User talk:Jack Greenmaven


About Quicksort page

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Hi, I received your message in which you are communicating me that you undid my change on the partition algorithm because you believe that the previous version was better.

Unfortunately you didn't explain why, or gave any evidence of your understanding of my change.

I am new as a contributor of Wikipedia, so I don't know its etiquette, but the way you proceeded seems rude to me.

Anyway if this is normal practice, sorry, my bad.

In any case I would like to discuss my change with you.

My change remove unnecessary operations in the execution, so seems to me clearly better.

But maybe you think that the only reason of that box is to give an understanding of how the algorithm works, and doesn't need to be cleaned to be operational.

Or maybe you just believed that my change was not correct? It is possible I made some syntax mistake and I would be happy to verify that, if this is the problem.

I would really appreciate your answer. Thanks, Anselmo

Anselmotalotta (talk) 18:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I suspected your version was not correct. The article has been around for a long time and I thought any errors would have been picked up long before now. My apparent rudeness comes about because I am using an automated tool to pick up malicious or vandalistic edits. The messages are pre-written and may not be appropriate in every case. Vandals sometimes mess with formulae or statistics, so I reverted your edit. In this case I am mistaken, it seems. I sometimes check over 300 articles a day and I make some mistakes. Apologies. --Greenmaven (talk) 20:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see, no problem then. I am new and I have to say I haven't read all the docs I should have before committing. I created the account just to modify that algorithm because I noticed a minor defect. If you are a software engineer (or equivalent) may you review it more carefully, please? Anselmotalotta (talk) 21:09, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am not expert in sorting algorithms. I will try to locate an editor who is. If you do more editing, I believe you are better off explaining a little about your professional background on your user page. Then people will have more confidence in accepting edits where there is some doubt. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I will! Anselmotalotta (talk) 17:15, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Any news? I found something that I would like to change in the Merge Sort algorithm page as well, but I was waiting for this to be approved first. Thanks. Anselmotalotta (talk) 17:14, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The editor I contacted has not got back to me. I hope your changes will improve the Merge Sort article. We rely to some extent on experts watching articles. I do have a continuing concern because you are altering algorithms that have probably been unchallenged for some time. But of course you may still be able to improve on them. So, go ahead. --Greenmaven (talk) 18:29, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your reply. About the Quicksort page and the partition algorithm, the change I wanted to apply removes not necessary swap operations on the same element, but the current version is still correct and easier to read. Also, being written in pseudo code, it can be implied that a call to swap the same element of the array is just ignored. In other words, I guess it is ok not to change it. About the Mergesort, I think that the change I wanted to apply is even less meaningful, so it is not worth it. Thanks again. Anselmotalotta (talk) 01:44, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks: that has been a useful discussion. --Greenmaven (talk) 01:49, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I've recently been cleaning up Survivor-related articles, along with User:Gloss. I've noticed that he will redirect articles without consensus, so I assumed it was appropriate to do that. So you're saying that even if an article clearly doesn't meet notability guidelines, it still needs to get consensus before being deleted or redirected? Survivorfan1995 (talk) 02:17, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of these articles do not receive much editor attention or viewer traffic, so when an article is in violation of WP:BLP1E - it's safe to say that saving everybody's time by boldly redirecting the pages to the appropriate articles is an easy solution. Lyon is one of these cases. She is only known for one event (her appearance on Survivor) so the redirect should not be a problem. Gloss • talk 02:23, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Your actions are high handed and I have taken it to WP:ANI. Who are you to judge that an article should be removed because there is not, at this time, much traffic to it? I will read WP:BLP1E. --Greenmaven (talk) 02:27, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
High handed? After you're done reading that, take a look at WP:BOLD - "The Wikipedia community encourages users to be bold when updating the encyclopedia." - we aren't making any harmful or controversial decisions. The article violated a policy and as a result, it was redirected to a different page where all important information about the target can be found (including her death information). Regardless, you should try to discuss ANY situation before wasting everybody's time bringing it to an administrative noticeboard. Gloss • talk 02:47, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Much less time would have been wasted if you had begun to discuss it instead of blanking the page a second time. A look at the references shows that she came to the attention of the media again after she contracted cancer. She began a second, different, struggle as a "survivor". Therefore she passes WP:BLP1E. I repeat, the TV show she appeared in was syndicated worldwide, hugely popular, and people do have an interest in the cast's later life outcomes. BTW I find "Can we hold the dramatics for a second?" on ANI, offensive. --Greenmaven (talk) 02:54, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I need to go out. I will check where we are up to in a few hours. --Greenmaven (talk) 02:58, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Survivor contestant Russell Hantz also passed WP:BLP1E, but got redirected anyway (see the article as it was). If you want to keep this article, we should get consensus to recreate Russell's article. Otherwise, Jenn's article should be redirected as well. Survivorfan1995 (talk) 06:14, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BLP1E cannot possibly apply. She is dead. Please be more careful. As for the Hantz article, I saw no clear consensus. No consensus defaults to "keep". Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:39, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User page

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Please tell me how to create a user page. I could really use your help from you. TheRocknRollPat (talk) 01:20, 4 January 2014 (UTC)TheRocknRollPat[reply]

I have typed a short message in your User Page to show you how to get started. The best thing is to look at a few pages others have made. You will get a few ideas and see how most people do it. There are no hard and fast rules, but remember: this is how other editors will form their opinion of you, other than seeing the edits you make. Have a look here too Wikipedia:User pages. --Greenmaven (talk) 01:29, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Astronomer13 reply to Mr. Jack Greenmaven

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Hello! I believe I have figured it out now! I left you a reply on my talk page.(It will explain this reply) From now on I will reply to you on your talk page. ThanksAstronomer13 (talk) 03:23, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No. You definitely have not figured it out. You keep the conversation ON ONE PAGE. You don't keep flipping from one talk page to the other. And you don't start a new section with everything you want to say (if it's on the same topic). When you want to start a conversation with someone, you start a section on their talk page, because they will automatically get notified that you have left a message, and it will not get ignored. From then on you have the conversation where it started, on their page. You also need to "watch" their page, so that you get notified on your watchlist WP:WATCH. See the sections above this one, to see how other people do it. --Greenmaven (talk) 04:21, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Astronomer13 reply to Mr. Greenmaven

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You asked if I was okay about leaving the Horse Head Nebula article the way it was.

No. I think that somewhere in the article it should at least say 'Star Formation has never been observed'. The article assumes that star formation exists: this is false information! Especially since the top of the page states "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable."Astronomer13 (talk) 03:54, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for leaving the article alone and not inserting 'Star Formation has never been observed'. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:28, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GOCE 2013 Annual Report

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Guild of Copy Editors 2013 Annual Report

The GOCE has wrapped up another successful year of operations!

Our 2013 Annual Report is now ready for review.

– Your project coordinators: Torchiest, Baffle gab1978 and Jonesey95

Sign up for the January drive! To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Re your edit.

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Please reinstate the edit. I provide that William Epter of New York and, most importantly, Roger Horchow himself can verify the contents of this edit. Further Meshulam Riklis, if still alive, can verify some financial maneuvering in the eventual sale of the Kenton Collection to Horchow. Unfortunately Edward and Stanley Marcus have passed. Roger is your best bet since, as noted in the edit, he admitted that the page was totally true. Please contact me if you need more.

Don Shipman, 214 763 2957 or laiva@swbell.net — Preceding unsigned comment added by DONALD SHIPMAN (talkcontribs) 23:22, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have received your message and will reply before long. It might be helpful for you to read WP:COI in the meantime. --Greenmaven (talk) 01:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The fundamental problem with your addition to this article, is that it is what WP calls 'original research' WP:OR, as opposed to being verifiable from reliable secondary sources; see WP:V. The next problem is that it is not written from a 'neutral point of view' - WP:NPOV. You report a conversation in which someone is called "a bumbler" - not neutral! You also begin your edit with the words "SEQUENCE OF DEVIOUS EVENTS LEADING TO..."; this is also not neutral. You also clearly have a conflict of interest WP:COI; you are one of the participants! The entire edit is not encyclopedic, because it is a long account of conversations and opinions; see WP:NOT. I hope you can see that none of it is acceptable, and will remain deleted. Thanks. --Greenmaven (talk) 10:37, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

BBC TV and WWII

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Hi, I was the one who made the edit to the History of Television page about BBC TV service being ended at the onset of WWII. I understand that you reverted my edit because believe the line about the service being ended to prevent transmissions being used for tracking by enemy aircraft is both factual and important tot he article; I will not argue whether this is correct or not, although it seems to me logically inconsistent with radio broadcasts continuing for the duration of the war. However, the source cited for the two lines I edited states something different about the content of those broadcasts immediately before and after the war than what is stated in the article. I have re-edited the article to correct the sentences with reference to the content of the broadcasts; I have left the claim about tracking, but it needs a citation. Thanks, and have a good day!--KnucklesKnave (talk) 02:33, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good outcome - I agree that a citation would be good. Regards --Greenmaven (talk) 02:58, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nazim al-Haqqani's organization

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First of all, how are you? Happy new year, sir. Second of all, I'm a bit concerned about this edit at Nazim Al-Haqqani as the source given is the website of an organization run by the subject itself. Doesn't it raise some issues of reliability in that context? MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:44, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Happy New Year to you too. Here's how I see this section of the article. Firstly, this man is clearly a notable religious leader. Secondly, an encyclopaedia is intended to be informative, and those who view this page could reasonably expect to be told what he stands for, or "his mission". So, where would you expect to find accurate information about that? The website, of course. I see this as a different case to the one, where certain events are claimed to have occurred. Then one can reasonably say "we want verification". But here we see statements about intention and by implication, beliefs. Whether or not we believe them, or find them ridiculous or disagreeable, is not relevant. Religious articles all over WP are full of unverifiable statements. As you know they are often disputed over. I should make it clear that I am not a Muslim nor a follower of Sufism. I wish to be impartial. But I try to err on the side of leniency on religious articles, out of a desire not to offend those who edit in good faith, that is WP:AGF. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:32, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The user who you welcomed after he edited the article, Rafaelmaron, actually vandalized it. He deleted a section with reliable sources which is often deleted by the subject's followers. He's a noob but I think it's behavior worth watching, followers of Muslim religious leaders can get aggressive real quick in my experience. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:06, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I was aware that his edit might be disputed. I welcomed him so that he would be able to find basic policies and guidelines on editing WP. --Greenmaven (talk) 04:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Slater Personal Life

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Hi Jack, The information about Michael slater is in the main subjective, and misleading..... I am working with Michael and decided to take it all down, and then will repost, what is more factually correct

OK. I am watching the article. Go ahead. --Greenmaven (talk) 04:14, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A Tesla Roadster for you!

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A Tesla Roadster for you!
Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia! Gg53000 (talk) 20:33, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A Tesla Roadster for you!

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A Tesla Roadster for you!
Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia! Gg53000 (talk) 20:33, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! Two cars now. Are you sure you can afford this! I may have to give one away! Thanks for your gift! --Greenmaven (talk) 20:44, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unreliable Box Office Mojo

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Rounding figures seems inappropriate to me, which is why I made my edit but thinking about it more I see a bigger problem. I am not happy with unreliable sources. Fixing mistakes in unreliable sources seems very close to original research. Since you disagreed with my edit your opinion to help get to some consensus would be helpful. Please discuss on article talk page. Please do not reply on this talk page. This may be indicative of a larger problem with Box Office Mojo and may need to go to WP:MOSFILM to get a larger consensus. -- 109.76.224.73 (talk) 17:56, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Copypasta wrong link error. I meant to ask you to reply on the article talk page -- 109.76.224.73 (talk) 17:58, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thought Disorders

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Hi, I noticed you reverted my edit to Thought disorder, in which I removed a reference to a viral video that an anonymous editor had inserted into the text, returning it to what it was before their edit (here's the diff of their edit). I was wondering if this was an accident, or if not, whether you could provide your reasoning for reverting it. Thanks! LeftNoise? 03:00, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted my edit. Sorry. It looked like removal of sourced material. Hard to tell - a disordered monologue! --Greenmaven (talk) 03:29, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes New Years Double Issue

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Books & Bytes

Volume 1 Issue 3, December/January 2013

(Sign up for monthly delivery)


Happy New Year, and welcome to a special double issue of Books & Bytes. We've included a retrospective on the changes and progress TWL has seen over the last year, the results of the survey TWL participants completed in December, some of our plans for the future, a second interview with a Wiki Love Libraries coordinator, and more. Here's to 2014 being a year of expansion and innovation for TWL!

The Wikipedia Library completed the first 6 months of its Individual Engagement grant last week. Here's where we are and what we've done:

Increased access to sources: 1500 editors signed up for 3700 free accounts, individually worth over $500,000, with usage increases of 400-600%
Deep networking: Built relationships with Credo, HighBeam, Questia, JSTOR, Cochrane, LexisNexis, EBSCO, New York Times, and OCLC
New pilot projects: Started the Wikipedia Visiting Scholar project to empower university-affiliated Wikipedia researchers
Developed community: Created portal connecting 250 newsletter recipients, 30 library members, 3 volunteer coordinators, and 2 part-time contractors
Tech scoped: Spec'd out a reference tool for linking to full-text sources and established a basis for OAuth integration
Broad outreach: Wrote a feature article for Library Journal's The Digital Shift; presenting at the American Library Association annual meeting
...Read Books & Bytes!

Flag of Guam page

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I can't seem to figure out how to edit the references on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Guam, the first reference on that page is going to an outdated link that just needs to be changed but I can't seem to figure out how to do that. It shows ^ http://flagandbanner.com/fab/productpage.asp?id=SGUAM1218 but that link is invalid it should be http://www.flagandbanner.com/Products/FBPP0000012671.asp, Link should basically say Modern flag design based on 1949 art.

Is there any way you can figure out how to fix this? I saw you were the last person to edit the page in November. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jean1972 (talkcontribs) 20:09, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Done See the page history for the change I made. --Greenmaven (talk) 20:37, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did NOTHING

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I didn't edit any pages in Wikipedia. nor do I have an account! 81.148.71.240 (talk) 20:24, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

IP addresses such as yours, above, are often shared, usually without your being aware of it. So, someone else has been editing using that IP address. If you do want to edit in future, it would be worth registering. These shared IP Accounts are one reason why we recommend becoming a registered editor. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:29, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Misplaced Post

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Hello Jack, I now understand that my post was misplaced. And after stepping away from the computer to walk my dog I was going to change it. I must inform you that I am Hurt by what you did. I worked hard on that post and did not save it anywhere. I now know I should have started a new article about "Starry Eyed Boutique". What I wrote was not meant to take away from your work or article. If it looked like that I am Sorry!! Can you help me please by tell where I should have post the article.McBarker T. (talk) 06:02, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your post does not stand a chance of surviving as an article. Your shop is in no way notable and your post was a blatant advertisement for it. Please read WP:NOT for further details. WP is not a free website for people to promote their own self-interest. --Greenmaven (talk) 08:11, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

File permission problem with File:Biami people, near Nomad patrol post, 1964.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Biami people, near Nomad patrol post, 1964.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you are the copyright holder for this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

  • make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
  • Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add {{OTRS pending}} to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read the Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 23:01, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent an email to the copyright owner as requested. --Greenmaven (talk) 23:41, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

File permission problem with File:Leaving KIBULI Village 6th June 1963 – Oriomo-Bituri Patrol.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Leaving KIBULI Village 6th June 1963 – Oriomo-Bituri Patrol.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you are the copyright holder for this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

  • make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
  • Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add {{OTRS pending}} to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read the Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 23:01, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent an email to the copyright owner as requested. --Greenmaven (talk) 23:42, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

File permission problem with File:Afore patrol post, police barracks consruction 1964.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Afore patrol post, police barracks consruction 1964.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you are the copyright holder for this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

  • make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
  • Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add {{OTRS pending}} to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read the Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 23:32, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent an email to the copyright owner as requested. --Greenmaven (talk) 23:52, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Then we will have to wait until someone has read that e-mail. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:31, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I would like to ask, why did you made the change (removed what I added in the article)? Thanks 35.11.56.100 (talk) 04:28, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It would help if you signed your posts. I edited that name out because the person did not appear to be notable. However, I see other names in the list that have no article of their own, so I have undone my edit. Thanks for asking. --Greenmaven (talk) 04:44, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply. I'm still new to the Wiki. That name is a very notable person in the music world. The name is also listed in the link in the sources section. Thanks If20222425 (talk) 05:24, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Notability has a particular definition in WP. If you look here WP:N, and follow the links, you will find there is a section on notability for performing artists of various kinds. I hope this helps. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:37, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ANI

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I've asked for other eyes to review at this thread at ANI in which you are mentioned.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 04:50, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It will be interesting to hear the opinions of other editors. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My edit

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I was correcting a spelling error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.4.176.27 (talk) 05:59, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. You were doing well with correcting the spelling error in Kingdom of Redonda. Unfortunately, you then changed "The Purple Cloud" to "The Purple Butt" - we call that vandalism. --Greenmaven (talk) 06:04, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rittenhouse

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Information icon Hello, I'm Jack Greenmaven. I wanted to let you know that I undid one or more of your recent contributions to David Rittenhouse because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Greenmaven (talk) 04:48, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Jack, I apologize. I will tell my children to stop messing around with Wiki articles. I'm sorry to have taken up your time. 173.49.138.210 (talk) 15:20, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for helping to keep WP accurate and reliable. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:12, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have looked through all the edits performed by IP address 173.49.138.210 . Almost all of them were not helpful and have been undone by other editors. If you want to keep on editing, please register an account. IP addresses are often shared and perhaps not all the edits originated from your computer. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 January 2014

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Wikimedia Germany, the largest national affiliate, has authored an extensive critique of the Funds Dissemination Committee's process for issuing funding recommendations for the various large organizations in the movement.
The proposed schedule for the MediaWiki Archicture Summit has been published. The two main plenary sessions will be about HTML templating, and Service-oriented architecture.
It is heavily ironic that two decades after the World Wide Web was started — largely to make it easier to share scholarly research — most of our past and present research publications are still hidden behind paywalls for private profit. The bitter twist is that the vast majority of this research is publicly funded, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide each year.
Wikipedia's recent decline in readership, possibly due to Google's Knowledge Graph. ... Judith Newman in the New York Times asks "What Does Judith Newman Have to Do to Get a Page?"
We now can get a far more accurate picture of which short surges in popularity are likely natural and which are not.
This week, we studied human social behavior with the folks at WikiProject Sociology.

Monsters We Met (Land of Lost Monsters)

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Hello, my name is Preston. I am a fan of the BBC miniseries Monsters We Met and I have watched the series repeatedly since I got it last Thursday. I revisited their Wikipedia page and noticed significant changes. While what was created would make an awesome documentary series, I simply know that this is not the show I had watched. The first two episodes are entirely wrong, and the third is a reference to Wild New World, another BBC miniseries which also uses CGI animals alongside actors and live animals. I am looking all around for suspects, which is what brought me to you. I checked the dates of the update, and that lead me to you. So can I ask you why you put all of this incorrect information there (provided it was you, of course as you are only my first contact, I will be looking into other people as well)? I do not mean any form of attacks or argument, I am just trying to get to the bottom of things.

Thank You for your reply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PMS123 (talkcontribs) 23:07, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I mostly work on reverting vandalism. A slab of text had been removed without explanation, so I put it back in. Feel free to revert my edit. --Greenmaven (talk) 23:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mr. Greenmaven, I just started editing Wikipedia articles, and I noticed that you undid a couple of changes that I had made on an article. Granted it was a subject that I knew nothing about, I was just trying to look for grammatical errors. I came across a few, and changed "their" to "his or her" in order to denote a single entity. I noticed that a few hours later, you changed it back to the original "their." I was just wondering if perhaps I could have an explanation for this, as I thought that I was bettering the article by finding some minor grammatical flaws. Thank you. Ray Fishman (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The use of "his or her" is a clumsy construct, whereas using "their" is a well established and concise way to maintain gender neutrality. I reverted it partly because I wanted to forestall you from systematically making this change all over WP. --Greenmaven (talk) 00:50, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, my name is Max Brody. You have taken it upon yourself to remove what I had added to Mike Scaccia's page. Why? Is it not enough that I was in Ministry with him, became his close friend, and recorded several hours of music that has only partially seen the light of day? Do you think it is your place to decide what his fans know about? Goobersmoochers is a real project, and you can listen to it for yourself if you go to my website: maxbrodyworld.com

Who are you, and why did you do this? At the moment, I am offended. Can you explain yourself? What am I missing here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.157.49 (talk) 01:23, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, "Goobersmoochers" looked like the typical nonsense that vandals add to WP pages. So I was actually trying to protect your friend's page. No, it is absolutely not enough that "I was in Ministry with him, became his close friend, and recorded several hours of music that has only partially seen the light of day". Any editor can remove content that has not got a verifiable source. Instead of being offended, supply a reference to demonstrate that "Goobersmoochers" actually exists. --Greenmaven (talk) 01:39, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am glad you, like myself, feel the need to be "protective" of Mr. Scaccia, but I am trying to tell you that you are doing him a disservice. He cared and was proud about the project, and would want it mentioned. I know this. It also doesn't matter what YOU think of our project's name, and you still have not answered my question as to who you are. Are you an "editor" for wikipedia? I'm just trying to understand why I'm getting picked on and by whom. I want to play by the rules here, of course. But I would hope that you would do your due diligence before just hitting the old delete button.

Meanwhile... you ask me for a "reference to demonstrate that "Goobersmoochers" actually exists". And I feel that I had done that already in the original communication. To quote; "Goobersmoochers is a real project, and you can listen to it for yourself if you go to my website: maxbrodyworld.com". So go to the website, click the "projects" tab on the upper left side of the page, and the word "Goobersmoochers" will pop out. You can listen to several songs there and read about it... or copy and paste the link http://www.maxbrodyworld.com/goobersmoochers.html

Does that qualify as "actually existing"? What more do you need? Are you unable to navigate to the site? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.157.49 (talk) 06:42, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 22 January 2014

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A particularly esoteric anthology of speculative fiction, filled with imaginary Wikipedia entries from, as the introduction puts it, "the many Wikipedias across the Multiverse."
The Wikimedia Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy's application of pending changes level two on the article Conventional PCI—an action taken under its rarely used office actions policy—has escalated to the Arbitration Committee after an editor upgraded it to full protection.
Fifteen articles, nine lists, twenty pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia over the last two weeks.
On 15 January, Wikipedia turned thirteen years old. In that time, this site has grown from a small site that was known to only a select few to one of the most popular websites on the internet. At the same time, recent data suggests that there is a power curve among users, where the comparative few who are writing most of Wikipedia have most of the edits. The result of this is that there is going to be bias in what is created, and how we deal with it as Wikipedians is indicative of the future of the site. Furthermore, this brings up what we have to do in order to combat this bias, as there are many ideas, but the question is whether they will work or not.
This week we're interviewing Brion Vibber about the then-upcoming Architecture Summit. Brion is a long time Wikipedian, the first employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, and currently the lead software architect working with the mobile team.
An article in USA Today announced that a European-funded project called RoboEarth that is designed to give robots a mechanism by which to access information to dispense.
While the 71st Golden Globe Awards, held on 12 January, had an impact on the top 25, their presence was largely absent from the Top 10. With the exception of Best Actor winner Leonardo DiCaprio, the only Golden Globe entrants in the Top 10 are films that would have been there anyway.

Hello my good man, I believe that you have missed a very inportant relationship in this show, which i do infact watch every sunday. please return Bobae so that i may have some enjoyment, Professor Dr.Phil — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zebraslayer47 (talkcontribs) 04:39, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You have vandalised two pages. Goodbye. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

About my Edmund Ironside Contribution

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I think it was rather unfair to have deleted my edit on Edmund Ironside's death because what I said was true, Edmund Ironside really did get stabbed through the asshole while he was on the toilet.

In that case provide a reference that backs it up. It would be more encyclopaedic to use the word "anus". I will watch the article. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:53, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Longmont Potion Castle edit to Longmont Colorado

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Hello.

I believe you removed my post based on the assumption is was vandalism on the Longmont, Colorado website.

