User talk:Avenue/Archive4

Earlier archived messages: 2004-2006, 2007, 2008

May I be missing something?

Hi Avenue! Could I in all kindness ask you to explain how you feel that my claim of OR "doesn't hold water"? I'm not asking to provoke an argument of any kind, I am genuinly interested in the answer as there is of course the option that I have missed something. The way I've understood OR, personal claims violate it. I see that you live in New Zealand, so let's say that I would claim that there are 10,000,000 tigers roaming New Zealand, (Silly example, I know), then it would violate OR? Even if I used a source for that claim, saying that according to the CIA World Factbook, there are 10,000,000 tigers in New Zealand, it would still violate OR as World Factbook obviously claims no such thing. This is the way I've understand OR, but please correct me if I'm wrong. Even though my example is silly, I see no difference with regards to OR between it and an article not using any source at all to claim the number of English speakers in Honduras or using the Eurobarometer as source to claim 14,000,000 English speakers in France when the Eurobarometer never even mentions any number of English speakers in France (or any other country). Have a nice day, looking forward to your answer with great interest. JdeJ (talk) 19:42, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll respond on the AfD page where this arose. -- Avenue (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, probably the best place.JdeJ (talk) 20:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Category "Prisoners and detainees of New Zealand"

Hi, I've just made a minor edit to the Ellis page that I continue to keep an eye upon. I note the Ellis article is included in a category "Prisoners and detainees of New Zealand".

I have several objections existence of this category,

The first and principal reason is that Ellis is no longer a prisoner, the category is of unsound definition

The second that there are tens of thousands of people (especially when now released prisoners is included) that can fit the category, yet currently only five names appear in the category, all five are released, one deceased.

The third is that given above numbers it appears to be highly selective as to who is included in the category, I have a suspicion, especially as Donna Huata name appears, that undeclared agendas motivate inclusion.

I'd like to see debate on this with view to the category being deleted or at least it being given an accurate title. I don't know how to go about doing that. Regards, RichardJ Christie (talk) 02:22, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I see there are also Category:New Zealand prisoners and detainees and Category:New Zealand criminals. Ellis's article is included in all three.

There was a discussion recently addressing your first point at Talk:Abd_Al_Aziz_Sayer_Uwain_Al_Shammeri#Category:Kuwaiti_extrajudicial_prisoners_of_the_United_States. The general view seemed to be that such categories should include past and present members; e.g. Category:Heads of state includes past and present heads of state. I don't think this will be obvious to a casual reader, so it seems somewhat misleading, but that seems to be the accepted approach. I'll change the category intros so that this is at least clear to anyone who looks at the category pages.

On your second point, categories are only supposed to be applied when they are one of the defining charactistics of the article's subject, and when there is no real debate about whether the category applies (or applied). I think this means that of the three categories perhaps only Category:Prisoners and detainees of New Zealand would be appropriate for Ellis.

If you want to debate the issues, I'd suggest raising your concerns at the NZ noticeboard first. Any decisions about renaming or deleting the categories would ultimately be made at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion, but it would be useful to have some support lined up before showing up there. And others may spot something I've missed. -- Avenue (talk) 15:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Peter Ellis

Looks good, I think we managed to produce a better section today. Cool. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for your help. -- Avenue (talk) 11:25, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Right back at ya. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

What did you get in your project

I have just been looking at the Mount Etna page (as I am doing a project on it) and I came across your post.

What marks did you get in your project (just out of general interest)

De Mattia (talk) 06:33, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, the person you want is the anonymous editor (77.49.171.237 talk) I was replying to there, not me. -- Avenue (talk) 08:33, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Sorry. I got confused. De Mattia (talk) 09:07, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Whakaari/White Island

See User talk:Gadfium#Whakaari/White Island. I have removed the line in question for the time being, as it was added by an anon and I can find no online reference that does not appear to be influenced by the Wikipedia article. However, I notice that you changed the text in Feb 2008 to say it was the largest island in the group. Feel free to restore the line and add your references.-gadfium 08:36, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I've replied on your talk page. -- Avenue (talk) 11:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Nestoridae map

I measured the disatnce quite precisely from various maps, so, please, tell me what I did wrong, and I correct the image. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Seems I was wrong in that, I am updating the Illustrator map, and upload it shortly. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Done, and uploaded. have a look at it, and let me know if there are more changes that would be an improvement. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

New Ref?

Viriditas metions that he and you found an "excellent" new source, dated 2007, for the Hawaii hotspot article rounds. Well, what is it? ResMar 19:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC) BTW:I see you work a lot around the Hawaii volcanism articles, you should consider joining in too.

