~ talk pages need talk pages! SJ
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P | ropter fratres meos, | ||
et proximos meos... | |||
! Or visit my user page.
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Contents
- 1 Earlier
- 1.1 Noam Cohen
- 1.2 Wikipedia:WikiProject Years
- 1.3 Hello, good sir!
- 1.4 MSU Interview
- 1.5 Thanks, Sam
- 1.6 Talkback
- 1.7 Ec
- 1.8 Museum guidelines
- 1.9 on conference subsidies
- 1.10 Just signed up for adoption
- 1.11 The Transit of Venus
- 1.12 Nomination for deletion of Template:Cto
- 1.13 The chessboard
- 1.14 Philip of Castile (archbishop)
- 1.15 Wikimania
- 1.16 Please comment on Talk:Plasma cosmology
- 1.17 The Wikipedia Adventure: Request for feedback on Community Fellowship proposal
- 1.18 A kitten for you!
- 1.19 Adopt-a-user
- 1.20 Von Portugal translation
- 1.21 the olive branch
- 1.22 Soliciting Feedback on Educational Assignment
- 1.23 Leah McGrath Goodman
- 1.24 Proposed deletion of Jenny Preece
- 1.25 Ombudsman commission
- 1.26 Closed-form expression
- 1.27 Food for thought on "knowledge for ¢hange"
- 1.28 Wikimedia Tanzania
- 1.29 Bus Routes
- 1.30 Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution noticeboard
- 1.31 Lithium burning possible violation
- 1.32 Merge Rules
- 1.33 Personal comments
- 1.34 Talkback on Jack of Oz's page
- 1.35 wik-wik-wikify
- 1.36 Fixing citation
- 1.37 Genre sub-cats do not need to be in parent
- 1.38 Please take a look
- 1.39 Role of JW and BoT on decisions per Wikipedia:PNSD
- 1.40 Making revision status visible
- 1.41 MfD nomination of Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board/USNCOTW
- 1.42 Cocktails needing pictures
- 1.43 Hunting for embedded outlines
- 1.44 Re: mw:Watchlist wishlist
- 1.45 VisualEditor talkpage
- 1.46 Personal and Moral Rights?
- 1.47 Invitation
- 1.48 Serendipity
- 1.49 Please comment on Talk:Yuilop
- 1.50 Article Feedback Tool update
- 1.51 Nomination of Wikimania 2006 for deletion
- 1.52 Whole Earth Catalog wikibook
- 1.53 Please comment on VisualEditor takedown
- 1.54 "Happy Diwali!"
- 1.55 Just a quick heads up
- 1.56 Reward board discussion
- 1.57 Aaron Swartz
- 1.58 ANI Board
- 1.59 Moody's and "Credit rating agency"
- 1.60 WMF Board and paid advocacy
- 1.61 The reliability of Wikipedia's medical content
- 1.62 Swartz
- 1.63 List of Marvel Comics characters
- 1.64 Photo
- 1.65 Wikiversity
- 1.66 Should en.Wikipedia medical articles have a prominent disclaimer?
- 2 Later
- 2.1 New England Wikipedia Day @ MIT: Saturday Jan 18
- 2.2 MIT room number
- 2.3 Please comment on this sentences
- 2.4 Recreating a sockpuppet's article
- 2.5 Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations
- 2.6 hi I left you a message on Meta-wiki
- 2.7 Support request with team editing experiment project
- 2.8 Culture.pl
- 2.9 Effecting real change
- 2.10 Precious again
- 2.11 A pie for you!
- 2.12 Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
- 2.13 Concerns regarding FA quality
- 2.14 Please comment on Wikipedia talk:GLAM/Royal Society of Chemistry/Merck
- 2.15 Possibly unfree File:Wh-earth-69-cover.jpg
- 2.16 WikiCup 2015 September newsletter
- 2.17 Five minutes to help make WikiProjects better
- 2.18 Please comment on Wikipedia:Edit filter/RfC
- 2.19 Where to find someone or something to verify my account's contribution to this project
- 2.20 This Friday: Women in Architecture edit-a-thon @ Cambridge, MA
- 2.21 RF Resonant Cavity Thruster
- 2.22 WikiCup 2015: The results
- 2.23 Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)
- 2.24 ArbCom elections are now open!
- 2.25 Please comment on Talk:Séralini affair
- 2.26 WikiCup 2016 is just around the corner...
- 2.27 WikiCup 2016: Game On!
- 2.28 WikiCup 2016: Game On!
- 2.29 Please comment on Talk:List of earthquakes in 2016
- 2.30 Rcbirds link down
- 2.31 Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!
- 2.32 Lifelong learning
- 2.33 Please comment on Talk:Mitsubishi Magna
- 2.34 A librarian friend is a friend indeed
- 2.35 WikiCup 2015 March newsletter
- 2.36 WikiCup 2016 March newsletter (update)
- 2.37 graphs :)
- 2.38 A kitten for you!
- 2.39 GLAM Boot Camp announced (June 14-16 in DC)
- 2.40 Link for GLAM Boot Camp
- 2.41 Wikiversity Journal of Medicine, an open access peer reviewed journal with no charges, invites you to participate
- 2.42 EOMA68 AfD needs closing
- 2.43 Please comment on Category talk:Violence against men
- 2.44 Extended confirmed protection
- 2.45 Orphaned non-free image File:LIPB-cover.png
- 2.46 Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view
- 2.47 WikiCup 2016 November newsletter: Final results
- 2.48 WikiProject Good Articles's 2016-2017 GA Cup
- 2.49 A new user right for New Page Patrollers
- 2.50 WikiCup December newsletter: WikiCup 2017
- 2.51 Please comment on Talk:Issues of the Evolution v.s. Creation Debate
- 2.52 Nomination for deletion of Template:IUCN 3.1 navmap
- 3 17
- 3.1 Administrators' newsletter - February 2017
- 3.2 Ufahamu
- 3.3 GA: Neri Oxman
- 3.4 Genealogy project need your vote for creation of an email list
- 3.5 DYK nomination of Neri Oxman
- 3.6 Need help re: Stel Pavlou Page
- 3.7 WikiProject Genealogy - newsletter No.4: Mail list created!
- 3.8 DYK for Neri Oxman
- 3.9 Please comment on Template talk:Infobox software
- 3.10 Your interest in One Laptop per Child and my interest in v:Miraheze
- 3.11 Orphaned non-free image File:Pulcinellopedia.jpg
- 3.12 May 2017 WikiCup newsletter
- 3.13 Please comment on Talk:Menstrual disc
- 3.14 Can you help verify translations of articles from German
- 3.15 Please comment on Talk:Voting method
- 3.16 WikiCup 2017 July newsletter
- 3.17 Sunday July 16: New England Wiknic @ Cambridge, MA
- 3.18 Facto Post – Issue 2 – 13 July 2017
- 3.19 Please comment on Talk:Islamic calendar
- 3.20 Facto Post – Issue 3 – 11 August 2017
- 3.21 Please comment on Template talk:Taxonbar
- 3.22 Proposed deletion of Intentional Software
- 3.23 WikiCup 2017 September newsletter
- 3.24 Nomination of Intentional Software for deletion
- 3.25 Invitation to Admin confidence survey
- 3.26 File:Secret-man.jpg listed for discussion
- 3.27 Please comment on Module talk:Basketball color/data
- 3.28 Facto Post – Issue 4 – 18 September 2017
- 3.29 File:Secret-man.jpg
- 3.30 Nomination for deletion of Template:Image-origin
- 3.31 Wikipedia:MB listed at Redirects for discussion
- 3.32 edX's first video - live - and moving around!
- 3.33 File:Cloud of lightning.jpg
- 3.34 2019 in public domain
- 3.35 Please comment on Talk:IPhone 8
- 3.36 Facto Post – Issue 5 – 17 October 2017
- 3.37 WikiCup 2017 November newsletter: Final results
- 3.38 Orphaned non-free image File:Stanley Pons cold fusion gear.jpg
- 3.39 Facto Post – Issue 6 – 15 November 2017
- 3.40 Please comment on Category talk:Wikipedia essays on notability
- 3.41 WikiCup 2018
- 3.42 Women in Red World Contest
- 3.43 ArbCom 2017 election voter message
- 3.44 Facto Post – Issue 7 – 15 December 2017
- 3.45 Please comment on Talk:Intelligent design
- 3.46 Your signature
- 3.47 WikiProject Genealogy - newsletter No.5 -2017
- 3.48 Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
- 3.49 Facto Post – Issue 8 – 15 January 2018
- 3.50 None
- 3.51 Nomination for deletion of Template:Graph:Most Expensive Books
- 3.52 Facto Post – Issue 9 – 5 February 2018
- 3.53 Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)
- 3.54 WikiCup 2018 March newsletter
- 3.55 Courses Modules are being deprecated
- 3.56 Facto Post – Issue 10 – 12 March 2018
- 3.57 Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction
- 3.58 Facto Post – Issue 11 – 9 April 2018
- 3.59 Nomination of Portal:Physics for deletion
- 3.60 Please comment on Talk:Apache OpenOffice
- 3.61 Invitation to WikiProject Portals
- 3.62 Pesticide topics
- 3.63 WikiCup 2018 May newsletter
- 3.64 Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest
- 3.65 Orphaned non-free image File:Battling Bastards of Bataan logo.jpg
- 3.66 Thank you very much
- 3.67 Facto Post – Issue 12 – 28 May 2018
- 3.68 Please comment on Talk:Political views of American academics
- 3.69 Facto Post – Issue 13 – 29 May 2018
- 3.70 WikiCup 2018 July newsletter
- 3.71 Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography
- 3.72 Facto Post – Issue 14 – 21 July 2018
- 3.73 Please comment on Talk:Trypophobia
- 3.74 Facto Post – Issue 15 – 21 August 2018
- 3.75 WikiCup 2018 September newsletter
- 3.76 AfroCine: Join us for the Months of African Cinema in October!
- 3.77 Please comment on Talk:Human evolution
- 3.78 Proposed deletion of Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action
- 3.79 Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018
- 3.80 Welcome to the Months of African Cinema!
- 3.81 Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
- 3.82 Nomination of The Summit Lighthouse for deletion
- 3.83 Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018
- 3.84 WikiCup 2018 November newsletter
- 3.85 ArbCom 2018 election voter message
- 3.86 116th Congress
- 3.87 Facto Post – Issue 18 – 30 November 2018
- 3.88 Chonqing bus disaster
- 3.89 WikiProject Genealogy - newsletter No.6
- 3.90 Your user-name on ArWiki
- 3.91 Facto Post – Issue 19 – 27 December 2018
- 3.92 Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup!
- 3.93 Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019
- 3.94 Your submission at Articles for creation: Seth Finkelstein (February 16)
- 3.95 Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019
- 3.96 WikiCup 2019 March newsletter
- 3.97 Please comment on Talk:2010–2017 Toronto serial homicides
- 3.98 Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019
Earlier
Noam Cohen
Hi, Sj! I have corresponded with Noam Cohen.
Noam Cohen did say that the Times does have a style guide, and according to that style guide he is supposed to render Japanese names in Western order. In terms of, say, the subject strongly preferring Japanese order, he's not sure how that would be resolved exactly. He said that the NYT would let someone spell the name how he/she would want to (i.e. "My name is Mohammed, not Muhammad") but he is not sure if naming order is affected by that.
I'm still e-mailing him. If you want, I can forward you correspondence and/or get you involved. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:03, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
- Okay - I sent you an e-mail. Please respond to the e-mail so I can obtain your e-mail address. With that I will forward you the correspondence. Thank you very much :)
- WhisperToMe (talk) 17:15, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
- You should now have copies of all three e-mails (my initial e-mail, Noam's reply, and then my reply)
- Should I also send these e-mails to Aphaia?
- WhisperToMe (talk) 18:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
- Oh, ok. I will not e-mail Aphaia then.
- At the moment I don't know of any other sources that refer to Aphaia's viewpoints and opinions so there's nothing else for me to add. From my understanding the sources regarding the logo and the Japanese Wikipedia are the only ones that discuss analysis and viewpoints from Aphaia. However the questions of "is this information worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia" and "how should one's name be presented" are two separate questions to be resolved separately.
- In regards to following sensitivities, I'm not certain that following a sensitivity is necessarily the best plan, nor should it be the primary goal of writing for Wikipedia. Keeping in mind, as an example Talk:Muhammad/FAQ#Q1 an argument brought up was that including images would infringe upon the sensitivities of followers of a religion. The English Wikipedia community decided that, even though these followers would feel offended, it would be the best policy to include the images.
- The FAQ itself says "So long as they are relevant to the article and do not violate any of Wikipedia's existing policies, nor the law of the U.S. state of Florida, where most of Wikipedia's servers are hosted, no content or images will be removed from Wikipedia because people find them objectionable or offensive."
- This is why I'm interested in hearing how a professional organization would deal with this issue. If there is a consensus among the popular media/RS world that one could make an exception like this, then the community could say "the media would, and did accommodate such demands and have Yamada Hanako's name presented in the opposite fashion consistently. Since reliable sources for Yamada Hanako have done this, this should be reflected on Wikipedia"
- Regarding concerns about Wikilawyering (AFAIK this was brought up on the Commons), I don't think it's wikilawyering if one follows the underlying spirit of a rule/guideline/etc. rather than simply following it to a letter. The English Wikipedia is intended to be a tertiary source, reflecting what other people wrote. Generally guidelines on naming order/etc. are meant to have Wikipedia reflect the practices of published English-language literature. Having Wikipedia's policies on a person's naming order determined by the policies of reliable sources would fulfill the goal of making Wikipedia a tertiary source.
- WhisperToMe (talk) 16:57, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Years
Hi, since your name's down on this project, I'm just writing to let you know that there's a discussion going on at the moment on how to format events – and in particular, events that go on for multiple days – on year pages. Your input would be appreciated. — Smjg (talk) 18:23, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Hello, good sir!
Was that your voice speaking about wikis at the end of Justin Reich's talk today? I was listening to the webcast, and I thought you (or your doppelganger) made some good points. In any case, hello!
~~Brandon — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pingswept (talk • contribs) 18:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, that was me! I found the talk frustrating; I'm not sure that sort of research does much more than generate provocative talk and paper titles. Limited data, limited disaggregation, no data transparency or reproducability... no basis for drawing conclusions of any sort. I hope that before the work is published in a more formal way those issues are addressed, but worry that in some academic regimes provocative titles are an end in their own right. And how are you doing? I thought of you recently, when OpenGlobe started up. I hope all is well. – SJ + 22:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
- Agreed about data transparency and reproducability. That seems to be slow to take hold in academia, which is sort of weird. I disagree a little about limited data. Or rather, I agree that the data is limited, but I thought Justin did a good job of presenting his conclusions as uncertain, which seems like a reasonable behavior in the face of limited data. But maybe it came across differently in person. Anyway, stuff is good. I'm working on a new device in Artisan's Asylum. You should stop by if you haven't seen the place before-- I think it's the second-largest community hackerspace in the world, and it's right near Union Square in Somerville. Pingswept —Preceding undated comment added 18:05, 21 January 2012 (UTC).
MSU Interview
Dear Sj,
My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.
So a few things about the interviews:
- Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
- Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
- All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
- All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
- The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.
Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.
If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.
Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 07:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Young June Sah --Yjune.sah (talk) 20:36, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Sam
Thanks, it's nice to be here. I'm still learning the ropes, but hopefully I won't allow the negative aspects of my physics training to hinder me too much! Say hi to Zittrain if you see him. terry (talk) 22:38, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Talkback
You can at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Comments left at Talk:Jerusalem. Both sections there need your signature! Hertz1888 (talk) 07:11, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Ec
Hullo Sj, I believe I may have edit-conflicted with you in trying to introduce copyedits to the Signpost movement roles interview; please accept my apologies and continue revising your answers as you please – I'm looking to publish in about two hours. And thanks again for taking the time to discuss these issues with us, I think it's an important area to explore with the community. Regards, Skomorokh 03:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Museum guidelines
Hi! I first tweaked the Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Guideline sequence, which wound up reverted fairly quickly, so now there's an active discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Museums/Guideline about the sequence of sections. You are invited and encouraged to chime in. Please also see the discussion about consolidating several sections which tend to be especially brief. -- ke4roh (talk) 03:12, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- Ka4roh, I tried to clean up the guideline page a bit myself, based on the discussion so far. It's something I meant to do last year -- thanks for the reminder. – SJ + 00:08, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
on conference subsidies
Hi, Sj. I enjoyed your recent post on conference scholarships and tried to post this comment there but the comment didn't post, and then when I tried to post it again, I was told it was a duplicate! So here it is.
This is so great. Thank you for writing it. When we run the next big funded hackathon (I'm currently working on sponsorships for the Berlin hackathon in June) I'll keep a lot of this in mind. This year I did a bunch of outreach and specifically reached out to nontraditional attendees (people who work on gadgets, templates, and bots) to ask them to come to the event, and we are spending a big chunk of WMF's volunteer development budget for the current fiscal year to encourage and sponsor such people. Next year, I think it would be good to follow your guidelines, to help avoid turning subsidies for travel to the Berlin hackathon into a default expectation.
Thanks again. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Volunteer Development Coordinator 16:29, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks so much for the comment, Sumana! I don't know what went wrong with my blog, but I added your comment there. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on how the upcoming hackathons go. I also appreciate your recent note to internal-l on moving back to public-only mailing lists, and mean to write about how important that is as well. Warmly, – SJ + 01:26, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Just signed up for adoption
I selected you because of Texas history, I have been commissioned to enter 'Orsch' in the wikipedia from the founder of the alternative education school by the same name in Gunnison, Colorado. I have been an avid user of wiki for years, and have always wanted to contribute something, now I have a purpose for doing so. My user page is the article I wish to enter. I am a dedicated autodydactic. Some things come very easy for me, others I struggle with until I give up. It is my intention to publish this article but now I need help switching it to the real on-line article. I also recieve critique well, and strive for excellence in all I do. I would truly like to be a respected editor/creator for wiki and perhaps you would like to show me some ropes. I instruct well, and tend to like to do things for myself. Would you care to help a fellow Texas history fanatic? ~Orschstaffer, I basically know how to access my user page, should you respond to my request, and my talk page which further defines my intentions. The article is related to alternative education. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orschstaffer (talk • contribs) 20:56, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
The Transit of Venus
Hello Sj,
About the message you have forwarded on the Wikisource mailing list: Good book for Wiki Source. Thanks for Beluru Sudharshana from Mithramadhyama.com for pointing this out in the right time, I have uploaded the English and the French versions to Commons here in English and here in French. Regards, --Zyephyrus (talk) 22:52, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
- I have deleted these files on Commons because the licence was not accepted there, sorry. Fortunately the link to the source can be found here on WP so people can have access to it directly. --Zyephyrus (talk) 14:41, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
- Thank you for following up with this! SJ
Nomination for deletion of Template:Cto
Template:Cto has been nominated for deletion. Template:Cto creates a conditional topic overview linkbox for the See also section of an article with links to (1) the topic article, (2) the outline of the topic, (3) the index of topic-related articles, (4) the bibliography of the topic, and (5) the Wikipedia book on the topic. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Template:Cto. Yours aye, Buaidh 20:01, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
The chessboard
Is it possible for a technologically handicapped person to get that wiki-chessboard and invite others to play? Aditya(talk • contribs) 04:26, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Philip of Castile (archbishop)
Hello. I was on Wikipedia:Translators available and notice that you were on the list for Spanish to English translators and wondered if you could be interested in translating es:Felipe de Castilla to Philip of Castile (archbishop)? There is a lot of interesting information still left untranslated. Thanks.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 21:26, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Wikimania
Was a real blast to meet you at Wikimania. I hope you had as good of a time as I did. --David Shankbone 01:30, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Plasma cosmology
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Plasma cosmology. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 04:15, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
The Wikipedia Adventure: Request for feedback on Community Fellowship proposal
Hi! I'm contacting you because you have participated or discussed The Wikipedia Adventure learning tutorial/game idea. I think you should know about a current Community Fellowship proposal to create the game with some Wikimedia Foundation support. Your feedback on the proposal would be very much appreciated. I should note that the feedback is for the proposal, not the proposer, and even if the Fellowship goes forward it might be undertaken by presently not-mentioned editors. Thanks again for your consideration.