There is a well known prank phone call artist named Longmont Potion Castle whose work is available for purchase online and whose discography is well documented (I will leave it to you verify this). I posted on the Longmont Colorado website that he is a "notable person"

This post was removed. If you can please explain why I would appreciate it. Thanks, Gary — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.208.128.225 (talk) 03:32, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, it looked like vandalism. OK, he exists. But his article Longmont Potion Castle states that no one knows who he is, so how can he be claimed as a resident of Longmont, Colorado? --Greenmaven (talk) 05:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Okay

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Thanks for the notification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoctorWho&Comics (talkcontribs) 23:16, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Highest point on King Island

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The highest point on King Island is not, I repeat, is not Mt Stanley. It is an unassuming hill called Gentle Annie. In my justification for the change on my talk page I cited a web reference to that fact, even though it was a person living next to Gentle Annie that told me on the day of my walk. On reflection, the King Island 1:100,000 map also showed that fact: Gentle Annie 162 m, Mt Stanley 148 m. It took me four hours to walk from the town of Grassy to Mt Stanley and back. It would have taken me half that time to reach Gentle Annie, even though the bush probably would have prevented me from actually attaining the summit. That's two hours of unnecessary walking all because of an error in Wikipedia. It seemed worthwhile correcting. Rob Cannon 119.18.14.6 (talk) 22:09, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Like you I try to make sure WP contains accurate information. I could only find "Gentle Annie" as the name of a song, and some other unrelated references. It is the sort of thing that vandals do to a page. On the other hand, I could find references to "Mt Stanley" as a highpoint. So I made a judgement that that was the correct highpoint. Now I will make sure that the info you have uncovered finds its way back into the article. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:56, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Second thoughts: I see I was not the first editor to undo your edit. I see also that Mt Stanley was deemed to be 213m high, not 148m as you state above. I will therefore not restore the info you entered. --Greenmaven (talk) 06:15, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did give a reference to a document that states that Gentle Annie is the highest point on King Island. You might like to google <gentle annie king island 168>. When I do this, the relevant document and the one I cited is number 1 in the finds, along with a couple of other probable derivative references. I suspect that the difference between the heights of 168 m in the older documents and the 162 m on the King Island map might be because of a change in the base sea level used over the years. There is also a transmitter called Gentle Annie: it is near but not on the highest point. I also googled <gentle annie king island 162>. Among the pages found was one at peakbagger.com which suggested that Gentle Annie and Mt Stanley were alternatives. However the Australian Gazetteer (at www.ga.gov.au/place-names/)gives the two places at different locations. There is a property called Mt Stanley near Gentle Annie (I passed it on my long walk, and access to the transmitter is via it). I have also informed Encyclopedia Britannica of their identical mistake. I guess I'll find out in a few days whether they believe the proof I have provided.

119.18.14.6 (talk) 12:20, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Self-awareness

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You have multiply tagged the article Self-awareness, claiming that it may have been copied and pasted from a source, and may contain excessive or improper use of non-free material. However, on the talk page you have not indicated the sources you think were inappropriately used. Would you please point to those sources. Thanks. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:52, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Epipelagic. I occasionally keep an eye on Jack's page as he tends to be swamped with enquiries, uncivil responses to valid concerns expressed by him, etc. The article in question appears to be of a highly specialised nature, yet heavily lacking in references and citations for in-depth, analytical descriptions and definitions of 'self-awareness' in a plethora of areas. I don't think it is up to Jack to sort through potentially paraphrased, plagiarised and WP:OR tractats. I'm certain you're aware of the onus being on those involved in the development of the article to cite and provide WP:V and WP:RS.
In tracking some of the major contributors, I haven't encountered anyone who could be regarded as a qualified scholar in any of the specific areas. Qualified nurses (not veterinary but human) writing authoritatively about self-awareness in animals? There are detailed sections, such as In Schizophrenia, that are virtually unreferenced. In fact, the 'In philosophy' section and... well, pretty much everything, has rung an alarm bell or two for me. How do autodidacts manage to be so thorough and balanced without having studied more than one or two texts? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:43, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not suggesting for one moment the article is well written. It needs rewriting from the ground up. But that's not the issue here. The issue is that Jack has claimed the article has plagiarised and improper use of non-free material. I can't find text that is plagiarised from online sources. Perhaps Jack has access to offline sources that are plagiarised. In any case, it creates difficulties to make sweeping allegations like these without specifically disclosing the sources the allegations are based on. Otherwise other editors , like me, end up wasting time trying to track them down. If I find plagiarised text, I usually try and clean it up myself. I do not tag it for someone else to do the hard work. But if it is tagged, then I think there is an onus on the tagger to indicate the problematic source or sources they have found, and not add unnecessarily to the work load for other editors. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:14, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A large section of text from the article can be found here [1]. The Image of the dog also appears on the same page. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:22, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I now see that the medlibrary site acknowledges its content comes from WP. God help us all. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:25, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am still suspicious of this material. Take look at this diff [2], which is where I came in on this article. On December 10th, 8,078 bytes were added in one edit - always an indicator that it might be a copypaste. In particular, see how it includes references in the post. They are not done in the correct way. It reeks of a copypaste. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:34, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here is our source of wisdom, from his User Page: "Hello my name is Jeremy and am enrolled in Psychology of Consciousness. I hope to expand my knowledge in this exciting course." (User:Jeremyhausman 12 September 2013). Check out how much editing he has done for WP. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:42, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ouch! Add to that, the 'development' of the section in his sandbox. If only I could put a lucid section together in just two edits! I don't know where it has come from, but I'm a monkey's aunt if it's his own. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:01, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps he has access to online material that is not picked up by search engines. Maybe we will hear again from User:Epipelagic. I will take this opportunity to say that all work is voluntary on WP. No one is obliged to "do the hard work" (they choose to), or to blame another editor for not following something up. Tags have been developed precisely so an editor can flag a problem without going on to resolve it. --Greenmaven (talk) 06:10, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I can find no evidence that Jeremyhausman additions are copypastes. It is not good enough to reject the efforts of new editors trying to get started merely on the ground that you are "suspicious" and think their efforts "reek" of a copypaste. You need to show that they actually are a copypaste. Likewise, I have not found evidence of passages in the rest of the article that have been copied and pasted, or contain excessive or improper use of non-free material. Where the material is duplicated elsewhere on the web it occurs on Wikipedia mirror sites, or on the scurrilous "topdefinitions.com", a site which rips Wikipedia off without acknowledgement. Accordingly I have removed your tags. If I were to criticise the article, it would be on the grounds that it is unbalanced with undue emphasis in certain areas, and contains additions that might belong better in other articles. --Epipelagic (talk) 11:16, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
For starters, the article discusses psychology (psychology is not a single, cover-all science) without referencing the two most important branches of psychology investigating the area: Behavioural psychology, and Clinical psychology which embrace virtually all aspects of 'Self Awareness' including the behavioural psychology of all species. That's a serious hole in the premise of the article, full stop. It's desperately in need of specialists to clean it up, not lay people. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:53, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There are significant philosophical and biological inputs, even cultural and spiritual inputs that belong also to this article. It is a multidisciplinary field, and not one that is likely to be within the scope of a single specialist. Also, waiting for "specialists" on Wikipedia is bit like Waiting for Godot. --Epipelagic (talk) 23:21, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm not going to lose any sleep over the matter.
P.S. If you enjoy a bit of absurdism (and who doesn't), find a little time to read articles in the Eastern Europe section wearing your, "I'm just a reader, not a contributor." hat. It's just like finding a new monologue from Lucky every day. Cheers! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:24, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why my info is deteled from the Wiki page of Omar Abdullah (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Abdullah)

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Hi,

I have added the information related to his profile in Social media like Twitter. He is very famous in Twitter and this information should publish in his Wiki page. I don't find any thing which is irrelevant to the info posted by me and neither it is against 'Good Faith' of Wikipedia.

if you are thinking that info is not concrete and having some wrong info then please do cross verify his twitter account. And please let me know the valid reason to delete the info related to his social media.

Thanks, Wiki Contributor — Preceding unsigned comment added by Homespun33 (talkcontribs) 10:03, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit was reverted by myself and another experienced editor. I see you have still inserted it. I think it is a borderline case, so I will leave it stand. I think it is arguably a form of promotion of the subject of the article. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:39, 1 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Correction to the Kylie Ireland page

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The correction I made was accurate and constructive if you follow the link posted you will note the source cited as her website which directly contradicts the portion I removed

Thanks for providing a reference Biography which led me to the discovery that you have cut and pasted from there, which breaches copyright and is strictly forbidden in WP WP:COPYVIO. I have therefore removed the content you added (without replacing it with what was there previously, which is probably incorrect). --Greenmaven (talk) 04:06, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An IP has messed up this article by adding ORs.Please undo that .I would have done it but I can't do it with mobile edits.thanks

I cannot judge the accuracy of recent IP edits, however, they do not have the characteristics of vandalism, so I will not take any action. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:19, 1 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

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There are times when this job is hard. As an analogy, imagine navigating in fog at night, except you don't know where you are, you don't know where you want to go, and your flashlight keeps dying on you.
Contests have existed almost as long as the English Wikipedia. Contestants have expanded hundreds of articles and made tens of thousands of edits. Although it may seem as though there aren't any negatives to contests, they have occasionally become a divisive topic on the English Wikipedia.
Wiki-PR, a public relations agency, whose employees used a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts to create, edit, and maintain several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients, has told Business Insider that it was demonized by the online encyclopedia. Jordan French, Wiki-PR's CEO, said he believes the Wikimedia Foundation "painted" his company to look like an "evil entity" that is "scrubbing truths from Wikipedia".
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result.
An author experimented with "a promising type of assignment in formal translator training which involves translating and publishing Wikipedia articles", in three courses with students at the University of Warsaw.

Answer to change

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Sir, I just thought that it would be more constructive to end the film, and forgot to add the fact that the part added was the end of the film. I will fix it, and also log in (I forgot to log in). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.84.148.227 (talk) 04:02, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You have provided no information that allows me to know what you are talking about. --Greenmaven (talk) 19:38, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Just wanted to let you know that this edit, which you fortunately deleted quickly, was, however, decidedly NOT "good faith". Yours, Quis separabit? 13:48, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's "good faith" in that the editor believes it to be true, as opposed to outright vandalism. --Greenmaven (talk) 19:35, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Jack,

Further to your suggestion of creating a sub-page for World Citizen under my user page (this is now stored in your 2013 Archive), I have done just that. I've tried to keep it simple and within the Wikipedia guidelines.

I would appreciate your feedback and suggested changes before I ask everyone on the World Citizen Talk Page. I really want to get this right as I don't fancy being accused of being disruptive again; I shouldn't, but I take these things to heart!

Here's what I've written:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:NaysanFaizi/sandbox

Thank you, Jack.

NaysanFaizi (talk) 06:28, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I will try to look at this within 24 hours. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:52, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have read your prospective article. The main difficulty will be in establishing that the company is notable. See WP:NOTABLE, in which it says "If the subject has not been covered outside of Wikipedia, no amount of improvements to the Wikipedia content will suddenly make the subject notable." See also Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. --Greenmaven (talk) 06:00, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Jack. Will need to leave this for a while until World Citizen® becomes a global topic of conversation :-) Many thanks for your constructive feedback, as always. --NaysanFaizi (talk) 01:01, 15 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

About Sinhalese People Article

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Hi Jack Greenmaven,

I received your message about my edits to the Sinhalese page. Thanks. Let me start out by saying that I'm a native Singhala and English speaker so that you'll understand my background and why I feel I have enough knowledge to make the edits. To anyone who knows Singhala, the correct spelling is Singhala with a G or Singhalese with a G in fact if you look at some older literature you might find the name spelled "Cingalese". The word Sinhala is, as you say, an anglicization because the British colonizers couldn't pronounce the word properly. There is no reason for us to continue to propagate their mistake, particularly in a democratic forum like Wikipedia, where colonizers and colonists share equal footing, and particularly about a whole people. You're right also that the title spelling is different and would cause confusion; I would have liked to change the title spelling to bring it in line with the rest of the article but didn't know how to do that, so I hoped to elicit a response from an editor like you so that I could learn how to make the change. So please tell me how or direct me to an instruction page. You are right that I had inadvertently changed the title of a book and I apologize for that. I tried to be careful when I was doing the edit, but slipped up. Hope to hear from you soon Thanks again,

draalles Draalles (talk) 12:13, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am in agreement with you and will help in the next 24 hours. To change the name of the article you need to "move" it. I will do it later if you like. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:46, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Have a look hereSinhalese - you will be opening quite a can of worms. I suggest you will need to alter many articles to preserve consistency. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:51, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
More than 200 articles link to this page. They all use the spelling Sinhala or Sinhalese. I think it would be best to leave this spelling as it is. There is no reason why you should not state in this article that the spelling Singhala also exists. --Greenmaven (talk) 06:16, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

[edit]
There are times when this job is hard. As an analogy, imagine navigating in fog at night, except you don't know where you are, you don't know where you want to go, and your flashlight keeps dying on you.
Contests have existed almost as long as the English Wikipedia. Contestants have expanded hundreds of articles and made tens of thousands of edits. Although it may seem as though there aren't any negatives to contests, they have occasionally become a divisive topic on the English Wikipedia.
Wiki-PR, a public relations agency, whose employees used a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts to create, edit, and maintain several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients, has told Business Insider that it was demonized by the online encyclopedia. Jordan French, Wiki-PR's CEO, said he believes the Wikimedia Foundation "painted" his company to look like an "evil entity" that is "scrubbing truths from Wikipedia".
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result.
An author experimented with "a promising type of assignment in formal translator training which involves translating and publishing Wikipedia articles", in three courses with students at the University of Warsaw.

Reply: Dan Schneider (TV producer)

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Hello there. Unfortunately, I undid your edit since you added back information that is unsourced. Here at Wikipedia, these types of things must contain reliable sources. If they are not sourced in the infobox directly, then most likely they are in the body of the article. As for this one, if sources are provided then the info may be restored. Thank you much for looking out. Tinton5 (talk) 06:07, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Zou people

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Thanks, but if you'd looked up further you would have seen that there is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Burma (Myanmar)#Zou, Zo, Zomi Kuki about this. There is an IP and a new account that either hasn't seen that or doesn't care, and that is likely to be a continual problem now that editors are trying to take a pov set of articles and make them NPOV. But that's life in these areas of Wikipedia, sadly. Short answer to that one, although Zo may be spelled Zou at times, there is a Zou tribe with that official spelling. There was no Zo people article and the Zou one covered both. That's been fixed with a new article created. Zomi used to be basically a copy of someone's website (and a redirect before that) and cover what are really called the Zo people. Various groups hate various names, with people being killed over names. Dougweller (talk) 07:37, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation. I will read up on the details. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:36, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is so confusing I will be backing right away from it. --Greenmaven (talk) 06:22, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Recent History of Stonehenge Round Table edit

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Hi Jack Greenmaven, the edit I made in the above section of the wiki page above was to include King Arthur Pendragon in the article (he was recently edited out of it, even though he was fundamental to setting up the round table and picketed at Stonehenge for years). Alysraven (talk) 13:59, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Alysraven, you should have added Arthur Uther Pendragon. What you added was confusing. Dougweller (talk) 16:32, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. The reason I took out "King Arthur" was that it appeared to be vandalism and a reference to the historic Arthur. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:39, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jack Greenmaven, I was just looking at this article and saw what looks like an edit war developing. I don't edit WP much these days so, I hope you don't mind if I leave it to you to sort out. Look at the edit immediately after the one you made on 17 Jan 2014. The edit is still current even though there are a couple of more recent edits. SMeeds (talk) 10:58, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That was hilarious - fixed now. --Greenmaven (talk) 03:18, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Conan

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Hi, I was wondering what the criteria were for reverting the edits made by a new editor using the IP address 72.185.29.182 in the Future Boy Conan article? The contributions were marked good faith and removed. I've added a part of the contributions back in, with a bit of expansion and reference and left a welcome message on the IP editor's talk page. Can I ask you to add a note explaining your reverts on the talk page of the IP editor, perhaps to encourage this editor into contributing further to Wikipedia? Verso.Sciolto (talk) 04:51, 8 February 2014 (UTC) (edit: typo)[reply]

The words "Conan and Lana may also be sample prototypes for Potsu and shita in Castle in the Sky" are vague. WP should not be filled with speculations. Elsewhere, the words "may hint that" are also speculation. Your later edits were very helpful. I am not going to add any comments to his talk page. Feel free to refer him to this discussion. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:06, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for clarifying. I'll put a link to our comments up on the IP's talk page. Verso.Sciolto (talk) 05:28, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry about that edit. It was a reference to Trinity's mascot, the Trinity Troll. Perhaps it wasn't an appropriate addition in that form.12.68.162.226 (talk) 19:16, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unknown

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thanks, don t know what a tilde is or how to use it tho. maybe... 71.200.118.206 (talk) 21:53, 8 February 2014 (UTC)wesw maybe not... I don t know, but I got your point anyway. thanks again, wes w[reply]

This is a tilde ~ top left on my keyboard. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:13, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see you reverted my edits in this. The article was originally in one form of English, and has been changed recently back. I was just restoring it to it's previous state. I know it's a hot topic in here, but this user has been warned repeatedly on their talk page to please stop, and they are doing so. There's a time and place for the discussion of engvar, and that would be on the talk page, not one users whims. Please revert your...reversion, when you get a chance. Cheers — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.67.82.39 (talk) 09:43, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted my edit, as you requested. I found a version in December 2006, which contained at least two words using non-British spelling. Regards --Greenmaven (talk) 21:53, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

my birthday

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Thank you for pointing out this discussion to me, Jack. It seems slightly absurd to be arguing about my birthday, but I understand that other editors don't necessarily believe that I am me. I'm too concerned about privacy and identity theft issues to upload my passport and don't really know quite how else to prove it to you. Maybe the New London Connecticut public records office could set you straight - they should have a record of my birth. If that's too much trouble and no one will take my word for it, then leave it at 27 May; it's wrong but I don't know how to make it right. Anyway, you make me two months younger than I am. I shouldn't complain. Elbeejay (talk) 07:32, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it is absurd! Certainly, do not upload anything. --Greenmaven (talk) 10:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Bandook Rat

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Hello Jack Greenmaven,

I wanted to let you know that I just tagged Bandook Rat for deletion, because the article doesn't clearly say why the subject is important enough to be included in an encyclopedia.

If you feel that the article shouldn't be deleted and want more time to work on it, you can contest this deletion, but please don't remove the speedy deletion tag from the top.

You can leave a note on my talk page if you have questions. --Animalparty-- (talk) 10:35, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 12 February 2014

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As reported in various media outlets this week, including The Next Web and The Daily Dot, this past week, Wikimedia Commons and various language Wikipedias are working together to encourage subjects of Wikipedia articles to record a 10-second clip of their voice to be appended to their Wikipedia article.
Software evolution does not always mean that features are being added. It also means that old fat is being trimmed. It is no different for MediaWiki.
In a bold move, the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees has announced a major change in policy concerning affiliated groups in the worldwide movement, and FDC funding levels to eligible chapters and thematic organizations over the next two years. Both decisions were published last Tuesday after considerable post-meeting consultation with the FDC and the Affiliations Committee (AffCom). The core of the first decision is
Thirteen articles, three lists, and twenty-five images were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia from 19 January to 1 February.
Two great sporting events, the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics, collide in one week, transforming the top ten into a festival of flying feet, a carnival of colliding caraniums and a bacchanal of bouncing balls, combined to influence Wikipedia's most popular articles last week.
In celebration of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, we revisited the team at WikiProject Russia to learn how the project has changed since our first interview in 2011.

GOCE February blitz wrapup

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Guild of Copy Editors Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Blitzes/February 2014 wrap-up

Participation: Out of seven people who signed up for this blitz, all copy-edited at least one article. Thanks to all who participated! Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: During the seven-day blitz, we removed 16 articles from the requests queue. Hope to see you at the March drive! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Miniapolis and Baffle gab1978.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by

The Signpost: 19 February 2014

[edit]
The Wikimedia Foundation has proposed to modify the Wikimedia projects' Terms of use to specifically ban undisclosed paid editing. ... Dimitris Liourdis, a lawyer in training who moonlights as an administrator on the Greek Wikipedia, is embroiled in a legal dispute with a Greek politician over alleged edits made to his Wikipedia article.
Runa Bhattacharjee has notified the community that the Foundation is ready to turn the Universal Language Selector back on.
WikiProject Countering System Bias aims to combat imbalanced coverage while encouraging neglected cultural perspectives and points of view, both in articles and in the larger Wikipedia community. As you'll see from the varied experiences and motivations of our nine respondents, the biases that the folks at WP CSB tackle run the full gamut of human characteristics and dispositions. The interview that follows unveils many of Wikipedia's greatest shortcomings.
Five articles, seven lists, forty-three pictures, and two portals were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia in the last two weeks.
Valentines Day got a somewhat muted reception this week, overshadowed by continuing coverage of the Winter Olympics in Sochi and the death of Shirley Temple.

Curious about your deletion.

[edit]

Hi, I'm curious as to why you deleted a small edit I made to the Veronica Mars page. Under syndication, where it already had - "In July and August 2005, four episodes of the first season aired on CBS, UPN's sibling network, in an attempt to gain more exposure for the series.[130] The series aired on SOAPnet in 2012.[131] Pivot will air the series beginning January 2014.[132]"

I added "Available on Amazon Streaming".

You stated "I wanted to let you know that I undid one or more of your recent contributions to Veronica Mars because it did not appear constructive."

How is additional information about where the series is available not constructive? Additionally, Amazon is by far the most (and for many only) availability at this time.

I realize this is a very small issue and you noted elsewhere that you review 300 articles a day. However, it puzzles me as to why you would take the time to remove such an innocuous and plainly helpful edit. If you had a valid reason, I would be interested to know it. I don't want to get into a debate about this, not worth my time or yours. Just curious about the reason - it may be that it's not worth anyone's time to add to Wikipedia unless you're a "semi-pro" at it, in which case I'll just ignore errors I notice or any information I could add. Don't want to be a bother. 72.234.244.214 (talk) 07:30, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I considered it a promotion for Amazon. I will not object if you restore it. --Greenmaven (talk) 08:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have had time to look at it in detail. You wrote "All three seasons are currently streaming on Amazon Instant Video and are free with Prime membership (January,2014).". This is clearly promotional in its intent. I therefore stand by my earlier removal of your content. --Greenmaven (talk) 23:00, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 26 February 2014

[edit]
About a week ago, the Wikimedia Foundation proposed to modify the Wikimedia projects' terms of use to specifically ban paid editing, by adding a new clause titled "Paid contributions without disclosure". We have asked two users, one in favor of the measure (Smallbones) and one opposed (Pete Forsyth), to contribute their opinions on the matter.
Eight articles, three lists, and nine pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
This week, we found three Ph.D.s willing to give us a crash course on WikiProject Neuroscience.
Ukraine has been gripped by widespread protests over the past three months. Due to a decision by former president Viktor Yanukovych—at Russia's urging—to abandon integration with the European Union, the country was (and in many ways still is) split between the Europe-favoring Ukrainian-speaking western half and the Russian-speaking east and south. Hundreds have died during the unrest, leaving thousands of family members and friends to bury their loved ones. This week our Wikimedian colleagues in Ukraine are facing that challenge after the death of one of their own.
Following a trend started by Wikimedia Israel, Wikimedia Argentina has published an open letter challenging the recent deletion of hundreds of images from the Commons under its policy on URAA-restored copyrights, relating to the United States' 1994 Uruguay Round Agreements Act.
The 2014 Winter Olympics had more of an impact on the Top 25 than the Top 10, which had to shoulder old stalwarts like the death list, Reddit threads, TV shows and the eternal presence of Facebook; still, with four slots, it's the most searched topic on the list.
The monthly roundup of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, edited jointly with the Wikimedia Research Committee.

Books & Bytes, Issue 4

[edit]
Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 4, February 2014

News for February from your Wikipedia Library.

Donations drive: news on TWL's partnership efforts with publishers

Open Access: Feature from Ocaasi on the intersection of the library and the open access movement

American Library Association Midwinter Conference: TWL attended this year in Philadelphia

Royal Society Opens Access To Journals: The UK's venerable Royal Society will give the public (and Wikipedians) full access to two of their journal titles for two days on March 4th and 5th

Going Global: TWL starts work on pilot projects in other language Wikipedias


Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:00, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(test) The Signpost: 05 March 2014

[edit]
There's nothing like a good old bit of Cold War nostalgia, combined with a suitably scary international incident, to focus our attention on the real world. That said, nothing could stem our outpouring of affection for the beloved comedian Harold Ramis, whose death managed to top the week in the face of those international concerns.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
This week, the Signpost caught up with the Wikipedia Library (TWL), which aims to connect reference resources with Wikipedia editors who can use them to improve articles. Funded through the Wikimedia Foundation's Individual Engagement Grants program, TWL has a new "visiting scholars" initiative and a microgrants program in the works.
The WikiCup competition is ongoing, while six articles, three lists, and ten pictures were promoted to "featured" status of the English Wikipedia this week.
This week, the Signpost delved into the English Wikipedia's Article Rescue Squadron.

