January 2024 (CST)

Redirects

Hi, Pat. I just thought I'd let you know that I'm going to start hitting redirects as I've been coming across lots of them which are unnecessary or are leftovers from page movement. Some still have metadatas and/or subpages which are just so much extra clutter. I've done a search and there are over 15,700 redirect pages including hundreds of double redirects. I'm not going to waste time adding reasons for deletion because of the timeout bug so I'll build a list for the day and go through them as quickly as I can. When I see any I think are at least useful, if not essential, I'll leave them be. They can easily be restored or recreated if I hit any that are needed.

I've also finished working through letter A of Category:Lemma Subpage and many now have metadatas. The 22 which remain are in PropDel as I don't think they will be expanded. We currently have 46 under B and I'll start looking at those soon. These of course are the lemmas which have a related articles page so there's "only" 560-odd of them. John (talk) 04:10, 8 February 2024 (CST)

I agree that, while we definitely need some Redirects, the wiki has too many now, and too many double redirects, and that they are clutter which we would do well to reduce. I look forwards to your efforts (I'm slowly working on them also). Pat Palmer (talk) 10:12, 8 February 2024 (CST)
P S - But, please be sure to check What Links Here, and if things link to the Redirect, use the Replace Text tool (or possibly manual edits) to fix the redlinks that would be left by deleting a Redirect. It can be a bit of tedious work, which is why this work is slow and tedious. Pat Palmer (talk) 10:13, 8 February 2024 (CST)
I've been going through the Broken Redirects first, Pat. They were easily dealt with because there's a delete trigger for each one. We can't delete CZ pages for some reason. They produce an internal error.
I also want to work through Double Redirects which is a mess. There are 445 of those and I'll have to hold my hand up there because I can see several that are mine. I think that might be it for today, though, but I should be back tomorrow. It's snowing and settling here. First snow we've had this winter. John (talk) 11:12, 8 February 2024 (CST)

email

You asked me to send some kinds of messages to you via email.

Did you see I sent you an email on Saturday? George Swan (talk) 12:02, 12 February 2024 (CST)

George, I did not receive it at either the CZ email or my personal email. Can you try again? Pat Palmer (talk) 11:01, 13 February 2024 (CST)

End of tether

Hi, Pat. Please see recent talk page entries and recent corrections I have had to spend time doing. I think I've had enough for now and will take a break but, frankly, I'm calling Houston. John (talk) 16:55, 14 February 2024 (CST)

Seen your message elsewhere, Pat. As it happens, I'll be very busy in home life for the next several days so I'll be stepping aside from the internet. All the best. John (talk) 03:49, 15 February 2024 (CST)

Living persons

Hi, Pat. I've not a lot of time for the next three days because family are visiting but we've just been chatting about CZ and one of my daughters has made a useful suggestion.

She is puzzled by the Topic Informant classification and thinks we should simplify how we categorise living person biographies (BLP) by having a Biographies category with a Living Persons sub-category. On the face of it, this seems a good idea to me. I think we'd have to augment it by insisting that all BLPs must have a metadata completed and that no BLP can be a lemma. Also, of course, anyone creating a BLP must be able to demonstrate the subject's significance. For example, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are significant, but is Jeff Zients (whose name I plucked out of a list)? I would add that everything we write in a BLP article must be verified by citation of a reliable source, especially if the person is controversial in some way.

Just one for us to think about as it might be a way towards better control of BLP creation and content. John (talk) 04:22, 16 February 2024 (CST)

