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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MiszaBot III (talk | contribs) at 16:21, 29 September 2013 (Robot: Archiving 2 threads from User talk:Ironholds.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Ironholds. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Suggestions?

Hello Oliver,

Thank you so much for reviewing the page I created for Khaldoun Almhanna. The tag suggested that the article may need editing, more in-depth citations, or even complete reorganization. Would you be willing to provide me with specific feedback about how I can improve the article? I'm a new editor, so I appreciate any criticism that will help me improve my wiki-writing skills. Thank you so much for considering, Jcmeberhard (talk) 15:38, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's a great article for a new editor!--Mishae (talk) 15:53, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

@Jcmeberhard: totally! Looking at the article now:

1. I'd suggest compressing a few of the paragraphs. In the opening section, for example, above the table of contents, you have a lot of one-line paragraphs; these might work better if you combined them into only one or two paragraphs.
2. We normally don't put honorifics before names in article text - so, it would just be "Almhanna was awarded" rather than "Dr. Almhanna was awarded" or whatnot.
3. Medical fields (Ontology, Hematology) normally don't tend to be capitalised in article text - we capitalise Proper Nouns.
4. Degree qualifications (M.D.) normally aren't listed after the name in the opening sentence; memberships are. So if he was a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine then you'd list (presumably) FRSM; if he had a PhD, you wouldn't list that.

Other than that, it's a really good article; one any editor would be proud of, be they new or old :). No objection to the references - in fact, it's rare to find a new article that has such great referencing. Ironholds (talk) 15:54, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I have an objection though. We have a further reading and external links section for excessive references...--Mishae (talk) 15:58, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

No, "further reading" is for things not used as references that cover the subject of the article. Ironholds (talk) 16:02, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback! Your points regarding writing convention standards (capitalization, titles, and order of information) are incredibly helpful because I knew I was probably off, but didn't know where to go in order to learn those conventions. Also, thanks for the positive feedback because I've had a couple articles nominated for deletion based on citation disputes, even after receiving a review from the biography and medical groups. I'm still learning about what is appropriate and expected in living persons articles, and often feel I'm failing. So, thanks for being so helpful and supportive. Hopefully I'll continue to improve, Jcmeberhard (talk) 16:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, no problem :). Yeah, this place has...a lot of rules. The conventions can be found in WP:MOS, for example, which I worked out some time ago was longer than my thesis. I'd advocate reading things one step at a time ;p. Ironholds (talk) 16:20, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Mishae, are you suggesting I use a "further reading" category instead of "selected bibliography?" I do cite most of the items in the selected bib in the article, however, they are already listed in notes as references. The selected bib section was meant for medical readers who may want to easily copy the list in order to go look up the physician's work after reading the article. Jcmeberhard (talk) 16:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I wouldn't bother with that. Bibliography, in this context, would mean "works written by the subject". Further reading would be "works about the subject not already used as references". While there is inevitably going to be some overlap, they're not the same set. Ironholds (talk) 16:20, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Another thing that I would suggest is to cite references and wikify publishers, such as all those journals. For an example how a science biography article should look check this one: Boris Kholodenko.--Mishae (talk) 22:37, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

There should be a button that looks like two sets of curly braces in the toolbar; clicking that drops down an easy citation formatter. But it's non-urgent, so don't kill yourself trying to do it :). Ironholds (talk) 22:50, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

These are wonderful pointers, Mishaeand Oliver. Thank you so much. I'll implement over time, in this and other articles I'm editing. Thanks for the wonderful feedback! Jcmeberhard (talk) 02:51, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

You are so much welcome, feel free to ask us any more questions. We will be happy to answer them!--Mishae (talk) 02:52, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for August 20

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You've got mail!

