Thanks to all of you for the interesting conversations that occur here. We are here to build an encyclopedia, so let's discuss how to improve as many of the 5,091,117 articles on Wikipedia as we can. Tips from Wikipedians on how to edit better, and on where to find resources for sourcing better edits, are always appreciated. I see other user talk pages have announcements about where each editor will reply to posts. Usually I will reply to your comments to me, posted here, right here on this page. I'll do my best to learn to follow to where you want me to read your posts, and where to reply to them, if you have a differing preference.
Please see my how I edit page for a detailed discussion of my approach to editing Wikipedia. Note that I am rigid and inflexible in respecting the core Wikipedia content guideline of respecting reliable secondary sources, so I read actual books and review articles rather than blogs or fringe websites when searching for information for updating Wikipedia articles. Experience has taught me that it is pointless to prefer the world of blogs for information in an era when academic libraries are woefully neglected. Professional academic librarians (who are severely underpaid, in my opinion) are well qualified to advise you on what sources are reliable and what sources are laughable in the opinion of thorough, thoughtful scholars. Ask a professional reference librarian at an academic library for advice on what sources are reliable and mainstream. The librarian will be glad to help. (And, yes, anyone who answers questions like this should be paid more to answer the questions than is usually the case.)
Please note. Somehow some editor has been disregarding the immediately preceding paragraph here, so let me be especially clear. I happen to work on pages that are subject to active arbitration remedies, and the related ArbCom case included site bans for some editors who have returned to Wikipedia as puppets. I cannot always be sure that comments posted to this page are posted by someone who had nothing to do with the case that triggered those remedies. Therefore I will make full use of my right to remove comments from my own user pages. "The removal of material from a user page is normally taken to mean that the user has read and is aware of its contents. There is no need to keep them on display and usually users should not be forced to do so." I have the right to clean up my own user talk page and will do so. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we may as well remember that it's always hunting season for that kind of duck.
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Contents
- 1 JSTOR cleanup drive
- 2 I saw you heavily edited the William Shockley page.
- 3 ArbCom elections are now open!
- 4 Why did you undo my edit?
- 5 You have written an incredibly biased page on troublesome inheritance
- 6 Books and Bytes - Issue 14
- 7 WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 6
- 8 Thank you for supporting my RfA
- 9 Invite to an edit-a-thon at the Loft Literary Center
- 10 Books & Bytes - Issue 15
- 11 WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 7
- 12 Wikipedia library Newspapers.com renewal
JSTOR cleanup drive
Hello TWL users! We hope JSTOR has been a useful resource for your work. We're organizing a cleanup drive to correct dead links to JSTOR articles – these require JSTOR access and cannot easily be corrected by bot. We'd love for you to jump in and help out!
Sent of behalf of Nikkimaria for The Wikipedia Library's JSTOR using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:18, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
I saw you heavily edited the William Shockley page.
You eliminated an extensive quantity of material to which I added many sources.
You left out completely the videos of Skockley speaking directly about his eugenics theory.
I am not sure why you fee these are biased or "interpretation" as they are in Shockley's own words. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mparrishxx (talk • contribs) 19:20, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
You must be mistaken. Anyway, please learn to sign your comments to other editors' talk pages, and check the Wikipedia practices about editing biographical articles. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (Watch my talk, How I edit) 11:57, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:23, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Why did you undo my edit?
In the English section about question, why did you undo it? Wizymon (talk) 02:31, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
- The previous article text was more grammatical, as noted in the edit summary. (Reading edit summaries helps you find answers for questions like the question you just asked here.) While we are on the subject, why did you make the edit? (Yes, I read the edit summaries, but the rationale is less than convincing.) -- WeijiBaikeBianji (Watch my talk, How I edit) 13:16, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
You have written an incredibly biased page on troublesome inheritance
Your wikipedia page, instead of talking about the contents of the book, is clearly a slanted attempt to attack it. You have made it clear in your postings you do not agree with the book, and you are obviously not a neutral authority on the subject. There is no reason the reception section should be so massive in proportion to a summary of the book. There is no reason that "The book has been widely denounced by scientists" should appear at the top of the page, when something to the effect of "this book has been the subject of intense controversy among scientists" would be far more accurate, as the vast majority of scientists have not opined on the matter, so saying "widely denounced" is absurd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:184:4600:A665:E9A5:A7BD:51B3:AF39 (talk) 06:48, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
- You should learn to sign your posts to users' talk pages, which is one of the rules here. You should also read the published reviews of the book, which are rather more harsh than the current state of the Wikipedia article. I have read the book (as you evidently have not), and I have read other books on the topic, and the current Wikipedia article is, if anything, kind to a fault about the book. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (Watch my talk, How I edit) 13:45, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Extraordinarily kind given the level of pseudoscience it contains and the reviews it received. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 15:46, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
Books and Bytes - Issue 14
Books & Bytes
Issue 14, October-November 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)
- New donations - Gale, Brill, plus Finnish and Farsi resources
- Open Access Week recap, and DOIs, Wikipedia, and scholarly citations
- Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref - a citation drive for librarians
The Interior, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:12, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 6
Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:
Some good news: the Wikimedia Foundation has renewed WikiProject X. This means we can continue focusing on making WikiProjects better.
