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Template test?

Hey Carnildo,

Steven Walling and I have been running some A/B tests on common user talk templates (check out our task force for more info), and I was wondering if you'd let us tinker with the warning templates that your bot sends (not in the technical sense, just with the actual content of the warning). Right now we're working with Beetstra and Versageek on some redesigned warnings for XLinkBot and with Kingpin13 on an SDPatrolBot warning test, and since ImageTaggingBot is another bot that hits a huge number of talk pages, it would be awesome if we could test out some different warnings with it.

Let me know what you think – you can catch me on IRC if you hang out there at all (nick:Maryana), or just play talk-page tag. Thanks! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 20:33, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd be interested in it. The current user messages the bot uses are:
  • User:OrphanBot/deprecated: the uploader used a deprecated license tag (extremely rare; the bot's logs don't show it having happened at any time in the past year).
  • User:OrphanBot/nosource nolicense: the uploader did not provide anything that the bot could recognize as source or license information. The bot is extremely liberal in what it will accept, so this usually (but not always) means a blank image description page.
  • User:OrphanBot/nosource untagged: the uploader did not provide anything the bot could recognize as potential source information, but did provide something that might be license information. I don't think the bot's current logic actually permits it to use this message: anything that meets the bot's criteria of "might be license information" also meets the critera for "might be source information".
  • User:OrphanBot/nolicense: the uploader provided something the bot recognizes as source information, but did not provide anything that the bot could interpret as license information. This usually means the user filled out a template such as {{information}}, but did not provide a license template.
  • User:OrphanBot/nosource-new: The uploader provided a license template, but did not provide anything the bot could recognize as a source.
  • User:OrphanBot/untagged-new: The catch-all situation: the uploader did not provide a license template, but there's text on the image description page. The bot isn't smart enough to tell the difference between a free-form description of the source and license (rare), a vague description of the image's source (common), or a brief description of what the image depicts (very common), so it makes the most conservative assumption and marks the image as not having a license template.
The corresponding templates placed on file description pages are:
These are the actual messages ImageTaggingBot uses, so changing them on the wiki will change what the bot puts on users' talk pages.
What's the best way to have the bot change what it uses? I can modify the bot to randomly select a message from a group, or the pages I linked to above can be modified from time to time. I'd rather not try any sort of fancy wikimarkup to switch messages: I'm not sure how template coding interacts with "subst:", and I'd like to keep the actual markup on users' pages as clean as possible. --Carnildo (talk) 02:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Fantastic! So happy to have you on board :)
When testing on Huggle and Twinkle, we've been using a template randomizer that our summer researchers hacked together. You can take a look at how it works here (substituting is no problem). With bots, we've just let the bot ops change their code as they see fit. I'm not a bot expert, but Beetstra, Versageek, and Kingpin13 are, so you can ask them about how they've done randomization if you're interested. So it's really up to you – the template randomizer is fairly simple and effective and doesn't leave any extraneous code on user talk, but you certainly don't have to use it. The one thing that would be nice to have is a log of all users warned during the test (which is something that bots are great at doing, of course).
Steven and I can take a stab at tweaking the templates and drop you a link to make sure you're happy with them, and then we should be all set to go. Thanks again for volunteering your bot! Very excited to see how this test goes :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

repectfully

I will not contribute to wiki until the copyright rules are changed so that my work can't be reused by for profits. I just find that this sticks in my craw.68.236.121.54 (talk) 14:38, 12 December 2011 (UTC) sorry cinnamon colbert user — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.236.121.54 (talk) 14:38, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Template testing

Hey there.

Sure, I'd like to help if I can. There is one technical hurdle to handle, however: my bot needs to recognize some of the templates it leaves on articles and on maintenance pages; any randomization would have to be in a parameter rather than switch the template itself to avoid problems.

That said, it substs the actual user notices so those can be safely randomized. The templates it uses are:

Additionally, it will subst {{welcomelaws}} if the editors' page is entirely blank to begin with, and it uses a half-dozen internal templates that only go on maintenance pages in project space we probably don't want to mess with.

Just tell me what you need from my end; it's trivial for me to pick from a set or add parameters to templates as needed. — Coren (talk) 02:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Taking a crack at rewriting these templates, and I have a question for you: how is {{csb-notice-pageincludes}} different from {{csb-notice-pageincluded}}? I.e., what's the criteria the bot uses to decide between "material copied directly from" and "a substantial copy of"? Is the latter used for cases of wholesale article copyvio and the former for just individual sentences/paragraphs? No huge rush... I'm still trying to knock out some ImageTaggingBot alts at the moment. Too many nice bot herders letting us play with their bots! :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 00:43, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
It's a question of which is a subset of the other. Pageincluded is used when the wiki page contains (most of) the external page along with other stuff – all or most of the external page has been copied; pageincludes is when the wiki page is an excerpt from the external page – so it might be one section of a large page, or a very long quote. In theory, the former is "worst" of the two, and was worded a little more strongly. — Coren (talk) 00:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi Maryana!
Nice reply @ ANI.
Good luck with this work. – SJ + 22:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Heh, thanks, Sj! Appreciate the support :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Treatment of newbies: example

Hi,

I ran another training course today, for staff from various GLAMs; here's the history of an article created by one of the participants, during it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_John_Wainwright_(artist)&action=history

Note the third edit, and the state of the article at that point - a useful example for you, perhaps? We could easily have lost another new editor; and a useful contribution about a notable subject. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:55, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

and then (this). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Ooof. Thanks, Andy. That's so unfortunate, but I see it all the time, too. I wish we could clone you and bring you to help out all the newbies making their first edits, but unfortunately science hasn't progressed that far... so I guess we'll have to look for other options :) That COI template, for example, is pretty bitey – could definitely stand to get added to the testing list! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Another editor has recently reverted the CoI template to a version which, while not perfect, is much less aggressive. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:57, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

One of the participants has now written a blog post about the event, including the aggressive response to new editors. The rapidly-PRODed article he refers to is Martineau Gardens. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:17, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

CoI example

and here's an example of a CoI debate where an involved editor has followed policy precisely, but the article has still been tagged aggressively. (I assume such examples are useful to you; please let me know if not) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:38, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Offer

Hi, Maryana. I've talked a bit with Andy, and pretty much agree with him on things. Mostly this talk has been about WP:HLIST (and Internet Explorer's deficiencies;), and I've helped make a few thousand navigation templates more accessible. I heard Sue Gardner call out to you during her talk in the UK, which I know Andy did the video of. I've watched (listened to, at least) that three times. I've been considering trying to have a talk with Sue, but expect I'd be directed your way. And today, you appeared in a banner which prompted me to click-through and actually read the message. I also got asked to participate in the lastest WMF Survey some hours ago, which I did, and I expect that you'll be one of the people going over that data. You'll notice mine, I'm sure.

