User talk:RoySmith

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Earth Day 2022 Edit-a-thon - April 22nd - 2PM EST

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You're invited! NYC Earth Day 2022 Edit-a-thon! April 22nd!

Sure We Can and the Environment of New York City Task Force invite you to join us for:

This Edit-a-Thon is part of a larger Earth Day celebration, hosted by Brooklyn based recycling and community center Sure We Can, that runs from 1PM-7PM and is open to the public! See this flyer for more information: https://www.instagram.com/p/CcGr4FyuqEa/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

-- Environment of New York City Task Force

How adverse is DYK...

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Moved to Template:Did you know nominations/David Yong

TFA

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story · music · places

Thank you today for Margaret Sibella Brown, "about a self-taught woman scientist in the late 19th and early 20th century, when it was rare for women to enter the scientific world. Raised in a wealthy society family in a small Nova Scotia mining town, Margaret Sibella Brown turned what had been a young girl's hobby into a serious scientific endevour, making significant contributions to the academic literature in Bryology (the study of mosses and liverworts)."! -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:08, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seconding Gerda here and adding that you did great work on the article and I'm quite pleased to see this botanist's work recognized. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 16:07, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Frischmuth is one of the leading Austrian writers, her specialty being openness to other cultures. Bad enough that nothing of that shows in the little specific pet detail of the reviewers. Please restore "Austrian novelist", - about the minimum we can offer in memory of a legendary writer. I'd like to interest readers interested in literature, not only the few interested in Biocentrism (ethics). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:14, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Over the past few days, I've invoked WP:DYKTRIM 14 times. You are the only one who objected. Why is that? Please read what @Narutolovehinata5 wrote in Special:Diff/1286452724 and try to take some of that on board. You are very prolific and you write well. That's all good, but relentlessly rejecting almost every bit of constructive criticism people give you is just plain disrespectful of your fellow editors. RoySmith (talk) 17:03, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My choice is to be respectful to the subject, not some reviewers. Here we have one of the greatest Austrian writers, and the hook addresses only a minority. I have explained again how miserable and ashamed I feel when that happens to my subject, but worse than my feelings is that their contributions to mankind are ignored. For three years now, I have tried to avoid DYK entirely. When a chance like this comes - 5 times expansion - I can't resist to say something related to the core of the subject. I should learn. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:25, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I actually agree that saying she was a novelist doesn't harm the hook and I think it would be better to at least include "novelist" if "Austrian novelist" is too long. I would put it back myself but I was involved in the nomination so I will let RoySmith decide. @Gerda Arendt: Having said that, RoySmith has a point here. You need to be open to feedback from other editors, even if said feedback opposes your wishes. Other editors mean well. In fact, they genuinely want to help you and see giving you advice and feedback not as putting down your subjects and their accomplishments, but rather helping to make sure that even more people read and learn about them. Highlighting "hooky" information about a person or subject is far from "disrespecting" them; in fact, it's a way to make people learn and respect. Isn't advertising them your goal? @RoySmith: If you don't mind, I think you can explain this particular point better than I can. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 21:45, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry to have a language problem. My goal is not to advertise a subject, nor to reach as many people as possible, but to inform about something that is special about the subject, trying to reach those readers who are interested in that specialty. For Frischmuth, openness to other cultures (Turkish and Hungarian) and writing not only novels but even trilogies of novels. None of that is in the trimmed hook. It has a tiny little bit of her broad thinking, about biocentrism, and I am afraid that readers not caring about that aspect will skip the hook. I wrote many articles this year that I didn't take to DYK, intentionally. I wanted to give this giant of literature a chance to be better known. Failed, it seems. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:58, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gerda Arendt: Are you saying you would rather have a niche hook that is interesting to or read by only a small number of readers, if it means highlighting the fact or facts most precious to you, than going with a hook with a much larger potential readership but has a fact you dislike? Because that sentiment (wanting a more niche hook than a more broadly-interesting one) is the total opposite of what WP:DYKINT states. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 22:33, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry again for my English: I see the exact opposite. This biocentric lecture is the niche, and the open approach to other cultures and authoring monumental works is for a large number of readers. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:39, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gerda Arendt Apologies for not making it clear: I was asking in general and not specifically about Frischmuth's hook. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 22:42, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have one wish: stay with one article. Every subject is different, and I appreciate that. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:45, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A friend of mine sings here right now --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:10, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Today's main page has again memories of three people who died, for two just the name and for the third an image (great!) coupled with a little bit from her life which seems too little for my taste, as you know. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:00, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Recommended reading today: Christfried Schmidt, a story about patience. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:30, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Margot Friedländer, May Abrahamse (with uncertain licensing of portrait), and Vakhtang Machavariani (nominated) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:18, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

thank you for the FAC support - musings on 15 May --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:49, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

birthday of Erik Satie --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:03, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:Masthead of Soho Weekly News.jpeg listed for discussion

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Tech News: 2025-20

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

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  • The "Get shortened URL" link on the sidebar now includes a QR code. Wikimedia site users can now use it by scanning or downloading it to quickly share and access shared content from Wikimedia sites, conveniently.

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In depth

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Tech News: 2025-21

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Weekly highlight

  • The Editing Team and the Machine Learning Team are working on a new check for newcomers: Peacock check. Using a prediction model, this check will encourage editors to improve the tone of their edits, using artificial intelligence. We invite volunteers to review the first version of the Peacock language model for the following languages: Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Japanese. Users from these wikis interested in reviewing this model are invited to sign up at MediaWiki.org. The deadline to sign up is on May 23, which will be the start date of the test.

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  • Later this week, the Special:SpecialPages listing of almost all special pages will be updated with a new design. This page has been redesigned to improve the user experience in a few ways, including: The ability to search for names and aliases of the special pages, sorting, more visible marking of restricted special pages, and a more mobile-friendly look. The new version can be previewed at Beta Cluster now, and feedback shared in the task. [2]
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  • Gadgets and user scripts that interact with Special:Block may need to be updated to work with the new manage blocks interface. Please review the developer guide for more information. If you need help or are unable to adapt your script to the new interface, please let the team know on the talk page. [4]
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  • Advanced item User script developers can use a new reverse proxy tool to load javascript and css from gitlab.wikimedia.org with mw.loader.load. The tool's author hopes this will enable collaborative development workflows for user scripts including linting, unit tests, code generation, and code review on gitlab.wikimedia.org without a separate copy-and-paste step to publish scripts to a Wikimedia wiki for integration and acceptance testing. See Tool:Gitlab-content on Wikitech for more information.
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  • The 12th edition of Wiki Workshop 2025, a forum that brings together researchers that explore all aspects of Wikimedia projects, will be held virtually on 21-22 May. Researchers can register now.

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:10, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]