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The Signpost: 29 April 2015

Wikimedia Highlights from March 2015

Here are the highlights from the Wikimedia blog in March 2015.
About · Subscribe/unsubscribe, 01:33, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 May newsletter

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) is a long-period comet discovered on 17 August 2014 by Terry Lovejoy; and is one of several Featured Pictures worked up by India The Herald (submissions) during the second round.

The second round one has all wrapped up, and round three has now begun! Congratulations to the 34 contestants who have made it through, but well done and thank you to all contestants who took part in our second round. Leading the way overall was Belarus Cas Liber (submissions) in Group B with a total of 777 points for a variety of contributions including Good Articles on Corona Borealis and Microscopium - both of which received the maximum bonus.

Special credit must be given to a number of high importance articles improved during the second round.

The points varied across groups, with the lowest score required to gain automatic qualification was 68 in Group A - meanwhile the second place score in Group H was 404, which would have been high enough to win all but one of the other Groups! As well as the top two of each group automatically going through to the third round, a minimum score of 55 was required for a wildcard competitor to go through. We had a three-way tie at 55 points and all three have qualified for the next round, in the spirit of fairness. The third round ends on June 28, with the top two in each group progressing automatically while the remaining 16 highest scorers across all four groups go through as wildcards. Good luck to all competitors for the third round! Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), Miyagawa (talk · contribs · email) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) 16:48, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 11

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) 23:33, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 May 2015

New question raised regarding Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/April 2015 move request

Some opposers of this move have now contended that there is a "Critical fault in proposal evidence", which brings the opinions expressed into question. Please indicate if this assertion in any way affects your position with respect to the proposed move. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:36, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Closure of Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Dan_Fredinburg

Hi Ed, I saw your closure as no consensus at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Dan_Fredinburg. I wasn't sure if you had noticed that the AfD actually hasn't been relisted once yet. Would you consider re-opening and relisting, maybe get some new opinions from editors that haven't spoken yet? Thanks ― Padenton|✉   18:11, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, but I read the discussion as no consensus/keep. Many of the arguments for deletion are based on the idea that he wasn't notable until he died, but the keeps persuasively counter that obituaries in major newspapers pass the GNG threshold. Like I said in my closing statement (which I'll clarify now), we need to come to a consensus on how obituaries should be treated in notability discussions. Until then, we're going to find it difficult to delete these sorts of articles (e.g. Wadewitz). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:42, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: April 2015



Headlines
Read this edition in full • Single-page

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

Wikimedia Highlights from April 2015

Here are the highlights from the Wikimedia blog in April 2015.
About · Subscribe/unsubscribe, 01:24, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 May 2015

Signpost feature retitle

I've reverted your change for 3 reasons: (1) Not all of the extreme changes seen in article counts were drops. (2) There are actually two days the article talks about on which articles were recounted (10 May 2012 and 29 March 2015). (3) Ultimately, the article is about much more than just those two events. - dcljr (talk) 16:06, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

@Dcljr: That's fine, but can we come up with something more interesting than "a short history ..."? It sounds more like a book and less like something I'd want to click on. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:05, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
Hmm. OK, how 'bout something like one of these:
  • The awful truth about Wikimedia's article counts
  • Can Wikimedia's article counts be counted on?
Note that "Wikimedia's" may be replaced by "MediaWiki's" and still be "appropriate" (since the article is largely about how articles are counted by the software), but I'd stick with the former term since the recounting issue only applies to Wikimedia's content wikis. - dcljr (talk) 00:16, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Dcljr: I like the first one. It's a bit click-baity, but not so much so that it goes overboard. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:28, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Or even "The truth about ...", if you want it to be less amplified? Some might quibble that the truth is a blurred thing at the best of times. The second one falls a little flat, but if you could milk the "count" repetition more like: "Counting on article counts"? Tony (talk) 10:28, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
The "awful" part was supposed to be somewhat ironic, of course — although, to many people, the idea that the reported article counts have been so wrong for so long is pretty awful. OTOH, a plain "The truth" might come off as an attempt to make the account seem more "authoritative" than it really is. As for other "count" based possibilities, how 'bout: "Can Wikimedia count on MediaWiki's article counts?" - dcljr (talk) 00:01, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
(Actually, "A short history of…" was also supposed to have an ironic tinge to it, come to think of it. - dcljr (talk) 00:09, 19 May 2015 (UTC))

Adam Matthew account check-in

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Thank you, Wikipedia Library Adam Matthew account coordinator HazelAB (talk) 16:09, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CX, May 2015

