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Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 52

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USA elections in real time - as viewed by Wikipedia readers

I created a page with US candidates pageviews graphs - it could help visualize politics. I'm sure it can be used for much more than that. --Yurik (talk) 05:30, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

That's pretty neat actually. It could be looked at on various primary dates to see if there is any correlation between pageviews for a certain candidate and votes for them. Maybe not a very useful application, but interesting at least? :) Ajraddatz (Talk) 02:35, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

For an apology to the IRC channel inappropriate username

This morning, I was in the behavior of # wikipedia-en-help channels so many people angry, because I and my companions will replace user names to wm-bot style. At first we wanted to play a joke, but it did not, the result was within the channel of the user know, we were out of the ban. For that matter, I would like to apologize and hope to get the understanding, the future we will no longer make such things. For if you can let me enter the channel again, I would like to vote by the community (of course, the channel might be useful for me, I am a sysop in the Chinese Wikipedia, sometimes we need help here).

Above, once again apologize for the matter.--Nbfreeh (talk) 05:18, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Talk:List of state leaders in 2016#RfC: Inclusion of Palestine as a sub state of Israel

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of state leaders in 2016#RfC: Inclusion of Palestine as a sub state of Israel. Could you please give your opinion on whether or not Palestine should be considered a separate sovereign entity from Israel? Many thanks Spirit Ethanol (talk) 09:25, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Accusation - I accuse an editor of being a bot

Please forgive me - I am about to ignore all rules and do a personal attack on another editor. I am unable to assume good faith.

I accuse PCruiser of being a robot. I have not seen another bot like this -Special:Contributions/PCruiser. It knows some specific Wikipedia functions and has pushed odd buttons to do things. It makes an almost reasonable effort in a lot of cases, and actually writes better nonsense than some human contributors, but it is a cold kind of weird and not the usual sort. This bot has wasted volunteer time by making nonsense requests and comments.

Please forgive me in the event that I have accused a real human of talking like a robot.

Has anyone seen other contributors like this one? What do we do with these? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:11, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any bot behavior here doing a spot check on their contributions. Can you provide links?—cyberpowerChat:Limited Access 17:20, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks--PCruiser (talk) 21:39, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
C678 Seriously - look again at any of it. You choose anything they have done and confirm that it looks human. Please you share a link to something human. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:35, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Here is a typical contribution. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:39, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I just spot checked some more and as a botop, I'm not seeing any signs of bot activity. The edits are not periodic, nor consistent, nor do they have any patterns, or consistent editing behavior. I'm just seeing a user here making a bunch of different edits. I'm not seeing anything bot like. Just inappropriate edits.—cyberpowerChat:Limited Access 17:48, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Draft:Dispersion and Draft:United States Trustees are computer generated, right? It seems like copied text published piece-wise, or otherwise notes not connecting together. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:42, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Not that I'm seeing it, but so what if it is? It's not against policy to use scripts that assist editing. I'm using a bunch myself. That doesn't mean I'm a bot, nor does it make this user. The user seems to be guilty of persistent copy and pasting.—cyberpowerChat:Limited Access 17:48, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

{{resolved}} removed resolved tag as uncertainty remains for multiple editors, see further below.

C678 You are right - there is no problem here. This is a good start to articles and seems to be a work in progress. This is a human editing and I should not have said that it was a bot. This will be the last time I say such a thing. I am glad this person is checking out Wikipedia and would help them in the future if they request. They should keep exploring. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:12, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
It looks like this editor has passed the Turing test. Congratulations. Praemonitus (talk) 20:16, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
  Not sure
 – There is still some doubt, if the user himself is not a bot he may be using bot-like tools...
The more I look at PCruiser's edits and edit summaries, the more I think that the original poster here is correct. This editor's contributions appear more like the output of some sort of computer algorithm than like the output of a human editor. I am trying to AGF here, but these edits do not pass the Turing test, or at least the competence test, for me. They are just glued-together nonsense.
Examples: this, this, this (edit summary is nonsensical), this (looks like straightforward vandalism or test editing, but look at the edit summary)
I suppose this editor may be a human whose brain does not work like mine, but I see no evidence of competence. It worries me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:03, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Those examples almost have me believing they're at least entirely written with a script: point it at a source, rearranges and scans, and puts out those messes. This looks like machine translation, except the vocabulary is advanced. Other stuff mixes up concepts from law, science, and philosophy in ways that indicate the user needs to stay as far away from those as possible. In particular, ref seven of that page has me going "no, there was no human reading of that source, a machine saw the fragment 'determin-' in it and used that."
Still, he's closer to coherent when interacting with people (though using vocabulary that makes me suspect an ESL user who is using machine translation that favors words that score higher on the IELTS test over accuracy).
While there may be a human user hitting "save page," a machine is at least partially responsible for the writing.
@PCruiser: Please explain why your article material reads like bad machine translation. If English is not your first language, that's OK. If you are using a computer script to write, let us know that you will stop using it. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:44, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
  • The question of machine translation ought to be easily solved: user:PCruiser, please tell us what your native language is. I will select just one phrase from user:PCruiser/sandbox2: "competency is not acquired at the expense of subterfuges incomparableness". Please tell us in your native language what this means. If your native language is not English, we will find someone to translate it.
But competence is the key word and I fear that eventually the only solution will be to block you on the grounds of incompetence. Indeed, I am tempted to block you immediately simply because you have done zero useful edits. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 16:23, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
I suggest that the user's deleted contribs be examined. Disclosure: I deleted some myself, I placed {{db}} templates on some others. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:34, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
If the user is not a bot he is certainly using bot like tools. Notice this edit which says:

A diaphragm is giving it the power. Contrivingly it is un avoidable; but has its roots in sin. Sacred is the Graceful; and not spoiled of the spirit we can live with others.

Shiloh is a founding Baptist as well as church institution with a great history. Around since the turn of the 20th century it like some other Sacramento Churches was a cornerstone to Azusa and its principal seized waterways. Shiloh; the church informer and publicity of the Pastor bring to you an directory listing Boards, Ministries, Auxiliaries, and Committees. Get presented in our next 2016 Church Directory Smiling. Christ hasn't led everyone to this church home, but “Anthony J. Sadler among others is ever so more thankful for the years. And it willingly was the reason for his success. He devoted himself to discipleship and her Bible Study Fellowship.

Now bite me if that is not an inhuman bunch of gobbledygook. Reminds me of the early experiments in AI where computers were tasked with trying to write prose based on certain rules, and failed miserably. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 18:52, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
His writing is clearly not machine translation, but rather he appears to be using some kind of script that grabs snippets of text from the web and attempts to stitch them together. I don't see any indication of an actual attempt to productively contribute to the encyclopedia in this user's edits. --Srleffler (talk) 06:42, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Here are a couple examples of what I was mentioning earlier. First there is Racter (see also Getting a Computer to Write About Itself) and on a more recent note there is Once upon a bot: can we teach computers to write fiction? Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 13:19, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

The more I look the deeper the rabbit hole goes (maybe I should have taken the blue pill)... Following up on Racter I found this interview with the co-creator of the software. In that article is a mention of another software, INRAC (which we do not have an article for yet). Tracking that I found this JSTOR entry for an in-depth (7 pages!) software review entitled "Talking Back: The INRAC Language Compiler". And this was all in the 1980's! I can't imagine this technology has not improved since then. Houston I think we have a problem. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 13:38, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

After I declined PCruiser/Sandbox2, I was asked by User:RHaworth (who has commented above) whether I thought that admin action was necessary. I replied that I think that admin action is necessary. I don't think that User:PCruiser is a bot. The timing and frequency of the edits is on a human scale, not the rapid-fire timescale of a bot. (However, a bot could be programmed to emulate the timescale of a human.) However, some sort of admin action is needed. Some of the edits, by themselves, would appear to be simple vandalism (which is of course itself cause for admin action), but the pattern is not one of simple vandalism. I am not sure what the pattern is, but the editor is a net negative, and I did recommend admin action. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:46, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
  • OK, no messing. I have blocked with a request to explain themself. Incidentally re Redrose64's remark above about deleted edits, I would say that non-admins are not missing anything. The deleted stuff follows much the same pattern. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 21:14, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: I have an idea what the bot may be up to but I don't want to spill the beans. How can I communicate my suspicions to you/WP? Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 01:35, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
To answer your question about how to communicate your suspicions, the answer is by email. However, I am not an administrator, only a long-time editor and retired computer scientist who generally but not always knows the difference between a bot and a human. (Also, the Turing test is ill-defined, because it can call for distinguishing between a computer and a sane human, or a computer and an insane human. The latter is an easier test to pass.) I will be interested in reading your explanation, and, if there is a WP:BEANS factor, I will treat your email as a private communication. I suggest that you also send your explanation to User:RHaworth, the blocking administrator. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:13, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Who's Australia's head of state?

I've noticed on Wikipedia over the years, that someone has gradually removed mention of the Australian monarch being Australia's head of state, while not mentioning who is. We also have the article Australian head of state dispute. SOMEBODY must be the head of state. So who is it? GoodDay (talk) 21:20, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Well the Australian government says it's Elizabeth II,[1], and I'll take their word for it. By the way, simple questions of fact can very often be answered by entering them in Google's search box, as here. This was the second hit, after Wikipedia. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Saying 'SOMEBODY has to be head of state' is not based on sources. Coming to a conclusion from that would involve OR. I might as well start asking 'WHO would be the First Lady if Hilary Clinton becomes president of the US??'. I take it this is a complaint about what you see as persistent vandalism. Dmcq (talk) 22:44, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Maybe Australia doesn't have a head of state. I'm just finding it a tad odd, that out of 16 Commonwealth realms, 15 have the monarch (Elizabeth II) as head of state, while 1 possibly doesn't. Maybe the Governor-General is head of state in Australia. I just find the whole thing rather odd. GoodDay (talk) 22:48, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Did you look at my first link? It says the Australian government says it's the Queen. I said "I'll take their word for it", but I thought it would be obvious that that was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. They control the content of their own web site, they are in a position to know who their head of state is, and they have no reason to lie about it. Australia's head of state is Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and Head of the Commonwealth, full stop, end of thread. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:57, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm not the individual that the source-in-question, has to convince. GoodDay (talk) 22:58, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
What would you like us to do, run an RfC on the question? You can do that yourself, if you can handle the laughter. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:01, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
I've thought about running an Rfc, but I don't know where to have it. It would need to attract the entire community's input. GoodDay (talk) 23:02, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Sor far the best source is a lesson plan on a public service website. Anything better? --Pete (talk) 10:05, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

So far, you're the only individual who continues to fight against the Australian monarch being recognized as Australia's head of state. Anyways, I'm going to be starting up a discussion (at a location yet to be decided), to see what the Wiki-community's views are on the topic & how they think it should be handled. GoodDay (talk) 14:00, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Huh? If they are the only individual, they are editing against consensus. If they are persistent, that is a behavior issue, not a content dispute. You don't need an RfC, you need WP:ANI. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:15, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
So far, the community as a whole, has shown virtually no interest in the topic. I don't know if it's silent consensus on their part, concerning Skyring's stance or if they're just not overly aware of the topic. This is why I'm hoping to get clarification from the community. Maybe Skyring's stance of promoting doubt about the Australian HoS is the correct way to go, or maybe it isn't. GoodDay (talk) 14:20, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Ah, you didn't say this is a two-editor dispute. Fine, choose any involved article, run an RfC on that talk page. Like any RfC, it will be publicly listed and should receive enough participation to establish a consensus. You can then point to that RfC result from any other article, as necessary (Australia's head of state does not vary depending on context). Drop a link to the RfC here, and I'll be happy to !vote. It's unfortunate when an editor doesn't know an authoritative source when they see one. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:28, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
I wouldn't exactaly call it an editor -vs- editor situation, as there's currently multiple discussions happening at Australian head of state dispute, about that article's direction & purpose. Anyways, would Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics? be a proper location for the Rfc? GoodDay (talk) 14:32, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
I can't say, but I've never seen an RfC at a project. The point is that this does not need massive community participation. There is no more authoritative source than the fricking Australian government on this question. So, unless the opposition can show the Australian government saying something else somewhere else, with equal lack of ambiguity, it's pretty much an open-and-shut case. In my opinion, 8 editors should be a quorum and 75% should constitute a consensus. So it doesn't really matter where the RfC is run. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:39, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Howabout here? Village Pump Miscellaneous? GoodDay (talk) 14:43, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
I'll amend my previous comments. I've seen RfCs all over the place except projects, but item 1 at Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on articles, policies, or other non-user issues says an article talk page or a project. Might as well go with the letter of the guidance rather than common usage, and do it at the Politics project. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:50, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
I've begun the Rfc-in-question at Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics' talkpage. IMHO, we need clarity on this topic. GoodDay (talk) 15:01, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Well you've made the RfC more complex than what was discussed here. You added a second question which, in my opinion, is a matter for local consensus at each article. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:08, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Good point. I've reduced the Rfc to just the 'one' question. GoodDay (talk) 15:25, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Coming late to this. The Australian head of state dispute article has existed since 2011, has been much discussed and modified, is reliably sourced, and has been relatively stable for some years. The guts of it is that views are divided. User:GoodDay is well aware of the article, being a frequent contributor. I feel that he is being disingenuous by coming here cold, as it were. Discussion at the article continues, and a specific RfC has been opened here --Pete (talk) 21:06, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Of course, the rest of the wiki-community will have a say about the aforementioned article, too. Neither myself or Skyring/Pete, will be the judge of what is & isn't acceptable :) GoodDay (talk) 21:09, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

You've known me long enough to know that I regard getting more eyes on something is an excellent way to proceed. However, discussion should be informed, rather than conducted in ignorance, or built from first principles. The fact that we have an article on the topic may help inform. You know, like writing an encyclopaedia; the purpose is to inform, not to have a jolly good time talking about our opinions. --Pete (talk) 21:42, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
We shall allow the rest of the wiki-community to have a say in all of these things. GoodDay (talk) 21:46, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Question on pronunciation

Good evening everybody! We are having trouble on pronouncing correctly the name of British actress Kathryn Beaumont. Her family name is beyond doubt a French one, but how is it pronounced in English? Since in the article in English is not given the name in IFA, please be kind enough to inform us on its correct pronunciation so we can write the corresponding article in Greek correctly. Thank you in advance. --Ttzavaras (talk) 23:37, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

@Ttzavaras:I can't guarantee accuracy, but it's most likely like BO-mont. So, ˈbəʊ̯mɒnt, using International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects and received pronunciation, aka British English. Please correct me if wrong and pardon my rusty IPA. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:14, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks a lot Oiyarbepsy! --Ttzavaras (talk) 11:36, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
The name "Kathryn Beaumont" is spoken near the beginning of the video (duration 9:26) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9qLBksAI4E.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:36, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks once more for your response. --Ttzavaras (talk) 20:05, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Hello

Is Claudio Lotito dead? Morti nel 2016. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.185.175.84 (talk) 12:43, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Our article about him does not say he is dead, which means he was most likely alive within the past day. In the future, please direct such questions to the Reference desk if at all possible. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:05, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Incest in movie

At the entrance of the movie "Terms of Endearment" omitted mention the incestuous relationship of the protagonists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.255.116.64 (talk) 08:33, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

If you have a suggestion for improving Wikipedia's article about Terms of Endearment, please post it at Talk:Terms of Endearment. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:36, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Or the respective Wikiprojects. --NaBUru38 (talk) 21:47, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Or just use WP:BB and make the edits yourself. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 23:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia as a battleground for academics

There are now web services that track the number of times papers are cited in Wikipedia. They use this as a way to estimate the impact factor of a paper. Authors can get updates in near-real time on who added (or removed) their paper from a particular article; and apparently this technology is largely being facilitated by the WMF [2]. Am I wrong in thinking that this is a terrible idea, and one that actively encourages COI editing? Can we somehow encourage the WMF to quit encouraging people to see Wikipedia cites and links as a commodity? Add a few more things to WP:NOT? Geogene (talk) 00:47, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Outside services seeing how often sources are used, be they scholarly or not, can be useful. Academics may want to analyse the use of sources across articles and languages to look for trends and biases, for example. This analysis of sources relies on URLs, DOIs, or citation templates and there is no way to block that, nor should we want to. We already have WP:REFSPAM in place to discourage COI citations. Fences&Windows 01:12, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
This tool is not for looking for trends and biases, but to rank different papers (in part) by the number of times they are cited in Wikipedia, to keep the authors aware of how Wikipedia uses their papers and in which articles, and to notify them if their source is removed. What is the likely outcome of this? Geogene (talk) 02:20, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
  1. We can't control how outside tools use our site; and we can't change our policies to deal with them, when our primary purpose is to create an encyclopedia.
  2. If some academic wants to be sure that his/her article will gain popularity, it would certainly make sense for him/her to publish it in a journal which one of the top web sites uses as a source; whether or not this will actually gain him/her any popularity is unknown to him/her.
  3. I believe that many academics may want to have some idea of which issues we tend to refer to and which ones we tend not to; amd to see that his/her wrk isn't misunderstood or abused.
עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:47, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Dear Geogene, Wikipedia is i=mmensely popular and already prone to conflict of interests.

"Can we somehow encourage the WMF to quit encouraging people to see Wikipedia cites and links as a commodity?" I'm afraid we can't make academics to think how to perceive Wikipedia. --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:09, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

What is truth

Hello friends. i am a Wikipedia Writer in Persian Wikipedia and my English is not good do you think for article of Persian-speaking peoples, is name truth in English paragraph because Peoples is more peoples or just should be people? be people is multiplication. do you think what name is more correct to use?