Proposal: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Project_Ideas/The_Wikipedia_Adventure
Cheers, User:Ocaasi 16:41, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the update, Ocaasi. I don't have comments specifically on the proposal, but hope it sees future iteration. – SJ + 03:25, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
A kitten for you!
I am a new user. You offered some insight to my erred ways. Thanks.. no hard feelings.
Patrick Miller Booth (talk) 02:49, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Adopt-a-user
Hi Sj. I'm leaving you this message because you have previously been involved as an adopter with Wikipedia's Adopt-a-user program. A clean-up of this program is currently underway, and as part of the process I am trying to find out who is and isn't still interested in remaining an adopter.
If you would prefer not to be part of the adoption program anymore, you need do nothing; when the overhaul of the project is completed your name will be removed from the list of active adopters. However, if you have current adoptees, an active adoption school or an interest in adopting in the near future, then please let us know by signing here.
If you want to remain in the project and can currently take on more adoptees, there is a serious backlog at Category:Wikipedians seeking to be adopted in Adopt-a-user; it would be enormously helpful if you could take on one or two of the users there. Please do keep an eye on the project for upcoming changes, we could use your opinions and your help! Yunshui 雲水 09:19, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Von Portugal translation
Hello. I was on Wikipedia:Translators available and notice that you were on the list for German to English translators and wondered if you could translate and add materials from de:Manuel von Portugal and de:Emilia von Oranien-Nassau to their English articles and create articles for their two children de:Manuel António von Portugal and de:Mauritia Eleonora von Portugal and their spouse de:Johanna von Hanau-Münzenberg and de:Georg Friedrich (Nassau-Siegen). If you can't I will understand. Thank you!--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 23:25, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
the olive branch
interesting! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 05:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC) p.s: time to archive your talk page? :) [yes :) ]
Soliciting Feedback on Educational Assignment
Hello,
My name is Javier Campanini. I'm a student at Cornell University working on a class project for an Online Communities course. Our task is to contribute an article to Wikipedia. There are a total of 3 people on the team and so far, we've started to gather the information and create sections for the article.
The subject of the article is Incentive-Centered Design. The current page (a work in progress) can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jmc242/incentive-centered_design
We would really appreciate any feedback or comments you could provide on our progress so far.
Thank you, Javier Campanini Jmc242 (talk) 22:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Leah McGrath Goodman
nice job on that article. Decora (talk) 00:49, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Proposed deletion of Jenny Preece
The article Jenny Preece has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
- May fail WP:PROF
While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. SarahStierch (talk) 02:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Proposed deletion of Blaise Agüera y Arcas
The article Blaise Agüera y Arcas has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
- person not important enough
While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. LMB (talk) 10:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
- This is getting a bit much... the fact that the only "help fix this article" comments I get are people proposing them for deletion as nonnotable or bots suggests our social norms are lacking. B A y A for instance is a remarkably accomplished creator, director, and developer, who has been renowned in the national media for at least two different phases of his life; as a quick search would indicate. Slapping a deletion tag on an article should not be the default way to improve it. – SJ +
Ombudsman commission
Hi, I contact you as you took part in the discussion on Penyulap's talk page concerning the Ombudsman committee matter. I've started some proposals and discussion on meta about how best to reform the OC to fix the issues it currently has and I would be very grateful if you could drop by and voice your opinion at m:Ombudsman commission/reform proposals. Snowolf How can I help? 12:19, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Re: your request on User talk:Courcelles
Hi, SJ. You asked Courcelles to unblock Penyulap's talkpage access (here; already archived). It is of course customary to make such a request — at least, the first such request — to the admin who blocked the access; in this case, Courcelles. But I don't think the unblocking question should be left up to him, since it was Courcelles whose checkuser action Penyulap complained of to the Ombudsman commission, in an open letter he posted on the page immediately before Courcelles blocked him from further posting. To my mind there is a question whether Penyulap's access needed blocking, as well as a question whether Courcelles was the right person to do it. Please unblock Pen's access yourself, or ask somebody else. I would, except that I have probably by now involved myself too much w r t Penyulap to be the best person to do it.
I agree with you that Pen's access to his talk should be unblocked without further delay, so that he can take part directly in the discussion of his ombudsman complaint that has now, finally, started on his page. Frankly, it seems bad enough that his e-mail to the Ombudsman commission apparently got mislaid at first,[1] and that the reminder which I posted for him a month later[2] attracted no attention until another ten days later. (I'm certainly not complaining of Snowolf, the only person who has been effective in this business, and who has started a related proposal on Meta.) The user doesn't need any more delays and attrition, and the present situation where he has to rely on a third party for public communication isn't very satisfactory for him (not so hot for me either). Bishonen | talk 15:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC).
- Thanks for the comment, Bish. I agree he should join the discussion directly. The simplest way is to move to Meta. For practical watchlist and discussion-continuity reasons I too would like to see the appropriate part of it continue here (in addition to the more general discussion Snowolf started). But as there's no rush, and P. is sensitive to & responds prolifically to drama, I'd rather move gently to help focus discussion on making the OC functional. Let me check w. Elen before adding to the list of minor tweaks in his log. – SJ + 02:58, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Closed-form expression
Hey Sj,
I wanted to learn about Closed-form expression and wanted to read about it in Japanese. From the English page, there was a link to 解析解 in the Chinese Wikipedia (no link to JP WP), from which I got to 微分方程式, which is linked to Differential_equation. I don't know enough about closed-form expression to know what would be an appropriate link from Closed-form expression to JP WP page/section. If you have time, help!
hackfish 16:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
- It may not be written yet. See the redlink in this article. Ask a japanese mathematician!
- A closed-form expression is a type of Analytic expression (which unfortunately also links to 微分方程式). The idea of being closed here relates to "describable as the combination of a finite number of simple expressions", for a flexible definition of "simple". It's not really related to differential equations, except in the negative sense: most differential equations do not have closed form solutions. (Note that there is a confusingly named closed differential form which is quite different.) – SJ + 18:19, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Food for thought on "knowledge for ¢hange"
Hi Sj, first, thank you for your compliment regarding the holiday/Xmas greeting (with 2 children on a swing) I left on Rich Farmbrough's User talk page. On a different note, a while ago I left a post on the Wikimedia Foundation's feedback webpage for a suggested fundraising donation system to help WP bring in extra cash (doesn't everyone want a raise?). The idea likely has merit and can probably accomplish its goal of raising significant extra funds for Wikipedia if implemented (or at least, as Homer would say: D'oh! it sounded like a good idea in my mind at the time ;-).
My original post, "Food for thought, knowledge for change" has been archived, but when I saw your contributions to the organization it appears it would be good to discuss the concept to see if you could advocate it to your colleagues on the WM Board, or at least bring it to their attention. The suggestion's only remarks generated so far can be seen on my user Talk page, as shown here, which notes that "...a micropayment system created by MuCash [on] websites such as Cleantechnica, where you can see a Java-linked 'Donate....' button at the bottom of each article". (Cleantechnica no longer appears to use MuCash, but other sites such as Dailygiver.org do, where the blue and orange donate button can be seen near the bottom of this webpage).
As an afterthought to the concept, I would also permit the proposed system to allow Wikipedians the option to (voluntarily) automatically donate any funds they personally receive to Wikimedia. Doing so this way would generate a bit more cash to the organization, and allow the editors to receive some personal credit for such donations. Best: HarryZilber (talk) 18:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikimedia Tanzania
Mambo vipi, Sj? Kwangu poa kabisa. And the answer regarding "Kaswahili", no, I do not know him at all. Never heard of him before. But I was intrigued with his effort. Possibly we'll eventually get someone to establish the chapter!--Mwanaharakati(Longa) 14:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Bus Routes
Just thought you would like to know that there has been a lot more lists which have been nominated for deletion which can be viewed here. Wilbysuffolk (Talk to me!) 12:37, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
- Yes. They should really be transwikied - are there any active WV editors who would like to undertake that? – SJ + 21:07, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution noticeboard
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution noticeboard. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 08:15, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Lithium burning possible violation
There are users claiming that Lithium burning has copy write issues. More specifically it is claimed that it was copied from this page. The title of the page was Brown dwarfs and is essentially a copy of the wikipedia page of the same name but an older version(I have not yet had the time to find out which), and contains information that also first appeared in wikipedia in 2005 in an edit by you. Could you please tell us more if all the text from Brown dwarf were written originally. And help us potentially resolve this issue. Andrew Luo(too lazy to log in) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.67.62 (talk) 00:03, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks Andrew. I guess login should be made 2 seconds instead of 20 seconds :) You're right, it's not a copyvio; resolved. – SJ + 13:29, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Merge Rules
Per Wikipedia:Merging#Proposing a merger, you did not perform Step I in the talk sections of the following articles: Common chemicals and List of commonly available chemicals. It's important to create a section specific for the merge discussion, otherwise people won't respond to a merge request. Also, you need to modify the merge template usage to point to the new section that you create. Thanks. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 01:45, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks. I see there was already a suggestion to merge a year ago; I'll go ahead and do it. The shorter article has no activity at present. – SJ + 13:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Personal comments
Your criticism of Doc James and me on the Education Board are insulting. Do you think the most constructive thing to do there was to publicly pick fault with how two editors are expressing their anger? I see nothing from the WMF wrt Joordens comments. I've been called a criminal and a liar. Is that acceptable to the WMF? I guess so. I see you've had the good sense to remove the first you made about James.
- I can see why the matter has wound you up. But the level of drama in the discussion doesn't seem to be helping matters, nor making you feel better. Hence my agreement with ToaT. James and I are friends; it is not the first time I have teased him about his energetic interaction with those who frustrate him; but it occurred to me that others reading that page wouldn't have context.
I don't doubt there is "unrealized potential" in the education programme and wrt psychology articles, but that's the one comment you wished to make about this assignment? That somehow you are sad that it hasn't realized its potential?
- I'm not sure why you are interested in the education project... I am interested because I think contributing to a repository of human knowledge is a natural part of higher education. So yes, I am sad whenever a teacher, passionate about the same idea, fails to pull it off successfully.
- I'm here to help build an encyclopaedia of free original content as part of an online collaborative community. Joordens is here primarily to set an exercise for his megaclass that doesn't require human expert marking (see precedent with peerScholar), and secondarily to perform a huge experiment on Wikipedia that he and his PhD student can write up in the academic journals. If Joordens was giving any time/priority towards the "build an encyclopaedia" or "collaborative community" or "original content" bit, then he'd be going about things quite differently. There are successful classes in the education program. They go about it quite differently to this one.
- By his own admission, he thought it was fine to exploit what he saw as a huge resource that would correct his student's mistakes, and this (edit retention) could be used to mark the students. But it turned out the resource wasn't huge and wasn't so keen to be an unpaid classroom assistant. He doesn't realise his assignment is guaranteed to produce plagiarism and his training to prepare these students is woefully inadequate. Part of why he doesn't realise is that his means of assessing the students is fundamentally flawed. Why should he listen to some Wikipedian saying it is fundamentally flawed, when there several scientific papers built upon the concept of edit-retention=quality (see elsewhere on Education Noticeboard for comment on the most recent). These papers are published by those academically involved in the education program.
- We pointed this out to him in 2011 but he regards us as amateurs and our data as flawed. You should see the language he used to dismiss us. There's just way too much arrogance there. Combine this with the "oh shit" consequences of facing up to what he's done and how misguided his research metrics are. There are strong motivations on him ignoring us and carrying on. Otherwise, what assignment is he going to give his megaclass next semester? And what is his PhD student going to do with the worthless data they've collected.
The "data" Joordens and his PhD are collecting wrt edit quality is utterly worthless. The analogy I've given elsewhere is that it is like someone studying two skin creams for eczema, and measuring how good they are by counting how many patients die of toxic effects. Measuring reverts (or bot tags, even) is no measure of quality at all. But it is sure an easy measure to make if you have a class of 1900 and have never had any intention of actually reviewing the edits yourself or employing someone to do so. Your comments at the education noticeboard make me seriously question the point of continuing to edit here. Colin°Talk 07:49, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
- I know what you mean about those metrics. I suspect there is nothing wrong with their raw data -- data is just data -- it is the analysis that is wanting. You might discuss metrics with him - suggesting better metrics and analysis will have more of an impact than attacking his intentions.
- A related aside: why do you say your 2011 report was dismissed by some within the ed. program? – SJ + 10:18, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
- Well of course data is neutral but still has a worth. They've collected the wrong kind of data. I don't think they want to know that 2-years into their research, it is all to waste. One could do a professional analysis of the student edits made by his classes since 2011 but would it tell you anything different from what we've discovered? Negative results tend not to get published. I doubt very much that "Disasters with an unprepared and unsupervised megaclass" is the sort of paper Joordens wants on his CV.
- Lurker/stalker here. Indeed, and the response of the Education Program was officially to wash their hands of the whole thing. (As indeed the WMF is doing with the US/Canada program in general.) To be fair, it seems that Philippe took the situation seriously, enough to talk to Joordens in person. And that has had some effect, if belatedly. As I've said before, we need people such as Joordens inside pissing out rather than vice versa. For me, that's the only problem with showing your anger: it may contribute to the feeling that the way to do these things is to go "under the radar." But as we know, only worse things happen as a result.
- Personally (as I've also been saying, until I feel blue in the face) I think we need also to look at the big picture. There's pressure within academia to use online resources and technological fixes to increase faculty productivity and student revenue while reducing fixed costs and overheads. (More recently, the way in which we're supposed to go is towards MOOCs: Massive Online Open Courses.) Imagine: it's crazy that there even are 1700-student courses at all. No wonder Joordens is trying to get something out of it by a) offloading some small (to be fair, really rather small) part of the course evaluation to Wikipedia; and b) making this the focus of his research by producing articles celebrating his use of Wikipedia in the classroom. So there are structural conditions affecting academia that tend towards a negative impact on Wikipedia. Again, my feeling is that we need to make common cause. Wikipedia and academia are (despite appearances) in this together. Addressing or at least acknowledging the broader pressures on the utopian project of free access to knowledge is vital. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 12:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
- Hello Jbmurray, nice to see you stalking here. I agree that we need to make common cause. Not only do issues of scale and pressure in academia affect Wikipedia, both communities are experimenting with variations on individual empowerment: including peer writing, review, and teaching. Many courses are taking a similar approach to the development of their class materials. – SJ + 16:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
- I certainly won't take the blame for him going under the radar. Other people encouraged him and other people negotiated with him and asked him to stop with the megaclass. Other people continue, it seems, to meet and encourage him. His main problem with transparency and openness seems to be that Wikipedians, when they analyse his class's edits, find they are dreadful. If we hadn't done that analysis, would the idea of a megaclass on Wikipedia have spread to other institutions? Perhaps his "add a random factoid to Wikipedia" assignment would have spread also? Or maybe his "first year undergrads can improve Wikipedia with little training and no supervision" idea would be spreading too? This is someone who has a big problem with being told news he doesn't want to hear. His response is one big "fuck you I'm doing it anyway and my way". WMF should have a response to that too. But all I see here is more encouraging "potential and positive energy" lines and not enough "how dare you". Joordens' and academia's problems with class size are their problems. This is an encyclopaedia. Some folk seem to have forgotten that. Colin°Talk 14:08, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
- No, I don't want to blame you for his going "under the radar," which is a metaphor (and it's Joordens's) that I've always felt is more than a little disconcerting: it does rather suggest that he regards his projects more in terms of invasion than (as he now tells us) immigration. But I do want to ensure that neither he nor anyone else takes that tack again. Nor do I particularly want to encourage "potential and positive energy." I talked of people pissing out rather than in. :) And in the end, though it would be great if I were wrong, I honestly don't see how a Wikipedia assignment could ever work in a class such as the one he's teaching. But if it is going to work--or if everyone is going to agree that it's impossible--then this will only happen if there's mutual cooperation. (I'd say also it'll only work if it isn't unleashed en masse on the encyclopedia: there's a point to doing things on a small scale. But that's another matter.) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
- I certainly won't take the blame for him going under the radar. Other people encouraged him and other people negotiated with him and asked him to stop with the megaclass. Other people continue, it seems, to meet and encourage him. His main problem with transparency and openness seems to be that Wikipedians, when they analyse his class's edits, find they are dreadful. If we hadn't done that analysis, would the idea of a megaclass on Wikipedia have spread to other institutions? Perhaps his "add a random factoid to Wikipedia" assignment would have spread also? Or maybe his "first year undergrads can improve Wikipedia with little training and no supervision" idea would be spreading too? This is someone who has a big problem with being told news he doesn't want to hear. His response is one big "fuck you I'm doing it anyway and my way". WMF should have a response to that too. But all I see here is more encouraging "potential and positive energy" lines and not enough "how dare you". Joordens' and academia's problems with class size are their problems. This is an encyclopaedia. Some folk seem to have forgotten that. Colin°Talk 14:08, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
- I went looking for the person who wrote (wrt the 2011 class) "I think it is great that this class attempted such a project, and that they are planning to repeat it with improvements." And was kinda disappointed to discover who. Better comments came from Mike Christie: "I'm very pessimistic about the chances of success with such a large class. To be honest, I don't think the experiment should be repeated; instead we should focus on classes where there is some expectation of engagement with the professor online, and where the number of students won't overwhelm the limited number of helpers. " It took Joordens till April 2013 to realise the "limited number of helpers" bit.
