User talk:Taxman

Note: I strongly prefer to keep conversations intact. I'll usually respond only here to comments made here unless you request me to do otherwise. Likewise I will respond on your talk page to any comments made there, and I'd request doing the same. Thank you, and happy wikiing.

For older discussion see: Archive1, Archive2

Request

To anyone reading here, please peer review an article to help it reach a higher quality level. Keep in mind the featured article criteria and consider some featured article advice, both of which should help give you ideas of where an article needs improvement. Thanks - Taxman ^Talk 12:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

RfB closure thanks

Hello, Taxman.

I wanted to personally thank you for taking part in the discussion regarding the closure of my candidacy for bureaucratship. As you know, after your discussion, you decided that there was sufficient significant and varied opposition to my candidacy, and thus no consensus to promote. Although personally disappointed, I both understand and respect your decision, especially in light of historical conservatism the project has had when selecting its bureaucrats. As these discussions are specifically not mathematical, but qualitative as well, even after the discussions at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RfB bar and Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/RfB bar, I fully understand that your collective decision here was based on "significant and varied" for which there is sufficient evidence. So, while I cannot say I am happy with the decision, I can say that I am satisfied with the care taken to make it, and accepting of your collective judgment. Once again, thank you for your participation. Also, I am especially grateful for you kind words as related to my behavior during this process. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 21:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

You're very welcome. Sorry it didn't work out the way you hoped. If you continue to comport yourself the way you did throughout this process the future looks good. And of course, there are plenty of articles out there that need your help whether or not you want to try RfB again. - Taxman ^Talk 21:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I have one up on WP:FAC as we speak, Abbey Mills Mosque if you are interested :) -- Avi (talk) 21:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Have replied

Suggestion. Will amend remarks. Thanks, 21:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Vintagekits

I have replied to your post here [1]. Thanks. Giano (talk) 07:01, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: User:Jbmurray/Advice

(copied over from my talk page:) I'm sorry I haven't replied to this earlier. But your advice is very sound. I do hope to write up my little "Advice" essay soon, though it's sadly been thrown on the back burner right now. Still, I just got a note from a professor from my former university (one of the most distinguished people in her field) saying she'd seen my stuff and was planning to do something similar. So I feel some kind of responsibility! I'll definitely be back in touch with you on this stuff, and am very gratified by your interest. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 12:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, no problem, I know how it goes. I'm actually surprised you caught my comments given how far up on your talkpage I put them. Heh, didn't mean to do that to you. But let me know if you'd like my help in any way. - Taxman ^Talk 12:12, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Recent deflagging

As you've been the bureaucrat most active in the bot approval process, could take a look at the concerns I've raised at Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group#Clarification of Betacommanbot's status if you a second. Do you agree that this is problematic? To me it is rather similar to a similar instance earlier this year where a crat who as inexperienced in the bot approval process was approached with a "non-standard" request. 14:48, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikicookie

I am awarding you this WikiCookie for your constructive edits on Wikipedia-- 17:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Microfinance

Hi Taxman. What needs to be done (administratively and edit-wise) to get this article up to Good and then to Featured? I ask you because you recently made a constructive edit there and say on your personal page you help with this type of project. I'd like to see this article moved up a notch so that more people will be watching it and we can keep it stable. Like the article on microcredit (which unlike this one, I have not had time to work on) it is a magnet for people who want to push their microfinance institution or their cause. Entries are frequently thrown in out of context by people who are contradicting or repeating other points already there, and who see Wikipedia as a platform for promoting the latest news about microfinance (of which there is a great deal, all the time). I am hoping that if we can get to Good Article, there will be more people watching to help keep it stable. I also believe the topic would make a great Featured Article.Brett epic (talk) 12:17, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately it doesn't always work out that better quality articles get watched more. The good news though is that the new flagged revision extensions should really reduce the impact of vandalism, especially if the sighted versions become the default version. But either way, it is still well worth it to make a better article, so I've left some comments on the talk page for you. After you've worked through those for a while your next best step is to list the article on peer review to get some more input. Let me know when you do and I can provide some more detailed advice. Overall the article is good–nice work on that, but if you have high goals for it, it needs more sources and careful use of them. Keep up the good work. - Taxman ^Talk 16:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for Peer Review help

Thank you for you work as a peer review volunteer. Since March, there has been a concerted effort to make sure all peer review requests get some response. Requests that have gone three days or longer without a substantial response are listed at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog. I have three requests to help this continue.

