User:DGG
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My real name is David Goodman, and I would have used it from the beginning if I had understood WP better.

This user is an administrator on the English Wikipedia. (verify)

The Status Bot has been blocked.
See my last edit here.

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What I know

I'm a librarian, among other things,(with a MLS from Rutgers), and I claim the traditional ability of librarians to help users in subjects they know only a little about.
But the ones that I think I do actually know something about are

• scientific publishing, and libraries and higher education in general.
  • science librarianship, especially serials librarianship--I was responsible for the coordination of online journals for a major university library--Princeton--for about 10 years (before that I was responsible for the paper serials lists) -- and I have kept up with this field, and I am on some of the relevant international committees.
  • open access (as an obvious development from the previous item). Here I am an advocate and commentator, making postings and writing reviews. No two advocates agree completely on anything, but I'm on speaking terms with most of them, and a good many of the publishers. To do this effectively, I keep up with the detail, & what the major scientific societies and publishers are doing.
    • I still know something about molecular biology, which is the field of my Ph.D. (from Berkeley) under Gunther Stent, and human biology, the field of my post-doc with Alan Wilson.
      • As hobbies: printing history, medieval history (mainly western Europe), 18th century English literature, (especially the 2nd half of the century), history of religions (mainly the Christian religion), history of biology, (particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries).

My professional bent has been to look for lack of clarity, nonsense, or contradiction, whether in contracts, advertisement, alleged facts, or argumentation. I've found my destined home in WP, for I see more than I would have imagined. Not all of it seems curable, but I expect to upgrade some of the librarianship pages, and some of the higher education ones, and perhaps all of the publishing ones. Plus, as all of the WP people do, whatever I happen to come across. Lately, I've also been working a little more with WP processes and standards, towards the possibiliity of increasing their clarity, reasonableness, and consistency. As the standards seem in practice to be defined by practice at AfD, I've also been working there.

But what I have been also doing is trying to improve the weak articles about probably notable figures or organizations that I come across, sometimes in WP:CSD, sometimes in WP:PROD, sometimes after they've been sent to WP:AFD. I try to send a customized message to the author, explaining in exact detail what's needed.

To the extent I have time, I also try to re-write some of the most deserving of these articles when it seems there is no one else around to do the job. I can only manage 1 or 2 a week, but if all WP editors did the same--as some already do--we would make very satisfying progress towards a better encyclopedia.

Since I have access to databases such as Scopus and WebofScience that are very useful in considering the notability of academic people, I try to find information there for lists of their most cited work. I also find sources for unlikely subjects, sometimes in unlikely places, but usually just in Google. The trick is patience, and figuring out what to expect.

but as for expertise at WP in general, I cannot say it better than Slim Virgin did:

"The importance of our content policies lies in the fact that, when someone arrives claiming to be an expert, we don't have to worry about whether they're telling the truth. What we ask of all editors (expert and non-expert alike) is that they rely on the best secondary sources they can find. This is something that real experts will be able to do, because they'll have read the secondary literature. You'll know the real experts by their edits, because they'll be able to tell us what other experts think about the subject, not only what they think about it themselves."

How I communicate

I post my email address, because sometimes it's better to argue in private. But I use the article and user talk page. I think it highly advantageous to respond on the page that the question was asked, and keep article discussions in article space.

How I work

On a page new to me, I'll ask before I edit to any significant degree--if nobody responds, then I will go ahead. I generally wait a week. If the editors there do not like what I do, I go elsewhere. WP:OWN is a good policy but it's hard to enforce it. WP:BRD is supposed to do it, but in routine use it seems mainly designed to increase the work at the Arbitration Commission.

If anyone who knows less than I tries to lecture to me, I know a good many ways of responding, (or not responding), and I use them. But when someone knows more, I want to be taught. If I'm wrong, I say so. If I've messed things up, I apologize. I'd rather get things right, than get them my way & wrong. For some things, there are several alternative right ways, but there will also be several alternative wrong ways.
If I adopt too much of a lecturing tone myself, I hope they alert me, because it usually wasn't intended. I've taught biology, and librarianship, and the manner stays with you.

I have never been able to spell; if I've made a typo, just fix it, please--don't lecture me about it, for it won't do any good. Other people make typos too, and if I notice them, I fix them quietly. I think I'm good at straightening out unclear sentences, and I do some of this sort of copyediting as I go.