- My biggest issue with your comments at the noticeboard now (and your past comment) is their defensiveness and their "optimism in face of all evidence" stance. The WMF should be angry about this large-scale abuse of Wikipedia and its volunteers, and the fact that around the 22nd March hundreds of our psychology articles got a little bit worse and shortly afterwards one of our most valued experts had to go on wikibreak. Instead, I start my week being told "Calm down, dear". Why not consider why people are angry? People get frustrated when they see nothing being done about a problem, and they get very annoyed when those causing the problem being treated better than those reporting it. Colin°Talk 11:21, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Colin, from my perspective it's not that you're wrong to be angry, especially after the accusation Woodsnake made against you. It's that your anger and his resistance seem to be feeding each other, and as a result the more you express your anger, the more he defiantly digs down in his trench, shakes his head, and writes off everything we're trying to get through to him because he appears to feel that issues presented angrily don't merit consideration. A bad belief, from my perspective, but we kind of have to work within the constraints we're stuck with. SJ has approached this poorly with you and Doc James, but I suspect what he was trying to get across was basically something I agree with: your current strategy (angry words) isn't working to get you what you want (less disruption from his classes, and/or understanding from Woodsnake), so if you're able, you should try a different strategy, be it more moderated language or just backing away from the conversation for a while. It's too easy for the conversation as it's currently going to be derailed either by us talking about your anger or by Woodsnake writing you off more and more aggressively. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks, Fluffernutter. You put this much better than I did. And you are right, I did not approach the situation smoothly. I've left thoughts on how to improve understanding and address current disruption on the noticeboard. – SJ + 18:33, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Talkback on Jack of Oz's page
You can at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
wik-wik-wikify
I think a tiny old-school piece of me just died when I discovered this. A clear case for our old fogeys league, imho. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 19:55, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Fixing citation
Hello Sj, on the 25th of February 2005 at 11:34 hours you edited Brown dwarf to add [Kulkarni] as a citation. Can you direct me to the proper work to cite so that I can fix the citation? - Fartherred (talk) 02:32, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
- Hi FR, thanks for catching that. At the time the Kulkarni link was in the "History" section at the end of the article (which didn't have modern-style cites). The author's self-hosted paper has been taken down, but I added a cite to a more appropriate archival copy. – SJ + 04:12, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks. - Fartherred (talk) 04:33, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Genre sub-cats do not need to be in parent
People in Category:American mystery writers or Category:19th-century American novelists should not be in the parent category Category:American novelsits.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Please take a look
- Wikipedia_talk:Category_intersection#A_working_category_intersection_today - A prototype for category intersection, that I tested with Nigerian novelists. It uses the catscan tool. My thought is, we could easily implement this, starting with gendered/ethnic/sexuality/religion cats of bios. Create a cat header template, clean up the output of the tool, make it look a bit more friendly, and then remove all of the gendered/ethnic/etc subcats and just use static cat intersections at the top for any key intersections people want. Best part is, regular editors can do this today, while waiting for wikidata to spin up - and we can maintain most of the existing category tree. Help/support requested. And it would show that we're responsive. Thanks! --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:37, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Role of JW and BoT on decisions per Wikipedia:PNSD
Hello SJ, nice to see you again. A Chinese version of Wikipedia:PNSD notes that BoT as the owner of Wikipedia and Mr. Wales as the "benevolent dictator" shall force directives regardless of conclusions from questionnaire, voting, or consensus. Is it true ? Shall you delineate more about PNSD ? According to the template on that page, PNSD in Chinese Wikipedia has not reached a consensus for its implementation so it is not a guideline per se. -- Ktsquare (talk) 03:52, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
- Hello KT, great to hear from you. :) This is not entirely true. The Board does not own Wikipedia communities, nor does it set policies (except where the Board sets very high-level policies, like the Terms of Use, for all wiki-projects - and that is generally done after building community consensus).
- If you are running a discussion whose outcome requires new software, then after the community decision, the community may need to write the necessary code. And code changes that require someone to update MediaWiki core are of course much harder to implement: that requires WMF staff approval. Sometimes WMF staff may take an action required by law, regardless of community consensus - cf. WP:OFFICE. But in those cases neither the BoT nor Jimbo are directly involved. On the English Wikipedia, Jimbo retains additional fiat power, with the trust of the community -- but this does not carry over to all projects.
- Warmly, – SJ + 14:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
- FWIW, that particular version notes that in same "special examples" the BoT or JW will force directives under "some special circumstances" -- Cybercavalier (talk) 17:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, I see that quote. The part about JW should be limited to en:wp. The part about the BoT is not precise (and could be interpreted wrongly). It should say the WMF as maintainer of the sites may enforce directives. (It does say "developers" may enforce them... but this can also happen through the Legal & Community Advocacy department).
- While the BoT can approve global policy, and can direct the WMF to implement new policy, there are many other ways the WMF could decide to implement a change. It is the WMF overall, not the BoT (which is part of the WMF), which maintains the sites. – SJ + 18:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC) (updated 05:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC))
- That particular page was presented in Chinese language so I must guess you understand the language. -- Ktsquare (talk) 04:46, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
- Just enough to parse 合适的情况下 :) – SJ + 05:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
- Hello long time no see. The content of that issue has not gathered noticed since and five years and months have passed. I have reposted this issue a day or two ago on zh.community portal. Shall I also ask JW on en.wikipedia because his name was explicitly stated? What shall I do? As that content meant roles of non-zh.wikipedia crossing into zh.wikipedia, blowbacks onto en.wikipedia can be possible. Or I guess possibly not... -- Ktsquare (talk) 19:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- Just enough to parse 合适的情况下 :) – SJ + 05:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Making revision status visible
SJ, thanks for your reply over on Meta. You mentioned "better ways to show how trusted a version of an article is, such as: when the last edit was made, how many different major contributors an article has, whether an article has unreviewed flagged revs, how active the talk page is."
The authors of this piece at literary magazine talkingwriting.com ("What Should We Do About Wikipedia?", by Martha Nichols and Lorraine Berry) expressed a somewhat similar desire, namely that the article history and contributors should not be hidden behind a History link most people won't click. In most cases it's obviously impossible to list the entire history on the article page, but even having just the last five edits visible on the article page could have multiple benefits: readers could see how old the version is they're reading, and figure out whether it is a stable version or whether there is currently an edit war going on. An additional benefit is that the last few edits would get more scrutiny than they do now: you might get the odd reader who takes an interest in what has recently changed in the article, and thus more eyes on the edit.
If you haven't seen it, the talkingwriting piece is a good read, as is the discussion underneath – for once, a civil and cogent discussion in the Comments section of a web article. Regards. Andreas JN466 03:19, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
- It is a fine piece indeed. This sort of feature is something we need, and that other online texts should have as well. I spent part of an evening in the Boston Globe offices, and it was amazing to see how much their workflow looks like that of a small-group of wiki editors. Scripts parsing through feeds of new changes and new articles, reputation tagging for how likely a change was to be reliable, decisions about when to merge or split articles, citation-needed markers. They had a few tools that we don't, but still lacked a clean way to visualize how active a changing article was or where the recent changes came from. – SJ + 02:17, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
MfD nomination of Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board/USNCOTW
Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board/USNCOTW, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board/USNCOTW and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board/USNCOTW during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Kumioko (talk) 01:54, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Cocktails needing pictures
Here's the current list. One of the pictures had been taking so I removed the BLT Cocktail, but the rest still need pictures.
User:Faolin42/ReqPhoto11
Faolin42 (talk) 01:28, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you! I'm going out to a pub for the OKFN meetup tonight, we'll see if one of the bartenders is interested... – SJ + 16:24, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Hunting for embedded outlines
I'm looking for outlines embedded in articles.
I've run across a number of these over the years. One example is the Outline of fencing, which used to be part of the fencing article.
If you know about or spot any structured general topics lists in articles, please let me know (on my talk page).
Another thing you might find are articles that are comprised mostly of lists (without "Outline of" or "List of" being in the article's title). If you come across any of these, please report them to me on my talk page. I'd sure like to take a look at them.
Happy hunting.
I look forward to "hearing" from you (on my talk page). Sincerely, The Transhumanist 07:40, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
- Hello Transhumanist! There are definitely some of these gems hidden in articles. I wish there were an easier way to search all articles for "Outline" in a section heading. For instance: Foundationalism. I think this can best be done by running a script across a dump. – SJ +
P.S.: Where do we place votes for WMF?
Re: mw:Watchlist wishlist
You are welcome, Sj. Where did I link to that? I have been on so many pages and wikis lately. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:14, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
- OK, I found where we discussed this:
- Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-05-27/Foundation elections
- I could use a watchlist subsection just for talk pages where someone is directly replying to me. I may not notice replies otherwise to old discussions with multiple participants. But that would require MediaWiki software to figure out who is being replied to. More developers are needed. :)
- You linked to a discussion at mw:Talk:Watchlist wishlist. It is good that discussion is going on somewhere about watchlists. The problem is that the discussion is doubly handicapped by being on a wiki that few people regularly follow, and that the wiki uses the much-hated mw:LiquidThreads ("no longer actively maintained"). I think plain old talk pages are much easier to scan. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:02, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
VisualEditor talkpage
Hey SJ.
I have (for a second time) reverted your formatting changes to the VisualEditor talkpage. If you read the edit summary behind the first revert, you know that a lot of the posts there come from the feedback button in the VisualEditor proper, which are automatically posted to the feedback page. The key word is "automatically"; they will not respect formatting or level 1 headers, they will go at the bottom of the page. Accordingly attempts to mass-reformat the page are doomed to require constant curation and maintenance to be meaningful, and in the meantime, very much frustrate Maggie and I, whose ability to reply to things via section editing is undermined every time someone rearranges the section numbers. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
- Hi Oliver. You are mistaken: I reverted myself the second time after seeing your earlier comment and counting to ten ;). That feedback page like any high-volume talk page needs refactoring to be useful over time, and we need edit tools that make section clustering and outlining easy. But there is no point arguing over technique when you will have to maintain the page for some time. I see your frustration, and regret that section editing is so sensitive to the order of sections on a page; a long-standing bug. Section edits should be exactly as robust as section links: anchored based on the section title.
- I hope that frustration re:refactoring is not becoming commonplace - it would sweet for Flow, for instance, to support curation (if not the old-school style of refactoring!). It will at least do away with this particular bug. – SJ + 12:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
- Sorry, yes; I think we both tried to undo at the same time :). I agree that things need to be more robust, and that factoring should be better; Flow is being built along the principle that sections and threads, rather than page titles, have primacy, which should help. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
- Hm, interesting: it seems that double-reverts, and also noop edits that only add an edit summary, are being invisibly dropped. I tried to add a summary-only edit with no result and no warning that it didn't go through. Is this a documented feature/bug? – SJ +
- Noop edits have always been dropped from history. It is a feature because "discussion through edit summaries" is a Bad Idea. However it's also a bug because there is no mechanism to change edit summaries, so minor edits are often done to leave a missed or previously mistaken edit summary. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:02, 23 May 2015 (UTC).
- Noop edits have always been dropped from history. It is a feature because "discussion through edit summaries" is a Bad Idea. However it's also a bug because there is no mechanism to change edit summaries, so minor edits are often done to leave a missed or previously mistaken edit summary. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:02, 23 May 2015 (UTC).
- Hm, interesting: it seems that double-reverts, and also noop edits that only add an edit summary, are being invisibly dropped. I tried to add a summary-only edit with no result and no warning that it didn't go through. Is this a documented feature/bug? – SJ +
- Sorry, yes; I think we both tried to undo at the same time :). I agree that things need to be more robust, and that factoring should be better; Flow is being built along the principle that sections and threads, rather than page titles, have primacy, which should help. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Personal and Moral Rights?
In a discussion with Jimmy Wales on the moral rights of the photographers and the personal rights of the subjects, he said "I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed."
We further requested him to bring this matter to the attention of WMF and make a resolution or something to force Commons make enough policies to protect our rights as a photographer and our commitments to our subjects. He replied: "I am just one board member on this issue. I will continue to call this to the attention of the board and staff, but I need help from the community to illustrate that this is a problem that concerns many of us."
So we would like to bring that discussion to the attention of every member on board. JKadavoor Jee 11:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks, JKJ. I agree that we should take these rights seriously, and second Kat's comments on the matter. As Jimbo says, a clear community position is needed - even if it is a minority position - to articulate the problem and potential solution. – SJ + 04:48, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks Samuel Klein, for you valuable reply. Please note a somewhat related discussion at Commons too: Concern about the bureaucrat role of Russavia JKadavoor Jee 06:35, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I would like to let you know that your strong opinion along with others ([3], [4]) influenced the Commons community to initiate a discussion to develop a policy for courtesy deletions. We expect guidance, opinions, and participation in the development of similar policies and guidelines in future too. Thanks. JKadavoor Jee 02:45, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
- NB, duped on meta. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 15:58, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
- I would like to let you know that your strong opinion along with others ([3], [4]) influenced the Commons community to initiate a discussion to develop a policy for courtesy deletions. We expect guidance, opinions, and participation in the development of similar policies and guidelines in future too. Thanks. JKadavoor Jee 02:45, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Invitation
As there is a Wikipedia article about you, you are cordially invited to contribute a short audio recoding of your spoken voice, so that our readers may know what you sound like and how you pronounce your name. Details of how to do so, and examples, are at Wikipedia:Voice intro project. You can ask for help or clarification on the project talk page, or my talk page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:05, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
Serendipity
Thought of you today when the articles Samuel Beckett and Klein bottle showed up one after the other in my watchlist ;-) Regards 17:50, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Yuilop
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Yuilop. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 20:15, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
Article Feedback Tool update
Hey Sj. I'm contacting you because you're involved in the Article Feedback Tool in some way, either as a previous newsletter recipient or as an active user of the system. As you might have heard, a user recently anonymously disabled the feedback tool on 2,000 pages. We were unable to track or prevent this due to the lack of logging feature in AFT5. We're deeply sorry for this, as we know that quite a few users found the software very useful, and were using it on their articles.
We've now re-released the software, with the addition of a logging feature and restrictions on the ability to disable. Obviously, we're not going to automatically re-enable it on each article—we don't want to create a situation where it was enabled by users who have now moved on, and feedback would sit there unattended—but if you're interested in enabling it for your articles, it's pretty simple to do. Just go to the article you want to enable it on, click the "request feedback" link in the toolbox in the sidebar, and AFT5 will be enabled for that article.
Again, we're very sorry about this issue; hopefully it'll be smooth sailing after this :). If you have any questions, just drop them at the talkpage. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) 21:35, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Nomination of Wikimania 2006 for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Wikimania 2006 is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikimania 2006 until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Ypnypn (talk) 21:20, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Whole Earth Catalog wikibook
Phoebe mentioned you had investigated getting The Whole Earth Catalog on-wiki somehow, I found your proposal on wikibooks, interested in following up on it. — Mattsenate (talk) 22:57, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for getting in touch. I'd love to make this happen now. – SJ +
- I still have yellowing, crumbling paper copies of this reference classic, and mourned its disappearance along with its descendant, the Co-Evolution Quarterly. It would be great to have this information online as a Wikibook, both as a historical reference, and for the (relatively) timeless content that is still directly relevant today. Reify-tech (talk) 18:27, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Please comment on VisualEditor takedown
Hello. I am writing you because you are an elected community representative on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. I am writing my other two representatives also. At some point in an appropriate venue, would you please comment on the community's decision to take down the VisualEditor? At the Administrator's Noticeboard right now there is a recently closed request for comment on a community-forced removal of the VisualEditor. I think that none of you three participated in that last discussion which resulted in the community changing MediaWiki code to remove the VisualEditor.
It is my wish that at least one of you would say something encouraging to show respect to the Wikimedia Foundation and to the Wikipedia community and their ability to work collaboratively to meet contributor needs. It might be the case that this event would be looked upon by people outside the community and perhaps even remembered in the future. Since you three are elected representatives who relay messages between the Wikimedia Foundation and the community, I would like for any of you to publicly comment on the situation in a succinct and positive way which demonstrates the constructive aspects of the relationships we all have with each other. I hope that this could be done in a venue which people would be likely to find if they started reading about this, but this need not be done in a place which would send people to this issue if they were not already searching for it.
I do not know who might be covering this in the The Signpost, for example, but if it is covered I wish that if you did not give statements in the article space then perhaps you could comment in the comment section if any article on the topic is published and you find this venue to be appropriate enough for your attention. Thank you for maintaining good relations between Wikimedia Foundation staff and community members. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:16, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
"Happy Diwali!"
Just a quick heads up
Hi Samuel,
I wanted to bring this to your attention: http://www.suburbanexpress.com/arneklempert/ screenshot — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.78.1 (talk) 19:18, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
There is a discussion going on about continuing to block the Wikipedia user responsible for the harassment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Arri_at_Suburban_Express - Gulugawa (talk) 19:01, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Reward board discussion
Given it's been kept at MfD, I've reposted a proposal to tighten it. See header. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:46, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Aaron Swartz
Working on Aaron Swartz as we speak. The MIT police log is a public record, was published (by MIT), though not archived, and has historical importance, so it should be cool for Wikisource. The other records may or may not have been published. Thoughts? --Dervorguilla (talk) 21:44, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- Hmm. A TOC or list of the other records would be worth having; even if we can't publish the underlying records. That's worth a section on talk:Aaron Swartz. – SJ + 22:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
ANI Board
Hey Sj, I'm sorry I keep bugging you, and I know this is extraordinarily minor and of little/no interest to you. But, all I ask is that you review my latest post discussion with Drmies. Once again, I'm really sorry to bother you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Suburban_Express 24.15.78.1 (talk) 22:36, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
- I apologize for tagging you. I think my lack of experience on WP got the best of me. I attempted to tag you only when I was threatened with being blocked since you had seen some of what was happening play out. I was surprised by that since I was literally quoting the editor in question, but was being told I was incorrect. I don't want to cause problems, I really am trying to be genuine here. I'm sure you have heard this before, and I don't know how exactly I can demonstrate that. I suppose it does take me removing myself altogether from Wikipedia. I just see admins making dramatic edits despite consistently repeating that everything should be discussed until there is consensus...but then making undiscussed edits, teaming up (which I suppose makes sense), and turning a blind eye to the input.suggestions/proposals of others not in their circle after the fact. Thanks for commenting. You have more experience than most, so in the end, I will take your suggestion(s) to heart. 24.15.78.1 (talk) 02:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
- Tagging me is fine - just don't tag people at the end of a paragraph next to your own signature: it makes it look like the person you tagged wrote the text preceding it.
- If you assume that a) people are working in good faith to improve the article, b) there's no conspiracy - noone is teaming up, and c) people tend to be narrowly focused on their approach to a problem, and so sometimes make contextual mistakes -- you will be right most of the time :) As I make those assumptions myself, I can see that you're trying to be genuine. The earlier version of the article was however too strongly weighted in one direction; so it's not surprising that the next iteration was shifted strongly in the opposite direction. Over time it will balance out. When you feel emotional about a topic, I find it helps to read what you write twice before posting, try to remove any emotional or accusatory language, and cut out 80% of what you were going to say - so you don't overwhelm people with less time to focus on it.
- There's no need for you to leave Wikipedia - you write well! - just take a break from this article for a while. It would help you get a sense of perspective to edit other topics; to see what sorts of back-and-forth is normal. Regards, – SJ + 18:56, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
- I really do appreciate the advice as well as your extreme patience with me. I know you are very busy and this is just an unnecessary distraction from your real work here. In the past few weeks, I have learned quite a bit about Wikipedia's culture, etiquette, formalities, and expectations. I had no idea how complex these things can be. I also know there is no conspiracy here and all the admins are trying to get it right in good faith. It's just the real-world situation, as I'm sure you have read in articles and on the SubEx page, is beyond terrible. Thanks again. 24.15.78.1 (talk) 01:47, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Moody's and "Credit rating agency"
Many thanks for your note, SJ, and I am sorry I did not respond sooner. I have agreed to work on behalf of Moody's over time. Previously I had helped to reorganize and improve entries about the company and its principal entities. This year, I have focused on "Credit rating agency". I do all of my own research and my own writing, following Wikipedia's guidelines to the best of my ability, including on the subject of WP:COI. Moody's is very much a publisher (although primarily its opinions on creditworthiness of bonds) but I have avoided using Moody's materials except where necessary to confirm unexceptional details. Meanwhile, I have just minutes ago posted a comment on the recent edits to the entry, on the discussion page here. You would be most welcome to join the discussion if you have the time and interest. I feel that this topic has not received the attention it deserves. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 00:42, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
WMF Board and paid advocacy
Thanks for contributing to the RfC discussions on paid advocacy. I've heard that you guys on the the WMF Board may be outlining your position sometime soon; do you know when that's coming? I'm thinking yet another RfC may be useful, this time focused on giving Wikipedians guidelines to help them stay out of trouble (if they want to stay out of trouble). If the Board is going to say something soon-ish, it would probably be good to get that information first. - Dank (push to talk) 14:09, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
- Is there a place I can find more information about what Dank mentioned: "on the the WMF Board may be outlining your position sometime soon" A couple years back at Wikimania Philippe said WMF was Switzerland on the issue, but I'm happy to see WMF get involved.
