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BennySe7en

Hi, I saw your comment on talk page of BennySe7en and, FWIW I think your original SD nom was correct. The draft was blatant advertising by the owner of the website, so I've deleted it and posted a COI warning on his talk page since he is an undeclared paid editor, cheers Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:12, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak: I started doubting the key phrase unambiguous, then starting panicking that I was biting a new contributer that was confused about what I just did. My first experience with what I thought was a paid editor ended up not being one, and I guess I was scared of a similar situation happening again. I felt pretty bad about it, then and now. I feel slightly better now that I know someone else saw it the same way I did at first that and I wasn't acting as carelessly as I thought. Thanks for letting me know, I appreciate it. Clovermoss (talk) 19:23, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
No problem, you were assuming good faith, as we are supposed to do, but the infobox had the parameter owner = Se7en, which looks pretty conclusive. In any case, the very nature of dark web sites means that getting RS sources to show notability is likely to be impossible for all but a handful of the largest sites, merry Christmas Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:37, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

January 2020 at Women in Red

January 2020, Volume 6, Issue 1, Numbers 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153


Happy Holidays from all of us at Women in Red, and thank you for your support in 2019. We look forward to working with you in 2020!

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Belated holiday greetings

Belated holiday greetings. Merry Christmas and happy new year. Thank you for your interest in The Signpost and especially in "On the bright side."
↠Pine (✉) 22:42, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
Thank you Pine! I wish you a happy holidays and happy new year as well. I also look forward to collaborating with you! :) Clovermoss (talk) 02:59, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

Hello Clovermoss. It's OK. I actually wanted to start my contribution by posting about a Darknet marketplace I have been using for personal purposes (nothing bad tbh lol) but I don't know how I can have that post up. BennySe7en (talk) 19:05, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Hi BennySe7en. I would suggest you take a look at this talk page, about 2 threads above this one, which was started by Jimfbleak. It's probably odd to read people talking about you, but I think that there's some useful things to keep in mind. Another editor thinks that you're an undisclosed paid editor - I'm inclined to believe them, because they're more experienced with this sort of thing. I'd suggest you take a look and follow the instructions that were posted on your talk page. Wikipedia is not for promotion - we try to be objective and follow a neutral point of view for encyclopedic topics. For an article on this darknet server to be notable, mutiple independant and reliable sources that give indepth coverage about it have to exist. Citing these sources in your draft are important. All of this is probably a lot to take in - if you find anything confusing or need clarification on anything, I'll try my best to help. Writing an article can be fairly difficult, so you might want to try other ways of contributing first. Clovermoss (talk) 19:29, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 1, 2020)

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List of pasta

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This week's article for improvement (week 2, 2020)

The pilot in command of an aircraft is the person aboard who is ultimately responsible for its operation and safety during flight. This would be the captain in a typical two- or three-pilot aircrew, or "pilot" if there is only one certificated and qualified pilot at the controls of an aircraft.
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Captain

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Trouted

Whack!

You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

I saw that you commented on User talk:Maryanne Cunningham. I have fixed an error that you linked the community portal to Wikipedia:Copyright problems. I have fixed it here. Just letting you know you made a silly mistake. Interstellarity (talk) 15:40, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh, okay. Thanks for fixing it. I thought I had checked all my wikilinks in preview, but I obviously missed that one. Clovermoss (talk) 18:23, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi: I'm new to wikipedia editing, and am desperate for some human interaction. Would you like to adopt me?

Note: This ANI discussion [1] and this talk page discussion [2] might be useful to talk page watchers (if I have those). Clovermoss (talk) 03:00, 15 January 2020 (UTC)


{{adoptme|date=January 2020}}


--Gaurarjun (talk) 02:23, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Gaurarjun and thank you for the interest. However, I don't think I currently have the required skillset to offer adoption to new editors like yourself, as I recently graduated from Adopt-a-User myself. While I am becoming more experienced, there's still a lot of things I don't have much experience with.
I would suggest following my suggestion here [3]: take a look at Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user/Adoptee's Area/Adopters and ask people who are listed as currently available. Some other advice would be to add a bit of information - it doesn't have to be personal, but including something like topics you are interested in editing/why exactly are you interested in the adoption processs might make it easier to get a "yes" from an experienced editor. For an example, see my request for adoption: [4]. Nick Moyes is not currently offering adoption, but other editors are.
One last piece of advice - you don't need to use {{adoptme}} when starting a discussion at an editor's talk page. Feel free to include it on your userpage, but adding it here includes me in a category of users looking for adoption. I wish you the best of luck in finding an adopter. Clovermoss (talk) 03:44, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
@Gaurarjun: I just noticed that you reverted my addition to Maryanne Cunningham's talk page [5]. Generally, unless there is something offensive or insulting posted on someone else's talk page, the content there is up to the editor-in-question (in this case, Maryanne Cunningham) to decide whether or not to remove or archive. This guideline explains why this is the case. In the future, please use she/her when referring to me and not he/him. In general, it's a good idea to use they/them if you're not sure - the person on the other side of the screen could be male, female or have a non-binary gender identity. Clovermoss (talk) 04:17, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the above, I had few questions on the same, if you have time that is, Would it be a terrible idea to consider speaking to me on WhatsApp rather than this texting back n forth.

