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"Have a cuppa... Coffee?"
"Have a cuppa... Coffee?"

Happy New Year Liz!

Happy New Year!

Liz,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:37, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2015}} to user talk pages.
Thank you, Iryna! I wish you a healthy and prosperous 2015! Liz Read! Talk! 23:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Liz. You have new messages at User talk:I dream of horses/Funny stuff.
Message added 03:57, 1 January 2015 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

WikiCup 2015 launch newsletter

Round one of the 2015 WikiCup has begun! So far we've had around 80 signups, which close on February 5. If you have not already signed up and want to do so, then you can add your name here. There have been changes to to several of the points scores for various categories, and the addition of Peer Reviews for the first time. These will work in the same manner as Good Article Reviews, and all of the changes are summarised here.

Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round, and one of the new changes this year is that all scores must be claimed within two weeks of an article's promotion or appearance, so don't forget to add them to your submissions pages! If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs), Miyagawa (talk · contribs) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs)
If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 December 2014

Wikidata weekly summary #139

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

This Month in Education: December 2014

Updates, reports, news, and stories about how Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects are used in education around the world.

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Request your possible involvement

This probably takes some explaining. At the recent ArbCom case regarding Landmark Worldwide I suggested that maybe it might be possible to get together a group of editors with some broad experience of wikipedia and knowledge of the general topic area to get together and review the sources available on the topic with the intention of ultimately starting a broader discussion, probably through RfC, about the issues involved. It is more or less in line with a proposal I made for something like a "content" committee, which would probably be more reasonably called a "comment" committee, given the role I think RfC and the hopefully wide variety and number of editors might play in the real outcome of the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 16#Rehashing an old idea - Maybe a "Comment committee" to deal with content?. ArbCom itself requested some broader input in the topic area in its decision.

I was thinking of editors around here who might have some sort of broad experience in the social/religious issues involved and you were one of the first names that came to mind for maybe taking part in reviewing information presented and evaluating sources and the like. If you would have any interest in maybe taking part in this sort of test run for such a committee, I would obviously welcome it. I haven't actually started a separate section on the article talk page yet, because I wanted to see if there were any responses from the individuals I was considering, or, potentially, anyone else who might be interested. John Carter (talk) 16:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, John, it's been a while. If you take a look at my contributions, you can see that I'm not very active at all these days. In fact, I just logged in because there was a news story on WP and I wanted to see if people here were discussing it.
While I spent some years studying new religious movements, I'm not up to speed on the Landmark case and I know it has come up at ArbCom now more than once. After diving into my last conflict regarding religious subjects, I'm a little bit leery of doing so again. But if you are just wanting one more set of eyes to look over content, I can do some reading up on this group so I will be better informed and look over the ArbCom and any AN/I incidents. I should probably state that I have no intrinsic belief that NRMs are, as a group, invalid and fraudulent. But like any other subject, Wikipedia entries on them shouldn't be written as faith statements while it is perfectly okay to outline a set of beliefs, as an anthropologist would do. Liz Read! Talk! 20:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
FWIW, neither do I think that this group, which is probably less an "NRM" than a self-help group with some NRM characteristics. And, again FWIW, I personally think if Scientology and a few other such groups got current leaders who could deal with issues of all sorts, including maybe "updating" the teachings of the founders like the canonical Gospel authors did, they might be not only revived but possibly making really potentially very useful statements. The people I've contacted have tended to be among our better informed editors in sociology, psychology, like you religion, and related topics, and for this topic, and others like it, there should be sources in all those fields. But in this particular case, as Astynax has shown on the article talk page in the "to do" list, there aren't that many that easily available to non-experts or academics. And in some cases people with knowledge of topics know the relative reliability or prominence of journals and other sources than non-experts. The basic idea, at least from me initially, is just try to get together some independent people to see what looks encyclopedic in the content we can find, relative weight depending on sources, and other things, and then asking for input from the community, including those individuals and others on final structure of the related articles, and maybe what articles are most called for. John Carter (talk) 21:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 9