Anyway, I think I could give you some very useful feedback on the Wikipedia editing experience. Interested? Alarbus (talk) 11:54, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

p.s. I'm skilled. I saw your comment to Fred Gandt about template appearance. I could help you (and Fred) with this.

Happy to hear you're interested in improving the editing experience, Alarbus :)
My main focus for the past few months has been template A/B testing, a project you should definitely sign up for if you're interested. Steven and I are always looking for help, whether it's ideas for new tests, crafting templates from scratch, or giving feedback on stuff we create. Anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated! And if you have ideas for other projects to improve the editing experience, you should think about applying for a WMF fellowship. You can propose an idea for someone else to work on, or you can apply to work on something yourself. Check out the fellowships page and let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, Maryana (WMF) (talk) 18:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi, Maryana. I understand the template/bot problem. See the first post to my talk page. ClueBot NG reverted "my vandalism". I reverted the bot, because it wasn't vandalism. I've kept the warning on my talk, too, and this incident gave me a theme for my user page (although Alarbus is a character from Titus Andronicus). I do believe the templated messages and bots could be more friendly. Maybe 'gentle' would be a better way of viewing it, as some firm messages are quite warranted. I see the wiki-community as incredibly hostile. Sue said the n00bs feel the website is attacking them, but it's not, it's the regular users attacking people. I believe that back in the early years when participation was very low, the project attracted a high proportion of idealistic people. After a few years, however, it had attracted everybody, and that's when the real problems began. Some of the early adopters were more interested in the power structure, and had a hand in moulding the overall structure of the now-established processes. A lot of these are quite arbitrary. With the huge influx of people came a consensus gridlock. I don't think the consensus model is capable of changing anything that has been set for a long time. The default is not to innovate; if something is proposed, megabytes of discussion follow and no consensus is achieved. WP:HLIST is an interesting example. We don't really have "consensus", just acceptance of a good idea. We had a series of fairly low-profile talks and just did it. We've now refactored maybe 100,000 templates and more every day. Many people are quietly starting to help, too. This hits well on several issues: it's better markup semantics, it's more accessible to everyone (visual impairments and readership, as well as typical editors and the editbox), and it's a significant reduction of the load on the servers processing the millions of {dot}-type templates. BOLD can still work.
People that have been here a while have often carved out a niche for themselves. Too often these are fitted out with ramparts, boiling oil, and all the other traditional means of defending a pulled-up drawbridge. This would be the 'hide' Sue referred to in her UK talk, and part of the fightiness. Another part of the fighty nature of The Streets of Wikipedia is the wiki-as-video-game phenomenon. People see other users as targets in a shoot'em-up-game. Take vandals. They should be reverted, of course. But the whole process of running up warning counts (ClueBot NG's edit summary to me was "Warning Alarbus - #1") is feeding a game-play paradigm. ClueBot NG also gave "my vandalism" a score: 0.899497, which I expressed concern over. The bot-parents didn't see it.
Wikipedia is full of factions and groups defending a spot of turf. To a large extent, the spirit of collaboration that is much talked-of is actually absent. People are territorial creatures; "mine", "yours". Wikimedia's intent is that people contribute to the commons, but many simply don't get that. People should contribute what they can and allow others to as well. In reality, it often does not work out that way.
Wikimedia's projects are huge, and all is not lost. All the good and desirable things are occurring, too. But far too much of the discourse is incredibly rancourous. Your user page describes you as a Community Organizer. You're going to need to do a lot of reorganizing of the way things work, as too much is stuck in vicious cycles.
I will look at the template testing pages and sign-up for that. I'll be helpful. I don't know much about the WMF fellowship program other than having read that it was your route to what you're now doing, and I find the page you linked to intriguing; it links to more and I need to read further. Thanks, Alarbus (talk) 00:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Re:WP:UWTEST update

Hi, Maryana, I saw this news bots, and I support the creation. Who knows if Wiki-pt can have this bots too. Thanks. Vitor Mazuco Talk! 11:03, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Salebot and template changes

Hi Maryana, you're very welcome to improve the Salebot templates. Some of the text that Salebot detects/writes comes from a config file that is not managed on the wiki (see https://fisheye.toolserver.org/browse/gribeco/salebot2/trunk/config/lexicon.txt?r=358); let me know if you'd like to change any of that. --gribeco (talk) 19:33, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Wonderful, thank you! I can probably eke by on the French myself, but I'll need to rope in some Portuguese speakers to help me out on that front :) I'll start something up in our testing draft space and send you the link when I have some working drafts. Obviously, as the bot op, you have ultimate approval rights. Thanks again and happy new year! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 17:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

SF Meetup

Thanks for the note about the upcoming Meetup in SF. I've been meaning to attend one of these things and plan to make it this time. I hope to see you next month. --sanfranman59 (talk) 02:14, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

News

Hi Maryana, I want to know if there are others massages in Huggle, and if exist any statistics? any conclusions? Rjclaudio in wiki-pt, wants to help in anything in Huggle-pt. And we opened here a discussion about trends and behavior users. Thanks! Vitor Mazuco Talk! 12:56, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Vitor, that's awesome that you guys are having that discussion! We're in the middle of analysis for all our experiments right now, and we should have results for you soon – we just got back the numbers for the English version of the test that you ran, and it looks like the third template, "no directives," did much better than the other two in terms of retaining new editors. I'll let you know as soon as we have the numbers for pt.wiki. I'm guessing they'll be very similar.
Also, I just talked to User:Gribeco, who operates Salebot, and it looks like he's happy to run some tests on his bot. Would you or anybody else from pt be interested in writing some new templates for it? Some of the current text it uses can be found here. Since it's very active on your wiki, it would be great to play around with the messages and see if there's any way to improve them. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 01:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I will talk to Rjclaudio or Teles user for writing some new templates. I think that they will accept. Thanks! Vitor Mazuco Talk! 16:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, great! Also, since it looks like you're gaining new members on this, maybe you guys should make a project page on pt.wiki where you can have new people sign up and work on templates together – just a simple task force page like what Steven and I made on English Wikipedia, which the Germans also created on their wiki. Then it will be easier for the other pt.wiki editors to see what's happening, comment, help out, etc., and Steven and I can jump in and answer any questions in the discussion space, too. Sound good? Maryana (WMF) (talk) 02:10, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I create here a discussion about this changes and asking help for work on templates and traslate it. Now is expected. Thanks! Vitor Mazuco Talk! 11:58, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

The translate is here. Now would you help others user the next part? I don't know how to create this templates. Thanks! Vitor Mazuco Talk! 14:55, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks great – I responded on the Esplanada page. Thanks, Vitor! It's great to see this coming together :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite!