--Gaurarjun (talk) 04:22, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Gaurarjun: I must politely decline your offer, as I do not use WhatsApp and I would prefer to keep communication on-wiki. Feel free to ask questions about editing at the Teahouse or here. I'm happy to help, but I can't offer the same level of support that you could get in Adopt-a-User. Clovermoss (talk) 04:27, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Maryanne is right, this whole thing has to have been written by men. How about being able to hear a voice of fellow human being when stuck in this Legend of Wiki, anyways enjoy your Tea Party : )

--Gaurarjun (talk) 04:32, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Gaurarjun: I assure you, I definitely am human! There are some bots on Wikipedia, but they are identified as such and must go through an approval process. Can you clarify what you mean by "Legend of wiki" and "Tea Party"? I'm confused on what you mean by that. As for men writing Wikipedia, there is this article: Gender bias on Wikipedia. Wikiprojects like Women in Red welcome contributors of all genders to help tackle this content imbalance. Clovermoss (talk) 04:40, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
you see why i suggested WhatsApp, i could talk to you about this whole gender thing, but texting back n forth just doesn't do it, anyways enjoy being human bot : )

--Gaurarjun (talk) 16:31, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Gaurarjun: Talk pages are not used for texting, and I have no interest in using WhatsApp, as I said earlier. Talking about gender bias in the Wikipedia context (like interest in getting involved in wikiprojects) is something I could try to provide input on, but it would be on-wiki and not through texting. I appreciate your enthusiasm for wanting to talk to me, but please keep in mind the advice already given by Nick Moyes [6]. Clovermoss (talk) 21:42, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
you see why i suggested WhatsApp, i could talk to you about this whole texting thing, but texting back n forth just doesn't do it, anyways enjoy texting : )

--Gaurarjun (talk) 21:46, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Gaurarjun: I don't really understand why you keep insisting that I text you using WhatsApp, and my answer is not likely to change. I like helping new editors like yourself, but I'd appreciate it greatly if you would ask for input on other things - with details about what you're stuck with and what you'd like help with. Clovermoss (talk) 21:56, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
You seem like a wonderful person, here's something equally wonderful, have a look >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRcHdeUG9Y

--Gaurarjun (talk) 22:09, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Request for help

Hi Clovermoss,

and Nick Moyes, if I've done that right.

Can you please assist? A person called Arjun put some kind of adoption request out: you removed it, and Nick posted this: "it adds Maryanne Cunningham's name to the list of people seeking adoption, not yours!" But actually, it was my request in the first place and the wording is mine. (Theroadislong sent me a helpful page with a link to the Adopters in; that sounded like a good idea so I just plumped a request on one of them, thinking that adoption was the usual route and they'd be crying out for orphans (whoever said 'you learn best from your mistakes had it right')).

Arjun has asked me to delete Nick's post. So:

  1. Should I?
  2. Do I need to apologise to Arjun, and if so, how publicly?

Nick, maybe this should have gone on your talk, but Clovermoss was the one who removed Arjun's post. Hope you'll forgive the etiquette breach, please inform me to whom I should reply if there are multiple people involved.

Dear grief! But in for a penny, as they say... Maryanne Maryanne Cunningham (talk) 21:24, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Maryanne Cunningham. I'll try to give some advice, because the situation is kind of confusing. Feel free to add the template to your User page (at User:Maryanne Cunningham) and not your user talk page if you would like to use it to request adoption. To do this, add {{adoptme}} there. The reason it was removed was because it added your talk page to a category and Nick Moyes wasn't sure whether or not you wanted to be included as part of the category because Gaurarjun added you to it without your permission here [7]. If my reply is still confusing, feel free to ask for additional clarification. Clovermoss (talk) 21:50, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Clovermoss. I think we'll hold fire on adoption for the moment! As long as I haven't dropped Arjun in some horrible breach of protocol.. Maryanne Cunningham (talk) 22:38, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Scratch that, Maryanne is even more wonderful than you, haha

--Gaurarjun (talk) 22:17, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Dear all: Just to say that, as I've also answered Maryanne on my talk page, I probably don't need to reply here as well. It's actually Gaurarjun who seems more likely to accidentally make a breach of protocol here. I shall keep an eye on their edits and interactions over the next few days and offer guidance, if necessary. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:55, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not a paid creator nor do I own the market I was writing about.

