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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Worldtraveller (talk | contribs) at 23:24, 23 February 2007 (question). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For your tireless work in making Wikipedia better, for keeping Template:Feature up-to-date, for doing the grunt work of cleaning up Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, for mediating in disputes, for adding lots of really nice pictures, and for still finding the time to work on articles! In a few months you've already become a highly valued member of the community. Stay with us and don't burn out, please. --Eloquence Apr 10, 2004


Wesley Clark

Hi Raul, I figured, given the statement "The FA Director determines the timing of the process for each nomination" on WP:FA I should bring this issue to you. I've been working heavily on an FAC for Wesley Clark, which seems likely to fail. I've gotten some of the opposers to withdraw, but one is unresponsive and there are few if any actual support votes (new voters likely shying away from the bulky FAC that's been built up). I was wondering what the time period is I'd have to wait before nominating the article again. I think with the rewrites and maybe a touch more work it really is ready (but, as I said, I think the bulky, long, FAC is scaring away new voters as there've been almost none, even oppose votes). Staxringold talkcontribs 02:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I usually recommend waiting a minimum of 2-4 weeks after the nom fails before renominating.

Thanks!

Thanks for your help :) Maîtresse 08:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. Enjoy the new username. Raul654 00:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well done!

I just thought I should leave you a note that I think the features articles you have been choosing for the main page have been fabulous choices of late. —Malber (talk • contribs • game) 15:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why thank you. Raul654 00:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bot stalled again

User talk:Jmax-bot. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:22, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this thing more trouble than it's worth? Marskell 12:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know anything about bots, but it seems it's just not being watched closely enough. I wonder if we could give it to Gimmetrow? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:41, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Jmax- (talk · contribs) shows no contribs since late January; maybe we can have the bot assigned to Dr pda or Gimmetrow? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It appears Jmax bot died in a hard drive crash. Furthermore, I saw someone comment somewhere that the new cascading main page protection seems to cause problems with bots.
As to the former problem, being a naturally cautious person, I had Jmax send me a copy of the bot's code in January when we were considering the idea. I have offered to send it back to him. But it might just be better to have someone else do it. Perhaps schultz, who already has a bot run each day to bold the main page article. I think he's an admin, so it wouldn't be a problem having him update the FA count. Raul654 00:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please unblock?

Hi, would you please unblock my IP address User talk:67.167.244.119? Please review my unblock request on that page.--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 02:57, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cricket World Cup FAC

Just wondering why no decision was made on it since it seems to me everything that has been discussed has been seen to. Also why has the FA # reimained the same? Buc 09:32, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just looked and it looks like the last remaining objection was withdrawn today. Assuming this continues, I'll promote it during my next pass. Raul654 01:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jenna Jameson featured?

