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Talkback

Hello, Lord Roem. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States v. Lara/archive1.
Message added 01:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

GregJackP Boomer! 01:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Lots of help needed

Sorry to burden you with lots of questions, but I've become party to an Arbcom case request without expecting it, and I know nothing about the process. I'm coming to you because I really don't know (or know about) any of the other clerks, as far as I can remember. In short, SarekofVulcan has filed a case ("User:Doncram") and named me as a party, and I'm clueless about the process. Do you mind giving advice? Frankly, I really don't want to be a party (I'd much prefer to sit in the background, as it's my final semester of grad school) and would like to know nothing of what's happening until the decision is announced at WP:AN. However, I'm not sure whether it would be responsible of me to duck out; the list of people named as parties is appropriate, and I fear that it's my duty to participate instead of forcing others to do it all. Advice question — do you think I should remain a party, or should I ask to be removed? Please respond at my talk page or leave a talkback. Nyttend (talk) 06:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

As the guide will tell you, it is always in your best interest to be involved in the process. As a named party, you probably want to say something on the request, even if it's a comment that you feel you are uninvolved. Should the case be accepted, you will have the opportunity to present evidence; this is the primary way the Committee gets an understanding of the dispute, so involvement by all sides is important. Again, the guide is a great resource on what to expect in terms of the process involved in an arbitration case. Best regards, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 07:15, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Arbitration is easy! In your initial statement, just answer the question "Should there be a case?" There is no deadline to respond, but after a few days or a week, the Committee will decide whether to take the case, and if you haven't posted something by then, your opinion won't be taken into account. Jehochman Talk 08:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the guidance. I've left a statement (which is shorter than some others, so I doubt that it will be considered too long) and hope that it expresses my opinions clearly. One other opinion — in my statement, I mentioned comments made by other people. Is it appropriate to leave messages on their talk page to the effect of "You're quoted in this arbitration request, although your actions aren't the subject of the request"? Or would that be seen as a sort of canvassing? Nyttend (talk) 15:24, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
If you've mentioned someone in your statement, it's not a bad idea to leave a short note on their talk simply saying you mentioned them. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of sovereign states

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The Signpost: 07 January 2013

Meta is the wiki that has coordinated a wide range of cross-project Wikimedia activities, such as the activities of stewards, the archiving of chapter reports, and WMF trustee elections. The project has long been an out-of-the-way corner for technocratic working groups, unaccountable mandarins, and in-house bureaucratic proceedings. Largely ignored by the editing communities of projects such as Wikipedia and organizations that serve them, Meta has evolved into a huge and relatively disorganized repository, where the few archivists running it also happen to be the main authors of some of its key documents. While Meta is well-designed for supporting the librarians and mandarins who stride along its corridors, visitors tend to find the site impenetrable—or so many people have argued over the past decade. This impenetrability runs counter to Meta's increasingly central role in the Wikimedia movement.
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The past 12 months have seen a multitude of issues and events in the Wikimedia foundation, the movement at large, and the English Wikipedia. The movement, now in its second decade, is growing apace in its international reach, cultural and linguistic diversity, technical development, and financial complexity; and many factors have combined to produce what has in many ways been the biggest, most dynamic year in the movement's history. Looking back at 2012, we faced a difficult task in doing justice to all of the notable events in a single article; so the Signpost has selected just a few examples from outside the anglosphere, from the English Wikipedia, and from the Wikimedia Foundation, rather than attempting to cover every detail that happened.
Over the past year, 963 pieces of featured content were promoted. The most active of the featured content programs was featured article candidates (FAC), which promoted an average of 31 articles a month. This was followed by featured picture candidates (FPC; 28 a month). Coming in third was featured list candidates (FLC; 20 a month). Featured topic and featured portal candidates remained sluggish, each promoting fewer than 20 items over the year.
Following on from last week's reflections on 2012, this week the Technology report looks ahead to 2013, a year that will almost certainly be dominated by the juggernauts of Wikidata, Lua and the Visual Editor.

Teletraan AfD

Hi. You closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Teletraan and I wanted to inform you that I plan to speedy renominate the article. I took a look at the discussion, and saw that out of the 3 keep !votes, none provided any source or indicated that our notability criteria were met, and 2 are actually personal attacks directed at the original nominator.

I thought there was no need to take this to DRV, since it is obvious they would have invalidated the deletion debate. Maybe I should have done so, I don't know. Instead I thought it better to tag the article for notability concerns (to give anyone interested in good faith in the article the chance to find sources) and then renominate after 7 days. And before doing so, I wanted to ask you about it, out of courtesy (I'm aware that speedy renoms are usually frowned upon, but I figured it wouldn't be a big deal here given how the deletion debate turned out) .

Maybe you could also just cancel your close and relist the discussion, though. But since the nominator attracted personal attacks the first time, I thought we would have a better chance at a civil discussion if someone else took over the nomination.Folken de Fanel (talk) 15:51, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Folken de Fanel, thanks for giving me the heads up first. I must respectfully disagree with your interpretation of the AFD discussion. All three editors who commented on the nomination agreed the fictional computer was notable, so it was a fairly clear non-admin closure. That's my take, but you're certainly free to renominate it. All the best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Notice to DR/N volunteers! Dispute resolution discussions need attention

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there are currently discussions at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard which require the attention of a volunteer. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we are requesting your participation to help find a resolution. Below this message is the DR/N status update.

You are receiving this notification to request assistance at the DR/N where you are listed as a volunteer. The number of cases has either become too large and/or there are many cases shaded with an alert status. Those shaded pink are marked as: "This request requires a volunteer's attention". Those shaded blue have had a volunteers attention recently

Case Created Last volunteer edit Last modified
Title Status User Time User Time User Time
Category:PlayStation 5-only games In Progress Jursha (t) 24 days, 4 hours Robert McClenon (t) 5 days, Jursha (t) 5 days,
Michael Jackson Closed Hammelsmith (t) 24 days, 3 hours Robert McClenon (t) 5 days, Robert McClenon (t) 5 days,
Muslim Gujjars New Anpanman11 (t) 18 days, 6 hours Rosguill (t) 17 days, Sybercracker (t) 16 days, 7 hours
Talk: The Importance of Being Earnest Closed Becsh (t) 13 days, 9 hours Robert McClenon (t) 5 days, Robert McClenon (t) 5 days,
2025 visit by Donald Trump to the Middle East Closed ElijahPepe (t) 11 days, 2 hours Robert McClenon (t) 5 days, Robert McClenon (t) 5 days,
Poland Closed PJK 1993 (t) 4 days, 6 hours Rosguill (t) 4 days, 6 hours PJK 1993 (t) 4 days, 6 hours
Pastirma New Agent Albatros (t) 4 days, 5 hours None n/a Agent Albatros (t) 4 days, 5 hours
Western Sahara New Nice4What (t) 2 days, 1 hours None n/a Nice4What (t) 2 days, 1 hours

If you would like a regularly-updated copy of this status box on your user page or talk page, put {{DRN case status}} on your page. Click on that link for more options.

Talk:Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive#Request for Comment: Result of the Offensive

Hi Lord Roem. I listed Talk:Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive#Request for Comment: Result of the Offensive at WP:ANRFC here. At the discussion, you wrote: "In 20 days (unless there is lengthy discussion, then it would be moved to the regular 30), they've asked me to close the discussion. The question and their statements are below:"

If you are unable to close the discussion, would you leave a note at ANRFC indicating that other editors are free to close it? If you intend to close the discussion, please note that you will do so at ANRFC. Thank you, Cunard (talk) 02:23, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I've put a note there saying anyone is free to close it. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 January 2013

After six years without creating a new class of content projects, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has finally expanded into a new area: travel. Wikivoyage was formally launched—though without a traditional ship's christening—on 15 January, having started as a beta trial on 10 November. Wikivoyage has been taken under the WMF's umbrella on the argument that information resources that help with travel are educational and therefore within the scope of the foundation's mission.g
On January 16, voting for the first round of the 2012 Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest will begin. Wikimedia editors with 75 edits or one project are eligible to vote to select their favorite image featured in 2012. ... On January 15, the foundation launched its latest grant scheme, called Individual Engagement Grants (IEG).
This week, we set off for the final frontier with WikiProject Astronomy. The project was started in August 2006 using the now-defunct WikiProject Space as inspiration. WikiProject Astronomy is home to 101 pieces of Featured material and 148 Good Articles maintained by a band of 186 members. The project maintains a portal, works on an assortment of vital astronomy articles, and provides resources for editors adding or requesting astronomy images.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Comforting those grieving after the loss of a loved one is an impossible task. How then, can an entire community be comforted? The Internet struggled to answer that question this week after the suicide of Aaron Swartz, a celebrated free-culture activist, programmer, and Wikipedian at the age of 26.
Continuing our recap of the featured content promoted in 2012, this week the Signpost interviewed three editors, asking them about featured articles which stuck out in their minds. Two, Ian Rose and Graham Colm, are current featured article candidates (FAC) delegates, while Brian Boulton is an active featured article writer and reviewer.
The opening of the Doncram case marks the end of almost 6 months without any open cases, the longest in the history of the Committee.
The Wikidata client extension was successfully deployed to the Hungarian Wikipedia on 14 January, its team reports. The interwiki language links can now come from wikidata.org, though "manual" interwiki links remain functional, overriding those from the central repository.

RfA nomination

NW (Talk) 15:23, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I hope you guys don't mind but I'd like to muscle in on this and co-nominate with NW ;) I'll add a bit to the page very shortly.  Roger Davies talk 15:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Now transcluded. NW (Talk) 20:06, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

RFA answer 6

Good RFA answers. In regards to my question 6 something similar did happen recently! If you want to read up on it see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive782#User:CrimsonBot_is_malfunctioning and Wikipedia:An#Blocking_misbehaving_bots. Good luck with your RFA ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 07:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

RFA answer 8

I was hoping you would notice that I was IP-block-exempt. For over a year I retained this status, despite having no need for it, because the admin forgot to remove it and I forgot about it altogether. Reading question 4 in your RFA reminded me and I though why not drop another question. Anyway, you have my support (my first !vote ever in RFA) and good luck with the rest of the RFA. Mohamed CJ (talk) 20:03, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 January 2013

The English Wikipedia's requests for adminship (RfA) process has entered another cycle of proposed reforms. Over the last three weeks, various proposals, ranging from as large as a transition to a representative democracy to as small as a required edit count and service length, have been debated on the RfA talk page. The total number of new administrators for 2012 was just 28, barely more than half of 2011's total and less than a quarter of 2009's total. The total number of unsuccessful RfAs has fallen as well. These declining numbers, which were described in what would now be considered a successful year (2010) as an emerging "wikigeneration gulf", have been coupled with a sharp decline in the number of active administrators since February 2008 (1,021), reaching a low of 653 in November 2012.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Linguistics. Started in January 2004, the project has grown to include 7 Featured Articles, 4 Featured Lists, 2 A-class Articles, and 15 Good Articles maintained by 43 members. The project's members keep an eye on several watchlists, maintain the linguistics category, and continue to build a collection of Did You Know? entries. The project is home to six task forces and works with WikiProject Languages and WikiProject Writing Systems.
This week, the Signpost's featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured topics. We interviewed Grapple X and GamerPro64, who are delegates at the featured topic candidates.
The opening of the Doncram case marks the end of almost 6 months without any open cases, the longest in the history of the Committee.
On 22 January, WMF staff and contractors switched incoming, non-cached requests (including edits) to the Foundation's newer data centre in Ashburn, Virginia, making it responsible for handling almost all regular traffic. For the first time since 2004, virtually no traffic will be handled by the WMF's other facility in Tampa, Florida.

Please comment on Talk:2013 India–Pakistan border incident

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Your RFA

The admins' T-shirt. --Guerillero | My Talk 20:57, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations, I have just closed your RFA as successful. You had a lot of community support, and a few oppositions which are worthwhile taking into account as you make your way onwards with the mop. Well done, and by all means call on any of your fellow admins should you need some advice. My best to you, and thank you for your ongoing efforts at the project. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:14, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations, LR.  Roger Davies talk 20:15, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Congrats!. — ΛΧΣ21 20:22, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Congratulations! You deserved it! :) Vacation9 20:23, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Since I gave you a hard time, I want to stop by to congratulate you and to very sincerely wish you the very best going forward. (After all, I did support you the previous time.) As I said there, I hope that you will learn from what some of us said to you. I'm confident that, going forward, you'll prove that I was wrong. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:28, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations, good luck, and make us all proud. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:02, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I appreciate everyone's support! Some of those who opposed are people I highly respect; I take everything they said to heart. All the best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 05:05, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

United States v. Lara FAC

I believe I have corrected everything you brought up, could I impose on you to take another look at the article? Thanks, GregJackP Boomer! 19:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC) (P.S., congrats on your successful RfA!)

Block of 50.137.200.251

Are you sure you want this to be indefinite?--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:51, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Jasper Deng is faster than me... The same question. --Makecat 02:53, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
No, definitely can be shorter; I'll change that now. Looking at the history of the AIV page, it appeared that most vandalism-only accounts were indef blocked. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:55, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I can see how you would misclick - this is an anonymous user.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:57, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
IPs are almost never blocked indefinitely, as they commonly change owners, hence affecting unrelated users. Generally, 31 hours is appropriate for a first-time IP block for vandalism. You are correct that most vandalism-only accounts are indefblocked, but this is an IP address. Thanks. Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Sounds good. Thanks for the quick note everyone. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:01, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Ramush Haradinaj