I am not a paid creator nor do I own the market I was writing about.
Hello. I'm sorry but I think you made a mistake. I am not a paid creator nor do I own the market place I was writing about. I don't know how to proceed by the way, I only wanted to try a first article about it and then expand it later on.. BennySe7en (talk) 20:53, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
Hi BennySe7en. My advice would be to talk to Jimfbleak, as I'm not sure the best way to help you and I wouldn't want to give advice that turns out to not be that helpful. I wish you all the best. You're welcome to ask me for advice in the future, just be aware that I don't know everything and that I might need to direct you to other people or resources. Clovermoss (talk) 04:10, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
Clovermoss, thanks for ping. BennySe7en, your only contributions here have been drafts promoting Empire Market owned by Se7en, so looking at your user name, it's not unreasonable to assume that you have a COI. However, you say you haven't so I'll assume good faith. If you write about the topic again, though, I will block your account or any other you use to promote the site, since if you are a genuinely uninvolved editor you don't need to write about it. If you want to reply, please do so on my talk page, rather than here Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 3, 2020)

Various computer hardware components within a desktop computer
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Computer hardware

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TheWikiWizard - January 2020

Hello, Clovermoss! Here is the January 2020 issue of TheWikiWizard.

We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading! --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 04:00, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 04:10, 13 January 2020 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)

Your GA nomination of Katherine Hughes (activist)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Katherine Hughes (activist) you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Buidhe -- Buidhe (talk) 20:41, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@Buidhe: Thank you! If there's anything you'd like me to know or do, I'm fairly busy but should be able to get back you within forty-eight hours or so. Clovermoss (talk) 00:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 4, 2020)

A prayer meeting and hymn singing
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Prayer meeting

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I answered this... and thought of you!

Impressed?

Nick Moyes (talk) 00:28, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: Yes, I am impressed. Apart from the waterfall I already mentioned to you, this reminds me of Montmorency Falls, which happens to be the only other waterfall I've ever actually visited. I walked along the suspension bridge when I was there. Clovermoss (talk) 00:36, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
For four weeks of learning about and contributing to "On the Bright Side" in The Signpost and "What's making you happy this week?" on Wikimedia-l. Thank you for the good work. ↠Pine (✉) 02:18, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Katherine Hughes (activist), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Halifax (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL b7dot (talk) 08:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Note to myself: try to figure out which Halifax is applicable. It could be the city, but since her uncle was an archbishop and she's from Prince Edward Island, Halifax might mean Halifax Parish. Clovermoss (talk) 21:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 5, 2020)

The Serengeti ecosystem is a geographical region located in northern Tanzania, Africa. It spans approximately 30,000 km2 (12,000 sq mi), and hosts the second largest terrestrial mammal migration in the world. Pictured is a leopard in a tree in the Serengeti.
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Serengeti

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The Signpost: 27 January 2020

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:09, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Signpost barnstar

The Signpost Barnstar
In honor of your first Signpost byline! Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:19, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Smallbones. I look forward to continuing to contribute! Clovermoss (talk) 04:26, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Useful tips regarding what not to do