Thanks for the invite, but work (US Army) is pretty demanding lately, so I won't be able to attend. Good luck! Bullmoosebell (talk) 00:53, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Aw, that's too bad, but maybe next time. Thanks for all your great contributions, and hope to catch you at a meetup sometime in the future :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 01:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Me too. For the meet-up invite :-) Saudade7 01:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Sure thing! Glad you can make it – see you next month! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 02:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation!

I plan to be there! See you then. Mbroderick271 (talk) 05:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation

Thanks for inviting me to the upcoming SF meetup. However, I only had a chance of attending meetups in Los Angeles when I lived in California. Now I live in Tennessee, and only have a chance of attending meetups in or near Nashville. -JohnAlbertRigali (talk) 06:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, MPinchuk (WMF) (usurped). You have new messages at Ebikeguy's talk page.
Message added 19:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Ebikeguy (talk) 19:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

CSBot A/B testing

Ohai!

I've coded in the A/B swiching for CSBot; it'll now pick one of the two alternatives randomly. The change will go live at my next scheduled downtime (Jan 13 00:00 UTC). I'll keep an eye on it to make sure everything is good, and drop you a note then? — Coren (talk) 20:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Awesome! Did you add in an experienced/newbie parameter, too? Could you, if it's not too much trouble? :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Re:You rock!

Oh, thank so much for the compliment! Bur I don't know if is necessery to create Tracking templates here like in wiki-en? Because in wiki-pt there are just 3 templates. Thanks! Vitor Mazuco Talk! 23:22, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Nah, don't worry about those other tracking templates. They were for tests on en.wiki – you don't need them on pt :) (And you're very welcome! Thanks for all your help.) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 23:25, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok, is there others templates for I create? Vitor Mazuco Talk! 01:27, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

28bot

Hi Maryana. Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to your message earlier. I took a look at the proposed templates; what is the next step? I can code the bot to display different messages depending on whether the editor is registered; are there any other conditionals it would be helpful for me to add (e.g. different templates depending on whether the editor's talk page already exists, etc.)? I'm happy to do so, just let me know. 28bytes (talk) 22:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries :) I think registered/anon would be a good test for now. Let's see how that does, and if the results look interesting and/or weird and you want to keep going, we can always try another test with different variables. I don't recall – does the bot pull messages from the template or other namespace, or are the messages imbedded in its config? What we have in the draft space is all ready to go; just need to remove the <div> stuff (that was for ease of comparison between different message drafts). Let me know if Steven or I can update the template text ourselves or help you in any other way.
Given the impending day-long Wikipedia blackout, how about we wait until after this Wednesday to flip the switch? If you don't need any more help from our side, feel free to recode the bot and let me know when it's all set to go. I'll update all the documentation accordingly. Thanks again! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 23:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Over the weekend I made changes to the bot to pull the templates it uses from these locations:
  1. User:28bot/templates/registered
  2. User:28bot/templates/registered-new
  3. User:28bot/templates/unregistered
  4. User:28bot/templates/unregistered-new
So we can swap in whatever text we want, and the bot will pick it up instantly. 28bytes (talk) 00:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Ah, fantastic! Yeah, let's aim to swap on Thursday or Friday, after all the blackout malarky dies down. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 00:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Works for me. Ping me when you're ready to proceed, I should be around. 28bytes (talk) 03:52, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Tracking the new welcome template in pt.wiki

Hello Maryana,

We are in the final stages of changing the welcome template at the Portuguese wiki from its present humongous monster to a friendlier, smaller version (very similar to the one here in fact). Only I have no clue on tracking and generating use statistics from the template. I think it would be very useful to have stats in order to evaluate the changes and to make similar changes in warning templates. How do I go about that? Could we get stats into the actual reading of the template before/after? Thanks for all the help, Chico (talk) 09:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

That's great news! Very happy to help in any way I can :)
So, the way we've been getting data on our tests is by setting up a template randomizer, which will deliver one of two (or three, or more if you want) messages whenever you substitute the test template. A template randomizer looks like this and contains each version of the test message (the control and test[s]) within it. Do you mostly use tools like Twinkle or Huggle to deliver that welcome? If so, it's very simple to change the config page. All the ones I've seen have been exactly like English Wikipedia, so even I or Steven could do it if you wanted. If it's mostly manually-substituted, that's fine, too. You'd just put the randomizer on top of the old welcome template.
The other crucial part of testing is adding tracking templates – substituting a template causes it to lose its link to the template namespace, which means you won't be able to keep track of who got what message. Fortunately, Vitor worked on a Huggle test on pt.wiki, so you've already got your tracking infrastructure all set up. Simply create new Z templates ({{Z4}}, {{Z5}}, {{Z...}}) for each of the messages in your test and add them at the end of the template code (like this). Then we can use the Z trackers to pull lists of everyone who got each template and see if getting the new version of the welcome leads people to stick around in the project longer. Unfortunately, we haven't yet figured out a way to track whether messages were read or not on non-English Wikipedias. The next time we sit down with our data analysis guys, I'll see if they have any creative solutions to this problem.
Let me know if all this makes sense or if you have more questions. I usually hang out on IRC on the #wikipedia-en channel (nick: Maryana) if you ever need a fast response. And thanks so much for working on this! I'm excited to see more tests starting up in non-English communities :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 17:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Just to keep you updated, we are almost ready to start the test. There are just a few details left. For one, there are many user talk pages with the welcome template transcluded, instead of substituted; I'm trying to convince the bot responsible for substing them to rush the ones we need.
The other is more of a question. We have a welcome template exclusively for girls. I have used the GENDER switch in the new template, but some people might still use the old one (I guess it could be used when a new editor registers with a girl's name but has not identified a gender in the preferences yet). I made a similar test message for the pt:Predefinição:Bem-vinda and I favor doing the tests simultaneously. Should we use the same tracking templates for both tests (since the messages are very similar and used in almost the same circustances) or should we use new tracking templates (to make clear that they are different templates). I kind of believe that pt:Predefinição:Bem-vinda isn't used enough to run a test alone, which is why I think we could use the same tracking template for both pt:Predefinição:Bem-vinda e pt:Predefinição:Bem-vindo(a).
ps: sorry for complicating things again.
Chico (talk) 18:40, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
No worries! This stuff is always complicated. Yes, if the message is the same, use the same tracking template for both genders. Let me know if you have any more questions/headaches. And will we see you in Brazil in March? I know the cities probably aren't ideal for you, but it would be great to meet in person :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Sincerely, I don't have much clue of where I'll be in the beginning of March, but I'll probably be able to make it to one of the meetings. Right now I think Rio is the most likely candidate. Chico (talk) 20:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Message re UW-testing

