User talk:Hoary/Archive 12

When you mentioned a "less emotive state", I was thinking of Connecticut. But that's probably not what you had in mind. Anyhow, I think the final paragraph you removed, while unsourced and unencyclopedic editorial opinion, was pretty on the mark. Of course, I canceled my subscription after they decided to publish Farber's piece on teh HIV/AIDS conspiracy - because if I know they don't fact-check medical articles, where I can catch them, then why should I trust their writing on subjects where I have to take their word for it? Anyhow... MastCell ^Talk 17:38, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed some rather good turns of phrase in what I impatiently reverted. But, questions of the unencyclopedic aside, I didn't know where the boundary was between the perceptive and the horseshitty.

I'd hardly been aware of Harper's, vaguely assuming that it was some vehicle to persuade the rich and insecure to spend yet more of their money on handbags and wristwatches. But one day in a bookstore in Seoul's new airport some front-page headline caught my eye and I flicked through it, bought it, and read it on the way to Yurp. The best ingredient was an article by Lapham, a new name to me. I was delighted to infer that the thinking and reading US population was still sufficiently numerous to support a fourth magazine worth reading (after The Baffler, NYRB and [bits of] the New Yorker).

I might have guessed that this wouldn't last.

Thinking of the discerning US public's demand for accuracy in reporting ... seen this? -- Hoary (talk) 22:40, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I used to read Harper's religiously - among other things, for some time it was one of the few outlets for new creative writing in the US (things are better now). And they do some very interesting and thought-provoking work. Lewis Lapham's columns were always enjoyable reading. On the other hand, I started to pick up a few warning signals over time.

They published an article on the treatment (or lack thereof) of hepatitis C in the US prison system, where it is fairly widespread. The gist was that the US prison system is shitty, which isn't exactly news. But the author was either ignorant of or uninterested in the realities of treating hepatitis C, even outside prison, insofar as those realities would have undercut The Message. I let that slide, but the Farber piece - which was basically a one-way ticket to Crazytown, published with a straight face - was the last straw. That piece clearly had not been fact-checked - at least not by anyone with a working college-level knowledge of biology and immunology. So then I didn't trust them anymore.

Occasionally I see Harper's at the newsstand, and the cover invitingly beckons... but I haven't read it since. Its literary criticism did tend toward the insular and pretentious, but a little bit of that is OK. It's almost charmingly anachronistic in today's world to be snobbish about the work of, say, Somerset Maugham, or even to know who he is.

I have to say I stopped watching Presidential press conferences after Bush left office - they lost the sense of surreal absurdity that made them so worthwhile. I remember when Bush explained the need to waterboard detainees by saying: "These are people who are trained to disassemble!" Apparently he was getting blank stares from the press corps, because he helpfully added: "That means not tell the truth." Or when Ari Fleischer issued "reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do" if they didn't want to get in trouble after 9/11. Those kind of things, that make you look at the person next to you to see if they really happened, are no longer a feature of Presidential press conferences. Although I've bet a friend that Gibbs will ask about Obama's birth certificate during the run-up to this November's elections... MastCell ^Talk 23:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC) Farber should have realized that the only real solutions come from science. Like, y'know, this stuff (and another tip of the hat to Wonkette). The best WH news conference I've seen is the one created by Colbert. But then I've never seen "Jeff Gannon" at work. -- Hoary (talk) 23:34, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Did I spend that long? I thought I'd do a stub in an hour, but I got engrossed. I'm now emailing to see if I can get some free images to use, and it's in the DYK queue as well. But please don't make any more tempting suggestions too soon! Ty

Thanks for the corrections. This format "Retrieved 2010-08-14" happened automatically in Word without me knowing, when I put the text there for safekeeping at one stage, then copied and pasted it. Thanks again Microsoft. Something to watch. Ty 00:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Now I'm confused. I thought it was me who put those in, for the Guardian material I'd just located online. It's a rather barbaric format but at least it's concise and in an order that's more sensible than that used by the inscrutable Americans. But then I noticed that elsewhere in your article you'd used another format, so I switched to that. ¶ As for Word, I use OpenOffice instead. It's hardly any better or worse, but at least I don't have to transfer any money to Microsoft in order to use it. -- Hoary (talk) 00:40, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Series of edits undoes most of the improving that has been made in Brazil (with the insertion of a blank line that made it very difficult to see what changes were actually done). I reverted to the last reliable version, and was immediately re-reverted, with this cute edit summary: (Reverting vandalism). Ninguém (talk) 21:08, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm impressed. You're doing a very thorough job, and personally, I like the results. Good work! And thank you. Pdfpdf (talk) 12:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding some of your comments: (via http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surrender_of_Japan&action=historysubmit&diff=380089042&oldid=379968244)

• 21 May 1945: Malik (Soviet ambassador to Tokyo) tells Tanakamura^[vague] that the treaty continues in force.
  • Tanakamura was
• 24 June 1945: Malik tells Hirota^[vague] that the Neutrality Pact ... will continue ... until it expires.
  • Hirota was

Hmmm. That's a worry; I know the names, but can't remember the positions.
I'll fill in the gaps tomorrow.
Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 12:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

By-the-way, you seem to be linking Sato, but not Malik or Molotov. Any particular reason for that? Pdfpdf (talk) 12:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm linking Satō because readers are likely to think "'Satō'? Who he?" (By contrast, I'm always unenthusiastic about links that are unlikely to appeal: At first, some refused to believe the Americans had built an atomic bomb.) There's no particular reason why I'm not linking Malik or Molotov; please go ahead. -- Hoary (talk) 12:27, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Pdfpdf (talk) 12:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Hoary - the work you've been doing on the Surrender article is good, but something is bothering me. You have repeatedly tagged things as vague that could be trivially fixed with one or two google searches. The above paragraph, for example. It was a reference to Kōki Hirota. I didn't know that at first, but I figured it out with exactly 1 google search. Ditto this that I fixed earlier -- searching for that quote on Google Books produces exactly one hit, with a page number. Please spend a minute checking google before tagging the article. Raul654 (talk) 17:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Also, according to this, Tanakamura was a fishing fleet owner. Raul654 (talk) 17:33, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, very deserved criticisms.

I'll explain the process. When I came across the article, after an interval of some months if not years, I was struck by the way it was curiously unidiomatic, as if revised by somebody for whom English was a near-perfect second language but one marked by at least one distinct oddity. (Adverb placement was strange.) I did a quick revision. As I did this, I became aware of minor content oddities: the full name and military position of one person would be repeated, the full name of another stated nowhere. So I printed out the whole thing and went through the result with a red pen while commuting to and from work a couple of times (and with no computer or other browsing device). I then transferred the red-penning to the article, while rather less awake and energetic than I'd been on the train. While doing this, I googled for oddities that particularly intrigued me and for those that benefited from an elementary ability in Japanese. I left the rest as "vague", "dubious" and so forth not from any assumption that they'd be particularly hard to fix, let alone any desire to leave the article littered with these carping flags, but because I inferred that the article was watched by enough energetic people for those flags to disappear quickly. Time and energy willing, I'd return to them myself.

Well, I hope that my involvement has been (or continues to be) a net positive. In the meantime, I regret the irritations I've caused. -- Hoary (talk) 23:55, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, been busy. Will try to fill in the gaps I left "real soon". Pdfpdf (talk) 11:21, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, to sum it up:

1. Ask your techies for one static IP, and the corresponding network mask. If they ask "For what purpose?", tell them you need it for a network device, if they inquire further, say it is a manageable switch / access point. Do not let them in that it is a router (since we will not be using it as such anyways) - that might cause some unnecessary worries on their side.
2. Unplug the WAN cable from your router.
3. Plug a LAN cable between your Computer and your router
4. Access the configuration menu.
5. Note down the settings of the screen shown in chapter 4.5.2 - not the settings in the manual, mind you, but the ones displayed on your computer screen.
6. Verify that you copied them correctly and disable the DHCP server.
7. Only in case you lose connectivity to the router after that step, you will have to assign a fixed IP to your computer as a temporary measure. Pick an IP in the middle of the two IP addresses you copied from the DHCP screen, then access the router again.
8. Enter the new IP address and netmask that you received from your techies in the screen shown in chapter 4.5.1.
9. Tell the router to save all changes, if it doesn't do so automatically.
10. If you had to change the IP address of your computer in step 7, un-do these changes and set it back to DHCP.
11. Power down your computer.
12. Power down the router.
13. Plug your office ethernet cable into one of the LAN ports of your router.
14. Power up the router.
15. Wait until it has finished powering up.
16. Power up your computer.

Now you should be able to access the network via LAN cable as well as via wireless connection. To configure the router (say, if you want to change the wireless password, channel, or encryption setting), access http://ip.you.got.from.techsupport.here. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 17:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, but, but, a fixed IP seems kind of daft, in that the IP number would go unused most of most working days. (It's not as if this were a web server or anything.)

Spot of bother here as (i) Okular refuses to display the Japanese text of the PDF (a problem I used to encounter often but that I haven't seen in years) and (ii) I've mislaid the power cable for my assistant's 100% Japanese Windows machine (which of course could display the PDF). I'll have to come in early tomorrow and look for the latter in the other office where I suppose I must have left it. (Or, come to think of it, I could install Acrobat Reader on my computer.) Till tomorrow! -- Hoary (talk) 10:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that you need a static IP for the router when "abusing" it as a glorified switch/Access Point, because the router itself cannot act as a DHCP client on its LAN ports - so you would lose the ability to configure it. That means whenever you want to make a change (allow new clients on the wireless network, if you're using MAC-based authentication, or if you want to change the wireless password, etc.) you would have to unplug the router, perform a factory reset and repeat all the steps from above. Much easier to assign it a static IP. And yes, your router is in fact a web server as well - that's how it displays its config menu. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 15:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm now sitting -- and, past my bedtime, dozing off -- ten or so kilometres away from it so I can't check, but I think that the menu in the web page (so yes you're right it's a web server) said it comes with five or so IP numbers among which it or I can choose. It seems as if I can change this easily. I'm totally lost here: how am I (even in jokey quotes) "abusing" the thing? I thought that linking an ethernet cable to one or more computer, whether by wire or wirelessly, was what these things were designed to do. (We have something that looks vaguely similar here at home, and it does the job uncomplainingly. Though maybe our ISP gives us a fixed IP here; I wouldn't know.) -- Hoary (talk) 15:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, to clarify:

• A (non-wireless) router has a WAN port and one LAN port. It will act as a DHCP Client on the WAN port, and hand out private IP addresses with its DHCP Server on the LAN port. It acts as an intermediary between the upstream network device connected on the WAN port, and the downstream network devices connected on the LAN port. None of the upstream devices sees the IP addresses of the downstream devices (your computers) - upstream always believes your router is the only connected device and all the traffic is originating from it. (That, by the way, is probably the reason why you need to re-authenticate so often - the upstream device that asks for authentication gets confused because what it sees as one device - your router - is actually many devices hiding behind the single IP of your router.)
• An Access Point has one or more antennas, and one LAN port, but no WAN port. It is basically on the same level as all the other devices it connects to (by cable and wireless), so every other device sees the real IP address of the device it is "talking" to. It's kind of like a switch (see below), but with a management option to set a network name, encryption level, channel number, etc. - that's why it needs an IP of its own.
• A switch is basically an extension cord for networks - all the devices you plug into it "see" each other. It is a "dumb" device and does not care about IP addresses, DHCP or whatever.
• What you have is a combination of a router
  and a switch (the 4 LAN ports of your device are a switch - there's basically an imaginary fifth LAN port hidden inside the box that connects directly to the actual router's LAN port)
  and an access point (which plugs into an imaginary sixth LAN port) - a wireless router.
• What you need, to avoid the multiple login issue you are experiencing, is a simple access point - combined with a switch, if you want to plug in devices as well, rather than rely on wireless only.
• Since your wireless router can be dumbed down/"abused" as an access point/switch combination, buying new hardware is not necessary.
• By turning off the DHCP server on the wireless router, giving it a static IP from your current network's range, and plugging the office ethernet cable into a LAN port, leaving the WAN port unused, you're bypassing the actual router component, so it will act as an access point with the added benefit that you have a few LAN ports for wired connections, should you want to use them.

This is the inside of your router - the only parts you're seeing are the ones in (round brackets):

(WAN)--[actual router]--[router's LAN]==[LAN5]--[switch]--[LAN6]==[access point's LAN]--[access point]--(antenna)
                                                   |
                                                   |
                                             (LAN1)+
                                                   |
                                                   |
                                             (LAN2)+
                                                   |
                                                   |
                                             (LAN3)+
                                                   |
                                                   |
                                             (LAN4)+

And the way you should use it to avoid the multiple login issue is this:

                                                [switch]--[LAN6]==[access point's LAN]--[access point]--(antenna)
                                                   |
                                                   |
            office ethernet cable goes here==(LAN1)+
                                                   |
                                                   |
                                             (LAN2)+
                                                   |
                                                   |
                                             (LAN3)+
                                                   |
                                                   |
                                             (LAN4)+

If you would leave the DHCP server enabled (which you really should not do), what would happen is this:

       [actual router]--[router's LAN]==[LAN5]--[switch]--[LAN6]==[access point's LAN]--[access point]--(antenna)
                                                   |
                                                   |
            office ethernet cable goes here==(LAN1)+ Now the router's LAN is connected to the office LAN
                                                   | and it will fight with the office LAN's DHCP server - 
                                                   | serving DHCP addresses of its supposedly internal 
                                             (LAN2)+ network range to all the devices on the office LAN
                                                   | ==> Chaos ensues, as machines trying to renew their
                                                   | DHCP leases will randomly switch between your rogue
                                             (LAN3)+ DHCP server and the official one. 
                                                   |
                                                   |
                                             (LAN4)+

Both the actual router and the access point share the same management IP - the one you're using for the web interface. Since you want to be able to access the access point's management features even though you don't need the routing/DHCP component, you should assign a static IP in the web interface.

