User talk:Macdonald-ross/Archive 16

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The Amazing World of Gumball: Adult Party Cartoon

Hi, Mac. Please be sure to check QD reasons for yourself when deleting pages. The reason you used, WP:QD#A4 (notability), does not apply to television shows. I have restore the page and declined the QD because the Gumball website seems to say that there is such a show coming up. The article may be inaccurate, but it isn't a complete hoax. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:28, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Interwikis

Hi, Mac. I noticed that you added an interwiki link to Cattle. I guess you didn't know that those don't go in articles any more. They go in Wikidata. If you click on "Change links" at the bottom of the language list, it will take you to the Wikidata entry for the item. There you can add the Simple English entry. I removed the interwiki from the article, but I'm leaving it for you to add it to Wikidata so you can see how it's done. Let me know if you need help with it. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Puberty

I saw that you commented puberty was to long. You said it grew from 2,000 bytes to 47,000 bytes. I've reduced it to slightly lower than 40,000 bytes. Do you think I took out anything that needed to stay?--FDR (talk) 13:39, 17 February 2015 (UTC) I added references to delayed puberty (puberty either not occurring until an old age, for example 14, or not occurring at all ever),and precocious puberty, (puberty happening at an inappropriately early age, for example, 6). Do those belong in the article or should they be taken out? How short should I try to aim for the article to be, 2000 bytes again?--FDR (talk) 15:11, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

How many bytes should the puberty article be reduced to?--FDR (talk) 15:45, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

There was a photo of a man in underwear in the article. I didn't see how it helped so I took it out. The young girl with a bra on I think should be replaced with a photo of breasts on a young girl, or else should not be there. With the man, nothing of his sex organ was showing so it seemed completely pointless so I took it out.--FDR (talk) 17:45, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It's all a matter of judgement, but I think the article is better now. I wasn't in any way suggesting it should be a very short page. What I didn't like was someone sticking in a 45,000 copy-paste without any other editor making a comment (in 2010). Anyway, maybe you can ease off now. It's much improved, thanks to you. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I still think the article should be abridged to at most 20,000 bytes, this is Simple English, not Harvard University. Are there any sections left in that are off topic in your view?--FDR (talk) 20:02, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I added in that when girls start growing boobs its called thelarche. Is that to technical a term for this site?--FDR (talk) 21:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Minato namikaze

Hi, Mac. Since you QD'd this page after it was at RfD, would you please close the RfD? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 14:45, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

To improve I must know in depth reasons why someone would delete a page.

The northern goshawk page I wrote was deleted by you, I am not upset, but I hope there is a good reason. My facts weren't wrong. My punctuation maybe. I would understand on that basis. Or maybe its because I made the section on its hunting behavior a little more interesting than the ordinary boring pages. Or Maybe a lack of a photo, which would be a simple edit for a more experienced user. It may also be the organization or lack of true paragraphs. I still kept it simple I think. If not also please state that. I hope you aren't deleting pages due to pet peeves alone for that would reflect poorly on Wikipedia in my opinion. If there is some sort of unspoken conduct I am missing then fine, Ill leave, because I don't care for unspoken rules. I don't expect a reply but ill wait for a short time and if I don't get any reply than congrats you've successfully repelled a wiki user.

Michael Arcane, please delete my account, I would just love to leave the site, and hope an admin can help me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎ Michael Arcane (talk • contribs) 22:43, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I have removed the {{qd}} tag you put here, because it looked like you wanted this page (Macdonald-ross' talk page) deleted. Unfortunately, it is not possible to delete an account, at least not after the user has made changes. If you do not want to contribute here any more, you can just stop making edits. You could also put a notice such as {{retired}} on your user page to say that you don't contribute here any more. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:20, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

• The basis of the deletion was that the editor had copied from a web source of which a partial trace was available: http://www.nature.org/cs/groups/webcontent/@web/@arizona/documents/media/northern-goshawk-490x250.jpgNORTHERN GOSHWAK The Northern Goshawk is a raptor, or meat eating bird...
  I was not able to recover the whole document, but it seemed probable that the page was based on an unacknowledged web source. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:04, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

User:I destroy work

Hey, Mac, I didn't see your comment at WP:VIP before I extended the block on this user. I think he/she qualifies as vandalism-only, but feel free to shorten the block if you want. I think it does warrant at least 24 hours, though. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:01, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, they can always talk to us if they don't like it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Vivian Bullwinkel

Hi, Mac. Please don't forget to simplify the text you added to this article from enwiki. The original article did need work, but as you know, copying unsimplified text from enwiki isn't acceptable, either. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:28, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Block lenght

I always try to do not override active admin's actions. So please feel free to change your own block as you think it is appropriate. Anyway, I second you opinion that the blocked user is a vandal only account.

Ciao, M7 (talk) 20:28, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Your warning at User talk:88.113.147.230

Mac, your warning to this user was level 3. That is too high a level to start with. That user had made only one change here, a rather minor one, and the warning probably should have been level 1. Besides that, we have to be careful threatening to block IP users. Unless the edits occur within a fairly short time (I usually want to see it within an hour or so), we can't assume it's all from the same person so we can't block based on anything too old.

A lot of thought was put into the graduated warnings. They don't assume the user knows Wikipedia's rules. It might seem obvious to most people that it's wrong to vandalize, but Wikipedia starts by giving each user the benefit of the doubt. Please try to start warnings with level 1. In bad cases, such as use of profanity or attack language, starting with level 2 might be reasonable. --Auntof6 (talk) 15:53, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree level 2 was enough. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Then when would you think level 1 was enough? The edit that user made was fairly minor. It looked like a test edit, and we don't want to come down too hard on people for that. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:05, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

The first edit, the user reverted a correct change by Stryn. It changed "are" to "aren't". This was a reversal of the sense of the sentence. It's not innocent IMO. The second instance, removal of important information from the infobox, is certainly vandalism. The two instances colour each other. As to whether it's the same person, the edits took place on the same part of the same page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:31, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I would note, that there is no set "rules" when it comes to using any particular order for the warnings. For example I never use a level 1. Anyone that creates obvious vandalism is already past a level 1. If its particularly bad vandalism they are probably already getting a 3. And if they are clearly a vandalism only account they will start at a final warning. :) Just remember the levels really just denote the level of language used. While it is good practice to graduate up the levels. It isn't mandatory that you do. -DJSasso (talk) 18:26, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Class Project Suggestion

Thanks for the suggestion to announce our class project. I did so as well as created a project page. Wikipedia:Schools/Projects/Notable African American Innovators. I am working with a group of middle school students in an after school program, so hopefully folks will be patient as their entries develop over time. Visionovervisibility (talk) 16:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Balance in the Racism article

Good evening, sir. I'd like to talk to you about some of your paragraphs in the Racism article. I understand, I believe, your motivations in making them, but I think that it is not their appropriate place, and, in fact, their inclusion may violate NPOV. Can we work together to fix this? I don't want to appear to be getting into an edit war.

Specifically, these paragraphs: However, racism has never been the only cause of wars and slavery, and only rarely has it been the main cause. Rather, the causes of war and slavery had more to do with political goals of rulers. Wars were fought regularly, and the reasons included the ambitions of rulers for land, power and glory. The wars produced slaves from the losing side, and slaves brought economic benefits. For the ordinary household, a slave or two helped to maintain a good life; for a king, slaves could be used for grand projects. All cultures used slaves of all complexions. Most of the slaves in Europe were not Africans, they were other Europeans. "As late as 1311, there were 30,000 Christian slaves in the kingdom of Grenada".[3]p37 One of the most decisive wars in history was the final Roman war against Carthage, when Carthage was totally demolished, and fleeing soldiers were hunted down right through north Africa. The rest of the inhabitants were taken in slavery.[3]p37 It had nothing at all to do with racism, and everything to do with political and economic rivalry for control of the Mediterranean. World War I had no clear cause, and the reasons for its start are still debated. World War II had both political and economic causes, but since its main adversaries were of the same ethnic group, the cause can hardly be racism. The interesting look backwards by Herman Kahn identifies a failure of deterrence as a main cause.[12] Nor was slavery caused by one race thinking itself better than another. It was present in virtually all societies throughout the whole of history until modern times:

   "Slavery was a major institution in antiquity... Prehistoric graves in lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people of about 8000 BC enslaved a Bushman or Negrito tribe... Slaves built, or helped to build, the... pyramids of Egypt. The first code of laws, that of Hammurabi,... included clear provisions about slavery... Athens had in her heyday about 60,000 slaves".[3] 

All these paragraphs are not about racism, if taken at their word. They have nothing to do with racism. They should not be an article about racism, right? They should be in an article about slavery. Your inclusion seems to be reacting to the idea that all slavery is done by whites to other races, and that all wars are caused by racism, which is not an idea otherwise presented in this article as factual. So why their continued inclusion? Especially in the first paragraph? --FPTI (talk) 01:47, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I'll think about your points. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:09, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, it's not at all urgent and I totally get your motivation behind the changes. They're better than the original alternative. I'm just not sure whether they're right for the artile. Take some time to think about it, and I'm happy to chat more whenever you feel ready!--FPTI (talk) 07:40, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Protection of Endocrinology

Was the above a mistake? I hope that you will reconsider your full protection of Endocrinology. The current protection reason does not justify the level of protection applied. If there is a content issue, please take it to the article's talk page and the editor's user talk first. Chenzw  Talk  15:04, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

About the Endocrinology Article

I'm sorry if I have annoyed you, today was my first time editing something on Simple English Wikipedia so I am still figuring things out. When I started editing the article it was a stub so I didn't think it I needed to discuss my edits too much, then I accidentally saved without having finished so I went back shortly after and added more, which I figured it would be ok since the page was so empty to begin with, but I'm sorry if that was wrong. I focused on the medical aspect since the main results when you search for the word "endocrinology" online are for the medical specialty, so I figured that is what would be most relevant to people searching for this page. As for the focus on endocrinology as it relates to trans people, I figured the idea of a wiki is for people to add in the information that they know about and then other people can add in stuff that they know more about; as a person in the LGBT community I was just including information that I knew about that I thought other people might not (especially since again, if a person is searching the word endocrinology this area might be something that is relevant to them). Again, apologies for any misunderstanding. CraftyAnatomist (talk) 19:07, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I was not annoyed, just concerned about the article. Articles need a kind of balance, so that each issue is given its proper weight. What is its proper weight, you might ask. Well, that is determined by sources. If you think of an article as not a normal web page, but instead as an article in an encyclopedia, you'll get what we are after. Yes, some of our pages are short, or "empty", but we are still aiming to be an encyclopedia. We try to be objective. Anyway, thank you for your comment: just take it a bit more carefully when you edit other pages, and it should be OK. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:21, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Deletion

I see you have deleted Ta Phong Tan. Was there some problem with it, or some reason not to discuss it with me? Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 21:14, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I looked at the article because another editor flagged it. It was a very close, almost identical, copy of the En wiki page. Articles must be simplified, and not direct copies. An article on this person would be acceptable (IMO) if written in simple English (as advice linked from our main page). You might consider working up a simplified version off-wiki or on a user sub-page; it is only when an article comes onto the wiki main pages that it is considered by experienced editors. Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:02, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Lexeme

An editor has requested deletion of Lexeme, an article you created. We appreciate your changes, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Please comment on the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2015/Lexeme and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also change the article during the discussion to address the nominator's concerns. But you should not remove the requests for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you very much. Hydriz (talk) 03:30, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Talossan language

Greetings! Sorry to bother you, but I just noticed you deleted Talossan language using the argument "QD G1: Page did not make any sense; complete nonsense: and spoof". I actually managed to view the page in Google Cache and honestly, I have to disagree with your judgment here. Talossan is an existing and fairly well-known constructed language, a very elaborate one with various printed sources to that, and one of the few constructed languages with an ISO 639-3 code. In other words, the article may have been short and little informative, but it was definitely not completely nonsense, let alone spoof. See en:Talossan language for a more elaborate article. Best regards, IJzeren Jan (talk) 16:41, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Naturally I looked at the En version, and decided they had not properly considered its lack of notability, and the likelihood of its being a deliberate spoof. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:04, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, they did consider it even twice. Okay, I don't know what exactly the criteria for inclusion are here on Simple – perhaps they are more severe than elsewhere. But if I have read WP:QD correctly, doubtful notability is not a valid reason for quick deletion. You'll have to agree that what's written in the article is not obvious nonsense. The language is real, and like I said, it is one of the few constructed languages with an ISO 639-3 code (and believe me, they don't give these codes to anybody who applies for it). Even if you believe the micronation is irrelevant, the language certainly isn't. Best, IJzeren Jan (talk) 18:02, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. In that case maybe we should discuss it here. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:15, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
(talk page stalker) I have restored the page because QD G1 did not apply: the page made perfect sense. Of course, things can make sense but be false or non-notable, but that is a different question. If there are any further doubts about the page, please discuss on the talk page or take them to RfD. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:34, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you very much. Of course, I am most willing to share my knowledge here, although I should add that I am in no way connected to Talossan or the micronation Talossa. I just happen to be a person with a vivid interest in constructed languages. Best regards, IJzeren Jan (talk) 21:33, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Response from user Dhrupad747

I have not copied texts from unknown sites. Besides if you want to check were I got the information for editsCinderella(1950 movie) here is the link : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042332/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_pl_syn. I edited the article because the user Auntof6 had originally written its plot section in incorrect grammar. Please, please do not block me and please don't revert the edited articles. Thank you -Regards Dhrupad747

Thank you. I have followed the link you gave, and the text you placed on Cinderella (1950 movie) is an exact copy of the text there. That is a copyright violation, and you are not allowed to do that. Basically, you cannot copy what someone else has written. There are exceptions to this, and you can read WP:copyright for an account. Note especially "we are only allowed to copy things from books or from other web pages into the Wikipedia if the writer has said that anyone can copy these things and make changes to them".
You can, of course, write in your own words. That is what we ask editors to do. Sources elsewhere can be referred to so that readers know what you are saying is true. Because you did not understand what copyright meant, I will not block you on this occasion. I will place a warning notice on your talk page. In future, please do not copy material from web pages. Thank you for replying. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:59, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

OK fine, but why are you reverting the article back into that horrible, stupid English article that it originally was? I promise I won't copy from other pages, but you could have told me to change it. I will edit it, but I won't copy from other web pages. Please, don't revert it, or tell me before you do. I won't copy again. And the image, please don't remove the Image, it is in the commons category: Walt Disney Company. -Sincerely, Dhrupad747.