Ahem, please excuse me for butting in. However, the link to meta that you've provided in your recent message that I saw on another user's page leads to a non-existent page. Perhaps you might want to check the link, Maryana? Risker (talk) 20:35, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Ack! Thank you for pointing that out. Will fix now. PS - I blame Steven, who drafted the update :-P Maryana (WMF) (talk) 21:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Re:Meetup

Hi Maryana! It's a excelente idea. I live in São Paulo, and is the best place in Brasil for you visit and there are much more brazilian editors. Please, see here all meetup in São Paulo, this city we call Sampa. The last was in january where Barry from WMF participated, and Jessie Wild months ago participated too in São Paulo. The next event will happen in Fabuary on Campus Party see here with Jessie, Kul, and others peoples from WMF. Now talking about others cities, is good you visit Porto Alegre or Brasília. And it's sure that I'll be in this meetup in March. So this page I will traslate and spread here and Facebook ok? Thanks! Vitor Mazuco Talk! 10:15, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Transated and created the meetup in SP and Rio. See you! Vitor Mazuco Talk! 11:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much, that's fantastic! Yes, please spread the word any way you can, and be sure to let people know that we're happy to go anywhere where there's a large Wikipedian presence, so they should suggest other cities for us. Looking forward to seeing you in March! :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Shared Google doc

Hi Maryana, I noticed that you recently shared a Google doc "XLinkBot results" with me. I am curious how my email address is visible to you, to enable you to do this. Thanks. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:42, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure who shared that Googledoc with you, but it wasn't me! I left the link on User:Beetstra's talk page, and anyone with the link has access to it, so perhaps someone who has your email opened it up and decided to send it to you? Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, it shows that you are the owner of the document, and I cannot share it with anyone without requesting access permission from you. I didn't see any link on Beetstra's talk page, but I do recall clicking on one at Wikipedia:WikiProject user warnings/Testing/Documentation. Maybe it got shared automatically when I clicked on it. Curious. I thought maybe you had a way to view someone's email address that I missed, that's why I asked. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Nope. I mean, theoretically, WMF staffers can request a list of emails of active editors of this or that project for work-related announcements and things, and yours would show up if you had email enabled and fit the criteria, but the request would have to go through Legal and Ops first. So no user stalking :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 21:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Meeting of Northeast Brazil

Hi. I've already answered in your pt-page. Let's try to unite Northeastern brazilian wikipedists here in Natal, a beach capital sited approximately in the middle of the region. E. Feld talk 00:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

That sounds great – thank you for spreading the word on the wikis! Steven and I are planning on contacting active editors on their talk pages today, too. Hopefully that will bring in more people. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Maryana, thank you for the challenge, as a pt wikipedia editor I would love to participate, but I'm based in Lisbon, Portugal. Hope we can meet here soon. --Uxbona (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome, and I'll be sure to contact you if we plan a trip to Europe (which will hopefully be soon)! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 02:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the invite, but i live in Lages city of Santa Catarina state, if have meetings here, i'm in! sorry for the bad english. And i'm a new in the wikipedia, i dont know if i doing the right thing. (Guilherme) (talk). —Preceding undated comment added 01:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC).

Another person suggested a Santa Catarina meetup – maybe we can work it into the trip. And I'm happy to see a new user who's already so active :) Keep up the good work, and hope to see you in March! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 02:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Maryana. Enjoy your trip to Brasil. I suggested that a Brazilian editor join the meetup; User talk:Lecen/Archive 11#Meetup in March. Lecen has done 9 Featured Articles on Brazilian topics; Empire of Brazil, for example (Pedro II of Brazil, too;). He could use a little encouragement, however. Maybe you can go say hi... Best wishes, Alarbus (talk) 05:31, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Aw, poor guy. He sounds so dejected. These meetups will be focused specifically on Portuguese Wikipedia, which doesn't sound like a topic that particularly interests him, but if there's time I'd be happy to grab a coffee with him and try to cheer him up. It's not all hopeless! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 18:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I'd not realised the meetings were specific to pt:wp. Lecen has said the he's focused on writing for en:wp because it's a larger platform and from here his articles get translated to others, including Portuguese. I appreciate your post to him and hope he takes you up on the coffee. Glad you've an "indomitable optimism"; you'll need it; meet Sandy, ↓↓↓, maybe I should have warned you about her combative style. Alarbus (talk) 20:31, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
How's that going for you, Alarbus? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Maryana, to my knowledge I've never encountered you, but I wanted to point out a core Wikipedia policy that, as a WMF employee, you should be aware of: WP:AGF. I don't find this charcterization of "bad faith editing" to be the kind of thing one expects from WMF employees. Now, should you not know where or how to find all of the issues that led to Lecen's problems (not only at FAC, but in other places, where he attempts to guide young editors to battleground behavior), (sample only) I'll be glad to point you to the tools and pages that will help you review each one of his contributions, his FACs, each one of his disputes at the talk page of FAC where it was pointed out to him that it was his combative style that was keeping reviewers away from his nominations, (sample only) and each one of his combative posts to the talk page of Hugo Chavez. Let me remind you that anyone can say anything on the Internet, and that The Signpost has not of late (since Ragesoss left) adhered to a policy of fact checking or neutrality: "Systemic bias" in featured articles had nothing to do with the problems Lecen encountered. His combative style did. If you don't know how to review an editor's contribs, I'll be glad to be of assistance, but if you haven't done that, please refrain from "bad faith" characterizations of other editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:04, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi SandyGeorgia,
I’m sorry that you perceived my comments to Lecen as being an attack on any specific editor. That was not at all my intention, and I apologize for not expressing myself more carefully.
When I used the phrase “bad-faith editing,” I was not referring to any specific incident, editor, or editing activity. What I meant was the pattern that seems to be emerging from qualitative research conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation, strongly suggesting that problematic interactions between editors – where multiple parties feel abused, harassed, and victimized – is an unfortunate reality on many different Wikimedia projects, notably English and Portuguese.
In addition to editor surveys, I and other staff members have heard echoes of Lecen’s complaints coming from many active editors of many different Wikipedias, both onwiki and off. This isn’t just about systemic bias on some topics or friction in community processes like FA; it’s a persistent problem across the board on all Wikimedia projects. There is no easy solution, but we can’t pretend this isn’t a major factor in why our most active editors appear to be dropping out of the projects even more precipitously than light or moderate contributors, why fewer and fewer editors submit or successfully pass RfA, etc. This isn’t simply my opinion or anecdotal observation; it’s a challenge that we face as a movement.
So, that’s what I meant by “bad-faith editing”, and why I think it’s important for us all to start talking about ways to solve this problem. And again, I’m sorry if I made you or anyone else feel singled out by a poor choice of wording. I assure you that was not my intent. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 00:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Maryana, while your anecdotal accounts of the environment on Wikipedia are most intriguing, and I hope you will find time to engage the Project at the article level, as someone who has been dealing with disruptive editors on Wikipedia for six years, many edits, and many different areas of Wikpedia, I have a very good sense of how disruptive editors affect Wikipedia-- in fact, who many of them are. I appreciate you passing along to me information about what "you've heard", but I don't rely on what I'm told: I either investigate myself, or have encountered these disruptive editors in my day-to-day editing (they do tend to get around). Yes, any experienced editor knows that good faith editors, and new editors, are routinely chased out of here by editors with an agenda; that's news to no one and has nothing to do with your assumption of bad faith, against Wikipedia policy, used to tar any editor in disagreement with Lecen (and there have been many). I believe that if you had more editing experience, you would know that there is no excuse for anyone in here to assume bad faith, much less a WMF employee, and that you try to pass it off even after you've been called on it is quite alarming. Before you decide again to tar a large number of good faith editors, who have encountered difficulties with Lecen, I suggest you do your homework. If you had done so, you might have discovered just who is engaging in good faith editing and following Wikipedia procedures, encouraging a collaborative environment, and just who is creating a battleground and not engaging policy and guidelines. Convince me why I should be encouraged that WMF is paying people who lob charges of "bad faith" at good faith editors while not seeming to know anything about what goes on in here, and pass on unfounded rumors and anecdote. Perhaps you're aware that normal editors who "assume bad faith" end up before a firing squad at ArbCom? YMMV. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Maryana, thank you very much for your kind words. I really appreciate them. Unfortunately, I rarely contribute on pt Wikipedia. Alarbus summed my reasons not to. I won't be able to meet you since I leave in Brasília, but I'm a native of Fortaleza (six hours driving from Natal). It's really good to know that WMF is interested on other countries. I have no idea how your meeting will end, and what kind of people you'll find, but I hope everything will go well. It has to, isn't? I wish you good luck, nonetheless. I ncase you need anything, please let me know. Kind regards, --Lecen (talk) 23:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Maryana. Seen WP:Dramaboard? Specifically:

