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Sdrqaz, thanks again for offering to review this request to update the article to be more like the draft I've shared here. Happy to address any concerns with the proposed update, MS rep 4 NMorris (talk) 12:15, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, other bits of work around the encyclopedia caught up with me. I'm reviewing the edit request now. Sdrqaz (talk) 19:52, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sdrqaz, thanks again for your help. Do you have a moment to review this request as well? You'll see another editor has already agreed with removing the horse racing section. Thank you! MS rep 4 NMorris (talk) 15:43, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I did see that request, but since that editor replied I thought he'd be doing the review instead of me. Because I don't want to step on any toes (unnecessarily, that is), I'll prod them a bit on the talk page. If they don't respond within the next few days, I'll do the review. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:24, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Since the other editor said to go ahead, I hope you're able to revisit this request. Thank you! MS rep 4 NMorris (talk) 18:40, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, Sdrqaz. RfA is an incredibly stressful experience. I don't see that you've run one under this user name, but it's not something that needs extra questions. From the point of view of someone who hasn't run one, it's hard to understand how stressful every extra question can be. It's 24/7 for an entire week, and it can go horribly wrong. Unless your question actually is necessary for you to make a decision, it's actively harmful to the process IMO. —valereee (talk) 23:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Valereee; sorry for the late reply. You're absolutely right: I don't have the first-hand experience you have, I haven't been through the same incredibly stressful event, and naturally my ability to put myself in the candidate's shoes is limited. I think in light of recent events, the community is well aware that RfAs can go horribly wrong. However, just as I believe that badgering opposers is rarely helpful, haranguing !voters who ask what you may consider stupid questions isn't that helpful either, especially when the question has been answered and the candidate has professed (perhaps vi coactus) that they were happy to answer the question. If I'm completely frank, that feels like sticky behaviour, given that it's easy to dismiss it as moot.

I agree that questions should be necessary for you to make a decision, but people make decisions in strange ways and I'm ready to assume that they're not just trolling for the sake of it. Perhaps I'm naïve: I suspect that most others would have probably reverted the above message as trolling. Just as how being an administrator isn't just about memorising all the policies, questions at RfA aren't just about policy knowledge – they're also about trying to get a feel for the candidate and their temperament and !voters have strange ways of trying to suss that out. Having been unfamiliar with many of our recent RfA candidates, I'm a little more sympathetic to those strange methods. You probably disagree with me: like I said, we probably have opposing views on adminship and RfAs. But that's fine. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:11, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdrqaz, no worries on the delay, feel free to drop in and out!

I don't know why people insist on asking irrelevant questions at RfA. I suspect it's a combination of reasons. Some see that everyone can ask up to 2 and start trying to come up with questions. Some probably think it's a good way to raise their own profile. Some are just feeding their own egos/want to hear their voice. Some are asking questions that would seem nosy if simply posted on a user talk but because other people are asking questions they feel more comfortable.

I comment on irrelevant questions because I hope it will help limit the number of irrelevant questions at future RfAs. I did, FWIW, go to that editor's page first and give her a link to Wikipedia:Should you ask a question at RfA? She doubled down (a very typical response to me trying to approach on user talk first) indicating that indeed understanding someone's philosophy/ideology/views regarding Wikipedia as a whole and as it specifically regards to editing was crucial to knowing whether to support their candidacy or not. IMO that's just horsefeathers. Seriously, what could any reasonable candidate possibly say that would be a "wrong" answer and make the questioner decide against supporting?

So, yeah, I'm going to comment, because for me, I can't come up with a better way to try to show people that irrelevant questions are looked at sideways by at least some other editors. And not only are they harmful to the process, they make the questioner look clueless. Other people are rolling their eyes. It's fine that you think it's the wrong way to go, though, and I'd love to discuss what you think might be a better way. Because I don't actually enjoy being kind of a dick. I just feel like someone's got to do something about this stupid questions that in some cases cause actual harm, and this is what I came up with. You may notice that I do not typically comment on opposes, no matter how silly those are. My little niche is silly, irrelevant questions. :D —valereee (talk) 20:29, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Valereee: I'll speak from personal experience. My first foray into RfA was just half a year ago, over five years after my account was created. And it showed: I asked a question that you would probably consider irrelevant. Prior to that, well, I had never interacted with any of the candidates, so I didn't consider myself qualified to !vote on them. And I sometimes still have that feeling. Despite what others may consider to be the leading nature of the question (most people asking about recall want the candidate to be open to it – shown here), that's not what I was looking for. I wanted to see his thought process and how the candidate justified himself. For me, my question didn't have to do with being a good way to raise [my] own profile or just feeding [my] own egos/want[ing] to hear [my] voice. I asked, well, because I was curious what the candidate thought and why.