@Qian.Nivan:
First, if you have questions on correct use of the English language I suggest you might want to try asking at English Language Learners StackExchange. That website is not part of Wikipedia but they are much better at answering questions about using English.
Second, English Wikipedia has many rules. I do not speak Farsi, but by using Google Translate I see that Persian Wikipedia has many of the same rules. We think those rules are very important. In all honesty the article you are trying to create does not meet many of those rules, and much of what you are trying to say is already said in the Persian language article. It is only a matter of time before someone will tag your article for deletion because of those rules. I suggest you read the rules carefully and then try and make the Persian language article better instead of trying to start a new one on the same topic. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 09:21, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
@Koala Tea Of Mercy: What? Qian isn't creating any article, he's just asking about the grammatical intricacies of a title of an existing one (which is admittedly pretty shitty but has lasted since 2007 as a quasi-disambig page). As far as the title of the article, it's gramatically correct - "peoples" here is the plural of "people", which indicates a singular group of individuals with a similar characteristic (speaking a Persian language) - hence it is a group of groups of people. ansh666 04:25, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
@Qian.Nivan: Dear Qian, you could ask this question in the Persian Wikipedia, on the page گوناگون; where so many Wikipedians whose English is almost perfect and some of them can read and speak the language near native  . I agree with the suggestion by Ansh666. As Ansh declared above, Quian is not trying to create any articles, and he just asked about an English grammatical fact on people and its probable plural form. Again, as Ansh expressed, peoples could be plural form of the word. Accordingly, the plural form people is correct and there is no grammatical problem with it. Anyway, thank you. Hamid Hassani (talk) 16:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

It is also of interest to note that the English idiomatic usage when dealing with multiple nations or groups speaking a common language is borne out by the notable A History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Sir Winston S. Churchill. Collect (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Request for comment: Lead sentence for train or railway stations

In what way should the lead sentence of articles dealing with railway stations or train stations be fashioned? See discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Request for comment: Identification of train or railway stations in the lead. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 22:10, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of Monuments in Nepal

What's the policy on non-AfC article-like pages in the Wikipedia: namespace? The page linked in the section header and its subpages (e.g. Wikipedia:List of Monuments in Mechi Zone, [[]]) were created in WP: space, there don't seem to be articles with the same title/topic in mainspace, and they come complete with their own template. However, they seem to be a walled garden (other than the main page) with probably negligible views. They're also completely unsourced - they wouldn't survive in article space. What should we do with them? ansh666 04:20, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

You might be able to apply WP:G6 directly, as "deleting pages unambiguously created in error or in the incorrect namespace"; if not, I would move it to Draft: space, and if there are no inward links to the old name, mark the new redir with {{db-error}} --Redrose64 (talk) 19:52, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
This is indeed strange. There are too many related pages out there and they have not been filed as subpages. Prima facie, it doesn't look like they were written for the mainspace. These appear to be lists created to facilitate creation of articles on the monuments. It's okay to keep them in projectspace, but they must be stored as subpages. It's worth noting that three of these pages, List of monuments in Rapti Zone, List of Monuments in Sagarmatha Zone, List of Monuments in Seti Zone were erroneously moved into the mainspace by User:DexDor. 103.6.159.75 (talk) 19:07, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
And then we have Draft:List of Monuments in Mahottari, Nepal - erroneously moved to the draftspace by User:Tokyogirl79.103.6.159.75 (talk) 19:13, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I moved that article to the draftspace because it wasn't finished. When I came across the article it looked like this and was clearly unfinished. The deletion rationale wasn't really accurate, but then the article really wasn't finished and they could've gone back with another template or taken it to one of the more formal deletion outlets. Since the article creator (बिप्लब आनन्द) was fairly new I chalked it up to a newbie mistake and moved it to the draftspace so they could continue working on it, and then left a message about this on their talk page. I could've gone into a bit more depth, but I just figured that this was a case of them trying to make a draft or a live article and making a mistake - something that happens quite a lot with new users, especially if they speak English as a second language. I really think that these were meant to be articles and the user just misunderstood the article creation process and some of the standards for articles. I just moved it as a sign of good faith that he'd improve the articles and submit it to the proper places. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:11, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Um, I'd say no. See Special:PrefixIndex/WP:List of Monuments in to see the full list of pages. They are clearly intended as project pages created to facilitate creation of articles on the individual monuments. @Tokyogirl79: Could you please revert those moves - the one by you and three by DexDor, as the lists are clearly unsuitable for mainspace? (The list entries themselves are lists, that too in Wikipedia space, as such blatantly failing inclusion guidelines for lists in mainspace.) 103.6.159.92 (talk) 09:55, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I'll move them, however I will say in my defense that I had no prior knowledge of this list and had only seen that a new user had created an article. His argument against deletion also gave off the strong impression that he was creating an article in the userspace per his comment here, nor was I given a reason to suspect otherwise until today. My point is that workspace articles really, really need to be marked with tags like {{Workpage}} to clearly designate them as a work page otherwise stuff like this can easily happen - articles can be erroneously moved, deleted, or seen as random information. Admins see a lot and I stress a lot of incomplete articles in the wrong areas, so it's easy to see where myself and others could assume that the articles were misplaced article creations or articles in progress. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:05, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
  • The pages I "erroneously" moved from Wikipedia (admin) namespace to Article namespace (e.g. the page that is currently at Wikipedia:List of Monuments in Seti Zone) do not appear to be admin pages (admin pages usually use words such as "pages", "editors" and "WikiProject") and do appear to be more like (list) articles (e.g. like List of monuments in Prizren) - in particular, they were (and still are) categorized as articles. Note: Many list articles are light on referencing as they contain links to articles where references can/should be found. In other words, these lists are not "clearly intended as project pages". For info: it's not uncommon to find pages intended for mainspace that have inadvertently been placed in Wikipedia namespace (e.g. incorrectly moved from Draft namespace). If these pages are intended as project (administration) pages then that should be made clear and they should be removed from articles category. DexDor (talk) 07:58, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
    It's not admin namespace. If you don't like calling it Wikipedia namespace, you can call it Project namespace, e.g. Project:List of Monuments in Nepal. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:21, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
I didn't call it "admin namespace". Part of the problem here is that some newbies think "Wikipedia namespace" means the namespace for articles - hence my attempt at clarification. DexDor (talk) 08:24, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Sources in lead

Recently I, by myself, wrote my first GA and got it promoted. It's always been my understanding that unless an article is about a very controversial topic, it shouldn't have sources in the lead; the information in the lead should simply be a summary of the rest of the article, and the information should be sourced in the body, not the lead. This article is about a noncontroversial subject who has been dead for 15 years. Today there was a post on the talk page of the article questioning why there are no sources in the lead. I thought maybe it was a new user, but then I looked at their contribs I saw that their account is a over a year old and they are reviewing GAs. I pinged them at the article talk and sent them to the WP:Lead page. I'm just sort of wondering how people who don't seem to understand policy can be reviewing GAs, and if anybody else has seen this. I'm confused... 😕 White Arabian Filly (Neigh) 00:35, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

You've been trolled, WAF, everything in the lead is sourced in the article, I checked that carefully. See WP:LEAD. That reviewer just had two of their GA reviews pulled from the wikicup too... they are after points and at the moment they have zero...why they are trolling an article that has already passed GAN is beyond me, but they are on their way to a block at the rate they are going... Montanabw(talk) 06:40, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Maybe they were trying to get nitpicky in the idea that it made them look better and more serious about reviewing. Or maybe they thought they could get it delisted so I or somebody else WOULDN'T get points (I'm not in the Wikicup anyway). White Arabian Filly (Neigh) 22:00, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't know how you got "unless an article is about a very controversial topic, it shouldn't have sources in the lead" from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section guideline. In particular, that is definitely not the lesson that the WP:LEADCITE subsection wants you to learn. It makes me wonder if you have read the lead guideline. I haven't looked at the particular article that brought you here but WP:LEADCITE says, "The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus" so there is nothing inherently wrong with the editor initiating a discussion on the talk page "questioning why there are no sources in the lead". The argument above that you are using is a clear misinterpretation of the lead guideline and the action of the other editor (as you've presented it) is not against the guideline. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:26, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
In this case, sources weren't needed in the lead because the subject is dead and is not going to do anything else. What made me post here is that the editor who raised the question was reviewing GAs for Wikicup points and clearly had no understanding of the criteria. They reviewed two articles before somebody noticed how off-the-wall some of their comments were, and both of those articles are now having to be rereviewed by others. That is a major pain for those two nominators, and is probably upsetting as well.
Also, in the horse articles we have a LOT of COI and SPA accounts, and it makes me wonder when somebody shows up and begins questioning things out of nowhere. Especially when an article has just been promoted. There are plenty of stubs out there.
I have read the whole guideline on sources in lead. I was the sole editor of the article I'm referring to, beyond minor copy edits made by a couple of others. The subject is dead and was not controversial during their lifetime. All text in the lead is simply a summary of the sourced content in the rest of the article. White Arabian Filly Neigh 22:08, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
The guideline does not imply "sources [aren't] needed in the lead because the subject is dead" or anything like it. You are phrasing your sentences poorly, probably to fit some preconceived notion of how you think the lead should be. It may very well be that the particular editor was not being helpful and had nefarious intentions. Right now I just want to help you calibrate your interpretation of the lead guideline (and make sure that anybody reading this doesn't walk away with the wrong notion of that guideline). You are correct that if the things cited in the lead were sourced later in the article, then there may be no need to cite them in the lead (unless they are controversial, in which case they must be sourced). The guideline suggests to "balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers". The guideline does not forbid sources in the lead, even redundant ones and if there's dispute, consensus should be sought. This is all clearly stated in the guideline so by writing things like "there aren't supposed to be sources in the top section" as you've done at the article's talk page clearly shows you are have an incorrect understanding of the lead guideline. Jason Quinn (talk) 12:40, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much to somebody!

I see a new feature on the article editor - when a section edit is previewed, a preview of references is automatically included!

This eliminates the need to insert a reflist tag for testing; on at least five occasions I've done that and forgotten to remove it before saving the edit.

Never again! Yay!

Many thanks to whichever developer did this.

(NOTE - I do most of my editing in Firefox 2.0.0.20 under Mac OS X 10.3.9. Really. It may seem hard to believe, but it works fine. A few features are missing, but it is entirely usable. I applaud the Wiki developer team for maintaining backwards compatibility, and not cluttering Wiki with clever-dick new "features". Some day there may be a wholly new editing system, and I expect to be left behind, but for the moment I can still be useful. When that day comes, I will upgrade if I can, but I'll probably stick with what I've got till then.)

Rich Rostrom (Talk) 19:14, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

That would be User talk:PiRSquared17 with some help from a couple others. You can leave your comment at his talk page. --Izno (talk) 20:06, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Temporary undeletion of Template:Strloc prefix

Can someone undelete that template for a while? I can't import it on The Multilingual Encyclopedia because I can't view them. --stranger195 (talk • contribs • guestbook) 06:29, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Maybe best to ask on WP:AN, if you don't get an answer here. Ajraddatz (Talk) 22:19, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
  Done Processed at AN. — xaosflux Talk 02:23, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

How best to avoid argumentative editors/make the discussion more productive

Hello everyone,

I'm pretty new around here (as an editor at least!). I've had a bit of a crash course on Wikipedia guidelines regarding things like COI due to mistakenly editing a page for which I had a COI (now disclosed). Anyway this lead to me suggested another user discloses their COI and this spiralled into a massive argument that's lead to the user threatening to report me for harassment (I don't want to name names here I've already requested a Third opinion to help resolve the problem). I would like to apologise to the user for the perceived harassment but I'm worried that doing so will (in his eyes) count as harassment, so in this case what should I do? I don't want to be rude, or allow the guy to call me rude when it wasn't my intention. (apologies if this isn't the right place - I'm more looking for general guidance on Wikipedia conduct than anything else)

Cheers,

FraserJamesRobinson (talk) 03:34, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

If we knew the answer to your question, then we'd all be happier. It's hard. There are some pages in Category:Wikipedia essays that might be useful to you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
After editing a long time, I've decided that trying to stay unemotional yourself is the best course of action. Look up policy and guidelines and quote them as necessary to support your actions. If the issue is not an emergency, a day or two of reflection can also help ones insight. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:26, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Importing en.wiki revisions into de.wiki?

Not really sure what the appropriate venue for this question is, but: Does anybody know why history from English Wikipedia articles seem to be imported into German Wikipedia articles? For example, this de.wiki revision seems to show that history from en.wiki's article on Georgia Groome has been imported there, as do some of the preceding edits (example edit from de.wiki and corresponding en.wiki edit). I just don't see the point in doing something like that. CabbagePotato (talk) 07:51, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, actually, it could be the right action. If you plan to translate all article, and you want to "show" source, then you put all revisions from original Wikipedia. That was short answer. Correct answer can be given by some user from (or familiar with) dewiki. But yes, when I first encountered this, I was a little bit surprised, why my colleagues are editing dewiki :) --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 10:25, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
It's considered a URV (copyright infringement) not to attribute all authors of the article in it. So the history has to be imported to get this right and make sure all authors of the article are properly mentioned in the history. The CC-license, that is used for the projects here, demands naming of the authors, so how could this be solved in anotrher way? Grüße vom Sänger ♫ (talk) 11:33, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
They've been doing it for years. Most of my 400+ contribs at German Wikipedia are imports. My last two genuine contributions were 00:05, 16 July 2015 and 20:11, 15 July 2015 - you need to go back more than 100 edits from those, to 22:25, 27 February 2013, before you find the one before those, and I don't think that I've made more than about a dozen genuine edits altogether. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:49, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
I just realized that enwiki also imports revisions from other Wikipedias (after arriving at Wikipedia:Requests for page importation from Wikipedia:Translation). I think I understand why revisions are imported like that now. Thanks everyone for your help! CabbagePotato (talk) 18:00, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikimania 2016: call for posters, discussions and trainings

Hi people,
the calls for posters, discussions and trainings for Wikimania 2016 are officially opened, you can find all the relevant links on the conference wiki:

https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions

The calls will be closed on March 20.

Posters will be reviewed just to make sure that there aren't things which are too much out of scope. Since we have a whole village we will surely find places to attach them, even if we they will be a lot!

Discussions will be managed by a guiding committee who will work on the wiki to meld all the proposals and suggestions.

Trainings will be reviewed by the programme committee. Please note that we request that each training has at least 3-5 interested attendees in order to be put in the programme.

By the beginning of April we will have a first list of all the accepted proposals.

If you have questions we suggest you to ask them on the discussion pages on wiki, so that everyone will be able to see them (and their answers, of course).

We are looking forward to read your ideas! --Yiyi (Dimmi!) 13:20, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Ferdinand Marcos

Our article on ex-Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos had been relatively stable before 19:39, 22 February 2016 (UTC) but one prolific new editor has now made very many edits that other editors have characterised as 'whitewashing' Marcos' record.

Since this is a presidential election year in the Philippines and the only son of Ferdinand is currently a candidate for high office, it might be considered important that this article not become too unbalanced... BushelCandle (talk) 16:52, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Help me out on wikilinks & italics & possessives

I've had a wee skim through the MoS, but found no answers ... what's our position on wikilinking where there's a possessive apostrophe involved. Foobar's, or Foobar's?

Reason I ask is I came across this: The Huffington Post's in the article Leavin' (album), which looks particularly typographically crappy, but I guess this is as much to do with the decision to italicise the wikilink but not the possessive. Again, what should we be doing here? Extending the italics to cover the 's? --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:36, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

This is regularly debated and consensus is never secured, Tagishsimon. Personally I prefer Foobar's per WP:LINKCLARITY (Wendy's is not the same thing as Wendy's, and it's good that the wikilink makes that distinction). I see no reason to extend the italics either. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 07:12, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Regarding linking of the possessive 's, the most recent discussion about that at WT:Manual of Style/Linking is archived at WT:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 18#Saxon genitive and piping. (That discussion was after a mass change by bot, so it was partly about whether the mass change should be reverted.) Personally, I prefer the possessive s to be linked just like the plural s, but (as I think is common) not italicised: The Huffington Post's. --Pipetricker (talk) 12:00, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Hello

Note that Ranginui Walker died on 29 february accordind to Google. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.185.175.84 (talk) 06:45, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Looks like someone changed the date to the 29th, and then someone else reverted it to the 28th. I've started a talk page section to sort it out. Cheers, IagoQnsi (talk) 17:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Edit requests related to election in two weeks

Hi. I've made a couple of edit requests related to the Democratic primary for the 2016 U.S. Senate election in Ohio; specifically, I've made a very small request for the article on the election itself, and two slightly more substantial requests for candidates Ted Strickland and P.G. Sittenfeld. Given that the primary election is just fifteen days away, I think it is fairly important that the articles updated quickly, so that potential voters can get accurate information should they turn to Wikipedia. If someone could review those edit requests, I would really appreciate it. Thanks, IagoQnsi (talk) 17:50, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

@IagoQnsi: Wikipedia is not a noticeboard for political campaigns. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:44, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
@Redrose64: I'm not trying to use Wikipedia as a noticeboard for political campaigns. I'm simply trying to add relevant information to some political articles. I did my best to write neutral content, and I adhered to the standard of making an edit request since I have a conflict of interest. I'm simply asking if someone could review my requests sooner rather than later, since the edit request backlog tends to get cleared somewhat slowly, and my contributions are time-sensitive. Cheers, IagoQnsi (talk) 21:04, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Pages about airlines' destinations

Why do people here create separate pages just for the destinations of an airline? Why don't they just list them under the "Destinations" section on the main page of the airline? The way I see it, these pages serve only one purpose: spiking the page count. Cédric wants to abolish "Convention №. 2" like abolishing slavery. 18:49, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

@Cedric tsan cantonais: Have you tried asking at WT:AVIATION? --Redrose64 (talk) 23:00, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
@Cedric tsan cantonais:They recommend creating a standalone article if there are more than 10 destinations. (Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide#Airlines). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:05, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality issue

I also posted on Wikipedia:Help desk. Hello everyone, I have no idea on how to deal with it, but the article Waldorf education poses a severe issue of neutrality, particularly with the section Reception, where you would expect some hindsight if any is needed, and which is a laudatory. I can see no trace on criticism of these schools, there is absolutely no mention of sectarism. A nice job has been done by POV-pushers so far. Please take care of it, I can deal with French-speakers, but I can't do much here. There is an overall problem with anthroposophy, with well-coordinated "cleaners". For the peculiar article I cited, I can provide you this secondary source which offers a good starting point. Be brave, English-speakers!   Totodu74 (talk) 15:49, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Could someone take a close lok to what User:Hgilbert is doing on this kind of articles? He is one of the cleaner I mentionned, as you can see here, for example. I hope there is some motivated contributors here, or projects that care about this kind of issues. Thanks, Totodu74 (talk) 16:00, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
The source you cite above (Jelinek) is already referred to in the article, but-- in line with WP standards on preferring reviews to primary studies-- by citing a review article that summarizes it. This hopefully gives an objective picture of its most important contents. The entirety of the following quote from the article refers to exactly that study.