This is unfortunate and due to long running patterns of hostility towards Lecen by Sandy and Malleus. It's about the WP:FAC process and the "poisonous atmosphere" there. I'm sure there's more going on; there always is. Alarbus (talk) 00:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I removed the thread from my talk at Lecen's request. He's been blocked for a week and is stating an intent to retire (he did a few weeks ago; same issue). Ani is probably rolling along as usual. Alarbus (talk) 00:50, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Lecen has put up a {{retired}} template and I can't really fault him. Maybe your itinerary can be tweaked to include Brasília... national capital and all, but no beaches. This sort of things happens pretty regularly on en:wp. It needs fixing, badly. Alarbus (talk) 07:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Schedule

Hi Maryana can you go to WikiSampa in 2th March? Because in 1th March I'll be too busy, and I can not attend the meeting. So you keep your schedule and Rio on the 6th back to San Francisco. Can you and Steven do it? Vitor Mazuco Talk! 23:55, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

We're trying to figure out our final schedule right now, so we can post it onwiki by the end of today (SF time). Would you still be able to attend the meetup in Rio? Obviously, we want you to be present for at least one of these meetups! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Ok, updated the Esplanada page with our final schedule. Hope this looks good for you! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 01:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

File upload wizard

Hi Maryana. You expressed some interest in the idea of my new File Upload Wizard the other day, so I just wanted to let you know that it's now in working alpha stage and ready for testing. Want to give it a look? (It still needs manual activation of javascript to work though). Regards, – Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw the proposal yesterday and got all excited :) I'm not tech-savvy enough to have any useful feedback for you on that front, but I've asked Ian to have a look, since he did a lot of work on the Commons upload wizard. I'll play around with it in the meantime and see if there are any usability issues I can surface. Thanks so much for working on this! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Update: on advice from User:AlexSm, I have moved the script page to MediaWiki:UploadScriptDemo.js, so it can be tested even without changing one's personal .js. The new method of testing is now:
Sorry for the inconvenience as you already edited your .js with the old value. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:46, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
  • So, after playing around with your drop-downs and talking it over with Ian, I have a few questions/suggestions for you:
  1. It's awesome that you jumped in and worked on this independently. I'm curious, though, why you wouldn't want to use the existing upload wizard code from Commons. What would be the benefit of building something from scratch?
  2. I see you've identified new users as your target audience for this tool, and I completely agree that they need something more usable than the frustrating wall of text we currently throw at them. But if usability is really important to you, then asking Wikipedians to weigh in with their suggestions won't be enough, because they're already... well, Wikipedians. You'll need to do rigorous user testing on a true newbie audience, and that requires resources and time.
  3. We at the Foundation have the resources that you would need in order to conduct iterative, data-driven user testing. Our tech team uses tools like Usertesting.com to test new features, and we can help you track some usage stats to see what's working and what's not. What we don't have is a ton of human resources. If you have the time and interest to lead a project like this, you should talk to Siko about applying for a fellowship. We're happy to support any workable plan that improves the new editor experience, and this certainly falls into that category!
  4. It would be fantastic to see a community member driving something like this, instead of our poor overworked devs who have ten other projects to finish before they can start anything new, and who don't have years of Wikipedia file patrolling experience under their belts. But if leading a huge coding/stats-gathering project doesn't appeal to you, how about just starting a proposal to enable the Commons upload wizard on en? With your JS skills and deep knowledge of the file upload workflow, you'd be a great asset for adapting it properly to Wikipedia.

