User talk:S Marshall/Archive46

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

Archives : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Intros & leads

Howdy. Recommend you keep an eye on the Rene Levesque page. GoodDay (talk) 21:12, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

February music

Quick facts

story · music · places

Close

Music and flowers on Rossini's rare birthday -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:44, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Close at Talk:Battle of Bakhmut#RFC Russian Victory

Hi, thank you for your close. While I would not question the ultimate result, I am concerned with the commentary after "consensus for Option D", which would appear to indicate that you may not be familiar with MOS:MIL on infoboxes. It gives specific guidance regarding the result parameter and gives voice to the template documentation regarding the infobox result. It has been cited in the discussion and some less direct mentions. In a nutshell, the result is generally discussed in a section on the aftermath (often called aftermath). In that, prose will present various views as reflected in sources. A closure for option D - Russian victory - see §Aftermath means that this is literally what is placed in the infobox without further qualification, in accordance with the guidance. The only latitude is in the actual name of the section in the body of the article that the reader is directed to for a discussion about the result - ie the appropriate section is usually called Aftermath but may sometimes be given a different name. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:59, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi, Cinderella157, and thanks for visiting my talk page. The Manual of Style doesn't overrule RFC consensus. It's a guideline which editors are free to reach a consensus to disregard in specific cases. Personally I close a lot of RFCs so I constantly deal with infobox-related arguments. Infoboxes want simple one-word summaries and things are often so much more complicated. So it is here.
In my personal view, the fact that Ukraine is still in this war at all is a victory for them. I remember the pundits giving Ukraine no more than a few weeks to survive, back in Feb 22. Russia taking a few cities, two years later, at a remarkable cost in casualties, is far from a resounding win. If I were Ruling Tyrant of Wikipedia you wouldn't be able to populate the results parameter of a battle infobox until the war is over and a proper history has been published.
But until I'm appointed to that position, we'll just have to go with the consensus and that one was loud and clear.—S Marshall T/C 13:03, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

We may not be understanding each other. The RfC question was Should the info box eventually say ... with six options given. The close states: ... they reach a consensus for Option D. Consequently, the consensus is telling us to populate the result parameter accordingly - ie Russian victory - see §Aftermath. This is perfectly in accordance with the guidance given at MOS:MIL and the template documentation, where the aftermath section would explain the nuance attached to calling it a Russian victory. There is no disagreement with the guidance in this instance. I am unclear though, as to the point being made that then follows in the close text, since it appears to be arguing against the consensus and the discussion, and that the result parameter should say something else? Consequently, the additional commentary appears to confuse, rather than clarify matters. As an aside, I am curious as to whether you have read the appropriate part of MOS:MIL and the templates documentation regarding the result parameter. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:19, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Cinderella157, I have read these documents several times, having closed many discussions related to military history infoboxes in the past. I may not have quite the reverence for the Manual of Style that you display. I see that guideline as applying in the vast majority of cases, but in knotty cases where the community has found it difficult to agree, consensus can suspend the guideline in the interests of clarity and accuracy.—S Marshall T/C 09:57, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Greetings! What is the reason for us to state "loud and clear" consensus given reasonable arguments presented, for example, by Cinderella157 - Talk:Battle of Bakhmut#c-Cinderella157-20240220021100-Survey , and given that the consensus is not a vote. I reviewed sources analyzing the results and there clearly is no consensus regarding "Russian victory", and if we give preference to warstudies-sources, there is a lean towards "hollow" victory, or they even use "operational / strategic failure" which I also presented as an argument during the discussion and elsewhere . ManyAreasExpert (talk) 13:23, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
Also, the "Aftermath" section has been significantly reduced during the past weeks , and the analyses of the outcome have been moved from it for some reason. Compare its current state with Battle of Bakhmut - Wikipedia ManyAreasExpert (talk) 13:37, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
Hi, Manyareasexpert, and welcome to my talk page. :) Also, a hearty welcome to Wikipedia's RfC process.
On the facts, I entirely agree with you. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been amazingly unsuccessful. In this battle and in many others, it's become a gruesomely bloody slog in which Putin exchanges extremely large numbers of Russian casualties for towns and cities of dubious strategic importance. Ukraine's strategy is to preserve their own troops, falling back where necessary, while inflicting as many casualties as possible. They're succeeding in this, and it's my personal view the battle is a rare case where both sides achieved their strategic objectives.
Wikipedians don't agree. Many Wikipedians measure victory or defeat solely by which side held the disputed territory at the end of the battle. One hopes those Wikipedians never command troops.
Unfortunately, it's not my personal opinion that prevails. It's the "consensus", which is vaguely and unhelpfully described at WP:DETCON. In practice, in this case, "consensus" means "what the clear majority of responsible Wikipedians think," and they think Option D. Given the opinions and arguments before me, no other close of that discussion was possible.—S Marshall T/C 15:28, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your close at Talk:Battle of Bakhmut#RFC Russian Victory

