User talk:UnladenSwallow

Welcome!

Welcome to Wikipedia, UnladenSwallow! Thank you for your contributions. I am Jebcubed and I have been editing Wikipedia for some time, so if you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Wikipedia:Questions or type {{help me}} at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Jeb³ _{Talk at me here} 12:24, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Jeb³, for the warm welcome! — UnladenSwallow (talk) 12:34, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A bowl of strawberries for you!

For your contribution to 2I/Borisov. Thank you very much!

Hashar (talk) 21:30, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Hashar! I love strawberries

— UnladenSwallow (talk) 22:52, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:25, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Angular measurement conversions

I don't know if either of these would ever actually be used in an article, so I'll just leave it here for you to use or ignore as you decide is appropriate. I don't want to disrupt your proposal (which I support) by diving in and changing it. It could well be argued that what I'm suggesting is a spec for a conversion app, not something that would be needed on a wikipedia page. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NATO mils

There are 64,000 NATO mils (originally, French artillery milièmes) in a turn. They are almost but not quite milliradians, for ease of manipulation under fire I suspect! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Decimal degrees

Conversion between DD.nnnnnnnn <-> DD:MM.nnnnnn <->DD:MM:SS.nnn (Google uses the first form, Garmin the second). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful with Africa CDC dashboard data

Hi. It is kindly requested, that when using Africa CDC dashboard data for updates of Template:COVID-19 testing by country, one should always check not only if the number of cases has been updated but also if the number of tests has been updated accordingly. I have noted that data on the Africa CDC dashboard has a problem (valid for several African countries): the number of tests (samples) has not been updated when new number of cases and new date has been reported. This is the reason why I have just reverted your edit about Tanzania. It is not reliable data to report increased number of cases (505, on May 9th) if no new test have been reported since late April (652 tests was reported already on April 29th; actually I believe the correct date could be even earlier). As the focus of article COVID-19 testing by country (and template) is in testing, the focus should be in reliable number of tests. Cases are reported in other articles more frequently. This challenge can be discussed further as part of Template talk:COVID-19 testing by country, where the quality of Africa CDC data has been already mentioned. Similar challenge with Africa CDC dashboard values has been e.g. with Somalia and Ivory Coast. BR, --Paju~enwiki (talk) 21:07, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Paju~enwiki: I know that Africa CDC does not update the "Tests" figure for some countries when updating the "Cases" figure. The reason I have decided to update the data for these countries anyway is that we can't really tell the correct reporting date for the "Tests" figure.

For example, let's look at Tanzania. After your revert, the table now shows 652 tests as of April 29. We can search the official website/social media account or a local news outlet and find the number of confirmed cases for April 29, so that the number of tests and the number of confirmed cases are from the same date. So far so good, right? Wrong. How do we know that the correct reporting date for the 652 tests is April 29? Maybe it's April 28. Or maybe it's April 23. Who knows? How can a Wikipedia editor who has not been making a snapshot of Africa CDC data every day determine the correct reporting date? He/she can't.

Wikipedia articles must be verifiable, i.e. the data we input must be backed by sources. How do you back the April 29 date? Africa CDC's dashboard is JavaScript-based, so we can't archive it using services like archive.org and archive.is. So the only reason to believe that the number of tests has indeed increased on April 29 is that someone who has been tracking the data says so. That's not evidence and is not verifiable.

That's why my approach has been to simply go along and update it, as any "naïve" Wikipedia editor would do.

You propose to track Africa CDC's dashboard and, as soon as the number of tests increases, copy it and the number of cases into the table, then wait again. Very well. We can do that. In that case, we must add comments explaining these special updating rules to all countries that only report tests through Africa CDC. But I must also note that adding references to other sources for these countries does nothing useful, as it does not "prove" anything. — UnladenSwallow (talk) 23:03, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Paju~enwiki: Also, if you're planning on going through all "Africa CDC–only" countries and restoring previous values, do it via edits, not reverts, to avoid problems with WP:3RR. — UnladenSwallow (talk) 23:15, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(This comment was written prior to the most previous message, just sent later) Thank you for your valuable views. I do not propose tracking just Africa CDC's dashboard. Instead, it would be good if any data Africa CDC produces could be verified at this point openly (or quietly by sampling). In general I represent the approach that wikimedia should as an organization automatically and daily generate archived pages of all sources used in its articles and databases. Africa CDC is a relatively new organisation with quite a small personnel amount and budget compared to its task; plus not all African countries have reliable national public health authority of international standard which could be used as a contact point/data source. Other sources include preferably national health authorities, news agency or other reliable sources. Additional sources could allow us - to some extent - to follow how old data is presented on Africa CDC dashboard. Moreover - I would consider any country data with positive % higher than say - some suitable value of e.g. - 25%...30% unreliable, or questionable per se. This criteria includes Tanzania for example (for more reliable values test numbers should be followed from the very first tests). I believe if we write an article about testing, the values reported should include some relatively reliable number of tests when possible. When it is clear that test numbers does not match with case numbers (like in cases where only one of the two values is updated), we should avoid such updates or at least somehow flag the new values invalid, outdated, questionable or similar. E.g. if one wishes to update just value for cases, values (fields) depending on number of tests could be marked red top very clearly notifying readers that numbers calculated are not valid. --Paju~enwiki (talk) 00:45, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Paju~enwiki: I do not propose tracking just Africa CDC's dashboard. I was not implying that. I meant that for those countries that report testing numbers only through Africa CDC you propose updating case numbers only when their test numbers increase. Which is reasonable, and I have agreed with your proposal. But I also have noted that this goes against Wikipedia's principle of verifiability, as the Africa CDC dashboard does not have a separate update date for "Tests" values and does not have a feature to show data for previous dates, so it's impossible to check that the number of tests for a certain country has, indeed, increased on the date listed in the table.