Dusti 05:20, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Greeter

Is it OK if I become a greeter at the Misplaced Pages as well? I already greeted one person: User talk:Tekirkopek--Mishae (talk) 16:38, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

You don't need permission from any editor to do that :). I would, if I were you, internally evaluate if you will be able to answer all of the questions they might have, but the worst-case scenario is you can pass them to other users. Ironholds (talk) 16:53, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I already greeted two more. So far no one asked me anything. :)--Mishae (talk) 16:56, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, yesterday I greeted over a 100 souls, and only one of them asked me a question regarding transexualism on my talkpage. Do you know anyone who might help a new guy?--Mishae (talk) 16:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

It's expected that someone welcoming users will be able to answer queries themselves. Given what this user is asking for, I'd go ask the original uploaders of the maps. Ironholds (talk) 16:07, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Who could be found where?--Mishae (talk) 19:28, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Check the file history. Ironholds (talk) 21:49, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

 Done I greeted 3000 if not more users in a week!--Mishae (talk) 03:10, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Autopatrol userbox

Where can I find Autopatrol userbox for my userpage? Or it only applied to admins, recent change patrols and reverters?--Mishae (talk) 02:26, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Don't know, I'm afraid. Ironholds (talk) 02:42, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

@Mishae: I think you can find it here: Misplaced Pages:Userboxes/Wikipedia/User groups. — ΛΧΣ 03:00, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!--Mishae (talk) 03:09, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Comedians

Do you know anyone that specializes in comedians and weather a nomination worth an article?--Mishae (talk) 15:18, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

On-wiki, I'm afraid not. Ironholds (talk) 15:36, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Trade Promotion Forecasting

Hi Ironholds,

In June you added a "may be too technical" tag to this article. I just made some changes to the text - can you please look it over and let me know if my changes have adequately addressed the "too technical" issue?

Thanks!Braedon Farr (talk) 17:37, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

@Braedon Farr: hey - sorry for taking so long to get back to you :). So, your tweaks have definitely improved the article, but I'd still say it's pretty complex and confusing to the uninitiated. As examples:

1. The opening sentence is "Trade Promotion Forecasting (TPF) is the process that attempts to discover multiple correlations between trade promotion characteristics and historic demand in order to provide accurate demand forecasting for future campaigns." - that's complex and fairly ambiguous. What are characteristics, in this case? Matter of fact, what is trade promotion? (I appreciate it's linked, but that means the reader has to leave the page to read the first two words, which is non-ideal". I'd probably go for something like "Trade Promotion Forecasting is a process that attempts to predict the demand for trade promotion - marketing between a manufacturer and a retailer - by examining historic data."
2. "The ability to distinguish the uplift or demand due to the impact of the trade promotion as opposed to baseline demand is fundamental to model promotion behavior. Model determination enables what-if analysis to evaluate different campaign scenarios with the goal of improving promotion effectiveness and ROI at the product-channel level by selecting the best scenario." - something like "Forecasting is an essential part of trade promotion, as it allows the promoter to evaluate different campaigns and identify the most effective one".

I'm not sure how helpful picking specific elements out is going to be for you (let me know if it is/isn't) but hopefully you get the general tack, here: it feels like the prose is unnecessarily complex. A lot of the article, actually, is very good - although I have some thoughts around the tone used, which I'm happy to discuss after/as well as the technical issue. Hope this helps :). Regards, Ironholds (talk) 22:09, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Page Curation

I see from this that you are still occasionally popping in on that page so I assume you still have it on your watchlist. I don't think anyone really knows if you are still officially coordinating that project or not as well as your other tasks, and whether anyone is following up on the issues that are reported there. Otherwise there is little point in continuing the page which could be blanked leaving a simple message for people to address their issues directly to Bugzilla - not that, by all accounts, it would help much either. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:12, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Have you been looking at Bugzilla directly? If so, you'll note that of the three extant bugs, one is fixed and waiting deployment and the other two are being fixed. I'm not officially coordinating the page, but as a new page patroller I pop my head in and report bugs as a volunteer. Ironholds (talk) 11:24, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi!

Hi O!, Please, let me know when you are available to finish the review. Best wishes! Miss Bono 12:54, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey! Sorry; work has been totally crazy. I should hopefully have some time over the next few days - I'll let you know if something gets in the way :). Ironholds (talk) 13:56, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. There's no rush, Oliver, I just wanted to make sure that you haven't forgot. Thanks again and I wish you luck from the bottom of my heart. Have a good day-- well, I hope you are already having a good one, I just checked the world clock in my phone and is 3:22 pm in Londod. Here is 10:22 am... Best! :) Miss Bono 14:23, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Heh; I rarely operate on my native timezone anyway (currently hovering around Hawaii) but, yes :). I'll add to the copyedit now. Ironholds (talk) 22:13, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Stay on Hawaii time, Oliver. We will fly there later this month to cruise to five ports on four islands. I will need you to proofread my major expansions of many Hawaii-related articles. Cullen Let's discuss it 04:54, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Happy to do so! Drop Brandon a note if you want some hints on places to visit - it's one of his favourite places. Ironholds (talk) 04:57, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Ali Hewson