Think it over and let me know how you feel about all this. I know I'm kind of giving you the hard sell on working with us :) but I just really want to see an upload wizard on Wikipedia happen, and I'm not sure it's something anybody can go at alone. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 22:46, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the thoughtful feedback. Just a few quick answers for now:
I looked at the Commons wizard and felt it wasn't optimal for our needs for several reasons:
  • First, I simply couldn't figure out how to adapt it to local conditions. I can't find any documentation about, for instance, how to add new licensing options or new input fields (needed to include our non-free file options etc.). From the looks of it, it alls seems to be hard-coded somewhere. It's a huge big complex lump of software, and if there's any documentation about how to change these things, it's well hidden. In comparison, the thing I wrote is deliberately low-tech. There's no .php at all; the javascript is a single page, and most of the content is actually simple Wikitext in a single local page, so it will always remain easily tweakable and adaptable by local admins, without the need to rely on the poor overworked devs.
  • The Commons Wizard has that bad reputation of being sometimes slow. Mine is fast. :-) It doesn't rely on any extra server capacities or network traffic beyond what the classic upload form does.
  • The Commons Wizard has this very fundamental design decision of doing the physical file transfer first, and the description stuff afterwards. While I can see some advantages to this (like, being able to exploit the image's exif data or comparing it with existing files), it has the very substantial disadvantage of forcing a potentially frustrating waiting period right in the middle of the whole process. This is particularly counter-productive in the case of en-wiki, where a very large proportion of all upload candidates are actually bad ones, and the main purpose of the wizard must be to prevent the user from going ahead with them. It would be particularly frustrating to new uploaders if we first invited them to expend a lot of their time and bandwidth for physically upstreaming their file, only to tell them afterwards that the copyright won't work out anyway. What I'm trying to do is to get them to realize this as quickly as possible.
  • The Commons Wizard is optimized for allowing batch uploads of multiple files with identical descriptions. That's something we don't really have much of a need for: large batches of free files shouldn't normally go here anyway, and large batches of non-free files are rarely a good idea at all.
  • The Commons Wizard is optimized for supporting easy categorization of files. That's great for Commons, but again it's just something we don't really do here.
About the testing: well, I'm sure you're right that a professionally designed testing phase could improve this new thing a lot. But on the other hand, even without that, it can hardly be worse than what we have right now (i.e. Wikipedia:Upload with subpages, which my experience as a new-uploads patroller tells me is just completely dysfunctional), so even if we were to throw it at people in a not-quite-perfect-yet state it would still mean a big improvement. Of course I'm not talking about the state it's in now; it's not quite ready yet. So, my perspective at the moment is to first get it into a technically stable state, get as much informal feedback as possible about the usability and design from volunteer testers, and then try and get consensus for installing it in the place of Wikipedia:Upload (leaving the classic Special:Upload in place, of course). Then allow it to evolve the wiki-way, relying on its easy adaptability. Professionally conducted testing phases of different versions of it, for further optimization, could still be done at the next step, couldn't they? Before we can test anything, we need ideas on what alternatives actually would be worth testing, and we'll get these ideas only once we see an initial working version in some regular use. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

By the way, in case you didn't see it, it's now live for testing in project space, at Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard. Want to do me the honour and make the first real upload with it? :-) – From a user experience perspective, I thought you might also be interested in this, although it's rather more sad. – Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia meeting in Brazil

Hi Maryana! Thanks for your message in my homepage. I'm currently living in France, and I don't know when my next trip to Brazil will happen (maybe next April). I already managed to meet other brazilian wikipedians in meetings (please check pt:User:Mschlindwein#Encontros wikipédicos / Wikipedian Meetings), and it is always a pleasure to exchange ideas when possible. Best regards, Mschlindwein msg 10:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC).

No worries :) We'll share what we talked about (either audio/video recordings or just notes) onwiki, and perhaps we'll see you when we visit Europe! Cheers, Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiRio 8.0

Hello Maryana!

Some editors are asking which time starts our meeting so, to schedule that properly, we'd like to know how much time you are planning to spend with us. A full day, a half day, 2 hours, 5 minutes. :P. I think Marcos Faria suggestion to arrange the meeting at OiCafé at Flamengo is fine. Other editors supported too. Please, give a feedback about our meeting duration so we can update and inform others interested editors that didn't aply yet because this issue. Regards, OTAVIO1981 (talk) 16:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC) (sorry for bad english: S

Thanks, Otavio! I replied on the page. The cafe sounds good to me – do you know if it has wifi? Thanks for your help, and your English is great! Definitely better than my Portuguese... :-P Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Templates Navbox

Can you please tell me how exactly I create a navbox? Is there a page for templates for creation or something because or the life of me I cannot find where to go or how to do it. I want to create an East Bakersfield, California navbox like the Northeast Bakersfield one. MzNobody (talk) 16:55, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The best way is probably to copy the contents of Template:Northeast Bakersfield into a sandbox in your user space and change it bit by bit until it looks right. I wouldn't call the copying a violation of license terms, as the template is not really "creative" in the copyright sense, but you should say where you got it in your edit summary when you copy it just to be professional. You can read about navboxes in the Navbox documentation and at the Navbox help page. Franamax (talk) 23:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
^ What Franamax said :) (thanks, friendly talk-page lurker!) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 23:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

hi

i have recieved a messege from your side ...the experience on speedy deletions of my edits...i m sometimes unhappy to see all these types of messeges..but i have no problem ..but i have a problem from one thing that is when i was upload the photos that was captured by me ...but after some time i got that some users has deleted my phots....so plz dont delete all these type of pics... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tapuu (talk • contribs) 17:53, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi

i have recieved a messege from your side ...the experience on speedy deletions of my edits...i m sometimes unhappy to see all these types of messeges..but i have no problem ..but i have a problem from one thing that is when i was upload the photos that was captured by me ...but after some time i got that some users has deleted my phots....so plz dont delete all these type of pics... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tapuu (talk • contribs) 17:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your response! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 20:36, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry =/

I appreciate the invitation Maryana, but unfortunately there is no city available for me to attend the Wikipedia Meeting Brazil. I live in Maracanaú - Ceará, and as I said before, there's a town close enough for me. But as I said before, I appreciate the invitation from my heart. Graciously - --DiegoAlvesBarbosa (talk) 12:04, 13 February 2012 (UTC) =D

You're welcome! We'll try to record at least one session and put some audio/video up onwiki for you and other editors who can't make it. Cheers, Maryana (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Deletion notice feedback

Hi Jcmcclurg, You recently received a message about either "Nomination for deletion" or "Proposed deletion" of an article you created. I'd like to ask you a few quick questions: 1. Was the message helpful? Were the instructions clear and easy to follow? Yes. Yes.