Re: The Price is right: Concerning Kathy "Fingers" Greco

[edit]

Actually, Kathy Greco WAS nicknamed "Fingers" after she gave then host Bob Barker a backrub back in the early 80's, as he was suffering from back problems such as sciatica and a herniated disc at the time. Bob mentioned she had "Magic Fingers" and the Fingers moniker stuck with her ever since.[1] Kaos 42 (talk) 02:03, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 12 March 2014

[edit]
Wikimedians around the world gathered to celebrate Women's History Month and the associated International Women's Day by holding editathons. If you lived in the United Kingdom, you had the opportunity to attend Wikimedia UK's event at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, part of University College London and host to one of the largest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese artifacts in the world.
An intensely busy week, as a confluence of celebratory, curious and urgent topics pushed typical residents like Facebook and Deaths in 2014 out of the top ten entirely.
Five articles, two lists, and 52 pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
This week, we interviewed Anaxibia from the Russian-language Entomology WikiProject.

Mistake on the Vincenty's formulae

[edit]

Hi Jack,

I thinks there is a mistake in the Direct Problem, because in the Notation section you write that : U1 = arctan[(1 − ƒ) tan φ1] whereas in the Direct Problem you write that :

It is not the same phi.

This is why i have change the phi.

Regards

Pierre Semécurbe — Preceding unsigned comment added by Semecurbep (talkcontribs) 13:01, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

my edits were in support of other editors, who thought they were reverting vandalism. I am not a mathematician, so I will accept that your knowledge on this matter is greater than mine. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:56, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mistake

[edit]

My edit was factual. Please fix your mistake and stop reverting constructive edits. (Personal attack redacted. Eyesnore (pc)) have a great day!

What article are you referring to? --Greenmaven (talk) 02:21, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 19 March 2014

[edit]
Non-US editors and chapters have taken issue with a multitude of image deletions done on the Wikimedia Commons to comply with the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, a US law that brought the country into compliance with the Berne Convention.
This week, we visited WikiProject History, an ancient project with roots dating back to 2001. The project is home to 196 pieces of Featured material and 483 Good and A-class articles independent of the vast accomplishments of its various child projects. WikiProject History maintains a lengthy list of tasks, oversees the history portal, and continues to build Wikipedia's outline of history.
In a record-breaker, the English Wikipedia has a new largest good topic: the 71-article Light cruisers of Germany, which concerns the light cruisers used by Germany during the 20th century.
Twelve articles, fourteen lists, and six pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
One of the first university Wikipedian in residence positions, hosted at Harvard University in 2012, has jumped back into the spotlight amid questions about its ethical integrity.
The utterly mystifying events surrounding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which has not fallen from the sky so much as vanished from it entirely, has left an information-starved public scrambling for precedents, some logical, some... not.
The Wikimedia engineering report for February 2014 has been published. A summarized version is also available. Major news include

The Signpost: 26 March 2014

[edit]
April Fools' Day is rapidly approaching. Every year, members of the community pull pranks and make (or attempt to make) humorous edits to pages across the project. Every year, the community follows April Fools' Day with a contentious debate about whether or not it is necessary to impose limits on April Fools' Day jokes for future years. It is a polarizing issue.
Topics like the 2014 Crimea crisis or the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 eased down the list, making way for such traditional topics as St Patrick's Day, Reddit threads and even Google Doodles, which have reappeared after a long absence.
Have you wondered about differences in the articles on Crimea in the Russian, Ukrainian, and English versions of Wikipedia? A newly published article entitled "Lost in Translation: Contexts, Computing, Disputing on Wikipedia" doesn't address Crimea, but nonetheless offers insight into the editing of contentious articles in multiple language editions through a heavy qualitative examination of Wikipedia articles about the Kosovo in the Serbian, Croatian, and English editions.
Results for the two-stage 2013 Commons Picture of the Year have been announced. This year's winning photograph (above) shows a lightbulb that has been cracked, allowing inert gas to escape—and oxygen to enter, so that the tungsten filament burns. From the flames rise elegant curls of blue smoke.
Four articles, two lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
On 3 April, we will roll out some changes to the typography of Wikipedia's default Vector skin, to increase readability for users on all devices and platforms. After five months of testing, four major iterations, and through close collaboration with the global Wikimedia community, who provided more than 100 threads of feedback, we’ve arrived at a solution which improves the primary reading and editing experience for all users.
As you have probably read on this weeks op-ed, or via various other channels of announcement, 3 April will see the introduction of the Typography refresh (or update) for the Vector skin on all Wikipedias. Other projects like Commons will have this update rolled out a few days prior.
This week, the Signpost interviewed the English Wikipedia's Mountains WikiProject.

GOCE March drive wrapup

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors March 2014 backlog elimination drive wrap-up newsletter

The March 2014 drive wrap-up is now ready for review.
Sign up for the April blitz!

– Your project coordinators: Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978 and Miniapolis.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by
Guild of Copy Editors March 2014 backlog elimination drive wrap-up

Participation: Thanks to all who participated in the drive and helped out behind the scenes. 42 people signed up for this drive and 28 of these completed at least one article. Final results are available here.

Progress report: Articles tagged during the target months of December 2012 and January 2013 were reduced from 177 to 33, and the overall backlog was reduced by 13 articles. The total backlog was 2,902 articles at the end of March. On the Requests page during March, 26 copy edit requests were completed, all requests from January 2014 were completed, and the length of the queue was reduced by 11 articles.

Blitz!: The April blitz will run from April 13–19, with a focus on the Requests list. Sign up now!

– Your drive coordinators: Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978 and Miniapolis

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:57, 2 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 02 April 2014

[edit]
The run-up to the conference has seen the unfolding of two fractious threads on the Wikimedia public mailing list, both of which may serve as background for the last session at Berlin: "Future of the Wikimedia Conference".
This week, we visited with WikiProject Germany.
The annual Wikimedia Conference is about to start in Berlin, hosted by Wikimedia Germany, which won the bid to hold the event over three others. This will be the fifth time the chapter has hosted the Wikimedia Conference—it did so from 2009 to 2012, with attendance ranging from 100 to 180 Wikimedians. This year 160 people are expected at the four-day event, which is mainly for representatives of affiliated Wikimedia organisations. The conference has been built around two themes: Organisation, structures, and grants and Success and impact.
The Signpost's "Featured content" writers had a bit of fun this week.
The mysterious fate of MH370 still tops the list, but in all other respects our readership has retreated from the real world into its pop-cultural happy place: TV, movies, music, Reddit and Google Doodles all made an appearance.

The Signpost: 09 April 2014

[edit]
Community review is open for the four applications in the second and final round of applications to the WMF's Funds Dissemination Committee for 2013–14. Three eligible organisations have applied for funding under the newly named "annual program grants": Wikimedia France, Wikimedia Norway, and the India-based Centre for Internet and Society, which last November was recognised as eligible to apply for FDC funding purposes.
This week, we interviewed the Law WikiProject.
"I remember laughing and talking and laughing and talking at Wikimania 2012. I took this picture of her that she used for a long while as a profile pic. Someone on Facebook said it looked 'skepchickal', which she loved."
Television has always been a topic of choice on this site, but it exploded this week. Fully six slots were devoted to television shows, as the final episode of How I Met Your Mother, one of the most popular Wikipedia searches of the last few years, coincided with the season finale of The Walking Dead and the upcoming fourth season of Game of Thrones. The number rises to 8 if movies released on video and new TV tech are are included.
Five article, five lists, and ten pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.

Books & Bytes - Issue 5

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 5, March 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

  • New Visiting Scholar positions
  • TWL Branch on Arabic Wikipedia, microgrants program
  • Australian articles get a link to librarians
  • Spotlight: "7 Reasons Librarians Should Edit Wikipedia"

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:54, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

April blitz wrap-up and May copyediting drive invitation

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors April 2014 Blitz wrap-up

Participation: Out of 17 people who signed up for this blitz, eight copy-edited at least one article. Thanks to all who participated! Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: During the seven-day blitz, we removed 28 articles from the requests queue. Hope to see you at the May drive! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Miniapolis and Baffle gab1978.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:18, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 23 April 2014

[edit]
The annual Wikimedia Conference wound up last Sunday, 13 April—a four-day meeting costing several hundred thousand dollars, hosted in Berlin by Wikimedia Germany and attended by more than 100 Wikimedians.
Hey you—yeah you, the Wikipedian! Do you want to help a museum, a library, a university, or other organization explore ways to engage with Wikipedia? Great—you should offer your expertise as a Wikipedian in residence!
Cynthia Ashley-Nelson, who edited as "Cindamuse" on the Wikimedia projects, passed away in her sleep at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin on 10 April.
This week, we visited WikiProject Catholicism.
After just over a month of deliberation, the Wikimania jury has selected Wikimedia Mexico's bid to host Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City, with a proposed date of 15–19 July.
If I were the kind of person who made snap judgments based on flimsy evidence, I'd say our readership is in a funk.
Fourteen articles, four lists, seven pictures, and one topic attained "featured" status on the English Wikipedia over the last two weeks.

The Signpost: 30 April 2014

[edit]
Like hammering a square peg into a round hole, the Wikimedia Foundation has submitted a draft annual plan for 2014–15 to its own Funds Dissemination Committee. Unlike the WMF's submission to the FDC's inaugural round in October 2012, the "proposal" does not seek funding.
Not much to report this week. The same post-Easter celebrations (4/20, Earth Day) were popular again this year, except last year we were still reeling from the Boston Marathon bombing.
The Wikimedia Foundation has announced that its new executive director will be Lila Tretikov, until now a chief product officer in Silicon Valley.
This week, we unraveled the mysteries of WikiProject Genetics.
Ed Roley, Associate Director of Integrated Media at the Peabody Essex Museum, talks about GLAM engagement with Wikipedia.
Four articles and sixteen featured pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
Can you predict the number of seasonal influenza-like illness in the U.S. using data from Wikipedia?

Hi, dearest Jack, how are you? Here Spring is come, and wheather is quit good.

I just made this short new page about a place I like too much, and I ask you some minutes to read it, and please to correct my mistakes.

I thank you very muche for your precious help!

Rei Momo (talk) 21:23, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would appreciate it if Wikipedia would stop sending me irrelevant messages

[edit]

For example

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:210.55.212.218&redirect=no

I've had several like this. They come up when I do searches or whatever. In all cases, I don't know what you are talking about.

Thank you for refraining from this sort of thing in future.

219.89.201.169 (talk) 00:38, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As the above link explains, you can avoid these messages by setting up a Wikipedia account. IP numbers, such as 219.89.201.169, do not always provide a unique address, so you receive messages that were directed to some other editor using the same IP number 219.89.201.169. Regards --Greenmaven (talk) 01:22, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Popping in to say, "Hi!"

[edit]

See section title.

How are you holding up? Looks as though your overwhelmed by the same old same old (should there be a comma between the two instances?). Keep up the good fight/fight for the good of the project! Hugs. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:58, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Iryna. I have been having a rest. I will be back at some stage. Best wishes to you. --Greenmaven (talk) 08:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You deserve a good rest. Kick back and enjoy RL. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 07 May 2014

[edit]
The English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) introduced the first form of what are known as the "discretionary sanction" (DS) in 2009. A new DS regime, called Discretionary sanctions (2014), is the result of an elaborate review process involving both the community, since last September, and the committee, for more than a year.
For all the claims of Wikipedia bringing the world's knowledge to all who want it, it seems the human race most wants is a tabloid newspaper; a quick source for TV listings, pop culture facts, celebrity gossip and, above all, scandal—with some nice juicy racism thrown in too.
In a live video stream on 1 May, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that Lila Tretikov will be replacing Sue Gardner, its executive director. Gardner, who has been in the position since 2007, declared her intention to leave more than a year ago.
Round 3 of the 2014 WikiCup has just begun; 32 competitors remain.
Boston Children's Hospital postdoctoral fellow David McIver and a team have determined that using page view statistics from Wikipedia, they can track flu progression better than the Center for Disease Control can using Google searches.
Formed in 2003, the Eurovision WikiProject boasts four featured articles and 22 good articles. The Eurovision Song Contest 2014 is currently taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark, so we went to the stage to talk with one of the project's members.
Four articles, two lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.

The Signpost: 14 May 2014

[edit]
On 2 May 2012, the Wikimania jury announced that Hong Kong's bid to hold the 2013 event had beaten four other proposals. Moderator James Forrester wrote: "The Jury has confidence that the Hong Kong bidding team will pull off a magnificent Wikimania,"—and indeed there were positive comments about the event from most attendees.
This week, the Signpost jumped over the ocean to chat with the Puerto Rico WikiProject.
Editors of Australian-related topics on the English Wikipedia may have noticed an odd addition if they viewed the article's talk pages. For example, on Talk:Darwin, Northern Territory, they might be drawn in by the question mark, nested within what is often a sea of WikiProject templates: "Need help improving this article? Ask a librarian at the National Library of Australia, or the Northern Territory Library." Just what is this?
Six articles, seven lists, and four pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Eurovision is known for being political, and it was a doozy this week.
The Media Viewer is scheduled to launch on the English Wikipedia next week.

The Signpost: 21 May 2014

[edit]
Last Sunday the board of Wikimedia Germany passed 9–1 a vote of no confidence in the chapter's executive director, Pavel Richter, who has held the position since 2009. With more than 50 employees, an annual budget approaching $10 million, and the right to conduct its own fundraising through the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) site banners, Wikimedia Germany is the second-largest organisation in the movement after the WMF itself. The decision was announced on the Wikimedia mailing list by the chapter chair, Nikolas Becker.
Thirteen articles, sixteen pictures, and one topic were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
It's a relief to see Google Doodles having an impact again; their wide coverage means that they inspire curiosity on many subjects which, for reasons of nationality, ethnicity or gender, might not be known in the English-speaking world. It's a shame then, that Wikipedia so often fails to keep up; articles on Google Doodles are almost invariably C-class, and seldom do justice to their subjects. Still, interest in Google Doodles has been waning in recent months—Audrey Hepburn last week was the first to top the list since December—so any rise in popularity is worth celebrating.

The Signpost: 28 May 2014

[edit]
With the promotion to featured article of Grus (constellation) on 17 May, Casliber became Wikipedia's second featured-article centurion, following Wehwalt's groundbreaking achievement last December. Cas's first FA, Banksia integrifolia, a group effort, was promoted on 16 November 2006. His first solo project, Diplodocus, followed in January 2007; he has rarely been off the FAC since. In a second story, Ward Cunningham, an American computer programmer who invented the wiki, was interviewed by the WMF.
Wikipedia editor Sven Manguard's work is quite underappreciated a lot of the time, most likely because people haven't heard of it yet: He's developed good relationships with game companies, and is thus able to get full-resolution screenshots released under a Creative Commons license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere. This week's trove of new featured items on the English Wikipedia comprises seven articles, three lists, and four pictures.
In the US, Memorial Day marks the unofficial beginning of summer, and summer is definitely on people's minds this week, with summer films Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past, the apparently designated summer song "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea, and summer TV show, Game of Thrones.
Wikipedia in the eyes of its beholders; "Chinese-language time zones" favor Asian pop and IT topics on Wikipedia; and bipartite editing prediction in Wikipedia.

Books & Bytes, Issue 6

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 6, April-May 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

  • New donations from Oxford University Press and Royal Society (UK)
  • TWL does Vegas: American Library Association Annual plans
  • TWL welcomes a new coordinator, resources for library students and interns
  • New portal on Meta, resources for starting TWL branches, donor call blitzes, Wikipedia Visiting Scholar news, and more

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:59, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GOCE June 2014 newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors May 2014 backlog elimination drive wrap-up

Participation: Thanks to all who participated! Out of 51 people who signed up this drive, 33 copy edited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: We reduced our article backlog from 2,987 articles to 2,236 articles in May, the lowest backlog total since we began keeping records in 2009! Since at least 300 new articles were tagged during May, that means we copy edited over 1,000 articles in a single month. Amazing work, everyone!

Blitz: The June blitz will run from June 15–21. This blitz's theme is Politics. Sign up here.

Election: You can nominate yourself or others for the role of Coordinator for the second half of 2014 here. Nominations will be accepted until June 14. Voting will begin on June 15 and will conclude on June 28.

Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, and Miniapolis.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:27, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 04 June 2014

[edit]
Individual engagement grants (IEGs) are announced twice yearly by a volunteer WMF committee, the most recent of which we covered last December. The scheme, launched at the start of last year, awards funds to individuals or teams of up to four to produce high-impact outcomes for the WMF's online projects. It favours innovative approaches to solving critical issues in the movement.
New trustee Frieda Briosch from Italy: we face "a couple of headaches", she says: "how to boost editors, which includes the development of the next strategic plan, and how to keep our project always 'glamorous'."
I never feel quite adequate trying to paraphrase Sumana's words: she is so articulate. I highly encourage every person who reads this article to directly watch her keynote—it directly speaks to a lot of Wikimedia's most significant issues, made with great eloquence. We have a serious issue with retaining editors, and parts of her speech could serve as a pretty good partial blueprint towards how we could begin to fix that problem.
David Iliff, or Diliff, as he is known on here outside of the file pages for his many, many, excellent photographs, is one of Wikipedia's longest-standing professional-standard photographers. This week, the Signpost salutes him.
The month of May saw significant coverage concerning the reliability of Wikipedia's medical articles.
The northern summer is a time when one is meant to celebrate the exuberance of life; instead, commemoration of the dead was a significant theme this week.

Hi Jack, how are you?

I made this new page about this italian journalist, not too much known, but he defendend the small local communities in Piemonte and Lombardia, and was also a great echologist.

I ask some minutes of your time to read anc correct my mistakes, please. Thanks a lot for your help!

Rei Momo (talk) 09:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 11 June 2014

[edit]
Eleven public relations agencies have declared their intention to follow "ethical engagement practices" in Wikipedia editing. The results were published last Tuesday: a joint statement from the participating PR agencies—representing five of the top ten global agencies and all but one of the top ten in the United States—clarifying their views and practices with regards to the Wikimedia projects.
It seems that, more than commemorating the great moments in our history, more than even anticipating great sporting events, what our audience wants is the weird.
William Beutler (WWB), author of the blog The Wikipedian, is a long-time editor and community-watcher. He is also a paid editor (WWB Too). Well—not anymore—because he gave up direct editing of articles in 2011. Instead, for the past three years he has followed Jimmy Wales' Bright Line rule in acting as a researcher and consultant for companies and clients that want to suggest changes to Wikipedia articles and engage on the Talk page.
Last week we reported the announcement of two new affiliate-selected WMF trustees. The board of trustees is the most powerful and influential body in the movement, and chapters have been permitted to select two of the 10 seats since 2008, for two-year terms that start in even-numbered years.
Five articles, one list, twelve pictures, and one topic were promoted to 'featured' status last week on the English Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia Library: New Account Coordinators Needed

[edit]

Hi Books & Bytes recipients: The Wikipedia Library has been expanding rapidly and we need some help! We currently have 10 signups for free account access open and several more in the works... In order to help with those signups, distribute access codes, and manage accounts we'll need 2-3 more Account Coordinators.

It takes about an hour to get up and running and then only takes a couple hours per week, flexible depending upon your schedule and routine. If you're interested in helping out, please drop a note in the next week at my talk page or shoot me an email at: jorlowitz@gmail.com. Thanks and cheers, Jake Ocaasi via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 18 June 2014

[edit]
The Wikimedia Foundation has amended its terms of use to ban editing for pay without disclosing an employer or affiliation on any of its websites. The broad scope of these changes will allow the WMF to selectively enforce their terms of use to avoid ensnaring well-meaning editors.
Five articles, five lists, 22 pictures, and one portal were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
The Bangladesh chapter of the Wikimedia movement was formed in 2009. They received official local registration from the national authorities on 10 June 2014. The long road in between was subject to much persistence, patience, and luck—along with a good deal of worry.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the 2014 FIFA World Cup was the main draw this week, taking four slots. People appeared desperate to bone up on their trivia; checking not only this year's World Cup, but the last one. Even so, they still couldn't push Game of Thrones from the top ten. It will be interesting to see what happens come next week's season finale.
This week, the Signpost came in from the hinterland to interview members of the Cities WikiProject.

The Signpost: 25 June 2014

[edit]
The US National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) have committed to engaging with Wikimedia projects in their newest Open Government Plan. The biannual effort is a roadmap for how the agency will accomplish its goals in the digital age.
Despite the interest generated by its season finale, Game of Thrones still couldn't top the World Cup, which still dominated interest, as evidenced by the fact that this top 10 is virtually identical to last week's, just with a different dead celebrity.
In her first interview since taking office, Lila Tretikov, the Wikimedia Foundation's new executive director, speaks about grantmaking, the global south, and the gender gap.
Discussions on the English Wikipedia this week include...
Ten articles and eleven pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
This week, the Signpost visited the land of Disney, blockbusters, explosions, dream sequences, and cultural masterpieces: film.
In a recent paper, Jacob Solomon and Rick Wash investigate the question of sustainability in online communities by analysing trends in the growth of WikiProjects.

GOCE July 2014 newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors July 2014 newsletter is now ready for review. Highlights:

– Your project coordinators: Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978 and Miniapolis.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:27, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 02 July 2014

[edit]
The Los Angeles Times highlighted a recent Wiki Education Foundation (WEF) course at Pomona College in their article "Wikipedia pops up in bibliographies, and even college curricula". We interviewed Char Booth, the campus ambassador for the course, for additional details.
With Game of Thrones over for another year, the World Cup dominated yet again. And that is pretty much that. This list isn't likely to be particularly eventful until the Cup is won.
Wikimedia Israel (WMIL) has won a Roaring Lion in the category of Internet and cellular for its public outreach during the tenth anniversary of the Hebrew Wikipedia in July 2013.
Six articles, five lists, seventeen pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
This week, the Signpost visited the Indigenous peoples of North America WikiProject.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Wikimedia Deutschland's Toolserver project was switched off, marking the end of one of the Wikimedia movement's longest running Chapter-led projects. The Toolserver, which was in fact a collection of servers, first came online in 2005, hosting hundreds of webpages and scripts ("tools") made available for use by Wikimedia readers, editors and administrators.

Informal note

[edit]

Hey, I notice that you have HighBeam access and you seem to have a few topicons. That being said, if you are interested, I've created {{Wikipedia:HighBeam/Topicon}}. No reply to this message is necessary (and I won't see it unless you ping me), just wanted to let you know it was available. Happy editing! — {{U|Technical 13}} (etc) 23:57, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Jack

I changed 'systems design' to 'system design' because of lingual inconsistency.

  • Somebody designs one system, not several, not all systems.
  • Thus, using the plural is inconsistent with reality, as well as with the expectation of the reader.

I cannot help when most people call it 'systems design' in English. Thus, I pledge for a consistent usage of language, and agains 'common usage' (quite some terms got common usage despite lingual inconsistency; I would like to correct such faulty developments).

All the best - Studi321

--Studi321 (talk) 09:55, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 09 July 2014

[edit]
Last May, James Forrester announced to the world that London had been awarded the 2014 Wikimania conference. Functioning as the Wikimedia movement's annual conference, it is separate from the chapter-focused Wikimedia Conference. The first, located in Frankfurt, took place in 2005 and had 380 attendees. London, the tenth, is now expected to attract 1500. With Wikimania ambition, attention, and attendance rising significantly over the last nine years, how have this year's monetary costs come to be?
After an extremely close race, round three is over. 244 points secured a place in Round 4, which is comparable to previous years—321 was required in 2013, and 243 points in 2012.
The Wikimedia Education Program currently spans 60 programs around the world; students and instructors participate at almost every level of education. The Education program Signpost series presents a snapshot of the Wikimedia Global Education Program as it exists in 2014.
Five articles, six lists, and nine pictures were promoted to 'featured' status last week on the English Wikipedia.
As with the troubled release of the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) flagship VisualEditor project, the release of the new Media Viewer has also been met with opposition from the English Wikipedia community.
Unsurprisingly, the World Cup continued to dominate the English Wikipedia's viewing statistics. In particular, the record-breaking performance of US goalkeeper Tim Howard and the tournament-ending injury to Brazil's Neymar drove large amount of views to their articles.