Hi - I notice you just promoted Jenna Jameson. I believe Worldtraveller's comments remain unaddressed, and I entered some comments in a similar vein (perhaps after you decided) that certainly remain unaddressed. I don't know if you ever change your mind due to "late breaking" comments on the FAC page, but my guess is that promoting this article in its current state will help to solidify Worldtraveller's opinion that WP is broken. I don't actually care about this specific article. I do care about losing editors of the caliber of Worldtraveller. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I'm sorry, but that complaint ("too long for a porn star") is one of the two complaints that I just can't fulfill without destroying the article. One of the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria is "comprehensive", and it doesn't say anything about "comprehensive, except for porn stars". As is, I will confidently assert we have the best article on this subject on the Web, and that includes some pretty good articles, the ones we use as sources: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Rolling Stone, etc. If we eviscerate it, we won't. Do note, however, that Wt's comparison to Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, etc., is incorrect, those articles are far longer, even if you don't include the sub-articles, and especially if you do. WP:SIZE, which Wt quotes in one one his edit comments, specifically excludes references from article length for comparison, and those make up half the article body. The other objection that I just can't resolve completely is "no fair use images whatsoever" - that's clearly not the way we do things here. I'd be very happy to address other issues, nothing is perfect.
Anyway, responding to that is not quite why I'm here - I wanted to ask about the "main page?" concerns discussed on Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/Jenna_Jameson. Raoul/Mark, is it correct that this article will never be on the main page? Or do you think it is qualified? --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In reply to Rick, I agree with AnonEMouse's characterization of the objection - I do not consider "too detailed" to be a compelling objection. As far as putting this article on the main page, I am undecided, but leaning a bit towards 'no'. IMO, 'History of erotic depictions' was close to the line, but still a few steps inside the boundary. I'm not so sure about Jenna Jamison though. Raul654 02:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My issue was not "too detailed" (I entered a list of specific, detailed comments on the FAC page - which I think simply suffered from bad timing) and based on a comment on his talk page I believe WT meant to leave a more detailed critique (but was otherwise occupied - and I suspect "too detailed" is not an accurate summary). This is not a big deal in my book and enough time has passed that it is now clearly moot (more specifically, I think what's done should remain done). The only thing about this that concerns me at this point is that I seem to have entered comments on the FAC page after the article was promoted (the bot update of the FAC page lagged your edit of WP:FA sufficiently to allow this - I've checked the time stamps). Perhaps this may argue that the bot should work the other direction (i.e. you close the discussion at the FAC page and have the bot update WP:FA). It is a trifle annoying to have spent time composing comments that weren't considered. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They weren't considered because you made the post almost an hour after I closed the nomination and removed it from the FAC. [1][2] The FAC page is the authoritative listing of what is and is not currently nominated. If something is not there, then it is not curretly a nomination. The whole point of using the bot is so I don't have to hand-close 50+ nominations a week. Raul654 03:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is this [3] the edit that queues the bot, or this [4]? It doesn't really matter, the point is that the FAC page looked open (albeit from a direct link, rather than from the transclusion at WP:FAC). It may not come up often, and you're certainly free to say "tough shit", but there does seem to be a window. Finding a way to close it seems like a good idea to me. Perhaps you could run a "close" bot that does both. BTW - I can't really tell, but it seems like you're annoyed. I'm not, and I don't mean this to come across as whining. Bots are good. Leaving a window open is bad (especially if it was open for more than an hour). And again, I don't care about this article in particular. I appreciate your utter selfless devotion to what you must surely sometimes think is a tremendously thankless task (I, frankly, occasionally wonder about your sanity). -- Rick Block (talk) 04:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, I'm not annoyed. Sorry if I came off that way :)
I'm pretty sure the bot looks at the promotion and archive logs, so the edits that trigger it would be this and this. Raul654 04:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Too detailed" is not entirely what my objection was, but even if it had been, why is that not a compelling objection? What is criterion 4 of WP:WIAFA for? I have to say that this is just the latest of several articles have been promoted over actionable objections that I've made. I make objections based on the FA criteria, the author denies that there is a problem, the article gets promoted anyway. On similar grounds I objected to Chetwynd, British Columbia - excessive detail, incredibly boring writing, opinions from references being quoted as fact. Similarly, Halo 2 was grotesquely verbose, I gave examples of how the text could be cut in half or better without sacrificing any detail. But the author denied this, and the article got promoted. This, too, goes into ridiculous detail for such an ephemeral person. I'd suggest that if objections based on criterion 4 are always ignored, then the criterion should be scrapped.

Worse, probably, than the excessive length in this case, is the writing in a deliberately favourable tone and quoting from her autobiography as if it is fact. Look at the quote in the section on early life; is this regurgitation of an opinion from a source, presented as fact, an acceptable way of writing? Similarly, She remembers telling Wicked Pictures founder Steve Orenstein... is not acceptable, in my opinion - it is writing deliberately favourable to the subject, and more akin to a magazine article than an encyclopaedia article. Also, the list of awards is not encyclopaedic - it seems like just another example of the author's evident pro-Jameson attitude. I have to say I can't really understand why the article was promoted. Worldtraveller 00:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not compelling because with few exceptions, what is and is not worth including in the article is inherently subjective (it's basically AFD in miniature). Every article clearly has some things that everyone can agree should be mentioned. When there is a disagreement as to the rest, I am inclined to err on the side of having our featured articles be too informative versus being not informative enough. (So when someone objects that something important is missing, I take those objections quite seriously) On the other hand, when someone objects that an article is too long, I check to see the length, and unless it's above the usual range (in the neighborhood of 30-80 kb, I think) I usually take such objections with a grain of salt. Obviously, someone thought it was important enough to merit mentioning in the article. Raul654 00:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As to the issue of using autobiography as a source: Generally speaking, "X says this" sentence constructions should only be used in cases where there are conflicting accounts of some factoid. This is common in an article on, for example, global warming (although in that case, much of the disagreement is created by certain organizations with a vested economic interest in manufacturing dispute). I can't speak per se on the issue of directly quoting her autobiography, but unless someone else has critizied and/or published a conflicting description of some particular event or set of events, I see no problem with taking her autobiography as an authoritative source on her life. Granted, this doesn't strictly extend to opinions and interpretation of events, but definitely for straight factual matters Raul654 00:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I guess there's really no point arguing the merits of this nomination now. I suppose we can list this on FAR in a few weeks. The important thing for me to know, though, is this - I spent a lot of time commenting on the three nominations I've mentioned, and if I'd known in advance that my objections were going to be ignored whatever happened, I wouldn't have made them. Am I always going to be wasting my time when I criticise an article's writing style, tone and verbosity? Will they always be promoted regardless? Worldtraveller 23:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The KLF