2. If not, how do you think the message could be improved? The message was fine.

3. What do you think about the deletion process in general? Do you understand how to contest a deletion? I'd prefer that contributions from infrequent contributors like myself not be deleted so off-handedly. Appropriate flagging, modifying, and moving of information seems much more appropriate than knee-jerk deletion. For example, I created an article (with appropriate citations) which was deleted. I contested the deletion, and posted a flag to discuss merging the information with an existing article. The article was deleted again without any discussion by other users. I am a busy grad. student and don't have time to waste on petty quibbles or other meta-activities, so I just let the matter drop. To be honest, the deletion experience made me feel like an unwanted outsider, not a welcome potential resource. My opinion is that Wikipedia needs to look into implementing methods to favor appropriate re-classification of information over immediate deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcmcclurg (talk • contribs) 01:06, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for contacting me. I find it very discouraging when an article I have written is considered for deletion:

1. I try to concentrate on people or subjects that have world value, particularly historically. This contrasts with my impression that many sportsmen and politicians, many of them American and of relatively short-lived importance, are included.

2. You have contacted me because of the requests to delete a page that I started about Robert Smith (professor). My impression is that the early versions of pages (such as the Robert Smith one by me) are proposed for deletion before further work is done on them by the original author or other people.

3. I was maddened that some 10 hours of work by me about Heron Cross Pottery (a successful 1870s Staffordshire, England pottery that still produces excellent, artistic, collectable products) was deleted. The deletion has drastically reduced my interest in contributing to Wikipedia.

4. Relevant "gallery" pictures added by me have frequently been deleted.Duncanogi (talk) 10:03, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Deletion notice

I am not going write much because I don't feel good in writing in general. Regarding to deletion notice which I received, I can only say that in my opinion was really unfair. It dissapointed me much. The subject which I described is half existing building (under construction). For unknown for me reason, person who nominated this article for deletion described it as no evidences for existence of this building. To be honest, I considered it as unfair or even stupid nomination. Was it hard for him to use Google first? My article survived, but it rather discourage me from writing articles.--verdin (talk) 21:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

The delisting of GNU AutoGen was done by folks who were rude and arrogant. In my opinion, if you are going to list software packages that affect folks in the software world, then you need to treat its adoption as part of the usefulness criteria. But the folks editing the area basically said they hadn't heard of it, so it therefore must not be "significant". I don't have time to argue endlessly with people who just know they are right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bkorb (talk • contribs) 21:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Re: Deletion Notice

Was the message helpful? Were the instructions clear and easy to follow? Helpful? Perhaps. Necessary? Yes, I think that if an article is going to be deleted that the creating user should be notified and have a chance to argue for keeping it. Yes, the instructions were clear and easy to follow. If not, how do you think the message could be improved? See below What do you think about the deletion process in general? Do you understand how to contest a deletion? I think the deletion (and merging) processes are both necessary and good. The only problem I have is that "consensus" is I think still a moving target for Wikipedia. The article in question is an album for a band that not many people may have heard of. Thus, it was suggested for deletion because it was not on par with big albums or big-named bands with not-so-famous albums. Thus, "consensus" is hard to reach because I say that it should be kept and the person who nominated the article for deletion says it should not be kept. Since it's a relatively unknown/not-often-searched-for album, it's unlikely that many (or any) people would submit their suggestions for consensus, and thus an impasse is reached. Unless there are people that actively search for articles that are proposed for deletion, and that would lead to some bias in the deletions. Rlholden (talk) 22:34, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Deletion notification survey

Hi Maryana,

I saw your edit on a user talk page I follow. Is there any targeting to this survey? If not, you might want to consider excluding from the survey users where they've got a higher-level behaviour warning for, say, page move vandalism or repeated recreation of deleted pages or socking on their talk pages. There are, ahem, certain users where their views on the deleted page notifications are of little interest given their other issues, if you follow.

Good luck with the survey. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:41, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey Tom. The target group for the list are people who got one of the notifications, but who have kept editing afterwards. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:42, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
These are the droids you're looking for notifications Steven is referring to. This is by no means a formal survey on deletion: we're just interested in getting some actionable feedback about those specific AfD and PROD templates, whether there are any improvements that can be made to wording/tone or other content-related issues that we're overlooking. I don't see any reason not to include anyone who isn't currently blocked or banned – even if they do appear to be causing trouble elsewhere, they should be free to leave constructive feedback like anybody else. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 22:56, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Answering "What did you think about the deletion notice you received?"

I saw your message at my talk page, and that's my answer: The article I wrote was about a 5-concert tour of a singer from my country, in which she would sing only Michael Jackson songs. She isn't well-knonw in the United States, her name is Sandy. I had reliable sources, everything, and all I wanted was to improve this Encyclopedia that I use almost every day. But they told me that the subject of the article wasn't strong enough to be an article; it wasn't an important tour, an important event. But in my opinion it was, because I never heard of a Brazilian singer doing something like this, a whole tour about Michael Jackson, and she also did it in a different rhythm (something about blues and jazz). And also, how could this article be less than informative? It wasn't wrong, partial or dangerous. It was good. It was my first whole article, and this made me feel really uncomfortable as writing another, feeling scared it would be excluded again. So this is what happened to me. Also, I'd like to write that the article, in my opinion, could be clearer, more especific. --Rodolfayte (talk) 23:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Reply

Re: Question

I got your message and want to reply to you.

1.) It was good and the message helped me fix the article to avoid getting it deleted

2.) There was nothing that really needed improvement from my point of view

3.) I think it is a good article and I do understand it LoneWolf1992 19:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Another reply

Thank you for asking me. I found the message helpful and the subsequent discussion courteous. Even the person who had proposed my article for deletion -- Night of the Big Wind -- eventually stated: 

I consider this discussion as very useful...

Some kind of deletion notification is mandatory and the message I received certainly did the job of alerting me. DutchmanInDisguise (talk) 02:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Response

It didnt get deleted so I guess it worked out alright. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.90.99.223 (talk) 06:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Re : What did you think about the deletion notice you received?

1. Was the message helpful? Were the instructions clear and easy to follow?

It was easy.

2. If not, how do you think the message could be improved?

Same above.

3. What do you think about the deletion process in general? Do you understand how to contest a deletion?

Fine , Its reasonable.

Thank you. -- Raghith 09:36, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the deletion request..

Questions

  1. Was the message helpful? Were the instructions clear and easy to follow?
  2. If not, how do you think the message could be improved?
  3. What do you think about the deletion process in general? Do you understand how to contest a deletion?