Dear Lord Roem,

I want to find a solution to the issue regarding Haradinaj, but it is very hard with the NEW USER. He destroyed so many articles, removed source etc. He himself can not insert sources and he undervalued other sourses which throughout wikipedia are already established. I want to finde a away, but he does not understand how wikipedia works and he make a one man show or ignored other sources. Me and him alone will not find a solution without help, I'm sure. I add...I find it not fair from you that you've also banned me on this subject. I am a long time member here, have already contributed to many articles, but he is brand new and "poaching" here. I find not right, the put for the start both of us in the same basket. best wishes--Nado158 (talk) 15:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I would be glad to help mediate on the talk page. As per the protection, both of you had reverted each other's addition and removal of content WAY above the legal limit. But I feel both of you are trying to act in good faith and so I'd prefer a shorter solution than a block. If you are truly a long time member, you should know better than to act the way you did in both your edit warring as well as your edit summaries. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 15:15, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi, I haven't been on Wikipedia for a while, but I used to do a bit of editing around the Kosovo page, and felt I should point out that you've locked the Haradinaj article in a form that contains in the opening paragraph alone some pretty libellous false claims - a clear violation of BLP, as I understand it. (Most notably this '19 witnesses killed' stuff - a quick internet search will show that the ICTY has repeatedly stated this is untrue.) I'd advise you to revert to the last neutral version before this edit war started - though of course that's entirely up to you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.123.232.20 (talk) 18:45, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I fear that we've spun out of control again on the talk page. I've suggested a compromise I think reflects our positions. Could you possibly intervene?Epeos (talk) 20:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry to bother you again but I had rather feared this would happen. Nado does not agree with the language we agreed upon. PLease can look at the history of the page. I made two changes to the page today to address the issue and inserted the language into the article. This is becoming very frustrating.Epeos (talk) 17:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Please be wary of continuously reverting him, without going back to discussing it on the talk page. Don't get drawn into an edit war. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:43, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
I haven't reverted him. I just made the changes I thought we had agreed upon and sent Nado a message on his page to review those changes. He then reverted me! In any event, we reached a compromise that has now been abandoned. Which leaves us where we started and leaves the page the same content that caused the dispute.Epeos (talk) 14:14, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Lord, all other editors on this talk except Nado158 have 0 EDITS outside the subject. All are SPA accounts and IP-s, and i may imagine that all are returnees out of some blocked and banned accounts. Should we really keep this article unlocked and open for this continuum of reverts. After the formation of some agreement, epeos again removed sources and content from this page. What do you propose, or what can be done here. --WhiteWriterspeaks 15:28, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
This subject is important to me. I've never used wikipedia before and said that when we started this discussion. My contributions have not been in bad faith. I have tried to compromise. And in fact we reached a compromise based around wording Lord Roem put forward. I agreed to it. I thought Nado agreed to it. That wording was then reverted by Nado not by me. I am new to wikipedia. I admit that. does that make my contributions less worthy? I have now suggested a further compromise based on NAdo's comments. I feel like I am trying to work towards consensus. I am operating on the assumption that we all are.Epeos (talk) 16:33, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
If you think an agreement has been reached, feel free to make the added change. If reverted by the other party, don't revert back. Just go to the talk page again to discuss. Yes, this is sometimes an arduous process, but getting to that consensus is important. Epeos, if nothing works over the next day or so, open an WP:RFC to gain broader community input on the dispute. This way, you can outside opinions that will be relatively neutral on the dispute. All I can do is ensure you two aren't edit warring, but I think an RFC would be a good option to look at with the content-side of things. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:02, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Ok I will look into that. I do think that your input dramatically improves the direction of the discussion. I've suggested another compromise that takes into account more of Nado's concerns. I know you have a million other things to do but if you think its reasonable your input would be invaluable. (likewise if you don't think its reasonable I would sincerely appreciate that input. Often we get so surrounded by the echo chamber of our own position its hard to keep proper persepctive. ThanksEpeos (talk) 17:13, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Actually, he reverted back right after it. I just want to remember you that this subject is under ARBMAC restriction, so this kind of POV slow-motion edit wars are very much unhelpful. --WhiteWriterspeaks 21:25, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree. Hopefully their discussions (or a future RfC) will avert the need for any further action on my part. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 00:17, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

User talk:Cbbkr

Barely two (2) hours after your declining my request, another assault. Please reconsider. Cbbkr (talk) 20:50, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected for one week. Left warning on IP's talk. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 21:03, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Nickelodeon

Sure you didn't mean to semi-protect that? A week of full protection is usually considered a bit extreme.—Kww(talk) 03:26, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes; didn't see that I clicked on the wrong button. Thanks for quickly pointing that out! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:29, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi, you removed its move-protection (sysop/Move=Block all non-admin users). Could you restore it? Tbhotch.™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 03:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 January 2013

On New Year's Day, the Daily Dot reported that a "massive Wikipedia hoax" had been exposed after more than five years. The article on the Bicholim conflict had been listed as a "Good Article" for the past half-decade, yet turned out to be an ingenious hoax. Created in July 2007 by User:A-b-a-a-a-a-a-a-b-a, the meticulously detailed piece was approved as a GA in October 2007. A subsequent submission for FA was unsuccessful, but failed to discover that the article's key sources were made up. While the User:A-b-a-a-a-a-a-a-b-a account then stopped editing, the hoax remained listed as a Good Article for five years, receiving in the region of 150 to 250 page views a month in 2012. It was finally nominated for deletion on 29 December 2012 by ShelfSkewed—who had discovered the hoax while doing work on Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs—and deleted the same day.
A special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist is devoted to "open collaboration".
When we challenged the masters of WikiProject Chess to an interview, Sjakkalle answered our call. WikiProject Chess dates back to December 2003 and has grown to include 4 Featured Articles and 15 Good Articles maintained by over 100 members. The project typically operates independently of other WikiProjects, although the project would theoretically be a child of WikiProject Board and Table Games (interviewed in 2011). WikiProject Chess provides a collection of resources, seeks missing photographs of chess players, and helps determine ways that Wikipedia's coverage of chess can be expanded.
New discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
To many Wikimedians, the Khan Academy would seem like a close cousin: the academy is a non-profit educational website and a development of the massive open online course concept that has delivered over 227 million lessons in 22 different languages. Its mission is to give "a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere." This complements Wikipedia's stated goal to "imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge", then go and create that world. It should come as no surprise, then, that the highly successful GLAM-Wiki (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) initiative has partnered with the Khan Academy's Smarthistory project to further both its and Wikipedia's goals.
This week, the Signpost featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured lists. We interviewed FLC directors Giants2008 and The Rambling Man as well as active reviewer and writer PresN.
The Doncram case has continued into its third week.
As reported in last week's "Technology Report", the WMF's data centre in Ashburn, Virginia took over responsibility for almost all of the remaining functions that had previously been handled by their old facility in Tampa, Florida on 22 January. The Signpost reported then that few problems had arisen since handover. Unfortunately that was not to remain the case, with reports of caching problems (which typically only affect anonymous users) starting to come in.

Thanks for the close

Thank you for this close, the mention of policy and detail you provided were exactly what was needed. Cheers! Zad68 05:12, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Message for you on my talk page

It's at User_talk:GeorgeLouis#Notice_of_Edit_warring_noticeboard_discussion_3. Actually, it's the second notice with the same title. You have to scroll down when you get there. You might want to read and comment on this first: Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Archive_16#3RR_exclusion. Thank you, GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid George's posts on this matter have been tendentiously misleading. George refers to BLP's provision that contentious material may be deleted and wants his edit-warring to be exempted/allowed on the provision he quotes. But he neglects a crucial phrase. The full provision reads: "Contentious material about living persons ... that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately". The difficulty for George, then, is that the material is amply sourced, as extensively demonstrated on the article talk page (see in particular a list of sources with quotes here). Under these circumstances, I fear you will have emboldened George to continue edit-warring in a way that will lead to unfortunate consequences for him. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:21, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Just wondering if the remark you noted by RIR at User_talk:Rhode_Island_Red#Note should be posted as an additional item at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Rhode_Island_Red.2 or if it would seem that I am just "piling on" ? I noticed that RIR had for a time really softened in his incivility, but he seems to have reverted to his old habits. Your advice? (Per policy, I am notifying RIR of my question here.) GeorgeLouis (talk) 12:42, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, that RFC has been closed. I think it was successful in its own way, as I noted here. GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:36, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I beg to differ, as noted here.[1] I am urging that we go the next step and take this for binding formal arbitration, as it appears to be the only way of achieving long-term stability and a less stressful editing environment. Rhode Island Red (talk) 00:10, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
As someone familiar with the arbitration process, I'd urge you to be extremely cautious about taking that step. Ensure that all other possible routes of compromise/discussion have been attempted, because most parties don't come away from arbitration being entirely happy. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 00:36, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I appreciate the cautionary note. Unfortunately, there is ample reason to predict that the conduct problems that have plagued the article will continue regardless of the outcome of the RfC. Several senior editors/admins who have already looked into the situation suggested that ArbCom would likely be necessary and an appropriate measure to take towards resolution. I have no qualms about trusting the arbitration process to achieve a fair and reasonable outcome. In fact, I think it would be best to have scrutiny from as many experienced uninvolved editors as possible and to address all of the issues comprehensively in one fell swoop. Rhode Island Red (talk) 21:27, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

DYK help

I think I did something wrong. I thought the nomination page was supposed to automatically be closed when I added the hook to the prep area. Can you explain how this works? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 17:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Sure, that's easy! Go to the nomination page, edit the top bracket thing that says DYKnom by adding "subst:" in front. Then, where it asks for the result of the nomination, replace that with "yes", and you should be good! -Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. It seems very complicated. When I approve the nomination, is it automatically removed from Template talk:Did you know or what? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 17:43, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Also, at Template:Did you know nominations/Caleb Moore, should there be multiple DYK make templates or just one? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 17:47, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
First question: not sure, I think it's removed by a bot. Second: that nom looks good, no need to split it for each contributor. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
So this was the right move? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 19:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
I said "no need" to split it! :) If they helped with the expansion then keep those tags in so the bot gives them credit when the DYK update is posted. I know this is all a bit technical; I hope this has been helpful! --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:29, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it is very technical. Quite simply, were those tags that I removed supposed to be there? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 19:45, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes Lord Roem ~ (talk) 20:05, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Fixed. Sorry about all the questions, I'm new to this aspect of DYK. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 20:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
No problem, happy to help. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 20:30, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Could I get your help with a review

I've noticed you are very active in the DYK project, and wanted to ask if you would be willing to review an old nomination seen here.[2] It's about a Beijing musician who was died in custody a couple days after being incarcerated for his belief in Falun Gong. The fifth anniversary of his death is coming up on February 6, and I thought it would be nice if it could appear on the main page on that day. But the nomination has just been languishing for weeks.

The editor who originally reviewed the nomination had a history of deleting information about the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong, and he was also frequently caught up in arbitration proceedings related to that topic. In light of his history and conduct in the review process, I believe he may have been trying to disrupt the nomination so that it wouldn't appear on the main page. Once it emerged that his involvement violated the supplemental rules for DYK reviewers, we sought a new reviewer, but I think maybe people are intimidated by the volume of text. If you are willing, I would invite you to look at it with fresh eyes. Cheers. TheBlueCanoe 14:45, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Rollback (AK)

Hi Lord Roem, thanks for granting me Rollback permissions! Arctic Kangaroo 15:16, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Autopatrolled

Thanks, that was quick! Widr (talk) 21:16, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit warring

Hello, in here you dismissed my report of edit warring (not 3RR violation). I was trying to stop ongoing disruptive editing. Please let me know which is the right place to go, Andreasm just talk to me 00:25, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it deserves a warning, but two reverts over the course of a few days is not enough for me to contemplate a block. If the issue continues though, feel free to leave an additional note on my talk. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 00:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
That is exactly what I was expecting. Thank you anyway, Andreasm just talk to me 00:36, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Right now I am really confused. I went to the Adminsitrators' noticeboard because I was trying to avoid an edit warring. When you dismissed my report, I came here asking for advice because I did not want to revert any more since there was an ongoing discussion. Given that you provided me with no solution (it was not me who broke the dialogue), I reverted to the last edit before the edit warring. Was I wrong to do so? Andreasm just talk to me 01:03, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
You should not be making more edits including the disputed material. The page history shows you first added it, were reverted, then added it back in. All I'm saying is that you need to be as careful as the other editor in not edit warring. For discussion purposes for the overall dispute, consider starting an WP:RFC to gain broader community input, or just discuss it together on the talk page. But whatever you decide to do, reverting each other in this situation is not appropriate. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
And all I'm saying is that your replies were misleading, given that I was looking for orientation; only now you mention the existence of this page, when I specifically asked you for a place to discuss the issue (category talk pages don't tend to get much attention). And what you are saying about my edits is just not true, since it was not me who added those categories: They were added on 4 February 2009 and were dismissed by Smetanahue on 23 January 2013; added on 12 August 2012 by Sadads and dismissed by Smetanahue on 23 January 2013. My edits only came afterwards. Andreasm just talk to me 17:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Reverting another editor's revert without discussion is the beginning of edit warring behavior. All that matters is how you reacted to that 'undo'. You're not in trouble for that, I've just warned you to keep your cool. I hope the RFC link is helpful; it's a widely used process and tends to have a good record at finding consensus if consensus exists. All the best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:07, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Conduct

If you're going to block someone for edit warring then lock the page temporarily it would have been good to at least ensure the page was in a neutral state or block the other user for equally guilty actions. Instead the other user reverted the article before you locked the page and the user has taken the liberty to continue the issue onto another article.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pleasetry (talk • contribs) 21:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

They've also been warned about their conduct. It is also not my place to correct the article to prevent views you disagree with. The page has been protected though and I do encourage you to engage in discussions on the talk page. -- Lord Roem ~ (talk) 21:46, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Warning isn't blocking and being neutral isn't preventing views I and other editors have disagreed with. It is putting it in a state that favours neither editor thus avoiding any claims of impartiality. Pleasetry (talk) 00:08, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Never Getting Back Together

Thanks for the temporary protection, hopefully that'll calm it down. L.cash.m (talk) 17:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

UTRS Account Request

I confirm that I have requested an account on the UTRS tool. Lord Roem ~ (talk)

My right nut

I added to my watchlist just on time to see the show. I also think that user name is not very appropriate, is it? It sounds like a reference to a couple of... :-) Best. --E4024 (talk) 22:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Unusual request

I bet you don't get this often, but would you mind un-promoting my DYK hook, Template:Did you know nominations/Mo Cowan‎? I haven't actually provided a QPQ yet (the reviewer mistakenly gave me the check mark anyway) in part because I'm waiting for his US Senate portrait, which I would like to go up with the hook in honor of Black History Month. He should have that portrait taken by tomorrow. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:38, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the catch! I love that you're that interested in helping out. Best regards, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 22:47, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

User talk:EscapeX

About this block. The user has come back from the block and edited the same thing. I have tried to engage the editor of there talk page to no avail I guess. I think we have a lack of competences as this edit summary leads me to believe they dont understand the problem raised. Odd thing they are waring over but not sure what to do - could just leave them but the IP at the article will revert the overlinks soon again - thus a new war.Moxy (talk) 08:32, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Manchester and Cheshire Christian Football League

Hi there, you appear to have forgotten this article which was bundled in this AfD. Regards, GiantSnowman 17:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks for the note! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:41, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
No problems! GiantSnowman 17:42, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

verbum sapiens was a failure

[3] shows clearly an ongoing problem with Rhode Island Red which is past any rational level. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rhode Island Red shows this to have been an ongoing problem also noted by at least 8 other editors including Jehochman and Elonka inter alia. His behaviour and threats, as well as continued abysmal etiquette is abhorrent to me and others. And this is how he responds to your own advice on his talk page. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:29, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm following the situation. Thanks for the note. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 23:34, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Prolly already noticed by you: [4] where RIR seems bound and determined to ABF "You do know that this page is for discussing specific content issues right? I've invited you several times to take off-topic discussions about conduct to your talkpage, lest this thread get derailed, and yet you are still at it (and making unfounded accusations about WP:SPA). Again, I refer you to WP:TPG. " seems less than collegial, and actually a teeny bit offensive IMHO. Collect (talk) 17:57, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 February 2013

On February 12, 2012, news of Whitney Houston's death brought 425 hits per second to her Wikipedia article, the highest peak traffic on any article since at least January 2010. It is broadly known that Wikipedia is the sixth most popular website on the Internet, but the English Wikipedia now has over 4 million articles and 29 million total pages. Much less attention has been given to traffic patterns and trends in content viewed.
Article feedback, at least through talk pages, has been a part of Wikipedia since its inception in 2001. The use of these pages, though, has typically been limited to experienced editors who know how to use them.
This week, we took a trip to WikiProject Norway. Started in February 2005, WikiProject Norway has become the home for almost 34,000 articles about the world's best place to live, including 16 Featured Articles, 19 Featured Lists, and nearly 250 Good Articles. The project works on a to do list, maintains a categorization system, watches article alerts, and serves as a discussion forum.
This week, the Signpost's featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured portals, a small yet active part of the project. We interviewed FPOC directors Cirt and OhanaUnited.
On 30 January 2013, Kevin Morris in the Daily Dot summarised the bitter debates in Wikipedia around capitalisation or non-capitalisation of the word "into" in the title of the upcoming Star Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness.
Following the deployment of the Wikidata client to the Hungarian Wikipedia last month, the client was also deployed to the Italian and Hebrew Wikipedias on Wednesday. The next target for the client, which automatically provides phase 1 functionality, is the English Wikipedia, with a deployment date of 11 February already set.

