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Seasons Greetings

Happy holidays.
Best wishes for joy and happiness to you and all your loved ones from ```Buster Seven Talk 21:23, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard

Hello! Your submission of Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 21:27, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

End-of-the-year meetups

Hello,

You're invited to the end-of-the-year meetup at Busboys and Poets on Sunday, December 14 at 6 PM. There is Wi-Fi, so bring your computer if you want!

You are also invited to our WikiSalon on Thursday, December 18 at 7 PM.

Hope to see you at our upcoming events!

Best,

James Hare

(To unsubscribe, remove your username here.) 02:22, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard

Mike V • Talk 18:30, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Still want your name on Teahouse invites?

Hi Tree! A while back, you agreed to have your name attached to some of the daily Teahouse invites sent by HostBot. Are you still interested in having your name included in some of these invites? If not, I'm happy to remove your name from the list. Cheers, - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 00:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:Co-op

Hey DocTree. I wanted to ask if you might be interested in mentoring one or more editors during our pilot of the mentorship space called the Co-op. We plan to run the pilot in late January for about one month. The idea is that mentors will be doing one-on-one teaching based on how an editor wants to contribute, and it's not some huge commitment to teach/learn comprehensively about Wikipedia. We also want to make to easier for new editors to find mentors as well. Your experience at the Teahouse, and your helpful and kind nature will be really helpful to new editors just getting started. If you're interested, please sign up here and feel free to peruse, make suggestions, or ask questions about how the Co-op will work. Thanks a bunch (and Happy New Year!), I, JethroBT drop me a line 05:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

@Hi DocTree,

I wrote you few messages on my page on the subject Co-op mentorship but no reply whatsoever? Everything OK? Uzi Oz-Pharaoh עוזי אוז - UziOz (talk) 01:09, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

As a WER coordinator

I wonder if you could add Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week/Nominations to your watchlist. I don't expect you to second nominations (that is what the page is for, although that would nice). Rarely there is a discussion regarding policy. There is one now. Your input would be helpful. Buster Seven Talk 21:44, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Adjusting pilot start date - WP:Co-op

Hello Doctree,

I'll be putting out a formal update sometime soon, but I wanted to inform you that I've decided to push our start date back to mid-February rather than in January. There are number of reasons for this, but the biggest factor is that we are now facing the hard work of implementing our designs on the Mediawiki interface. It's a limiting environment to work with from a web-building perspective, and the team that worked on the Teahouse can offer similar testimonials to these challenges. We also want to make sure there is time for us and for you to test the environment out, ask questions at our project's talk page, and give us a little time to make any last changes before we start inviting editors to the space. If some of you know you will be unavailable during this time, it's totally fine if you need to bow out for the pilot. But we do need all the mentors we can get, so even if you can take the time to mentor just one or two editors, that would be fantastic.
Thanks a bunch, I, JethroBT drop me a line on behalf of Wikipedia:Co-op.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:47, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Museum hacks and museum edits

Hello there!

Upcoming events:

  • February 6–8: The third annual ArtBytes Hackathon at the Walters Art Museum! This year Wikimedia DC is partnering with the Walters for a hack-a-thon at the intersection of art and technology, and I would like to see Wikimedia well represented.
  • February 11: The monthly WikiSalon, same place as usual. RSVP on Meetup or just show up!
  • February 15: Wiki Loves Small Museums in Ocean City. Mary Mark Ockerbloom, with support from Wikimedia DC, will be leading a workshop at the Small Museum Association Conference on how they can contribute to Wikipedia. Tons of representatives from GLAM institutions will be present, and we are looking for volunteers. If you would like to help out, check out "Information for Volunteers".

I am also pleased to announce events for Wikimedia DC Black History Month with Howard University and NPR. Details on those events soon.

If you have any questions or have any requests, please email me at james.hare@wikimediadc.org.

See you there! – James Hare

(To unsubscribe, remove your username here.) 03:11, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia DC celebrates Black History Month, and more!

Hello again!

Not even a week ago I sent out a message talking about upcoming events in DC. Guess what? There are more events coming up in February.