I had never heard of Jeff Zients, either. 15 seconds with google taught me he is Joe Biden's Chief of Staff. That is a very important position.
His wikipedia article has 48 references. and has been edited over 750 times.
His wikipedia article has been read something like 316,000 times. George Swan (talk) 11:42, 16 February 2024 (CST)
Wikipedia:Jeff_Zients is important for the moment, yes, but Wikipedia already has an extensive article about him, and it's actually not bad, so I'm reluctant to leave the one we have unless someone is going to invest the time to make it better than WP's. Thus, his name and function might well appear in our Joe Biden article, but instead of linking to a CZ stub article on Zients, we can just add a Footnote/Reference pointing to WP, or one is actually able to link directly to Wikipedia like this: [[Wikipedia:Jeff_Zients]]. That would be my preference in cases of minor figures like this. Oddly, WP's Notability policy gets anyone mentioned in the press a lot an article, but makes it damned difficult to add articles about people who, in life, are probably important to many people but are being ignored by the press, such as (just for example) Paul Prestopino, a man who played on tracks from dozens of leading rock musicians in the 60's through 80's and was well-known across the music industry. After he passed away, it took me six months to get the article about him approved in Wikipedia (because Paul never sought the limelight), even though 70 articles in Wikipedia were already pointing off to a non-existent article about him. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:07, 16 February 2024 (CST)
BTW I agree that Topic Informants is not a helpful Workgroup at this point, but we need some method of grouping together all the articles about living people, and reengineering Topic Informants is beyond my capacity at the moment. The code implementing Workgroups is tough to deal with. I like the idea of a Living Persons Biography category, but if we're going to create that, we need to decide what the criterion is for it. I think it's important not to keep adding mid-level professionals to the wiki, confining ourselves to people with tangible accomplishments: books, recordings, films, other works of art, writing plays that have had a long successful run (not necessarily beginners who have won a single award but whose work has not withstood the test of time), holding high office (senator, congressperson, member of parliament, head of state, cabinet member, etc.). This is an incomplete list; being the top general in a war, state or federal judge, etc. should also count. Being White House chief of staff is a very powerful position in that this person can to some extent gate who has personal access to the president, but the position is temporary, and that person is, at least in theory, not really the one "driving the bus", so to speak. After his/her president leaves office, that person becomes (once again) just another party loyalist available for hire by others, unless they decide to run for office on their own (as did, for example, Rahm Emanuel who became mayor of Chicago, which probably does warrant having a bio in here. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:07, 16 February 2024 (CST)
I think I'm going to copy this thread into the Content forum, where we can continue discussing the matter, resulting in some eventual revision of CZ:Content_Policy as well as, possibly, other documentation etc. Let's move the discussion there. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:13, 16 February 2024 (CST)

Vietnam

Hi, Pat. I see you're working on this and it looks to me like a very good article in the making. One thing I'd ask is how much anti-war protest should be included? Or perhaps we could have a separate article to cover protest. Country Joe and all that. I once took part in a demo in London, marching on the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square and chanting "Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!" Looking back, I cannot believe I ever did such things. I especially remember "The Greatest", Muhammad Ali, denouncing that war by defying the draft and saying he had "nothing against them VietCong" because they never called him N-word.

In Britain, people of my age are virtually unanimous in our gratitude to Harold Wilson, who refused to involve us despite LJB begging him to send British forces. If only Blair had done the same on Iraq, although he was right about Afghanistan.

It's very late here. I should be able to help out more after tomorrow afternoon. Great to see the family, though. Good night. John (talk) 16:27, 17 February 2024 (CST)

Anti-war protest around the Vietnam War would probably make a good second article (though I don't have the interest in writing it), and I was tempted to bring up the Kent state killings (4 students shot by the Ohio Nat'l Guard) and the vilification of Jane Fonda, but I didn't want to make that section too long. I included the section of American culture because younger people these days have no idea how formative the Vietnam War was on our outlook on life. The only march I ever attended was a Women's March on Washington once in the 1980's about the time the Equal Rights Amendment for women failed to pass. It did no good. I'm just not a marcher or someone to throw myself before a bulldozer. Good on you for having marched at least once! Pat Palmer (talk) 08:48, 18 February 2024 (CST)

Articles needing action

Hi, Pat. At various times in the last few days, you requested action on these articles but nothing has been done:

Would you like me to deal with them? I think you wanted Klymkiw to be a speedy, but please confirm. The others are all renames.

I'm going to start removing the 38 January PropDels. I think they are all lemmas so it shouldn't take too long but I'll probably do them in batches. John (talk) 14:42, 18 February 2024 (CST)

Let's just put Slawko Klymkiw on the PropDel list; it isn't actually harmful material, and it will give the author a chance to move the information to another more appropriate place if he would like to. Feel free to work on any of the others that you have time for. I added a couple things to speedydelete today. Thank you for working on the January deletions! Pat Palmer (talk) 15:30, 18 February 2024 (CST)

People

Hi, Pat. Would you be okay with a People Workgroup and, affiliated to it and perhaps other WGs, a Living Persons Subgroup and a Historical Persons Subgroup (I'm not sure about the name for the latter)? We currently have one WG, Robotics, which is empty so I could move that to People. I'll leave you to think about it. All the best. John (talk) 09:46, 19 February 2024 (CST)

Templates

Hi, Pat. Do we have any kind of "article reviewed" or "article passes muster" template that we could use at the top of pages that have been reviewed or revised and can be classified as satisfactory or better? The reason I'm asking is that I took the bull by the horns earlier today and reviewed Islam. I had seen there were several HB edits in its history and I expected he would have turned it into the usual soapbox. However, I was pleasantly surprised because it is within scope and is quite good. His input amounted to minor edits only, like adding links.