I think that you and User:Nick Moyes will both appreciate this: Wikipedia:Village stocks. I think that having a sense of humor about oneself is good. There is a lot of serious work that happens around here, and it's nice to have an occasional break for laughter. I think that in the "old days" when Wikipedia was less prominent there was more tolerance for technical problems. Nowadays, someone who makes a particularly bad decision might find themselves out of a job. The culture shift is noticeable, but I think that having the ability to laugh at oneself is always good. ↠Pine (✉) 06:08, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Ha! I'd forgotten about that page, Pine. It sent shivers! The first block I needed to do after getting my new powers the other day was a /64 rangeblock on an IPv6 user. Not feeling I yet had the requisite , I reported it to WP:AIV only to find another rookie admin had bravely given it a go. I'm sure had it been me, I might easily have blocked an entire mobile phone network (which I've see done!). Great to see your first Signpost contributions, Clovermoss. Nick Moyes (talk) 08:16, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: The section heading... I thought it refered to me at first and I was like "what did I do wrong?" Kind of like the feeling you get when being called down to the office and you're wondering if you did something wrong but nothing jumps out at you as something you would get in trouble for. That said, the page itself is very interesting. I already knew about Wikipedia:Don't delete the main page, but not about the other ones. Clovermoss (talk) 12:03, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
Sorry. I didn't intend to sound like I was upset about something. I sometimes have a dry sense of humor. ↠Pine (✉) 20:03, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: It's okay. I actually really did like the page, too. I think one of the best of the worst mistakes was accidently indefinitely blocking ClueBot for vandalism. I hope you've been having a nice day so far. Clovermoss (talk) 20:06, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. By the way, I have an update regarding the formatting for Wikimedia-l. I'll send you an email about that. ↠Pine (✉) 20:11, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

February with Women in Red

February 2020, Volume 6, Issue 2, Numbers 150, 151, 152, 154, 155


Happy Valentine's Day from all of us at Women in Red.

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--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:31, 28 January 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Transclusion of user page

Hi Clovermoss, in case you're interested, it is possible to transclude your user page from Meta onto other Wikimedia wikis. Personally, I like this because this way I can update only a single user page when I want to make a change. For this to work there must be no current local user page on the wiki where you want your transcluded page to appear, so if you want to transclude your Meta page onto English Wikipedia then you would request a deletion of your English Wikipedia user page. This is less scary than it might sound at first. You can copy any information that you want to another page inside of your user space on English Wikipedia and/or to your user page on Meta. This is optional but I personally prefer having a single user page that is transcluded to other wikis. Best wishes, ↠Pine (✉) 21:18, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

@Pine: My userpage on meta m:User:Clovermoss is relatively simple and I feel like it gets the overall gist of myself across well, but it does include a link to my userpage here. I'm not all that active on other projects so I felt that including information that's most revelant globally (like writing for WMYTHW) was a good idea, where my userpage here focuses on the stuff on enwiki more. Also, certain projects like the English Wikitionary don't want non-Babel userboxes on userpages, so I thought that keeping a simple global userpage was a good idea. That said, I appreciate the advice and will consider it. Clovermoss (talk) 21:28, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Hi Clovermoss, that makes sense to me. It was nice of you to put some thought into this. Best wishes, ↠Pine (✉) 02:37, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Editor Retention

It seems like the discussions on interacting with younger editors:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Creating_a_WikiProject have suddenly stopped. Can you find a way to revive the discussion somehow? Interstellarity (talk) 00:37, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: I mainly stepped away because I wanted to see if others had thoughts about what I had said (and wanted to be more concise when it came to communicating my ideas). Nothing has happened so far, so I'm not sure what the best way to revive the discussion would be. I think it kind of depends on where we want to move forward with this, if it all. If there is something in particular that sounds like it could work, maybe something like an WP:RFC would be better at reaching a larger part of the community for input? Clovermoss (talk) 00:49, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: How do we move the discussion to RFC? Interstellarity (talk) 00:50, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
@Interstellarity: I'm not entirely sure myself, but I do think that if we went that route we would need a solid plan for what exactly we're seeking community input on. Clovermoss (talk) 01:25, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: A bot already archived one of the posts. I undid the edits, merged the headings together, and added an RFC tag. Not sure I did this correctly. Interstellarity (talk) 12:03, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
@Interstellarity: I'm sorry that I forgot about this discussion. Did anything happen with the RFC? If I recall correctly, I thought a concrete plan would be best before starting an RFC, but being bold can be a good thing. Clovermoss (talk) 20:59, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: An editor removed the RFC tag. See the bottom half of Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Interacting_with_younger_editors. Interstellarity (talk) 21:20, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
@Interstellarity: Thanks for the update. Do you have any ideas for what we should do moving forward? Clovermoss (talk) 21:33, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: I agree with the ideas listed in the discussion. I was the one who opened the discussion to gather other editor's ideas about working with younger editors on Wikipedia because many of them end up getting blocked from editing. Now we need to put those ideas into practice. How can we go about doing that? Interstellarity (talk) 21:42, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
@Interstellarity: I'm not really sure. I disagree that most young editors get blocked, but maybe that's because I don't have the same contextual experience as you do? I guess part of the reason I'm not sure what to do is because we've discussed ideas, but I'm unsure how any of them would work in practice. WikiProject Young Adults might work, especially if the focus is just improving YA-related topics like YA fiction. I think there's a way to propose new wikiprojects? I'd have to think about it more and create an actual plan, but I'd try my best to give you updates. The past few weeks have been fairly stressful for me, so I should mention that it might take me awhile to actually get around to this. Clovermoss (talk) 21:50, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: If you would like to know, WikiProject proposals can be proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. Interstellarity (talk) 21:56, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Editor retention, typo trivia

Feather moss. Used in moss lawns, which I should really write an article about someday.