Full front page of The Bugle
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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) 23:04, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 May 2015

Hello from Ling

HI, I used to be Ling.Nut. You left a message on my talk page a long time ago. At that time, I said I wasn't back. I guess I'm back now. Happy editing. Tks • Arch♦Reader 12:26, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

@ArchReader: Took you long enough. I'm glad to see that you're back in the game. Let me know if I can help you anywhere! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:16, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Au contraire. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you (note new username). • Lingzhi♦(talk) 13:43, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Concern about SP

  • Ed, I'm concerned about this. It's only serving to further fan the flames, and (IMHO) makes the Signpost look bad. Haf was right about the attribution issue, and Pilot's tendency for copyvio (check his deleted page history if necessary), but since in the course of the dispute both sides have said some very hurtful things, there have been no efforts to reach out and put the past behind us. Continuing the dispute by refusing to link the editor's name, then reverting when it's done, cannot be good for the encyclopedia or editor relations. If someone were to reach out to Haf, maybe apologize, I'm sure they'd be willing to remove content the Signpost editors consider objectionable.
Anyways, for now I've unsubscribed myself from the Post. It was a fun few years, and a lot of the changes have been for the better, but I feel alienated by the way things are managed now. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:59, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
Chris, we've done quite a bit of reaching out to Hafs. All have been rejected or dodged. I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly have no plans to apologize, and I'd much rather that Haf and their accompanying drama stays far away from FC. Links aren't within my purview (remember, I'm not the editor anymore!). I do hope that you'll reconsider and come back to the SP at some point; you know that I consider you a friend, and working with you is always a pleasure. Yours, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:16, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • I know you're not the editor anymore, but I also know that you would not let personal feelings interfere with running the Signpost. The diff I linked above, however... it's concerning. At the very least it would be nice if nobody stirred the pot anymore. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 05:39, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • On another matter, I don't know what the connection is between WP and Wikiwand, but it appears that articles that have been deleted for BLP violations are still visible on Wikiwand (at least in one instance). Maybe there's an article in that? (sorry, I mean a 'news' article!) Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 07:35, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • @Crisco, to my knowledge, it's not a personal vendetta. Gamaliel doesn't feel that it's acceptable to link to a user whose talk page hosts attacks on SP contributors.
  • You may be right, but deleting a thread from a public forum in which one's actions are questioned is not necessarily a good sign. But I'll drop it for now... hopefully the issue won't repeat itself. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 15:47, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • You're welcome to restore it and we can pointlessly slug it out some more there if you think that is a productive use of our time. Gamaliel (talk) 15:53, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Or you can self-revert. Then, we can let it get archived, like most of the (many) disputes which have happened on the Signpost talk page. Much more transparent. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 16:11, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • @Xanth, Wikiwand and WP are two different things. :-p Wikiwand is a (quickly growing) app that takes WP text and makes it easier to read. I suspect that they just don't update their database every few minutes to check for deleted articles. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:07, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Ah, right. This talk page was updated on Wikiwand 17 May. The other page was deleted 21 days ago, but of course the update cycle may be longer, depending on the last edit made. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 09:03, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • A lot of the Wikipedia mirrors and whatnot take a while... some actually host all of the deleted pages, too. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 15:47, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@Crisco 1492: Ed tells me you are a reasonable person, so I am willing to hear your constructive concerns about "the way things are managed now". I don't feel that Go Phightins! and I have drastically changed the way the Signpost is run. We've tried to continue what Ed has achieved and he's been there every step of the way devoting a significant amount of time and effort to guide us after his "retirement". Ben and I are the most junior of a five-member editorial board consisting of Signpost veterans. We've made plenty of mistakes, but I don't think we've significantly changed the direction of the publication in any way.
The decision to remove the link was a collective one by the editorial board that we are currently reconsidering, though personally I am not willing to back off my conviction that we should not link to attacks made on current and former Signpost contributors, and we shouldn't make an exception to that because that contributor has been blocked for something or we personally think ill of them. This decision was not made in order to "fan the flames", though it has apparently inadvertently done so, but those flames were definitely fanned by your inappropriate and unfounded public accusations. It is disappointing and distressful to me that one former contributor's grudges continue to the subject of so much drama. It is even more disappointing and distressful that so many editors continue to unfoundedly assert that we have done nothing to attempt to resolve this situation and ignore the attacks on us by this editor and their friends while insisting that we apologize for being the targets of those attacks. As Ed has pointed out, we have reached out many times over the last several months and have been rebuffed every time. Gamaliel (talk) 15:49, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • First and foremost, the link itself does not go to any explicit "attacks" on the Signpost, or editors. Anything even remotely deemable as an "attack" is a click removed, on the user's talk page; negative remarks about the editor in question are likewise a click removed in the Signpost talk page archive, which remains prominently linked. I highly doubt anyone would wander across either side's comments; they'd have to be actively looking.