Note: Please add messages to the bottom of talk pages, not the top.

Pages with copyright violations are always reverted to the last pre-vio form. We never leave an established copy-vio unchanged. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:18, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Denny

I'm a bit confused by your deletion of Denny's userpage and talk page, can you please explain your rationale? Cheers, --George (Talk · Contribs · CentralAuth · Log) 19:16, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm the confused one! Nothing wrong with Denny or his page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:28, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see that he requested the deletion of his userpage. I just guess the user talk deletion was just a mistake. Sorry D: --George (Talk · Contribs · CentralAuth · Log) 19:35, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

User talk:92.40.248.42

Mac, I changed the protection on this page to just one more day. We shouldn't really protect talk pages at all. The better way to handle that would be to block the vandal. Is there a particular reason you didn't do that? --Auntof6 (talk) 02:22, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

User Archive Joaquin Torres-Garcia

Your reason for blocking this user includes reverting administrative action. If that refers to undoing an administrator's edits in an article, then you can't consider that to be administrative action. Any user can undo another's edits: an administrator's edits are not more important or more official than anyone else's. When we administrators edit articles, we are acting as editors, not as administrators. We can also be guilty of edit warring, just like any other editor. Please don't make it sound like it's more serious to undo an administrator's edits, because it's not.

I made it absolutely clear that the reversals were connected with the relationship with the user's name and putative self-involvement in the biog. Macdonald-ross (talk)

That being said, I am going to indef this editor for violation of user name policy. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:48, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Request for restoration

Can you restore restore User:CRH, please ? I really exist! --CRH (talk) 09:07, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Done! My mistake. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! --CRH (talk) 20:19, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Simplicity ... and also notability

Hi, Macdonald-ross. I've long been wondering whether to publish that discussion on simplicity (or at least an adaptation of it) as a Wikipedia namespace essay, related to WP:NOT. (In one sentence, the premise is: Even if the writing is Simple English, the Simple English Wikipedia is not the Encyclopaedia Britannica. That sentence might or might not actually make it in, but you will readily understand the concept I'm trying to express.)
Similarly, I've been noodling around an essay on WP:Notability at User:StevenJ81/Sandbox/Draft notability essay. I'm not quite ready to distill that one down yet. But the general concepts are:

• If the subject is really only notable within a specific, non-English language community, it doesn't really belong here ...
• ... even if it passes the notability test at English Wikipedia.

I'd be interested in your thoughts about these, and whether they deserve publication. (And I'll readily admit: neither of them is yet actually written in what I would call Simple English. But I'll fix that if I decide to publish.) Thanks. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:30, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Interesting thoughts, Steven, and I read your draft essay. If I may make a couple of comments:

• The fact that the article on a subject is shorter or even missing in a given Wikipedia doesn't indicate that that Wikipedia considers the topic less notable or non-notable.
• The guideline on reliable sources says "sources can be in any language, not just English or Simple English". If we happen not to have anyone who can read a foreign-language source, that doesn't mean we can discount it.
• Your essay says about some subjects that "speakers of these languages do not need to come here to find information". If something meets our definition of notability, then it deserves a place here, even if it's about foreign-language media or something of interest primarily to people who don't speak English. Notability for Wikipedia purposes is neither language-dependent nor culture-dependent. Remember that part of our target audience is people whose first language isn't English, and we have no way of knowing what they might want to read about here. They may be reading to improve their English, and reading about a familiar topic they're interested in can be easier. Our only criterion for including topics is that they fit the definition of notability.

All that being said, I agree that many of our articles on foreign movies and TV shows (as well as many of those on English-language ones) do not show notability and could be deleted, but deleted for not showing notability, as opposed to for not being notable. Any such articles can be proposed for deletion at WP:RFD. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:45, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

---

We'd better move all this to a new page somewhere...

---

Yes, I read your subpage, and have had rather similar thoughts, especially about the supreme uselessness of having pages on media which have no English version or train timetables for places few will ever visit... (Well, actually, we have put something of a block on the train timetables). The criteria for biographical notability are ludicrously low, far lower that any printed biographical source. Yet daily we get biographies put up which have absolutely no sources at all, let alone reliable sources.

One thing one needs to bear in mind is: it is very difficult (bordering on impossible) to get any of the basic rules and guidelines changed on this wiki. It is not very likely that we can get any major changes to the basic definitions of notability. Yet the point you made that many pages have almost zero relevance or interest to readers seems quite right. It will be argued that it costs us nothing to have pages on tiny villages in far away places.

We don't know much about our readers. There is no research on Simple, no consumer-type research at all. I know (because I listed the data) that, counting only pages which are on both Engish wik and Simple, we get 50 to 100 times fewer visits per page (over any period of time such as a month or a year). That's a sobering statistic.

Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:11, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Only comment I have since I saw this come up here is that we are trying to be the Encyclopedia Britanica and then more (we include things like aspects of Almanacs etc). All language wikis are trying to be the sum of all notable human knowledge. We used to only be about the core topics at this wiki. The articles on the list of articles every wiki should have. But the community pretty strongly voted to remove that restriction and to line our notability up with en.wikis so that theoretically we would have every article that they have. There are actually cross wiki projects that attempt to get every article on every language wiki. Our goal is to be a simple version of all articles that are notable regardless of culture or language. -DJSasso (talk) 21:11, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to all for your comments.

@Auntof6: You should know that the essay on notability started off as a response to something you wrote me somewhere ... though I regret not to remember where. I guessed you would respond to it in about the way you did. But more on that in a moment.

@Djsasso (especially): In the discussion of simplicity, my thinking about whether we are or are not trying to be Encyclopaedia Britannica was more about the depth of coverage of articles, not the breadth of coverage. I maintained there that in terms of article depth, we ought to aim more to the level of World Book Encyclopedia than to Britannica. And I still think that. I think there is a limitation as to how deep we can go with restricted language, and I'd rather we not try, at least now. It would be better to focus on more breadth. When I was a child, I knew that I could go to World Book and get a good start on a subject—and I knew that if I needed more, I could go to Britannica or a more specialized work. I don't see why that cannot be appropriate for us here, especially when Britannica is just a click away, usually at the top of the languages list.

Interleaved reply: If you'd rather we not go into depth in certain topics, then don't write in depth on them. If someone else can write in more depth and still keep it in simple language, more power to them. In my opinion, we have far too many articles that should have had more information included when they were written. I encourage editors to include more information, not less. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:09, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

With respect to breadth: I definitely think that the sum of all Wikipedias should be the sum of all notable human knowledge. And I definitely think the one Wikipedia most equipped to take on the largest share of the burden by itself is English Wikipedia. But let's face it: Leaving ourselves out of it for the moment, most smaller Wikipedias cannot take on "the sum of all notable human knowledge" by themselves, so they have to pick and choose to some extent, at least right now.

We are a smaller Wikipedia, so we have some room to pick and choose, I believe. To be sure, you can argue that we pick and choose by whatever editors may choose to work on. And, as Aunt says, sometimes people may choose to work on a topic because they can practice their English on a subject they otherwise know well. And that's a very fair argument that I hadn't considered before.

Interleaved reply: That's not quite what I meant. I was referring to reading articles, not writing them. I actually think people of limited English ability usually can't write the kind of language we need here and shouldn't create content without supervision. In fact, many people with very good English skills can't write it, either, or at least don't. However, we are limited by Wikipedia's tenet that anyone should be able to edit. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:09, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Still, especially (and specifically) with respect to non-English media, I would set a somewhat stricter standard here, although whether it is based more in notability or simply in reliable sources I'm not quite sure. And I'm not sure exactly how I would propose it formally. That said:

We all know that many media articles have references which are fairly shaky, and we just don't have the expertise or manpower to check them all. And, in particular, while reliable sources do not have to be in English, we do not have the expertise or manpower here to determine whether all non-English sources cited are in fact reliable. (For example, if IMDb is not inherently a reliable source, neither is its Polish analog.) So I would propose something like this: For articles on non-English media that do not also have an English version, editors must include a talk page entry that explains notability—and that if the only sources are non-English sources, the talk page entry also must include a description of the source(s) and why it is (they are) considered reliable.

I would also add that the presence of an article in that media item's own language is not conclusive proof of either notability or reliability of sources. At the same time, absence of such an article could become prima facie evidence of lack of notability or sources that an editor would have to overcome explicitly.

This way, we haven't really changed the rules on either notability or reliable sources—but we've shifted the burden of proof a bit more strongly to the editor(s) who want the article. I don't think we should do this through expanding actual footnotes, because the explanation isn't necessarily encyclopedic itself. And I don't think we should do this by relying on edit summaries, because as the number of edits gets larger, that gets harder to navigate.

Thanks for your thoughts on this idea. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:50, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Archimedean solids

Hello Macdonald-ross. I improved the page on Archimedean solids, as you requested. Is it easier to understand now? - I also ask myself, whether a listing would make sense? - As I understand there are either 13 or 15 of them. --Eptalon (talk) 21:12, 17 May 2015 (UTC) Thank you. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:37, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Dog articles

Can you consider salting some of these dog articles? I know you blocked "please accept" (PA) for a month this time, but I'm sure we'll just see a quick return under another address doing the same thing. PA has used 5 or 6 I know of, all of which have been blocked. There are several of us who have wasted time with this dedicated vandal, yourself included. Could we just salt these: Rottweiler, Bullmastiff, Komondor‎, Siberian Husky, Alsatian (dog), Cane Corso, Neapolitan Mastiff & Perro de Presa Canario. These are the pages PA seems most attracted to. Thanks User:Rus793 (talk) 20:42, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree, but salting has to be time-limited. Personally, I think we could go for six months, but I know some colleagues would disagree. I'll start with a month. Macdonald-ross (talk) 21:00, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Nazism

I noticed that you recently reverted vandalism on this article. However, I noticed that the article still contain words like "Teletubbysm" and "Pastaland". Would it be better to revert the article to this version? 64.6.124.31 (talk) 18:05, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I see the vandalism went back much further than I had thought. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:10, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Dhakuria Protapkati Secondary School

Hi Macdonald-ross.
I noted you deleted the above page. We have it also on 'big' Wikipedia. here. Could you point me towards the creator of this page? 'Over there' it was Rvuban (talk · contribs), and from that it looks like the same username here! 220 of Borg (talk) 11:15, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

It was. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:11, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

SARS/Severe acute respiratory syndrome

Mac, I undid your move that put this article under the acronym. The article name should always be spelled out, with a redirect from the acronym. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:25, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Stub vs. sourcing tags

Mac, I just put some sourcing tags back that you had removed (from Robert Brian Wilson and Paradise Cay, California). You used edit summaries like "stub tag is enough". Stub tags say nothing about the sourcing of an article. Even stub articles need proper sourcing. Please don't remove source-related tags without addressing the sourcing issue. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 12:14, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

I think it's fatuous to put up a tag when the page says almost nothing. And we should not encourage drive-by tagging by editors who know nothing about our wiki. We have tens of thousands of one-sentence pages, most with no sources. If a page says something which might need support, well that's another question. Sources are there, basically, to answer readers who might question the information, or who might like to find out the basis for an assertion. They should not be there just for show. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:42, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

It is not fatuous. In fact, it is required by policy (Wikipedia:Verifiability). We just haven't done a good job of enforcing the policy here in the past. We're getting better at it now. The main purpose of sources is to show that the information in an article was not made up and is not original research: having a reasonable number of sources in an article can't be considered "for show". If we don't want "drive-by tagging", then neither do we want drive-by untagging like this: if a tag is already there, there's no reason to remove it until the issue is taken care of. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:28, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, you don't need to teach me that articles need sources: I would think I have put in more sources than any other contributor by quite a margin. And you simply cannot enforce the policy. We may have 50,000 pages with no sources. Are we going to flag them all? There is not a shred of evidence that putting flags on articles has any good effect, especially flags for sources.
If we have one or two editors who want to do something (in their spare time...) I would suggest looking for longer articles which are unwikified and unsourced. They usually have a whole slew of problems. It's better to have editors look at those than add sources to one-liners. Seriously, meaningless tagging is not a good idea. We should not do it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:13, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually its pretty standard to remove the sourcing tags if the article is tagged as a stub. That is sort of the purpose of the stub tag to say hey this page is missing all kinds of stuff. Drive by tagging like this discourages fixes because it makes the article look beyond saving. I actually have an AWB script specifically for the purpose of removing no source tags from articles marked as stubs. Tags should not be added to articles that you haven't made the attempt to fix yourself. -DJSasso (talk) 11:43, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Why?

