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Talkback

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at Yunshui's talk page.
Message added 08:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Yunshui 雲‍水 08:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

OKPay

As requested, I've restored the article to your userspace; it's now at User:Marcus Qwertyus/OKPay. Cheers, Yunshui 雲‍水 14:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at WP:RFPP.
Message added 04:07, 6 November 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

‑Scottywong| chat _ 04:07, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 November 2012

J Milburn is a British editor who has been on the site since 2006. He is one of two judges of the WikiCup. Here, he uses an op-ed to explain the way the WikiCup works and to review this year's competition, which ended recently.
The results of most of the national heats for Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) have been published on Commons. A maximum of 10 images have been submitted by all but eight of the 34 participating countries, and the international jury for what is the largest competition of its type in the world is set to announce the global winner in four weeks' time.
Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record and has caused millions of dollars in damage. Naturally, Wikipedia covered it. But was Wikipedia's coverage unbiased?
The Signpost's weekly roundup of topics for discussion on the English Wikipedia.
This week, the Signpost interviewed two editors. The first, PumpkinSky, collaborated with Gerda Arendt in writing the recently featured article on Franz Kafka and won second prize in the Core contest last August. The second, Cwmhiraeth, collaborated with Thompsma in promoting the article Frog, which was featured last week. We asked them about the special challenges faced while writing Core content and things to watch out for.
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for October 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month. TimedMediaHandler also went live.
This week, The Signpost sings along with WikiProject Songs which focuses on articles about songs of every generation and genre. The project initially began as a rough outline in October 2002 and was reimagined in March 2004 using its parent WikiProject Albums as a template.

hello, you have just transfered my article to Georgian Wikipedia. Can you add my name there too pls? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ნინო ყვავაძე (talk • contribs) 19:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Edward T. West

A7? G3! Drmies (talk) 18:58, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Merely declaring an unannounced intention to run for president in 4+ years isn't intrinsically notable enough. Is G3 even relevant? It may even not be false. Or are you are referring to his ineligibility to run? (Which is also A7) I believe the article said he would run when he was 30 (eligible age is 35 in the U.S.). I'm over-analyzing again. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:22, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Chocolate is always a good answer. Marcus, if I ever need a gladiator on my team, you're the first one I call. Drmies (talk) 21:24, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Stop NRHP list-article page moves

Hi Marcus Qwertyus -- Would you please immediately stop moving pages of name type "National Register of Historic Places listings in..." and allow for discussion instead. I object to many/most/all of those moves and the names have been consciously chosen by NRHP editors.

I am fully aware of exactly what USNAMESWP:USPLACE says. You can use USNAMESUSPLACE in making arguments for what NRHP list-articles should be named, in a new discussion, but USNAMESUSPLACE itself applies strictly to city articles, not to NRHP list-article names. Would you please acknowledge this and agree to stop with further moves immediately? --doncram 14:04, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I was unaware. Where is that discussion or, better, the guideline? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 16:45, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for replying and, i guess, stopping. I meant to say WP:USPLACE where I said USNAMES above. If you read USPLACE (which by the way is under discussion at an RFC at its talk page), it is about the city articles themselves, and basically says use "City, State" in their article titles for most U.S. cities. About where the NRHP list-articles names are discussed, well, all the list-articles have been created for the most part, within List of RHPs, but new ones are split out occasionally such as was done for northern vs. southern sections in what was National Register of Historic Places listings in St. Louis, Missouri, split by me recently. It has been uniform or nearly uniform practice, by NRHP editors, to keep the State name in. It could be discussed, I guess, at the wikiproject NRHP talk page (wt:NRHP) or somewhere else with notice given there. However, I think there's no real benefit to changing the naming practice, or discussing it. For one thing, different than for other types of articles, including both City and State in the NRHP list article titles is helpful for clarifying that the Nation involved is the U.S. I would hate to see "State" cut out of many of these, only to have someone else come in and insist that "United States" be added. I.e. i think "National Register of Historic Places listings in Boston" is not better than "National Register of Historic Places listings in Boston, Massachusetts", but "United States National Register of Historic Places listings in Boston" is horrid. --doncram 02:05, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes I assumed these would be mostly uncontroversial after no one raised concerns of my moves of a couple thousand neighborhood articles in July. I likely won't be up to starting another requested move or discussion before this weekend. If this is too long I will just move them back for you. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 10:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I noticed editor Nyttend moved back the several Cincinnati, Ohio ones, so I just further moved back the others, some with edit summary "restore State to name, consistent with all other NRHP list-article names AFAIK. US:PLACES does not apply, strictly. Open to discussion somewhere." I think that moving them back quickly avoids some complications, if additional edits at any of the articles would prevent further moves. The ones i moved are, i think, Denver ones, Houston ones, Boston ones, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Miami, but some have downtown or southeast or northwest or other variations. I am open to there being an organized discussion somewhere, but as i indicated i don't particularly support really considering any moves. --doncram 01:14, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Subpage

Any idea why User:Mariagvozd would create this subpage in your user space? Assuming it was done without your authorization, I will delete it for you.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

That one was user-fied in my namespace per my request. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 21:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, I should have looked at the history, but I came at this through the back door (CSD). Any idea why Mariagvozd would now have recreated the article (Okpay), which has again been tagged for speedy deletion?--Bbb23 (talk) 21:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
And created at least a few times under Okpay in addition to OKPay. Probably another oDesk gig. I disagree strongly with the current CSD for this page (tagged by an inexperienced user) which in its current form contains little identifiable advertising, much less "exclusively promotional" content. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 22:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Not sure how much has changed in the latest version of the article since the last delete. Perhaps you should take it up with the deleting admin or to WP:DRV (I haven't looked to see if you've done either)?--Bbb23 (talk) 22:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Very little though even the last deleter (assuming we are thinking about the same deletion) said s/he was mistaken to delete it as G11. If anything it is A7. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 22:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Are you near St. Louis now or will you be?