Hi, Clovermoss! Nice to come across you. Thank you very much for editing Wikipedia:Encourage the newcomers. The essay could really benefit from some perspectives of newer editors; I fear I have little idea what it's like to be a new editor these days. I hope you will feel free to edit it boldly, or request edits to it, as you prefer. I'm glad to see another editor working on editor retention.

The spelling "focussing" is fairly standard in British English; see American and British English spelling differences#Doubled consonants. I really do not care about this, and I do not use a consistent national spelling. Some editors can get very vexed about spelling, though, so I tend to leave a note when I see alt-spelling edits, just to defuse potential conflict. I fear I create scads of typos; thank you to you and the typo team for fixing them.

Good to meet you, and I hope to see you around! HLHJ (talk) 00:52, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

@HLHJ: Sorry about the spelling! I'm Canadian myself, and I didn't know that focussing was considered British English or else I wouldn't have changed it. As for typos and editor engagement, I think Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss is a very interesting project. It's one of the first things that I got involved in when I was new. When it comes to being new here, I think 3 things really helped make my experience better. 1) I already had experience editing wikiHow. I haven't edited there for a few years and there are many differences between there and here, but I already knew stuff like what user/user talk pages were and how to sign my comments. This also lead me to checking out the community portal (wikiHow has a similar thing called the community dashboard) to learn how I could get involved. I think that the openness of any wiki can be kind of daunting, so having an idea of things that I could try and help out with was good. I also found out about the Teahouse and the moss project from there. 2) I was welcomed by people who answered my questions and helped me. SkyGazer 512 helped me learn how to improve PC Optimum so that it would no longer need a template, and I found out about WP:WPWIR from his talk page, which is where I found the Canada redlink list (which included Katherine Hughes (activist) at the time). Also, Elfabet gave me a wikikitten for fixing typos and I was glad that my effort to fix typos was noticed by someone else. Nick Moyes also had a major role in making me feel welcomed and being able to learn from what I was confused by by asking questions and receiving answers meant a lot to me. 3) I'm cautious before I'm confident. Advice is often given to be bold and I definitely don't disagree with the concept, but I think my hesitancy to do much before I felt like I understood it was beneficial to my newbie experience; I never got templated, no one got irritated at me, etc. Clovermoss (talk) 01:19, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for that new-user story, It's useful to me. I'm starting to get the impression that making WikiGnomish edits, engaging on talk pages, proactively asking for advice, and immediately forming social contacts seem to be more common among successful new editors these days. The help your previous Mediawiki experience gave with all of that is an advantage of the software's public license I hadn't thought of.
I think one of the reasons we have a "be bold" rule is because many editors err on the side of caution. Your caution is familiar to me; I have become more willing to make bold edits over time, as I've become more confident, but the confidence has grown slowly from experience. I've found that the bolder I'm being, the more careful I need to be, but boldness can be much more efficient, and sometimes I've retrospectively regretted not being bolder sooner. Anyone can template; I hope no-one will be unreasonable, but if you do get templated, the templating editor's record may be useful in deciding how seriously you should take it. HLHJ (talk) 02:17, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
@HLHJ: Somewhat ironically, my initial impressions of Wikipedia as a WikiHowian were fairly negative. We used to get Village Pump threads that were started by people who had left Wikipedia and decided to start contributing to wikiHow instead. I wonder how common an experience this is in general? Anyways, the idea of Wikipedia has appealed to me more for some time (otherwise I wouldn't have been actively contributing here for the past year or so).
But I guess my experience is somewhat atypical because when I signed up for Wikipedia, I was intent on being a fairly active contributor from the start. There are a lot of differences though - I wasn't a completely clueful newbie even if I had some familiarity with the MediaWiki format. There was a lot I had to learn. Since you're interested in newish editors perspectives, maybe Levivich would have something to add? They started their account a few months after I did, but they've made a lot more edits and have contributed extensively to areas that I rarely have.
As for "successful newbies" of today, my ancedotal observations seem to be along the same lines as yours. I've found that I've been able to become bolder as time goes on, but I'm still fairly cautious, in general. Clovermoss (talk) 02:51, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
An attempt to answer your questions about leaving, but I don't know how many leave in annoyance; the Growth Team would have any estimate made
So it wasn't just me rarely using the talkspace
Another reason for better editor retention; fewer people will leave justifiably ticked off. I didn't really have pre-editing impression, nor was my editing was a planned thing. I started as an IP, when you had to explain to people what Wikipedia was, and I was pretty unaware of the social side; the idea of being an editor as a hobby or identity was not something I thought about. WP was a useful resources, and the urge to add obvious improvements came with the "edit" link. I would be most interested to hear Levivich's experiences or opinions on the essay. HLHJ (talk) 04:43, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