First, as a reminder, there is a WikiSalon on February 11 (RSVP here or just show up) and Wiki Loves Small Museums at the Small Museum Association Conference on February 15 (more information here).

Now, I am very pleased to announce:

There is going to be a lot going on, and I hope you can come to some of the events!

If you have any questions or need any special accommodations, please let me know.


Regards,

James Hare


(To unsubscribe, remove your username here.) 18:20, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 1

Hi! Thank you for subscribing to the WikiProject X Newsletter. For our first issue...

Has WikiProject X changed the world yet? No.

We opened up shop last month and announced our existence to the world. Our first phase is the "research" phase, consisting mostly of reading and listening. We set up our landing page and started collecting stories. So far, 28 stories have been shared about WikiProjects, describing a variety of experiences across numerous WikiProjects. A recurring story involves a WikiProject that starts off strong but has trouble continuing to stay active. Most people describe using WikiProjects as a way to get feedback from other editors. Some quotes:

  • "Working on requested articles, utilising the reliable sources section, and having an active WikiProject to ask questions in really helped me learn how to edit Wikipedia and looking back I don't know how long I would have stayed editing without that project." – Sam Walton on WikiProject Video Games
  • "I believe that the main problem of the Wikiprojects is that they are complicated to use. There should be a a much simpler way to check what do do, what needs to be improved etc." – Tetra quark
  • "In the late 2000s, WikiProject Film tried to emulate WP:MILHIST in having coordinators and elections. Unfortunately, this was not sustainable and ultimately fell apart." – Erik

Of course, these are just anecdotes. While they demonstrate what is possible, they do not necessarily explain what is typical. We will be using this information in conjunction with a quantitative analysis of WikiProjects, as documented on Meta. Particularly, we are interested in the measurement of WikiProject activity as it relates to overall editing in that WikiProject's subject area.

We also have 50 people and projects signed up for pilot testing, which is an excellent start! (An important caveat: one person volunteering a WikiProject does not mean the WikiProject as a whole is interested; just that there is at least one person, which is a start.)

While carrying out our research, we are documenting the problems with WikiProjects and our ideas for making WikiProjects better. Some ideas include better integration of existing tools into WikiProjects, recommendations of WikiProjects for people to join, and improved coordination with Articles for Creation. These are just ideas that may or may not make it to the design phase; we will see. We are also working with WikiProject Council to improve the directory of WikiProjects, with the goal of a reliable, self-updating WikiProject directory. Stay tuned! If you have any ideas, you are welcome to leave a note on our talk page.

That's all for now. Thank you for subscribing!

– Harej 17:21, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:Co-op news for December 2014 – Feburary 2015

Hey Doctree, it's been a while. The Co-op team has been hard at work during over the winter, so let's get right into what's been happening:

Landing page draft. You know it's a draft when you need to squint at the logo, ha ha.
  • Graphic design work is nearing completion and development work is coming along slowly but surely. The main components of the space, profiles, the landing page, and the mentor landing page have all been built, and we're basically just putting the pieces together. We have close-to-final draft of the landing page, which is currently at User:Slalani/Landing_page, and in the thumbnail to the right. You can check out other components over at User:Slalani if you're curious. Soni, Slalani, and I are working together on some of the front page elements. We've also been doing some testing on test.wikipedia.org for profile building and matching. If you're curious about checking that out, let me know.
  • We've finished up a survey for newer editors to assess their experiences of using existing help spaces (e.g. Reference Desk, Teahouse, IRC, The Wikipedia Adventure) on en.wikipedia. Gabrielm199 is putting together a summary of that survey, and in the meantime, some findings from that survey of 45 newer editors include:
    • On average, editors found contributing to Wikipedia to be easier after using the help space compared to before.
      • However, after using one or more help spaces, only half of editors reported that editing, addressing social challenges, and resolving technical issues were easy or very easy. The other half of editors were either neutral, or reported that these matters were difficult or very difficult.
    • Just under 30% (11 of 38 editors) of newer editors said they probably would have stopped editing entirely had they not received support from the help space they used.
    • Editors frequently reported either 1) that they would not have been learn what they needed without the help space, or 2) That they could have found it, but admitted that it would have been difficult or taken much longer.
  • We will be making one final move of the pilot start date to March 4th, 2015. This is the last move (I promise), because we can't afford to run the pilot any later than that. So there it is: March 4th or bust! But we won't bust, because there are just a few things left on our plate before we can run our pilot successfully. I'll be alerting you about when you will be able to make mentor profiles soon, so when you get a message about that, please take a minute or two to create your profile here (otherwise, you won't get matched to any editors!).