Hey Marcus, I'm writing an article at User:Ryan Vesey/Temp about a defunct mine about 30 minutes away from St. Louis. It hasn't made it into the article yet, but the land has been reclaimed. It would be great, if you have time, if you could get me a picture of the area. In addition, I'm curious if the O'Fallon, Illionois historical society [1] the St. Clair county historical society [2] or the Belleville historical society [3] have any old pictures of the mine in operation. Thanks if you are able to try to get any of this and it's not problem if you're too busy. Ryan Vesey 18:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I might be going by Hollow 1 next week when I am back in St. Louis. Do you know the exact location and if it is still visible? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 01:18, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for taking a while and it's alright if it is too late, I was able to find a PD image of the mine. The best I have on the location of the mine is that Mine no. 1 is at Township 2 North, Range 8 West, Section 32 and mine no. 2 is at township 2 North, Range 8 West, Section 33 but that doesn't mean much to me. You can see the mine locations on this map Mine no. 1 is on the right side in green, Mine no. 2 is directly to the right of that and only partly shown, it is outlined in red.
Actually, I've found it. Mine no. 1 is at [4]. I did a search for "St. Louis and O'Fallon Mine" I'm certain that's accurate because it is roughly 1.5 miles Northeast of Birkner. Some specific things it would be great to get pictures of are the 3.5 acre pond slighly north of the pinpoint marker, the softball fields, and the tennis courts. (They were all created in the reclamation process). It's no problem if you're nota ble to get there, but thanks if you can. Ryan Vesey 04:02, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
There's actually a "Negro Hollow Creek" (seen here) A picture of that might be useful if possible. Ryan Vesey 04:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
With the help of someone from the historical society I'm learning more and more. The pond I talked about actually appears to be part of what was Mine no. 2. If you look at this. You'll notice that both Lawrence Lake and Aubaka lake appear on both maps and the pond created in the reclamation does not appear on the geological survey. The pond is surrounded by Longacre park trail and there's a playground on the East side. I don't know if it was part of the reclamation or if it was built later, but it is certainly on the grounds of the old mine so it would be nice to get a picture. Ryan Vesey 04:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I independently figured based on your first pdf map that no. 1's shafts were near 500-504 Liberty Rd which is a little off from your mark. [5]. If I'm near that area when it is daylight this week (relatives in Roxana) I will be sure to check it out. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 05:03, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense, it looks like my original mark was actually on the no. 2 site. It's possible that the shaft was filled in during the reclamation but there might be a marker of some sort. Ryan Vesey 13:20, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't able to get to Illinois during the window of time I wanted to. Sorry. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 22:13, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 November 2012

Last week, media outlets reported a ruling by a German court on the problem of businesses using Wikipedia for marketing purposes. The issue goes beyond the direct management of marketing-related edits by Wikipedians; it involves cross-monitoring and interacting among market competitors themselves on Wikipedia. A company that sells dietary supplements made from frankincense had taken a competitor to court. The recently published judgment by the Higher Regional Court of Munich, in dealing with the German Wikipedia article on frankincense products, was handed down in May and is based on European competition law.
Thirteen articles, six lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status last week.
In late September, the Technology report published its findings about (particularly median) code review times. To the 23,900 changesets analysed the first time (the data for which has been updated), the Signpost added data from the 9,000 or so changesets contributed between September 17 and November 9 to a total of 93,000 reviews across 45,000 patchsets. Bots and self-reviews were also discarded, but reviews made by a different user in the form of a superseding patch were retained. Finally, users were categorised by hand according to whether they would be best regarded as staff or volunteers. The new analyses were consistent with the predictions of the previous analysis.
As promised, we're expanding our horizons by featuring projects that cover underrepresented areas of the globe. This week, we headed to WikiProject Brazil which keeps track of articles about the world's largest Portuguese-speaking country. The project has shown spurts of activity and continues to serve as a hub for discussions, despite the project's collaborations, peer reviews, and outreach activities being largely inactive.