In general I represent the approach that wikimedia should as an organization automatically and daily generate archived pages of all sources used in its articles and databases. As I have already explained, this is not always possible in the case of interactive web pages (web apps). An archival robot captures a page as it appears initially—it does not click various tabs, buttons, map markers, etc. Some of the data may be accessible inside a web page's source code, but we can't expect Wikipedia readers to do that.

…not all African countries have reliable national public health authority of international standard which could be used as a contact point/data source. I have noticed that. Some countries can't even state correctly who is their current Minister of Health on their official Ministry of Health website (Guinea's website says it's Edouard Niankoye Lama, when it's actually Remy Lamah since November 2019). — UnladenSwallow (talk) 17:48, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Getting numbers without thousands separators from a multi-valued Wiki-data statement

Hai UnladenSwallow, since you created a new module to get last value from a multi-valued Wiki-data statement I am asking you this.

Is there anyway to get the numbers without thousands separators? For example, if I use this script

{{wdib|ps=1|qid=Q87821841|P8011|sep=", "}}

For that, I get this,

2,726, 3,272, 3,684, 4,248, 4,612, 5,015, 5,305, 6,095, 7,267,...

But I want

2726, 3272, 3684, 4248, 4612, 5015, 5305, 6095, 7267,...

Is it possible? Thanks! - Timbaaa -> ping me 06:31, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Timbaaa: Apologies for the delayed response. I haven't created the module, I have only come up with the idea. The module and the template were implemented by RexxS. As far as I know, there is no way to do what you want with {{wdib}}. Maybe Wikidata values shouldn't have the thousands separators? I.e., instead of "2,726", input "2726" in Wikidata. Then you won't have to remove the separators with {{formatnum:…|R}}. You will simply use {{wdib|…}} in calculations and {{round|{{wdib|…}}}} when displaying values to the user. — UnladenSwallow (talk) 14:26, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

UnladenSwallow, It's alright. The property in discussion in wiki-data has 'Quantity' data type. It will automatically include separators if it's not provided. Thanks for the response. -

Timbaaa -> ping me 14:41, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

UnladenSwallow, I got the workaround using this, {{replace|{{formatnum:{{wdib|ps=1|qid=Q87821841|P8011|sep=": "}}|R}}|:|,}}. Don't know whether it is efficient or not! -

Timbaaa -> ping me 15:01, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Timbaaa: This would be much more efficient:

{{replace|{{replace|{{wdib|ps=1|qid=Q87821841|P8011}}|,|}}| |, }}

— UnladenSwallow (talk) 15:41, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

UnladenSwallow, Thanks, I'll check. -

Timbaaa -> ping me 04:46, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ITN recognition for Saturn (alligator)

On 24 May 2020, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Saturn (alligator), which you nominated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:39, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:02, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ITN recognition for Kim Ki-duk

On 15 December 2020, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Kim Ki-duk, which you nominated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:44, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kenya Standard Gauge Railway

Hi, you removed some references from the article Kenya Standard Gauge Railway recently, on the grounds they were a banned url?? I'm not quite sure what was banned about the reference, but at the moment the named references that you removed are still used elsewhere in the article, resulting in a reference error in the references section at the end. You probably know far better than I, what to do about the remaining citations that are now missing. Would you be able to fix it? I don't want to just start removing references from an article on a subject about which I know nothing... Many thanks! Elemimele (talk) 20:59, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Elemimele: Hi! Try reinserting the reference I removed back into the article and see what happens. It's blacklisted. Note that I only removed the named reference "operationplan". The named references "uganda2017" and "GCR" were undefined before my edits. — UnladenSwallow (talk) 21:12, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@UnladenSwallow:, no worries, I'll go back and find the remaining named reference that's causing the trouble and get rid of it too. If it looks as though it needs a citation I'll add a note. Thanks! Elemimele (talk) 21:16, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Iran joining sco

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/iran-gets-full-shanghai-cooperation-organization-membership-with-russias-help/2367372# Realhitman1 (talk) 14:04, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is joining, but it has not joined yet. See the comments I left on your talk page. — UnladenSwallow (talk) 14:10, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:57, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2022 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2022 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:43, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:58, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder to vote now to select members of the first U4C

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Dear Wikimedian,

You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.

This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 23:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]