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October's Featured Text at Wikisource by Adrianne Wadewitz

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An article by Adrianne Wadewitz (User:Wadewitz) is the current Featured Text for October at Wikisource.

See s:Main Page and s:Wikipedia is pushing the boundaries of scholarly practice but the gender gap must be addressed.

Might be worth mentioning in The Signpost, with a brief discussion of her views about Gender bias on Wikipedia.

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 14:24, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice, Cirt! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:10, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
You're most welcome, — Cirt (talk) 23:50, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
On a related note, Portal:Children's literature has been successfully promoted to Featured Portal quality. This was a collaborative Quality improvement project between myself and User:Wadewitz. Could be worth a mention and/or a combined mention with above. — Cirt (talk) 16:52, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

You've got mail

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Hello. Please check your email; you've got mail! The subject is Adam Matthew account signup.
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

HazelAB (talk) 20:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Hazel! I've filled out the Gform. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

FC for this week

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I do hate to do this, but after the latest Wikicup incident, I need a short Wikibreak. >Email me if you're desperate but I need some time off Wikipedia, and am taking it unless I hear otherwise. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:21, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

In recognition of your sterling service

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 The WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves 
On behalf of the coordinators of the Military History Wikiproject I am very pleased to present you with the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves, in recognition of your sterling service to our WikiProject over many years. This includes almost six years as a Coordinator (November 2008 to September 2014), your co-editorship of the Bugle newsletter (November 2010 to September 2012) during which time you helped put in place the format still in use today (and went on to edit the Wikipedia Signpost), and your participation in writing an amazing 25 Featured Articles. You were also a co-recipient of the Majestic Titans Oak Leaves recently but, owing to your continuous service as a coordinator till now, this is your first individual award, and it is long overdue! Ed, you are, quite simply, a MilHist institution. Thanks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:48, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
I ... wow. Thank you, Ian and all of the Milhist coordinators, for the extremely kind words. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:12, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2014

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Followup on plagiarism?

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Hi Ed, you have an article on plagiarism IN the Wikipedia this week. We had a session at WikiCon2014 in Cologne last Friday on plagiarism FROM the Wikipedia. There are three books that were published by reputable German publishers that had to be removed from the market this year because of plagiarism from the Wikipedia. Shall I write something about that for the Signpost? --WiseWoman (talk) 09:06, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

You have an email! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:07, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Umbrella Revolution

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My draft article is here in my userspace User:Deryck Chan/Umbrella. I'm still working on it; just dropping a line to let you know it's in progress! And just like any wikipage, edit and comment as you see fit so that it'll make a good Signpost article. Deryck C. 16:02, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The article is now finished. Please edit and use on the Signpost as you see fit! Deryck C. 21:49, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Hey Deryck Chan, do you think you could format the external links as references? You should also not be afraid to add images and additional text (if you want more detail). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:07, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 8

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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)

Tech report

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Hey Ed,

I've written up a tech report for this week's tech report about the upcoming HHVM deployment. It's mostly done, but we'd like to add an interview with Tim Starling to it as well, so if it's publishing time before the tech report is finished (I'll leave a note here once it's done), could you bump it to next week?

Thanks, Legoktm (talk) 23:36, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Hey Legoktm, thanks for letting me know. Given the tone of the report, I'll have to mark it with a short disclaimer about your employment with the WMF -- I hope that's alright! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:04, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Ok, finished! And yes, that's totally reasonable, feel free to edit the disclaimer we added in case it's not sufficient. Legoktm (talk) 06:08, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—September and October 2014

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Did you know?

TemplateData is a separate program that organizes information about the parameters that can be used in a template. VisualEditor reads that data, and uses it to populate its simplified template dialogs.

With the new TemplateData editor, it is easier to add information about parameters, because the ones you need to use are pre-loaded.

See the help page for TemplateData for more information about adding TemplateData. The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing team has reduced technical debt, simplified some workflows for template and citation editing, made major progress on Internet Explorer support, and fixed over 125 bugs and requests. Several performance improvements were made, especially to the system around re-using references and reference lists. Weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org.

There were three issues that required urgent fixes: a deployment error that meant that many buttons didn't work correctly (bugs 69856 and 69864), a problem with edit conflicts that left the editor with nowhere to go (bug 69150), and a problem in Internet Explorer 11 that caused replaced some categories with a link to the system message, MediaWiki:Badtitletext (bug 70894) when you saved. The developers apologize for the disruption, and thank the people who reported these problems quickly.

Increased support for devices and browsers

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Internet Explorer 10 and 11 users now have access to VisualEditor. This means that about 5% of Wikimedia's users will now get an "Edit" tab alongside the existing "Edit source" tab. Support for Internet Explorer 9 is planned for the future.

Tablet users browsing the site's mobile mode now have the option of using a mobile-specific form of VisualEditor. More editing tools, and availability of VisualEditor on smartphones, is planned for the future. The mobile version of VisualEditor was tweaked to show the context menu for citations instead of basic references (bug 68897). A bug that broke the editor in iOS was corrected and released early (bug 68949). For mobile tablet users, three bugs related to scrolling were fixed (bug 66697, bug 68828, bug 69630). You can use VisualEditor on the mobile version of Wikipedia from your tablet by clicking on the cog in the top-right when editing a page and choosing which editor to use.