I've started my own list of satisfactory articles now and I think it would be useful if there is something in the article itself to say it is okay after being reviewed. If we don't have a suitable template, could you suggest a wording? Thanks. John (talk) 11:04, 21 February 2024 (CST)

@John, What would you think about using a Category, as shown in the following list? If it doesn't fit one of those, it would be either {{PropDel}} or {{speedydelete}}. Maybe also, you should make me actually do any the speedy-deletes so you can always claim that I knew about it.Pat Palmer (talk) 13:15, 21 February 2024 (CST)
Here are the new Categories I am starting to use. Could you use them too, for now? Pat Palmer (talk) 14:27, 21 February 2024 (CST)

Stray articles

Hi, Pat. How much of a problem are articles like Stanley Cup which have no subpages, no useful categories, and are outside lemma catchment? I found this by chance because it happens to contain a link to Kandahar. If there are loads of these strays floating around, I think it will be difficult tracing them and rounding them up.

Stanley Cup is definitely a copy of the WP version in 2008, btw. John (talk) 02:25, 28 February 2024 (CST)

One possibility is add the article to the list at CZ:Pages_without_metadata (which I did in the case of Stanley Cup just now. A better option might be to bring over the current WP article and, if needed, write a better intro for it and add the Provenance section to the bottom of the article with the {{WPAttribution}} template. These are for when there are links to the article. If unlinked, we might just delete it instead. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:15, 29 February 2024 (CST)

Double redirects

Hi, Pat. There are two of these relating to your own pages:

  • User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Proposed Impartiality Policy (edit) →‎ User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Impartiality Guidance →‎ User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Objectivity Guidance
  • User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Impartiality Guidance (edit) →‎ User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/Objectivity Guidance →‎ CZ:Objectivity Guidance

Do you need them for anything or can they be deleted? John (talk) 17:29, 28 February 2024 (CST)

These are old and can just be deleted, since CZ:Objectivity Guidance is linked on the main page. Thanks for noticing them. Actually, I'll take care of it. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:17, 29 February 2024 (CST)
I thought I deleted them both, but if one is still there, it can be deleted. Thanks! Pat Palmer (talk) 13:49, 3 March 2024 (CST)

All DDs have been cleared now, Pat. Not an easy job with quadruple/quintuple redirects and even 360 degree loops! Anyway, we just need to keep an eye on them now, and the same for broken redirects. John (talk) 16:41, 8 March 2024 (CST)

BC/AD or BCE/CE

Hi, Pat. Where do you stand on this? I'm asking because I've got 1 CE in my review list. Are you happy with that or would you prefer 1 AD? I'm happy with either, although I tend to say BC/AD because that's what I grew up with. John (talk) 16:54, 8 March 2024 (CST)

It's a strange article title, but let's leave it for now and deal with the more egregious stuff. It probably needs renaming but I'm not sure to what. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:19, 11 March 2024 (CDT)

Cordell Hull

Hi, Pat. If you should ever need to feel justification for our cleanup operation, see Cordell Hull. John (talk) 01:33, 31 March 2024 (CDT)

Ugh. Flagged for deletion, and I unlinked it. Pat Palmer (talk) 07:17, 31 March 2024 (CDT)
Best thing to do, I reckon. I'll add it to my to-do list and recreate it someday. I've had an interest in Cordell Hull ever since I saw George Macready playing him in Tora! Tora! Tora! — an example of how a good acting performance can raise the profile of a real person. John (talk) 08:55, 31 March 2024 (CDT)
In that case, unflag it for deletion and mark it! I'll look forwards to seeing it.Pat Palmer (talk) 09:10, 31 March 2024 (CDT)

Excess baggage

Hi, Pat. So you know, I'm starting a new approach to dealing with the thousands of articles already in PD or needing to be in PD. I got the idea from the Ho Chi Minh Trail as a complex but integrated network of paths. Working through the PD articles, I've found that the same ones constantly recur in both page links and related articles. So, I'm copying all link and RA titles and adding them to a list in one of my workshops as I believe this will eventually provide a near-comprehensive collection of articles we need to review and, for the most part, send to PD. To help with the process, I've opened some new pages in the PD category which currently list the main subpages of the March articles (RA/Def/Meta).

The method is to check all RA pages and list the contents in the workshop for later investigation, and then delete each RA. Then, same with the article links and delete those. Definitions are not really useful in this but they are nearly always present so I'll delete those with the articles. Finally, the metadata pages which need to be last because, as you know, an article with subpages and no meta is virtually unreadable. Other subpages like approvals and whatnot have already been deleted en masse as there are very few of them, even among the March collection.