Help with User:Nado158?

I see you have successfully arbitrated with this user before. I stuck my nose into an issue at Talk:Srbobran, offered a compromise, and was promptly insulted and abused for it. Do you have any suggestions? Would you be willing to offer an opinion yourself?Brianyoumans (talk) 21:17, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:AE#Ceco31

Hello Lord R. Thanks for your closure of the AE. Can you please log your action in WP:ARBMAC? Usually we record normal admin blocks in the case too, if the issue is related to the domain of the arb case, even though they are not considered AE blocks. At least I've done this in the past. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 02:16, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder Ed. I've added a link to the warning on the log. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:42, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Rollback

Please do not give Rollback right to Peacemaker67. He is POV pusher and he will abuse that right. He revert war in Balkan articles all time, not only with socks. Check his older edits. He revert war with everybody. This is problematic person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.78.144.69 (talk) 22:16, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

G'day Lord Roem. Here is a great example of why I applied for rollback privileges. This is a sock of the indefinitely blocked IP-hopping sockmaster User:Oldhouse2012 who is currently being considered at WP:ANI for a site ban. He creates a lot of disruption on a lot of articles and is hard to track due to the IP-hopping. But I accept your decision and will carry on regardless. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 22:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Progressive utilization theory

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Progressive utilization theory. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 17:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

AE

While SMcCandlish hasn't replied at AE yet, he replied to my notification on his talkpage. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:10, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the link. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:52, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

So, in an area that's highly-charged enough that ArbCom had to remind everyone to be civil, it's perfectly ok for SMC to claim, with no evidence whatsoever, that the primary, and possibly sole, reason DirtLawyer wants the mop is so that he can win MOS disputes? When there's no evidence of that from any of DL's comments? This just Does Not Seem Right. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:07, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree. But I don't think DS applies to RFA; maybe a personal attack block is more appropriate for what you're looking for, but I don't feel the scope of the case goes to every possible mention of MOS on the encyclopedia, regardless of location. On an RFA about an individual, everyone can bring their own qualms and concerns about any candidate. That's neither unusual or unfair. However, if that seeps over into actual discussions on the MOS pages, then we have something that is actionable. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:11, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Seven

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Thanks again! Ocaasi 02:03, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

BLP problem.

If you see fit, could you please remove the phrase "multi-level" from the lede paragraph of Frank L. VanderSloot, as provided in this section:

Under the Biographies of Living Persons policy, Wikipedia takes a "First, do no harm" stance with biographical material. If there are remotely credible allegations that the material under dispute is libelous, defamatory, poorly sourced, invasive of privacy or written so as to bring its subject into disrepute, remove it immediately and, if necessary, protect the page to prevent its reappearance. Such actions do not constitute "involvement" in the dispute; rather, you are acting to protect the biography's subject from potentially false and unfair attacks or privacy invasions. Instruct involved editors to discuss the material, its sourcing and its suitability on the article's talk page.

Thanks so much. GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:11, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Presently that phrasing is under discussion at an RfC. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 20:47, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Ceco31

Hello, I just wanted to let you know that Ceco31 is continuing his revert warring by socking as an IP editor [5]. Athenean (talk) 22:01, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your fair and sound judgment on the Frank L. VanderSloot article and for helping us settle the RFC dispute. HtownCat (talk) 17:31, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

LR, you asked yesterday if anyone had an objection to your closing it today. An editor lodged an objection. It is then, shall we say, unusual that you would go ahead and close it anyway. It is very unlikely that a close under these conditions will settle the matter -- particularly as you have also not seen fit to let it run for the usual 30 days. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:47, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
If a close is policy-based, 180 days would not make a difference with regard to policy. The conclusion that a specific consensus is needed in order to include language would not change even at the half-year mark. I rather think Lord Roem is correct in his understanding of WP:BLP here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
See ANI discussion; I think that the conclusion is contrary to Wikipedia policy. And .... anyone who says there is not a consensus that:
  1. The company is an MLM, and
  2. fact (1) is adequately sourced, even by BLP standards,
has no place on Wikipedia. The question of whether there is or needs to be a consensus for inclusion is a little different; I think the wrong decision was made, but that would be arguable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 11:31, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I demur - "inclusion in lede as a 'statement of fact' in Wikipedia's voice" is a different question from "inclusion with weight given to all views 'ascribed as such' in the body" which was the issue at hand - and WP:BLP is correctly read by Lord Roem. Collect (talk) 12:29, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree with User:HtownCat. GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:12, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I didn't say it was a policy violation to exclude MLM from the lead, although I do think it's a mistake and not required by policy; I am saying it is a violation of WP:NPOV to exclude it from the body. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:01, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

RfA: thank you for your support

Lord Roem, thank you for your support and kind words during my RfA, and even more for sticking with me after the sh!t began to fly. Hopefully, I was not a complete disappointment to you as a candidate. Regards, Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:26, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter - February 2013

The WikiProject Good articles Newsletter
Volume IV, No. 2 – February 2013

For past newsletters click here

In This Issue


Case timeline

I see the Doncram template says that the workshop closed yesterday and the proposed decision would be posted. Has this been officially pushed out, or just not done yet? Thanks. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:23, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Not out yet. The late evidence will likely delay the PD a few extra days. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Got it, thanks. I wasn't sure if I had missed something.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 12:02, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

ANI

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:14, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 February 2013

Wikipedia has a long, daresay storied history with hoaxes; our internal list documents 198 of the largest ones we have caught as of 4 January 2013. Why?
Six articles, one list, and fourteen pictures were promoted to "featured" states this week on the English Wikipedia.
This week, we got the details on WikiProject Infoboxes.
Foreign Policy has published a report on editing of the Wikipedia articles on the Senkaku Islands and Senkaku Islands dispute. The uninhabited islands are under the control of Japan, but China and Taiwan are asserting rival territorial claims. Tensions have risen of late—and not just in the waters surrounding the actual islands.
Wikimedia UK, the non-profit organization devoted to furthering the goals of the Wikimedia movement in the United Kingdom, has published the findings of a governance review conducted by Compass Partnership.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The WMF's engineering report for January was published this week.

Block evasion of Ceco31

It's obvious that the specific blocked user, continues the same kind of activity [now as an unlogged editor].Alexikoua (talk) 15:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

RFC Close

When you get a chance, can you please clarify your RFC close per the ANI discussion? I've protected the page until then.--v/r - TP 20:45, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Armenian National Congress (1917)

Hi Lord Roem,

I'm bugging you only because you approved the hook, so I figured you'd know more than me about this. This DYK is on the main page, and the article's creator and main author was notified once it was on the main page, and noticed that the hook was factually incorrect. I've corrected that, but I'm concerned because the author said they didn't know about the DYK nom. I'm unfamiliar with how DYK works; is it OK for a page to be nominated by someone other than the one who created/expanded it? If so, shouldn't it be SOP to let that author know? For one thing, it seems courteous, but for another thing, the author would be in a good position to notice if the hook said something untrue. Again, not saying you should have done the notifying, just trying to figure out how DYK nominating works without spending 3 hours reading documentation somewhere. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, any editor is allowed to nominate new articles for DYK, not just the article's original creator. But when the bot puts up the new list of hooks, it puts a notice on the creator's talk pages to give them credit for their work. I'm don't think a rule requires it, though I agree it's good practice for nominators to leave a note on the creator's talk page. I hope I answered your question. :) Lord Roem ~ (talk) 22:49, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
OK, thanks. As much as I dislike new rules in general, I may propose a new one to cover this case. Would WT:DYK be the best place to raise the issue? There are too many subpages for the DYK system for me to be sure where to go. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:59, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, that's the right place. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 23:01, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:01, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive‎ RfC closure

The admin who closed the RfC misinterpreted it.[6]
The RfC result description is misleading. Can you take a look? -YMB29 (talk) 03:04, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, I probably would disagree simply on the basis of the lack of significant back-and-forth to establish such a position. I see you're talking with the editor on their talk page. Consider asking if a second editor (preferably an admin as the initial close was a NAC) could look at it. While I'm not "involved", a completely fresh pair of eyes would certainly be useful. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:38, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
What is there to look at? We all agreed that there was no consensus, and that was one of the reasons why the mediation was closed. -YMB29 (talk) 04:48, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm saying having a second admin look at it to confirm that analysis is better than escalating it in any other manner. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 05:27, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
The user now says that, since the RfC was tied to the mediation, you can make the decision to change it. -YMB29 (talk) 19:59, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Uh, the RfC was initiated by me but in no way was binding or controlled by me. All I'll say on the matter is that my personal closure of that short RfC would be no consensus and I'd encourage everyone to move on. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 20:08, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok, so can you change the RfC result to that?
I mean you suggested to start a new RfC on this, but it will be hard if this one is marked as having reached a consensus... -YMB29 (talk) 20:29, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Are you going to change it? The user who made the entry won't object if you do.[7] -YMB29 (talk) 01:20, 22 February 2013 (UTC)


So I posted about this on the administrators' noticeboard[8], but the section got archived without anyone responding[9]. -YMB29 (talk) 04:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

RM backlog

As a new admin, I hope that I can encourage you to take a stab at closing a dozen of the RM backlog requests. The way WP:RM is set up, requests can be closed at any time, but are not intended to remain open for longer than seven days, meaning that all should be closed before they reach the WP:RM#Backlog. In other words, after the backlog is cleared out, standard procedure should be to close all of the requests just before they reach the backlog. In some cases, though, this means relisting, which also should be done before reaching the backlog. Closing instructions are at WP:RMCI. If each new admin closes a few requests the backlog can be cleared. Apteva (talk) 04:41, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey Apteva. Thanks for the note, I'll take a look later this week. All the best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 06:58, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Nado158

Dear LordRoem, please wait. Please see also my opinion (and please read my new comments above). By the way, we both have worked together a few weeks ago. In this collaboration, they have given me even partially right. I, another user and you have found together a solution in the end. There were no problems. I think that I not deserve such hard punishment--Nado158 (talk) 19:06, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Please, i wrote about 98% Serbian sport, especially about football, but also basketball etc., I never had a problem with nobody. I improved a lot of articles, wrote about players and stadiums etc. I create also a lot of articles about sport. I get even a barn star. You can all see this on my Wikipedia edit history etc. Please allow me to write about Serbian sports. This have nothing to do with politics and is not a controvers topics. I'm only come because of sports to wikipedia, only the last months I am moved a little bit to other topics. But my main topic, my beloved topic is sport, this is a topic which interrested me 120%. Please allow me to write about sports in Serbia, why so a hard punishment. I made mistakes in politic topics, but I never hat a problem with sports. You banned me because of my mistakes about controvers politic topics, but why i banned also for sport, although i never made mistakes there and although I was never prosecuted there?I think its right to punish for things who someone done wrong, but I never made mistakes there and i was never prosecuted there. I have no other interest area here and I had to wait a year to get back to improve Serbian sporting articles or update. Please allow me to write about sports in Serbia.--Nado158 (talk) 21:19, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 February 2013

This week, we put our life in the hands of WikiProject Airlines. Starting in July 2005, the project has improved articles relating to airline companies, alliances, destination lists, and travel benefit programs. WikiProject Airlines has accumulated over 4,000 pages, including 4 Featured Articles and 26 Good Articles.
As of time of writing, twenty wikis (including the English, French and Hungarian Wikipedias) are in the process of getting access to the Lua scripting language, an optional substitute for the clunky template code that exists at present.
On February 15, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) declared 'victory' in its counter-lawsuit against Internet Brands (IB), the owner of Wikitravel and the operator of several online media, community, and e-commerce sites in vertical markets. The lawsuit clears the last remaining hurdles for the WMF's new travel guide project, Wikivoyage.
Sue Gardner's visit to Australia sparked a number of interviews in the Australian press. An interview published in the Daily Telegraph on 12 February 2013, titled "Data plans 'unnerving': Wikipedia boss", saw Gardner comment on Australian plans to store personal internet and telephone data. The planned measure, intended to assist crime prevention, would involve internet service providers and mobile phone firms storing customer usage data for up to two years.
Two articles, nine lists, and thirteen pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.

Please comment on Talk:2013 North Korean nuclear test

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:2013 North Korean nuclear test. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 18:15, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Cleanup

Hello, Lord Roem.

You are invited to join WikiProject Cleanup, a WikiProject and resource for Wikipedia cleanup listings, information and discussion.

To join the project, just add your name to the member list. Northamerica1000(talk) 16:04, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Kosovo

Hi,

According to this website the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kosovo organized Wiki Academy Kosovo 2013 within its Digital Diplomacy Strategy which is strongly associated with some of the country’s most important political attempts.

The Deputy Foreign Minister of Kosovo, Petrit Selimi, responsible for initiating design and implementation of Kosovo Digital Diplomacy says we ... are preparing Wikipedia trainings....

What do you think about it?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikibreak

I will be off Wikipedia, likely for a large chunk of this week. Any urgent concerns please feel free to use the email feature. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 00:41, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Seven (special Birthday recap)

A celebratory cupcake from the Teahouse Birthday Badge

It's been a full year since the Teahouse opened, and as we're reflecting on what's been accomplished, we wanted to celebrate with you.

Teahouse guests and hosts are sharing their stories in a new blog post about the project.

1 year statistics for Teahouse visitors compared to invited non-visitors from the pilot:

Metric Control group Teahouse group Contrast
Average retention (weeks with at least 1 edit) 5.02 weeks 8.57 weeks 1.7x retention
Average number of articles edited 58.7 articles 116.9 edits 2.0x articles edited
Average talk page edits 36.5 edits 85.6 edits 2.4x talk page edits
Average article space edits 129.6 edits 360.4 edits 2.8x article edits
Average total edits (all namespaces) 182.1 edits 532.4 edits 2.9x total edits

Over the past year almost 2000 questions have been asked and answered, 669 editors have introduced themselves, 1670 guests have been served, 867 experienced Wikipedians have participated in the project, and 137 have served as hosts. Read more project analysis in our CSCW 2013 paper

Last month January was our most active month so far! 78 profiles were created, 46 active hosts answered 263 questions, and 11 new hosts joined the project.

Come by the Teahouse to share a cup of tea and enjoy a Birthday Cupcake! Happy Birthday to the Teahouse and thank you for a year's worth of interest and support :-)

-- Ocaasi and the rest of the Teahouse Team 20:53, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To add or remove yourself for receiving future newsletters, please update the list here

The Teahouse Turns One!

It's been an exciting year for the Teahouse and you were a part of it. Thanks so much for visiting, asking questions, sharing answers, being friendly and helpful, and just keeping Teahouse an awesome place. You can read more about the impact we're having and the reflections of other guests and hosts like you. Please come by the Teahouse to celebrate with us, and enjoy this sparkly cupcake badge as our way of saying thank you. And, Happy Birthday!


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Awarded to everyone who participated in the Wikipedia Teahouse during its first year!

