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Filter 188

I had a quick look, and there seem to be quite a few like that. I assume that for some reason the deletion history isn't being kept for these very new articles following deletion using this filter, but I have no idea why. I recently deleted a 5000+ edit article, and found myself at cross purposes with another admin until I realised that he was saying that as an ordinary admin I shouldn't have been able to do so. I don't know what happened there either, although that's another history-related glitch. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:23, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree ... it seems more likely that the article history isn't being saved than that the filter is just making stuff up and saying the user made that edit, or reporting the wrong page title. - Dank (push to talk) 21:16, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Featured Article nomination of Blockhaus d'Éperlecques

You kindly commented on my successful FAC nomination at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/La Coupole/archive1 back in September. I've now nominated the second of the three articles in this series, at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Blockhaus d'Éperlecques/archive1. I'd be grateful for any comments you could provide in the review. Prioryman (talk) 23:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've added it to Template:WPMILHIST Announcements, and I'll have a look. - Dank (push to talk) 01:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Great, thanks for your help! Prioryman (talk) 20:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Dank. You have new messages at Reaper Eternal's talk page.
Message added 17:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Belated thanks

Hi mate, as I've just mentioned to Hawkeye, was away in the Blue Mountains sans internet the whole weekend and just noticed the Wilfred Arthur ACR was closed before I got a chance to thank you for the review -- I expect to do a bit more work on the article in the not-to-distant future, and will probably reword the matriculation bit, with some additional info, when I do so. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:53, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Three Sisters, looking very rugged
Sure thing. Hope you can flesh out his later life and nom it for FA some day. - Dank (push to talk) 13:02, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Deleted Article

Hi, 3 years ago we had posted an article regarding our hotel and you deleted it as an "advertisement" article. We just want to add information about the hotel (location, history, etc) - not ad text. Can we do it? Thanks for your time, Athenshotel

Replied on your talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 15:39, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. The hotel's name and the article title is. I'm not aware of what the deleted article included but now we want to add general information.

There aren't a lot of articles on hotels in Wikipedia; this is an encyclopedia, not a directory of businesses. But there are articles on historically significant hotels; what is this hotel famous for? Who has written about this hotel? - Dank (push to talk) 12:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Okay I found the old article. Built in 2005, known for good service ... almost certainly, no. But it would be great if you're interested in adding something to any of our pages on Athens that is based on reliable sources. - Dank (push to talk) 12:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. We had updated the information just a few minutes before reading your reply - please be so kind to review it. Thanks once more for your time. - Athenshotel (push to talk)

I'm sorry, I've deleted the page. There are two problems: there are no reliable sources that support the article, only advertising fluff, and it sounds like an advertisement, not like an encyclopedia. I've also deleted a link in the External Links section of the Athens article to your hotel's website: "Small Travel Guide of Athens". I don't think we're going to be interested in this article, but surely you know a lot about actually historic sites in Athens, and I hope you'll help us with those articles. Thanks for putting time into this. - Dank (push to talk) 13:22, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, I see... I just want to inform you that we did not try to use advertising fluff - we used an international press article. Thanks once again for your review. I have removed the hotel's name from this page.

Bad choice of words on my part, sorry. - Dank (push to talk) 17:40, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

GOCE November 2012 copy edit drive update

Guild of Copy Editors November 2012 backlog elimination drive mid-drive newsletter
  • Participation: Out of 31 people signed up for this drive so far, 22 have copy-edited at least one article. If you've signed up but haven't yet copy-edited any articles, every bit helps; if you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late. Join us!
  • Progress report: We're on track to meet our targets for the drive. We have reduced our target group of articles—November and December 2011—by over 50%, and 34 of the the 56 requests made in September and October this year have already been fulfilled. However, the rate of tagging for copy edit has increased, and this month we are just keeping the size of the backlog stable. So, all you copy editors, please do come along and help us!
  • The September 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest was won by Baffle gab1978 for his copy edit of Expulsion of the Acadians. Runner up was Gareth Griffith-Jones for his edit of I Could Fall in Love. Congratulations to both.
  • The October 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest is in the discussion and voting stage until midnight November 30 (UTC). You don't have to make a submission to vote!
  • November 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest is in the submissions stage until midnight November 30 (UTC), when discussion and voting begin.
  • Seasonal oversight: We had a slight fall from grace in the title of our last newletter, which mentioned the season in the northern hemisphere and thus got it wrong for the southern. Fortunately an observant GOCE member was ready to spring into action to advise us. Thanks! In future we'll stay meteorologically neutral.
>>> Sign up now <<<