The Signpost: 16 July 2014

[edit]
On the same day the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) announced it would offer assistance to English Wikipedia editors embroiled in a legal dispute with Yank Barry, the lawsuit has been withdrawn without prejudice at the request of Barry's legal team—but this action is being described as "strategic" so that they can refile the lawsuit with a "new, more comprehensive complaint."
This week it's still more and more World Cup, with five entries out of the top ten (and 14 out of the Top 25).
It all started in late 2005, when we first held lectures about Wikipedia in two educational institutions (universities) ...
Eight articles, three lists, and 28 pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
The Swedish Wikipedia's prolific Lsjbot, which has created a significant proportion of the site's 1.7 million articles and has nearly single-handedly pushed it to being the fourth-largest Wikipedia, was covered in the Wall Street Journal this week. The newspaper reported that the bot has created 2.7 million articles, which is apparently a reference to the Waray-Waray and Cebuano Wikipedias, where Lsjbot is also active, and that "on a good day", it creates 10,000 articles.

The Signpost: 23 July 2014

[edit]
"Great success" in Israel universities is leading to collaboration and editing in high schools.
Last week I predicted that the World Cup dominance on the report would be over—but I was wrong. The World Cup Final fell on the 13th of July, which was actually the first day of the week covered by this report, not the last day of the last report. Hence, five of the Top 10 this week are again World Cup related-topics.
Galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) today are facing fewer barriers to uploading their content onto Wikimedia projects now that the new GLAM-Wiki Toolset Project has been launched. The tool, which is the fruit of a collaboration between Europeana and several Wikimedia chapters, relieves GLAMs from having to write their own automated scripts and gives them a standardized method of uploading large amounts of their digitized holdings.
The English Wikipedia's did you know (DYK) section has been a feature of the site's main page since February 2004. From the beginning, the section has served as a place to highlight Wikipedia's newest articles. But over the last few years, the did you know section has gotten steadily larger and more complex, and non-notable or plagiarized articles have occasionally slipped through the reviewing process, leading numerous editors to call for reforms to the system. We asked two editors to share their views.
Ten articles, five lists, and 25 pictures were promoted to featured status on the English Wikipedia last week.

Books and Bytes - Issue 7

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 7, June-July 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • Seven new donations, two expanded partnerships
  • TWL's Final Report up, read the summary
  • Adventures in Las Vegas, WikiConference USA, and updates from TWL coordinators
  • Spotlight: Blog post on BNA's impact on one editor's research

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 July 2014

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In Common Knowledge: An Ethnography of Wikipedia, Dariusz Jemielniak discusses Wikipedia from the standpoint of an experienced editor and administrator who is also a university professor specializing in management and organizations. In Virtual Reality: Just Because the Internet Told You, How Do You Know It's True?, Charles Seife presents a more broadly themed work reminding us to question the reliability of information found throughout the Internet.
Kim Osman has performed a fascinating study on the three 2013 failed proposals to ban paid advocacy editing in the English language Wikipedia. Using a Constructivist Grounded Theory approach, Osman analyzed 573 posts from the three main votes on paid editing conducted in the community in November 2013.
Another hoax on the English Wikipedia was uncovered this week—not by any thorough investigation, but through the self-disclosure of an anonymous change made when the editors were in their sophomore year of college. The deliberate misinformation had been in the article for over five years with plenty of individuals noticing, but not one suspected its authenticity. This leads to one obvious question: how many more are there?
A "program of heroes" is leading the charge in Egypt.
We indeed moved far away from football this week, and further into much more serious issues of war and death. The Israel-Palestinian conflict continues to dominate the news, and the top 10, with Gaza Strip, Israel, and Hamas. The top 25 also includes Palestine and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Death also lies behind the popularity of James Garner, the American actor who died on July 19th, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and deaths in 2014.
Two articles, four lists, and seven pictures attained featured status on the English Wikipedia last week.

How are you? I happened to notice a message from you. You've got me confused with someone else as I never contributed to "Creatures of Terabithia" topics you accused me of doing!! Here's a copy of your message to me. " Hello, I'm Jack Greenmaven. I wanted to let you know that I undid one or more of your recent contributions to Creatures of Terabithia because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Greenmaven (talk) 04:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC). Thanks, Mark Vinci NYC jazz musician. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.108.85.115 (talk) 14:10, 8 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 06 August 2014

[edit]
As the start of Wikimania proper on 8 August approaches, the Signpost looks ahead to what its dozens of presentations might offer the technologically-inclined, whether attending in person or taking advantage of what promises to be a strong digital offering.
Serious news continues to dominate the most popular articles chart on Wikipedia this week, with the Ebola virus disease far and away in the top spot. In the top 25, we see the related articles Ebola virus, which talks about biological aspects, at #18 and 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak at #19.
Eight articles, fifteen pictures, and two topics were promoted to featured status on the English Wikipedia last week.
"Major growth" expected in Mexican university after a Wikipedia program is formally accepted by the school's administration.
The Wikimedia Foundation has published its first transparency report, covering from July 2012 to June 2014. The move comes on the same day the organization announced that Google, in order to comply with a recent court order upholding the "right to be forgotten", has removed a number of Wikipedia articles from their European search results.

The Signpost: 13 August 2014

[edit]
Slate reports that Tom Scott, co-creator of the emoji social network Emojli, created a Twitter bot called Parliament WikiEdits to automatically tweet a link to any Wikipedia edits made from an IP address belonging to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Scott's bot initially did not tweet any links to edits made from Parliament and, according to Scott, an "insider" reports that their IP addresses changed. Despite this, Scott's Twitter bot has inspired similar creations in numerous other countries.
It's been a grim few weeks. It says something that formerly arresting crises like the war in Ukraine, Boko Haram and the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, despite still being ongoing, have fallen out of the top 10 to make way for the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak and the equally if not more intense conflict against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
"Education is at the core of the Wikimedia Foundation’s mission."
Wikimania 2014 was held last week in the Barbican Centre in London. Below, the Signpost's former "Technology report" writer Harry Burt (User:Jarry1250) shares his thoughts on a bustling conference.
Wikimedia Foundation staff members have now been granted superpowers that would allow them to override community consensus. The new protection level came as a response to attempts of German Wikipedia administrators to implement a community consensus on the new Media Viewer. "Superprotect" is a level above full protection, and prevents edits by administrators.
Erythrophobia is the fear of, or sensitivity to, the colour red. Recently, I have seen more and more erythrophobic Wikipedians; specifically, Wikipedians who are scared of red links. In Wikipedia's early days, red links were encouraged and well-loved, and when I started editing in 2006, this was still mostly the case. Jump forward to 2014, and many editors now have an aversion to red links.
The Observer reported (August 2) that Google would "restrict search terms to a link to a Wikipedia article, in the first request under Europe's controversial new 'right to be forgotten' legislation to affect the 110m-page encyclopaedia."
Eight article, six lists, and two topics were promoted to featured status last week.

GOCE July drive and August blitz

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors July 2014 backlog elimination drive wrap-up

Participation: Thanks to everyone who participated in the July drive. Of the 40 people who signed up this drive, 22 copy edited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: We reduced our article backlog from 2400 articles to 2199 articles in July. This is a new month-end record low for the backlog. Nice work, everyone!

Blitz: The August blitz will run from August 24–30. The blitz will focus on articles from the GOCE's Requests page. Awards will be given out to everyone who copy edits at least one of the target articles. The blitz will run from August 24–30. Sign up here!

Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, and Miniapolis.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:10, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 August 2014

[edit]
Dorothy Howard interviews Michael Szajewski, archivist for digital development and university records at Ball State University.
Comedian Robin Williams' untimely death takes the top spot.
At the plate with WikiProject Baseball!
Denny Vrandečić argues that "We should focus on measuring how much knowledge we allow every human to share in, instead of number of articles or active editors."
Ten articles and three pictures were promoted to featured status last week.

The Signpost: 27 August 2014

[edit]
Journalistic integrity, Congressional edits, and other news.
More discussions about Media Viewer, Superprotect, and software development
"This was a week when an actual virus, Ebola, competed for attention with several viral social phenomena; most notably the Ice Bucket Challenge..."
Sixteen articles, five lists, five pictures, and one topic were promoted.

The Signpost: 03 September 2014

[edit]
"On 1 September, the Arbitrators voted to suspend the Media Viewer case for 60 days. After the suspension period is up, the case is to be closed unless the committee votes otherwise. The case suspension comes in response to several new initiatives and policies announced by the Wikimedia Foundation that may make the case moot. In the same motion, the committee declared that Eloquence's resignation of the administrator right was "under the cloud" and that he can only regain the right through another RfA."
Two articles, one list, and ten pictures were promoted
Doc James and some collaborators are working on quick detection of copyright violations
"This week we saw three of the top ten articles remain in place, with the Ice Bucket Challenge at #1, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at #2, and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant at #5, all for a second straight week..."
"This week, the Signpost went out to meet WikiProject Anatomy, dedicated to improving the articles about all our bones, brains, bladders and biceps, and getting them to the high standard expected of a comprehensive encyclopaedia."
The latest roundup of research about Wikimedia

The Signpost: 10 September 2014

[edit]
Last month, I wrote an open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation, inviting others to join me in a simple but important request: roll back the recent actions—both technical and social—by which the Wikimedia Foundation has overruled legitimate decisions of several Wikimedia projects.
Even though it's not quite 3/4 over, it's safe to say that 2014 will go down as a year of war, mass murder, plane crashes and terrible diseases. While certainly paying it some heed, it's not surprising that Wikipedia viewers tried this week to find any alternative to that litany of tragedy and pain, and their chosen method of escape was, as usual, celebrity.
The amazing and strange tongue-eating louse replacing a fish's tongue! Because isopods, the subject of a new featured article, are both awesome and really damn weird!
This week, the Signpost decided to have a look around with WikiProject Check Wikipedia a maintenance project not concerned so much with articles' content, but in all the tiny errors that are to be found scattered within them. Their front page gives a list of things they mainly focus on ...

The Signpost: 17 September 2014

[edit]
The Hürriyet Daily News reports on a series of posts on Twitter from Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Ömer Çelik.
As Scotland is deciding its future this week, we thought it might be a good idea to get to know the editors of WikiProject Scotland and talk to them about the project.
A prominent Wikipedia researcher has discovered that the encyclopedia's widely used article traffic statistics are missing out on approximately one-third of total views.
There is no unifying theme we can slap on top article popularity this week.
Four articles, two lists, and 51 pictures were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.

The Signpost: 24 September 2014

[edit]
Six articles, four lists, one topic, and 17 pictures were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
The Hindustan Times speculates (September 18) that politicians and their supporters are "sanitizing" their articles in advance of the 2014 Maharashtra State Assembly election. The Times notes the absence of significant controversies in the articles of particular politicians and the presence of heavily promotional language.
0.75% of Wikipedia birthdates are inaccurate, reported Robert Viseur at WikiSym 2014. Those inaccuracies are "low, although higher than the 0.21% observed for the baseline reference sources". Given that biographies represent 15% of English Wikipedia, the third largest category after "arts" and "culture", their accuracy is important.
This could be the beginning of a new era for this list. Until now, decisions to remove suspicious content have been largely educated guesswork. This week though, we have a new collaborator who can shine a light on the origins and patterns, sorting once and for all the webwheat from the cyberchaff.
A year and a week later, we're with some of the members of WikiProject Good Articles, who wanted to share the news of their upcoming contest within the project, the GA Cup. The aim of this friendly competition, which is held in the same light friendly manner of the WikiCup and the Core Contest, is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed articles at Good article nominations which has been a constant problem for quite a few years for those running the GA process.
Banning Policy finishes the workshop phase on 23 September. Parties have proposed findings of fact on the topics of the 3RR, the role of Jimbo Wales, and proxying for banned users. A request for arbitration was posted on 20 September about Landmark Worldwide.

The Signpost: 01 October 2014

[edit]
Contributing to the Signpost can be one of the most rewarding things an editor can do.
This article was first published in the Signpost in 2009. Written by several long-standing editors, including the late Adrianne Wadewitz, the article was subjected to extensive commentary and ultimately influenced the English Wikipedia's plagiarism guideline. With recent debates about close paraphrasing vis-à-vis plagiarism, we feel that this dispatch retains its relevance and deserves a second airing.
The argument on Wikipedia over the benefits of crowdsourcing versus the primacy of "expert" contributors stretches back to co-founder Larry Sanger's break with the project to start the alternative Citizendium.
This week, the Signpost went down to the farm to have a look at the work of WikiProject Agriculture, which has been in existence since 2007 and has a scope covering crop production, livestock management, aquaculture, dairy farming and forest management.
Jews wished each other Shanah Tovah ("Good year") this week as Rosh Hashanah was our most popular article. It was also a week not dominated by heavy news and tragedies, so aside from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (#2, sixth week in the Top 10), our popular article list runs the gamut of current events including new television series Gotham (#3), the 2014 Asian Games (#4), and Reddit-fueled popularity for German director Uwe Boll (#7).
As the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Civil War draws to a close, the race to improve content continues. The Battle of Franklin, fought on November 30, 1864, will, quite appropriately, be Picture of the Day for November 30, 2014, its 150th anniversary. If you want to help commemorate the American Civil War, why not help out at the Military History WikiProject's Operation Brothers at War. Or help out with the World War I centennial, just starting up, Operation Great War Centennial.

Books and Bytes - Issue 8

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 8, August-September2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • TWL now a Wikimedia Foundation program, moves on from grant status
  • Four new donations, including large DeGruyter parntership, pilot with Elsevier
  • New TWL coordinators, Wikimania news, new library platform discussions, Wiki Loves Libraries update, and more
  • Spotlight: "Traveling Through History" - an editor talks about his experiences with a TWL newspaper archive, Newspapers.com

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 08 October 2014

[edit]
Also, Wikimedia Norge and Nobel Peace Center edit-a-thon
2 Featured articles, 4 Featured lists, 62 Featured pictures, and 2 Featured portals were promoted.
The first case of the Ebola virus on US shores sent people into a tizzy, rushing to their keyboards to try and learn what they could.
No seriously, it is.

GOCE October 2014 newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors October 2014 newsletter is now ready for review. Highlights:

– Your project coordinators: Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978 and Miniapolis.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:16, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 October 2014

[edit]
Why does Wikipedia still use the gendered pronouns "she" and "her" for ships?
Ben Koo of the sports blog Awful Announcing investigated how player Joe Streater's name became involved in recent years with a historic sports scandal.
The Banning Policy case was closed on 12 October. Arbcom affirmed that users have "considerable leeway" in terms of how their talk pages are managed.
Nine articles and twenty-six pictures were promoted to featured status on the English Wikipedia.
This week we sat down with The Earwig to learn about his wikitext parser.
We are pleased to report that the WP:5000 has now been updated to include mobile views, including a column reflecting the percentage of views coming from mobile devices.
Today, it's the turn of WikiProject Ohio to give us an interview probing deep into of how they manage to run a project covering one fiftieth of the United States, and the workings of how they manufacture their successes and other articles.

The Signpost: 22 October 2014

[edit]
Four articles, four lists, and fifty-three pictures were promoted to featured status.
Our op-ed writer this week opines that the organization of Hong Kong's "Umbrella Revolution" resembles how Wikipedia is organized.
Among many newsworthy stories this week, the Signpost notes the passing of Italian Wikipedia administrator and former Wikimedia Italia treasurer [Cotton
Ebola, movies and television articles appear in this week's top ten.
PaintedCarpet explains that "WikiProject Orphanage aims to connect all Wikipedia pages, so that pages can be found and read more easily."

The Signpost: 29 October 2014

[edit]
By the way, there is a monster at the end of this article
Noam Cohen reports in The New York Times (October 26) that Wikipedia's "Ebola Virus Disease article has had 17 million page views in the last month," an indication of the public's reliance on the online encyclopedia.
Rather than the usual WikiProject Report, this week our guest author Jheald is telling us about a campaign to identify thousands of old maps which have been digitised, to make them available for georeferencing and upload
Ebola virus disease leads the Report for the fourth straight week. The rest of the list is primarily a mix of pop culture topics, including movie Avengers: Age of Ultron (#4) whose trailer was leaked early, and the death of Oscar de la Renta (#7). A BuzzFeed article on creepy Wikipedia articles, no doubt well-timed with Halloween (#9) around the corner, was responsible for three articles in the Top 25, including June and Jennifer Gibbons (#10), Taman Shud Case (#17), Joyce Vincent (#25). And the internet-run-amok controversy of Gamergate cracked the Top 25 for the first time at #19.
In new research conducted in light of proposed changes to data protection legislation in the European Union (EU), authors Bart Custers, Simone van der Hof, and Bart Schermer conducted a comparative analysis of social media and user-generated content websites’ privacy policies along with a user survey (N=8,621 in 26 countries) and interviews in 13 different EU countries on awareness, values, and attitudes toward privacy online.

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Now Available (November 2014)

[edit]

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:

  • DeGruyter: 1000 new accounts for English and German-language research. Sign up on one of two language Wikipedias:
  • Fold3: 100 new accounts for American history and military archives
  • Scotland's People: 100 new accounts for Scottish genealogy database
  • British Newspaper Archive: expanded by 100+ accounts for British newspapers
  • Highbeam: 100+ remaining accounts for newspaper and magazine archives
  • Questia: 100+ remaining accounts for journal and social science articles
  • JSTOR: 100+ remaining accounts for journal archives

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 23:25, 5 November 2014 (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 Mass Message to the Book & Bytes recipient list.

The Signpost: 05 November 2014

[edit]
"Rachel Feltman, in The Washington Post (November 4), examined research in which a team, mostly from Los Alamos National Laboratory, headed by Kyle Hickman developed a model that enabled them "to successfully predict the 2013-2014 flu season in real time" by employing "an algorithm to link flu-related Wikipedia searches with CDC data from the same time." Apparently when individuals search for information about the flu and its symptoms in Wikipedia when they feel ill, this generates data useful in forecasting the the flu season."
"It is, perhaps, ironic that humanity chose the week of Halloween to finally put its fears to bed. Let's face it: 2014 has been a year of tragedies, conflicts, plagues and pain, and eventually something had to break... Whether we at last came to terms with our limited ability to affect events, shoved those events under the carpet, or just decided to let go and move on, we turned our eye to more positive things, such as sports heroes, hotly anticipated movies, and lifelong learning; two Google doodles appeared in the top 25 for the first time since the beginning of August."

The Signpost: 12 November 2014

[edit]
"Technology media outlets are abuzz after the November 6 unveiling of the Amazon Echo, an Internet-connected voice command device"; "The EUobserver talks (November 4) with Dimitar Dimitrov (User:Dimi z) about the lack of freedom of panorama in some European Union countries and its implications for Wikimedia projects"; "Scott Cantrell, classical music critic for the Dallas Morning News, recounts efforts to verify an uncited claim in the Wikipedia article for the Béla Bartók opera Bluebeard's Castle."
This was very much a week dominated by holidays and pop culture over current events, with new film Interstellar taking the top spot followed by holidays Day of the Dead (#2), Guy Fawkes and his Night (#4 and #5), and Halloween (#8, and its third week on the list). And a foursome of television shows, all return visitors, appear to setting up residence on the greater Top 25: The Walking Dead (#11), American Horror Story: Freak Show (#14), Gotham (#16), and The Flash (#18).
Nine articles, two lists, and 55 featured pictures were promoted during the week of 26 October.
We return to our interview format this week, speaking with the participants of WikiProject Hospitals. This project, formed in 2010, has no Featured content and only three Good articles, yet aided by around 30 hard-working Wikipedians covers a topic that is essential to life.

The Signpost: 26 November 2014

[edit]
Four articles, four lists, eleven pictures, and one topic were promoted.
Numerous media outlets are reporting on a November 14 statement on the website of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library announcing the formation of a Russian "alternative" to Wikipedia, a "regional electronic encyclopedia" dedicated to "Russian regions and the life of the country".
The monthly roundup of research related to Wikimedia.
It's time for this year's edition of the Report looking at possibly our largest wikiproject: Military history. Since our last interview in June 2013, the project has had no break in its huge quest to document everything in their scope, that is, militaries and conflicts of the past. As usual, its participants were eager to answer the questions posed by The Signpost and update us on how they are doing.
Often times in popular culture, a subject will be quite popular among a distinct niche of people or region of the world, but little-known elsewhere -- like a musical artist that is boasted to be "big in Japan". The Traffic Report provides a bevy of examples this week.

The Signpost: 03 December 2014

[edit]

GOCE coordinator elections

[edit]
Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors

Candidate nominations for Guild coordinators to serve from January 1 to June 30, 2015, are currently underway. The nomination period will close at 23:59 on December 15 (UTC), after which voting will commence until 23:59 on December 31, 2014. Self-nominations are welcomed. Please consider getting involved; it's your Guild and it won't coordinate itself, so if you'd like to help coordinate Guild activities we'd love to hear from you.

Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, and Miniapolis.
Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:17, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 10 December 2014

[edit]

December 2014 GOCE newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors December 2014 Newsletter

Drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in November's Backlog Elimination Drive. Of the 43 people who signed up for this drive, 26 copy edited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: The November Drive removed 26 requests from the Requests page and 509 articles from the {{copy edit}} backlog. We copy edited 83 articles tagged in the target months; July, August, and September 2013. Together with tag removals from articles unsuitable for copy editing, we eliminated July 2013 from the backlog and reduced August and September's tags to 61 and 70 respectively. As of 01:01, 1 December 2014 (UTC), the backlog stood at 1,974 articles, dipping below 2,000 for the first time in the Guild's history (see graph at right). Well done everyone!

Blitz: The December Blitz will run from December 14–20 and will focus on articles related to Religion, in recognition of this month's religious holidays in much of the English-speaking world. Awards will be given out to everyone who copy edits at least one of the target articles. Sign up here!

Election time again: The election of coordinators to serve from 1 January to 30 June 2015 is now underway. Candidates can nominate themselves or others from December 01, 00:01 (UTC), until December 15, 23:59. The voting period will run from December 16, 00:01 (UTC), until December 31, 23:59. You can read about coordinators' duties here. Please consider getting involved and remember to cast you vote—it's your Guild and it doesn't organize itself!

Thank you all once again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve anything without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, and Miniapolis.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:15, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Now Available (December 2014)

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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:

Other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team.00:25, 18 December 2014 (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 Mass Message tool to the Book & Bytes recipient list.

The Signpost: 17 December 2014

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GOCE holiday 2014 newsletter

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Guild of Copy Editors Late December 2014 Newsletter

Blitz: Thanks to everyone who participated in the December Blitz. Of the 14 editors who signed up for the blitz, 11 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

January drive: The January backlog-reduction drive is just around the corner; sign up here!

Election time again: The election of coordinators to serve from January 1 to June 30, 2015 is now underway. The voting period runs from December 16, 00:01 (UTC), until December 31, 23:59. Please cast your vote—it's your Guild, and it doesn't run itself!

Happy holidays from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978 and Miniapolis.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 24 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 December 2014

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Happy New Year Jack Greenmaven!

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The Signpost: 31 December 2014

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Wikidata, Wikimedia's free linked database that supplies Wikipedia and its sister projects, is gearing up to submit a grant application to the EU that would expand Wikidata's scope by developing it as a science hub. The proposal, supported by more than 25 volunteers and half a dozen European institutions as project partners, aims to create a virtual research environment (VRE) that will enhance the project's capacity for freely sharing scientific data.
A "study tour" by the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation for the purpose of researching development projects has been the subject of much controversy and criticism in the Indian press... The Indian Express described a government report about the trip as having copied extensively from the Wikipedia articles for Port Blair and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
Unlike last year, Wikipedia viewers seem to have embraced the Christmas spirit, with three topics in the top 10 (and eight in the top 25) focused on the holiday season.
Chris Troutman has been a campus ambassador for six classes in the Los Angeles area over the past four consecutive semesters. He is currently a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar at University of California, Riverside.
Three articles, three lists, fifteen pictures, and one topic were promoted.
A paper titled "Factors that influence the teaching use of Wikipedia in Higher Education" uses the technology acceptance model to shed light on faculty's (of Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) views of Wikipedia as a teaching tool.

GOCE 2014 report

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Guild of Copy Editors 2014 Annual Report

Our 2014 Annual Report is now ready for review.

Highlights:

  • Summary of Drives, Blitzes, and the Requests page;
  • Review the election results;
  • Membership news;
  • Changes around the Guild's pages;
  • Plans for 2015.
– Your project coordinators: Jonesey95, Miniapolis and Baffle gab1978.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Teahouse talkback: you've got messages!