The Signpost: 19 November 2012

The WMF's Funds Dissemination Committee has published its recommendations for the inaugural round 1 of funding. Requests totalled US$10.4M, nearly all of the FDC's budget for both first and second rounds. The seven-member committee of community volunteers appointed in September advises the WMF board on the distribution of grant funds among applying Wikimedia organizations. The committee, which has a separate operating budget of $276k for salaries and expenses, considered 12 applications for funds, from 11 chapters and from the WMF itself for its non-core activities. The decision-making process included community and FDC staff input after October 1, the closing date for submissions. Taken together, the volunteers decided to endorse an average of 81% of the funding sought—a total of $8.43M, which went to 11 of the 12 applicants. This leaves $2.71M to be distributed in round 2, for which applications are due in little more than three months' time.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Turtles. The young project started in January 2011 and has accumulated 5 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, and 6 Featured Pictures. The project maintains a combined to-do list and hot articles meter, a popular pages ranking, and a collection of resources for turtle articles. We interviewed Faendalimas and NYMFan69-86.
WMF Executive Director Sue Gardner was forced to clarify this week that proposed structural changes to the Foundation's Engineering and Product Development Department were not a "done deal" and that it was "important that you [particularly affected staff] realise that ... your input is wanted". The reorganisation, announced on November 5 and planned for the middle of next year, will see its two components split off into their own departments.
Seven featured articles, four featured lists and ten featured pictures – including the photograph that spawned the Streisand effect – were promoted this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include the question of ticker symbol placement and the notability of various types of creative performer.

The Signpost: 26 November 2012

On November 24, a general assembly of Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) voted on the fate of the Wikimedia Toolserver, a central external piece of technical infrastructure supporting the editing communities with volunteer-developed scripts and webpages of various kinds that are assisting in performing mostly menial tasks.
An open-access preprint presents the results from a study attempting to predict early box office revenues from Wikipedia traffic and activity data. The authors – a team of computational social scientists from Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Aalto University and the Central European University – submit that behavioral patterns on Wikipedia can be used for accurate forecasting, matching and in some cases outperforming the use of social media data for predictive modeling. The results, based on a corpus of 312 English Wikipedia articles on movies released in 2010, indicate that the joint editing activity and traffic measures on Wikipedia are strong predictors of box office revenue for highly successful movies.
Six articles, one list, and six images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.
Wikidata, the new "Wikimedia Commons for data" and the first new Wikimedia project since 2006, reached 100,000 entries this week. The project aims to be a single, human- and machine-readable database for common data, spanning across all Wikipedia projects, which will "lead to a higher consistency and quality within Wikipedia articles, as well as increased availability of information in the smaller language editions" while lowering the burden on Wikipedia's volunteer editors—whose numbers have stalled overall, and continue to dwindle on the English Wikipedia.
This week, we uncovered WikiProject Deletion Sorting, Wikipedia's most active project by number of edits to all the project's pages. This special project seeks to increase participation in Articles for Deletion nominations by categorizing the AfD discussions by various topic areas that may draw the attention of editors. The project was started in August 2005 with manual processes that are continued today by a bevy of bots, categories, and transclusions. The project took inspiration from WikiProject Stub Sorting and some historical discussions on deletion reform. As the sheer number of AfDs continues to grow, the project is seeking better tools to manage the deletion sorting process and attract editors to comment on these deletion discussions.

WikiProject Wikify: November Newsletter and December Drive

Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) on behalf of WikiProject Wikify, 22:26, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Libraries

Still planning on doing something next weekend? My schedule is a little crazy Saturday, but I'm game.--Chaser (talk) 17:07, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Communication with the Botanical Garden has become intermittent. Last I heard it would have to be held on that Friday due to a conflicting event at Webster Groves Public Library. I will suggest instead having a Google+ hangout. I still plan to pay the BHL a visit in a few weeks and maybe you would too? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 01:41, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 December 2012

The global jury of Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), the world’s largest photo contest, announced its results on 3 December.
Three articles, two lists, and four images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Deployments of MediaWiki 1.21wmf5 cause widespread problems for users across wikis when HTML and CSS updates came temporarily out of sync. On the first wikis targeted for deployment, this was caused by the different cache invalidation rates for HTML (typically one month) and CSS (typically five minutes). The retrospective on the problem highlighted the fact that that the test wiki – the WMF's answer to a production environment that individual developers can no longer practically emulate themselves – actually demonstrated the exact problem that would later manifest itself on production wikis. It went unnoticed.
This week, we went searching for white roses in the lands of WikiProject Yorkshire. The project began in May 2007 as a way to improve articles about the historic English county of Yorkshire and its modern-day administrative divisions and cities. Since then, the project has accumulated 31 Featured Articles, 14 Featured Lists, 91 Good Articles, and a monstrous list of Did You Know entries. Despite all of the effort improving Yorkshire articles, the project has experienced waning participation in the last few years. The project still publishes a newsletter each month, monitors the popularity of and recent changes to its articles, maintains a portal, and collects resources for contributors to use.