As for the question in the current RfA, on the surface I can put it down to just curiosity. People want to know why administrators chose their usernames (see here and here – asking questions that would seem nosy if simply posted on a user talk but because other people are asking questions they feel more comfortable). On a more cynical level, a bureaucrat once told me that !voters look for candidates that aren't too deletionist or too inclusionist, aren't too exopedianist or too metapedianist, and have certainly opposed for those reasons. I can't read the !voter's mind, but perhaps that was part of the reason why the question was asked. Maybe the !voter wanted to know if the candidate was more eventualist or immediatist or what their general philosophical views are (this RfA has a lot on such views).

As for what I think is the optimal approach, I don't have the perfect answer. My own approach (letting the candidate disregard any questions they don't want to answer) is a probably a little too laissez-faire for you, as you're a lot more invested in RfA reform than I am. If that path is unacceptable (as I assume it is), perhaps just prodding the questioner once would suffice. If the questioner gets it, great! If not, well maybe a seed has been planted for the future. Disengage. Trying to ram the point home may just cause the proverbial seed to be destroyed beyond repair and may only cause more drama. Some people take pleasure from being contrarian and that may become more likely as a result. Sdrqaz (talk) 00:52, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I know some people take pleasure from being contrarian. I was hoping this editor was just clueless, as she hasn't got a ton of edits, which is why I posted to her talk. If she'd had 30K edits I might not have bothered. Curiosity is quite possibly a reason people ask questions at RfA, but curiosity is not a good enough reason to ask a question at RfA, any more than it would be during any other 24/7 high-stress period in a person's life.

Candidates disregarding questions puts the onus, along with all the risk, on the candidate. I've seen comments made about candidates ignoring a question, calling it disrespectful. Candidates already have enough on their plate. I'm trying to take some of that onus and risk off their plate, along with the stress caused by answering irrelevant questions.

I don't actually consider the question of recall irrelevant. I've recently argued we should make it the fourth question, or suggest to candidates that they include it as part of their acceptance statement, just to get it out of the way so that's one less question to deal with. I don't consider any question about understanding of policy in the areas you intend to work to be irrelevant. I don't consider any question that asks a candidate to address an actual area of concern about that candidate to be irrelevant. But unless you have a specific concern, backed up by something in their editing history, that this person's "editing philosophy" might be problematic for some reason, why do you need to put them through that exercise? Speaking from experience some candidates agonize over almost every question, spending hours thinking about them, composing answers to them, editing those answers, trying to figure out if there's a catch or gotcha in them, worrying they aren't answering fast enough but wanting to sleep on an answer to try to see if they can do better in the morning.

Some candidates don't mind answering these 'Life, the Universe and Everything' questions. I don't feel like the current candidate minded it. That doesn't make the question relevant, and it doesn't mean that some future candidate, asked the same question, might not be completely flummoxed by it and spend literally hours trying to figure out how to answer it, and for what? What possible answer could make the difference between supporting and opposing? And that's IMO the only good reason to ask a question at RfA: because if you don't get this concern answered, you can't support.

Sorry to be so long-winded. It's fine if we just have to agree to disagree. :) —valereee (talk) 11:26, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Valereee: I'll confess to being part of the problem, though I still prefer a response like "I decline to answer this question" over ignoring it (some candidates answer questions in strange orders instead of going through them chronologically, so it's not a nice feeling for a new editor like the one who asked that question). Candidates are indeed in a bit of a bind: refuse questions and get opposes from questioners and their friends, or answer and maybe slip up in their wording. Hmm. Something for me to ponder, thank you. I daresay that a candidate brave enough to refuse questions that are blatantly inappropriate would probably earn the respect of many editors, but at the risk of losing the support of the questioners.

I did see that discussion. I can sympathise with the idea of encouraging a candidate to get it out of the way, given that recall is one of the perennial questions, but I don't see it as anywhere near as important as declarations regarding alternate accounts or paid editing. As a result, I don't believe it is as crucial to knowing whether to support a candidate. While the community generally favours recall, I don't think it factors into their decision as much (it's quite hard to tell, given the last candidate to eschew recall was a bit of an outlier). Sdrqaz (talk) 17:10, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How can a page of an influential figure in the field of money exchange in the Arab world be unwanted on Wikipedia on the pretext that it is not neutral Although it does not contain any glorification of the person, only the tasks and functions that are included in it throughout his career with some activities on the human and social level? I do not know where the error is. Will you allow me some time and tell me where the error lies? Is there a paragraph or a title that is not natural? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Sulaiman_Al_Rajhi — Preceding unsigned comment added by RedX8 (talk • contribs) 20:22, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, RedX8. Because I'm not an administrator, I cannot view what was in the drafts that were rejected by the Articles for Creation (AfC) reviewers (as I think you blanked them and they were subsequently deleted). However, I assume that they're around the same material as what's at the link you gave. The problem with Wikipedia is that the guideline that determines whether people should have articles, notability, doesn't really care about how "influential" someone is; it cares about whether they've been significantly covered by independent sources. There are exceptions for professors and creative people like journalists and artists, but your banker isn't covered by those criteria.