To celebrate the many hosts and guests we've met and the nearly 2000 questions asked and answered during this excellent first year, we're giving out this tasty cupcake badge.

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--Ocaasi and the rest of the Teahouse Team 22:50, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 February 2013

On 13 February 2013, PR Report, the German sister publication of PR Week, published an article announcing that PR agency Fleishman-Hillard was offering a new analysis tool enabling companies to assess their articles in the German-language Wikipedia: the Wikipedia Corporate Index (WCI).
"Wikipedia and Encyclopedic Production" by Jeff Loveland (a historian of encyclopedias) and Joseph Reagle situates Wikipedia within the context of encyclopedic production historically, arguing that the features that many claim to be unique about Wikipedia actually have roots in encyclopedias of the past.
The Wikimedia Commons 2012 Picture of the Year contest has ended, with the winner being Pair of Merops apiaster feeding, taken by Pierre Dalous. The picture shows a pair of European Bee-eaters in a mating ritual—the male bird (right) has tossed the wasp into the air, and he will eventually offer it to the female (left).
Current discussions include...
Six articles, three lists, and twelve images were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this month.
How can we measure the challenges facing a project or determine a WikiProject's productivity? Several prominent projects have been doing it for years: WikiWork.
Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) this week committed itself to funding the Wikidata development team, ending fears that phase three would be abandoned.

Alcohol laws of New Jersey

I noticed that you review feature article candidates, particularly ones involving legal issues. Would you be able to review alcohol laws of New Jersey? It has been nominated as a feature article. DavidinNJ (talk) 00:53, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Requesting your opinion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests

Hi, I'm contacting you because you have recently contributed as a reviewing administrator to WP:AE. I've made a suggestion relating to the management of that page at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests#Structural improvements to AE threads, and would appreciate your input. Thanks,  Sandstein  22:32, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Rejected

I have recently reviewed that most of the cases filed to Mediation Committee were rejected. What can be done in case my request will be rejected too? Ryanspir (talk) 12:45, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 March 2013

Recently I was having a casual conversation with a friend, and he mentioned that he spent too many hours a day playing video games. I responded with a comment that I, too, spent way too much time on an activity of my own – Wikipedia. In an attempt to reply with a relevant remark, he offered something along the lines of: "So have you ever written anything?" After a second, I quickly answered yes, but I was still in shock over his question. It seemed to be rooted in a belief on his part that using Wikipedia meant just reading the articles, and that editing was something that someone, hypothetically, might do, but not really more likely than randomly counting to 7,744.
"WP:OUTING", the normally little-noticed policy corner of the English Wikipedia that governs the release of editors' personal information, has suddenly been brought to wider attention after long-term contributor and featured article writer Cla68 was indefinitely blocked last week. This snowballed into several other blocks, a desysopping by ArbCom, and a request for arbitration.
Three articles, six lists, and three pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including the article on "Laura Secord", who was a Canadian heroine of the War of 1812 best known for warning the British of an impending American attack.
This week, we tuned to WikiProject Television Stations, a project that dates back to March 2004. WikiProject Television Stations primarily focuses on local stations, national networks, television markets, and other topics related to television channels in North America, the Caribbean, and some Pacific countries. The project has a fair bit of work ahead of them with over 4,000 unassessed articles and only one Good Article out of 626 assessed articles, giving the project a relative WikiWork rating of 5.262.

Simple questions about Frank L. VanderSloot article

When you closed the RFC on the above page, did you intend to prevent the removal from the article of the contested appellation of Melaleluca as a "multilevel marketer" or a "multilevel marketing company"? Did you intend that the appellation be removed from the lead but that it must be included in the body as a fact? Some editors have stated in Talk Page comments that you found consensus that ML was indeed a multilevel marketer, and so, based upon that "consensus," they are arguing that the term must be included a fact. Is this the gist of your closing remarks? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 02:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a bit naughty, George. In case you've forgotten, here's a quote from the close of the RfC: "There is consensus that reliable sources describe his company as a MLM and that this isn't something that is the subject of debate among those who have written articles on the question." I really doubt, then, that there's any room to demur from the notion that there was consensus that sources describe his company as an MLM. RfCs are supposed to settle the matter, so it might be considered disruptive at this point if you keep trying to unsettle it. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 11:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
That was not the query made, which LR may or may not answer. Meanwhile, why would you oppose the asking of a question? IIRC, your main contretemps is whether to allow the inclusion of material directly related to the company detailing its practises - which I suspect ought to be allowed on pure NPOV grounds - rather than stand on the dismissed claim that the Idaho letter to which FS assented automatically makes it a non-debatable fact that the company is an MLM. Were I posing the query, I would instead have asked whether NPOV reasonably requires that the company material modifying the usual definition of MLM be allowed in the body of the article, as being where the contrversy lays, AFAICT. Collect (talk) 13:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't have the RfC close in front of me, but I'm fairly confident my revised close was limited to inclusion in the lede. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 14:31, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
"Fairly confident" is okay by me. If you find out otherwise, let us know. Thank you. GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:01, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Sanction review

Hi, just notifying about my appeal. Thanks. Brandmeistertalk 10:31, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:United States National Health Care Act

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92.234.351.18 is back at Jewish diaspora

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/92.234.251.18 is back reverting at Jewish diaspora. I noticed you protected the article the last time - could you take a look again? Jayjg (talk) 22:15, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 March 2013

I am pleased to announce that the Signpost and Wikizine have reached an in-principle agreement that will see Wikizine published as a special Signpost section at the beginning of each month.
During March, three of the Wikimedia Foundation's grantmaking schemes on Meta will reach important crossroads, which will shape how both the editing communities and Wikimedia institutions handle the distribution of donors' money across the movement.
Twelve articles, five lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including an image of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, a front-engine, 2-seat luxury grand tourer automobile developed by Mercedes-AMG.
There are three open cases, and a final decision has been given in the Doncram case.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court Cases.
The WMF has aborted a plan to deploy version 5 of the Article Feedback tool (AFTv5) rolled out to all English Wikipedia articles.

Temporary inactive

For the past few weeks and likely for another week or so, I will be inactive due to coursework in RL. I am fast to respond to any email queries if I'm needed somewhere. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:06, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello Lord Roem, I will be celebrating my birthday on 19 March. So, I would like to give you a treat. If you decide to "eat" the cookie, please reply by placing {{subst:munch}} on my talk page. I hope this cookie has made your day better. Cheers! Arctic Kangaroo 15:31, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

AC/DS comments requested

Hi, as an administrator who has recently been active at WP:AE, you may be interested in AGK's request for comments at User talk:Sandstein#Draft of discretionary sanctions update.  Sandstein  15:23, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Good Article Nominations Request For Comment

A 'Request For Comment' for Good Article Nominations is currently being held. We are asking that you please take five to ten minutes to review all seven proposals that will affect Good Article Nominations if approved. Full details of each proposal can be found here. Please comment on each proposal (or as many as you can) here.

At this time, Proposal 1, 3, and 5 have received full (or close to) support.

If you have questions of anything general (not related to one specif proposal), please leave a message under the General discussion thread.

Please note that Proposal 2 has been withdrawn and no further comments are needed. Also, please disregard Proposal 9 as it was never an actual proposal.

The Signpost: 18 March 2013

Just two months into his second term as an arbitrator on the English Wikipedia, Coren resigned from the Committee with a blistering attack on his fellow arbitrators. At the heart of a strongly worded statement, posted both on his talk page and the arbitration notice board, was the claim that ArbCom has become politicised to the extent that "it can no longer do the job it was ostensibly elected for".
This week, we composed a tribute to WikiProject Composers. The project was created during the final hours of 2004 and finalized in early January 2005. It has grown to encompass over 8,000 pages, including 26 Featured Articles and 23 Good Articles. WikiProject Composers faces a difficult workload, with a relative WikiWork rating of 5.45.
Ask librarians what they think about Wikipedia and you might get some interesting answers. Some will throw up their hands about the laziness of the Google generation and their overdependence on Wikipedia. Some see it as the "competition". And some will tell you it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Nine articles, seven lists, eleven images, and one topic were promoted to "featured status" this week on the English Wikipedia.
On Thursday, arbitrator Coren resigned, following closely on the heels of Hersfold's resignation on Wednesday. There are two open cases. A final decision has been given in the Richard case.
The WMF's engineering report for January was published this week, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month.

Please comment on Talk:Pogrom

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The Signpost: 25 March 2013

Our travels have brought us to Pittsburgh, the American city known for steelworks and bridges.
Seven articles, one list, six pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
This case, brought by Mark Arsten, was opened over a dispute over transgenderism topics that began off-wiki. The evidence phase was scheduled to close March 7, 2013, with a proposed decision due to be posted by March 29.
Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation since December 2007, has announced her plans to leave the position when a successor is recruited. Ranked as one of the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine, Sue Gardner is widely associated with the rise of the Wikimedia movement as a major custodian of human knowledge and cultural products.
Since its inception in May 2011, the Foundation's Visual Editor project has grown to become one of its main focuses. As the project nears its two-year birthday, the Signpost caught up with Visual Editor project manager James Forrester to discuss the progress on the project.
A paper presented at last month's CSCW Conference observes that "Mass collaboration systems are often characterized as unstructured organizations lacking rule and order", yet Wikipedia has a well developed body of policies to support it as an organization.

The Signpost: 01 April 2013

The Wikimedia Foundation has released its latest report card for the movement's hundreds of sites. The WMF has published statistics about the sites since 2009, but only recently have these been expanded in scope and depth to provide a rich source of data for investigating the movement and the world it serves. Dutch-born Erik Zachte is the driver of the WMF's statistical output, and he writes that the report card and accompanying traffic statistics comprise "enough tables, bar charts and plots to keep you busy for a while".
This week's Report is dedicated to answering our readers' questions about WikiProjects. The following Frequently Asked Questions came from feedback at the WikiProject Report's talk page, the WikiProject Council's talk page, and from previous lists of FAQs.
The Signpost interviewed prolific featured content creator and former Signpost "featured content" report writer Crisco 1492 about ? and Indonesian cinema. ? was the "Today's featured article" for 1 April 2013. 1 April is popularly known as April Fools' Day in many countries.
The first round of individual engagement grants (IEGs) have been awarded, disbursing about $55.6k (€42.7k) to seven applicants.
A case brought by Lecen involves several articles about former Argentinian president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).
Users of ten Wikipedias got access to phase 2 of Wikidata following its first rollout to production wikis.

Lifting the Gibraltar DYK restrictions

A couple of months ago, you opposed a proposal to lift the restrictions on Gibraltar-related DYKs, which were imposed in September 2012. Could you possibly clarify (1) under what conditions you would support a lifting of the restrictions, and (2) when you think it would be appropriate to lift the restrictions? Prioryman (talk) 20:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Admin needed within 4 hours

You are listed as an actively involved adminiatrator at Wikipedia:Did you know#Administrators. There are about four hours left to correct a DYK scheduling request that was messed up by manual updating. See Wikipedia_talk:Did you know#7 hours left to fix date request.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Campaign finance

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The Signpost: 08 April 2013

Numerous Wikimedia Commons editors have chimed in on the Wikimedia Foundation's deployment of a new feature to its mobile website. Allowing anonymous users to register and upload pictures for use in an article, the feature was placed prominently at the top of Wikipedia articles in multiple languages.
This week, we felt the world tremble in the presence of WikiProject Earthquakes. The project was started in May 2008 to deal with articles about earthquakes, aftershocks, seismology, seismologists, plate tectonics, and related articles. While the project has seen success building 14 Featured Articles, one A-class Article, and 21 Good Articles, a fairly heavy workload remains, with a relative WikiWork rating of 4.94. WikiProject Earthquakes maintains a portal, a list of open tasks, a popular pages listing, and an article alerts watchlist.
Last Friday, the Wikimedia movement awoke to news that one of their number—Rémi Mathis, a French volunteer editor—had been summoned to the offices of the interior intelligence service DCRI and threatened with criminal charges and fines if he did not delete an article on the French Wikipedia about a radio station used by the French military.
The arbitration committee is looking for expertise in Argentina and the Spanish language for a case involving former Argentinean president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).
Four articles and two pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The deployment of phase 2 of Wikidata to the English Wikipedia, originally scheduled for 8 April but delayed due to technical problems, may be rescheduled again as the result of community resistance.

DRN organisers

Hello. I am just letting you know that I've made a proposal to create a rotating DRN organiser-style role that would help with the day-to-day running of DRN. As you are a listed volunteer at DRN, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this, and the other open proposals at DRN. You can read more about it here. Thanks! Steven Zhang Help resolve disputes! 00:20, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 April 2013

The RfA process is widely discussed here on the English Wikipedia and it has been well documented that less and less new Requests for adminship are being filed. There are an abundance of bytes devoted to the discussion and analysis of this situation and plenty of hands have been wrung over the matter. Various RfCs have attempted to find a way to fix the problem. Many proposals have been made offering solutions, some more potentially drastic than others, with the goal of making the changes necessary to kick–start RfA back into regular action. However, Wikipedia operates based on consensus and, to this point, there are have simply been too many disagreeing views for us to reach a consensus on how to increase RfA activity.
This week, we ventured to WikiProject South Africa. The project was started in February 2005 and is home to thirteen pieces of featured material, two A-class articles, and twenty-one good articles.
The most recent move to reform the requests for adminship process on the English Wikipedia has failed, after a complex and drawn-out three-step procedure for community input was subject to decreasing participation as time wore on and came up with no clear consensus.
Four articles, twelve lists, and seven pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.

The Signpost: 22 April 2013

An article by John Sweeney published on 22 April 2013 on scnow.com, the website of the Florence, South Carolina Morning News, reported that Florence city officials have taken to monitoring and correcting the Wikipedia article on their city.
This week, we spent some time with a project that develops tools and methods for improving the user experience in the hope that new users will continue editing the encyclopedia. The project was started in July 2012 and has grown to include 124 members. The project's members partner with the Teahouse and the Welcoming Committee to spread WikiLove, welcome new users, encourage civility, and other related activities.
The Wikimedia Conference is an annual meeting of the chapters to discuss their status and the organisational development of the Wikimedia movement. For the first time it included groups that wish to be considered for WMF affiliation as thematic organisations and one of the three groups that was recently affiliated as a user group. The conference was also attended by members of the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), the WMF Affiliations Committee, and a representative of the Wikivoyage Association.
Nine articles, four lists, eight pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
The Sexology case is nearing completion after arbitrators were unable to agree on a topic ban for one of the participants.
On Monday, the English Wikipedia became the 12th wiki to be able to pull data from the central Wikidata.org repository, with other wikis scheduled to receive the update on Wednesday.

The Signpost: 29 April 2013

The Funds Dissemination Committee released its recommendations to the WMF board last Sunday. The news that the Hong Kong chapter's application for US$212K had failed was followed by a strongly worded resignation announcement by Deryck Chan on the public Wikimedia-l mailing-list.
On 24 April 2013, novelist Amanda Filipacchi published what turned out to be an influential op-ed in the New York Times; illuminating the unusual background of the Yuri Gadyukin hoax.
Nine articles, three lists, three pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" this week.
This week, we traveled to the Japanese Wikipedia's WikiProject Baseball for perspectives from a version of Wikipedia that treats WikiProjects as their own unique namespace (プロジェクト:) independent of "Wikipedia:".
The WP:TOP25 and WP:5000 reports chronicle the most popular Wikipedia articles on a weekly basis.
The Sexology case closed shortly after publication with no changes.
A report on an online service which was created to conduct real-time monitoring of Wikipedia articles of companies, and more.
This week saw the deployment of the Echo extension, also known as "notifications".