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 9, November-December 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • New donations, including real-paper-and-everything books, e-books, science journal databases, and more
  • New TWL coordinators, conference news, a new open-access journal database, summary of library-related WMF grants, and more
  • Spotlight: "Global Impact: The Wikipedia Library and Persian Wikipedia" - a Persian Wikipedia editor talks about their experiences with database access in Iran, writing on the Persian project and the JSTOR partnership

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 January 2015

Wikidata weekly summary #140

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Nice sign

I liked the way your sign is made. Will try out "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" too. Aside: at first I thought that Liz stands for lizard. . --AmritasyaPutraT 07:41, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, my signature used to look pretty cool, it was a cursive "L". Somehow the font got changed and I haven't been able to locate it again. I was sometimes called Lizard when I was a young child but the nickname didn't stick. Just short for Elizabeth. Liz Read! Talk! 19:52, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 January 2015

Wikidata weekly summary #141

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

The Signpost: 21 January 2015

Wikidata weekly summary #142

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Saturday February 7 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon

Saturday February 7 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon

You are invited to join us at New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for our upcoming editathon, a part of the Black WikiHistory Month campaign (which also includes events in Brooklyn and Westchester!).

12:00pm - 5:00 pm at NYPL Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue), by W 135th St

The Wikipedia training and editathon will take place in the Aaron Douglas Reading Room of the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, with a reception following in the Langston Hughes lobby on the first floor of the building at 5:00pm.

We hope to see you there!--Pharos (talk) 06:03, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

The Signpost: 28 January 2015

This Month in Education: [January 2015]

Updates, reports, news, and stories about how Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects are used in education around the world.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:16, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

If this message is not on your home wiki's talk page, update your subscription.

Wikidata weekly summary #143

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Greetings

Hi Liz, It's been a while. How are you? I've been hiding under a rock. I remember a while back you were interested in research about WP demographics etc. So...... here's something new you may find interesting.[1] Best, -- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:46, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Keithbob, I'll check it out. I haven't been hiding, for me, it got to the point where I thought a couple of editors were following me from article to article, checking on my edits. Feeling like any edit I did might be challenged because of simple differences of opinion on a completely different topic took the fun out of editing for me. But, after taking a break, I've found some of these editors have left or become inactive so I think I will start checking in more regularly now. I appreciate your greetings! Liz Read! Talk! 22:47, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
Welcome back!!-- — Keithbob • Talk • 22:41, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Please Help

Just saw your comment about the GG talk page archives being daunting. Please don't let those stop you. A good portion of the talk pages is soap boxing or explaining BLP and RS policy to new editors. An experienced editor like yourself should have no trouble jumping right in! Cheers. — Strongjam (talk) 17:38, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, Strongjam, I see editors who participate on the talk page directed to read up on previous discussions that have already occurred over the past five months. I'd love to contribute but it appears that the entire article has been debated, line by line. Short of new reliable sources becoming available or decisions on what a reliable source can be being changed, I don't know that a lot of actual editing of the article is called for (except for reverting bad edits for new editors). Participating in working on the article seems to primarily involve addressing complaints about the article on the talk page! I expect that to continue far into the future. But I'll check in regularly to help out, if I can. Liz Read! Talk! 17:54, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 February 2015

Faulty RSes vs 'Original Research'