The Signpost: 10 December 2012

At the time of writing, this year's election has just closed after a two-week voting period. The eight seats were contested by 21 candidates. Of these, 15 have not been arbitrators (Beeblebrox, Count Iblis, Guerillero, Jc37, Keilana, Ks0stm, Kww, NuclearWarfare, Pgallert, RegentsPark, Richwales, Salvio giuliano, Timotheus Canens, Worm That Turned, and YOLO Swag); four candidates are sitting arbitrators (David Fuchs, Elen of the Roads, Jclemens, and Newyorkbrad); and two have previously served on the committee (Carcharoth and Coren). Four Wikimedia stewards from outside the English Wikipedia stepped forward as election scrutineers: Pundit, from the Polish Wikipedia; Teles, from the Portuguese Wikipedia; Quentinv57, from the French Wikipedia; and Mardetanha, from the Persian Wikipedia. The scrutineers' task is to ensure that the election is free of multiple votes from the same person, to tally the results, and to announce them. The full results are expected to be released within the next few days and will be reported in next week's edition of the Signpost.
Eight articles, four images, six lists, and one topic were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The Visual Editor project – an attempt to create the first WMF-deployable WYSIWYG editor – will go live on its first Wikipedias imminently following nearly six months of testing on MediaWiki.org. A full explanatory blog post accompanied the news, explaining the project and its setup. Once a user has opted-in, the editor can handle basic formatting, headings and lists, while safely ignoring elements it is yet to understand, including references, categories, templates, tables and images. At the last count, approximately 2% of pages would break in some way if a user tried the Visual Editor on them; it is unclear whether any specific protection will be put in place beyond relying on editors to spot problems.
In celebration of Human Rights Day, we checked out WikiProject Human Rights. Started in February 2006, the project has grown to include over 3,000 articles, including 12 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, 66 Good Articles, a large collection of Did You Know entries, and a few mentions "in the news". The project monitors listings of popular pages and cleanup tags. We interviewed Khazar2, Cirt, and Boud.

DYK for Unnamed 2020 Mars rover mission

The DYK project (nominate) 16:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)


Cheyenne Bitware and Net2Phone

Hi Marcus, remember how Win 98 used to have Cheyenne Bitware, a fax and pc phone calling app, and Net2Phone (a VOIP calling program) preinstalled? Do you know of anywhere where i can download it for my current pc? I wish to have those old apps, the version around 1998-2002, to use for my current pc over my broadband internet for calling friends and family. Thank you in advance Nguyen1310 (talk) 05:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

For old times sake? Dude, save the trouble and just get Skype on Windows XP. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 13:04, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 December 2012

Seven days after the close of voting, the results of the recent Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) elections have been announced by two of the four stewards overseeing the election, Mardetanha and Pundit. Of the 21 candidates, 13 managed to gain positive support-to-oppose ratios, and the top eight will be appointed to two-year terms on the committee by Jimbo Wales, exercising one of his traditional responsibilities.
In the past year, we've tried to expand our horizons by looking at how WikiProjects work in other languages of Wikipedia. Following in the footsteps of our previously interviewed Czech and French projects, we visited the German Wikipedia to explore WikiProjekt Computerspiel (WikiProject Computer Games). The project dates back to November 2004 and has become the back-end of the Computer Games Portal, which covers all video games regardless of platform. Editors writing about computer games at the German Wikipedia deal with unique cultural and legal challenges, ranging from a lack of fair use precedents to the limited availability of games deemed harmful for youths to strong standards for the inclusion of material on the German Wikipedia.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...
This week's big story on the English Wikipedia is obviously the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (which, by the time you read this, may be renamed 2012 Connecticut school shooting). Quickly created and nominated for deletion not once but twice, and both times speedily kept, the article saw the expected flurry of edits (a look at the history suggests an average of at least one a minute over the first day and a half) and more than half a million page views on the first full day.
Four articles, three lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week, including a picture of a three-week old donkey (also known as an 'ass').
MediaWiki users (including Wikimedians) can now organise themselves into groups, receiving recognition and support-in-kind from the Wikimedia Foundation. The project, backed by new Wikimedia technical contributor coordinator Quim Gil, has seen five proposals lodged in its first week of operation. The idea of MediaWiki groups mimics that of Wikimedia User Groups.

Orphaned non-free media (File:Edmodo log-in page.png)

Thanks for uploading File:Edmodo log-in page.png. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Hazard-Bot (talk) 04:10, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

Thanks for the swift removal of another user's questionable comment from my talk page--enjoy some Christmas baklava! Khazar2 (talk) 22:12, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
nom, nom, nom, nom. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 00:58, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Baby Browning

Can you help me understand why you moved FN Baby Browning to Baby Browning? The Naming Policy of the firearms project states that "The names of firearm articles should start with the proper name of the manufacturer, followed by the firearm's name." In addition to this, every other weapon manufactured by FN starts with "FN". See: FN FAL, FN Five-seven & FN F2000 for a few examples. I am still new around here so I want to make sure I do things right but it seems that article should definitely have "FN" at the start of it. --Zackmann08 (talk) 04:54, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you are right so I have reverted my move. The XM2010 rifle article should stay at its current location according to that policy however. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:43, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I concur with you there. I wasn't aware that XM2010 was the military designation because the civilian version is market under the same name. Thanks again and happy holidays! --Zackmann08 (talk) 20:25, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2012

As part of its new focus on core responsibilities, the Wikimedia Foundation is reforming its grant schemes so that they are more accessible to individual volunteers. The community is invited to look at proposals for a new scheme—for now called Individual engagement grants (IEGs)—which is due to kick off on January 15. On Meta, the community is once again debating the two new offline participation models—user groups (open membership groups designed to be easy to form) and thematic organizations (incorporated non-profits representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting work on a specific theme within or across countries). In a consultation process on Meta that will last until January 15, the community will be discussing WMF proposals for a new guideline on conflicts of interests concerning Wikimedia resources. The draft covers COI issues for both volunteers and organizations across the movement.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject A Song of Ice and Fire, which focuses on the eponymous series of high fantasy literature, the television series Game of Thrones, and related works by George R. R. Martin. The project was started in July 2006 and has grown to include 11 Good Articles maintained by a small yet enthusiastic band of editors.
Seven articles and two lists were promoted to 'featured' status this week, including List of battlecruisers. The article covers all of the battlecruisers—which were a type of warship similar in size to a battleship but with several defining characteristics—ever planned or constructed. The last British battlecruiser built, HMS Hood, is pictured at right.
Efforts were stepped up this week to sow a feeling of trust between the major parties with an interest in the future of the Toolserver. The tool- and bot-hosting server – more accurately servers – are currently operated by German chapter, Wikimedia Germany, with assistance from the Foundation and numerous volunteers, including long-time system administrator Daniel Baur (more commonly known by his pseudonym DaB). However, those parties have more recently failed to see eye-to-eye on the trajectory for the Toolserver, which is scheduled to be replaced by Wikimedia Labs in late 2013, with increasing concern about the tone of discussions.