By the way, the reason why the router at home works "out of the box" isn't that your provider gave you a static IP (which may or may not be the case), it's because you're using the device in the way it is usually used - upstream goes in WAN, downstream goes in LAN. The WAN side of the actual router component supports several options of getting an IP (static, DHCP, PPPoE,...), while on the LAN side, only static IPs are supported for the router/AP management interface's IP.

--78.43.71.155 (talk) 17:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and you can turn PDFs into pictures here: http://view.samurajdata.se/ - it takes a while, but it might still be less of a hassle than to install acrobat reader. Feed the URL http://corega.jp/prod/wlrgnxw/pdf/wlrgnx_detail_d.pdf into the field that says "WEB view". Pages 115 and 116 are the ones you should be looking at. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 18:24, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again for all the help. I've noticed that I hardly need any signal amplification in my own room, in that the signal I get from my moderately local part of the LAN (outside my room, but presumably on the same or the adjacent floor) seems pretty strong. But there are still other irritations. I'm keeping your message and may reapply it all soon. -- Hoary (talk) 14:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Since you seem to be in Japan or at least have quite some knowledge about it -- is it true that some Japanese companies hire Japanese servants for their higher-ranking, Japanese-born staff living abroad, so that these higher-ups don't have to deal with the locals? A friend told me that story once, but it sounds rather weird to me. Then again, I'm only a gaijin. (If you have no idea what this has to do with your original question, that's OK, just bear with me and answer - I'll explain afterwards.) -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 18:24, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know anyone ranked so highly in a Japanese company. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this were true. But I've heard second-hand accounts of how a small and depressing minority among Japanese wives of men posted abroad -- and remember, Japan is an intensely sexist society; I am talking about women tagging along with the men -- are or gamely pretend to be happy to live abroad but refuse to learn more of the local language (or a lingua franca) than is needed to buy things at a supermarket. Certainly a lot (but not all!) of Japanese university entrants arrive from years in nations whose languages they don't speak at all: life seems to have been linguistically divided into Japanese at home and English at school; and the natives seem largely to have been viewed through car windows during the daily commute. -- Hoary (talk) 14:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, here's the reason why I asked:

Let's assume this story is true, then there's a parallel to your router issue.

Imagine we have Mr. Takahashi and Mr. Watanabe as company big-wigs. They stand for your and your co-worker's computer. The problem for these guys is, they don't speak English, and while high-ranking enough for a personal assistant, they're not high-ranking enough to have one for each, they have to share Mr. Yamaguchi (your router).

The next problem: While Mr. Yamaguchi speaks both English and Japanese, he isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier and sometimes takes tasks too literally.

• What happens now is that Mr. Takahashi sends Mr. Yamaguchi off to another company to pick up some papers for him, and tells him the "magic word" he needs to enter that building. Instead of acting on Mr. Takahashi's behalf, though, Mr. Yamaguchi *pretends* to be Mr. Takahashi when asked for identification by the company's security staff at the door (the security staff being just as daft as Mr. Yamaguchi, they'll wave him through after hearing the magic word and noting down the name "Takahashi" next to it). He retrieves the papers and returns them to Mr. Takahashi.
• Five minutes later, Mr. Watanabe sends Mr. Yamaguchi to fetch his copy of the papers from the same company. Now, Mr. Yamaguchi tries to get through the doors, and presents himself as Mr. Watanabe. Now, security doesn't have Mr. Watanabe's magic word on record, so they ask for it (that's the password dialog that pops up). Seeing that magic word on their list, they cancel out Mr. Takahashi's name behind it, replace it with "Mr. Watanabe", and let Mr. Yamaguchi pass, under the assumption that he is Mr. Watanabe. (And they'll probably think to themselves: "Gee, these Japanese sure do look all alike!")
• Now Mr. Takahashi has signed his stack of papers and wants Mr. Yamaguchi to take them back to the company, and the game starts from the beginning - the magic word is associated with Mr. Watanabe instead of Mr. Takahashi, so security asks for the magic word again, replaces the name in their list, etc.

See, networking is fun. :-D

-- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 18:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm petitioning to modify the Japanese manual of style to allow the use of tildes/wavedashes/dashes as a method of separating the subtitle from the title of music/other media. Seeing as you were the user who originally put this aspect of the MOS in place, I'd like to get your input at WT:MOS-JA as to why you originally suggested that the tildes et al. should not be used.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:36, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

It is rare to see the word "hoary" in print; but I did stumble across it here in an article about the Richard Lane collection at the Honolulu Academy of Arts:

"The Academy’s bold purchase of the Lane Collection offers an irresistible illustration of how knowledge plus instinct plus vision can sometimes equal extreme good fortune. (It also demonstrates the hoary but ever-relevant maxim that one expert’s trash—or garbage or junk—may be another’s dazzling treasure.)"

Is the use of this word as uncommon as I think it is? --Tenmei (talk) 14:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Its typical use these days seems to be mildly pejorative: a hoary joke (one we've heard far too often), a hoary myth (one conclusively debunked long ago), etc. But from Zuleika Dobson alone:

• William, the hoary bargee, was pushing them off with his boat-hook, wishing them luck with deferential familiarity.
• [Floating far above it,] I saw Oxford as a place that had no more past and no more future than a mining-camp. I smiled down. O hoary and unassailable mushroom!

It hardly seems rare. Anyway, if the meaning doesn't apply to me, then it eventually will -- unless of course my hair falls out or I die prematurely. -- Hoary (talk) 13:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I tend to think of it as describing something (either physically or more intangibly) as bumpy and rough, like a frog, which would probably go with the bargee quote ;) . I wonder what OED says. — e. ripley\^talk 13:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

ask User:ScorchingPheonix --Wikipedian05 (talk) 07:24, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism and I have not removed the matelials from the article, just removed them from the lead.--Wikipedian05 (talk) 07:32, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism is an essay, not a policy (I happen to agree with it, but still). Colincbn (talk) 02:50, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't previously encountered it. I strongly agree with it too. I was struck by the way in which Wikipedian05 appeared to have such different approaches to two universities. Incidentally, "OR" tells me that there's plenty of both excellence and mediocrity at both universities, and indeed at most Japanese universities. Perhaps particular gakubu (conventionally translated as "faculties") can be ranked meaningfully, but even within each of these you often have a great range among the zemi (itself a curious Japanese tradition) and so forth. -- Hoary (talk) 03:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course while I agree with it very much I don't think it is appropriate to use essays as a rational for controversial actions, or any action that might meet resistance for that matter. In almost all cases there are policies that the essay is based on that can be called upon instead. I also think there should be a standardization of how rankings are represented. I have noticed in many of the FA class articles on universities that using info-boxes with no text other than the rank and the ranking organization is the preferred method. This seems like it leads to a more neutral presentation of the situation. Colincbn (talk) 14:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

That would indeed appear to be one of the few merits of an "infobox". ¶ Rankings and infoboxes aside, any thoughts on lists of famous alumni? -- Hoary (talk) 00:55, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I've submitted the article for formal mediation here and I've named Gnangarra, Factchk, Bilby, Hoary and myself as the main participants. Others are also welcome to participate. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 09:33, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Hoary,

since you haven't added a new comment on your router issue in quite a while, I will stop monitoring your talk page, and assume the problem has been resolved. Since my IP is dynamic (it seems to have a rather long lease time, though), I cannot guarantee that you will be able to reach me via this IP's talk page. Please leave a new message on WP:RD/C should you require further assistance. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 17:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you; in case you've already changed IP number, I'll point out that I've replied at User talk:78.43.71.155. -- Hoary (talk) 10:16, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Just a quick note to let you know that an issue involving you has come up at ANI. —DoRD (talk) 01:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! -- Hoary (talk) 01:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you think it is pertinent to provide the Japanese pronunciations for letters of the English alphabet as they appear in the titles of (what is in this case) video games and their systems? I had backed down from arguing with Odokee over this matter after the last ANI thread that I had started because of the opposition to this concept that I had been receiving from the uninvolved editors. In short, should Nintendo DSi have in the romanization portion "Nintendō DSi" (the version I self reverted to) or "Nintendō Dī Esu Ai"?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:20, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Similar pages: , , , .—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Mm, I understand the question, but frankly it's something I can't get excited about. If one did do that, then presumably the same logic would require the "spelling out" of numbers: "Nintendo 19", if it existed, would require "Nintendō Jūkyū"; rather a bore for editor and reader, I think. You may with to bring it up at the talk page of WikiProject Japan. -- Hoary (talk) 06:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, Super Mario 64's "64" is "Rokujūyon" in Japan.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Do you want to have the article say that? (I wouldn't be against the idea, but I can't summon any enthusiasm for it.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

He doesn't quite get it. Also he's removed it on another page.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

As (legitimately) suggested by you here in "Talk:Afro-Brazilian", Ninguém sourced most or all of the claims that this or that person named in Afro-Brazilian was "black". While I don't claim that he did this as well as anyone might hope, this work by him strikes me as well-intentioned and solid -- and I imagine that it took him a considerable time. On 18 September, you reacted to it with the comment:

these links are more like spam than worthwhile supporting WP:RS for a cited claim of colour and ethnic ancestry

I suppose that this struck him as surprisingly dismissive. (It certainly struck me that way.) He responded:

So which of those authors are spammers, exactly?

I wrote a longer reply on this and also on your comments on the desirability of English sources or translations.

You haven't replied, even though your list of contributions shows that you have found time to edit many other articles. Please return to that talk page and respond there. Thank you. -- Hoary (talk) 08:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually he ignored my protestations and my issues with the sourcing and just stuffed the whole load of what to me looked like weakly claimed color identification back in the article, I took that to be the ignoring of my issues and I removed it off my watchlist so as not to get into a war with him, thanks. As we both know there are multiple issues at the Brazilian race articles that have been continuing for over almost a year now. Ethnicity and color claims of identity have clear BLP issues and would need high quality sourcing, which I did not see, anyways, there is some lengthy committed editing there and I will not be drawn into a war over such issues. I removed it when I saw it as I am required to do as an editor, it was replaced, imo with weak claims, excuse me if that is all the energy I have to resist it. Off2riorob (talk) 09:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that every one of these articles (Italian Brazilians, etc etc) starts off with a miniaturized gallery of headshots at the top right. What do you think about these? -- Hoary (talk) 14:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I perhaps wrongly assumed that they would be cited or at least are the strongest most notable people in the genetic or colored group so I did not at the time touch the info boxes, surely they must be cited in the infobox?. I simply was attracted to the large uncited section and moved that to the talkpage. If you provide the links and I look at them and they are weakly cited or opinionated or uncited claims about people identifying them through their colour or weak claims of ethnicity , especially living people I will likely remove them. . Off2riorob (talk) 14:17, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The article provides links. At 22:49, 18 September 2010, you wrote imo these links are more like spam than worthwhile supporting WP:RS for a cited claim of colour and ethnic ancestry. You were describing links that you saw. So which links are more like spam than they are like reliable sources? And (in your latest comment) what do you mean by links being uncited claims? -- Hoary (talk) 14:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I am looking for strong reliable citations to support claims of identification of living people by color I did not see it at all. The edits were replaced without care for my concerns, that is enough for me, there has been disruption at all the Brazilian race related articles involving the same users, I got involved once and I am not prepared to get involved again thanks. It will work itself out soon enough. Actually, your comments here and your involvement make me appreciate your comment that you have taken a step back in this area and will no longer use your Administrative weight. Off2riorob (talk) 14:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

But you chose to reinvolve yourself. The claims are sourced to what are footnotes 79 through 108 of the current version. A large number of them cite this or that specific page within a book titled Enciclopédia brasileira da diáspora africana. Now, is this book insufficiently authoritative for you? If it's OK, then which of the other notes cites something that is not reliable? And which of these is spammy? ¶ You bring up the matter of my involvement. As I see it, my involvement in these articles (on subjects of no interest to me) is to help nudge them in the direction of quality, and fend off attempts to degrade them. This particular article is a mess, I freely admit. You made additional charges against it that surprised me. One was of spamminess. You still have neither explained what you meant by this nor retracted the charge. -- Hoary (talk) 15:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

As for your claim that you are helping to nudge them in a direction of quality imo looking at the articles that is not reflected in the article and their stability, a good article is a stable article because both sides are represented in the content you are clearly on one side of the editing situation and friendly with that side and so are clearly involved. I simply removed an uncited section and disputed the quality of the citations presented to claim some of the living people are notable because they are black, such notability as regards color claims especially in living people are highly POV and problematic, my concerns were rejected and the content was inserted. Spamming would likely refer to the mass sourcing of a single book of limited notability and authoritativeness itself in another language to claim color notability to living individuals, we have lists or book reviews for that, weakly cited claims of color as a notable factor as regards a living person require the strongest possible citations which this clearly was not. For a simple example of what you are supporting here, Jonny is a notable Black Englishman (add a weak supporting citation here) Off2riorob (talk) 15:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Unsourced list of "important or famous Black Brazilians" immediately before you removed it. Sourced list of the same, immediately after it was re-added. They're different: the one had no sources, the other has sources. The sources may be inadequate; this can be discussed. You say: Spamming would likely refer to the mass sourcing of a single book of limited notability and authoritativeness itself in another language to claim color notability to living individuals[...] Spamming was your term; presumably you know what you meant by it. I have never encountered the meaning of the word extended as you have extended it here. (Or do you mean that the multiple citations from it constituted an effort to raise its profile and thus its sales?) You say that the book is of limited notability and authoritativeness itself in another language. That it's in another language is not an issue. That it is of limited notability is not an issue: virtually every academic book (let alone all the other crap) is of limited notability. If it's of limited authoritativeness this would indeed be an issue. Please elaborate. ¶ You say that I am on one side of the editing situation. Recently I have broadly been in favor of what one writer has been explaining on the talk page. Maybe that's one "side". If so, I don't know what the other side is. Can you point me to a lucid exposition by that "side"? ¶ If you have some complaint about my editing, feel free to reopen the discussion on me that is, or very recently was, at WP:AN/I. -- Hoary (talk) 16:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Why should I bother to discuss it after it was stuffed back in without any care for my good faith objections, cite this for me.. Djavan is a notable black Brazilian. I have said my piece and I am responsible for that alone, others are responsible for their edits and additions. Is that your issue that you claim you are not involved, you commented as such yourself that you have not used your tools for that reason and I support your comment, you are involved with one group and support one position, whats the problem with that? To be honest I find your discussion of this issue pointy indeed and it is going no where, I have commented thats it,. thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 16:15, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for drawing my attention to the non-sourcing of the claim for Djavan. Please see what I've written and done about this. -- Hoary (talk) 00:38, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

The Request for mediation concerning Ugg boots, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. An explanation of why it has not been possible to allow this dispute to proceed to mediation is provided at the mediation request page (which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time). Queries on the rejection of this dispute can be directed to the Committee chairperson or e-mailed to the mediation mailing list.