1) If you are asked to do a peer review, please ask the person who made the request to also do a review, preferably of a request that has not yet had feedback. This is fairly simple, but helps. For example when I review requests on the backlog list, I close with Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, ...

2) While there are several people who help with the backlog, lately I have been doing up to 3 or 4 peer reviews a day and can not keep this up much longer. We need help. Since there are now well over 100 names on the PR volunteers page, if each volunteer reviewed just one PR request without a response from the list each month, it would easily take care of the "no response" backlog. To help spread out the load, I suggest those willing pick a day of the month and do a review that day (for example, my first edit was on the 8th, so I could pick the 8th). Please pick a peer review request with no responses yet, if possible off the backlog list. If you want, leave a note on my talk page as to which day you picked and I will remind you each month.

3) I have made some proposals to add some limits to peer review requests at Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review#Proposed_limits. The idea is to prevent any one user from overly burdening the process. These seem fairly reasonable (one PR request per editor per day, only four total PR requests per editor at a time, PR requests with cleanup banners can be delisted (like GAN quick fail), and wait two weeks to relist a PR request after it is archived), but have gotten no feedback in one week. If you have any thoughts on these, please weigh in.

Thanks again for your help and in advance for any assistance with the backlog. Ruhrfisch °^° 21:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The first two are great ideas, thanks for bringing this back to my attention. You're right, now that there are enough volunteers, we should be able to make some headway. Though the point of the volunteers page was to let people know about editors that had interests in certain areas, so perhaps we could do more with notifying editors about specific peer review listings that lie in their interest area, what do you think? For #2, I don't think I can commit to a numerical day of the month since that would shift days of the week on me, but I could do every other Tuesday or something like that. For the third, I'll go comment there. - Taxman ^Talk 16:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Usurp en:Baxxter?

Hi! I am Baxxter from de.WP (my home wiki) and I try to unify my username "Baxxter". The English user has no edits here. Is it possible to rename this user? Thank you in advance! --88.66.163.246 (talk) 12:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please make a request at Wikipedia:Changing username/SUL. It explains all the options there. Let me know if you have any trouble. - Taxman ^Talk 20:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Problem is fixed: I have requested an username changing and now I have a global account :-) --Metalhead aka Baxxter Mail for me? 15:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, very good. - Taxman ^Talk 15:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Content forking at FAC

I put in a note to TimVickers asking him to weigh in on the content forking discussion at FAC, as he may be a good source of accurate information. Filll might be another editor who might know where to find the old disucssions, although deciding where to locate a new discussion is more important. I'm a bit uncomfortable that you seem to have formed an impression based on a marginally accurate statement made on IRC (not a fan of IRC in general, because of the lack of transparency, have never been there and don't know where to find the place myself :-), and also concerned that impressions about FAC reviews might better be sourced to persons more involved at FAC. Sandy (Talk) 15:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why he even mentioned it was discussed at IRC because it doesn't matter. All I did was ask for info, people gave me a few links to consider, I looked for discussion in several places and didn't find it, then I formulated my post in order to resolve the issue. Of course it got discussed a bit, but that's hardly relevant. More to the point it doesn't matter how the issue was brought up, the issue is what's important and focusing on something so minor as that doesn't seem like the right track. Putting the transparency question aside, it's moot since I brought it up on wiki. I'm very surprised you're focusing on such a side issue when what's needed to discuss it is right there. - Taxman ^Talk 15:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It's good you've brought this matter up at any rate (and would be even better if experienced editors like you went back to watching FAC more closely :-) In general, I dislike IRC and dislike the amount of misinfo that goes around in channels that aren't fully transparent; misimpressions and malformed perceptions can be hard to overcome when transparency is lacking, and I'm concerned when elements of the Wiki community rely on social networking outside of Wiki's normal transparency. Sandy (Talk) 15:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

That's fine to feel that way, but it wasn't germane to the issue at hand and your comments needlessly created friction. Also there's no more or less misinfo that goes on there, it's just a different medium. As for the transparency, yeah that does affect some things, not this, but in any case IRC is not going to go away. - Taxman ^Talk 15:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, point taken; now let's get on with the substance of the discussion. I feel a bit constrained to register my own opinion, since I have to neutrally judge consensus in passing FACs, but with this one issue, you've only scratched the surface of the ways summary style isn't being respected or used adequately in articles, and every time I opine on that, I've been overruled by consensus <shrug>. Sandy (Talk) 15:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well you're right, that's probably the broader issue. What other problematic ways did you have in mind? I do find summary style is very hard for many people to grasp properly and I'm not sure why. Part of it must be the way the guideline is written. That can be improved, and ideally we can get across the necessity of the concept to people. And as to registering your opinion, I don't believe you can't add in valuable opinion, it just takes separation. I do it in RfA's all the time. Though I may have strong opinions on various general issues, I set them aside and decide the consensus anyway, in many cases against my own preferences. If however I have a strong opinion that relates specifically to one RfA passing or not I register that opinion and let someone else call the consensus. But for general issues that affect FAC you should not feel constrained as long as you call the consensus fairly when you see it. In fact, FAC needs valuable opinions. - Taxman ^Talk 16:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