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 19:36, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Promotional edits

This discussion is a spillover from WT:U. I'll throw out all the arguments I know in support of our policy. WP:GROUPNAME says: "The following types of usernames are not permitted because they are considered promotional: Usernames that unambiguously consist of a name of a company, group, institution or product (e.g. AlexTownWidgets, MyWidgetsUSA.com, TrammelMuseumofArt). ...". WP:ISU says: "... usernames that imply the likelihood of shared use are not permitted. This means that: Usernames that are simply names of companies or groups are not permitted ...". However, the policy also says that users can be blocked only if they are editing "inappropriately". Note the contradiction: blocking is the only way to "not permit" an account ... but, like most admins who work with usernames, I think the contradiction has served us reasonably well, since before {{uw-softestblock}} (which I created less than a month ago), the blocking templates all implied that the user was blocked because they were discovered doing something awful, which is bitey if they had no way of knowing (before we tell them) that what they were doing was wrong. It's my contention that {{uw-softestblock}} resolves the contradiction ... and anyway, promoting your business by pretending to represent your business both with your username and by linking to your business or creating a new page devoted to your business is clearly "inappropriate".

It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that, collectively, our experience with these kinds of edits is "vast", and we've found that:

  • Almost all of the people who post promotional links or pages are doing the same thing all over the internet, and their general experience is that people are long on talk and short on action; regardless of what we say about not allowing shared accounts or promotional edits, they generally continue to believe that they can safely ignore us until we actually take some action, at which point they virtually always stop the problematic behavior (although we generally lose them as an editor as well).
  • To take the example mentioned today at WT:U, when a user takes the name "Dolphinsafari" and uploads and links File:Common dolphin taken by Graham Hesketh of Dolphin Safari.png, the odds are close to 100% that that user will attempt to represent the company, and the interests of the company, in their edits, and nothing we say will alter that; only actions, such as deleting a page or blocking the user, will have any effect on their behavior.
  • One point that Wikipedians who deal with promotional edits often miss, because we tend not to be very gullible, is that some readers are easily misled ... particularly those who respect what Wikipedians have accomplished. They may not know that no one here has checked to see whether User:DolphinSafari is actually speaking for DolphinSafari. That is, DolphinSafari's presence on Wikipedia helps DolphinSafari sell their message ... which makes us partially responsible (in my mind) if we're in a position to know that there's a high risk of promotionalism ... and we do know that, in fact (if they do any significant editing ... and if they don't, then blocking them with a polite message does no harm). The consequences of one of our readers actually believing some user who is spoofing some company or person can range from minor to major.
  • When we say "You shouldn't have done that, we warned you" to a shared account, they often answer, "Oh, that wasn't me, that was some other guy" ... and some feel that our hands are tied at that point, because of WP:BITE.
  • Lawyers tell us that the problem of not knowing who owns the copyright on contributions from shared accounts may be a problem.
  • WP:NOTDEMOCRACY is also relevant; Wikipedia isn't a grand experiment in being nice to everyone all the time. If we find that certain editing patterns lead to net negative results 99.99% of the time, we're under no obligation not to "convict" people until we have "proof". We want to be as welcoming and even-handed as possible because that's who we are, but per WP:IAR, any rule that has a demonstrably negative effect on the quality of the encyclopedia should be ignored. - Dank (push to talk) 22:51, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
WP:BITE is not a suicide pact. PR/marketing people, in particular, seem to have generally become immune both to the normal standards of what constitutes ordinary English prose, and the normal standards of what is ethical in promoting that which you seek to promote. I see no reason to let them walk all over us because some naïf has the hope that such people will suddenly turn around and start editing topics on obscure Echinaceae or Malaysian legislators or codices in Old Slavonic. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Some of them do. Some precious few. And not, in fact, very much. The one I have in mind, also owns a bagel shop.
By the way, you made a mess. I tidied that up for you. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:41, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Didn't I just agree with that, Mike? I'm not sure if you're saying that the text of uw-softestblock is an ineffective attempt to deal with the problem ... wouldn't "ineffective" imply that they grab another account and re-create the promotional page? None of them did three years ago (probably ... I checked G11 often, and people were good about tagging then), and none of my uw-softestblock-tagged pages have been re-created (I've got them all watchlisted). I strongly suspect that, just as the promotional editors either aren't reading or aren't taking seriously any of our other instructions, they also either aren't reading or aren't taking seriously my invitation to create a new account ... or, if they are taking that seriously, then they're also reading the rest of the message and taking that seriously. Mike, if softestblock doesn't work for you, what's your plan to get admins to block all of the hits on Filter 149 and Filter 188 that ought to be blocked? Apparently, either we don't have enough people doing the work (and haven't for some time), or we have enough people, but they have concerns that the non-softestblock templates are too bitey (and have for some time). If I can get some support for what I'm doing, I'll be happy to keep doing a chunk of it. - Dank (push to talk) 05:13, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be a mixture of problems we want to address here. One problem is promotional editing. Personally I don't see anything especially harmful in someone uploading a photo of a dolphin and mentioning the name and organization of the person who took it (it may be felt that the picture makes a positive contribution to the article, in which case the extraneous source information can simply be removed from the caption, with a polite explanation that we don't usually put such information in articles). But if this is to be considered incorrigibly promotional behavior that warrants the account being blocked, then let it be stated clearly that this is the reason - and that if the user wants to help build Wikipedia, then the thing they have to change is their behavior, not their username. The second problem (or perhaps non-problem) is organization usernames. Discussions with various people on this topic leave me convinced that these are not a problem at all - they are a good way of disclosing a potential conflict of interest in line with our guidelines. If for some (fairly trifling) reasons we prefer usernames that sound more like an individual, we can ask people to change their username to something like "dave at dolphin safari"; there's no need to block their account, and certainly not straight away before giving them a chance to change their name. A third problem is perhaps spoof usernames, where someone appears to impersonate some person or organization that they do not in fact represent - I agree that this may be a reason to (temporarily) block the account while credentials are checked, but I think only if there seems to be a high risk of harm (as in the case of a famous person's name being used) or actual indication of the likelihood of spoofing. All in all I think we should not be conflating these separate problems into one, as the softestblock and most of the related templates seem to do. Victor Yus (talk) 11:45, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