Inactive

I will be inactive for the next few months on Wikipedia. I hope I'll be able to come back, but right now I just am not able to commit the time; RL work has just overtaken it.

If for whatever reason you need me in an emergency, email is the fastest way to contact me, and that is still open.

Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 01:25, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 May 2013

Although not yet in great numbers, candidates are coming forward for Wikimedia Foundation elections, which will be held from 1 to 15 June. The elections will fill vacancies in three categories, the most prominent of which will be the three community-elected seats on the ten-member Board of Trustees (or the first Board meeting after the election results are announced, if sooner). The current two-year terms for these trustee positions ends on 1 September.
The Wikimedia Foundation will be receiving more than $100,000 worth of free developer time courtesy of internet giant Google, it was announced this week. The funds, allocated as part of Google's Summer of Code programme, will support up to 21 student developers through three months of coding time.
May sees the beginning of Round 3 of the 2013 WikiCup, with 33 of the original 127 competitors remaining. ... six articles, ten pictures, and two portals were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The SOS Children's Villages news service advised on 3 May 2013 that Wikipedia for Schools 2013 is nearly ready for release. ... On 26 April 2013, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation published an article reviewing Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik's edits to the English Wikipedia, where it revealed the name of Breivik's English Wikipedia account.
This week's English Wikipedia project, WikiProject Biophysics, is home to several experts in their fields and a collaboration with the Biophysical Society. The project is hosting a contest through July 15 with six contributors winning $100 in cash and given the opportunity to attend the 2014 meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Francisco. Other strong entries will be awarded barnstars online and everyone who contributes can receive a physical button mailed out to them.

The Signpost: 13 May 2013

The removal of administrator rights from all volunteers on the Wikimedia Foundation's official website sparked a highly emotional reaction on the Wikimedia-l mailing list—one of the largest off-wiki methods of communication for the Wikimedia movement.
This week, we spent some time watching WikiProject Mixed Martial Arts, which was started in August 2005 and has grown to include 12 Good Articles and a Featured List.
Fourteen articles, three lists, and three pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia, including Boletus luridus, seen above.
An article published on May 10 on Odwyerpr.com written by Greg Hazley documented a "spar" between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and public relations firm Qorvis partner Matt Lauer, who disputes Wikipedia's guideline discouraging public relations firms from editing articles on their clients.
The Race and politics case has been accepted for arbitration, and the evidence phase is now open. Two other cases remain open.

Please comment on Talk:Indian Armed Forces

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The Signpost: 20 May 2013

Nominations closed last Friday for the three community-elected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) ten-member Board of Trustees—the ultimate corporate authority of the worldwide WMF. The Board has influential roles and responsibilities over one of the most powerful global information sources on the Internet.
This week, we traveled to WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. The project was started in May 2006 and has 37 featured articles.
On 16 May, the Spanish Wikipedia became the seventh Wikipedia to cross the million article Rubicon, a symbolic yet important achievement.
Salon.com published another article detailing the ongoing incidents with Wikipedia user Qworty, who has identified himself as Robert Clark Young. It documents Qworty's role in the controversy involving Amanda Filipacchi's op-ed, which kindled a debate on Wikipedia sexism as it relates to categories, where Qworty was responsible for a series of revenge edits against Filipacchi in the days after she released her op-ed.
Nine articles, six lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.

The Signpost: 27 May 2013

Alongside the Signpost's interviews with the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees candidates, the Signpost asked the candidates for the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and its Ombudsperson position a series of questions relating to the positions they may be taking on. For the FDC candidates, this will include specific recommendations to the WMF on how to disburse over US$11 million in donors' funds to affiliate organizations, something which appears to have garnered little attention from the editing community at large so far.
In the continuing saga of User:Qworty's outing as author Robert Clark Young, several blogs and websites covered the now-banned user's anti-Pagan editing. In an article published on 22 May 2013, TechEye described Qworty's edits as a "reign of terror" and were pleased to find that he had not succeeded in removing several prominent Pagan biographies from the encyclopedia.
The elections for the three community seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees start on 8 June. This second and final part of the interview explores two broad themes: Meta, the site that hosts movement-wide coordination; and offline entities—the chapters and the new thematic organisations and user groups.
This week, we plotted out the demarcations of WikiProject Geographical Coordinates, which aims to create a single standard of handling coordinates in Wikipedia articles.
Twelve articles, four lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
An article in Library Review offers a much-needed comparison of data from a population of editors outside the English Wikipedia.
Second only to the technical track of Wikimania in terms of numbers, the Berlin Hackathon (2009–2012) provided those with an interest in the software that underpins Wikimedia wikis and supports its editors a place to gather, exchange ideas and learn new skills.

Please comment on Talk:Southern Poverty Law Center

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WikiProject Good Articles Recruitment Centre

Hello! Now, some of you might be wondering why there is a Good article icon with a bunch of stars around (to the right). The answer? WikiProject Good articles will be launching a Recruitment Centre very soon! The centre will allow all users to be taught how to review Good article nominations by experts just like you! However, in order for the Recruitment Centre to open in the first place, we need some volunteers:
  • Recruiters: The main task of a recruiter is to teach users that have never reviewed a Good article nomination how to review one. To become a recruiter, all you have to do is meet this criteria. If we don't get at least 5-10 recruiters to start off with, the Recruitment Centre will not open. If interested, make sure you meet the criteria, read the process and add your name to the list of recruiters. (One of the great things about being a recruiter is that there is no set requirement of what must be taught and when. Instead, all the content found in the process section is a guideline of the main points that should be addressed during a recruitment session...you can also take an entire different approach if you wish!) If you think you will not have the time to recruit any users at this time but are still interested in becoming a recruiter, you can still add your name to the list of recruiters but just fill in the "Status" parameter with "Not Available".
  • Co-Director: The current Director for the centre is me (Dom497). Another user that would be willing to help with some of the tasks would be helpful. Tasks include making sure recruiters are doing what they should be (teaching!), making sure all recruitments are archived correctly, updating pages as needed, answering any questions, and distributing the feedback form. If interested, please contact me (Dom497).
  • Nominators, please read this: If you are not interested in becoming a recruiter, you can still help. In some cases a nominator may have an issue with an "inexperienced" editor (the recruitee) reviewing one of their nominations. To minimize the chances of this happening, if you are fine with a recruitee reviewing one of your nominations under the supervision of the recruiter, please add your name to the list at the bottom of this page. By adding your name to this list, chances are that your nomination will be reviewed more quickly as the recruitee will be asked to choose a nomination from the list of nominators that are OK with them reviewing the article.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to seeing this program bring new reviewers to the Good article community and all the positive things it will bring along.

A message will be sent out to all recruiters regarding the date when the Recruitment Centre will open when it is determined. The message will also contain some further details to clarify things that may be a bit confusing.--Dom497 (talk)

This message was sent out by --EdwardsBot (talk) 01:21, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

I hope real life is not making you work too hard, and that you come back soon :-).

AGK [•] 09:42, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Aw, thanks AGK! I think I'm gonna try a comeback later this week. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 04:13, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 June 2013

I am excited to announce that a Portuguese-language journal, Correio da Wikipédia has been launched by Vitorvicentevalente. It has just published its third edition, and I encourage readers who speak the language to read and contribute to its already-expansive coverage of the Portuguese Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement.
Five articles, four lists, and thirteen images were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
This is mostly a list of requests for comment believed to be active on 4 June 2013 linked from subpages of Wikipedia:RfC or watchlist notices.
On 31 May, the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal and Community Advocacy team announced that the Wikivoyage logo would have to be replaced, because it has become the subject of a cease-and-desist letter from the World Trade Organization (WTO).
An article on TheNextWeb.com says that the Chinese Government has effectively blocked Wikipedia by cutting off access to the HTTP Secure (https) "workaround", almost completely cutting off access to those in China.
This week, we reflect on the anniversary of D-Day by storming the shores of Operation Normandy, a special initiative of WikiProject Military History.
Last week, the Signpost reported on a feeling at the Amsterdam hackathon that Toolserver developers were coming round to the idea of migrating to Wikimedia Labs.

WikiProject Good Articles Recruitment Centre

Hello! Now, some of you might have already received a similar message a little while ago regarding the Recruitment Centre, so if you have, there is no need to read the rest of this. This message is directed to users who have reviewed over 15 Good article nominations and are not part of WikiProject Good articles (the first message I sent out went to only WikiProject members).

So for those who haven't heard about the Recruitment Centre yet, you may be wondering why there is a Good article icon with a bunch of stars around it (to the right). The answer? WikiProject Good articles will be launching a Recruitment Centre very soon! The centre will allow all users to be taught how to review Good article nominations by experts just like you! However, in order for the Recruitment Centre to open in the first place, we need some volunteers:

  • Recruiters: The main task of a recruiter is to teach users that have never reviewed a Good article nomination how to review one. To become a recruiter, all you have to do is meet this criteria. If we don't get at least 5-10 recruiters to start off with (at the time this message was sent out, 2 recruiters have volunteered), the Recruitment Centre will not open. If interested, make sure you meet the criteria, read the process and add your name to the list of recruiters. (One of the great things about being a recruiter is that there is no set requirement of what must be taught and when. Instead, all the content found in the process section is a guideline of the main points that should be addressed during a recruitment session...you can also take an entire different approach if you wish!) If you think you will not have the time to recruit any users at this time but are still interested in becoming a recruiter, you can still add your name to the list of recruiters but just fill in the "Status" parameter with "Not Available".
  • Co-Director: The current Director for the centre is me (Dom497). Another user that would be willing to help with some of the tasks would be helpful. Tasks include making sure recruiters are doing what they should be (teaching!), making sure all recruitments are archived correctly, updating pages as needed, answering any questions, and distributing the feedback form. If interested, please contact me (Dom497).
  • Nominators, please read this: If you are not interested in becoming a recruiter, you can still help. In some cases a nominator may have an issue with an "inexperienced" editor (the recruitee) reviewing one of their nominations. To minimize the chances of this happening, if you are fine with a recruitee reviewing one of your nominations under the supervision of the recruiter, please add your name to the list at the bottom of this page. By adding your name to this list, chances are that your nomination will be reviewed more quickly as the recruitee will be asked to choose a nomination from the list of nominators that are OK with them reviewing the article.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to seeing this program bring new reviewers to the Good article community and all the positive things it will bring along.

A message will be sent out to all recruiters regarding the date when the Recruitment Centre will open when it is determined. The message will also contain some further details to clarify things that may be a bit confusing.--Dom497 (talk)

This message was sent out by --EdwardsBot (talk) 15:08, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 June 2013

Late last year, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) awarded $8.4 million in donors' money to 11 Wikimedia entities, including the Wikimedia Foundation and 10 nationally defined chapters. Under this arrangement, these organisations are required to issue quarterly reports on how far they have progressed towards their declared programmatic and financial goals. The FDC has now announced that all 11 completed and submitted their reports by the 1 April deadline, and have responded to each.
Seven articles, two lists, five pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
In an article published by the Huffington Post's United Kingdom edition, writer Thomas Church asserts that the new VisualEditor will change history, literally. It says that Wikipedia's mark-up language has been to its advantage, as most people didn't bother trying to learn it
I've long thought that we should get rid of the Wikimedia Commons as we know it. Commons has evolved into a project with interests that compete with the needs of the primary users of Commons and the reason it was created. It's also understaffed, which results in poor curation, large administrative backlogs, and poor policy development.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
Last week's most popular article list on the English Wikipedia was dominated by the massively popular TV series Game of Thrones, which claimed six slots in the top 25, including the top three. Its popularity was likely stoked by the most recent episode, The Rains of Castamere. Bollywood continued to increase its share of views as well, aided by the tragic suicide of star Nafisa Khan.
Two cases, Race and politics and Tea Party movement have been suspended. Argentine History remains open, and a proposed decision was posted on 12 June.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Computing. Started in October 2003, the project has grown to include 17 featured articles, 11 featured lists, 3 pieces of featured media, and 80 good articles.

Please comment on Talk:Cindy Sheehan

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The Signpost: 19 June 2013

Following last week's op-ed by Gigs ("The Tragedy of Wikipedia's Commons"), the Signpost is carrying two contrary opinions from MichaelMaggs, a bureaucrat on Wikimedia Commons, and Mattbuck, a British Commons administrator.
The season finale of Game of Thrones ensured that the epic high fantasy series would dominate the top 10 again last week; however, it was joined by Maurice Sendak and Man of Steel.
Memeburn.com published an article on the yearning of students in South Africa for free knowledge through Wikipedia Zero.
This week, we visited WikiProject Tennessee, a project dedicate to the state at the geographic and cultural crossroads of the United States.
With erysichton elaborata, the Swedish Wikipedia passed the one million article Rubicon this week. While this is a mostly symbolic achievement, serving as a convenient benchmark with which to gain publicity and attention in an increasingly statistical world, the particular method by which the Swedish site has passed the mark has garnered significant attention—and controversy.
Eleven articles, twelve lists, and eleven pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
A list of current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
The WMF's engineering report for May was published recently on the Wikimedia blog and on the MediaWiki wiki ("friendly" summary version), giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month.
Richard Farmbrough was set to have his day in court, but as events transpired, this was not to be so. On 25 March 2013, an accusation was made against Farmbrough at Arbitration Enforcement (AE), claiming that he violated the terms of an automated edit restriction. Within hours, Farmbrough had filed his own request with the arbitration committee, citing the newly filed AE request and claiming that the motion was being used "in an absurd way" in the filing of enforcement requests: "I have not made any edits that a sane person would consider automation."

The Signpost: 26 June 2013

With most TV shows on hiatus for the summer, attention has turned to movies, celebrity and sports. The dramatic events at the 2013 Confederations Cup drew massive attention, as did summer blockbusters like Man of Steel and World War Z. But the most searched event of the week was the tragic and unexpected death of popular actor James Gandolfini on June 19.
The Daily Dot has examined the perennial controversy over explicit or pornographic media on Commons. This latest salvo was touched off when Russavia uploaded a portrait of Jimmy Wales made by the artist Pricasso, who paints with his genitalia.
A comparative work by T. Yasseri., A. Spoerri, M. Graham and J. Kertész looks at the 100 most controversial topics in 10 language versions of Wikipedia, and tries to make sense of the similarities and differences in these lists.
Less than three days after the close of voting, the volunteer election committee posted the results on Meta. The worldwide Wikimedia movement has elected three WMF trustees for two-year terms on the 10-seat Board: Samuel Klein (supported by 43.5% of voters), Phoebe Ayers (38.3%), and María Sefidari (35.6%). The new trustees will take their seats at a critical time for the movement: one of the first tasks in their terms will be to help the Board to find and approve the new executive director to take up the top job when Sue Gardner departs.
A list of current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
This week, the Signpost interviews Adam Cuerden, a Wikimedian who has been for years gathering featured pictures, and who constantly participates in what could be his favourite part of the project. Cuerden dedicates most of his time to scanning and restoring old, valuable illustrative works. He explains to us how the featured process works, its relation with other parts of the encyclopedia, and how pictures evolve before reaching featured status.
This week, we walked the runway with WikiProject Fashion. Started in March 2007, the project is home to 4 Featured Articles and 41 Good Articles. The project has a lengthy list of how you can help and a list of Article Alerts.
Argentine History was closed. Two cases, Race and politics and Tea Party movement, remain suspended until July.

