Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:34, 12 November 2016

Archives

one two (Mar 21 2006-July 11 2006) three (July 20 2006-Sept 24 2006) four (Sept 30 2006-Oct 31 2006) five six seven (May 2007) eight (June 2007) nine (July 2007) ten (Aug 2007) eleven (Sept 2007) twelve (Oct 2007) thirteen (Nov 2007) fourteen (Dec 2007-Feb 2008) fifteen (Mar 2008)

This page has archives. Sections older than 14 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

Removal of unsourced information

I mentioned over at Socrates that

There's a general feeling at V — I can't say that there's consensus on it, unlike what I've said above — that editors who make a practice of going from article to article deleting unsourced information as a routine or habitual matter may be subject to sanctions (at least those editors who don't do much else), but that's more for not routinely following best practices and thus not being here for the benefit of the encyclopedia than it is for removing unsourced material in any individual case.

Just for the sake of being pedantic thorough let me also mention that there's also some feeling, far less discussed there, that mass removals of large amounts of unsourced information from a single article on the mere grounds that it is unsourced may also be sanctionable, at least if done disruptively. What I've seen in practice on that point is that when a well-thought-of, generally neutral, experienced editor does it, even reducing an article from a fairly lengthy one to a stub (generally referred to as "reworking an article"), he or she is likely to have it stick, even over some objection. When that's done by a newcomer or a SPA or an otherwise-disreputable editor (generally referred to as "slash and burn" or — ahem — a "hatchet job"), it's not. The difference, of course, is that in the first case the community is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that his or her motive is doing what's best for the encyclopedia; but not so much in the latter case. If I was going to go all theoretical on that, I'd further say that it's because the community is willing to AGF on the reputable editor and presume that he's actually given serious consideration to whether the material is sourceable before removing it, but that they're not willing to do that — and are in violation of AGF and/or BITE for not being willing to do so — in the case of the less-reputable editor.

I make no bones about this: At the discussions over at V on this subject I'm one of the advocates for the can-delete-just-because-it's-unsourced position. Here's the reason why: Since we have no editorial board or other oversight to insure reliability of the information we present, that information is only as reliable as the sources we present for it. Except for information which is blindingly obvious or which is unquestionably verifiable with every piece of unsourced information we have here we're putting the reliability of the encyclopedia a little more into question. Now does that mean that I routinely go around removing unsourced information? No, but I do so on occasion when I find stuff that I think is highly unlikely and occasionally I do so without looking for sources if I think that it's unlikely to be reliably sourceable. But we need to retain the ability to do just that to preserve the the reputation for reliability of the encyclopedia, even if best practices suggest that most of the time there are better ways to handle it. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:40, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back

It's good to see you active again. As you can probably see, there aren't many sane people left, so I'm glad you're still around. I hope you're well. MastCell  18:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Me too. Bishonen | talk 23:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC).

Me as well. John Carter (talk) 23:14, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I was afraid you were staying away because you were angry about something, like your notoriously petulant namesake. MastCell  23:27, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Socratic problem

The article was just horrendous to read and I listed some reasons on the article's talk page. Thought I'd let you know, you seemed interested in the article. Psychotic Spartan 123 07:12, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you comment at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. I added a comment there. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:12, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Advice on English language

Excerpt from Suetonius on Christians Talk page:

Thanks. That is all clear to me. But what you seemed to say (twice) is to dispute the English phrase "prompted by Chresto". Now, you have still not quoted me the pertinent discussion section as requested (reminiscent of Cynwolfe's behaviour, by the way - work on it please). I continue doubting that such a discussion line exists. My working hypothesis is that you have simply misphrased your complaint. No problem. Anyway, I am shifting your section and my reponses into the section where it belongs. This is to unclutter the section dedicated to Smeat75, which is about a different topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.172.13 (talk • contribs)

Actually, here's a few things you can "work on": 1) sign your posts by typing four tildes at the end of your comment. It's hard for people to follow discussion when comments are unsigned. I have been adding your signature, but if you are interested in constructive discussion, surely you can learn this small component of Misplaced Pages etiquette. 2) Pay better attention to what other people are saying. I am not disputing anything about the English phrase "prompted by Chresto", I am talking about the meaning of the Latin phrase impulsore Chresto in Suetonius 25.4. It cannot mean what Slingerland wants it to mean, as both Cynwolfe and I have already stated. 3) Stop demanding that other editors look up or quote posts that you are perfectly capable of finding on your own, especially because you have already made reference to them in your previous posts. The post where Cynwolfe quotes Gruen is on this very page, I have trouble imagining that you are unable to find it. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:01, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Then let me help you out of your trouble. What you did say was: "The reason why impulsore Chresto cannot mean "prompted by Chrestus" has been explained in detail above." What you evidently meant to say was: "The reason why impulsore Chresto cannot refer to expulit has been explained in detail above." Hence you inadvertantly started off a wild goose chase for a discussion that does not exist. (Now pause for thought - if you and I can make such a complete communicative mess in English, what hope do we have of ever being sure about a Latin author's intentions?). No reply needed, we have both wasted enough time on a mare's nest. Such is the human condition.81.135.37.136 (talk) 09:50, 11 January 2016 (UTC)Hermann ze German

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Akhilleus. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

• Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
• A bot will post a notification at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)