One study of the science curriculum compared a group of American Waldorf school students to American public school students on three different test variables.[1] Two tests measured verbal and non-verbal logical reasoning and the third was an international TIMMS test. The TIMMS test covered scientific understanding of magnetism. The researchers found that Waldorf school students scored higher than both the public school students and the national average on the TIMMS test while scoring the same as the public school students on the logical reasoning tests.[1] However when the logical reasoning tests measured students' understanding of part-to-whole relations, the Waldorf students also outperformed the public school students.[1] The authors of the study noted the Waldorf students' enthusiasm for science, but viewed the science curriculum as “somewhat old-fashioned and out of date, as well as including some doubtful scientific material.”[1] Educational researchers Phillip and Glenys Woods, who reviewed this study, criticized the authors' implication of an “unresolved conflict”: that it is possible for supposedly inaccurate science to lead to demonstrably better scientific understanding.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Østergaard, Edvin; Dahlin, Bo; Hugo, Aksel (1 September 2008). "Doing phenomenology in science education: a research review". Studies in Science Education. 44 (2): 93–121. doi:10.1080/03057260802264081.
  2. ^ Woods, Philip A.; Glenys J. Woods (2008). Alternative Education for the 21st Century Philosophies, Approaches, Visions. Palgrave. p. 219. ISBN 978-0-230-60276-2. There are unresolved conflicts here, principally between a science education based on "inaccurate science" that leads to better scientific understanding.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hgilbert (talk • contribs) 16:45, 1 March 2016‎ (UTC)
You are not answering on the absence of any criticism section. This "education" was suspected of sectarism, proselytism, the lack of qualification of the teachers was pointed out, so were the "close" relationships of some teachers with students. The Reception section is presenting this "education" as the perfect one. I am not expecting any answer from you. You cleaned the article just as you did before; you have aready removed the sentences on vaccination previously (and I am not their writer). AGF, kiss my ass :) Totodu74 (talk) 16:56, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
From WP:Criticism: "separate sections devoted to criticism, controversies, or the like should be avoided in an article". Critiques are woven into the various sections and/or included in a general "Reception" section. Numerous times, editors have demanded more criticism without providing reliable sources not already represented in the article. Find these and add the relevant discussion! Blogs and other web commentary by people with no relevant credentials are not helpful, however. HGilbert (talk) 19:18, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
As far as the diff above: most of the information you had just added was simply a repetition of the information already included in the article (see above quote) and I merged this into the section that already covered this. I unfortunately did not notice that the new section which you added also included text about vaccination that had previously been in another section. It was not at all my intention to remove this, I have already apologized to you for doing so accidentally on my talk page, and emphasize again that this, being well-cited and well-founded critique, deserves its place in the article. Note that before your edit, that text had already been there for a long time with my approval. HGilbert (talk) 19:53, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I am not trying to debate on the article here, I just want to let the community know about the Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing ongoing here. Does anyone care? :) Totodu74 (talk) 09:47, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

The topic of Waldorf education is covered by discretionary sanctions under Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education. User:Totodu74, if you think you see actual misbehavior you can ask any administrator how to follow up. But practically speaking, you are unlikely to get changes made to the article unless you can persuade others on the talk page that your new text belongs in the article. If you find yourself having nobody but User:Hgilbert to comment on your changes you can open a WP:Request for comment, use WP:DRN or read the other ideas in WP:Dispute resolution. EdJohnston (talk) 19:24, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
This is a non-issue. Long-standing text was accidentally lost in the course of merging two sections on the same theme. It was an honest mistake and was quickly corrected by Totodu74. I apologized for the mistaken deletion immediately. There is no text under dispute and never was one. It never even required discussion on the talk page and there was absolutely no edit warring or any other reason to cast aspersions. HGilbert (talk) 20:51, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Inspire Campaign: Making our content more meaningful

 

The second Inspire Campaign has launched to encourage and support new ideas focusing on content review and curation in Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia volunteers collaboratively manage vast repositories of knowledge in our projects. What ideas do you have to manage that knowledge to make it more meaningful and accessible? We invite all Wikimedians to participate and submit ideas, so please get involved today! The campaign runs until March 28th.

All proposals are welcome - research projects, technical solutions, community organizing and outreach initiatives, or something completely new! Funding is available from the Wikimedia Foundation for projects that need financial support. Constructive, positive feedback on ideas is appreciated, and collaboration is encouraged - your skills and experience may help bring someone else’s project to life. Join us at the Inspire Campaign and help your project better represent the world’s knowledge! I JethroBT (WMF) 19:55, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Women's History Month, India-2016

Following the tradition(?) of the last two years that I had seen on Wikimedia, I created a page this year for Women's History Month 2016. However, I don't know where to take it from here, after creating the page. Any advice or suggestion? I posted this question on WikiWomen's Collaborative and they suggested me to ask this here. Ankitashukla (talk) 05:07, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Professor Carl Hewitt

Professor Carl Hewitt has posted a letter that he sent via registered US mail to the Wikimedia Foundation here.

A member of the Wikimedia Foundation suggested that I post a notice here when I discussed the matter with them after they presented a seminar at Stanford Law yesterday.171.66.208.134 (talk) 00:34, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

It appears to have been discussed on the talk page of his article - Talk:Carl_Hewitt/Archive_2. There seems to be something of a disagreement / feud between Hewitt and one Arthur Rubin, a wikipedia editor. Lord know what the rights & wrongs of it all are :( --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:08, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Students became frustrated by censorship. So they asked Professor Hewitt to write a letter to Wikimedia Foundation. 45.33.51.219 (talk) 17:43, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
"Censorship", eh? Students probably need to read WP:COI, even if they think they have right on their side. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:48, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Since the students are in the Law School, they care more about process and procedure than whether Professor Hewitt is right. 4.15.127.211 (talk) 18:05, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
We live in hope that they read and follow WP:COI, whether their interest is process, proedure, or truth. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:13, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Possibly relevant: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 17:59, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
It's a lot easier to start a war on Wikipedia than to finish one :-( 50.247.81.99 (talk) 19:46, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Dumuzid (talk) 19:49, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
The eight-year war stymied all attempts to update the article :-( Carl (talk) 16:09, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Professor Hewitt is a highly respected academic. For example, Professor JJ Meyer wrote an extremely favorable review of the book Hewitt co-edited Inconsistency Robustness. 45.33.51.219 (talk) 19:33, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
It looks like a couple of admins really have it in for Hewitt. Anybody know what's up? 50.0.72.133 (talk) 20:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Opinions vary. Some appear to think that Hewitt & supporters are seeking to promote the importance of his work beyond its merits. Others appear to think that "a couple of admins" et al are seeking to denigrate Hewitt and his work. At least two of the IPs who have engaged in this thread appear to have a singular interest in the Hewitt issue (which is to say, probably very little interest in Wikipedia beyond its use as a venue for Hewitt promotion and/or denigration.) I'm happy, 50.0.72.133, to assume in good faith that you don't know "what's up". I don't think we're going to clear up a sore that has festered for more than eight years on wikipedia in this thread. Still. Nice evening. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:30, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Instead of going around saying how awful Arthur Rubin is how about actually doing what is required in Wikipedia which is to provide secondary sources supporting what you are saying? There is a reason for the cartoon Wikipedian protestor. Dmcq (talk) 22:34, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
What is the Wikipedia policy on deleting Arthur Rubin's personally insulting comments about me?
BTW, I completely agree with you about the need for editors to provide secondary sources. Carl (talk) 16:38, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Be aware of WP:Legal threats; using legal terminology can be a negative for you. If you believe the comments (instead) to have violated WP:NPA, then you can do one of the following (and you should start with the first item and work your way up): 1) Discuss the problem on his talk page; 2) see if he would go to dispute resolution; 3) broach the subject at WP:ANI; 4) for egregious issues, WP:ARBCOM is also appropriate. --Izno (talk) 16:19, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks! I have improved the wording above.
The links that you provided are very helpful. It looks like the recommended course of action in this case is to just ignore the personal insults, e.g, the insinuation by User:Arthur Rubin that I am "Bozo the Clown". Carl (talk) 13:51, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
What I don't understand is why are the admins working so hard to keep a link to his homepage out the article on Hewitt. 50.242.100.195 (talk) 14:55, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Including an article subject's homepage can veer quite close to promotion, and as a primary source, is disfavored as opposed to secondary sources. So there's that. Dumuzid (talk) 15:14, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
I thought that there is a Wikipedia rule that the subject's homepage can be included as a link. 50.0.72.133 (talk) 16:13, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
You're right that there is WP:ELOFFICIAL, but like so much, it is subject to context. I don't know whether the link in question meets the two-prong test or was removed for some other reason. Dumuzid (talk) 16:22, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
In Actor model, the same admins have removed references to the most important published articles on the subject that are in the book Inconsistency Robustness. 50.0.72.133 (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
  • A lot depends on whether the links in dispute are being used as sources in the article (ie to support something stated in the actual text of the article), or merely being placed in an "External Links" section. Context matters, and the rules on what is, and is not, appropriate are different depending on context. Blueboar (talk) 16:51, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
The standard reference for Actor model is in the book Inconsistency Robustness and is titled "Actor Model of Computation for Scalable Robust Information Systems." 45.33.51.219 (talk) 21:41, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
I just had a quick look at the history of all this and some people are just not able to drop a stick. If the article was just left alone it would be developed like any other. Anyway is [3] his personal page because all it says is that the site is undergoing scheduled maintenance. People are allowed to hang themselves as far as I'm concerned and that seems to be the purpose of most homepages for people who are as concerned about their biography or pet project or whatever as this, I see no particular reason not to stick a reference to his home page in the infobox. Dmcq (talk) 18:13, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
It says that his homepage is here, which is currently being maintained by him. I see no evidence that Professor Hewitt is now connected with http://carlhewitt.info/. Maybe http://carlhewitt.info/ is now a different Carl Hewitt? 4.15.127.211 (talk) 21:26, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
That seems okay to me, but what is the 'it' in 'It says that his homepage...'? thanks Dmcq (talk) 22:11, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Um just noticed the StandardIOT at the end of that page name so it seems to be a subject page for one thing he is working on rather than the official page of Carl Hewitt. I've found [4] which looks more like an official page but points to that page with the maintenance warning. Dmcq (talk) 22:26, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
The file that you linked to above does not seem to exist. Someone else seems to have the CarlHewitt URL on Google; so Professor Hewitt had to add a suffice to his URL. 45.33.34.186 (talk) 03:53, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I encourage Dr. Hewitt to file a request with the Arbitration Committee to modify the sanctions that currently affect his ability to speak on his own behalf on Wikipedia. I believe that the committee might well be amendable to amending the previous arbitration case, which was originally decided in 2006 and, in my opinion, has outlived its usefulness. The page for filing requests is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment. Because the account User:CarlHewitt has been blocked, it may be necessary to obtain an unblock for the purposes of filing an appeal. Because I have not been an admin since January 2015, I am not able to block or unblock users. The arbitration committee may be contacted directly at arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org to facilitate the appeal. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:46, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion Carl. I have created a new account in which I will for now only edit the user page and talk page for this account in addition to administration pages that I get dragged into. If administration gives its approval, then I will only edit talk pages of articles. It would be a great improvement if we could get editors involved in improving the articles that have been blocked from editing in addition to the editors previously involved. Further suggestions are greatly appreciated. Carl (talk) 15:37, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for the very welcome gesture. I think the new account will make communication much more straightforward. One of the fundamental challenges with IP addresses is the impossibility of determining who makes each edit, and whether it is the same person who made a previous edit. I strongly recommend using the new account to file an arbitration appeal before doing anything else. I am not an arbitrator, but I am confident the arbitrators will take an appeal very seriously, and will give it a full and good-faith consideration. Once that matter is put to rest, it should be possible to discuss actual article content without the shadow of the now-ancient arbitration remedy. I think that will open up a path for more productive discussions about article content. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:56, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
You are 'very welcome'. I have sent a message to arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org and will await their response. Meanwhile, further suggestions from any and all are greatly appreciated. Carl (talk) 12:36, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Do you have an web page you consider your official web page that would last a while? That was one thing that there was a request to add but I wasn't sure about what it was above. Dmcq (talk) 17:52, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
My homepage here will hopefully be stable. However, it is difficult to predict the long term future of Google+. Carl (talk) 18:15, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Does anyone want to take a whack at updating the very obsolete article on Professor Hewitt taking this into account? 45.33.34.186 (talk) 03:01, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Not really, thanks. The fact that someone - let us presume it is the Prof - has registered an account in that name is not of great moment so far as the article on the Prof is concerned. Suggestions for changes backed by pointers to reliable sources & left on the talk page of an article may result in some action. I'm fascinated: why does the Prof come with a cohort of IP outriders? Singular, and somewhat odd. --Tagishsimon (talk) 04:20, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
If you unlock the talk page, then editors could make suggestions for improving the very obsolete article. Carl (talk) 15:55, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
It can be edited by autoconfirmed editors, the requirements are pretty light see WP:Protection policy#semi for details. Dmcq (talk) 18:42, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Looks like they can't edit until it is unlocked. 107.1.187.90 (talk) 23:40, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Nothing has changed and the censorship stands :-( Carl (talk) 19:16, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Is the infobox at Planet Nine a disinfobox?

I've recently been asking other editors whether the infobox image at Planet Nine should be removed, and there is an ongoing discussion to that effect. Today I've been exploring the labyrinth looking for appropriate guidelines, and I've just been reading Wikipedia:Disinfoboxes. Basically, I'm starting to see the whole infobox as a sort of spoof. Though I'm certain that the editors have acted in good faith, what they have essentially done is create an infobox for a planet for an article about a hypothesis, if you catch my drift. Opinions are fairly polarized over there at the moment, so I'm loathed to add insult to injury by posting further criticism there. If anyone fancies casting an eye over it, please do. Regards, nagualdesign 15:26, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with you and see no problem with the image. I feel there has been a bit of a Thomas Gradgrind movement about representations recently which wasn't the case in the past and I think the lead image at least should be given a little latitude. Following the argument that images always need to be informative is destructive as no user produced image should say anything more than is said in the text and therefore cannot be informative. Dmcq (talk) 01:08, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Row headers in tables

I first asked this question at the Teahouse but this may be a better place. Can anyone tell me if it's OK technically to use row headers in the right hand column of a table instead of the left, by using a "!" at the beginning of the cell which is to appear in the right hand column. In fact is it OK to put "!" to make any cell bold, or should we always use the 3 apostrophes Jodosma (talk) 08:22, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

For what logical purpose would you have or need a row header on the right? --Izno (talk) 12:51, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
It's the bolding I'm interested in. A lot of musical articles, for example Zhou Bichang have tables with a Track listing column on the right, where the heading, "Track listing", is bolded by using the apostrophes thus:    |style="font-size: 85%;"|{{hidden|'''Track listing'''|    but the same effect could be achieved by using     !style="font-size: 85%;"|{{hidden|Track listing|     instead, with a saving of 6 bytes for each occurance. Jodosma (talk) 20:40, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
It should be bold if its a header cell, e.g. ! scope="row" | Row header. See Help:Table#Color; scope of parameters. — Dispenser 17:17, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Header cell markup should not be used merely to boldface the content of a cell, it should only be used if the cell really is a header for the row. The correct semantic markup should be used, for accessibility if nothing else. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
I had thought that; it's similar to the advice not to use a semicolon to bold a line without a definition in Help:List. Jodosma (talk) 20:50, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

RfC

See Talk:Bipolar disorder#RfC: Is the happy/sad mask in the infobox section appropriate? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:36, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Stats

Hello

I am looking for two informations;

  • Most frequently updated pages: I am not looking for the most edited ever page. But at least one of the most edited. How much would that be ? Where can I find this info ?
  • Page with the highest number of contributors ?

Thanks for any pointer. Anthere (talk) 15:29, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

  1. Wikipedia:Database reports/Pages with the most revisions (sort namespace=0 for articles only).
  2. Nothing pregenerated, but you need SQL query like (>1 hour to run: 
    SELECT page_title, COUNT(DISTINCT rev_user_text) AS "Users"
FROM revision
JOIN page ON page_id=rev_page
WHERE page_namespace=0
GROUP BY rev_page ORDER BY Users DESC
LIMIT 10;
— Dispenser 17:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Forgot to thank you sorry Dispenser. I used the first link (very useful). The second option scared me :) Thanks Anthere (talk)

RFC - Jack Ruby's constitutional presumption of innocence

There is an RfC about Jack Ruby and his legal status at the time of his death.  To observe or participate, please follow the link: Talk:Jack Ruby#RFC - Jack Ruby's constitutional presumption of innocence .
Richard27182 (talk) 23:55, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Donation of 760 historical bookbindings (National Library of the Netherlands)

If you're into nicely decorated books , this one might be for you:

Last month the National Library of the Netherlands (KB) donated a selection of 760 historical bookbindings (period 1100-1875, public domain) from its collection of 12.000 bookbindings to Wikimedia Commons.

The bindings range from sober ones in leather and parchment to richly decorated in textile, silver or tortoise shell. They give a small insight into how historical binding techniques were used and how successive decorative styles developed over time. In the details one can recognize the requests of patrons, the craftsmanship of the binders and the preferences of collectors.

The upload was facilitated by the GLAMWiki toolset for bulk uploads. --OlafJanssen (talk) 11:04, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

A small preview ('please put your cursor on an image to view the caption (in Dutch))

  •  
    Band van beschilderd blank perkament
  •  
    Band van bruin marokijn en een chemise in fluweel
  •  
    Band van groene ribzijde
  •  
    Band van rood marokijn met inleg van groen geverfd perkament
  •  
    Band van zilver en verguld zilver, over zwart leer
  •  
    Noot met band van rood saffiaan
  •  
    Band van donker kastanjebruin en oker schildpad
  •  
    Band in brokaatpapier
  •  
    Band van blauw fluweel

-- — Preceding unsigned comment added by OlafJanssen (talk • contribs) 11:04, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Great upload. But what should users of devices which do not use a cursor do? ;-) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:43, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Removing Persondata

I've seen multiple IP editors (not sure if the same or different people) reverting removal of Persondata (by other people, and now one time by me) because "KasparBot will handle it". Does it actually cause any issue for the bot if it's removed? I'm not doing mass removals, just stumbled upon an article with one, and I verified to make sure it had nothing that's not already in Wikidata. There's nothing on WP:PDT that says we shouldn't remove them manually. nyuszika7h (talk) 11:46, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

@Nyuszika7H: it is not a problem at all to remove Persondata manually. The whole dataset was copied already in November to the migration tool. I'm going to add something to WP:PDT. -- T.seppelt (talk) 13:05, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
What if the bot removes it, and then Joe Random replaces it. Will the bot notice, and try again? I hope 3RR doesn't become a problem. David Brooks (talk) 01:00, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
I don't believe the bot is programmed to take care of that case. We will likely have some left over due to that reason, so TS may need to run the bot a second time through. Not such a large problem IMO. --Izno (talk) 11:10, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Persondata Verifiability

Out of curiosity, T.seppelt, if the data was copied off of WP more than 3 months ago what happens if the data (especially the sources for that data) were updated after that date? For example if a person dies or marries and changes names? In fact, is there any provision at all in Wikidata/Persondata for verifiability? Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 18:51, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

As I have repeatedly pointed out, the Wikidata community decided against the import of the remaining material from Persondata, for this an other reasons of quality and reliability. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:26, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
As you have, multiple times, failed to point out, they decided against an automatic import. Our own community also agreed that there was some material worth salvaging--I can point you to the RFCs that say exactly that. --Izno (talk) 14:34, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
AIUI, the current suggestion is that facts which were in persondata are to be manually checked against sources, and whatever the source says is added to Wikidata. If that is done, then it is not an "import from persondata". If, however, they are manually copied, unchecked, then it is the kind of import which was decided against by the Wikidata community. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:51, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

@Koala Tea Of Mercy: Yes, Wikidata has the concept of sources and verifiability; see d:Help:Sources. Kaspar (the tool) doesn't know anything about sources though--should it? It can't know what the sources are for most statements because most of the Persondata did not have "inline" sources in the context of the parameters. --Izno (talk) 14:34, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that information Izno. I think my concern is with the integrity of the database. Perhaps not now but in time it seems to me that there will need to be some cleanup projects that retroactively analyze all BLP articles that were updated after the bulk copy (with "living" being applied as of the date of the copy, even/especially if no longer true). In the meantime it might be prudent to establish policies requiring sources for all modifications of the data after the semi-auto import is completed. Just some thoughts. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 03:08, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Help in fixing invalid ISSN codes

Recently a bot searched for invalid ISSN codes. There were several and listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia/ISSN errors. Please help in fixing them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:17, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

What should be done about Where (magazine) where there are multiple ISSN's? Infobox's issn field only seems to allow one number. Brightgalrs (/braɪtˈɡæl.ərˌɛs/)[1] 13:17, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Brightgalrs I just removed the fields. They do not apply in this case. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:29, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Makes sense, thanks. Brightgalrs (/braɪtˈɡæl.ərˌɛs/)[1] 13:39, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

The Catalan WP

The Catalan Wikipedia's articles amount reached 500,000. Congratulations to all its contributors for both its high quantity and quality! And now, the Persian WP is going ahead just behind Catalan, as the 18th WP from the articles number point of view, with +485,000 articles. :) Hamid Hassani (talk) 17:15, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Identification

There is a case of mistaken identity here: two copies of the same photograph, File:Arthur Godley in later life.jpg and File:Thomas Spring Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon.jpg, were uploaded as if they were portraits of two different people. Is it possible to find who is the actual sitter?--The Traditionalist (talk) 15:26, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

The images are sourced from oxforddnb.com and npg.org.uk. Would you be up for contacting them? They can probably sort out which one is wrong, and getting it fixed here&there is better than just fixing it here. Alsee (talk) 19:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
@Alsee: I will do this.--The Traditionalist (talk) 13:24, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Awaken the Dragon Edit-a-thon/Contest

 

Hi, can I interest anybody in contributing to a national edit-a-thon/contest for Wales in April, Wikipedia:WikiProject Wales/Awaken the Dragon. You can win up to £200 worth of Amazon vouchers and books of your choice for entering the contest. The idea is that Amazon vouchers and books can then be used by people to buy/have discount off more books and produce more articles for wikipedia. The scoreboard will be kept here. However, if contests and prize aren't your cup of tea you're very welcome to participate in the edit-athon throughout the month. Everything will count and be added to a list at the bottom. We have a number of missing listed buildings identified and a core list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Wales/Awaken the Dragon/Core articles. Already we have about 30 people interested but it would be great to see more get involved and producing content and really show what can be achieved in a month.The point of it is getting some of the core articles up to decent status and an overall improvement in quality. So if you generally work on military history or trains or whatever and you spot something which might interest you please consider working on it within the next six weeks! There is also a physical edit-athon at the National Library of Wales on April 22, see this for details.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:04, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

750,000 edit milestone

I've just recently passed 750,000 edits (on English Wikipedia, of course). The party will be at User:BD2412/Edit milestones. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:28, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Open call for Individual Engagement Grants

 

Hey folks! The Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) program is accepting proposals from March 14th to April 12th to fund new tools, research, outreach efforts, and other experiments that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers. Whether you need a small or large amount of funds (up to $30,000 USD), IEGs can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.