Thanks to all of the new mentors who have joined over the past few months. Big thanks to Missvain to posting about our little project here to the gendergap-l mailing list. I, JethroBT drop me a line 00:47, 13 February 2015 (UTC) on behalf of Wikipedia:Co-op.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:36, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:Co-op: Presentation at Wikimania 2015

Hey Doctree. I've put in a submission for a presentation at Wikimania 2015 called Is Two the Magic Number?: The Co-op and New Editor Engagement through Mentorship. I'll be talking about the state of finding help spaces on en.wiki and how our new mentorship space, The Co-op, factors into that picture. Reviewing will begin soon and I'll need your help to be able to present our work. Please review our proposal and give us feedback. If you would be interested in seeing this presentation, whether you are attending or not, please add your name to the signup at the bottom of the proposal (you do not need to attend Wikimania to express interest in presentations). I, JethroBT drop me a line on behalf of Wikipedia:Co-op.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:19, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Co-op: Mentor profiles and final pilot prep

Hey mentors, two announcements:

  1. You can now make your profile at The Co-op! Please set up your mentor profile here as soon as you are able, as the pilot begins on March 4th. It isn't very involved and should only take a minute. If you need more info about what the different skills mean (e.g. writing, communication), please refer to these descriptions.
  2. Profile creation, invitations, and automated matching of editors, profile creation, that will be coordinated through HostBot and a few gadgets may not be ready for our pilot, and will have to be done manually until they are ready. In preparation for the pilot, please read over these instructions on how we will be manually performing these tasks until the automated components are ready. I, JethroBT drop me a line on behalf of Wikipedia:Co-op.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:41, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Editing for Women's History in March

Hello,

I am very excited to announce this month’s events, focused on Women’s History Month:

  • Sunday, March 8: Women in the Arts 2015 Edit-a-thon – 10 AM to 4 PM
    Women in the Arts and ArtAndFeminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Free coffee and lunch served!
    More information • RSVP on Meetup
  • Wednesday, March 11: March WikiSalon – 7 PM to 9 PM
    An evening gathering with free-flowing conversation and free pizza.
    More information • RSVP on Meetup (or just show up!)
  • Friday, March 13: NIH Women's History Month Edit-a-Thon – 9 AM to 4 PM
    In honor of Women’s History Month, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is organizing and hosting an edit-a-thon to improve coverage of women in science in Wikipedia. Free coffee and lunch served!
    More information • RSVP on Meetup
  • Saturday, March 21: Women in STEM Edit-a-Thon at DCPL – 12 PM
    Celebrate Women's History Month by building, editing, and expanding articles about women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields during DC Public Library's first full-day edit-a-thon.
    More information • RSVP on Meetup
  • Friday, March 27: She Blinded Me with Science, Part III – 10 AM to 4 PM
    Smithsonian Institution Archives Groundbreaking Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. Free lunch courtesy of Wikimedia DC!
    More information • RSVP on Meetup
  • Saturday, March 28: March Dinner Meetup – 6 PM
    Dinner and drinks with your fellow Wikipedians!
    More information • RSVP on Meetup

Hope you can make it to an event! If you have any questions or require any special accommodations, please let me know.


Thanks,

James Hare

To unsubscribe from this newsletter, remove your name from this list. 02:24, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Helpful, Friendly Admin!

Props For Doc
Thank you for your nice, helpful message! I'm able to log in again! Now, if I can just clean up my user-talk page, I'll be good as new. Have a great weekend, Doc! CissterSledge (talk) 07:08, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
@Sisster sledge:, I'm not an administrator but glad I could help. The talk page where you saw all the warnings was the talk page of the anonymizing proxy server, not your personal talk page. @DMacks: was correct that you shouldn't delete or edit comments on a talk page other than your own. You actually made the changes to the IP address talk page but were logged in so the warning went to you on your talk page. Lesson learned and no harm done. Take care, DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 15:30, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 2

For this month's issue...