Question about User Draft Space

Hi! I just received a message from you asking me not to draft article content in my user space and then copy it to the encyclopedia (specifically, you flagged Lodgepole as a copy-and-paste). I have been using the same procedure for several years now and am confused about how you recommend that I should draft articles. Thanks for any clarification you can offer. --Jgmikulay (talk) 17:06, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Draft as you had before but at a unique title (ex: User:Jgmikulay/example). When you are finished drafting you can move it to the mainspace via one of the dropdown menus to the left of the search bar. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 17:10, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Also can you attribute yourself like I have done at Talk:Lodgepole (sculpture) and User talk:Jgmikulay/WSPA for each article? Thanks. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 17:21, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The aether

I just wanted to mention that your speedy deletion tag of The aether was rather WP:BITEy, since you placed an A3 tag on the article just 2 minutes after it was created. Usually, with A1 and A3 speedy deletion tags, it's best to wait at least 10 minutes, and sometimes more, before tagging, to not scare editors off and to give them time to develop their articles. However, I have gone ahead and deleted the article.--Slon02 (talk) 17:49, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

The Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts) ‎

Hi Marcus, it appears you moved The Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts) without consensus. There is an ongoing discussion over here. Thanks for your efforts, but considering there is an ongoing discussion it would be better to bring your move ideas to the talk page first. Thanks Tiggerjay (talk) 19:41, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I was unaware. See my new comments on that page. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:58, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 December 2012

In the impersonal, detached Colosseum that is Wikipedia, people find it much easier to put their thumbs down. As such, many people active in the Wikimedia movement have witnessed a precipitous decline in civil discourse. This is far from a new trend, yet many people would agree that it all seemed somehow worse in 2012.
A recent, poorly researched and poorly written story in the Register highlighted the perceived "cash rich" status of the Wikimedia movement. ... The Telegraph and Daily Dot, among others, have alleged that there are multiple links between the WMF, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and Kazakhstan's government, which is, for all intents and purposes, a one-party non-democratic state.
On 27 December the Wikimedia Foundation announced the conclusion of their ninth annual fundraiser, which attracted more than 1.2 million donors. The appeal reached its goal of US$25 million, even though fundraising banners ran for only nine days.
In the first of two features, the Signpost this week looks back on 2012, a year when developers finally made inroads into three issues that had been put off for far too long (the need for editors to learn wiki-markup, the lack of a proper template language and the centralisation of data) but left all three projects far from finished.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...
Brion Vibber has been a Wikipedia editor for nearly 11 years and was the first person officially hired to work for the Wikimedia Foundation. He was instrumental in early development of the MediaWiki software and is now the lead software architect for the foundation's mobile development team.
At the beginning of the year, we began a series of interviews with editors who have worked hard to combat systemic bias through the creation of featured content; although we haven't seen six installments yet, we've also had some delightful interviews with people who write articles on some of our most core topics. Now, as we close the year, I would like to present some of my own musings on the state of featured content—especially as it pertains to systemic bias and core topics.
This week, we're celebrating the New Year from Times Square by interviewing WikiProject New York City. Since December 2004, WikiProject NYC has had the difficult task of maintaining articles about the largest city in the United States, many of which are also among the the most viewed articles on Wikipedia. The project is home to 22 Featured Articles, 7 Featured Lists, 32 pieces of Featured Media, and a lengthy list of Did You Know? entries.
Northeastern University researcher Brian Keegan analyzed the gathering of hundreds of Wikipedians to cover the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. ... A First Monday article reviews several aspects of the Wikipedia participation in the 18 January 2012, protests against SOPA and PIPA legislation in the USA. The paper focuses on the question of legitimacy, looking at how the Wikipedia community arrived at the decision to participate in those protests.

Talkback

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at WP:CFD/S.
Message added 01:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Armbrust The Homunculus 01:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at WP:CFD/S.
Message added 09:54, 9 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Armbrust The Homunculus 09:54, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

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.
The dawning of a new year offers both a fresh slate and an opportunity to revisit our previous adventures. 2012 marked the fifth anniversary of the WikiProject Report and was the column's most productive year with 52 articles published. In addition to sharing the experiences of Wikipedia's many active projects, we expanded our scope to highlight unique projects from other languages of Wikipedia, and tracked down all of the former editors-in-chief of the Signpost for an introspective interview ... While last year's "Summer Sports Series" may have drawn yawns from some readers, a special report on "Neglected Geography" elicited more comments than any previous issue of the Report. Following in the footsteps of our past three recaps, we'll spend this week looking back at the trials and tribulations of the WikiProjects we encountered in 2012. Where are they now?
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.