I am just curious as to why you deleted my page Valur about the Icelandic sports club. If you think that was a bad article, then you might as well delete every sports page on this website. --Alicezeppelin (talk) 13:35, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

The reason was that its claim of notability was unclear. I've reverted it so you can add to it. Vague statements should be replaced with sourced specifics. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:26, 9 June 2015 (UTC) This has still not been done, so I have flagged the critical sentence which needs a source and, please, one we can read. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:44, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Compound sentences

Hi, you recently reverted one of my edits. I was trying to remove a compound sentence, is there a comprehensive set of guidelines so I don't waste my time and have more edits reverted? Jadeslair (talk) 14:17, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I would have turned that into three sentences myself. ("This is because ...", or something like that.) StevenJ81 (talk) 14:24, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Those sentences had two parts. The second part was needed to make sense of the first part. In such a case, comprehension is more important that sentence length. If the language did not need compound sentences, it would not have them! You can see many examples on English wiki of sentences which go on and on and on... neither example was such a case. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:29, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. Jadeslair (talk) 14:33, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Jadeslair: Be aware that different editors see this differently. I just changed that sentence to something even simpler that I think addresses both of your viewpoints. --Auntof6 (talk) 14:59, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

you blocked me

iam upset due to the fact i add stubs and you block me! --Thahouseusers2015 (talk) 12:53, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Because those pages were not even stubs. They did not explain why they were noteworthy, and they did not give enough information for readers to understand them, and they did not give any sources. And there was a total of about a dozen such pages. We would prefer one page well done. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:56, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Hey i got only an 1 hour at a time on this computer and i got skitzophrenia instead of blocking me for 3 hours at a time help me grow on this site ok!? --Thahouseusers2015 (talk) 13:02, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

If you read the links to our main page, and follow the advice, you would have no problems. We have guidelines and rules which all editors need to follow. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:23, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

okay see you soon. hopefully i can make better edits. --Thahouseusers2015 (talk) 13:27, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Linking simple words

Where did you get the idea that we shouldn't link to simple words? Why would we have articles for them and then not link to them? As for linking to Wiktionary, we serve our readers better if we link internally when possible, for the following reasons:

• Readers don't have to go to another site to get the information.
• When there is an article, it will likely have more information than the Wiktionary entry.
• When a word's Wiktionary entry has multiple meanings, it can be difficult for our readers to figure out which one applies. Better to either link to something specific or explain in the article.

--Auntof6 (talk) 10:39, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

By that logic we would end up with every word being linked. Linking should be done with common sense: it's only words with which a reader might have trouble that need linking. We do presume they can read simple English. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:44, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't mean linking every word. The criterion for linking isn't "words a reader might have trouble with", it's "things and ideas that are important to understanding the article" (from the Manual of Style). In some cases, that would include simple words: even if a word/term is simple, a reader might want more info about it. And we don't assume all our readers are fluent in simple English, so it doesn't hurt to link simple words. I'm not saying to link every word on the list every time, but readers could well want more information about words like canvas, harmony, mass, rhythm, society, theory (all on the basic 850 list), and others. --Auntof6 (talk) 14:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry

I did not mean to get mad at you before i was not in my right frame of mind. thank you for deleting vandalism. --Thahouseusers2015 (talk) 12:49, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, that's OK. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:52, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Hostile attitude

Not sure why you are attacking me for putting back a useful edit? It doesn't look like vandalism even if some other edits were. 46.28.53.150 (talk) 19:27, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

It wasn't a useful edit, and it wasn't an answer to anything the user had asked. I'm not attacking you, but there is no reason for you to be involved on that talk page. I put it back to the state it was in before an all-vandalism user had invaded the page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:31, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Hickey Ranch

is this notable enough to keep here? it is a real place. --Thahouseusers2015 (talk) 14:33, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

What is notable about it? You have to say! Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:05, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Acts319Sam

Don't you think a month is too long for a first block? --Auntof6 (talk) 17:41, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

He's already given clear indications that he will not abide by our guidelines. He has caused a great deal of disruption in a very short space of time, He was not blocked after about 20 edits earlier, but given very explicit feedback. His continuing later is a clear sign that the feedback and warnings were ineffective. He is not a naive editor: he knows a good deal about how to edit on Wikipedia. I expect litle bit of research may discover his other handle(s) on English wiki. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:53, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I see editor 4444ED (English wiki) has been blocked indef. for less, with PhilKnight's comment "Here to push a belief system not to build an encyclopedia". Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:11, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

deletion spree

kind of on one today eh? --Thahouseusers2015 (talk) 17:00, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Undeletion

Mac, I have restored some of the pages you deleted, because the reasons for deletion weren't valid. Phorcys and Downeaster were deleted under WP:QD#A4 (notability), but that option doesn't apply to mythological figures or train lines. Black Rat Snake was deleted with the reason "ambiguous title": that one should have been discussed, redirected, or possibly turned into a dab page. Please review the quick deletion criteria -- it's easy to forget that they are very specific and we can't use them for things that they don't specifically say. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:44, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Crywolf

Can we work on this together? --Thahouseusers2015 (talk) 14:29, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Encyc

would you like to join and contribute to this wiki? --Thahouseusers2015 (talk) 13:40, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

There is no copyright violation

why are you making groundless claims?!

Also, why are you making things very complicated?! why don't you just simplify things instead of complicating them?! — This unsigned comment was added by 5.107.38.125 (talk • changes) on 16:35, 21 July 2015 (UTC).

• First thing, please sign you posts with four tildes: ~~~~
• Second, say where you got the material from, and give a link. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:38, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I got them from the sourcebooks in the bibliography..--5.107.38.125 (talk) 16:42, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• You did not get it from books, because your copy/paste was electronic. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:46, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Relying on the sourcebooks in the bibliography, I wrote the article myself. Then I copied it and posted it here.--5.107.38.125 (talk) 16:49, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I have a version of the article saved on my laptop, so I can copy it and paste it anywhere I like to.--5.107.38.125 (talk) 16:52, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay?--5.107.38.125 (talk) 16:55, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• The article carries the framework of a wiki, and it is not this one. Please be honest as to where you copied it from. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:56, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Of course it carries the framework of the English wiki, but this doesn't mean that I copied it from someone else. I wrote it myself.--5.107.38.125 (talk) 16:59, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• Show me exactly where in English wiki. Give me a link or title. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Why are you complicating your life in this manner?! it is not a matter of life or death! it is just a "wiki" in the end. No one will care if I created the article or if you deleted it. I told you several times: there is no copy/right violation & the article is written in a very simplified language & there is no POV pushing.. it is just an article.--5.107.38.125 (talk) 17:19, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• I asked a specific question. Why don't you answer it? Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:21, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Have I not answered all your question yet?!--5.107.38.125 (talk) 17:23, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• You are being evasive. The article carried the framework of a wiki, and it was not this one. Give me a link to that article on that wiki. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:28, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I answered you and told you just now that it is the framework of the English wiki.. didn't I?! I told you that I wrote the article using the framework of the English wiki. okay?!--5.107.38.125 (talk) 17:33, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• Are you talking about the article Muhammad in the Bible? Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:36, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Of course no! I didn't write that article.. I wrote another one under the title Muhammad and messianic prophecy.--5.107.38.125 (talk) 17:39, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

The body of the article Muhammad in the Bible was mostly written by me, but its lead and the paragraph "Muhammad as the Anti Christ" was written by a cabal of Christians there, not by me. On the other hand, the article "Muhammad and messianic prophecy" was solely written by me.--5.107.38.125 (talk) 17:42, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

The cabal there on the English wiki removed my article, so I copied it and pasted it here, since its language is already simple. (my English is simple since I am not a native speaker and I don't live in an English country).--5.107.38.125 (talk) 17:47, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

The religion-related articles on the English wiki are all supervised by the cabal of Christians. Muslims in particular can't make any edit there without their approval.. that is why I came here.. I hope that you are not Christian like them.--5.107.38.125 (talk) 17:51, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• That page has been redirected to Muhammad in the Bible. The history of contributions shows that many editors contributed, and very few of them were IPs. The most substantial contributions were registered editors writing under their handles. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

What exactly is your point now?! what do you want to say?! The article that I wrote was under the title "Muhammad and messianic prophecy", and they removed the article. Of course the title of that article will automatically be converted in to a redirect so what is your point?--5.107.38.125 (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• The article will now be discussed by other editors. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:15, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

User talk:5.107.38.125

Mac, I removed the protection you put on this page. User talk pages should never be protected like that. If you need to keep a user from editing the page, then block the user instead. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:38, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Please delete

[1] out of scope--Musamies (talk) 19:03, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, done. Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:32, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Apologies for deleted Svetlana Spajic article

Sorry for inappropriate contribution. I'm not familiar with local "simplification/conversion" rules. I'll do my best to learn it before posting another article. Sincerely, --Stripar (talk) 12:35, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

That will be fine. Our basic advice page is Wikipedia:How to write Simple English pages. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry

my bad --Softstarrs23 (talk) 15:04, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Test page?

How was that a test page? It is extinct i think. --Softstarrs23 (talk) 22:26, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

What can I do here?

I feel as if there is nothing I can do here without breaking a rule I never knew existed, and every edit I make is under intense scrutiny. While I am used to this on Wikipedia, it inevitably drives away a large proportion of contributors. Is there anything I can do here which I will not find out is not allowed? Thanks, Rubbish computer (talk) 23:08, 15 September 2015 (UTC) Rubbish computer (talk) 23:08, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound like I'm moaning. Rubbish computer (talk) 00:06, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) It can be difficult to get used to how things work here. We appreciate all the editors who stick with it! I have a list of some of the things we do differently. The list is at User:Auntof6/Things I would like Wikipedia editors to know#Things we do here that might be different from other Wikis. What kinds of difficulties have you been having? Have you read our various pages on how to edit here and what is needed as far as making things simple? --Auntof6 (talk) 04:53, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Auntof6: I recently found that adding {{unsourced}} templates to all articles with no sources is not considered helpful. I am familiar with the points at User:Auntof6/Things I would like Wikipedia editors to know, but am worried that there are too many different rules here that I don't know about. Rubbish computer (talk) 07:07, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, there are things which no-one does, but which need doing. All dates of birth and death should be unlinked. Wikipedia decided years ago that they were accidental and not notable in themselves. Moreover, they clog up the pages for years and make them unreadable. You might think the birthday of Christ was notable, but actually we don't know even which year it was!

Incidentally, not everything is a "rule". Practices are developed by editors as they discover what is needed. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:13, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Maybe not all dates of birth and death. I think it's reasonable to leave them linked in articles for days and years, and other chronology lists. Maybe ask someone before you start any kind of mass change, just until you have a better feel for things here. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:33, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

The thing about adding templates applies to any kind of error template or maintenance template, not just "unsourced". Some people feel that it is not productive to do mass adding of maintenance templates. I've never been sure why. Maybe they think it looks bad if there are so many tags. It certainly would be more productive to fix the problem instead of tagging articles. Have you thought of working on fixing some of the problems we have in our articles? --Auntof6 (talk) 07:33, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Yes, I'd like to do that. Rubbish computer (talk) 09:05, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

The Soul Sessions

Can you please un-delete the Soul Sessions page so that I can simplify it? Many thanks, 86.131.166.160 (talk) 15:27, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I have unprotected it so that you can work on it again. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:43, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Beelzebufo

I don't see any "more varring" in the page history. Krett12 (talk) 16:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I have shortened the protection duration to 3 days. A protection of 3 months, when the page is not being subject to abuse, is too long. Chenzw  Talk  01:47, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Question

I don't want to say anything without asking you first, but since scientific articles are in your area of expertise, would you have time to help a new user to simplify this kind of article? Thanks User:Rus793 (talk) 16:05, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Article protection

Mac, you semi-protected Penis with the explanation "Edit warring / Content dispute: IPs add excess images". Please note:

• Edit warring or content dispute is when editors keep reverting each other's changes on an article to get their preferred version of the article. I don't see anything in the edit history like that. So far in this whole month, there have been only four edits to the page, by three different editors: you, me, and the editor who added the extra images.
• No IPs have edited the page since August 21. Even if IPs had been edit warring or vandalizing at that time, you can't take action on it two months later. The editor who recently added the extra images was a registered editor, not an IP.

I have unprotected the page. Please be more cautious when protecting pages for vandalism reasons, and be sure the case fits the relevant policies or guidelines. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:10, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I apologize for busting into someone else's conversation, but an IP did add excess images. Krett12 (talk) 00:19, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

No problem, User:Krett12. Yes, an IP did add excess images. It's just that we protect pages when they're getting a high number of problem edits, high enough that vandal fighters are having trouble keeping up with them. This page hasn't had that many edits close together, and few of the ones it did have were problems. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:52, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, some wikis protect pages to prevent edit warring, others block the user. Also, all instances of "edit" now say "change"--what's up with that? Krett12 (talk) 01:06, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

There wasn't any edit warring on that page, as far as I could see. As for the word "change", that's a simpler word than "edit" (not shorter, but simpler in the sense that it's a less advanced word). This Wikipedia uses simple language, not only in articles, but also in other things like menus. We also try to keep our processes simple. If you're interested in what else we do differently, I listed some things here. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:25, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

That page is useful of yours. --74.130.133.1 (talk) 04:28, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Psychiatry

Hello Mac,

I noticed that you undid my revision on "Psychiatry." I thought the sentence would provide a clear distinction between psychiatrists and psychologists. Can you please provide a rationale for removing the sentence? Thanks. William2001 (talk) 05:42, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I think the whole section was awkwardly written, and needed a more thorough rewriting. I have now done a preliminary revision. I have no issue with your general intention, but thought adding a sentence at the start did not solve the problem. (Have had no chance to edit until today). Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:48, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Leaving warning messages

Mac, when you leave warning messages, as you did at User talk:94.12.84.151, would you please include the standard month and year heading (for example, "November 2015")? It helps editors find all recent messages when they're deciding what level message to leave. It also helps admins find them when they're deciding whether to block. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:34, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Great Wall

Hi, Mac. Thanks for this article -- it's an astronomical term I didn't know about. Did you happen to notice the reference errors? In case you weren't already taking care of them, please clean them up. This is one of the more tedious parts of simplifying an enwiki article for here -- dealing with the named references! Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:19, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, as I put up some tens of thousands of references a year, you can assume I understand these things. It usually takes a couple of days before this type of page is in good order. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:33, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

User NFL referees are stupid

I saw that you blocked this user for three months. I also see that the user has had no warnings, only notifications that pages they created had been qd'd. When you block a user without warnings (and that shoukd be very, very rare), you should at least leave a block message. Personally, I would have indeffed this one, either as a vandalism-only account or an offensive user name, but in any case, please leave them a block message. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:52, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

My edits

Am I going to fast? If I'am what can i do to slow it down? Sorry I have ocd and add. thank you for understanding. --DonLandry2 (talk) 20:19, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Tedim language

I recreated due to importance on WP. Hope its okay? --DonLandry2 (talk) 20:28, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Please, block user (IP blocked)

Thanks Radagastor (talk) 16:19, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I just had a thought

Maybe MonoBook would be a better skin for people who use Twinkle. (here's an example). I am considering it myself but would also like your opinion. Let me know on my talk page because I'm sending this message to other people as well please. Krett12 (talk) 16:41, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

BCE

Why did you revert my edits after I had changed BC to BCE? AustinHammond (talk)

(talk page stalker) @AustinHammond: I think BC and BCE may both be considered acceptable to use, making it unnecessary to switch from one to the other, but thanks anyway. --Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 02:15, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

That is not the reason I made the change. On this wiki, previous discussion has established that BC is by far better understood by our readers, and (less important) BCE smacks of political correctness. For much older dates simple "years ago" may be better. We are careful with all kinds of expressions which may be used on English wiki, and changing them is normal for us. However, we do not change spelling systems on an established page from its original. Our rules for that do follow English wiki. Thank you for the enquiry. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:15, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) If (and only if) you can point to that discussion/decision, we should change the Manual of Style, because it currently says that either system is acceptable. (It also says to be consistent within an article, and not to change the style used in an article without a good reason.) --Auntof6 (talk) 10:28, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

That might take quite a bit of time. But our other actions indicate a general practice: for a start, all our BC years use BC, and Anno Domini uses BC... I have always felt that AD was the troubling term because its initials are from the Latin, but it is remarkably well understood world-wide. In contrast, a phrase like "common era" is both vague and abstract, and actually difficult to explain without using AD! Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:49, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Then we need to allow both. Having one as a "general practice" does not mean the other is discouraged, especially when it is explicitly permitted. --~~ ~ — This unsigned comment was added by Auntof6 (talk • changes) at 11:15, 21 December 2015 (UTC).