There's always at least one ongoing FAC that could be impacted if I stated my views. Specifically, I have always opposed the 60, 70 and 80KB readable prose articles, since IMO they are rarely encyclopedic, don't use summary style effectively, and almost always have organizational or POV problems that led to the gargantuan size. I've been overruled by consensus every time that issue has surfaced on a FAC or a FAR; I believe I haven't prevailed even once. I opposed the Extra-Long Article Committee because their methods were draconian, but I've never seen an article above 50KB readable prose that I agreed was a well organized encyclopedic article, so to me the bigger picture of the issue you raise is in getting back to just what is an encylopedic article. The other, prevailing view is the "Wikipedia is not paper", so we can write as many different long articles as we want. Sandy (Talk) 16:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:RSUE

You may be interested in this proposal to revise the text for articles using non-English sources. -- ^talk 04:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

PR Request

Hi there. I wonder if you would be able to take on the PR for General aviation in the United Kingdom? It's a long article, and I'm eager for any comment, but at this stage I'm mostly concerned with how well the article reads. Does it flow well? Is the structure right? Are there any bits that confuse, or seem out of place? Hope you can help, no problem if you can't. Thanks --FactotEm (talk) 10:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Ignore. Someone else has kindly taken this on, so no need to trouble you. Thanks. --FactotEm (talk) 00:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Indian sweets

You've commented before on this article about how it's become unencyclopedic. Could you make a revert to this edit? I think I could expand the article after that, but right now it's really hard to clean up.116135 (talk) 00:58, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Complete list of United States Supreme Court cases submitted to peer review

Hi. I found your name at Wikipedia:Peer_review/volunteers#Society_and_social_sciences and thought I'd let you know that I've submitted List of United States Supreme Court cases (formerly Complete list of United States Supreme Court cases) for peer review here and thought you might like to comment. Thanks.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 13:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi. It was brought to my attention that I asked too many people to comment. Looks like you're off the hook if you want to be.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 00:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

PR experiment

Dear Taxman, I'm writing in hopes of enlisting your aid in a four-month experiment at Peer Review (PR). The success of the experiment will depend on finding at least 10 editors willing to review at least one article a week through the end of October 2008. The experiment will employ a streamlined review process designed to insure that every nominator who seeks a review gets one and that reviewers do not waste time doing long reviews for nominators who do not respond to an initial short review.

The way it works is this: (1) Choose any article at Peer Review that lacks a review. Wikipedia:Peer reviews by date, especially the backlog list, is still a good place to find such articles. (2) Provide a short partial review based on your initial observations and wait to see if the nominator responds. Examples of short reviews can be found at Wikipedia:Peer review/Foreign relations of India/archive1 and Wikipedia:Peer review/Ed Stelmach/archive1. (3) If the nominator does not respond, the review is done. (4) If the nominator responds, continue the review as you see fit.

The experiment will require no noticeable administration. However, if you plan to participate, it would be helpful if you posted a brief note to Wikipedia talk:Peer review to that effect.

At the end of October, we can see how the experiment turned out and whether this process or some modification of it could sustain Peer Review permanently with minimal backlogs. If you can help, that would be great. If not, that's perfectly OK. We are all tremendously busy with a lot of different projects.

I have chosen to write to you in part because you've done peer reviews from the backlog during the past four months. Please forgive the form-letter nature of this note, which is more efficient than a personal note. With respect and thanks for your hard work on many projects, Finetooth (talk) 20:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Main page

Taxman, the FairTax article was featured on the main page, and is now under attack. It would be great to have some more editors there that are familiar with policy and the article. Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 17:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

commons

Please look at your disc. on commons! --80.108.164.202 (talk) 09:36, 26 July 2008 (UTC) (Durga from german wp [2])

Hello!