Hi Raul. I'm unsure of how one usually goes about this, but the really good article on The KLF has already been requested for the main page a few months back. It won best article in its category ("humanities and culture") at Wikimania 2006, and is a really authorative, engaging read. I'm messaging you because 9th March is the 20th anniversary of the duo's first release, so I was wondering if the article could be on the main page on that specific date? I think it would be rather fitting. What do you think? LuciferMorgan 00:23, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not a problem. Raul654 01:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

St. Petersburg, Russia

I have been a real idiot in that FAC. I appologize. (I have written an apology to sandy too) If you feel it must be removed from FAC asap, please feel free to do so. --Parker007 00:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:WikiProjectBanners

Template:WikiProjectBanners has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. -- Ned Scott 08:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there

How are you? Haven't seen you on IRC for quite a while! --Cat out 13:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

banners

I'm sorry for losing my cool, but this is so .. Let me put it this way, I'd rather delete the WikiProjects behind pointless banners than just hide their banners for a huge number of these situations. I don't see this as a real solution to the problem, I see it as ignoring the problem. -- Ned Scott 08:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And holy crap, there's nothing wrong with putting the word out about resources for editors, WikiProject or Peer review or whatever. This negative image spin on WikiProjects and their banners just seems so.. underhanded. Granted, like I said, I have no problems removing banners of projects that don't help out, etc. -- Ned Scott 08:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how closely you keep track...

...but this has gotten a little interesting, and I figured you should be aware of the probable sock parade. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving

Would you like me to decrease the limit to 7 days instead of 14? Essjay (Talk) 23:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, please. Raul654 23:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 Done MWHAHAHAH! Another person added to the ranks of obsessive archivers! Essjay (Talk) 00:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not obsessive - it's just that I get new messsages here so frequently that if I don't archive it often, it gets flooded too quickly. Raul654 01:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I know the feeling; I always describe myself as "obsessive" because I archive three or four times a day. ;) Essjay (Talk) 01:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/West Indian cricket team in England in 1988

Hi Raul654. There seems to be no real dissention on the quality of this article. Do we need do any more to secure FA status? Cheers, --Dweller 13:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Just fine"

Hey. Regarding your revert: did you misunderstand what I meant in my edit summary? Anyway, I managed to fix all of em (there were a lot). El_C 21:23, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, ok, I think I misunderstood your comment. Thanks for the fixes. Raul654 21:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No problem; that's what I thought. El_C 21:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for forwarding

Hi Raul. Just a quick thank you note for forwarding the e-mail. Thanks a bunch. Cheers, Redux 00:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Music files

Certainly; I'll have a look at them, and thanks for putting them there. I'm about to sign off for the evening so it will be tomorrow or later. Cheers! Antandrus (talk) 05:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question

Hello, I was just wondering do the newest promoted featured articles go ontop at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Featured log/February 2007? Its just a bit too confusing for me. Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 20:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Their FAC noms do. Raul654 21:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gimmebot question

The bot runs when the operator is online and has time to babysit it. This time, for instance, there was one page where the fac template was gone, another where it had been changed to a facfailed (though the article was promoted...), and another where someone had already updated the talk page. Other things come up all the time. Dealing with the ArticleHistory template is a few orders of magnitude more complicated than replacing a fac template with a featured or facfailed, the original intention of the bot. Gimmetrow 02:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I understand completely. Raul654 02:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good thing the bot didn't jump on the recent archives :)
Sandy seems to be floating the idea of GimmeBot taking over the FA count. For various reasons, I'm not interested in doing that task at this time. Gimmetrow 04:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FA bot