For the Mediation Committee, AGK 23:05, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
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Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:03, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with Foulball (block log · checkuser^confirmed_suspected) and his spamish articles that are cited on his confirmed category. --Wolfnix • Talk • 02:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to say "It's a pleasure", but that wouldn't be true. It's a bore. But only a minor one. I'm glad to be of help. -- Hoary (talk) 04:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Hoary. I am having a small problem in Dilma Rousseff. She is at this moment a candidate in Brazilian presidential elections. In the 1960s and 1970s she was part of a communist group financed by Cuba and the defunct Soviet Union which had as goal the creation of a communist dictatorship. Obviously, that does not mean that she wants that nowadays, in 2010. There is an IP (174.91.175.10) who has as sole purpose the goal of removing that piece of information from her article. He has complained about in the talk page (See Talk:Dilma Rousseff#Revolutionary Dictatorship) and did not bother to bring one single source at all to explain why it should be removed. In other words: he is removing that sourced information () without sources to back his claim. I've reverted once and he reverted it . I will not revert it a second time and even less a third time. Is there something you could do about it? I am too busy with two articles which I nominated for featured status (Pedro II of Brazil and Pedro Álvares Cabral) and I don't want to lose my time discussing with an unknown IP. Thanks, --Lecen (talk) 18:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I can't get involved in this one: I'll simply be too busy in the next three days or so to pay attention to WP. But see this. -- Hoary (talk) 23:04, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, anyway. I mean it. But it seems that this article will become a new Hugo Chávez. --Lecen (talk) 23:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Hoary

Could you please delete this redirect Eletrobras to open place for move, it redirects the page to the article Eletrobrás (with diacritic), but Portuguese acronym does not have diacritics, and also, in its official website it's written without the diacritic, but I can't move because a bot inserted a template there. Thank you.--Luizdl (talk) 03:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Done! However, I haven't even started to reduce this long list. Sorry, no time. -- Hoary (talk) 06:44, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you.--Luizdl (talk) 23:01, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello Hoary, I was wondering if you could help me out. I need to get a mirror image of a painting I have found of the old Luxembourg fortifications. It's this one. As you can see, it's a beautiful picture but the version I found happens to be the wrong way round. I have seen authentic copies of the original in several art and history books and this one is definitely wrong. The bridge should be on the left hand side. Perhaps with all your photographic expertise you could fix it yourself and upload the result onto Commons for me. Or if not, perhaps you could direct me to some tool that will do the job. It's quite important as I have used it as the lead image on Bock (Luxembourg). Hope you can help. Cheers. - Ipigott (talk) 15:22, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I haven't yet looked at the image but glancing at what you say suggests that this will be a doddle. However, no time right now even for doddles. I'll attend to it within 24 hours. -- Hoary (talk) 21:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

It took rather over 24 hours to finish the work, return home, and catch up on sleep; but I did it. Here's what you'd have to do:

1. Install Gimp.

I'll assume that you're using either Windows or Linux. If you're using Mac OS X there'd be minor changes to the following:

2. Right-click on the filename and elect to open it with Gimp.

3. Alt-i t h Ctrl-s

Done!

Twenty-eight hours rather than 24, sorry. Of course I knew that this would take mere seconds, but I didn't want to be bothered to go through the rigmarole of answering the questions needed to upload it. However, that turned out to be a lot less arduous than I had misremembered.

Gimp is an excellent program. Its interface takes a bit of getting used to, but Gimp (free) plus a book about it seems to me a better value than Photoshop or similar, and then adding Gimp to any other computer (just about any computer made this century) will cost you nothing extra. -- Hoary (talk) 02:08, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Domo arigato. Great tool. I knew you would come up with something. - Ipigott (talk) 07:17, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, I've started to do a bit more on Danish photographers. I think I have run into probems with the photographs of Benedicte Wrensted I've loaded up on Commons here. When I loaded them up, I used the "author died more than 70 yrs ago" licence but now I realise that as she died in 1949, that condition does not yet apply. I suppose that at least the first two (taken in Denmark) should therefore be removed. And I now have doubts about the third one too. Even though it was taken in the States in 1898, it was probably never "published" and therefore might not be outside copyright restrictions. Would you therefore be kind enough to remove all three of them - unless I have misunderstood the rules. - Ipigott (talk) 11:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, no, I can't: I'm not an administrator there (and indeed am only the most desultory of contributors). This, perhaps? -- Hoary (talk) 14:02, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Gurudom.3F

Thank you, Hoary, very much, for your kind words regarding my response to an issue at BLPN. Much appreciated, -- Cirt (talk) 11:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

As you were involved i this issue, I am notifying you of this discussion: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 October 15#Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Darin Fidika. Please participate if you wish. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 15:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes thanks, known bug. Caused by a MediaWiki bug. Corrected normally by SmackBot on the fly but since SmackBot is under interdiction for changing {{silicate-mineral-stub}} to {{Silicate-mineral-stub}} needs me to clean up after manually. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52, 23 October 2010 (UTC).

Hi Hoary - just had a look back at the Bob Whitaker article and I like your suggestion. I think it's an important photo, culturally, so I'd hate to see all that material just deleted, but I agree the broader discussion of the photo's own 'career' isn't all that relevant to Bob's actual life and career, so yeah, I think that would be great. Thanks.

Dunks (talk) 05:52, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the fix at Baker's article.

Tangentially: I'd forgotten how he arrived on my watchlist; so after following the talkpage explanation, I had the chance to review my handful of interactions with him at User talk:Wageless. Ha! This is still one of my favourite edits. We need more of that around here. :)

Best, -- Quiddity (talk) 18:03, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

There have been crazy things going on here that have become epic to say the least. I can't tell from where things are comming from but it's everything, copyright, harrassment, stalking who knows what else. I don't think WP will suffer any blow back but I and a few others sure have.

Even though this is not my real name I was even contacted by my old boss and reminded that I had signed papers to keep me quiet a few years back!

Is there anything I can do to extract myself from WP?Myraedison (talk) 20:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The article has been deleted so all should be well. But if you notice any more silliness, do please let me know. -- Hoary (talk) 14:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I would have to say it went far beyond silliness. One of the sites used as a reference for Daniel Colegrove stored pages and documents for many other buried journalism stories. They began getting threats of all kinds from every direction so rather than deal with it they packed up and left the Internet. Not good, they were a valuable resource for some things and may have been referenced here a lot. Myraedison (talk) 15:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Which site was this? -- Hoary (talk) 22:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

OEP's website digitalphotojournalist.org, when they started to get blow back from this controversy they packed up their stuff published on the internet and split. The site was just a few pages (they got cagey about things in like 2004 or 5) but there were hundreds of scans, images and other documents behind it in non indexed files on the server, you had to email them to get the linksMyraedison (talk) 16:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

digitalphotojournalist.org is listed as an external link at the foot of Photo manipulation, 2006 Lebanon War photographs controversies, Photojournalism, and News propaganda. I don't notice any references to the site within Wikipedia (although I may be looking for these in the wrong way). What am I missing? ¶ The deleted article on Colegrove contained this obscure footnote:

http://digitalphotojournalist.org/articles/article21-dcolegrove.html 3rd paragraph republished from Professional Photographer.

That page remains available, here. It ends:

Article copyright © 1999 Professional Photographer - Republished Edited version (names removed due to subjects [sic] request) with permission 2005 DigitalPhotojournalist.org.

"Edited" here seems to mean "mangled": the prose is curiously tortured. Although the footnote was used to source the claim that Colegrove was

Established in the industry with his early use of photojournalism techniques in wedding photography, striking editorial and commercial portraits, and his pioneering use of alternative lighting techniques in forensic photography

this article says little about any of this. However, it does include this interesting passage:

" I couldn't say Daniel is a type A personality" says print Journalist Myra Edison "But don't think he ever slept between 1980 and 1994" Mrs. Edison who was doing background research for an editorial project stumbled into much of Colegrove's early work along with documentation of the copyright sale and subsequent crediting of his work to other photographers. " I thought it was not only a travesty but a fraud, this photographer's work is even still being published and used by -others-. It wasn't just the images, the bravery involved in shooting them was almost shocking "

(sprinkle [sic] to taste), it doesn't say anything about where "print Journalist Myra Edison" was writing, what the "editorial project" was, which wars these were, etc. Perhaps this will make more sense in the original 1999 article for Professional Photographer (whether website or magazine) or in the completed editorial project toward which Mrs Edison was contributing. ¶ Incidentally, this digitalphotojournalist.org site looks increasingly odd as I continue to look at it. Here is its top page. Its content has a remarkable resemblance to the content of Wikipedia's own Photojournalism. Web.archive.org's history of backups of digitalphotojournalist.org suggests that it was preceded by the relevant passages within Wikipedia's "Photojournalism". Yet it says (in 2008):

Copyright © 2000 - 2007 All Rights Reserved digitalphotojournalist.org

Now, if you have evidence that digitalphotojournalist.org wrote this before Wikipedia did, then this would suggest Wikipedia had broken the rights reserved by this defunct website, and we'd have to flush out any copyright violation here. -- Hoary (talk) 01:55, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I feel we should leave the categories as such for now.Creating new sub categories may be case of over categorisation. We should wait for some months before revising this . However if you feel strongly please go ahead.Thanks Shyamsunder (talk) 05:41, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Well . . . OK. (Meanwhile, isn't it odd that there are fewer people in Category:Indian photographers than in Category:Photographers from New York?) -- Hoary (talk) 14:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding this warning you left for the IP who's been commenting at Talk:James Randi, if I'm not mistaken he was altering his own comments, which I believe he's allowed to do. I changed it back to his altered version. Please feel to double check to make sure I got it right. Histories can be confusing that way. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 10:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

But here's one of the edits, in which he's fiddling with something attributed to Chaoticfluffy. -- Hoary (talk) 10:55, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Hoary - looks like a lot of changes have occurred recently on the Chris Mosdell page, some very good, and some clearly requiring better references. I'll be happy to make those additions. One concern to me is the disappearance of the wiki entry for the documentary film about Mosdell (Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist) as well as all of its associated links to the various artists involved in the film. How can this entry be recovered? And any knowledge why it was deleted in the first place? Thanks for your help. Bkce23 (talk) 19:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello. Well, you're not going to like this news, but the article on Ink Music was deleted as the result of an "AfD" process, and not only that, but one started by me. Yes, I nominated it for deletion, and after nominating it I returned to criticize it in other ways after one other user had questioned what I wrote. Two other people also said it should be deleted, and nobody said that it should be kept. You can read the discussion here.

If, having read what's there, you believe that Ink Music is notable, that an appropriate article (one meeting WP's standards) can be produced on it, and that production would benefit from access to the older version, then just say the word and I'll copy what's been deleted to User:Bkce23/Sandbox, User:Bkce23/Ink Music, or indeed [[User:Bkce23/[you_name_it]]], where you can work on it. When the result is worthy and sound you appeal at "WP:DRV" for its restoration as a regular article.

When you write above of all of its associated links to the various artists involved in the film, I don't understand you. Perhaps you mean, or anyway perhaps you are wondering about, all the links to the article on it from the articles about various other people involved in the film. Well, removing the links to the article on the film was an obvious matter. However, I -- and yes, again it was me -- went beyond this and removed the mentions of the film as well. Why? I quote myself in the AfD:

I had never heard of this film (or its subject) until I noticed its prominence in the article Shuntarō Tanikawa. I then found that it was similarly prominent in the articles on Kazuhiko Kato (musician), Sadistic Mika Band, Juichi Yoshikawa, Michiyo Yagi, Yukihiro Takahashi, Maaya Sakamoto, Yoko Kanno, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Considering that the film has never been available to the public and that there's no suggestion that it soon will be, the prominence was very surprising. (And if the film did emerge and these people appeared in it, even this would hardly be remarkable.) The write-ups may have been done with the noblest of intentions but they came off as spam, and I therefore deleted them.

What I write there about the unavailability of the film may be too simple or plain wrong. (User:MichaelQSchmidt questioned it.) However, even if the film is already available (e.g. by download), it's not clear why it merits a sentence or paragraph within the article on each of seven people who appear in it.

Though I happen not to have heard of Mosdell before arriving at his WP article (via that on Tanikawa), he seems a remarkable person who merits an informative and dispassionate article (and, if possible, one that's interesting and even attractive). Please don't infer from my many (and generally deflationary) edits to the article on him any kind of animus.