Please comment on Talk:List of Knesset speakers

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The Signpost: 03 July 2013

Amy Chozick's profile of Jimmy Wales in the New York Times sparked significant controversy in international news outlets this week. Chozick's profile covered Wales's personal life, including his 12-year-old daughter, ex-wife, and current wife Kate Garvey, describing Wales himself as "a well-groomed version of a person who has been slumped over a computer drinking Yoo-hoo for hours." Chozick described his current role in Wikipedia as "Benevolent Dictator for Life", a statement which garnered conflict from all corners of the web, including from Wales, who responded to the piece as a whole with a lengthy talk page statement.
Four articles, four lists, and fifteen pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
This week, the Signpost went to the kennel and interviewed WikiProject Dogs. The project has several featured and good articles, along with a large number of "Did you know" entries. We asked three project members about the challenges of creating, curating, and maintaining canine content in an increasingly dog-obsessed world.
The key annual event in the Wikimedia calendar, Wikimania 2013, will be held in Hong Kong in just five weeks' time. Among the events will be a presentation by two people who are working to promote the development of medical content on Wikimedia projects. One is James Heilman of Wiki Project Med, a non-profit dedicated to making "clear, reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date educational resources and information in the biomedical and related social sciences freely available to all people in the language of their choice". The other is Lori Thicke, president of Translators Without Borders (TWB), the Connecticut-based organisation set up in 2010 to provide pro-bono translation services for humanitarian non-profits
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The VisualEditor extension has gone live by default to registered users on the English Wikipedia, marking a huge milestone in a project that has taken the best part of a decade to reach fruition. The extension was previously described as "the biggest and most important change to our user experience we’ve ever undertaken" by the WMF team behind it.
The real world made a strong showing in the top 10 last week, as news stories such as Yahoo!'s purchase of Tumblr, the murder of Odin Lloyd, the continuing drama over NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the ill-health of Nelson Mandela crowded out the usual roster of TV shows, movies, websites and video games. Not that they were entirely excluded, of course.
Following a one-month period of moderated discussion, Tea Party movement has been reopened by the Committee. The proposed decisions are currently being voted upon. Race and politics remains suspended pending the return of User:Apostle12.

The Signpost: 10 July 2013

This is Wikinews' fundamental problem: it can neither do a good job providing a summary of world news, nor does it have any special focus that it does well. It's a collection of random articles, with only the occasional, passing resemblance to important current events.
This week, we traveled to Cymru with the folks at WikiProject Wales.
The most-viewed articles on the English Wikipedia last week include...
In apparent acknowledgment of the urgency of two issues facing the Wikimedia movement—the need to engage both women and the global south—the WMF Board has appointed Ana Toni as one of its four expert members. Toni will bring rare expertise to the movement, and the Signpost understands that her skills in advocacy and her key roles in international NGOs are likely to be a natural match with the WMF as the hub of disseminating free knowledge around the world.
The fundamental idea of an infobox is clear: keep it simple and limited to essentials. At some point, however, these basic principles seem to have been abandoned, in favour of an approach akin to "the more the merrier".
Five articles, six lists, and ten pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...

DRN needs your help!

Hi there. I've noticed it's been a while since you've been active at DRN, and we could really use your help! DRN is going to undergo some changes soon, so it'd really be great if our backlog is cleared before the start of August and we have as many people on board to help with the changes (they include a move to subpages and the creation of a rotating "co-ordinator" role to help manage things day-to-day. Hope to see you soon! Steven Zhang Help resolve disputes! 11:34, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Report

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Freedom of Speech for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -buffbills7701

Please comment on Talk:Panchen Lama

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Panchen Lama. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 18:20, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 July 2013

This week, we explored the fantasy worlds of video game developer Square Enix by interviewing WikiProject Square Enix. The project began in September 2006 as a spin-off of WikiProject Final Fantasy, but today covers that, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, and a variety of other game series, with exceptions explained in the interview below. The project is home to 32 pieces of Featured material and 104 Good and A-class articles.
The most-viewed articles on the English Wikipedia last week include...
Last week the Wikimedia Foundation released its annual plan for July 2013 to June 2014. It provides a surprisingly frank view—of past achievements and failures, and future goals and risks—that could be afforded only by a non-profit that is confident and beholden to no commercial or political interests.
Four articles, five lists, and sixteen pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The case Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds was opened. Voting on the Tea Party movement case continued, after a failed attempt at moderated discussion. A group tasked with deciding the content of the lead section of the Jerusalem article has reported back to the committee. Applications for checkuser and oversight permissions close on 22 July.

The Signpost: 24 July 2013

The Washington Post reported Tuesday on the most controversial articles on various language Wikipedias as determined by a cross-continental research group.
This week, the Signpost delved into the vast and complex areas of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that make up religion. WikiProject Religion has been around since 2005 and has a complex scope, in that it only takes articles that deal with religion in a non-sectarian sense, along with any articles that do not have a dedicated daughter project.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Contributors to Wikivoyage, the sister project adopted by the Wikimedia Foundation last year, are celebrating their 10th anniversary this week. ... The Wikimedia Foundation has announced via press release that it has partnered with Aircel to provide free mobile access to Wikipedia.
Death hangs over the top 10 this week, as tragic deaths both past and present continued to cast their pall over an already troubled world. The death of Corey Monteith led to a spike in interest in the man himself, his girlfriend and co-star Lea Michele, and the show that made them both famous, Glee.
Twelve articles, seven lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The case Infoboxes was opened. The evidence phase continues in Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds. Voting on the proposed decision continues in the Tea Party movement case.

DYK RfC

  • As a listed GA participant, you are invited to contribute to a formal Request for Comment on the question of whether Good Articles should be eligible to appear in the Did You Know? slot in future. Please see the proposal on its subpage here, or on the main DYK talk page. To add the discussion to your watchlist, click this link. Thank you in advance. Gilderien Chat|Contributions03:10, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Steven Crowder

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The Signpost: 31 July 2013

One of the narratives I've heard a lot is that Wikipedia is unable to change, that it's too stagnant, too poorly resourced, too inherently resistant to change. I don't believe that at all.
An ArXiv preprint titled "Highlighting entanglement of cultures via ranking of multilingual Wikipedia articles" is about the Wikipedia articles on individuals and their position in the hyperlink network of the articles in each Wikipedia language edition, considering the whole hyperlink network.
Somewhat predictably, the birth of a new heir to the House of Windsor on 22 July led the English-speaking world to suddenly embrace Monarchism. In honour of this occasion, the Traffic report will be assiduously employing British spelling and dating conventions. Cheers.
This week, we visited the Turkish Wikipedia for an interview with VikiProje Siyaset (WikiProject Politics). The project began in April 2010 and has sustained a small but enthusiastic group of editors focusing on both the domestic politics of Turkey and international politics. The basics for article quality and importance ratings have been determined, but tracking this data has not yet become widespread on the Turkish Wikipedia. The project maintains a portal, a variety of resources, and a rotating selection of images to spruce up the project's page.
The ninth annual Wikimania conference will open in just over a week at the Jockey Club Auditorium, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Wikimania is for people worldwide who have an interest in Wikimedia Foundation projects. It features presentations and discussions on those projects, on free knowledge and content, and on related social and technical issues.
The case Race and politics was closed, while three other cases remain open.
Eight articles, five lists, seven pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia this week include...

The new face of DRN: Lord Roem

Recently the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard underwent some changes in how it operates. Part of the change involved a new list of volunteers with a bit of information about the people behind the names.

You are listed as a volunteer at DRN currently, to update your profile is simple, just click here. Thanks, Cabe6403(Talk•Sign) 17:18, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 August 2013

Fourteen editors have been proposed for a six-month page ban in the Tea Party movement case. In the Infoboxes and Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds cases, the workshop and evidence phases have closed, and proposed decisions are scheduled to be posted.
It's crickets and tumbleweeds this week, as the top 10 sees its lowest view-count since the project began. If Wikipedia were selling anything, we'd be having a fire sale by now.
The opening days of the annual Wikimania, referred to as the "pre-conference", are not typically newsworthy. This changed dramatically when the Chapters Association council met on Thursday.
This week, we journey into a WikiProject that focuses about what keeps Wikipedia running, the freedom of speech.
The week's newest featured content includes...
Recent discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

The Signpost: 14 August 2013

About a thousand Wikimedians journeyed to Hong Kong this week for the annual Wikimania conference, the annual gathering of the Wikimedia movement. Wikimania, which has been held since 2005, serves as the principal physical meetup for Wikimedians around the world.
One major story that came out of Wikimania was Jimmy Wales' statements at the conference that he would prefer to have Wikipedia banned entirely in mainland China than censored as it is currently.
The week's newest featured content includes seven articles, four lists, and twelve pictures.
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia and its public face to most of the media, has declared that media organizations are missing out on the "opportunity of the century" by not conducting true investigative reporting into American surveillance practices, a debate kindled by information leaked by Edward Snowden.
Recent discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case has closed, with a unanimous decision to desysop a Wikimedia Foundation employee and indefinitely ban another editor. The Tea Party movement case has stalled yet again, in the wake of a controversial proposal to ban 14 editors. A proposed decision in the Infoboxes case was scheduled to be posted on 14 August.

Please comment on Talk:Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War

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WP:FOUR RFC

There are two WP:RFCs at WP:FOUR. The first is to conflate issues so as to keep people from expressing meaningful opinions. The second, by me, is claimed to be less than neutral by proponents of the first. Please look at the second one, which I think is much better.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 August 2013

Wikipedia's gender identity MOS section and its effect on Chelsea Manning was both praised and emulated in the media this week. ... Coverage of the distributed open collaborative course called "Storming Wikipedia" continued this week.
98 registered participants attended the annual WikiSym+OpenSym conference from August 5-7 at Hong Kong's Cyberport facility.
This week, we secured free admission for WikiProject Amusement Parks, the project dedicated to amusement rides, roller coasters, theme parks, traveling carnivals, and funfairs.
The debt that Wikipedia owes sites like Reddit or Google often goes unacknowledged around here. If the purpose of Wikipedia is to bring knowledge to the world, then it is sites like these that are actually doing it.
The 2013 WikiCup competition is entering its final round. Eleven articles and nine pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), Wikimedia's annual volunteer-driven and the world largest photo contest, is gearing up to be conducted throughout September 2013. The event, originally developed in the Netherlands in 2010, has gone global with 34 countries taking part last and 49 this year.
Wikipedia's traditional image gallery format, produced by the markup, has remained largely unchanged for years. The resulting layout, seen below, does not adapt well to variations in image size, and has been characterized by some critics as aesthetically unappealing.

The Signpost: 28 August 2013

Wikipedia's gender identity MOS section and its effect on Chelsea Manning was both praised and emulated in the media this week. ... Coverage of the distributed open collaborative course called "Storming Wikipedia" continued this week.
98 registered participants attended the annual WikiSym+OpenSym conference from August 5-7 at Hong Kong's Cyberport facility.
This week, we secured free admission for WikiProject Amusement Parks, the project dedicated to amusement rides, roller coasters, theme parks, traveling carnivals, and funfairs.
The debt that Wikipedia owes sites like Reddit or Google often goes unacknowledged around here. If the purpose of Wikipedia is to bring knowledge to the world, then it is sites like these that are actually doing it.
The 2013 WikiCup competition is entering its final round. Eleven articles and nine pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), Wikimedia's annual volunteer-driven and the world largest photo contest, is gearing up to be conducted throughout September 2013. The event, originally developed in the Netherlands in 2010, has gone global with 34 countries taking part last and 49 this year.
Wikipedia's traditional image gallery format, produced by the markup, has remained largely unchanged for years. The resulting layout, seen below, does not adapt well to variations in image size, and has been characterized by some critics as aesthetically unappealing.

Please comment on Talk:Nuclear weapons and Israel

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The Signpost: 04 September 2013

After media praise for Wikipedia's decision to move the Bradley Manning article to Chelsea Manning, the reversion of that page move on August 31, after a discussion in which several hundred Wikipedians participated, has so far triggered less favourable feedback, as well as a blog post from Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner expressing her disappointment with the decision.
On September 3, the Wikimedia Foundation launched the second stage of the process to improve the privacy policy implemented on most Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia and its sister projects, by publishing a policy draft.
A news-heavy week offers some insight, perhaps, into humanity's priorities.
As mentioned in "In the news" on Wikipedia's main page, the Library of Birmingham in the United Kingdom has opened. This interior photo was taken a week before opening. The article reports that the library "has been described as the largest public library in the United Kingdom, the largest public cultural space in Europe, and the largest regional library in Europe."
Four articles, four lists, and eight pictures were promoted to 'featured' status this week on the English Wikipedia
This week, we spent some time with the minds behind WikiProject Psychology. The project was created in March 2006 and has grown to include 14 Featured Articles and 43 Good Articles.
The dispute over the title for the Manning article escalated quickly to arbitration levels, as the Bradley/Chelsea Manning naming dispute case was accepted for arbitration.
In this week's "Technology report", we explore ways of making Wikipedia more accessible to users of screen readers. Graham87 is a highly active contributor who is also blind and accesses the site through a screen reader.

The Signpost: 11 September 2013

'The National Law Journal reported on September 9 that lawyer Susan L. Burke has been taking legal steps to discover the identity of Wikipedia editor . Zujua had edited her biography, allegedly adding misleading content about various lawsuits in the process
The Signpost went to Indonesia this week.
Four articles, eight lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
The deadline for proposals to the Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) volunteer committee on Meta will pass on 30 September. The program is designed to fund projects that tackle long-term problem and have a significant editing community impact; it has previously supported solutions like The Wikipedia Library, which improves Wikipedian access to online reference sources like JSTOR (see Signpost coverage).
While the Syrian Civil War crept its slow way into the minds of the public, with a new fourth related entry in the top 25, the top 10 remained dominated by celebrity, mainly sports and music. Two megabucks transfers stimulated public interest in football/soccer ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, while Lil Wayne's public apology ahead of his latest album release sent him to the top.
Discussion over the Manning title dispute was off to a running start as evidence and workshop phases continued in the Bradley/Chelsea Manning naming dispute. The Infoboxes case closed with topic bans for two users, and a recommendation for community discussion of infoboxes.

The Signpost: 18 September 2013

The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), the volunteer-led body that evaluates chapter and (for the first time) thematic organizational annual plan grant requests to the Wikimedia Foundation, is preparing for its third round of public proceedings to deliberate on the distribution of several million US dollars of Wikimedia movement funds.
This week, the Signpost headed to WikiProject Good Articles. As of publishing time, out of the 4,331,477 articles on Wikipedia, only 18,464 are rated as "good" (about 1 in 235).
Thirteen articles, six lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status last week on the English Wikipedia.
In this week's "Technology report", we look at how the growth of Wikidata can benefit Wikipedia. Gerard Meijssen is a highly active contributor and frequent blogger about Wikidata. We asked him to share his thoughts on how the new project benefits Wikipedia.
The top 10 is bookended by unlucky dates, as Friday the 13th fell just after the anniversary of 9/11. Breaking Bad's final season continued to draw attention, while interest in Miley Cyrus's youthful exuberance is fading only slowly.

