User talk:SlimVirgin/December 2018

Linking two women of the French Revolution

Dear Sarah, I recently sent this request for help [1] about attempting to link to biographies, Marguerite Brazier and Etta Palm d'Aelders. The connection is made at Nicholas Bonneville, but I believe reliably sourced information will be found somewhere in a tome on French revolutionary history. Thought I'd write you for your research abilities... feel free to recommend other editors if they come to mind. -Darouet (talk) 23:01, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2018).

Administrator changes

Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz

Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes

Deryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news

Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration

Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous

In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries

Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as Raymond arritt on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You've got mail

Hello, SlimVirgin. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.Catrìona (talk) 05:12, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A cup of tea for you!

These teacups are ADORABLE! Hamster Sandwich (talk) 22:52, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I need more work to do! Please point me into a useful direction where I could be... uhhmm... useful! I asked another editor for a "peer review" here [[2]] but after a few days, I know it went "ok-ish". The editor is an ESL person, probably young. I want to help them improve their editing skills with out completely obliterating whatever je ne se quois they bring to their writing style. Which may entail interesting phraseology... Who am I to judge?? NO ONE that's who! So I seek only to improve the article so much. That appeals to my collaborative nature. So, if you have some similar work, or editing chores, or something to keep me busy during some downtime I have from other stuff, I'd appreciate some direction. Thank you in advance! Best regards, Hamster Sandwich (talk) 23:01, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Vegan Studies

Hi, I'm writing at the prompting of a few of my fellow ecofeminists (particularly Greta Gaard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Gaard) because I've been told that I need to create a Wikipedia page for Vegan Studies, the field that I founded in 2015 with the publication of my book The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror. As you are the top editor for the entry on "veganism," I was advised to contact you to get your advice/feedback. I appear in a footnote on the "veganism" page, but I very much want to make sure that the work that I have done over the past decade is credited to me (as a woman who has created a sub-field within English/Animal Studies, it's imperative to make sure that my scholarship receives the credit that it deserves, particularly as Vegan Studies is currently gaining traction within the humanities and beyond. I have never created a Wikipedia article before, and I know very little about the process (but I am luck enough to have a colleague who has helped to find you and suggested that I reach out to you). Vegan Studies, as I define it, constitutes a way of considering veganism (as identity and practice) as a lens though which to read texts (broadly speaking, such as works of literature, film, advertising, art, acts of resistance, etc.). It is, therefore, theoretical, but entirely different from any extant mode of scholarly inquiry. I'm not sure how much I need to tell you, here, but if it's helpful, here's a link to my introduction to a special issue of the journal ASLE, which I edited on Vegan Studies: https://www.academia.edu/35622783/Introducing_Vegan_Studies._nterdisciplinary_Studies_in_Literature_and_Environment_00.0_2017_pp._1_10doi_10.1093_isle_isx070, as well as the Amazon link to my 2015 book: https://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Studies-Project-Animals-Gender/dp/0820348562, and the Amazon link to my forthcoming edited collection on Vegan Studies (from which you can access all of my other book publications):https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1948908107/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1. I have given keynote addresses at national and international conferences (most notably, I was the sole invited keynote address at the Towards a Vegan Theory conference at Oxford University in 2016. My body of work can be found here: https://wcu.academia.edu/lwrightemailwcueduWright. I am currently Professor of English at Western Carolina University, a mid-sized regional university in North Carolina, so despite what I feel to be incredibly important work, my profile is not as visible as it would be if I were at a larger, more prominent school. And that's another reason why I am advocating so hard for recognition for the work that I've done.

I hope that writing to you in this way is appropriate, and I really appreciate any advice that you can offer. Thanks, Laura WrightPocoecofem (talk) 01:51, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Laura, that is certainly worthy of an article if you can find enough independent secondary sources. Please look at this essay, WP:GOLDENRULE. It explains that articles require "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the topic". You can use your own work as a primary source, but the scaffolding of the article should consist of reliable secondary sources: other academics or news organizations discussing your work would be ideal. Once you have gathered several of those, you could start to work on a draft at Draft:Vegan studies. I'll put that title on my watchlist in case you do start it. You could use the articles on Women's studies, Gender studies and Ethnic studies as guides. Another essay that might help you to navigate Wikipedia is Wikipedia:Everything you need to know.

