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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Change to the edit submission button label

In consultation with the Legal team, and after several years of discussions, the devs started changing the old "Save page" button to "Publish page" last year. MediaWiki core has been updated, and almost all Wikimedia wikis have been converted to the new labels already.

Right now, at this wiki, editors see "Save page" (or "Save changes", if the page already exists). In the future, editors will see "Publish page" (or "Publish changes"). This will affect all standard editing environments, including WikEd, but not including scripts or gadgets such as HotCat.

When I talked to experienced editors at other wikis earlier this year about this change, they generally had two main concerns:

  • First, some help pages will need to be updated. This is true, and it will take some time. For example, Wikipedia:Tutorial/Editing#Save the page will need to be updated.
  • Second, some editors worried that this change would confuse new editors. There have been no indications so far that this is the case.

In addition to the concerns raised by editors, it is my experience that the change temporarily startles a few editors. I hope that this feeling will be much less than when they changed the color and size of the buttons. At the other wikis, most editors seemed to get used to it fairly quickly.

Please note that any changes to the wording on this label, because of its legal implications, must be agreed with the Legal team in advance. Please let me know if you believe that a change is necessary, so that I can connect you with them. Very few other wikis have requested such changes. For example, the German Wikiquote requested permission to have both labels say only "Publish" instead of "Publish page" and "Publish changes", and the Hebrew Wikipedia asked to change from "Publish changes" to the longer "Save and publish changes". The Legal team did not object to either of these changes.

The plan: I will ask the team to schedule the change here for Monday, 11 December 2017. That should give this community a couple of weeks to consider updating the help documentation. If you have questions, please ping me. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 04:29, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. I'll aim to update the Help:Introduction pages this weekend. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 04:33, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Note, this is now done. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 09:44, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Fundraising Launch

Hey all!

I wanted to send a reminder that our English language fundraiser will as usual be officially launching on Giving Tuesday (Tuesday 28th November, at 16.00 UTC) with some final systems tests running between now and then.

You can see the all of our current most effective fundraising banners on our Fundraising Ideas page where you can also contribute any specific ideas or stories we should tell via social media, banners, emails etc.

We've recently published two blog posts about our fundraising work. The first covers how we try to limit the disruption to our readers during campaigns. The second is a recent tranche of research conducted into what our readers think about our fundraising. Take a look!

There will be a further launch announcement on the Wikimedia blog tomorrow and I will give a brief update at the end of the week with our progress and hopefully some interesting initial lessons learnt. A more substantial update will follow later in the week.

  • If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems please do report it on phabricator
  • If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer them to donate@wikimedia.org
  • There is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising

Finally, I’d like to thank the community here in advance for your help and patience over the coming weeks. From here on out, wish us luck!

Many Thanks Seddon (WMF) (talk) 09:18, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

checking if ref is called

Is there a way to check if a particular page uses the REF tag system? Like #ifexistrefs then do something. -- 70.51.45.76 (talk) 06:05, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

You're probably more likely to get a useful response at WP:VPT. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 19:51, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
I've now crossposted it there -- 70.51.45.76 (talk) 06:18, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
It disappeared (was archived) without being answered there -- 70.51.45.76 (talk) 04:28, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
It did not disappear – Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#checking if ref is called. Your intentions are unclear by asking such questions. You should be clearer and give the reasons so people would be able to reply instead of thinking what you want. – Sabbatino (talk) 09:21, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

First content made for Wikipedia in space!

ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli's spoken voice

The first ever content made in space specifically for Wikipedia was uploaded to Commons today, and is used on Paolo Nespoli. See Close encounters of the Wikipedia kind for how this happened. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:08, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

New Page Patrol

New Page Patrol Needs YOU!
  • We are the firewall that protects Wikipedia by identifying spam and malicious new submissions.
  • Currently our backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed new pages stretches back to March and there are currently a lot of pages in the backlog that have passed the 90 day Google index point. This means that are many thousands of pages that are indexed by google, but have not been reviewed at all!
  • We currently barely have the capacity to keep the backlog steady, and reducing it has been very difficult.
  • Reviewing/patrolling a page doesn't take much time but it requires a good understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines; currently Wikipedia needs experienced users at this task. Please see the granting conditions.
  • If this looks like you, please review our instructions page and APPLY TODAY. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 09:23, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
I dunno about this claim that thousands of articles are getting "indexed by google, but have not been reviewed at all". Here's the five oldest at the moment:
So unless someone wants to make the rather insulting claim that all of these people are editing articles without looking them over, I'd say that they're getting reviewed. The problem is convincing those admins and NPPers to actually click the "Yeah, the rest of you can probably stop worrying about this one" button instead of actually reviewing them, actually editing them, and still leaving the "I looked at this" button for someone else to click. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
This might be true of some articles, sometimes reviewers do not feel confident about an article and would like someone else to have a look. However, I regularly patrol from the back of the backlog (the oldest articles) and regularly find copyvios and articles that have not been reviewed at all. We definitely have many, many articles in the backlog that are indexed and have not been reviewed or looked over. Exactly how many is anyone's guess. Reviewing isn't just "looking them over" either, there is a lot of stuff to check like copyvios and actually checking the sources to make sure that they say what they are cited for. It is not as simple as just going through and clicking review, although that might be appropriate in some cases. We definitely need more hands on deck.
What we really need is to reduce the backlog to the point where it is below the 90 day index point or lower, so that there are not any potentially inappropriate articles that are indexed by google. If we don't do it before the end of ACTRIAL, it is going to be very difficult to keep up with the flood of garbage that will flood in once the gates are opened up again (hopefully only for one month, but still). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 19:31, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
I still think that "not been reviewed at all" is an exaggeration. Even if you haven't ticked every single box on the ever-growing list of "ideal" or "suggested" ways to find things wrong with a new article, it's still incorrect to say that the page hasn't been reviewed at all when so many people are reviewing enough of it to be tagging it and editing it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Maybe a slight hyperbole, but your above comment seems to imply that all these articles in the backlog are just fine and that someone just forgot to click the review button, which just isn't true. As you are not a patroller yourself, you might not understand this, but the backlog is analogous to a bowl of raisins with a few rabbit turds mixed in. The issue isn't with every article: it is with every 10th or 20th article that has serious issues. The worst ones tend to get filtered out toward the end of the backlog, so you don't find as many back there, but we still have to methodically tick through them to find the bad ones and it is a big job. Again I have to reiterate; we need more help from qualified editors. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:58, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
I've patrolled articles in the past, from the front and the back of the queue, in the old Special:NewPages list and the new Special:NewPagesFeed, at this and other wikis. I've also written a non-trivial fraction of your "rules" about how to do it. While you are correct that I've never requested the new page patrolling right, and have no plans to do so, I think a reasonable person would conclude that I still have an above-average grasp of what's involved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:29, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedians vs. Users

Hello. I noticed the two terms Wikipedian and User are used in Wikipedia but my very basic question is about the difference between the two terms? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.35.128.62 (talk) 11:54, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

No difference... two terms for the same people. Blueboar (talk) 12:05, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Well I wouldn't consider a member of a paid editing ring or a user who is here to advertise their company a 'Wikipedian', but for the vast majority of us the terms are synonymous. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 19:34, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
For the most part, all Wikipedian's are Users, and generally "readers" are not considered Wikipedian's, however they are also "users". — xaosflux Talk 21:26, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Fundraising needs you!

We need your help. We've had some really close results with some of our best messages in banners recently

Rather than the fundraising team making the decision what to do, we would like the community to help us choose the direction of our banner messaging:

Just go to this link, click your favourite and submit:

https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_09DMEWexSMnqyLr Seddon (WMF) (talk) 20:12, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Referenciaton

Just started a contest that seeks to improve the verifiability of Wikipedia. It's about adding references in the "articles lacking sources". The Referenciaton. Thanks. --Vanbasten 23 (talk) 09:32, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

ANI Experiences survey

Beginning on November 28, 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) will be conducting a survey to en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.

The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:

If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be mailed to you via Special:Emailuser.

Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 22:14, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Are newcomers receiving an automated welcome message directing them to recently tagged articles?

An admin I asked to do a CU and the new account that mysteriously showed up where a new account wasn't expected have been discussing on a third user's talk page here something that honestly is quite concerning. I had suspected the new account of being a sockpuppet of the creator of an article I had recently tagged as needing cleanup. I'm increasingly thinking I was wrong about that. But it was still super-fishy that a new account showed up right after I tagged an article on an obscure topic related to Indonesian culture. And then it happened four more times (with four different new accounts, on three different obscure articles on obscure topics) in the same day.[1]. I thought for a while that they were being operated by the same person who was trolling me, but the story that User:Webecoolalasdair has been telling User:Bbb23 -- that on creation of an account he received a notification and linked him to a random article with problems -- is actually believable, and it wouldn't surprise me if the "random" articles were more often than not articles that had been tagged in the last 24 hours or something arbitrary like that. That would explain why new accounts have been swarming around every article I tag recently.

(Yes, it is helpful when new users show up to copyedit articles, but when those articles are submitted as part of an editathon, whose rules demand proper proofreading, but the judges don't enforce said rules unless an article has a maintenance tag visible, it feels somewhat unfair for new editors to be automatically directed to specifically help those editors who don't go to the effort of proofreading their own work, giving them an advantage. On top of the appearance of disruptive sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry, this is another problem with new editors being disproportionately directed to newly-tagged articles.)

If this is the case, and new users are being herded into obscure corners of the encyclopedia to address recently added maintenance tags, is this something that was decided on somewhere? I think it really needs to be more transparent to experienced Wikipedians if that's what's going on, as my recent botched SPI won't be the last unfortunate misunderstanding.

(Note that it is entirely possible that I am being trolled, that Webecoolalasdair was just an unfortunate coincidence who happened to be directed to a recently tagged article, and that all the others are specifically coming after articles I tagged. Either way, it's pretty unbelievable that more than a dozen new users would be randomly directed to articles recently tagged by one particular user out of the thousands of problem articles on the site.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:03, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I need help with my signature

I was pointed in the direction of the village pump for help fixing my signature. I botched the code messing with it, and reverted it back to the default signature. Can someone please help me so it's as it was before. Here is a diff of my most recent edit with the signature I had.[2] Thank you for your help. Boomer Vial (talk) 08:39, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello. Try inserting this code in your preferences: [[User:Boomer Vial|Boomer Vial]]<sup>[[User talk:Boomer Vial|<span style="color: darkgreen;">Holla! We gonna ball!</span>]]</sup>. Remember to check the checkbox. Cheers, Rehman 08:48, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Rehman That did it. Thank you so much. Boomer VialHolla! We gonna ball! 09:29, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
No problem. Happy editing! Rehman 09:52, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

donations

You know, I just want to say that I am disabled and my sole income is small Social Security Disability Insurance payment. You make it so easy to contribute that, even though I can't afford a "Saturday coffee," I still manage my three dollars. C'mon folks. This is such a wonderful service, help out. Thank you to anyone taking time to read. -Reyna Cone — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.155.153 (talk) 19:38, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. Ruslik_Zero 19:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I wish my experience was ease of donation. Got quite cross this time round as pestered to donate, but using Firefox could not. Selected to make a one-off donation, then taken to a screen asking me to consider making regular donation onstead. With inconsistant income, not something I do, so wanted to click the button letting me conti9nue with one-off but the button was unclickable. Eventually made a donation when I logged in via Chrome = the relevant button worked there (although stupidly didn't login so on Firefox this morning got told I was being asked for the tenth time - perhaps an 'I already donated' button to stop that?). Could be Firefox or just the way I have Firefox set up I guess. Rhillman (talk) 08:49, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Redirects from foreign languages

Are they necessary? Usually the language of parameters is different, so if one tries to use the, one gets an error. Wikisaurus (talk) 00:31, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

WMF survey: improving AN/I

The WMF has created yet another survey, this time about improving AN/I. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 18:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

And? Blueboar (talk) 18:42, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Good point. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 18:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

TheFullWiki.org

Apologies if this topic doesn't belong here - I looked in the Wiki mirrors and forks area and am still not sure if or how this qualifies; I also tried various Wikipedia searches and found nothing regarding the site. The website above says it is based in Australia and has been active for 10 years, with the intent of automatically reproducing the entirety (!) of Wikipedia, as well as adding additional content, for the supposed purpose of providing decent cites for students. FAQ page here. I can't imagine that the site has gone unnoticed for so long, but I've failed to find any discussion of it on Wikipedia. I also don't know what or if anything should be done. I'd think some kind of rules on attribution or Creative Commons would be broken if it is attempting to put the entirety of Wikipedia on their servers. Any thoughts about this? LovelyLillith (talk) 01:47, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

@LovelyLillith: I checked one of the pages there, at it is attributing Wikipedia and the Creative Commons license. Can you be more specific about your what your concern is? RudolfRed (talk) 20:07, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Is The Full Wiki a combination of all Wikia wikis?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
this sounds like an important question. I never heard of that website before. I have to agree. this does sound somewhat problematic. should we try to provide notification somewhere, maybe at WP:AN? --Sm8900 (talk) 16:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@RudolfRed et alii: My concern is that the ENTIRETY of Wikipedia is going to be dropped into another site's servers, and whatever rules they choose to apply to the work we are doing. Since it is based in another country, we may have little recourse or influence over this. That is why I think Wikipedians more savvy than me need to evaluate the site and see if this is any kind of a threat to Wikipedia. I have no idea if Wikias are a part of it, I only became aware of the site on the day I first posted this. LovelyLillith (talk) 17:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Given that it has been active for 10 years without anyone apparently having heard of, let alone worried about, it before, I can't imagine that it's a great threat to Wikipedia. As for what we should do about it, so long as they are attributing our content correctly, I don't imagine there is really anything we can do about it. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 12:46, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
@LovelyLillith: The license of content on Wikipedia allows the entirety of Wikipedia to be dropped into another site's servers. --Malyacko (talk) 13:05, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Why I don't contribute financially to Wikipedia

I was disgusted by the stance taken by Wikipedia in the Monkey selfie copyright dispute. I thought Wikipedia was supposed to take a neutral point of view. I've therefore decided that Wikipedia does not deserve my support. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ad1mt (talk • contribs) 15:12, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks for coming back after 7 years and 40 edits to one talk page to tell us this important information. --Golbez (talk) 16:06, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Neutral point of view does not equal to your point of view, and neutral point of view does not really matter on non-wikipedia projects like wikimedia commons, where the photo locate. Administrators and the foundation merely act according to law and court ruling in the case, if you disagree with the law that those photos cannot be copyrighted then you can ask a US legislator to help write a bill and then make the bill being discussed and passed, then wikimedia foundation will act accordingly. C933103 (talk) 19:24, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Having just now looked at that dispute page, I agree that the copyright should be vested in a human agent on behalf of the simians. Wikipedia's argument that because the simians aren't legal persons they've no right to hold a copyright is approximately as odious to me as the Dred Scott decision, and for broadly the same reasons.98.118.21.142 (talk) 20:41, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't, and don't expect to, contribute financially to wikipedia either. My reasons are partly the nature of much of the content—trivial (Star Trek minutiae, anyone?) and/or outdated (19th century literary style is a tipoff); partly political–see my reference to the Dred Scott decision, above; and partly the power of the ruling claque to "just say No" and enforce their refusal by making smirky responses and, if that's not enough, banning the persistent (I'm sure I would have been banned had I not been old enough to see both the fundy-adolescent "fiat voluntas mea" at work and the futility of trying to overcome it by reasoned argument). So I'll carry on using the site when and while it might be useful, but I'll only contribute content, not money.98.118.21.142 (talk) 20:41, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

So the headline here is that you will continue using Wikipedia as intended? Okay! Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:47, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Just FYI, almost all of us, here, do not care at all, whether you do or you do not contribute money to whatever fund drive is ongoing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:53, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Not quite true; I care. I actively don't want a racist pig's money. The fact that he considers the position that monkeys can't hold a copyright equally odious (his words) to the position that a human being and his family could be legally enslaved makes him someone I'd like as little association with as possible. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:59, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Well technically, I was using the plural you as in you all (the two who wanted us to know this, and anyone else who might show up). In many ways, it's rather odd if someone feels like they will change what editors do here, by talking about their own money contributions - we really do not care, for a whole host of reasons. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:39, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Contributions, no matter in form of money or edits, are all welcomed. :) C933103 (talk) 02:50, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, I have just made a donation, but now, having read about the Monkey selfie copyright dispute, I regret that and wish that I could take it back. At some point during the donation process there was the quote something like "Imagine everyone could access all human knowledge", which, it seems to me, is what I would call decent & honourable. But, it would seem, in this matter Wikipedia was not decent or honourable, in fact it was so disrespectful of another human being`s contribution/efforts that it has, to paraphrase, "ruined the photographer`s life". In fact I am so disappointed and saddened by this that I have created an account just so that I can make this comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by H. G. (10) (talk • contribs) 22:29, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

It strikes me that your cavil is more with the state of copyright jurisprudence than it is with Wikipedia itself. Just a thought. 22:36, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
In light of this discussion, I propose that we change Wikipedia's tagline from "Imagine everyone could access all human knowledge" to "Imagine everyone could access all human and simian knowledge". Clearly we are using simian knowledge of selfie-taking without properly crediting the infraorder for its contributions. bd2412 T 22:51, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I don`t think that ruining someone`s life is a mere cavil, and this seems to have happened as a result of actions that Wikipedia chose to take (it was not obliged to by the state of copyright law). — Preceding unsigned comment added by H. G. (10) (talk • contribs) 14:28, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
In a similar way, I've been meaning to complain that the Wikimedia foundation is ruining my life by not giving me money, as they clearly should! But to be perfectly honest for a moment, this is why I quite like Wikipedia: you are most welcome here, with or without donations. You can advocate for changes you'd like both in content and how Wikimedia goes about its business. Is it perfect? Of course not. No agglomeration of human efforts will ever be perfect. But I would encourage you to stick around, make a few edits that you think help the encyclopedia, and see how it goes. Of course, if you would rather not, that's fine too. Happy holidays and here's hoping you have a wonderful day. Dumuzid (talk) 14:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
I think it's worth pointing out that "Wikipedia" does not have a position on the dispute. As far as the community is concerned even those of us who incline to the belief that the copyright did not vest in the owner of the photographic equipment, do not necessarily agree with the treatment of the of either of the putative photographers - or indeed the claims made on their behalves. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:43, 10 December 2017 (UTC).

Category problem

Sark and other Channel Islands articles have Category:Articles containing Jèrriais-language text as a category. I am unsure what to do, so perhaps another editor will help.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 02:23, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

@Dthomsen8: This category is generated by {{lang|nrf|Sèr}}. Trappist the monk (ping!) has been working on the lang templates recently. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:07, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
It is a headache. Because the 600+ {{lang}} and {{lang-??}} templates have had different authors and were written at different times, they are not all the same. I am attempting to remedy that by use of a lua module and a consolidated data set extracted from the IANA subtag registry, ISO 639-3, and a list of wp 'approved' language names (which provenance is unknown and therefore suspect). For code nrf IANA lists both Jèrriais and Guernésiais; for the same code, sil.org, the ISO639-3 custodian, lists the same language names but in opposite order. Both languages are described here at en.wiki as varieties of Norman. The old {{lang}} template categorized nrf as Norman so I have adjusted the new version of the template to do the same.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:44, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Best wishes with that rather difficult and obscure project on those templates. What I do not see is any language category for Sark and other Channel Islands, when I had seen a language category before. Doubtless this is something I should be able to figure out, but I cannot. Can you explain?--Dthomsen8 (talk) 15:50, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
@Dthomsen8: Perhaps its taken time for the job queue to sort it out, but both those articles are now in the hidden category Category:Articles containing Norman-language text. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:29, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
The idea was to produce a forgiving and flexible (and indeed fast) system, based on ISO 639.
If we are concerned about the deeper parts of the language tree, then we need to look at supporting something like Ethnalogue, and making certain categories dispersing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC).

question re recent community process

hi. where is the page that was recently posted where a whole slew of community ideas for Wikipedia were proposed, then discussed, and then voted upon? so sorry for this basic question, but I have not been able to find it. I appreciate any help with this. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 16:44, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@Sm8900: the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey? Jc86035 (talk) 16:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
oh yup. that is it alright. thanks for the help on that! while I've got you here, any idea on whether I can still submit s a few ideas? I have a few. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 16:47, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
@Sm8900: Unfortunately the proposals phase closed a few weeks ago, so you'll have to wait until about mid-November next year to submit new proposals for the 2018 survey. Jc86035 (talk) 17:14, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Of course you can always discuss them here! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:37, 10 December 2017 (UTC).