Your involvement with DRN

Hi there, I noticed that you haven't been as active at DRN as you was before. DRN has been a bit backlogged lately and we could use some extra hands. We have updated our volunteer list to a new format, Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Volunteers (your name is still there under the old format if you haven't updated it) and are looking into ways to make DRN more effective and more rewarding for volunteers (your input is appreciated!). If you don't have much time to volunteer at the moment, that's fine too, just move your name to the inactive list (you're free to add yourself back to active at any time). Hope to see you again soon :) Steven Zhang (talk) 13:20, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 September 2013

Over the last year, there's been extensive debate about whether public relations professionals and other corporate representatives should participate on Wikipedia and, if so, to what extent and what kinds of rules should be followed.
The saga of Walter White, chemistry teacher-turned-drug kingpin, as told in the critically adored television series Breaking Bad, has been a water-cooler necessity for years, and now, as it nears its end, audiences are feverishly following every plot thread to guess what the finale will reveal.
Fox News writer Perry Chiaramonte published an article detailing Wikipedia's alleged abandonment of its fight to remove pornography.
On 30 September, Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), the Wikimedia community's global photo competition, will reach to the end of its submission period. The proceedings have been underway since the first of this month; national juries will start reviewing submissions for the first round of selections after it closes ... Community aggravation with one of the Wikimedia Foundation's signature initiatives, the VisualEditor, came to the fore again this week with the announcement and implementation of code blocking the tool.
This week, we continued our exploration of other language editions of Wikipedia by visiting the Spanish Wikipedia's Wikiproyecto Fútbol (WikiProject Football).
Twelve articles, six lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
A conference paper makes a rather serious claim: "We find a surprisingly large number of editors who change their behavior and begin focusing more on a particular controversial topic once they are promoted to administrator status."

I've "volunteered" you for something

Hi LR,

I "volunteered" you for choosing a new EC here. If you don't want to, you don't have to, obviously. Same if you're not around (looks like you haven't edited since June). If you not only don't want to, but also think it's a bad idea, feel free to comment there. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:55, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 October 2013

Medical images have transformed many aspects of modern medicine. Over the past two decades the increasing sophistication of MRI, CT-scanning, and X-ray techniques has made these technologies the cornerstone of diagnosing a range of conditions, replacing what used to be largely guesswork by doctors. They can be the difference between life and death for a patient, and their importance is underlined by the tens of billions of dollars spent on them annually just in North America. For Wikimedia Foundation projects, advanced images are now a powerful tool for describing and explaining, and educating our worldwide readership of medical articles.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
In what will be remembered as a game-changing week for Wikimedia grantmaking, the Foundation's executive director, Sue Gardner, published a forthright and in places highly critical statement, Reflections on the FDC process, and grantmaking staff revealed that the WMF will significantly strengthen its targeting of optimal impact in funding.
Six articles and two pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
Editor's note: To go beyond the mere facts of cases, the "Arbitration report" invited several editors who participated in the recent Infoboxes case to comment on infoboxes: what they are, where new users can go to find out about them, specifications and protocols, best practices, and how the upcoming community discussion recommended by the Committee in the case decision should be framed.
This week, we revisited the enthusiastic editors at WikiProject U2. Started in June 2007, the project has grown in spurts, resulting in a collection of 8 Featured Articles and 24 Good Articles. The project maintains a to do list, portal, and a list of references.

The Signpost: 09 October 2013

If you're living in the United States, what did you do during the government shutdown? Well, it seems most people watched the final episode of Breaking Bad.
This week, we moved to the esoteric world of Australian roads.
Seven articles, six lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
An investigation by the English Wikipedia community into suspicious edits and sockpuppet activity has led to astonishing revelations that Wiki-PR, a multi-million-dollar US-based company, has created, edited, or maintained several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients using a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts.
The University of California, San Francisco attracted substantial media attention over its new course offering that will give credit to fourth year medical students for editing Wikipedia articles about medicine.
A proposed decision has been posted in the Manning naming dispute. The workshop phase of the Ebionites 3 case closes 13 October. Arbitrator NuclearWarfare has resigned.

The Signpost: 16 October 2013

Media coverage on Wiki-PR, the multi-million-dollar US-based company that has broken several policies and guidelines on the English Wikipedia in its quest to create and maintain thousands of articles for paying clients, continued this week with a feature story by Martin Robbins in the British edition of Vice magazine.
A slow week, with low overall views and the Top 10 dominated by longstanding pages. Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron's outer space-set action art film, not only held its position at the top of the US box office but climbed to the top of the Wikipedia chart as well, showing that it has become a major talking point.
This week, we studied coats of arms and flags with the folks at WikiProject Heraldry and Vexillology. Started in September 2006, the project has grown to include 20 Featured Articles and nearly 50 Good Articles. The project maintains a portal, a list of resources, and a variety of images and templates.
Six articles, two lists, and thirty-three pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
The Manning naming dispute case has closed, with a strong and unanimous statement by the Committee against disparaging references to transgendered persons. Sanctions were enacted against six editors.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

The Signpost: 23 October 2013

The next twice-yearly round of Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) grantmaking is soon to close for community questioning and commentary. Ten nation-based Wikimedia chapters and one thematic organisation are asking for a total of more than US$5M of donors’ money from the Foundation’s renamed annual plan grant process. Aside from Wikimedia UK ($708k), the three biggest asks are from the German-speaking chapters: Wikimedia Germany is asking for $2.4M and Wikimedia Austria $311k; and the German-language-related Swiss chapter is applying for $500k.
Media, sports and Google Doodles dominate, though a very odd fish decided to crash the party.
Twelve articles, four lists, and four pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including the article on cabbage.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
MIT Technology Review published a long article on what it called "The decline of Wikipedia". Editor involvement has decreased since 2007; according to the article, this has had an adverse qualitative effect on content, particularly on issues pertinent to non-British and American male geeks.
This week, we headed to an elementary subject with WikiProject Elements. Founded by Mav in 2002, this project has grown to have 19 featured articles, 2 featured topics, and 68 good articles. The project also has a list of templates, and a periodic table of elements filled with pictures.

Just to let you know -- Missing Wikipedians

You have been mentioned at Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians. XOttawahitech (talk) 12:54, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 October 2013

The top 10 encapsulates the history of human aviation; at #1, a Google Doodle celebrating the 216th anniversary of the first parachute jump; at #10, the enduringly popular scifi film Gravity, a paean to human spaceflight. It's odd to think it's taken us 200 years to travel about that many miles up.
While giving a speech on behalf of a gubernatorial candidate, Paul advocated his pro-life position, and compared allowing unrestricted abortions to the film Gattaca. He went on to use strikingly similar language and phraseology in his speech to what the Wikipedia page reads. The Washington Post's article conceded that Wikipedia is a widely used source for trivial information, but mocked the fact that a politician would view it as a reliable source.
In January we raised several potentially troublesome issues for the Wikimedia movement in taking on Wikivoyage, including the apparent inadequacy of the English Wikivoyage sex-tourism policy, hurriedly strengthened against mention of child sex after our inquiries. However, both sex-tourism and illegal-activities policies remain equivocal about how the site should treat entries about sex tourism more generally, and drugs that are classed as illicit in almost every country. Yet the Signpost has found it remarkably easy to locate material in Wikivoyage that violates both the spirit and the letter of the policies.
This year's WikiCup competition has finished, while three articles, five lists, and six pictures, were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
Laura Stein, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, has concluded that, based on her comparison of user policy documents (including the Terms of Service) of YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia, Wikipedia offers the highest level of participation power overall.
With Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and other gloomy celebrations this week, we're taking a look at Wikipedia's dead and dying. For some dead WikiProjects, the sole purpose of their life was simply to serve as a warning to others. Some of these projects may still be salvageable, but for most, a revival is unlikely. Here are some projects that never got off the ground and the lessons that can be gleaned from their follies

The Signpost: 06 November 2013

As part of the second major "outing" controversy to hit the English Wikipedia in less than a year, the Chelsea/Bradley Manning naming dispute was dragged into the spotlight yet again when the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee ruled by motion to remove the administrator tools from and ban long-time Wikipedia contributor Phil Sandifer.
It's fair to say that commemorating death was a strong theme this week, with Lou Reed's passing generating interest, as well as a Google Doodle celebrating the costume designer Edith Head. And of course, the world's greatest celebrations of the dead, Halloween and the Day of the Dead, were also popular this week.
HMS Hood, one of the most famous warships of the Second World War, was a battlecruiser and therefore part of what is now the largest featured topic on Wikipedia: "Battlecruisers of the world". The topic was promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week alongside eleven articles, three lists, four pictures, and two other topics.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Accessibility, a project that strives to make Wikipedia accessible for users with disabilities. The project improves Wikipedia's guidelines and Manual of Style, collects useful templates and scripts, and provides support to impaired Wikipedians.
The Ebionites 3 case has closed with an interaction ban for the two editors involved in the dispute.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

The Signpost: 13 November 2013

The numbers this week are beyond anything that has been seen since this report began. The top view count beats the average by an order of magnitude. Usually the appearance of numbers this big on the list is due to spamming, but in this case it seems they are due to honest interest; more specifically, Google Doodles, which for the first time claimed all five top slots. This column has raised numerous times the power of a Google Doodle to shine light on Wikipedia, but the wattage has never been as high as this.
Five articles, two lists, one topic, and nine pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
The supporting staff of the Wikimedia Foundation’s powerful volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) have released their assessments for the third half-yearly round of funding applications. The applications for the newly named annual plan grants were submitted by affiliated entities on 1 October, and comprise a total of more than US$5M in bids.
The Italian-language Wikipedia community has overwhelmingly voted to request the Wikimedia Foundation's assistance in recovering wikipedia.it, a website that has been frequently confused with the Italian Wikipedia.
This week, we followed the intricate storylines of WikiProject Soap Operas.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

The Signpost: 20 November 2013

As I said in August, contributing to the Signpost can be one of the most rewarding things an editor can do. The genre is refreshingly different from that of Wikipedia articles, and can allow writers to use a different range of skills. The need for an independent, volunteer-run Signpost continues to grow, given the increasing complexity and financial expenditures of the global Wikimedia movement, not to mention the English Wikipedia.
Peter Burke's A Social History of Knowledge: Volume II: From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia is a broad and wide-ranging look at how knowledge has been created, acquired, organized, disseminated, and sometimes lost in the Western world over the last two and a half centuries, a sequel to his 2000 book covering the prior three centuries, A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot.
Four articles, five lists, and thirty-four pictures were promoted to 'featured status' this week, including an image of a small fraction of the 18,000 taxis that serve Hong Kong.
This week, we headed over to WikiProject National Football League. With 10 Featured Articles, 61 Featured Lists, and 142 Good Articles (as of publication), this WikiProject has done a lot of work improving American football articles.
The Wikimedia Foundation has sent a formal cease and desist letter to Wiki-PR—the public relations agency accused of breaking Wikipedia policies and guidelines by creating, editing, and maintaining several thousand articles for paying clients through a sophisticated array of accounts. The Foundation's attorneys, Cooley LLP, have demanded that Wiki-PR's employees abide by the site's Terms of Use and the language of a community ban from the English Wikipedia.
It's not hard to guess which event is leading interest in the top 25 this week. The sheer scale of Typhoon Haiyan is staggering; estimates place its maximum windspeed upon first landfall in the Philippines on November 6 at 315 km/h, which would make it the most powerful tropical cyclone ever to reach land. To date, the storm has killed nearly 4000 people and damaged or destroyed nearly 4 million homes.
Back in March, when the March 25 Arbitration Report covered the Audit Subcommittee appointment discussion, a statement from the WMF legal division clarified its position that access to deleted revisions required an RFA or RFA-identical process; therefore AUSC committee appointments were not open to non-admins. The WMF legal team has now further clarified its position, saying that running for and winning an election for arbitrator would qualify as the type of rigorous community selection process required for the checkuser and oversight rights held by arbitrators.

GAN December 2013 Backlog Drive

Hello! A GAN Backlog Drive will begin in less than 4 days!

In past Backlog Drives, the goal was to reduce the backlog of Good article nominations. In the upcoming drive, another goal will be added - raising as much money as we can for the Wikimedia Foundation. How will this work? Well, its pretty simple. Any user interested in donating can submit a pledge at the Backlog Drive page (linked above). The pledge should mention the amount of money the user is willing to donate per review. For example, if a user pledges 5 cents per review and 100 nominations are reviewed, the total donation amount is $5.00.

At the time this message was sent out, two users have submitted pledges for a total of 8 cents per review. All pledges, no matter how much money, are greatly appreciated. Also, in no way is this saying you must make a pledge.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or leave a message on the Backlog Drive talk page. And remember, there are less than 4 days before the drive starts!--EdwardsBot (talk) 03:16, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

GAN December 2013 Backlog Drive

Hello! Just a friendly reminder that the GAN Backlog Drive has begun and will end on December 31, 2013!

If you know anyone outside of the WikiProject that may be interested, feel free to invite them to the drive!

If you have any questions or want to comment about something regarding the drive, post them here--EdwardsBot (talk) 00:09, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 December 2013

Summary:Doctor Who nearly got cancelled in its first week because its premiere was swamped by coverage of the JFK assassination, which happened the same day. Thankfully, producers saw fit to rerun it the next day, which is now its official anniversary date.
Wikipedia works on the efforts of unpaid volunteers who choose to donate their time to advance the cause of free knowledge. This phenomenon, as trivial as it may sound to those acquainted with Wikipedia inner workings, has always puzzled economists and social scientists alike, in that standard Economic theory would not predict that such enterprises would thrive without any form of remuneration.
Recent discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The sister project Wikisource, the digital library that hosts free-content primary sources, is now a decade old. Wikisource, which now has versions in 63 languages, is the sixth type of project to reach ten-year milestone and will be the last until 2016. The Wikimedia Foundation's volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee has published its recommendations to the Board of Trustees on 11 new applications for annual grants by 11 WMF-affiliated organisations. The maximum total budget for the current and upcoming March rounds is US$6M.
This week, we returned to WikiProject Apple Inc. for a peek at their newest articles about the latest in gadgets and software. The last time we took a bite out of WikiProject Apple, they had just finished merging WikiProject Macintosh and WikiProject iPhone OS. Today, the project is hard at work rewriting their primary article, improving the subject's outline, and adding to the project's list of 25 Good Articles and 6 Featured Articles.
  • Featured content: F*&!
Seventeen articles, four lists, and twenty-eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status in the last two weeks.
The Ottoman Empire–Turkey naming dispute case has opened. The second draft of the discretionary sanctions proposal is now open for review.

Regarding Nikki Phoenix Page

Hi there Lord Roem, I was thinking of putting up the new page for Nikki Phoenix, which was deleted back in february. But I noticed that on the creating page is says to contact you first, so I wanted to reach out to you first, and confirm it was ok to put up the page, as I feel that it falls under multiple catagories including:

paragraph 3: Has been featured multiple times in notable mainstream media.