The advantages are that the 1,300 March PD items will be deleted very quickly and we will be left with all their links and RAs. As more and more PDs disappear, the links and RAs will become increasingly red, and most of the remaining blue ones should be articles in the review process. The one slight disadvantage is that the process will resemble a production line and some articles that shouldn't be in PD might not escape. However, I think potential losses will be minor and, of course, providing the title isn't forgotten, an article can easily be restored.

Among the checks to be done on each PD are its history page which will speak volumes about whether to delete, whether to revert to an earlier version, whether to review, or whether to leave alone. The biggest problem is with articles that we need but which are currently unacceptable, because time must then be used to address the issues, even by rewriting.

I think this is the best approach to dealing with the volume. It is certain, I think, that the large March tally will be dwarfed by the April one, so we need an effective way of clearing the dross quickly and doing the best we can with the exceptions.

By the way, see Fourtheenth Naval District!

All the best. John (talk) 05:49, 4 April 2024 (CDT)

I have my own method of tallying up what needs to be checked. And don't forget to look at "What Links Here"! Also, remember if a longer article is NOT written solely by HCB and is not a stub, do not just automatically delete it, but instead probably run it by me for safety. I've found a whole lot of treatises that HCB wrote about history--as though he is some kind of history expert--including hidden gems such as Vietnam Wars (notice the s), which is really an alternative version of Vietnam War which contains all his personal views about the war. It has to go, but not until I've managed to mine its links in-out and Related Articles several branches deep. Sigh. He was worse that I had ever imagined. He also wrote similar alternate histories around World War II (often disguised with World War Two instead of II)--apparently, dozens of them. They need to be rooted out and removed. Talk about violating the original research rules! Pat Palmer (talk) 10:25, 4 April 2024 (CDT)
And if you are listing the Related Article contents somewhere, please make them available to me. I want to keep at eye on what is being deleted, and if you are mass-deleting hundreds of articles at a time, I cannot do so. It's not that I don't trust you, but more that I need to be able to defend what we are doing, so please keep me in the loop.Pat Palmer (talk) 10:28, 4 April 2024 (CDT)
Sorry, Pat, I should have said it is "What Links Here" that I use for gathering page link titles — and the rest from each article's RA pages. At present, it's all going into User:John Leach/workshop3 but I agree it would be best to set that page up in the deletion area. Your CZ:Suspect article list is similar to mine except that you're using related article links and mine are direct links. My workshop3 is being rebuilt at the moment to integrate everything I found this afternoon — currently about 3,000 titles but about 90% will be duplicates.
If the article history shows the work was partly done by another editor, then it either goes into review or else I revise it myself and keep it, so it's sole HCB ones only which go straight into PD (sole HCB includes those where another editor might have made minor edits — corrections, in the main). If an article by a different editor should be unsatisfactory, I put it in PD too, and that is useful because it illustrates how PD will work in the longer term when all the excess is gone.
I'm aware of Vietnam Wars. I renamed it a while back and I remember thinking it needs much more than that, but I decided to reconsider it at a later date. As you have said above, the problem is much, much worse than we could ever have imagined, which is why I've decided to take a hard line against him. I honestly believe drastic action is necessary but it includes rooting out the less obvious inputs too. One thing he was diligent about was piling everything into RA pages ad nauseum and that is actually our way into and along the trail. Something I see nearly every time is a new name, usually a person like a journalist, on each RA page. I always think I should follow that to see if it opens into a clearing but they are always dead ends!
I will keep you informed as I understand your concerns. Let me rebuild the workshop3 first and then recreate it in Category:Articles for deletion. I'll write to you again later on. John (talk) 13:11, 4 April 2024 (CDT)
John, I can use the replace function in the editor to convert all the links to redlinks instead of templates if you like. As of HCB, it's theoretically okay for someone not a historian to write about history, but given the overall behavior and past record of his mis-representing his credentials, and also not having any kind of formal expertise in history, and also bullying people to take over topics he thought he knew best about, and then not even providing adequate sources for his accounts of history, I am inclined to delete any long "history" he has written as being of suspect reliability. And then, one doesn't have to look very hard at these treatises to see that they are not objective and also exhibit an extreme obsession with war and militarism. This is probably several months of sustained effort now. 8000+ stubs? The vast majority of those came from him and will likely need to go. And incidentally, I am also tackling 600+ articles flagged as "External", which means they were copied from WP often more than 15 years ago and never improved, sometimes not ever linked. Each of those (not necessarily from HCB) require review. In the end, I don't want to have ANY articles left with "External" (#4) status. They either need to be deleted or improved, possibly having WPAttribution added near the bottom, and reclassified as internal. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:26, 4 April 2024 (CDT)
Hi, Pat. For now at least, I've recreated my workshop3 file as CZ:PD target articles and placed it in Category:Articles for deletion. I hope you don't mind, but I've put CZ:Suspect article list into that category too. I think we should keep all files concerning deletion or investigation together. I've copied everything in Suspect into Target. Nearly all of it was duplication but I've outsorted the duplicates and what we have left in that file is some 2,250 items, although a good many are redlinks. We'll have to decide how to take the investigation process forward but it is an adjunct to deletion. Category:Articles for deletion March has 1,200 nominations and it looks as if all of them need to go.
I like to write about history myself but, unless a passage is something indisputable or common knowledge, I really do think it should be sourced and I also think an alternative view should be presented if there is one. I'm currently watching Ken Burns' series about Vietnam which has just been re-run over here. One thing I really like about it is how it presents both viewpoints and has a number of VietCong veterans speaking, as well as the American veterans.
I've seen several examples of HCB's overbearing attitude on talk pages. One that has annoyed me is his insistence that any codename must be fully capitalised. Until I came across his stuff, I have NEVER (sorry!) seen Operation Market Garden written in capitals. My father-in-law took part in Market Garden (he was a paratrooper) until he was arrested by those nice chaps in the Waffen SS. As you may imagine, everyone in our family is very interested in the Bridge Too Far, but Jim himself would rarely talk about it.
HCB did create many of the lemmas, but I worked through the As a while back and a lot were done by Daniel Mietchen, especially scientific terminology, so we might not be too bad on lemmas as a whole. Also, because of his desire to overfill every RA page, the HCB lemmas are easy to find.
If you like, I'll try and help with the externals, but I think the deletions have to be my priority for now until we have cleared a substantial chunk of the excess.
Are you happy for me to carry on as I have been doing today? Deleting the March noms and listing all links and relateds?
I'll have to sign off now, but I'll be back tomorrow. John (talk) 17:20, 4 April 2024 (CDT)
Yes, carry on and thank you. Pat Palmer (talk) 18:06, 4 April 2024 (CDT)