Because you have a conflict of interest (COI), the best thing to do is use Wikipedia:Article wizard. It is self-explanatory. If you disclose your COI during that process, it will set up the draft page for you and tell you how to make the COI disclosure on your user page. When you've finished the draft, you would then take it through Wikipedia:Articles for creation, where someone will review it before publication. I'll keep an eye on the draft's progress in case I can jump in and help. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:39, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much. Kellen indicates that I shouldn't write the entry (although Kellen agrees with you?), but I'm worried that I'll get omitted from the credit that I want and deserve. Anyway, I'm going to follow your advice, and I really appreciate your response. LW Pocoecofem (talk) 00:16, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Laura, you can write a draft so long as you go through the Articles for Creation process, which will involve another editor deciding whether to publish it. If you use the Article wizard, the whole process is self-explanatory. If you want to play around first and learn how to write for Wikipedia, you can create the draft in your sandbox at User:Pocoecofem/sandbox. Clicking on that link will give you a blank page, and you can try out your ideas there. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:11, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Pocoecofem: I see you've created the draft without going through the Article wizard. The next step is to add this {{UserboxCOI|1=Draft:Vegan studies}} to your user page at User:Pocoecofem. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:46, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sarah, I'm so sorry...I thought that I was writing a draft and not creating an article. I'll go back and do this work with Article Wizard, and I'll follow your instructions above. On Friday, I'm meeting with a colleague who has much more experience and expertise in the world of Wikipedia than I do, so he can help me a bit more. I certainly don't want to do anything that jeopardizes anything. Thanks again for your help (and your patience with me; I feel like a dinosaur).Pocoecofem (talk) 13:21, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Pocoecofem: that's fine, don't worry. All these things can be fixed. I'm not sure whether the Article wizard will work now that the draft exists.

I don't know whether you're using the Visual Editor or wikitext. If the former, this is worth reading: Help:Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor/1. If you're using wikitext ("edit source"), see this: Help:Introduction to referencing with Wiki Markup/1. I fixed one citation for you (see this diff), but I use wikitext. I'm not able to explain how to use the Visual Editor. The most important thing at this stage is that you gather independent, reliable secondary sources that discuss (and that actually the term) vegan studies. It would be helpful to list them on the draft page, perhaps at the end under a section you could call "Further reading" for now. Without those sources, it won't be possible to create an article that will pass muster for Wikipedia.

Remember that you can always ask questions at the Teahouse, which is a space for new editors. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:16, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again, Sarah. I thought it might be easier for me to write to you here, as I seem to be a bit lost on the talk page for VS. Are there still issues that you need for me to address? I don't want to miss anything. Thanks, LW Pocoecofem (talk) 18:38, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Saturnalia

		Happy Saturnalia
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and troll-free. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:08, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, Ealdgyth, all the best to you and yours for the holidays. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:13, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Merry

		Happy Christmas!
		Hello SlimVirgin, Early in A Child's Christmas in Wales the young Dylan and his friend Jim Prothero witness smoke pouring from Jim's home. After the conflagration has been extinguished Dylan writes that Nobody could have had a noisier Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?" My thanks to you for your efforts to keep the 'pedia readable in case the firemen chose one of our articles :-) Best wishes to you and yours and happy editing in 2019. MarnetteD\|Talk 21:03, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

MarnetteD, many thanks, and all the best to you for the holidays and New Year. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:20, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User_talk:PaleheadedBrushfinch#Block

Not sure if you recall this case, but they are at it again now using anon IP [3]. No idea how to track if it's VPN dynamic. -- GreenC 00:23, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm I spot checked their old Contribs opening the hist and this seems to be it, maybe just coincidence or one-off. -- GreenC 00:31, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GreenC, thanks for spotting it. I'll try to keep an eye out for it. Could be coincidence, as you say. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:24, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes, Issue 31

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 31, October – Novemeber 2018

OAWiki
Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
Global branches update
Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Best wishes

		Season's Greetings
		Wishing everybody a Happy Holiday Season, and all best wishes for the New Year! Adoration of the Shepherds (Cariani) is my Wiki-Christmas card to all for this year. Johnbod (talk) 10:26, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

John, many thanks. Best wishes to you for the holidays and the New Year. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:58, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Holidays

	Season's greetings!
	I hope this holiday season is festive and fulfilling and filled with love and kindness, and that 2019 will be safe, successful and rewarding...keep hope alive....Modernist (talk) 12:48, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Modernist, many thanks for this, and all the best to you too for the holidays and for 2019. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:59, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Reliable sources listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:Reliable sources redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Steel1943 (talk) 20:37, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You're awesome

Wish I could grow up to be you, but I'm afraid it's too late valereee (talk) 01:30, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Valereee, thank you, that's very nice of you. I think I'll just accept this compliment, rather than offer any of the obvious arguments against it! SarahSV ^(talk) 01:56, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]