User talk:Dr Fell

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December 2025

Please do not attack other editors. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. Gotitbro (talk) 18:43, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

February 2026

Regarding this edit when it says "The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion" it means that the discussion is closed and no further edits should be made, particularly when you're going to make insanely disrespectful comments dismissing Indians as less significant than an American tech company. AusLondonder (talk) 18:42, 26 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You'll observe that my edit was being made while the nomination was closed. I added it after receiving an edit conflict error message. Also, that's a very inaccurate interpretation on my observation of the relative value of Anthropic and Kerala. Dr Fell (talk) 18:48, 26 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion was closed at 17:44 and your first comment was posted at 18:10 and your second, inflammatory comment was posted at 18:12. That's quite a time difference. AusLondonder (talk) 18:53, 26 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That's fair. If I receive an edit conflict error in the future that appears to be related to the closure of the nomination, I won't post-hoc add my comment. But there was no 'inflammatory' comment. There was a statement entirely equivalent to 'I actually think the name of an Indian state of 30 million people is a lot more significant than a government contract dispute.' A different value assessment is not 'inflammatory.' Dr Fell (talk) 18:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We'll have to agree to disagree on the "infinitely more significant" comment but I appreciate your response. AusLondonder (talk) 19:04, 26 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Some points for the record.

The discussion was closed in less than two hours. That was much too soon as the story has yet to finish resolving. And such a hasty close does not allow for editors being in different time zones. Note that WP:WHENCLOSE states that It is unusual for anyone to request a formal closure by an uninvolved editor unless the discussion has been open for at least one week.
If today's developments seem significant then I may reopen the discussion to add an update. For example, I see a fresh exclusive at the Washington Post which looks interesting: The hypothetical nuclear attack that escalated the Pentagon’s showdown with Anthropic. If adding more such then I would likely reinstate Dr Fell's comments as I see no reason they should have been excluded.
Allowance should be made for the fact that it can take some time to compose a considered post in such a discussion – researching sources, formatting links, dealing with interruptions and the like. Per WP:NORUSH, we should take our time to get things right rather than feeling that we have to get in quick while we can. See festina lente.

Andrew🐉(talk) 15:53, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew🐉: I agree, nominations are too frequently rushed to an outcome. I do not understand the race to close a nomination. There’s no cost to keeping it open until it reaches mature consensus or drops off. If the homepage had a trending module, there would be less pressure to get breaking news into ITN.

Prominent contributors are quick to remind that ITN is ‘not a newspaper.’ But it should have a stronger sense of what might be of interest to readers (which is one reason why page view metrics matter). I’d go so far as to suggest ITN has systemic bias against business, science and technology stories. Yet these are frequently front page news at the BBC or among the most-read stories on Wikipedia.

I recognize some editors get very prickly when page view metrics are raised. I’m unaware of any binding proscription in policy against citing these metrics, but the response from some editors is unambiguous. A modest proposal: Instead of using these metrics to assess nominations, use them to assess posted blurbs. The ideal metrics would be views and clicks on the homepage. We would know how much traffic the blurb drove to the target page (distinct from overall page views, many of which come from other sources). The click rate (clicks / views) for each blurb would let editors know the relative interest readers have for each blurb, ideally with an aim of improving the selection of future blurbs. Thoughts?

No need to reinstate my comment. I recognize that policy isn’t uniformly enforced, and that many policies don’t appear at all concerned with improving the quality of information on the site or the experience of readers.

Bad policy, biased/territorial editors, resistance to change… I still think AI is going to devour Wikipedia, and sooner than most think. Dr Fell (talk) 20:18, 1 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

They close discussions and complain about stats because they can. There's no basis in policy for this and I'm fairly sure of this because I've been on Wikipedia for 20 years now and I read the policies carefully.

Using the stats to evaluate main page blurbs is standard procedure at Did You Know? – see WP:DYKSTATS for details. The stats for February include articles like Craig (elephant) and LHS 1903 which were rejected at ITN but did quite well at DYK with some help from me.

DYK has good processes like this and so is so successful that they have trouble coping with all the nominations -- posting 18 per day during that month. The Portal:Current events seems quite successful too with a similar number of postings per day. That doesn't have as elaborate process as DYK but it has a simple structure that just works.

Compared to other such projects, ITN is clearly broken and dysfunctional. The mystery is that so many of the incumbents don't acknowledge this. I suppose this is mainly because they are a vested interest; they are invested in the current way of doing things and so hate the idea of changing it because they would then lose control and power.

Andrew🐉(talk) 23:05, 1 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

April 2026

Please refrain from using talk pages such as Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates for general discussion of this or other topics. They are for discussion related to improving the article in specific ways, based on reliable sources and the project policies and guidelines; they are not for use as a forum or chat room, nor are they a search engine or chatbot. If you have specific questions about certain topics, consider visiting our reference desk and asking them there instead of on article talk pages. See the talk page guidelines for more information. This edit where you put Palestine in "scare quotes" comes dangerously close to political commentary on a contentious topic. Please be careful not to violate NOTFORUM. Thank you. QuicoleJR (talk) 23:42, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@QuicoleJR The same discussion included a number of comments making broad political assertions, value-laden characterizations, and disputed claims about the law and related issues, including from veteran editors and regular ITN contributors. Similar patterns are found in many past ITN discussions, including many WP:CT/A-I nominations and other contentious topics. Were similar comments left on talk pages in those cases? If not, what distinguished my comment from the other ‘political commentary’ in the thread? Dr Fell (talk) 01:24, 4 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Similar comments on other talk pages might be necessary, I haven't done any sort of intense survey of the thread to find them. Your comment stood out because most questionable comments can at least claim to be about whether the event is significant enough to post, while putting the name of one of the parties to a long-running conflict in scare quotes most definitely does not fall under that. QuicoleJR (talk) 01:57, 4 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Contentious topic alert (WP:CT/GG)

You have recently made edits related to gender-related disputes or controversies or people associated with them. This is a standard message to inform you that gender-related disputes or controversies or people associated with them is a designated contentious topic. This message does not imply that there are any issues with your editing. For more information about the contentious topics system, please see Wikipedia:Contentious topics. — Newslinger talk 04:11, 6 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Newslinger Was this an automated message or did you choose to leave this? You haven't interacted with the dispute in question, so I'm interested in understanding the provenance of this contentious topic alert. Dr Fell (talk) 04:37, 6 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dr Fell, I manually posted this alert, as contentious topic alerts are not allowed to be posted automatically. The dispute that you have participated in is within the WP:CT/GG contentious topic, and you have never received an alert for the topic, so I have posted one here. — Newslinger talk 04:47, 6 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Are ANI discussions about talk page discussions about contentious topic articles themselves contentious topics? Dr Fell (talk) 05:26, 6 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, contentious topics have a sitewide scope by default. Per Wikipedia:Contentious topics § Contentious topic restrictions, "Unless otherwise specified, contentious topics are broadly construed; this contentious topics procedure applies to all pages broadly related to a topic, as well as parts of other pages that are related to the topic" and "This procedure applies to edits and pages in all namespaces." — Newslinger talk 05:37, 6 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]