User talk:SilkTork

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"I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."
Barack Obama

Welcome!!! Pull up a chair, let's have a nice chat. I'm glad you called. I'll put the kettle on.
SilkTork

My Wiki activity has reduced. I am no longer involved in any content dispute resolution matters, I have cut back my involvement in WikiProjects, editing guidelines and essays, RfA, AfD, GAN, etc. I will bumble along with various random editing and random involvement in Wiki matters.
Though I will consider requests for my attention, I may turn down requests if they look too chewy!
SilkTork

Old dusty stuff

[edit] Monterrey article.

From the education section:

Founded in 1969 with the support of local leading multinational corporations such as Cemex, Alfa, Femsa, Gamesa, Protexa & CYDSA, the Universidad Regiomontana is a private university offering high school, undergraduate and graduate programs. With agreements with more than 200 universities across the globe, it is member of GATE (Global Alliance for Transnational Education), FIMPES (Federación de Instituciones Mexicanas Particulares de Educación Superior) and holds an ISO 9001 Certification. Its urban campus attracts many working professionals who complement and enrich the academic experience.

Not a single source for this statement. Also, how do the international certifications, supportive corporations and global agreements of Universidad Regiomontana improve the Monterrey article? Shouldn't this info belong on the Education in Mexico article? Or in an article for Universidad Regiomontana itself? Also, the same section gives few, if any, information on Tecnologico de Monterrey, a bigger, older, and more certified university. This paragraph is unsourced, and not NPOV.

From the sports section:

Monterrey has two soccer teams in the Mexican league, the Club de Fútbol Monterrey, known as the Rayados who plays in the Estadio Tecnológico, a facility owned by the ITESM, and rented to the team. And the UANL Tigres, the team of the U.A.N.L. and they play at Estadio Universitario which is located at the main campus of the university. Both teams are related to the city on the derby, called Clásico Regiomontano. Recently there is a proposed project to build a stadium for both teams, the stadium's name is planned to be "Estadio Internacional Monterrey"[44], although the idea was dropped out by both teams. The stadium is still being encouraged, and the city is giving a positive view of it, but the UANL Tigres have yet to finish their stadium contract and the Rayados are planning a stadium of their own. Club de Fútbol Monterrey plans to build a new stadium able to sit a crowd of 50,000. It is scheduled to be finished by 2011, named "Estadio de Fútbol Monterrey". The new stadium is to be financed by the club's managing firm, FEMSA, and will remain the club's property for fifty years before becoming property of the government.[45]

Only 2 references for this paragraph. Reference 44 is primary, and 45 is the Wikipedia article on the Rayados team.

The city hosted many official games during the 1986 FIFA World Cup.

Unreferenced. Also, weasel words.

The notable people section has not a single reference.

From the food section:

Carne asada (grilled beef) on weekends remains one of the most cherished traditions in Monterrey's families. It is usually served with grilled onions, baked potatoes and sausages or chopped as tacos. Carne asada gatherings generally take place in the afternoons opposed to central Mexico tradition of having carne asada between 2 and 4pm. Locally brewed beer and cola soft drinks are an almost mandatory part of the weekly ritual. The traditional desserts, "glorias" and "obleas," made from goat milk are both traditional candies from Nuevo León.

How is that not written like a travel guide? Also, unreferenced.

From the public safety section:

Since 2003-2006, however, the city has seen its share of drug violence related to turf battles between warring cartels.

Informal, unreferenced, weasel words.

And that is on a quick check. I wait for comment. Thanks. RUL3R (talk) 00:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

You do a quick Google check (these days Google is excellent for doing such quick checks, though for someone who wants to work closely on an article, a visit to the library is recommended) and then apply the common sense model I outlined to you. It's about making some informed judgments on the value of the statement and the usefulness of tagging. For the last section you mention - the drug wars, I put in a Google search for "Monterrey warring cartels" and found plenty of evidence to support the bulk of the drug war statement. I removed the bit about 2003-2006 as my search didn't reveal that, and pinning down a date requires an informed opinion, and is anyway not required. I changed the wording of "seen its share of" to "experienced" as possibly more formal, though that is debatable, and I moved the word "drug" from "violence" to "cartels" for clarity and better English. It took less than 5 minutes. The same approach can be done with the other statements. I'll assist you going through the other statements if you like. For the food section, I suggest trying a Google search on "Carne asada Monterrey", and using the book search facility, as you tend to get better food related sources from books than from the internet. Look here. I use an add on tool for Firefox called Wikipedia Cite which means I then only have to click on the source page and I get all the reference details in an appropriate format which I then paste into the article. Quick and easy. Regards SilkTork *^YES! 07:48, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I am actually from Monterrey and I know first hand that most of what is written is true. The issue here is that any reader not from Mexico (which amounts to about 99.5% of the world population) is likely to be lost in the article. Aside of that, references in Wikipedia not only serve to cite a source, they also serve to avoid making additional searching elsewhere, that's a reason to link to them. I believe it makes no sense to say that it is OK to leave unreferenced statements just beacuse it can be found on Google in less than 5 minutes. I can acknowledge I overreacted with my tagging, but this article lacks many references. The history section has none, for example. RUL3R (talk) 07:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I was not saying that contentious statements should be left unsourced because it only takes 5 minutes work for the reader - I was saying that instead of tagging the article, do the 5 minutes work yourself and improve the article. Uncontentious statements, however, do not need to be sourced. Not every single statement needs sourcing - Wikipedia:Verifiability goes into more detail. It comes down to:

If the statement is basic and obvious, it doesn't need a source.

If the statement is likely to be questioned, then either tag it or source it.

If the statement is making a bold claim, then either remove it or source it.

Tagging alerts other editors that some research needs to be done. Some editors (I do this) will tag an article they are working on to remind them of statements they need to source later - I do this when working on potential Good Articles. On some articles I keep an eye on (Beer for example) I welcome somebody putting on a specific tag, as it draws my attention to a questionable statement. But considering that almost every article on Wikipedia has at least one contentious unsourced statement that could be tagged, mass tagging of such statements would overwhelm every editor who makes an effort at finding sources (such as myself). I am trying here to encourage you to get involved in improving the Monterrey article, and I'm willing to assist you in doing this as it's not that difficult, and would be better than just tagging. The article would improve, and you would feel good about your contribution. If you'd rather tag and walk away than edit the article, let me know, and I'll get on with something else. SilkTork *^YES! 17:55, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so far I have been able to find a couple of sources, made some additions to the article and slight corrections. I also reformatted some information, based on the format of the Manchester article, which was recently given WP:FA status. Let me know if my work complies better with policy. Thanks. RUL3R (talk) 20:22, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] GA Sweeps July update

Thanks to everyone's dedicated efforts to the GA Sweeps process, a total of 290 articles were swept in June! Last month was our second most successful month in reviewing articles (after May). We are currently over 70% done with Sweeps, with just under 800 articles left to review. With nearly 50 members, that averages out to about 15 articles per person. If each member reviews an article every other day this month (or several!), we'll be completely finished. This may sound difficult, but if everyone completes their reviews, Sweeps would be completed in less than two years when we first started (with only four members!). With the conclusion of Sweeps, each editor could spend more time writing GAs, reviewing at the backlogged GAN, or focusing on other GARs. Again, I want to thank you for using your time to ensure the quality of the older GAs. Feel free to recruit other editors who have reviewed GANs in the past and might be interested in the process. The more editors, the less the workload, and hopefully the faster this will be completed. If you have any questions about reviews or the process let me know and I'll be happy to get back to you. Again, thank you for taking the time to help with the process, I appreciate your efforts! --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 18:07, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] GA reassessment of The Velvet Underground & Nico

I have conducted a reassessment of this article and have found a few referencing concerns, which need to be addressed if the article is to maintain its GA status. The reassessment is at Talk:The Velvet Underground & Nico/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:44, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Flora article moves

Hi, SilkTork. I was wondering if there had been a discussion on the moves you've been doing recently for flora article (e.g. [1]). Or was it a move request? I wholly disagree with the common name approach, even more so with the vernacular name (scientific name) article title approach. This is why we have WP:NC (flora). I've reverted one of them back to the scientific name. They are the most precise, least ambiguous, and in most cases, most common name out there by several measures. The flora naming convention guideline recently went under a lot of scrutiny (can't remember if you were in on the discussion at all), but it stood the tests and you can read the archives on the talk page there. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 21:22, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a long standing policy of WP:COMMONNAME, which has wide consensus, and stands up to scrutiny each time it is examined. I tend to always fall back on that when I do a search for something (such as hazelnut in this case) and end up with an article title that makes no sense to me. The guideline you pointed me to appears to be contentious, judging by the talkpage; and it stands in opposition to widely accepted policy. The article name changes I did were simply following policy, and following the direction of the content of each article. Where the article said something like "The Common Hazel (Corylus avellana) is ....", and the name on the taxobox said "Common Hazel", it seemed appropriate to follow policy and the guidance and direction of the article, especially as then throughout the article the term "Common Hazel" was used. The more questionable part - I thought it worth exploring, but you are right to raise it - is that I then moved the article name to include both common name and scientific name. I think that using both names is worth considering. Anyway - I eventually sorted the confusion of my search by splitting out from Common Hazel the information on Hazelnuts in WP:Summary style. If you feel strongly that Common Hazel (Corylus avellana) or Common Hazel are going to be confusing for the general reader, and that Corylus avellana is going to be clearer, then go ahead and rename to Corylus avellana. I feel you won't be helping the average reader, but I'm not that motivated enough to get into an issue about it.