A bit of progress

Hi, Pat. I've checked all articles that start with a digit (year, ordinal, or other numeric) and they are all accounted for. Some need to be reviewed but there are none in PD at present. I've got a list of 60-odd coded titles from AAQ to AVR in my workshop4 file, all lifted from PD. I'm working through those and finding a lot of extra suspects among their links and relateds, meaning the big picture is becoming more complete.

Just one worry, though. You may have noticed that I've edited 5-fluorouracil and breast cancer today. We certainly must ensure that medical information is reliably sourced or has been written by a qualified practitioner. John (talk) 08:36, 5 April 2024 (CDT)

Your methodical approach is great and allows you to feel a deserved sense of accomplishment. Since Breast cancer is now many years old AND is External (never improved since copied from WP), I will delete it. I know literally dozens of women who've been treated for breast cancer, and two have died of it (one a man, actually), and I can safely say that treatments and understanding of it have continued to evolve. Treatment nowadays is VERY different that it was back in the 1990's, and they are more able to determine exactly which kind of cancer it is these days and use a targeted treatment. Thanks for pointing that article out. Pat Palmer (talk) 08:56, 5 April 2024 (CDT)
Oops, now I see that Breast cancer is NOT external and has been worked on by really good writers. I will leave it. Anyway, congrats on reaching a milestone! As we go on, the cross-links among these militaristic treatise will be fewer and so deletions will become simpler, I hope. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:02, 5 April 2024 (CDT)

Decision

Pat, I am sorry about this but, having considered the benefits and constraints of CZ membership for several days, I have decided to move on and I will no longer be contributing to the site. The cons heavily outweigh the pros, I'm afraid, especially the amount of time that is needed to try and knock thousands of articles into shape. Sorry again, but there it is. I wish you well and I hope you will eventually succeed in making CZ into a good site. All the best. John (talk) 07:00, 9 April 2024 (CDT)

A heads-up

I sent you an email a few minutes ago... About 850 words.

As the person paying the Lion's Share of the bills, and for other reasons, I will defer to you as the ultimate decision maker. I won't undermine your decisions. I would, however, appreciate having my input taken into account, to the extent you feel you can do that.

If you want to respond, and want to respond here, you have my permission to republish that email on the citizendium, or to merely quote it here...

Cheers! George Swan (talk) 16:50, 16 April 2024 (CDT)