Also accepting candidates to join the IEG Committee through March 25th.

With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) 23:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Remained lang links at local-wikis

Hi, there are many lang-links (interwikis) at local wikis which aren't removed. for finding them you should type insource:/\[\[xxx:/ (xxx is langlink like en,fr, de, fa,...) at local wiki search box like below:

At en.wikipedia

...

At fr.wikipedia

most of these local pages have interwiki-conflict and should be solved by human.

for bot

if you have bot at local wiki, you can run this code to remove interwikis of without-conflict pages (you should bot-permission at wikidata and localwiki): 

#This command will check and remove interwikis from en.wikipedia's pages which have fr: links
python pywikibot/pwb.py interwikidata -clean -langs:en -lang:en "-search:insource:/\[\[fr:/"
#Only categories
python pywikibot/pwb.py interwikidata -clean -langs:en -lang:en "-search:category:insource:/\[\[fr:/"

Yamaha5 (talk) 06:33, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Crowdfunding campaign for Rehman (update)

Hi everyone. I would like to update you with regards to this campaign (direct link) for one of our contributors, photographers, and administrators, User:Rehman. Since the campaign's launch about a month ago, we managed to raise $222; $1,378 short of the goal. At the current average of $27, the goal can be achieved if we're able to reach out to another 50 contributors. But our small contact circles are pretty much exhausted. Hence I think it is important, for the sake of the campaign's success, to ask for your support by sharing it with your contacts (on social media, mailing lists, talkpages, wherever). Thank you, Azeeztalk 15:44, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

In case it wasn't clear, they're trying to collect money to buy a better camera and computer for a long-time editor, who has uploaded hundreds of images to Commons, including diagrams like this one and photographs like this one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:56, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
Isn't that what #Open call for Individual Engagement Grants is for? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:31, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Andy. It doesn't seem like it: "Projects should foster conditions that encourage editing by volunteers (e.g. editor recruitment campaigns), not replace volunteer action by funding someone to edit articles, upload photos, etc". Azeeztalk 13:24, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
Your quotation seems to support, not refute, my hypothesis. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:47, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (March 2016)


Hello Wikimedians!

 
The TWL OWL says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for access to research materials from:

  • Cambridge University Press - a major publisher of academic journals and e-books in a variety of subject areas. Access includes both Cambridge Journals Online and Cambridge Books. 25 accounts.
  • Alexander Street Academic Video Online - a large academic video collection good for a wide range of subjects, including news programs (such as PBS and BBC), music and theatre, lectures and demonstrations, and documentaries. 25 accounts.
  • Baylor University Press - a publisher of academic e-books primarily in religious studies and the humanities. 50 accounts.
  • Future Science Group - a publisher of medical, biotechnological and scientific research. 30 accounts.
  • Annual Reviews - a publisher of review articles in the biomedical sciences. 100 accounts.
  • Miramar Ship Index - an index to ships and their histories since the early 19th century. 30 accounts.

Non-English

  • Noormags - Farsi-language aggregator of academic and professional journals and magazines. 30 accounts.
  • Kotobna - Arabic-language ebook publishing platform. 20 accounts.

Expansions

  • Gale - aggregator of newspapers, magazines and journals. 50 accounts.
  • Elsevier ScienceDirect - an academic publishing company that publishes medical and scientific literature. 100 accounts.

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Project MUSE, De Gruyter, EBSCO, Newspapers.com and British Newspaper Archive. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 20:30, 17 March 2016 (UTC)


You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).
This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

Vandalism of the Sandbox

There is currently a lot of vandalism of the global sandbox. I think this is putting off a lot of new users when they stumble across the dick pics etc., any thoughts how to prevent it?--Laber□T 21:28, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Per discussions at WP:ANI, this is currently being sorted. It won't be possible to prevent all vandalism forever, but this spate is being sorted. -- zzuuzz (talk) 21:32, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
Just curious, would it be possible/reasonable to suppress all images added to the sandbox so that they don't display? -- The Voidwalker Discuss 21:55, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
We can use the edit filter to prevent the addition of images, particularly targeted at certain pages and certain classes of user. However new and unregistered users should be using the sandbox to test images, so if broadly applied it would not be without collateral. Built into the software, as this suggestion would have to be, it would not be ideal. However admins have all the tools available to deal with this stuff - just give them a poke. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:01, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
Many new users copy and paste articles in there to look how they would display before actually saving them in the mainspace, if there are any images in the articles that would confuse them a lot...--Laber□T 08:21, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
One thing which can be done: Any image added to the sandbox inappropriately can be listed at MediaWiki:Bad image list - this would prevent anyone from adding the image to any unauthorized page, including the sandbox. I do see that several images were added recently. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:07, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Why do we need global sandboxes? Each user has a sandbox subpage. --NaBUru38 (talk) 13:32, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

They can be used by unregistered editors, and save on creating a mess everywhere. Also I like to think they can get people used to the principle of editing and having their stuff edited mercilessly. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:55, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Abdellah el-Ayachi and Abu Salim al-Ayyashi

Hello, I'm french and I need some help. I found two articles about the same travel writer : Abdellah el-Ayachi and Abu Salim al-Ayyashi . Can you fix it ? Thanks. HB (talk) 22:24, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

I redirected the small stub to the big stub (see Talk:Abu Salim al-Ayyashi). --Pipetricker (talk) 22:54, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Happy Nowruz!

Happy Nowruz ([nouˈɾuːz]), the Iranian New Year, to everyone who cares. :) Hamid Hassani (talk) 16:13, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

A random (probably silly) question that just came to my mind

I am just wondering what if, on one day some boring group of vandals, say, of significant numbers, collectively came to attack the website for whatever reason, blanking all the pages and replacing them with nonsense? This is of course very unlikely but it is not to say its definitely never going to happen. If it really does happen, is there anything we can do about--is there another means other than by one-by-one reverting the edits of 5.1 million articles?

Wishds (talk) 10:33, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

There have been large groups of vandals, but none of them have been able to cause a mess over 5.1 million articles. We have a few different anti-vandal bots, as well as some admins who actually have bots tracking some of the sites that are most likely to organize mass attacks. Ian.thomson (talk) 10:55, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Very quiet here

Activity on my watchlist has dropped off dramatically the last couple of weeks. Is it just random, or is there a more general reason? Spring break? Are there that many students here? — Gorthian (talk) 20:27, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Same on my watchlist. I was under the impression that it was a general downward trend for active editors. Rehman 14:51, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps we've finally got all of it right.   Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:42, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Ha! Today, of course, the vandals are suddenly out in force again. Back to it.— Gorthian (talk) 20:19, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Go get them, tiger! OXYGENE 7-13 (TALKPAGE) 20:31, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

If your watchlist seems unusually quiet, you may want to check your preferences to see whether pages that were mostly recently (NB: not "only") edited by a bot are being hidden. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:43, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Safety section lede at Ford Pinto

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Ford_Pinto#RfC: section lede of Safety section. The inclusion of content drawn from three commentators, including a long direct quote, in the lede of section Fuel system fires, recalls, and litigation of article Ford Pinto, is disputed. Please comment. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 16:37, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Dear Hugh, when inviting people to a request for discussion, please invite the respective WikiProjects, for example WikiProject Automobiles. Good luck! --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:07, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your suggestion. WikiProject Automobiles was notified on their project page via subscription at RfC launch, and at project talk the next day 12 March 2016, though the latter omits a link to the RfC or to the article talk page. Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 19:24, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Media attention for edit conflicts at 3D printer project

See RepRap project

One perspective of the situation might be that Wikipedia editors delete content which is not backed by reliable sources. Another perspective could be that Wikipedia's editorial process is a matter of individual opinion with no clear rule set. Other participation would be useful as this situation is getting external media attention. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:39, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Only count mainspace edits for autoconfirmation

Would it be technically possible and culturally acceptable to only count edits in mainspace for autoconfirmation? A set of articles on my watchlist are constantly vandalized by a longterm vandal who regularly creates new accounts that make just enough edits in sandbox pages to bypass the semi-protection on his or her target articles. I know that it would be a bad idea to make such a significant change to address one editor especially when this is such an obviously flawed and partial attempt to address the problem but I'm curious if this change is feasible and desirable. ElKevbo (talk) 16:11, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

If it were possible, I'm not sure it would be helpful. Someone who is going through that much deliberate length to game the system would not find it hard to go through the extra step of making 10 quick trivial changes to an obscure main space article to get confirmation. That is, once some knows they have to get autoconfirmed to continue trolling, and they're already willing to do so, your additional barrier does not present any additional hindrance to discourage them. --Jayron32 16:39, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
It would probably do no harm to exclude little-watched pages, like sandboxes, from being counted - but mainspace-only should not be required; templete editing may be very helpful, for instance. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:28, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Missing links in citations

During the course of my work here, I often come across citations where the author has an article on Wikipedia, but with no link to that article. Is there any work going on, to address this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:25, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Well when an article comes up for a featured article review, I would request that such links be made. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:53, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks; I was thinking of something more systematic, for the other 99.999% of Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:23, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Horrendous article.

I have been reviewing the article on "Olga Bondareva" and I told encuenta this horribly, and contain a deep anti-Soviet bias. In addition, the article is deeply poor and skimp on glorious achievements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.255.100.10 (talk) 21:15, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

So fix it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:08, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't have obligation to contribute to your encyclopedia. To you get paid for it and is the work they chose, I do not force them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.255.115.170 (talk) 01:46, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps you might like to read the page I linked to, before you dismiss it? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:54, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

phishing scam involving wikipedia

I have just received the following e-mail:

[copy of email removed]

-- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Petebutt (talk • contribs) 10:32, 26 March 2016‎

This mentions a Wikipedia article but is otherwise unconnected. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:06, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Using the wiki am on cell phone

A wiki pop off appeared when I tried to use wiki could not figure out how to remove or close so I remove wiki app from my phone thanks Craig  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1008:B020:67F6:8592:DA94:16E9:AC90 (talk) 16:24, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Tymshare Super BASIC

Can somoene cleanup the talk page talk:Tymshare Super BASIC ? It doesn't seem to be meeting proper Wikipedia decorum. -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 04:39, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

  Done, I also merged the one-sentence non-notable "article". Alsee (talk) 04:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

RFC: Related Pages extension

Moved to Wikipedia:Related Pages extension/RfC, with discussion on its talk page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

correcting the birth date of a living person

I don't know how to correct the birth date of an actual living person. Louis Ferreira is listed on Wikipedia as having been born on February 20, 1967; however, an interview (posted both as audio and transcript) with the actor on his personal website at [1] reveals that he celebrated his 50th birthday this year, which would place his birth date on February 20, 1966. Since this goes into the "persondata" field I assume it's a little more complicated than just making the change and providing a reference. Could someone please point me in the right direction on how to correct this mistake? Thanks!! BczogallaBczogalla (talk) 18:05, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Persondata is deprecated, and should be removed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't understand what that means. Where should I ask this question so someone can explain to me how to fix the problem?Bczogalla (talk) 18:22, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
The Help Desk would be the usual place, but since you're here... The 'Persondata' has been removed from the article.[5]. I wouldn't worry about it, unless you want to also change wikidata:Q714479. What needs to be changed is the Infobox data at the top of the article, and the date in the early life section. You'll need to add the reference to the date in the early life section. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:45, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
OK, so if I understand you correctly I just go ahead and make the correction the same way I would for any other factual error in an article? As in: make the change, add the reference, and save. Please holler if I've got that wrong. I'll go ahead and make the correction now. Thank you so much! Bczogalla (talk) 23:07, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
For future reference, articles have, at the side, a section of "interwiki" - whicj basically means links to the article on other Wikipedias. At the bottom, there's a label marked "Edit links"; follow that link to reach the relevant WikiData page. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:57, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
OK, I will check that out. I just know that a lot of data is already related to this article, such as "People born in 1967". Is the section you're referring to the one that will fix that? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks for your response! Bczogalla (talk) 23:07, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ http://www.louisferreira.org/Ferreira_Fest_74.html

Wikimedia DC Book Grants

Hello all! I’m pleased to announce the second round of Wikimedia DC Book Grants, a pilot program in which we help provide editors with resources they need to improve Wikimedia projects. If you live in the United States and actively edit Wikimedia projects, you are eligible; you do not have to be a member of WMDC or edit English projects.

Applications are open for one week, from today through Monday, April 4. We expect to let people know by April 10 whether or not their grant request has been funded.

More information is available on the Wikimedia DC website.

Apply for a grant here!

Keilana (talk) 19:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Galaxy World of Alisa possible wiki-hoax, cleanup needed?

I'm not sure this is the best place to put this, but I collapsed this edit at RfC-talk as being off topic for that venue, but after some examination it does appear that the poster, while at the wrong venue, may have a point. There have been references to an alleged animated series from Russia, Galaxy World of Alisa, added by IP editors to over 200 articles, an effort which goes back months and has continued as late as this month. See this search. Google searches cannot find any direct references to the series and the references which can be found appear to be the same kind as added here, references slipped into pages about allegedly related subject matter. There do appear to be other genuine animated series about the same character Alisa Selezneva, but it may be significant that the Wikipedia-ru version of that character's page (via Google translate here) does not mention the Galaxy World series at all. Unless this is a truly obscure series, which would be hard to believe since the references put into the articles here refer to multi-country and multi-language versions (American English, British English, Hindi, Italian, Australian, and others), this smells like an Internet-wide spam or, more likely, hoax. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:25, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

I copy a section from Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2016 February 29:

Hello. Recently, while looking at Voice Over profiles, I keep seeing this thing called "Galaxy World of Alisa" on most pages. I don't know if I should believe you guys or not. When I looked it up, the only thing to exist is a video with the name "Alisa" on it, but it's totally unrelated! There's not even a page on here either!

I'm so frustrated over this! I want to know if it's just clickbait because I can't take this "Real or Fake" thing anymore! Any admin active right now, please respond as soon as you can so I can know all about this, thank you.

-From Anonymous Contributor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:84:C800:E3F2:9965:DB7B:3DAA:9023 (talk) 18:12, 29 February 2016 (UTC) P.S, I'M THE SAME PERSON AS ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTOR 73.194.46.93 WHO SENT THIS MESSAGE

Special:WhatLinksHere/Galaxy World of Alisa shows that it's linked by six articles. Google says that there are over three thousand pages containing the string <"Galaxy World of Alisa">, but when you search for <"Galaxy World of Alisa" -wikipedia> to remove Wikipedia hits, there are about two pages of results, all autogenerated, social media, or unattributed copies of Wikipedia articles. Some of the twenty-odd hits mention it as a current TV series — but how many current English-language TV series would get so few appearances online? I too question the reality of this subject. Nyttend (talk) 18:54, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

If this is a truly obscure series, it shouldn't be appearing in all of these places, as its appearance will be meaningless to everyone except a very few people familiar with the truly obscure series. And if it's a hoax, as appears to me to be almost certain, it definitely shouldn't be appearing in all of them. Perhaps we can remove it from its current locations and create an edit filter to prevent its addition to mainspace? Nyttend (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
This is bizarre. The wide-ranging non-reliable sources for Galaxy World make it hard to imagine someone is simply spreading a hoax. The best presumably-reliable source I've found is this article at ibtimes.com.au. IBtimes seems to be accepted at Reliable Source Noticeboard, but they appear to be a very low-end web-outfit of questionable quality. IBtimes has updated their article: The original article erroneously stated that Clarke was a cast member of “Galaxy World of Alisa”, which is not true. The article has been corrected and the reference removed.
There are several TV networks listed in relation to Galaxy world (some I got from foreign language wikis), when I searched the websites for those networks NONE of them had any mention of Galaxy World.
Galaxy World supposedly has a lineup of major-star voice actors including (but not limited to) Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson, Matt Damon, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Dev Patel, Felicity Jones. It also supposedly has music from well known artists such as Nickelback and Mylène Farmer. However I can find zero reliable mention of those famous names in connection to Galaxy World. Everything traces back to Wikis and youtube and other write-anything sites. Alsee (talk) 11:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Weird https://twitter.com/jones_felicity_ twitter account. The only content is Englishwoman, actress, daughter, niece. Voice of Angelina on Galaxy World of Alisa - seriously? The only content is a mention of Galaxy world? And it links to http://felicityjonesofficial.blogspot.com/ which contains nothing except an image of Felicity Jones. Alsee (talk) 12:01, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
(Here via the Chaneyverse). There is no way that twitter account is real. The IBT article is not surprising, often times what people do is look up stuff on wikipedia to round out stories, we found this while investigating the Chaneyverse . Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
I'm going to go ahead and delete these mentions. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:36, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
And there are a lot of them, so it might take a while, any help is appreciated. Dbrodbeck (talk) 13:55, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
This has been spammed into an insane number of articles, and the more times I search for "Galaxy World" & article-subject, the more times it comes up empty. I've started removing them as well.
Note I found a contact E-mail for Jessica Straus, one of the supposed voice-actors in this. I've sent an email asking for confirmation or denial of working on it. I'll update here if/when I get a response. Alsee (talk) 14:13, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
I THINK we've got all of them. The chance that all of these actors had anything to do with this 'show' (if it exists) is vanishingly small. Then look at the songs and musicians..... Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
The twitter was definitely fake. There is a cluster of fake twitter accounts for celebrities (Angelina Jolie, Keira Knightly, Ashley & Mary-Kate Olsen etc) all following each other. Alsee (talk) 16:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

For the most part this seems like a pretty straightforward Wikihoax. The IBTimes article looks to be the only major off-wiki element, and that seems almost certainly like the author grabbed it from Wikipedia. I've reached out to IBTimes to ask (would've just contacted the author but the bio link is broken). The only thing complicating all of this is the potential for translation issues. When I tried to use machine translation to search in Russian, I also came to several Alisa Selezneva-related results. That at least some of the IPs adding the material are based in Russia suggest they may simply be translating "galaxy world" differently (e.g. this edit by this IP). That said, there's no explanation other than hoax for the list of stars purported to feature in the film. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:16, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Kudos to those involved in the cleanup, especially Dbrodbeck and Alsee, who fixed the existing problem before I could even log back on to see what people were saying about this. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:22, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes! Thank goodness that this "hoax" was finally sorted out. I hope all the other Wikipedia fixers can help out next time with reverting hoax things MUCH, MUCH quicker so that way most of us don't get baffled when we get fooled! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:84:C800:E3F2:1906:6DDB:322C:2735 (talk) 18:12, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

You will not be able to edit temporarily on 19 and 21 April 2016

The Wikimedia Foundation will be running a major test of its newest data center in Dallas in mid-April. This will make sure Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. They will switch all traffic to the new data center on Tuesday, 19 April. On Thursday, 21 April, they will switch back to the primary data center.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, you will be able to read, but you will not be able to edit at any wiki for a short period of time on those days. They apologize for this disruption, and they are working to minimize it in the future.