By the way, your name is familiar - have we discussed a similar issue previously? 22:22, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I don't buy into the argument that the title should be located at the title most familiar to the average reader. An average reader would expect gravity, not gravitation, yet there are clear and compelling reasons for the latter, just as there are clear and compelling reasons for the "official" scientific name. Redirects from vernacular names do the bulk of the heavy lifting and readers know that when they're searching for a plant common name that what they're really looking for is a specific taxon. Landing them on an article titled by the scientific name via common name redirects won't put the average reader at a disadvantage, especially since the most common names are included in the first sentence. Further, species often have multiple vernacular names with equal weight, meaning that the most common name for it is actually the scientific name. Indeed, even where people know Corylus avellana by a common name, it's more likely that they'll know it as "hazelnut" or "hazel" and not "common hazel," a name given to it to distinguish from the other species of hazelnut in a wider context. Another example: When speaking in America, I can say pitcher plant and most people will know I'm speaking of the genus Sarracenia - the New World pitcher plants - and not about the genus Nepenthes - the Old World pitcher plants. Further, if I'm speaking to someone in Ohio, Canada, Wisconsin, etc. about local populations, I don't need to say purple pitcher plant to distinguish it from all other species in the genus since Sarracenia purpurea is the only native species and it's understood. This is why I say scientific names are exceedingly more precise and less ambiguous. Editors who have discussed this at length have decided that these factors are more important than WP:COMMONNAME and had forged WP:NC (flora), a guideline that was only under discussion because of the persistence of a small group of editors whose interpretations of policy I and others disagree with. (The flora naming convention enjoyed two years without any challenges before that.) Anyway, I'll wait for your reply to see if any of the above assuages your concerns regarding the guideline before I revert any more.

And yes, you had arbitrated a disagreement I had with User:Rotational a while ago. I think we've also interacted at least on one other occasion, but I can't remember where. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 23:45, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

A redirect is a hidden mechanism - what happens is that a person types in one name and lands on a page with a different name. Though, as you say, the term the person searched for may appear somewhere in the first sentence, what is seen most clearly is the "wrong" name. There may appear at the top some explanation before the first sentence of the article is read - however the result for the average reader is a moment of perplexity. Thankfully for most of the major plants the Wikipedia naming policy does apply - Oak, Chestnut, Beech, etc. I feel that Hazel is such a common name that it would fall into that group. I understand that there are other plants which have a variety of vulgar names and so the scientific name would make more sense, however - without having done the research on it - my impression is that Hazel is the only widely accepted common name for the hazel tree. However, reflecting on it this morning, I don't think my edits have taken everything into account. I am quite comfortable that Hazel now goes to the disamb page as there are a number of plausible searches - however Hazelnut could mean the tree or the nut so the landing page would need to make that clearer. Also, where would a reader most usefully want to be after searching for the hazel tree - at Hazel (Corylus) or Common Hazel (Corylus avellana)? Hmmm.

The Rotational incident - wasn't that about some drawings of dinosaurs that the user was using? SilkTork *^YES! 07:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

No. Rotational was the user making non-standard edits, wasn't he? I just looked at his talkpage. I recall trying to assist him with getting consensus for some of his views (there was one idea - I think it was section headings - that I thought made sense), but he didn't seem to be willing to go down that route. Many people aren't as it can consume a lot of time. It looks like he is annoying a few people and getting himself into a mess, and blaming others. Sigh! SilkTork *^YES! 19:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Help with peacemaking?

I noticed your offer of editor assistance. Are you willing to drop into a discussion[2] on the Second Amendment talk page and help encouraging us to bring the focus back to a discussion of the article? Unfortunately the conversation is shifting towards a discussion of the editors and stonewalling. I admit to being party to the dispute and my temper can impede my ability to focus on encyclopedia content, but I would like to turn this around to be more constructive. Thanks. SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm halfway through the discussion and I fear it is too subtle and chewy for me. I have several projects I still have in hand, and limited time to do them. You'll need to ask someone else to look into the matter. Full credit for being aware that your emotions may have led your thinking in places, and for looking for assistance in resolving the matter. Someone suggested that you bring in some material to balance the viewpoint, and that sounds a sensible approach. The options are:

1. Cut back the material
2. Reword the material
3. Insert comments or tags that the material is not balanced
4. Insert suitably sourced balancing material

Option 4 is the better one in this case. If the section starts becoming too large, consideration then needs to be made on splitting it out into a standalone article or trimming it back in a balanced manner.

Good luck! SilkTork *^YES! 18:07, 8 July 2009 (UTC)