- I just spent three days at a marketing conference with a lot of lawyers that specialize in legal compliance in marketing activities. Some of them worked with the FTC themselves to develop their guidelines. Could probably connect WMF to some folks that would be ideal to talk with about it.
- Sincerely, a frequent marketing contributor. CorporateM (Talk) 17:21, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
- Oh, I just saw the discussion on Jimbo's page where it is mentioned. I'd love to see the "statement" whenever it is made public. I like to think I planted the seed for discussions about FTC's laws, though I imagine WMF will probably only stick to its Terms of Use. It's important to me since I need to make sure I am acting in a compliant manner, though I suppose that will be ambiguous. Eager to see it! CorporateM (Talk) 20:00, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
The reliability of Wikipedia's medical content
Hi. This may interest you. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:15, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi. That discussion has been archived. As a volunteer representative on the WMF board, I'd be very interested to hear any thoughts you may have about scholarly review of our medical content. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:02, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Swartz
The five documents cited at Aaron Swartz Timeline are scanned copies of the original sources. (The text was converted using ClearScan OCR, so the output files don't open properly in Firefox; but Adobe says they're still "admissible in court".)
The passages below support the proposition that an "unaltered scanned copy" of a government document can in some cases be an appropriate wikisource, even if it's published on a random hacktivist site.
The reputation of the publisher doesn't seem to matter. (Indeed, the publisher's name is supposed to be omitted from the citation.) Rather, "all efforts should be made to cite to the most stable electronic location available." (Rule 18.2.2, Direct Citations to Internet Sources.) Implication: A page that can be accessed in the Internet Archive should be preferred over one that's hidden behind a firewall.
- Yes, that is correct. You just need a reason to believe that what you have is indeed an unaltered scanned copy. Are you looking for the right place to add them on wikisource? You might start with pages in your userspace there. – SJ + 17:43, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
The Bluebook (Columbia Law Review Ass'n et al. eds., 19th ed. 2010). --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:03, 2 December 2013 (UTC)10.3 [Case] Reporters and Other Sources
10.3.1 Parallel Citations and Which Source to Cite
... Cite a [case] reporter, a widely used computer database, a [looseleaf] service, a slip opinion, an Internet source, or a [print] newspaper, in that order of preference.
[1] ...
[5] State v. McArthur, [Docket] No. C4-99-502 (Minn. Ct. App. Sept. 28, 1999), http://www.lawlibrary.state.mn.us/archive/ctapun/9909/502.htm.
[6] United States v. Palermo, N.Y. Times, Aug. 27, 1957 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 26, 1957).
18.1 Basic Citation Forms
(a) Internet Sources
[1] authenticated or official documents
[2] unaltered scanned copies of print source
[3] documents for which print copy is practically unavailable
[4] ...
18.2.1 General Internet Citation Principles
(a) Sources that can be cited as if to the original print source. When an authenticated, official, or exact copy of a source is available online, citation can be made as if to the original print source....
(i) Authenticated Documents.... “Authenticated” sources ... use an encryption-based authentication method ... to ensure the accuracy of the online source....
(ii) Official Versions. Some state have designated ... that the online source is the“official” source for a particular legal document....
(iii) Exact Copies. An exact copy is one that is an unaltered copy of the printed source in a widely used format that preserves pagination and other attributes of the printed work (such as Adobe’s portable document format).
- I've found scant evidence as to what The Bluebook means by 'unaltered copy.' Rule 5.2 (Alterations and Quotations Within Quotations) does talk about "substitutions," "insert[ions]" [of bracketed letters or words], "omissions" . . . , "mistakes in original," and such. This just suggests that we don’t want to cite to a scanned copy that appears to have been edited, or that adds corrections or annotations or comments or 'helpful' background material, or whatever. --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:47, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
List of Marvel Comics characters
Hi. I've just reverted your November 28 edits to List of Marvel Comics characters: A for a couple reasons. One is that per WP: Header, section headings should not be wikilinked. The second is to maintain a consistent format across the List of Marvel Comics characters articles. I just recently went through these articles to ensure that they all followed the most popular format; since it's now been five days and you haven't edited any of the articles for the other 25 letters of the alphabet, I'm guessing that you weren't planning on doing so, so I've reverted to keep the articles all in one format. If you still think these articles should follow the format exemplified in your November 28 edits, I recommend trying to build a consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics; that way you won't need to specifically convince me in order to get support for your format.--NukeofEarl (talk) 18:02, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- Instead of reverting, why not start a conversation on the wikiproject about it? A culture of reversion is much slower than alternatives that continually explore possible improvements. – SJ + 00:48, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
- My first three years on Wikipedia taught me that pretty much anything one says is ignored unless one reverts first. Even Wikipedia policy recommends the WP: Bold, revert, discuss cycle.--NukeofEarl (talk) 15:03, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
Photo
Hi SJ. Meta:Press Corps says you can take photos in US (anywhere) and you have a Category:Wikipedians in New York City category on your user page. Can you take some photos in New York City for an article I'm working on or know of someone who can? Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Photographers does not list anyone in New York. Thanks. -- Jreferee (talk) 03:37, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
- Aha! There are people in m:Wikimedia NYC who are all over NYC, more often than I am. I would start by asking on that talk page. I am there regularly (later this month), but my high-quality camera currently needs repair. Warmly, – SJ + 17:49, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Wikiversity
Hi Sj, can you please come back to Wikiversity? --Goldenburg111 (talk) 23:59, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
- Very kind. I still visit and catch up on news there. I don't have an active project to work on at the moment... – SJ + 02:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Should en.Wikipedia medical articles have a prominent disclaimer?
As a WMF board member, you should be aware of this discussion. I'd appreciate an acknowledgment that you have seen this notice. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:46, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks. The Portuguese and German solutions seem thoughtful, and don't trigger the concerns that most of the opponents mention. – SJ +
Later
New England Wikipedia Day @ MIT: Saturday Jan 18
NE Meetup #4: January 18 at MIT Building 5 | |
---|---|
Dear Fellow Wikimedian, You have been invited to the New England Wikimedians 2014 kick-off party and Wikipedia Day Celebration at Building Five on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus on Saturday, January 18th, from 3-5 PM. Afterwards, we will be holding an informal dinner at a local restaurant. If you are curious to join us, please do so, as we are always looking for people to come and give their opinion! Finally, be sure to RSVP here if you're interested. I hope to see you there! Kevin Rutherford (talk) |
(You can unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by removing your name from this list.)
MIT room number
I am an MIT alumnus, still visit the campus frequently, and am aware of the details of MIT campus geography. The upcoming Wikipedia Meetup listing ("MIT Media Lab, Room 525") is incomplete, ambiguous, and likely to cause new visitors to waste time in a frustrating search for the correct location. Currently, the MIT Media Lab occupies two adjacent buildings, designated E14 and E15, which both have 5th floors. The floor layout is complex, and it is not always obvious how to get from one place to another within the combined structures.
It is both necessary and sufficient to specify a complete MIT room number, such as "E14-525" or "E15-525". The complete and correct room number allows visitors to search in a web browser or in a mobile app, or to ask somebody onsite and get immediate useful assistance. Without a complete room number, visitors are likely to waste time and become frustrated, ending up waiting in the wrong place or searching for a room number that turns out to be nonexistent. (For more details about the MIT room numbering system, see Campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology#Campus organization).
I apologize for belaboring this point; I would once again fix the reference myself, but this time it is so ambiguous that I cannot determine the correct room number. The difficulties I describe are not theoretical; I have attended meetings at the Media Lab where attendees straggled in up to half an hour late (and perhaps some may have abandoned the search altogether) due to exactly the kind of confusion I describe. In my own travels on campus, I often help lost visitors; the most frustrating cases occur when the visitor has an incomplete or garbled room number, requiring online Web searches and persistent puzzle solving to successfully send them on their way.
Looking forward to a fun and productive meeting, Reify-tech (talk) 18:19, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
- E14. Thanks kindly for the clarification, it was needed; see you at the celebration. – SJ + 18:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Please comment on this sentences
Hello! After reading these sentences,
- By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL with the understanding that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient for CC BY-SA 3.0 attribution. This page was last modified on 18 December 2014, at 09:33. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Developers Mobile view Powered by MediaWiki
- Wikipedia (Listeni/ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdiə/ or Listeni/ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/ WIK-i-PEE-dee-ə) is a free-access, free content Internet encyclopedia, supported and hosted by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Those who can access the site and follow its rules can edit most of its articles.[6] Wikipedia is the sixth-most popular website[5] and constitutes the Internet's largest and most popular general reference work.[7][8][9]
Do any person need to be recommeneded so that that person can edit at any project of wikimedia foundation? I do worry about any legal issue or problem from editing this online 'encyclopedia'. -- Ktsquare (talk) 16:28, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
- Hi @Ktsquare:, I'm not sure what you are asking. No person needs a recommendation in order to edit. There are no legal problems from editing the encyclopedia; the text about "you release your contribution under CC-SA" is making sure that editors know they are releasing their writing under a free license. – SJ + 06:12, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
Recreating a sockpuppet's article
Although you have the right to do this, it would have been polite to tell me you were doing it, and perhaps why, as I can't understand how it even came to your attention. Were you asked to do this? Dougweller (talk) 08:07, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
- Hello, the only autobio of a major head of state is historically important; the identity of previous contributors seems comparatively unimportant. I replied on your talk, thanks. – SJ + 19:55, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations. Legobot (talk) 00:03, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
hi I left you a message on Meta-wiki
its in regards to an editor who needs help with wiki code, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:55, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Support request with team editing experiment project
Dear tech ambassadors, instead of spamming the Village Pump of each Wikipedia about my tiny project proposal for researching team editing (see here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Research_team_editing), I have decided to leave to your own discretion if the matter is relevant enough to inform a wider audience already. I would appreciate if you could appraise if the Wikipedia community you are more familiar with could have interest in testing group editing "on their own grounds" and with their own guidance. In a nutshell: it consists in editing pages as a group instead of as an individual. This social experiment might involve redefining some aspects of the workflow we are all used to, with the hope of creating a more friendly and collaborative environment since editing under a group umbrella creates less social exposure than traditional "individual editing". I send you this message also as a proof that the Inspire Campaign is already gearing up. As said I would appreciate of *you* just a comment on the talk page/endorsement of my project noting your general perception about the idea. Nothing else. Your contribution helps to shape the future! (which I hope it will be very bright, with colors, and Wikipedia everywhere) Regards from User:Micru on meta.
Culture.pl
There's a discussion about culture.pl being spammed that I thought you might be able to shed some light on, as you've used it as a source [5]. Discussion here. Thanks! --Ronz (talk) 21:43, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks! I don't know a great deal about who might spam it. Looking at it. – SJ + 09:14, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
Effecting real change
Hi – we met at the 'London conference' (I still can't bear to use its real name) in August. I was banned at the time, but I am back, incredibly. A number of us are working to make the place better – my concern is to get back some of the specialist editors in philosophy after the upheavals of 2007-9. I actually think the place is better in some ways than then, but the main problem is the tumbleweeds. I can't believe I made some major changes to a flagship article, with significant changes suggested on the talk page, and nothing has happened. There are about two editors interested in that article, despite it being one of the most prominent subjects in the history of philosophy.
Anyway, some of those of us who are interested in change see it only coming from the direction of the WMF, but we have a concern that the WMF is only a 'technology' organisation, and is spending a fortune on attracting new non-specialist editors, when some of us think that only makes the problem worse, and that the focus should be on making the quality better. That means establishing quality metrics, working out what makes articles better, working out what type of editor brings this about, and so on.
I assume that Lila Tretikoff is simply working to generic objectives set out by the WMF board, and that in order to achieve real change we would have to influence the board. Is that correct? And if so, how would we set about this? Peter Damian (talk) 15:47, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
PS, a good article about the kind of thing some people are worried about. Wikimedia raises a lot of money from people who like the idea of promoting knowledge. Wikipedia has a duty to those donors, and to its readers. It's not just about 'the community'. Why can't it also be about knowledge? Peter Damian (talk) 16:32, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
- Hm, while the WMF may be able to effect a particular real change, it is not necessarily either the source or enabler of it. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:58, 23 May 2015 (UTC).
- Rich is right. Most change does not require such centralized support, and experiments happen faster without it. Once you've found something that works, if you want to develop that into a global campaign you may find central publicity, coordination, and reimbursement of overhead to be helpful. Promoting knowledge, curating and improving it, are all key to success of the projects - but the essential parts of this are owned and prioritized by the project communities. The WMF and other structured organizations primarily support that work, and develop related features and services on request. Where the WMF has tried to address perceived needs with no active community-run initiative, that has not always worked out well.
- One way to guide change: consolidate ideas for change into concise priorities. Indicate which groups support those priorities, and what is needed to realize them. Test small experiments to verify ideas for what might be effective. Run your own banner and outreach campaigns. Encourage other community groups to repeat those experiments.
- If you run into a challenge that requires a centralized group of staff or partners, you can directly engage staff to help. Propose ideas directly to community tech teams, and as feature requests. Apply for project grants. Even changes to WMF strategy can be raised directly with staff, who ask for public feedback at least once a year (for instance on the annual plan, which will be posted for public comment this coming week).
- Strategic ideas are also worth discussing publicly with the board, who directly influence that scale of WMF effort. But that is not the only way to realize change. – SJ + 16:08, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reply.I have a very simple ambition: to improve the flagship philosophy articles on Wikipedia from their current dire state. The current 'community' on Wikipedia does not have the ability or probably the interest in doing that. First question: would the WMF be able to help me achieve this outcome? Ideas for realising it: develop quality metrics, monitor quality, try and find out who is adding value, find ways of attracting them to Wikipedia etc. The problem is that there were quite a few people involved in my subject area before 2008, but they have now left.
- " Test small experiments to verify ideas for what might be effective." One idea is for me to develop the Free will article into something comparable to the quality of a professionally produced encyclopedia article. I will then pay, out of my own pocket, the costs of reviewing the article, by a professional. Anthonyhcole is proposing something similar for medical articles. This would be a lot of work for me, and I would only do it if there were some indication of interest from the WMF.
- "Propose ideas directly to community tech teams, and as feature requests" As I said above, it's not the technology that's the problem. It's the wasting away of volunteers, for many reasons that I won't go into here. Peter Damian (talk) 19:22, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) Vote Sj for trustee! bishzilla ROARR!! 19:49, 24 May 2015 (UTC).
- I second that. (Hi Bish!)
- Peter, if you can get one of our philosophy articles up to perfect, and then get it endorsed by independent (I don't think you, the author, should be selecting or paying the reviewer/s - but let's discuss that elsewhere), named, recognised experts, a WMF community tech team will knock up a badge or button for the top of the article linking the reader to the endorsed version (and a nice diff, so the reader can easily see the difference between the endorsed and the current versions). When that time comes, ping me and anyone else who supports the idea and we'll put together a request for that feature.
- (talk page stalker) Vote Sj for trustee! bishzilla ROARR!! 19:49, 24 May 2015 (UTC).
- Regarding quality measurement, I think it's time for us to initiate a WikiProject aimed at that. I'm running out the door for the day now, but will open that discussion on your talk page either tonight or tomorrow (Perth time). --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:54, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Precious again
Whole Earth
Thank you, Samuel, for ten years of sharing your experience in many languages and capacities, for quality articles such as Whole Earth and Attalus I, for seeking the peaceful resolution of disputes, - repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (6 July 2009)!
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:51, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
A year ago, you were the 877th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:41, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you Gerda, you are wonderful and I am honored again to hear from you. Very warm regards from Texas. – SJ + 23:13, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you! I try to stay out of this dispute, - would like a peaceful resolution but my name alone would do the opposite ;) - Did you know that an admin protected an article in a dispute like that and blocked himself? - To his memory (on the German Main page right now). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:42, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
- Two years ago, you were recipient no. 877 of Precious, a prize of QAI! - Sad to say: the admin died in January. The arguments didn't die, see Max Reger, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:32, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- Three years now! I still miss Dreadstar. The arguments mostly died, and I don't miss them. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:38, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
A pie for you!
Thanks for all your work as a trustee through your term. Having had fingers in pies but not for your benefit I thought you should have your own one. :) GregKaye 17:01, 9 June 2015 (UTC) |
- Very kind, Greg, and most tastily appreciated. Wishing you a lovely northern summer. – SJ + 03:07, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 00:11, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
Concerns regarding FA quality
I've just tidied up The Long and Winding Road a little, and removed some unsourced trivia. The article doesn't appear to me as either FA or GA quality in terms of coverage, prose, and MoS requirements - it was promoted in 2006, and reviewed again in 2008, and hasn't been well maintained. I will not have the time to tidy up the article or take my concerns further, however it seems appropriate to raise those concerns rather than merely pass on by, so, per the stage one process at Wikipedia:Featured article review I have left a note on the article talkpage, and am notifying relevant Projects and those previously involved in promoting the article. It is unlikely I will be getting involved further. SilkTork ✔Tea time 16:21, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note & edits, SilkTork. I agree that it needs more work. – SJ + 13:11, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:GLAM/Royal Society of Chemistry/Merck
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:GLAM/Royal Society of Chemistry/Merck. Legobot (talk) 00:01, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
Possibly unfree File:Wh-earth-69-cover.jpg
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Wh-earth-69-cover.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you object to the listing for any reason. Thank you. —RP88 (talk) 08:58, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
WikiCup 2015 September newsletter
The finals for the 2015 Wikicup has now begun! Congrats to the 8 contestants who have survived to the finals, and well done and thanks to everyone who took part in rounds 3 and 4.
In round 3, we had a three-way tie for qualification among the wildcard contestants, so we had 34 competitors. The leader was by far Casliber (submissions) in Group B, who earned 1496 points. Although 913 of these points were bonus points, he submitted 15 articles in the DYK category. Second place overall was Coemgenus (submissions) at 864 points, who although submitted just 2 FAs for 400 points, earned double that amount for those articles in bonus points. Everyone who moved forward to Round 4 earned at least 100 points.
The scores required to move onto the semifinals were impressive; the lowest scorer to move onto the finals was 407, making this year's Wikicup as competitive as it's always been. Our finalists, ordered by round 4 score, are:
- Cas Liber (submissions), who is competing in his sixth consecutive Wikicup final, again finished the round in first place, with an impressive 1666 points in Pool B. Casliber writes about the natural sciences, including ornithology, botany and astronomy. A large bulk of his points this round were bonus points.
- Godot13 (submissions) (FP bonus points), second place both in Pool B and overall, earned the bulk of his points with FPs, mostly depicting currency.
- Cwmhiraeth (submissions), first in Pool A, came in third. His specialty is natural science articles; in Round 4, he mostly submitted articles about insects and botany. Five out of the six of the GAs he submitted were level-4 vital articles.
- Harrias (submissions), second in Pool A, took fourth overall. He tends to focus on articles about cricket and military history, specifically the 1640s First English Civil War.
- West Virginian (submissions), from Pool A, was our highest-scoring wildcard. West Virginia tends to focus on articles about the history of (what for it!) the U.S. state of West Virginia.