So ... Victor, Mike, Demiurge: you know what's on the policy page and you know the range of opinions. What's the path that gets us to something that hawks and doves (on promotionalism issues) and 75% of active WPians can gladly support? How do we make sure the work is getting done? - Dank (push to talk) 16:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, it's not an easy task (particularly since people's collective thinking on these issues often seems to get very confused), but one thing that could be done would be to stop blocking accounts on the ground that their name seems to be that of an organization (this is fully in accordance with what the policy says). If we don't like someone's username (and it's not grossly offensive or dangerously misleading) then we can ask them politely to change it, with an explanation why. If someone (who may or may not also have an organization username) is editing in a grossly promotional fashion, we can block them for that, and tell them that that's the reason. Though even here we should try to be reasonably constructive, and possibly warn them of the problem before actually resorting to a block - this would be just up to each admin's judgement, I suppose. Remember that even vandals (except the worst kind) normally get a warning or two before being blocked, so it seems excessive to block promotional editors (except the worst kind) without such warnings. Victor Yus (talk) 09:18, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I only block people who create a page about their organization, group or website, or add a link directing users to their organization, group or website. You and I may have different definitions of "promotional", and I get the sense that you have different experiences with these users than I do. Tell me what your experiences have been. - Dank (push to talk) 13:35, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Also, I'd be more than happy to use a tool that's not defined as "blocking" to disallow usernames prohibited by our username policy, if such a tool existed. - Dank (push to talk) 14:58, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I would suggest "asking politely" as such a tool (at least as the first step). I don't have any particularly relevant experiences, it just seems to me, as a disinterested observer, that "promotional" users are being treated with unnecessary aggression (they are blocked more readily than vandals are, in spite of the fact that vandalism certainly harms Wikipedia, while "promotion" need not always be entirely incompatible with our aims), and with misleading rationales - they're being told (by way of inappropriately worded templates) that the problem is their username, whereas in fact the problem is their inappropriate editing. Victor Yus (talk) 06:40, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
We have several areas of disagreement and several areas of agreement; I'm willing to do anything that works, and what we've been doing so far hasn't been working ... I'll generate some data soon. A suggestion: go to news.google.com, click the gear symbol (settings), and at "add a news topic", enter "Wikipedia", and keep an eye on what the world says about Wikipedia. You'll find that people care very much who's writing our articles, and that when Company X writes the article on Company X, people get two things from that: Wikipedia isn't reliable, and people can get away with promotional editing on Wikipedia (and, as we know, the people who believe this usually don't use usernames that are honest about their affiliations. But one way they learn to get away with it is from news stories that tell them that X was editing their own Wikipedia article, and one way people find that out is from the usernames). - Dank (push to talk) 13:41, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I still get the feeling there's a bit of "shoot the messenger" in your logic. If Wikipedia has problems with unreliability and promotional editing, then we should be addressing those problems directly. It makes little sense to treat people who are open about their affiliations (by using a company username) worse than we would treat someone else who edits in the same way but with a covert username. That would send out an even worse message to the world - you're welcome to come and promote your causes on Wikipedia, as long as you don't reveal who you are (which is almost the reverse of the message the COI guideline is trying to get across). Victor Yus (talk) 08:08, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Friendly reminder