Making sense of a lot of data.

Work on our prototype will begin imminently. In the meantime, we have to understand what exactly we're working with. To this end, we generated a list of 71 WikiProjects, based on those brought up on our Stories page and those who had signed up for pilot testing. For those projects where people told stories, we coded statements within those stories to figure out what trends there were in these stories. This approach allowed us to figure out what Wikipedians thought of WikiProjects in a very organic way, with very little by way of a structure. (Compare this to a structured interview, where specific questions are asked and answered.) This analysis was done on 29 stories. Codes were generally classified as "benefits" (positive contributions made by a WikiProject to the editing experience) and "obstacles" (issues posed by WikiProjects, broadly speaking). Codes were generated as I went along, ensuring that codes were as close to the original data as possible. Duplicate appearances of a code for a given WikiProject were removed.

We found 52 "benefit" statements encoded and 34 "obstacle" statements. The most common benefit statement referring to the project's active discussion and participation, followed by statements referring to a project's capacity to guide editor activity, while the most common obstacles made reference to low participation and significant burdens on the part of the project maintainers and leaders. This gives us a sense of WikiProjects' big strength: they bring people together, and can be frustrating to editors when they fail to do so. Meanwhile, it is indeed very difficult to bring editors together on a common interest; in the absence of a highly motivated core of organizers, the technical infrastructure simply isn't there.

We wanted to pair this qualitative study with quantitative analysis of a WikiProject and its "universe" of pages, discussions, templates, and categories. To this end I wrote a script called ProjAnalysis which will, for a given WikiProject page (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Trek) and WikiProject talk-page tag (e.g. Template:WikiProject Star Trek), will give you a list of usernames of people who edited within the WikiProject's space (the project page itself, its talk page, and subpages), and within the WikiProject's scope (the pages tagged by that WikiProject, excluding the WikiProject space pages). The output is an exhaustive list of usernames. We ran the script to analyze our test batch of WikiProjects for edits between March 1, 2014 and February 28, 2015, and we subjected them to further analysis to only include those who made 10+ edits to pages in the projects' scope, those who made 4+ edits to the projects' space, and those who made 10+ edits to pages in scope but not 4+ edits to pages in the projects' space. This latter metric gives us an idea of who is active in a certain subject area of Wikipedia, yet who isn't actively engaging on the WikiProject's pages. This information will help us prioritize WikiProjects for pilot testing, and the ProjAnalysis script in general may have future life as an application that can be used by Wikipedians to learn about who is in their community.

Complementing the above two studies are a design analysis, which summarizes the structure of the different WikiProject spaces in our test batch, and the comprehensive census of bots and tools used to maintain WikiProjects, which will be finished soon. With all of this information, we will have a game plan in place! We hope to begin working with specific WikiProjects soon.

As a couple of asides...

  • Database Reports has existed for several years on Wikipedia to the satisfaction of many, but many of the reports stopped running when the Toolserver was shut off in 2014. However, there is good news: the weekly New WikiProjects and WikiProjects by Changes reports are back, with potential future reports in the future.
  • WikiProject X has an outpost on Wikidata! Check it out. It's not widely publicized, but we are interested in using Wikidata as a potential repository for metadata about WikiProjects, especially for WikiProjects that exist on multiple Wikimedia projects and language editions.

That's all for now. Thank you for subscribing! If you have any questions or comments, please share them with us.

Harej (talk) 01:43, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Photo here — Preceding unsigned comment added by Digitaleffie (talk • contribs) 16:06, 27 March 2015 (UTC)



Upcoming attractions in DC

Hello!

Here are some upcoming DC meetups in April and May:

  • Tuesday, April 14: National Archives Hackathon on Wikipedia Space with American University – 2:30-5pm
    See the latest work on the Wikipedia Space exhibit in the new NARA Innovation Hub and brainstorm on new ideas for a public exhibit about Wikipedia
  • Friday, April 17: Women in Tech Edit-a-thon with Tech LadyMafia – 5-9pm
    Team up with Tech LadyMafia to improve Wikipedia content on women in the history of technology.
  • Saturday, April 25: April Dinner Meetup – 6 PM
    Dinner and drinks with your fellow Wikipedians!
  • Friday, May 1: International Labour Day Edit-a-Thon – 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM
    An edit-a-thon at the University of Maryland

Hope to see you at these events! If you have any questions or require any special accommodations, please let me know.