Many thanks for sticking your neck out and closing the RfC. I think your objectivity, in spite of clear personal arguably partisan views (which I share by the way) is admirable, and I wish some other editors could put the pursuit of truth above their own personal wishful thinking.

Even the most partisan of western journalists, in the most trusted sources, group Bakhmut and Avdiivka together, when talking about Russian "victory":

The BBC: "Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from the eastern town of Avdiivka in Russia's biggest victory since the fall of Bakhmut in May last year"^[1]
Reuters: "The Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka paves the way for Russia's biggest victory since the May 2023 capture of Bakhmut"^[2]
The Guardian: "biggest gain since May last year"^[3]

Of course, if I was engaged in the conversation directly myself, I would be told that I'm cherry picking, and suffer personal attack as a new editor. Perhaps this expression of opinion will be attacked as being WP:SOAPBOX. Still, the point stands that there is consensus amongst reputable journalists writing in the most trusted sources, as well as amongst editors who are committed to upholding truth as a higher ideal than allowing their desire for a different reality to warp their judgement.

To make this abundantly clear: I do not celebrate any Russian victory, nor do I support Russia in any way. However, I again applaud your intervention in closing the RfC, as a victory for truth, in the context of "what the clear majority of responsible Wikipedians think" as you said in another comment. ManicGrant (talk) 09:49, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for those kind words, ManicGrant.—S Marshall T/C 16:37, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

References

[1]
"Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia". The BBC. 2024-02-21. Retrieved 2024-03-09.
[2]
"Russia says its forces move forward after Ukraine withdraws from Avdiivka". Reuters. 2024-02-17. Retrieved 2024-03-09.
[3]
"Russia claims full control of Avdiivka after Ukrainian retreat". The Guardian. 2024-02-19. Retrieved 2024-03-09.

A barnstar for you!

Closing question

Close quibble

Hello! I saw your close at the Tim Hunt RFC, and while I think 99% of it is good I have one quibble with it. Namely: why answer WCM's objection separately? They brought it up both before and during the RFC and it never received much support. The view of myself, and I assume a lot of participants, is that WP:PROPORTION isn't terribly relevant here because there's quite a lot of sources about the controversy, enough for this whole long thing over at online shaming.

I don't think this is a huge deal since nobody was advocating for a controversy section that was literally longer than the rest of the article. But I would like to be able to expand that section significantly without worrying about an RFC "consensus" composed of one editor. Loki (talk) 15:27, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Your confusion stems from your refusal to listen to dissenting opinions, convinced right is on your side and there are WP:GREATWRONGS to right. The edit you're proposing may have "consensus" amongst its proponents but that local consensus can't trump our WP:BLP policies. WP:PROPORTION is very relevant, you should have listened to Thomas instead of driving a productive and valuable editor from Wikipedia. It is a huge deal and if you continue not to get it, I fear this will ultimately end at arbcom. W C M_email 16:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I would honestly love for you to escalate this because you, like Thomas, are obviously on the wrong side of a clear consensus, and yet you insist on following everyone you disagree with all over Wikipedia to try to harangue us into agreeing with you. Loki (talk) 16:34, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I'm not very good at dealing with user conduct disputes, and I'm not particularly interested in them. I can see there's an ongoing argument between the two of you, and I'm not the right person to resolve it. I suggest that you take that part of it to a place that deals with user conduct.

LokiTheLiar, you are, indisputably, right to say that Wee Curry Monster is on the wrong side of a clear consensus. (I don't think you're right that it's only WCM.)

But as a closer, I'm bound by the founding principles, the second pillar, and core content policy. In Wikipedia's hierarchy of rules, these cannot be overruled by any talk page consensus however strong. If it was a thousand editors vs one, they can't be overruled. I've just re-read my close to make sure, and I'm absolutely confident that I've applied those rules correctly.