Belated welcoming template

Why does the photo caption apologize for giving someone a belated welcome? That seems really awkward, and clunky. Would anybody care if I changed it, or is there a process for having templates changed? Boomer VialHappy Holidays! • Contribs 16:29, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

{{Welcome-belated}} Feel free to improve any and all templates. If someone disagrees they'll revert you. That is the process. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:51, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Yep, we are somewhat clunky sometimes in these types of template. I thought this was just a transatlantic style issue, but perhaps it is template writers vs. prose writers. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC).
Rich Farmbrough Looks like you beat me too it. If I think of something else that I want to get your consensus on for changing that text, I'll let you know. Boomer VialHappy Holidays! • Contribs 02:06, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Let's not knock the public library - or- why Lane can't afford a library card.

On today's Wikipedia donation solicitation - "When I was a kid I couldn’t afford a library card. That’s when I understood the great disparity in access to information. I came to Wikipedia because it offers everyone a path to free information."

Really? could you reference where this might be that Lane had to pay for a library card? Library cards are generally free to residents of their district. Wikipedia on the other hand does an impoverished person no good without internet access. Of course if they had a library card they go to their public library for access. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.96.159.2 (talk) 22:01, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Free public libraries are not universal even within the United States, far less globally. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:46, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Over here I have to pay (a tiny amount of) money for a library card, but it is free for those with low income (and children and seniors etc.). (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:20, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Save Changes to Publish Changes

Am I the only one who's got changes made to his 'editing' button? GoodDay (talk) 04:03, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 57#Change to the edit submission button label. It was recently changed by the WMF. --Majora (talk) 04:06, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Proper action in case of plagiarism

I was working on the Kasundi article, which showed a lot of plagiarism, as the copy edit was still in progress. The material was suddenly and completely removed with edit history deleted. I checked WP:PLAGIARISM, which elaborates a process to deal with the situation - tag, notify, explain, repair, discuss... not wipe everything clean, including the history, and notify later. I don't mind much, especially since I am getting the material back by e-mail. But, is this the recommended process? Aditya(talk • contribs) 16:38, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Aditya Kabir. Yes, this is the recommended process. It appears the material was also a copyright violation. See WP:COPYVIO. Wikipedia cannot violate copyright. Therefore the material needs to be completely removed as soon as possible. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:36, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
In other words... once you get your email - but before you return the information - please completely re-write it. Blueboar (talk) 00:53, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
That is understood. Just one thing - would it not be prudent to have that policy upfront? Aditya(talk • contribs) 03:04, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
In what way is that policy not "upfront"? I see you have been editing for 11 years (about as long as I have) so how have you managed to be unaware of basic copyright concerns for so long? 86.17.222.157 (talk) 20:26, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Please come and help...

Should MoS shortcut redirects be sorted to certain specific maintenance categories? An Rfc has been opened on this talk page to answer that question. Your sentiments would be appreciated!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  16:28, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

FCC's ruling on Net neutrality

Will the FCC's recent ruling on net neutrality, have any impact on Wikipedia? GoodDay (talk) 20:10, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Maybe? Probably not though. We already use other countries' non-neutral rules to our benefit. Zero uses zero rating which allows people in those countries to use Wikipedia at no cost to them (something that wouldn't be allowed if providers are forced to treat every site equally).

In the grand scheme of things, Wikipedia also uses a lot less bandwidth than other sites. The removal of net neutrality rules is far more likely to impact high demand sites that use a lot of bandwidth like Netflix, YouTube, and to a lesser extent Facebook. I also wouldn't get all upset yet. The ruling is going to be appealed and there is plenty of case law out there that is on the side of the status quo. Federal agencies can't just change their mind because of a change in ideology. They have to have a reason for doing so beyond "I don't like it". There is the Administrative Procedure Act (United States) that lays out the ground rules and the Supreme Court has already ruled that agencies have to "examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action". A change in ideology doesn't meet that bar outright.[3]. --Majora (talk) 21:03, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Net Neutrality is a good thing, and trying to get rid of it will make everyone mad. So, the FCC should just give up their plan to get rid of it. But, either way, since Wikipedia is a non-profit, the FCC ruling may affect Wikipedia. Though we don't have to worry for another 3-4 months. Hydra Tacoz (talk) 21:58, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Requests for comment (RfC) from wider community

There is a discussion involving an AfD consensus to merge at Talk:Matt Lauer#Requests for comment from wider community Atsme📞📧 15:19, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Rogue bot or what on other language wikipedias

I recently received a notification that I had a message on Arabic Wikipedia, which I have never previously edited.

Google translate failed and I still do not know what it says, so I posted (with difficulty) an English reply saying this and asking for translation in English. This was I think a mistake; The only response was another message thanking me for my first contribution there.

I've now received a similar message from Punjabi Wikipedia, and translate failed again.

So I guess I can look forward to another 296 similarly useless notifications? (Or perhaps only 294 as I have contributed at French Wikipedia and Simple English Wikipedia. And I can read the Scots one and translate some of the others I guess.)

Suggestions? Andrewa (talk) 19:19, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Andrewa, there's a maintenance script running right now that is tidying up some attribution links for copyright and licensing reasons. One effect of this is that, if you edited a page and then someone used Special:Import to copy all the revisions to another wiki, then the script is triggering account creation for you at the wikis where your work has been imported. (Some wikis do this when they translate articles from other languages.)
Some wikis have a bot that welcomes everyone who creates an account. You will get a generic welcome template, almost always in the local language, on your talk page whenever you create an account at those wikis. The message for your first (also 10th and 100th) edit is automatic on all wikis. If you set your user interface language to English (first page of Special:Preferences, then you'll be able to read all the notification (Echo) messages in English. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:12, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF), that explains where these messages are coming from... an unintended and I guess unforeseen consequence of this script. But I hope you'll agree that this is not terribly helpful to me.
Is there any way to set my user interface language globally? I can of course set it individually for each of the almost 300 wikipedias!
Or, if I must do it individually, do I need to go through the process in the default language, the local language of that wiki... which means guessing what the buttons do, typing backwards in the case of Arabic, etc.? It's possible, but...!
There must be better ways. Any further help appreciated. Andrewa (talk) 22:27, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Local accounts attached without a visit (and welcomed without an edit) (I'm not saying that will help!). Johnuniq (talk) 23:56, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, that is right on-topic! I was wondering why I was the only one affected. It tuns out I'm not. Andrewa (talk) 10:26, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Andrewa, for setting your language, please have a look at m:User:Whatamidoing_(WMF)/global.js and find the line that says /* Change language to English */. Copy that and the following lines (until the bit for the userinfo script, unless you want that, too – it's one of my favorites) into your own global.js file (must be at Meta). When you visit other wikis, it will automatically change the language for you. The first time you visit a different wiki, you'll have to reload the page (because it first shows you the page, and only then runs the script to change your prefs), but it will remember it on all subsequent visits. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:15, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, good workaround. One shouldn't need to write javascript just to avoid the inintended consequences of inadequate design, but it seems to be the case here!
I hope that those responsible for this are taking note. It's a proven principle of software maintenance to fix the problem that you understand and can fix, even if its obvious consequences are not dire. Something here isn't working as intended. (In a past life we did once regularly refer to IBM's closing our reported mainframe problems as "restrictions" as "WASD" errors... "Working As Stupidly Designed".) The poor logic these useless messages reflect will probably have other unwanted consequences, ones that are not obviously related but will go away if it is fixed.
I note the connection to Wikidata. Probably not coincidence, I'm not convinced that's working as intended either! There's a lot going on. Having in another past life worked in software configuration management, I do sympathise.
"The bitterness of poor software design lasts far longer than the sweetness of deadlines met." - Quote from a course I attended (and later helped present) in the very early days of software QA.
Thanks again for your time. Probably this is best continued at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Edits (rather than the text of edits) being imported into Wikipedias of other languages or the new subsection there Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Information vs text. Andrewa (talk) 05:39, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I think that bots in general are just a bad thing. I have no clue what we are talking about, also.Hydra Tacoz (talk) 21:53, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to Blocking tools consultation

Hello all,

The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting all Wikimedians to discuss new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools in December 2017 for development work in early 2018.

Other ways that you can help

  • Spread the word that the consultation is happening; this is an important discussion for making decisions about improving the blocking tools.
  • If you know of current or previous discussions about blocking tools that happened on your wiki, share the links.

If you have questions you can contact me on wiki or send an email to the Anti-Harassment Tools team.

For the Anti-Harassment Tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 22:21, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Rfc on using Oxford English Dictionary at Useful Idiot article

I would like some input from people not already involved in the discussion. See here: Talk:Useful idiot#Request for Comment on Oxford English Dictionary.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:24, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

RFC on Inclusion of Infobox, Cary Grant

There is a discussion involving the inclusion of an infobox in the Carey Grant article at Talk:Cary Grant#RFC on Inclusion of Infobox. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 14:35, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Issue about Everipedia's contents brought from Wikipedia

As currently, the content Wikipedia is copyrighted under CC BY-SA 3.0, which means the contents used by Everipedia should also license under CC BY-SA 3.0. However, Everipedia is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 [4], which I think is violation of copyright terms. Articles originally borrowed from Wikipedia include Google, Wikipedia, etc. Only a line saying "The original version of this page is from Wikipedia, you can edit the page right here on Everipedia." is mentioned. --1=0 (talk) 00:35, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

information Note:And the images in Everipedia have same problem, it seems that 95% of images are come from Wikimedia Commons. For example some images was me or my friend took and upload to Commons, now appear in Everipedia.--Xiliu※heshui · criticize me 01:13, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Seems that the image pages have no license information at all. Other images there are hosted on Commons, and clicking on them takes you directly to the image (not its page).
I would not worry though. It’s another Larry Sanger project, another attempt to re-invent Wikipedia, after his last attempt Citizendium. That failed, but he seems to have taken the wrong lessons from its failure. Mass-importing articles again to kickstart it, except using weirder software that has done a far worse job of rending them. None I’ve looked at have been touched in the year since. Activity levels are similar to Citizendium in its heyday, which means the millions of broken Wikipedia articles will never be fixed, and eventually all deleted like Citizendium, except the few thousand they actually work on, maybe.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 01:53, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Uhm no, it can also be licensed to a compatible license, Your contributions to adaptations of BY-SA 3.0 materials may only be licensed under: BY-SA 3.0, or a later version of the BY-SA license. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:23, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for your explanation.--1=0 (talk) 13:30, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

WP:POLEMIC/WP:GRAVEDANCE question

Hey, my user page (here) references a certain banned user with whom I briefly interacted before their last non-indefinite block by name. No one has ever called me out on it, which is probably because no one has actually read my user page from start to finish, but also possibly because no one would shed a tear for that particular user given the disruption they caused (and is still causing -- if IPs were allowed edit my user page I'm sure he would be trying to blank it already). I actually don't remember exactly when I added it to my page, but I suspect it was probably the following year when I was angry at another user who made a similar remark but was not banned. (They are now, but for reasons unrelated to the Nazi comment.)

Is it a grey area that I can probably get away with? Or a grey area that I could get away with if I removed the diff and said "some users"? Or do folks think I should just blank it? I don't really mind either way at this point, except I'd rather not censor what I apparently thought at some point was worth having on my user page if other users generally don't see a problem with it, which is why I'm asking.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:57, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

My advice... (and no, I have not read your user page)... no one will chastise you for self-removing something that is borderline ... but they might give you grief if you keep it.
So... if you are not sure whether something on your user page is appropriate... take the safe attitude and assume that it isn’t. Self restraint is admirable. Blueboar (talk) 01:06, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Inappropriate images on talk pages about recent fatalities

Yet again, I have removed a project banner from the talk page of a recent fatal incident, because it includes images of human skulls. This is the page to which we direct people involved in the incident, who wish to ask us to make a change or to supply us with new information.

The banner in question is {{WikiProject Death}}. I question whether a project with only 50 members - some inactive for years - has the right to impose these inappropriate images on the talk pages pages of such articles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:05, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

The banner has an image of a clean skull - it's not a smashed, bloody skull with chunks of flesh on it. The value of the image is that it clearly and simply represents what the topic is - just like many other project banners do. It's not normal or reasonable to be offended by it, and no-one is suggesting an alternative image. It's not inappropriate - it's extremely appropriate and relevant. To say that it's not mature or serious is ridiculous - what is immature or flippant about a skull? Do you want to remove all pictures of bones from all WP articles? The fact that it's on thousands of talk pages makes it even more ridiculous to repeatedly remove it from one. Jim Michael (talk) 23:03, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, a template with such an image might be justified on Talk:Death and Talk:Murder since these topics are about death but on Talk:2017 Washington train derailment death is not the main point at all and both template and image will thus be much more questionable. JoJo Eumerus mobile (talk) 23:30, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't think that anyone's saying that it's flippant. I think they're saying that they feel uncomfortable when they see this image, and that they assume that some fraction of other people will feel uncomfortable, too. I don't doubt their self-reported feelings. Some people are naturally more squeamish about anatomy than others, or come from a culture where death should be treated indirectly, or find the concept of death more difficult or painful (either now, because of a current situation in their real lives, or in general).
There have been a small number of requests for alternative images in the past. These have generally failed, as all of the alternatives imply a specific kind of death (e.g., Socrates drinking hemlock, which would be relevant and reasonable for a page about suicide or poisoning, but not for a page about Sudden infant death syndrome or AIDS) or a particular cultural reference (e.g., a Christian cross).
I don't worry about this image myself, because in almost every case, the banner is wrapped in a collapsed template. That means that you have to deliberately click the [Show] button to see it. I put the odds of this happening to an innocent reader at somewhere between "very low" and "zero". The 2017 Washington train derailment, for example, has been averaging more than 27,000 page views per day since creation. The talk page has seen about 675 per day (2.5% of that). And of those – well, I figure that we could realistically count the number of people who clicked that template to expose the image to be something that we could count on our fingers and toes. The page views for WikiProject Death shows that about an extra ten people looked at the project page each day since the creation of that article.
And unless I've missed something, this is only the second time that Andy's made this request, and I have only found one request before that, so it does not seem to be something that is generally causing many worries. All of which makes me think that removing this image is probably not a critical issue for the community. (If you're interested, Andy's 2015 request can be read at Template talk:WikiProject Death#Images [~3200 words, so ~10 minutes to read]. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:22, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Renaming of Brazilian political parties

Hi! I don't know if here is the right place for writing about it. There are many Brazilian political parties that are changing their names such as Patriota and Brazilian Democratic Movement. However, officially, they have not changed the name yet, waiting only for bureaucratic issues such as changing bylaws, which can take a few months. Do we expect change in bylaws? What is being done here in these situations? Comuna de Paris (talk) 01:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Comuna de Paris. Thank you for your question. Generally, when a business or other organization decides to change their name, we add that information to the article promptly: "Foo is an organization. In 2017, they announced that they would change the name to Baz", and create a redirect page from the new name.
Approximately when the name change becomes "official", then we WP:MOVE the page to the new name. (Sometimes the page is moved earlier; sometimes it is moved later.) Approximately when the page is moved, then we change the article: "Baz is an organization. Previously, this organization was called Foo". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:31, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Request for Comment- White House Press Corps

Hi everybody. We are having a discussion about the criteria for inclusion of correspondents in the White House press corps article. I'd like to get some more input from the community. The discussion is taking place here: Talk:White_House_press_corps/Archive 0#RFC on Correspondent Section--Rusf10 (talk) 17:00, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

What happened in October 2002?

Look at the third blue graph in this stats.wikimedia.org report. What caused the massive spike in new articles in October 2002? Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 04:43, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Rambot automagically created U.S. place articles from census data. Rmhermen (talk) 05:51, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 05:53, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Interesting. We should do that with other countries' census data as well. Vandergay (talk) 04:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
At one point about 6 years ago, a random 100 iteration sampling I did (click Random article) of our articles showed that 5% (5/100) of them were about Polish municipalities. They were outnumbered only by articles about footballers. μηδείς (talk) 20:13, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

UN 120-9 against the USA

Wikipedia is a wonder place. I want to know which 9 countries voted not to condemn the USA. I know Canada and Australia abstained. I cannot find a list but someone in Wikipedia will post it. Where?????

I know people say Wikipedia is not news and there is no deadline but Wikipedia is good for this kind of info. AGrandeFan (talk) 19:54, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

The United States, plus:
- Israel
- Guatemala
- Honduras
- Marshall Islands
- Micronesia
- Palau
- Togo
- Nauru
Search engines are cool! Dumuzid (talk) 19:56, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I found it in the Washington Post. Guatemala, Honduras, Togo and the Pacific island states of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau. Among those voting in favor were Russia, China and several U.S. allies, notably Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Japan and Turkey. The abstaining nations included Canada, Mexico, Australia, Colombia, Haiti, Poland and the Philippines. AGrandeFan (talk) 20:12, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

The representitives of 42,640,864 people opposed the motion condemning the US. Less than .6 of one percent of the people of the world. —Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:00, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
This is false. About 300-350M, not 42M. That is about 5%. Roughly 35 countries abstained and 28 or so countries did not come to the UN that day. Some of them said it was not an emergency so no need for an emergency meeting. AGrandeFan (talk) 20:18, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
I think that Anthony was omitting the US's own vote, and that accounts for 323 million people, or 4.5% of your 5% estimate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:33, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
Yep, I wasn't counting the the vote of the condemned. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:40, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

When and why did the page editing "Save changes" button turn into "Publish changes"?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T131132
Resolved

When? More importantly, why? --Shirt58 (talk) 10:09, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

You may wish to read the section #Save Changes to Publish Changes above. --David Biddulph (talk) 10:17, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Of course, every other text still talks abuot "saving" changes... e.g. "By saving changes, you agree to the Terms of Use" or "This is only a preview; your changes have not yet been saved!" The reason is apparently legal, which sounds like nonsense to me (and if true would mean that everyone who saved anything before this change could come and ask for removal of their contributions "because they didn't know they were publishing it", right?). Anyway, decided from above and basically non negotionable. Fram (talk) 10:47, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Bunch of pages that need to be updated. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:10, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
  • As I understand it, the issue was that "save" didn't make it clear that the update was published to the world immediately. But the new wording is misleading if you're just working in your sandbox or in draft space. The button should perhaps be more context-sensitive and vary, depending on what is being edited and whether pending changes will apply. Andrew D. (talk) 11:15, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
    • Not having seen a rationale for the change, there are some instances where copyright status depends on whether something has been "published" or not (it is possible to write something down without publishing it.) For example, [5]. If that is the rationale here, then to keep the status of all pages the same we'll need to "publish" our talk pages, templates, etc. It would be nice for WMF to release a short statement explaining the rationale, but perhaps they are afraid of WP:BEANS. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:22, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Here's a rationale; from Future changes in Tech News: 2016-17: «The "Save page" button when you edit will be called "Publish" instead. This is to help new editors understand what it does.»
Or the title of the Phabricator task: «Re-label the "Save" button to be "Publish", to better indicate to users the outcomes of their action». --Pipetricker (talk) 16:48, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
@Pipetricker: based on the announcement here [6] it is clear that the rationale is more than just about clarifying the purpose of the button for new users. The bold text in the announcement makes it clear that there is some other reason, which, it seems, is being kept private as part of whatever legal considerations led to the change. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:22, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
meta:Editing/Publish has more elaborate rationales and additional information. --Pipetricker (talk) 18:08, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm working on the MediaWiki pages. At least one of them (MediaWiki:Explainconflict) uses {{int:Savearticle}} to transclude the text. I'm not sure how to get that changed. --RL0919 (talk) 23:32, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
At this point I believe the relevant MediaWiki pages are updated, except MediaWiki:Explainconflict for the reason mentioned. --RL0919 (talk) 02:50, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you.
You can use {{int:Publishpage}} instead. The main advantage of using that system is that it will automagically adapt to whatever the user's own user interface language is on the wiki where they're reading the help page. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:07, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. Looks like {{int:Publishchanges}} also works, and is the best match for the current button wording. I updated MediaWiki:Explainconflict and started on some of the protected pages on Nick's list below. --RL0919 (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
  • In case it helps, I've created a working list of as many individual pages, images or protected templates that I could find that still need updating, but which I don't have permissions to change. Feel free to add or remove any from that list as they're updated. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:20, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes, this is what happens when you use a very small sample set of potential editors who edit other projects that use the term "publish" instead of "save". There is a theory that only a handful of participants in a study are needed to give appropriate feedback. It's entirely unscientific, and practically guarantees that developers can get a sample that agrees with their ideas. If this was actually scientifically reviewed, it would require thousands of study participants in multiple languages. Developers wanted to use "publish" so now we use "publish" instead of "save", which actually almost everyone in the world understood would mean "this is now visible". Of course, it's also inaccurate in cases where pending changes are used... Risker (talk) 17:19, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, I consider revisions that were pending reviews published. Anyone viewing history logs can surf to old revisions, including ones rejected under pending changes. George Ho (talk) 21:35, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello

Please note that ophthalmologist Daljit Singh died on 27 december. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.185.175.84 (talk) 09:50, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Someone has added this information to the article Daljit Singh (ophthalmologist). (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 21:09, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

How has Wikipedia changed in the last five-ish years?