Biases

• Not relevant-- because I can fairly present all positions, as I think the other side, although wrong, may be intelligent:

very strong political views, and

very definite religious ones.

I try not to let on what they are in editing or commenting--anyone who wants to know about either can email me from this page & I'll discuss off-wiki.

• Relevant because I have difficulty keeping an open attitude, as I think the other side is generally not intelligent, and is determined to remain untaught, and I therefore usually avoid on WP

distaste for quack anything: medicine, science, psychology, social science ... This has been changing; I often vote to keep articles on these subjects, because the advocates of orthodoxy here sometimes seem to be even less intelligent than the quacks--and because I think the best way to expose quacks is to let them state their views plainly.

• Relevant because it will affect what I say here on the talk and WP pages):

a dislike for deciding matters by technicalities rather than by merits, together with a preference for guidelines rather than unbridled discretion

reasonable, not hidebound, definitions of "sources" and "notability" appropriate to the way people communicate in the 21st century

and confidence that the proper interpretation of WP basic principles can cope with even difficult situations

• Relevant because it is the ideological basis of my work here:

an extremely strong opinion that the uninhibited free play of ideas is essential to a free society and to humanity in general. (I basically follow J.S. Mill here.) I will support reasonable articles or edits when I think the opposition is motivated by political or nationalistic or religious sentiment--regardless of what I think of the views being expressed, and I apply this especially to the criticism of WP. I take pride in being what some call a First Amendment Absolutist, and I mean it in the literal sense. If anyone thinks I have deviated from that position, I'd like to be told so I can correct myself.

note about professors

Since people unfamiliar with the academic world may not realize that even a full professor at a major university is likely to be notable, and thus sometimes nominate these articles for deletion--occasionally even by Speedy--it is advisable to include more than minimal info: at least their major publications, their honors and awards, the most important work they did--with a link to the WP article on the subject. Then they will be more informative from the start, just as all WP articles should be. I try to defend these articles when worthy, but it is better if they are never nominated.

my approach to spam

WP is always dealing with paid spammers, people who earn their living by putting links to their own web sites into web pages elsewhere. It is a large and well paid profession, and their activities are a serious danger to the integrity of any good site like ours. We have a number of methods for detecting and dealing with them. The most effective way of dealing with them is to block access to their web sites, by preventing the links to known sites from appearing in wikipedia. This is a partially automated procedure, carried out at several different levels, both at enWP and cooperatively on a global basis among the different WPs. the other side of the technique is denying access to known spammers. this is a never--ending battle, because they just switch to a new account. Detecting these accounts, which we call here "sock-puppets", puppets made by stuffing one sock into another, as used to amuse young children, needs to be done very fast and very stringently to be effective. It has led to a practice of blocking them on any reasonable suspicion. But if anyone does this much of the time, one tends to get over-suspicious--one bans well-intentioned people and blocks useful links. It's an inevitable side-effect of this sort of policing work.

This applies equally to commercial and non-commercial sites. In a sense, the commercial ones are easier to deal with, because they tend to do even larger numbers, and get caught all the sooner. And thus the non-commercial spammers have a narrower line between them and the well-intentioned people.

Current projects

1. rescuing worthy speedies & prods in all fields & discussing the procedure
2. keeping articles about academics & academic organizations from deletion
3. upgrading "list of journals in .." and "...open access journals"
4. adding articles for major ref. sources
5. keeping important "in popular culture" articles from deletion, and upgrading their content.
6. Making some possible changes to speedy deletion criteria I have been reluctant to add to the work at Del Rev by appealing the many incorrect speedies I come across but which are for articles that have no chance of surviving AfD, but perhaps we really should be doing this to make the teaching point.

I have 3 suggestions that, together or separately, might reduced the ambiguity.