Just so you know, you forgot to leave a block notification at User:Urdudailynews. I also speedied a spam category they added, if you get this before someone's deleted it.

Is there an acceptable way for a non-admin to notify a user of a block that an admin's already executed? Because this is the third or fourth time I've seen an admin forget. (No judgment intended... this is coming from the guy who accidentally misused rollback on Jimbo's page yesterday, so I'm feeling very understanding.) — Francophonie&Androphilie (Je vous invite à me parler) 04:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Check the history, it's there. - Dank (push to talk) 04:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Shit, sorry. I've been noticing admins do this left and right, and I completely forgot that the softest-block warning isn't red, so I saw the notification and assumed it was just a coi-username warning or something. Stupid stupid stupid stupid. That's what I get for not reading before complaining, though! Sorry. — Francophonie&Androphilie (Je vous invite à me parler) 04:27, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Not a problem, thanks for working on username problems. - Dank (push to talk) 04:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

JSTOR

Hi there. You're one of the first 100 people to sign up for a free JSTOR account via the requests page. We're ready to start handing out accounts, if you'd still like one.

JSTOR will provide you access via an email invitation, so to get your account, please email me (swalling@wikimedia.org) with...

  • the subject line "JSTOR"
  • your English Wikipedia username
  • your preferred email address for a JSTOR account

The above information will be given to JSTOR to provide you with your account, but will otherwise remain private. Please do so by November 30th or drop me a message to say you don't want/need an account any longer. If you don't meet that deadline, we will assume you have lost interest, and will provide an account to the next person in the rather long waitlist.

Thank you! Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:54, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I just saw on Google News that JSTOR announced this today. Job well done, guys! - Dank (push to talk) 20:56, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Advertiise

Hi Dank, I closed the deletion discussion for the Advertiise article; AfD is the wrong venue to discuss an article that's already been deleted. I've indicated in the closing result that any objections to the article's deletion should be raised at deletion review, which seems to be the next logical venue. Cheers. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 08:57, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I should have been clearer, sorry. - Dank (push to talk) 13:10, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) Although Dylanfromthenorth is right in saying that AfD is not normally the place to discuss an article that has already been deleted, in this case I think it was a reasonable thing to do. I also think that to unilaterally overturn an administrator's decision to leave the discussion open without prior consultation was a questionable decision, since clear reasons for the decision were provided. JamesBWatson (talk) 17:04, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
I really think it was my fault for not being clear; what I meant was that I saw a potential downside to unilaterally stopping an ongoing deletion discussion ... someone might have felt thwarted that they weren't given time to respond to something that had been said, which is why I'm generally not happy with a speedy deletion during AfD ... so I didn't want to say "stop the discussion right this second". But Dylan, you're right that AfD isn't for already-deleted articles, and in this case, the new user admitted that they were going for search engine optimization; it just felt wrong to help them along by leaving the article up. I'll try to figure out a better way to handle this next time. - Dank (push to talk) 17:11, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Your post on my talk page

Thanks for letting me know what you had done. I have given my thoughts on the matter there. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:59, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks much, replied there. - Dank (push to talk) 18:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXX, November 2012

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) 01:52, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Information