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Hello, Jack Greenmaven. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by  DiscantX 02:16, 3 January 2015 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template.[reply]
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Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! Bananasoldier (talk) 06:13, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 9

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The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 9, November-December 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • New donations, including real-paper-and-everything books, e-books, science journal databases, and more
  • New TWL coordinators, conference news, a new open-access journal database, summary of library-related WMF grants, and more
  • Spotlight: "Global Impact: The Wikipedia Library and Persian Wikipedia" - a Persian Wikipedia editor talks about their experiences with database access in Iran, writing on the Persian project and the JSTOR partnership

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 07 January 2015

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ISIL hostage quotes Wikipedia in propaganda video; AirAsia articles draw complaints regarding Flight 8501; Article errors reveal US political approaches to Wikipedia editing; Rhode Island Governor numbering debate
User:Jakec has been a Wikipedia editor for over two years and has been a writer of many recent Did you know articles on Wikipedia, including multiple articles on rivers and streams in the state of Pennsylvania.
Two lists and twelve pictures were promoted.
We end 2014 and and start 2015 with the normal array of year-end activities, including movie watching with Bollywood film PK (#1) topping the list, followed by The Interview (#2), 2014 in film (#10), and five other films in the rest of the Top 25, plus a number of articles about the subjects of these films. We celebrated the New Year by singing "Auld Lang Syne" (#11), or perhaps watching Adam Lambert (#9) perform with Queen. But we could not avoid a final tragedy with the crash of Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 (#4) on December 28.

The Signpost: 14 January 2015

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Ever since the Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident in 2005 triggered the restriction against un-registered editors creating new pages, WikiProject Articles for creation (AfC) has stood in the breach. The WikiProject's purpose is to review draft submissions from IPs (and frequently new registered editors) to sort the wheat from the chaff.
This anniversary issue, the WikiProject report is returning to WikiProject Articles for creation for one of our largest interviews ever. Last looked at in 2011, AfC is the method used by unregistered or new users to create articles, and provides an effective filtering system to remove all unsuitable or unsourced submissions to save them needing to be found and deleted later.
On the fourteenth anniversary of the founding of the English Wikipedia, the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation has announced that its prestigious annual Erasmus Prize will be awarded to the worldwide community that has built Wikipedia.
Wikipedia turned 14 on January 15. A few media outlets took note of the anniversary.
Six featured articles, five featured lists, and sixteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
It's a grim certainty what topic most interested Wikipedia viewers this week. The horrific attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine have drawn anger and resolve from around the world, and also the attention of an English-speaking world that had previously never heard of it.

The Signpost: 21 January 2015

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A letter from departing Signpost editor-in-chief The ed17.
Celebrating and remembering ten years of community journalism.
Over seventy years ago, the US destroyer Mahan was patrolling off Ponson Island in the Philippines when eleven Japanese kamikaze aircraft appeared over the horizon and attacked. George Pendergast, who edits Wikipedia with the username Pendright, was eighteen years old when he joined Mahan '​s crew in April 1944.
The municipality of Esino Lario in Italy will host Wikimania 2016.
Our contributor opines that WikiProjects are failing to live up to their potential. WikiProject X is a new project funded by a Wikimedia Foundation Individual Engagement Grant that focuses on figuring out what makes some WikiProjects work and not others.
Quotes from Jimbo on Wikipedia in education; net neutrality; preserving musical heritage; Wikipedia in audio; a cheerful vandal credits high school with papal visitations.
Nine articles, one list, and ten pictures were promoted.
ArbCom's three open cases are GamerGate, Wifione, and Christianity and sexuality.

I just ran into

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a two year old discussion at Greatest Generation in which you were talked out of doing a list of notable members of that generation. One way to do this is to have a separate article List of members of the Greatest Generation, or some such thing, and do the list there with just a link in the other article. If you do it as a chart you can include a few dates, a picture and a "Notes" field. I've been working on List of United States post office murals, which could serve as a template, if you are still interested. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 07:13, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 January 2015

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The editorial board is not complete without you. We are looking for Wikipedians with all kinds of experience levels.
The English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee has closed the colossal GamerGate arbitration case, whose size—involving 27 named parties—recalls large and complex cases of the past.
A murder suspect edits Wikipedia, Russia is kidding when it says it wants to censor Wikipedia.
Does the committee facilitate stability... or is it a circus. Two users, two perspectives.
It is pretty clear what the theme is this week: people.
A paper presented at the International Conference on Pattern Recognition last year presents an automated method to improve Wikipedia's coverage of theatre plays.
As with last year, music stars were the majority of celebrities on the list, as their frequent concerts and media appearances keep their flames alight longer than others of their stripe.
Ten featured articles, three featured lists, and 22 featured images were promoted this week.

The Signpost: 04 February 2015

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The Signpost talks with the creator of a grant proposal to create an on-wiki exclusive space for women to discuss issues.
Hundreds of posted jobs offer money to edit Wikipedia. These jobs appear to be thriving, with tens of thousands of dollars changing hands each month.
Media fallout continues from the January 29 decision in the mammoth Gamergate arbitration case.
The American heartland appears to dominate the Report this week, with Chris Kyle leading the Report.
Three featured articles, five featured lists, and thirty-nine featured images were promoted this week.
One case has been closed, two cases remain open, a third is undergoing a review, and three clarification or amendment requests remain open.
A small band of dedicated editors seek to improve articles relating to a less lively topic. If you haven't yet guessed, this week's focus is WikiProject Death.
The Signpost has arranged to mirror Tech news from the Meta-Wiki.
A new Signpost feature.

February 2015 GOCE newsletter

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Guild of Copy Editors February 2015 Newsletter

Drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in January's Backlog Elimination Drive. Of the 38 people who signed up for this drive, 21 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: We were able to remove August 2013 from the general copyediting backlog and November 2014 from the request-page backlog. Many thanks, everyone!

Blitz: The February Blitz will run from February 15–21 and again focuses on the requests page. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one request article. Sign up here!

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Biblioworm and Philg88.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:52, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A little help

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Hi Jack, how are you? I'm asking your help to open this Userbox. Please, can you tell me if it's good? And also: how can I put in category Catholic? Thanks a lot for your precious help! Rei Momo (talk) 15:08, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This user is Melkite Greek Catholic and loves his patriarch, in communion with Rome.

The Signpost: 11 February 2015

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Please take this survey about the Signpost.
Also: GLAM-Wiki Conference; Ombudsman Commission announced; Slovak Wikipedia now has 200,000 articles
Edina edit war illustrates disconnect between new and experienced editors; Wikipedia is "astroturf's dream come true"; Canadian government investigating even more Wikipedia editing; academics on Gamergate as "clash of civilizations"?
Two articles, three lists, and twenty five pictures became featured.
Wikipedia presents itself as a repository for the world, and while that is a noble sentiment, it is still true that, Conservapedian complaints notwithstanding, the English language Wikipedia is very often the American Wikipedia, and never has that been more apparent than this week.
This week, we bring three of the most recently created WikiProjects to come into being on the English Wikipedia. While many long-established projects are becoming inactive, (as we have covered before), that doesn't stop new ones forming every now and then to cover a topic that a group of editors feel should be better cared for.
This week, we feature subjects that are about love of all kinds.

The Signpost: 18 February 2015

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Go Phightins! shares his thoughts on admin attrition and the size of the administrative backlog.
The Australian ("Wikipedia not destroying life as we know it", February 11) and Times Higher Education ("Wikipedia should be 'better integrated' into teaching", February 10) reported on a recent study performed at Monash University, titled "Students’ use of Wikipedia as an academic resource – patterns of use and perceptions of usefulness".
The authors of this report inform us that the "goal in the Revision Scoring project is to do the hard work of constructing and maintaining powerful AI so that tool developers don't have to. This cross-lingual, machine learning classifier service for edits will support new wiki tools that require edit quality measures."
Darwin Day is observed annually on February 12 to commemorate the life and work of scientist Charles Darwin. Here is a selection of images of life on the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin made key observations leading to his scientific theory of evolution by natural selection.
This week saw the 57th Annual Grammy Awards (#13 on the Top 25) held on 8 February dominating the traffic chart, as music lovers checked out Sam Smith (#3) picking up four awards, Beck taking album of the year, and performances including Sia (#9), Madonna (#11), and Annie Lennox (#16). But Valentine's Day (#1) proved the perfect time for the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, with the movie coming in at #5, the book of the same name at #2, and the primary actors at #14 and #15.
Five pictures, six lists, and seventeen pictures were promoted
The most significant item on ArbCom's agenda this fortnight has been the closure of the Wifione case and subsequent fallout, although the fallout from GamerGate continues to linger.

GOCE March newsletter

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Guild of Copy Editors March 2015 Newsletter

Blitz: Thanks to everyone who participated in the February Blitz. Of the 21 people who signed up, eight copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: The blitz removed 16 articles from the requests list, and we're almost done with December 2014. Many thanks, everyone!

Drive: The month-long March drive begins in about a week. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one article from the backlog. Sign up here!

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Biblioworm and Philg88.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:41, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 25 February 2015

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A report from the external research firm Lafayette Practice has declared that the Wikimedia Foundation is the "largest known participatory grantmaking fund." Several concerns have been raised with the report, the phrase being used (participatory grantmaking), the now-former Wikipedia article on that phrase, and an alleged conflict of interest by WMF staff members.
Doc James tells us that "The one good thing that has come out of all of this is that Wikipedia’s content passing a major textbook publisher review processes is some external validation of Wikipedia’s quality."
Andrew McMillen's February 3 profile of and his quest to rid Wikipedia of the phrase "comprised of" has been one of the most widely circulated and commented upon media stories about the encyclopedia recently.
Eleven articles and twenty pictures were promoted in the week covered by this report.
The Gallery is an occasional Signpost feature highlighting quality images and articles from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons based on a particular theme, as well as an article you could help improve. This week, we feature subjects that are "far from home".
An odd juxtaposition this week, as interest in Fifty Shades of Grey coincided with the observance of the Chinese New Year and the annual festival of penance, Ash Wednesday.
A monthly roundup of Wikimedia-related research
This week's project is on a youth activity, one of the largest in the world; its project is commensurately large, containing around 136 active editors. It's WikiProject Scouting, a group of editors whose remit is everything relating to the Scouting movement, which has around 42 million members worldwide and celebrated the centenary of its founding only eight years ago.
Editor's note: the Blog will be a recurring Signpost section that will highlight a recent post from the Wikimedia blog, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. This week's installment is written by Philippe Beaudette, the Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy, and focuses on planning for the future of the Wikimedia movement.

The Signpost: 25 February 2015

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A report from the external research firm Lafayette Practice has declared that the Wikimedia Foundation is the "largest known participatory grantmaking fund." Several concerns have been raised with the report, the phrase being used (participatory grantmaking), the now-former Wikipedia article on that phrase, and an alleged conflict of interest by WMF staff members.
Doc James tells us that "The one good thing that has come out of all of this is that Wikipedia’s content passing a major textbook publisher review processes is some external validation of Wikipedia’s quality."
Andrew McMillen's February 3 profile of and his quest to rid Wikipedia of the phrase "comprised of" has been one of the most widely circulated and commented upon media stories about the encyclopedia recently.
Eleven articles and twenty pictures were promoted in the week covered by this report.
The Gallery is an occasional Signpost feature highlighting quality images and articles from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons based on a particular theme, as well as an article you could help improve. This week, we feature subjects that are "far from home".
An odd juxtaposition this week, as interest in Fifty Shades of Grey coincided with the observance of the Chinese New Year and the annual festival of penance, Ash Wednesday.
A monthly roundup of Wikimedia-related research
This week's project is on a youth activity, one of the largest in the world; its project is commensurately large, containing around 136 active editors. It's WikiProject Scouting, a group of editors whose remit is everything relating to the Scouting movement, which has around 42 million members worldwide and celebrated the centenary of its founding only eight years ago.
Editor's note: the Blog will be a recurring Signpost section that will highlight a recent post from the Wikimedia blog, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. This week's installment is written by Philippe Beaudette, the Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy, and focuses on planning for the future of the Wikimedia movement.

Hi, dear Jack, how are you? Here in 2 weeks we'll have Spring.

Please, I opened this new page and I ask some minute of your time to read it and correct my mistakes. 5 minutes, no more!!!

Thanks a lot for your precious help!!!

Rei Momo (talk) 18:19, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I made a small change. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:07, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 10

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The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 10, January-February 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - ProjectMUSE, Dynamed, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and Women Writers Online
  • New TWL coordinator, conference news, and a new guide and template for archivists
  • TWL moves into the new Community Engagement department at the WMF, quarterly review

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 04 March 2015

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We received a large amount of feedback in our survey indicating that our readers found the idea of contributing to the Signpost difficult due to our opaque internal structure.
The Wikimedia Foundation released their Quarterly Report last week covering the three months October to December of 2014.
Last week, my colleagues on the Signpost produced a news report covering a minor controversy about a report commissioned by the Wikimedia Foundation. Written by the staff of The Lafayette Practice, a French research firm, it proclaimed the WMF as a leader in the practice of participatory grantmaking.
The Report this week is dominated by the Academy Awards, taking the top 4 spots and 13 of the Top 25.
In the first of what the author hopes will become a regular feature of the Arbitration report, the Signpost speaks to veteran arbitrator Newyorkbrad, who recently retired from the committee after almost seven years of arbitrating. The Signpost was keen to hear his thoughts on his time on the committee and on the past, present, and future of ArbCom.
Before being indefinitely blocked, User:FergusM1970 made more than 4600 edits on the English Wikipedia, spread over eight years. In the last two years, he was paid to edit several articles for clients that included the Venezuelan energy company Derwick Associates. We spoke with him about his experiences.
Numerous news outlets are reporting that the domain loser.com now redirects to the Wikipedia article for rapper Kanye West. Page views on West's Wikipedia article skyrocketed to almost 250,000 views on March 2, up from less than 19 thousand the previous day.
Two featured articles, four featured lists, and 38 featured pictures were promoted this week..
The Signpost has arranged to mirror Tech news from Meta-Wiki to supplement the long-form tech coverage in our infrequent Technology report..
Black History Month is celebrated annually in the United States in February, to commemorate the history of the African diaspora. For this occasion, Wikipedians worked together to honor black history and to address Wikipedia's multicultural gaps in the encyclopedia, hosting Wikipedia edit-a-thons throughout the United States, from February 1 to 28, 2015.

The Signpost: 11 March 2015

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The Wikimedia Foundation gave the Signpost an advance copy of the results of a survey of English Wikipedia readers regarding Wikimedia fundraising, due for official release today.
The community has arranged a number of commemorative initiatives focused on the gender gap, under the banner "WikiWomen's History Month".
ThinkProgress tech reporter Lauren C. Williams wrote a long article on how the Gamergate controversy has spilled over onto Wikipedia.
In an effort to protect and maintain the privacy of Wikipedia's thousands of editors, the Wikimedia Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the United States' National Security Agency, Department of Justice, and the Attorney General.
A dull week, with only three new entries in the top 10; a UFC champion, a Google Doodle and a Hindu festival involving people throwing powder at each other (though that does sound fun).
Six featured articles, three featured lists, and forty featured pictures were promoted this week.
I continue to be excited about the Core Contest because I see it as a way of encouraging the expansion of broad articles that are typically neglected by our article improvement incentives.

The Signpost: 18 March 2015

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We announce with sadness and gratitude that Signpost publication and newsroom manager Pine will be stepping back to focus on other Wikipedia and Wikimedia-related endeavors.
This process is now entering its long-awaited final phase with the upcoming SUL finalization, scheduled for April 15, less than a month away. ... Wikimedia Foundation chief talent and culture officer Gayle Karen Young announced her retirement from the Foundation this week. Young will be replaced in that role by interim chief operating officer Terry Gilbey. According to the Foundation's job description for the title as it was applied in the past, Gilbey will be in charge of "overall administration and business operations of the Wikimedia Foundation."
On March 13, Kelly Weill of Capital New York revealed that numerous Wikipedia edits originated from 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters of the NYPD. Most of the attention has focused on a number of their edits to articles about incidents of alleged police brutality and controversial police practices.
The publication of the Wikimedia survey findings on fundraising questions came three months after significant concerns were voiced about the design and wording of the December 2014 fundraising banners and e-mails.
Four featured articles, four featured lists, and thirty-five featured pictures were promoted this week.
If not for Kayne West's dubious repeat at #1, the 2015 Cricket World Cup (#2) would have made the top spot, albeit in a generally slow news week.

.

The Signpost – Volume 11, Issue 12 – 25 March 2015

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Last week the WMF announced the release of its long-awaited open-access policy.
Once when I was young, growing up in the 1990s, my father pulled his collection of railroad slides out from the basement, set up his projector, and shared a glimpse into American railway history with our family.
Four featured articles, three featured lists, and twenty-two featured pictures were promoted this week.
The Wikipedia Commons annual Picture of the Year contest has concluded, with 6,698 people voting, its largest participation yet.
This week's list is reminiscent of lists from the early days of this project: a preponderance of famous faces, Reddit threads, and Google Doodles.
The authors attempt to answer the question "Who are the most important people of all times?" Their findings clearly show that different Wikipedias give different prominence to different individuals.
A university gives a top Wikipedia editor free and full access to the university library's entire online content—and the Wikipedia editor, who is unpaid and not on campus, then creates and improves Wikipedia articles in a subject area of interest to the institution.

The Signpost, 1 April 2015

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The Wikimedia Foundation this week released a State of the WMF report, a 38-page "snapshot" of where it is and where it wants to go in the future.
TruthRevolt targets another editor; edit stage right; the Nine Best Hoaxes to Have Hit Wikipedia
Six featured articles, first featured lists, and twenty-four featured pictures were promoted this week.
The Report is more of a mix of random topics than usual this week. The top spot is taken by Bhutanese passport, a Wikipedia article which contained a crazed spoken word version which drew widespread attention.
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) will announce later today that it will begin accepting edits by mail for all of the projects under its scope, including Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons.
The Wikimedia Commons' annual Picture of the Year contest has concluded. The first 53 top-voted entries were disqualified because they were all nude.

The Signpost: 01 April 2015

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The Wikimedia Foundation this week released a State of the WMF report, a 38-page "snapshot" of where it is and where it wants to go in the future.
TruthRevolt targets another editor; edit stage right; the Nine Best Hoaxes to Have Hit Wikipedia
Six featured articles, first featured lists, and twenty-four featured pictures were promoted this week.
The Report is more of a mix of random topics than usual this week. The top spot is taken by Bhutanese passport, a Wikipedia article which contained a crazed spoken word version which drew widespread attention.
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) will announce later today that it will begin accepting edits by mail for all of the projects under its scope, including Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons.
The Wikimedia Commons' annual Picture of the Year contest has concluded. The first 53 top-voted entries were disqualified because they were all nude.

The Signpost: 08 April 2015

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Wikipedia has been gravitating towards a vehicle for business and product promotion for too long.
March saw a number of high-level hirings and executive reorganizations in the Wikimedia Foundation.
The venerable CBS news program 60 Minutes profiled Wikipedia and the Wikimedia community.
How appropriate that the theme of Easter week would be resurrection from the dead.
Four featured articles, seven featured lists, and 23 featured pictures were promoted this week.
With Holy Week having recently drawn to a close, it is an apt time to examine WikiProject Christianity, which was created in 2006, and boasts over 200 active members.
The Committee has voted on the 2015 appointments to the Functionary team.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community.

A new reference tool

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Hello Books & Bytes subscribers. There is a new Visual Editor reference feature in development called Citoid. It is designed to "auto-fill" references using a URL or DOI. We would really appreciate you testing whether TWL partners' references work in Citoid. Sharing your results will help the developers fix bugs and improve the system. If you have a few minutes, please visit the testing page for simple instructions on how to try this new tool. Regards, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:47, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

April 2015 GOCE newsletter

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Guild of Copy Editors April 2015 Newsletter

March drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 38 people who signed up, 18 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

April blitz: The one-week April blitz, again targeting our long requests list, will run from April 19–25. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one article from the requests page. Sign up here!

May drive: The month-long May backlog-reduction drive, with extra credit for articles tagged in December 2013, January and February 2014 and all request articles, begins soon. Sign up now!

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Biblioworm and Philg88.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:29, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 April 2015

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The Wikimedia Foundation's vice president for engineering, Erik Möller, will leave the WMF on April 30.
Time profiles Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, and paints a grim picture of the challenges faced by Tretikov and the encyclopedia.
Later this month, everyone will be able to use the same user name on every wiki, thanks to Single-User Login.
If it wasn't for Easter, Fast and Furious related articles would have taken the top four spots this week. The latest installment of the movie franchise, Furious 7, tops the chart for the second straight week.
Six featured articles, four featured lists, and fourteen featured pictures were promoted this week.

The Signpost: 22 April 2015

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A Signpost investigation of the released data has revealed Sony's corporate practices regarding Wikipedia and uncovered what appears to be undisclosed advocacy editing of Wikipedia by Sony employees and possibly by others.
Wikipedia appears to have been drawn into the drama of the upcoming, hotly contested UK general election.
The Affiliates Committee this week announced the organization of a community referral for comment, currently open on the meta-wiki, to address upcoming changes to the way that the Affiliations Committee will review movement-affiliated user-groups in the future.
2015 will see through the biennial community election for the three community-elected seats on the Board of Trustees—the "ultimate corporate authority" of the Wikimedia Foundation and the level at which the strategic decisions regarding the Wikimedia movement are made.
Six featured articles and fifteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
Couch potatoes rule this week, as 9 of the top 10 slots were taken by either movies, TV, or sports.
The Gallery is an occasional Signpost feature highlighting quality images and articles from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons based on a particular theme.

The Signpost: 29 April 2015

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Esino Lario is set to host Wikimania 2016, but volunteers and others have raised a host of concerns that raise serious questions about the town's suitability for hosting such a large conference.
The evaluations reveal that in the last three years, WLM has possibly fallen victim to its own success and seen diminishing returns.
David Coburn, a Member of the European Parliament for the Scotland region for the UK Independence Party, was blocked from editing Wikipedia on April 6.
Ten featured articles, nine featured lists, and twenty-eight featured pictures were promoted this week.
Though the continued predominance of movies, TV, and sports noted in last week's report largely continues, three additional topics joined the Top 10 this week.
Reader demand for some topics (e.g. LGBT topics or pages about countries) is poorly satisfied, whereas there is over-abundance of quality on topics of comparatively little interest, such as military history.

Books and Bytes - Issue 11

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The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 11, March-April 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - MIT Press Journals, Sage Stats, Hein Online and more
  • New TWL coordinators, conference news, and new reference projects
  • Spotlight: Two metadata librarians talk about how library professionals can work with Wikipedia

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:23, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 06 May 2015

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The Wikimedia Foundation this week announced the winning grantees in March's "Inspire" grant-making campaign.
Seven articles, three lists, and ten pictures were promoted to "featured" status this week. The second round of the WikiCup has ended.
artnet and The Next Web report (May 6) that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is releasing a hundred images of works in its collection under Creative Commons licences in conjunction with a May 19 editathon.
Elections have begun for five community members of the Funds Dissemination Committee, the Foundation's volunteer body for judging and recommending millions of dollars worth of annual grants to affiliates in the movement. The election lasts just eight days, from Sunday 3 May until 23:59 UTC on Sunday 10 May, so at the time of publication, voters will need to act promptly.
Like colliding ocean liners, rousing entertainment and harsh reality merged ungainly in this week's top 10 list. The much heralded pay-per-view pummeling of Manny Pacquiao by Floyd Mayweather, Jr. dominated the list's top slots, giving this list one of its highest total view counts in months.

The Signpost: 13 May 2015

[edit]
Three community-elected seats on the Board of Trustees—the ultimate governing authority of the Wikimedia Foundation—will be decided by Wikimedians in the election to be held 17–31 May.
This week has been a busy one for the Wikidata project, with nearly simultaneous Wikidata contests, both organized by Wikimedia Sweden, now underway.
Casual viewers may think I've posted the same list twice. But no, readers just happen to be really interested in May 2's Big Fight. In fact, last week was just the weigh-in and the trash talk. This week, the numbers actually increased.
Grant Shapps, who was the co-chairman of the UK's Conservative Party until this week, has been accused of maliciously editing the Wikipedia biographies of his party's rivals.
There is a public misconception of Wikipedia: that any anonymous editor can edit Wikipedia at any time, and cannot be tracked or identified.
Eight articles, one list, and five pictures were promoted to featured status on the English Wikipedia in a slow week.