1. Thus one is rather simple: remove "organizations" and "companies." Organizations was added, apparently without any discussion by [1] on Oct 11, 2007, without any visible discussion, in the midst of a more general discussion about CSDA7 (now in Archive24). Companies was first added, without significant discussion. (there then followed some shifting back and forth between "companies" and "corporations") The major disputed instances we have been discussing come under the rubrics of "organisations;" and "companies" has always been a problem because it is extremely hard to tell if an article about a company is making a credible assertion. "X is an ice-cream shop." is obviously not a credible assertion, but "X is a large accounting firm in Y country" is disputable. I am not certain about groups: I think it was originally intended to apply to musical groups that are not bands, and it makes sense in that meaning. Otherwise it is too general--it's been claimed from time to time that churches and schools are "groups"
2. This is a little more complicated. An article may be deleted under criterion A7 only if it contains nothing that any reasonable person would think amounts to suitability for an encyclopedia, not just that it will probably not be accepted in Wikipedia. with possible examples.
3. this is even trickier: A good faith request by any established editor is sufficient for any administrator, whether or not the deleting administrator, to undelete an article deleted under speedy, except for BLP and copyvio. This should be automatic, and need not involve Deletion Review. it is polite to ask the original administrator first, but not necessary, and, even if s/he refuses, any administrator can undelete it without it being considered wheel warring. The article would normally be immediately sent for AfD. By definition, if an established editor disagrees, it is not uncontroversial and needs community involvement. (this one is a first draft, and may need more delicate wording)

Future projects

1. adding refs to old articles, & marking parts that were in PD
2. spam removal from existing articles. What most needs removal around here isn't inappropriate articles, but the excessive spam in a great many articles. DGG 04:54, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

General view of things

Volume 4, Issue 30 — 2008-07-21

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• WikiWorld: "Cartoon physics"

• News and notes: New Board Chair, compromised accounts

• Dispatches: History of the featured article process

• Features and admins

• Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

• The Report on Lengthy Litigation

---

Archives·Newsroom·Tip line·Single-page·Subscribe

Personally, I think an encyclopedia should be useful, and that the criterion of numbers doesn't matter. I've been a teacher and a librarian all my life, and my satisfaction from it is in the individual people I know I've helped and taught, and the ones unknown to me who will be helped by the work I've done. I'm here to continue that work, with what skill I have acquired. I know it sounds idealistic. But I speak to you seriously, for if you are here I think you might share that idealism, expressed a little differently perhaps. One person at time, one article at a time. The person before me, the piece of work before me. The single talent, as the parable words it.

General view on strategy

From Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution, paraphrased & abbreviated:

In the period after the February Revolution that overthrew the Tsar, when the Bolsheviks were a very small minority, Lenin's slogan was "patiently explain", as he urged he policy of talking to the workers and the soldiers individually to convince them of the validity of the party's program. Most of his colleagues wanted either to compromise with the more moderate people, in which case they would have been quickly swallowed up by their opponents, or go out immediately on the streets, where they would have been destroyed immediately. He and his co-workers continued doing it until they were a majority in the key places, the forces of soldiers and sailors who would have been sent to suppress them. DGG (talk) 19:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Possible essays

[User:DGG|DGG]] 09:05, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

my view of WP
my view of general WP editing difficulties
my view of biographies in WP
my view of the meaning of NPOV
my view of notability

		The Running Man Barnstar
		For fair support Kay Körner 20:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

		The Invisible Barnstar
		Thank you for your continued work and assistance on Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles, referencing and generally cleaning up articles that have needed attention for a long time. Your good work goes unseen unless someone disagrees ;) Jeepday (talk) 13:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		Thanks for showing polite patience... sometimes I get carried away Roscoestl (talk) 02:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For giving expert advice on how to improve ones' work. Thank you. LAZZO (talk) 03:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

		The Special Barnstar
		For making Wikipedia grow, be reliable, and professional by sharing his experienced knowledge. For working tirelessly in benefit of human kind. For not looking down at unexperienced editors, and giving them the same importance and sharing his knowledge with them getting nothing in return. For enforcing neutrality and fairness. --03:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)Sebastian Palacios (talk)

		The Editor's Barnstar
		For general good work at WP:AFD. Stifle (talk) 09:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

User:DGG, User_talk:DGG, User:DGG/controversy, /pages to revisit, /RS, /priorities. /std talk pp, User:DGG/userhelp, , User:DGG/deltalk, User:DGG/journals, /to insert, /OtherDels, /sandbox,
/projects, /WP Projects, /other wikis, /tech notes / User:DGG/sandboxuserified/ User:DGG/sandboxuserified2,
User:DGG/MyDel , User:DGG/sandboxConferences , User:DGG/sandbox/libraries, User:DGG/sandbox/LCC, User:DGG/sandbox/Chrbartolf, User:DGG/sandbox/othersguidelines,User:DGG/Watch,User:DGG/admin,User:DGG/references

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The Status Bot has been blocked.
See my last edit here.