But, LokiTheLiar, you don't have to take my word for it! This close and any other RfC close can be reviewed by the community to make sure they're appropriate. If you'd like to start a close review, then the correct place for it is the administrator's noticeboard, and a review there will attract attention from people who're competent to resolve user conduct disputes as well.

I hope this helps and fully explains my position. All the best—S Marshall T/C 17:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree and have never disputed that none of those can be overruled by a talk page consensus. However, talk page consensus gets to determine how they're applied, and WCM's argument is not merely that they exist but that they imply this controversy should be given minimal WP:WEIGHT. I don't think that's true: weight and WP:NPOV are determined by the sources, and there are quite a lot of sources about this controversy.

I don't think there are as many sources as there are for his research, though I haven't checked precisely, but certainly there are enough for a fairly lengthy section in the article even if the article wasn't expanded. Loki (talk) 00:39, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

From what I saw, there were more (scholarly) sources about this controversy than about his scientific contribution. That may seem unfair, but that's the World we live in. Bon courage (talk) 04:28, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

RFA2024 update: no longer accepting new proposals in phase I

Hey there! This is to let you know that phase I of the 2024 requests for adminship (RfA) review is now no longer accepting new proposals. Lots of proposals remain open for discussion, and the current round of review looks to be on a good track towards making significant progress towards improving RfA's structure and environment. I'd like to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has given us their idea for change to make RfA better, and the same to everyone who has given the necessary feedback to improve those ideas. The following proposals remain open for discussion:

Proposal 2, initiated by HouseBlaster, provides for the addition of a text box at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship reminding all editors of our policies and enforcement mechanisms around decorum.
Proposals 3 and 3b, initiated by Barkeep49 and Usedtobecool, respectively, provide for trials of discussion-only periods at RfA. The first would add three extra discussion-only days to the beginning, while the second would convert the first two days to discussion-only.
Proposal 5, initiated by SilkTork, provides for a trial of RfAs without threaded discussion in the voting sections.
Proposals 6c and 6d, initiated by BilledMammal, provide for allowing users to be selected as provisional admins for a limited time through various concrete selection criteria and smaller-scale vetting.
Proposal 7, initiated by Lee Vilenski, provides for the "General discussion" section being broken up with section headings.
Proposal 9b, initiated by Reaper Eternal, provides for the requirement that allegations of policy violation be substantiated with appropriate links to where the alleged misconduct occured.
Proposals 12c, 21, and 21b, initiated by City of Silver, Ritchie333, and HouseBlaster, respectively, provide for reducing the discretionary zone, which currently extends from 65% to 75%. The first would reduce it 65%–70%, the second would reduce it to 50%–66%, and the third would reduce it to 60%–70%.
Proposal 13, initiated by Novem Lingaue, provides for periodic, privately balloted admin elections.
Proposal 14, initiated by Kusma, provides for the creation of some minimum suffrage requirements to cast a vote.
Proposals 16 and 16c, initiated by Thebiguglyalien and Soni, respectively, provide for community-based admin desysop procedures. 16 would desysop where consensus is established in favor at the administrators' noticeboard; 16c would allow a petition to force reconfirmation.
Proposal 16e, initiated by BilledMammal, would extend the recall procedures of 16 to bureaucrats.
Proposal 17, initiated by SchroCat, provides for "on-call" admins and 'crats to monitor RfAs for decorum.
Proposal 18, initiated by theleekycauldron, provides for lowering the RfB target from 85% to 75%.
Proposal 24, initiated by SportingFlyer, provides for a more robust alternate version of the optional candidate poll.
Proposal 25, initiated by Femke, provides for the requirement that nominees be extended-confirmed in addition to their nominators.
Proposal 27, initiated by WereSpielChequers, provides for the creation of a training course for admin hopefuls, as well as periodic retraining to keep admins from drifting out of sync with community norms.
Proposal 28, initiated by HouseBlaster, tightens restrictions on multi-part questions.