I don't know if it's come up so often here, but in clearly Jewish-content articles we strongly prefer BCE, as the BC/AD nomenclature clearly invokes beliefs Jews don't share. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:12, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

(talk page intruder) As an antitheist, I also prefer the non-use of religious based date indicators. This is more than just a polite euphemism or 'politically correct' use of a certain style versus another. Thanks, Fylbecatulous talk 15:17, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

• How interesting. My impression is that BC/AD is better known in India, Indonesia, Russia, & maybe China than the alternatives, and so better known round the world. It's not really advertising the Christian religion, and if it is, they got the date wrong! Still, as Aunt says, do what you like. Either version works. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:43, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Revdel action on Basel

I have reversed the revdel action that you performed on the edit summary. It was not a valid action per policy - "It should not be used to hide mistakes — the community needs to be able to review actions, whether proper or not". In this context, revdel is valid only if it is used to correct/undo previous incorrect revdel actions (eg. Admin A mistakenly revdels edit summary instead of edit content, Admin B performs revdel correction under WP:RD5 to undo the deletion of the edit summary and revdel the edit content instead). Chenzw  Talk  15:53, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

December 2015

	Merry Christmas!!
	Hello, I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year, Thanks for all your help on the 'pedia!    –Krett12 Merry Xmas / Happy New Year 02:08, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

A really old topic

Hi Mac! :) How are you? Good to see you're still here. I'm going through my talk archives. You left me some messages about taxoboxes just after I left. I see you got everything to work on Therizinosaur and the boxes on category pages look okay, but is everything okay from your perspective? It might take me two years, but I want to make sure everything worked out okay. Osiris (talk) 10:54, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Forgot signature?

On the latest message I left on the Simple talk page, you forgot to add a signature.

Wish you luck... SleepyMode (talk) 15:50, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Not me: it was Chenzw! Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:53, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

As I saw In the New Changes Log - It was you... I'll try to find out. SleepyMode (talk) 15:55, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @SleepyMode:, you will have better luck looking at the history of a page to see who edited it, instead of "New Changes" -- as it happens, I also saw that unsigned comment and substituted the "unsigned2" template to the comment to fix that. And yeah, it was Chenzw! :) Etamni | ✉ | ✓  20:40, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your simplification of Oswald Avery, particularly the "Breakthrough-discovery" section of that article. That section had me scratching my head trying to figure out how much to cut and how much to keep. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  20:35, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Fruits

What is wrong with having bell pepper on the list of fruits? --Auntof6 (talk) 10:26, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

If I may interject, Macdonald-ross and Auntof6, the page says, "Fruits on this wiki are defined as the word is used in everyday speech." Common speech doesn't define a bell pepper as a fruit, at least, not that I know of. One of Macdonald-ross' edit summaries pointed that out, if I recall correctly. --Lithorien (talk) 10:31, 15 January 2016 (UTC) [Talk page stalking]

I replied on Aunt's talk page, and that is the reason. To ordinary people, peppers are vegetables. (Of course, I know perfectly well what a fruit is, botanically). Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Consensus can change. Perhaps this is a subject that should be discussed again. I, for one, am not in favor of putting out inaccuracies in the interest of preventing one type of confusion, when the inaccuracies themselves are likely to cause a different type of confusion. For example, we have no way of knowing what an English-learner already knows about the subject. Small children often think of "fruit" as sweet and juicy, while vegetables are often cooked and not as sweet; but does a person from a non-English-speaking country have this same perception? An educated person who is using our site to help with their English skills, upon seeing tomatoes or certain other non-sweet fruits not listed as fruits (or worse, classified as "vegetables" somewhere), may think they don't understand the word "fruit" the way they thought they did. Users of our site expect accuracy. Perhaps a better practice would be to have a section that separately lists fruits that are sometimes thought to be vegetables. This would provide accuracy as well as a teaching moment for those who think tomatoes or cucumbers or whatnot are vegetables. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  18:00, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

The page has a criterion which is perfectly sensible. Certainly there could be another page which lists fruits in a botanical way, but you can't do both at once without creating confusion. And the way people use words is something which you won't change easily, as many have found. Nor is a scientific way necessarily better for ordinary people. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:20, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

But who decides which fruits go on the list and which don't. The commonly mistaken fruits should be easy enough, but if there is a fruit I never heard of (and there are many of those), and I look up what it is, I'm going to see it's a fruit. How would I then know that some people mistakenly think it's a vegetable, and leave it off the list of fruits? Even tomatoes are listed, on their own page, as being fruits. You and I both know that many people think of tomatoes as vegetables. If an educated person who is still learning English reads on the tomato page that the tomato is a fruit, why would they not expect it to be on the list of fruits? Etamni | ✉ | ✓  18:35, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Page creation warning on my talk

I guess that was a mistake? I didn't create any pages today, only put delete tags on some nonsense. 94.12.81.251 (talk) 16:57, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Your "loopfix" change to Cher

Mac, it's not necessary to unlink something just because it redirects to the article with the link. If the redirect gets converted to an actual article, we'd want the link to be there. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Animalia template

Do I recall correctly that you work quite a bit on taxonomic pages? I was wondering if you would take a look at Template:Animalia. It's currently unused, although it has a lot of blue links. You actually edited it a few years ago. Do you think it's worth keeping and using? If so, I'm happy to do the work of adding it to the page if you don't want to, but I wanted to run it by you first. Let me know -- thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:57, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Its content is not generally agreed, and based on uncertain data. Taxonomy of higher groups is in the middle of a revolution, and what we have in the literature are proposals and opinions which would often be disclaimed by other taxonomists. The problem with templates is they reify the fluid and controversial. Take Gnathifera for example. It appears in the template as a red link, largely because it is one of many proposals by a single taxonomist. En wiki give it six words, and very cautious words they are, too: Gnathifera.
What to do with the template? Well, to revise it would not be suitable at present. Most of the supposed relationships are too labile, and many will certainly change. It's not usable as it is because it contradicts other equally valid opinions. We do have a page which does the job of listing and discussing animal phyla. It is list of animal phyla, which has quite a high hit rate, considering its content is not so simple... It's not as though we are ignoring the issue, but we are being conservative given the state of knowledge as agreed amongst experts. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:27, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

That was quick.

I guess that's why it is called "quick" deletion. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  09:20, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Allowing adverts on WP is not our way! Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, it was pretty blatant. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  09:26, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

becoming an admin

Hey Macdonald-ross: when I become an administrator sooner or later, I wanna learn how to block editors and protect any pages that need protecting. Secondly, how can you tell what's a school IP from a regular? Angela Maureen (talk) 20:13, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Restoring Page

Hi, Macdonald-ross. Could you please restore Talk:Lovely Professional University. It actually belongs to the original page. And, it actually is the correct spelling of the talk page. Thank you. //nepaxt 18:19, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Fruits

That was odd. A user noticed that, at List of fruits, most of the fruits were capitalized but cucumber was not, and corrected it. Then the user added eggplant to the list. You then deleted cucumber completely, but didn't touch eggplant. (Meanwhile, I have no idea how to deal with anything on the list because there is no clear definition of what belongs on the page.) Etamni | ✉ | ✓  18:39, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Yes, that page is a challenge. When you talk about fruits and vegetables, you can look at them from a botanical point of view or a nutritional point of view. The botanical definition of a fruit has to do, I think, with how it grows on the plant and/or whether it carries seeds. The nutritional point of view has to do with whether it's sweet and/or how we use them. I think this article uses the nutritional point of view, but even that isn't always well defined. Things like squash, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are botanically fruits, but we consider them vegetables when eating them. I've heard it put this way: it's one thing to know that a tomato is a fruit, but another to know not to put it in a fruit salad. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:08, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I think the definition is absolutely clear: it is fruit as ordinary people use the term in everyday language. Yes, egg-plant should come out. Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:36, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Don't most people consider pomegranates to be fruit? If you don't think so, then we need a more objective definition. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:16, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, the seeds are. The overall fruit can't be eaten. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:05, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

True, but that's a technical difference. Your standard was what "ordinary people" think. I don't think "ordinary people" think about the botanical difference between eating, for example, an orange and eating the seeds of a pomegranate. They just know they're eating a part of a plant that's sweet and is in the fruit section of their grocery store. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:19, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I had already replaced it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:22, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Changing nirvana

I couldn't find any other page about nirvana in both Wikipedia. So that is why I have written about nirvana in this page. One can't be describe a deep philosophy in a small paragraph. Therefore one who seek for nirvana in Wikipedia should read the best possible description he can get. One cannot explain bullous pemphigoid to lay person in simple paragraph. So how can a philosophy be written in small paragraph. I have written it for people who search for nirvana. Especially for westerner. This is the hardest thing on earth to understand it doesn't mean others who read would not understand. I Have based my writing on sathipattana sutta and dhammachakkapawattana sutta. Those are my sources, I doesn't think there are good English translations. I hope you would agree on keeping my changes for benefits of who seek nirvana thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.245.173.36 (talk) 02:45, 13 February 2016

• Your motives are good, but the product must be something we can understand. That's the whole point of having a wiki called Simple English. Actually, there is a page in the English wikipedia: en:Nirvana. It has run into plenty of problems (see its talk page) and is probably not a good model for us. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:16, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Chess terms

I'm curious why you removed this? While there is a minor (but easily corrected) inaccuracy in the material, the term "Royal fork" is commonly used for describing the situation where a Knight is used to threaten the opponent's King and Queen. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  19:29, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, when it was set up the intention was just to cover essential main terms, not to be comprehensive. There is an entry for fork, and the so-called royal fork is just a journalistic flourish. It is not a different concept. Adding everything anyone can think of is not helpful to lists because it just makes the list longer and less manageable. It is quite acceptable to limit lists to central ideas or main topics. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:55, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Bernie Sanders GA

Thanks for your support! How long will it take until Bernie can be a GA. The suspense is killing me :) --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 01:28, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

LPU Courses/Program Offered

In spite of providing the evidences of recommendation from renowned NewsPaper and Magazines, U have called my findings as promotional If my findings are promotional then i need you to check it out on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manav_Rachna_International_University & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Technology_Delhi this links. waiting for you to reply

I think those entries also have some promotional material. However, I'm only responsible to this wiki. This wiki is operated separately from English wiki, and makes its own decisions. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:40, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Sir I was just trying to Provide More Information to the Viewers, SO can you guide me on what kind of information i can update that wont sound promotional to you. Thanking you in anticipation.

Would you look at a template?

Template:Animalia is currently not used, although it has plenty of blue links. Would you look at it and see if you think we should use it? If we don't need it, I want to RfD it. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 11:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't think we need it. We have pages for all animal phyla, taxoboxes and categories. The problem with superphylas is that there are several different suggestions as to how phyla are related, and each uses different terms. The basic problem with the big navbox is that it suggests a consensus which does not exist in real life.

Also we have List of animal phyla, which I wrote for this wiki, and which other wikis do not have. It explains some of the background to the above-phyla classification. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:33, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Since you understand the issues better, would you like to do an RfD for it? --Auntof6 (talk) 11:46, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I will do it this afternoon. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:56, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Citation Barnstar
		Thanks for your involvement in the Big Reference Weekend 2016 Peterdownunder (talk) 09:30, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Upcoming editathons - could use your guidance!

Hi Mac! I'm coordinating a set of wiki editathons, starting with a small one this Saturday in San Diego. We've been planning to have students and volunteers work on editing Simple articles, but I haven't yet connected with anyone who is active in Simple. Our focus is especially on articles relating to psychology, neuroscience and emotion. I saw that you were a regular editor on the Simple psychology article and active currently, so I'm checking to see if you might be available for some advice giving? I'm having some trouble with my vision and typing atm, so if you have time/availability for a conversation by phone, that'd be ideal (and I'd be very grateful). My call calendar is up at www.calendly.com/melissaganus. Thanks very much for all you do! DrMel (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, but much as I like San Diego, I'm half a world away and can't get there in person. I will have some time on Simple wiki, but remember your day starts eight hours later than ours, so responses might be delayed till the following day. Anyway, I hope it goes well. Write to me here rather than on English wiki. Cheers, Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:29, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

The Game of Death

Hello Macdonald-ross, why did you delete this page? Lupenquarto (talk) 15:00, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

The reason was given on the edit summary. The page was deleted because it was taken from another wikipedia and was too complex for this wiki. It has been deleted before for the same reason. Please read our aims and objectives as given in the links to our main page. Thank you. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:04, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

No, this is a lie Lupenquarto (talk) 15:13, 29 February 2016 (UTC) You confused with 20:19, 22 February 2015 Lupenquarto (talk) 15:17, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

You have been blocked as a sockpuppet of a previously blocked user. You are not allowed to edit on this wiki at present. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:54, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Arina/Erina language

Please

I made arina the same as was done with arina, but the IP disagrees. The original edition can see that the name is dubious. You proposes another solution?