Hi Oliver,

Thanks for taking some of your time again to review the article. I left some notes for you at the talk page :) Most of my problems there were just because of my poor knowdlege of the language. ZooTgirl 12:40, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Heh; English is a terrible language, full stop! It reflects more on the mongrel-like nature of it than it does on you, I think. I'll take a look in a tick :). Ironholds (talk) 13:23, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks :) ZooTgirl 13:56, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Oliver (and Miss Bono), I just read over the discussion on the Ali Hewson talk page, and I've got to say that is a very thorough evaluation of the language and phrasing of the whole article. This is very good work, and I thank you both. Cullen Let's discuss it 04:49, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Happy to help :). Ironholds (talk) 04:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I created a redirect

With WP:Curation toolbar and I have mentioned the feature at WP:WMF, FYI. Feel free to suggest improvements to that page, or edit it yourself. Biosthmors (talk) 14:49, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks; I'm afraid my suggested improvements would be a fairly substantial cull :/. As it happens, Page Curation was released last May. Ironholds (talk) 15:58, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

O dern. That unhelpful? May 2012, eh? I guess I never visit new pages. Are there any stats on how often the page curation tool is used? It looks cool and useful and I just saw it for the first time recently. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 16:48, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Try these graphs. There was a fairly serious bug recently (which appears now to have been patched), and I think that's what's causing reviewers to switch. Ironholds (talk) 16:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. Random idea, because I might try to convince a retired person who likes to play solitare on their computer that new page patrol is a game... Maybe it would be nice to have them receive automated barnstars at certain levels of progress. Is that a feature? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 19:19, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

It's not, although I try to keep an eye on the logs and give barnstars out when appropriate. I'd advise caution on that approach; I suspect they'd run into patrollers who would take a rather dim view of anything on Misplaced Pages being fun ;p. Ironholds (talk) 19:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

But it is a game, surely? With nuns and terrorists, right? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:51, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

If you would have gone to Catholic school, you would have known that nuns are terrorists. I play a drinking game with Misplaced Pages. How many times someone yells at Oliver in a day for some minor software change that ruined their life is how many shots I take. For some odd reason, I don't remember the entire month of July. Bgwhite (talk) 06:09, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

This is getting complicated, because I did attend a Catholic school, just not for very long, at a very young age, I don't remember many nuns being involved, and the more terroristic aspects of my education all occurred later in what was theoretically a rather open-minded Anglican school (if it had a religious denomination at all, but it certainly wasn't Catholic). As for July (or perhaps it was August), I was reading the book Schindler's Ark at the time, and I felt there were commonalities between IH and the book's slightly flawed heavy-drinking hero. As our article puts it, "a certain gusto". IH should avoid opening any rodent farms in Argentina. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:54, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I'll do my best :P. Ironholds (talk) 23:47, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Barnstars

Hi its me again. I'm confused about barnstars, someone gave me a Photographer's barnstar even though that I didn't took a single shot! Check my talkpage. My main question is; is it O.K. for a user to give someone an award for something that a user didn't do? Such as my case here...--Mishae (talk) 03:33, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that's fine; I suspect the user was confused (or misclicked, or thought it was a barnstar from photographers, and they're a photographer, or...so on). There's nothing wrong with making a mistake. Obviously displaying it on your userpage or whatnot would probably not be appropriate, and you might want to send the user a note thanking them but explaining the problem - that way they can avoid it in the future. Ironholds (talk) 05:23, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

That's what I did.--Mishae (talk) 03:26, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Article nominated for deletion