I used to be a very devoted editor to Wikipedia, and then I stopped editing about five years ago (let's arbitrarily say, January of 2012).

What's changed since then -- in terms of policies, technology, etc? Obviously I see we have a cool new editing interface. Did anyone ever make progress on setting up an auto-archive system to combat link rot in cited sources? What were the big scandals and crises that I missed?

Thanks! Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 09:15, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

@Agradman: You might want to read through the Signpost archives, though it now seems to be monthly. There is now an InternetArchiveBot (since 2016); Wikipedia reached 4 million articles (July 2012) and then 5 million articles (November 2015); Wikidata replaced interwiki links in 2013 and is now used in a lot of articles for minor information like external database links and (more controversially) in a few articles for general infobox data; WP:ACTRIAL has been enabled until March on a trial basis; the Foundation went through a series of organizational issues (1, 2, 3, 4) and seems to have recovered to some extent; we've had several wishlist surveys on Meta with some positive results; and probably a lot of other stuff (I haven't really participated in Arbcom proceedings or the "drama boards"). Jc86035 (talk) 10:34, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I am sure that one major difference between Wikipedia as it is now and Wikipedia as it was years ago is that the globe in the top left-hand corner used to say "Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia that any one can edit" and now it just says "Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia". I do not remember when the bit about any one being able to edit was removed, so I cannot say whether this was more than five years ago. Vorbee (talk) 21:03, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't believe the logo ever said "that anyone can edit". This archive from 2002 does not include those words. Those words are from the bar near the top of the main page, not the logo. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 00:49, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Why doesn't Wikimedia have it's own datacenters?

I always wondered about it since i knew the WMF didn't had it's own data centers, but rather put their servers in colocation centers. What are the advantages of using a colocation center over using a datacenter you have full control over?Pancho507 (talk) 07:14, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Probably cost savings. bd2412 T 03:11, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
The commercial datacenters have full-time security guards, cameras, access procedures, environmental conditions, raised floors, generator backup, cabling systems, etc.. the kind of stuff Wikipedia shouldn't worry about and is costly to setup and maintain. The commercial datacenters are typically wired into a Internet exchange point at high speed on a switch, or otherwise have access to various telco carriers for purchasing long-haul links. To connect those links into a private location is not cheap, and it would require redundancy. -- GreenC 03:16, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Deleted article management

If you delete an article on wikipedia(article 1)(or another wiki running on mediawiki) and someone recreates it(article 2), is the edit history of article 1 lost(overwritten) or still accessible (by admins?)Pancho507 (talk) 07:10, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

It is still accessible to admins (and merging histories actually means, well, merging visible history with deleted edits).--Ymblanter (talk) 10:11, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Categories of years in sport

Is there any good reason why we have Category:Years in women's sport (heavily populated) but do not have Category:Years in men's sport? If I create and populate this category, would it survive?--Ymblanter (talk) 18:53, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

It should do, Vorbee (talk) 18:05, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, I will try.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:08, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Giving Money to Wikipedia

"If everyone who read this gave $3 to Wikipedia, Wikipedia would be able to operate for years to come."

If I gave $3 to Wikipedia, I would get pop-ups asking for MORE money for years to come. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.66.189.152 (talk) 20:46, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

There is usually a fundraising drive around December so you may get few requests for the next 11 months. Registered users have the option "Suppress display of fundraiser banners" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. I don't think there is any connection between donating and getting requests for unregistered users. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:01, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation fund-raising has, in the past, generated a storm of criticism.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] These complaints have been around for years,[11] leading one member of a major Wikimedia mailing list to automate his yearly complaint about the dishonesty he sees every year in our fundraising banners.[12] For more information, see WP:CANCER. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:01, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Wikipedia has a ton of money. So why is it begging you to donate yours? The Washington Post
  2. ^ 2015–2016 Q1 fundraising update sparks mailing list debate Wikipedia Signpost
  3. ^ Wikipedia fundraising drive: Should you donate money to the Wikimedia Foundation? International Business Times
  4. ^ The Wikipedia Fundraising Banner: Sad but Untrue Wikipediocracy
  5. ^ Wikipedia Has Millions In The Bank – Why Beg For More? MakeUseOf
  6. ^ Wikipedia – keeping it free. Just pay us our salaries. Wikipediocracy
  7. ^ Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? Effective Altruism
  8. ^ Why does Wikipedia ask for donations even though it has a huge reserve? Quora
  9. ^ Top 10 Reasons Not to Donate to Wikipedia MyWikiBiz
  10. ^ A Modest Proposal for Wikimedia’s Future The Wikipedian
  11. ^ Wikipedia doesn't need your money - so why does it keep pestering you? The Register
  12. ^ Fundraising banners (again) Wikimedia-l

RfC: Nonbinding advisory RfC concerning financial support for The Internet Archive

Should the Wikimedia Foundation donate three million dollars to The Internet Archive ? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:21, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Limitations: The Wikimedia foundation is not bound by Wikipedia RfCs, so This RfC is not binding on anyone. It is purely advisory.

Background:

The Internet Archive (http://archive.org/) is a non-profit online library that provides the Wayback Machine, free public access to archived versions of 279 billion web pages, and access to three million public-domain books. At Help:Using the Wayback Machine and Wikipedia:Link rot we have instructions on how to link to archived copies of web pages cited in Wikipedia articles. This is useful if a web page has changed, moved, or disappeared. In addition the site is frequently used by journalists and citizens to review dead websites, dated news reports or changes to website contents.

Over 60,000 Wikipedia pages link to The Internet Archive. If The Internet Archive were to shut down it would have a significant negative effect on Wikipedia.

The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.

We began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just beginning to grow in use. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral - but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Today we have 20+ years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine and we work with 450+ library and other partners through our Archive-It program to identify important web pages.

As our web archive grew, so did our commitment to providing digital versions of other published works. Today our archive contains:

  • 279 billion web pages
  • 11 million books and texts
  • 4 million audio recordings (including 160,000 live concerts)
  • 3 million videos (including 1 million Television News programs)
  • 1 million images
  • 100,000 software programs

Anyone with a free account can upload media to the Internet Archive. We work with thousands of partners globally to save copies of their work into special collections.

Because we are a library, we pay special attention to books. Not everyone has access to a public or academic library with a good collection, so to provide universal access we need to provide digital versions of books. We began a program to digitize books in 2005 and today we scan 1,000 books per day in 28 locations around the world. Books published prior to 1923 are available for download, and hundreds of thousands of modern books can be borrowed through our Open Library site. Some of our digitized books are only available to the print disabled.

Like the Internet, television is also an ephemeral medium. We began archiving television programs in late 2000, and our first public TV project was an archive of TV news surrounding the events of September 11, 2001. In 2009 we began to make selected U.S. television news broadcasts searchable by captions in our TV News Archive. This service allows researchers and the public to use television as a citable and sharable reference.

The Internet Archive serves millions of people each day and is one of the top 300 web sites in the world. A single copy of the Internet Archive library collection occupies 30+ Petabytes of server space (and we store at least 2 copies of everything). We are funded through donations, grants, and by providing web archiving and book digitization services for our partners. As with most libraries we value the privacy of our patrons, so we avoid keeping the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of our readers and offer our site in https (secure) protocol.

The Internet Archive needs $1.5 million dollars to provide this service for the next year. In the year 2016 the Wikimedia foundation received $82 million dollars in donations, spent $66 million dollars ($3 million just to keep the servers running), and had $92 million dollars in the bank.[7]

I call upon the Wikimedia Foundation to donate $3 million dollars to The Internet Archive. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:21, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Should the Wikimedia Foundation donate three million dollars to The Internet Archive (http://archive.org/)?

Support

  • Support I use archive.org almost every day I edit Wikipedia. Sometimes The Internet Archive is down. When that happens, I know I cannot make certain improvements to many articles, because we depend and rely on it. The Internet Archive is unable to raise as much money as quickly as Wikipedia can, because it doesn't have as much traffic. If we give archive.org some money to ensure their continued operation then that makes life easier for our editors and it improves the quality of our content; having the money sit in a WMF bank account (and/or spending it on vanity projects and white elephants) does not help our cause. If archive.org goes down permanently we as a community have a very very serious problem. The alternatives are inferior, and re-creating the same functionality is outside of our scope. User @Cyberpower678: has done an amazing job creating the InternetArchiveBot, and if we give the The Internet Archive some money we can co-operate with them to improve it and add new functionality. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/InternetArchiveBot Ideally every URL that gets mentioned in the mainspace onwiki is automatically archived so that we are prepared when it goes down. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 03:00, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Hell yes. WMF can afford it and then some by all accounts, and we depend very heavily on Internet Archive – hundreds of thousands if not millions of actual citations would instantly and irreparably break if IA went away. They also do a lot of other great stuff like scanning and providing free access to now-public-domain materials (as do Google Books, for now anyway, and Project Gutenberg).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  05:11, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I support this. Or, as User:The Quixotic Potato suggested elsewhere, we could put a banner on Wikipedia briefly explaining what The Internet Archive does, directing readers to The Internet Archive’s fundraising page until they have achieved their target. Internet Archive is much more important to Wikipedia than any of the Wikimedia failures that gobble up most of the donations raised by Wikipedia. —Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:08, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support: as proposer. As I have extensively documented at WP:CANCER, The Wikimedia Foundation Wikipedia has a spending problem. During the last year that we have records for (2015/2016), the WMF spend $2.3 million dollars on "travel and conferences" and $3.6 million dollars on "donations processing expenses". We gave away $4.5 million dollars in grants, down from $11.4 million dollars the previous year. Former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation Sue Gardner said:
"I believe that currently, too large a proportion of the movement's money is being spent by the chapters. The value in the Wikimedia projects is primarily created by individual editors: individuals create the value for readers, which results in those readers donating money to the movement."
"I am also concerned that the Funds Dissemination Committee itself --the most significant and powerful funding mechanism for our movement-- has very few non-chapter-related members: the majority of its members are also Board/former Board members of a chapter."
"I believe we're spending a lot of money, more than is warranted by the results we've been seeing. I am concerned by the growth rates requested by the entities submitting funding requests to the Funds Dissemination Committee: I believe that in order to justify the size of grants that have been sought, the entities involved should need to be able to say clearly how their plan will make an important contribution to helping the Wikimedia movement achieve its mission."[8]
In my considered opinion, The Internet Archive does far more for Wikipedia than travel and conferences or grants to national wikiprojects do. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:57, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:04, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support, although a smaller amount may be preferred by the WMF because this is about 3.2% of all their money and they might prefer to spend it in smaller chunks. If the WMF is willing to take action as a direct result of this RfC, they could also consider donating to the OpenStreetMap Foundation (total expenses of about US$120,000 in 2016) and other projects which Wikimedia relies on. Jc86035 (talk) 12:08, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support They are a much better source of information than some of the dodgy blogs that still appear as references in many Wikipedia articles. Sure, they might be showing a copy of the same original material (some old books seem to have multiple copies across the web), but the material is not set alongside stuff that one would not (or should not) use as a reference. I have in mind swapping out some "dodgy blog" references in Wikipedia with better sources of the same material - the Internet Archive's continued existence would help that. ([9] is one important ref in my area of interest and is a good replacement of [10] - if you use the latter site a lot, you'd better contact me on my talk page.)ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 14:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Invaluable resource. Allows us to keep WP:V and WP:RS in tack. !dave 18:06, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support, extremely useful resource, and Wikimedia has more money than they can spend in useful ways. —Kusma (t·c) 18:11, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support They can easily spare it and it would not only do a lot of good, it would help Wikipedia more than anything else they do except the presumably trivial amount they actually spend on hosting and hardware. As to this being purely advisory: so is everything else the community says. The WMF does not give a rat's ass what the community wants or needs, even when they ask they ignore the results. So, situation normal. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:47, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
This is utter nonsense and an insult to good people.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
I have hard evidence that Yngvadottir is wrong. At User:Guy Macon/Wikimedia referrer policy I document how I posted a similar non-binding advisory RfC and how the proper people at the WMF evaluated the results and gave me a straight answer concerning their decision. Seriously, read that RfC and the answer from the WMF and you will clearly see that my proposal was evaluated and not ignored. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:49, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
That's great that in that instance they looked at it, but what about all the changes to the software they have pushed through, while ignoring both our response and their own requests for what we want in the way of tools and updates? Flow, for one huge example. At this point they do not deserve any assumption of good faith. Yngvadottir (talk) 05:17, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
Nobody who has read WP:CANCER will ever confuse me with someone who supports everything that the WMF does, but to be fair, none of the people who worked on or managed the Flow project work there anymore. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:42, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support I am only commenting here because this is a non-binding advisory RfC. I request that although I have tagged my !vote as 'Support' that if any tally is done, my vote not be included in the numbers. My support is for the WMF to take a good look at the situation with The Internet Archive to determine how we might best support the fundraising without inadvertently killing off the opportunity for them to grow their own funding base. My first thought is that a matching grant would be a good approach, i.e. that we offer $1.5 million of the $3 million if they manage to raise the rest. Or perhaps a better approach for them and for us is to instead offer a $500k per year grant to match their own public (small donor) fundraising of up to $500k. I am not in a position to know the best approach, but in general I think it is important that we, the most financially successful player in the free culture ecosystem, take steps to support that ecosystem because it benefits us in a myriad of ways.
One idea that has been put forward in the discussions is that the WMF should perhaps build our own version, with links saved based on what people put into Wikipedia. I don't think that's exactly the right answer because the Internet Archive effort to archive as much of the Internet as possible benefits us in ways that aren't directly about archiving things that we link to. However, I would also support us funding an effort for greater integration between IA and Wikipedia, i.e. we could pay them to specifically build tools to archive links that are added to Wikipedia, and add some automated features to link to their archives in relevant cases (such as, for example, when the link that was there changes dramatically or turns into a 404 not found).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • There is already a program to automatically archive every link added to Wikipedia on IA. There is already a program to automatically fix dead links with links to Internet Archive plus 22 other web archives. There is already a program that fixes dead archive links and replaces them with new ones. There is already tight cooperation of efforts and tools between IA and Wikipedia. All of this is done. Maybe we have a communication problem the community is not aware of it. -- GreenC 22:56, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I think many of us are aware of at least some of the efforts. Certain ones could be further improved upon thought :-) For example the archiving of google book urls does not provide anything useful. And adding robust linking[11] could be a step forwards. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:26, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Definitely. It is an excellent and well used resource, I am sure most donors give money to support what Wikipedia/Wikimedia does, rather than because they think the WMF is a great charity, and the IA supports what Wikipedia/Wikimedia does. Llwyld (talk) 00:53, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Soft support but still strong in principle. I have no idea what Wikipedia's finances are [edit: because of this and having read all replies over, do NOT count this vote], but I do know that the Internet Archive not only has a massive collection of saved web pages, but also a huge archive of historical books and older material, as well as newer material that can be "loaned out" for a period of 14 day. There are a lot of items on the site I can't get at even the university library near me, unless I go into their closed circulation rooms (which I would rather not do). In addition, the interface that they have for reading texts is remarkable, in the absence of a separate reader or app. I think most people would agree that the in-book search functionality is very useful as well. All of the above seems to make a convincing case for a donation from Wikipedia. The only thing I don't know if it we have the ability to do so. Buffaboy talk 03:49, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support The Internet Archive is vital for Wikipedia because dead web pages are major problem. Supporting the Archive with a matching grant would benefit the encyclopedia, and would be much more efficient than attempting to set up a duplicate service from scratch. Johnuniq (talk) 05:59, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • partial support - I support some level/type of support to the Internet Archive, especially if they really are in that dire straights. But I think it's a mistake for us to think we can determine the amount or type of support that is needed or feasible, such decisions are best left to the WMF (and to IA). In other words, I can get behind "hey, we really need IA to stay afloat, please help them if at all possible, " but not "y'all have too much money, give IA 3 million, and do it yesterday!" Fyddlestix (talk) 06:12, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support – Internet Archive is a vital resource for Wikipedia. The grant should be given in exchange for some level of service guarantee, and improvements to the existing tools. — JFG talk 10:11, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support – in line with the Wikimedia Foundation's stated goal of supporting institutions upon which the Wikimedia movement depends. Rentier (talk) 16:58, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - The archive is essential to our WP:V policy, so a donation would be appropriate. It would also give WMF some leverage to get changes we want implemented. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:44, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong Support - Honestly, if the Internet Archive does not meet their fundraising goals, then I don't see why the Wikimedia Foundation should sit back and do nothing. This is a nonbinding advisory opinion, so they should know that the community thinks that WMF should have some level of financial support for the Archive. Maybe they should provide matching, or they could assist with fundraising among their users, but they shouldn't do nothing if it would help their mission. Let's do it! ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 19:47, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Because the Wayback Machine is by far more reliable than google webcache or other archives, it's the go to place if you want to see webpages as they were in the past or those that are gone forever. Pancho507 (talk) 02:31, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support This would be a vastly better and actually useful... well, use of WMF's funding hoard than funding "chapters" that don't do anything. James (talk/contribs) 14:49, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Oppose