Thanks Rad ^talk 15:42, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

• I'm not an expert, but I have used the first sentence from En wiki. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:54, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Response to Message

Good morning,

I lost power as I was editing. I will add sources as power is restored.

Thanks! (this comment was made by user:Icsnhd167)

The list of states by population is a non-political numeric data set. It is not a forum to politicize the abolition of the basics of the U.S. Constitution. Calling the U.S. "corrupt" because every state has 2 senators regardless of size, is as equivalent to saying The number of citizens per Monarch of each European country is biased and countries such as Great Britian should have more Monarchs. If you want to make that argument, go ahead and put it in a thread titled "reasons to abolish the U.S. electorial vote and Senate." You have every right to create such a thread and opinion. It does not belong in this link though. Not sure if I sent you this message Correctly, best link I could find. LearnCivics (talk) 21:02, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

1. I hold no views on this subject at all. I just reverted another user's change back to your first version. That data would be expected by many readers.
2. You cannot take out basic data on an established page without prior discussion.
3. Discuss changes to a page on the talk page of that topic. Not on the talk page of other editors. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:21, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I think the issue is that another user was violating NPOV when political commentary was added, and in support of that political commentary, the user had added a column to the list. User:LearnCivics first removed the commentary and then removed the new column, and you then reversed the latter change. I don't think this would have happened if LearnCivics had reverted back to the last version by Chenzwbot in one reversion, but the user likely doesn't have Twinkle or any other tool installed that would allow this. Personally, I think the population per senate seat column is encyclopedic, but it should have been inserted between the population per house seat and population per electoral vote columns. Changing it now would involve more tedium than it's worth. The added column will add more maintenance to the page the next time the estimated population is updated, but this is not itself a reason to remove it, and WikiData may have a technical solution to that issue by the time that happens. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  23:10, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Wow

After 45 minutes of that, I welcome the break. That said, after applying a few warning templates, I'm pretty sure that 212.219.81.107 is a classroom full of schoolchildren. Because of that, I stopped warning the account and just started checking, fixing, reverting, or QD-ing the entries, as appropriate. A few of them were OK. Most needed to be fixed. Did you know of any school projects being started today by a school in Burnley, Lancashire? Etamni | ✉ | ✓  14:06, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

To me, it looks like a fairly typical vandalism spree, almost certainly done by one person. Because we allow the visual editor, and semi-protect few pages, it is possible for a determined vandal to edit pages faster than they can be corrected. Sometimes we have many more pages to deal with. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:28, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I would agree, except that if you look at the user's history from a week ago, you can see schoolchildren saying hello to each other in the sandbox, all from that same IP. Also, several times, edits were made the same minute about completely different subjects, and a small number of the edits looked like AGF edits that just needed to be polished up. Add to that the registration of the IP address (a governmental unit), the choices of topics, and the time of day there, and it seems like there is a really good chance that this was a school group. That said, it really is important that schools wishing to complete class projects communicate with us and work out the details of their project lest we end up blocking their school. Hopefully, they will learn from this. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  14:41, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I see. Well, I hope you're right. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:46, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Osteon. Be sure to include the section specifically on osteons in the redirect; otherwise someone looking for osteon might be in a bit of a quandary. Kdammers (talk) 21:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

R.: March 2016

sandbox The Game of Death 5.90.107.24 (talk) 11:44, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, Mac: I didn't see your warnings, I just did a range block on these IPs. Osiris (talk) 13:08, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of my article

Too bad, that you have deleted my article on Katarina Barley so quickly, as I intended to improve it in my sandbox. Any chance you could put it in there again? Thanks and have nice day! :-) --Seneca Quayle (talk) 09:44, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

In that case it would be OK to put it up again, making sure it meets our criteria. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:44, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

You'll find it on your sub-page #1. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:27, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for this, my friend! Very kind of you. :-) Before releasing the article again, I'll make sure it meets the standards here. --Seneca Quayle (talk) 17:10, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

List of u.s. States by population

The column of data on population per senator is as irrelevant as population per monarch or Prince. U.S. States have 2 senators each, nothing to do with size or population. Data was added by contributor that added incorrect commentary that was successfully deleted. Not sure what Twinkle or NPOV is. Thanks! LearnCivics (talk) 19:31, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

A4

Hi Mac. I think you should restore Guity Novin and Transpressionism and use the regular process to propose their deletion. Neither is eligible for quick deletion under QD A4, in my opinion. Both have been around since 2008. Transpressionism cannot possibly be deleted under A4, since the subject is neither a person nor a product. It can be argued that Guity Novin claims notability, where it says that she pioneered transpressionism. Whether she's actually notable, or whether the page proves that she's notable, is a matter for community discussion; it does not concern quick deletion. Osiris (talk) 09:25, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

I only half agree with this. A discussion while you were away established that it was not enough just to claim notability, one had to indicate the general direction of how it was notable. There is a signal lack of evidence for notability on both these articles, but there is a case for discussing the Transpressionism article, and I will put it forward. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:48, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh. Thanks. I hadn't seen that discussion; I did find it odd that products and services was in there, as I couldn't remember that being there. I'm going to have to read through the discussion fully, but beyond the extension of its scope, I don't actually see a change to the policy to allow admins to delete based on a lack of notability or evidence thereof. All I see is this. Osiris (talk) 13:08, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I think the wording was not changed. The principle reminds one that "I didn't do it" is not a defence in law. A defence in law has to address the details of the charge. "He is notable" is not enough. Enough has to be said so that readers can see the gist of the notability. I mean, who would not say "the artist is notable" if it gets them free publicity on Wikipedia? Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:25, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Of course, but when it comes to quick deletion, that's all the policy requires ("...does not say why the subject is important"). Quick deletion is just moderating. It's for removing things that violate policy. It's not for cases that require assessment against content guidelines like the notability guideline. That is for the community to decide (or jury, in your analogy). If they review the case and decide that the claim is not able to be supported by evidence, then it is sentenced to deletion.

...Unless there was a consensus to change that and the policy wording was just not changed. Osiris (talk) 14:10, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Mac, I don't remember any discussion where it was decided that more than a claim of notability is needed. Can you point out where that happened? --Auntof6 (talk) 17:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Any thoughts? I would still like to see this article restored because I think the artist is notable. I also think Yassmin Abdel-Magied very explicitly claimed importance – it stated that she was a published author who had received some serious recognition (under the "Awards" section) and provided evidence of coverage in sources. There's quite a bit more coverage coming up in a Google News search. I would like to see us consider whether to keep that one, too, if you don't mind. Osiris (talk) 14:00, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Erina

Hi Can i ask you why you redirected Erina to khowar? Khowar is a different language from erinaKratie222 (talk) 15:04, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Please prove it, using reliable sources. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

a hello

hi and Knossos looks awesome! --Soem49588 (talk) 08:07, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

We should have done it years ago, so thanks for starting it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:10, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

np --Soem49588 (talk) 08:13, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Vandalism in progress, bot-reported

Mac, when you respond to bot-reported vandalism, you have to edit Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress/Bot, not the regular VIP page. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:05, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh! Thank you. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:29, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

"Related pages" section

I am asking you if the Simple English Wikipedia uses "Related pages" as a section. I thought it would be, so I had decided to make a template called {{uw-relatedpages}}. Please give me some response over if "Related pages" is more appropriate than "See also". Thanks. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | changes) 03:35, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

You can ping me if you'd like. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | changes) 03:35, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Qwertyxp2000: Yes, we use that heading instead of "See also". You can read about it at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Other page sections. I think your template would be helpful. Maybe we could get it added to Twinkle, like the other-website one. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:41, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

can you please undelete The Sundays

Can you please undelete The Sundays? I can make the page claim notability. Angela Maureen (talk) 16:07, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

You can start the page again, but claims for notability need to be supported by independent sources. You won't find that easy because the En wiki page is very weak on sources. It's not obvious to me why they are notable. If it goes up with a claim but no evidence, it will be discussed for deletion (RfD). Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:19, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Erina language

Hi, Please link the Erina language page with english wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erina_language Thanks Kratie222 (talk) 09:10, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Not while it is being discussed for deletion on En wiki. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:18, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Mac, FYI, if you link it and then it gets deleted at enwiki, the Wikidata link would be deleted. If it gets deleted and then you try to link it, the system won't let you make the link. Therefore there shouldn't be a problem making the link. @Kratie222: There's no reason you can't make the link yourself. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:26, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Category:Users interested in Star Wars

Hi, Mac. I see that you deleted this category. I don't think the 3-item minimum applies to Wikipedian categories. I have created several such categories with fewer than 3 entries myself. I have changed the Star Wars template to call this "Wikipedians interested in", and I'm going to recreate it with that name. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:58, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Unsuitable username?

What is unsuitable about the username "Yeehawmothertruckers"? --Auntof6 (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

version of a well-known obscenity. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:14, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Version, maybe, but not the actual obscenity. It could be someone involved in trucks somehow. I'll ask for input on this one at the Admins' noticeboard. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:36, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) No, it is simply a so-called polite way of using the obscenity. [2][3] Even when used as a play on words, the meaning is clearly understood. User:Rus793 (talk) 15:24, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

It could be both. We shouldn't block user names just because they are similar to an objectionable term. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:25, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Kasey Kahne

Hi. I noticed that you deleted a page I created named Kasey Kahne. Was it because their were no sources? I can recreate the article and add sources if you want me to. Please respond. Thanks. The Newspaper (talk) 16:07, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

• Biographies need to

1. Claim their subject is notable (see WP:Notability (people)), and
2. Support their claim with sources which are independent of the subject.

If you can do that, the page would not be deleted. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:12, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Mac, if you look at en:Kasey Kahne, you'll see that his notability is quite apparent. So if you're willing to restore the page, I'll at least write two sentences to establish a claim and overcome the QD hurdle. (Give me an hour or two to get there.) It will be up to User:The Newspaper to get sources to support that claim and avoid an RfD. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:01, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

You can start the page again (half the pages I started had been deleted before!). There wasn't much on it. In any event, I was not making a judgement on the subject, just that it did not meet our conditions. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:14, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

In its present state the page still does not meet requirements. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:29, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm just trying to help out as much as I can The Newspaper (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

@The Newspaper: If you start this page again, please make sure the very first thing you do is to include a sentence or two about why Kasey Kahne is notable. (If you do not do that, the page can be deleted right away.) Once you have done that, you will have some time to work on the page. Good luck. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:05, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks

Humous

Detailed discussions of the content of articles belong on the talk pages of those articles. I have moved a lengthy comment to Talk:Humus. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:39, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) OK, but part of that was questions directed to you specifically about changes you made. Those are properly discussed on your talk page. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:57, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Egypt

We have a vandal IP making changes to Egypt. Do you mind taking appropriate admin action? Thanks. The Newspaper (talk) 12:50, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

When you delete a page...

...please remember to check for links to the page that might need something done with them. You deleted the article Erina language, but left six redirects to it. (I have deleted them.) Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:25, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Why have you deleted our page?

I am setting up a page for our children which after looking at other pages would seem to be in tact, why have you deleted it?

It's restored. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:54, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid its not, most of the changes are missing!

Who are you? Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:02, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I am simply trying to setup a page for our school children. It appears every time I make a change its either not acceptable or removed, I have checked with other pages and found it acceptable. I am getting a little concerned that if our children start to load their work that you may delete it thus our teaching and the children's time will be wasted.

This is the last time I will try to add our page. Would you mind not putting your own write-ups into our page, thank you.

Before beginning a school project please read our guidelines. Pages and edits that do not meet the guidelines can be deleted, sometimes without warning. Working within our guidelines and rules will ensure that neither your or the children's time and effort will be wasted. --Peterdownunder (talk) 07:57, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Macdonald-ross left a helpful message in your section if the school projects page. Please stop removing that comment. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:05, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Are we allowed to put our school logo and a picture of the school on the page?

This needs to go

Can you do something about the article "Deception Island". It seems to include a death threat. The Newspaper (talk) 15:31, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Also, an IP just created an attack article titled Wikipedia Admins that needs to blocked

Rollback Rights

Is there anyway you can grant me rollback rights since I frequently revert vandalism? The Newspaper (talk) 14:05, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I prefer editors to apply to WP:RFR where it will be seen by various bureaucrats and admins. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:17, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I just did. The Newspaper (talk) 14:23, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

RE:

It was a confusion, I would reverse another issue and I appeared this. Similarly, did not allow for it will leave me a message in the discussion, because this action did only once. Regards. -- Alvaro Molina (Let's Talk) 14:02, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

OK, I will remove the warning. In future, please check that your reversals left the article in a good state. Thank you. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:04, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Also to be attentive. Regards and Thanks. -- Alvaro Molina (Let's Talk) 14:05, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2016/Episode

After Etamni made some improvements and I added a section, I requested the RFD be withdrawn three days ago. Could you simply close it out? I see no conflict of interest here given these circumstances. Thanks User:Rus793 (talk) 13:40, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Rus793:I removed the "other uses" section you added. A Wikipedia article should be about one thing, not about every meaning of a term. If you describe all the different meanings, that just makes the page even more of a dicdef. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:04, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

notability notice on Richard Simmons

You put a notability notice on Richard Simmons. For what reason? Angela Maureen (talk) 18:35, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

How do you insert a graphic?