I noticed your username commenting at an Arbcom discussion regarding civility. An effort is underway that would likely benifit if your views were included. I hope you will append regards at: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Civility enforcement/Questionnaire Thank you for considering this request. My76Strat (talk) 10:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent effort, and I hope it bears fruit. My answers would probably be the same as everyone else's: statements like "You should have your head examined" are bad. - Dank (push to talk) 13:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
I appreciate your response. You always impress me as very reasonable, and that likely places you in a dwindling minority on this site. So many of this sites best have retired, many of them rather recently. So I certainly hope that you will add the weight of your reason to this questionnaire. It is needed. My76Strat (talk) 13:51, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Strat; that's not an area where I have any particular insight. - Dank (push to talk) 14:18, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

WestportWiki

hi Dank, I've responded on the COI noticeboardWestportWiki (talk) 23:27, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, responded there. - Dank (push to talk) 23:52, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Question

Hey Dank. Ready for the Big Day? I wonder if you can answer a question I asked at WT:PC2012/RfC 3 that no one noticed: if my alternate account, which I've used exclusively for testing PC, becomes autoconfirmed, can an admin undo the autoconfirmed status or would I need to open yet another account? I'd like to do some more practice runs. Rivertorch (talk) 06:27, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so; see WP:AUTOCONFIRM. It's given to you by the software. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:28, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
That's what I was afraid of. Oh, well. I made it 6+ years with one account, and I'm not going to open a third one just for this. Rivertorch (talk) 11:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Ed's right, I don't see that option available to admins. Thanks for all your work on PC, Rivertorch, you've done a great job. - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Deleted Article CSC

Hi, my Cardsave Community article keeps being deleted and I'm not sure why. I don't see a place where I can cite the article's significance (which is the reason for deletion?). It's part of WorldPay, which has a Wikipedia article, and also part of Cardsave, also has a Wikipedia article. I don't know why ours keeps being deleted and theirs doesn't? Cardsave Comms is the part of WorldPay that works with charities and when they Google us, they want info about the company and who it's owned by etc. Thank you Missh wood (talk) 16:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure, thanks for asking. Most of the articles that are created to provide information mainly to customers of a business are created with the idea of increasing business by increasing Google hits, and I'm sure you can understand why we look less like an encyclopedia if we look more like an advertising platform. So, we try to delete such articles quickly ... the best way for you to proceed is to post your request at Wikipedia:Articles for creation; that page isn't indexed by Google, so no one will feel any burning need to delete your stuff ... you can take your time and talk with people about how to meet Wikipedia's notability and conflict of interest guidelines. - Dank (push to talk) 17:13, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Your opinion

Hi Dank! I've been working lately on the article Zduhać, a GA since 2010. I would appreciate your opinion on whether it could meet the FA criteria. I know it should be copy-edited, but apart from that, my concern is whether its contents is encyclopedic enough for an FA. As dictated by the sources on the subject available to me, the article is mostly descriptive. Are the descriptions and illustrative examples too detailed for an FA? On some points, though, there are analyses and interpretations. Are they enough to balance the descriptive part? It's an obscure subject, and outside of WP:MILHIST, but it involves battles in an unusual way. I hope you'll find time and read it :) Vladimir (talk) 17:32, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I wondered if we were going to see you again at FAC ... this article doesn't appeal to me much, I stick to non-fiction. But feel free to let me know what you're working on, I may have time to help or may find someone to help. - Dank (push to talk) 21:26, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, thanks for responding. I thought you might want to take a break from non-fiction :) Possibly more appealing to you would be another article I've been working on, Lazar of Serbia, but it's not finished... Vladimir (talk) 15:49, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Peer review

Hi. Since you gave comments on articles that are currently listed at WP:PR, I was wondering if you could give some helpful comments to Wikipedia:Peer review/Cher/archive1? Thanks, Lordelliott (talk) 21:01, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I stick to history articles, sorry. - Dank (push to talk) 21:28, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Explanation requested

What were the "couple of ways" the meaning was changed here? --MarchOrDie (talk) 17:39, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