Cheers,

James Hare

To remove yourself from this mailing list, remove your name from this list. 22:16, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Catherine Corrigan

 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:47, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 3

Greetings! For this month's issue...

We have demos!

After a lengthy research and design process, we decided for WikiProject X to focus on two things:

  • A WikiProject workflow that focuses on action items: discussions you can participate in and tasks you can perform to improve the encyclopedia; and
  • An automatically updating WikiProject directory that gives you lists of users participating in the WikiProject and editing in that subject area.

We have a live demonstration of the new WikiProject workflow at WikiProject Women in Technology, a brand new WikiProject that was set up as an adjunct to a related edit-a-thon in Washington, DC. The goal is to surface action items for editors, and we intend on doing that through automatically updated working lists. We are looking into using SuggestBot to generate lists of outstanding tasks, and we are looking into additional options for automatic worklist generation. This takes the burden off of WikiProject editors to generate these worklists, though there is also a "requests" section for Wikipedians to make individual requests. (As of writing, these automated lists are not yet live, so you will see a blank space under "edit articles" on the demo WikiProject. Sorry about that!) I invite you to check out the WikiProject and leave feedback on WikiProject X's talk page.

Once the demo is sufficiently developed, we will be working on a limited deployment on our pilot WikiProjects. We have selected five for the first round of testing based on the highest potential for impact and will scale up from there.

While a re-designed WikiProject experience is much needed, that alone isn't enough. A WikiProject isn't any good if people have no way of discovering it. This is why we are also developing an automatically updated WikiProject directory. This directory will surface project-related metrics, including a count of active WikiProject participants and of active editors in that project's subject area. The purpose of these metrics is to highlight how active the WikiProject is at the given point of time, but also to highlight that project's potential for success. The directory is not yet live but there is a demonstration featuring a sampling of WikiProjects.

Each directory entry will link to a WikiProject description page which automatically list the active WikiProject participants and subject-area article editors. This allows Wikipedians to find each other based on the areas they are interested in, and this information can be used to revive a WikiProject, start a new one, or even for some other purpose. These description pages are not online yet, but they will use this template, if you want to get a feel of what they will look like.

We need volunteers!

WikiProject X is a huge undertaking, and we need volunteers to support our efforts, including testers and coders. Check out our volunteer portal and see what you can do to help us!

As an aside...

Wouldn't it be cool if lists of requested articles could not only be integrated directly with WikiProjects, but also shared between WikiProjects? Well, we got the crazy idea of having experimental software feature Flow deployed (on a totally experimental basis) on the new Article Request Workshop, which seeks to be a place where editors can "workshop" article ideas before they get created. It uses Flow because Flow allows, essentially, section-level categorization, and in the future will allow "sections" (known as "topics" within Flow) to be included across different pages. What this means is that you have a recommendation for a new article tagged by multiple WikiProjects, allowing for the recommendation to appear on lists for each WikiProject. This will facilitate inter-WikiProject collaboration and will help to reduce duplicated work. The Article Request Workshop is not entirely ready yet due to some bugs with Flow, but we hope to integrate it into our pilot WikiProjects at some point.

Harej (talk) 00:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

ACC Tool

Hey, I got an email to say I'm approved to use the tool, however every time I try to log on, I'm met with "User account is not identified. Please email accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org if you believe this is in error." Regards, — BranStark (talk) 15:57, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Unsuitable username email

Hi-not sure what's happened,but I've received an email from you stating that my username does not comply with the Username Policy,and I have to apply for a new username.I can't see any reason for this,and so it looks like some sort of glitch?-or someone is trying to use my username without my permission.Hoping you can clear it up :) Cheers Lemon martini (talk) 21:30, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@Lemon martini: |Did you request another account through the Request an account process? If you can copy the raw message, including all of the headers, and email the content back to me, I will look into it. Regards, DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 21:44, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Here it is. Just realized that it's talking about a new request- I'm not sure if this refers to 1.a new request for an account has been received(in which case it's not me) or 2.a request for a new account with a new acceptable username to replace the current one.