Our class has each drawn a picture of their animals for their article. I have scanned these but cannot see how they can be inserted. Where should I look for help? Thanks

• You have to use the source code for the page. Pressing "change source" brings up an editing box. Before you do it on your page, look at the edit boxes for the established pages on animals to see how it's done. All our graphics are stored on Wikimedia Commons. That link is a page which shows a url to Commons. You may only use graphics which are on Commons. The reason is that graphics on Commons are free of copyright restrictions.
  It is not possible to insert graphics except by using the source code. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:11, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Società Canottieri milano

Hey man , did you can give me back the text? send me link. thx. --79.17.164.204 (talk) 16:49, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• It's on the main English wiki as [4] Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:44, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Draft?

Draft:History of New Zealand is not a sandbox; I was meant to use it as a draft. Sorry that I did not realise about the fact that Simple English Wikipedia does not have a draftspace. Can you please undelete that page and replace it with the name User:Qwertyxp2000/History of new Zealand?

Finally done, though slightly mispelt title! Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:54, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Qwertyxp2000 (talk | changes) 20:47, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Copyright Infringements

Articles which are copied from a Copyrighted site, do I give the user who created it a Final Warning if it is their first offense or a general warning? Lolcats20 (talk) 08:46, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Final warnings should be given only if lower-level warnings have already been given, even for copyright violations. The lower-level warnings don't have to be for the same issue as the final warning. For example, you can have a level one warning for vandalism, a level two warning for deliberately adding wrong information, a level three warning for creating inappropriate pages, and then the final warning for something else. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:53, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Notable

I looked back on my QD logs and noted Weekend View I than later removed the QD for a reason I do not remember, I would like to ask if you think this is notable along with Weekend Now? Lolcats20 (talk) 12:48, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• I'll deal with this in due course when the RfD is concluded. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• Ok, thank you. Lolcats20 (talk) 13:15, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
  • What I did eventually was reinstate The Weather Channel plus viewing figures, even though it is still not clearly notable. I then cut the pages on individual programs as very clearly not making a case for notability. The former Weather Center (1998-2009) was deleted as a result of the RfD discussion. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

SNL Season Articles

My article Saturday Night Live (season 12) is currently up for deletion. Can you please look at it. I have been making season articles so far for the first 12 seasons and will continue making more if it doesn't get deleted. The Newspaper (talk) 13:59, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Well, the series article is not up for deletion. The problem here is that each page (in this case each season) has to show notability for that season. Notability is not inherited from the series. It means that each season article needs to have accredited sources which report the series to be notable (in the sense of WP:Notability). As is, the article is bound to be deleted, unless evidence for notability can be provided. This is a parallel case to albums and individual tracks, or artists and individual films or performances. Notability of the whole is not inherited by the parts. It has to be proved every time. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:06, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The parent article is really barely sufficient, given the unquestionably large amount of coverage this program has had in reliable sources over the years. @The Newspaper, I'd personally recommend you spend more time on the parent article, and start by merging all the season articles you've written so far into it. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:34, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

I have updated the main article, and will nominate the rest of my season articles for deletion. The Newspaper (talk) 17:37, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Can you give me a flood flag for I can put my SNL articles into the main one. It will take at least 40 edits to do. Thanks. The Newspaper (talk) 13:01, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

I am not in a position to supervise your use of a flood flag, which is one of the conditions. You might try asking Auntof6, who is more experienced in using the flood flag. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:12, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I think I can do it without the flag. The Newspaper (talk) 13:17, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

@The Newspaper: In any case, the flood flag wouldn't be needed for only 40 edits, so don't worry about it. :) --Auntof6 (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Responding to your revert of the fat article

@Macdonald-ross: I am the teacher for the EASELL project, in which the fat article was expanded by four of my students. If you will keep in mind that this is a school project that students have been working on for over 12 weeks, I would like you to reconsider your revert as well as help to make this a learning experience for our newcomer student users. We have learned skills such as the following: paraphrasing, adding cc-by-sa licensed pictures, formatting headings, citing sources, and using vigorous references. All of those lessons were deleted with your action. Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water of adding content that needs a higher concentration of edits compared to those done by fluent English speakers. Their intent was to help fellow English learners to understand facets of a broad topic such as fat.

Editing process

I made sure that they went through several rounds of edits, checks, and revisions before they published to the live article page. One of those included a Basic English word scanner where students had to choose less-complex words and phrases to explain key vocabulary relevant to fat. What you saw published was a sizeable improvement from where it began. While of course there are still mistakes, on the whole, their work was submitted in good faith and was supported by several references. I would argue that most of the sections that you deleted were germane to the article title and did not stray too far off topic to merit creating a new article or deleting them altogether. All paragraphs stayed focused on fat in some way. After all, the article title is not too specific and there is a lot to talk about this nutrient. I've seen English Wikipedia articles like en:animal loss that have subheadings about beliefs about non-human death. That's pretty nuanced but still related to the topic. If a pillar of Wikipedia is "be bold," then deleting arguably relevant student efforts to expand a stub article sends the message that only perfect additions to Wikipedia are welcome and all users must get high clearance before making significant changes.

Suggested resolution

I have been working with @Peterdownunder: and @Auntof6: on a regular basis to discuss best practices for transitioning from incubation in sandboxes to hatching work on the live page. I have yet to work with you and I would like to invite you to join our project with any time you have available to guide the students involved in this article to improve it further. Feel free to tag the article for copyediting, English simplification, or whatever else is out there. Or jump right in and make some edits you feel strongest about. Let's work together to help the next generation learn from experience and stay interested in making further changes to Simple English Wikipedia. Please let me know what you'd like to do at your earliest convenience. Swim123blue (talk) 04:44, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Reply

I understand all this. What you need to understand is that when an established article is massively changed without discussion on the talk page it needs to be a) in line with our guidelines, and b) an improvement on the original. Moving articles on sub-pages to the main wikipedia pages is a big deal. Most things you are suggesting should all be done off the main wiki on sub-pages, not on the main wiki.

We revert hundred of edits each day which make our articles worse rather than better. It's good that sometimes school groups do projects on our wiki. However, that is not our main purpose. Our main purpose is to develop the wiki as a useful reference source in simple English. It is easy to underestimate how difficult it is to write a page which looks simple, is simple, and does justice to the facts.

We have student groups working here up to undergraduate level. Almost everything they do needs substantial editing afterwards. That is not because we have any biases against them, but because their contributions need it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:51, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Thinking it over more, I must admit that you're right. I'm still new to drawing the line between quantity/quality additions to articles. My students were supposed to submit proposed changes to the article's talk page in April, but they never did. Hence, the surprise additions and revert. If you had had time to negotiate what changes should be added, this could have influenced the quality of what my students eventually would have submitted. Moreover, with a class project and writing process monitored by a teacher, submissions should eventually be as close to error free as possible when ready for publication. This is what happens in the real world and its my job as their teacher to prepare them for it. This experience has made me realize that I've put up with common errors in a effort just to get them to communicate more, but to be professional and publish, the errors must be addressed. Would you be able to go to user:16chseld 107/sandbox and make any more specific comments about what would need to improve? You mentioned it wasn't up to standards. Is there a specific page that outlines such standards? I know the point is made on the home page (or nearby) that "simple English is not bad English," but if there's any further detail it would be helpful to me to hold my students to it. We have 1 more week before the end of the semester, so I'll see what we can do to improve and make ready more content for publication. Swim123blue (talk) 20:58, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• I may try, but getting the details right presupposes that the overall plan is right. I'm beginning to see a pattern in these pages of trying to do too much on one page. Although a page looks like a page of print, it is only one of a network of linked pages. Think of these general pages as setting the reader up for the more detailed pages.
  Look at how chemical formula has been changed. It is meant to be about chemical formulae. It is not about chemical equations or element families. There are other pages which deal with that. The additions are mostly off-topic. Almost everything basic in biochemistry is dealt with on the wiki, but not on one page. If one was writing a textbook, the approach would be quite different. A wiki is meant to answer questions like "what is a lipid?" or "what is a chemical formula?" before it gets to more complicated matters.
  I think the fat page strayed too much onto diet and health territory: healthy diet, healthy lifestyle. Overlaps between pages need to be carefully judged. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:25, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Asking for feedbacks

Can you take another look on our page of fats, on our sandbox page on improving the fat article user:16chseld_107/sandbox, or if you think some of the sections will be better on dieting could we start the article? 16chseld 121 (talk) 20:29, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Your change to Teleost

Would you take a look at this change that you made? the left and right brackets aren't matched -- there's an extra set of right brackets. I'm not familar with how Template:Clade works, but it seems to me that the problem is in the area of this text: "Polypteridae (bichirs)" -- maybe the right brackets right before that aren't needed? --Auntof6 (talk) 05:10, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that seemed to fix it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:03, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Macdonald-ross. You have new messages at LaurenCox600's talk page.
Message added 15:19, 29 June 2016 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

LaurenCox600 (chat me here!) 15:19, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Regarding your revert on my talk page

According to Wikipedia policy about user talk pages, I can remove anything from my talk page, then why did you restored what I removed from my TP? — MBlaze Lightning 12:30, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It's not an unconditional right. Obviously other editors have the right to see what has been going on. To hide it at present is to interfere in the administration of the wiki. In a week's time would be different. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:42, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

"Time in" articles

Mac, I've restored several of these articles. Please don't delete any more of them (especially using the qd option for notability, which doesn't apply). First because most of them have (barely) enough for a stub article (we'd all like more, but what we want and what's allowable/required don't always match). Second, because I had already declined QDs on several of them, so they should go to RfD if anyone wants go pursue getting them deleted. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:50, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good Auntof6 you should remind that to me on my talkpage as well about those declining QD requests. By the way, could you reply to me in the section "Autoblock". Thanks! --LaurenCox600 (chat me!) 00:58, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

@LaurenCox600: I will let you make your own reminder. Your user page might be a good place for that. Aside from that, please don't use one user's talk page to ask another user for a reply somewhere else, especially in an unrelated conversation. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:37, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Howards End

When I marked this for QD:G12 I saw the creative commons license (http://www.gutenberg.us/articles/howard's_end) but also saw "Copyright © 2016 World Public Library. All rights reserved." Wikipedia is not the only organization that uses the CC BY-SA 3.0 license. The CC license requires attribution be given in order to comply with copyright and there is no attribution. Also, I'm bothered by it being a word-for-word copy, in most places, of the text of this web page. This is not taking information from reliable sources and putting into the editor's own words. It is taking credit for someone else's writing. Could you take a second look at this? Thanks Rus793 (talk) 16:13, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think it says anything which could be taken as copyvio. But do feel free to use RFD if you think it right. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:33, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

refused QD of Neoliberal

Hello, you've refused QD of Neoliberal which has only text copied from American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language copyrighted by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Not to mention it having a wrong article title instead of neoliberalism. May I ask why? --HakanIST (talk) 16:53, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Problem solved itself. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:34, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Pentacle->Pentagram

Hi there. I saw that you just put in a redirect on the pentacle article to redirect it to pentagram. I was wondering if you would be opposed to my contesting that and writing (or translating from enwiki) an article specifically dealing with the pentacle as a separate object from a pentagram? Thanks, Lithorien ^{Talk • Changes} 07:18, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

That would be fine. I was just cleaning up a previous editor who had reversed the meanings of the words. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:21, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Alright. Thank you! I'll work on that and put up a new version soon. --Lithorien ^{Talk • Changes} 07:23, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Would you look at a change to a botany article?

The change is here. I'm just wondering if the text added is true. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:06, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Done. It's an example of the confusion resulting from sequence analysis of genomes. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:26, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. Do you think you could simplify the language a bit? --Auntof6 (talk) 06:59, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I have to repeat this from time to time. When I realised the chaos in taxonomy which would follow he sequence analysis of previously Linnaean groups, I decided that Simple should stick to the Linnaean system as far as possible. This is because it is intuitively understood by analogy with mammals and birds, which the average person knows better than any other groups. The main Linnaean categories (species, genera, families, orders) are very clear in living mammals. A child can see why an elephant is in a different family from a hippopotamus.

I estimated in 2009 that the process of change among professionals would take until 2020 or later before it stabilised. It is not stable at present. In many cases diferent clade trees are proposed for approximately the same group. Meanwhile, for our readers, it is better to stick to the Linnaean system.

This excellent plan is defeated when eager young people read something on one of En wiki's clade-based pages, and point out that it is different from one of our Linnaean pages. I'm afraid this has happened here with the Asteridae/Asterids pages. That's why we have two pages, which are as simple as they can be. When editors insist on getting into these fluid areas, then it often becomes necessary to use exact language, otherwise the pages are worthless.

Yes, I know that. I wasn't talking about the scientific terms. I was talking about terms like "dramatically redefined" and "molecular systematic studies", and maybe a link for "order" (in "most of the above orders"). --Auntof6 (talk) 08:00, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Aurora

Hey Mac, could you take a look at the most recent change to Aurora (since you changed it a few months ago) and see what you think. An IP user removed some content, but the edit summary suggests the content was wrong. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  09:38, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Done! Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:25, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

"Admin Reminder" page

Hey I saw you deleted the page (I was pinged in it). That's a vandal from EN-Wiki who has caused a bit of trouble on the main English site. Any way a global ban or block can be place on them? Sadly they will change accounts frequently though. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:24, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that's so. Still, I will block him. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:25, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Nelson Mandela protection

Hey Macdonald-ross, if you look at the Nelson Mandela page history, you can see that it has been vandalized by many unregistered users and some of this contact is pure ridiculous. I was wondering if the page can have some sort of page protection leaving only registered users editing it. --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 03:23, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

I semi-protected it following a similar request on my talk page. @TDKR Chicago 101: It's better to leave a single request at WP:AN than to leave the same request on multiple admins' talk pages. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:02, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Remi Sonaiya

I'm kinda lost here. How did the Remi Sonaiya article look like a C.V? The subject was backed with reliable sources.Oluwa2Chainz (talk) 18:35, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

The format of the text showed that career details had been copy/pasted from another (unacknowledged) source. That is not permitted: excerpts from other sources must be acknowledged. Also, you did not say in the introduction why she was notable. Her other career details were not sufficient for notability. The only ground was her being the first female to stand in a presidential election. In Africa that is a big deal (and in one or two other places one could name!) I have restored the page and made the notability clear. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:17, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Corrections have been noted. --Oluwa2Chainz (talk) 14:27, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Block 81.177.254.196

Block 81.177.254.196 or 1 week block evastion. 188.32.98.79 (talk) 07:25, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

No, not justified. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:41, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Ban. 188.32.98.79 (talk) 12:13, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Susanna Griso

Hi partner, how are you?. I've seen you deleted that article I had wrote. I'd write you to tell that I made another version in my subpage and this time I put on it some references where it says that she had won prizes and she got a degree at Barcelona University, although all of them (excepted one) are in Spanish. I hope you understand what it says. You can take a look if you want and tell me then. Bye. --Ravave (talk) 15:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I think you are not quite getting what we mean by notability. You have to show why the subject is worth having on the wiki.