  • Oppose, mostly. To be sure, I like the Internet Archive, I like their philosophy, I like what they do, and I value it for Wikipedia's sake. That said, Wikipedia makes its pitches for donations very aggressively and for very prolonged periods, except to those few of us fortunate enough to feel comfortable regulating which scripts get to run on our browsers. By contrast, IA made a pitch for funds only recently, and is already 2/3 of the way to its yearly goal, thanks in large part to an incredibly generous 3-to-1 matching funder. In short, Wikipedia is already trying way harder for its funding, and sending funds *out* under those conditions seems foolhardy. It may even be reasonable to consider toning down fundraising appeals a bit to ensure that Wikipedia has some "reserve" where if things get bad it can try harder to get donations, while IA clearly could harass visitors more often. Also, Wikipedia donors might balk at hauling this kitchen sink along with all the other miscellaneous non-Wikipedia baggage WMF includes; if Wikipedia donations are harmed by even a small proportion, that is more than IA gets or needs! That said, I fully support fee-for-service transactions between Wikipedia and IA, even if they aren't tremendously hard-negotiated. For example, Wikipedia could send IA some funds in exchange for some guarantees that those 60,000 urls won't change without Wikipedia being told three months in advance, and maybe a kick up in efficiency serving them. (call it breaking with Off-the-Net Neutrality) Have somebody with Sales experience go over an idea like that -- there should be a way that IA comes out of it able to toot its own horn that it provides custom archival services to an Internet giant and it can do the same for your museum or university. Wnt (talk) 01:22, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
    • It's not 60,000 pages to archive. It's 60K WP pages using the archives (right now, more every day because bots are fixing dead urls with Wayback links). It's at least hundreds of thousands of cites, probably millions, because many articles have numerous citations that rely on Wayback.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  05:13, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Wikipedia can start a new sister project, "Wikiarchive". Cost is much less than $3m and other advantages. Archiving 60,000 pages how hard is it? The Wayback Machine needs to archive billions of pages, the entire Internet, but Wikipedia only archives what it needs, a very small number by comparison. Signal Lamb (talk) 04:47, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
    • See above, it's not 60,000 archived pages; it's 60K our our pages using many, many more archived off-WP pages. But missing the point the point anyway. WP could not have archived those pages because it doesn't have magical future-reading powers to determine what pages to archive before the URLs go dead. We're able to cite so much because Internet Archive's Wayback machine archives billions of pages (most of them numerous times, usually including the time range in which we need them), and those billions happen to include the ones we need when sites go down.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  05:16, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
      • If it's 600k or 6 million links, it's a small number when speaking of $3 million. Wikipedia can create the page archive at the same time the link is added to an article, it doesn't need to know ahead of time, editors don't add dead links, the links only go dead later. For ones already dead, Wikipedia can copy archives from The Wayback Machine. All can be done for not much money and have permanent archive on site, complete control, ability to add new features. Signal Lamb (talk) 13:56, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose with despairing facepalm gesture Internet Archive is great. The premise that they are desperate for cash is false, so far as I can tell. They are doing fine. They might get less individual income than WMF (and be looking to increase it with Jimmy-banner style tactics) but they get more grant funding. Their total income is $12M-$15M USD so in the same ballpark as the WMF a few years ago. The premise that WMF has more cash than it knows what to do with is false. The premise that English Wikipedia RfCs should be used to 'advise' on significant financial commitments by the movement is false. It is remarkable to find an RfC with three false premises all at once. The Land (talk) 18:16, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
    For your first point, I am curious what the facts are. Are they only using the same scare tactics as Wikipedia to get donations, or do they really need donations now to keep the servers running? Still, we could be among the people giving them grants, as they provide a useful service for us. I completely agree with your third point (that this is the wrong venue), but voting on useless non-binding advisory RfCs is just too tempting. —Kusma (t·c) 19:09, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
    I couldn't see any signs of impending disaster in their recent Form 990s, nor in the news (doubtless, they would be shouting about it). Of course all nonprofits need to raise funds but we shouldn't confuse "internet archives is fundraising" with "internet archive is about to collapse unless we give it millions of dollars". :) The Land (talk) 19:46, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Response to The Land: Evidence please. Show where I implied that they are desperate for cash. Show where they implied that they are desperate for cash. Show where there is any Wikipedia policy or guideline that prohibits posting nonbinding advisory RfCs. Then show me where I got a single fact wrong at WP:CANCER. You are free to disagree with my conclusions and recommendations, but all of my premises and all of the underlying facts that I cite are rock solid. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:26, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

There might not be an English Wikipedia policy or guideline against trying to legislate what the WMF does with $3M an 'advisory RfC' but it's a sufficiently silly idea that there doesn't need to be. And... if they're not desperate for cash, why are you asking us to give them $3M? Genuine question! The Land (talk) 23:39, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
@The Land: Jimbo didn't think the idea was that silly. See above. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 23:49, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. When someone donates funds to the WMF, we should assume that they intend their donation to benefit Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects, and not any other charity. To pass through those funds to a third party, no matter how worthy we suppose it to be, without the expressed consent of the donor, is equivalent to forcing them to donate to an entity to which they might not wish to donate for whatever reason, and, in my opinion, is improper, not to say unethical. If the WMF has too much money, it would be better to stop fundraising for a while and recommend that readers voluntarily donate to the Internet Archive instead during that period, rather than forcing them to do so. Station1 (talk) 00:17, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Donations to the WMF are already being donated to other charities. We have a Funds Dissemination Committee with the job of deciding who to give money to. We gave away $4.5 million dollars last year and $11.4 million dollars the previous year. And many other nonprofits have made major donations to the WMF. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:07, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • That's disappointing to learn. I now feel somewhat misled by those banners that pop up each year asking for money to keep WP going. If they can afford to give away millions, they don't really need my few dollars. Station1 (talk) 06:13, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Moral oppose. I want to support this, but morally I can't. My reasoning is related to what Station1 outlined. Obviously, I love the service, but to donate to them is essentially becoming a partner with them, which puts WMF in an uncomfortable spot. Perhaps next year it's $10 million (truthfully I haven't looked to deep into their finances), but at some point it feels a bit like extortion. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 00:37, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose as worded – While I donated to the Internet Archive last year and will do the same this year, and consider it one of the most vital tools we have in preserving article quality, I feel that the amount being proposed is excessive. The banner on the front page of the Internet Archive says they've raised almost $1.1 million already. If that's the case, we should be talking about a $100,000 grant, not a $3 million grant. That would allow them to meet their fundraising goal (once the 3-to-1 matching is included), without risking that website becoming reliant on us. If the problem meant to be addressed is the WMF spending an unsustainable amount, I doubt that the optimal solution is to give the Internet Archive more money than it needs for operations. That's a cash outflow for the WMF, after all. The WMF is better off just giving Internet Archive what it really needs, and leaving the rest intact for a rainy day. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:29, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The idea of the WMF donating money to Internet Archive would create a conflict of interest between the two and would potentially impact all Wikimedia projects. The whole money would be meant to improve technology and content of Wikimedia projects. Internet Archive is enjoyable and all, but giving money to Internet Archive should not be in the interests of the Foundation. If individual Foundation staff members are going to donate money to the Internet Archive, they should utilize their own personal finances, not the Foundation's. George Ho (talk) 04:18, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Have the opposers seen how the Internet Archive is used at Wikipedia? InternetArchiveBot's last 100 edits to articles can be seen here. It is currently correcting over 200 articles per hour. For example, diff added an archive.org link to an article because the old link is dead. Wikipedia needs the Internet Archive—donors to Wikipedia should be happy if a small portion of their donation is used to support a vital archive. Johnuniq (talk) 05:54, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Still, it's US$3 million, a lot of money if you ask me, going to come out of WMF's pocket. I'm glad that the bot is doing the work and all (well, I can do a better job finding newer links to the same source if the same publisher uses a different URL), but I'm still not convinced that recovering a dead link would make me want to support this (advisory) proposal. I would also oppose Internet Archive's monetary donation to WMF for similar reasons. George Ho (talk) 06:42, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I love InternetArchiveBot (I recently invested a lot of my time in preparing its acceptance and deployment at de-wiki). I very often use Internet Archive myself. But Wikimedia donors donated for Wikimedia projects not for a different charity's projects. On the other hand Wikimedia could easily expand the existing cooperation with Internet Archive for those services that are provided on Wikimedia platforms themselves: In October 2016 Mark Graham, Director of the Wayback Machine, announced on Wikimedia's blog "a partnership between the Internet Archive, and volunteers from the Wikipedia community, and the Wikimedia Foundation". I do not have information what exactly this cooperation actually includes. If for example Wikimedia financially supports the automated transmission of newly added URLs from Wikimedia to the Wayback Machine, or the maintenance and improvement of User:InternetArchiveBot. Mainly since July 2017, InternetArchiveBot is being deployed on a still growing number of Wikimedia projects. Each additional Wikimedia project causes additional work, such as adjustments to local templates and guidelines before deployment, local bot configurations, tests, local bot flag requests, bug fixes etc. The maintenance of daily bot operations is a task in itself. Developing and programming additional functionalities and features is another big item on the to-do list. AFAIK this workload is shouldered by only one Internet Archive staff member (User:Cyberpower678) and - as a backup - one Wikimedia staff member (User:Kaldari). Ensuring the bot's functionality and availability by funding more developer staff for IABot's maintenance and further development might be a very appropriate solution to support Internet Archive. --Martina Nolte talk 07:26, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The Internet Archive is amazing and utterly essential. But if our donors wanted to give their money to the Internet Archive instead of Wikipedia, they would have done so. We should respect their wishes. Gamaliel (talk) 16:07, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Threaded Discussion

Voters, please at least familiarise yourselves with what The Internet Archive does for Wikipedia before voting. —Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:11, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

It makes sense for Wikipedia to support The Internet Archive, a valuable resource that I sometimes use for work purposes, and to which I made a donation earlier this year, but specifics of the proposal are absent. Why $3 million, and to what end? Is it that the Archive needs to have the next two years funded by us (to cover their $1.5 million a year in expenses), and they will, for some reason, receive no funding from any other source during that time? Is $3 million a capitalization of their projected annual shortfall in donations from other sources offer the next 5/10/20 years, and the proposal is to give them an endowment out of which to cover those shortfalls? Is this to help them cover their current level of activity or fund some expansion of scope or volume that's on their wish list? Why $3 million rather than $1 million or $10 million? Largoplazo (talk) 12:54, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Three million will meet their financial needs for two years or allow them to build in more redundancy and increase their uptime. One million is to small to do that, and ten million is more than they need to do that. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:29, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
One million may well be sufficient to meet their financial needs for the next two years if they receive over $2 million from other sources during that period. If they raise $1 million each year from other sources already, $3 million from us would fund them for six years of shortfalls taking all other sources of revenue into account. In that case, I'd ask why we would contribute one lump sum now to last them so many years instead of contributing on a more current, one-year-at-a-time basis. And, sure, they could also put some of the $3 million toward expansion, redundancy, reliability, etc., but I'm still wondering how that specific figure came up. You say that one million isn't enough and ten million is too much—but it seems that that would be unknowable without a somewhat specific idea of what it is that's being priced. The $3 million seems so far to be an arbitrary number. Largoplazo (talk) 15:15, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Lago raises good questions, which Guy's comment just above do not really address - personally I support the idea of donating something to the Internet Archive at some point but I question the value of this "non-binding advisory rfc." There are good reasons why WMF is not a direct democracy and why the board is delegated to make these kinds of financial decisions on behalf of all the projects (of which we are just one). Unless I'm missing something (has anyone at WMF raised or even discussed the idea of a donation that large, a donation to the Archive, or the idea of handing over that much cash to another nonprofit more generally?) the proposal seems calculated to generate strong support for an idea that WMF is unlikely to go for. Debating this therefore seems like a major waste of editor time and energy, and likely to sour the relationship between the foundation and a whole lot of en.wiki editors. Fyddlestix (talk) 13:42, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
The WMF is here to protect and to serve our community; just like that famous police slogan. The fact that some police officers don't always do that shouldn't dissuade us from asking them to protect and serve our community. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:08, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Sure. I just wonder whether this is like asking the police to "fix crime" or something. I'll be the first to cheer if I'm wrong about this, but I don't realistically see the WMF donating that much money to another, not-directly-related non-profit. Fyddlestix (talk) 16:48, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
"Fixing crime" is completely impossible for my local police department (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) because they do not have nuclear weapons. Donating some money to a charity is something the WMF is easily able to do (they have a lot of money). (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:51, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Fair enough - I don't think it's likely to be that easy/simple at all (and I'm not the only one who thinks that), but I don't want to get into a prolonged debate about this. I'll be interested to see how the WMF responds to the idea. Fyddlestix (talk) 16:58, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
@Fyddlestix: Jimbo has responded (see above). (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 23:51, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks - I see that and it's prompted me to cast a "partial support" !vote. I still have reservations about the community setting dollar amounts and the utility of this "non binding advisory" process, but I do support the idea of the WMF helping to keep IA afloat if it's legitimately in trouble. Fyddlestix (talk) 06:21, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Internet Archive 2016 Assets: $2,952,483
  • Internet Archive 2016 Income: $13,975,868
--Guy Macon (talk) 17:39, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Here is where the bulk of those assets reside:
The PetaBox, custom-designed by Internet Archive staff, holds 3 Petabytes of data and is expanding steadily.
Uses 6kW per rack, 60kW for the entire storage cluster.
Runs in a 20' by 8' by 8' shipping container.
Runs Linux with full mirroring
--Guy Macon (talk) 17:48, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
So ... in 2016 they received $14 million, but it costs only $1.5 million to run the archive for on year? Therefore, with a $12.5 million surplus for 2016 alone, they need money? Also, if their assets after netting this surplus for 2016 are $3 million, does that mean they were $9.5 million in the red at the end of 2015? This is what's so unclear about all of this. I can't tell whether they need money or they don't need money. I'm in no way questioning their value, I'm trying to figure out what indication there is that they need help. Largoplazo (talk) 20:15, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
No. That is not what it means. It means that they set a fundraising goal of $1.5 million dollars, because they already have funding sources for the rest of the $14 million dollars they need to last until next year. $1.5 million dollars is far too small to do what they are doing. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:02, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Large numbers of people have donated bitcoins to Wikimedia when the bitcoin value was less than $1. Count Iblis (talk) 21:04, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Hmm, maybe I'll donate some lottery tickets. :-P Largoplazo (talk) 21:28, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
You can't sell lottery tickets at $16,496.80 cents per ticket.[12] Alas, chances are that the WMF sold the bitcoins as soon as they received them rather than gambling on future bitcoin prices. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:02, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I support the Internet Archive with a little of my money, just the same way I support the Wikipedia with a bit of money and much more of my time. I think the two organizations have many things in common. I am in no position to know the best way to encourage cooperation between the two. Sharing money? Sharing expertise? Sharing server racks? Sharing fundraising? I don't know. I would encourage the WMF Board to cooperate with the Internet Archive to achieve their shared goals, but I have no basis for telling them how to do that. I'm also uncomfortable with the message that would spread if donations to the WMF were then donated to somebody else. Conspiracy theorists would have a create a thousand stories.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:04, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Donations to the WMF are already being donated to somebody else. We gave away $4.5 million dollars last year and $11.4 million dollars the previous year. And other organizations have donated to us. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:31, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
You know more about this than I do, but aren't those funds given to people in the Wikimedia movement to support Wikimedia related things? That's different from supporting some other organization.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:22, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Last year, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) gave out $5.65 million in grants, 89 percent of which went to affiliate chapters. 12 chapters in particular received 83 percent of the total grants. The rest went to other individuals and organizations. To pick one at random, we gave a grant to the Centre for Internet and Society (India) because the WMF believes that their work is of benefit to Wikipedia -- the same argument I am making regarding The Internet Archive. Also, don't assume that grants to affiliate chapters helps Wikipedia. See this message from former Wikimedia Foundation Chair Sue Gardner. Also see this editorial. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:11, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: Why Three Million Dollars? Some here have asked why I chose $3 million dollars instead of some other number. Part of the reason is that $3 million a rough estimate I made for how much it would cost them to have two datacenters in different geographical regions, which would greatly reduce the possibility of a natural or man-made disaster destroying the entire archive. But the main reason is because I trust the WMF to be better at picking the actual amount (and the form -- lump sum, yearly commitment, matching funds, etc.) than a bunch of editors responding to an RfC are. If we show a strong consensus for $3 million, that will also show a strong consensus for any lesser amount. If, on the other hand, we shoot too low in this RfC, the WMF can certainly choose to donate more than we asked them to donate (it is their decision to make in the end) but they wouldn't be be able to say that we demonstrated a consensus for the larger amount. So far it looks like I chose wisely; there have been zero !votes supporting a higher amount, one !vote supporting a lower amount, and one !vote saying that the WMF should decide (which is what is going to happen no matter what we do, and is a Good Thing). --Guy Macon (talk) 03:39, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I should expound the logic behind my vote a bit further. Archive.org has a free speech policy that I strongly support -- I want to emphasize, in no way do I want them to change it. However, that policy inevitably poses fundraising challenges. For example, before the fall of ISIS they already accepted and served videos like Clanging of the Swords made by ISIS in support of their activities. Which, I must emphasize, is the right thing to do -- it is more important for millions of citizens of supposed democracies to have direct access to the raw data about the wars in which they might become involved, including enemies given a chance to express themselves fairly so the merit of their position can be judged, than to worry if five losers are going to have intentional traffic accidents. But the point is, while archive.org supporters may be able to accept that policy while donating, it isn't obvious that Wikipedia would not suffer a harmful reaction, most likely orchestrated by an external source, if its funds were given to Internet Archive. And the funds potentially impacted would not be the hypothetical $3 million funding base that Wikipedia transfers, but its entire take of the better part of a hundred million dollars. In short, Wikipedia donating funds to IA would increase the numerical blackmail power of a group looking to censor IA by a factor of at least 50. By contrast, if Wikipedia were to partner with IA in some manner that appears fee-for-service, or allowing donors to decide whether to give to them, or volunteers collaborating on a mutual project, all these things don't leave the donors being told that "their money is going to pay for ISIS" by those looking to mislead them. Wnt (talk) 21:54, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I am a big fan of Internet Archives. We should collaborate with them more. How this is best achieved is an interesting discussion. Should they be able to apply through our grant making processes for funds for specific projects? IMO yes as should other like minded organizations. We approved WikEdu so we have a precedence. Should they be given unrestricted funds without applying, to that I am less convinced that that is the best way to build our relationship. Speaking of infrastructure, we also need to better integrate our own two data centers... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:08, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

New Page Patrol New Year Backlog Drive

New Page Patrol New Year Backlog Drive

Wikipedia's oldest edits

Here? (Warning: That tries to download it). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:20, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles invented by a neural network

Soon, we will not need human editors any more! These are ... almost as useful as much as what we see every day at AfD. Take a look at http://aiweirdness.com/post/169309161212/wikipedia-articles-invented-by-a-neural-network... Sandstein 18:17, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Turdis programming language Category:People who can’t speed What is the day. What fame butt indeed! Hahahaaa Galobtter (pingó mió) 04:58, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

This site pretends to be wikipedia, but it's not

http://www.radio.walkingitaly.com/radio/RADIOSITO/za_fatti/lampade/test/LED lamp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdcntx (talk • contribs) 04:55, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

It appears to be just a couple of copied en:Wp pages. Here are some steps up the directory tree:
The top page has a contact e-mail address after the page has reloaded.
--Pipetricker (talk) 09:08, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Hack concern

I don't know if this is the proper forum. Please forgive me if so.

I've often wondered if Wikipedia is ever hacked, or subject to denial of service attacks, viruses, etc.

Now I have run across something quite strange, at least to me. I hope that I am wrong, but I thought it worth typing a note here, or somewhere.

I am concerned about activity I first noticed at the article Boris Pasternak. In looking at the edit history, the last 5 edits are by a user whose ID shows as 4 characters which look to me to be Chinese. I have no problem with that, but when I look at "difs", the passages are highlighted, but there is no red ink. I've seen that, before, as well, and have even caused it, by adding blank spaces to a page, which don't show up as red ink, but still change the byte count.