I have considered joining, but it seems to imply a bigger commitment than I can make just now. -- Avenue (talk) 20:14, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks, I'll check it out. ResMar 20:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Not really. You don't really have to expand much; like with Nevado del Ruiz, you shot down many of the issues raised; copyeditors are a commodity, especially to me, with my recklessy expanded articles full of careless grammatical errors :P ResMar 23:29, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments on Loihi. I've since fixed them. ResMar 23:14, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Admin

Back in May 2007, you said you weren't quite ready to run for adminship, but you were interested in running at some point. I'd be proud to nominate you at Requests for adminship, or you can self-nominate. If you don't already follow the process, you might like to read Requests for adminship for a while as the process can be quite bruising. I suggest that if you are interested then you pick a week when you have ample spare time to answer questions.-gadfium 06:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

WPNZ

If you simply put in WPNZ into a category page the category will come up anyways SatuSuro 09:05, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

And its a rare stage in my 50,000 edits that i find someone else the slightest interested in project management enough to add WPNZ or anything to a category page - please to meet you and trust your journey in wikipedia doesnt get you too many odd stares when anyone looks at your contribs and sees your cat tagging - there are few and far between with a similar idea - well done! SatuSuro 09:08, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Did a random tonight and cannot believe there are still so many red link cats - so will try to get some more done soon SatuSuro 15:26, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

If you have some more mass WPNZ tagging to do and you'd prefer a bot to do it please drop me a note. (User:XLerateBot) XLerate (talk) 08:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Avenue, I've replied on my talk page. XLerate (talk) 01:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Catmembers tool

Hi. I saw at User talk:XLerate#Tagging cats by bot that you had trouble with the catmembers tool. You should have filed a bug report, but I happened to find your notice by chance. There was indeed a bug that prevented the tool from searching categories with spaces in the name. It should be fixed now. Please tell if you have more issues with the tool, or if it is missing some feature that you need. Byrial (talk) 13:55, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that. I didn't file a bug report because I wasn't sure I wasn't missing something, and XLerate suggested an alternative method. But now that that bug is fixed, your tool is turning out to be very useful. I have thought of a couple of features I would like, when searching through sub-categories; to be able to

1. Have the tool print the subcategory each page was found in, alongside its listing; and
2. Specify a category (or categories) to exclude from the search.

The latter would be especially useful, due to the fact that relevance of categories is not transitive. For instance, I'm searching within Category:New Zealand, and so the tool finds Category:Holidays in New Zealand. No problem there, but within that category it finds Category:Christmas, which starts to bring in a lot of unrelated stuff. Being able to exclude the contents of that category (and some others) would make the results a lot more useful. -- Avenue (talk) 14:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

And another idea: allowing the user to search for more than one template would make it easier to deal with template redirects such as {{WPNZ}}. -- Avenue (talk) 15:17, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the ideas. I think I can do all of these. I think it would easiest for the user, if the tool can be asked to automatically include redirects to the specified template. I will start working on it in a few days, and tell you when it is ready. Byrial (talk) 09:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Denmark–New Zealand relations

Thank you for your many little fixes - even when I'm in error. LOL. Bearian (talk) 19:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Swine Flu Barnstar
		For your extraordinary efforts in keeping Template:2009 swine flu outbreak table up to date and for your thoughtful contributions to the talk page, I hereby award you this special barnstar. Congratulations and keep up the good work! ThaddeusB (talk) 20:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Detected vs reported

Saying "reported human cases by country" implies the figures are estimates (even if censored) of the numbers infected/dead. They are not. They are estimates of the numbers of people who have been detected to have swine flu or have died from swine flu. Detecting this swine flu is hard as its so like normal flu and the detections may be heavily biased (better detection in western countries for example). Some epidemiologists have estimated that greater than 10 times more actual cases exist in Mexico than have been detected.

Saying "detected human cases by country" might be taken as implying that countries aren't lying. Although non-reporting is a detection bias so....

I can't think of a sensible compromise. The former is seriously misleading and the latter only quite misleading so I've changed the title back to the former. Barnaby dawson (talk) 21:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree "detected" is better than "reported", since undetected cases are probably a much bigger problem than detected but unreported ones. I originally changed it from "known" to "reported"; I had forgotten it was previously "detected". -- Avenue (talk) 00:53, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Volcanism of Canada

Moved Category:Volcanism in Canada members here, though the category has not yet been moved. Then I remembered at the last moment that you said a bot does that. - Gilgamesh (talk) 21:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I must have been working too much. I'm now a tad embarrassed I did that. X3 It wasn't too big—I'll move them back. - Gilgamesh (talk) 21:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, what I can think of so far. I've been losing some of my mental sharpness in the past few hours.

• Category:Volcanism in Canada to Category:Volcanism of Canada (and the other countries in Category:Volcanism by country named with "in")
• Category:Rift volcanoes to Category:Rift volcanism (and similar categories like Category:Subduction volcanoes, etc.)