(A similar but more extreme example: I'm now interested in one person who describes his recent activities as "digital storytelling". I'd never previously heard of this term, but last night found that it had its own article here. I thereupon took my editorial machete scalpel to that too. I'd like to think that it's more likely now than 24 hours ago to evolve into the kind of article that the subject deserves.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:28, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've put together a short piece on her. I was surprised to find there was no mention of her anywhere in the English WP. Perhaps you can drop her name into one or two relevant artciles. - Ipigott (talk) 16:32, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Unfortunately I can see only one obviously relevant article, and it's a mere stub. However, I've edited the article in the direction of austerity, which is how I interpret WP policy. (Actually I believe that all your modifiers, such as "successful", were justified; but unless they are "sourced" [yawn], it can be hard to draw a line between (a) them and (b) all the "prestigious", "iconic", "legendary" and so forth in fan-gushy articles by others.) And I made a few other tweaks. There's more to be done, but my total incompetence in German means that I may not be capable of doing it. -- Hoary (talk) 23:39, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Nice tidy-up on Ian Fleming. Can I just ask you one thing please? I see that you changed "entitled" to "titled" - do you have a strong feeling that "entitled" is wrong? To me "titled" sounds wrong, but it could just be my higgerance and lack of education showing. Can you please clarify? NB - this really is a genuine enquiry, not a fishing trip or an attempt to start a flame war! Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 12:34, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm - I checked my Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors - my near-Bible! - and it was strangely silent on the matter. Here and here, though, are entries which seem to support my vague feelings about it. This isn't an AmE/BrE thing is it??? Interesting! Cheers DBaK (talk) 12:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Without actually bothering to look in any dictionary (let alone style guide), I'd say offhand that "entitle" as a verb either has irrelevant meanings ("your achievement entitles you to promotion", etc) or is a slightly grandiose alternative to "title". Vladimir Nabokov wrote a short piece "On a book entitled Lolita" (if I remember correctly); and thus "entitle" is fine; if you prefer it, feel free to revert me. -- Hoary (talk) 13:31, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Ha! Thanks. On the "offhand" side I'd say that "titled" sounds to me like the aristocracy: Lord Hoary, 7th Baron Wikipedia, kind of thing. That seems to be what the second Oxford reference is suggesting. I am very disappointed that you don't want a massive flame war and then to come round and punch me in the face, but I'll get over it ... no, actually I've put out a couple of other feelers about this as I find it quite interesting. I won't revert you unless I can convince myself I'm right, which is not the case right now. And even if I do revert you, I will do it so subtly and with a generous dose of local anaesthetic so with luck you won't feel a thing! Cheers, DBaK (talk) 13:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi again. Thanks very much for your patience over this. I checked with an American linguistics academic who lives and works in the UK and who writes this brilliant blog: http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/ - she tells me that it's "entitled" for books in the UK and that "titled" here only means that you are a duke or whatever, whereas in the US it can, as you say, be either so it's a matter of personal choice. Given that, and that it's a BrE subject, I will - as you kindly suggested - change it back to "entitled". Thanks again - it's been very interesting! With all good wishes, DBaK (talk) 08:35, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I just wanted to thank you for bringing that AFD information to my attention. Thanks again! :) Endofskull (talk) 17:00, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Nbaka is no a joke is attempting block evasion, but a SPI admin believes no conditions apply to creation of Basil Rock. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 23:34, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm watching this discussion at AN/I with interest but right now have nothing to add to it. -- Hoary (talk) 14:48, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

If I were the type to jump on other people's bandwagons I would award you Raul's brick of common sense for this comment: . Reality-based community. Oh yes, we could do with some more of that alright. Guy (Help!) 23:40, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

So now I've started looking at "Luxembourgian" photographers and was surprised to see that although you once had a look at this article, you let most of the bragging go by. Don't you think some of the superlatives should be edited out? And how about adding your advertising tag, not to mention the quality of her self portrait??? I'll leave it to you. - Ipigott (talk) 16:36, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've long viewed this article with considerable suspicion. But I have never brought myself even to start to investigate the world of "garden photography". (As it is, the writer(s) of the article could justifiably claim that I haven't a clue about the subject area of which I speak.) The article has been on my watchlist, so if anyone were to object to the claims made within it I'd notice and then perhaps investigate. ¶ As you've no doubt realized, any serious attempt to eliminate bragging from all en:WP articles on photographers would require an army of articlepolicepersons. Minihagiographies of the apparently unremarkable pop up like mushrooms -- but most confusingly, some of these people turn out to be remarkable after all, just written up incompetently. -- Hoary (talk) 23:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I think you are being too kind. You don't have to be an expert on garden photography to detect all the hype. In addition, the article bears an uncanny resemblence to MM's website. And she's pushing all those who belong to her enterprise: Andrew Lawson, Steven Gunther, Fiona McLeod, Bennet Smith, Simon Meaker and Claire Takacs, although not one of them is yet in Wikipedia. I agree with you btw that Majerus deserves an article. But it should be based on third party sources rather than her own. She does appear in the Luxemburger Lexikon. I've made a few adjustments to the article myself. - Ipigott (talk) 08:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I've gone in there and made some changes myself. You're right, though: it needs more. In time, in time. Incidentally, if you enjoy taking out junk, try your hand at the article on one Franz Lidz. (And don't miss its exciting talk page.) -- Hoary (talk) 09:59, 23 November 2010 (UTC) .... Ummm -- Hoary (talk) 14:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Re.: 76.24.193.240. Can you review this account and re-block? All this person has done for a year has been sophomoric vandalism. Thanks GenQuest (talk) 19:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. -- Hoary (talk) 23:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC) ThanX. GenQuest (talk) 01:33, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

In my current work on Luxembourg photography, I frequently come across Nobel prize-winner Gabriel Lippmann (born in Luxembourg but considered to be just as French as Luxembourgish) who invented what is now known as the Lippmann plate, one of the most important inventions in the early days of colour photography. Am I right in thinking that Lippmann should come firmly within the coverage of WikiProject History of photography? If so, I think we should make a real effort to improve the article, perhaps aiming for a GA. Maybe you know members of the project who have the right kind of background here. If not, I could always have a go myself. There are plenty of excellent sources. - Ipigott (talk) 15:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

"WP HoP" is pretty much moribund. (Its baggage therefore goes unused. However, I think that some of the baggage could be useful, and therefore continue to attach its templates to the talk pages of relevant articles, etc, in the hope that a wave of enthusiasts for [the history of] photography might miraculously arrive at en:WP some time and do something with the baggage.) Yes of course Lippmann is an important part of the history of photography. However, my own knowledge of this kind of thing is very weak indeed. I don't think that this matters so much, because of course I'd anyway need sources and can read English about as well as the man on the Clapham omnibus. What might matter is that I have only the sketchiest understanding of chemistry and so might well perpetrate the most horrendous gaffes. ¶ The person I'd try to interest is Dicklyon. It isn't really his subject either, but it's so close that it should interest him. Note that his user and user talk pages start by alluding to a year-long break. His list of contributions makes it obvious that in reality he's on no break but rather a fit of enthusiasm, but he may yet be telling himself that he is, or ought to be, on a long break; so I'd hesitate to ask "Hey Dick, let's take this to a GA!" Instead, just work on it and draw his attention to it. ¶ As for my own attention (for what that would be worth), I'll look at it but only after I've attended to some requirements of "real life". -- Hoary (talk) 07:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Dicklyon certainly seems to have the right kind of expertise and the right interests. His year off is nearly over and so he should be back on board in January. Perhaps I'll wait until then. I'll see how things go. As for the moribund state of HoP, it's my impression that most of the WikiProjects seem to be in a pretty sorry state. Nevertheless, from time to time interesting new people turn up and you never know when a really good new article might appear out of the blue. - Ipigott (talk) 08:19, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

HoP is different in that it's been in a pretty sorry state since its outset. It never managed to create a good article, let alone an FA: the closest were a couple of FAs that were 95% the work of one "member" and 2% the work of another (me); but that cooperation would have taken place without HoP. (Indeed, it may well have preceded HoP, but I can't be bothered to check.) ¶ As his list of contributions will show, Dicklyon is very much "on board" -- but perhaps he prefers to think otherwise. ¶ Luxembourg keeps itself both (a) out of the news and (b) rich. Or so it seems. If Luxembourg really is as rich as it looks at first glance, I wonder if it might simply buy one or more of Greece, Iceland and Ireland. -- Hoary (talk) 11:47, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

PS I've taken a first look. Even the footnotes make little sense; I spent quite a few minutes sorting out just two of them. I noticed that Dicklyon had already made some edits to the article, though I didn't investigate what these were. -- Hoary (talk) 14:08, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Hoary: 1st & foremost, thanks a-much for your hyper-intelligent tweaks to the Boston Camera Club article.

I've posted some discussion on its Talk page, the gist of which says, one, I am still deeply occluded as to know where the, or a, centralized discussion/thread about this, or any, article takes place. I know you commented on my 'My talk' page (itself confusing: why there? Why not on the article's Talk page?) and I know you instruct me to reply there, but I mistrust how that will get pushed to *you*. Hence, begging your indulgence, could you take a look at what I posted on Boston CC:Talk?

Secondly, it has a couple of Q's about your tweaks.

Thanks again. I'm sure we'll be in touch. Photo history seems to be undergoing something of a Grosses Bang on der Wiki, ja? Thanks in part to you, no doubt? Jimlue (talk) 08:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I think I've now dealt with much of this in Talk:Boston Camera Club. As for the last part, I wish it were true; but I fear that photographic history is patchy and poor here. What it really needs is an influx of a couple of hundred well-informed, scrupulous and energetic people; but failing that, just one or two more of such people would be most welcome. -- Hoary (talk) 14:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations on getting this through. Unfortunately it's sorted under P. I'm not too sure how to sort categories - so perhaps you can help. I suppose I can now also create Category:Photography in Luxembourg without any trouble. - Ipigott (talk) 20:03, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Fait accompli. Incidentally, note also Category:Photography in Romania, with its admirable Luxembourgeois representation. -- Hoary (talk) 23:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed you had been adding Romania to the cats for the articles. I hope soon to embark on an article about Photography in Luxembourg but I am busy with all kinds of things outside the world of Wikipedia at the moment. - Ipigott (talk) 09:32, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that teh pr0nz had its own delsort category, thanks. pablo 13:46, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't blame you. I vaguely thought it did have one, but just a few hours ago when I went looking for it in order to dump some other pr0nographer there I couldn't find it and instead had to stick him in "sexuality and gender", but later the tireless Gene93k came along and stuck him amid the pr0n. -- Hoary (talk) 13:53, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello Hoary. I hope you are well. I created this article in a moment of sudden inspiration (there is a little association with photography - author is the brother of a very well known Czech photographer, but the topic is completely different). The author and his works are unknown outside of my country (the refs are only in Czech), but in the Czech Republic he is considered a legend (his large and excellent monography was sold out in one week!) Would you mind to look at it and check the grammar and fluency of my English? No problem if you are not interested - I'm just asking and I don't want to bother you ... But I think you might be interested. Feel free to ask whatever. Thanks. Best regards. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 12:39, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Done, with pleasure! And now he/it deserves an article in Czech. And in Slovak. And Croatian. And -- well, for inspiration, see the "Languages" part of this otherwise uninteresting article. -- Hoary (talk) 13:45, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Uh, the True Jesus Church had to employ an army of translators to spread its truths! --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 14:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I am writing on behalf of Trunk Archive.

We represent photographers, and have been trying to broaden Wikipedia's information to include us on the pages of our photographers, and to be able to list the photographers we represent on our Wikipedia page. Originally, my boss hired some interns who did not know what they were doing. It is part of my job to clean up their mess. Having multiple interns is one reason why there were so many different accounts editing Wikipedia. Going forward, we want to clean up Wikipedia:Trunk Archive, and untangle the whole situation. I respect your efforts to make Wikipedia an honest place, and Trunk Archive does not want to impede the efforts of Wikipedians of that goal, and we do not want to be tarnished because of mistakes that were made in the past.

I have been extensively reading Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest and I understand that Wikipedians are strongly discouraged from editing articles related to themselves or their organization. I respect Wikipedia's mission, and would not want to contribute anything to Wikipedia that I did not feel was worthy of being a part of this center of public knowledge, that was biased, self-promoting, and not generally useful information.

I would really appreciate if you would engage in a discussion with me about why Trunk Archive is different from Wikipedia:Getty Images, Inc. or Wikipedia:Corbis Corporation. Internationally we are known for our photographers and the high caliber of work we represent. We have a roster that is impressive, and include Wikipedia:Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Wikipedia:Bruce Weber, and Wikipedia:Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin among many others. Our work is published in publications around the world, including Wikipedia: Vogue (magazine), Wikipedia: Vanity Fair (magazine), and Wikipedia: The New York Times.

We function in a similar way to a gallery, and we want to be on our artists pages, much like Wikipedia:David Zwirner is linked to Wikipedia:Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, and Wikipedia:The Collective Shift is linked to Inez and Vindoodh. Their photographs are available for people to look at within our archive for free. Today, many people find out about artists through finding their work on the internet. If people want to see 15 pages (over 1,100 images) of Inez and Vinoodh's work, having Trunk Archive linked to their Wikipedia would offer the public a chance to see this archive. Our photographers have cult followings. Our archive presents an opportunity for fans of our photographers to engage with the work in a way that was not previously possible.

I have many other thoughts on this matter, but I don't want to take up too much of your time at this moment. Would you please enter into a discussion with me? In the spirit of Wikipedia, please present me with the opportunity to clarify my case.

Thank you.

Xmraox (talk) 16:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your candor. I too regret some aspects of what the Trunk Archive went through here.

You raise a number of points here, and I agree with several. However, I don't want to go through your message point by point (I think that this would be exhausting for both of us). Rather, I'll try to get an understanding on a few of these points, so that we can advance from there.