In this case, though, if one looks at the editor's contributions, they are ALL like what I have described, except for one edit. There are zero explanations on edits. No entry on user or user_talk page. I try not to be racist or ethnocentric, but the Chinese characters in this case are not putting my mind at ease. I would appreciate some more experienced eyeballs having a look. Please tell me I am over-reacting, and I'll go back to my usual, occasional gnomic edits. And if in future I need to address my concerns in a different venue, please so inform me. rags (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

@Ragityman: Those 4 edits are adding full stops to the abbreviation we use for "page". I might quibble with doing so inside of reference names, but these are otherwise fine. --Izno (talk) 19:25, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for quick response. So that user does that on many pages as they surf. Much like my editing style. Whew! Relief. rags (talk) 20:40, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
@Ragityman: You mention red ink in a diff so I guess you have enabled "Display diffs with the old yellow-and-green colors and design" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. The added periods are marked in the diff but may be hard to spot both with and without that gadget. There is another gadget "wikEdDiff" which makes it much easier to see when you click a green triangle above the normal diff. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:12, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Templates in pages

Hi, where can i get a list listing all wiki pages that have a given template? Thanks. Pancho507 (talk) 20:33, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Click "What links here" under "Tools" in the left pane of the template page. Then click "Hide links" and "Hide redirects", only leaving transclusions. Example for Template:Philips: [13]. You can also use hastemplate: in the search box and combine it with other search options: hastemplate:Philips. Only mainspace is searched by default. Click "Everything" on the search results page to include all namespaces. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:47, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Allcaps Blue

I was told that in order to make my discussion posts carry more weight, I should intersperse them with occasional strings in Allcaps Blue. How do I do that? Uanfala's sock (talk) 16:28, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

You don't. That kinda stuff is super annoying. Diff please. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:35, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
@Uanfala's sock: Sorry forgot to ping you. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:40, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Maybe you saw a reference to linking relevant policies and guidelines with shortcuts, e.g. saying "fails WP:MUSIC" instead of "non-notable musician". See WP:SHORTCUTS. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:46, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Ah yeah that makes more sense. For me those are green, because of custom CSS. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:50, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
It's obviously a joke (hint hint there's Uanfala)..or maybe i'm out of the loopGalobtter (pingó mió) 17:14, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
My inability to detect jokes while sleepwalking is common among potatoes. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:45, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm surprised Wikipedia:Allcaps blue doesn't exist. – Uanfala (talk) 17:10, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Awards Wikipedians give each other, and how much control a wikiproject has over indexing them for availability and use

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Awards#Barnstar bureaucracy
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  11:08, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Contentious subjects with contentious discussions and their effect on Wikipedia

There are subjects that are regarded to be contentious by many persons and which are discussed and debated every day on many talk pages. Suppose, for instance, this scenario: an article about racism contains only content about White oppression of non-Whites, but one editor comes along and tries to add content about minorities who have engaged in racism, with reliable, published sources that support the content; yet this editor encounters resistance from other editors who don't see a reason why the content should be included, and the balance scale of editors voicing their opinion in the talk page is tipped in favor of excluding content about racist minorities. So now, Wikipedia continues to have an article about racism that only concerns 'White vs. non-Whites' — which essentially makes it an exclusionary racist article steered by pitchforks and torches. What role, if any, do administrators have in instances where there is a debate over a corroboratable subject that is combated by editors? Should one or more administrators be keeping an eye on it? And if so, how are administrators alerted to the situation? Thank you. Pyxis Solitary talk 23:00, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the question, but admins would do the same thing they always do in content disputes: enforce our policy on edit warring and possibly assess the consensus of a talk-page discussion. – by AdA&D at 23:14, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Administrators have no authority over content, but only over conduct (except for the right to delete articles when one of our processes concludes that deletion is appropriate, but even there they're only enforcing the consensus reached by the community). When they perform evaluative tasks, such as closing discussions or RFC's, they have no special power to do so and any uninvolved editor can close the discussion. Content, including what content or topics to include or exclude in a particular article, is always decided by the consensus of ordinary editors, not by administrators. If consensus cannot be reached, there are content dispute resolution processes which can try to help work things out. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 23:50, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. I knew about third-party and dispute resolutions, but before it needed to go there I thought there might be a way to prevent a Wikipedia article from being skewed when a bunch of editors do not want to accept the inclusion of a particular content that is associated with the topic of the article. (Biases are revealed in both subtle and obvious ways.) Pyxis Solitary talk 01:11, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Printing Wikipedia

If you wrote a program that printed a Wikipedia page, plus all the pages it links to, plus those pages' links, and so on, would you end up with all of Wikipedia on paper? And how much toner would that use? 2607:FEA8:4EA0:A72:8565:B767:D243:41E1 (talk) 00:13, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Not all of the articles would be printed because of orphan articles. That being said, the vast majority of articles are not orphans, so you'd get most of them. WP:SIV might be an interesting read for you. – by AdA&D at 01:07, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Print Wikipedia. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia. It's a few years outdated, but it gives you some sense of the scope. The page Wikipedia:Size in volumes gives the amount of paper it would take to print Wikipedia, given the standard size of a typical print encyclopedia volume, such as the print version of Britannica. It's about 2,600 volumes or (at 1000 pages per volume) 2,600,000 pages of text, give or take. --Jayron32 18:21, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Reference desk

I have just come across an RfC dealing with whether or not to close the Reference desks. Is there a summary anywhere of what the problem is with the Reference desks? As far as I can tell they are fine sources of assistance. -- SGBailey (talk) 07:11, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

A very quick summary is that many occupants of the ref desks have become too passionate about using them to promote free speech. Trolls take advantage of their simple nature to pose completely dumb or provocative questions. Then someone removes or collapses the section, then the free speech advocates revert them because all questions are precious and they will take any opportunity to express their opinions. The RfC to close the ref desks was never serious, but it was a fun attempt to let some of them know that they need to work out the purpose of Wikipedia. One of their number was indefinitely topic banned from the ref desks as an example for the others. Johnuniq (talk) 09:20, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
An oddly apt summary of events... --Jayron32 18:56, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Since you didn't provide a link to the RfC you came across, here's the link:
I don't know about a summary other than the intro section (the part above "Survey: Should the Reference Desks be closed?") of the above linked page.
There was also an earlier discussion about the Reference desk guidelines, now archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 137#Downgrade Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines?
(The links above were found via Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Archive.)
--Pipetricker (talk) 09:23, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

English usage

VP does not seem like a good place for this.--Ymblanter (talk) 23:33, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the category be named Category:Women's alpine skiing events at the 2018 Winter Olympics or Category:Women's Alpine skiing events at the 2018 Winter Olympics? The same for Nordic combined (these will be men's events for the Olympics, but there are women's competition in Nordic combined). Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:05, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

We haven't had this level of category for other Olympics so is it necessary? Rmhermen (talk) 18:42, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it is necessary to diffuse the parent category, and the parent category just survived CfD, see the discussion at my talk page: User talk:Ymblanter#Women's sport competitions at the Olympic Games--Ymblanter (talk) 23:21, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Ok, nobody cares. Good. Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 23:29, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RFC needs additional input

See Here. Thank you. --Jayron32 19:40, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Announcement: results of Bridges Across Cultures

We are pleased to announce the results of our multilingual wiki-collaboration contest, Bridges across Cultures, which has taken place among languages from both Latin America and the Middle East & North Africa in October/November 2017.

ِThe contest was organized by multiple Wikimedia affiliates, including Argentina, Brazil and Chile (Latin America) and Iran, Levant, and Turkey (MENA), with the aim of exchanging cultural experiences and values between the two regions; as the contestants from either Latin America or MENA were asked to write and expand Wikipedia articles related to the rich and unique culture of the other region. In total, 832 articles were created or improved as part of this contest: 427 articles about Latin American culture were expanded in Arabic, Persian and Turkish Wikipedia, while 415 articles about MENA culture were done in Spanish and Portuguese Wikipedia. 64 different participants submitted at least one article to the contest.

As for the results, six prizes are designated for the best performing contestants (with three being dedicated for the best participants from either Latin America or MENA). The prizes will be awarded for the following users who achieved the highest points:

Latin America

  1. Rosarinagazo, Spanish Wikipedia (143 articles, 1210 points).
  2. Tuga1143, Portuguese Wikipedia (117 articles, 1150 points).
  3. MarisaLR, Spanish Wikipedia, (97 articles, 850 points).

Middle East & North Africa

  1. محک, Persian Wikipedia (97 pages, 890 points).
  2. Abdou7878, Arabic Wikipedia (80 pages, 810 points).
  3. Mohammed alzaidy, Arabic Wikipedia (88 pages, 760 points).

Hopefully, we intend to continue and further extend this successful experience in 2018 and in the following years. If you are interested in including your language project in future versions, please get in touch with the contest’s organizers.

--Abbad (talk) 09:17, 13 January 2018 (UTC).

Why are unregistered readers allowed to edit?

This is a curiosity on my part: What is the advantage of letting editing be open to readers who are not registered? It seems to me that a lot of the troublesome editing, vandalism, etc. comes from editors identified only by one of those long numbers punctuated by dots. Registering would seem to make editors more responsible for their editing. Is that minimal commitment too much to ask? Kotabatubara (talk) 05:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Some advantages are described at Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Prohibit_anonymous_users_from_editing. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 05:28, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Flagging overwriting of articles

At present, edits that replace most of the content of a page with new content of less than about 1,000 bytes are flagged in two ways: a tag that reads "Replaced" and is named mw-replace, and an automatic edit summary drawn from MediaWiki:Autosumm-replace reading "Replaced content with '.....'". The automatic edit summary only appears when the editor did not enter an edit summary themselves.

I would like to suggest that edits should also be flagged when the new content is more than 1,000 bytes. This is often the sign of conflict-of-interest work. An article about a person or an organization is found by that same person or organization, or someone affiliated to them. They decide to improve the page, as they would see it. They start from scratch, rather than build on the information that others have provided previously. They have no interest in learning to edit properly, as they are focused purely on the one page. Typically, out go references, categories, wikilinks, section headings; in come puffery, copyvios and in-text links. But along with this may come additional and updated factual information which, if we have an article on the topic at all, should be included; so blanket reversion is not necessarily called for, and each case needs to be considered on its merits and editors advised about COI. Recent cases in point are [14], [15], [16], and [17].

This overwriting is to all intents creation of a new article. But because there was a page there already, the new content doesn't go through new page patrol/review, and unlike a totally new article it can be done by an IP or brand-new account. Therefore I think these cases should be flagged for attention. I don't know whether this requires a software change. Or could the page be put in again for new page review, same as when a redirect is converted to an article? Also unsure if this is a proposal, a technical matter or an idea, so starting here: Noyster (talk), 17:37, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Support The idea is good. A separate tag might be useful so we could easily distinguish though. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:45, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Support without hesitation. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:54, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Support. --Pipetricker (talk) 10:32, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Support Add and tag in the NPP feed. Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:36, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Support Appears very useful. Two other similar cases which should probably (if not already) be flagged for NPP: transforming an article into a redirect (if it is already handled, will this script need to not tag in case of redirect conversion)? The other is transforming a redirect into an article. These are of course other discussions, but related and important. —PaleoNeonate – 11:21, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
@PaleoNeonate, I am pretty sure both are already things that lead to the article or redirect getting flagged as 'unreviewed'. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 10:18, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Support Seems like a great way to flag potentially problematic edits. They need to be flagged appropriately though so that editors know what they are looking at. It might add quite a bit of workload to NPP, though I can always go and invite more editors. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 10:16, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Insertcleverphrasehere, the actual workload of NPP has been the subject of sedrious, in-depth scientific research and analysis. The workload of the New Page Patrollers, with whom we are concerned here, has diminished significantly since the roll out of ACTRIAL - and that's why I fail to undestand why although we are getting there, despite the high number of reviewers it's taking so long. Or is it a question of herding cats? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:36, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

My thanks to all supporters. The NPR part of the proposal has been added as No. 61 here. Would anyone with Phabricator access care to submit the tagging and auto-edit summary proposals there?: Noyster (talk), 11:09, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Those interested may wish to follow the discussion here: Noyster (talk), 19:34, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Why is NYT linked? The newspaper has been perceived as a left wing media. To maintain Wikipedia's neutrality, editors should consider listing a right wing media like New York Post or Breitbart as well.--The Master (talk) 14:41, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Most Wikipedia articles don't care what Americans consider left or right wing media. I picked the first entry at Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Find sources and searched on "Anatolia". NYT gives 2425 results, New York Post gives 39, Breitbart gives 51. I also tried "Astrology": NYT 2486, New York Post 140, Breitbart 32. I didn't read the results but NYT seems far better to find sources. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:43, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Detecting and researching B.S. contributions

From time-to-time I run across text in articles that at first glance seems reasonable, but with just a moment's thought it becomes apparent the text is just B.S. - something someone randomly wrote to "monkey wrench" the system. Some examples: Hurricane_(drink), Bernard_Baruch, Ciguatera, Unilateral_hearing_loss; there are other examples. Presumably you all are aware of these things. I am wondering if there are not some tools to detect, identify, etc. and better determine who is making these entries. They often survive for quite some time (being well-written B.S. - these are not good faith edits), so determining the original instigator can be difficult to determine, should I post a warning on their talk page (I'd rather not), etc. The times I am able to find the original edit for these things, the edit is most often by an anonymous IP address with perhaps just a few other such asinine entries. Anyways, the issue has been on my mind; there may be nothing for it but continued vigilance by editors; we might try to raise awareness of the issue. Bdushaw (talk) 00:09, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikivoyage Edit-a-thon 2018

A special edit-a-thon will be held at the English Wikivoyage through February 2018 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Wikivoyage. The main goal of this edit-a-thon is to encourage new editors to share travel information at Wikivoyage. Anyone interested in contributing, whether by updating outdated information or by adding listings of prominent sites/businesses such as a prominent museums, restaurants or hotels, is more than welcome to participate in the edit-a-thon.

The edit-a-thon is going to be held at several other editions of Wikivoyage including the German, French, Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, Russian, Portuguese, Hindi, Hebrew and the Chinese editions of Wikivoyage. In addition, the use of a central notice banner has been requested to promote the edit-a-thon. ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 13:52, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Anyone who's interested, please see voy:Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians, find your favorite town, and add information about your favorite restaurants, hotels, or other places to go. This is really a lot of fun in a happy community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia 20th anniversary

Wikipedia went 'live' 15 January 2001: at what point should preparations begin for its 20th anniversary?

What could they consist of - apart from various components of 'the history of Wikipedia' (the first articles etc) and, given the timeframe, a grand tidying up of old tags etc? Jackiespeel (talk) 17:56, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Can I copy references from merged content?

I am helping to bring an article to GA status. I am also exploring whether other references exist that can help this effort. I was looking through the redirects to this article. I noticed that one redirect occurred from an article that was previously a stub. This stub had numerous references to support its content. When the redirect was done, the references were left behind and not merged into the article that it was 'merged' into. My question is: Can I insert these references into the main article without actually seeing or reading the sources themselves? It's a shame that some editors went to the trouble of referencing a topic and then the references don't get moved with the redirect. I am looking for opinions. Thank you very much. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 10:16, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

My Question would be: WHY were the sources not included in the merger? ... there are lots of possible reasons (for example: it could be that the omitted sources didn’t actually support the material... or it could be that the omitted sources were replaced by better sources). So... yeah, I think you should read the omitted sources before “restoring” them. Blueboar (talk) 11:49, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
How about moving them over and adding {{Verify source}}? 86.17.222.157 (talk) 16:13, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Having {{Verify source}} tags on the article will not help bring it to GA status. If you want to use the source, you should verify that the source actually is reliable and supports the content. ~ GB fan 12:12, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
That depends on whether you attach any importance to achieving GA status quickly. The presence of the source and the {{Verify source}} template might spur someone with access to the source to check it out, but it's likely to be some time before that happens. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 14:55, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the answer. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 20:02, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Kindle location instead of page numbers

Is there any guidance on Kindle locations (as opposed to page numbers) when citing a reference? At present I just put the Kindle location in where I would put an ordinary page number (example[1]) - that way I can at least sort this out if it needs changing.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:10, 14 January 2018 (UTC)


  • E-books cause some problems because the location may vary depending on the device... location also depends on the font size chosen (and there are other factors which effect location). A more accurate citation would be to give chapter/section and paragraph (which will be the same no matter what device is used, or what font size is chosen, etc). Blueboar (talk) 13:04, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
My understanding was that Kindle locations are approximately based on word count ( the rule of thumb of 23 words to one Kindle location unit) - so that should be reliable for any device. The problem with some authors, and my example of James Hunter is one, is that they write very long chapters that have no or few identifiable breaks within them.
A suggestion might be to have the maximum Kindle location for the book shown as well as the location of the reference. That way one can calculate the percentage through the book that the ref is, and then apply that to the page numbers. So that would mean saying (as in my example above) "Kindle location 5111 of 9196". So that would indicate 56% through the paper version of the book. I suspect this would be a lot more useful than just a chapter number. Counting paragraphs would, I suggest, be error prone with lengthy chapters and equally tedious for anyone checking the reference.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:45, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Even word counts can be problematic and subject to different software counting in different ways. And enshrining the word "kindle" is a really bad idea. We might as well use the label "Commodore C64 Word count". I would suggest "starting at character X out of X characters" with the count given by Vim, Emacs or wc (Unix) being preferred if by some unlikely chance different software gives us different counts. This can be easily made into a tool that can be used without leaving Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:47, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
I am not sure that I follow your apparent dislike of Kindle. It is simply a commercially available method of reading a book (digital text plus either dedicated reader or software.) We use other digital sources on commercial platforms (Google Books, British Newspaper Archive, etc.) The only purpose of a page number or a Kindle location is to allow the reader to check what the reference actually says. This is either the Wikipedia editor function of monitoring the quality of an article, or a general reader wanting to know more than the article says. It is simply a way of finding the text. So, surely the intent has to be to find the easiest and most efficient way of doing that. If the Kindle Location were to be disguised as a character count (this would be a lot of work for the citing editor - not sure even if it is possible), then this would be irritating to another person with the same source on Kindle, as they would have to back-calculate the location. (It would be neutral for the paper-book reader.)
I suspect we need some input from someone who knows how definitive Kindle Locations actually are - they seem to be totally repeatable to me.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:08, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Note: per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT if you read the book using a kindle you should say that... however, if you read it on some other type of e-reader (say a nook or a fire) you should note THAT. Which e-reader was used makes a difference, and so needs to be part of the citation. Blueboar (talk) 23:48, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT says "....on an e-reader (except to the extent that this affects page numbering)". So someone has noticed the page numbering problem, but we don't appear to have a good solution. (perhaps there is no "good solution")
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 10:06, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Re: "I am not sure that I follow your apparent dislike of Kindle. It is simply a commercially available method of reading a book", would it be acceptable for me to start citing sources using the page numbers from a Telcon Zorba?[18] Because that's about how useful those Kindle page numbers will be 20 years after they stop making Kindles. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:14, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
If YOU read it using a Zorba, yes. That’s what you should say on the citation. Blueboar (talk) 11:38, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
It would only make a difference if there were an edition specially for that platform. I think we'd only want to know which edition is being read and who published it and when. I suppose if there are no other standard indication of location specific to that edition, then you might also want to note location specific to that platform. older ≠ wiser 12:44, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

(1) I've asked Amazon to explain how one might discover the (paper book) page number from a Kindle location and am awaiting an answer.
(2) I've tested my suggestion of calculating the percentage through the book from the Kindle locations and applying to the total pages in a paper book. It does not work if there are references at the end of each chapter in the paper book (so, many academic sources). (It fails because Kindle put all the refs at the end of the book text, but most paper books have them at the end of each chapter.)
(3) The suggestion (above) to quote chapter and (if available) section seems to be as good as we get for a solution.
(4) I think the suggestion that Kindle may be obsolete in 20 years, though likely to be accurate, is irrelevant as it presumes that Wikipedia, book technology, computers etc. will all still exist in the same way as presently - surely it will all change!