TemplateData editor

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A tool for editing TemplateData will be deployed to more Wikipedias soon. Other Wikipedias and some other projects may receive access next month. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation. When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top. Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

Other changes

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Several interface messages and labels were changed to be simpler, clearer, or shorter, based on feedback from translators and editors. The formatting of dialogs was changed, and more changes to the appearance will be coming soon, when VisualEditor implements the new MediaWiki theme from Design. (A preview of the theme is available on Labs for developers.) The team also made some improvements for users of the Monobook skin that improved the size of text in toolbars and fixed selections that overlapped menus.

VisualEditor-MediaWiki now supplies the mw-redirect or mw-disambig class on links to redirects and disambiguation pages, so that user gadgets that colour in these in types of links can be created.

Templates' fields can be marked as 'required' in TemplateData. If a parameter is marked as required, then you cannot delete that field when you add a new template or edit an existing one (bug 60358).

Language support improved by making annotations use bi-directional isolation (so they display correctly with cursoring behaviour as expected) and by fixing a bug that crashed VisualEditor when trying to edit a page with a dir attribute but no lang set (bug 69955).

Looking ahead

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The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon, perhaps in late October.

The team is also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables, and early work for this may appear within the month. Please comment on the design at Mediawiki.org.

In the future, real-time collaborative editing may be possible in VisualEditor. Some early preparatory work for this was recently done.

Supporting your wiki

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At Wikimania, several developers gave presentations about VisualEditor. A translation sprint focused on improving access to VisualEditor was supported by many people. Deryck Chan was the top translator. Special honors also go to संजीव कुमार (Sanjeev Kumar), Robby, Takot, Bachounda, Bjankuloski06 and Ата. A summary of the work achieved by the translation community has been posted here. Thank you all for your work.

VisualEditor can be made available to most non-Wikipedia projects. If your community would like to test VisualEditor, please contact product manager James Forrester or file an enhancement request in Bugzilla.

Please join the office hours on Saturday, 18 October 2014 at 18:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas; evening for Africa and Europe) and on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC on IRC.

Give feedback on VisualEditor at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta. To help with translations, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre at Meta. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:11, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 October 2014

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This Month in GLAM: September 2014

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Headlines
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 17:31, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Help a user

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Hi Ed, since you seem to be friendly and experienced, could you perhaps help Sprinkler Court edit their userpage to make their COI disclosure "just right", neither too much nor too little. I think it would also help if they created a boundary and made it clear what articles they won't edit. For instance, they could refrain from editing articles about current campaigns their employer is involved in. I don't want to dictate what the boundary should be; it's better if the editor comes up with something on their own because they know their situation. If they aren't engaged in paid editing they should make that clear too. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 05:19, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Still looking for a reason you blocked. Evidence of paid advocacy, I'm behind you 100%. Paid editing, on the other hand, is in a grey area. As much as I and other editors would like a tightened paid advocacy policy, it does not, at this time, dictate that paid editors create a boundary and everything else you're wishing for. I have no dog in this fight, but would like to see the rules applied fairly going both ways. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:26, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Please look over the user's contribution history (only a few dozen edits) and tell me what your general sense is of the edits. How many of them are still live, versus how many were reverted or were suggested changes that were rejected. Jehochman Talk 14:40, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
That's not really the point, but Kevin's already made it on SC's talk page. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:57, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

British Library Map room "tag-a-thon"

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The Commons is planning to launch a "tag-a-thon" at the BL on Halloween; searching a million Flikr images for maps, and tagging them for use in the Commons. But they need volunteers, so my meet-up asked me to ask you if the Signpost could run a short notice about it. Of course, it would have to appear in the days leading up to Oct 31, and given the Signpost's unique approach to punctuality, that's hard to guarantee, so I'm not sure if it would work. Still, thought you should know. Serendipodous 14:11, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

@Serendipodous: We can run it in next week's issue. Can you send me a reminder to make sure I don't have a brain fart? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:57, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

GOCE October 2014 newsletter

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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) 00:17, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Third Reserve Army of Observation

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Feel free to weigh in/set me straight here. Drmies (talk) 03:45, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

This is definitely something Auntieruth55 can help with (pinged). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 11:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks Ed, and please thank your aunt for me. I hope she brings crumpets to the discussion. Drmies (talk) 14:20, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I brought crumpets, but no one was there so I ate them myself. If you find some crumbs about, that just means that Hoover-the-dog did not clean up well. As for the article, it needs a lot of clean up. I left comments, but definitely think it should be kept until the master articles are cleaned up. Then it will remain to be seen what needs to happen to this bit. auntieruth (talk) 19:34, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 October 2014

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Republic of Georgia (1861)

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I started Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Republic of Georgia (1861). It's my first attempt at an AfD. I flagged he page and notified the most recent advocate. Please review. Thanks.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 15:14, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@Gaarmyvet: This may be something more suited for WP:RM? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:45, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm a resident (but not a native) of Georgia and I had never heard the term. I'd rather see if others come up with a redirect sentiment as at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Republic of Louisiana.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 22:20, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Certification request