Hello Liz, re your question: there are a couple of sources (Kain's articles on Forbes, the HuffPo interviews, David Pakman's interviews and a couple of others, plus a lot of blogs have research data) - yet no 'acceptable' RSes if I get the mood of the current GamerGate-talk page right, cover it. If Wikipedia wants to be an encyclopedia, it needs to uphold truth too. I realize that can get messy, but currently the GamerGate article is as about as far as the truth it can be - both the statistics, documents gathered on blogs and other resources as well as collective experiences (and not those only focused on by the MSM) show this. I'm getting mighty tired of this, and there have been times I really doubted the integrity of Wikipedia. The verifiability vs truth balance is really getting out of whack and really absurd. MicBenSte (talk) 17:40, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure about David Pakman, because it seems like his program is more of a talk show than journalism, but I think the other sources should be used as there are editorial boards at Forbes and HuffPost. Wikipedians can be divided about the use of opinion pieces, like Kain's, but I appreciated his perspective on the subject. Things get sticky when you talk about "upholding truth" as 1) different reliable sources have different perspectives on what the truth is and 2) our understanding of truth evolves over time. As in your example, our understanding of the purpose of the Iraq War differs in 2003 vs. 2013 as additional information comes to light. Science, which is often seen as "objective" is prone to evolving truth as researchers learn more and refine our views of physics, biology, the universe, etc. So, I'm not a big believer in One Ultimate Truth. I'm not a relativist but I do think that it is almost impossible for an individual to understand the totality of complex events, experiences, systems, organizations, cultural products, etc. Liz Read! Talk! 17:50, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
I get what you mean - but most often in science e.g. it comes down to things that haven't discovered yet. The Iraqi war truths were only hidden in the Pentagon and their affiliates, but due to the place it was hidden noone except those with access could find out about it till after the war had happened. Regarding GamerGate however, sufficient points have been made in the public online, but due to the RS-policy it's a complete at-fault article. While Wikipedia has the first hit when you search for GamerGate on Google.
I'm not asking to straight-up copy gamergate.me or something like that - but an more accurate portrayal including both sides of the story (and not only one side of the story which is made bigger then it in reality is (without second-guessing I can't tell how blown up it exactly is)). Jimmy Wales asked GamerGate-proponents to try and create in their sandboxes or whereever to create an accurate portrayal then. Except for the fact it really downplays the harassment, I figure gamergate.me comes most close when it comes to pure facts (although even there there are discutable 'facts' included). MicBenSte (talk) 18:01, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #144

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Discussions
  • Events/Blogs/Press
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Did you know?
  • Development
    • Did more work on Capiunto to get it into a state where it can be deployed to Wikimedia sites.
    • Mourned Titan (phabricator:T88550) as its developers were bought up. Began evaluation for which graph database to use instead for a Wikidata query service (mw:Wikibase/Indexing)
    • Further work on header section redesign
    • Tweaks to the sitelink section
    • Worked on making monolingual text datatype accept more languages
    • Finished showing the language when a language fallback is used
    • Started looking into fixing the existing Guided Tours after Guided Tours extension API changes
    • Worked on implementing Lua convenience functions for rendering arbitrary Snaks. This is useful for displaying references or qualifiers. (phabricator:T76213)
  • Monthly Tasks
    • Hack on one of these.
    • Help fix these items which have been flagged using Wikidata - The Game.
    • Help develop the next summary here!
    • Contribute to a Showcase item
    • Help translate or proofread pages in your own language!

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)

The Signpost: 11 February 2015

I'll take it down for now

though I don't really get the controversy; it's been reported in several news sites that he's come out as transgender, yet there seems to be a blanket ban on adding it to his article. Serendipodous 17:16, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Milowent, I try to just inform Serendipodous if I see any issues with the charts. He keeps so on top of the trending articles, he is much more familiar those pages than any other editor. Liz Read! Talk! 19:28, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
If you look at Talk:Bruce Jenner, you'll find that this news about a gender transformation is hugely controversial and has caused the article to be protected. Until Jenner declares this kind of news himself, it is considered gossip. Liz Read! Talk! 19:28, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Liz, I alternate weeks with him on writing the reports, so I'm also happy to receive guidance whenever you see fit. Thanks. My opinions about controversial coverage on Wikipedia may not be the currently prevailing ones, but I understand the concerns. In my view, Wikipedia lessens the BLP damage caused by tabloids when it does coverage right. But it is always a very tricky thing in practice.--Milowent • hasspoken 19:33, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
I was not aware of this, Milowent as I've previously discussed aspects of the charts with Serendipodous. but I was a more active editor in 2013 and the first half of 2014 so I missed this transition. Nice to meet you, great work! I check out both charts on a weekly basis. Liz Read! Talk! 19:44, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #145