- Rodw (submissions), from Pool A, likes to work on articles about British geography and places. Most of his points this round were earned from two impressive accomplishments: a GT about Scheduled monuments in Somerset and a FT about English Heritage properties in Somerset.
- Rationalobserver (submissions), from Pool B, came in seventh overall. RO earned the majority of her points from GARs and PRs, many of which were earned in the final hours of the round.
- Calvin999 (submissions), also from Pool B, who was competing with RO for the final two spots in the final hours, takes the race for most GARs and PRs—48.
The intense competition between RO and Calvin999 will continue into the finals. They're both eligible for the Newcomers Trophy, given for the first time in the Wikicup; whoever makes the most points will win it.
Good luck to the finalists; the judges are sure that the competition will be fierce!
Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs), Miyagawa (talk · contribs) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs) 11:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Five minutes to help make WikiProjects better
Hello!
First, on behalf of WikiProject X, thank you for trying out the WikiProject X pilot projects. I would like to get some anonymous feedback from you on your experience using the new WikiProject layout and tools. This way, we will know what we did right, and if we did something horribly wrong, we can try to fix it. This feedback won't be associated with your username, so please be completely honest. We are determined to improve the experience of Wikipedians, and your feedback helps us with that. (You are also welcome to leave non-anonymous feedback at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject X.)
Please complete the survey here. The survey has two parts: the first part asks for your username, while the second part contains the survey questions. These two parts are stored separately, so your username will not be associated with your feedback. There are only nine questions and it should not take very long to complete. Once you complete the survey I will leave a handwritten note on your talk page as a token of my appreciation.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, Harej (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
- Hello! Just sending a reminder to complete the survey linked above. (This is the only reminder I'll send, I promise.) Let me know on my talk page if you have any questions. Thank you!!! Harej (talk) 22:11, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia:Edit filter/RfC
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Edit filter/RfC. Legobot (talk) 00:02, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Where to find someone or something to verify my account's contribution to this project
Hello SJ:
As both of us have contributed to this project for more than 10 years, I felt more confident to converse with you on this issue. My first edit according to my contribution history was 5 June 2002. So if I am asked for that history, can I quote that history ? After many years of wikimedia project which branches out of wikipedia, is my contribution history here still accountable as a record of my work ? This question is important as a proof. --- Ktsquare (talk) 04:41, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Ktsquare, you can certainly quote it as a record of your work. Why not? Warmly, – SJ + 18:28, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
This Friday: Women in Architecture edit-a-thon @ Cambridge, MA
You are invited to join the Women in Architecture edit-a-thon @ Cambridge, MA on October 16! (drop-in any time, 6-9pm)--Pharos (talk) 18:29, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
RF Resonant Cavity Thruster
Hi, I noticed you moved the article EmDrive to RF resonant cavity thruster. My question is why not title the article "Radio frequency resonant cavity thruster"? Could this clear up any confusion? Brian Everlasting (talk) 02:43, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Brian, I assume the article will eventually get a better common name. For now this abbreviation seems ok to me. – SJ + 03:13, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
WikiCup 2015: The results
WikiCup 2015 is now in the books! Congrats to our finalists and winners, and to everyone who took part in this year's competition.
This year's results were an exact replica of last year's competition. For the second year in a row, the 2015 WikiCup champion is Godot13 (submissions) (FP bonus points). All of his points were earned for an impressive 253 featured pictures and their associated bonus points (5060 and 1695, respectively). His entries constituted scans of currency from all over the world and scans of medallions awarded to participants of the U.S. Space program. Cwmhiraeth (submissions) came in second place; she earned by far the most bonus points (4082), for 4 featured articles, 15 good articles, and 147 DYKs, mostly about in her field of expertise, natural science. Cas Liber (submissions), a finalist every year since 2010, came in third, with 2379 points.
Our newcomer award, presented to the best-performing new competitor in the WikiCup, goes to Rationalobserver (submissions). Everyone should be very proud of the work they accomplished. We will announce our other award winners soon.
A full list of our award winners are:
- Godot13 (submissions) (FP bonus points) wins the prize for first place and the FP prize for 330 featured pictures in the final round.
- Cwmhiraeth (submissions) wins the prize for second place and the DYK prize for 160 did you knows in the final round (310 in all rounds).
- Cas Liber (submissions) wins the prize for third place and the FA prize for 26 featured articles in all rounds.
- West Virginian (submissions) wins the prize for fourth place
- Calvin999 (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
- Rationalobserver (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
- Harrias (submissions) wins a final 8 prize and the FL prize for 11 featured lists.
- Rodw (submissions) wins the most prizes: a final 8 prize, the GA prize for 41 good articles, and the topic prize for a 13-article good topic and an 8-article featured topic, both in round 3.
- ThaddeusB (submissions) wins the news prize for the most news articles in round 3.
We warmly invite all of you to sign up for next year's competition. Discussions and polls concerning potential rules changes are also open, and all are welcome to participate. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2016 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.
Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · logs), Miyagawa (talk · contribs · logs) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · logs) 18:39, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). Legobot (talk) 00:03, 20 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) 22:12, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Séralini affair
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Séralini affair. Legobot (talk) 00:05, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
WikiCup 2016 is just around the corner...
Hello everyone, and we would like to wish you all a happy holiday season. As you will probably already know, the 2016 WikiCup begins in the new year; there is still time to sign up. There are some changes we'd like to announce before the competition begins.
After two years of serving as WikiCup judge, User:Miyagawa has stepped down as judge. He deserves great thanks and recognition for his dedication and hard work, and for providing necessary transition for a new group of judges in last year's Cup. Joining Christine (User:Figureskatingfan) and Jason (User:Sturmvogel 66) is Andrew (User:Godot13), a very successful WikiCup competitor and expert in Featured Pictures; he won the two previous competitions. This is a strong judging team, and we anticipate lots of enjoyment and good work coming from our 2016 competitors.
We would also like to announce one change in how this year's WikiCup will be run. In the spirit of sportsmanship, Godot13 and Cwmhiraeth have chosen to limit their participation. See here for the announcement and a complete explanation of why. They and the judges feel that it will make for a more exciting, enjoyable, and productive competition.
The discussions/polls concerning the next competition's rules will be closed soon, and rules changes will be made clear on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring and talk pages. The judges are committed to not repeating the confusion that occurred last year and to ensuring that the new rules are both fair and in the best interests of the competition, which is, first and foremost, about improving Wikipedia.
If you have any questions or concerns, the judges can be reached on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, on their talk pages, or by email. We hope you will all join us in trying to make the 2015 WikiCup the most productive and enjoyable yet. You are receiving this message because you are listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Figureskatingfan (talk), and Godot13 (talk).--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:47, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
WikiCup 2016: Game On!
We are about to enter the second week of the 2016 WikiCup. The most recent player to sign up brings the current total to 101 contestants. Signups close on 5 February. If you’re interested, you can join this year's WikiCup here.
We are aware that in some areas the scoring bot’s numbers are a little bit off (i.e., overly generous) and are working to have that corrected as soon as possible.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:03, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
WikiCup 2016: Game On!
We are about to enter the second week of the 2016 WikiCup. The most recent player to sign up brings the current total to 101 contestants. Signups close on 5 February. If you’re interested, you can join this year's WikiCup here.
We are aware that in some areas the scoring bot’s numbers are a little bit off (i.e., overly generous) and are working to have that corrected as soon as possible.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:08, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:List of earthquakes in 2016
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of earthquakes in 2016. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Rcbirds link down
The download page for Rcbirds has been returning a 404 error for a long time. I've replaced the link at Meta with one to the Internet Archive for now. Could you please look into this?
Thanks! --Ixfd64 (talk) 04:03, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
- Hi Ixfd64, I don't think Daniel is maintaining such packages anymore. A number of people have asked elian about this over the years, and I haven't seen a public response... perhaps related to why it was taken down. Would you be interested in maintaining the code? Do you just want someone to rehost the latest zipfile from years back? – SJ + 04:20, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the information. I'm pretty busy in real life and unfortunately don't have the time to maintain any software. However, I did update the link on Meta to point to the Internet Archive for the time being. So at least the program is still available for download if anyone decides to look for it. --Ixfd64 (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!
- Hi Sj! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
-- 23:40, Tuesday, February 2, 2016 (UTC)
Lifelong learning
I'm so glad to see you finally decided to do the Wikipedia Adventure! Godspeed! Bishonen | talk 23:43, 2 February 2016 (UTC).
- Bish, indeed :0) I wanted to figure out why we didn't use that sort of .js magic for the strategy consult on Meta, with its comparatively simple three-task workflow. Wishing you the very best speed- and other-wise. – SJ + 00:13, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Mitsubishi Magna
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Mitsubishi Magna. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
A librarian friend is a friend indeed
Check out who just made their first edit at the CFA event last night! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 16:49, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
WikiCup 2015 March newsletter
That's it, the first round is done, sign-ups are closed and we're into round 2. Forty-seven competitors move into this round (a bit shy of the expected 64), and we are roughly broken into eight groups of six. The top two of each group will go through to round 3, and then the top scoring 16 "wildcards" across all groups.
Twenty-two Good Articles were submitted, including three by Cyclonebiskit (submissions), and two each by MPJ-DK (submissions), Hurricanehink (submissions), 12george1 (submissions), and Cas Liber (submissions). Twenty-one Featured Pictures were claimed, including 17 by Adam Cuerden (submissions) (the Round 1 high scorer). Thirty-one contestants saw their DYKs appear on the main page, with a commanding lead (28) by Cwmhiraeth (submissions). Twenty-nine participants conducted GA reviews with J Milburn (submissions) completing nine.
If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Thanks to everyone for participating, and good luck to those moving into round 2. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:39, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
WikiCup 2016 March newsletter (update)
Along with getting the year wrong in the newsletter that went out earlier this week, we did not mention (as the bot did not report) that Cas Liber (submissions) claimed the first Featured Article Persoonia terminalis of the 2016 Wikicup. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email).--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:05, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
graphs :)
hi Sj, see you've been playing with graphs! Just in case you haven't seen it - Special:GraphSandbox is a great tool to debug them - you can copy paste the whole graph specification (the json part) and change it there. Just FYI :) --Yurik (talk) 06:11, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
A kitten for you!
Nice dictionary. It's a useful tool. Thanks for taking the time to make it :)
David Straub (talk) 11:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
GLAM Boot Camp announced (June 14-16 in DC)
You have expressed interest in the GLAM-Wiki US Consortium, so you may be interested in attending the GLAM Boot Camp next month in Washington, DC. This is a training designed to help Wikipedians interested in guiding museums, libraries, and other cultural institutions in wiki engagement. Travel funding available for those in North America. Since the event is coming up soon, please be sure to add your name to the page if you are interested -- and please pass this announcement along. (You may want to share on Facebook or on Twitter.) Thanks for your interest! -MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:24, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
Link for GLAM Boot Camp
My apologies - here is the link for the GLAM Boot Camp mentioned above: Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot Camp. -Pete (talk) 04:30, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
Wikiversity Journal of Medicine, an open access peer reviewed journal with no charges, invites you to participate
Hi
Did you know about Wikiversity Journal of Medicine? It is an open access, peer reviewed medical journal, with no publication charges. We welcome you to have a look. Feel free to participate.
You can participate in any one or more of the following ways:
- Publish an article to the journal.
- Sign up as a peer reviewer of potential upcoming articles. If you do not have expertise in these subjects, you can help in finding peer reviewers for current submissions.
- Sign up as an editor, and help out in open tasks.
- Outreach to potential contributors, with can include (but is not limited to) scholars and health professionals. In any mention of Wikiversity Journal of Medicine, there may be a reference to this Contribute-page. Example presentation about the journal.
- Add a post-publication review of an existing publication. If errors are found, there are guidelines for editing published works.
- Apply to become the treasurer of the journal
- Join the editorial board.
- Share your ideas of what the journal would be like in the future as separate Wikimedia project.
- Donate to Wikimedia Foundation.
- Translate journal pages into other languages. Wikiversity currently exists in the following other languages
- Sign up to get emails related to the journal, which are sent to updateswijoumed.org. If you want to receive these emails too, state your interest at the talk page, or contact the Editor-in-chief at haggstrom.mikaelwikiversityjournal.org.
- Spread the word to anyone who could be interested or could benefit from it.
The future of this journal as a separate Wikimedia project is under discussion and the name can be changed suitably. Currently a voting for the same is underway. Please cast your vote in the name you find most suitable. We would be glad to receive further suggestions from you. It is also acceptable to mention your votes in the wide-reachwikiversityjournal.org email list. Please note that the voting closes on 16th August, 2016, unless protracted by consensus, due to any reason.
-from Diptanshu.D (talk · contribs · count) and others of the Editorial Board, Wikiversity Journal of Medicine.
DiptanshuTalk 10:20, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
EOMA68 AfD needs closing
Might you, or an administrator you know, be interested in assessing whether consensus has been found in the AfD for EOMA68, and closing the discussion as keep, delete, userfy, or suchlike, as appropriate? zazpot (talk) 15:22, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- Not to worry, another administrator took care of it. Feel free to archive this section. zazpot (talk) 15:05, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Category talk:Violence against men
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Category talk:Violence against men. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
Extended confirmed protection
Orphaned non-free image File:LIPB-cover.png
Thanks for uploading File:LIPB-cover.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 02:58, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
WikiCup 2016 November newsletter: Final results
The final round of the 2016 WikiCup is over. Congratulations to the 2016 WikiCup top three finalists:
- First Place - Cas Liber (submissions)
- Second Place - MPJ-DK (submissions)
- Third Place - Adam Cuerden (submissions)
In addition to recognizing the achievements of the top finishers and everyone who worked hard to make it to the final round, we also want to recognize those participants who were most productive in each of the WikiCup scoring categories:
- Featured Article – Cas Liber (actually a three-way tie with themselves for two FAs in each of R2, R3, and R5).
- Good Article – MPJ-DK had 14 GAs promoted in R3.
- Featured List – Calvin999 (submissions) produced 2 FLs in R2
- Featured Pictures – Adam Cuerden restored 18 images to FP status in R4.
- Featured Portal – SSTflyer (submissions) produced the only FPO of the Cup in R2.
- Featured Topic – Cyclonebiskit (submissions) and Calvin were each responsible for one FT in R3 and R2, respectively.
- Good Topic – MPJ-DK created a GT with 9 GAs in R5.
- Did You Know – MPJ-DK put 53 DYKs on the main page in R4.
- In The News – Dharmadhyaksha (submissions) and Muboshgu (submissions), each with 5 ITN, both in R4.
- Good Article Review – MPJ-DK completed 61 GARs in R2.
Over the course of the 2016 WikiCup the following content was added to Wikipedia (only reporting on fixed value categories): 17 Featured Articles, 183 Good Articles, 8 Featured Lists, 87 Featured Pictures, 40 In The News, and 321 Good Article Reviews. Thank you to all the competitors for your hard work and what you have done to improve Wikipedia.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
We will open up a discussion for comments on process and scoring in a few days. The 2017 WikiCup is just around the corner! Many thanks from all the judges. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email)
WikiProject Good Articles's 2016-2017 GA Cup
Greetings, all! We would like to announce the start of the 4th GA Cup, a competition that seeks to encourage the reviewing of Good article nominations! Thus far, there have been three GA Cups, which were successful in reaching our goals of significantly reducing the traditionally long queue at GAN, so we're doing it again. Currently, there are over 400 nominations listed. We hope that we can again make an impact this time. The 4th GA Cup will begin on November 1, 2016. Four rounds are currently scheduled (which will bring the competition to a close on February 28, 2017), but this may change based on participant numbers. We may take a break in December for the holidays, depending on the results of a poll of our participants taken shortly after the competition begins. The sign-up and submissions process will remain the same, as will the scoring. Sign-ups for the upcoming competition are currently open and will close on November 14, 2016. Everyone is welcome to join; new and old editors, so sign-up now! If you have any questions, take a look at the FAQ page and/or contact one of the judges. Cheers from 3family6, Figureskatingfan, Jaguar, MrWooHoo, and Zwerg Nase. We apologize for the delay in sending out this message until after the competition has started. Thank you to Krishna Chaitanya Velaga for aiding in getting this message out. To subscribe or unsubscribe to future GA Cup newsletters, please add or remove your name to our mailing list. If you are a participant, you will be on the mailing list no matter what as this is the easiest way to communicate between all participants.
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--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
A new user right for New Page Patrollers
Hi Sj.
A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.
It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.
If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
WikiCup December newsletter: WikiCup 2017
On 1 January 2017, WikiCup 2017 (the 10th Annual WikiCup) will begin. This year we are trying something a little different – monetary prizes.
For the WC2017 the prizes will be as follows (amounts are based in US$ and will be awarded in the form of an online Amazon gift certificate):
- First place – $200
- Second & Third place – $50 each
- Category prizes – $25 per category (which will be limited to FA, FL, FP, GA, and DYK for 2017). Winning a category prize does not require making it to the final round.
Note: Monetary prizes are a one-year experiment for 2017 and may or may not be continued in the future. In order to be eligible to receive any of the prizes above, the competing Wikipedia account must have a valid/active email address.
After two years as a WikiCup judge, Figureskatingfan is stepping down. We thank her for her contributions as a WikiCup judge. We are pleased to announce that our newest judge is two-time WikiCup champion Cwmhiraeth.
The judges for the 2017 WikiCup are Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email).
Signups are open now and will remain open until 5 February 2017. You can sign up here.
If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:02, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Issues of the Evolution v.s. Creation Debate
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Issues of the Evolution v.s. Creation Debate. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
Template:IUCN 3.1 navmap has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 21:23, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
17
Administrators' newsletter - February 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.
- NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67
- Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13
- A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
- Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
- Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.
- When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
- Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
- The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.
- The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.
- JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.
Ufahamu
Forgive me for writing here, you can delete this after reading it. I left a comment on the Talk page of Ufahamu, but I have never figured out how to insert the editor's name, so that it comes to that person's attention. So, first, how do I hail an editor properly on a talk page? And second, can you see my question about "stub class" there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wendybelcher (talk • contribs) 15:03, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
- Hi Wendy, you can either include a link to their name, like this: Wendybelcher, or if you're using the source editor you can use a template: {{ping|Wendybelcher}}. I didn't see your question, but will check. – SJ + 18:35, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
- Sj Trying this out. Okay, and thank you for changing the article to Start Class. --WLBelcher (talk) 20:07, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
GA: Neri Oxman
Congratulations, it's a... | |
...Wikipedia Good Article!! Shearonink (talk) 07:09, 9 March 2017 (UTC) |
The article Neri Oxman you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Neri Oxman for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know.