During our first round of work, we created a prototype WikiProject based on two ideas: (1) WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and (2) The content of WikiProjects should be automated as much as possible. We launched pilots, and for the most part it works. But this approach will not work for the long term. While it makes certain aspects of running a WikiProject easier, it makes the maintenance aspects harder.
We are working on a major overhaul that will address these issues. New features will include:
- Creating WikiProjects by simply filling out a form, choosing which reports you want to generate for your project. This will work with existing bots in addition to the Reports Bot reports. (Of course, you can also have sections curated by humans.)
- One-click button to join a WikiProject, with optional notifications.
- Be able to define your WikiProject's scope within the WikiProject itself by listing relevant pages and categories, eliminating the need to tag every talk page with a banner. (You will still be allowed to do that, of course. It just won't be required.)
The end goal is a collaboration tool that can be used by WikiProjects but also by any edit-a-thon or group of people that want to coordinate on improving articles. Though implemented as an extension, the underlying content will be wikitext, meaning that you can continue to use categories, templates, and other features as you normally would.
This will take a lot of work, and we are just getting started. What would you like to see? I invite you to discuss on our talk page.
Until next time,
Thank you for supporting my RfA
Hawkeye7 RfA Appreciation award | |
Thank you for participating in and supporting my RfA. It was very much appreciated. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:24, 1 February 2016 (UTC) |
- It was my pleasure. I still feel I owe you a lot of work on the Richard Feynman article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (Watch my talk, How I edit) 03:33, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Invite to an edit-a-thon at the Loft Literary Center
The Loft Literary Center edit-a-thon |
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- Thank you for adding yourself to the Wikimedia Minnesota User Group. gobonobo + c 00:00, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Books & Bytes - Issue 15
Books & Bytes
Issue 15, December-January 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs)
- New donations - Ships, medical resources, plus Arabic and Farsi resources
- #1lib1ref campaign summary and highlights
- New branches and coordinators
The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:19, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 7
This month:
Development of the extension for setting up WikiProjects, as described in the last issue of this newsletter, is currently underway. No terribly exciting news on this front.
In the meantime, we are working on a prototype for a new service we hope to announce soon. The problem: there are requests scattered all across Wikipedia, including requests for new articles and requests for improvements to existing articles. We Wikipedians are very good at coming up with lists of things to do. But once we write these lists, where do they end up? How can we make them useful for all editors—even those who do not browse the missing articles lists, or the particular WikiProjects that have lists?
Introducing Wikipedia Requests, a new tool to centralize the various lists of requests around Wikipedia. Requests will be tagged by category and WikiProject, making it easier to find requests based on what your interests are. Accompanying this service will be a bot that will let you generate reports from this database on any wiki page, including WikiProjects. This means that once a request is filed centrally, it can syndicated all throughout Wikipedia, and once it is fulfilled, it will be marked as "complete" throughout Wikipedia. The idea for this service came about when I saw that it was easy to put together to-do lists based on database queries, but it was harder to do this for human-generated requests when those requests are scattered throughout the wiki, siloed throughout several pages. This should especially be useful for WikiProjects that have overlapping interests.
The newsletter this month is fairly brief; not a lot of news, just checking in to say that we are hard at work and hope to have more for you soon.
Until next time,
Harej (talk) 01:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia library Newspapers.com renewal
Your free one-year account with Newspapers.com will end on March 5 2016. Newspapers.com has offered to extend existing accounts by another year. If you wish to keep your account until March 5 2017, please add your name to the Account Renewal list here. I'll let Newspapers.com customer support know, and they will extend your subscription. If you don't want to keep your account for another year, you don't have to do anything. Your account will expire unless I hear from you that you want to keep it. HazelAB (talk) 18:17, 25 February 2016 (UTC)