@HLHJ: Interesting graphs, thanks for sharing them. If you're interested in an even more detailed look at my experience as a newbie, my experience with WP:AAU would probably be insightful. [8] I wanted to contribute to Wikipedia because I thought it was interesting and something that I would enjoy. I liked the idea of the "sum of all human knowledge". I guess that counts as a hobby? I don't really check stuff like Facebook that often, as Wikipedia is more about using my free time to relax and be a part of something great at the same time. It's interesting to think of having to explain to people what Wikipedia is. I've been a reader for quite some time, and practically every high school student I know uses Wikipedia at some point or another. It was more about deciding that I wanted to do more than just read articles.
There are definitely ways I could have become frustrated and just given up. There was a steep learning curve. I had a really hard time learning how diffs worked, for example. I don't think I would've been the same editor without Nick Moyes' help. It is interesting to learn about other people's experiences and perspectives, though. The world is an incredibly unique place. Clovermoss (talk) 05:04, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Those are some of my favorite graphs. (Anybody know if there are any newer ones out there?) I'll have to reflect on my newbie experiences... in short, I'd have to say my new user experience was rather negative, and I'm hoping that will end soon :-)[just kidding] I'll write more later. – Levivich 02:45, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
HLHJ, I think the essay is great and completely agree with its message. What stands out from my earliest experiences as an editor is that it was very difficult to figure out where and how to contribute. When I first registered an account, I remember it took me to a random page that was tagged for cleanup–and that wasn't very helpful because the random page ended up being far, far outside my expertise or interests. The community portal is similarly random. A lot of the newbie docs encourage new users to be WP:BEBOLD and WP:SOFIXIT, but actually being bold can be a problem in certain areas, like DS areas and deletion. I also remember there were lots of newbie-welcome pages, like The Wikipedia Adventure and the Tutorial and a lot of the other stuff linked on welcome templates, and that was all overwhelming – I wasn't sure which page was the start page.
I think it would be helpful to new users to have a very, very simple "start page" that clearly and simply explains two things: (1) where and how to participate (and where to avoid), and (2) how to get help when you need help. For #2, CaptainEek and I tried a while back to make a new header for ANI that helped editors figure out where to go for various kinds of help, the results of which are at User:Levivich/Help. I've thought about turning that into a kind of Newbie Help Page that would answer those questions #1 and #2. Levivich 21:04, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
That is a good idea, Levivich. I've added to Wikipedia:Encourage the newcomers#General guidance, and will draw this discussion to the attention of the Growth Team. I believe the random-page thing was an experiment of theirs. I think of my interests as pretty broad, and I am always astonished by how any times I can hit the "Random page" button and get something I find startlingly devoid of interest...
I learned my editing almost entirely by induction; I'd find a page that did what I wanted to do and read the source. I started out knowing HTML, so that helped. Any help page that wasn't linked from an inline tag, I was not likely to see. Much later, I found the WP space, and that if I started reading in the WP: space, my productivity vanished; it's a bit of a rabbit hole. Now I write the stuff too, and have some trouble with the belief that my edits will help the encyclopedia more than mainspace edits...
On the ANI header, it looks pretty good, but it's a lot of choices . If you bolded one or two words in each description (say "violence", "privacy", "copyright", "disputes" etc.), it might be easier to scan. Blue-on-green text is hard to read even if you aren't blue-green colourblind. Issac Newton studied this field; he literally ordered his printer to provide him with text printed in every possible ink colour on every possible page colour, permutatively, and tested every illegible, eye-hurting, implausible one. HLHJ (talk) 06:43, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, HLHJ. Yeah, I don't think the colors or layout are keepers, either. For the choice-overload, I had in mind breaking the lists up into multiple smaller pages, that users could click, kind of like WP:TUTORIAL, but simpler, and instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of editing (how to edit) as the tutorial does, this "start page" would help editors figure out (1) what to edit and (2) how to resolve problems they encounter while editing (whether content or conduct). If you or Clover think it's something worth pursuing, I could put together a simple mock up pretty quickly. Levivich 01:58, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Clovermoss, apologies for the slower reply, there was a fair amount of material to read through. Slightly grab-bag response. I'm not sure diffs work very well, and the user interface isn't brilliant. There was an interesting attempt to improve it by some of the German Wikipedians a while back; better interface, but slower. Not sure what happened to it. The "diff template" is new to me, too, and I looked hard for it a few years back... I've added Teahouse and AAU to the essay. WP:COMMENT can be useful for editors using markup and ignoring the talkspace. Per Wikipedia:Red link (a guideline), I feel free to add red links for things I will never get around to writing, but which are notable, without citing a source; due to WP:systemic bias, some subject areas have a lot of clearly notable article-less topics, although it's much rarer than it once was (I'm happy to go on about the early Wikipedia, and the early Internet, if people want to know). I also find WP:YOUNG a bit condescending, and technologically out-of-date. A rule my parents had comes to mind; when you act like an adult, you have a right to be treated like one; if you act like a child, you get treated as one. This goes whether you are 70 or 7. I used the draftspace for the first time I recall a few weeks ago (Draft:Tsubo-niwa which I think I'm going to globalize and move to Pocket garden). I actually went hunting for pic of burnt food on Commons a while back... It's hard to decide on whether to reveal possible grounds for prejudice like