"the Australian aircraft were placed in storage at Fort Worth until these flaws could be rectified" says only that it was determined that the planes could not be removed until the problems were fixed; "until these flaws were rectified" says that the problems were fixed and the aircraft were removed at that time. "all of the USAF and RAAF's F-111s" means something different from "all F-111s" if there were any F-111s outside the US and Australia. As for "The RAAF accepted all 24 F-111Cs at a ceremony held at Fort Worth, Texas, on 4 September 1968. However, at this time the F-111 program was in crisis ...": as you know, "however" is a tough word because it can mean something like ten different things, so for some readers, the word means almost nothing, and it's true that copyeditors generally recommend against meaningless words. But discriminating readers, if they see that the writing is good and "however" isn't being overused, are likely to interpret the word to mean "what I just said is negated or overruled in some way by what follows", and many good writers use it as a tight, snappy way of saying exactly that. A closely related, but not identical, alternative here would be: "Although the RAAF accepted ...". - Dank (push to talk) 18:41, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the "could be" distinction as an important one. The USAF and the RAAF were the only two users of the plane so it's not likely there were any other F111s at the time. In any case it seems an unnecessarily fussy degree of detail on an article about a different plane. I could go with your suggested alternative, however. ;) --MarchOrDie (talk) 19:17, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, Nick's seen our two versions and I won't complain either way. Thanks for having a look at the article. - Dank (push to talk) 19:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
As the USAF and RAAF were the only operators of the F-111, the distinction in the text wasn't needed, and I've re-removed it. Thanks again to both of you. Nick-D (talk) 20:35, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
You're very welcome; let me know, either of you, if there is ever anything more I can do for you. --MarchOrDie (talk) 20:53, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

GOCE November drive wrap-up

Guild of Copy Editors November 2012 backlog elimination drive wrap-up

Participation: Thanks to all who participated! Out of 38 people who signed up this drive, 33 copy-edited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here. All the barnstars have now been distributed.

Progress report: We achieved our primary goal of clearing November and December 2011 from the backlog. For the first time since the drives began, the backlog consists only of articles tagged in the current year. The total backlog at the end of the month was 2690 articles, down from 8323 when we started out over two years ago. We completed all 56 requests outstanding before November 2012 as well as eight of those made in November.

Copy Edit of the Month: Voting is now over for the October 2012 competition, and prizes have been issued. The November 2012 contest is closed for submissions and open for voting. The December 2012 contest is now open for submissions. Everyone is welcome to submit entries and to vote.

Coodinator election: The six-month term for our fourth tranche of Guild coordinators will expire at the end of December. Nominations are open for the fifth tranche of coordinators, who will serve from 1 January to 30 June 2013. For complete information, please have a look at the election page.

– Your drive coordinators: Stfg, Allens, and Torchiest.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 21:00, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Natchez Massacre

Hi, I've replied to your comments at the FAC page, so please check back there. Thanks. Jsayre64 (talk) 05:51, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Replied there. - Dank (push to talk) 20:20, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Siege of Constantinople 674-678 request

Hello Dank! I've made a request for a bit more input from the reviewers on the "Reassessment" section at the article's ACR page. I'd be grateful if you could respond. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 10:45, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Replying there. - Dank (push to talk) 12:40, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

DC Meetup #33

December 10 is Ada Lovelace's birthday! Not only was she the world's first computer programmer, but also the world's first female open source developer! Come celebrate with Wikimedia District of Columbia at Busboys & Poets for an informal get together!

The Washington, DC event will be held on Monday, December 10, 2012 at Busboys & Poets on 5th St NW & K St NW near Mt Vernon Square. The area is easily accessible by the Red Line Chinatown stop and the Yellow Line and Green Line Mt Vernon Square stop, as well as by WMATA buses.

Kirill [talk] 14:12, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite; I won't be able to make this one. - Dank (push to talk) 20:20, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

GOCE mid-December newsletter

End of Year Events from the Guild of Copy Editors

The Guild of Copy Editors invites you to participate in its events:

  • The December 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest is currently in the submissions stage. Submit your best December copy edit there before the end of the month. Submissions end, and discussion and voting begin, on January 1 at 00:00 (UTC).
  • Voting is in progress for the November 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest. Everyone is welcome to vote, whether they have entered the contest or not.
  • From Sunday 16 December to Saturday 22 December, we are holding a Project Blitz, in which we will copy edit articles tagged with {{copyedit}} from January 2012. The blitz works much like our bimonthly drives, but a bit simpler. Everyone is welcome to take part, and barnstars will be awarded.
  • January 2013 Backlog elimination drive is a month-long effort to reduce the size of the copy edit backlog. The drive begins on January 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and ends on January 31 at 23:59 (UTC). Our goals are to copy edit all articles tagged in January, February, and March 2012 and complete all requests placed before the end of 2012. Barnstars will be awarded to anyone who copy edits at least one article, and special awards will be given to the top five in the following categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", "Number of articles of over 5,000 words", "Number of articles tagged in January, February, and March 2012", and "Longest article". We hope to see you there! – Your drive coordinators: Stfg, Allens, and Torchiest.