• Las Vegas Sun

http://www.lasvegassun.com/photos/galleries/2013/jan/19/2013-avn-aee-jenna-jameson-tabu-mgm-grand/465128/

• Evensi

http://it.evensi.com/eventspage/100133711

• Haute Living

http://hauteliving.com/2013/01/haute-event-adult-film-stars-gracie-glam-kendal-karson-and-nikki-phoenix-party-at-tabu/337150/

• The DJ List

http://thedjlist.com/events/las_vegas_nv-us/tabu_ultra_lounge_night_nikki_phoenix_alexis_monroe_20130330/

Her singing career:

• AVN.com

o http://business.avn.com/company-news/Nikki-Phoenix-to-Work-On-New-EDM-Music-Project-With-DJ-Nilsson-537321.html

• XBIZ.com

o http://www.xbiz.com/news/171577

Her Mainstream accomplishments:

• AVN.com

http://business.avn.com/company-news/Miles-Long-Shoots-Billboard-for-MGM-Grand-Las-Vegas-500697.html

http://business.avn.com/company-news/Miles-Long-Lenses-MGM-Grand-Billboard-for-Phoenix-Party-511359.html

http://business.avn.com/company-news/Nikki-Phoenix-Alexis-Monroe-Appear-in-Ravers-Magazine-524154.html

http://business.avn.com/company-news/Nikki-Phoenix-Alexis-Monroe-Appear-in-Ravers-Magazine-524154.html

http://business.avn.com/company-news/Nikki-Phoenix-Appears-on-New-Billboard-at-MGM-Grand-512750.html

http://business.avn.com/company-news/Nikki-Phoenix-Seen-and-Heard-in-Two-New-Mainstream-Ventures-509285.html

http://business.avn.com/company-news/Fresh-Off-Billboard-Campaigns-Nikki-Phoenix-Adorns-2-Box-Covers-506584.html

http://www.avn.com/porn-stars/Nikki-Phoenix-457480.html

• XBIZ.com

http://www.xbiz.com/news/158663

http://www.xbiz.com/news/news_piece.php?id=162486&mi=all&q=nikki+phoenix

http://www.xbiz.com/news/news_piece.php?id=161501&mi=all&q=Nikki+Phoenix

http://www.xbiz.com/news/news_piece.php?id=161171&mi=all&q=Nikki+Phoenix

http://www.xbiz.com/news/news_piece.php?id=160513&mi=all&q=Nikki+Phoenix

http://www.xbiz.com/news/news_piece.php?id=166659&mi=all&q=Nikki+Phoenix

http://www.xbiz.com/news/news_piece.php?id=158976&mi=all&q=Nikki+Phoenix

as well as more inportantly paragraph 1: 1 Has won a well-known and significant industry award, or has been nominated for such an award several times.

She was just nominated for 2014 XBIZ "Best Crossover Star" http://xbizawards.xbiz.com/nominees.php

It would seem that she more than qualifies for her mainstream work, her multiple mentions in the press and adult press and nomination, am I ok to put up her page? What do you think? and how would I best list it so as to not arouse any ire from anyone? thanks in advance for all you help --User:Art Javier 21:25, 08 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 December 2013

When one edits this page for too long, one is tempted to appoint oneself as the psychoanalyst for the human race, or at least the English-speaking portion thereof. Since nearly everyone uses Wikipedia, the constant stream of TV updates, pointless celebrity scandals, and inquiries after who has died can seem like a dreary peek into humanity's surprisingly banal collective consciousness.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales caught headlines last week when he referred to former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden ... Loek Essers of the International Data Group, (IDG) News Service is reporting that a German court has held Wikipedia liable for its content, but still does not have to fact check the information in advance.
Amid great anticipation the international prize winners have just been announced for the fourth annual Wiki Loves Monuments, now the world's largest photographic competition and one of the biggest events on the Wikimedia movement's calendar. ... The first prize has gone to David Gubler's photograph of a Swiss train crossing a viaduct.
This week, the Signpost interviewed the Wine WikiProject.
On 7 December, Wikipedia editor Wehwalt reached the momentous milestone of 100 featured articles with History of Chincoteague, Virginia. Quite apart from the reading and research, that's around three-quarters of a million words of finalised text, not counting footnotes, image captions and the rest.
Three articles, one list, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
On 6 December, the latest version of the MediaWiki software was released. In development from March 2013 through October 2013, the release featured anti-spam and counter-vandalism improvements.

The Signpost: 18 December 2013

This week, the Signpost interviewed the Tunisia WikiProject on the French Wikipedia.
An animated Google Doodle for computer programmer and naval rear admiral Grace Hopper generated another record-breaking hit count for the year, though the count for the list overall was lower than for that of the previous holder.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
A little more than six days after the close of voting, the results of the annual Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) elections have been announced. Of the 22 candidates, 13 managed to gain more supports than opposes, though only one gained the support of more than half of the voters. Eight were elected to two-year terms, and a ninth will serve for one year.
Seven articles, three lists, and eight pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
This week, the GLAMWikiToolset, or GWToolset, is being deployed to the Wikimedia Commons. It allows for GLAM organizations to batch upload content based on various metadata stored in an XML schema. In the past this has been done by various bots, but now it will be easier for GLAMs to do it directly.

The Signpost: 25 December 2013

Analyzing edits to the-then 46 largest Wikipedias between July 9 and August 8, 2013, a study identified a set of about 8,000 contributors with a global user account who have edited more than one of these language versions in that time frame.
Five articles, two lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
We saved one last special report for 2013. After our well-received review of great WikiProject logos a couple years ago, it was only a matter of time before we collected a new batch of interesting iconography that showcases the creativity of the Wikipedia community. Hopefully, these logos will also inspire other projects to liven up their drab pages.
A significant move by the Wikimedia Foundation has been to broaden the types of activities it funds to develop several different programs for judging and allocating that funding, and to set up volunteer committees that initially assess applications for funding.
Last month, the OAuth extension was deployed to all Wikimedia wikis. OAuth is a standard used for allowing users to authenticate third-party applications, also known as consumers, to take actions on their behalf.

The Signpost: 01 January 2014

In fact, the majority are relatively evenly split between three themes: people of interest, television, and websites.
In 2013, the arbitration committee closed 10 cases, 9 amendment requests, and 26 clarification requests.
On New Year's Day, an article by Tim Sampson published in The Daily Dot and republished shortly after on Mashable covered the currently ongoing medical disclaimer RfC.
Dariusz Jemielniak's book is the newest about Wikipedia, published in Poland in 2013 and with an English edition forthcoming in 2014.
This was the year in which one journalist described the flagship site, Wikipedia, as "wickedly seductive". It was the year Wikipedia's replacement value was estimated at $6.6bn, its market value at "tens of billions of dollars", and its consumer benefit "hundreds of billions of dollars". But it was also the year in which one commentator forecast the decline of Wikipedia—that the project is in trouble from its shrinking volunteer workforce, skewed coverage, "crushing bureaucracy" and 90 percent male community.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia and around the Wikimedia movement include...
The year 2013 has come and gone, adding 50 new WikiProject Reports to our long list of projects we've had the privilege to meet. Last year saw the continuation of our Babel series, featuring WikiProjects from other languages of Wikipedia. We also expanded our selection of special reports, offering readers a growing collection of helpful tips and tools as they participate in WikiProjects.
Over the past year 1181 pieces of featured content were promoted. The most active of the featured content programs was featured picture candidates (FPC), which promoted an average of 46 pictures a month. This was followed by featured article candidates (FAC; 32.5 a month). Coming in third was featured list candidates (FLC; 18 a month).
2013 saw a lot of changes to MediaWiki software and Wikimedia infrastructure.

The Signpost: 08 January 2014

Public Domain Day—January 1, 2014—gives me an opportunity to reflect on this important asset, mandated by the Constitution of the United States.
The various maladies that befall humanity got some well-known faces this week: the death of the well-liked actor James Avery topped the list, but Michael Schumacher, who is in a coma after a skiing accident, also drew attention.
MediaWiki developers will be meeting in San Francisco on January 23–24 for an Architecture Summit.
On 8 January, the Wikimedia Foundation notified the Wikimedia-l mailing list that Sarah Stierch, a popular Wikimedian and the Foundation's Program Evaluation Community Coordinator, was no longer an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, as a result of being paid to create articles on the English Wikipedia.
At the very start of the new year, 2014's WikiCup—an annual competition which has been held on Wikipedia in various forms since 2007—began.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Television.
Twelve articles, three lists, seven pictures, and a portal were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia in the last two weeks.

The Signpost: 15 January 2014

Wikimedia Germany, the largest national affiliate, has authored an extensive critique of the Funds Dissemination Committee's process for issuing funding recommendations for the various large organizations in the movement.
The proposed schedule for the MediaWiki Archicture Summit has been published. The two main plenary sessions will be about HTML templating, and Service-oriented architecture.
It is heavily ironic that two decades after the World Wide Web was started — largely to make it easier to share scholarly research — most of our past and present research publications are still hidden behind paywalls for private profit. The bitter twist is that the vast majority of this research is publicly funded, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide each year.
Wikipedia's recent decline in readership, possibly due to Google's Knowledge Graph. ... Judith Newman in the New York Times asks "What Does Judith Newman Have to Do to Get a Page?"
We now can get a far more accurate picture of which short surges in popularity are likely natural and which are not.
This week, we studied human social behavior with the folks at WikiProject Sociology.

The Signpost: 22 January 2014

A particularly esoteric anthology of speculative fiction, filled with imaginary Wikipedia entries from, as the introduction puts it, "the many Wikipedias across the Multiverse."
The Wikimedia Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy's application of pending changes level two on the article Conventional PCI—an action taken under its rarely used office actions policy—has escalated to the Arbitration Committee after an editor upgraded it to full protection.
Fifteen articles, nine lists, twenty pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia over the last two weeks.
On 15 January, Wikipedia turned thirteen years old. In that time, this site has grown from a small site that was known to only a select few to one of the most popular websites on the internet. At the same time, recent data suggests that there is a power curve among users, where the comparative few who are writing most of Wikipedia have most of the edits. The result of this is that there is going to be bias in what is created, and how we deal with it as Wikipedians is indicative of the future of the site. Furthermore, this brings up what we have to do in order to combat this bias, as there are many ideas, but the question is whether they will work or not.
This week we're interviewing Brion Vibber about the then-upcoming Architecture Summit. Brion is a long time Wikipedian, the first employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, and currently the lead software architect working with the mobile team.
An article in USA Today announced that a European-funded project called RoboEarth that is designed to give robots a mechanism by which to access information to dispense.
While the 71st Golden Globe Awards, held on 12 January, had an impact on the top 25, their presence was largely absent from the Top 10. With the exception of Best Actor winner Leonardo DiCaprio, the only Golden Globe entrants in the Top 10 are films that would have been there anyway.

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

There are times when this job is hard. As an analogy, imagine navigating in fog at night, except you don't know where you are, you don't know where you want to go, and your flashlight keeps dying on you.
Contests have existed almost as long as the English Wikipedia. Contestants have expanded hundreds of articles and made tens of thousands of edits. Although it may seem as though there aren't any negatives to contests, they have occasionally become a divisive topic on the English Wikipedia.
Wiki-PR, a public relations agency, whose employees used a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts to create, edit, and maintain several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients, has told Business Insider that it was demonized by the online encyclopedia. Jordan French, Wiki-PR's CEO, said he believes the Wikimedia Foundation "painted" his company to look like an "evil entity" that is "scrubbing truths from Wikipedia".
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result.
An author experimented with "a promising type of assignment in formal translator training which involves translating and publishing Wikipedia articles", in three courses with students at the University of Warsaw.

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

There are times when this job is hard. As an analogy, imagine navigating in fog at night, except you don't know where you are, you don't know where you want to go, and your flashlight keeps dying on you.
Contests have existed almost as long as the English Wikipedia. Contestants have expanded hundreds of articles and made tens of thousands of edits. Although it may seem as though there aren't any negatives to contests, they have occasionally become a divisive topic on the English Wikipedia.
Wiki-PR, a public relations agency, whose employees used a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts to create, edit, and maintain several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients, has told Business Insider that it was demonized by the online encyclopedia. Jordan French, Wiki-PR's CEO, said he believes the Wikimedia Foundation "painted" his company to look like an "evil entity" that is "scrubbing truths from Wikipedia".
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result.
An author experimented with "a promising type of assignment in formal translator training which involves translating and publishing Wikipedia articles", in three courses with students at the University of Warsaw.

The Signpost: 12 February 2014

As reported in various media outlets this week, including The Next Web and The Daily Dot, this past week, Wikimedia Commons and various language Wikipedias are working together to encourage subjects of Wikipedia articles to record a 10-second clip of their voice to be appended to their Wikipedia article.
Software evolution does not always mean that features are being added. It also means that old fat is being trimmed. It is no different for MediaWiki.
In a bold move, the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees has announced a major change in policy concerning affiliated groups in the worldwide movement, and FDC funding levels to eligible chapters and thematic organizations over the next two years. Both decisions were published last Tuesday after considerable post-meeting consultation with the FDC and the Affiliations Committee (AffCom). The core of the first decision is
Thirteen articles, three lists, and twenty-five images were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia from 19 January to 1 February.
Two great sporting events, the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics, collide in one week, transforming the top ten into a festival of flying feet, a carnival of colliding caraniums and a bacchanal of bouncing balls, combined to influence Wikipedia's most popular articles last week.
In celebration of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, we revisited the team at WikiProject Russia to learn how the project has changed since our first interview in 2011.

The Signpost: 19 February 2014

The Wikimedia Foundation has proposed to modify the Wikimedia projects' Terms of use to specifically ban undisclosed paid editing. ... Dimitris Liourdis, a lawyer in training who moonlights as an administrator on the Greek Wikipedia, is embroiled in a legal dispute with a Greek politician over alleged edits made to his Wikipedia article.
Runa Bhattacharjee has notified the community that the Foundation is ready to turn the Universal Language Selector back on.
WikiProject Countering System Bias aims to combat imbalanced coverage while encouraging neglected cultural perspectives and points of view, both in articles and in the larger Wikipedia community. As you'll see from the varied experiences and motivations of our nine respondents, the biases that the folks at WP CSB tackle run the full gamut of human characteristics and dispositions. The interview that follows unveils many of Wikipedia's greatest shortcomings.
Five articles, seven lists, forty-three pictures, and two portals were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia in the last two weeks.
Valentines Day got a somewhat muted reception this week, overshadowed by continuing coverage of the Winter Olympics in Sochi and the death of Shirley Temple.

March 2014 GAN Backlog Drive

It's that time again! Starting on March 1, there will be another GAN Backlog Drive! There will be several changes compared to previous drives:

  • This drive will introduce a new component to it; a point system. In a nutshell, older nominations are worth more points than newer nominations. The top 3 participants who have the points will be awarded the Golden, Silver, or Bronze Wikipedia Puzzle Piece Trophy, respectively.
  • Unlike the December 2013 Backlog Drive, earning an additional barnstar if you reached your goal has been removed.
  • The allowance to have insufficient reviews has been lowered to 2 before being disqualified.
  • An exception to the rule that all reviews must be completed before the deadline has been created.

Also, something that I thought I would share with all of you is that we raised $20.88 (USD) for the WMF in the December 2013 drive. It may not sound like a lot but considering that that was raised just because we reviewed articles, I would say that's pretty good! With that success, pledges can be made for the upcoming drive if you wish.

More info regarding the drive and full descriptions regarding the changes to this drive can be found on the the drive page. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a message on the drive talk page.

I look forward to your participation and hope that because of it, some day the backlog will be gone!

--Dom497

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

GAN March 2014 Backlog Drive

The March 2014 GAN Backlog Drive has begun and will end on April 1, 2014! Sent by Dom497 on behalf of MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:01, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

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