youth, gender, and so on. On the upside, you can provide role models. On the downside, you can get treated worse. It shouldn't matter either way, but does matter both ways. I hope you won't feel you have a social duty to disclose such information; being here is the thing that really matters. I'm impressed by what I've seen of your contributions from reading that link and some links therein; you have already taken on a lot of wikijobs I never have, and I feel you are a better-rounded Wikipedian than I. You've certainly run into more conflict than I have, total, and it does not look like you caused it; some of it is clearly "Aroint thee, troll!" territory. I'd say your social skills are better, too. HLHJ (talk) 05:55, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Levivich, a sort of meta-guide, how to teach yourself? Do you think you could do it in 300 words or so? I think there are some live-updating graphs somewhere, though not necessarily those specific stats... HLHJ (talk) 05:55, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing this interesting discussion out to me, HLHJ -- and thank you to Clovermoss and Levivich for thinking hard about the newcomer experience. A lot of what you're saying resonates well with what we've been learning on the WMF Growth team over the last couple years, and what we've been trying to address with the features that we've been building. It sounds like all of you would have great opinions on a couple of things we're working on now, if you have time to check them out and comment on their talk pages. Note that our features are only deployed now on a limited set of medium-sized wikis, but we hope to discover things that work well, and then to deploy to more wikis.
  • Newcomer homepage: this is sort of like the simple "start page" idea that Levivich mentioned. In our target wikis, all new account holders see guidance that encourages them to visit this page first.
  • Newcomer tasks: this is a feature on the homepage that suggests articles for newcomers to edit, sort of like how HLHJ talks about clicking the "random article" button.
I hope to hear what you all think! -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Levivich, chunking choices sounds like an excellent approach in principle. I think ignoring a lot of the existing content, as the Growth Team are doing, might also be necessary. Maybe we need an Essays/Helppages-for-deletion process... HLHJ (talk) 07:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
Chunking! Thanks for introducing me to that, HLHJ, I didn't know it, but yeah, that's what I was going for. Help-for-deletion ("How to !vote" or maybe "How not to !vote"? ) sounds like it would be useful. I know WP:ATA is oft-cited for its many negative examples; I'm not sure if we have a good positive example essay? Things have gotten a bit busy for me IRL but when I have a chance to do a mock up I'll ping you. Thanks again! Levivich (talk) 03:14, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant we need a process for deleting help pages and essays which are not useful. Best of luck with real life! HLHJ (talk) 03:21, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
@HLHJ and Levivich: Have you seen User:Nick Moyes/Easier Referencing for Beginners? I think it's a pretty good resource for newcomers, even if parts are still under construction. Clovermoss (talk) 03:41, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
I wonder why Nick Moyes didn't rewrite the old guide? I personally prefer putting the reference body in the reflist, as I did at Further research is needed, as it's easier to read (and, I think, a bit easier conceptually), but I know this is rare. I remember the guide used to be, roughly, "type '[1]', and insert something that lets people find the source in between". Citation templates came later. A lot of refs were inserted as bare URLs. There was a bot that autocompleted bare URLs in refs, and before that a fair number of editors who did it manually. Citoid is great, but maybe we still need better interfaces. HLHJ (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
HLHJ, Clover, and anyone else: a very, very rudimentary skeletal draft of what I had in mind is at User:Levivich/Help. (The entire "something to do" tree could/should be replaced by the WMF Newcomer tasks tool once that rolls out.) Levivich (talk) 21:48, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Levivich I adore the simplicity to that. It's a useful resource that isn't as overwhelming as a million wikilinks. Clovermoss (talk) 00:40, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm impressed, Levivich . I've had a go at a few of the link targets, too; a lot of the resources seem to be written for experienced editors, and fail to mention basic things. WE could certainly add some improvements to the Task Center. I especially like the choices of the sort at User:Levivich/Help with a problem; it reminds me of the identification keys used in biology. No decisions, just a smooth flow of classification. While I know this is just a first draft and you probably have this in mind already, glossing the three-letter acronymss might be less likely to provoke "Wikipedia:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!". You may both be interested in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to streamline the welcome template, which I just came across, and which could benefit from some of the design work here. HLHJ (talk) 22:05, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
Glad you both liked it! The outline/shortcuts are just placeholders for now – my thinking was to have buttons (like in the welcome template proposal) and/or iconography, along with short little blurbs explaining what each option is (a "help me choose"-type thing). I also figured that custom übernewbie pages would need to be written to replace the shortcuts. So when the editor drills down to "edit war", the aren't sent to EW or ANEW but to a page that gives a simple step-by-step "How to deal with an edit war" explanation (and explains the steps as don't edit war in return -> go to the talk page even if they don't -> friendly message on their user talk page if no response -> template if you must -> anew when all else fails), and similar for "vandalism", and so on. And then, those newbie explanation pages would link to the relevant actual PAGs. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 07:48, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 6, 2020)