Coodinator election: Nominations are open for candidates to serve as GOCE coordinators from 1 January to 30 June 2013. Nominations close on December 15 at 23:59 UTC, after which voting will run until the end of December. For complete information, please have a look at the election page.

>>> Blitz sign-up <<<         >>> Drive sign-up <<<

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Message delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 00:23, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia DC Holiday Party and Wiki Loves Monuments Exhibition

Please join Wikimedia DC and four other local media nonprofits—the National Press Club's Young Members Committee, 100Reporters, IRE and the Fund for Investigative Journalism—in winding down another year with a night of well-mannered frivolity.

The festivities will take place on Friday evening from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM in the Zenger Room on the 13th Floor of the National Press Club, located on 529 14th Street NW, near Metro Center. There will be meat and vegetarian appetizers as well as a cash bar with specially reduced drink prices all night long. In addition, we will be exhibiting the finalists of the Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest at the event.

Hope to see you there! Kirill [talk] 04:36, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Hobey Baker

May I please nominate Hobey Baker for Today's Featured Article on January 15th? I want your opinion please.--Lucky102 (talk) 17:21, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

User:Kaiser matias did almost all the work on the article, and he just made a bunch of edits a few days ago so he's still around ... please check with him. The article was in good shape when it was promoted, I think it's a good choice for a TFA. - Dank (push to talk) 18:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Voivode of Transylvania

Thank you for your work. As to the several names of the settlements, I am still working on it. Borsoka (talk) 04:49, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I hope it does well at GAN. - Dank (push to talk) 04:55, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

California State Route 56

Hi! Would you mind taking a look at the above article? The only thing holding it up from promotion are a few prose issues; I've done another pass but there might be a few issues left. --Rschen7754 22:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I won't have time to do this. If there's anyone over at HWY who's interested in copyediting, I'll be happy to give them some pointers, please send them my way. - Dank (push to talk) 15:16, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Ian suggested you and Maralia, so I'll ask Maralia. No worries. I'm trying to write User:Rschen7754/How to review road articles as I feel our ACR reviews have been slipping a bit, so if you have any thoughts that would be welcome :) --Rschen7754 22:29, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
All the prose advice looks good to me. - Dank (push to talk) 22:33, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

ϢereSpielChequers is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Xmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec12}} to your friends' talk pages.

Merry Festivus and a mutually satisfying Saturnalia. - Dank (push to talk) 19:55, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Request

Hi Dank,

Nick-D suggested that I contact you. I submitted the 2012 tour of She Has a Name article for a FAC here and I am unable to proceed with the nomination because of flow and detail problems. I believe that the article is otherwise FA quality, but the reviewers wish for me to locate an independent copyeditor to improve the flow of the prose and reduce unnecessary detail before the article is passed. I am willing to do whatever I can to get this article up to featured status, but the reviewers have specified that the copyedit needs to be done by an independent editor, which means that I cannot do this alone. Nick-D recommended you as a potential copyeditor, while stipulating that you don't normally copyedit full articles. If you are willing to copyedit this article for me or if you are able to recommend someone else to do so, I would be greatly appreciative.

Neelix (talk) 00:27, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, the copyediting I do for WP:Milhist and related projects takes up more time than I currently have available. - Dank (push to talk) 13:32, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi Dank,
OK. Thanks for letting me know.
Happy editing,
Neelix (talk) 00:23, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXXI, December 2012

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) 09:33, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

'Tis that season again...

Happy Holidays!
Hope you and your partner are enjoying the holiday season, Dan! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:03, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
That picture reminds me of 6th and 7th grade in upstate NY, I like it! - Dank (push to talk) 13:31, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas 2012!

Happy New Year and all the best in 2013!

Thanks for all you do here,

and best wishes for the year to come.
Ruhrfisch ><>°° 17:16, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
Always good to see your name on my page, any time of year :) Best of the season. - Dank (push to talk) 17:20, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Since you're an admin helping me with Fort Dobbs, I figured I would pose the following situation to you:

As you know, I've been doing a lot of work on a handful of articles that relate to the Anglo-Cherokee War article substantially. In the process of creating the Dobbs article, I made a few edits to the pre-existing (and somewhat poorly cited) Anglo-Cherokee article. Whilst doing that, I encountered the following website: [1]. On this site, someone named Gilles C. H. Nullens of Belgium purports to have written a series of books on everything from Native Americans to the Masons. In his book on the native americans, he has what appears to be near-verbatim copies of Wikipedia articles, noticeably the following: Anglo-Cherokee War -- Nullens link 1; Battle of Blue Licks -- Nullens link 2; Battle of Oriskany -- Nullens link 3.