- Thanks @Shearonink:, that's excellent. The review and help were much appreciated. – SJ + 18:29, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Genealogy project need your vote for creation of an email list
Newsletter Nr 3 for WikiProject Genealogy (and Wikimedia genealogy project on Meta)
Participation: This is the third newsletter sent by mass mail to members in Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise. (To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please see below) Request: In order to improve communication between genealogy interested wikipedians, as well as taking new, important steps towards a creation of a new project site, we need to make communication between the users easier and more effective. At Mail list on meta is discussed the possibility of creating a genealogy-related Wikimedia email list. In order to request the creation of such a list, we need your voice and your vote. In order to create a new list, we need to put a request it in Phabricator, and add a link to reasoning/explanation of purpose, and link to community consensus. Therefore we need your vote for this now, so we can request the creation of the mail list. Read more about this email list at Meta; Wikimedia genealogy project mail list where you can support the creation of the mail list with your vote, in case you haven't done so already. Future:
Don't want newsletters? If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator Dan Koehl. To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
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DYK nomination of Neri Oxman
Hello! Your submission of Neri Oxman at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 16:03, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks for your review, it helped improve the article (and I discovered something about knitting with glass as a result :). – SJ + 22:12, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Need help re: Stel Pavlou Page
Hello! I recently went on to Stel Pavlou's article, and made some much needed additions to get the page updated. I believe you are the originator of the article. So, I am coming to you for help. After my edits, there is an editor named Davey2010 who is challenging Stel Pavlou's notoriety and requesting that the page be taken down. When I tried to engage him, he became be verbally abusive, using profanity. This whole thing has turned into a circus, with him now filing for my removal as a sock puppet. I don't understand what I have done wrong. But, I am hoping you can go into the discussions and participate by defending Mr. Pavlou's site. I feel awful that my hard work of trying to update is possibly going to get his page removed.
Hope you can help! Thanks! Michellabellla (talk) 01:23, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
- You may want to read WP:CANVASSING - Asking random editors for help will only lead one way,
- With all due respect 4/5 accounts had all appeared at once defending the article and considering 2 other established editors had also filed the SPI I was clearly not in the wrong to file one,
- Lastly you accused me of having some sort of personal issue with the bloke[6] (and then I was accused of having a personal vendetta!)so it's no wonder I got a bit rattled,
- I would strongly advise not asking other random editors to save the article as as I said you could be blocked, Thanks. –Davey2010Talk 02:48, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
- Hello to you both. Michellabellla is correct, I created the article long ago; I am not a random editor (though I also haven't kept up with the article since :). Michellabellla thanks for your recent edits; please note that it's not appropriate to hype an upcoming publication on a biography page. Davey2010 thanks for attending to the article, it certainly needed some cleaning up. I am sure some of the recent attention is related to the new novel being released in late 2017; it seems publishing houses have started asking authors to "make sure their WP articles are up to date" with information about new books coming out, which is... inappropriate in all but the most restrained sense. That said, contacting neutral Wikipedians with an existing interest in the topic is actually a good way to go about settling such content issues; worth distinguishing from canvassing. You don't need to threaten that sort of activity with blocking. Warmly, – SJ + 23:41, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
- With the greatest of respect SJ an IP had created the article so how in gods name would I know it was you?, One editor related to all of this had gone to a random editor and tried getting the article kept so obviously I assumed the same was happening here,
- Had I known the IP was you I obviously wouldn't have said the above but anyway moans aside thanks for fixing the article. Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 01:22, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- Davey2010 A more than fair point :-) And I sympathize with the gut reaction to shut down self-promotion, patrolling is what keeps this project remotely useful for articles like this. (Also a source of rare wiki-humor... the edit summary about being from the same hometown was priceless.) Much appreciated & warm regards, – SJ + 01:51, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
- Hello to you both. Michellabellla is correct, I created the article long ago; I am not a random editor (though I also haven't kept up with the article since :). Michellabellla thanks for your recent edits; please note that it's not appropriate to hype an upcoming publication on a biography page. Davey2010 thanks for attending to the article, it certainly needed some cleaning up. I am sure some of the recent attention is related to the new novel being released in late 2017; it seems publishing houses have started asking authors to "make sure their WP articles are up to date" with information about new books coming out, which is... inappropriate in all but the most restrained sense. That said, contacting neutral Wikipedians with an existing interest in the topic is actually a good way to go about settling such content issues; worth distinguishing from canvassing. You don't need to threaten that sort of activity with blocking. Warmly, – SJ + 23:41, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
WikiProject Genealogy - newsletter No.4: Mail list created!
Newsletter Nr 4, 2017-03-24, for WikiProject Genealogy (and Wikimedia genealogy project on Meta)
Participation: This is the fourth newsletter sent by mass mail to members in Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise. (To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please see below) Mail list is created: The project email list is now created and ready to use! Please feel free to subscribe at https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy Future:
Don't want newsletters? If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator Dan Koehl. To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
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DYK for Neri Oxman
Materialscientist (talk) 05:44, 25 March 2017 (UTC)- Thanks for letting me know, Materialscientist. :) – SJ + 17:46, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Infobox software
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Infobox software. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Your interest in One Laptop per Child and my interest in v:Miraheze
You appeared on my radar due to your comment on Wikiversity becoming an unrefereed warehouse for junk, and that led me to suspect you have high standards and caused me to peek at your user page. Then, your interest in physics and One Laptop per Child really piqued my interest. Regarding your comment, I personally feel it will be easier to let Wikiversity allow anything that is not dangerous. Since it is a place where students can write, we need to expect childish efforts. Policing Wikiversity might be as futile as trying to rid the world-wide-web of nonsense. I remain flexible on that matter, and would never oppose an effort to clean up Wikiversity.
But here is the real reason I am contacting you: While your interest in One Laptop per Child suggests in interest in childhood education, my interests are focused on adults seeking a college education. College students are focused on grades and degrees and view education competitively. For that reason, I am beginning to work on the private-wiki-farm v:Miraheze. I have well over 50 college students, and am attempting with having them work on private wikis that only I and the individual student can see. That way only the best material goes onto Wikiversity, and students cannot peek into each others efforts for inspiration until their efforts have been graded. My node to these student wikis is at
I am as interested in receiving some quick advice as in long-term collaboration with you: Is this the best way to set up such student wikis?-Guy vandegrift (talk) 17:05, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
- Interesting, thanks for sharing. I take it you've talked w/ the miraheze team about this idea, and they're happy with generating 50 new wikis each year that later get deleted? If it's just a single student working w/ you on each page, and material not meant to be public, why not use something like a google-drive folder instead? – SJ + 00:49, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
- Miraheze gave me wikimaking privileges, so I can create the wikis myself. Also, I intend to recycle the 100 wikis by changing the password. I am basically a sock and/or dual user of the accounts user:wsul001, user:wsul002, ... . The seem to be operating on a shoestring budget, so a modest donation from my university made them very happy with me.
- Regarding your Google drive folder idea, it essential that they write in wikitext so it can licensed under Creative Commons. Basically, I think CC-BY-SA wikitext should be the industry standard for textfiles in education. That way it is both convenient and legal for teachers to copy, edit, and reuse it. Sadly, I don't hear much about the Free Laptop education project, but perhaps they could also support wikitext if it ever gets off the ground(?)--Guy vandegrift (talk) 01:12, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
- We surely did support wikitext. And students + teachers produced cc-licensed materials that they shared; mostly in Spanish. (OLPC was mainly active 2007-2012!) You don't have to use a wiki to generate CC text, but I understand your concern there. Good luck wih your project; I like the idea of bringing the best material out of those private wikis to wikiversity / wikieducator. – SJ + 01:21, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Pulcinellopedia.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:Pulcinellopedia.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 20:17, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
May 2017 WikiCup newsletter
The second round of the competition has now closed, with just under 100 points being required to qualify for round 3. YellowEvan just scraped into the next round with 98 points but we have to say goodbye to the thirty or so competitors who didn't achieve this threshold; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Our top scorers in round 2 were:
- Cas Liber, led the field with five featured articles, four on birds and one on astronomy, and a total score of 2049, half of which came from bonus points.
- 1989 was in second place with 826 points, 466 of which were bonus points. 1989 has claimed points mostly relating to anime and Japanese-related articles.
- Peacemaker67 took third place with two FAs, one GA and seven GARs, mostly on naval vessels or military personnel, scoring 543 points.
- Other contestants who scored over 400 points were Freikorp, Carbrera, and Czar. Of course all these points are now wiped out and the 32 remaining contestants start again from zero in round 3.
Vivvt submitted the largest number of DYKs (30), and MBlaze Lightning achieved 13 articles at ITN. Carbrera claimed for 11 GAs and Argento Surfer performed the most GARs, having reviewed 11. So far we have achieved 38 featured articles and a splendid 132 good articles. Commendably, 279 GARs have been achieved so far, more than double the number of GAs.
So, on to the third round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.
If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Menstrual disc
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Menstrual disc. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Can you help verify translations of articles from German
Hello Sj,
Would you be able to help evaluate the accuracy of translations of Wikipedia articles from German to English Wikipedia?
This would involve evaluating a translated article on the English Wikipedia by comparing it to the original German article, and marking it "Pass" or "Fail" based on whether the translation faithfully represents the original. Here's the reason for this request:
There are a number of articles on English Wikipedia that were created as machine translations from different languages including German , using the Content Translation tool, sometimes by users with no knowledge of the source language. The config problem that allowed this to happen has since been fixed, but this has left us with a backlog of articles whose accuracy of translation is suspect or unknown, including some articles translated from German. In many cases, other editors have come forward later to copyedit and fix any English grammar or style issues, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the translation is accurate, as factual errors from the original translation may remain. To put it another way: Good English is not the same as good translation.
If you can help out, that would be great. Here's a sample of the articles that need checking:
All you have to do, is compare the English article to the German article, and assess them "Pass" or "Fail" (the {{Pass}} and {{Fail}} templates may be useful here). (Naturally, if you feel like fixing an inaccurate translation and then assessing it, that's even better, but it isn't required.) Also please note that we are assessing accuracy not completeness, so if the English article is much shorter that is okay, as long as whatever has been translated so far is factually accurate.
If you can help, please {{ping}} me here to let me know. You can add your pass/fails above, right next to each link, or you may indicate your results below. Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 06:28, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Voting method
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Voting method. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
WikiCup 2017 July newsletter
The third round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 288 points being required to qualify for round 4. It was a hotly competitive round with all but four of the contestants exceeding the 106 points that was necessary to proceed to round 4 last year. Coemgenus and Freikorp tied on 288, and both have been allowed to proceed, so round 4 now has one pool of eight competitors and one of nine.
Round 3 saw the achievement of a 26-topic Featured topic by MPJ-DK as well as 5 featured lists and 13 featured articles. PanagiotisZois and SounderBruce achieved their first ever featured articles. Carbrera led the GA score with 10, Tachs achieved 17 DYKs and MBlaze Lightning 10 In the news items. There were 167 DYKs, 93 GARs and 82 GAs overall, this last figure being higher than the number of GAs in round 2, when twice as many people were taking part. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.
As we start round 4, we say goodbye to the fifteen or so competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).
If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 05:38, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
Sunday July 16: New England Wiknic @ Cambridge, MA
Sunday July 16, 1-5pm: New England Wiknic | |
---|---|
You are invited to join us the "picnic anyone can edit" at John F. Kennedy Park, near Harvard Square, Cambridge, as part of the Great American Wiknic celebrations being held across the USA. Remember it's a wiki-picnic, which means potluck.
We hope to see you there! --Phoebe (talk) 16:34, 12 July 2017 (UTC) |
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)
Facto Post – Issue 2 – 13 July 2017
Facto Post – Issue 2 – 13 July 2017
Editorial: Core models and topicsWikimedians interest themselves in everything under the sun — and then some. Discussion on "core topics" may, oddly, be a fringe activity, and was popular here a decade ago. The situation on Wikidata today does resemble the halcyon days of 2006 of the English Wikipedia. The growth is there, and the reliability and stylistic issues are not yet pressing in on the project. Its Berlin conference at the end of October will have five years of achievement to celebrate. Think Wikimania Frankfurt 2005. Progress must be made, however, on referencing "core facts". This has two parts: replacing "imported from Wikipedia" in referencing by external authorities; and picking out statements, such as dates and family relationships, that must not only be reliable but be seen to be reliable. In addition, there are many properties on Wikidata lacking a clear data model. An emerging consensus may push to the front key sourcing and biomedical properties as requiring urgent attention. Wikidata's "manual of style" is currently distributed over thousands of discussions. To make it coalesce, work on such a core is needed. Links
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Please comment on Talk:Islamic calendar
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Islamic calendar. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 3 – 11 August 2017
Facto Post – Issue 3 – 11 August 2017
Wikimania reportInterviewed by Facto Post at the hackathon, Lydia Pintscher of Wikidata said that the most significant recent development is that Wikidata now accounts for one third of Wikimedia edits. And the essential growth of human editing. Impressive development work on Internet-in-a-Box featured in the WikiMedFoundation annual conference on Thursday. Hardware is Raspberry Pi, running Linux and the Kiwix browser. It can operate as a wifi hotspot and support a local intranet in parts of the world lacking phone signal. The medical use case is for those delivering care, who have smartphones but have to function in clinics in just such areas with few reference resources. Wikipedia medical content can be served to their phones, and power supplied by standard lithium battery packages. Yesterday Katherine Maher unveiled the draft Wikimedia 2030 strategy, featuring a picturesque metaphor, "roads, bridges and villages". Here "bridges" could do with illustration. Perhaps it stands for engineering round or over the obstacles to progress down the obvious highways. Internet-in-a-Box would then do fine as an example. "Bridging the gap" explains a take on that same metaphor, with its human component. If you are at Wikimania, come talk to WikiFactMine at its stall in the Community Village, just by the 3D-printed display for Bassel Khartabil; come hear T Arrow talk at 3 pm today in Drummond West, Level 3. Link
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:55, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Taxonbar
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Taxonbar. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
Proposed deletion of Intentional Software
The article Intentional Software has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
notability not established
While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Ysangkok (talk) 10:21, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
WikiCup 2017 September newsletter
Round 4 of the WikiCup has ended and we move forward into the final round. In round 4, a total of 12 FAs, 3 FLs, 44 GAs, 3 FLs, 79 DYKs, 1 ITN and 42 GARs was achieved, with no FPs or FTs this time. Congratulations to Peacemaker67 on the Royal Yugoslav Navy Good Topic of 36 items, and the 12 featured articles achieved by Cas Liber (5), Vanamonde93 (3), Peacemaker67 (2), Adityavagarwal (1) and 12george1 (1). With a FA scoring 200 points, and bonus points available on top of this, FAs are likely to feature heavily in the final round. Meanwhile Yellow Evan, a typhoon specialist, was contributing 12 DYKs and 10 GAs, while Adityavagarwal and Freikorp topped the GAR list with 8 reviews each. As we enter the final round, we are down to eight contestants, and we would like to thank those of you who have been eliminated for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. The lowest score needed to reach round 5 was 305, and I think we can expect a highly competitive final round.
Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best man (or woman) win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 06:26, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Nomination of Intentional Software for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Intentional Software is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Intentional Software until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Ysangkok (talk) 14:26, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Invitation to Admin confidence survey
Hello,
Beginning in September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-harassment tool team will be conducting a survey to gauge how well tools, training, and information exists to assist English Wikipedia administrators in recognizing and mitigating things like sockpuppetry, vandalism, and harassment.
The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your individual response will not be made public. This survey will be integral for our team to determine how to better support administrators.
To take the survey sign up here and we will send you a link to the form.
We really appreciate your input!
Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.
For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 20:56, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
File:Secret-man.jpg listed for discussion
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Secret-man.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Jon Kolbert (talk) 14:26, 15 September 2017 (UTC)Please comment on Module talk:Basketball color/data
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Facto Post – Issue 4 – 18 September 2017
Facto Post – Issue 4 – 18 September 2017
Editorial: Conservation dataThe IUCN Red List update of 14 September led with a threat to North American ash trees. The International Union for Conservation of Nature produces authoritative species listings that are peer-reviewed. Examples used as metonyms for loss of species and biodiversity, and discussion of extinction rates, are the usual topics covered in the media to inform us about this area. But actual data matters. Clearly, conservation work depends on decisions about what should be done, and where. While animals, particularly mammals, are photogenic, species numbers run into millions. Plant species lie at the base of typical land-based food chains, and vegetation is key to the habitats of most animals. ContentMine dictionaries, for example as tabulated at d:Wikidata:WikiFactMine/Dictionary list, enable detailed control of queries about endangered species, in their taxonomic context. To target conservation measures properly, species listings running into the thousands are not what is needed: range maps showing current distribution are. Between the will to act, and effective steps taken, the services of data handling are required. There is now no reason at all why Wikidata should not take up the burden. Links
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
File:Secret-man.jpg
You uploaded, File:Secret-man.jpg, a number of years ago, apparently prior to the current procedures for verifying the permissions concerned. Currently this file is "grandfathered".
It would be appreciated, (for the avoidance of any doubts as to the status of the media) you could re-confirm any relevant permission you obtained at the time, to the relevant OTRS queue. Please read Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission, which advises on how to confirm the permission you obtained from a third party.
It is also advisable to ask the third-party what source attribution they desire. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 06:27, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Image-origin
Template:Image-origin has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 05:01, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:MB listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:MB. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:MB redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. — Zawl 14:57, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
edX's first video - live - and moving around!
So good to see - and so fun to watch the digestion process! Pbkauf (talk) 14:58, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
File:Cloud of lightning.jpg
Can you provide an exact source link for the above image that you uploaded? I can't seem to find it on the page and it seems to be a crop of [7] which has an All Rights Reserved copyright license. Thanks! --Majora (talk) 00:39, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
- Hi Majora, the Flickr source looks like correct author attribution; deletion appropriate, thanks for the catch. I'd found it in a video while doing some quick sandboxing. – SJ + 00:10, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
2019 in public domain
Page has been created.--Maher27777 (talk) 12:34, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks @Maher27777: shouldn't "in the United States" include all published texts and media, not just film? – SJ + 21:52, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:IPhone 8
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Facto Post – Issue 5 – 17 October 2017
Facto Post – Issue 5 – 17 October 2017
Editorial: AnnotationsAnnotation is nothing new. The glossators of medieval Europe annotated between the lines, or in the margins of legal manuscripts of texts going back to Roman times, and created a new discipline. In the form of web annotation, the idea is back, with texts being marked up inline, or with a stand-off system. Where could it lead? ContentMine operates in the field of text and data mining (TDM), where annotation, simply put, can add value to mined text. It now sees annotation as a possible advance in semi-automation, the use of human judgement assisted by bot editing, which now plays a large part in Wikidata tools. While a human judgement call of yes/no, on the addition of a statement to Wikidata, is usually taken as decisive, it need not be. The human assent may be passed into an annotation system, and stored: this idea is standard on Wikisource, for example, where text is considered "validated" only when two different accounts have stated that the proof-reading is correct. A typical application would be to require more than one person to agree that what is said in the reference translates correctly into the formal Wikidata statement. Rejections are also potentially useful to record, for machine learning. As a contribution to data integrity on Wikidata, annotation has much to offer. Some "hard cases" on importing data are much more difficult than average. There are for example biographical puzzles: whether person A in one context is really identical with person B, of the same name, in another context. In science, clinical medicine require special attention to sourcing (WP:MEDRS), and is challenging in terms of connecting findings with the methodology employed. Currently decisions in areas such as these, on Wikipedia and Wikidata, are often made ad hoc. In particular there may be no audit trail for those who want to check what is decided. Annotations are subject to a World Wide Web Consortium standard, and behind the terminology constitute a simple JSON data structure. What WikiFactMine proposes to do with them is to implement the MEDRS guideline, as a formal algorithm, on bibliographical and methodological data. The structure will integrate with those inputs the human decisions on the interpretation of scientific papers that underlie claims on Wikidata. What is added to Wikidata will therefore be supported by a transparent and rigorous system that documents decisions. An example of the possible future scope of annotation, for medical content, is in the first link below. That sort of detailed abstract of a publication can be a target for TDM, adds great value, and could be presented in machine-readable form. You are invited to discuss the detailed proposal on Wikidata, via its talk page. Links
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:46, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
WikiCup 2017 November newsletter: Final results
The final round of the 2017 WikiCup is over. Congratulations to the 2017 WikiCup top three finalists:
- First Place - Adityavagarwal (submissions)
- Second Place - Vanamonde (submissions)
- Third Place - Cas Liber (submissions)
In addition to recognizing the achievements of the top finishers and everyone who worked hard to make it to the final round, we also want to recognize those participants who were most productive in each of the WikiCup scoring categories:
- Featured Article – Cas Liber (actually a two-way tie with themselves for an astonishing five FAs in R2 and R4).