The Signpost: 20 May 2015

[edit]
The Wikimedia Foundation's bi-annual Board of Trustees election is open for voting. Of the ten seats on the board, three are elected representatives of the global Wikimedia community—you.
The article counts of many Wikimedia wikis suddenly changed on 29 March 2015: as the Signpost reported at the time, sixty-five wikis fell below milestones tracked at the Wikimedia News Meta page, and three increased to new milestones.
The list is topped this week by Danish scientist Inge Lehmann, thanks to a Google Doodle celebrating her 127th birthday. Lehmann discovered in 1936 that the Earth has a solid inner core. It is sometimes surprising to realize how recently such basic scientific knowledge of the Earth, which we now take for granted, was discovered.
Wikipedia editors logging in on May 19 found themselves walking into an unexpected amount of anti-vandal work to keep the site in line with its extensive biographies of living persons policy. A plethora of Wikipedia articles related to the United States House Committee on Appropriations, and the fifty-one representatives serving on it, have been hit by a raft of anonymous editors making often vulgar edits referencing "chicken fucker," or more creative combinations: "sexual conduct", "sexual congress", "fornicator", "intimate relations", or "trysts with chickens."
Three articles, seven lists, and seven pictures were featured on the English Wikipedia.
Jimmy Wales and five others accepted the 2015 Dan David Prize at Tel Aviv University on May 17. The prize comes with US$1 million, ten percent of which goes to doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships.
This week, we had the pleasure of interviewing WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology, which has come a long way since our last interview in 2008. Like most projects, it has a long member list, but only a small subset of that group regularly contributes. With 28 featured articles and 58 top-importance start class ones, the project has clearly had some success, but has a ways to go. We talked to three regular project contributors.
The Arbitration Committee has an unusually large case load at present. Although perhaps not on a par with the high-profile, multi-party cases seen towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year, with five open cases the arbitrators are likely to be kept busy for the next several weeks.

The Signpost: 27 May 2015

[edit]
The Wikimedia Foundation recently switched to a quarterly report structure to better align reporting with the generally quarterly planning and goal-setting processes.
British media reports on Wikipedia editing to articles of Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prior to the May 7 United Kingdom general election from IP addresses assigned to Parliament.
To many, Internet Relay Chat is an old relic, but not to Wikipedia. Wikipedia currently has an IRC help channel designated to help and assist editors with editing Wikipedia.
Fifteen featured articles, four featured lists, and six featured pictures were promoted this week.
Wikipedia's articles on drugs are pretty good – good enough to impress even doctors. A new research study adds some substance to that impression.
As usual for the time of year, pop culture rules this week. The start of summer vacation in the US means a focus on summer movies, particularly blockbuster sequels Avengers: Age of Ultron, Pitch Perfect 2 and Mad Max: Fury Road.
...allegedly. In a post to wikitech-l, Steven Walling pointed out that the TV show CSI: Cyber had used a screenshot of MediaWiki's HTML output and claimed it was responsible for blowing up printers.

GOCE June 2015 newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors June 2015 News

May drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 38 people who signed up, 29 copyedited at least one article, and we got within 50 articles of our all-time low in the backlog. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Coordinator elections: Nominations are open through June 15 for GOCE coordinators, with voting from June 16–30. Self-nominations are welcome and encouraged.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Biblioworm and Philg88.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:08, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 03 June 2015

[edit]
The Wikimedia Foundation's volunteer election committee has announced the election results for the three vacant seats on the Board of Trustees. Dariusz Jemielnak, James Heilman, and Denny Vrandečić are set to take up their two-year terms on the Board. They will replace the three incumbents, all of whom stood this time unsuccessfully: Phoebe Ayers, Samuel Klein, and María Sefidari.
Caitlyn Jenner—the American hero of the 1976 Olympics, a film actor, and prominent member of Keeping Up with the Kardashians—may now be the most famous openly transgender person in the world.
Since the dawn of Wikipedia, or at least since 22 December 2005, the template named Persondata has existed.
Two featured articles and ten featured pictures were promoted this week.
Over the past few weeks, developers have been working on improving Wikimedia's performance when users connect to it using SPDY.
Wikipedia appears to be the single most used website for health information globally, exceeding traffic observed at the NIH, WebMD, WHO et al..
More UK government vandalism; legend has it; minding the gender gap
The traffic report is nothing unusual this week, with a Google Doodle for astronaut Sally Ride topping the list, the accidental death of famous mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr. at #2, and the normal fare of recent popular American movies and television.

The Wikipedia Library needs you!

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Call for Volunteers

The Wikipedia Library is expanding, and we need your help! With only a couple of hours per week, you can make a big difference in helping editors get access to reliable sources and other resources. Sign up for one of the following roles:

  • Account coordinators help distribute research accounts to editors.
  • Partner coordinators seek donations from new partners.
  • Outreach coordinators reach out to the community through blog posts, social media, and newsletters or notifications.
  • Technical coordinators advise on building tools to support the library's work.

Delivered on behalf of The Wikipedia Library by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:16, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 10 June 2015

[edit]
This week saw the publication of the Chapter-wide Financial Trends Report 2013, a now-completed research project that examines the finances and outlays of the 36 movement-affiliated chapters.
"Happy families are all alike," Leo Tolstoy said, "but unhappy families are unhappy after their own fashion."
UK media covers Wikipedia Arbitration case; Lila Tretikov visits Israel.
Four featured articles, two featured lists, one featured topic, and twenty-eight featured pictures were promoted this week.
Today it was announced that Wikimedia sites are going to become HTTPS only, finishing up 10 year effort of rolling out HTTPS.
The Medical Translation Project, an ambitious attempt to improve and translate Wikipedia’s medical content from English into other languages, began in 2012.

The Signpost: 17 June 2015

[edit]
The Princess of Asturias Foundation announced that Wikipedia would be the recipient of the 2015 Princess of Asturias award in the category of International Cooperation.
The Arbitration Committee delivered its final decision in a case that reached the attention of the UK national press.
This would end a long-standing tradition in many countries that the skyline and the public scene should belong to everybody.
We need to be ever-diligent in ensuring that articles remain of high quality.
The rollout of HTTPS only has now been completed across all Wikimedia wikis.
We interviewed an Australian veteran who deployed to the region as a peacekeeper and now writes articles on the region's history to help him understand what he encountered there.
A more than usually severe outage Wikimedia Labs occurred after a massive database corruption implosion on June 17.
Six featured articles, seven featured lists, and seven featured pictures were promoted this week.
Author's note: This might be a violation of WP:BEANS; read at your own risk.
It wouldn't be the WikiProject report if we didn't feature an Australian topic once in a while, so this week we're looking at the left side.

The Signpost: 24 June 2015

[edit]
Over more than a decade of weekly publication, The Signpost has accumulated an incredibly lengthy and detailed record about the issues, controversies, successes, and failures of the English Wikipedia community and the movement at large.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Language Engineering team plans to introduce Content Translation—a tool that makes it easier to translate Wikipedia articles into different languages—as a beta feature on the English Wikipedia.
During 2009–2011 Google ran the Google Translation Project (GTP), a program utilising paid translators to translate most popular English Wikipedia articles to various Indian language Wikipedias.
Four articles and nine pictures were promoted to featured status this week.
One paper looks at the topic of Wikipedia governance in the context of online social production.
This past week saw the kick-off of the 2015 MediaWiki architecture focus of improving our content platform.
The Board of Trustees is the "ultimate corporate authority" of the Wikimedia Foundation and the level at which the strategic decisions regarding the Wikimedia movement are made ...
The Hürriyet Daily News reports that the Turkish Wikipedia has posted banners on the top of the encyclopedia to warn users that a number of articles are being blocked by the Turkish government.
After six years of work, a residency in the Canadian Rockies, endless debugging, and more than a little help from my friends, I have made Print Wikipedia.
Clausewitz' pithy summary of warfare as "politics by other means" seems to be the motto of some Wikipedia editors.

Hi, dearest Jack, how are you?

I opened this new page about an Italian film, and I ask some minute to you to read it and to correct my mistakes please. Just 5 minutes.

Thanks a lot for your precious help!!!

Rei Momo (talk) 09:48, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 01 July 2015

[edit]
This week The Center for Internet and Society published a promotional blog post highlighting the heritage of the center's creation of the Train the Trainer program.
A week now remains until the vote, expected on 9 July, when the European Parliament will express either its approval, disapproval, or lack of opinion on the question of freedom of panorama in the European Union.
Here to share their wisdom are Dodger67, Penny Richards, LilyKitty, and Mirokado of WikiProject Disability
Four featured list and twelve featured pictures were promoted this week.
For the week of June 21 to 27, 2015, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community.
Like many editors of the world's largest encyclopedia, Karanacs was browsing the site's articles and found that they were of relatively poor quality—and that the traditional narrative she'd learned was not necessarily accurate.

The Wikipedia Library needs you!

[edit]

We hope The Wikipedia Library has been a useful resource for your work. TWL is expanding rapidly and we need your help!

With only a couple hours per week, you can make a big difference for sharing knowledge. Please sign up and help us in one of these ways:

  • Account coordinators: help distribute free research access
  • Partner coordinators: seek new donations from partners
  • Communications coordinators: share updates in blogs, social media, newsletters and notices
  • Technical coordinators: advise on building tools to support the library's work
  • Outreach coordinators: connect to university libraries, archives, and other GLAMs
  • Research coordinators: run reference services



Send on behalf of The Wikipedia Library using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:31, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 08 July 2015

[edit]
It seems like a good time to discuss the various communications channels available to community members.
Lila Tretikov this week posted an email to the wikimedia-l mailing list announcing the final publication of the Wikimedia Foundation's 2015 annual plan.
The mayor of Esino Lario warns that Wikimedia 2016 is "at risk of disappearing".
It's July 4 weekend and on this list that means only one thing: Wimbledon. Sure, the American Independence Day gets noticed too, but it can't hold a candle to that staggeringly British sporting event.
12 featured articles, 2 featured lists, and 15 featured pictures were promoted this week.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community.

Books and Bytes - Issue 12

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 12, May-June 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - Taylor & Francis, Science, and three new French-language resources
  • Expansion into new languages, including French, Finnish, Turkish, and Farsi
  • Spotlight: New partners for the Visiting Scholar program
  • American Library Association Annual meeting in San Francisco

Read the full newsletter

The Interior 15:23, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 July 2015

[edit]
"How long will this take?" This is one of the first questions new clients ask. They come to us because the Wikipedia entry about the company at which they work is wrong, incomplete, or even just outdated. The answer varies ...
However coy they may be about it in public, Americans love to win. And when they do, they make no secret of it.
We return this week with an interview with a historical project that's still fairly active, WikiProject Former countries.
In The Register, Andrew Orlowski reports that three weeks ago, Grant Shapps filed a request with Wikimedia UK (WMUK) under the Data Protection Act 1998 "for all data relating to him".
The Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce the release of our latest transparency report.
Wikimania 2015 is underway in Mexico City, and one of its sessions—a scheduled follow-up to the annual Wikimedia Conference that was held in Berlin in May—is good reason to provide a retrospective of that Conference.
One featured article, seven featured lists, and 14 featured pictures were promoted this week.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community

The Signpost: 22 July 2015

[edit]
We want to take a moment to ask you to consider contributing to the Signpost.
Wikimania features remarks from some leading players from the Wikimedia Foundation as well as the free knowledge movement.
WMF's Executive Director, Lila Tretikov, gave the opening plenary address.
Three novelists "have found a way to control the Wikipedia narrative" by using the annotation website Genius to annotate their own Wikipedia articles.
Summary:When I was a kid, being a nerd meant wanting to go to Pluto.
WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom
Three featured articles, two featured lists, and 29 featured pictures were promoted this week.
46 years ago this week, humanity set foot on the Moon.
Community technical news.

Hi, dearest Jack how are you?

After the film, I've opened this new page, concierning a district of Rome. Please, I ask some minute of your precious time to read the page and correct the mistakes of my poor English!

Thanks a lot for your precious help, and see you soon

Rei Momo (talk) 09:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have made minor changes (to the film). I am not doing much editing any more. Perhaps I will become more active again later. --Greenmaven (talk) 20:12, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 July 2015

[edit]
An RFC proposes to create a "Bureaucrats' Admin Review Committee" (BARC) composed of bureaucrats empowered to remove adminship rights.
Two years ago, I discovered that I was on the autism spectrum.
An article argues that Wikipedia displays some key characteristics of a collective intelligence process.
"Editors representing rival political tribes [are] frequently attempting to impose their respective narratives as the official version of one or another cultural controversy."
Five featured articles, five featured lists, and sixteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
For the first time since this list began, India-related topics have claimed both the top two slots.

The Signpost: 05 August 2015

[edit]
That particular artists would be omitted through oversight or happenstance is reasonable, but that one of the world's leading publishers of art books is completely unaware of their major omissions is startling.
The public interest in remembering the facts about trials and convictions is, in my view, at least as strong as any "right to be forgotten."
VisualEditor is now on slow roll-out on the English Wikipedia.
The Report checks in with WikiProject Templates.
The Indian government has launched an investigation into the source of Wikipedia edits regarding Jawaharlal Nehru that caused outrage in that country.
Death is no stranger to this list, but it has never cast such a pall as this week, when for the first time half the slots in the top 10 were devoted to it, including the top 3.
Three featured articles, seven featured lists, and twenty-two featured pictures were promoted this week.
What if there was a gathering place on Wikipedia for newer editors to find a mentor?

The Signpost: 12 August 2015

[edit]
Superprotect was a novel page protection level implemented on August 10 last year, without warning.
The Atlantic discusses "The Covert World of People Trying to Edit Wikipedia—for Pay".
The community speaks out on paid editing.
Our ongoing Wikimanía coverage.
The charts are led this week by UFC women's champion Ronda Rousey, who won her last match at UFC 190 (#9) in 34 seconds.
Watch out for icebergs.
Wikimedia technical news.
During World War II, the German battleship Tirpitz was a major threat to Allied convoys travelling across the North Atlantic and Arctic Sea.

GOCE August 2015 newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors August 2015 Newsletter

July drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 24 people who signed up, 17 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

August blitz: The one-week April blitz, targeting biographical articles that have been tagged for copy editing for over a year, will run from August 16–22. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one article from the article list on the blitz page. Sign up here!

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators, Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, KieranTribe, Miniapolis, and Pax85.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
sent by Jonesey95 via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:43, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 19 August 2015

[edit]
Nothing makes Wikipedians more angry than a discussion of gender and feminism on Wikipedia.
A new article in PLOS ONE about Wikipedia's science coverage has attracted media attention.
This week's featured content.
Tony the Tiger tours New York City.
It's a long way from the leafy bowers of Greenwich, Connecticut to the concrete barrens of Compton, California.
Community technical news.
Wikipedia is capable of covering news like any news agency.

The Signpost: 26 August 2015

[edit]
Does the data mean good news for the encyclopedia?
The Russian Wikipedia is blocked, more blocks may be on the on the horizon.
Should paid event staff supplement the work of volunteers?
The Wikimedia Foundation's grant structure.
This week's featured content.
The recently closed Arbitration Enforcement case.
A look at the research presented at the OpenSym 2015 conference.

The Signpost: 02 September 2015

[edit]
Nearly 400 accounts blocked in largest paid-editing bust ever.
The WMF collaboration team announced this week that Flow will no longer be under active development.
A conflict regarding fundraising banners on the Italian Wikipedia is resolved.
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 16 August to 24 August.
Also vital statistics regarding Ja Rule.
The late-summer smash success of Straight Outta Compton remains the chief talking point of the English-speaking world, interrupted only by the welcome return of a Google Doodle.
Community technical news.

The Signpost: 09 September 2015

[edit]
The National Library is now releasing some of the nation's most treasured collections to Wikimedia Commons for everyone to use and enjoy.
Tony1 interviews a prolific featured content participant, Ian Rose.
Fram tells us why DYK is a problem.
First bot-created article generated from Wikidata; the Orange Bar of Doom has finally met its doom; active editor numbers still on the rise; arbitrator to resign; ne templates added in wake of Orangemoody case
This week's theme in popular articles revolved entirely around mass media productions.
section begin "tech-newsletter-content"
A recap of Wikipedia in the media this week

The Signpost: 16 September 2015

[edit]
On Wikipedia's commitment to open access and its obligations to readers and editors.
WMF CFO to depart, notifications come and go, and questions about the possible editing by a recently arrested terrorism suspect.
Probably not. Also, Whitehall still editing Wikipedia.
This week's featured content.
No particular trends to spot in this week's top article traffic.
Community technical news.

Hi, dearest Jack, how are you? I opened this page now and I ask 3some minute of your time, please, to read it and corrct my mistakes.

Thanks a lot for your precious help and see you soon!!!

Rei Momo (talk) 10:20, 23 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 23 September 2015

[edit]
PETA launches a copyright lawsuit over the infamous photograph.
No, really, just stop.
This week's featured content.
This time of year features the Latin Grammy Awards, so here for an interview are WikiProject Latin music.
This week, drug lord and wannabe Bolivar Pablo Escobar was joined by a whole host of somewhat more primetime-friendly political insurgents.
Community technical news.

Books and Bytes - Issue 13

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 13, August-September 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - EBSCO, IMF, more newspaper archives, and Arabic resources
  • Expansion into new languages, including Viet and Catalan
  • Spotlight: Elsevier partnership garners controversy, dialogue
  • Conferences: PKP, IFLA, upcoming events

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 September 2015

[edit]
A year of fundraising and a controversial decision.
More Wikipedia editing in the news.
Low numbers of active admins and high standards for adminship make a troubling combination.
A look at newly published Wikipedia research.
Community technical news

The Signpost: 07 October 2015

[edit]
Kazakhstan and Wikipedia: A marriage made in hell.
English speakers, like most of humanity, are primarily a northern-hemispheric people, and as autumn draws close and the days grow shorter, as a group we tend to huddle around our flickering screens and remember what matters: TV, movies, sports and, of course, crazy doomsday prophecies.
Some of Wikipedia's newest featured content.
These winners of the Wiki Loves Monuments Pakistan 2015 contest were shared with the Social Media mailing list recently.
A new case was opened for ArbCom as the Genetically modified organisms case was accepted and opened on 28 September.
A reproduced version of the Wikimedia tech newsletter.
A summary of Wikimedia's mentions in the media

The Signpost: 14 October 2015

[edit]
We believe that human interaction can only make Wikipedia stronger.
Three days at the US National Archives.
The news coverage we usually see about Wikipedia is neither in-depth, nor specialized, nor systematic.
Everyone's talking about money.
For the second consecutive week, the most viewed article had less than one million views, the only two weeks that has happened in all of 2015.
This week's featured content.
Community technical news.
On September 25, 26 and 27, Wikimedia Spain celebrated its third Wikimedia Conference at the Colegio Mayor Universitario Isabel de España in Madrid.

The Signpost: 21 October 2015

[edit]
Time to clean up our mess.
District court judge decrees that the WMF lacks standing.
"The lunatics are running the asylum."
Examining the conflict and its participants.
Featured content
When given a choice between journals of similar impact factors, editors are significantly more likely to select the “open access” option.
Open cases before the Arbitration Committee.
We live in a harsh, uncertain world.
Community technical news.

October 2015 GOCE newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors October 2015 Newsletter

September drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 25 editors who signed up, 18 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

October blitz: The one-week October blitz, targeting requests, has just concluded. Of the nine editors who signed up, seven copyedited at least one request; check your talk page for your barnstar!

The month-long November drive, focusing on our oldest backlog articles (June, July, and August 2014) and the October requests, is just around the corner. Hope to see you there!

Thanks again for your support; together, we can improve the encyclopedia! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, KieranTribe, Miniapolis and Pax85.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:55, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 October 2015

[edit]
A call for volunteers.
The community reacts to another milestone.
The week's news coverage about the encyclopedia.
Gangs of bullies and trolls rove the internet and make life difficult for the rest of us.
A divisive case before the Committee opens.
What's this all aboot, eh?
New research about Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects.
This week's featured content.
Community technical news.
The community celebrates.

The Signpost: 04 November 2015

[edit]
The WMF wants your ideas for technical improvements.
WMF funding and the death and life of a controversial feature.
The difficulties of verifying encyclopedia content.
The week in article traffic.
This week's featured content.
Wikipedia received the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for global cooperation on October 23.
Community technical news.

The Signpost: 11 November 2015

[edit]
Assessing the end of a controversial feature.
It's that time of the year again.
Fallout from a recent security breach.
Featured content
Are the inmates running the asylum? Are journalists copying Wikipedia? Are monkeys filing lawsuits?
More doodles, more traffic.
Reflecting on the tragedy in France.

The Signpost: 18 November 2015

[edit]
Our annual election coverage.
Icelandic Wikipedia hits 400K articles; how do Wikipedia editors stay neutral?
Discussions around the encyclopedia.
Updates on the Committee. You know, besides the election.
The week in Featured Content.
Paris and Diwali.

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:26, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 25 November 2015

[edit]
Wikidata is set to become the main open data repository worldwide.
Updates on the Wikimedia Foundation.
The worldwide community wins a prestigious award while the Russian community struggles with government interference.
Scholarly research about Wikipedia and related projects.
Featured content
The week's most read articles.
Another long-running case has been closed, while the voting process for this year's Arbitration Committee Elections has begun.
Community technical news.
The suit concerns copyright claims related to 17 images of the museum’s public domain works of art.

The Signpost: 02 December 2015

[edit]
Issues of quality and verifiability threaten the project.
How the community can have its say on two important matters.
Concerns about Wikidata and WMF fundraising.
The new Netflix series heads the list.
Newly promoted featured content.
Community technical news.

Books and Bytes - Issue 14

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 14, October-November 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - Gale, Brill, plus Finnish and Farsi resources
  • Open Access Week recap, and DOIs, Wikipedia, and scholarly citations
  • Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref - a citation drive for librarians

Read the full newsletter

The Interior, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:12, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 09 December 2015

[edit]
The three scrutineers announced the results, a little more than three days after the close of voting.
A response from Wikidata.
Another election, another series of edit wars.
The top 25 images.
Another death tops the report this week.
This week's featured content.
Community technical news.

The Signpost: 16 December 2015

[edit]
Creating content in the sky.
Jimmy Wales finds his words edited on the Internet.
Keeping up with the committee.
Featured content
Tackling content gaps through collaboration.
More data, more problems.
A look back at October.

The Signpost: 30 December 2015

[edit]
In a monumental move, the Board ousted one of its own
The latest news from ArbCom
A report covering material promoted from 13 to 26 December
In a development that should surprise no one, Star Wars takes the first place prize
We review the top ten stories that defined the Wikimedia movement in 2015
The latest news coverage from around the movement
Christmas time is here.

Guild of Copy Editors 2015 End of Year Report

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors 2015 End of Year Report

Our 2015 End of Year Report is now ready for review.

Highlights:

  • Summary of Drives, Blitzes, and the Requests page;
  • New record lows in the article backlog and on the Requests page;
  • Coordinator election results;
  • Membership news;
  • Changes around the Guild's pages;
  • Plans for 2016.
– Your project coordinators: Jonesey95, Miniapolis and Baffle gab1978.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by Jonesey95 via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:42, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 06 January 2016

[edit]
Trouble with the Board of Trustees
Wikipedia's science articles are "effectively incomprehensible"
Current Committee decisions
Featured content
Current academic research on Wikipedia and related projects
Sports!
Community technical news

The Signpost: 13 January 2016

[edit]
A look at movement coverage "in the media"
Liam Wyatt shares his thoughts in "community view"
Our co-editor-in-chief, Gamaliel, shares his thoughts on the 15th anniversary of Wikipedia
William Beutler discusses problems inside the WMF.
James Heilman talks about why he was removed from the WMF board.
What was the most-viewed article of 2015? Read to find out!
WE LOVE PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY!
A look at community objections to a new Board trustee
Jeff Elder talks sports vandalism on the Wikimedia blog
A review of the featured content promoted this week
We sat down with both incoming and outgoing arbitrators to get their thoughts on the committee.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community.

The Signpost: 20 January 2016

[edit]
The continuing controversy over a new Board appointment.
Is Wikimedia taking the right approach?
The news media remembers we're still around.
A cheery week.
Newly promoted content.
A talk with MediaWiki developer : Magnus Manske.

The Signpost: 27 January 2016

[edit]
Participate in the new strategy initiative.
Newly appointed trustee leaves following a community outcry.
Board turmoil gets the attention of journalists.
Current research involving Wikipedia.
Some things never change.
Newly promoted content.

The Signpost: 03 February 2016

[edit]
Help us continue to publish on a weekly (-ish) basis.
New member María Sefidari joins the Board of Trustees.
James Heilman speaks out about the events leading up to his dismissal from the Board.
Examining the issues at the heart of recent Board disputes.
A survey released, another major departure from the Foundation.
More cases, more problems.
Some sort of sporting contest tops this week's traffic.
Newly promoted content.