So, pending any further guidance or information, I will (a) include the Kindle location (to assist those with the book on Kindle) and (b) include chapter and section (where available).
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:39, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

ThoughtIdRetired, beyond just citing the entire chapter and hoping that this is a sufficient pointer for most readers, one of the usual "solutions" is to provide a quotation that could be searched for by other people with access to digital copies. Another approach, which works for some books, is to see whether you can search a paper copy (e.g., via Google Books) to find the same section, and copy the page numbers and ISBN from the paper version. (Note that with some books, such as textbooks with multiple editions, you have to be very careful to make sure that it's actually the same book/still contains the content that you're referencing.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
I had wondered about using the quotation field - but the precise solution had not occurred to me. I have just tested it, with good results. I found some relatively distinctive text ("essential to reach the Baltic coast") in a Kindle book (Munro, Ronald Lyell. Above the Battle: An Air Observation Post Pilot at War (Kindle Locations 2603-2604). Pen and Sword. Kindle Edition.) and searched for that in the same book on Google books. I note that if the quote is outside the normal "free sample" offered on Google Books, you still get to see it - certainly enough for a page number. Second test with a different book only gave a fragment, but with a page number.
There does seem to be an automatic reduction of what you see in Google Books if you repeat a search - so this could be a slow process to page number any quantity of references.
My only concern is that this is moderately obscure knowledge (as demonstrated by the time it took for the suggestion to arrive on this page), so would not be readily available to an average encyclopaedia user. It would, however, rescue the original editor and others if the precise location of a reference became a matter of dispute.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:22, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
On further experimentation- actually putting the ref in an article, I now find that the text can become horribly cluttered. For example this ref[2]: 155, Kindle loc 2374  does not really work: it gives priority to the Kindle location over the page number and the quote could be irritating with the way it pops up whether it is needed or not.
I think the ref would have to appear as [2]: 155  and a Kindle user (including the original editor) would have to search for the quote text. It doesn't feel like a complete solution.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:57, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing - not sure if I should have drawn the above to your attention, or if you are watching this page anyway. You appear to have a particular level of expertise on the subject of referencing.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:16, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Hello, ThoughtIdRetired,
There is no good solution for including page numbers/locations across multiple systems. I'm personally not fond of the {{rp}} template. I usually prefer plain WP:PARENthetical citations, or using separate WP:CITESHORT refs. CITESHORT, in particular, might be more appropriate here (because long rp labels are distracting).
More generally, though, I suggest that you consider whether you really need the page number and the Kindle location and the quotation. If including all three is just for your own convenience as an editor, then you might consider using fake parameters (which will be ignored and not shown to readers), which could look something like this: {{rp|155|note=aka Kindle loc 2374; search for "four Austers were to be destroyed"}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:28, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, that looks like good advice - been a long day, so I'll experiment with your suggestions when I've the time to do the job properly. The note field was something I hadn't spotted.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:52, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Hunter, James (2005). Scottish Exodus: Travels Among a Worldwide Clan (2007 (Kindle) ed.). Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing. Kindle location 5111. ISBN 9781845968472.
  2. ^ a b Munro, Ronald Lyell (2016). Above the Battle: An Air Observation Post Pilot at War (Kindle ed.). Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books Ltd. ISBN 978 1 47387 275 2.

COI template

I've seen several instances recently, of people using {{COI}}, contrary to the clear and explicit instructions in its documentation, as a "badge of shame", applying the tag and then either not starting a discussion on the talk page of the article; or only posting vague comment which does not identify explicitly what is the issue. Worse, this often happens on contemporary biographies, when it is without doubt a BLP violation. What can we do, to prevent improper use of that template? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:03, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

  • When paid editors write an article they often write text that only contains positive statements or simple take text submitted by the person paying for the article in question and add it.
  • This is not a neutral or independent article but an unbalanced all positive one. Sorry but claims that tagging the article with COI is a BLP violation is laughable. That Andy's has removed the tag 4 times in the last few hours is a bigger concern.
  • Should people be able to buy an article from an editor who makes proper disclosure? We currently allow this yes, but the AfC process is to be used and in this case it was not.
  • Second when one buys an article it does not mean that one than gets an article "free" of any clean up tags or concerns raised by non paid editors. Or should than hire someone to have those tags removed.
  • The COI text says "If the article/ edit also has problems with neutrality, however, then use of the tag is likely appropriate." Neutrality is a problem in this case. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:44, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
  • What happened here is that Andy's commercial-paid-editor wikifriend asked for his help removing tags. A typical paid editor task for clients Very Concerned that Their Image On Wikipedia Be As They Want It (and that page has been hammered by paid editors in the past). What did Andy do? Rushed over to the article with a bullshit Wikilawering argument, without doing the work himself to ensure that the article was actually NPOV and didn't omit things - and even violated 4RR in his urgency to help his wikifriend. Not about providing readers with fair warnings of paid advertisements. Not doing the work to ensure the article is actually OK. Shitty behavior to help a paid editor feel good about their hijacked Wikipedia page. Not a single good thing in any of it. Accept gee his wikifriend and the wikifriend's client are maybe happy. Jytdog (talk) 03:11, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

For the sake of clarity, here is the key part of the {{COI}} temaplte's documentation (highlighting in original):

Do not use this tag simply to mark an article which you believe or even know with certainty was created or edited by someone with a conflict of interest if the editor with the conflict has already made a declaration about this on his/ her userpage, the article talk page, or in a COI edit summary, as this disclosure makes use of the tag redundant. If the article/ edit also has problems with neutrality, however, then use of the tag is likely appropriate.
Like the other neutrality-related tags, if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start this discussion, then any editor is justified in removing the tag without warning.

So, again: What can we do, to prevent improper use of the template? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:32, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, COI is a neutrality tag, rather than a disclaimer-about-the-contributors'-identity tag. No, it's not supposed to be used if there's no identifiable POV problem. Yes, just like every single other neutrality tag, if you have identified a problem with the article's contents, then you are expected to write down, on the talk page, what the problem is/what changes would solve the problem.
Neutrality is one of those "comment on the content, not the contributor" issues. If you want that tag to stick on an article, then you need an actual content problem (not merely "someone was paid, so statistically speaking, there's likely to be something promotional in here", although that is in my experience a true statement) and you have to actually spend a minute or two writing down what the content problem is. It does not seem like an insurmountable barrier.
BTW, the specific problem reminds me of some of the trans* related disputes from years ago, when one or two of our trans* editors tagged a few articles as being POV on the grounds that they disagreed with the article content. The reason I'm reminded of this old incident is that I believe that the same tag was used to complain about someone else correcting an erroneously over-inflated university degree. (It just amazes me when someone screams about COI and the main purpose of the edit is to make the person or company look "worse".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:08, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
The issue is that the article presents only positive facts about the individual in question (with the less than rosy stuff left out), so yes their is a neutrality issue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:51, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
To repeat what I said above: "how about you address this issue - affecting not one but many articles - I raised?". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:18, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
Which other articles are you wishing addressed?
It appears a paid editor, who is now blocked, did some editing of the COI template to support their position.[19] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:34, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
You're edit warring ([20],[21]) to remove from the template documentation long-standing wording (the first half of the extract I quote above) which cautions against the kind of use for which you were taken to task just hours ago, and over which you are currently involved in a dispute elsewhere. You thus have a CoI. You really should know better. And still you don't address the issue I raised above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:54, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
And by "long standing" Andy means added by a paid editor in Aug of 2017.
And by "edit warring" Andy appears to mean he has reverted without bothering to join the conversation on the talk page.
And when I asked what further cases Andy wanted me to address, instead of providing an answer he claims I did not address the issue... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:11, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
No, by edit warring, I mean WP:Edit warring - after your edit was reverted, you reverted back again. You need to stop inventing new "rules". As for your question about "other articles", I haven't asked you to address any articles. I suggested you might address the issue in my OP, which you have - your editing warring over the template's documentation notwithstanding - yet to do. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:48, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
This is actually a really stupid, and typical, argument about tags. Like many of the men who make Wikipedia toxic, instead of simply doing the work that the tag is meant to address, Andy chose to storm in and Tear Down That Tag and then make wikilawyering, useless drama, wagging his Ego around. Not good for the encyclopdia or anything, really. When the protection comes off I am going to work over the article from the sources available, so it will have under gone significant independent review and editing. Then even the advert tag can come off.
Andy wants to argue aggressively, well let him do so. We have work to do.
In the meantime I have made a proposal at the template talk page, here, to address the problem. Jytdog (talk) 02:00, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes you're proposing to remove the bar on using the template without stating a good reason for doing so. that doesn't address the problem of people misusing the template, it would allow it. And once again, lay off the ad hominem attacks. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:09, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Doc James said above, "The issue is that the article presents only positive facts about the individual in question (with the less than rosy stuff left out), so yes their is a neutrality issue."

What exactly is this "less than rosy stuff" that has been left out? Are you sure that there actually is any "less than rosy stuff" to include? If the (BLP-grade) reliable sources don't include any less-than-rosy information, then it'd be a violation of NPOV and BLP to include any. The goal isn't even-Steven, with every positive statement being met by a criticism. The goal is an accurate representation of high-quality reliable sources. If the high-quality reliable sources are universally enthusiastic about the subject, then NPOV demands that the article be positive, too. So, for example, your own BLP is a glowing description of your efforts, and nobody's saying that's anything other than a fair description of what's said about you in the BLP-quality reliable sources. I'd be sad if someone came along and said, without any evidence, "The article only presents positive facts about the individual in question, so there's a neutrality issue".

At any rate, if you actually know of something significant that's being omitted, it'd be nice if you'd at least leave a note on the talk page about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Discussed it on the talk page already. User:Jytdog has balanced the article in question and appropriately removed the template in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:51, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Your talk page comment in one such case says, in its entirety:
Issues with paid editing
Are in need of review by someone independent.
The article is also completely unreferenced
Do you really think that's actually the same as telling people what "less-than-rosy stuff" was omitted? If I'd posted that talk page comment, would you be able to read that and say, "Ah, someone left out the fact that the BLP eats kittens", or whatever you think the missing less-than-rosy stuff is? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:02, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Circular reporting

Is there a noticeboard or similar for discussing incidents of circular reporting involving Wikipedia?

As the press (whom we consider reliable sources but who rarely cite theirs) use Wikipedia more and more, this is likely to be a growing problem. There have been several well documented cases, see Reliability of Wikipedia#Notable incidents, and I suspect from my experience trying unsuccessfully to fix another (see Talk:Mortal Error#Revisiting the circular arguments) that there are many, many more. Andrewa (talk) 23:20, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Andrewa, I believe that's normally handled at WP:RSN. There is no noticeboard that deals with only the problems of a WP:CIRCULAR source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for. In glorious hindisght, I looked right past it at both Wikipedia:Noticeboards and Category:Wikipedia noticeboards. Thanks again. Andrewa (talk) 23:37, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Possible TYPO (or other mistake) in a section name

See Talk:US Organization#Possible TYPO (or other mistake) in a section name.

Likely... I have amended the section header. Blueboar (talk) 23:39, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Photo upload?

I am relatively new, so apologies if this query would have best been posted somewhere else. I have just created my first article, Razing of Friesoythe. I would very much like to illustrate it with "this photograph".. So far as I can see from reading the Wikipedia policies this is not allowed. Unless the Library and Archives Canada allow free use, perhaps; which I don't know anyway. The photo would enhance the article but it could not be argued that it is essential or central to it. Any advice gratefully received. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:48, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

I have sensibly, if belatedly, researched it myself. Library and Archives Canada allow free use for non-commercial purposes. Next time I shall try harder myself before asking for help. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:12, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Article tags in mobile views of enWP

I understand that the reading team from the WMF made a decision at some point not to show tags on the mobile view. Over half our readers, read on mobile.

Is anyone aware of the RfC where the reading team got consensus from the en-WP community to strip tags in mobile view or what their rationale for this was? Jytdog (talk) 18:14, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not aware of an RfC (there could be one), but they are stripped because one takes up too much screen real estate (screenshot), let alone multiple, pushing article content out of view. See T147641, T159262, and related tasks for some history and looking at improvements. — JJMC89 (T·C) 20:34, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
MobileFrontend (the MediaWiki extension that formats content for the mobile web) was enabled in 2011. (some history). Page issues are visible via a link below the title of an article in the mobile view. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Special:CreateAccount

Why don't we have any kind of summary of our username policy on Special:CreateAccount? If we took right side of the page content and replaced it with a summary of our username policy - something like

this? It would lower the number of new accounts created with usernames that violate policy. What are your thoughts? Oh, and please excuse the typo, spelling, and formatting in advance - the way I designed this had a really bad text editor :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 04:37, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

I would be in favour of this. Not sure how effective this would be in curbing the "Username implies article" mindset, but it should help. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 04:42, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
I really like your idea @Oshwah: it really does make sense. I know that for sure the WP:UAA has been getting backlogged quite a bit so it might help cut some of that out. --Clarkcj12 (talk) 05:36, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
We could and should make better use of this space on the sign-up page, our first opportunity to get any message across to a newly registered editor. Drewmutt's concise message about username choice is far preferable, but not only that – it would leave space to communicate something else very basic and very necessary: what Wikipedia is for and what it isn't for. We could take up a suggestion from the late JohnCD:

Wikipedia is a project to build an encyclopedia. If you would like to help with that, you are very welcome.
Wikipedia is not a place for you to tell the world about yourself, your company, your band or anything you are closely associated with. If that is what you are here for, this is not the site for you.

— Wikipedia:Username_policy/RFC#Better_notification
: Noyster (talk), 18:51, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
Are we sure that people will read the policy if you put it in the login screen? The impression I have is that such warnings are usually skipped over. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:53, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
Prob not, but it was my motivation for condensing it. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 22:44, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
Jo-Jo Eumerus - Oh without a doubt... there are always people who won't read things that are right in front of them ;-). But having some kind of summary where people might read and follow them before making an account is much better than having no summary at all. Even if the summary reduces the creation of problematic usernames or usernames that violate WP:UPOL by 5% - 10%, it's better than not being proactive and having a 0% reduction in problematic username creations. That's unfortunately where we're at right now... that space on Special:CreateAccount could be used to help new users choose an appropriate username and understand what Wikipedia is and is not beforehand, and it's not doing that at all. Surely something... anything... is better than nothing ;-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 22:34, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
We cannot have a policy text on a maybe basis. Any list of rules - even a short one - is liable to scaring people off, and that needs to be considered as a "cost" in a cost-benefit analysis. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:55, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
There are plenty of people who register accounts whom we should try to scare off, before they do damage and waste a lot of our time and their own: Noyster (talk), 10:02, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
Policy text does not just scare off "the wrong people". Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:09, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
There's actually a prominent link to it there; it's just appallingly mislabeled as "(help me choose)". —Cryptic 22:22, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
"(help me choose)" is the default message from MediaWiki:Wikimedia-createacct-helpusername. I suggest we change it to "(Username policy)". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CreateAccount?uselang=qqx shows that the content to the right or bottom (depending on window size) of Special:CreateAccount is built from a series of messages and automatically inserted images. I'm not sure we can replace it with a custom text in a good way without a MediaWiki change. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:31, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
I agree that we should, at a minimum, change that link to be labeled as something much more clear. However, I think we would significantly reduce the amount of problematic usernames being created if we actually summarized it on the page instead of providing a tiny link that they probably don't even notice... :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 22:37, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Image donation from Data USA

Data USA has contributed several hundred SVG data visualizations for use on Wikipedia. Please help by categorizing these images, adding them to relevant Wikipedia articles, and reporting any errors or issues at Commons talk:Data USA. More info can be found at Commmons:Data USA. Here are a few examples:

The full set of images can be seen at commons:Category:Media contributed by Data USA. If you have specific requests for more data visualizations from Data USA, please contact me on my talk page. Kaldari (talk) 21:43, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Wikimania 2018 call for submissions now open

On behalf of the program commmittee of Wikimania 2018 - Cape Town, we are pleased to announce that we are now accepting proposals for workshops, discussions, presentations, or research posters to give during the conference. To read the full instructions visit the event wiki and click on the link provided there to make your proposal:

https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions

The deadline is 18 March. This is approximately 6 weeks away.
This year, the conference will have an explicit theme based in African philosophy:

Bridging knowledge gaps, the ubuntu way forward.

Read more about this theme, why it was chosen, and what it means for determining the conference program at the Wikimedia blog. Sincerely, Wittylama 08:22, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Titles of Belarusian cities and other geographical objects

There is an official document saying about transliteration of Belarusian names into latin script. Notwithstanding that Republic of Belarus has two official languages, Belarusian names have precedence. So according to these rules the main titles of the articles got to be Viciebsk (not Vitebsk or Vitsebsk), Mahilioŭ (not Mogilev or Mahilyow), etc. --Einimi (talk) 11:50, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

We follow Wikipedia’s rules, not those of the Belarusian government. Our rules can be found at the WP:Article titles policy. Also see WP:Official names, a supplementary page that directly applies to your comment. Blueboar (talk) 11:58, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
That's ridiculous! Okay, why the Russian names stay firstly in the most of articles? --Einimi (talk) 12:16, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
Ok... first, let me make it clear that I take no position on what the title of these articles should be... I am merely pointing you to our policies. Before we discuss this further, please read them. We do not favor Russian names over Belarusian names... nor do we favor Belarusian names over Russian names. What we favor is the name that is most RECOGNIZABLE to our English speaking readers. Now, if you want to argue that the Belarusian name is more recognizable than the Russian one, that’s fine... but we don’t really care which name is “official”. Blueboar (talk) 12:53, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
The policy you're looking for is WP:COMMONNAME. --Regards, Donald Trung (Talk) 16:20, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

L. David Mech

Hola, perdón por escribir en español.

Estoy tratando de arreglar las referencias en el artículo L. David Mech para que no se vean las URLs, es decir que el link sea el texto y no la url. Ejemplo [https://www.ejemplo.con Texto a visualizar], pero por algún motivo no está funcionando como era previsto. ¿Puede alguien mirar que está pasando y arreglarlo?

Gracias Jcfidy (talk) 08:37, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jcfidy: Fixed. Good: [http://example.com text] → text. Bad: [text http://example.com] → [text http://example.com]. —Cryptic 08:59, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
@Cryptic: gracias por arreglarlo, en es.wiki funciona al revés (no sé por qué). Jcfidy (talk) 09:56, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

XTools Edit Counter now available as wikitext

Hopefully this is a kosher place to advertise this... Over the years I've noticed especially on RfA talk pages that folks will manually copy/paste the results of XTools. This is probably because historically XTools goes down a lot, which is more or less not a problem today. Nonetheless, we thought the community might benefit from an easier way to present this data on-wiki, so we now have an option to view the full results as wikitext. At xtools.wmflabs.org/ec just select "View as wikitext", or you can use the "Download" dropdowns to export individual sections of the Edit Counter (some are also available in CSV format). From there you can copy/paste the formatted data to the wiki. Example output for Jimbo Wales can be found at Special:PermaLink/824376290. Eventually you'll be able to get wikitext for any tool in the XTools suite, but we started with the Edit Counter since it is the most popular. Hope others find this useful, and any feedback is appreciated. Regards — MusikAnimal talk 18:05, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

New user preference to let users restrict emails from brand new accounts

Hello,

Wikimedia user account preference set to not allow emails from brand new users
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T138165

The WMF's Anti-Harassment Tools team introduced a user preference which allows users to restrict which user groups can send them emails. This feature aims to equip individual users with a tool to curb harassment they may be experiencing.