1. step 1: claim she is notable and why
2. step 2: give evidence to support the claim. Sources should be independent of the subject, and reliable. For example, a claim that someone was a notable actor might need support from a professional theatre or film critic. Prizes are another form of evidence, but not all prizes are suitable. They need to be significant prizes.

When a page is deleted, the edit summary says why the deletion was done. That's what you have to fix.

Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:44, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, I know what Notability is, that's why she isn't a (Well... I don't know how to say in English, but in Spain we use to call Cualquiera to anybody who is useless or not important person). I just can say she works in a national TV channel (with an important share) and is a very known journalist, at least in Spain she is. She also have a professional career in other medias as radio. And regarding the sources, I think they're independents (maybe the 5th not because is from Antena 3, where she works currently), she hasn't nothing to see with journals as "El Mundo" or "El Economista" (references: 2nd and 1st). --Ravave (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) A review of the Spanish Wikipedia (es.wiki) article for Susanna Griso shows that the article is similar to the one in Ravave's userspace. It does appear that at least some of the subject's awards are considered notable enough in Spain that the awards have their own articles on es.wiki, but I'm not familiar enough with these awards and the standards on es.wiki to judge whether the awards are sufficient to establish notability on this project. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  16:52, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Etamni: If the awards are notable in another country, we should consider them to show notability. However, the article here didn't mention any awards. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:07, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Of course it is. Go to section Awards and you will see, and the references says the same. --Ravave (talk) 18:12, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

That section was not in the article that was deleted. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:53, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Vandalism reported by bot

Mac, when you respond to a vandalism report from the bot, you have to edit Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress/Bot, not the main VIP page. Your cue could be that if you're editing the page and you don't see the actual report, you're on the wrong page. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:51, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Protologism

That article you deleted was not a test page. I would appreciate it if you undeleted it please. 79.67.71.223 (talk) 05:25, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

So would you consider undeleting it? 79.67.71.223 (talk) 17:21, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) IP user: You need to give people more than a day to reply when you leave a message on a user talk page. You never know when an individual user might be back online here. You might want to make this request at WP:Deletion review. Looking at the content of the article that was deleted, I disagree with the reason specified for deleting, but I agree that it should have been deleted. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:20, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

block of IP

Regarding the IP 107.77.87.130, I was about to file a checkuser request when you blocked the account. The reason for this is to verify if the IP belongs to the named university. I believe that you will find that it does not. I hope that this is a permissible use of the checkuser tool. The IP's very first edit was to add the sharedipedu template to the page, claiming to be an IP address of the University of Ohio. Given the string of vandalism that followed, I doubt the first edit just a few minutes earlier was legitimate. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  11:08, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

You may be right. I suppose if a check showed it was not part of the U of Ohio accounts, the heading could be removed. Apart from that, it wouldn't make much difference. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:22, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The header could, potentially, cause confusion if the editor continues disrupting the encyclopedia after the block expires. Also, it is possible the editor is at a rival school and is attempting to embarrass the U of Ohio. (It's a lame attempt, but I've seen worse IRL!) Etamni | ✉ | ✓  12:25, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, go ahead and make a checkuser request. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:26, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

A second IP address has made a similar edit to it's talk page. Please see, user talk:107.77.85.25. My request will mention both of these IPs. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  12:28, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Jacob Palmer

Why did you delete that article? A Google Search shows that he is a real person. MPD (Talk to me!) 12:42, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Are you kidding? Did you actually read it? Its content was "Jacob Palmer is a international Knob. He has starred in many pop songs such as Justin Biebers "Baby". He was born on the 45th Of February 1932. he currently lives in a box on his local high street and is said to be moving to L.A to live in a multi millionaires shed. Jacob used to be the king of Iceland but is now the king of Asda".

This is just vandalism. There is no objection to any editor writing a proper page assuming notability can be evidenced. The page was deleted as vandalism, which it definitely is. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:49, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry

I'm so sorry, I created some categories by mistakes. I hope I'm not going to do it again--MASTER+MATES (tell me) (talk) 11:59, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

That's quite all right. Just to know that redirects, moving pages, and creating categories needs experience of this particular wiki, and has to be done carefully. Ask for help if you need it. Thanks, Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:27, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Sacred cow

Hi, Mac ツ Seriously, I will attempt. Since bold changes require discussion, (and wisely so), I request your thoughts. The first thing I would do is move to rename our existing article to [[Cattle in religion and mythology]] to match the English version and then rewrite. Possibly create another article on the idiom. Feel free to move this section to the article talk. Fylbecatulous talk 17:58, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

I've already responded in the article talk. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:00, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Very well. Thank you and I will work from there. Fylbecatulous talk 18:19, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Content added by 79.74.110.203

The text this anonymous editor has been adding seems to come from data sheets distributed by building developers/sales agents. I am not going to rule out the possibility of a spambot, because another IP from this range has previously tried to pull off something similar with banks, using SEO-like techniques in article titles, too.

Content from 69 Old Broad Street was copied from here, and the copied content is still visible in the article, too. Do you have the time/want to rewrite the article? If not, it probably should be deleted as a copyvio instead. Chenzw  Talk  12:49, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, I don't think they make useful articles, so I'm going for delete. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:11, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Catenary

I would appreciate your opinion on the talk page of catenary due to an editing dispute (see article history). I do not wish for there to be any hard feelings. --Thrasymedes (talk) 20:09, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't really know enough about the subject to have an opinion, but I see no reason to change your edits. Don't worry about it: it would be up to the other editor to explain why his version is better, and it looks like he is not going to do this. Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:49, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you. Auntof6 has made a simplifying edit which doesn't introduce inaccuracy, and I'm happy with the article now. --Thrasymedes (talk) 21:55, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Serbian inventions

The list is not intended to be wrongfully biased. All of the sources were strongly researched and I don't believe a delete is necessary. There are not many items on the list so if any are noticed that should be removed then anybody can feel free to contribute rather than the deletion of my hard work. It is strictly about Serbia so that's why it only pertains to Serbia. Everything is sourced and can be reviewed. I followed all guidelines. I am hoping we can discuss my article rather than immediate termination. All other lists on English Wikipedia are outlined in the same way as mine, so mine should not be considered irregularly biased.

Is there any chance we could work on it rather than to destroy my hard work? Please let me know. Derek scissor hand (talk) 16:55, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Discussions take place at wp:RfD. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:37, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Is there any way you would consider reverting your nomination? I even made some edits and added more sources. Please consider. Derek scissor hand (talk) 18:36, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

River Aisne

I just want to know about the reason that you gave to change the name of Aisne (river) to River Aisne; you wrote "our format for rivers" Whose norms? I usually use the name given (since a long time and not written by me) in List of rivers of France and there you can see that most rivers are listed as "Name (river)|Name"; to change this format means to create too many redirect pages and there is not need for that. Years ago I wrote the article River Ozama (your format?) and it was changed to Ozama River (whose format?); I felt so bad about that change that I stop writing articles on rivers. Do I have to stop again?. --Jmarcano (talk) 04:33, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

You may have found a hole in the system! Actually I can't find guidance in the Style Guide, and so my move was not correct (but not incorrect either). I'm going to change it back. Our British rivers are titled as "River Thames" etc, but there's no reason to impose that format other than consistency. Thanks for the message. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:40, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! My first articles on rivers followed the format of the British rivers because in my native language, Spanish, that is how we say, Río "Name", but later I found that the format "Name" (river) is used in different languages, including in Simple English, so I began using it. Again, thanks for paying attention to my question. --Jmarcano (talk) 14:03, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Courtesy notice

I reduced the block on IP user 105.231.241.127 to 31 hours. Two weeks is excessive for a first block, even with vandalism and obscenities. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:47, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Complaint

who Gave U The Permission to remove my information on bidhya Devi, u shouldn't remove others people stuff. It's not nice it took a long time to find out she was a shemale and about the story of arts Sahota and Tanraj sidhu (unsigned) User talk:64.114.197.120.

The Simple English Wiki community gave MacDonald-ross permission to remove information that does not meet our guidelines. Please read them, and follow them, and then your additions might not be deleted. And please sign your comments. --Peterdownunder (talk) 21:37, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Colossus computer

Thanks for your input, but can you be a little clearer as to the shortcomings of what I have written? I am new to Simple English version of Wikipedia. --TedColes (talk) 12:53, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't have any real problem with your text edits, and I have adjusted the text a bit today (I picked up a couple of old vandalisms). The interwiki links are a no-no here, and we have our own version of wikt. If an editor thinks the account on our own wikt is not sufficient, he can edit it, and he can explain the term in (say) a footnote. The page has had quite a lot of input, so fundamental changes should probably be mentioned on the talk page. Incidentally, we don't have a page on Max Newman, nor a page on traffic analysis... Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:30, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Battle of Stamford Bridge

I looked at your edits on the Battle of Stamford Bridge. You took an full article with 23 reliable source source citations and reduced it to a stub with a single citation! All that work and 22 source citations just deleted? And we kept the one without a page number. What is going on here? We're supposed to be building articles from stubs, not the other way around (or in this case building it from gibberish). You gave as a reason "too much of a copy". Too much a copy of what? Yes, it was a transwikied article (with attribution). If you're saying it needed to be further simplified, then tag it or make a comment on the talk page. You may not have noticed but 17 of the 23 source citations were added by me and did not come from the Enwiki version. It took time to research these. As it was, this action did not show any respect for another editor's work to make something out of a title. And how does this stub help the reader understand the significance of this battle? It certainly doesn't now. Perhaps I spent more time on finding source citations than I might have spent simplifying the text further. That might be a valid critique but as it is this is just a slap in the face. Rus793 (talk) 17:03, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Well I reverted back to your version. However, I think the text follows the En version too closely, and is too complex. Your source citations were a definite improvement, and I should have given that more attention. On the other hand, if you intended to edit further, you could have put up the inuse flag, which would certainly have been respected. For my part, I apologise for taking an over-abrupt action. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:34, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

OK, thank you. I intended to come back to it later as it is on my to-do list. I was in the middle of working on a series of articles (still am) and was patrolling new pages. I saw a good title and remember being surprised we did not have an article already. The user just added some nonsense and I was trying to make the point that with a little effort it could have been turned into an article. I ended up spending more time than I had originally wanted to, but this was a very important historical event. Sorry I didn't take the time to better simplify it. I'll go back and work on it this morning and improve it further. Thanks Rus793 (talk) 14:46, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Syntactic Structures

Hello, I have simplified the article here : User:Zaheen/Syntactic Structures. Do you think it can get revived now? Zaheen (talk) 22:34, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I can see you've worked on it, but I don't find it easy to read. Unfortunately I have little time to edit at present, or I would revise it myself. Also, it is a genuinely difficult topic for people who have no background in linguistics. My intuition is that the key idea should come right to the front. Forget all that abstract stuff about formality -- they won't have a clue what that means. Put early on:

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is a sentence with no clear meaning. Yet, from the point of view of grammar, it still seems natural and right to a native English speaker. So, the study of sentence structures is separate from the study of meaning".

Until the reader gets to this, there is nothing in the article that he can get a grip on. In writing, you have to connect with peoples' minds. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:05, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

The next point which occurs to me is that the ability to understand sentence structure is largely innate, inherited and common to almost all humans. [Not everyone agrees with this!]. I would check up on what Pinker says about Chomsky (Pinker, Steven 1994. The language instinct: how the mind creates language. New York, N.Y: Morrow. ISBN 0-688-12141-1). Differences between Chomsky and Pinker are discussed in Buss D.M. 2009. Evolutionary psychology. Pearson, p393/4. ISBN 978-81-317-2745-4.

Lastly, there are a number of popular books which explain Chomsky's ideas. I would check up on those, also. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:31, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much for all these pointers about reading and improving. I appreciate you taking the time to write them. I have actually already read all those books you mentioned : Syntactic Structures (and all other linguistics books) by Chomsky (and their reviews by linguists and non-linguists in books, journals and magazines), the book by Buss, the first 4 books by Pinker. Cover to cover. Several times. And it's been many years now. I am not new to this material.

If I understand you correctly, you think we need to simplify the presentation and ordering of the ideas in the book even more in order to connect with the potential readers who are more or less clueless about linguistics. You think the ideas in the current article are still too complex. I understand your concern. But I disagree. I don't think readers are that clueless neither do I think the progression of ideas are so difficult to hollow. So I kind of fail to see your point, in fact. Forgive me. Let me explain some more, if I may.

In writing this article, my focus has been on the description of this specific book, specifically the context behind its creation, its publication, its immediate reception, its short and long-term impacts within linguistics and beyond, and of course, the key ideas presented within it. That's the general schema of an article about any book on Wikipedia. That's how I wrote the article in enwiki as well. This simple English version that I initially transcluded over here was just the lead of that article, because it contained all those things in one summarized lead section. I also happen to think it does a nice job at that.