Yes, it is permissible to link from the article on a photographer (or artist) to the article on his or her dealer or representative, or vice versa. John Buckley links to Nicholas Treadwell and vice versa. Each is informative; it's particularly helpful for the reader who knows the work of one of these men but not that of the other.

The article on Treadwell also has two short (and overlapping) lists of people who've been associated with him: one per book. I'm the perpetrator of both and as I look at them now I'm not so happy with them.

You give two examples. The one I've looked at is that of Philip-Lorca diCorcia and David Zwirner Gallery. However, at least in its present state, it's not a good example at all. I don't happen to know of the Gallery, but the article on it (though probably well-intentioned) is dreadful. And because it's dreadful, the links to it may well be viewed with some suspicion.

The article Trunk Archive is poor too. It's poor in a rather different way, but anyway it's only three sentences long. As it's only a "stub" and as its website has been discussed as a spammer, links to it are sure to be viewed with suspicion.

To restore credibility to all of this, the article Trunk Archive should first be improved to the point where people will think that links to it are worthwhile. But a problem here is that googling doesn't present much in the way of "reliable sources" that one can work with. Of course, not all reliable sources are on the web; there are magazines too. Do you have any suggestions? -- Hoary (talk) 01:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Hoary,

Thank you so much for getting back to me.

I really love the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, and if you feel that my editing of articles would help establish me as an editor, I will gladly contribute. I am an unpaid intern for Trunk Archive. I receive school credit for my work here, which is mainly working on Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter, so I am learning Wikipedia more and more everyday I work on this project.

We really want to make the Trunk Archive Wikipedia page clean, and we want to be given the chance to establish ourselves as being notable. What are the steps I can take to remove the warnings at the top of the Trunk Archive Wikipedia page?

Thanks again for your help.

Xmraox (talk) 18:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any opinion on Facebook or Twitter, neither of which I use. But what you write suggests that your supervisor at Trunk doesn't understand Wikipedia. As there's an article here about Trunk and as Trunk represents a list of photographers many of whom have articles here, a good instruction to you as (sorry, unpaid) employee would be to go through each one of these, look for any untruths in it and put it on your "watchlist" (by clicking the option "watch this page"). And then, if anything is or goes amiss, to alert other, uninvolved editors to the problem via that article's talk page. Don't touch the article itself, other than to revert obvious vandalism (the "HE'S GAY!!!" type of rubbish).

You can't write anything in the article on Trunk that will establish Trunk as notable. Anything that you add there is sure to backfire in one way or another. What you can do is point to web pages at reliable sources (newspaper websites, magazine websites, etc) or to articles in published magazines that do so. You can do this in Talk:Trunk Archive, which is on my watchlist and almost certainly on other people's watchlists too. -- Hoary (talk) 23:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your insight. I will start to post links on the Talk Page to show new articles where we have been covered. Our work is in new publications every day, and so I can point to some of the more recent examples of this, as well as to articles about Trunk Archive. I wish there were some way that I could contribute to the Trunk Archive article so that it would no longer be seen as a stub. There is more to the company than what is written on Wikipedia. Is there any way I can contribute without being flagged? Thanks. Xmraox (talk) 20:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the posting on the talk page. I understand that you meant well with the long quotation from PDN, but I thought it was so long that I had to delete it. As I've written there, it's still accessible.

The best thing for you to do in the short term is ... nothing. Just be patient. -- Hoary (talk) 23:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Hoary, I wanted to check in with you to see if you had given any more thought to updating the Trunk Archive Wikipedia page, so that it doesn't have as many warnings at the top. I hope you feel that the company is notable, as are its artists. I would like to be able to edit the page without being blacklisted - all out in the open - to reflect what Trunk Archive actually does and why others would like to know about the extensive image archive. THANK YOU :) Xmraox (talk) 22:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Hoary, I am wondering if you have given more thought to taking down the warnings off of Trunk Archive's Wikipedia page. Could you let me know your thoughts? Thank you for your time. Xmraox (talk) 22:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

In the article on Michel Poivert, there is a list of several contemporary photographers which have been included in a collection of monographs. They are: Mathieu Pernot, Gilles Saussier, Stanislas Amand, Philippe Durand, Éric Rondepierre, Arno Gisinger (an Austrian) and Charles Fréger. There are no articles about them in the English WP. I wondered if you had come across any of them and whether you think they should be included. - Ipigott (talk) 16:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I haven't heard of any of them, but this in itself means nothing. In your position I might Google for them, look at their work, decide whose oeuvre interested me most, and consider writing up that person. (Meanwhile, how about this exciting article [emoticon]?) -- Hoary (talk) 23:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I googled for Pernot, was taken to his site, and was told to download a plug-in. Sorry no, M. Pernot! I googled for Saussier, couldn't immediately find his own website -- which is by no means a bad thing; despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, a number of first-rate photographers working today dispense with websites -- and found pages about him, but these were written in somniferous art-gallery-speak. Sorry no, M. Saussier!

Of course either or both of these could be excellent, despite first (non-) appearances. As could any or all of the others.

But really, look at the photographers touted by just about any "authority" these days and they're an uninspiring lot. One must either (a) bow to orthodoxy (not me!), or (b) go to bookshops and search among the modish and forgettable for the gems or find some bloggers or similar sources whose opinions are worth a look and consider their recommendations. Just during the last week, I've come across Ara Oshagan in a bookshop and learned of Rob Hornstra in a blog; each of these is doing work that I find hugely more interesting than that by any of the "exciting" contemporary photographers that so thrill award committees and publishers. But I wouldn't push either Oshagan or Hornstra on you; instead, enjoy pursuing your own tastes. -- 23:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments (and for the Ingeborg novel). In fact, I thought a couple of the French contemporary photographers seemed rather interesting from their French WP articles but perhaps not quite interesting enough. I was however rather impressed by the Dane Israel B. Melchior who I came across accidentally. He now has a short article. But while I am here, I would like to have your opinion on WikiBhasha. I've played with the tool myself and it works quite well but the latest long addition to the article seems more like a user guide. I've made a comment on the talk page and also with User talk:WikiBhasha.MSR but there has been no reaction. Any suggestions? - Ipigott (talk) 17:07, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Well done on Melchior, Sir.

Any or all of the French photographers may be very worthwhile.

My own (France/Denmark-irrelevant) discovery today has been George Georgiou. His one book looks good but thanks to a major theme (the construction of dreary blocks of flats) rather depressing; I like his photographs of Ukraine and Georgia a lot. -- Hoary (talk) 14:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Bugger me (though not literally, thanks all the same), you're quick. Believe it or not, that hadn't been intended as a hint. I'd wanted to give the man an article but hadn't found sufficient sources and therefore gave up, at least for the short term. You were more tenacious. Well done! -- Hoary (talk) 13:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

An interesting change. The article's not too bad with your additions. - Ipigott (talk) 21:30, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

On 11 December 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Lips Tullian, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the comic series Lips Tullian was selected as the third most significant Czech comic in the history of the genre? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 12:22, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, hmm, I must confess that I can't come up with any of the first ten of the most significant Czech(oslovak) comics in any genre. (Comic -- or anyway seriocomic -- character, and I'd ignorantly guess that Švejk would be near the top.) Congratulations on your DYK! -- Hoary (talk) 12:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps not surprisingly, most of the photographers behind Time's 2010 "The Year in Pictures" are not yet in Wikipedia. Of the ten in the printed version, only three are in WP. And only one of the additional names in the digital version is covered.

• Daniel Morel is a Haitian who took photos immediately after the earthquake.
• Benjamin Lowy owes his fame to the colourful shot of the Gulf of Mexico oil slick.
• Yuri Kozyrev has specialized in war zones.
• Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson took pictures of the Icelandic volcano.
• Cédric Gerbehaye was in Sudan.
• Daniel Berehulak has been in Pakistan - I rather like his style.
• Jorge Duenes (see mini bio in RH column) has been doing the Mexican border,

There are already short articles on Lynsey Addario (the only woman) and Adam Ferguson and a rather longer one on James Nachtwey.

Are any of the above interesting enough to be included in WP? If so, in what order of priority?

If you want to go further, only one of those in the digital version is included: Anthony Suau. All the others are still missiing: Callie Shell, Shaul Schwarz, Peter van Agtmael, Dominic Nahr, Richard Mosse, Peter van Agtmael, Mario Tama, Massimo Berruti, Moises Saman. Have fun! - Ipigott (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Ipigott, but there are squillions of contemporary photographers of some notability, or so it seems, and hundreds whose work I happen already to know really is notable. I'd guess that most whose work I'd think really was notable I don't know: after all, probably eight out of the last ten photobooks I've bought, and perhaps four out of five of those I'm most in the mood to buy, are by people I'd not heard of this time last year, even though they had put out good stuff. ¶ It's past my bedtime so I shan't now click the links that you thoughtfully provided. (Later, I shall return and do this.) Instead, I'll just say which redlinked names are immediately familiar: Peter van Agtmael, and Richard Mosse. That their names are immediately familiar of course does not mean that they are the most worthwhile or even the best known. If you're after somebody who definitely is worthwhile, how about Paolo Pellegrin (who now has just a crappy stub), or Guy Le Querrec (whose notability some [expletive deleted] has questioned) or Thomas Dworzak or Alex Webb. (Yes, yes, I'm lazily reading these off the article Magnum Photos, but I'm doing so discriminatingly.) -- Hoary (talk) 15:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I was going to recommend Daniel Berehulak, because you like his work; I see that you've got him an article. Well done.

My own choice would be Cédric Gerbehaye. But I have to finish other work first. -- Hoary (talk) 12:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I thought Cédric was quite interesting too. Might have a go on him tomorrow. In the meantime, I thought Yuri Kozyrev deserved some recognition. And to think that all this came out of your proposal for a categroy change! But I should soon be getting back to Luxembourg culture. - Ipigott (talk) 21:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yuri Kozyrev has turned out to be more interesting than I thought. If you were to find this suitable for DYK, you could write: "... that the award-winning war photographer Yuri Kozyrev, who has spent several years in Baghdad, found it important not to be seen as an American but rather as a Russian photographer working for the American press" - or something along those lines. ... posted by Ipigott at 11:00, 15 December 2010

Sorry but (perhaps despite appearances a few centimetres above) I don't know the DYK process at all. However, I look forward to rereading the article after I've slept. -- Hoary (talk) 15:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Neither do I. On a couple of occasions I tried to cope with it but it was far too difficult. I've suggested that the procedure should be simplified but I am told everyone else finds it easy! - Ipigott (talk) 17:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I once started to read about it but I dozed off before I'd grasped the rudiments. Pity. -- Hoary (talk) 23:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I've tried to cope with the DYK thing. Let's see what happens. Hope they don't come back to me with lots of unanswerable questions. Seems to me there's a lot of superfluous stuff they ask for. Suggestions for DYK could be greatly simplified if they just asked for the name of the article and the wording of the question. That would take care of most of the suggestions. All the rest of the stuff could be retrieved automatically. I'm sure they would get at least twice as many interesting submissions. But then most of the people working on these things are computer buffs with little understanding of basic communication! - Ipigott (talk) 08:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind if I join your conversation for a moment. The DYK process is not so complicated when you follow the rules listed at WP:WIADYK. More than fifty of my articles appeared in the DYK section, usually without problems. I think Yuri Kozyrev meets the criteria, but I'd change the hook to emphasize his achievements rather than his personal feelings (in my opinion, it would be more suitable for an encyclopedia). What about: "... that in 2003, the war photographer Yuri Kozyrev received the 1st prize in the category General News stories of the World Press Photo competition?" Just my opinion. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 10:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello Hoary. Do you like the book? --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 17:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I was amazed to come across it (at a used bookshop, yesterday). I first noticed the name Jindřich Štreit on the spine, eagerly pulled it out, and was surprised that it was about Japan. (I'd forgotten that he'd worked here.)

There's some excellent work in this book. Some of the photographs are pretty humdrum and the editing could have been a bit tighter, but on average the work is good indeed and at its best it's excellent.

If I were certain that the material in the back of the book was not put together by Štreit himself (or that nobody would claim that it was), and if there were twelve or so days in the week, I could use it to lengthen our list of his exhibitions. But as it is, sorry but no.

The book is let down terribly by its printing quality. It really doesn't look like something from as recent as 1996. The printing technology either was old or hadn't been intended for photographs. (I know that at its best, Czech printing quality of that time was a lot better.)

A small point, but the Japanese title is odd. Literally, it means "Japan: People from Akagi village". The "from" (actually kara) rather suggests that they're not in Akagi any more, but of course they are there. I'd guess that the "from" part of the Czech title is z and that this more broadly means "of". How's my linguistic guesswork? -- Hoary (talk) 00:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, Vlasta Čiháková-Noshiro is a respected Czech Japanologist and curator ... I can't comment on this, as my knowledge of Japanese is non-existent. What about the English translation? Czech z means "of" and also "from", it depends on the context. Is the title "People from Akagi" incorrect or misleading?

The publisher of the book is apparently a local gallery or a town (Opava and Rychnov nad Kněžnou), and the books of small and occasional publishers are not always professional (I admit, the same sometimes applies for big and respected publishing houses :)). However, the printing quality and technology of specialized art photography publishers in the Czech Rep. (mainly Torst and Kant) is usually very good even today (the owners are fans and connoisseurs and the printing quality is very important for them). --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 09:57, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't have the book with me now but as I remember the English text is good and the Japanese text is by somebody else.

The book doesn't have an English title. Its Japanese title suggests that the people depicted are no longer in Akagi. But they're very much in Akagi! (Still, the title doesn't necessarily mean that they're no longer in Akagi.)