  • In the 'Email options' of the 'User profile' tab of Special:Preferences, there is a new tickbox preference with the option to turn off receiving emails from brand-new accounts.
  • For the initial release, the default for new accounts (when their email address is confirmed) is ticked (on) to receive emails from brand new users.
    • Case user: A malicious user is repeatedly creating new socks to send Apples harassing emails. Instead of disabling all emails (which blocks Apples from potentially receiving useful emails), Apples can restrict brand new accounts from contacting them.

The feature to restrict emails on wikis where a user had never edited (phab:T178842) was also released the first week of 2018 but was reverted the third week of 2018 after some corner-case uses were discovered. There are no plans to bring it back at any time in the future.

We invite you to discuss the feature, report any bugs, and propose any functionality changes on the talk page.

For the Anti-Harassment Tools Team SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 03:11, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Loves the Olympics 2018

Hello! The Winter Olympic Games 2018 started today and we have organized a wiki contest to improve the articles related with the Winter Olympic and the Paralympic Games. This is a multilingual project and is on Meta. You can participate till March 25. The link to the meta page is m:Wiki Loves the Olympics 2018. And don't forget that like Coubertin said "The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part". Thanks. --Millars (talk) 16:38, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Moving my draft to article space

I've read the policies in Wikipedia:Drafts but it is not clear to me: I started from an article (Ahamefule J. Oluo) previously deleted for non-notability (and I would agree that as previously written it was, at best, borderline for demonstrating notability). I userfied it and worked on it considerably. It is now at Draft:Ahamefule J. Oluo. I've marked it as ready for review. Is it appropriate for me to move it to main-space myself? Or because it was previously deemed non-notable, and I'm the one who worked on it, is it either required or simply courteous that I leave it for someone else to do so? - Jmabel | Talk 19:42, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

You marked it as “ready to review”... so the next step is to WAIT until the review takes place. There may be more for you to do before it is deemed ready to move to main space. Blueboar (talk) 20:17, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
So you are saying that even though I'm an admin, I always have to let someone else make that judgement if I attempt this sort of "rescue" of an article? Or just that it would be polite to do so? Or what? - Jmabel | Talk 03:03, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
IMO, as an admin, you should do it yourself, not wait for a reviewer.S Philbrick(Talk) 22:36, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
(Non-administrator comment) I would say that if an article is deleted by a community consensus (even a weak one) an admin is no more authorized to unilaterally overrule that than a non-admin. I would say wait -- you may well be right that your edits have addressed the previous notability concerns, but a second opinion really should be required. I would compare this to a user who was subject to a community ban, and some time later appealed it on the talk page of the admin who closed the ban discussion; she might convince the admin that the ban is no longer necessary, but a single admin is not allowed overrule community consensus. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:01, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
I take it from the previous two remarks that there is no clear policy here, since you are giving opposite advice, both without citing policy. As a matter courtesy, I will not move the article unilaterally. - Jmabel | Talk 00:52, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Question about referencing

I don't like to "make" other editors follow up my edits to make corrections to references simply because I think every editor's time is a valuable resource that shouldn't be taken for granted. I'm pretty sure that I am okay with actual reversions of content that I create, but that is not why I am leaving this comment and question here. I've contacted various editors who have edited some articles that I have created to apologize for creating extra work for them when they reformat the references that I have added to an article. I've not gotten even one response from an editor to explain what either my problem could be nor have I received any comments regarding why they feel a need to correct the references. I suppose it isn't a huge deal, but I keep coming back to the idea that each edit takes up someone's time and I would like to avoid creating work for others. I use WikiEd's Visual editor to create and edit content. I love the whole process of adding a reference by simply adding a web url or journal numbers to create a reference in WikiEd since it takes about 15 seconds. I have a good understanding of the policy of what constitutes an acceptable referencing style (which is pretty flexible). But not only do my references get reformatted, other editors sail on by to change one format to another. I'm guessing a citation can contain more information than what others believe is unnessary, but it leaves me a little confused. Even bots come by and change the references, adding parameters, taking others away and other random things. I guess I just would like something like an explanation or theory of how and why this happening. It starting occurring in the past 10 months or so. So for almost nine years I didn't notice this being a 'thing'. Please ping. Comments? Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 17:17, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi Barbara (WVS). The Visual Editor does strange things when it creates references, including putting in fields that haven't been filled in, and formats them in ways that drive some of us nuts. Editors who clean up references use semi-automated tools, so it doesn't take much time. Bots come by to add additional identifiers, which I like because then I don't have to track down all of them myself. When I use the convenience of VE to add a reference, I go back with the source editor and clean the reference up, putting in spaces between the fields, removing unnecessary fields, etc. So don't worry about it. The most important thing is to get the references in there in the easiest possible way and you are wonderful for providing references carefully. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:29, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Can I ask maybe another, sorta weird I suppose. Do some editors enjoy correcting the references and look forward to making 'fixes'? If this is the case, perhaps I'm helping them?! I'm thinking that I might be the weird one. I am also a grandma and look at editing as something I can leave for my grandkids. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 21:38, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Who's to say what some editors enjoy? You'd have to ask each one individually.
I have my opinions about ref formatting, although I've mellowed a bit about implementing them in my old wiki-age. Many other editors have opinions as well, and they are different opinions. Given Wikipedia's aversion to prescriptivism and WP:CREEP, there will forever be a lot of what I call "churning" in this area and many others. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:48, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
We're a gang of weirdos, thank goodness. Various editors care about commas, excessively long paragraphs, proper names of plants and aristocrats, "less" when we mean "fewer" and vertical formatting of references. Welcome them, if they're just following a weird but not disruptive obsession. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:38, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Gun Trace Task Force scandal

I want to start the article about the Gun Trace Task Force.[22] The trial is ongoing, so it is appropriate to write about it now? (I started the Larry Nassar article during his trial and learned quickly that it was not a good idea. That is why I am asking here first.) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:52, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

@Anna Frodesiak: I would say that it's probably a good idea, but you will need sources better than the one you linked. The Baltimore Sun has had coverage almost since day one, besides the inclusion in TNYT in the past week. --Izno (talk) 23:16, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, Izno. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:57, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
I failed to find even a brief mention in Baltimore Police Department. Should there be? Jim.henderson (talk) 16:51, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
@Jim.henderson: Probably, in the history section. --Izno (talk) 18:17, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
I was too hasty in my search and in assuming the OP would be more attentive, @Izno: The topic has been in the BPD article for months under "2017 Racketeering" and apparently hasn't been updated for several months. If anyone still thinks the case is important, that's the place to get it going with first an update, and then perhaps a cautious expansion, with inlinks, outlinks, a new subsection name, and discussion in the talk page when appropriate. Who knows, maybe there will be agreement that it deserves a separate article, but first start by improving what there is, working from balanced or at least modestly neutral sources. Jim.henderson (talk) 20:46, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Meaningless edits

Not sure if this is the right place – anyway: I've noticed that the new editor User:Pillzyx has edited various articles with what appears to be elaborate nonsense. After several reverts of unsourced edits, he/she has begun sourcing the edits with references to papers that vaguely fit the subject. However, as far as I was able to verify the sources don't support the edits but are used as alibi. Could someone please take a look at this or point me in the right direction? --Zac67 (talk) 09:59, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

This is difficult to handle but the edits I looked at certainly appeared to be waffle. Thanks for reverting and I guess we'll have to monitor the situation. Johnuniq (talk) 22:10, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. He's back – if he doesn't stop we should consider blocking him. --Zac67 (talk) 09:04, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
If this persists please report at WP:ANI instead. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 15:26, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Have any of this user's edits cited any source?

User appears to be using a random text generator. Raise it at ANI by all means, but I've issued a final warning and am happy to block if (as I expect) this continues, and indeff seems appropriate as a vandalism-only account. Feel free to comment on my talk page or here. Andrewa (talk) 22:25, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

No recent edits. Zac67, Johnuniq and other interested parties, please send me a heads-up (my talk page or email) if you notice this activity resuming. Otherwise we can probably let this auto-archive. Andrewa (talk) 16:06, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

After the first edits and reverts he started citing only vaguely related journals that aren't easy to verify. I'll keep an eye out but let's hope he's gone and doesn't resurface as SP. --Zac67 (talk) 16:26, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
So they did, I missed that although you pointed it out in your initial post. If they reappear as a sock puppet after being indeffed, then they'll be banned. Andrewa (talk) 13:15, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Pillzyx (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
The edits I checked were attempts to introduce pompous language into articles in order to "to maximize amusement, rather than coherence". The only question is whether the user will tire of the fun and think about contributing helpfully. A couple more edits in the same vein would be more than enough to justify a WP:NOTHERE indefinite block. Johnuniq (talk) 00:49, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Agree. There is perhaps even a case for an immediate indeff. Andrewa (talk) 13:15, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

They're back

A new MO, a flock of reverts. I have posted to a couple of Wikiprojects asking for specific comments.

If any one of these edits can be confirmed as vandalism, I will indeff. Andrewa (talk) 03:28, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

They are now blocked.

There was no attempt to discuss any of the four recent reverts, so no sources were given. As they have been demonstrably vandalism-only up until now, it seems wise to deny them the use of the undo tool.

Should they return, I recommend a community ban. I do not think there would be any problem arriving at consensus on this. Andrewa (talk) 04:15, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

This edit which I have now undone introduced an inconsistency within the article, so I've concluded that it was itself vandalism. The most recent pattern of editing is that edits from IPs that were hard to check were undone, with an edit summary of probable vandalism or similar, and no justification given apart from that. I've posted heads-ups [23] [24] regarding the other three, and expect they will be reverted too.

ANI is the preferred place to propose a community ban if it proves necessary. Andrewa (talk) 06:30, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for taking action. However, a community ban will not happen for such a minor case. If WP:DUCK socks appear, they can be blocked per WP:NOTHERE, but it is very unlikely that the disruption would rise to the endorsement of a communi]ty ban. You might look at this page for an example of {{uw-vblock}} being used because there is supposed to be information on appeals. Johnuniq (talk) 06:45, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Johnuniq, I've added the template [25] as suggested (please check that I've done it right... is it OK not to sign it?).
I hope you are right about the possible ban! I just raise it because the prospect of socks was raised above, to make sure we all understand the process. Hopefully, it won't be necessary. But a ban would make blocking the socks a lot easier, and I disagree that we would not get consensus for one. I could be wrong. Hopefully we will not find out. Andrewa (talk) 07:56, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
A signature is normally included. I believe the full wikitext would be {{subst:uw-voablock|sig=yes}} and the template then includes the four tildes in the resulting message box. Johnuniq (talk) 08:38, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
OK, that worked a lot better. I see these templates are both used by Twinkle and suspect that they aren't all that well documented for us non-Twinkle-users as they might be. Andrewa (talk) 09:13, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Inherently non-neutral forum used to canvas keep !votes in AFDs?

Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron – Rescue list strikes me as a really questionable concept. I get the idea in theory, but it doesn't even tell its users to make sure their message is neutrally worded in accordance with WP:CANVAS, or to disclose in the AFD discussion that there was a post made there. Apparently this is a matter that has been discussed, but it really seems like it should be again.

Disclosure: I only just noticed the page now because I looked back at an AFD I opened a long time ago that was 3-1 in favour of deletion for almost a week, then after seven days it was listed there by the one keep !vote and within 24 hours it shifted to 6-3 and was immediately closed (as 6-1, for some reason), and when trying to figure out how it happened I noticed that. That particular incident was a bureaucratic mess that I don't really care about (I can always renominate as it's been five years), but I still really don't get how Article Rescue Squadron is supposed to work, and I don't think I'd get a response if I posted on the talk page given the current direct level of activity there.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:07, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