  • You will not be able to edit for approximately 15 to 30 minutes on Tuesday, 19 April and Thursday, 21 April, starting at 14:00 UTC. (14:00 UTC is 16:00 CEST in Central Europe, 10:00 a.m. EDT, 07:00 a.m. PDT for the West Coast of Canada, Mexico, and the US.)
  • If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. They will post any further changes on that schedule.

I have two requests:

  • There will be more notifications about this. For example, the announcement at m:Tech/Server switch 2016 is being translated and will be posted to the 600+ pages in m:Distribution list/Global message delivery. During a recent test, we ran m:CentralNotice/Generic maintenance notice as a site banner on all wikis. But many editors won't see these. What is the best way to let an editor like you know about a planned service outage this?
  • Would you please share this information? If you are active in another language, another project, a WikiProject, or another place that lets you get in touch with other editors easily, would you please let your colleagues know about this? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF):
«What is the best way to let an editor like you know about a planned service outage this?»
Personal message, or notice on my Talk page. Anything that would generate a Notification. --Thnidu (talk) 17:15, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Single edit tab

 

 

How many Edit tabs do you want?
It's your choice.

Hello, all. The VisualEditor team has been working on a community-requested design change for editing. This new feature only affects editors who already have access to the visual editor. (If you have disabled the visual editor, you will not see anything new, and this change won't affect your account.) They will be able to choose to have either one or two "Edit" tabs. Currently, all users of the visual editor are required to have two. If you choose one tab, then it also lets you choose what that "Edit" tab will do.

Everyone is already able to switch between the two editing systems via buttons on the toolbars (the "pencil" icon and the "square brackets" icon). If you start in one editing system, then you can switch to the other at any time.

Logged-in editors will be able to make their choices from a one-time pop-up dialog box or from Special:Preferences.

The change will likely happen on either (approximately) 12 or 26 April. (We can't do this during the week of 18–22 April because the server switch will result in a code freeze and temporary disabling of all editing.) Realistically, I expect this to have no effect on IPs and most experienced editors, and to temporarily slightly confuse some editors who currently have the visual editor enabled (and who will suddenly be wondering where their other Edit tab went, until they make their next edit).

What I want from you:

  • Please tell your friends about this pending change, especially if they use the visual editor. Not everyone reads this page, but many editors will want to know about this.
  • Please tell me if you have the visual editor enabled, but none of the preference settings (see the list below) will work for you. Also, if you have already decided which option you like best, then tell me which setting you will choose, because I'm curious whether you'll make the same choice that I will.
  • Please tell me if there is a reason to prefer one date over another. The choice will ultimately require coordination with several other projects, but I'd be happy to pass along your views to the devs.

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:48, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

FAQ

How does it work now?
Right now, either you turn off the visual editor completely, or you have two tabs ("Edit" and "Edit source"). This is inconvenient for many experienced editors, who would like to use the visual editor every now and again, without spending a week or two getting used to having two separate tabs all the time.
What will change?
Under the new system, if you want to be able to use the visual editor, then you can choose two tabs ("Edit" and "Edit source"), or you can choose a single tab. If you choose the single edit tab, then you decide what that single edit tab does: always go to the wikitext editor, prefer the visual editor, or use whichever one you opened last.
I disabled the visual editor. Does this change affect me?
No. If the visual editor is disabled in your account, then this change will not affect your account. You will not even be able to see these options or make a choice.
The visual editor is turned on for my account, and I'm currently using the two-tab system. What options will be available to me?
You will have four options:
  • Remember my last editor (=the new "default")
  • Always give me the visual editor if possible
  • Always give me the source editor
  • Show me both editor tabs (=what you have now)
How to switch between editing environments
 
Click the [[ ]] to switch to the wikitext editor.
 
Click the pencil icon to switch to the visual editor.
How do I change my preferences?
If you are logged in and have the visual editor enabled, then you can change your preferences at any time at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing. If your last edit before the change was in the visual editor, then you will be prompted to select your preference settings in a dialog box the next time you edit. If your last edit before the change was in the wikitext editor, then you will open the wikitext editor. In that case, you'll need to manually switch to the visual editor (see next question) to see the dialog box, or go to your preferences to change your settings.
If you only have a single edit tab, how do you get to the other editing environment?
For several months, there has been a toolbar button in each editing tool that allows you to move from one to another whenever you wish – mid-edit, in either direction. The bi-directional switching button is on the upper right corner of the editing toolbar. It looks like square brackets (to go to the wikitext editor) or a pencil (to go to the visual editor). For example, if you always start in the wikitext editor, but you want to use the visual editor to insert a column in a table, then open the wikitext editor and click the pencil icon to switch to the visual editor. After you have edited the table, then you can either save the page or click the [[ ]] icon to switch back to the wikitext editor. See Help:VisualEditor/User guide#Switching between the visual and wikitext editors for more information and screenshots.
How does this work for logged-out editors?
Logged-out editors (IPs) cannot set preferences. Technically, IPs will be set to "Remember my last editor", using cookies. In practice, at the English Wikipedia, they will get the wikitext editor. This is because logged-out editors don't have access to the two-tab system at the English Wikipedia, so their "last editor" is the wikitext editor. Basically, for IPs at the English Wikipedia, nothing visible is changing.
Does this turn on the visual editor for anyone?
No. It only affects editors who already have access to the visual editor.
Where can I see this?
You can see the basic setup at https://test2.wikipedia.org Note that the current configuration at test2 is close but NOT exactly what will be deployed to logged-out editors (IPs) here at the English Wikipedia. Unlike logged-out editors at most Wikipedias, including test2, logged-out editors at the English Wikipedia do not currently have access via the "two tab" system, and their status will not change as a result of moving to a single edit tab. You can also see the new system in use at the Hungarian and Polish Wikipedias.
Where can I get more information?
See mw:VisualEditor/Single edit tab.

Discussion

  • Support giving more flexibility is always a good thing. --Moxy (talk) 20:44, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I created new accounts to try to test what the WMF is planning to deploy:
    • test2.wikipedia.org: VE immediately loads as primary default editor, user must switch to get wikieditor.
    • Polish wikipedia: VE immediately loads as primary default editor, user must switch to get wikieditor.
    • Hungarian wikipedia: VE immediately loads as primary default editor, user must switch to get wikieditor.
Whatamidoing (WMF), is this what the WMF is planning to deploy? Alsee (talk) 05:08, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
As it clearly says in the FAQ, the configuration for these wikis is not the same as the configuration for the English Wikipedia. The configuration for the English Wikipedia is unique. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:16, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
We're going in circles again?? As I clearly said in my post, I was trying to find out how this was supposed to work for new accounts. There is zero indication in the FAQ that they are handled differently, and if they are handled differently then I'm trying to find out how it actually will work. Alsee (talk) 05:36, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
There is no wiki where you will be able to see what will happen here. Additionally, I believe that the new-user result is more complicated than it looks at first glance, because it may depend upon whether the newly registered account has edited (or even accidentally clicking the edit button while logged out, because just opening the wikitext editor, without saving, sets the 'prefer wikitext' cookie) while logged out during the last month or so. If you want, I can try to get the details confirmed, but it would be more pointful for you to tell me what you think the best result would be, and why. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:04, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
I was told single-edit-tab wouldn't be used to try to make VE the default, that the first editor loaded would be wikitext, and that there would be an A/B test and discussion before considering making VE defualt. I was rather surprised when your announcement sent me to Polish and Hungarian wikis to see how it's going to work, and when I went each of them my browser froze up for a while loading VE, and when it did finally load the message tried to default me into VE with an option to switch. And by the way, did Polish and Hungarian communities chose to make VE the primary editor? Alsee (talk) 02:22, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
If memory serves, you were once told that the single edit tab would not result in the visual editor being the first editing environment opened – for logged-out users only, at this wiki only. But, as I said, for logged-in editors, the results are more complicated. Most editors here will find that they begin in the wikitext editor.
Editors at the Hungarian Wikipedia actually asked to have the visual editor made not only "primary", but the actual default, e.g., what opens when you undo an edit. The devs aren't ready to support that fully yet, and so declined the request. I haven't followed any conversations at the Polish Wikipedia, but I've not heard of any complaints. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:23, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
I asked if the WMF was going to try to set a VE-default as part of deploying single-edit-tab. I was told the WMF would not do that without talking to the wikis first.
I was told that the "default" editor would load first, for no-cookie logged out users and for logged in users making their first edit. For those editors, "On 'VE secondary' wikis (like the English Wikipedia), the first editor that loads will still be the wikitext editor".
What I expect is that a new account clicking edit will load the wikitext editor instead of freezing up my browser with a loading-bar waiting for VE. It is unclear whether the WMF plans a popup menu like this, but if there is one then the buttons would be essentially reversed. "Start Editing" button simply clears the menu (revealing the already-loaded wikitext editor), and clicking a "Switch" option would launch a VE load.
I'm not sure if it the initial-editor-selection gets remembered if the edit doesn't get saved, but it shouldn't. If a new user quits their edit then they should still get the never-edited-before interface. This makes it as simple and familiar as possible for the new user to explore both options. Alsee (talk) 13:55, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Having two tabs (edit for VE and edit source for old editor) can be nice, but I support any initiative to let new editors use the visualeditor so we can move into technological modernity. Ajraddatz (talk) 05:55, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
    • They can already easily use the VE (since we have the two tabs), but the vast majority prefers to use the wikitext editor anyway. With the new proposal (which omits any mention of how new accounts will see this the first time, see the frustration Alsee feels above and the lack of understanding the problem and answering the question our community liaison displays), it will be much less clearer that we have another editing environment as well, artificially boosting the number of VE editors and promoting the unloved new editor for no apparent benefit to the encyclopedia. Fram (talk) 07:53, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
      • I think there are three relevant points to consider here:
        1. Newly registered editors on the desktop site use the visual editor for about half of their mainspace edits here at the English Wikipedia. (About 10% of new editors are using mobile.)
        2. Looking at the recent deployment of this feature to the Polish Wikipedia, giving people an option to choose the number of tabs that they want does not appear to have any long-term effect on the number of people who use the visual editor.
        3. When clicking the edit button results in this:
           
          framless

          then it is probably reasonable to believe that people will find out that we have another editing environment, no matter which editing environment is "the one" and which is "the other". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:34, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
        When is *that* menu supposed to come up? Is that just to notify existing/experienced editors? Or is that what you plan to pop up for new accounts? Alsee (talk) 14:09, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
      • Unloved only in the sense of users who "grew up" with the old editor not liking it, because they can (rightly so) contribute more easily through the existing system. That said, I hardly am concerned with new editors being able to choose, and keeping the edit and edit source tabs for people until they specify which one they want in their preferences would be a good move, I think. Or if WMF wants to promote the visual editor more for easy of use, then defaulting to the visualeditor with the option to change it would work too. We're living in a age of easy-to-use online interfaces, at some point we need to catch up. Ajraddatz (talk) 23:08, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Default for new accounts should be either wikitext or both tabs, not VE. This is not indicated in the FAQ at the moment. VE clearly lags wikitext editor in all editor groups, so it shouldn't be promoted as the default. Support or oppose depends on what is actually meant to happen here. Fram (talk) 07:53, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
    • This isn't a vote, so there's nothing to support or oppose. This is an announcement that there will be an additional preference setting, for those editors who have the visual editor enabled. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:04, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
      • This was a very unclear announcement where even after requests for further information you failed to provide this. If you aren't interested in feedback, then don't pretend that you want discussion. And, as usual, you are talking nonsense to promote VE. Please stop doing that, it doesn't help your case once it is exposed. Oppose any change that makes VE more prominent or the first seen choice for any group of editors. Fram (talk) 11:25, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
        • I'm very interested in feedback; that's why I asked for two specific pieces of information (look for the words "Please tell me"). "Feeedback" and "voting" are not the same thing. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:21, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
          • How strange that you only feel the need to post this here, at an oppose, but forget to make the same observation when the very first post in this discussion starts with support. It gives the not unexpected impression that you are very interested in positive feedback only. Fram (talk) 07:08, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment I tried it at the test Wiki. I was prompted for my choice when I attempted to edit. I picked the "always show me both tabs" choice. The page reloaded but I was only presented one tab, which is confusing. Upon my next edit, it did in fact start showing me both tabs. But have me choose "always show both tabs" and then sending me back to the edit window with only one tab makes a user wonder if it took effect or not. Jason Quinn (talk) 12:39, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
    • It should have re-loaded right away, to show you two tabs. I'll let the devs know. Can you tell me what your browser and OS are? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:04, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
      • A patch is ready, so this should be a thing of the past soon (during the next week): phab:T131818. Thank you again for telling me about this bug. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:45, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Above, @Whatamidoing (WMF): you claim "Newly registered editors on the desktop site use the visual editor for about half of their mainspace edits here at the English Wikipedia. (About 10% of new editors are using mobile.)" As usual with VE-promoting entities, this seems highly inflated. this page (linked from WP:VE) indicates that of al the main space non-bot editing, some 18% is done by newly registered editors using wikitext, while some 4% of the edits are made by newly registered editors using VE. Even taking into account the 10% mobile users not using VE, your maths seems to be way off. Newly registered users don't "use the visual editor for about half of their mainspace edits", but instead "use the visual editor for about 1/4th of their mainspace edits". (Existing users, by the way, use VE for about 1/50th of their edits!) Such incorrect figures have been used repeatedly when some new VE-related change had to be promoted, and for some reason always inflating the number of VE users. It would be better if the WMF started being honest with us for a change. Fram (talk) 11:25, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

If you look at the definitions on that page, you will see that those "newly registered users" include people with thousands of edits who started editing in July 2013, which few of us believe are "newly registered editors".
If you want to see the numbers for actual newly registered editors, then you need to look at RecentChanges for new accounts. It varies a bit from hour to hour, but at the moment, that shows that 40% of all mainspace edits are in the visual editor (45% of all desktop edits), 12% on mobile, and at least 2% "wikitext by default" edits (the types of edits, such as Undo, that always open the wikitext editor, regardless of your preference). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
So newly registered editors (definition? Less than X edits? Less than Y old?) start making nearly half of their edits in VE, but once they get some experience, they mostly (80% +) edit using the wikitext editor? I hope someone at the WMF wonders why they are pushing an editor which is apparently unsatisfactory for most editors in the long run: the vast, vast majority (95%+) of older editors don't switch to VE, and the vast majority of newer editors drop VE once they get some experience. (I also hope that you communicate this kind of misunderstanding to the people responsible for the statistics and Limn, as this kind of thing is highly confusing; one would expect that if figures of VE use are communicated, they are based on the statistics provided at WP:VE and not on some manual calculation). Fram (talk) 07:04, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Help:User contributions#Contributions by new users says that ?contribs=newbie shows the most recent 1% of registered accounts, and that this is approximately equal to accounts created during the last few weeks.
We don't actually know whether most editors eventually switch the wikitext editor. The most that can be said from that data is that editors who registered in late 2013, when the visual editor was always hidden in Beta Features (and when the visual editor had many more bugs and many fewer features), are currently less likely to use the visual editor than those who registered in late 2015, when all new editors were given two edit tabs.
AFAICT, the Limn pages are basically unsupported at this point, although it is working so far and accurate – so long as you know what it's reporting. I've asked to have it changed (so that every Wikipedia's "newly registered editor" is from that individual Wikipedia's 'start date'), but it apparently can't be done. You might be interested in other data tools, such as https://edit-analysis.wmflabs.org/compare/ Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
"The most that can be said from that data is that editors who registered in late 2013, when the visual editor was always hidden in Beta Features (and when the visual editor had many more bugs and many fewer features), are currently less likely to use the visual editor than those who registered in late 2015, when all new editors were given two edit tabs. " Please explain how you can see "that" from those data. How do you make, in those data, the distinction between "editors who registered in late 2013" and "those who registered in late 2015"? It Gives the strong impression that you are still trying to argue that the uptake of VE on enwiki is increasing and that this is supported by data I linked to, when all evidence indicates that VE is still used by about the same % of editors overall as it was two years ago.
And please, if the Limn pages are unsupported, then just pull the plug on them. Remove them from WP:VE and wherever they may be linked. the WMF providing live statistics which, if not fitting in your narrative, turn out to be outdated, unsupported, not showing what they pretend to show, is not really useful or helping the discussion. Fram (talk) 07:07, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment Having one tab will probably suit me as it will help me avoid going into the wrong mode by accident. I currently do most of my work with the text editor but am willing to try the VE. I tried VE just now for a copy-edit on an article which is rich in citations and templates, &c. It seemed to work well enough for tasks like copying and pasting an n-dash and it didn't seem to have unexpected effects. So, I'll try it some more during this transitional period and will raise it at the London wikimeet which is coming up this weekend. Andrew D. (talk) 12:03, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Hmm changing the default for new uses is a great way to make it harder for more experienced used to help them.©Geni (talk) 16:48, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
  • @Whatamidoing (WMF): provided this link to show some data. While it doesn't seem to contain data about percentage of VE edits vs. Wikitext edits per user group, it does show that VE clearly has serious problems compared to Wikitext. The failure rate of VE is two to three times as high as it is for Wikitext. It also shows (the only number I can find about actual edits with both tools) that over the last 12 months, some 365,000 sessions made a succesful VE edit, and some 14 million made a successful Wikitext edit. Over the last three months, this is 22,000 VE vs. 1,200,000 Wikitext. This shows a fair number of things, first and foremost that that tool, that link you provided, seems to be utterly unreliable; in the last three months, less than 10% of the edits over the last 12 months have been made? But I'm more than happy to use that link if you want to. It claims that between 1 July 2015 and 1 October 2015, some 7% of the edits were VE edits. For the latest three months, this dropped to 2% of the edits. Not because there were much more Wikitext edits, mainly because the number of VE edits dropped dramatically. Don't you love statistics? Like I said, utterly unreliable figures, but that's now two times that WMF-provided statistics indicate that the uptake of VE is non-existant or dropping. So, do you have anything reliable that actually supports your statements about VE use among new editors after the first few edits? Fram (talk) 07:07, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

This tool is public, but not necessarily easy to interpret. It uses a sample of about 6% of edits (for performance reasons). "Success" and "failure" mean different things in different charts. For example, on one chart, "failure" means that the page didn't save during a single attempt (e.g., it triggered a captcha); it doesn't mean that the page never saved. In another, "failure" is the rate of pages that were never saved, after loading.