The The Dapper Dans are a barbershop quartet that performs at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
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Barbershop quartet

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This week's article for improvement (week 7, 2020)

The Pyramid Texts are the oldest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts dating to the Old Kingdom.
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Requesting an update

Hi Clovermoss, I hope that you are well. I hope that you are planning to continue with the WMYHTW and "On the bright side" publications. The last that I heard from you is that you wanted to continue to write, and the length of time since I last heard from you is starting to feel concerning. I will understand if you have decided that you are too busy to continue with writing. Please let me know what your status is. Thank you, ↠Pine (✉) 05:54, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

@Pine: I know that I already replied to you via email, but I was thinking that maybe I could try to do WMYTW again in March? I feel like that is a more realistic option for me right now. If I can't do that, I'll let you know in a more timely manner this time. I've had to focus on real life, but I see WMYTW as special and I'd like to eventually get back to it. Clovermoss (talk) 17:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Hi Clovermoss, thank you for the update. Resuming in March would be fine. We can discuss how to keep the workload manageable for both of us. One option would be for us to alternate weeks. When you have some time, please let me know what you think about that idea. ↠Pine (✉) 20:20, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Pine. Alternate weeks might work better, but I want to think about that a bit more before I make a decision. I'll let you know sometime soon. Clovermoss (talk) 20:56, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
That sounds good. It's nice to see you again. Welcome back. ↠Pine (✉) 22:24, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
By the way, it's OK to take your time to decide. As much as it would be nice to have you back writing for The Signpost and What's making you happy this week?, there is no deadline and I understand if you're too busy. ↠Pine (✉) 20:31, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: I still want to help out again in March. It was more about deciding whether alternating weeks would be better. Clovermoss (talk) 20:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: I've decided that alternating weeks would probably be the best for me. Do you have a preference for who does which weeks? Clovermoss (talk) 02:53, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: thank you for the update. I will start this week. I will ping you to my draft for this week when I am finished and ask you to review it before I send an email version to Wikimedia-l. Similarly, on weeks when you write, I would appreciate you pinging me to review your draft on wiki before you send the email version to Wikimedia-l. Thank you for coming back. I enjoy writing with you, and I think that having two people involved makes the pieces be more interesting for the readers. ↠Pine (✉) 05:42, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: Alright, this sounds like a good plan. I enjoy writing with you, as well. It's really nice to think and write about the bright side of things. Clovermoss (talk) 06:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 8, 2020)

The metric length of one kilometre is equivalent to the imperial measurement of 0.62137 miles.
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A cupcake for you!

Hi! Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. DishitaBhowmik 08:27, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
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