It's not fair to judge the printing quality by 2010 standards. But even by 1996 standards it's underwhelming.

However, it must be said that although Japanese printing quality can be superb, often it isn't, even now. And some people say that as black-and-white photobooks become less common, B/W printing quality is on average declining -- in Japan and also elsewhere. Certainly books that combine color and B/W tend to to have mediocre B/W.

Perhaps my next rural B/W acquisition will be the (non-Czech!) Grimaces of the Weary Village, according to Colin Pantall "a fabulous book of rough and ready images, printed in a rough and ready manner on what looks like inkjet paper. You get the feeling the book will fall apart pretty soon and that the colours aren't quite right, but somehow that goes with the pictures of a village life that is gone for now, but not forever." [I can't fully understand the part following "a village life".] Unfortunately the book is priced for artiness rather than trashiness so I am hoping to see it discounted. -- Hoary (talk) 12:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey, this is close to my sentimental nature ... I live in a place where I can see the remnants of this old vanishing world, and I admire the people who can see and preserve the everyday reality in such a poetic and beautiful way ... Most of people no longer see the world this way ... Uff, enough of this, nostalgia is on my blacklist :) --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 17:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Wwwwwhat? Maybe we have been looking at different descriptions of or examples from Grimaces of the Weary Village. What I've seen of it is rather nightmarish, though not exclusively so. -- Hoary (talk) 02:51, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, "nightmare" is a pretty handy interpretation of such a kind of art. Nevertheless, for me it is a poetry and beauty - there's no intention to shock or scare in the photos, it is just an attempt to picture a raw life through a perceptive eye. The reception depends on cultural background and remains subjective, of course. I admit, it is a strange kind of beauty. What do you think about Francis Bacon (the painter)? His works are often associated with the terms like "horror" and "terror" and "nightmare" and I don't know what ... That's cheap. It is an attempt to come closer to the core of human existence. A successfull and inimitable attempt. Okay stop, I began with my rural philosophizing, and that's bad :)) --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 07:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Um . . . OK then!

I know very little of Bacon, I'm ashamed to say. I must have (directly) seen a fair number of his paintings in the past, but have no memory of having done so. Of course I've seen little reproductions in books. Yes, they did seem to show some sort of terror -- but then I wonder if some do and only these have stayed in my memory.

I've never been a fan. Interested and sometimes impressed, yes, but no more. When it comes to late 20th century British painting I'm much more a fan of the very different Anthony Green. I'm amazed that no conventionally published book of Green's work seems to have appeared since 1984, but I suppose he's either too witty or not sufficiently shouty to be a really big name in the wacky world of Art (capitalized). -- Hoary (talk) 10:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

When you get a chance, can you look at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chickamauga Indian when you get a chance, as I respect your opinion, whether for or against. Thanks, GenQuest (talk) 02:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

This certainly appears to be outside the general run of AfDs. I'm terribly underinformed on this subject area but if time permits I'll try to make an informed comment. However, this will take some time, if it happens at all. -- Hoary (talk) 02:26, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

If you can. Either way, thanks. GenQuest (talk) 09:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Deletion comment I saw your comment on the Marcou article. Daivd Marcou has 1 of the 3 pictures of Bert Hardy in the NPG. Many pictures of Bert Hardy were taken during his life. Mr. Marcou has had over 1,000 photographs, 2,000 articles, and 30 books published. For most of his life he has worked as a freelance writer. For a representative view of his work look at the Wisconsin Historical Society or LaCrosse history links. Sincerely, Dacorbandit (talk) 03:38, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

You are very free to improve the article accordingly. (See this for a list that I made of books by, or with substantial contributions by, a photographer.) And you're also very welcome to participate in the "AfD". -- Hoary (talk) 11:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

An article that you have been involved in editing, Wikipedia:WikiProject Photography, has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Traveler100 (talk) 20:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Here. And here, here, and here.

Can you do something about this, please?

Why do people believe in such absurds? Ninguém (talk) 15:15, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Comments such as this] are very blatantly not civil. There's one very obvious reason why we should capitalize Japanese book titles and such the same as English-language titles when romanizing or translating them into English: because that's the way English-language does it and it allows people to easily tell it's the title of a book at a glance. It's standard English-language practice, and since this is the English Language Wikipedia, we should therefore follow those other existing guidelines. It's fine if you don't like it, but please stop throwing hissy fits about it every chance you get. I'd rather you work with the rest of the project rather than against it by doing things like this. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 00:33, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, Joe, if Oh I see: [link to diff] WP:MOSJA decrees (yet again) that Japanese should pretend to be English is "very blatantly not civil", then I am a great geyser (or old geezer) of very blatant incivility. A charge that leaves me untroubled. To quote somebody far greater than myself: "I've been accused of a lot of dreadful things, but never of maintaining a civil tone." Though you know, I'd always thought that blatant incivility was a bit more, well, blatant. (Standards may differ, of course.) Now, if I throw "hissy fits", you may choose to think that these are a result of neurological damage caused by excessive consumption of cocaine or that I am four-legged -- all of this is inferred from my edits by somebody identifying himself as a published scholar in this nutty talk page archive (search within it for "cocaine" or "dog"). But perhaps a "hissy fit" is in the eye of the beholder (and I've never stuck anything up my nose, or wanted to). "Working against the project" sounds like a charge leveled between cult members, but anyway in the last couple of days I flatter myself that I've made "obi (publishing)" slightly less grotesque (though still terrible), created a little article on "Steidl", and greatly amplified "Toyoko Tokiwa". -- Hoary (talk) 05:26, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

MEN! Stop it both of you, U Sam and John B. It looks like おバカが二人。WPは幼稚園じゃありません。まったくもう！ あきれ果てて言葉が出ないわ。You two must be the most reliable admins and friends for me and WikiProject Japan. Hoary, was I uncivil to call you gaijin in my edit summary? I also call you two バカ. But please do not take it out on me. Oda Mari (talk) 06:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Mari! Gaijin is a standard Japanese word; I think it only offends those gaijin who like to imagine slights and then to moan about them. And it's always refreshing to be called baka. (Isn't incivility fun? If you keep calling me names, I might quote you on my user page.) Yes, I'm an admin. But Nihonjoe is a bureaucrat; he's got more superpowers! -- Hoary (talk) 06:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

While I want both of you to stop 水掛け論 full of 嫌味, I imagine it would be fun if two of you'd block each other. I also think to nominate you two at here. Oda Mari (talk) 07:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be impossible for each of us to block the other, at the same time, anyway. Oh, X could block Y; Y could appeal on his talk page; Z could unblock Y; and Y could thereupon block X -- but that wouldn't be funny any more. Best thing for you as an interested observer to do would be to bring this matter up on WP:AN/I, appealing for a third party to block us both. I've never been blocked and -- hang on while I check -- neither has he. It would be an interesting experience for both of us. Admins are two a penny and I think routinely get blocked (for smoking dope, mooning people, and so on, or anyway their WP equivalents), but bureaucrats are rather rarer. (I notice that the famous WP personality Essjay twice blocked himself, once for 17 seconds.) -- Hoary (talk) 07:52, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

You said, Dr Blofeld, the history may have somehow got scrambled, but for what it's worth it shows that you created it back then. Was this a momentary aberration (what you posted cannot have taken you long), or was/is there some (apparent) significance to Chaldakov that you may wish to divulge here?

My reply. Eh... yes I am aware that "I" created it. There must have been some reason I started in back in the wiki dark ages, maybe it was on a list of Bulgarian photographers or something. I don't have a 100% success rate but it probably 99% for starting notable articles... ♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, well . . . I've probably kicked off one or two unworthy articles in my time too. But what an odd AfD that was. I wish Chaldakov the best in his career. Which makes me wonder: Have there been examples of people whose articles were deleted via AfD but who then went on to (reliably sourced) triumphs and whose new articles were welcomed? I'd rather like to think so, as I do usually feel a twinge of pity for those who are deleted. -- Hoary (talk) 13:16, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

This category seems far too generic. What are your thoughts about changing it to something like "Famous black-and-white photographs", with a definition that the photos in this category must have appeared in one of the major history of photography books? Lexaxis7 (talk) 02:03, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm no particular fan of Category:Black-and-white photographs, but I hugely prefer "Category:Whatever" to "Category: Famous whatever". No matter if a given B/W photograph appears in no "major history of photography books" (itself a criterion that invites argument!), if reliable sources show that it's notable according to general WP criteria, I think it can get an article. And then it merits inclusion in Category:Black-and-white photographs just as much as a better-known photograph does.

As I skimread Category:Black-and-white photographs I see a lot of unfamiliar names. It's possible that some don't merit articles. (Today I lack the time/energy to investigate.) Do you see a problem? If so, my guess is that categorization is irrelevant to it, but I'm open to contrary argument.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of individual B/W photographs merit articles. If that were to happen, the category should be broken up in one way or another. But I doubt that this will happen, as photographs are of interest to few editors (perhaps because they're rarely the concern of the anglophone infotainment industry).

As I looked for the category, I happened to chance on Category:Black and white photography. Now, this is a category that does call out for drastic action, but I haven't yet decided which kind. Thoughts? -- Hoary (talk) 02:37, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

PS I've done this. -- Hoary (talk) 10:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Hoary. User talk:Chicagoillinois06 requested that I restore an article about a fashion photographer which was speedy deleted per A7. I userfied it at User:Chicagoillinois06/Benjamin Kanarek to allow them opportunity to add RS with significant coverage. They e-mailed me with a whole passel of iffy refs (mostly blogs, gallery sites, forum articles, etc.). -- but there does seem to be a legitimate hint of actual significant sources for this guy. In other words, he might be notable, but I'm out of my depth with photographers. Since this is your bailiwick, would you mind taking a look? I'd appreciate your opinion. Cheers, — CactusWriter ^(talk) 17:50, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

My own knowledge of photography is patchy and fashion isn't one of those patches. I do know that magazines and fashion brands use a vast quantity of photographs (much of them very humdrum), and thus would not be impressed if even a reliable source simply stated that somebody had photographed for famous magazine X or famous brand Y; the question would be of what photography they had done and of what attention has been paid to it. I do see miscellaneous jpegs such as this one (which I presume are for real) that show non-humdrum photography. ¶ So yes, there's something there. But what is this something? WP articles need to be based on independent, reliable sources, not original syntheses of inferences drawn from JPEGs found on the biographee's blog. Where are the articles in photo or fashion magazines about Kanarek? Where's the book that collects his work? I don't see any of this. ¶ Of course, many other crappy articles exist; and if (a) they ought not to exist and (b) their existence concerns the author of this draft, then he is free to take these articles to AfD. -- Hoary (talk) 23:42, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that pretty much covers the same responses I gave him on his talk page. I'll see if they come up with any decent sources. Thanks for taking a look. Cheers. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 17:38, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Hoary. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aksel Stasny.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I was wondering whether you have any experience of User:GA bot which seems to be able to give a GA rating to articles without any human checking or assessment. The reason I ask is that Tryvandshøiden (station), a new article listed today in DYK, was apparently automatically given a GA rating by the bot despite the fact that no formal assessment was carried out. In my opinion, the article is closer to a Start or C rating and would need a lot more work to bring it up to GA. You will see from the talk page that there has only really been one editor involved. I only discovered the GA rating after I had done quite an extensive copyediting job, finding quite a few errors typical of non-native English speakers. While I do not want to upset the author by regrading the quality, I just wonder whether others would agree with the automatic GA rating here and whether lots of other articles have been similarly upgraded. Is there any way to check this? I would be interested to have your comments although this has absolutely nothing to do with photography. Finally, do you think it would be useful to add something on Tryvandshøiden (station)'s talk page? - Ipigott (talk) 13:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

No, no. Rightly or wrongly, the article is a GA. That being so, the bot was right to label it a GA.