The Signpost: 10 February 2016

[edit]

Books & Bytes - Issue 15

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 15, December-January 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - Ships, medical resources, plus Arabic and Farsi resources
  • #1lib1ref campaign summary and highlights
  • New branches and coordinators

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:20, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 17 February 2016

[edit]
Examining the impact of the knowledge engine
A new column that examines the articles that are helping to fight systemic bias
One article, three lists, and five images attained featured status this past week
The biggest annual event in America takes over Wikipedia viewership
The news for the nerd inside of us
The American Supreme Court justice's impact on the life of a Wikipedia editor

The Signpost: 24 February 2016

[edit]
The Board of Trustees may be deciding the direction of the Foundation.
Parting words from a WMF employee,
Another grim week in traffic statistics.
Wiki Loves Africa photo competition focuses on continent’s varied fashion traditions from north, south, east, and west.
Committee motions and business.
Newly promoted featured content.
Community technical news.

The Signpost: 02 March 2016

[edit]
A tumultuous time at the Wikimedia Foundation
Newly promoted articles and images.
Politics and wrestling top the traffic statistics.
Current academic research about the encyclopedia and related projects.
The WMF reports on incoming requests.

The Signpost: 09 March 2016

[edit]
Controversy, change, and everything between.
Perhaps we're turning over a new leaf as a front-runner in the fight for equality?
A look at the future of our parent foundation.
This week's featured content
Finally, a break for the vandalism fighters!
Your detailed look at one of Wikipedia's largest contests.
By night, she smites trolls on the Internet with positive punishment: for each harassing email she receives, one Wikipedia article on a woman in science is created.
Wherein I am STILL fucking angry about systemic bias and am highlighting kick-ass articles we created and improved this month in our never-ending quest to fix it.
The Oscars, Super Tuesday, and Super Saturday"

The Signpost: 16 March 2016

[edit]
Parties could not agree on extending the 2009 agreement.
Two board members on stage at the popular yearly event.
The road ahead for the WMF.
Wikipedia news sparks editing disagreements.
Featured content
An interview with a MediaWiki developer.
Time to move abroad.
The popular podcast returns.
A Deutschland anniversary.

The Signpost: 23 March 2016

[edit]
The Signpost speaks with the incoming WMF interim executive director.
The outgoing ED to be honored at Davos.
Piracy and controversy.
Are readers exhausted?
All of us can do better.
The week in newly promoted content.
Motions from the Committee.
Discussing the upcoming Italian Wikimania.

The Signpost: 1 April 2016

[edit]
A surprise political announcement.
Police haul away some article content.
Rock out to this interview with project editors.
¿Quién es más macho?
.
Set your Wayback Machine.
Current research about Wikimedia projects.
A roundtable discussion about current Wikimedia issues.
Using hashtags to track the results of Wikimedia outreach.

Guild of Copy Editors April 2016 Newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors April 2016 Newsletter

March drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 28 people who signed up, 21 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

April blitz: The one-week April blitz, again targeting our long requests list, will run from April 17–23. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one article from the requests page. Sign up here!

May drive: The month-long May backlog-reduction drive, with extra credit for articles tagged in March, April, and May 2015, and all request articles, begins May 1. Sign up now!

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Miniapolis, and Baffle gab1978.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:48, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 14 April 2016

[edit]
They do have plenty of time on their hands
More turnover in the foundation
Copyright laws, prisoners, and the future of technology
Featured content
American politics seem to have finally bored people
The drought is finally over!
A look at political satire, brought to you by Wikipedia and Commons

Books & Bytes - Issue 16

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 16, February-March 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - science, humanities, and video resources
  • Using hashtags in edit summaries - a great way to track a project
  • A new cite archive template, a new coordinator, plus conference and Visiting Scholar updates
  • Metrics for the Wikipedia Library's last three months

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:17, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 April 2016

[edit]
Maybe the rover could find an ED on the moon...
When is competing with Google not competing with Google?
Help wanted!
What's better than one traffic report? Two!
10 articles, 6 lists, and 11 pictures have been promoted in this cycle
When it rains, it pours

The Signpost: 2 May 2016

[edit]
Wikimedia Switzerland board members involved in paid-editing firm
More reports surface of pirates' new favorite database: Wikimedia Commons
Prince's death breaks traffic report records
Seven articles, six lists, and four pictures were promoted these weeks
Arbitration news
Making sense of Wikipedia's social network

The Signpost: 17 May 2016

[edit]
Christophe Henner and Nataliia Tymkiv respond to the Signpost's questions
Paid-editing controversy
Citations needed
Nine featured articles, eight featured lists, and six featured pictures
Prince gives way to Captain America
News from two arbitration cases
35 competitors move on to round 3

The Signpost: 28 May 2016

[edit]
Dates and venues for WikiCon USA 2016, WikiCon India 2016, 2016 Glam Boot Camp and 2016 Wikimedia Diversity Conference
Sue Gardner appears to be earning more money as the WMF's special advisor than she did as its executive director
Not everything you read online is fact
Another eight featured articles, three featured lists and five featured pictures
Mental health carries a powerful stigma. The more we are open about it, the less that weighs all of us down
Gamaliel and others case nears its end, and there are new 30/500 rules
Round-up of recent Wikipedia research
We've recently come into possession of a new tool.
Albin Olsson has been right there with them, capturing dramatic images of singers from around the world.

The Signpost: 05 June 2016

[edit]
The Signpost analyzes the WMF's revised annual plan
Recent press interviews
One article, one list, and seven images were featured this week
Film and television maintain a strong grasp on Wikipedia's readership
The final results of the heated case
We sat down with the writers of some of the most vistied Wikipedia articles

June 2016 Guild of Copy Editors Newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors June 2016 News

Hello everyone, welcome to the June 2016 GOCE newsletter. It's been a few months since we sent one out; we hope y'all haven't forgotten about the Guild! Your coordinators have been busy behind the scenes as usual, though real life has a habit of reducing our personal wiki-time. The May backlog reduction drive, the usual coordinating tasks and preparations for the June election are keeping us on our toes!

May drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's record-setting backlog reduction drive. Of the 29 people who signed up, 16 copyedited at least one article, 197 copyedits were recorded on the drive page, and the copyedit backlog fell below 1,500 for the first time! Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

June Blitz: this one-week copy-editing blitz will occur from 12 June through 18 June; the themes will be video games and Asian geography.

Coordinator elections: It's election time again; how quickly they seem to roll around! Nominations for the next tranche of Guild coordinators, who will serve a six-month term that begins at 00:01 UTC on 1 July and ends at 23:59 UTC on 31 December, opens at 00:01 UTC on 1 June and closes at 23:59 UTC on 15 June. Voting takes place between 00:01 UTC on 16 June and 23:59 UTC on 30 June. If you'd like to assist behind the scenes, please consider stepping forward; self-nominations are welcomed and encouraged. All Wikipedia editors in good standing are eligible; remember it's your Guild, and it doesn't run itself!

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Miniapolis and Baffle gab1978.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:01, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 June 2016

[edit]
WMF board chair Patricio Lorente answers questions
Wikimedia enters academic publishing
Eleven featured articles, nine featured lists and fourteen featured pictures
Recent media coverage of Wikipedia and Wikimedia
Two for the price of one—do the popular Commons image contest and Wikidata licensing serve the community as well as they should?
Wikipedia's most read articles in the last two weeks
Poetry: “it is the stuff of the soul; it speaks to the body, the mind, and the spirit alike.” Sonja Bohm worked for years to get all of Florence Earle Coates’ poetry online, and now proofreads poetry on the English Wikisource, the free library. We asked why.

Books & Bytes - Issue 17

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 17, April-May 2016
by The Interior, Ocaasi, UY Scuti, Sadads, and Nikkimaria

  • New donations this month - a German-language legal resource
  • Wikipedia referals to academic citations - news from CrossRef and WikiCite2016
  • New library stats, WikiCon news, a bot to reveal Open Access versions of citations, and more!

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:36, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Guild of Copy Editors July 2016 News

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors July 2016 News

Hello everyone, and welcome to the July 2016 GOCE newsletter.

June Blitz: this one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 12 through 18 June; the themes were video games and Asian geography. Of the 18 editors who signed up, 11 removed 47 articles from the backlog. Barnstars and rollover totals are located here. Thanks to all editors who took part.

Coordinator elections: The second tranche of Guild coordinators for 2016, who will serve a six-month term until 23:59 UTC on 31 December, have been elected. Jonesey95 remains as your drama-free Lead Coordinator, and Corinne and Tdslk are your new assistant coordinators. For her long service to the Guild, Miniapolis has been enrolled in the GOCE Hall of Fame. Thanks to everyone who voted in the election; our next scheduled one occurs in December 2016. All Wikipedia editors in good standing are eligible; self-nominations are welcome and encouraged.

July Drive: Our month-long July Copy Editing Backlog Elimination Drive is now underway. Our aim is to remove articles tagged for copy-edit in April, May and June 2015, and to complete all requests on the GOCE Requests page from June 2016. The drive ends at 23:59 on 31 July 2016 (UTC).

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Jonesey95, Corinne and Tdlsk.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:54, 1 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 04 July 2016

[edit]
News from Wikimania and the courts
Paid-contributions disclosure vs. outing
Reliability worries
Six articles, nine lists, one topic and thirteen pictures promoted
European football and politics dominate the top-10
From the Wikimedia Foundation blog

The Signpost: 21 July 2016

[edit]
Four seats to be filled in top WMF grantmaking body; General Counsel and Secretary Geoff Brigham leaves Wikimedia
New ArbCom restrictions; genetically modified food safety
Female scientists in India; Cracked.com probes Wikipedia's weaknesses
Promotions in four featured-content forums
Northern summer makes sport the winner
Plus a clerk appointment and two motions
Plus navigating the Chinese Wikipedia, and talkpage sentiment

The Signpost: 04 August 2016

[edit]
And the Signpost loses and gains a co-editor-in-chief
WMF and Alphabet are developing an algorithm designed to detect personal attacks
Plus Android and Taylor Swift
Condolences are being left on his English Wikipedia talk page
Pokémon Go led the chart for two weeks running
Eight articles, two lists and fourteen pictures were promoted
Plus: new Wiki Studies journal, Wikipedia usage on Twitter and more
WMF announces enhancements to the notifications system
New user scripts and other tech news

The Signpost: 18 August 2016

[edit]
Conference draws highly diverse and productive participation, and several years' advocacy pays off in a new government policy
Guest post recaps in-depth engagement of experts to address Wikipedia gender gap while improving coverage of their field
Wikipedia coverage ranged from sobering to playful in this issue's roundup
Eight articles, eleven lists, one topic and five pictures were promoted
Politics gives way to sports, TV and film
A review of numerous useful Wikipedia customizations
New case opened, and a reminder to administrators not to impose blocks based on private information

Books & Bytes - Issue 18

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 18, June–July 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi, Samwalton9, UY Scuti, and Sadads

  • New donations - Edinburgh University Press, American Psychological Association, Nomos (a German-language database), and more!
  • Spotlight: GLAM and Wikidata
  • TWL attends and presents at International Federation of Library Associations conference, meets with Association of Research Libraries
  • OCLC wins grant to train librarians on Wikimedia contribution

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:25, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 06 September 2016

[edit]
The Board’s two-year moratorium on new chapters and thematic organisations has expired; presentation of new criteria is reigniting smoldering controversies and introducing new ones
A comparison of the 15 most-read articles related to the Olympics, in seven language editions of Wikipedia
Wikipedia gaining ground in credibility among librarians; and a healthy helping of media coverage
An interview with WikiProject TV member CAWylie
Twelve articles, eight lists and four pictures were promoted
An update on two weeks of Wikipedia traffic, based on a new and improved tracking tool
New scripts and technical news
One study encounters critique of its ethics from Wikipedians; another critiques the ethics employed by Wikipedia
Switzerland's largest public science library is uploading 134k photos

Guild of Copy Editors September 2016 News

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors September 2016 News

Hello everyone, and welcome to the September 2016 GOCE newsletter.

>>> Sign up for the September Drive, already in progress! <<<

July Drive: The July drive was a roaring success. We set out to remove April, May, and June 2015 from our backlog (our 149 oldest articles), and by 23 July, we were done with those months. We added July 2015 (66 articles) and copy-edited 37 of those. We also handled all of the remaining Requests from June 2016. Well done! Overall, we recorded copy edits to 240 articles by 20 editors, reducing our total backlog to 13 months and 1,656 articles, the second-lowest month-end total ever.

August Blitz: this one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 21 through 27 August; the theme was sports-related articles in honor of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Of the eight editors who signed up, five editors removed 11 articles from the backlog. A quiet blitz – everyone must be on vacation. Barnstars and rollover totals are located here. Thanks to all editors who took part.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Jonesey95, Corinne and Tdlsk.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:36, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Art of Fielding / Chad Harbach

[edit]

First, I would agree with the prior person that posted to your Talk page:

"I am [relatively] new as a contributor of Wikipedia, so I don't know its etiquette, but the way you proceeded seems rude to me."

You deleted a standard "Controversy / Criticism" section for this book and the author.

1. I think this type of section is common 2. My post was factual 3. If Harbach or his publisher think it is not accurate, I'm sure they will follow-up in some way — Preceding unsigned comment added by Macdad7123 (talkcontribs) 13:50, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 September 2016

[edit]
Medical school class's Wikipedia contributions profiled as case study; and a remembrance of Ray Saintonge, Wikimedian since 2002
This edition's roundup of media coverage
Nineteen articles, eleven lists, one portal and twelve pictures were promoted
TRM, CUOS '16, R&I, RfC
Four weeks of Wikipedia's most popular articles examined
Titles with numbers now sort numerically, and a new tool to check how template parameters are used

The Signpost: 14 October 2016

[edit]
Wikimedia Foundation reports on fundraising challenges and new initiatives; Indian botanists rally to build Wikimedia Commons' photo collection
A new "peer academy" is proposed to find and support leadership in volunteer communities
And this edition's roundup of media coverage
A new editor, a new parsing algorithm, and another server switch
Twelve articles, twelve lists and twenty-one pictures were promoted
Donald Trump remains a view-magnet, others change their channel
We explore the study, which sought insights from Wikipedia metadata into global events

Books and Bytes - Issue 19

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 19, September–October 2016
by Nikkimaria, Sadads and UY Scuti

  • New and expanded donations - Foreign Affairs, Open Edition, and many more
  • New Library Card Platform and Conference news
  • Spotlight: Fixing one million broken links

Read the full newsletter



19:07, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 November 2016

[edit]
Victoria Coleman to fill long-vacant CTO role; Trustee Kelly Battles joins Quora executive team; last week for community input on Creative Commons 4.0 license
Plus our roundup of recent media stories
Winners of the tenth annual WikiCup competition announced and profiled
Progress on the 2015 Community Wishlist for tech features; and plans for a new Wishlist
Proposed best practices for communication and community involvement, and an improvement to Wikipedia's citation infrastructure
Fourteen articles, six lists and fourteen pictures were promoted
Two weeks of insights into the mind of the mob
Two cases closed, and an administrator loses editing rights
A recap of recent research in our realm

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

[edit]

Hello, Jack Greenmaven. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 4 November 2016

[edit]
An overview of the English Wikipedia ArbCom election; brief notes as Asian and African initiatives wind down
Election prompts media to explore themes important to Wikipedians, including news literacy, privacy, and data security
115,000 images were submitted as part of the annual competition.
A sampling of photo submissions to the annual photography campaign
Eight articles, two lists and nine pictures were promoted
A close examination of the efficacy of the GA Cup contest, a longstanding effort to reduce the backlog of articles awaiting review
Empowering volunteers and local chapters to engage with fundraising would yield varied benefits
Someone is likely to dominate traffic for a long time

Guild of Copy Editors December 2016 News

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors December 2016 News

Hello everyone, and welcome to the December 2016 GOCE newsletter. We had an October newsletter all set to go, but it looks like we never pushed the button to deliver it, so this one contains a few months of updates. We have been busy and successful!

Coordinator elections for the first half of 2017: Nominations are open for election of Coordinators for the first half of 2017. Please visit the election page to nominate yourself or another editor, and then return after December 15 to vote. Thanks for participating!

September Drive: The September drive was fruitful. We set out to remove July through October 2015 from our backlog (an ambitious 269 articles), and by the end of the month, we had cut that pile of oldest articles to just 83. We reduced our overall backlog by 97 articles, even with new copyedit tags being added to articles every day. We also handled 75% of the remaining Requests from August 2016. Overall, 19 editors recorded copy edits to 233 articles (over 378,000 words).

October Blitz: this one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 16 through 22 October; the theme was Requests, since the backlog was getting a bit long. Of the 16 editors who signed up, 10 editors completed 29 requests. Barnstars and rollover totals are located here. Thanks to all editors who took part.

November Drive: The November drive was a record-breaker! We set out to remove September through December 2015 from our backlog (239 articles), and by the end of the month, we had cut that pile of old articles to just 66, eliminating the two oldest months! We reduced our overall backlog by 523 articles, to a new record low of 1,414 articles, even with new tags being added to articles every day, which means we removed copy-editing tags from over 800 articles. We also handled all of the remaining Requests from October 2016. Officially, 14 editors recorded copy edits to 200 articles (over 312,000 words), but over 600 articles, usually quick fixes and short articles, were not recorded on the drive page.

Housekeeping note: we do not send a newsletter before every drive or blitz. To have a better chance of knowing when the next event will start, add the GOCE's message box to your Watchlist.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Jonesey95, Corinne and Tdslk.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:30, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 22 December 2016

[edit]
Roundup of the year's news from the Wikimedia world, featuring Wikipedia's 15th anniversary and organizational disarray at the Wikimedia Foundation
WMF reflects, to some degree, on its past approaches to strategic planning
The German Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee loses more than half its members amid political feud
A proposal from the Inspire Campaign to address harassment was recently implemented to prevent unconstructive and malicious editing on user pages
Even a well executed outreach event can yield disappointing results
Wikipedia women in the news, and media reacts to 2016 ad banner campaign
Twenty-three articles, ten lists and twenty-one pictures were promoted
And a roundup of recently-added tools
Four weeks of popular article analysis
Winning photos in world's largest photography contest reveal a world of monuments—and the volunteers who love them
Privacy and Tor, and several other studies

The Signpost: 17 January 2017

[edit]
Building toward better recruitment and retention
A close look at the history of approving administrators on English Wikipedia, and a roundup of news
The wiki environment can appear deceptively uniform, but it masks strikingly different editorial experiences
The latest media reports
Twelve articles, thirteen lists and twelve pictures were promoted
Various minor developments
If you're reading this, you escaped 2016 alive
Data sets now available on Commons, wishes to be worked on in 2017, and a recap of the Wikimedia Developer Summit
And several other research papers reviewed and summarized

Books and Bytes - Issue 20

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 20, November-December 2016
by Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs), Samwalton9 (talk · contribs)

  • Partner resource expansions
  • New search tool for finding TWL resources
  • #1lib1ref 2017
  • Wikidata Visiting Scholar

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:00, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 6 February 2017

[edit]
The two statements prompt extensive community discussion; plus, our updates on recent ArbCom decisions
Undisclosed paid editing by a financial broker mired in scandal spans years, impacting Wikipedia's editors and readers
Foundation's latest foray into political waters, and grants funding structured data and anti-harassment measures, met with enthusiasm and concern
Several developments in the $2.5 million strategic planning process explored, and a team within the software production department is sidelined
Our second interview with the productive WikiProject Birds crew
Veteran editing workshop leader responds to a previous Signpost op-ed
Wikipedia's response to Trump inauguration and a fruitful, public "edit war" lead our media updates
Plus the latest scripts, bots, and tech news
Three weeks of the most popular Wikipedia articles
Twenty-eight articles, seven lists, two topics and four pictures were promoted
Women's marches on seven continents attracted strong Wikipedia engagement; Media luminaries and a presidential candidate joined WMF boss Katherine Maher at a New York gathering

Guild of Copy Editors February 2017 News

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors February 2017 News

Hello everyone, and welcome to the February 2017 GOCE newsletter. The Guild has been busy since the last time your coordinators sent out a newsletter!

December blitz: This one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 11 through 17 December; the themes were Requests and eliminating the November 2015 backlog. Of the 14 editors who signed up, nine editors completed 29 articles. Barnstars and rollover totals are located here. Thanks to all who took part.

January drive: The January drive was a great success. We set out to remove December 2015 and January and February 2016 from our backlog (195 articles), and by 22 January we had cleared those and had to add a third month (March 2016). At the end of the month we had almost cleared out that last month as well, for a total of 180 old articles removed from the backlog! We reduced our overall backlog by 337 articles, to a low of 1,465 articles, our second-lowest month-end total ever. We also handled all of the remaining requests from December 2016. Officially, 19 editors recorded 337 copy edits (over 679,000 words).

February blitz: The one-week February blitz, focusing on the remaining March 2016 backlog and January 2017 requests, ran from 12 to 18 February. Seven editors reduced the total in those two backlog segments from 32 to 10 articles, leaving us in good shape going in to the March drive.

Coordinator elections for the first half of 2017: In December, coordinators for the first half of 2017 were elected. Jonesey95 stepped aside as lead coordinator, remaining as coordinator and allowing Miniapolis to be the lead, and Tdslk and Corinne returned as coordinators. Thanks to all who participated!

Speaking of coordinators, congratulations to Jonesey95 on their well-deserved induction into the Guild of Copy Editors Hall of Fame. The plaque reads: "For dedicated service as lead coordinator (2014, 1 July – 31 December 2015 and all of 2016) and coordinator (1 January – 30 June 2015 and 1 January – 30 June 2017); exceptional template-creation work (considerably streamlining project administration), and their emphasis on keeping the GOCE a drama-free zone."

Housekeeping note: We do not send a newsletter before every drive or blitz. To have a better chance of knowing when the next event will start, add the GOCE's message box to your watchlist.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Corinne and Tdslk.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:21, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 February 2017

[edit]
The Signpost's poll suggests we should take a cautious approach to the Newsletter Extension, under development; and our RSS feed is functional once again
This month's edition focuses on research about the role of Wikipedia in education
Demonstrations of developers' experiments and works in progress
Is the Daily Mail fake news and your media roundup
A selection of CC0 images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
An overview of English Wikipedia's peer review process
Increased WMF spending every year is not sustainable
Fifteen articles, two lists, and six pictures were promoted
They may not mix in life, but they do in popularity
Republished from the Wikimedia blog

Books and Bytes - Issue 21

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 21, January-March 2017
by Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs), Samwalton9 (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • #1lib1ref 2017
  • Wikipedia Library User Group
  • Wikipedia + Libraries at Wikimedia Conference 2017
  • Spotlight: Library Card Platform

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 9 June 2017

[edit]
Inviting new writers, editors, and ideas
WMF Board election results, and FDC elections begin
Two cases were closed from 19 February to 27 March.
Lead sentence metadata is out of control and a serious impediment to readability
Eighty-eight articles, forty-three lists, five topics and twenty-two pictures were promoted
Garfield is male, and other places Wikipedia made the news
...but are they real?; personality and attitudes to Wikipedia; large expert review experiment
Bots, scripts, tools, and changes from February to June 2017
Two weeks of film dominance: Baahubali and the Academy Awards

Books and Bytes - Issue 22

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 22, April-May 2017

  • New and expanded research accounts
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: OCLC Partnership
  • Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:35, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 23 June 2017

[edit]
While the English Wikipedia community produces no new requests for adminhood in June, the Wikimedia Foundation makes changes to the Product and Technology departments.
The anatomy of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick's chest area has been the talk of the month. But so have high-profile edits, hacked articles, and one particular newborn growing up.
Exploring sourcing issues in Wikimedia projects, a solution in Wikidata and fact mining, and a newsletter to continue the conversation.
22 featured articles, 17 featured lists, 7 featured pictures
Summer blockbusters and sports, Trump and world events.
A researcher applies Marxist critiques of political economy to investigate whether gamification, a culture of altruism, and other anti-corporatist influences on peer production can create a sustainable gift economy in a project like Wikipedia.
Search now can include sister projects; EpochFail

The Signpost: 15 July 2017

[edit]
The English Wikipedia sees its first new admin of the season, discord rocks Wikimedia France, some tweaks to the WMF reorg, and a new WMF annual plan mark this issue's community news.
Recently promoted articles, lists, and pictures.
A grab bag of alt-right speech, classical scholars, the dark web, elicited European tourism, $500,000 golden parachutes, forgery, the Great Firewall, net neutrality, nukes, paid editing, porn, and terrorism.
A closer look at the research that found that the 2013 Snowden revelations coincided with a significant drop of pageviews for privacy-sensitive Wikipedia articles
...and is there anything we can do to stop it? Opinions and examples from across the project.
An interesting mix of patterns and colors to brighten your day...
Enjoy the Parameters: The Infobox Game can be enjoyed by everyone, not just those interested in water buffalo breeds, volcanic hotspots or the mysterious heteroisoform, and some day just might spawn an important facet of the financial derivatives industry.
Popular interest in celebrities, blockbusters and an upcoming season of a popular television show drive traffic, with a smattering of world events, holidays and a Reddit storm around – surprise – free porn for the U.S. Congress.
Syntax highlighting, changes to Recent Changes, Wikidata on the enhance watchlist, accessible editing buttons and jQuery upgrade may break scripts.
The heat turns up on the 32 contestants who entered round three: 13 featured articles, 82 good articles, 167 DYKs, but we had to pick just eight of them to advance.