What I have actually worked on so far (after a discussion with User:Auntof6) is making the words simpler, making sure that the majority of the text uses basic English or the most frequently used words in English. Right now 90% percent of the words in the article are among the most frequent 2000 words in English. Some proper names and title names could not be converted or eliminated. The measured readability (Flesch score) is now such that even a 5th grader would be able to follow the article. I have mentioned this in the article's talk page here: User talk:Zaheen/Syntactic Structures. Please take a look if you can.

IMO this article is not about the bigger set of theories of Chomsky's that span several decades and include several major works (Aspects or standard model of the 60s, Extended Standard theory of the 70s, GB theory of the 80s, Minimalism in the 90s, and the biolinguistics program in the 2000s). These all together contain a multitude of ideas. It is true that Pinker and Buss, both psychologists and non-linguists, have discussed some of Chomsky's ideas in their books, as they saw fit. But their observations are not specifically about this book or all of its content matter. And their way of looking at it is not the only nor the simplest way. "Colorless Green Ideas...", famous as it is, is not the only main or leading idea within SS, it's one of the many important ideas. If we lead by that, it would be a caricature of what the book is about, IMO.

To sum up, I don't know if I can rewrite the article using a different progression of ideas. I have arrived at the current progression while working for a long time on the lead of the original article in enwiki and frankly, it seems fine to me. I have worked quite hard so far on simplifying the language of the version for Simple wiki. I am afraid cannot spend any more energy or time on this. Of course I'm not saying nothing can be changed. But if you think the current version not good enough to revive the article, that would be quite a pity indeed. I would have to abandon my wish to see it here. Quite a waste to be honest. Too bad. Zaheen (talk) 18:12, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

You certainly don't have to do as I suggested. You can edit the article in any way that is reasonable, and move the text back onto the wiki from your subpage. It will improve our wiki. Even if it is beyond some of our readers, it will no doubt interest others. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:21, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

MD P NAZIM

I provide sufficient reliable source for the said article but still you delete, without even consider anything Bteifanai (talk) 15:11, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

You need to read carefully wp:Notability and wp:Notability (people), because that was the area of weakness, and the reason for deletion. As to sources, the guidance on sources says "Articles need important coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". The sources were open website sources which do not seem to meet the requirements. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:55, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Undeletion

Undelete iOS jailbreaking article! 185.80.220.40 (talk) 20:23, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

• (talk page stalker) To ask for an article to be undeleted, you need to use Wikipedia:Deletion review. However, since you did not create that article (at least not under this IP address), your request might not be honored. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Raising Hope

Hello! Would you consider restoring the page Raising Hope that was deleted on December 11th? If it's the version I edited, there were a few claims of notability - airing on a major national network and awards won. I was just rescuing a page from what a well meaning IP created, so I don't really want to rewrite. I can add a bit more about the ratings or international broadcasts if you feel those are claims. Thanks! --Tbennert (talk) 04:41, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Done, see comments on your Talk. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:37, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I added more and put references for awards as requested. And not to be an ass, because I generally think you are a top-notch admin, but... claims of notability shouldn't need to be referenced to avoid speedy deletion. There may well be other reasons to speedy delete, just not A4. If references are required we should speedy delete most of Category:Unreferenced BLPs and Category:Articles lacking sources. Anyway, thanks for the restore! --Tbennert (talk) 19:51, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I do know what the rules are, but: if a BLP page is vulnerable to a notability query, then it needs sources to support it. Also, when an IP changes a page in a way which is not vandalism, it may help other editors if the page has sources. Raising Hope is very clearly notable, so thank you for your editing. Macdonald-ross (talk)

pages of non-existent users

Some of those pages had content. Shouldn't we try to figure out where it came from before deleting them? --Auntof6 (talk) 18:14, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

It looks like at least one was renamed at some point. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:16, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Ultrasaurus

According to an article in National Geographic, the name has now been discarded. It turned out the bones discovered by Jensen were those of both Brachiosaurus and Supersaurus. Kim's Ultrasauros is now considered an alternate name for Supersaurus. The Enwiki article has one early source and does not reflect the latest opinions that the Colorado discovery in 1979 of a shoulder blade was actually that of a Brachiosaurus. Another to look at is: A Reassessment of Ultrasauros Macintosh (Jensen, 1985). But I think the still-evolving and unsettled argument over this nickname makes an article here less than a good idea right now. Rus793 (talk) 15:05, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I will return to this topic, but have limited time at present. In general, I am not in favour of us having any nomen dubium articles. They are not established scientific results. They do not add to the usefulness of the wiki as a source of reference. Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:30, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Please bring my page back

You have removed my page on Keemstar because he is not a notable person, but he has 1,748,052 subscribers on YouTube and had a podcast in the top 20 iTunes charts, how is that not notable? I believe the page should be reinstated.

See guidelines on wp:notability. Notability is not the same as popularity. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:02, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Mike Pence protection

Hey Macdonald-ross, how's it going? I've been reviewing the recent history of Mike Pence and there's been some tackling of vandalism and just now I reverted one discussing his controversial handling of homosexuals in the United States and given his other policies or even internet jokes passed around about Pence, it would alert a high amount of potential vandalism to the article. Would protecting the article from unregistered users (like the one Donald Trump has) would be appropriate for the article. Thank you for your time! --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 05:19, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

List of ions

Mac. Can you take a look at this page List of ions. I patrolled it redirecting it to Ion and the user has reverted me twice. I still lean towards redirecting it. What do you think? Thanks. Rus793 (talk) 14:54, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages

Hi, Mac. When you create a dab page, such as Neural network, please use the {{disambiguation}} template instead of hardcoding Category:Disambiguation on the page. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:00, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

What did you delete that?

Don't delete on my work because it is simplified to simple form! --Cyrus noto3at bulaga (talk) 10:31, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Your edit on "Tactopoda"

Dear Macdonald-ross, the clade Tactopoda includes the tardigrades, but Tactopoda is not the same as Tardigrada. - Prahlad balaji (talk) 02:33, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Edits to SpongeBob SquarePants

I have noticed you have removed the change summary for two changes to this page. However I can still see them by going here and here. Could you hide them as well, or this something you can't do? Thanks! << S O M E G A D G E T G E E K >> (talk) 18:41, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Done. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:50, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Create Protection

I saw you blocked the user who kept recreating his own self-serving bio page. Thanks. I suppose it's reasonable to wait and see if there are any IP or alternative account attempts to recreate first, but if it happens even once, then I'd strongly encourage you to at least semi-protect page creation there, too. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:27, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

They would just choose another variant of the name. Eventually, they get the idea that we will not allow self-serving pages and/or adverts. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:29, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Please protect my talk page or block this IP

Hi Ross, sorry disturb you but could you please protect my Talk Page to only autoconfirmed users for 2 or 3 weeks? The IP 212.173.124.102 vandalize my Talk Page four time in the last four days [5]. Thanks DARIO SEVERI (talk) 17:46, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't get back to you. When it's just one user, we block the user, as Aunt has done. Regards, Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:53, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Request

please sir unblock me i'll never do this i did this because user:CactusWriter say Stay off to my talk page,and for say sorry for vandalism sir. User:Hammadsaeed

• No, I will not remove your block. It is very clear that you cannot edit without violating our rules. What you did most recently was to remove a user's comments from his own talk page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:54, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Macdonald Sir please sir give one chance i will never remove comments from other talk pages please sir only one chance?.--Hammad Saeed

Please leave block notices

Mac, please leave a message for Hammadsaeed to say that you blocked him and explain why. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:49, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

MWR - "complete nonsense"

There was no need to remove this, there is a page on the normal wiki about Modern Warfare Remastered. It isn't complete nonsense, you probably didn't understand it! — This unsigned comment was added by AyoWagwanPifftingWhatsUrBBMpin? (talk • changes) at 09:17, 21 March 2017 (UTC).

Is the above user's username annoying enough to break our username policy? << S O M E G A D G E T G E E K >> (talk) 18:20, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Some Gadget Geek: "Being annoying" is not mentioned in the policy. I don't see how it's annoying anyway. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:11, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Because, a Google search of the username gives a suggestion "Ayo Wagwan Piff ting Whats Ur BBM pin" - that last part makes it clear that the user wants to ask for others' personal data. See on enwiki: WP:DISRUPTNAME. << S O M E G A D G E T G E E K >> (talk) 03:03, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I think his username probably does counts a unsuitable. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

After about a week of no activity, the above user has posted to my talk page. After reading it, I searched for Ayo Wagwan Piff ting Whats Ur BBM pin on Google and saw this strange video among others, but none by a YouTuber called "Memeulous". In any case, if you think this username is unsuitable, why aren't you taking any action on the user? ««« SOME GADGET GEEK »»» (talk) 17:44, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Personal attacks by 208.87.77.48

Please could you block the above IP for personal attacks against me - see VIP

MacDonald-ross you have blocked the wrong person! You just blocked the IP who reverted some of the vandalism instead of the person who actually did it!

Thanks, always a good idea to block right user! Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:45, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

No problem! On a side note do you think there is any chance that my request for rollback will be approved? MiloDenn (talk) 15:53, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Reverting

Hi, would you please give reasons why you revert when you do it with Twinkle? It seems like you just revert for fun when you don't give reasons, except on my talk page. I have seen that you even reverted constructive edits, like the ones that were made to Avemetatarsalia and Trypanosomatida. Will you please not revert constructive edits and give reasons why you revert? Thank you. - Prahlad balaji (talk) 01:26, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Ronald Reagan protection

Hey Macdonald-ross, is there a way to protect the Ronald Reagan article has it has a history vandalism with countless of revert edits. Thank you! --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 15:18, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @TDKR Chicago 101: The vandalism on that page is not severe enough to protect the page. This kind of request comes up often enough that I think we need to explain better to our editors what the rules are about when protection is needed. I'll look into that. In the meantime, please try to leave this kind of request at WP:AN instead of on individual admins' talk pages. That way, there is a better record of requests for admin action. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:30, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Info

Sorry for vanishing so abruptly. I'm well, but have something in my life which needs full-time attention at present. I hope to be back editing in a couple of months. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:45, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Error cat on your user page

Hi, Mac. I'm working on clearing Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls, and your user page is in that category. The error message is "Warning: User:Macdonald-ross is calling Template:Collapse top with more than one value for the "1" parameter. Only the last value provided will be used." I'd be happy to see if I can fix it, but I thought I'd run it by you first. Let me know if you'd like help with it. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:02, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I knew it was not efficiently done, but I was and am too ignorant to fix it. So do fix it if you can. Thanks, Mac. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:50, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. It's fixed. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:11, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Your block of 82.219.218.26

Two things. One, the user had not created any more bad pages since I gave a level 3 warning, and therefore had not been completely warned. Second, why hardblock the IP? Do you have reason to believe sock puppetry? Catalan (talk) 13:50, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

He has put up a whole string of pages with little or no meaning. We already have perfectly good pages on subjects like dragonfly and his titles were not really suitable for redirects. Editors need to be stopped if they are rapidly creating many unsuitable pages. And, he has been blocked for 31 hours, all perfectly normal. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:58, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

What's not perfectly normal is that the block is not anon only. IP hardblocks are usually only used due to sock puppetry, I believe. Catalan (talk) 14:01, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Chess diagram issues

Hi, Mac. A while back, I changed Alexei Shirov to try to remove it from Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls. My change messed up the diagram, so you changed it back. Do you understand the chess diagram template well enough to figure out why the current syntax is a problem is assigning the maintenance category? I tried copying the code from the enwiki article, but, as you probably saw last time, it changed the diagram: the same code here and on enwiki doesn't show the same diagram. Can you help? There are other chess articles also in the duplicate argument category, so I'm hoping that if we figure out one of them, I'll be able to take care of the others as well. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:32, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Actually, the template itself doesn't seem to be working properly. See the illustration for "King's Gambit" in the template's documentation page—the appearance doesn't match the coding. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:04, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

The template itself is in the maintenance category I linked above. The problem on the doc page could be with syntax, not that the template isn't working. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:21, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I need to correct myself. There is a single documentation page for both {{Chess diagram}} and {{Chess diagram small}}. {{Chess diagram}} seems to be rendering incorrectly on the documentation page. But if you replace it with {{Chess diagram small}}, it looks correct. If Mac hasn't done anything with this by tomorrow (US ET), I'll take a swing at it. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:30, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I'd appreciate if you can let me know if you think you've solved it. I'd like to see if the affected articles leave the maintenance category. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:33, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I've made a start on this, but would like some guidance before proceeding further. Here's what I found:

• {{Chess diagram}} had some extra pipe characters that were causing the diagrams to come out wrong. Those I fixed. (See "King's Gambit" now, which is correct.)
• Evidently, the parser doesn't like to see multiple occurrences of |= ... |. That's what's causing the duplicate arguments problem. The way I can tell that this is fixing the problem is that if you now try to edit Template:Chess diagram/doc, you only get errors around the calls of {{Bughouse chess diagram}} and {{Alice chess diagram}}, because I didn't edit the codes calling those yet. We're no longer getting error messages calling {{Chess diagram}} or {{Chess diagram small}}, because I've fixed all the codes calling those diagrams.
• This creates a new problem of a sort. All of the occurrences of |= ... | were intended to let a person include the board coordinates in the coding. So if we really want to take these articles out of the maintenance category, there are two choices:
  • Use the more stripped-down coding that English Wikipedia uses. (See Template:Chess diagram/doc#Standard diagram.) Note that at this point enwiki is using a module; I'm only referring here to duplicating the code they use to call the template and module.
  • Substitute the full <!-- --> comment code instead. (See Template:Chess diagram/doc#Small diagram.)

I'm inclined to the first option myself, but would like some further opinions. Then I can start working on making everything consistent.

• Evidently, if you call {{Chess diagram small}} you need one |= ... | at the very end of the board to get the template to render correctly. But it seems a single occurrence does not create a maintenance error. That coding is not necessary for {{Chess diagram}}, but also doesn't hurt, so for consistency I'm going to leave it in place everywhere.

I'd appreciate feedback on how to proceed. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:26, 30 June 2017 (UTC)