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events/Blogs/Press
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • Spiffy new project building on top of Wikidata: inventaire.io. Check out this example entry!
    • You will now see when a language fallback for a label is used on an item or property. The language name will be shown next to it.
    • Automatic descriptions for Wikidata items by Magnus
    • The templates for adding badges (good article, featured article, etc) to articles on Wikipedia in the sidebar are getting removed from articles rapidly in favor of getting that information from Wikidata \o/ German Wikipedia even deleted those templates already. English Wikipedia seems to be getting close.
  • Did you know?
  • Development
    • <3
    • We are hiring! Passionate about Wikidata and know your way around Java Script and co? Apply!
    • We'll spend the next week working with Nik and Stas from WMF to move queries forward in Berlin
    • Worked on implementing a Lua interface for arbitrary Snak rendering. This can be used to render eg. qualifiers or references in Wikipedia infoboxes.
    • Did groundwork for Lua convenience functions that render data in the user’s interface language, rather than the content language (for multilingual wikis, like Commons or Wikidata only)
    • Did further work on making the Lua interface code nicer and share code with the parser functions
    • Removed input method selector in the sitelink input as it was hiding the actual input and not very useful there
    • Fixed some issues in diff views showing new data instead of old data
    • Created a few scripts to make it easier for 3rd parties to install Wikibase
    • Fixed icinga notification that tests if dispatch lag gets high
    • Investigated several issues regarding storage of time values and started fixing them
    • Fixed editing of qualifiers
    • Fixed most browser tests after introduction of new header design
  • Monthly Tasks
    • Hack on one of these.
    • Help fix these items which have been flagged using Wikidata - The Game.
    • Help develop the next summary here!
    • Contribute to a Showcase item
    • Help translate or proofread pages in your own language!

Criteria

Hi Liz. I was reading a recent discussion on the RfA talkpage, and one of your comments caught my attention a little bit - [2] - you say "someone with those criteria", but criteria are points that one needs to pass, not attributes one may already possess. I'm sorry if that was just slip of the tongue and you already knew this, but I am one of those people who likes to educate others on their mistakes so that they will be correct the next time. It's not a criticism, just something I noticed. Good afternoon (by two minutes)! Rcsprinter123 (banter) @ 12:02, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

You are correct, Rcsprinter123, I probably should have used "qualifications" or "status". Liz Read! Talk! 12:12, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi!

Hi! Please read my reply. Thanks Quis separabit? 23:09, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, and I answered you there. I have been through arduous, months long discussions over "of descent" categories and have made hundreds of edits in this area. Let's just say I disagree with you. Liz Read! Talk! 00:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

question

Hi Liz,

You seem to know a lot about arbcom, so I'm asking you this: if an editor's block log says that they've been blocked indefinitely by arbcom, how can I find out the reason? I've searched arbcom with no success. I don't know if it was through an arbcom case or by one of their other enforcement methods. Going by just a username, is their a way to find out? Thanks! EChastain (talk) 20:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @EChastain: Active arbcom sanctions should be listed here. Any actions taken by admins under discretionary sanctions should be logged here. Hope that helps. — Strongjam (talk) 20:23, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Strongjam, thanks for answering. Unfortunately, the user's name isn't listed at either of those two places. But the block log (which I had trouble enough finding) just says "(account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ({{ArbComBlock}}). I looked through the editor's contributions just before the block, but no clues there. EChastain (talk) 20:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Odd, should be listed there I would think. You could always search for their username in the case archives. Or ping the admin who added the block template. — Strongjam (talk) 20:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
(ec)Hi, EChastain! Strongjam is correct (thanks for chiming in!), you can go to these pages and find an editor who has been placed under general or discretionary sanctions. You can also find out about topic bans at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions. But you say that the editor has an indefinite block and it isn't a topic ban. These usually occur due to a settled ARBCOM case or do to a later Arbitration Enforcement action. You can search for more information by editor name at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index (for closed cases) or Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement (for A/R/E archives).
However, usually the block notice identifies the case involved in the block log. The exception is there are times that ARBCOM gets information about an editor's identify or behavior that is not made public. ARBCOM has been known to hand out indefinite blocks without a given reason but this doesn't happen often. In these cases, it is unlikely that the cause will ever be made known to the Wikipedia community. I hope that helps! Liz Read! Talk! 20:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Hi Liz, no there's no clue anywhere. Just a couple of posts on their page asking what happened. EChastain (talk) 21:07, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Very mysterious, EChastain. This sounds like one of those times when ARBCOM was contacted through email with information that could not be made public due privacy concerns or WP:OUTING. Many editors are frustrated by the lack of transparency when this happens but if the information isn't disclosed at the time of the block, it probably never will be. That won't stop people from speculating but that is just gossip. Sorry, it looks like your question can't be answered at this point. Liz Read! Talk! 21:13, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks anyway. EChastain (talk) 21:18, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Corruption