To read proposals that were closed as unsuccessful, please see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I/Closed proposals. You are cordially invited once again to participate in the open discussions; when phase I ends, phase II will review the outcomes of trial proposals and refine the implementation details of other proposals. Another notification will be sent out when this phase begins, likely with the first successful close of a major proposal. Happy editing! theleekycauldron (talk • she/her), via:

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Priyanka Choudhary

Fucking

Very Minor Correction at DRV

March music


story · music · places

Nomination of Where is Kate? for deletion

I owe you an apology

April music


story · music · places

Venezuelan politics opened

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Venezuelan politics. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Venezuelan politics/Evidence. Please add your evidence by April 20, 2024, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Venezuelan politics/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 23:37, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi. Many thanks for your last input in the case. Don't forget your signature! --NoonIcarus (talk) 12:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not wasting any of my precious 1,000 words on a signature. :) I'm typing in a section with my name on it, so there's no possibility of confusion.—S Marshall T/C 16:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Ohh I understand, it makes sense. Best wishes! --NoonIcarus (talk) 20:35, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi S Marshall, we'd prefer to keep the evidence, but you're granted an extension of 500 words. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:12, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

S Marshall, I saw your frustration with late evidence on the Evidence subpage, and I am so sorry. As I mentioned weeks ago, the timing for me is terrible. I have gotten a start at User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox3 in the event any of that helps you orient your remaining evidence, but it is still missing many diffs, I still have to check diffs, and 500 words doesn't suffice to cover all the issues. I will have to ditch the preamble probably to stay within word limits. And I don't have any idea how to work in that (I suspect) many of the issues are recurring/long-standing, since the sockmaster hasn't been revealed (and I don't advocate that the likely sockmaster should be revealed-- people get thrown off of buildings in Venezuela -- Fernando Albán, Rafael Acosta Arévalo). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:08, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Sandy. I'm not frustrated and I didn't mean it to come across as if I was. Rather, I think that WMrapids' CU-ban does a lot to resolve the case, because it deals with the incessant NoonIcarus/WMrapids conflict that was proliferating across so many noticeboards. I expect that that topic ban means most people won't trouble to submit evidence. My only remaining objective in the case is to scale down NoonIcarus' topic ban to 0RR.

I'm afraid that I'm not very good at detecting socking, and I'm also not very good at dealing with people who sock. I have the impression that an Arbcom case isn't much good at dealing with socking (although an email to Arbcom outside a case might work for all I know; I've never emailed Arbcom). I think the best we'll get, on socking, is one of those perfectly useless remedies that begins with "Uninvolved administrators are encouraged" and I don't see the point in pushing it.

I expect that general sanctions will be imposed and I personally don't mind because I think AE is better than AN/I at dealing with problem behaviour.

As I've mentioned, I'm very hampered in Venezuelan topics by the fact that I don't speak Spanish. This places drastic limits on what I can do to help out there, although I'm conscious that help is needed.—S Marshall T/C 16:03, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I think we agree on the overall picture (ie, situation resolved and NoonIcarus sanctions need to be reduced), but I remain concerned about two things; the sockmaster returning (very likely under another account), and Venezuela ws always a hard area to edit for various reasons (language barrier, POV editors with incomplete knowledge of sources, and ridiculous laws that many are unfamiliar with as you saw at the RFC), but wasn't contentious in a Wikipedia sense until WMrapids. I really don't understand arb enforcement, so am indifferent as to whether CTOP is needed here (I note that no one submitted an arb enforcement request even after a BLP CTOP notice, and I've always been unsure how to use AE).

I will rebut some of the faulty FV diffs in the Workshop phase.

On the sockmaster, I simply have not had time to make a case, and I was very late in coming to the who's who here and figuring out what I believe to be happened, again, simply because I hadn't had time to focus. For example, I didn't know that NoonIcarus was Jamez42 until very recently -- simply wasn't paying attention. I had to decide whether to allocate what little time I have to submit my evidence on the arbcase, or to build the case for the name of the sockmaster. I decided building that case (privately, because individuals should not be outed in such a dangerous climate) would be a timesink, because my impression from the CU blocks, and the lack of sockmaster identified, is that the CUs and arbs probably already know who the sockmaster is. So the main thing missing from my diffs, if that is the case, is that there were previous warnings dating back years about some of the behaviors. Again, though, I apologize for the lateness of my evidence ... so so so much going on in my life right now. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Clarification

I'm still short of time and can't provide "evidence", but I wanted to discuss this here where you said "Of the FV diffs, diffs 2, 3, 5, 7 and 8 happened because WMrapids didn't." I don't think this is accurate.