- Gilgamesh (talk) 21:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest leaving things alone for now. Given Black Tusk's latest comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Volcanoes, consensus there for any moves currently seems fragile at best. I think more discussion is needed for us to know what action people feel we should take. -- Avenue (talk) 21:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

This is getting too complicated. Okay, I'll try to wait. But with the current state of disagreements, many categories have become unworkable or subject to dispute. It's paralyzed a lot of work in this project. - Gilgamesh (talk) 22:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

thanks for your work on John Stuart Yeates

Stuartyeates (talk) 19:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. -- Avenue (talk) 23:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

2009 swine flu outbreak table

From Templates for deletion: "Did you see my question just above, asking about one possible solution to the original research issue? On the issue of whether it could mislead our readers, I agree it does overemphasise the precise counts, which are (a) subject to all sorts of distortions, and (b) not really that important. So yes, I agree some of our readers might get the wrong message from the current version. Can we agree on the general message we think they should get? To me, the important concepts we can present in a summary by country are the geographic spread of the disease, and how intense the outbreak is in different places. And given the limitations of the available data, only rough relativities are meaningful. Would you agree? If so, do you think my recent suggestion (on the template's talk page) of simply listing countries (without figures attached) grouped by the number of confirmed cases would be sensible? -- Avenue (talk) 03:29, 25 May 2009 (UTC)"

I've just seen it now. I stopped checking the deletion page regularly when the balance of opinion became clear. Several options occur to me.

1) We should group countries by the order of magnitude of detected cases.

This is roughly what I think you suggest above. I'm all for this if it can be done without it being reverted. Quoting the figures to the nearest 1 confirmed cases is misleading because it implies great accuracy.

2) Insist that the table consist only of reports from the WHO.

The problem with this is, in my opinion, that these figures are still very misleading even if they are reported by the WHO. I find it pretty shocking that the WHO includes no disclaimers with these figures which (as I have already commented) are deeply flawed.

3) Try to include some form of clarification of the status of these figures without including a disclaimer (I had added one which was removed because of wikipedia policy).

I changed the title of the table earlier to "Detected human cases by country" from "Cases by country". Perhaps some other modification could be of use. The main problem here is that blatantly most people will not read footnotes or appreciate subtle differences in column headers.

4) Introduce sources critical of the WHO reported figures into the introduction of the main article (or footnote them at the bottom of the table).

Good places to look for sources would be in Nature's swine flu coverage [1]. I have a couple of sources for this too on my talk page under 'notes to self'.

I may be able to help a little but I have my thesis to finish writing up so I can't promise anything. Barnaby dawson (talk) 16:16, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your thorough response. The template has already been simplified slightly, and a !vote on further cuts is underway. I'm hopeful that we can gain consensus for this. A move away from reporting exact totals will probably take longer to gain acceptance, but I don't plan to give up on it.

I agree with you that the exact counts can be misleading. We have some good content discussing this already, and I would like this to be made more prominent. I'll see what I can do, although this is not my top priority at present either. -- Avenue (talk) 11:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Round Two

Loihi Seamount. Trying again...ResMar 00:09, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

FAR for Ann Arbor

I have nominated Ann Arbor, Michigan for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.

Hi Avenue

I saw you making edits earlier. Are you back? :) ceranthor 11:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Not as much as I might like. My editing will be intermittent for a while yet. -- Avenue (talk) 19:53, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Denmark – New Zealand relations

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Denmark – New Zealand relations. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Denmark – New Zealand relations (2nd nomination). Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Assessment verification?

Hi Avenue - I've just assessed Dunedin Town Hall as Mid-importance/C-Class, but I don't do much assessment and I've been heavily involved in the writing of the article, so I'd appreciate a double-check to make sure that it's a reasonable assessment... please? :) Grutness...wha? 09:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no expertise in architecture, and I'm a bit rusty on assessments, so I might not be the best person to ask. But your rating seems reasonable to me. A few (hopefully constructive) comments:

1. The lead seems a bit short; it gives a brief if slightly bland overview of the topic, and could usefully be expanded to summarise more of the article. Along with relevant wikilinks, this would help the reader put the topic in context more quickly.
2. A building infobox ({{infobox building}}) would be useful.
3. A rough plan would make the "Name" section easier to follow.
4. Some parts, on the inspiration for the 1st phase's design and the comparisons with other structures, have no citations.
5. More photos would be nice: e.g. of comparable buildings, of Lawson, of the organ, etc. The town hall seems a bit remote in the lead photo, too.

These are the sorts of things that mean it hasn't reached B-class yet, in my view. But it's well on the way. -- Avenue (talk) 14:57, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that -I've added an infobox and changed the top photo, and given some of your suggestions to User:Peter Entwisle, who is both the main editor of the article and an expert on the subject (see Peter Entwisle! Not sure how many of the changes he'll make - he's not the most comfortable user of Wiki writeup and the like, but the info he adds is well worth it). The article';s certainly in good enough condition that it's not in urgent need of fix-up, anyway. Grutness...wha? 10:09, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

PS - I hope the steady stream of edits from you in the last few days means that "normal service has been resumed"! Grutness...wha? 09:52, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, at last! I still expect to be otherwise occupied often over the next two months, though. -- Avenue (talk) 14:57, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

WP Volcanoes

Hello. If you haven't noticed, I've started a structural reorganization of WikiProject Volcanoes. So far, I've beutified the head page and moved a lot of the stuff to subpages of the project, so as not to bulk the main page. As an active member of the project, this is just a notice about what's going on. Comments go on the talk page. Happy holidays, ResMar 14:08, 25 December 2009 (UTC)