From: accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed 4/22/15 9:14 PM To: Many thanks for your interest in Wikipedia. Unfortunately the username that you have requested does not comply with our username policy.

Please take a look at our username policy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy) and choose a different username. You may be able to create an account with the new name you have chosen yourself at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&type=signup. If so, I wish you all the best and hope you enjoy your time on Wikipedia.

If you are still unable to create the name yourself, we will gladly process your new request here, and I look forward to hearing from you again with your new choice of username.

  • If you did not make this request, please ignore this email. If you wish to report this, please send an email to accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org with a copy of the original email.*

Regards,

Doc Tree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doctree English Wikipedia Account Creation Team

Many thanks for your help Lemon martini (talk) 22:44, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@Lemon martini: Hi, again Lm. I requested (and received) oversight of the email address to preserve everyone's privacy. The account creation interface system requires that email addresses be verified before a request is sent to the ACC Open requests queue. The email that you forwarded is generated when an ACC team volunteer clicks the "Decline-UPol" button. The only account request that I see where I declined for that reason today asked for a disruptive username. You may want to change your email account password. Looks like your email may have been hacked or at least spoofed. Take care, DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 00:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Account Creator Permissions

Hiya Doc! The Account Creator page said to check with an ACC admin before asking for Account Creator permissions as a function of ACC membership, so that's what I'm doing. RegistryKey(RegEdit) 11:54, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi, RK. I would like for you to handle about 100 requests before I endorse a request for the account creator permission. Not 100 created; 100 handled. When you hit the 6-a-day limit, scan down the list for any obvious UPol or ISU issues. Please read the discussion I started in the Guide talk page before you wade into the Flagged_user_needed queue. Any user, including you, can decline requests that are obviously too similar. The flag is needed only to create. Leave a comment on your observation and judgement for any close calls. I consider answering email queries a "handle" because they often take as much or more time and discretion as a request for an account. At your current level of activity, I'll gladly endorse your request for the flag within a week or two. Properly handling a few "I can't find my password" emails and some extra UPol and ISU declines when you hit the 6-a-day limit will get you experience a bit sooner. Take care, DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 18:00, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 4

Newsletter • May/June 2015

Hello friends! We have been hard at work these past two months. For this report:

The directory is live!

For the first time, we are happy to bring you an exhaustive, comprehensive WikiProject Directory. This directory endeavors to list every single WikiProject on the English Wikipedia, including those that don't participate in article assessment. In constructing the broadest possible definition, we have come up with a list of approximately 2,600 WikiProjects. The directory tracks activity statistics on the WikiProject's pages, and, for where it's available, statistics on the number of articles tracked by the WikiProject and the number of editors active on those articles. Complementing the directory are description pages for each project, listing usernames of people active on the WikiProject pages and the articles in the WikiProject's scope. This will help Wikipedians interested in a subject find each other, whether to seek feedback on an article or to revive an old project. (There is an opt-out option.) We have also come up with listings of related WikiProjects, listing the ten most relevant WikiProjects based on what articles they have in common. We would like to promote WikiProjects as interconnected systems, rather than isolated silos.

A tremendous amount of work went into preparing this directory. WikiProjects do not consistently categorize their pages, meaning we had to develop our own index to match WikiProjects with the articles in their scope. We also had to make some adjustments to how WikiProjects were categorized; indeed, I personally have racked up a few hundred edits re-categorizing WikiProjects. There remains more work to be done to make the WikiProject directory truly useful. In the meantime, take a look and feel free to leave feedback at the WikiProject X talk page.

Stuff in the works!

What have we been working on?