Should it be a GA? I'm not qualified to make a quick judgement, though I will say that it's surprisingly short for a GA. If you don't think it should be a GA, then I think you should first say so at User talk:Arsenikk; you may also wish to write a list of questions, requests or comments in the article's talk page. -- Hoary (talk) 13:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response and for your explanations. I don't think I'll take it any further. The thing that surprised me most was the poor quality of the English. I would have thought a native-English speaker like Arsenikk would have tidied the thing up himself. But I see Dr Blofeld recommended his involvement - so that my partly explain the rapid assessment. I would also have thought it would have been useful to have a map showing the places mentioned and perhaps a few more pictures. It's the first time I've see a DYK which had already been rated GA. But then there's a first time for everything. - Ipigott (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

John Pezzenti. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 05:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Well done Sir! -- Hoary (talk) 08:11, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Please consider the analysis and opinions I have posted here --Tenmei (talk) 17:49, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I was a bit hasty in reverting your removal of the Master's Thesis material in Lolita. At first I read the clause "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable". However, later I read "Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a PhD, and which are publicly available, are considered publications by scholars and are routinely cited in footnotes....Masters dissertations and theses are only considered reliable if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence." So I guess you are correct in removing that material. However, Master's theses have been occasionally known to get published by scholarly venues. Mine was. --WickerGuy (talk) 05:13, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations on the publication of your master's thesis. Its publication by a university press or similar (as opposed to its acceptance for a degree, or its publication by "VDM" or the like) makes it citable. -- Hoary (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Particularly good works on Nabokov's comments (and providing me with still more opportunity to fix stuff I did NOT post- I pretty much did the cultural refs section). Reviewing WP:LINK, I see it particularly states "Items within quotations should not generally be linked; instead, consider placing the relevant links in the surrounding text or in the "See also" section of the article." I wasn't aware of that guideline before. Good to know.--WickerGuy (talk) 14:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Hey there. While I understand that vandals and trolls are annoying, please note that, when dealing with one, the best action to take is ignoring them. See this page for relevant info. Of course, I'm not telling you never to do this, but it pays off in the long run if you just ignore the vandal until we've dealt with them. Thanks! m.o.p 21:49, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I agree with you. But I'm a little puzzled by your message. Are you suggesting that I have recently fed a troll? If so, a diff, please. -- Hoary (talk) 02:30, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I could have sworn I included a diff. Here you go. It's not that bad, but it's not optimal either. Cheers, m.o.p 07:36, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Though I don't claim to know what the optimum is, it doesn't look at all bad to me. I avoided feeding him any such trollfodder as little red graphics with crosses or raised hands. He responded by urinating on this talk page, which is nothing out of the ordinary. I noticed that and hosed it off. Then nothing happened for quite some time (I kept an eye on his list of "contributions") and I went to bed. ¶ Eight full hours after the last of his very few if silly edits, he was blocked for 31 hours (which would strike me as an overreaction even if imposed while the perp was in mid-urination). And, while he was blocked, he was warned not to do the same kind of thing again, otherwise he'd be, uh, blocked. This strikes me as bizarre, but it was probably a mere edit conflict; still, the person who left the message could after posting it have noticed the block notice and self-reverted. ¶ Should I go back to admin school, d'you think? -- Hoary (talk) 09:33, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Haha, no, I think you're doing great. And yeah, it's not horrible, but experience has shown me that it's easiest just not to talk to vandals, despite how childish they are at times. Don't take it personally, though! I think you're doing a fantastic job. m.o.p 15:34, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for tidying up the reference I added to McBean's page pointing to his photo of Anne Sharp. I see you remarked that it still needs to be sourced. I don't know what to do about that. The file is a scan I took from the original McBean print, which has been in my mother's possession since the picture was taken in 1951. I wanted it to illustrate her wiki biography, as there is no free image of her at that point in her career (and it is a fabulously good photo). I only found McBean's name on the back when I took it out of the frame to scan it, and even then I had no idea he himself was so famous. So I don't know how to "source" it, unless a scan of the back of the photo with the attribution would be any use. Morag Kerr (talk) 10:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid I expressed myself badly. What I meant was that the section as a whole required (and still requires) "sourcing". This doesn't mean that every clause within it requires sourcing; and indeed your addition, with which I tinkered slightly, is one part that needs none. It's fine as is. ¶ As you probably will have noticed, I reduced the dimensions of the photograph and deleted the original. This was not because I thought that it didn't merit a larger size: I was merely trying to protect it against unnecessary deletion. ¶ McBean was a remarkable photographer and books of his works are worth a look. The article here about him looks well-intentioned but I'm sure that the stuff in it about Bailey (for example) is wrong: McBean's "occlusion" (not my term) was not by Bailey but was instead by an entire wave of photography of which Bailey was merely the most celebrated British example. However, I lack the time to "source" this so I'm in no hurry to add it. -- Hoary (talk) 12:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I understand what you mean. Thanks for reducing the size of the photo, if that was required. It looks fine as it is now. The quality of the original print is very high - a scan at whatever-the-hell resolution you like still retains amazing vividness and sharpness. I have always admired the photo enormously, although my mother complained she didn't like the way the dress showed a bit of cleavage (she was playing the part of a 14-year-old at the time, although she was actually 35) and her hair needed washing that day! When I pointed out to her last night that the photo had been taken by a famous photographer she was already aware of that, though she was getting the name mixed up with John Piper who was a set designer she'd worked with.

I agree with you about the "Occlusion" part of the article - it doesn't look very scholarly. However, none of my business since I'd never even heard of McBean until less than 48 hours ago! Morag Kerr (talk) 13:19, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Hoary, I replied to you on my talkpage but I don't think you saw it. Re the deletion of the Anne Sharp photo. A friend on another forum says its because I made a mistake when originally uploading the photo, something to do with the wrong category. He said there was a way to do it right, but it was all a bit cryptic to me and he vanished without explaining further. What he said was "Images of that type need to be uploaded with something like the

This image is a faithful digitisation of a unique historic image, and the copyright for it is most likely held by the person who created the image or the agency employing the person. It is believed that the use of this image may qualify as non-free use under the Copyright law of the United States. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. See Wikipedia:Non-free content for more information.

Please remember that the non-free content criteria require that non-free images on Wikipedia must not "[be] used in a manner that is likely to replace the original market role of the original copyrighted media." Use of historic images from press agencies must only be of a transformative nature, when the image itself is the subject of commentary rather than the event it depicts (which is the original market role, and is not allowed per policy). Fair use //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hoary/Archive_12

true

To the uploader:

1. Please add a detailed non-free use rationale for each article the image is used in, which must also declare compliance with the other parts of the non-free content criteria, as well as the source of the work and copyright information.
2. For example non-free use rationales, see Wikipedia:Use rationale examples.
3. Template:Non-free use rationale 2 may be helpful for stating the rationale.

To patrollers and administrators: If this image has an appropriate rationale please append |image has rationale=yes as a parameter to the license template.

If this tag does not accurately describe this image, please replace it with an appropriate one.

tag with the argument that is shows a person at a particular point in their career." Do you know what he meant and how to fix it? Morag Kerr (talk) 20:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Morag and Hoary, I found my way here from T:TDYK. Morag, I believe you should upload the image using the "It is a historically significant fair use image" option. On the following page, you need to select "Historically significant fair use (deceased persons or historic events)" in the "Licensing" drop-down menu, as well as fill out the File description box. I *think* that should do it.

By the way, I've suggested on the DYK nominations page that your article would be a nice addition to the main page on International Women's Day (8 March). Would you be happy with that? In that case I would move it to the 8 March holding area. We are trying to get lots of articles celebrating women on the main page that day, and we need about two dozen DYKs. Best, --JN466 22:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, JN. Do you think that will do it? The subject ain't deceased! I'm getting slightly different advice from "Geni" on the JREF forum, who is an experienced wiki editor - I think there may be more than one way of skinning this particular cat.

I have found a number of photos online of the 1949 production, but as they're group pics the resolution of a detail would be very low, and they're copyrighted up to their eyeballs with "Getty Images" across the frames, so I ain't touching that lot!

I'm sure it would be very nice as a feature on International Women's Day if it's the sort of article that's wanted for that purpose. I have added another couple of references this evening. Morag Kerr (talk) 22:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Good! I see that Geni has restored the image; I would go with her advice rather than mine. :) I am glad to hear that Mrs Sharp is alive and well. Best, --JN466 23:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me, let's hope this satisfies the nit-pickers. (BTW, it's Miss Sharp, she's Mrs. Kerr.) (And Geni's a guy....) Thanks a lot. Morag Kerr (talk) 23:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like I'm not doing too well tonight. ;) But at any rate, the image is there, which is the only thing that matters. And it certainly is historic. Nice article. Cheers, --JN466 00:59, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh . . . hello all. Sorry, no, I didn't notice the earlier message. Thank you for alerting me here. I'm glad that the image is back. I hope that there'll be no further kerfuffle over it; but if there is, and if I seem not to notice it, please don't hesitate to notify me here. -- Hoary (talk) 12:18, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help, much appreciated. I have uploaded a slightly lighter scan of the photo, because I thought it was showing up a bit dark. Could you take a look and please revert if you think this was a bad idea? Morag Kerr (talk) 01:12, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi again Hoary. I wonder whether you could help me out by moving Art of Denmark to Danish art. User:Neelix has been doing a pretty good job of moving all the "art of country" titles to "country adj plus art" (see articles under Category:Art by nationality) but cannot move Art of Demark as there is an editing history behind Danish Art. I tried to list the article in the move requests but could not master the code. - Ipigott (talk) 10:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Done! -- Hoary (talk) 13:56, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Quick work, thanks. I've just started an article on Sanja Iveković. I picked her up from your Camera Austria Award list and thought she deserved a word in the EN WP too. Feel free to add, edit or whatever. - Ipigott (talk) 16:37, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Well done. I can't see anything in the article that cries out for a tweak. I clicked on links about Sanja Iveković, but I'm sorry to say that nothing I saw inspired me to spend time googling for more stuff about her. (De gustibus....) ¶ In my spare moments I'm doing more of the tiresome preparations for improving an article on the truly remarkable David Goldblatt, triggered by my serendipitous discovery and purchase of a fat little retrospective of his work, and the subsequent discovery of at least four other books of his work in "my" library. There's a lot about him on the web, too. -- Hoary (talk) 15:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm trying to understand this. The article was deleted under prod, so if you think it should be kept there's no problem with you restoring it, but your rational confuses me. You said "Of course there's evidence of notability. (It may be insufficient, and this may be AfD fodder". Now, here's my problem: do you think the article should be kept or not? If you do, fine - anyone who disagrees can go to afd. If you don't (and questioning the sufficiency of the evidence makes me wonder) then I'd wonder why restore it. Prod isn't CSD A7 - ultimately the article isn't deleted because of lack of notability, it is deleted because no one objects to deletion. As I say, if you meant that you think the article is worthy of retention, then I've no problem with that.--Scott Mac 14:43, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on the matter. ¶ I didn't notice that the article got a prod flag; I did notice when it was deleted. When that happened, I thought "Steve Giovinco? I've no idea who that is, but I must have put the article on my watchlist for some reason." I looked at the deleted article and saw what seemed to be signs (if not sourced signs) of notability. I therefore copied it to an edit window, and set out to source the claims for exhibitions. The evidence for most of these was googlable, even though it was dismayingly sparse. I deleted the items that weren't sourced and, with no great enthusiasm (thus my edit summary), resuscitated the article and replaced it with my version. ¶ That done, I took a break but returned later to look at the claims of exhibitions with Famous People and of presence in permanent collections. This was less fruitful than the earlier search, so my enthusiasm for the article sank yet further. ¶ However, this points to four more shows, and he may well have had more besides -- I haven't yet bothered to look. I've neither looked at nor commented on the short list of "Selected articles" (only one of which is described with tolerable precision), but just about everything else in the article is either sourced or marked "citation needed", so I think that at worst the article is harmless. (I hope you agree that the changes I made to it have made it less awful.) But I wouldn't be offended if somebody were to send it off to AfD. -- Hoary (talk)

I'm still confused why you undeleted it if you are so unenthusiastic about it - and if the best thing you can say about it is "harmless". Stuff that's deleted under prod is deleted because no-one thinks it worth saving, and undeletion (or deproding) is an indication that someone positively believes the article ought to be kept. If you don't think it positively ought to be kept, then it is a bit of a waste of everyone's time undeleting it and forcing a needless AfD. However, if you want it kept that's fine. I don't feel strongly enough about it to push the point to AFD.--Scott Mac 16:22, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm unenthusiastic about a large percentage of what's widely welcomed within WP, and the best I can say about this stuff is that it's harmless. No, what's deleted via prod is deleted because (i) the person who sticks the prod notice thinks it should be deleted, (ii) nobody who happens to notice the prod notice disagrees with deletion, and (iii) the reason for deletion looks vaguely plausible to the closing admin (who's typically working in a hurry). By undeleting this, I haven't forced an AfD, I've merely forestalled any further prod (if I remember the rulebook correctly). ¶ I note that you haven't said here why you think the article should be deleted. (Not that I'm complaining. Of course you are under no obligation to explain.) It doesn't seem likely that he passes even the preamble to WP:CREATIVE (A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject) let alone any of the "CREATIVE" conditions, unless (i) some of the obscure references to "articles" at the foot of the article turn out to be fruitful, and (ii) we charitably interpret the weaselly word "significant". Well, we'll see. If you think it should be deleted but can't be bothered to launch the AfD (a situation that's familiar to me), then perhaps somebody else will launch it. -- Hoary (talk) 23:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, you think the article fails the relevant guideline, but you undeleted it anyway - meaning it stays unless someone can be bothered to AFD it? WHY? Why are you putting material back on Wikipidia which you think probably doesn't belong?--Scott Mac 09:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know whether it passes or fails, because I haven't seen the secondary sources that have been adduced, and because I don't know what "significant" means. Perhaps it belongs, perhaps it doesn't. The ever-vigorous Offtoriorob clearly thinks that it does not belong; perhaps you would like to comment in the AfD that he started. -- Hoary (talk) 13:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, thanks for wasting everyone's time, by recreating content which you've no idea whether belongs on Wikipedia or not. Sheeesh.--Scott Mac 13:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I do not have no idea; I have mixed ideas. (Should I perhaps have aped mediocre politicians by feigning certainty?) So far the only people to have had time wasted by me would appear to be Offtoriorob and you; and calling two people "everyone" is a stretch. Furthermore, most of the time you have spent on the matter you've spent on this talk page, of your own volition. -- Hoary (talk) 14:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

diff - Ah, excuse me, I missed that citation in the middle of the two citation required tags diff, I hope you will assume good faith and not assert I did it deliberately with intention to deceive. Off2riorob (talk) 14:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Spoken like a gentleman, Sir! No hard feelings. -- Hoary (talk) 14:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Cool, appreciated. Lets see the feedback as to the afd comments, I see some notability but when I nominated it I didn't see anything standing out. If the outcome is a clear assertion of note and some article improvement then I will be happy. Regards. Off2riorob (talk) 14:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject Japan for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Other editors will also have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 04:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost article on WP Japan is scheduled to run this Monday. In light of the recent earthquake, is there anything else you'd like to request from our readers? If so, feel free to add the new information to the "anything else" section of the interview. -Mabeenot (talk) 17:46, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Having a look at this. I really don't mean to correct you but this isn't just random text, this IP has placed blatant copyright violations onto several articles. Also, I had a look at their recent contributions, and this editor did stop over 5 minutes ago after you posted the message, so it is quite likely that this IP won't see that message. Minimac (talk) 08:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't argue with any of that. The two examples that I saw were obviously irrelevant (unless somebody happens to think that "philosophical" mumbo-jumbo is relevant to actual philosophy), and that was enough for me. It doesn't much surprise me that they're copyright to boot. -- Hoary (talk) 08:54, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello again Hoary. It's not photography this time but perhaps you could have a quick look at Jim Clemes and my reactions on the talk page. Would appreciate your opinion. Perhaps I've done something wrong after all. - Ipigott (talk) 16:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Hoary, you've been so helpful I wonder if I can ask your advice again? I've just started to have a go at the article The Little Sweep, and I think I have enough well-referenced material to make it quite good. The trouble is, it is wrongly titled. The original article only dealt with the opera that forms the second half of the work, and it was titled accordingly. However, any comprehensive article has to deal with the entire work, and the entire work is not called The Little Sweep, it is called Let's Make an Opera!. And indeed, I have a small shed-load of info about the first half waiting to go in.