Second, you weren't being rebuffed; the media through which you offered to discuss the problems was a problem. I personally rejected using Skype back in April because a) I don't trust my internet/bandwidth enough for video/voice calls and b) the time zone is a problem (Indonesia is a damned ways away from Europe and the US, and any time which would be good for both Europe and the US would be the middle of the night for me). There's also the problem that Skype can be very buggy (my own personal experiences in 2007 led me to uninstall it forevermore), and the possibility that personal information can be revealed through the program. IRC, though more anonymous, is somewhat technical, and thus a challenge for certain users. On-wiki may have been best, but AFAIK on-wiki discussions were fairly limited in scope. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 16:11, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
As for the management: transparency. Pure and simple. Over a year and so of editing the SP, Ed never asked me to discuss Signpost problems offline. There were collaborations on stories (which I understand you use Google Docs for now; we used email), but nothing dealing with the internal administration of the publication. Ed's discussions with Tony and other editors, AFAIK, were generally on-wiki as well. A lack of transparency allows (though it doesn't necessarily lead to) a lack of accountability, which I think we can all agree that we don't want. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 16:16, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
These concerns were raised at the time. It didn't have to be Skype, we were open to alternate means of off-wiki communication, but were rebuffed. On-wiki was not going to happen because there was too much drama mongering and the discussion would be inevitably hijacked.
As for our regular off-wiki communication, this was a collective decision which included both Ed and Tony1. We have all found that real time communication makes the production of the Signpost more efficient and allows us to discuss sensitive issues, such as "does including this information in a story violate BLP?" Off-wiki communication between Signpost editors was already happening before Go Phightins! and I took the reins. Gamaliel (talk) 16:29, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • I find it questionable that other editors objections to what happened are being characterized as "drama mongering". Phil was trying to comment, contribute constructively, but she felt that her GF edits were being taken as drama mongering, and thus things escalated.
Had discussion of the issue been done on Wiki, there may have been ill feelings, but there wouldn't have been anyone feeling like (for instance) their requests for further discussion were being rebuffed, or their personal information was being sought. Discussion being on-wiki would have also allowed for greater transparency, which is something that we should value in such an open project as Wikipedia. After all, this wasn't a potential BLP issue. The straw that broke the camels back was an issue about how FC was being written, and the behavior of editors (on all sides). — Chris Woodrich (talk) 07:42, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
  • We have a very different view of that conversation. What I see is someone using the issue with Hafspajen as a pretext for attacking me on some other matter completely unrelated to Hafspajen. I feel that I made an attempt to address real issues with someone who was using the conversation as a platform for drama. No one was rebuffed, in fact they were repeatedly indulged even while they were conducting themselves inappropriately. No personal information was sought from anyone. I have no idea what the issues were with "how FC was being written" because no one has bothered to bring them up to anyone on the editorial board, instead preferring to indulge in drama and accusations. If there were problems with "how FC was being written", that should have been the first thing discussed, not silly drama about WP:AE requests and paranoia about us supposedly wanting personal information. There's nothing that we have done, then or now, to prevent anyone from raising issues about the writing of FC on or off wiki. Gamaliel (talk) 18:19, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
  • The individuals in question wanted to discuss things on-wiki (I would have, in the same position, as well). That this did not happen, and you have said repeatedly that you would not have allowed it to happen. The initial part of the April Fools conversation was civil enough – if someone feels like cultural differences are being ignored, that is something that can and should be discussed, especially on an international project. Subsequent responses were an issue, in part because of previous bad blood on the side of both editors.
I am concerned that you scoff at people's intent to prevent personal information from being revealed. It is not paranoia to want to protect yourself in this day and age, and revealing something as simple as one's age, gender, or sex may cause problems (all things which could conceivably be recorded by the software, even without permission). There are editors who are so concerned with not letting personal information out that, at Wikimania, people were wearing stickers saying they didn't want any pictures taken of them. Anonymity is fine on Wikipedia. I may not practice it, but many editors consider it important, and your duty as editor should be to respect such wishes. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 02:03, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