  • A new design template—This has been in the works for a while, of course. But our goal is to design something that is useful and cleanly presented on all browsers and at all screen resolutions while working within the confines of what MediaWiki has to offer. Additionally, we are working on designs for the sub-components featured on the main project page.
  • A new WikiProject talk page banner in Lua—Work has begun on implementing the WikiProject banner in Lua. The goal is to create a banner template that can be usable by any WikiProject in lieu of having its own template. Work has slowed down for now to focus on higher priority items, but we are interested in your thoughts on how we could go about creating a more useful project banner. We have a draft module on Test Wikipedia, with a demonstration.
  • New discussion reports—We have over 4.8 million articles on the English Wikipedia, and almost as many talk pages as well. But what happens when someone posts on a talk page? What if no one is watching that talk page? We are currently testing out a system for an automatically-updating new discussions list, like RFC for WikiProjects. We currently have five test pages up for the WikiProjects on cannabis, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and Ghana.
  • SuggestBot for WikiProjects—We have asked the maintainer of SuggestBot to make some minor adjustments to SuggestBot that will allow it to post regular reports to those WikiProjects that ask for them. Stay tuned!
  • Semi-automated article assessment—Using the new revision scoring service and another system currently under development, WikiProjects will be getting a new tool to facilitate the article assessment process by providing article quality/importance predictions for articles yet to be assessed. Aside from helping WikiProjects get through their backlogs, the goal is to help WikiProjects with collecting metrics and triaging their work. Semi-automation of this process will help achieve consistent results and keep the process running smoothly, as automation does on other parts of Wikipedia.

Want us to work on any other tools? Interested in volunteering? Leave a note on our talk page.

The WikiProject watchers report is back!

The database report which lists WikiProjects according to the number of watchers (i.e., people that have the project on their watchlist), is back! The report stopped being updated a year ago, following the deactivation of the Toolserver, but a replacement report has been generated.


Until next time, Harej (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Trying to add info to a stub

I am trying to add information to a stub. Can anyone tell me now to go about doing that?

Thank yoiu,

ThomMulvoy

ThomMulvoy (talk) 03:48, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Thom. Click on the How to edit a page in the Welcome that I left on your talk page. If you tell me what article and what you'd like to add, I can be more specific. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 03:57, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Co-op Pilot Results & Mentoring

Hey there! The Co-op has been on a hiatus for a bit, but we are planning on opening up shop again soon. When you're able, please read over and respond to this update on our talk page. We have favorable results from our final report regarding the pilot, and we are interested in seeing who is available to mentor when we reopen our space and begin to send out invites again. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:16, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

This message was sent by I JethroBT (talk · contribs) via Mass Message. (Opt-out instructions)

Thanks very much...

...for your support over at my RfA. I shall do my best to be worthy of it. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 08:51, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Martin F. Nolan entry

I keep trying, and, apparently, failing to add biographical information to the stub entry fort Martin F. Nolan. Clearly I am missing a step or two to get that done. Any way to check on that?

ThomMulvoy

ThomMulvoy (talk) 11:41, 28 June 2015 (UTC)


My RfA

Pavlov's RfA reward

Thank for !voting at my recent RfA. You voted Support so you get a whopping three cookies, fresh from the oven!
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC).

Community desysoping RfC

Hi. You are invited to comment at RfC for BARC - a community desysoping process. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:03, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

how do I Edith an article

Am woundering how I can Edith an article Lucky Yakubu (talk) 07:45, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Doctree, for your help.

Thank you, Doctree, for your help.
I appreciate your creating the draft for consideration of possibly an article, "Frederick Glaysher." I've added some resources to it, in addition to what was on the Teahouse page.

I'm messaging you here, if you don't mind, because I have not yet figured out how to tag you yet.

Thanks, again. fglaysher 

Fglaysher (talk) 20:09, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

Just wanted to let you know your contributions at the Teahouse are appreciated, even though they often come in after other volunteers have already addressed the questions. Your additions are always helpful. So here's a cup of coffee for you to sip on. GrammarFascist contribstalk 00:39, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

New article submissions discussion

Your contributions at the New article submission discussion were very helpful. Tell me if anything comes of that discussion on Friday.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:04, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Interview request

Hi Doc,

I'm a journalist from Australia, currently doing an investigation into sockpuppeting.

I understand this is an area you known quite a bit about, and I was hoping I might be able to speak with you, either by phone or email.

Thanks, Jack Jckkrr (talk) 23:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 5

Newsletter • October 2015

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

We did it!