There is a redirect page redirecting from Let's Make an Opera! to The Little Sweep, but really, it ought to be the other way round. I'd like to make it so, but I don't want to come off half-cocked, mess it up, and then get flak. I can see quite a long list of articles linking to the page, which I could go through one by one and fix, and I guess talk page links don't really matter, but could you tell me what the proper procedure is for a job of this nature? Morag Kerr (talk) 15:15, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I too hadn't heard of The Little Sweep but had heard of Let's Make an Opera! which included an opera which, oh I understand now, is titled The Little Sweep. I agree with your suggestion that it should be renamed. But I'm not going to rename it, and I advise you not to do so either. You've put up a message on its talk page asking about a renaming; good, now wait a week and see what reaction it gets. If there's no significant objection, then it can be moved. -- Hoary (talk) 15:33, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

That's good advice. There's no hurry at all, as the thing has had its present title for some time now, and there's an appropriate redirect in place. (I seem to recall first accessing the page through the redirect.) It will also take me a little while to get the material I have on the work put together. I don't see any other activity on the page at all, and it's hardly a hot topic, so I don't imagine the proposal is likely to attract violent opposition. I just need to know what to do, as an when the time is appropriate. Morag Kerr (talk) 17:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Include "ethnicity, gender," to match all other guidelines

Some say source requirements for ethnicity and gender of WP:EGRS don't apply to WP:BLP living persons, simply because the two words aren't in the policy. (Apparently, they think it should only apply to dead people.) I see that you have participated on this topic at the Village Pump.

They also are trying to remove the notability, relevance, and self-identification criteria at WT:EGRS, but that's another fight for another day, I'm simply too busy to watch two fronts at the same time.

We're on the 6th day. Traditionally, these polls go for 7; unless there's no obvious consensus, when we go for an additional 7 days.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 16:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The WikiProject Japan Signpost article scheduled for this week was postponed in light of the earthquake, tsunami, and ongoing nuclear crisis. We would like to publish the interview within the next couple weeks with updated information that takes into account the events in Japan. Please take an opportunity to return to the interview page to answer some additional questions located at the bottom of the page. This is also an opportunity to revise any previous answers if you feel the need. We hope to bring your story to a wider audience. Thanks again for your participation. -Mabeenot (talk) 03:35, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Camerapedia is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Camerapedia until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

One of your edits just popped up on my watchlist. I'm glad to see you are OK. You're only making few contributions of late, I guess that lead suit you have to wear all day must get in the way! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we're all keeling over with leukemia here: the level of radiation in Tokyo is so high that it's, uh, below the Japanese national average, let alone the US (or Cornish) average. Fish are rather more worrisome. (Note the sloppy writing in that: is the level 7.5M times the max allowable, or merely 7.5M times the norm?) There are precedents for mislabeling, and I imagine that plenty of fish caught near Fukushima will be sold as having been caught near Chile or wherever; and anyway I suppose that glowing fish will be turned into chickenfeed and so forth. So one way or another we'll get our cesium, unless we become vegetarians. -- Hoary (talk) 06:16, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi,

As an editor who was involved with ELNO discussion some time ago, "'Official Myspace' Links on Wiki" I am inviting you to comment on the proposal to rework the definition of "Official Link".

Regards, ELNO Checking (talk) 18:11, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello again Hoary! Thought I would bring to your attention something outside photography, art and architecture. I have just turned up this article about the 19th century Great Famine in Ireland and have found there are draconian editing restrictions related to The Troubles. I can see this has had a pretty restrictive effect on further editing of the article which in my mind can hardly be in the best interests of Wikipedia. Indeed, any relationship between the potato blight in the middle of the 19th century and the comparatively recent incidents in Northern Ireland must be in the eyes of the beholder, but not mine. I have posted a query on the article's talk page but wonder whether a seasoned Wikipedian like you could not sort things out sooner rather than later? When reading the article, I thought it looked like a good candidate for GA or even FA but then saw there were severe restrictions. - Ipigott (talk) 19:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry not to have got back earlier on this. I think that what you and I share is a dispassionate view of Ireland past and present. My dispassionate view of Ireland in no way prevents me from describing the damage done by distant or recent actors in its history, from seeing cause–effect relationships, or from appreciating that others have, or are even ruled by, their passions. I imagine that the article has been used to promote one interpretation of history over another, or worse. I don't suppose you'd want to get involved in that kind of thing, and certainly I wouldn't. Indeed, I for one find "1RR" and so forth attractive by comparison. ¶ The most obvious annoyance is the strong suggestion that an "RFC" is required for any change. But then RFCs on editor content are disproportionately verbose, acrimonious and conspicuous: content RFCs are rarely so arduous, and all in all this requirement may sound worse than it really is. ¶ I therefore suggest that you start by playing by the rules rather than (however aboveboardedly and legitimately) attempting to change the rules. With luck, you'll attract encyclopedists rather than axe-grinders to the talk page; the discussion will then be (rather than just promise to be) mature and constructive, and with this established you'll then be more persuasive when you ask for the more onerous of the restrictions to be removed. -- Hoary (talk) 03:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for these suggestions. I certainly wasn't trying to change any rules. To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure what the rules are! Up to now, I've had no responses on the talk page but perhaps that's because my suggestion was too direct. I'm not too sure what you want me to do when you say I should play by the rules. Anyway, this area is actually of only marginal interest to me. I just think it is a great pity this article seems to have become stuck in the mud. And it does seem to me to be a pretty good article, free of any biased content. - Ipigott (talk) 11:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

First off I must say that when I read my own comment it seems curiously pompous. I put that down to temporary caffeine shortage. ¶ Well, I see this: The article Great Famine (Ireland), along with other articles relating to The Troubles, is currently subject to active arbitration remedies [...]. All editors on Troubles-related articles are directed to get the advice of neutral parties via means such as outside opinions. And "outside opinions" is linked to "WP:RFC". I thought you meant "That requirement is silly, how might one get it lifted?" My response is, "Better to go along with it and thereby show that it's silly, whereupon it will be easier to have lifted." But I don't know. -- Hoary (talk) 13:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I liked you comment in the 'Candid Camera' debate. I've often thought that the article selection criteria that Wikipedia has evolved are seriously screwed up when, for example, any episode of any TV programme seems to be automatically acceptable and yet people have to jump through all sorts of hoops to include articles relating to other art forms. PRL42 (talk) 16:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a product of its editors, among whom middle-class north American male teens are amply represented. Perhaps we should be surprised and grateful that the result isn't even more grotesque. (Consider: at the very highest level of Wikipedia there's a belief in "Objectivism".) Meanwhile, we'd better learn to laugh along with the Wikipedia we've got. How about this gem about pr0n "notability": starred in an iconic, groundbreaking or blockbuster feature? Pity they didn't work legendary into that, but even without legendary, what truly ("iconically"?) windbreaking prose! -- Hoary (talk) 00:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Hey there, I can't help but notice the rash of new editors working on the Ebonics article. I'm not familiar enough with the subject (it's on my watchlist but just for vandalism purposes) but since you seem to have a handle on things I'm not too worried. It just seems odd that all of sudden we have all these people interested in this article and not much else. SQGibbon (talk) 16:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

It is indeed odd, but it's not obvious that any of them is doing anything wrong, so I suppose that it's OK. (I mean, I disagree with some of the edits, but they seem constructive, or at least intended constructively.) -- Hoary (talk) 11:06, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not good at articles. Can you work on the articles I've started? Neptunekh2 (talk) 02:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

If their subject interests me, perhaps. ¶ I took a quick look at the list of your most recent contributions and none of the titles really stood out, other than Robert Frank. In this pair of edits you changed

an important figure in [[United States|American]] [[Documentary photography|photography]] and [[Documentary film|film]]

to

an important figure in [[Swiss]]-[[American]] [[Documentary photography|photography]] and [[Documentary film|film]]

However, (i) though he's Swiss, he's not important in Swiss-American documentary photography or film (whatever either of these may be); he's important in American photography, maybe in American film, and maybe in Swiss photography or film or both; (ii) Swiss is a redirect and American is a disambiguation page. So I'm about to revert this pair of edits. -- Hoary (talk) 12:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It'd be great if you could bring it up to some reasonable level. I'd asked Giano about it and he thought it'd be better to start from scratch.   Will Beback  talk  02:21, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know that you'd asked Giano.

Maybe "my" library has a copy of the relevant volume of Pevsner; I'll try to remember to check. -- Hoary (talk) 09:34, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Hoary. I don't know if you noticed my comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History of photography#Seeking History of Photography Ambassador for WikiProject MoMA; are you interested in possibly filling this role? With your interest and experience in the broader subject, you would seem to be an excellent fit :)--Pharos (talk) 02:26, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the invitation. I've read about it and it sounds valuable. I imagine that the two hours per week could easily become longer, which alarms me a bit. Moreover, while I appreciate the importance of helping and not biting newbies, I'm not at all sure that these are among my few strengths. Still ... maybe. There's talk of it lasting a semester (or perhaps a term, I forget); from roughly (or even precisely) when to when would this run? -- Hoary (talk) 11:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Well the main goal of the History of Photography ambassador would just be to serve as an effective interface between WikiProject History of Photography and WikiProject MoMA on article creation and improvement. This is inspired by the university Wikipedia:Ambassadors program, but is more corely a part of the push for WikiProject GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums). As to term, there is no official time period yet, but let's just say you can stay on for a summer fling and see if you like it :)--Pharos (talk) 18:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

OK then! (Irrelevantly: If you're in NYC you've probably already seen the video at the top of this ... but it doesn't harm to watch it a second time.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

BTW, I think you might be interested in Wikipedia talk:GLAM/MoMA#Mega-lists, and especially its applicability to the MoMA Department of Photography.--Pharos (talk) 15:29, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

A tag has been placed on Plans and interiors of Mentmore, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a redirect to an article talk page, file description page, file talk page, MediaWiki page, MediaWiki talk page, category talk page, portal talk page, template talk page, help talk, user page, user talk or special page from the main/article space.

If you can fix the redirect to point to a mainspace page, please do so and remove the speedy deletion tag. However, please do not remove the speedy deletion tag unless you are fixing the redirect. If you think the redirect should be retained as is for some reason, contest the deletion by clicking on the button that looks like this: which appears inside of the speedy deletion ({{db-...}}) tag (if no such tag exists, the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate). Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the the article's talk page directly to give your reasons. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. DASHBot (talk) 06:00, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Good call, bot! I deleted it. -- Hoary (talk) 06:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The japanese surrendered a few months after germany. Why didn't the Japanese surrender at the same time as Germany in wwII? Pass a Method talk 15:15, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

If you read and digest a general history of the second world war, you will understand. -- Hoary (talk) 23:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

More information Archives of American Art Wikimedia Partnership - We need you! ...

Archives of American Art Wikimedia Partnership - We need you!

Hi! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art and I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about art to participate in furthering art coverage on Wikipedia. I am planning contests and projects that will allow you access, no matter where you live, to the world's largest collection of archives related to American art. Please sign up to participate here, and I look forward to working with you! SarahStierch (talk) 00:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Close

Thank you for the invitation. I wish you well, but I fear that I'll have little free time in the next few months and, perhaps rashly, I have already said yes to an invitation to spend time with people based at or writing about MoMA (see above on this talk page). So I'm reluctant to call myself a participant. But if I notice that somebody in your team is doing something in an area about which I'm not so ignorant, and in which I am interested, I may pitch in. -- Hoary (talk) 02:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Quotations, there is nowhere states that the official websites are not the reliable sources of reference for his honors and accomplishments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.197.80 (talk) 17:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Please see this, and continue the discussion at Talk:Daisaku Ikeda. -- Hoary (talk) 00:25, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

There is now evidence that has been gathered of payments made to you for your Wikipedia editing services. This evidence will shortly be released in a public forum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lorifredrics (talk • contribs) 02:46, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for tipping me off to this, Lori! I'm not usually a fan of fantasy fiction, but I'm honored to learn that some is being created starring little old me. -- Hoary (talk) 10:34, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I have warned the editor and will monitor their future behavior. --John (talk) 19:32, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Hoary. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities.
Message added 04:15, 25 June 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Mtking (talk) 04:15, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
x2 Mtking (talk) 06:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

You are correct that she should be free to edit, but WP:SHARE says she should avoid the same pages and declare the link. That issue along with the off wiki threat should be passed on to an administrator to look at just in case they need to act. Mtking (talk) 07:53, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I see no "threat", other of course than the announcement that persons anonymous will posting something found (or can I guess faked) by persons anonymous to some mysteriously unnamed "public forum", an announcement that has me quaking in my boots (not). And yes, I suppose that she should say who she is. ¶ If you think it would be wise to call in an admin, please do so. -- Hoary (talk) 08:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that this edit is a threat of off-wiki harassment, and also given the history of SOCKing just feel that better safe than sorry; I will post a question on an administrator page in a mo. Mtking (talk) 08:34, 25 June 2011 (UTC)