Good catch, thanks. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I prefer your version (U.S. to American) but I guess it was created first. Liz Read! Talk! 23:58, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia Highlights from January 2015

Here are the highlights from the Wikimedia blog in January 2015, covering selected activities of the Wikimedia Foundation and other important events from the Wikimedia movement.

(The Wikimedia Highlights issues from some recent months have not been distributed via this notice, but can be found in the archive.)

About · Subscribe/unsubscribe, 23:17, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I missed a couple in 2013.

One was when I was on vacation. Not sure about the other one. Serendipodous 18:22, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

That confirms what I thought, Serendipodous. I just wanted to be sure that I had the right page titles and hadn't overlooked anything. At some point, I expect that this category should be divided into years (Top 25s in 2014, 2015, etc.) but I'm not ready to do that much retagging today. Another day! Liz Read! Talk! 18:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 February 2015

Merry Christmas :-)

Hi,

I'm the one who removed the "Yule Log" thingy. I've looked around for a Scandinavian source for this, and couldn't find any. The blog used for article reference doesn't give any sources. AFAIK there is no such tradition, the info is false. I'd of course be happy (and really, really surprised) to leave it in if you could dig up a reference for this, but it would be nice if you didn't simply revert w/o talk page mention and real references. Good of you to notify me, though,thx for that.

T 2001:4610:A:5E:0:0:0:16E1 (talk) 01:05, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I suggest you do take the edit to the article talk page. Perhaps another editor can come up with a reference. Liz Read! Talk! 01:09, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Hiya, I did present the change on the Talk page (I notice you didn't present your revert there ...?). So far no other RS has been presented. I'll give it some time and then see. T. 2001:4610:A:5E:0:0:0:16E1 (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Well, I don't edit that page regularly. I did see one person participating in the discussion, which is good. I'm glad you started the conversation. You might end up winning other editors over to your side and get your edit through. ;-) Liz Read! Talk! 21:54, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Adminship?

Just wondering... I've seen you around the site a lot recently (since I came back from a brief hiatus), and with the low numbers of active admins we have I was wondering if you've ever thought of going up for the bit? From what I've seen you seem to be a fairly calm and reasonable editor (which we need more of in the admin community), and I'm not aware of any issues that you've had (if there's anything I should be concerned about let me know haha). If you'd consider it, I'd be willing to be your nominator. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 03:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

That's very flattering, Coffee. I also returned from a break in December. I've noticed that there were quite a number of admins and editors who took a wikibreak around May or June of 2014 and, unfortunately, some haven't returned. It was a contentious period of time.
I've thought about adminship but I don't have a record of content creation and that is a dealbreaker for many editors. I work with categorization, do copy edits, approve edits on protected pages, answer questions at the Teahouse, try to mediate in talk page arguments, poke my nose in on noticeboard discussions, etc. I try not to take things personally or react emotionally because that usually causes things to escalate and never helps solve disputes. So, while I'm proud of the work I've done and I think I have a good temperament for an admin, I'm not hopeful about a successful RfA because I have no GA/FA notches on my belt.
But thank you for your encouragement! Maybe one day, I'll get those articles written once I find a niche area to work in. ;-) Liz Read! Talk! 03:55, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
That's too bad, as all of what you do is very useful to the betterment of this encyclopedia. It's a shame that content creation has become a "requirement" for the bit now. I'm not a GA/FA content creator and have never aimed to be one as I see being an admin as being no more than a content creation facilitator, but sadly the editorial community's values have changed over time. Well, if you ever decide you're ready just let me know and I'll be there to nominate. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 04:01, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks so much for the offer, Coffee. I might take you up on that one day! Liz Read! Talk! 13:17, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #146