I'm using https://edit-analysis.wmflabs.org/compare/ with the settings at this calendar year, for enwiki only. (It's important to omit anything around the first of November, when the data is mostly missing.) You can use the "averaging" feature with a large number as a quick way to smooth the curves and get a long-term average.

For the information you're interested in, the most useful section is "Success by Experience of User" (defined in the hover text as "What proportion of times the editor was loaded and the resulting edit was finished and saved" [emphasis added]). This chart shows this information:

  • 34% of editors who attempt their first edit in the visual editor successfully save that first edit.
  • 16% of editors who attempt their first edit in the wikitext editor successfully save that first edit.
  • 44% of editors who attempt a second edit in the visual editor successfully save another one to four edits.
  • 31% of editors who attempt a second edit in the wikitext editor successfully save another one to four edits.

This shows us two facts:

  • Editors with brand-new accounts are more successful in the visual editor than in the wikitext editor (34% vs 16%).
  • Editors who manage to make one successful edit are more likely to succeed in subsequent attempts than editors who are making their first attempt (no matter which editing environment they choose: 34% and 44% for the visual editor; 16% and 31% for the wikitext editor).

Even among highly experienced editors, the success rate in the visual editor is consistently higher. For example, among editors with more than 1,000 edits, it's been running about 74% success in the visual editor versus 69% success in the wikitext editor. There are many possible explanations for this gap. For example, it may be that experienced editors frequently open the wikitext editor for the purpose of copying the wikitext code for a table or template, without any intention of saving an edit, and that will be recorded as a "failure"; this also applies to the visual editor when copying things to other pages, of course.

I don't know where you get the claim that "over the last 12 months, some 365,000 sessions made a successful VE edit, and some 14 million made a successful Wikitext edit". The 'sequence of edits' section at the top shows that 14 million out of 39 million wikitext attempts failed quickly (init > ready > end), but getting actual numbers of successful edits requires adding up all the paths: the 2.2 million wikitext edits in the most common success path (init > ready > attempt > success > end) plus the 330K wikitext edits that had minor problems upon loading (init > ready > ready > attempt > success > end) plus the 290K that ran init > ready > intent > attempt > success > end, and so forth. Also, note that in that dashboard all the numbers only cover the ‘’sampled’’ rate of edits, not even close to all edits; they’re internally consistent, but you should not try to compare them over time, or between each editor except via proportions.

I don't recall making any claims about what new editors do after their first edit; AFAIK that is unknown (and not obviously relevant to the question of whether new editors should be offered one edit tab or two before their first edit). I have said that comparing the choices made by the newest 1% of accounts against aggregated data for last month's behavior by accounts created during all of the last 33 months – including 24 months while the visual editor was either completely disabled or opt-in only for everyone – is not a sound basis for making assertions about whether editors are actually changing their preferences over time. That data could be equally explained by differences in the cohorts (e.g., editors who refused to use the wikitext editor when that was the only choice obviously available to them will be under-represented) and the product (e.g., the visual editor handles tables well now, and didn't then). You need a longitudinal study to determine whether editors change their actions over time. Instead, all you've got is an assumption that the affinity of now-experienced editors who created their accounts at a time when the visual editor was both less functional and hidden is identical to the affinity of current newbies for a much improved product. It is not an assumption that should be accepted without scrutiny.

Finally, the choice of editing environment is not really a popularity contest. I believe that we need all the content contributors, not just the ones who prefer one style or the other. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Okay, but it would be nice if the Flow preview sticks to the chosen editor instead of switching to VE. –Be..anyone (talk) 20:46, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
I tend to agree with you. If you switch to the wikitext editor in Flow, then it will stay there (on that wiki) unless and until you switch back. The 'problem' is that I keep switching back to the visual editor because of its very cool ping feature. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:40, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Let's go back to the start here before drawing such conclusions. You haven't indicated where the huge difference in numbers for VE vs. wikitext per period comes from (and yes, I mistook "started an edit" with "made a succesful edit"). For enwiki, 2015-07-01 until 2015-10-01, we have 306771 VE sessions vs. 4560398 wikitext sessions, or some 6.3% of the sessions started in VE. Now, if we take 2016-01-01 to 2016-04-01, we have 65094 VE sessions vs. 4218490 wikitext sessions (so roughly the same number of wikitext sessions as in the previous period). So now, only 1.5% of the sessions are started using VE. If these figures are correct, then my concern as WMF would be to find out why VE usage has dropped on enwiki in such an dramatical fashion. You claim the figures are internally consistent, but I hope for the WMF that you are wrong. If these figures are not correct, then we shouldn't be using these statistics to prove anything, as I can't simply accept that the basic figures are completely incorrect, but the conclusions are still miraculously valid. Fram (talk) 07:26, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Sure, and if you shift all of your chosen dates by a mere ten or twelve days (12 July rather than 01 July, etc.), then you'll find that they sampled eight million sessions for the wikitext editor last summer, and still only four million this winter – but the use of the wikitext editor has not halved during that time.
I said above that you cannot realistically use this data to try to compare numbers over time. This isn't because the figures are incorrect, but because the charts don't contain all of the information that's necessary to make a valid comparison. For example, to compare the visual editor last summer vs the visual editor now, you need to know that the sampling rate for the visual editor was changed in mid-January. (The sampling rate for the wikitext editor was not changed at the same time.) This change in the sampling rate fully explains the "dramatical" change that concerns you.
If you're interested in the trend over time, then the visual editor was recently used for about 5.5% of all of the non-bot mainspace edits that were saved at the English Wikipedia; this is up from maybe 3% of edits about a year ago. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:59, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
"For example, to compare the visual editor last summer vs the visual editor now, you need to know that the sampling rate for the visual editor was changed in mid-January. (The sampling rate for the wikitext editor was not changed at the same time.) This change in the sampling rate fully explains the "dramatical" change that concerns you." Thanks for confirming that we can simply throw away these statistics, as they can only be used to show things the WMF wants to show, but not for any interesting information; and can only be interpreted by the WMF, since none of the information you give can be found on any normal location. Lets' shorten your correct statement to "I said above that you cannot realistically use this data". I don't trust you, nor the figures you give for the trend over time, since you (and the WMF) don't produce the simple statistics one would need to show such a thing, but instead give us statistics I'm not allowed to use (the link on the VE page) or which are basically unusable. Fram (talk) 06:51, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Meanwhile, the WMF has done exactly the thing they promised us they wouldn't do, i.e. set VE as the default editor for all new accounts. See WP:VPT#VE WAS IMPOSED AS PRIMARY EDITOR. Yes, let's forget the promises we just made and put the editor used for 5% of the edits (assuming this is even true) as the default, just because we have spent so much money on it instead of on the wikitext editor. Fuck the editors, long live the WMF. As community liaison, perhaps you can (in some public space) discuss this witj JDForrester and other likeminded creatures? That would be more useful than your input here. Fram (talk) 06:51, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Most of the stat debate here is irrelevant. The WMF's May 2015 study found that VE helped an additional 0% of new users make their first edit, VE increased in new user retention by 0%, and VE resulted in a 0% increase in total contributions. The push to increase VE usage represents a null or negative value campaign to push for more cannibalization. Alsee (talk) 13:19, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Folk!

Hi all

Today starts a new photo contest organized by Wikimedia Spain and focused on festivals declared of touristic interest in Spain: Wiki Loves Folk. The contest aims to collect images freely licensed to illustrate content on these festivals in Wikipedia and enhance the online presence of Spanish folklore. Along with its monumental and environmental richness, Spain has a rich and varied folklore: carnivals, food festivals, religious celebrations as Easter or Corpus Christi, cultural and sporting events or popular festivals, among others.

It is about sharing original photographs, taken recently or in the past, between April 1 and 30, 2016 or, in a second period, between November 15 and December 15, 2016. The subject of the contest is all those festivals declared of touristic interest by the various administrations: international, national, regional, provincial and local levels. The complete list, with additional information and a map for each region is available at wikilov.es/folk, the competition website. To participate, simply have an user account on Wikimedia Commons and upload the pictures by following the steps on the web.

Best, --Rubén Ojeda (WMES) (talk) 19:38, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Kostolac, Požarevac

Article "Kostolac, Požarevac" should rename in "Selo Kostolac" ...and on Wikipedia on Serbian language article is renamed. See [6] -- MilanKovacevic (talk) 12:04, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Template:Important concept

This new template {{Important concept}} has been placed on three of the five high-profile policy pages linked at Five pillars. There may be a case for distinguishing "five pillars" pages in this way, but I think there should be discussion on its usage and wording: should it go on the other two of the "five pillars" pages? and isn't "long history" (15 years?) and "profound significance" claiming rather too much?: Noyster (talk), 20:02, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

It's at WP:What Wikipedia is not, WP:Neutral point of view, and WP:Civility. The template appears to be a translation from the Chinese Wikipedia.
I don't see a strong need for this template, but I particularly don't see the point of putting this on WP:Copyrights (one of the other pillars). If we want to have this template, then it is probably already on the correct pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
I think it should be removed because a plethora of boxes leads to banner blindness, and while saying "this policy is important" is all well and good, it is essentially meaningless because we don't want passers by to ignore pages which do not carry that message. Johnuniq (talk) 01:43, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
I would like to say, it is really translated from the Chinese Wikipedia. But I don't know importance for this template in Chinese version. For English version: Because English Wikipedia is the most articles version, and many articles' policies are learning from English version's policies. It is the model. So I translated this template from Chinese version. Someone can translate this template in other languages if possible, I think.--Shwangtianyuan Happy Chinese New Year to everyone 05:52, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
I have nominated this template for discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 April 3#Template:Important concept. --Izno (talk) 19:16, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Article probation

Can anyone place articles on Article Probation? I ask because a newly created article suddenly acquired an article probation tag [7] added by an editor who has no special privileges. Wouldn't adding {{Community article probation}} require a notice at WP:AN or something? -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 02:32, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

I asked the user here. You are correct to believe that {{Community article probation}} should not be added unless the community has in fact placed the article under probation. Johnuniq (talk) 02:48, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

43

I'm working on an admin hopeful version of WP:42. I could use a bit of a hand with the name etc. Cheers. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:36, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

So, what do you think? Would it be MfD fodder or would it be acceptable to the community:

Extended content

User:Anna Frodesiak/43

Please say at User talk:Anna Frodesiak/43

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:34, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Participate in the Brussels writing weeks project

 
Love Belgium
 
Flag of the Brussels Capital Region

Hello all! After some acts of hate in Brussels, it is now time again for love. In this week and next week we organise a double writing week about Brussels! We like to invite you to join this project by writing about subjects related to this region in any Wikipedia you like.

More information, the participants list, and the list of articles that have been written, can be found at: Writing week/Brussels.

Participating is easy:

  1. Add your user name and wiki(s) you work on on the participants list.
  2. Add the articles you have written on the contributions list.

If you like you can also create a page for the writing weeks on your local wiki.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me. Greetings - Romaine (talk) 08:55, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Chrysler reception; rankings in independent surveys and ratings of quality, reliability, and customer satisfaction

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Chrysler#RfC: Reception; rankings in independent surveys and ratings of quality, reliability, and customer satisfaction . Please comment. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:16, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Adding article section to category

I was planning to add Sharavathi Wild life santuary for wild life santuaries of Karnataka. But there is a link for the same, which redirects to page Sharavathi. Eventhough that page has all the information about wild life santuary, it is under a section, so i cannot add it to wild life santuary category. I need a clear guidance for the next step. Prajwalmr62 (talk) 06:58, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Help desk is a better place to ask questions like this (you will get quicker answers there).
And Prajwalmr62, when you ask about specific articles or other pages, please link to those pages so we don't have to search. Best is if you make a link every time you mention a page, so we know exactly which page you mean.
Sharavathi Wildlife Sanctuary and Sharavathi both are redirects to Sharavati. And Sharavati Wildlife Sanctuary is a redirect to Sharavati#Sharavati Valley Wildlife Sanctuary. So you want to add that section to Category:Wildlife sanctuaries of Karnataka. You can do this by adding the category to the redirect page Sharavati Wildlife Sanctuary. I did that for you here. --Pipetricker (talk) 13:47, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Hadn't the redirect page already existed, it could have been created for this purpose. Notice that redirects appear in italics on category pages. --Pipetricker (talk) 14:54, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Since I asked you to link to mentioned pages when you ask questions, I should say this about links to category pages:
To link to a category page without putting the current page in that category, put a colon at the beginning of the link, like this: [[:Category:Example]]. --Pipetricker (talk) 18:05, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Acknowledged.

Prajwalmr62 (talk) 12:07, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Text in patents that has expired

What is the copyright status of text and pictures in US patents that has expired? Can it be copied into Wikipedia? Bytesock (talk) 16:59, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Good question. There appears to be an article on the topic: Copyright on the content of patents and in the context of patent prosecution. Praemonitus (talk) 17:16, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Is this type of discussion appropriate for an article talk page?

I would like community input as to whether or not this kind of Talk page discussion is appropriate for an article talk page. I personally think it's not appropriate for an article talk page because it seems to be more about a contributor's editing habits than the article itself; however, the other side says that it is appropriate because it's an article-related issue and complaint. However, I want a wider community consensus on this matter, not just input from a few editors at ANI. ElectricBurst(Electron firings)(Zaps) 19:50, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, it's discussing your editing of the article and the article content on the talk page. This dates back to December - time to let it drop I think. Fences&Windows 00:17, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
Looks fine to me too.Cebr1979 (talk) 01:47, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Striking comment by banned user (manual sig text by IP evading block). Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 20:13, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
I have no opinion on the dispute itself, and I have know nothing of any surrounding pattern of conflict. That edit, in isolation, looks like a fairly common article-talk comment discussing an article content disagreement. The user even cited a policy rationale to justify their editing. (Again, I have not looked into the merits of the arguments.) The bit about "disruptive editing" may or may-not be warranted. In any case don't expect some sort of "consensus" here to reverse ANI. See WP:FORUMSHOP. Alsee (talk) 09:41, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Individual Engagement Grant to enhance the ProveIt gadget

Hi! I've requested an Individual Engagement Grant to greatly enhance the ProveIt gadget. For those of you who don't know it, the gadget scans the wikitext of any article you're editing and generates a visual interface for easily adding or editing references. I think that the gadget has a lot of further potential by connecting it with TemplateData and Wikidata, but developing this potential would take me too long, so I've requested a grant. I invite you all to read the proposal in detail, leave your comments and endorse it if you think it's a good idea. Thanks! --Felipe (talk) 09:34, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

You might want to look at the code for User:Zhaofeng_Li/reFill which can semi-populate a citation tag from a raw URL. That would be a really useful improvement to ProveIt IMHO. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 20:10, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks! I've added the link to https://github.com/proveit-js/proveit/issues/199 which seems the most relevant issue. I hope I'll have time to add this functionality during the grant time, but if not I'll eventually add it during my voluntary time. Cheers! --Felipe (talk) 05:49, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

RfC update: Ford Pinto section lede of the Fuel system fires, recalls, and litigation section

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Ford_Pinto#RfC: section lede of Safety section. RfC update: Should an epigraph, a long direct quote from Lee and Erdmann (1999), and content sourced to Schwartz (1990) and Danley (2005), be included in the section lede? To date, this request for comment has broadened the discussion by bringing one (1) new editorial voice to the discussion. Please join the discussion at Talk:Ford_Pinto#RfC: section lede of Safety section. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:29, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

The Wikipede's dilemma

Inspired by Katherine Craster's poem, I would like to have a poem accompanying our sort-of mascot. I'm no poet, so please take the below and feel free to wikipate and edit the below freely. — Sebastian 20:55, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

... something rotten about her Mum
and this led to a terrible fight.
Praemonitus (talk) 20:01, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Archive of deleted pages

Does there exist an archive of deleted pages? I have looked around some and not found one, but I would suppose that such a thing does exist. I am looking in response to a question on Talk:Neo-orthodoxy about a missing page on Eduard Thurneysen. Dgndenver (talk) 04:10, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

There is no archive of deleted pages and talk pages of deleted articles are routinely deleted along with the article. Administrators can still see most deletions so if you have a question on deleted material, ask one of us. There is a Special:Log/delete which lists all deletion actions along with the reason for deletion. Rmhermen (talk) 05:05, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
There is an off-site wiki dedicated to some deleted articles also, but I do not know the name. You can likely Google for it. --Izno (talk) 11:27, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
There are: Wikibin.org; Deletionpedia.org; deletionpedia.dbatley.com (the older version); speedydeletion.wikia.com; Wikidumper.org

. Fences&Windows 17:27, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

A song by Céline Dion

Hello everyone. I am looking for the name of a French song by Céline Dion which I have forgotten the name! But, as I remember a sequence of the clip, she is sitting on the floor embracing a doll. The clip has been filmed with something like a yellowish filter as well. I heard it first in 1990s (may be 1998 or 1999). Would you please inform me of the name? Thank you in advance. Thank you in advance. Hamid Hassani (talk) 04:30, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Try asking at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:43, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Ok, תודה!   Hamid Hassani (talk) 07:00, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Who to reach out to at the WMF for especially thorny and unusual questions

Waaay back in the day, people used to reach out to Jimbo Wales when an especially thorny question came up. However, he turned over the reigns years ago to the board, so I'm at a loss to turn to.

In this case, there is a user from a remote village who wants to post an example of indigenous artwork, but can't because it doesn't fit neatly into our strict permissions and licensing framework. It seems like such an image satisfies the spirit of our licensing, but not the letter. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 03:22, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

The Support and Safety team is generally a good bet. They tend to have the most community contact, and if they can't give an answer then they'll liaise with another department that might be able to. Ajraddatz (talk) 03:35, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
There's nothing to go to the WMF for here. The community handles copyright templates and deletion discussions etc. Looking at your talk page, it looks like the issue is that the uploader acknowledges they don't hold the copyright, and you're hoping to rely on some vague hear-say that the copyright holder doesn't care. That's probably not going to fly. We'll either need the copyright holder to upload it and grant proper permission, or some sort of mail with the copyright holder granting proper permission. See Commons:OTRS.
You could try to open a discussion at Commons suggesting some new sort of license template that would be acceptable for this sort of situation, but I doubt it would go anywhere. Alsee (talk) 04:03, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Fair use? I've found Mdennis (WMF) to be exceptional in her service to the WMF. She'd by my go-to. –xenotalk 10:25, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Template:Reflistp

I was very pleased when I discovered Template:Reflistp. Now, when editing a section (especially of a long article), I didn't need to save the edit and look at the whole article to see how the references in it had come out. But now that template is No page with this title. What happened to it? Why was it deleted? It was very useful.--Thnidu (talk) 16:50, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Because now you can see references while previewing a section edit. Try editing Myst#Background and look right above the edit screen (and buttons). You should see "Preview of references" in a header, followed by the references in the section. It's currently limited to references actually placed in the section, but named references are Coming SoonTM. The next time you have a question like this, please review the TFD, which was linked prominently in the deletion summary of the page. --Izno (talk) 16:55, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
@Izno: OOPS. Sorry about that!
However, about that "TFD, which was linked prominently in the deletion summary of the page": Maybe it was, but it isn't there now. Or if that's not what you meant, where is the deletion summary? I can't look at the page history because there's no such page any more. WP: Deletion summary just redirects to Help:Edit summary, which doesn't mention deletion summaries, and Help: Deletion summary doesn't exist.
Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 18:54, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
@Thnidu: When you view Template:Reflistp, you should see the following content just above the edit box:

A page with this title has previously been deleted.