The Signpost: 5 August 2017

[edit]
Wikimania in Montreal, lawsuit in Sweden, challenges in France
Local tourism gains +9% when Wikipedia articles are improved; significant improvements in predicting article quality with deep learning; recent editor behavior is a strong predictor of content quality
An interview with a project that is centered around comics.
Wikipedia and reliable sources of information continue to define each other
Plus plenty of sports, film, and television
The Canadian Supreme Court ruled that Google must remove search results worldwide, dismissing concerns that this may impede freedom of expression for people outside of Canada or inspire other countries to censor speech.
Wikimedia contributors support each other's projects in many unexpected ways
Recently promoted articles, lists and pictures – with a very heavy one in the mix
The Architecture Committee adopts a new charter and name; and the latest in script, bot, and tech news
An elite squad of highly insightful editors can lead the way for other editors who may need to retrain their faces into forming a smile.

Books and Bytes - Issue 23

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 23, June-July 2017

  • Library card
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: Combating misinformation, fake news, and censorship
  • Bytes in brief

Chinese, Arabic and Yoruba versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:04, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Investment

[edit]

Hey there! I just re-launched the WikiProject Investment.

The site has been fully revamped and updated and I would like to invite you the project.

Feel free to check out the project and ping me if you have any questions.


I'd like to invite you to join the Investment WikiProject. There are a lot of Investment related articles on Wikipedia that could use a little attention, and I hope this project can help organize an effort to improve them. So please, take a look and if you like what you see, help get this project off the ground and a few Investment pages into the front ranks of Wikipedia articles. Thanks!


Cheers! WikiEditCrunch (talk) 16:03, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 6 September 2017

[edit]
Please share your Wikimania 2017 experiences!
Some of the goings-on from Wikimania 2017.
Take your pick of the best of Wikipedia.
White supremacists v. anti-fascism groups, Mayweather v. McGregor, Moon v. Sun.
Wikipedia's medical and scientific content has come a long way since 2001. Here are some thoughts on how it may continue to evolve.
A list of recent research publications on various topics.
Plus the latest reports of vandalism and mistakes in Wikipedia.
WikiProject YouTube is a new project on both English and Simple English Wikipedia.
Syntax highlighting, failed login notifications, watchlist filters, and more.
Ships, typhoons, birds, and more!
They do the things you don't want to do (and sometimes things you don't want done).

The Signpost: 25 September 2017

[edit]
News from Wikimedia France, Wikimedia Macedonia, and Wikimedia Israel's; Autoconfirmed article creation trial begins
Also: Jeopedia, Dubaipedia, shaping science, fake quote reused by scholarly sources
The best that poultry has to offer
Plus the latest research publications.
Plus more tech news, and the latest scripts and bots
Complimenting this issue's Humour about chickens...
Finally we're seeing some initial successes, but the Wikimedia movement is still far from being environmentally sustainable.
Boxing, hurricanes, clowns, and more!
Newly featured birds, planes, and high achievers

Books and Bytes - Issue 24

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 24, August-September 2017

  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
    • Star Coordinator Award - last quarter's star coordinator: User:Csisc
  • Wikimania Birds of a Feather session roundup
  • Spotlight: Wiki Loves Archives
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Kiswahili and Yoruba versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:53, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 23 October 2017

[edit]
The Wikimedia Foundation publishes the latest fundraising report, convenes over the close of the strategic plan discussion, and moves into a new space.
A variety of topics promoted.
If your name is Ralph, well sorry.
Advocates for sharing offline information gather to make content, software, hardware, and social decisions.
A chat with a developer of open source software which allows users to download web content for offline reading, and the future of offline access to Wikipedia.
Fighting fake news and plagiarism.
Wikimedia UK's partnerships and achievements working with GLAM institutions.
Readers interested in the the death of Hef, Puerto Rico, films and television.

The Signpost: 24 November 2017

[edit]
The first ever Wikidata conference was a con we wanted. Problematic paid editing while in a position of trust: not so much.
Arbitration matters from October and November.
A new advanced search interface; the Community Wishlist Survey is back.
Brianboulton talks about featured articles on his 100th promotion.
A novel approach to recruit members for your project!
Wikipedia seen as flawed but important; conservative think-tank fellow wants his say; volunteer in Madison wants to close the gender gap.
Readers intrigued by the Netflix show Stranger Things, and by sexual assault allegations.
War memorials, soldiers, extinct species, and devastating hurricanes are some of the most recently promoted featured content.
And other new research publications.
The entertainment value of Wikipedia.

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

[edit]

Hello, Jack Greenmaven. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 25

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 25, October – November 2017

  • OAWiki & #1Lib1Ref
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: Research libraries and Wikimedia
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Korean and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 18 December 2017

[edit]
Global article creation contest/editathon exceeds expectations.
Astronaut is first to specifically contribute to Wikipedia from space.
Seventeen articles, twenty-nine lists, three pictures and one featured topic were promoted.
The media discuss online copyright issues, Wikipedia's coverage of the capital of Israel and creation of a "reasonably clean, honest and reliable" work on Earth and in space.
Evidence phase in Mister Wiki editors case is complete; the community is proposing remedies and the Arbitration committee is slated to make a decision by end of year. Meanwhile, voting has closed on 2017 elections.
Winners of the international photo competitions Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments.
Looking back on a decade of contributions including over 1,000 images and over three dozen Featured Pictures, Charles shares his wildlife photography experience and tips.
And other recent research publications.
Including improved blocking tools, new user scripts, and the latest technical news.
We like our heroes and bad guys.
u-nye-loo-lay-doo? Dochvetlh vISoplaHbe’.

Guild of Copy Editors December 2017 News

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors December 2017 News

Hello copy editors! Welcome to the December 2017 GOCE newsletter, which contains nine months(!) of updates. The Guild has been busy and successful; your diligent efforts in 2017 has brought the backlog of articles requiring copy edit to below 1,000 articles for the first time. Thanks to all editors who have contributed their time and energy to help make this happen.

Our copy-editing drives (month-long backlog-reduction drives held in odd-numbered months) and blitzes (week-long themed editing in even-numbered months) have been very successful this year.

March drive: We set out to remove April, May, and June 2016 from our backlog and all February 2017 Requests (a total of 304 articles). By the end of the month, all but 22 of these articles were cleared. Officially, of the 28 who signed up, 22 editors recorded 257 copy edits (439,952 words). (These numbers do not always make sense when you compare them to the overall reduction in the backlog, because not all editors record every copy edit on the drive page.)

April blitz: This one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 16 through 22 April; the theme was Requests. Of the 15 who signed up, 9 editors completed 43 articles (81,822 words).

May drive: The goals were to remove July, August, and September 2016 from the backlog and to complete all March 2017 Requests (a total of 300 articles). By the end of the month, we had reduced our overall backlog to an all-time low of 1,388 articles. Of the 28 who signed up, 17 editors completed 187 articles (321,810 words).

June blitz: This one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 18 through 24 June; the theme was Requests. Of the 16 who signed up, 9 editors completed 28 copy edits (117,089 words).

2017 Coordinator elections: In June, coordinators for the second half of 2017 were elected. Jonesey95 moved back into the lead coordinator position, with Miniapolis stepping down to remain as coordinator; Tdslk and Corinne returned as coordinators, and Keira1996 rejoined after an extended absence. Thanks to all who participated!

July drive: We set out to remove August, September, October, and November 2016 from the backlog and to complete all May and June 2017 Requests (a total of 242 articles). The drive was an enormous success, and the target was nearly achieved within three weeks, so that December 2016 was added to the "old articles" list used as a goal for the drive. By the end of the month, only three articles from 2016 remained, and for the second drive in a row, the backlog was reduced to a new all-time low, this time to 1,363 articles. Of the 33 who signed up, 21 editors completed 337 articles (556,482 words).

August blitz: This one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 20 through 26 August; the theme was biographical articles tagged for copy editing for more than six months (47 articles). Of the 13 who signed up, 11 editors completed 38 copy edits (42,589 words).

September drive: The goals were to remove January, February, and March 2017 from the backlog and to complete all August 2017 Requests (a total of 338 articles). Of the 19 who signed up, 14 editors completed 121 copy edits (267,227 words).

October blitz: This one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 22 through 28 October; the theme was Requests. Of the 14 who signed up, 8 editors completed 20 articles (55,642 words).

November drive: We set out again to remove January, February, and March 2017 from the backlog and to complete all October 2017 Requests (a total of 207 articles). By the end of the month, these goals were reached and the backlog shrank to its lowest total ever, 997 articles, the first time it had fallen under one thousand (click on the graph above to see this amazing feat in graphical form). It was also the first time that the oldest copy-edit tag was less than eight months old. Of the 25 who signed up, 16 editors completed 159 articles (285,929 words).

2018 Coordinator elections: Voting is open for the election of coordinators for the first half of 2018. Please visit the election page to vote between now and December 31 at 23:59 (UTC). Thanks for participating!

Housekeeping note: We do not send a newsletter before (or after) every drive or blitz. To have a better chance of knowing when the next event will start, add the GOCE's message box to your watchlist.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Jonesey95, Miniapolis, Corinne, Tdslk, and Keira1996.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:04, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 16 January 2018

[edit]
Two new WMF Communications department leadership appointments; a new way for Wikimedia communities to communicate their capacities.
Wikipedia manipulated and copied – again
Historical and pop culture articles promoted.
How do you make an average of 3,600 edits a week for over a decade? And what do you learn when you've done it?
Plus the latest technology upgrades, tools and news.
Notable missing articles.
In deciding to de-sysop an admin for efforts to evade discussion and review of paid edits made on behalf of a PR firm, Arbitration Committee doesn't significantly change the rules around paid editing, and leaves it up to the community whether to apply special restrictions to administrators.
A look back at the most popular articles in a tumultuous and intriguing year.

Books and Bytes - Issue 26

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 26, December – January 2018

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: What can we glean from OCLC’s experience with library staff learning Wikipedia?
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 5 February 2018

[edit]
Should an editor's block history be a permanent "rap sheet", or does Wikipedia forgive and forget? A reform initiative has begun.
Exemplary content recognized between January 12 and January 20, 2018
Also: Polish quality, Russian political mythologization, and multilingual analyses
The Wikimedia Foundation's Analytics team compiles a clickstream dataset, now available as a series of monthly data dumps for English, Russian, German, Spanish, and Japanese Wikipedias.
Lessons on Creating a Featured List
The most popular articles for January 14 to 27
A partnership to improve and update Wikipedia's medical content
Politeness and collegial behavior about to be taken up by Arbcom, and perhaps a revisit of the infobox question.
Also, did UCF really win?
Enjoy the humour of another contributor

The Signpost: 20 February 2018

[edit]
Sweden selected for Wikimania 2019; research report on shaping the future; a scarcity of RfAs.
There might be good things about an edit war.
Editor in self-imposed exile and infobox wars a thorn in the side of arbitration committee.
The Superbowl, the Winter Olympics, death, and accusations of unspeakable things.
An eclectic mix of promotions.
And other recent tech news.
Stubs get a lot of pageviews.

GOCE February 2018 news

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors February 2018 News

Welcome to the February 2018 GOCE newsletter in which you will find Guild updates since the December edition. We got to a great start for the year, holding the backlog at nine months. 100 requests were submitted in the first 6 weeks of the year and were swiftly handled with an average completion time of 9 days.

Coordinator elections: In December, coordinators for the first half of 2018 were elected. Jonesey95 remained as lead coordinator and Corrine, Miniapolis and Tdslk as assistant coordinators. Keira1996 stepped down as assistant coordinator and was replaced by Reidgreg. Thanks to all who participated!

End of year reports were prepared for 2016 and 2017, providing a detailed look at the Guild's long-term progress.

January drive: We set out to remove April, May, and June 2017 from our backlog and all December 2017 Requests (a total of 275 articles). As with previous years, the January drive was an outstanding success and by the end of the month all but 57 of these articles were cleared. Officially, of the 38 who signed up, 21 editors recorded 259 copy edits (490,256 words).

February blitz: This one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 11 through 17 February, focusing on Requests and the last articles tagged in May 2017. At the end of the week there were only 14 pending requests, with none older than 20 days. Of the 11 who signed up, 10 editors completed 35 copy edits (98,538 words).

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Jonesey95, Miniapolis, Corinne, Tdslk, and Reidgreg.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:00, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Signpost issue 4 – 29 March 2018

[edit]
Is The Signpost on its last legs?
Wikimedia events, group recognition, and individual appointments are ongoing.
Arbcom considers new discretionary sanctions for infoboxes and an extension of 1RR.
Diplomats join Wikipedia for International Women's Day, the perfect "Human", how fringe theories are sustained, and perennial plagiarism from our pages.
Wakanda still fascinates; the Oscars happened; Winter Olympics come to a close; and International Women's Day gets over a million page views.
A plethora of content.
Reviewing a browser skin providing equal emphasis on both content and editing tools simultaneously.
Retrospective on article creation trial.
Nostalgia and trips down Memory Lane.

Books & Bytes - Issue 27

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 27, February – March 2018

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • New collections
    • Alexander Street (expansion)
    • Cambridge University Press (expansion)
  • User Group
  • Global branches update
    • Wiki Indaba Wikipedia + Library Discussions
  • Spotlight: Using librarianship to create a more equitable internet: LGBTQ+ advocacy as a wiki-librarian
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Chinese and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:50, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 26 April 2018

[edit]
Following Kudpung's op-ed "Death knell sounding for The Signpost?" in the 29 March issue, user comments encouraged a burst of enthusiasm to keep the newspaper in print.
How to revive and evolve The Signpost? Big blue-sky proposals and small concrete proposals from the community and from two regular Signpost contributors.
Finally a free image Kim Jong-un. WMF wins legal battle. Stephen Hawking death tops all Wikipedia hits.
Internet companies use Wikipedia to police truth; Citogenesis proven yet again; early birthday greetings; and trains
A recent Community Health Initiative survey found only 27% of respondents are happy with the way reports of conflicts between Editors are handled on the Administrators' Incident Noticeboard (ANI).
New major editing policy starting immediately: creation of articles in mainspace is to be limited to users with confirmed accounts
The standards have been raised for sources used in judging the notability of nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
Wikipedia's myth of the clean Wehrmacht and what you can do about it. Or, how not to be one of "the worst distributors of pro-Nazi perspectives and the Wehrmacht myth".
Can Wikipedia mobilize the same energy to fill other gaps in coverage?
What should we do about Portals? Keep them, delete them, or mark them as historical? Or should they be more closely connected with their WikiProject(s)?
Quiet month for the Arbitration Committee
Combat, weapons, monuments and personalities.
What we learned about reader motivation from a recent research study
You might not get all excersized about essays but they can be as fun as talk pages
The most popular articles from March 25 to April 14.
Plus the latest tech news and userscripts.
Material promoted from March 2 through April 20.
Honoring a day in military history, as well as peaceful borders

Hi, dearest Jack, how are you? Me fine...

I've opened this short stub, and I ask some minute of your tine, please, to read and correct my mistakes. Just 3-4 minutes, please...

Grazie mille for your precious help!!!

Rei Momo (talk) 08:44, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

[edit]
A busy office with minimal staff.
Kudpung has some thoughts on the reasons for becalmed forums and the reluctance of candidates to (wo)man the rigging.
Thoughts on how looking for the truth on Wikipedia brings out unexpected things in the real world.
After a recent Village Pump discussion, the Signpost looks at WikiProject Portals.
A busy month for discussions on major topics.
Science, sportspeople, video games, and history feature heavily in the community's picks this month.
Has an attempt to prevent historical revisionism become a content battleground?
De-recognition of Brazil user groups; brute-force attack on Wikipedia; Wikimedia Conference 2018; and assorted other silly things.
And the burning question of the day, is the monkey selfie going to space with the rest of Wikipedia?
No surprises here as the summer movie season begins.
Improved mobile app, searching, citations, inline maps, voting, and more.
Editor SusunW delves into reasons why she has created hundreds of articles about women.
Too many women still don't know that Wikipedia is editable.
Down the rabbit hole into the realm of third-grade mind.
May 25 is National Wine Day in the United States.
The dark and twisted world of Wikipedia's most powerful media institution: The Signpost.

June 2018 GOCE newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors June 2018 News

Welcome to the June 2018 GOCE newsletter, in which you will find Guild updates since the February edition. Progress continues to be made on the copyediting backlog, which has been reduced to 7 months and reached a new all-time low. Requests continue to be handled efficiently this year, with 272 completed by the end of May (an average completion time of 10.5 days). Fewer than 10% of these waited longer than 20 days, and the longest wait time was 29 days.

Wikipedia in general, and the Guild in particular, experienced a deep loss with the death on 20 March of Corinne. Corinne (a GOCE coordinator since 1 July 2016) was a tireless aide on the requests page, and her peerless copyediting is a part of innumerable GAs and FAs. Her good cheer, courtesy and tact are very much missed.

March drive: The goal was to remove June, July and August 2017 from our backlog and all February 2018 Requests (a total of 219 articles). This drive was an outstanding success, and by the end of the month all but eight of these articles were cleared. Of the 33 editors who signed up, 19 recorded 277 copy edits (425,758 words).

April blitz: This one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 15 through 21 April, focusing on Requests and the last eight articles tagged in August 2017. At the end of the week there were only 17 pending requests, with none older than 17 days. Of the nine editors who signed up, eight editors completed 22 copy edits (62,412 words).

May drive: We set out to remove September, October and November 2017 from our backlog and all April 2018 Requests (a total of 298 articles). There was great success this month with the backlog more than halved from 1,449 articles at the beginning of the month to a record low of 716 articles. Officially, of the 20 who signed up, 15 editors recorded 151 copy edits (248,813 words).

Coordinator elections: It's election time again. Nominations for Guild coordinators (who will serve a six-month term for the second half of 2018) have begun, and will close at 23:59 UTC on 15 June. All Wikipedia editors in good standing are eligible, and self-nominations are encouraged. Voting will take place between 00:01 UTC on 16 June and 23:59 UTC on 30 June.

June blitz: Stay tuned for this one-week copy-editing blitz, which will take place in mid-June.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Corinne, Jonesey95, Miniapolis, Reidgreg and Tdslk.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 28

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 28, April – May 2018

  • #1Bib1Ref
  • New partners
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
    • Wikipedia Library global coordinators' meeting
  • Spotlight: What are the ten most cited sources on Wikipedia? Let's ask the data
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 June 2018

[edit]
A Wiki not so Simple, a mayor motivating an editathon, a Marshall Plan, and a Wikimania under a cloud of criticism
Further developments on New Page Review and Articles for Creation work sharing
Admins volunteer to be abused – or so it seems
So it shouldn't get credit for our work, either.
Major grants announced, a new milestone for Afrikaans Wikipedia, a new WMF technical engagement team, an effort to start up a new library, two new admins – or maybe three fewer depending on your math.
Several online battles are juxtaposed with stories about cooperation and good deeds, Arbcom hovering over it all; notwithstanding, a good action movie script is not necessarily found here.
Community discussions include style updates to project-wide icons and the main page, procedural questions on royal names and jettisoning unsuitable drafts, and deeper questions of compliance with European privacy laws and the perennial issue of shrinking admin corps.
Enjoy the superb content
British politics case enters workshop phase and German war effort closes workshop, goes to Arbcom for proposals.
Two celebrities hang themselves, and the FIFA World Cup is underway
An AI assistant comes to watchlists; better mobile compatibility; new bots, tools and scripts; and more
Colorful and moving.
WMF appeals to Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime, and Communications Ahmet Arslan to lift the block of all language versions of Wikipedia for over a year.
Studying ourselves: 'driven by a sense of mission' according to researchers.
In our next episode...
Some essays are funny, some are serious; some are just, well what exactly?
Revisiting an editor's warning to count our kidneys and keep the wolves at bay

The Signpost: 31 July 2018

[edit]

August GOCE newsletter

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors August 2018 Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the August 2018 GOCE newsletter. Thanks to everyone who participated in the Guild's June election; your new and returning coordinators are listed below. The next election will occur in December 2018; all Wikipedia editors in good standing may take part.

Our June blitz focused on Requests and articles tagged for copy edit in October 2017. Of the eleven people who signed up, eight editors recorded a total of 28 copy edits, including 3 articles of more than 10,000 words. Complete results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the July drive. Of the seventeen people who signed up, thirteen editors completed 194 copy edits, successfully removing all articles tagged in the last three months of 2017. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are here.

The August blitz will run for one week, from 19 to 25 August. Sign up now!

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators, Template:Noping, Template:Noping, Template:Noping, Template:Noping and Template:Noping.

Template:Center

Template:Center

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:25, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 29

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 29, June – July 2018

Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 August 2018

[edit]

The Signpost: 1 October 2018

[edit]

Books & Bytes, Issue 30

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 30, August – Septmeber 2018

  • Library Card translation
  • Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and beyond
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:43, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 October 2018

[edit]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

[edit]

Template:Ivmbox

The Signpost: 1 December 2018

[edit]

December 2018 GOCE newsletter

[edit]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Newsletters/December 2018MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Really?

[edit]

Hallo, dearest Jack Greenmaven, so sad new you are giving to me.

What can I do foy uou?

Sincerely

Rei Momo (talk) 08:08, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes, Issue 31

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 31, October – Novemeber 2018

  • OAWiki
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 December 2018

[edit]

Hi, dearest Jack, and Merry delay Christmas!!!

I opened this little page now, and I ask you 4 minutes of your time, please, to read it and correct the mistakes of my poor English.

Thanks a lot for your precious help, and see you soon!!!

Sincerely

Rei Momo (talk) 17:27, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 January 2019

[edit]

GOCE 2018 Annual Report

[edit]
Guild of Copy Editors 2018 Annual Report

Our 2018 Annual Report is now ready for review.

Highlights:

  • Overview of Backlog-reduction progress;
  • Summary of Drives, Blitzes, and the Requests page;
  • Membership news and results of elections;
  • Annual leaderboard;
  • Plans for 2019.
– Your project coordinators: Template:Noping.

Template:Center


MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:30, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes, Issue 32

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 32, January – February 2019

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • New and expanded partners
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:29, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 February 2019

[edit]

The Signpost: 31 March 2019

[edit]

The Signpost: 30 April 2019

[edit]

Books & Bytes, Issue 33

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 33, March – April 2019

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:41, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 May 2019

[edit]

The June 2019 Signpost is out!

[edit]

Books & Bytes Issue 34, May – June 2019

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 34, May – June 2019

  • Partnerships
  • #1Lib1Ref
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:20, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 July 2019

[edit]

The Signpost: 30 August 2019

[edit]

Books & Bytes – Issue 35, July – August 2019

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 35, July – August 2019

  • Wikimania
  • We're building something great, but..
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • A Wikibrarian's story
  • Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 September 2019

[edit]

The Signpost: 31 October 2019

[edit]

Books & Bytes – Issue 36

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 36, September – October 2019

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 November 2019

[edit]

The Signpost: 27 December 2019

[edit]

The Signpost: 27 January 2020

[edit]

Books & Bytes – Issue 37

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 37, November – December 2019

Read the full newsletter

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:10, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My edits

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Greetings! Thanks for your message. My edits were just for accuracy. I appreciate the time you've taken to review it all, best, ---- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barskyrf (talkcontribs) 00:29, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 March 2020

[edit]

The Signpost: 29 March 2020

[edit]

The Signpost: 26 April 2020

[edit]

Issue 38, January – April 2020

[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 38, January – April 2020

  • New partnership
  • Global roundup

Read the full newsletter

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --15:57, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 May 2020

[edit]

Missing

[edit]

Hi. You are now listed as missing. Should you ever return or choose not to be listed, you are welcome to remove your name. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:49, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notice

The article International charter for walking has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

article does not meet notability standards, most sources link back to the website of the article subject

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the Template:Tlc notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing Template:Tlc will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion.

This is an automated notification. Please refer to the page's history for further information. DatBot (talk) 00:30, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of International charter for walking for deletion

[edit]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article International charter for walking, to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

The discussion will take place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International charter for walking until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

To customise your preferences for automated AfD notifications for articles to which you've significantly contributed (or to opt-out entirely), please visit the configuration page. Delivered by SDZeroBot (talk) 01:01, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]