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Empty categories

Hello, thank you for your message. I just want to let you know that the categories I tagged for speedy deletion for being empty was done so appropriately. When I tagged them, they were empty, but then someone else ended up adding content to them after I had done so. For example, based on the time stamps, I tagged Category:2008 elections in New Zealand as C1 at 7:22 on February 19, but then Category:New Zealand general election, 2008 was added to it at 8:09 on February 19. I marked Category:Sri Lanka Mitra Vibhushana as C1 at 23:45 on February 18, but its two articles within it were added at 15:56 and 15:57 on February 21. If empty categories end up getting populated after I've tagged them for deletion, then of course the speedy deletion criteria no longer applies and the tags should be removed. Thanks. --StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 22:03, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, sorry then, Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars for the unnecessary lecture! I appreciate you providing me with an explanation. All the best, Liz Read! Talk! 22:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Blocked for starting a SPI and falsely accused with no evidence

I was self reporting my unjust temp block for starting a SPI and false allegation made by Chillum. I also asked for the salted SPI to be looked at which was properly done with all parties involved being informed and 2 admins as well. I even went to the extra step of informing those who were affected by the sock or meat puppet. Something is rotten in Denmark and I am going to point it out. Meat and sock puppets involved in a heated article deletion discussion are very troubling especially when they appear to be done by the editor who nominated the article for deletion. I provided ample evidence of a SPI and it was quickly closed and salted and I was blocked based on false accusations. The article that stood for 9 years was also salted. Here is a link to the SPI I started that was closed in three hours and then deleted so no one else could see it. [[3]] This investigation has been started to investigate RGloucester and suspected sock or meat puppet Jobrot.

See Jimbo's Page and ANI for discussion of Admin Chillum's abuse of an IP

See Jimbo's page [4] and ANI[5] 172.56.21.218 (talk) 04:54, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Circular references

Greetings, @Liz:. Per your catch on the Providence Research circular reference issue that came up on the Jimbo Wales Talk page discussion of that entity's citing of the Wikimedia Foundation as co-author on its works, I did an internal Wikipedia search (inadequate for the task), then resorted to a backdoor Google search (here).

It appears the only circular ref at Wikipedia (that turns up in the latter) is in the Patton article. There is one also at the German version. Dropping the "Wikipedia" parameter from the search (here) returns a crop of hits for the "Providence Research" books at amazon.com, google books, and elsewhere.

Thus, at the moment the problem of circular references citing both Providence Research and the Wikimedia Foundation (which is being assumed as a proxy for Wikipedia research being utilized) is limited, thankfully. Hopefully it will remain that way. However:

1) I haven't any way of readily identifying other entitles employing Wikipedia research which is then circularly cited at Wikipedia, I only stumbled into the Providence Research effort by accident. It would take an internal search tool I don't have access to (or, presumably, skill to use, as I am not proficient in Visual Editor);

2) The spread of entities citing Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation as co-authors can hopefully be staunched (per the initiative which closed the discussion on the topic at Wales' Talk page).

Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 17:52, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

You're very diligent about this, Wikiuser100! I think the page you want is Special:LinkSearch where you can put in a generic website link like http://www.abz.com/* or http://*.abz.com/ and see what articles come up that are linked to that site. It's a useful tool when you are trying to see which articles are using particular sources that are questionable. Liz Read! Talk! 18:07, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, and for the link, User :Liz. Unfortunately, there is no external link associated with "Providence Research" – that's what raised a red flag for me about the ref, that perhaps it might have been vandalized to appear rather oddly like this: "<ref>Old Blood and Guts: Chasing Bandits and Nazis with General George S. Patton By Providence Research, Wikimedia Foundation, U.S. Senate, Office of the Federal Register</ref>".
When I searched that exact text string in Google and got no direct hits (only links to a Kindle book for sale at Amazon, et al) I realized something wasn't right, as there was no: 1) webpage for Providence Research; 2) publisher for Providence Research; or 3) any Wikipedia page for them.
What tool would identify text strings containing "Providence Research" among references at Wikipedia pages? Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 18:24, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 February 2015

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This Month in Education: [February 201

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:25, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

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