- Good Article – Adityavagarwal had 14 GAs promoted in R5.
- Featured List – Bloom6132 (submissions) and 1989 (submissions) both produced 2 FLs in R2
- Featured Pictures – SounderBruce (submissions) improved an image to FP status in R5, the only FP this year.
- Featured Topic – MPJ-DK (submissions) has the only FT of the Cup in R3.
- Good Topic – Four different editors created a GT in R2, R3 and R4.
- Did You Know – Adityavagarwal had 22 DYKs on the main page in R5.
- In The News – MBlaze Lightning (submissions) had 14 ITN on the main page in R2.
- Good Article Review – Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (submissions) completed 31 GARs in R1.
Over the course of the 2017 WikiCup the following content was added or improved on Wikipedia: 51 Featured Articles, 292 Good Articles, 18 Featured Lists, 1 Featured Picture, 1 Featured Topics, 4 Good Topics, around 400 Did You Knows, 75 In The News, and 442 Good Article Reviews. Thank you to all the competitors for your hard work and what you have done to improve Wikipedia.
Regarding the prize vouchers - @Adityavagarwal, Vanamonde93, Casliber, Bloom6132, 1989, and SounderBruce: please send Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) an email from the email address to which you would like your Amazon voucher sent. Please include your preference of global Amazon marketplace as well. We hope to have the electronic gift cards processed and sent within a week.
We will open up a discussion for comments on process and scoring in a few days. The 2018 WikiCup is just around the corner! Many thanks from all the judges. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Stanley Pons cold fusion gear.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:Stanley Pons cold fusion gear.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:25, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 6 – 15 November 2017
Facto Post – Issue 6 – 15 November 2017
WikidataCon Berlin 28–9 October 2017Under the heading rerum causas cognescere, the first ever Wikidata conference got under way in the Tagesspiegel building with two keynotes, One was on YAGO, about how a knowledge base conceived ten years ago if you assume automatic compilation from Wikipedia. The other was from manager Lydia Pintscher, on the "state of the data". Interesting rumours flourished: the mix'n'match tool and its 600+ datasets, mostly in digital humanities, to be taken off the hands of its author Magnus Manske by the WMF; a Wikibase incubator site is on its way. Announcements came in talks: structured data on Wikimedia Commons is scheduled to make substantive progress by 2019. The lexeme development on Wikidata is now not expected to make the Wiktionary sites redundant, but may facilitate automated compilation of dictionaries. And so it went, with five strands of talks and workshops, through to 11 pm on Saturday. Wikidata applies to GLAM work via metadata. It may be used in education, raises issues such as author disambiguation, and lends itself to different types of graphical display and reuse. Many millions of SPARQL queries are run on the site every day. Over the summer a large open science bibliography has come into existence there. Wikidata's fifth birthday party on the Sunday brought matters to a close. See a dozen and more reports by other hands. Links
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:02, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Category talk:Wikipedia essays on notability
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WikiCup 2018
So the 2017 WikiCup has come to an end. Congratulations to the winner, to the other finalists and to all those who took part. 177 contestants signed up, more than usual, but not all of them submitted entries in the first round. Were editors attracted by the cash prizes offered for the first time this year, or were these irrelevant? Do the rules and scoring need changing for the 2018 WikiCup? If you have a view on these or other matters, why not join in the WikiCup discussion about next year's contest? Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:59, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
Women in Red World Contest
Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!
ArbCom 2017 election voter message
Facto Post – Issue 7 – 15 December 2017
Facto Post – Issue 7 – 15 December 2017
A new bibliographical landscapeAt the beginning of December, Wikidata items on individual scientific articles passed the 10 million mark. This figure contrasts with the state of play in early summer, when there were around half a million. In the big picture, Wikidata is now documenting the scientific literature at a rate that is about eight times as fast as papers are published. As 2017 ends, progress is quite evident. Behind this achievement are a technical advance (fatameh), and bots that do the lifting. Much more than dry migration of metadata is potentially involved, however. If paper A cites paper B, both papers having an item, a link can be created on Wikidata, and the information presented to both human readers, and machines. This cross-linking is one of the most significant aspects of the scientific literature, and now a long-sought open version is rapidly being built up. The effort for the lifting of copyright restrictions on citation data of this kind has had real momentum behind it during 2017. WikiCite and the I4OC have been pushing hard, with the result that on CrossRef over 50% of the citation data is open. Now the holdout publishers are being lobbied to release rights on citations. But all that is just the beginning. Topics of papers are identified, authors disambiguated, with significant progress on the use of the four million ORCID IDs for researchers, and proposals formulated to identify methodology in a machine-readable way. P4510 on Wikidata has been introduced so that methodology can sit comfortably on items about papers. More is on the way. OABot applies the unpaywall principle to Wikipedia referencing. It has been proposed that Wikidata could assist WorldCat in compiling the global history of book translation. Watch this space. And make promoting #1lib1ref one of your New Year's resolutions. Happy holidays, all! Links
Editor Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him. Back numbers are here. Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:54, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Intelligent design
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Intelligent design. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Your signature
Please be aware that your signature uses deprecated <font>
tags, which are causing Obsolete HTML tags lint errors.
You are encouraged to change
<span style="color:#666">– [[User:Sj|SJ]][[User Talk:Sj|<font style="color:#f90;"> +</font>]]</span>
: – SJ +
to
<span style="color:#666">– [[User:Sj|SJ]][[User Talk:Sj|<span style="color:#f90;"> +</span>]]</span>
: – SJ +
—Anomalocaris (talk) 20:59, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you for updating your signature! —Anomalocaris (talk) 09:01, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
WikiProject Genealogy - newsletter No.5 -2017
Newsletter Nr 5, 2017-12-30, for WikiProject Genealogy (and Wikimedia genealogy project on Meta)
Participation: This is the fifth newsletter sent by mass mail to members in Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise. (To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please see below) A demo wiki is up and running! Dear members of WikiProject Genealogy, this will be the last newsletter for 2017, but maybe the most important one! You can already now try out the demo for a genealogy wiki at https://tools.wmflabs.org/genealogy/wiki/Main_Page and try out the functions. You will find parts of the 18th Pharao dynasty and other records submitted by the 7 first users, and it would be great if you would add some records. And with those great news we want to wish you a creative New Year 2018!
Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator Dan Koehl. To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
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Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
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Facto Post – Issue 8 – 15 January 2018
Facto Post – Issue 8 – 15 January 2018
Metadata on the MarchFrom the days of hard-copy liner notes on music albums, metadata have stood outside a piece or file, while adding to understanding of where it comes from, and some of what needs to be appreciated about its content. In the GLAM sector, the accumulation of accurate metadata for objects is key to the mission of an institution, and its presentation in cataloguing. Today Wikipedia turns 17, with worlds still to conquer. Zooming out from the individual GLAM object to the ontology in which it is set, one such world becomes apparent: GLAMs use custom ontologies, and those introduce massive incompatibilities. From a recent article by sadads, we quote the observation that "vocabularies needed for many collections, topics and intellectual spaces defy the expectations of the larger professional communities." A job for the encyclopedist, certainly. But the data-minded Wikimedian has the advantages of Wikidata, starting with its multilingual data, and facility with aliases. The controlled vocabulary — sometimes referred to as a "thesaurus" as term of art — simplifies search: if a "spade" must be called that, rather than "shovel", it is easier to find all spade references. That control comes at a cost. Case studies in that article show what can lie ahead. The schema crosswalk, in jargon, is a potential answer to the GLAM Babel of proliferating and expanding vocabularies. Even if you have no interest in Wikidata as such, simply vocabularies V and W, if both V and W are matched to Wikidata, then a "crosswalk" arises from term v in V to w in W, whenever v and w both match to the same item d in Wikidata. For metadata mobility, match to Wikidata. It's apparently that simple: infrastructure requirements have turned out, so far, to be challenges that can be met. Links
Editor Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him. Back numbers are here. Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:38, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
None
Hello im new can we comment on things and crap thanks if you have any questions email me at jamsies91@gmail.com thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by James6th (talk • contribs) 15:59, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Graph:Most Expensive Books
Template:Graph:Most Expensive Books has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 16:03, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 9 – 5 February 2018
Facto Post – Issue 9 – 5 February 2018
Wikidata as HubOne way of looking at Wikidata relates it to the semantic web concept, around for about as long as Wikipedia, and realised in dozens of distributed Web institutions. It sees Wikidata as supplying central, encyclopedic coverage of linked structured data, and looks ahead to greater support for "federated queries" that draw together information from all parts of the emerging network of websites. Another perspective might be likened to a photographic negative of that one: Wikidata as an already-functioning Web hub. Over half of its properties are identifiers on other websites. These are Wikidata's "external links", to use Wikipedia terminology: one type for the DOI of a publication, another for the VIAF page of an author, with thousands more such. Wikidata links out to sites that are not nominally part of the semantic web, effectively drawing them into a larger system. The crosswalk possibilities of the systematic construction of these links was covered in Issue 8. Wikipedia:External links speaks of them as kept "minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article." Here Wikidata finds more of a function. On viaf.org one can type a VIAF author identifier into the search box, and find the author page. The Wikidata Resolver tool, these days including Open Street Map, Scholia etc., allows this kind of lookup. The hub tool by maxlath takes a major step further, allowing both lookup and crosswalk to be encoded in a single URL. Links
Editor Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him. Back numbers are here. Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:50, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)
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WikiCup 2018 March newsletter
And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. With 53 contestants qualifying, the groups for round 2 are slightly smaller than usual, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining users.
Our top scorers in round 1 were:
- Aoba47 led the field with a featured article, 8 good articles and 42 GARs, giving a total of 666 points.
- FrB.TG , a WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points, gained from a featured article and masses of bonus points.
- Ssven2, another WikiCup newcomer, was in third place with 403 points, garnered from a featured article, a featured list, a good article and twelve GARs.
- Ceranthor, Numerounovedant, Carbrera, Farang Rak Tham and Cartoon network freak all had over 200 points, but like all the other contestants, now have to start again from scratch. A good achievement was the 193 GARs performed by WikiCup contestants, comparing very favourably with the 54 GAs they achieved.
Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.
If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) and Vanamonde (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
Courses Modules are being deprecated
Hello,
Your account is currently configured with an education program flag. This system (the Courses system) is being deprecated. As such, your account will soon be updated to remove these no longer supported flags. For details on the changes, and how to migrate to using the replacement system (the Programs and Events Dashboard) please see Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Archive 18#NOTICE: EducationProgram extension is being deprecated.
Thank you! Sent by: xaosflux 20:28, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 10 – 12 March 2018
Facto Post – Issue 10 – 12 March 2018
Milestone for mix'n'matchAround the time in February when Wikidata clicked past item Q50000000, another milestone was reached: the mix'n'match tool uploaded its 1000th dataset. Concisely defined by its author, Magnus Manske, it works "to match entries in external catalogs to Wikidata". The total number of entries is now well into eight figures, and more are constantly being added: a couple of new catalogs each day is normal. Since the end of 2013, mix'n'match has gradually come to play a significant part in adding statements to Wikidata. Particularly in areas with the flavour of digital humanities, but datasets can of course be about practically anything. There is a catalog on skyscrapers, and two on spiders. These days mix'n'match can be used in numerous modes, from the relaxed gamified click through a catalog looking for matches, with prompts, to the fantastically useful and often demanding search across all catalogs. I'll type that again: you can search 1000+ datasets from the simple box at the top right. The drop-down menu top left offers "creation candidates", Magnus's personal favourite. m:Mix'n'match/Manual for more. For the Wikidatan, a key point is that these matches, however carried out, add statements to Wikidata if, and naturally only if, there is a Wikidata property associated with the catalog. For everyone, however, the hands-on experience of deciding of what is a good match is an education, in a scholarly area, biographical catalogs being particularly fraught. Underpinning recent rapid progress is an open infrastructure for scraping and uploading. Congratulations to Magnus, our data Stakhanovite! Links
Editor Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him. Back numbers are here. Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:26, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction
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Facto Post – Issue 11 – 9 April 2018
Facto Post – Issue 11 – 9 April 2018
The 100 Skins of the OnionOpen Citations Month, with its eminently guessable hashtag, is upon us. We should be utterly grateful that in the past 12 months, so much data on which papers cite which other papers has been made open, and that Wikidata is playing its part in hosting it as "cites" statements. At the time of writing, there are 15.3M Wikidata items that can do that. Pulling back to look at open access papers in the large, though, there is is less reason for celebration. Access in theory does not yet equate to practical access. A recent LSE IMPACT blogpost puts that issue down to "heterogeneity". A useful euphemism to save us from thinking that the whole concept doesn't fall into the realm of the oxymoron. Some home truths: aggregation is not content management, if it falls short on reusability. The PDF file format is wedded to how humans read documents, not how machines ingest them. The salami-slicer is our friend in the current downloading of open access papers, but for a better metaphor, think about skinning an onion, laboriously, 100 times with diminishing returns. There are of the order of 100 major publisher sites hosting open access papers, and the predominant offer there is still a PDF. From the discoverability angle, Wikidata's bibliographic resources combined with the SPARQL query are superior in principle, by far, to existing keyword searches run over papers. Open access content should be managed into consistent HTML, something that is currently strenuous. The good news, such as it is, would be that much of it is already in XML. The organisational problem of removing further skins from the onion, with sensible prioritisation, is certainly not insuperable. The CORE group (the bloggers in the LSE posting) has some answers, but actually not all that is needed for the text and data mining purposes they highlight. The long tail, or in other words the onion heart when it has become fiddly beyond patience to skin, does call for a pis aller. But the real knack is to do more between the XML and the heart. Links
Editor Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him. Back numbers are here. Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Nomination of Portal:Physics for deletion
A proposal has been made to delete Portal:Physics, which you have made significant contributions to, as well as all other portals on English Wikipedia. You are welcome to contribute to the discussion if you'd like, which is located at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RfC: Ending the system of portals. Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. North America1000 06:43, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Apache OpenOffice
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Invitation to WikiProject Portals
The Portals WikiProject has been rebooted.
You are invited to join, and participate in the effort to revitalize and improve the Portal system and all the portals in it.
There are sections on the WikiProject page dedicated to tasks (including WikiGnome tasks too), and areas on the talk page for discussing the improvement and automation of the various features of portals.
Many complaints have been lodged in the RfC to delete all portals, pointing out their various problems. They say that many portals are not maintained, or have fallen out of date, are useless, etc. Many of the !votes indicate that the editors who posted them simply don't believe in the potential of portals anymore.
It's time to change all that. Let's give them reasons to believe in portals, by revitalizing them.
The best response to a deletion nomination is to fix the page that was nominated. The further underway the effort is to improve portals by the time the RfC has run its course, the more of the reasons against portals will no longer apply. RfCs typically run 30 days. There are 19 days left in this one. Let's see how many portals we can update and improve before the RfC is closed, and beyond.
A healthy WikiProject dedicated to supporting and maintaining portals may be the strongest argument of all not to delete.
We may even surprise ourselves and exceed all expectations. Who knows what we will be able to accomplish in what may become the biggest Wikicollaboration in years.
Let's do this.
See ya at the WikiProject!
Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 10:24, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
Pesticide topics
The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding all pages relating to genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.
- Like the template says, this isn't implying any wrong doing at all. There's just a bit of history with the topic related to ArbCom in those links that show where editors can easily get caught up in some of the restrictions like 1RR, etc., so just giving you a courtesy heads up like I try to do for editors new to the topic. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:25, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks, Kingofaces, I realize the sensitivity of the topic, though I didn't realize it was from the old GMO guidance. – SJ + 02:29, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
WikiCup 2018 May newsletter
The second round of the 2018 WikiCup has now finished. Most contestants who advanced to the next round scored upwards of 100 points, but two with just 10 points managed to scrape through into round 3. Our top scorers in the last round were:
- Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with three featured articles
- Iazyges, with nine good articles and lots of bonus points
- Yashthepunisher, a first time contestant, with two featured lists
- SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with seventeen good topic articles
- Usernameunique, a first time contestant, with fourteen DYKs
- Muboshgu, a seasoned competitor, with three ITNs and
- Courcelles, another first time contestant, with twenty-seven GARs
So far contestants have achieved twelve featured articles between them and a splendid 124 good articles. Commendably, 326 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2018 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met; most of the GARs are fine, but a few have been a bit skimpy.
If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Battling Bastards of Bataan logo.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:Battling Bastards of Bataan logo.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:12, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you very much
The RfC discussion to eliminate portals was closed May 12, with the statement "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time." This was made possible because you and others came to the rescue. Thank you for speaking up.
By the way, the current issue of the Signpost features an article with interviews about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.
I'd also like to let you know that the Portals WikiProject is working hard to make sure your support of portals was not in vain. Toward that end, we have been working diligently to innovate portals, while building, updating, upgrading, and maintaining them. The project has grown to 80 members so far, and has become a beehive of activity.
Our two main goals at this time are to automate portals (in terms of refreshing, rotating, and selecting content), and to develop a one-page model in order to make obsolete and eliminate most of the 150,000 subpages from the portal namespace by migrating their functions to the portal base pages, using technologies such as selective transclusion. Please feel free to join in on any of the many threads of development at the WikiProject's talk page, or just stop by to see how we are doing. If you have any questions about portals or portal development, that is the best place to ask them.
If you would like to keep abreast of developments on portals, keep in mind that the project's members receive updates on their talk pages. The updates are also posted here, for your convenience.
Again, we can't thank you enough for your support of portals, and we hope to make you proud of your decision. Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 10:02, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
P.S.: if you reply to this message, please {{ping}} me. Thank you. -TT
Facto Post – Issue 12 – 28 May 2018
Facto Post – Issue 12 – 28 May 2018
ScienceSource fundedThe Wikimedia Foundation announced full funding of the ScienceSource grant proposal from ContentMine on May 18. See the ScienceSource Twitter announcement and 60 second video.
The proposal includes downloading 30,000 open access papers, aiming (roughly speaking) to create a baseline for medical referencing on Wikipedia. It leaves open the question of how these are to be chosen. The basic criteria of WP:MEDRS include a concentration on secondary literature. Attention has to be given to the long tail of diseases that receive less current research. The MEDRS guideline supposes that edge cases will have to be handled, and the premature exclusion of publications that would be in those marginal positions would reduce the value of the collection. Prophylaxis misses the point that gate-keeping will be done by an algorithm. Two well-known but rather different areas where such considerations apply are tropical diseases and alternative medicine. There are also a number of potential downloading troubles, and these were mentioned in Issue 11. There is likely to be a gap, even with the guideline, between conditions taken to be necessary but not sufficient, and conditions sufficient but not necessary, for candidate papers to be included. With around 10,000 recognised medical conditions in standard lists, being comprehensive is demanding. With all of these aspects of the task, ScienceSource will seek community help. Links
Editor Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him. Back numbers are here. Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM. ScienceSource pages will be announced there, and in this mass message. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Political views of American academics
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Political views of American academics. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 13 – 29 May 2018
Facto Post – Issue 13 – 29 May 2018
Facto Post enters its second year, with a Cambridge Blue (OK, Aquamarine) background, a new logo, but no Cambridge blues. On-topic for the ScienceSource project is a project page here. It contains some case studies on how the WP:MEDRS guideline, for the referencing of articles at all related to human health, is applied in typical discussions. Close to home also, a template, called {{medrs}} for short, is used to express dissatisfaction with particular references. Technology can help with patrolling, and this Petscan query finds over 450 articles where there is at least one use of the template. Of course the template is merely suggesting there is a possible issue with the reliability of a reference. Deciding the truth of the allegation is another matter. This maintenance issue is one example of where ScienceSource aims to help. Where the reference is to a scientific paper, its type of algorithm could give a pass/fail opinion on such references. It could assist patrollers of medical articles, therefore, with the templated references and more generally. There may be more to proper referencing than that, indeed: context, quite what the statement supported by the reference expresses, prominence and weight. For that kind of consideration, case studies can help. But an algorithm might help to clear the backlog.