Answers

  1. I had never encountered a deletion request, so I did not know what I needed to say in response on the thread. But I didn't find it helpful much.
  2. I dont remember what the instructions specifically said, but I do think they need to be a little more detailed or have some sort of example on how to approach this. If someone doesn't know how to respond, their page may be deleted without just cause.
  3. Nomination for deletion is very simple. Too simple if you ask me. A warning should be issued after being nominated once. If nominated again, a discussion should ensue. However, the deletion discussion process itself was a bit vague to me.

Comments

  • I would like to mention briefly a sentiment I believe many others share. There are already tons of articles on well known people, groups, and places. This means that the articles that are in need for creation are about the lesser known facts. Musicians is a good example, especially foreign artists. Because they are not as popular or well known as others, these articles may be nominated for deletion.
  • For example, the Korean boy band 2PM currently has six members, but one of the members Lee Junho did not have a page.
  • (In case you have not heard of them, I will simply say that they are so famous among Korean lovers that their Wikipedia article is semi-protected from all the "vandalism" love-struck fans and anti-fans put in the articles, like hearts or hate messages.)
  • I created the article for Lee Junho with plenty of information and sources, yet it was nominated for deletion. I even had more information than the article on one of the other members. But Lee Junho is not a hit on a Google News search. However Google is not the main search engine in Korea; Naver serach engine is. Unfortunately, that was the reason for the deletion request. Although I eventually received enough support to keep the article, I felt like the nomination was very unjustified in the first place.

Suggestions

  • Please make it a little harder to delete articles by issuing a warning only to the article creator after the first nomination and leave the article itself untouched in the meantime. This would give the author the opportunity to make a quick edit or explain a situation that may have been misunderstood. After a second nomination (by a different user), an open discussion can ensue.
  • Another suggestion is the use of the page ratings. If after say 50 votes, the article has two stars on several different points, the user can receive a warning or it could even go straight to a deletion discussion.

Thank you for your time! -SharonT (talk) 09:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)


What did you think about the deletion notice you received?

Hi Tim@,

In November you received a message about either "Nomination for deletion" or "Proposed deletion" of an article you created. I'd like to ask you a few quick questions:

  1. Was the message helpful? Were the instructions clear and easy to follow?
    • yes the message was helpful in that it expressed intent. Yes the instructions clear and easy to follow.
  2. If not, how do you think the message could be improved?
    • N/A
  3. What do you think about the deletion process in general? Do you understand how to contest a deletion?
    • I understand that the deletion proses is designed to limit Wikipedia to articles about things that are popular in the US.
    • My wish is that Wikipedia would include all facts and maybe have per page a popularity index allowing for things like only viewing pages above a threshold. The best approach would be to isolate science facts from culture/history facts in a separate sub domain or something.
    • I find the whole posses of deciding what is "significant" and deleting articles based on that I find suspect. Factual articles with only small significances (like the most popular band of a small country) should never be deleted just tagged as suspect. The cutoff is just to high, Wikipedia is tiny and it can only grow by changing.

You can feel free to answer on my talk page or send me your response by email (mpinchuk@wikimedia.org). (I won't quote you or link your answers to your username if you don't feel comfortable with that.) Your feedback is incredibly useful for improving the content of deletion notifications, so please take a minute to think about and answer these questions. Thank you! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Another reply: About the deletion of the articles List of three-letter initialisms and CSAIO

  1. The message was helpful
  2. N/A
  3. The deletion process is definitely OK, it is needed at WP.

I enjoy contributing to the English WP. I sometimes make mistakes, but the discussion is always courteous. [Is there a French Community Organizer? ;-) ] Thank you very much for your inquiry, Maryana. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GillesAuriault (talk • contribs) 17:58, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Answers for questions of deletion of Kikoriki (feature film)

  1. Yes, the message is that the heads to remove my article, I took the message and improved the article as I could.
  2. Sorry. Remember, I'm Russian and writing in Translate Google. I don't know the word "improved" and don't understand, where does it (I that I wrote to Google). I read in your page that you're well know Russian. Please write in my page in Russian what's mean "imprioved".
  3. I think that the deletion process is closed. Yes I understand.

Стас Фёдоров (talk) 19:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

  • I see. To improve not make sense, because it is not.

Стас Фёдоров (talk) 12:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Re. proposed deletion of a page I created

Hi Maryana

The Message I received was fine although it is always just a little disappointing when work is queried. A deletion process is required and I was able to contest the deletion of this article. The only problem was I requested ten days to gather facts but was granted only seven days, that didn't give me time to visit the location, gather the data AND to have a life. I tweeted for help and that seemed to work. Others have improved the article and it has been retained, many thanks to them. Belmonter (talk) 23:13, 18 February 2012 (UTC).

Hello Maryana,

1.) Was the message helpful? It did inform me of the current situation that the article that i created was in. 2.) Were the instructions clear and easy to follow? In my opinion no. There are far to many internal links to other article about how to go about the process of contesting a deletion of an article. There was far to much information. I had skim through the material and try to make sense of it all. I did the best i could given of the situation. There were multiple paths for me to choose from which did help me get to contested deletion. 3.) If not, how do you think the message could be improved? It could be improved by someone following up on the article after some period of time. To get a feel for how true the article really is. 4.) What do you think about the deletion process in general? Wikipedia now feels to me like every article should be subject to speedy deletion until a lot of time and discussion is made about the validity of the article can be verified through some sort of a judicial process. This is very good for those who have a lot of time to dedicated to the continued reliability of wikipedia.I on the other hand cannot always cater to this intricate process. I am far to busy. 5.) Do you understand how to contest a deletion? I have a general idea but if I could get a personalized response with more information on how to fix my articles can be visible and how to contest a deletion.


Jerrydeanrsmith (talk) 06:13, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

My questions

Well golly, that's a lot of questions. Usually I won't go over three at a time, but i'll make an exeption. Maybe a bit too clear. I don't think improving it is possible. The only thing that needs to be improved here is Happy Wheels, which is what I was about to do when I realized I had new messages. I know quite well, young Wikipedian. I know quite well.

So that's my answers. Are you happy now? I'm sure all those suggestions will help a lot. Theshywillraindeath (talk) 12:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

The deletion note

Hi Maryana (WMF),

thank you for your post. I am sorry if it seemed I had ignored the message from November; I was probably too busy to reply. As for your questions, the message was helpful and the instructions were clear. However, I don't quite understand the second part of the third question ("Do you understand how to contest a deletion?"). Can you give me more information about that?

Thank you in advance! MarizzaRojas (talk) 19:58, 22 February 2012 (GMT+1)

Hi MarizzaRojas, thanks for your response! By "contest a deletion," what I mean is: do you feel like you have a pretty good idea of the steps that are necessary to take in order to keep your article from getting deleted? Hope that clarifies :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
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