I looked at the revisions, and each seemed to take their current form in short-term, large-scale re-writes. Blue licks was rewritten by Kevin Myers on August 21, 2006 See differences; for Oriskany, it appears to have been set in its current form (and that copied on the Nullens site) on May 7, 2009 by user Magicpiano See differences; and as for the Anglo-Cherokee War, it appears that the article reached a crystalised version of its current state as of May 25, 2009, based on the edits of Natty4bumpo See that article.

My first thought is that this Mr. Nullens is just copying wikipedia articles and presenting them as his own, which I suppose can't be stopped. The variety of editors involved in editing these three articles alone -- especially given the involvement of Kevin Myers, whose edits I think are top-grade -- makes me certain that this is the case, rather than the idea that some cabal is attempting to copyvio the works of an unknown amateur historian from Belgium. Just thought I'd bring it up, though, in case anything can be done to rectify the situation. Thanks! Cdtew (talk) 05:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know, I'm going to ask someone at the Wikimedia Foundation how to proceed. The most relevant pages on this are WP:MIRROR and WP:Republishers. - Dank (push to talk) 00:57, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the help. My primary concern was that our editors don't get falsely accused of copyvio in he future. Cdtew (talk) 16:22, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of Fort Dobbs, I now have three supports for ACN over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Fort Dobbs (North Carolina), including yours. Is that all it needs, or does it have to remain open for a period of time before it can be closed? I'm very appreciative of all the help all of you have given me, and your tireless edits. After A-class, I decided I will try for GAN, just so I can go for a "Four" award! Cdtew (talk) 06:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The time needed for promotion varies; I'm not involved in promotion at A-class since I review all of them. You're welcome, and I think GAN makes sense. - Dank (push to talk) 13:21, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

His name

was David Thomsen. You asked who the gentleman sitting next to me at our meetup was. I recognized him from the fundraiser page. You were only a couple of letters off.

It sounds like I could be in Southeast Asia coinciding with Wikimania in Hong Kong. Do you think you would be there for our next meetup? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:48, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

It appears that one of the requirements of the new WP:IEG program will be that people present findings publicly, in some sense. I don't think everyone in the program is going to fly to Hong Kong, so I'm hoping there will be a semi-major meetup of some kind in NYC or DC this summer, possibly around the time of Wikimania. If so, I'll go. - Dank (push to talk) 19:52, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I was also planning some more sightseeing in D.C. next summer, possibly after Wikimania. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:58, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Look forward to seeing you there. And if you're at Wikimania and you can write something up for the Bugle, that would be fantastic! - Dank (push to talk) 20:00, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2013 WikiCup!

Hello Dank, and welcome to the 2013 WikiCup! Your submissions' page is here. The competition begins at midnight UTC. The first round will last until the end of February, at which point the top 64 scorers will advance to the second round. We will be in touch at the end of every month, and signups are going to remain open until the end of January; if you know of anyone else who may like to take part, please let them know! A few reminders: *The rules can be found here. There have been a few changes from last year, which are listed on that page. *Anything you submit must have been nominated and promoted in 2013, and you need to have completed significant work upon it in 2013. (The articles you review at good article reviews does not need to have been nominated in 2013, but you do need to have started the review in 2013.) We will be checking. *If you feel that another competitor is breaking the rules or abusing the competition in some way, please let a judge know. Please do not remove entries from the submissions' pages of others yourself. *Don't worry about calculating precisely how many points everything is worth. The bot will do that. The bot may occasionally get something wrong- let a judge know, or post on the WikiCup talk page if that happens. *Please try to be prompt in updating submissions' pages so that they can be double-checked. Overall, however, don't worry, and have fun. It doesn't matter if you make the odd mistake; these things happen. Questions can be asked on the WikiCup talk page. Good luck! J Milburn and The ed17 18:13, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

GOCE 2012 Annual Report

Guild of Copy Editors 2012 Annual Report

The GOCE has wrapped up another successful year of operations!

Our 2012 Annual Report is now ready for review.

– Your project coordinators: Torchiest, BDD, and Miniapolis

Sign up for the January drive! To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 00:43, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
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