In July, we launched five pilot WikiProjects: WikiProjects Cannabis, Evolutionary Biology, Ghana, Hampshire, and Women's Health. We also use the new design, named "WPX UI," on WikiProject Women in Technology, Women in Red, WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health. We are currently looking for projects for the next round of testing. If you are interested, please sign up on the Pilots page.

Shortly after our launch we presented at Wikimania 2015. Our slides are on Wikimedia Commons.

Then after all that work, we went through the process of figuring out whether we accomplished our goal. We reached out to participants on the redesigned WikiProjects, and we asked them to complete a survey. (If you filled out your survey—thank you!) While there are still some issues with the WikiProject tools and the new design, there appears to be general satisfaction (at least among those who responded). The results of the survey and more are documented in our grant report filed with the Wikimedia Foundation.

The work continues!

There is more work that needs to be done, so we have applied for a renewal of our grant. Comments on the proposal are welcome. We would like to improve what we have already started on the English Wikipedia and to also expand to Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Why those? Because they are multilingual projects and because there needs to be better coordination across Wikimedia projects. More details are available in the renewal proposal.

How can the Wikimedia Foundation support WikiProjects?

The Wikimedia Developer Summit will be held in San Francisco in January 2016. The recently established Community Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in investigating what technical support they can provide for WikiProjects, i.e., support beyond just templates and bots. I have plenty of opinions myself, but I want to hear what you think. The session is being planned on Phabricator, the Wikimedia bug tracker. If you are not familiar with Phabricator, you can log in with your Wikipedia username and password through the "Login or Register: MediaWiki" button on the login page. Your feedback can help make editing Wikipedia a better experience.


Until next time,

Harej (talk) 09:03, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Asccp or something (not RFSFSR anyway)

Might be an idea to mail them (if you haven't already thought of that). (My grandmother - I only knew one of them - didn't know how to suck eggs, and neither do I...). Thanks for your offer to help them. Someday, someone will take up Gertie the Aardvark and I'll have to think up another. Peridon (talk) 21:02, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

You're invited! Women in Red World Virtual Edit-a-thon on Women in Science

You are invited! Join us remotely!

World Virtual Edit-a-thon on Women in Science

  • Dates: 8 to 29 November 2015
  • Location: Worldwide/virtual/online event
  • Host/Facilitator: Women in Red (WiR) in collaboration with Women scientists: Did you know that only 15% of the biographies on Wikipedia are about women? WiR focuses on "content gender gap". If you'd like to help contribute articles on women and women's works, we warmly welcome you!
  • Sponsor: New York Academy of Sciences
  • Event details: This is a virtual edit-a-thon hosted by WiR in parallel with a "physical" event during the afternoon of Sunday, November 22 in New York City. It will allow all those keen to improve Wikipedia's coverage of women in science to participate. As the virtual edit-a-thon stretches over three weeks, new participants will be able to draw on the assistance of more experienced editors while creating, translating or improving articles on women who are (or have been) prominent in the field. All levels of Wikipedia editing experience are welcome.
  • RSVP and learn more: →here←

--Rosiestep (talk) 03:14, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:30, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Piotr Domaradzki

Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:01, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of User talk:D.jeelan

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on User talk:D.jeelan requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article or image appears to be a clear copyright infringement. This article or image appears to be a direct copy from https://sites.google.com/site/wwwjetuchopracom/home/social-development-of-india. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites or other printed material as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

If the external website or image belongs to you, and you want to allow Wikipedia to use the text or image — which means allowing other people to modify it — then you must verify that externally by one of the processes explained at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. If you are not the owner of the external website or image but have permission from that owner, see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. You might want to look at Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for more details, or ask a question here.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. | Uncle Milty | talk | 15:48, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

AAh, I now understand why this is posted on my talk. I initially created the page with a Welcome template. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 19:22, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Doctree. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 05:00, 16 December 2015 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

JQTriple7 talk 05:00, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

@JQTriple7: I didn't receive a message. Please resend any mail that you sent to me. If you didn't find messages from me and your primary email is gmail, please look in your Social tab. Gmail's filters often route Wikipedia mail there rather than to your inbox. Regards, DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 03:48, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
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