RfA3

Hello Marcus Qwertyus. I noticed the edit you made to the closed RfA3. I am not concerned that the information is being added after the close, but you did break the numbering sequence. Please replace your ::indentation with #:. Thank you. --My76Strat (talk) 11:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Hey what ever happened to WP:Incorporate All Rules? It was a good read and valid contrarian view. Better than that amateurish straw man WP:FOLLOW. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 11:10, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
You're welcome Marcus Qwertyus. I really appreciate your expressed understanding of that essay. I took a good pummeling over that essay with near unanimous agreement that it was written for every bad reason imaginable. I couldn't convince anyone that I wasn't trying to disrupt. You're practically the first that ever called it a read, let alone good. I thought it had potential for good, but I had it deleted after it sat userfied in my account, and more shit was hitting the fan. Anyway, check your fix, I think you put :# where you should put #: I got to go for a few, I'll talk to you again. --My76Strat (talk) 11:20, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
I undid your courtesy blanking of RfA3; the edit comment was misleading. Has there been some discussion approving such a blanking? Glrx (talk) 01:30, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
No because having a discussion would defeat the the purpose of the courtesy blanking (the Streisand effect). No discussion is needed. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 11:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Re:WikiCup rollback

Yeah, OK, thanks. It's under control, I left a message explaining the issue on the user's talk page. (I'm not really sure about calling an argument about rules a "content dispute", but that's a different issue...) J Milburn (talk) 14:11, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Super. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 14:14, 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.

Speedy deletion declined: John Patterson (Ohio state representative)

Hello Marcus Qwertyus. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of John Patterson (Ohio state representative), a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: From what I can tell, the article was not created by a banned user. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 13:23, 22 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.

Speedy deletion declined: Bob Doyle (politician)

Hello Marcus Qwertyus. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Bob Doyle (politician), a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: The page has had substantial edits by users other than the banned user. Thank you. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 13:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Raised at AFD. Ryan Vesey 14:00, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Ah, sorry, that was my mistake. I missed the fact that the other substantial edit to the article was also made by a sock. (*embarrassed*) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 14:08, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
I was wondering how you could have missed it, and then I remembered I'm using a script that doesn't come standard. If you add the following script to your common.js page, it will strike the usernames of blocked users. Ryan Vesey 14:23, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
importScript('User:NuclearWarfare/Mark-blocked script.js');
That's a lot easier to see - thanks for telling me about it. I was relying on popups before, but that requires that you actually check every contributor, which obviously didn't work in my case. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 14:39, 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.

Speedy deletion declined: Charles Fry (politician)

Hello Marcus Qwertyus. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Charles Fry (politician), a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: Not in violation of his block, which was for multiple accounts. . Thank you. GedUK  11:29, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think I had some sort of brain fail. I've deleted it now. GedUK  11:36, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Sound and fury

Please comment on Sound and Fury at Talk:Sound and Fury Ego White Tray (talk) 06:26, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Middle-distance running

Per your previous comments in Talk:Long-distance running#Requested move, please see Talk:Middle distance running#Suggested move. Thanks! Location (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Episcopalianism in the US

Hi, I have moved your proposal from WP:CFDS to WP:CFDW. You added that "A separate category would be needed needed called Category:Episcopalianism in the United States" so I have put a reminder about this on WP:CFDWM. I assume you know what is needed, so please do it after Category:Episcopal Church in the United States of America goes red. – Fayenatic London 09:41, 5 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.

Fort Alexander (St. Petersburg)

Hi Qwertyus, please revert your moves of the Fort Alexander (St. Petersburg) article to Fort Alexander (St. Petersburg, Florida). The fort is in Russia, not the US. In the future, please check the article itself before assuming you have found something that needs fixing. Regards, Acad Ronin (talk) 13:01, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