If you are creating a new page with different content, please continue. If you are recreating a page similar to the previously deleted page, or are unsure, please first contact the deleting administrator using the information provided below.

--Izno (talk) 19:07, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
@Izno: Ah, thanks. I think I was using my smartphone before. Anyway, I either didn't see it, or thought "Gee, I don't want to create a new page with this name, better back up." --Thnidu (talk) 01:06, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

RFC - Measuring time contribution

I have a research project proposal over on meta.wikimedia.org for measuring time contributions and editor workflow. Specifically I'm trying to find out about how much work is going on both on and off wiki and see if we can find attributes of the edit that indicate how much time was spent on it. Any comments would be appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Another Article (talk • contribs) 20:38, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Have you read the related work published by User:EpochFail? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I have read his work. It is very relevant to the work being proposed here. At one point he and I were discussing using a study like this as a means to validate his edit sessions metric. Another Article (talk) 17:58, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Who's responsible for the "Download as PDF" feature?

It's awesome. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:51, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

More info on mw:Extension:PDF_Writer, apparently by PediaPress. –Be..anyone 💩 13:17, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Be..anyone. I've emailed them. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:07, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguation page or list?

95.1 FM is in Category:Lists of radio stations by frequency, but it's tagged with {{WikiProject Disambiguation}} on the talk page. So which one is it then? nyuszika7h (talk) 09:18, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

In this case I'd say it fits equally as neatly in both. The real question is, is there any reason that it can't be considered both?  DiscantX 21:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps we need to make more effort against (obvious) vandalism?

This remained there for 12 days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:21, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Any suggestions? We already have people doing vandal work pretty much around the clock, but when it's only a few people at a time it's possible a few slip through. Really, it's just a matter of having more eyes on it I think.  DiscantX 21:09, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Magioladitis, a suggestion on my end would be to have a user setting that can be turned on that notifies users when an edit has made that is suspicious but falls under the threshold that a bot could make the decision on itself. This would put way more eyes on it; rather than rely on the same few people to actively be watching new edits, we could passively watch for it as a larger community. Having rollback in order to enable the setting would be an option.  DiscantX 21:25, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
@DiscantX: A bit like an online version of STiki, incorporated into Special:RecentChanges maybe? There would almost always be an edit to see, so the notification would never go away, and you probably don't want to be constantly bugged when browsing Wikipedia about anti-vandal work you could be doing. —  crh 23  (Talk) 13:49, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Religion field in infoboxes

The other day, a user replaced "Catholicism" in the infobox of a King of Pamplona, with "Chalcedonian Christianity". I reverted, he reverted, and then another user replaced it with Hispano-Mozarabic. This change in the "Religion" field was made only in the article of this specific King, not his predecessors or successors, queen consort, etc. I'm just wondering if we should get into this high level of detail in the infobox. If this field was changed in the article of one king it should be done with all kings, family members or individuals who lived at that time, not only in the Iberian Peninsula, but in other countries. I really think that, in this case, that of a European monarch, "Catholicism" would suffice and we should not be that specific. Any ideas? Thanks, --Maragm (talk) 14:08, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

You should see WP:Village_pump_(policy)#RfC:_Religion_in_biographical_infoboxes. This sort of mess is why I'm not a fan of the infobox religion field. IMO religion is better handled in the article text. Alsee (talk) 14:37, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, I hadn't seen that discussion. --Maragm (talk) 15:00, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
"Catholicism" is a bit POV and inaccurate. The Great Schism had not happened yet at that point and Chalcedonian Christianity would not split into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox until 1054 AD; although both Churches claim to be both catholic and orthodox (lower case), "Catholicism" typically refers to the former and not the latter. Although "Chalcedonian Christianity" is a bit clunky as a term, that's the best that exists ad hoc to talk about the religion of a pre-Schism figure from our point of time. This is not an isolated case either, in fact I and others havbe been making changes like this for many rulers such as Charlemagne, Clovis I, and various Christian Roman Emperors for some time now. There hasn't really been an issue about it either.--Sıgehelmus (Talk) |д=) 18:52, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Alsee's remark above. Religion should be within the text, if appropriate and relevant for an individual, but not in a user box. And changing "Catholic" to "Chalcedonian Christianity" in all the user boxes of Christians who lived in that period is a major change involving hundreds of articles and I think it would require some sort of consensus. Will refer to this post in the one mentioned above, WP:Village_pump_(policy)#RfC:_Religion_in_biographical_infoboxes. --Maragm (talk) 19:45, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Just because it's a pervasive problem doesn't mean it's not worth changing. Nearly all of these articles have been also neglected for often years and are stubs or face major syntax errors, lack of info, etc. I also add other changes besides just changing one term and my edits also call attention to them. Look at what happened to the (deprecated now) Persondata template; it's still widespread but slowly being replaced. The fact remains that "Catholicism" is unfair to the Orthodox perspective considering the knowledge base of the average reader and it is slowly being changed with no problems. I personally see no reason to stop whatsoever.--Sıgehelmus (Talk) |д=) 20:01, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Well, then, maybe the religion field should just be left blank if not such a relevant trait or aspect of an individual. --Maragm (talk) 20:06, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
I suppose that's fair...there are still many articles with "Catholicism" though that should be fixed. Should I just remove the Religion sector in the infobox if it is not directly relevant, then?--Sıgehelmus (Talk) |д=) 20:21, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Is there any particular reason that plain old "Christianity" couldn't be used there (assuming that it's relevant at all, e.g., if the king is expected to be head of the religion as well as the state, or if it had historical significance)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:33, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Well, to name one important example, look at the List of kings of the Lombards. They existed during a chaotic time in Europe, and it's hard to remember for most who followed the Arian heresy (very popular among the Goths initially thanks to Wulfilas) and who were Nicene and later Chalcedonian Christians. Although Sancho I was on the tail end of the Early Middle Ages, we can't expect every reader to know or assume everyone was following that Church universally.--Sıgehelmus (Talk) |д=) 03:56, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

That's fine with me, though I think more should be involved in the discussion to reach a consensus...here or in the other thread mentioned above. --Maragm (talk) 20:41, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Seeing the words "perspective", "clunky", "unfair" and "NPOV" when discussing which descriptions should or should not be used in the |religion= field of an infobox should tell Wikipedia editors all they need to know. Infobox fields are only for uncontentious and unambiguous key summary facts, and should be left blank and unused if there is any nuanced explanation involved. Fields most certainly should remain blank until the information, with sources, exists in the body of the article. Xenophrenic (talk) 21:21, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Put religion in the infobox if and only if the person was a religious leader. Otherwise, blank. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:08, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

How to handle copy and paste for a COI editor's draft

I used the Template:Copied in the case of DriveTime when I made a number of separate edits from a COI editor's draft. The template says the draft must never be deleted, although normally userspace drafts are deleted when they are moved. This draft won't be moved, but at some point the user might be finished with it. What is the best course of action in that case?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:08, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I believe that this could be solved by asking an admin to do a WP:History merge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
These "never be deleted" warnings are loony. At the very least, can't somebody write up a bot that extracts the relevant bits from the history, condenses them as much as possible, and puts the bare minimum attribution requirement as a bit of text on the talk page? Wnt (talk) 23:39, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Fair Use case

Can someone explain what aspects of [8] might be relevant for Wikipedia to expand or feel more comfortable with its "Fair Uses" of material? Wnt (talk) 23:41, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Given that this was a rejection of SCOTUS to hear the case, letting stand the 2nd Circuit decision (Which only applies to VT, NY, and CT, meaning nothing where Wikipedia servers are kept), it doesn't change anything at WP. More specifically, I do not think it changes anything with how en.wiki treats fair use, given we strive to minimize it. Google's argument, validated at the 2nd Circuit, was because they were archiving all books as part of a search engine, making it a transformative use of the works, they had fair use coverage to do so. We have nothing anywhere close to this scale for media files on WP, and it would require a massive change in both en.wiki policy and the WMF to allow that much non-free to be able to come to a similar transformative protection clause. --MASEM (t) 23:50, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Copyvios will now go (even more) unnoticed

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T125459

It has come to my attention by The Earwig that the copyvios-tool and CorenSearchBot will be shut down effectively this Monday, due to Yahoo BOSS! being shut down and Bing not allowing our usage due to their ToU (see more here). Google is apperently too costly, and other alternatives are eiter too "bad" or not suitable for our needs. Unless WMF's lawyers can strike a deal with Google's or Bings' lawyers, all copyvio detection will be effectively nill starting this Monday. This will affect WP:NPP most of all.

I just wanted to let you all know. Monday is the day that we will mark in history when copyvios will start going (even more) undetected on Wikipedia, and we no longer can differentiate between freee knowledge and illegally copied content. (t) Josve05a (c) 19:38, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Popcorn, some maniac set the priority to unbreak now, {{tracked|status=…}} does not support this. –Be..anyone 💩 04:42, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
@Be..anyone: Who are you calling a maniac ;P (t) Josve05a (c) 10:24, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Dunno, checking, sombebody claiming to be Josve05a. Unbreak now means "freeze everything, get Brion + Tim Starling to fix it, Jimbo + (reactivated) Angela to manage the PR, all WMF-staff holding their breath until it is fixed or they are dead, whatever happens first." But AKlapper developed an alternative procedure with less collateral damages.   –Be..anyone 💩 10:35, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
I think the first alternative sounds much better. PR and press releases that we are looking for a great search engine would perhaps persuade Google to give us a discount and thereby give them good PR. If some people die in the meantime, that's counted as collateral damage in the grand scheme of open and free knowledge. (t) Josve05a (c) 16:01, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Okay, but they MAY breathe on Tuesday during the announced down time. –Be..anyone 💩 20:52, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Just a bit of clarification... CorenSearchBot will be completely down (in fact it's already down), Earwig's Copyvio Detector will be mostly down (except for the Turnitin interface), but User:EranBot/Copyright/rc will still be running (which uses Turnitin). We were hoping that we would be able to transition from the Yahoo BOSS API to Bing, but the Terms of Use for the Bing API are too restrictive for our use case. The WMF Community Tech team is currently in negotiations with Microsoft to get an exemption from some of the ToU conditions for the Bing API while simultaneously investigating other solutions. Updates will be posted at the Phabricator ticket linked above. Ryan Kaldari (WMF) (talk) 21:29, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Re:Google, how expensive is "quite expensive". Not trying to be a funnycrow, but I recall seeing the "help us decide where to spend money" banner lately... Since Earwig's tool went to Bing, I have noticed some cases of copyright that the tool said were unlikely, then ran the same text through Google manually only to find a high match. I'll try similar tests with Yandex but I don't think anyone's going to come close to the depth of coverage Google can give, and given the depth of coverage we strive for I don't think anyone else can do the job. Are we talking extra commas-per-month in the bill to use Google vs what BOSS cost (and Bing even with the current problem)? CrowCaw 22:02, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
I don't get it. Those people think they own the Internet - why should Wikipedia give them money or free publicity? Can't we just have a bot that messages each active user once a day "Help us check for copyright violations by pressing this button to search the content at (article link) against the web"? That way ordinary desktop users would be doing relatively ordinary searches, and immediately interpreting the results to make a decision.
At the very least, if you were to pay or promote somebody, couldn't it be a weirdo site like Ixquick or Duckduckgo that's trying to introduce competition?
Last but not least - we did without this technology before. As market monopolists take everything over, we have to accept that technology is going to move backwards again, and be willing to live with less and less of it. It's better than the alternative of just handing everything over to a few people who own the world. Wnt (talk) 23:36, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
  • @The Earwig, Coren, and Ryan Kaldari (WMF): Re:Yandex, I ran a test while manually running large new articles through Earwig's bot. The first 4 that had hit percentages over 50% resulted in Yandex not finding a match for 2 of them. Here are the tests for the record:
Article searched Text searched Earwig results Yandex Results
Adia victoria "Victoria’s family attended a predominately white Seventh Day Adventist Church." http://www.wonderingsound.com/feature/adia-victoria-interview/ No match
Myles Chefetz "Prior to his arrival, restaurants in Miami Beach featured a club-like environment" http://mylesrestaurantgroup.com/?page_id=239 http://mylesrestaurantgroup.com/?page_id=239
CIPHER Security LLC "Implementing complex security technologies necessary to protect and defend against the constantly evolving security threats" https://www.cipher.com/system-integration/ https://www.cipher.com/system-integration/
JSB Reserve "In 1910 A German farmer built a home nestled on the banks of the Ohio River" http://jsbreserve.com/ No match
  • Hardly a scientific sample to be sure, but it did miss a 92% match in the 4th case. Food for thought. CrowCaw 19:06, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
  • @Crow: Yandex's TOS is also concerning (see my comment on the Phab ticket), and some limited testing on my end showed similar results as yours; it just doesn't have the breadth of coverage that Google and Bing have. With that said, I'm trying to figure out your comment above about the Bing switch. As far as I can tell, Bing and Yahoo shared a database, so they should have given similar results. Is Bing noticeably different than Yahoo for some specific example? @Wnt: DuckDuckGo's API can't work for us. — Earwig talk 19:24, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I didn't make note of the specific occurrence, The Earwig, and I only saw that once. Of note, CSB didn't catch the text in question either. I saw "copyrighty" sounding material elsewhere on the page while pruning what CSB saw, and ran it through Google to make sure. Perhaps it was just the percentage of a match vs the larger amount that was already flagged.
  • Back to the TOS/Bing issue, though, can we Break The Glass and appeal for Jimbo help? I suspect Gates would take his call, and even though both are in similar positions now compared to the past, I bet they can still make something happen. CrowCaw 19:35, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Also, to clarify, I didn't mean to imply that Bing was different from Boss, but that it was different from Google. CrowCaw 19:37, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
@Ryan Kaldari (WMF): I too would like to know what Google would charge for the service. I note that the Bing service was only $500 per month. I note also that we had a net increase in assets of over $24 million in the last fiscal year, so I think we could afford to pay Google pretty much whatever they wish to charge us for this vital service. — Diannaa (talk) 20:24, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
Now that I think of it --- why should Wikipedia honor Google's Terms of Use at all??? I mean, Google just got the Supreme Court to uphold their right to make a full copy of every book they can find to use in an index because it was a "transformative" use. Well, for us to use Google's results to find plagiarism is obviously transformative, and does not in any way compete with the original search engine and ads. So if Google can ignore any "terms of use" a publisher has on its books, why shouldn't we ignore theirs? Sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander here.
Surely there isn't any real technical barrier to just programming the bots to (ab)use Google lightly from a bunch of proxies - potentially, even enlist users to allow scripts doing it from their home computers - and collate the information, without making the users do the searches themselves manually. Is there really any other kind of barrier here? Wnt (talk) 00:35, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
Because I would prefer to do things the morally just way (i.e., we don't have a license to be awful simply because other people are awful), and violating Google's ToS is also against Lab's ToS—especially problematic since I would have to be public about it (since my code is open source and I'd have to indicate where the data's coming from somehow). If it came down to it, I'd rather violate Google's ToS than Bing's or Yandex's, because at least Microsoft is interested in working with us, and Yandex's data quality isn't as high. But even then: Google is smart enough to detect my scraping even behind multiple servers without a substantial amount of work, and the lack of an authoritative interface for scraping Google means that maintenance costs are high; things will break frequently and unpredictable. So, no thanks. — Earwig talk 02:02, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
I don't see anything in the Lab ToS that explicitly prohibits violating Google's ToS, so long as you do so without literally breaking the law. And Google isn't the law, not yet anyway. As for detecting it -- how? You write up a script that consenting users run that at most once every five minutes while they're using Wikipedia, their browser goes to Google and enters a perfectly innocent-looking search for a quoted phrase (which happens to be from the current Wikipedia article being checked for plagiarism). The User-Agent is of course (honestly!) the browser of the Wikipedia user. Now I'm not super knowledgeable about this and I know the "same origin policy" is designed to be much more of a hindrance to such reasonable programming than it is to third party sites stealing your data, but I'm thinking even random calls to the Google API mechanism can't be that uncommon... and if worst came to worst, surely you could make it a browser plugin that violates the same-origin policy outright, can't you? So I'm thinking they can't do a damn thing to stop it - not legally, not practically. And I dare say not "morally" either, because there is no morality in having a couple of corporations totally dominate the right to look up anything on the web and use that power to prohibit a free encyclopedia from finding plagiarism! None! The closest they could come would be to ban anyone from searching for any quoted phrase found in Wikipedia ... but that would lay waste to their other users. Wnt (talk) 12:19, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
The number of queries according to the Phabricator ticket is around 300,000 per month. This works out to roughly seven queries per minute. I don't see any benefit to trying to steal this service from Google. A, we would get caught, and B, we are trying to run a world-class operation here, and stealing (even from Google) is not so classy. @Ryan Kaldari (WMF): Still awaiting an answer to my question as to how much Google would charge for the service. — Diannaa (talk) 12:56, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
You can't get caught if you don't hide what you're doing in the first place, and it's not stealing when Google itself has emphatically defended the right to make transformative use of the information. But if you don't accept that, then I would still far rather put up with a lot more plagiarism with editors finding it hit-and-miss like in the old days than pay one thin dime in tribute to the Lords of the Search Monopoly. Wnt (talk) 13:01, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Just want clarification on merging policy/guidelines

We had a guy create several new articles against tennis guidelines... "2003 player x season", "2004 player x season", etc. It would have been nice to delete them outright but some of the items could be used. These were all newly created articles with nothing really linking to them. We get a lot of editors trying to create these articles and they get the idea from searching for them and finding them in the very few players who warrant them. But this was a nothing player. Instead of deleting the articles outright, this time we decided to merge some of the content into a separate career stats article. That's fine, but now I'm being told we can't delete the multiple useless "player x season" articles" because the contents were merged. This is going to cause more headaches when editors do searches and find the redirects. My question: is it really against policy/guidelines to delete these types of pages after a merge? Had I known that, I would have insisted on deletion rather than a merge. I need direction to the policy that states this. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:01, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

The situation is that attribution is required. So if someone writes something, and it is merged from one place to another, then you cannot simply delete the original writing along with its edit history. Perhaps there are other ways to have attribution apart from edit history however. If you delete someone's edit history entry but keep their writing, then it is a copyright violation, as the attribution was a requirement of the license that they released their writing under. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:12, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Graeme is correct. Unless the edit history itself is merged into the target article, the merge-from article must be preserved for attribution, the "BY" of the CC-BY-SA license we publish under. Ideally, the merge-from article will have Template:Copied placed on its talk page, which explains this for anyone in future (and doesn't appear to have been done in these cases). CrowCaw 22:31, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
History merge is one option. Another option is to MOVE the original page, perhaps make it a subpage of the article it was merged to (and leave it as it be a redirect to that article.) That will retain the history. Alsee (talk) 02:52, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
I hadn't thought about moving the original 3 articles to a different name. That would retain the history yet they'd have different names. I didn't think we had actual sub-pages? Since there were three articles originally, I'm guessing you can't merge all three histories into one history? Also, if the three original pages get name changes, that will still leave a redirect under the original names. Is there going to be a problem deleteing thos redirect pages with the old name? Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:19, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
Any admin can visit Special:mergehistory and merge all three histories into one, or do it by deleting/moving the pages (mergehistory doesn't always work well). That is probably the best solution in these cases. Ajraddatz (talk) 06:23, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
That would allow the deletion of those three articles after the history merge. Where is it best to post that to have it done? By the way thank you everyone for filling me in on this information. Never mind, found the place to post it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:25, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Seal of George Mason University

Can somebody explain to this user that the seal is used in the infobox under fair use? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gmuseal.svg Thank you. --RaphaelQS (talk) 22:31, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Is not an issue of fair use. Is an issue of saying things that are not true. "Source The logo may be obtained from George Mason University." For the logo, that statement is true. For the seal, that statement is blatantly false. Abel (talk) 03:37, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
Fixed. --RaphaelQS (talk) 11:06, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests

Not sure if some newbies know about this but Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests is where we nominate Featured Articles to be on the main page. Folks can choose any article that hasn't been on the main page - see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-08-18/Dispatches for ideas. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:28, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Metrics coordinator(s) for The Wikipedia Library wanted!