Looking through the sources in the page, I assume the reason the article has been declined so far is that the subject hasn't had much significant coverage. Quite a lot of the information in the sources are what you might find in a CV or résumé. I understand it's frustrating (especially since there is a page for him at Arabic Wikipedia), but it may be the case that the notability guideline isn't as strong there. Sdrqaz (talk) 01:58, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to say thanks for calling out my rewrite of White House Historical Association as a positive example of COI editing in the current VPP discussion! I was really proud of that one. Mary Gaulke (talk) 21:30, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mary, it's been a while; I hope you're doing well. It was a pleasure: your version was well-written and a strong improvement on the original, which didn't even have sections and was barely referenced. It's a great shame that there is a chronic shortage of editors willing to deal with the edit requests backlog: paid/COI editors are not bogey(wo)men and much of the work they do improve the encyclopedia. I'm not sure I blame organisations that get frustrated with the process and turn to the dark side instead. It's a shame that some of your former clients have done so, however. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you're well too! I agree with everything you said. I know there's only so much I can do to help on Wikipedia as a declared paid editor, but I've been working to spread the word about Wikipedia best practices in the PR world. I so appreciate the efforts of you and the other volunteers who review edit requests. I know it can be tiresome work, but I really believe it makes Wikipedia better. Mary Gaulke (talk) 18:29, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Mary. By spreading news about the "proper" way to do things, I suspect that you're doing a great deal to stop these unsavoury practices and this is where a paid editor has more influence than a volunteer. Thank you for your kind words and encouragement and work. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:56, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Your submission of Template:Did you know nominations/Big Time Wrestling (Boston) at the Did You Know nominations page is not complete; if you would like to continue, please link the nomination to the nominations page as described in step 3 of the nomination procedure. If you do not want to continue with the nomination, tag the nomination page with ((db-g7)), or ask a DYK admin. Thank you. DYKHousekeepingBot (talk) 02:56, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, forgive me for the high number of edits but I have repeatedly specified in the subject field my reasons inviting the user User 84.65.250.137 to write to me, despite everything he continued to delete my changes to which I added notes and I was offended by this. Then I wrote to the user but he did not respond. I have therefore not had the opportunity to talk to him so since he is an anonymous user and every day changes IP. I wrote to him that collaboration is important. And I urged him to cooperate, but I received no response. The dispute between the Two Sicilies is complex and every time I restored my version I wrote in the Subject Field my reasons, adding links in which the dispute is clarified. The duchess of Calabria page will no longer modify it because it will always be deleted, even if I cite the sources and insert the right information. It is well known that Charles, Duke of Castro, claims the title of Duchess of Calabria for his daughter Carolina. And so it is wrong to write that Camilla Crociani is the Duchess of Calabria as Charles did not claim the title for himself but for his daughter. In 2017 she claimed the title of Duchess of Noto for her second daughter Chiara. The courts of are expressed in 1986, 2011 and 2012, confirming the title of Duke of Calabria to Don Pietro, Duke of Calabria (who already owned that title) and his son Don Giacomo, Duke of Noto (He already owned that title). In addition, these sentences established that the claims on the Duchy of Calabria and Castro, by the Dukes of Castro, are null and void as the result of SELF-PRODUCED documentation. A ruling held in Spain established that Don Carlo Maria (don Pietro's father) was the head of the House of the Two Sicilies and the Duke of Calabria, and when he died the title passed to his son Don Pietro. This was the only investigation carried out regarding the dynastic dispute. So assigning the titles of Duchess of Calabria to the Dukes of Castro is wrong, because there was a ruling that as I said established the truth. Today the Duchesses of Calabria are Alice of Bourbon-Parma (died 20117), Anne d'Orléans, and currently Peter's wife, Sofia. In the future the Duchess of Calabria will be the future wife of her son Giacomo, Lady Charlotte, when her husband takes the title. In addition, each state recognizes the titles of Duke of Calabria and Duke of Noto to the Italo-Spanish line, namely Pietro and his son Giacomo. Even the Italian Republic. I hope I have clarified this. Thank you for listening.