@Crisco, that was because you were doing FC virtually alone. Tony and I, along with a few others from time to time, did all of the NAN things off-wiki in Google Docs. :-) We also didn't have any non-Tony v. me problems that rose anywhere near to the level of this. Had this same thing happened back then, I would have taken it off-wiki as well—not just so that people could feel more comfortable in saying whatever they want, but because real-time communication makes it far easier to solve problems.
We normally use Skype for text chat, actually, and Tony's in Australia—we deal with time zones as well. ;-) The program's come a long way since 2007. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:39, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • NAN was more for keeping the publication a surprise, which is why I excluded "collaborations on stories" it in my comment. Issues between editors, however, were (AFAIR) on the talk page. Agree, nothing was this controversial, though for transparency's sake I'd have hoped it would have remained on-wiki.
As for time zones: you and Tony alone was both possible and easily workable, because there were only two time zones to consider. For this issue here, we'd have to strike a balance between Europe (UTC +0), the east coast of the US (UTC+5), the west coast of the US (UTC+8), and Indonesia (UTC-7). So if it were 11 p.m. in Indonesia, it would be 6 a.m. in Europe, 11 a.m. in the eastern United States, and 2 p.m. in the western United States. At 6 a.m. people are sleeping, at 11 a.m. a lot of people are at work, and me talking over a microphone at 11 p.m. would get me some grief from my family. If I were online at 8 a.m. (workable, since I start work at 10 usually), then it would be 3 p.m. in Europe and 8 p.m. in the eastern United States, and 11 p.m. in the Western United States, though again there are issues with work schedules, people having children to put to bed, etc. It would have been considerably more difficult than synching two time zones (though admittedly still possible), and if we took people's personal schedules into consideration, it would be fairly unpractical. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 07:36, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
It's obviously harder, but certainly not insurmountable for one meeting. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:37, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
The issues with FC were: Sections that were made by cut and paste direct from the articles, sometimes without coherence. Edits that were construed as inappropriate by some readers. Sloppy English. The work of one editor. The editor's gone. Really, what good would it have done to bring these matters to anybody's attention? They were obvious. It's intimated that the "drama" problems with the editor were "alleged" and that they may return. I should cocoa. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 18:55, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, but they were not obvious to those outside of FC. We were not monitoring the page history to see who entered what problematic edit in one particular section, we were focused on getting the entire publication out every week. We depend on the section editor and the contributors to bring such problems to our attention. Gamaliel (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, for awhile there it seemed like every time I dropped in, there was a new problem that came out of nowhere.
Regardless, let's move forward. Hafs and WPPilot aren't editing FC anymore, and I can only assume that the page Gamaliel is concerned with will be archived sooner rather than later. Even better, I think that we've got a good section going at the moment: I really don't foresee Xanth and I having problems. While Phightins and I are looking for one other person to help out (as I'm about to run into some time/COI constraints), for the moment, the section is sound. Let's focus on that rather than the past. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:37, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
I concur with Ed. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 22:49, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Agree, but can we avoid not linking/delinking contributors' names in the future? The content to which Gamaliel objected has been archived, so there should be no reason to not link Hafspajen's page anymore. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 02:03, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
  • The editorial board will be discussing this issue during our next meeting. Gamaliel (talk) 02:25, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Absolutely. I wasn't interested in pointing fingers or digging up the past, just trying to figure out what went wrong in the process. Xanthomelanoussprog, you do great work on FC and I hope that you feel comfortable bringing any future issues to me, Ed, or anyone else on the editorial board. Gamaliel (talk) 02:20, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Well, thanks for the praise! Hafspajen excels in drawing out the emotional and psychological aspects of art; I hope they return to WP, writing articles. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 18:16, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't clear about this on my talk page ... I did appreciate your edits on this. I agree with your point about "training site" being ambiguous. Your general thrust was what I wanted to do, but couldn't do within the 1250 character limit (without sacrificing clarity). I also agree with your point that part of the problem here was the stuff in the TFA text that didn't come from the lead. I've proposed to Brian and Crisco that we bump the character limit up to 1300 (the WT:ITN guys don't have a problem with that), and that I should try to add stuff to the lead from the article in those few cases where there's not enough in the lead to generate solid TFA text. I'm also proposing that I check on ERRORS at least once an hour for most of the day, and find others to do the same when I'm sleeping. Those three things should fix most of the problems you were dealing with. Thanks for your help. - Dank (push to talk) 02:16, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Hey Dank, that's not a problem. We've known each other for long enough that I know when you're appreciative. ;-) I only jumped in as a random TPSer, that's all. I'm glad it was all sorted out in the end! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:44, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 May 2015

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