I'm trying to use global account status. However, the account is compromised and I cannot use that function. How can I do now? Raymond "Giggs" Ko 05:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality Tag

Hello,

I have added a tag to the Barack Obama article requesting that it be checked for neutrality. Since you’re a peer review volunteer I thought you might be interesting in coming in as a neutral editor and checking the article out. QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 10:59, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Crummey Trusts

Hi Taxman, could I ask you to patrol my stub on Crummey trusts? Thanks. Bongomatic (talk) 07:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Taxman, I see you have made a helpful addition to the [Crummey trust]] article. Could you mark it as patrolled? Bongomatic (talk) 13:10, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Nice work on the article. I'll try to add some references and more material if I get a chance. Marking as patrolled is really only to help in new pages patrol, and since this page is no longer listed on Special:NewPages, it wouldn't help to mark it as patrolled. The only effect it has is to mark the page as yellow in Special:NewPages. You may be thinking of Wikipedia:Flagged revisions which doesn't yet have a consensus method on the English Wikipedia, so it is not yet live. - Taxman ^Talk 20:47, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Request for help

I kindly ask your assistance for the renaming of "dodo" account to something else (anything) here. This in order to proces the request on meta. All your help is appreciated. Thank you. -- m:drini 19:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

In case you don't watchlist Peer Reviews

In regard to Mathematical economics. I recognize the lack of balance in the article. The honest reason the article is laid out in that fashion is that I don't feel comfortable writing an outline of the scope of mathematical economics within the discipline. I am a student of economics but not a practitioner, as it were. This isn't so much an excuse as a general reality. I've asked for some help on the ECON project board and of some editors who might have a btter grasp of the topic, but so far it is mostly me adding to the article. I suspect that given a compelling survey of the discipline, I could adequately summarize it, but I have found that economics is not that inward looking (in that sense). The last good source I found surveying the mathematical layout of economics was written in 1953 by a mathematician (Herstein 1953). I make no claim that I have made an exhaustive search but what I have found isn't promising. So this is a reply to note that I am grateful for your comment on the peer review and that I am slowly seeking to be able to correct the article in that area. :) If you do watchlist peer reviews and want to continue the discussion there, then I don't have a problem with you moving it. Protonk (talk) 04:54, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm yeah I'll move this there to keep it together, especially if I have more thoughts. Part of the problem is that Mathematical economics isn't really a distinct discipline now, it's just a description of the more mathematically oriented work that goes on in economics. The lack of sources may indicate the problem with the topic, which may indicate other solutions should be considered. - Taxman ^Talk 02:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Trying to ping me?

Noticed I missed you on IRC. If there's anything you need, I'm around. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 02:26, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Covered, thanks though. - Taxman ^Talk 02:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

your opinion would be appreciated

Hello,

I noticed your name in the PR list.

Can you take a look at this talk page, Wikipedia talk:Peer review/Islamic Golden Age/archive1 please?

The article makes lots of claims that need to be assessed.

Thank you very much.

—Cesar Tort 17:19, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments in that talk page. So would you tag the article with a specific template? —Cesar Tort 16:03, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Not personally because I'm not sure how much they help. It just needs to be improved like lots of other articles and for this one it's going to take lots of research. It's a broad subject and a bit of a difficult article to do. Keep up the good work on it. - Taxman ^Talk 18:52, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Please Clarify

Which page are you talking about? Arbiteroftruth (talk) 23:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Would you like to weigh in?

You have in the past mentioned the merits of article writing when applying for adminship. Would you like to weigh in here: Wikipedia_talk:Requests for adminship#Great discussion related to article building and Admins (Moved from Aervanath's RfA)? 13:38, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you...

...for your help and advice on Julia Alvarez, it's been really useful. I was wondering if you were aware of WP:FAT, and would be interested in adding yourself to the team and the members watchlisting the students' articles? If not, no worries - your extra pair of eyes on the article is still very much appreciated. Regards, EyeSerene^talk 18:18, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I was definitely aware of the team and thanks for the plug. I don't have the time unfortunately to commit, so that's why I haven't added myself to the list. I'll try to add comments here and there when I can both for the WP:NHB articles and future projects. Keep up the good work. Julia Alvarez is definitely shaping up and I'm looking forward to some GA and FA nominations out of the project. - Taxman ^Talk 20:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Heh, no worries. I thought you probably were, but it never hurts to ask ;) The GA nom has gone in, so your continued assistance will be very welcome. All the best, EyeSerene^talk 17:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

replies

Hi Taxman,

• Thanks for your comments and concerns. I replied to the "Ling.Nut is a bastard" issue here and here. I replied to the "what the crap are you doing" issue here.
• Please do let me know if you have any further comments or concerns. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 02:32, 15 November 2008 (UTC)