We sort of talked around this a bit above, but what do you think about the idea of you running a FA bot to close any windows between declaring an article to be FA and the closing of the FAC page? I haven't actually written a bot yet, but it's sort of on my list of things to do sometime (or perhaps Gimmetrow might be willing). The idea is you run a program that gets told (somehow) which articles are promoted and which are rejected, then it moves the transcludes around as appropriate, closes the relevant FAC pages, adds the articles to WP:FA, etc. Given that Gimmebot does at least part of this already, it seems like having you run it would be more direct (and more timely). Just a suggestion. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The order I usually do it in is:
  1. Copy and paste the older FA noms to a subpage in my userspace (but I don't save them. I just preview)
  2. Using a text editor, I sort the noms into three sets - the ones that are still indeterminant, the ones to be promoted, and the ones that have failed. I save the list of promoted ones in the FA promotion archive, the failed ones in the archive, and on the FAC I replace the entire nom set with the indeterminant ones.
  3. I copy the succesful noms onto goings-on
  4. I merge the promoted set with the list of featured articles
  5. I update the count.

The merging into the FA list and the count updating could be done entirely automatically. Gimmebot, as Gimmetrow just said, does require supervision, though, so fully automating it would be a bad idea. Raul654 05:04, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How could merging into the FA list be entirely automatic? They are listed in categories on WP:FA.
Most of the source of non-automation comes from dealing with the article talk page. It would be possible to split the FAC discussion tagging from the talk page updating, but that would create other problems. I should note that the last batch, which was quite short (and almost all promotions take less work), still took 10 minutes for the bot. Frankly, I don't really see a problem here with this "window" - it always existed when people did the job. Perhaps, if all this info were metadata that editors could not edit, the bot could be fully automated. There would still need to be some lag to allow for human error closing a discussion. Gimmetrow 05:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How could merging into the FA list be entirely automatic? They are listed in categories on WP:FA. - I envision it as a command-line bot which takes the location of a file. That file is formatted something like articlename catname [optional alphabetizing parameter, if it's not the first one] The alphabetizing parameter indicates which word to alphabetize with. Raul654 05:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the window Rick speaks of used to be on the order of minutes for some articles (the time it took for me to go from archiving all the FAC noms to tagging the promoted ones) and hours/days for others (I left doing the failed ones to BoG and later Sandy). Now, they are all going to take hours. Raul654 05:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, gimmetrow - are you aware the rate limit for bots has been increased to 15 per minute? Raul654 05:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Creation of that job file isn't automatic. It could be done while the nomination is in process, but it strikes me as yet more work. As for the rate limit, yes I know it has been increased.
If the window is such a problem, you could go back to changing fac->featured, and I'll have the bot check for the featured template again. You wouldn't need to update project assessments, though, as the bot could still catch any that were not at FA when it updated articlehistory. Gimmetrow 05:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's a lot less work for me to create a file containing the names of promoted articles (which I already do anyway) and their categories than it is for me to do a alphabetized merge between a list of 10-20 and a list of 1000.
As far as the window, I'm not all that concerned. I think it's something people will learn to live with. Raul654 05:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
About the "window" - as it stands there's a distinct window between the time Mark decides to promote an article (and does his thing) and when the FAC page is closed. This window allows additional comments to be added to the FAC page that aren't considered in Mark's decision, aren't responded to, and end up in the "closed" version of the FAC page (for one example, see Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Jenna_Jameson - look at the timestamps related to Mark's promotion decision, my comments, and the closing of the FAC). Doing this manually, I'd close the FAC pages first, then move the transclusions around (and closing the FACs is a pain, so that's not how it's currently done). What I'm suggesting is that Mark run a tool (bot) that closes the FACs, moves the transclusions, and does whatever else can be automated, all in one step. There's always a window between Mark's decision and additional comments, but artificially increasing this (by having the FAC closure be done by a bot run at some random interval after Mark makes his decision) doesn't seem like the best way to do this. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, another person has asked over at User talk:GimmeBot about having the bot add the article template with the star. Perhaps you would like to respond to this one? Gimmetrow 22:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unblock

Sorry, not sure where to put this. You put a block on our small company's IP without any understandable explanation. I think this may have been a mistake. Can you please look into your actions and consider lifting them? Thanks. I am referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:208.57.149.253

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