AP style

Hello Marcus, I reverted you on several recent undiscussed moves and I see you've done many more. Adding the state names to sub articles such as List of tallest buildings in Jacksonville where there are no ambiguous articles is unnecessary for disambiguation and just adds verbiage. The "AP convention" is for main articles; it doesn't suggest we should force the convention into sub-articles where further disambiguation isn't needed. I see these moves have already caused some trouble with Fort Alexander (St. Petersburg, Florida) and Bank of the West Tower (Albuquerque, Mexico). I'd appreciate it if you'd stop making these moves in the future. Cheers, --Cúchullain t/c 14:18, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I concur with Cúchullain. Skyscraper/building articles and tallest building lists have a naming convention separate from the US city-naming guideline, as determined years ago by WP:SKY. Please stop adding additional disambiguation to article titles without first initiating discussion. Cheers, Rai•me 16:42, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for finding my mistakes. Somehow I'm not sure I would have found all of those.
I was aware some projects sometime institute a kind of local consensus, for instance the NRHP project, but I wasn't aware SKY had one. NRHP articles skew toward the full name like NRHP listings in San Francisco, California which is unsightly but more clarification never hurt anyone. I will get around to addressing this eventually but the list of tallest buildings situation is more pressing.
Part of me, mostly the journalist part, cringes when I see list of tallest buildings in Mobile. It would be the same as an article called History of the Cardinals under Pujols. Maybe you should think of St. Petersburg, Florida as the Common name and not as disambiguation. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 17:30, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, for one thing, "St. Petersburg" is the common name; it's just style convention and sometimes disambiguation that makes us add the state at the main article. And second, in articles like Bank of the West Tower (Albuquerque), the parenthetical is for disambiguation only - it's only there to distinguish from the other Bank of the West Tower. "Albuquerque" adequately distinguishes it; "New Mexico" is just added verbiage. Again, the style convention doesn't need to be forced into every sub-article, it adds nothing and can lead to mistakes. In the future, please don't undertake all these moves without discussion.--Cúchullain t/c 18:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
St. Petersburg is a city in Russia. In parenthetical disambiguation, nine times out of ten the state is going to be used and if anything more is needed, a city can be added. So Albuquerque is the "verbiage". The rare exception is cities on the AP, and not even in all cases. I would much rather it be "Bank of the West Tower (New Mexico)". Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
The state is used as the disambiguator where appropriate; the city is used where it's more suitable. While a lot of articles use both, there's no need to add the extra verbiage when it's not required to disambiguate the article. Nothing is served, and it can lead to mistakes as we've seen.--Cúchullain t/c 21:59, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
When do you feel it is more appropriate to use a city without the state qualifier? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 22:04, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
The city is used when that would be a better disambiguator - for instance articles on buildings or features particular to that city. "Bank of the West Tower (Albuquerque)" is a superior option to "Bank of the West Tower (New Mexico)" since it needs to be distinguished from the building of that name in Sacramento. Using "Albuquerque, New Mexico" is acceptable, but it's hardly necessary or universally done, and there's no reason to force it in.--Cúchullain t/c 22:19, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Just because there is only one Mercy Medical Center in cities called Springfield, doesn't mean Springfield alone is sufficient to identify the subject. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 23:16, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I'd argue that it is sufficient, though Springfield is a particularly ambiguous city name, much more so than Albuquerque, Miami Beach, or even St. Petersburg. I see that's another article you moved without any prior discussion.--Cúchullain t/c 00:44, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Contrary to popular belief, Wikipedia will not run out of letters anytime soon. Titles can be one character or 208 or anything in-between. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 03:54, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
However, per the naming criteria articles should be concise, and no more precise than necessary. I'm sure we could go back and forth all day long, but the bottom line is that those moves are neither demanded by the guidelines nor uncontroversial, so we'd appreciate if you'd stop making them without discussion.--Cúchullain t/c 14:04, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

RfA: thank you for your support

Marcus, I wanted to take a moment to offer my sincere thanks for your support during my RfA. It did not have the hoped-for conclusion, but I will work to show myself deserving of your support in my future editing. Thanks again, Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 11:10, 12 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.

Shopping malls in Los Angeles County

Please see WP:CFDS re Category:Malls and Shopping Districts in Los Angeles County, California: I opposed Category:Malls and shopping districts in Los Angeles County, California as inconsistent, & suggested Category:Shopping malls in Los Angeles County, California as C2C to match others in Category:Shopping malls in California by county. Only shopping malls are categorised; "shopping districts" are not clearly defined. – Fayenatic London 15:43, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at WP:CFD/S.
Message added 23:57, 15 February 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Armbrust The Homunculus 23:57, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Episcopalianism in the United States

I suggested at User_talk:Marcus_Qwertyus/Archive_2#Episcopalianism_in_the_US that you set up Category:Episcopalianism in the United States after Category:Episcopal Church in the United States of America goes red. In the end that didn't happen, as the latter was redirected rather than deleted. Do you still think that Category:Episcopalianism in the United States is required? I'm not clear what else should go in it, otherwise I'd do it myself. – Fayenatic London 16:44, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I started Category:Episcopal Church in the United States as I think I originally suggested. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 17:01, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
OK, thanks. As a one-cat cat, I'm not sure what it achieves, but I'll remove the note from WP:CFDWM now anyway. – Fayenatic London 22:00, 18 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.

SAIC RM

Hi Marcus, I think you'll agree the RM at Talk:SAIC (company) has languished long enough. It's probably only the either/or question that has stalled it—no one's actually against a move. Would you be ok with SAIC (U.S. company)? That seems to be the most popular option, with only one user specifically against it. --BDD (talk) 22:23, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Fine by me. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 22:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll make it happen. --BDD (talk) 23:21, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Actually, it looks like someone else beat me to it. Sorry to keep spamming your talk page... --BDD (talk) 23:22, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:Alexa Internet.png)

Thanks for uploading File:Alexa Internet.png. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Hazard-Bot (talk) 04:02, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

St. Petersburg Union of Artists

A tag has been placed on St. Petersburg Union of Artists, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a redirect to a nonexistent page.

If you can fix this redirect to point to an existing Wikipedia page, please do so and remove the speedy deletion tag. However, please do not remove the speedy deletion tag unless you also fix the redirect. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Camyoung54 talk 15:26, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Native American -> Native-American - WHUH??

This is totally wrong and defies any conventional usage; change it back and don't change any others. Did you think to consult {{tl:NorthAmNative}} or see the article on Native American/First Nation naming issues; in fact the Native American (no hyphen) title is problematic in the Canadian and Mexican context, but we've let that slide for now; but the hyphen is TOTALLY WRONG.Skookum1 (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I realized that so I moved those four back. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 15:43, 22 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.