You know, I saw this some time ago and thought something similar (too lazy to bring it up though). Ignoring the non-neutralness of the people watching, at the very least the notifications should be neutral.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:23, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I went ahead and BOLDly told posters at least to be neutral and to be aware that canvassing is bad. User:TonyBallioni thanked me for it, just in case anyone thinks my edit wasn't immediately endorsed by anyone. Pinging you, Tony, primarily to ask how you were aware of the edit. Given our history, I really don't mind you monitoring my contribs if that's what you were doing, but I also have seen no reason to believe that is the case; and if someone had the page watchlisted and didn't oppose my edit then that kinda restores a bit of my faith in the Encyclopedia that has been oh so shaken by the discoveries of the last hour or two. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:56, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
ARS used to be a canvass-keep squad ca 2007. Eventually they were forced to reform by the community toward a "you must have evidence that the topic at AFD meets WP:42" and since it has been quite quiet. I vaguely recall an RFC around the same time as those MFDs. If the page is still problematic, I doubt anyone would have issue with it being MFDd yet again. Generally, let the sleeping dog lie. --Izno (talk) 12:47, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
Well, the MFDs were in 2012 and the AFD I linked to (where they definitely messed up an AFD that had been filed in good faith and may be again) was in the summer of 2013, so it definitely wasn't fixed by that point. This message from a coupla weeks back definitely was not neutral, but was not apparently enough to stop the AFD from ending in deletion so no harm no foul I guess; some of the other messages like this one from two months ago are not great, although it's difficult to determine if they had a canvassing effect that tipped the scales against deletion. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:08, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
So basically what you are saying is that the page is problematic now because five years ago an AFD might have been incorrectly closed by a non-admin? From what I can see, there seems to be no problem with the list itself, only with editors. Even before your recent edit, the page required posters to Include [a] specific rationale why the article/content should be retained on Wikipedia, and any ideas to improve the content. That some people did not follow this, does not mean the list is a problem. In fact, the list is a useful way to alert interested editors to articles worth saving, which is a good thing considering how often WP:BEFORE is violated at AFD. So with all due respect, if you cannot present evidence of current problems with list itself, I fail to see what's there to discuss. Regards SoWhy 13:26, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @SoWhy: Your indentation implies you are responding to my most recent comment, but the content of your reply looks more like you read my initial comment and had not read the one immediately above your own, in which I linked the diffs for two comments that virtually any reasonable observer would see as at best a weak form of canvassing. Two weeks a blatantly non-neutral comment was posted there; if the AFD had closed as "no consensus" that would definitely be a problem, but even if it never succeeded in preventing article deletions, that would just mean it doesn't serve a meaningful purpose. And telling people to include a rationale for keeping, but not to neutrally summarize the arguments of the other side, is a direct invitation to canvass. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:31, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
No, I meant to reply to that comment. The post you mentioned was made by a non-EC new user in violation of the guidelines on this page. It's not an example of systematic abuse that is promoted by this page. The other post you mention is actually perfectly fine imho. It points out various reason why the subject should be considered notable and thus possible ways to rescue the article. And the article was kept, so purpose served. Since the purpose of this list is to inform others of possible reasons why an article might be served, it makes no sense to include the deletion arguments. They are already in the AFD and can be seen by anyone interested anyway. I think the misconception here is that the list is, as ARS might have been in the past, a tool to canvass people to !vote keep without reasoning. That's evidently not the case, it's merely a tool to improve collaboration. The rules are clearly laid out on the page, including The project is not about casting !votes, nor about vote-stacking. and Base comments upon Wikipedia's deletion policy.. Failure to follow the rules does not mean there are no rules. On a side note, since when is AFD about judging which side had the most !votes? The point of AFD is to improve the project and even most deletionists will not !vote delete for an article if its problems were fixed, so having another venue to help with that is a net positive for the project. Regards SoWhy 16:36, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
@SoWhy: But you didn't say any of that in your initial comment.
Anyway: made by a non-EC new user in violation of the guidelines on this page What guidelines on this page? (This page?) The guidelines at WP:CANVAS explicitly ban non-neutral notifications in non-neutral fora, but until I edited the page last night that one's only guidelines appeared to directly encourage non-neutral notifications. Do you mean that it's a violation of the guidelines for non-EC users to post there? That would be a good guideline to prevent disruption by editors unfamiliar with the relevant policies, but I can't find it mentioned anywhere on the page. Telling posters that the project is not about vote-stacking doesn't mean that that is not an effect: it's roughly equivalent to me posting notifications, "neutrally worded" or not, about the mottainai AFD on both WP:RSN and WP:FTN; you and other uninvolved parties might wonder what the relevance of those fora is, but the regular contributors there generally treat "ancient Chinese secret" claims with less credulity than the community as a whole and would be significantly more likely to !vote one way than the other based on this bias. Clearly at least one watcher of the page in question is not an avowed "inclusionist" (in the sense that he doesn't appear to support preservation of articles that cannot be written in a style that doesn't push fringe theories), but I can't imagine this is true of the majority of project members.
And no one blanked, amended or criticized the non-neutral notification from two weeks ago. If someone posted a non-neutral canvassing notification like that on a WikiProject I frequent, I would probably either blank as inappropriate canvassing or post a rebuttal immediately below, but why was that not done here?
The Korean War vet article: yeah, you may be right that the page should not have been and so was not deleted, but the message was still non-neutral, and the near-unanimous consensus at AFD means it probably was never in any danger of being deleted to begin with.
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:31, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
I think you are misunderstanding me. My point was that a non-experienced user might not know how to behave correctly, however, that does not mean their behavior is, as you seem to imply, sanctioned by the ARS project. Their rules are clearly stated on the page in question and explicitly forbid canvassing for !votes or vote-stacking attempts. Saying that no one did something against a certain message is a typical WP:SEP argument. No one here is forced to do anything and if no one noticed it, that happens. We have vandalism that is not detected for years, that does not mean all editors of the article approved of the vandalism.
I sincerely hope that all editors, no matter which areas they frequent, can agree that the outcome of an AFD is not based on the number of !votes but on the strength of the arguments and since WP:PRESERVE is a policy, all editors should be in favor of attempts to preserve information that belongs in an encyclopedia. And telling people who want to improve articles about potential articles worth improving and reasons why the effort should be made is imho not the same as saying "come to this AFD and !vote keep without providing anything new". Regards SoWhy 07:59, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
The rules were definitely not "clearly stated on the page" until my edit last night. At best, they had a code of conduct that appeared to be in conflict with the instructions for posting an article there: presenting a rationale for keeping the article while not presenting the arguments for deletion is posting a non-neutral notification, but the instructions said to do so. And if the project were self-reflective like WP:JAPAN, WP:CHINA and every other WikiProject I've worked with, they would either blank canvassing messages or respond to them by having a serious discussion about whether their forum is being abused for canvassing; I see no evidence that such a conversation was had. Note that I did not do an exhaustive search: this was also a non-neutral notification in a non-neutral forum, by an EC editor (more than 27,000 live edits on en.wiki) -- are you next going to argue that they are not a regular contributor to the project in question so their actions do not reflect on it, so that I have to go find another diff of someone who fits that description engaged in disruptive canvassing of an article that should have been and was deleted?
WP:PRESERVE being a policy is completely tangential to this discussion, as far as I can tell, since the AFD I linked was of an article that consisted (and still consists) primarily of poorly-sourced nonsense. The same spirit of "inclusionism" (regardless of the other policies) has led to the complete derailment of good-faith AFDs of blatant POVFORKs that included no (verifiable) information that wasn't covered better elsewhere in the encyclopedia (meaning PRESERVE didn't apply). It is also not a policy to maintain articles that exist solely to push fringe theories.
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:33, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm not a fan or ARS. It is still essentially a canvass keep list. Going over the list and archives, the topics that are kept would have been kept anyway, and it's main function these days is to turn AfDs that would likely close delete to no consensus. I always personally find the keep arguments garnered from listings there to be very weak (i.e. loosest reading of the GNG only without assessing any of our other policies and guidelines.) I do think Hijiri's changes were good, but I would !vote to delete if there were to be a new MfD (which I do not recommend, as I am sure that would be the XfD from hell and would likely end with no consensus and a bunch of hurt feelings.) TonyBallioni (talk) 13:31, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
  • The topic in question – the Buddhist concept of mottainai – is clearly notable. For example, the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology states that "Adopted by Kenyan Nobel peace prize winner and environmental leader Wangari Maathai, mottainai has attained international significance..." Naturally, deletionists don't care for this idea but it is enshrined here as our policy WP:PRESERVE. The fact that we have had this article for the last five years is a good thing as it has averaged over 100 readers per day during this time – a healthy and respectable readership. The ARS should therefore be congratulated for their efforts in saving it. Note also that I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Katherine Maher recently. She said quite plainly that "I am an inclusionist" and so such action is supported at the highest level. Andrew D. (talk) 17:19, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
While I'm an open supporter of inclusionism, arguments from authority rarely convince people on this project. It's nice that WMF's ED is pro-inclusionism but unless the WMF officially intervenes in such matters, it is merely one person's opinion. Regards SoWhy 19:44, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
  • No, it depends, as that links explains, "opinion on the appeal to authority has been divided – it has been held to be a valid argument about as often as it has been considered an outright fallacy". For example, our core principles of WP:RS and WP:OR are grounded in the idea that we should cite authorities rather than independently reasoning for ourselves. Katherine Maher's position obviously gives her power, influence and a bully pulpit. She's not trying to micro-manage what we do but it's good that she is providing inspiration and leadership in this regard. Andrew D. (talk) 18:57, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
@Andrew Davidson: "Buddhist concept"? Are you sure?
  • Routledge's own Encyclopedia of Buddhism not only does not have a standalone entry on "mottainai", but a keyword search on my Kindle copy indicates that the word doesn't appear anywhere in the book.
  • The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism does not include it either as a standalone entry under that title in its 2,500-page main body or in its 140-page Japanese cross-reference index.
  • I checked a Japanese dictionary aggregator as well, and the only (debatable) reference to either buddhas (仏) or gods (神) was to the latter, where it (Daijirin) said that the word could mean ② （神聖なものが）おかされて恐れ多い。忌むべきだ。 「神前をけがすとは－・い」 ("(concerning a sacred object) awful; to be avoided: pollution of a sacred altar is mottainai").
Our article describes it as both an ancient Buddhist and ancient Shinto concept, but this claim is attributed to a children's picture book. It sounds like an "ancient Chinese secret" situation to me: a fringe theory tied to a social movement that, perhaps if enough reliable sources by Japanologists existed to counter the bogus claims, then maybe we could build an article about the Kenyan social movement, without doing so at the expense of accurate and reliably-sourced coverage of Japanese language, literature and religion.
"mottainai" is just a common Japanese word meaning "wasteful", and according to User:Curly Turkey (who's been in Japan longer than me) the whole "Mottainai is a Japanese concept with no translation into English" is a dated Japanese meme; obviously the statement of a Wikipedian is not a reliable source, but it's at least as good as most of the ones currently cited in our article.
But that completely misses the point: there is no particular "topic in question", but a WikiProject that has as its stated raison d'etre to violate canvassing guidelines by providing a non-neutral inclusionist forum. Note also that I consider myself to be a mild inclusionist: a true deletionist would want to AFD the majority of the new articles I started last November, since most of them are "very obscure" (from the standpoint of the typical editor of English Wikipedia) and have probably never been covered in English-language RSes.
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:31, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
Also, I don't want to go into details, because it's completely tangential and kinda complicated, but I was unable to challenge the canvassing and way out-of-line non-admin close in the 2013 AFD because, as a result of off-wiki harassment, I had had to retire that account before the canvassing and close happened. For all I can remember, I never even noticed it until yesterday. I think I was still editing at the time the close happened, but I was using a different account and trying to keep said account secret from a stalker. Look at the edit history of the account's user page, the other accounts Salvio blocked at around the same time, and especially here, for details. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:57, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Just to be clear: I haven't researched the topic—there might be more to mottainai than I'm aware—but in my experience: there may be a Buddhist origin to the word, and Buddhism may use it in a Buddhism-specific way, but in everyday parlance there's nothing special about the word mottainai that would merit more than a note in the etymological section of a Wiktionary entry, or maybe a subsection in a Buddhism article or something. The idea that it's "a cultural practice" (or ever has been) is hard for me to stomach, and I think we need much, much, much better sources for such a statement than some offhand newspaper article. Japanese people asserting such a thing sound to me either like (a) politicians pushing an agenda; or (b) Nihonjinron advocates. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:37, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
  • The problem with ARS Is that they focus their efforts on articles AFTER they have already been nominated for deletion. If they shifted their efforts to “rescuing” articles BEFORE they are nominated, we would praise them for identifying poorly sourced articles, finding the needed sourcing, establishing notability and fixing the articles. Blueboar (talk) 11:58, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I can't believe someone would have a problem with what ARS does, unless they viewed AFD as a battle to be won, and looked for opponents to have to defeat. If someone is capable of cleaning up an article so it becomes appropriate for Wikipedia, who loses? No one does. --Jayron32 13:43, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
@Jayron32: Actually, if you take a look at the article that was linked in my OP, or this current entry, it looks more like the opposite: ARS members are just showing up to AFD so they can "win" the AFD by keeping the article in the mainspace, but are actively refusing compromise solutions that would allow them to fix the article's problems, while also not touching the article itself even while the AFD is ongoing. And in the other AFDs I linked, they !voted down the AFDs and then once the AFDs were closed they completely lost interest and walked away, apparently satisfied having achieved a "victory". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:40, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Nonsense since other articles are listed which no one is going to at all. And only three people went to comment in that participate article, with legitimate reasons why it should remain. And as I told you at the location you linked to, I did in fact edit the article, not that it makes any difference since no Wikiproject requires its members to edit articles they mention are at AFD. Dream Focus 03:51, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Umm... you edited the article after it was pointed out to you how you were doing things backwards, and your edits actually made the problem worse. You didn't go out and find sources to fix the article; you did a keyword search for "swamp" "monster" "folklore" on Wikipedia and added a sentence on each of the results (or even just a wikilink) to the article without a care for whether reliable sources had called them "swamp monsters", in a clear violation of WP:NOR. And your edit was a clear response to my own. It's difficult, given all this, to believe that had I never pointed out that you were treating ARS as a canvassing forum without a care for improving the articles, you still would have done your best to improve the article even after it survived AFD; it seems obvious that you would have done the same thing you did after the "mottainai" AFD, and Andrew did after the "tanka prose" and "Korean influence" AFDs: walk away and never think about the article again. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:18, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Certainly cleaning up (actually, more finding sources) an article to become appropriate for wikipedia is a noble goal. However, in the case of say List_of_mayors_of_Traverse_City,_Michigan, cleanup wasn't really needed (the comment was "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of mayors of Traverse City, Michigan Broad policy question. List that inclues 150 years of mayors being eliminated as "non notable." WP:Not paper." - help with cleanup was not requested at all) as much as keep !votes (which perhaps was gotten from posting there) Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:04, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with that list; it's a limited and complete list of verifiable information. The individual people may not have enough information to break out into separate articles, but I see no problem with that article at all. Several Wikipedia policies would recommend and support such a list, WP:CSC notes the following possibilities for when to compile information in a list " While notability is often a criterion for inclusion in overview lists of a broad subject, it may be too stringent for narrower lists; one of the functions of many lists on Wikipedia is providing an avenue for the retention of encyclopedic information that does not warrant separate articles, so common sense is required in establishing criteria for a list." and later, among the three criteria for a list article, this list passes two of them: for when lists are used to compile information on entries that don't really merit a stand-alone article for each (criteria 2) and for short, complete lists (criteria 3). If you're looking for a case where the ARS people screwed up something, that's a bad example. Please try again. --Jayron32 16:14, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
I really don't have an opinion on the list. However, that's not really the point. No sources were given - "no rescuing" or anything of the sort - was done by them or requested of them, so the only purpose in posting seems to be to canvass keep !votes, which is not allowed. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:34, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Others may as well argue that they did screw it up; those others did argue for deletion. There shouldn't be a page where one can post to get (or try to get) keep !votes (or delete !votes too) and thus bias discussions. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:42, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
That's my point though; the article should not have been deleted no matter what... It isn't something that Wikipedia policy or guidelines or precedent would ever indicate is a candidate for deletion. You've established this as an "us against them" debate, and that somehow one side would have "won" if it weren't for those meddlesome kids. That's not what we're here for. That article is fine, so you can't say that anyone derailed a discussion which ended up keeping an article that had no reason to be deleted. (by fine I mean "is a suitable topic for a Wikipedia article that needs some cleanup" and not "Is FA quality and awesome", by the way). I'm not saying you're right, and I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying you asserted a position, and then presented evidence which does not back up that position. If you claim there are bad actors who are keeping articles at Wikipedia which should be deleted but are still here because of people working through ARS, then you should be able to produce a few examples, n'est ce pas? I would be willing to accept your assertions if you could only find evidence of it. Stop arguing with me, and go dig up some proof. You're wasting time. Get on it! --Jayron32 20:44, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
@Jayron32: I can't believe someone would have a problem with what ARS does, unless they viewed AFD as a battle to be won, and looked for opponents to have to defeat. Did you read my opening comment? Or Andrew Davidson's comment? ARS seems to start with the assumption that every article on Wikipedia is on a notable topic, and that all the information in said article is factually accurate and verifiable, and then they steamroll attempts to get problem articles deleted. They did not actually improve the article in question, and in fact made it more difficult to do so, since there is apparently "consensus" not to cut all the "ancient Chinese secret" stuff. The same thing happened with an AFD I opened in 2014 that was not apparently officially on ARS's radar, but it was several ARS members who were responsible for the problem. It was the people who !voted delete in the AFD who had to eventually fix the article themselves, in the face of massive (and ongoing) disruption from an army of socks. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 20:25, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Then that's a problem with an individual person (or multiple individual people). Deal with them head on. Don't drag the idea of a group who's stated purpose is to improve articles and throw out the baby with the bathwater. Find the problem person and deal with the problem person. If it's more then one person, then just rinse and repeat. --Jayron32 20:38, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
But it was literally four-for-four of the ARS editors who joined the discussion (Shii was an outlier; he is a very knowledgeable editor of Japanese topics who to the best of my knowledge never expressed a philosophical opposition to article deletion). And I didn't exactly get a chance to confront them over it -- see the off-wiki harassment reference above, but even if that hadn't happened the AFD was closed as "consensus to keep" as soon as the ARS members comfortably outnumbered the non-canvassed commenters; also with the "Korean influence" AFD I was assuming good faith and assumed the keep !voters would pull their own weight and help to improve the article (they didn't). And when I messaged User:Andrew Davidson on his talk page, he dodged the awkward question in order to find common ground in friendly off-topic nerdiness (which would be nice, if he didn't also dodge the question); when I asked him above to admit he was wrong about the "Buddhist concept" thing (even going out and searching for reliable sources, which I shouldn't need to do when he didn't), he ignored me (even super-indenting to reply to SoWhy). Anyway, what do you think of TonyBallioni's comment that the articles that are kept would be kept anyway, and all ARS does is occasionally change "consensus to delete" to "no consensus"? You surely recognize that the forum is occupied primarily by self-identified "inclusionists", and that at least some "inclusionists" (including an ARS member who commented in this thread) take inclusionism to mean !voting keep in AFDs of POVFORKs and articles that only meet GNG with citation of unreliable/fringe sources? Can you see how posting (even neutrally-worded) links to AFDs in a forum like that would be a considered vote-stacking? It would be like me posting such notifications to FTN and RSN after the AFDs had been opened. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:46, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
  • The ARS used to be much more problematic. Several years ago they maintained a list of articles tagged to be "rescued", which basically meant a clique of ultra-inclusionists going around to each AfD in turn and saying "keepkeepkeep- notable" on all of them. Their canvassing template was deleted, a decision upheld despite their best efforts to wriggle out of it. Around this time a lot of their high-profile members got themselves permabanned for various reasons. Without their canvassing template and their core of trolls and agitators the ARS has become powerless and moribund, and that is a good thing. Reyk YO! 13:45, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Not around nearly as much as I used to. I do recall finding quite a lot of reliable sources giving significant coverage for topics for articles that needed them though. The random people that show up to participate changes over time. Anyone can list any article they want help working on. Right now I see listed articles which have closed as delete. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Deneva_Cagigas is currently listed and got not a single person to go there and say "Keep", it closed as delete. So I don't see any proof of any canvasing for keeps going on there. Back when I was active, I remember various editors doing quite a lot of work on articles, finding sources, and expanding stubs into full size articles at times. Dream Focus 17:50, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
If you're right, that's great, but the fact that my pointing out that the AFD from 2013 was clearly steamrolled by the one person who randomly showed up to !vote keep going to ARS for canvass met with a long-time project member showing up and repeating the bogus fringe claims made during that AFD says otherwise. I dunno -- maybe the problem is self-identified "inclusionists" claiming that WP:PRESERVE supports the inclusion of POVFORKs and repeatedly opposing AFDs with GNG rationales when the actual deletion rationale was WP:NOT, rather than a project specifically monitored and operated by such editors? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:59, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
The nominator said it violated "Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary" and many editors disagreed with that, saying the article was far more than that. As I stated in that AFD, the International Herald Tribune says there is a "pervasive use of the expression mottainai". So its not just a word, but an expression, one which a major newspaper says has a pervasive use. Enough valid content in the article to justify keeping it. Administrators close articles based on the quality of the arguments, not a vote. In my statement I also linked to what the article was at the time it was nominated for deletion and up to that point, showing how much work had been done to improve it. No one went around saying keep to every article nominated, but only commented on those they had a legitimate reason to believe should be kept. Some did however show up at every single one just to find an excuse to say delete and try to argue off topic every chance they got. I remember one guy on his user page even stating he was going to counter us by posting Delete in everything tagged for Rescue, or something of that nature. No different than other Wikiprojects, other than not having a limited scope. We exist to improve articles and find references for them. If you feel that article you mentioned isn't valid, then you can nominated it for deletion again. Just mention a valid reason. Dream Focus 04:41, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
If there is a difference between "word" and "expression" for NOTDICT purposes, it clearly doesn't apply to that one, as 勿体無い appears in Japanese dictionaries with no distinction between it and all the other words. But why are you making this about the random example I cited at the top of the thread? I only mentioned that to explain how I had become aware of ARS, but you, Andrew and SoWhy seem to be repeatedly honing in on it (and getting the facts very wrong) in an attempt to deflect discussion away from ARS itself, by making it look like this is me "holding a grudge" for a random AFD from five years ago (even though a look at my contribs would make it clear that I wasn't even aware of ARS's involvement until three days ago). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:09, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
Since I have been drawn here by chasing the path of the misguided proponent, I'd like to point to how the ARS list helps. This is what it leads me to do, with followup by @Syrenka V:. I look up the article in question on Google. Its a difficult task, but that is called WP:BEFORE, which is something all my predecessors as editors on the article, obviously including the NOM should have done. If there is merit to the subject, I find sources and correct the text. In short, I improve the article, THEN I cast a Keep !vote. While in this case, my work did successfully and rightfully save this article, it sure pisses off the mindless deletionists. Here was an opportunity for them to get more brownie points for another deletion, quashed by someone taking action to improve the article. What a crime. I use sarcasm. What is the real crime is the thoughtless NOM and (while I was early enough to quash this) the subsequent echo chamber of thoughtless delete !votes that typically accompany almost every article in AfD. I think a NOM who disingenuously nominates too many articles without doing WP:BEFORE should lose the privilege of nominating AfDs. There is one editor who I will not name for WP:CIVILity reasons, who has been banned from making NOMs, but still, as a daily task, he posts a stream of delete !votes across every *fD section every day. And he is allowed to do that with no repercussions. Because it takes considerably more time to rescue an article than it does to cast an !vote, it would take a team of dedicated editors just to counteract the daily damage done to wikipedia by this one editor. And he's not alone. The ARS list is not only necessary, but we are grossly outnumbered. Trackinfo (talk) 04:24, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Trackinfo that effective participation in WP:ARS is a LOT of work—and WP:ARS could not be nearly as effective as it is, if it were really the crude canvassing medium it is being caricatured as. (Indeed, the recent decrease in my participation has been due to the drain on my off-wiki time that article rescue has imposed—I had to divert resources to the rest of my life!) What saves articles is finding sources and making reasoned arguments at AfD, not mindlessly stacking up Keep votes. When that does occur, it is conspicuously ineffective, even at producing "no consensus" results. I would like to see more ruthless enforcement (by administrators closing AfDs) of the directive of WP:CONSENSUS that pure votes unsupported by reasoning should count for little or nothing—and I would expect that change to make it easier, not harder, to keep articles. I agree with Trackinfo that there is at least as much vote-stacking (likely more!) on the deletionist side.
It is also in my experience simply untrue that (except for cases of no consensus) the articles saved by WP:ARS would mostly be kept anyway. WP:ARS has again and again saved articles, by consensus based on reasoned argument, that were manifestly headed for oblivion prior to intervention. For one example, check out Quadrafile. There are more examples on my userpage. The current work of WP:ARS barely scratches the surface of what could be done to save, by consensus, articles that are currently entering the AfD roach motel and never checking out.
As to inherent non-neutrality: I know of at least one case where someone posted an article to the WP:RESCUELIST for rescue consideration while voting to delete in the AfD. I added the following language to the WP:RESCUELIST instructions:
(You can also !vote to delete an article at its deletion discussion because you think it is untenable in its present state, and still list it here in the hope that another editor will find a way to improve it and save it.)
I actually wish more deletionists would participate. Instead of complaining about the existence of WP:ARS, why not challenge us to try to save the article? If we can't improve it, you can use that fact at AfD to argue for deletion. (Although you should of course also do your own thorough WP:BEFORE!)
—Syrenka V (talk) 08:28, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Another point from Trackinfo that deserves emphasis: there is an enormous disparity between the amount of effort it takes to delete an article and the effort it takes to save one. This needs to be rectified. One policy change I would like to see: the one-liner AfD nominations that are the norm at present should be prohibited. An AfD nominator should be required to provide a detailed, cogent prima facie argument for deletion, including a description of what kind of WP:BEFORE searches were performed with negative results. Any AfD nomination that lacks a decent, detailed prima facie supporting argument from the nominator should be speedily closed. Blatant repeat offenders in the creation of deficient AfD nominations should be blocked and, in extreme cases, banned.
—Syrenka V (talk) 08:41, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I'd just add that it is currently much easier to flood the encyclopedia with a lot of unsourced, one-liner articles than it is to nominate them for deletion. I oppose any attempt to impose artificial hurdles on this necessary maintenance. Who'd decide what is "detailed and cogent" enough? Furthermore, people who vote delete on anything have never been welcome at ARS. See, eg, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive619#User:Snottywong/userboxes/ARSbackfire for an example of the kind of thing that happens if you look at ARS's lists and vote to delete some of those articles. Reyk YO! 16:05, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Finance & Investment

The template {{WikiProject Finance & Investment}} does not work. Please arrange a fix.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 17:07, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Is this the right place to request this change? The WikiProject was Finance, and now is Finance and Investment. It doesn't seem to be a bug, just a change not completed, but perhaps I am wrong about that.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 17:11, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Dthomsen8, since WP:WikiProject Finance has moved to WP:WikiProject Finance & Investment, and the template is still at Template:WikiProject Finance, I made a redirect at {{WikiProject Finance & Investment}}. I guess someone should move the template to that name. --Pipetricker (talk) 14:15, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Question for experienced users:
By the way, I noticed that WP:WikiProject Finance (and also the talk page) was copy-and-paste-moved to WP:WikiProject Finance & Investment. Is that a problem, or is that only problematic for articles? --Pipetricker (talk) 15:06, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

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