Interested in helping to keep Wikipedia Library partnerships available? Then please sign up to be a metrics coordinator! With over 50 active partnerships requiring tracking and regular reports on source usage and general progress we're struggling to keep up, and would really appreciate an extra pair of hands or two. No particular skills required other than an interest in playing around with data (nothing more complicated than a spreadsheet), the ability to communicate clearly, and a desire to help the library continue to distribute free access to great resources. Feel free to drop me a message on my talk page or an email if you want more information. Sam Walton (talk) 19:55, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Chemistry help needed

Sub-heading was "Organic chemistry / hobbyist-molecular-physicist journeyman/expert/or diehard blow-hard who still cuts his/her mustard on the matter attention/opinion requested with much gratitude". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:21, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Could someone answer the question posed on this talk page about whether a certain kind of benzene (dubbed "eta-six-co-ordinated moiety" of a transition metal chelation) would fall into this stacking category? or would it be better noted as a Dewar–Chatt–Duncanson model, or both or neither and if so/nay, why? Thanks 66.96.79.217 (talk) 01:58, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

I tried, but really this may be a WP:Reference desk/Science question. Also, the editor's proposal for altering the article should be made clearer ... otherwise, it risks being dismissed as just off-topic discussion at the talk page. Wnt (talk) 13:03, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Google Earth placemark updates

Apologies if this has been asked before. It looks like Google has not updated the 'Wikipedia' layer in the Google Earth database in some time -- many of the placemarks are appearing at slightly (or significantly) different locations, that I know I and other editors have corrected.

Does anyone know who at Google is responsible for importing our dumps into their database layer, so that we can prod them into maybe doing a fresh update sometime?

(To cite one example, I corrected the coordinates in our article on the Buildings at 15-17 Lee Street a year and a half ago, but Google Earth is still displaying it at the old, less-accurate location.) —Steve Summit (talk) 13:55, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Looking for a link

I recall a study being done on Wikipedia that proved that kinder user warnings resulted in less vandalism, but I can't find a link for it. If anybody could find a link to it, that would be awesome.--Moist Towels (talk) 05:16, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Ktr101 banned by WMF

Just note to those who have not seen it that User:Ktr101 was banned by WMF tonight. WMF staff never provide any reasons for globally banning users.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:32, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Also globally banned were Liliana-60 (talk · contribs), John F. Lewis (talk · contribs) and WayneRay (talk · contribs). See WMF Global Ban Policy for more information. the wub "?!" 10:44, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
The other three had the global ban converted yesterday to a WMF-ban (not that it changes anything).--Ymblanter (talk) 10:47, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
No, I am wrong, Liliana-60 was only globally blocked yesterday.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:51, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
FWIW the latter is (also) a community ban. –Be..anyone 💩 05:55, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Wow. Ktr101 had 100,000+ edits and was an OTRS volunteer. Fences&Windows 19:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Just because the gods above choose to strike someone down with a lightning bolt without explaining why, that doesn't mean their reasoning is completely inscrutable. Does anyone have any insight into why this might have happened? Everyking (talk) 02:28, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi

How's it going? South Nashua (talk) 05:21, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello? South Nashua (talk) 19:37, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Bueller? South Nashua (talk) 20:18, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Is Haywards open for the season yet? --Jayron32 15:21, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
Haven't gone over yet. I used to love their Lime Rickeys. Guess they'd count as South Nashua. Although for me, the border is just north of that house with all the gas station pumps. South Nashua (talk) 23:13, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Well, on the border certainly. I've always thought of South Nashua usually starting where Main Street becomes the DW Highway right where South Main branches off at Rivier (which is pretty much exactly where Haywards is located). Still a great place on a warm summer night. And local too; unlike all the chain stuff down on DW Highway. --Jayron32 01:31, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
I definitely wouldn't argue with that. Anything within the Exit 3 area. In any case, I'm looking to do more on Wikipedia. Not sure where to turn. Wondering if I could get some guidance. (P.S. - There's a new mom and pop Mediterranean place in the Trader Joe's plaza there. It's pretty good) South Nashua (talk) 14:25, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
There's some interesting history stuff one could expand on, Dunstable, New Hampshire could use some love, [This book looks like it may be the start of something interesting. --Jayron32 14:42, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
That looks neat. I will try to get to it when I have a chance. I wanted to do something about breaking down the American Civil War by year, I looked and didn't see a timeline, but maybe I was looking in the wrong place. South Nashua (talk) 23:32, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia Citizen Science?

Simply, is Wikipedia Citizen science (CS) and are Wikipedians citizen scientists? I guess the crux of the matter is whether Wikipedia is seen as a science project. If so, then Wikipedians collect and manage science data as any good citizen scientist should. Personally, I think Wikipedia is a CS project and so is possibly the most successful example. Richard Nowell (talk) 09:41, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

It's a similar concept, but by WP:NOR we don't do science. We are amateur scholars. We report on science and many other things. Jim.henderson (talk) 09:55, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Jim is correct. We are not collectors or managers, we are reporters (of what reliable sources have said). Blueboar (talk) 11:37, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
It could be called "Citizen encyclopedism" (I didn't know that word until I made it up!) (CE) if you like. And I notice I'm not first to coin that term. --Pipetricker (talk) 12:11, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
So Wikipedians are 'citizen scholars', rather than citizen scientists? Either/or? Is it that a 'scholar' seems better in some way than just a citizen scientist. Richard Nowell (talk) 12:19, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
It is simply that scientist is wrong. As pointed out above WP:NOR is a basic policy of Wikipedia. Think of us as like the dark age monks copying the writings of the ancients onto new parchment - except we're supposed to summarize rather than just copy. Dmcq (talk) 12:37, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
OK, thankyou for your opinions. It is now obvious that WP isn't CS, but I have never considered myself a monk or scholar. I'm certainly a citizen scientist. Now 'Citizen scholar' seems more appropriate.Richard Nowell (talk) 06:48, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Scientists develop theories or technologies, and make experiments to prove them. That's certainly not what we do.
We summarise what has been written already. So we are writers or historians. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:47, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
So Wikipedians (WPs) are crowdsourced scholars, reporters, writers, historians, general summarisers, participants and collaborators. WP is a crowdsourced online encyclopedia. It's good to be clear about these things.Richard Nowell (talk) 06:49, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

A few are incidentally scientists. Most are incidentally citizens of some place. We may be either, or neither, or both. Jim.henderson (talk) 11:07, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Question about article editing

Does anyone think it is ok for an article on a notable subject to go from this [9] to this [10] in a matter of two hours? GigglesnortHotel (talk) 21:54, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:18, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Yes, It was fringe cleanup. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 21:50, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Identifying a ship in Scotland

 

Last year I took some pictures of a coastal ship. Unfortunately the pictures are not scharp enough to read the name. (also File:Oversteek Armadale Mallaig 6.JPG and File:Oversteek Armadale Mallaig 4.JPG) Are there Scots who know this ship. I suspect the ship is local.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:02, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

I've added the images to Commons:Category:Unidentified ships. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:46, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/George Washington Carver redux

Can I get some thoughts on this situation, please? Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:34, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Editors For Cancer Articles Wanted ASAP

Before I make my request, I wish to apologize in advance. I am a brand new member and I realize that making a request as my first act on the site may offend some people. Please, that is not my intent and I respectfully ask for your assistance because it is for a noble cause. My best friend and boss (who lost his father to cancer) also has the disease. As a memorial to his father, he created a website to help cancer patients, survivors, care givers and family members with articles directed at their particular needs.

There is a storehouse of information that would be valuable in the Wikipedia format. Therefore, I am putting out a request for editors to assist in the editing process of these works (which will be uploaded in the next several days). Now I do realize that there is a huge backlog of works to be edited but my request is humanitarian in nature. My friend is a two time survivor and once again his cancer has come back with a vengeance. There is a strong possibility (with his latest prognosis) that he will not see the end of the year.

It is his wish to leave his website and the works published here as a final legacy. Therefore, I respectfully ask for your help and truly hope you understand that this is a legitimate request. I do not make this lightly nor is it simply an attempt to rush the line. I sincerely hope that what I have written conveys to you my true sentiments and goal.

If you can help out, please leave me a message on my talk page.

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Midnightmaniac45 (talk • contribs) 22:00, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Midnightmaniac45. We'll need a bit more information about copyrights and things like that before we can consider anything. Perhaps Doc James will be interested in helping you figure out what you've got. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:28, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
Can you provide a link to the content in question? And the license? I can take a look. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:35, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Global superlatives

There are sixteen articles (I think) using "in the world":

So,

  • A: Page moves to get rid of "in the world"
  • B: Leave it, can of worms, not broken, why bother, redirects, cleanup, pain in the butt

I'm leaning toward "B", but it's kind of gnawing at me. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:41, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

So the way I see it is that if the thing can only occur on this world (as far as we know) than the phrase in the world is extra and unneeded. This is true for the things above but not true for everything. Tallest mountains for example would have to specify where exactly those mountains are as mountains occur on many different worlds. So I'm leaning more towards A as a matter of streamlining. --Majora (talk) 20:48, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Majora. As all these only occur "in the world" and the lists are not interplanetary in scope, the phrase seems unneeded here and I'm inclined to think all these lists should be renamed. A redirect with the longer name will keep its benefit for users. I'd recommend that the proposed new short name be searched for all other pages with the same prefix using either (Cirrus) search or Special:PrefixIndex to identify any special cases that might require extra thought. PS The "large cities" link is given twice. Jason Quinn (talk) 04:37, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
The editor in me says to get rid of any unnecessary descriptors. So long as it is clear what the adjective is referring to, extra wording, though technically correct, should be excised. Extra wording like that is only useful if you're trying to make a word count :)  DiscantX 10:09, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
I don't disagree... But shortening the title may cause more problems than leaving it alone. To my mind a shorter title such as List of highest railways is imprecise as to its scope. It could be a list of the highest railways in the world (the intended scope) .. Or it could be a list of the highest railway in each nation (including the highest railway in, say, the Netherlands... which is not very high). Just saying. Blueboar (talk) 11:11, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
My feeling is that when you include a superlative without a further qualifier, it should be taken to mean 'the most that we know of." So if it isn't said that it is a list of the tallest chimneys in Chilliwack, for instance, then it is safe to assume that it is a list of the tallest chimneys known to us, be it in the world, the universe etc, until of course we find a distant civilization that has really tall chimneys, in which case we can go ahead and qualify our lists further.  DiscantX 12:20, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
I think that's appropriate. For lists where the "most" of something might include other planets, the terrestrial list can be "on Earth" instead. South Nashua (talk) 12:59, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
I agree. Without qualification over scope, the largest scope that makes sense by default should be used. I think this is what people most often do in normal speech and writing and it also makes the most sense logically. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:43, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
On Blueboar's comment: If you have two lists – the 10 tallest chimneys in the world, and the tallest chimney in each country – then you could name them List of tallest chimneys and List of tallest chimney per country, or something like that. (If there's only one list, then the shorter name will do, regardless of the actual content.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Translating Ibero-America: a new contest about Ibero-American culture now open!

Dear all,

On behalf of Iberocoop, we want to invite you all to participate in our translating contest about Ibero-American culture.

The contest, launched today, will be open to participate until the 31st of May. Ibero -America has a rich cultural and historical heritage. Through this contest we want to make known our culture and bring new contents to other Wikipedias.

You can find the contents here: Translating Ibero-America

We wait for you to participate!

--Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 14:25, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Impact of ExxonMobil climate expertise on operational planning at Natuna

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:ExxonMobil climate change controversy#RfC: Context of Natuna gas field on the impact of climate expertise on ExxonMobil operational planning. Should the following, bolded for clarity, be added to ExxonMobil climate change controversy?

Exxon also studied ways of avoiding CO2 emissions if the East Natuna gas field (Natuna D-Alpha block) offshore of Indonesia were developed. An October 1984 internal report from Exxon's top climate modelers said that the gas field contained over 70% carbon dioxide and that if the carbon dioxide were released to the atmosphere it would make the gas field "the world's largest point source emitter of CO2 and raises concern for the possible incremental impact of Natuna on the CO2 greenhouse problem." Members of Exxon's board of directors told Exxon staff that the gas field could not be developed without a cost-effective and environmentally responsible method for handling the CO2.

Please comment at Talk:ExxonMobil climate change controversy#RfC: Context of Natuna gas field on the impact of climate expertise on ExxonMobil operational planning. Thank you! Hugh (talk) 14:16, 3 May 2016 (UTC)}

@HughD: This is clearly an inappropriate location for the request, unless you want to remove all your other WikiProject pings (which might not be a bad idea). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:47, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
You are invited to comment. Thank you! Hugh (talk) 20:53, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
Arthur Rubin HughD's first topic bans were enacted after a routine of announcing an RFC at a new location after a new location once it started going against him and as an excuse to delay any attempts to close it. You'll have to take it to ANI if this is occurring again. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:14, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
I forgot. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:18, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
The problem is that this editor has notified WPs very selectively and continues to ignore the request to treat all relevant WPs equally, although this request has been added to the RfD discussion already three times. Beagel (talk) 22:04, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
As a devil's advocate, I should point out a proper solution to that is to edit all his existing announcements, and to create identical neutral announcements in all relevant WikiProjects (and remove all announcements made to individual articles), and close this announcement. It's not going to happen, because he'll revert the removal of his non-neutral text. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:44, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Question Since this is being discussed here, are there rules as to what makes a RfC announcement neutral? Hugh has created quite a few RfCs recently. Once the RfC is made he posts many announcements, particurally if he isn't happy with the current result (see this swell of notifications after almost 30 days here [11]). Anyway, the notifications are typically of the form above. A simple question, "should X be added" and then a long quote and references. Is that really a neutral announcement? To me that would tend to bias the reader because it makes it sound like there is no other context. Regardless, it also makes the notifications quite long. Also, so long as I'm asking, what is the proper way to protest what appears to be a non-neutral or problematic RfC? In this case we have a RfC that doesn't mention the previous discussions. In the Chrysler case the RfC provides an exact quote but I think many of the supporters only support the material in general, not the exact quote thus a "support" vote may be confused. To what extent can others modify the RfC without being seen as trying to disrupt the process? Thanks Springee (talk) 11:08, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

  • I've actually edited one of his postings down to (equivalently) You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:ExxonMobil climate change controversy#RfC: Context of Natuna gas field on the impact of climate expertise on ExxonMobil operational planning. [sig] before, which is about right per WP:Canvassing; I would tend to agree that adding the question at the place of advertisement could possibly bias the answer. --Izno (talk) 14:25, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello

Note that Anthony Anenih has died according to Google. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.185.175.84 (talk) 14:14, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Nope. --Jayron32 16:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons link in the "In other projects" section of left column

I must have missed the discussion. Do you see it in articles now? Search "in other projects". Does this mean no more adding the commons category link to articles? Will a bot remove them? I see no mention of this at Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons. I must be missing something obvious. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:40, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Those links are populated by Wikidata. You could remove the template, but the few discussions I've seen have disagreed with removing it... it probably deserves a central discussion or an RFC. --Izno (talk) 02:50, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback, Izno. Frankly, I don't mind if it's there or not. I just want to know if we keep adding commonscat links to articles, or if this is meant to be a replacement. Cheers, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:51, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
I recently tried a central discussion, it did not attract any interest and got archived still without being closed.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:07, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
I remember seeing it, but I'm not sure you tagged it with {{rfc}}... --Izno (talk) 11:49, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
I think I did, will try to find it later.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:14, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
Sidenote: See WT:Centralized discussion#Incomplete archives, will try to improve instructions. --Pipetricker (talk) 19:12, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
File:Temporary wikipedia screenshot of sidebar 123123213.png
"In other projects" box
Anna Frodesiak: Just so I don't misunderstand, by "in other projects box" you mean the "In other projects" heading and the links below it in the left column of many pages, right? And I assume commons category links are those added by Template:Commons category and similar templates. --Pipetricker (talk) 19:12, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
Hi Pipetricker. See the screenshot. Cheers. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:32, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. Aha, you're using the MonoBook skin, where the headings in the left column begin with a lowercase letter, and the section under each heading looks like a box. In the default Vector skin, first letters are capitalized and there are no boxes, hence my confusion. --Pipetricker (talk) 08:23, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Hypixel

I tagged Draft:Hypixel as a db-advert because it looks like an advertising brochure. The author deleted the tag [12]; Should I revert the tag deletion? -- 70.51.200.96 (talk) 05:35, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

No, as I would reject db-advert too. The person who removed the tag is not the creator of the page, so other version can be reverted to. Excessive stuff can be removed by editing. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:35, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Repeatedly reverting bot-added template

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T134203
(Original topic heading was: "Edit war between two bots".)

It's funny to see two bots fighting each other. Strawberry4Ever (talk) 06:22, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Niceguyedc is not a bot, and appears to be making correct edits. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:48, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
That is correct. I'm not a bot. As mentioned here, there is a problem in the database that is causing the DPL bot to think that there are many incoming links to that article (and a few others), when there are no incoming links at all. I'm removing the tag because it isn't true, and so that any of the disambiguators that look at the Disambiguation pages with many incoming links category don't see pages there that don't belong. -Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 09:42, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Omni Flames has implemented the correct workaround at the dab page: diff because it is pointless to repeatedly revert a bot. Johnuniq (talk) 09:54, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Haha yep Johnuniq I was just about to post that. I'm not sure why that template wasn't just added in the first place. Omni Flames let's talk about it 09:56, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Sorry for calling you a bot, Niceguyedc. I got that impression because of your repeated edit summary "v1.38 - remove incoming links tag" and Tag:WPCleaner. Were you using a tool called WPCleaner to do the reverts? Strawberry4Ever (talk) 12:01, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Yes. I use WP:CLEANER to make most of my edits. -Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 12:07, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
For the record, the template code used to deny the bot until the database has been fixed is {{bots|deny=DPL bot}}. --Pipetricker (talk) 12:31, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
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