Below, I'll go through each real quick:

2: Yes, this one I genuinely goofed on. This was the "/article/article/" issue which I have no idea how that happened, especially since all of the other data transferred correctly, so I had no suspicion that there was an issue to the link. I saw your recommendation to check links before I place them, so I'll do my best to remember this for future practice.
3: I provided the title, date and the newspaper (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German newspaper of record) in my citation. After someone suggested in the ANI that I should provide quotes, I now know I should due this, especially with controversial topics.
5: Of the unlinked citations, this one seems very clear. It is information provided by Oxford Analytica, the article title, the date and the quote itself. NoonIcarus still marked this as "failed verification".
7: This was mainly about the interpretation of shakedown, not about "point[ing] to a place that directly supports what I've written", especially since I have the newspaper, author, URL, title and date in my citation.
8: I didn't create the citation for this. I used an archive tool to show that NoonIcarus' edit summary stating "no mention of children" was inaccurate in the ANI.

If you can provide some feedback on how in my citations for 3, 5, 7 and 8 didn't "point to a place that directly supports what I've written", I'd be appreciative. Also, if there were any concerns about NoonIcarus and access to sources, we had a discussion about that twice with them. So if source access were truly the issue, I'd be more understanding, but that just isn't the case.

Sorry to blow up your talk page, but I didn't have the time to throw all of this into a full "evidence" section and wanted to have some clarification. Thanks, --WMrapids (talk) 12:10, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

No need to be sorry about asking for guidance. You're very welcome to do so. As it happens I'm a fluent German speaker and a frequent visitor to Germany, and I'm very familiar with German-language sources. (My problem with Venezuelan politics is that I don't speak a word of Spanish.)
With 3 and 5, when you're citing a print newspaper or journal, minimum acceptable precision is date and page number. The quote also definitely helps. We'd expect an experienced Wikipedian to give the headline and author as well, and possibly the column number. Without that information the citation doesn't verify the claim. With 7, "shakedown" doesn't necessarily mean "rob" so the citation doesn't verify the claim, and with 8, the source doesn't mention children so the citation doesn't verify the claim.
For the policy that underlies this, see WP:FULLCITE. That's part of verifiability, which is one of our three "core content policies". (The others are WP:NOR and WP:NOT.) Hope this helps—S Marshall T/C 12:33, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
I saw your other concern and wanted to further clarify that I have been aware of including pages for citations and I usually do. For example, with one citation I placed for New York Amsterdam News (which NoonIcarus marked as "failed verification"), I clearly noted that page 18 was being cited so that others could find such information. Sometimes in the databases I access, a page number isn't present. This was the case for 3 (see: Generation 2007. (2019, Apr 01). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/generation-2007/docview/2200481818/se-2) and 5 (see: VENEZUELA: Talks may produce splits but ease tensions. (2014, Apr 11). OxResearch Daily Brief Service Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/wire-feeds/venezuela-talks-may-produce-splits-ease-tensions/docview/1514817525/se-2). I included all of the information that I had available besides the direct quote. The way I create citations is also strange; I usually create them in source mode, switch to visual editing and then copy the source and paste it where applicable. After looking around at creating citations in visual mode, I noticed that there is a "Content deliverer (i.e. Database)" slot that is only for journals, but not for newspapers, websites or books. Maybe that is something we can improve on to help with identifying sources?

As for 8, the archived article does mention children; "reportó que había 89 niños dentro de la sede, de los cuales 3 necesitaron asistencia con oxígeno" ("he reported that there were 89 children inside the headquarters, of which 3 needed assistance with oxygen."). Like I said in the ANI, NoonIcarus can use web archives well when they want to, but they didn't want to do it in this case. Thanks, WMrapids (talk) 06:29, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
As your process is to switch editing modes partway through the process I don't have any advice to offer. :( I do know that a citation to a newspaper edition without a page number is inadequate.

I see a lot of the same problems with NoonIcarus' behaviour that you do. As I said right at the top of my first statement at Arbcom, I do side with you on the actual issues. I think you're really working hard to improve our coverage in that topic area. (I also genuinely believe that NoonIcarus is a good faith editor who's frustrated and overwhelmed with work.)

I believe that AN/I was unjust and it got to the wrong outcome, and I only have 1,000 words to prove that to Arbcom. That's why my Arbcom contributions are very focused on problems with citations. I'm trying to be clear that I don't blame you for them, but it's a thing I hope you work on.—S Marshall T/C 07:34, 10 April 2024 (UTC)