Hey sorry if I am posting this in the wrong place... I honestly haven't made too many edits and am not 100% familiar with all the protocols. But anyway, I disagree with your reasoning for deleting, again, the page on Brock Zanrosso. The WP:MUSIC, says that if he has one or placed in a major music competition, that being the Canadian show The Nest Star where he placed second in 2009, they can have a page. His music has also been on at least the billboard emerging musician charts as well as played in hundreds of abercrombie stores around the country. And the musician criteria indicates only one of those points needs to be met. I honestly can provide these sources I just hadn't gotten around to finish it just yet and was not expecting it to be deleted again before I had the chance to do so. He is clearly not the most well known musician ever, but he does, in my opinion meet the criteria I listed above and I am sure when I finish working on it I will be able to source more criteria. I am hoping you'll undo your change and allow me to try and finish the article... I figured it was a minor article that I could work on without much trouble. I would reverse it myself but I don't want to start a fight or anything like that. Hope you understand,

-Fred Fjf1085 (talk) 04:04, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Fjf1085 I took a look at the article you wrote. I thought a fresh perspective would help.

1. First off, The Next Star is not a music competition per se. It is reality show competition and popularity contest. WP:MUSIC also states "maybe", "...may be notable if it meets at least one of the following criteria:"
2. Reality show contestants are generally not "notable" enough to get an article. For example, America's Got Talent (season 8) just finished and only two contestants currently have an article. Both articles have been around a few years. I'm sure a couple more contestants will get articles after deals are done and records are released.
3. Right now, it has to come down to his music. If you have a reliable ref where it states he was on Canada's official music chart, that would do it. From Canadian Albums Chart, it appears Billboard is "official" chart.
4. Do you have any other reliable reference about him?

Bgwhite (talk) 05:17, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Bgwhite is, as always, on the mark :). So, my suggestion would be to work on it as a draft - say, in User:Fjf1085/sandbox - and try to get the article to address the points above. I'm happy to give you feedback on the progress you make if you want. Ironholds (talk) 17:21, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Welcomes and their versions

One of the users on my talkpage issued a concern that I welcomed him with an outdated version of a template. I personally don't see a difference between the new and the old one (aside from more colour in the new ones). I explained to the user that its no big deal, and even added Assume good faith policy link to the already not bad welcome. Can you explain to me what does he mean by old version (mine was of 2009) and the new ones? Thanks.--Mishae (talk) 03:33, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, I can't see a substantive difference. Generally-speaking I try to avoid template-based welcoming, however. Ironholds (talk) 06:10, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Not that it's any of my business, but would you mind explaining why? I'm only asking because I'm curious. --Big Caboose (talk) 16:57, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

A couple of reasons. The first is specific to our templates, which I find to be almost the opposite of what we want. A new user comes in, without a particular attachment to Misplaced Pages - they're just curious (maybe about our mission, maybe about the ability to edit and say their piece). Whatever their motivation, they're not attached to the site yet, not to the degree of >1000 edit wikipedians. And they come in, make a couple of edits....and suddenly they're being presented with a massive, obviously semi-automated piece of text that directs them to a ton of different policies containing a lot of text and internal terminology, which themselves link off to a lot of policies containing...and so on, and so forth. Someone comes in curious and ends up overwhelmed with information through a template, the relevance of which is achieved through giving them everything they could possibly need, at once.

The second - and this is generalisable to templates generally - is that templates are a way of welcoming a user without concern or consideration. You just automatically send them a very general note. It's not the same as making an actual, human connection - reaching out and saying "hey, I loved your edit to X, keep it up! If you need any help, feel free to ask whatever questions you want". Making them feel like a real person saw their work and appreciates it.

When I reach out (admittedly, it's normally to users I see through Special:NewPagesFeed and other mechanisms, and so targets more experienced users) it's with direct praise and barnstars aimed at the specific contribution(s) I appreciated. I've noticed I get a much higher response rate, and many more conversations, than if I was just blindly firing templates at people. Ironholds (talk) 20:00, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh. Okay. I guess that makes sense.

Thanks. --Big Caboose (talk) 21:40, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

No problem :). Personalised messages (with as few links as possible!) are always preferable. Ironholds (talk) 23:38, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Is there need for additional reference in Outline of Karnataka

Is there any need for additional reference , because the whole article is an outline for pointing to other Misplaced Pages articles regarding Karnataka and some sections are referenced where it was needed (hope so), if not could you please point out the sections where references are need and I will add it. Thanks for your help in advance. KAS 12:12, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Well...frankly, all the sections not currently referenced. The problem with relying on the reference quality in other articles is that that quality can change dramatically over time. Ironholds (talk) 16:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)