~MariaAmaliaduchessadiParma (write) 09:53, 10 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]

@MariaAmaliaduchessadiParma: Thank you for your thorough explanation and for stopping this revert cycle. To be honest, I am not familiar with this area of the encyclopaedia: all I could see was that the both of you were reverting each other back-and-forth. Thank you also for opening a dialogue at the talk page; trying to communicate through edit summaries is quite difficult and isn't a very good substitute for a talk-page discussion. Given that you have posted a message there and have had no response, you could reinstate your edits with the summary "see talk page" or similar, and if this dispute continues, you could request semi-protection at requests for page protection because the IP editor is removing sourced content, or start a request for comment so other editors can give their input. Sdrqaz (talk) 16:10, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

“The statistic you introduced was unsourced and at odds with the existing Washington Post source. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:52, 12 July 2021 (UTC)”

Many news articles cited by Wikipedia include attempts to cite US Census Bureau data without understanding US Census Bureau definitions or methodology. This results in confusion for readers and makes correlating census data over time or census data from different Wikipedia articles difficult as most get Wikipedia articles get it right but the ones I corrected got it wrong.

The corrections I made were to align the demographics section of Wikipedia articles with the US Census Bureaus distinctions between race and ethnicity as exemplified by how they collect and report data, namely that a people can report both race and ethnicity so they are not exclusive. As a result reporting this information is easiest when broken into two separate sentences or sections: one on race and one on ethnicity. When newspaper articles cited by Wikipedia mix the two (perhaps out of laziness or confusion, that makes wiki articles a mess). Information on the US Census Bureaus approach to asking about race and separately ethnicity can be found here: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/newsletters/volume3/volume3_issue6.pdf

I love maps, statistics and demographics and welcome the opportunity to get better at contributing so please continue to coach and advise.

What would you like me to do next?

Craig Nehrkorn (talk) 00:50, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Craig, thank you for your explanation. I had come across your edit at Houston because the page was under pending changes protection and I reverted it because of a couple of reasons: the reasons you've quoted above from my warning, and because I thought it may have been subtle vandalism. Your edit summary was "Fixed grammar: fixed capitalization inconsistencies across nouns." while altering the percentage of illegal immigrants in Houston's metropolitan area (which wasn't mentioned in the summary). After reading the Washington Post article, it seemed to support that "nearly 9%" statistic while I couldn't find information there to back up your "nearly 25%" statistic.

As for what you can do next, you can replace that source (since you believe it misrepresents the statistic "out of laziness or confusion"; I wouldn't really know because I'm not a subject-matter expert, but can imagine the "popular press" being sloppy any day) with the one you used to come to your 25% conclusion. Perhaps a line about how the Census Bureau distinguishes between ethnicity and race would be a good idea too, with a link to their explanation.

Finally, I would like to apologise to you for accusing you of vandalism. I had gone through your contributions and found that you had added many statistics where the total percentage was over 100%, and so the alarm bells in my head went off: I've combatted vandals that have added or subtracted one year from multiple people's dates of birth and so I thought that this was a similar situation, where the figures were being made-up. I assume that people can identify as being simultaneously Hispanic and white and so the percentages will be above 100%? I hope you understand and forgive me, and I will be more careful and more ready to assume good faith. Best wishes, Sdrqaz (talk) 22:51, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct and I will make the source changes when I am free to do more editing soon. The more than 100% explanation you asked about is correct. The 9% vs 25% you asked about came from the fact that the source said the illegal population is X and the total population is Y and the X divided by the Y equaled 25% on my calculator, not 9% but I will look for another source for you. Thanks again! Craig Nehrkorn (talk) 04:03, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Craig, thanks for the positivity – I know that if I were in the same position as you, having been (wrongly) accused of vandalism, I would not be so cheerful. A word of warning: your calculations may face a bit of pushback due to possible original research. While there are exceptions under that policy for routine calculations, that line is a little murky and there may be concerns from other editors. Hopefully you won't face those problems if you cite your source clearly, but I thought it would be fair to give you a bit of a heads-up. Sdrqaz (talk) 02:03, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

hello sdrqaz, kindly explain in details about errors , hope to get your kind help in this thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashfaquenabi (talk • contribs) 13:31, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

regarding deletion of page Ashfaque Nabi

hello sdrqaz kindly share errors in details regarding page - Ashfaque Nabi. hope to get your kind help in restoring it. thanks, looking forward to learn from you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashfaquenabi (talk • contribs) 13:33, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ashfaque, the page is currently at Draft:Ashfaque Nabi and you can submit it by adding ((subst:submit)) to it. However, the draft is written in a very promotional tone: phrases like "they fought with full zeal & enthusiasm", "He worked again tirelessly & passionately", and "This was the start of his most astounding political journey" sound more like they belong in a press release than in a Wikipedia article. Subjects of articles need to be notable: that usually means having received significant coverage in independent reliable sources. You need to make sure that you fulfil those requirements. Sdrqaz (talk) 15:55, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]