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WikiCup 2018 July newsletter
The third round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:
- Courcelles, a first time contestant, with 1756 points, a tally built largely on 27 GAs related to the Olympics
- Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three GAs on natural history and astronomy topics
- SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with a variety of submissions related to transport in the state of Washington
Contestants managed 7 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 120 good articles, 1 good topic, 124 DYK entries, 15 ITN entries, and 132 good article reviews. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 458 GA reviews, in comparison to 244 good articles submitted for review and promoted. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process; several submissions, particularly in abstruse or technical areas, have needed additional work to make them completely verifiable.
If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk), Vanamonde (talk) 04:55, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 14 – 21 July 2018
Facto Post – Issue 14 – 21 July 2018
Officially it is "bridging the gaps in knowledge", with Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town paying tribute to the southern African concept of ubuntu to implement it. Besides face-to-face interactions, Wikimedians do need their power sources. Facto Post interviewed Jdforrester, who has attended every Wikimania, and now works as Senior Product Manager for the Wikimedia Foundation. His take on tackling the gaps in the Wikimedia movement is that "if we were an army, we could march in a column and close up all the gaps". In his view though, that is a faulty metaphor, and it leads to a completely false misunderstanding of the movement, its diversity and different aspirations, and the nature of the work as "fighting" to be done in the open sector. There are many fronts, and as an eventualist he feels the gaps experienced both by editors and by users of Wikimedia content are inevitable. He would like to see a greater emphasis on reuse of content, not simply its volume. If that may not sound like radicalism, the Decolonizing the Internet conference here organized jointly with Whose Knowledge? can redress the picture. It comes with the claim to be "the first ever conference about centering marginalized knowledge online".
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:10, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Trypophobia
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Facto Post – Issue 15 – 21 August 2018
Facto Post – Issue 15 – 21 August 2018
To grasp the nettle, there are rare diseases, there are tropical diseases and then there are "neglected diseases". Evidently a rare enough disease is likely to be neglected, but neglected disease these days means a disease not rare, but tropical, and most often infectious or parasitic. Rare diseases as a group are dominated, in contrast, by genetic diseases. A major aspect of neglect is found in tracking drug discovery. Orphan drugs are those developed to treat rare diseases (rare enough not to have market-driven research), but there is some overlap in practice with the WHO's neglected diseases, where snakebite, a "neglected public health issue", is on the list. From an encyclopedic point of view, lack of research also may mean lack of high-quality references: the core medical literature differs from primary research, since it operates by aggregating trials. This bibliographic deficit clearly hinders Wikipedia's mission. The ScienceSource project is currently addressing this issue, on Wikidata. Its Wikidata focus list at WD:SSFL is trying to ensure that neglect does not turn into bias in its selection of science papers.
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WikiCup 2018 September newsletter
The fourth round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The eight users who made it to the final round had to score a minimum of 422 points to qualify, with the top score in the round being 4869 points. The leaders in round 4 were:
- Courcelles scored a magnificent 4869 points, with 92 good articles on Olympics-related themes. Courcelles' bonus points alone exceeded the total score of any of the other contestants!
- Kees08 was second with 1155 points, including a high-scoring featured article for Neil Armstrong, two good topics and some Olympics-related good articles.
- Cas Liber, with 1066 points, was in third place this round, with two featured articles and a good article, all on natural history topics.
- Other contestants who qualified for the final round were Nova Crystallis, Iazyges, SounderBruce, Kosack and Ceranthor.
During round four, 6 featured articles and 164 good articles were promoted by WikiCup contestants, 13 articles were included in good topics and 143 good article reviews were performed. There were also 10 "in the news" contributions on the main page and 53 "did you knows". Congratulations to all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.
Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best editor win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
AfroCine: Join us for the Months of African Cinema in October!
Please comment on Talk:Human evolution
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Human evolution. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Proposed deletion of Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action
The article Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
small local organization; almost all refsare from its own web site
While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. DGG ( talk ) 22:20, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018
Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018
In an ideal world ... no, bear with your editor for just a minute ... there would be a format for scientific publishing online that was as much a standard as SI units are for the content. Likewise cataloguing publications would not be onerous, because part of the process would be to generate uniform metadata. Without claiming it could be the mythical free lunch, it might be reasonably be argued that sandwiches can be packaged much alike and have barcodes, whatever the fillings. The best on offer, to stretch the metaphor, is the meal kit option, in the form of XML. Where scientific papers are delivered as XML downloads, you get all the ingredients ready to cook. But have to prepare the actual meal of slow food yourself. See Scholarly HTML for a recent pass at heading off XML with HTML, in other words in the native language of the Web. The argument from real life is a traditional mixture of frictional forces, vested interests, and the classic irony of the principle of unripe time. On the other hand, discoverability actually diminishes with the prolific progress of science publishing. No, it really doesn't scale. Wikimedia as movement can do something in such cases. We know from open access, we grok the Web, we have our own horse in the HTML race, we have Wikidata and WikiJournal, and we have the chops to act.
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Welcome to the Months of African Cinema!
Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:28, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Nomination of The Summit Lighthouse for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article The Summit Lighthouse is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Summit Lighthouse until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Wqwt (talk) 22:04, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018
Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018
Around 2.7 million Wikidata items have an illustrative image. These files, you might say, are Wikimedia's stock images, and if the number is large, it is still only 5% or so of items that have one. All such images are taken from Wikimedia Commons, which has 50 million media files. One key issue is how to expand the stock. Indeed, there is a tool. WD-FIST exploits the fact that each Wikipedia is differently illustrated, mostly with images from Commons but also with fair use images. An item that has sitelinks but no illustrative image can be tested to see if the linked wikis have a suitable one. This works well for a volunteer who wants to add images at a reasonable scale, and a small amount of SPARQL knowledge goes a long way in producing checklists. It should be noted, though, that there are currently 53 Wikidata properties that link to Commons, of which P18 for the basic image is just one. WD-FIST prompts the user to add signatures, plaques, pictures of graves and so on. There are a couple of hundred monograms, mostly of historical figures, and this query allows you to view all of them. commons:Category:Monograms and its subcategories provide rich scope for adding more. And so it is generally. The list of properties linking to Commons does contain a few that concern video and audio files, and rather more for maps. But it contains gems such as P3451 for "nighttime view". Over 1000 of those on Wikidata, but as for so much else, there could be yet more. Go on. Today is Wikidata's birthday. An illustrative image is always an acceptable gift, so why not add one? You can follow these easy steps: (i) log in at https://tools.wmflabs.org/widar/, (ii) paste the Petscan ID 6263583 into https://tools.wmflabs.org/fist/wdfist/ and click run, and (iii) just add cake.
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WikiCup 2018 November newsletter
The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Courcelles (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 147 GAs, 111 GARs, 9 DYKs, 4 FLs and 1 ITN. Our finalists were as follows:
- Courcelles (submissions)
- Kosack (submissions)
- Kees08 (submissions)
- SounderBruce (submissions)
- Cas Liber (submissions)
- Nova Crystallis (submissions)
- Iazyges (submissions)
- Ceranthor (submissions)
All those who reached the final win awards, and awards will also be going to the following participants:
- Cas Liber (submissions) wins the FA prize, for three featured articles in round 2.
- Courcelles (submissions) wins the GA prize, for 92 good articles in round 3.
- Kosack (submissions) wins the FL prize, for five featured lists overall.
- Cartoon network freak (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 30 articles in good topics overall.
- Usernameunique (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 24 did you know articles in round 3.
- Zanhe (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 17 in the news articles overall.
- Aoba47 (submissions) wins the GAR prize, for 43 good article reviews in round 1.
Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!
Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition.
Next year's competition begins on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; it is open to all Wikipedians, new and old. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2019 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email) and Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email).
ArbCom 2018 election voter message
116th Congress
Hello! I've noticed that you have a page over at User:Sj/Update Congress that I can only presume is for the purposes of keeping List of current members of the United States House of Representatives and similar pages updated. Just so you know, I'm currently working on an update over at Talk:List of current members of the United States House of Representatives/116th Congress for the 116th Congress, so if you're planning on working on the House article, it would be more efficient to just work on the update I already have going. Cheers! Westroopnerd (talk) 02:03, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 18 – 30 November 2018
Facto Post – Issue 18 – 30 November 2018
GLAM ♥ data — what is a gallery, library, archive or museum without a catalogue? It follows that Wikidata must love librarians. Bibliography supports students and researchers in any topic, but open and machine-readable bibliographic data even more so, outside the silo. Cue the WikiCite initiative, which was meeting in conference this week, in the Bay Area of California. In fact there is a broad scope: "Open Knowledge Maps via SPARQL" and the "Sum of All Welsh Literature", identification of research outputs, Library.Link Network and Bibframe 2.0, OSCAR and LUCINDA (who they?), OCLC and Scholia, all these co-exist on the agenda. Certainly more library science is coming Wikidata's way. That poses the question about the other direction: is more Wikimedia technology advancing on libraries? Good point. Wikimedians generally are not aware of the tech background that can be assumed, unless they are close to current training for librarians. A baseline definition is useful here: "bash, git and OpenRefine". Compare and contrast with pywikibot, GitHub and mix'n'match. Translation: scripting for automation, version control, data set matching and wrangling in the large, are on the agenda also for contemporary library work. Certainly there is some possible common ground here. Time to understand rather more about the motivations that operate in the library sector.
Account creation is now open on the ScienceSource wiki, where you can see SPARQL visualisations of text mining.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
Chonqing bus disaster
A failure of knowing: This blurb on the Chonqing bus tragedy was possibly the only media coverage that accurately describes what is observed in the video, and its different interpretations. Police, major news, local news all repeated third-hand summaries that were wrong. No head contact; intent; affect. A case of organic misinfo w no beneficiary (unless somehow the driver's fam was involved).
If all of our reporting institutions (official sources, official news, investigative indie news) are broken in this way, we need a different ecology of white cloaks to be able to have basic conversations about what goes on. (It's not tha people are bad at this; we're subtle - note in contrast the average sensibility of even low-grade social media discussion of this event.) – SJ + 17:45, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
WikiProject Genealogy - newsletter No.6
Newsletter Nr 6, 2018-12-25, for WikiProject Genealogy (and Wikimedia genealogy project on Meta)
Participation: This is the sixth newsletter sent by mass mail to members in Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise. (To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please see below) Now 100 supportersAt 3 December 2018, the list of users who support the potential Wikimedia genealogy project, reached 100! A demo wiki is up and running!You can already now try out the demo for a genealogy wiki at https://tools.wmflabs.org/genealogy/wiki/Main_Page and try out the functions. You will find parts of the 18th Pharao dynasty and other records submitted by the 7 first users, and it would be great if you would add some records. And with those great news we want to wish you a creative New Year 2019!
Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator Dan Koehl. To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
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Your user-name on ArWiki
Hello Sj , Your account name is "too Short" but Don't worry, I add your account to a category of "Active accounts on other wiki". So it won't be blocked.--Dr-Taher (talk) 01:13, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 19 – 27 December 2018
Facto Post – Issue 19 – 27 December 2018
Zotero is free software for reference management by the Center for History and New Media: see Wikipedia:Citing sources with Zotero. It is also an active user community, and has broad-based language support. Besides the handiness of Zotero's warehousing of personal citation collections, the Zotero translator underlies the citoid service, at work behind the VisualEditor. Metadata from Wikidata can be imported into Zotero; and in the other direction the zotkat tool from the University of Mannheim allows Zotero bibliographies to be exported to Wikidata, by item creation. With an extra feature to add statements, that route could lead to much development of the focus list (P5008) tagging on Wikidata, by WikiProjects. There is also a large-scale encyclopedic dimension here. The construction of Zotero translators is one facet of Web scraping that has a strong community and open source basis. In that it resembles the less formal mix'n'match import community, and growing networks around other approaches that can integrate datasets into Wikidata, such as the use of OpenRefine. Looking ahead, the thirtieth birthday of the World Wide Web falls in 2019, and yet the ambition to make webpages routinely readable by machines can still seem an ever-retreating mirage. Wikidata should not only be helping Wikimedia integrate its projects, an ongoing process represented by Structured Data on Commons and lexemes. It should also be acting as a catalyst to bring scraping in from the cold, with institutional strengths as well as resourceful code.
Diversitech, the latest ContentMine grant application to the Wikimedia Foundation, is in its community review stage until January 2.
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Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup!
Hello and Happy New Year!
Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup, the competition begins today. If you have already joined, your submission page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and we will set up your submissions page. One important rule to remember is that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2019, and which you have nominated this year, is eligible for points in the competition, the judges will be checking! Any questions should be directed to one of the judges, or left on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will make it to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:14, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019
Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019
Recently Jimmy Wales has made the point that computer home assistants take much of their data from Wikipedia, one way or another. So as well as getting Spotify to play Frosty the Snowman for you, they may be able to answer the question "is the Pope Catholic?" Possibly by asking for disambiguation (Coptic?). Headlines about data breaches are now familiar, but the unannounced circulation of information raises other issues. One of those is Gresham's law stated as "bad data drives out good". Wikipedia and now Wikidata have been criticised on related grounds: what if their content, unattributed, is taken to have a higher standing than Wikimedians themselves would grant it? See Wikiquote on a misattribution to Bismarck for the usual quip about "law and sausages", and why one shouldn't watch them in the making. Wikipedia has now turned 18, so should act like as adult, as well as being treated like one. The Web itself turns 30 some time between March and November this year, per Tim Berners-Lee. If the Knowledge Graph by Google exemplifies Heraclitean Web technology gaining authority, contra GIGO, Wikimedians still have a role in its critique. But not just with the teenage skill of detecting phoniness. There is more to beating Gresham than exposing the factoid and urban myth, where WP:V does do a great job. Placeholders must be detected, and working with Wikidata is a good way to understand how having one statement as data can blind us to replacing it by a more accurate one. An example that is important to open access is that, firstly, the term itself needs considerable unpacking, because just being able to read material online is a poor relation of "open"; and secondly, trying to get Creative Commons license information into Wikidata shows up issues with classes of license (such as CC-BY) standing for the actual license in major repositories. Detailed investigation shows that "everything flows" exacerbates the issue. But Wikidata can solve it.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
Your submission at Articles for creation: Seth Finkelstein (February 16)
Ah, that's an old one! Thanks for following up, LP. – SJ + 22:04, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019
Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019
Systematic reviews are basic building blocks of evidence-based medicine, surveys of existing literature devoted typically to a definite question that aim to bring out scientific conclusions. They are principled in a way Wikipedians can appreciate, taking a critical view of their sources. Ben Goldacre in 2014 wrote (link below) "[...] : the "information architecture" of evidence based medicine (if you can tolerate such a phrase) is a chaotic, ad hoc, poorly connected ecosystem of legacy projects. In some respects the whole show is still run on paper, like it's the 19th century." Is there a Wikidatan in the house? Wouldn't some machine-readable content that is structured data help? Most likely it would, but the arcana of systematic reviews and how they add value would still need formal handling. The PRISMA standard dates from 2009, with an update started in 2018. The concerns there include the corpus of papers used: how selected and filtered? Now that Wikidata has a 20.9 million item bibliography, one can at least pose questions. Each systematic review is a tagging opportunity for a bibliography. Could that tagging be reproduced by a query, in principle? Can it even be second-guessed by a query (i.e. simulated by a protocol which translates into SPARQL)? Homing in on the arcana, do the inclusion and filtering criteria translate into metadata? At some level they must, but are these metadata explicitly expressed in the articles themselves? The answer to that is surely "no" at this point, but can TDM find them? Again "no", right now. Automatic identification doesn't just happen. Actually these questions lack originality. It should be noted though that WP:MEDRS, the reliable sources guideline used here for health information, hinges on the assumption that the usefully systematic reviews of biomedical literature can be recognised. Its nutshell summary, normally the part of a guideline with the highest density of common sense, allows literature reviews in general validity, but WP:MEDASSESS qualifies that indication heavily. Process wonkery about systematic reviews definitely has merit.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
WikiCup 2019 March newsletter
And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2. With 56 contestants qualifying, each group in Round 2 contains seven contestants, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for Round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining contestants.
Our top scorers in Round 1 were:
- L293D, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with ten good articles on submarines for a total of 357 points.
- Adam Cuerden, a WikiCup veteran, came next with 274 points, mostly from eight featured pictures, restorations of artwork.
- MPJ-DK, a wrestling enthusiast, was in third place with 263 points, garnered from a featured list, five good articles, two DYKs and four GARs.
- Usernameunique came next at 243, with a featured article and a good article, both on ancient helmets.
- Squeamish Ossifrage was in joint fifth place with 224 points, mostly garnered from bringing the 1937 Fox vault fire to featured article status.
- Ed! was also on 224, with an amazing number of good article reviews (56 actually).
These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews on 143 good articles, one hundred more than the number of good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Well done all!
Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.
If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk).
Please comment on Talk:2010–2017 Toronto serial homicides
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:2010–2017 Toronto serial homicides. Legobot (talk) 04:35, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019
Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019
Half a century ago, it was the era of the mainframe computer, with its air-conditioned room, twitching tape-drives, and appearance in the title of a spy novel Billion-Dollar Brain then made into a Hollywood film. Now we have the cloud, with server farms and the client–server model as quotidian: this text is being typed on a Chromebook. The term Applications Programming Interface or API is 50 years old, and refers to a type of software library as well as the interface to its use. While a compiler is what you need to get high-level code executed by a mainframe, an API out in the cloud somewhere offers a chance to perform operations on a remote server. For example, the multifarious bots active on Wikipedia have owners who exploit the MediaWiki API. APIs (called RESTful) that allow for the GET HTTP request are fundamental for what could colloquially be called "moving data around the Web"; from which Wikidata benefits 24/7. So the fact that the Wikidata SPARQL endpoint at query.wikidata.org has a RESTful API means that, in lay terms, Wikidata content can be GOT from it. The programming involved, besides the SPARQL language, could be in Python, younger by a few months than the Web. Magic words, such as occur in fantasy stories, are wishful (rather than RESTful) solutions to gaining access. You may need to be a linguist to enter Ali Baba's cave or the western door of Moria (French in the case of "Open Sesame", in fact, and Sindarin being the respective languages). Talking to an API requires a bigger toolkit, which first means you have to recognise the tools in terms of what they can do. On the way to the wikt:impactful or polymathic modern handling of facts, one must perhaps take only tactful notice of tech's endemic problem with documentation, and absorb the insightful point that the code in APIs does articulate the customary procedures now in place on the cloud for getting information. As Owl explained to Winnie-the-Pooh, it tells you The Thing to Do.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:46, 28 March 2019 (UTC)