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Please consider certifying Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DangerousPanda-EatsShootsAndLeaves NE Ent 16:19, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Hey NE Ent, I'm not comfortable giving an explicit call for the revocation of his administrator rights. I'd also ask to change the name of the RfC, mentioning his previous username only when absolutely necessary. I went back and redacted my use of it once he told me about the serious RL concerns. I've received threats before; it's not comfortable. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:45, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
I've renamed the RFC. NE Ent 20:27, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CIII, October 2014

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Full front page of The Bugle
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 14:32, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CIII, October 2014, Redux

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Full front page of The Bugle
Your Military History Newsletter

NOTE: This replaces the earlier October 2014 Bugle message, which had incorrect links -- please ignore/delete the previous message. Thank uou!

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 01:52, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't get it

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why you think this was an improvement? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:52, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

We've used the 90% for years without complaint. There's no need to alter it after one person takes it upon themselves to combine templates and shed features. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:10, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
Here's a second person who would think keep simple. No need, of course. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:21, 20 October 2014 (UTC)


Let's play spot-the-difference:

Temaplte:BQ (with "style=font-size:90%"):
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Template:Quote:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

<blockquote><span style="font-size:90%;">:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

As can be seen from the above, there are absolutely no style differences between the first two, while the latter has slightly smaller text. In other words, all you have done is to unnecessarily expose raw style markup to editors, and make text less readable. *applause*. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:56, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Haven't forgotten about this, just short on time. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:53, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I opened up my TCMOS and looked up the relevant clause on blockquote formatting. It allows for simple paragraphing, so while I'd prefer the slightly smaller font to distinguish this from the rest of the text, I don't have enough on-wiki time to fight about it. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:31, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

South American Dreadnought Race

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The Epic Barnstar
For all your fine work on the South American dreadnought race. Great job!  NQ  talk 07:47, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, NQ! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:53, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Template ill

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{{ill}} is a wonderful template to establish a topics notability in a different language, with direct access to that article, at the same time inviting to create an article in English (by showing a red link), - the two names can be different. Once the English article is there, the result looks like a normal link. Use generously! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:59, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I fixed the template. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:53, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2014

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Signpost suggestion

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Hello. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Jheald (talk) 16:19, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

HMS Formidable FAC

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I've responded to your comments on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/HMS Formidable (67)/archive1. I'd be obliged if you could see if they're to your satisfaction.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:28, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Michigan counties

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Is it accurate to say that each county of Michigan is on precisely one of the 2 peninsulas (Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Lower Peninsula of Michigan - that is, each county includes land on one of them, and nothing on the other? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:41, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Od Mishehu, you are correct. Confusion could possibly come from the in/exclusion of Mackinac and Beaver Islands? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:02, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Mackinac Island belongs to the Upper Peninsula county of Mackinac, and Beaver Island is part of Charlevoix County in the Lower Peninsula, so there are no problems there for me. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:11, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
@Od Mishehu: ah, I assumed it was someone else who had been confused. Please let me know if I can help with anything else! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:37, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
In case you want to know why I asked, see the split of Category:Michigan geography stubs I'm workking on. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:46, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Halloween cheer!

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Happy Halloween!

Hello The ed17:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    – The Herald 12:12, 27 October 2014 (UTC)



Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

WW2 Debate

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This is not the right way to go about making a major change like this. I there is a consistent effort to try and sanitize the article… in the end it will sound something like this:

Britain and France declared war on Germany... to avoid a war on two fronts, Germany had to invaded the Soviet Union to knock it out, before it allied itself with the Western Powers. Then, Japan was forced to bombed Pearl Harbor, because it was allies with Germany, and it was obvious that the US was preparing to go to war anyway alongside Britain. The Western Allies went on a counter-offensive, and bombed all our cities… wah, wah, wah… etc. etc. Germany and Japan were so unfairly mistreated, and suffered so much because of American bombing

Because when you remove mention of all the small countries that were attacked by Germany and Japan first, then you are missing a key piece of information, that those two countries were the aggressors first! --E-960 (talk) 19:17, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Parsecboy and Irondome have already adequately replied to this on the WWII talk page. I think it's pretty blindingly obvious that this isn't a slippery slope to shortening the article in such drastic fashion. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:31, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment: WWII infobox

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Hi Ed, regarding your comment at the top of this RfC, I'm pretty sure that the infobox didn't include 45 countries from 2010 onwards: heaps of small countries were added a few months ago. My memory was that the consensus was to limit this to the major powers. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 08:04, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

It's been longer than that, eg 2012, 2011, even 2010, although it hasn't been a full 45 countries. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:34, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Ed - my memory was wrong (I used to follow and participate in the debates on the infobox template's talk page, but gave up on it several years ago as the arguments over who should be in and out, and in what order, are all so dumb) Nick-D (talk) 04:09, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Signpost

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Can you please publish immediately? The FC has a Hallowe'en theme in part, and will need to be rewritten if it's not out soon. Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:56, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:38, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

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Have a phantastic holiday! —Neotarf (talk) 16:06, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2014

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