Adopt me

Hi Marcus, how is it going? It's going great for me. My day will be a lot more great if you would like to adopt me. Vicstars 13:20, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Vicstars. Of course you may become my adoptee. I'd like to help you get started here. Can I get some of your interests so that I can suggest some things for you to do? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 21:21, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, I have interests in those following articles:
  1. Cary Grant
  2. Boris Karloff
  3. Grace Kelly

Vicstars 22:22, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Consider adding yourself to the WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers member's list and dropping a hello on their noticeboard. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 22:33, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Military vehicle countries

I've replied on my talk page. DexDor (talk) 07:00, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at WP:CFD/S.
Message added 15:30, 12 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

It's for Category:KBJ designed buildings. Armbrust The Homunculus 15:30, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Four-digit years in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

My edits in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers concerning 4-digit years in date ranges were based on several things:

  1. Consistency. It is a long-standing guideline in Wikipedia to provide consistent information and formatting in articles. The best example of this is the recommended usage of consistent dmy or mdy date formats; if an article is predominantly using one date format, continue to use it. So it is with date ranges; if there is already a predominance of 4-digit years in the article, Wikipedia guidelines would suggest keeping it that way.
  2. Clarity. Sometimes it makes more sense to our readers to see a 4-digit date. For example, the range 1900-07 is, at a glance, difficult to understand because of the three consecutive zeroes. The range 1900-1907 is clearly easier to understand.
  3. Shades of Gray. As has been discussed several times by the Wikipedia community, Wikipedia guidelines are not intended to be black and white, that there is only one right way and everything else is wrong. Rather, they are guidelines to follow in most cases, with exceptions allowed when the exception makes sense.
  4. WP:BOLD. The most important Wikipedia guideline.

Please note that my edits did not change the basic statement that it is preferred to use 2-digit years for the second year in the range. Rather, the edit simply said it may be acceptable to use 4-digit years in some circumstances. we request that you reconsider your revert. Cheers. Truthanado (talk) 01:42, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Your move of several pages including List of rail accidents (1990–99) (apparently to follow the 2-year date range guideline in WP:YEAR) has caused both confusion and an unwanted proliferation of redirect pages, neither of which is desirable.
  • Confusion. Each of the pages has a selection box in the upper left that uses 4-digit years (ex: 1990-1999). It confuses our readers when they click 1990-1999 and the page they get is titled 1990-99, not what they clicked.
  • Undesirable redirect pages. Redirect pages have their uses; this is not one of them. Redirect pages increase the number of pages that Wikipedia servers must maintain, and also slow down user response. The WP:REDIRECT page gives reasons for creating redirects, and :2-digit years is not one of them. In fact, item 2 in WP:R#DELETE indicates that these List of rail accidents redirect pages are candidates for deletion because they cause confusion (see the comment immediately above).
We suggest that you carefully consider your future usage of 2-digit dates and their effects on Wikipedia and, in particular, our readers.
Cheers. Truthanado (talk) 02:00, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
You're points are noted. I'll have detailed responses to all of them tomorrow. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 04:32, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I haven't seen your responses. Would you please tell me where they are posted. Cheers, Truthanado (talk) 03:32, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Sorry for the delayed reply. Midterms and schoolwork kept me from writing. *grumble, grumble, grumble*. Consistency is fine but it isn't harmful to clarify the intended meaning in the text. For example the W. E. B. Du Bois article can spell out the full name in the lede without appearing indecisive.
The list on WP:R is not intended to be exhaustive or exclusive and I don't see any potential for confusion. At proposed moves I have not seen a single move opposed for causing incoming links to point to a redirect (possible exception: when many links will point to a disambiguation page). Redirect pages are only deleted if they are harmful and you will not find many at WP:RFD who will agree to delete harmless redirects. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 05:43, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Edit summary - Keynes

I laughed when I read your edit summary "profoundly meaningless" on John Maynard Keynes. Quite a nice oxymoron! – S. Rich (talk) 05:19, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Well I gotta reward those that still read edit summaries! Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 05:26, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

open-source vs open source?

Why would you move a page based on a stylistic convention that is not the least bit standardized with no discussion or prompting to move that page? Centerone (talk) 06:44, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

MOS:HYPHEN calls for a hyphen in compound adjectives. Is that your question? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 06:56, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Joke's on me?

My contributions list is currently looking rather interesting. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:36, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Just don't make me decide to ruin your progress by moving it to "WP:April Fools Day/". :) Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 09:01, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Question

Hi Marcus Qwertyus. I have posed a question about your proposed speedy rename of Category:Liffey class frigate at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Speedy#Current_nominations. Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 04:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

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Soltam M-66

Hi marcus it was me who deleted the section which indicated that Iranian vafa mortar is a copy of M-66,I should point out that it was me who originally added this part to the article but after sometimes it became clear that M-66 is different from vafa(specially in tube) and there is no source about vafa being a copy of Soltam or that somehow iran acquired M-66 and copied it. Farzam1370 (talk) 09:06, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Well I would say you are right in reverting if there is no source. However Dave1185 has reinstated it so I would talk to him. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 13:01, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Uw-vandalism0

Template:Uw-vandalism0 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 00:17, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Marcus Qwertyus

As subject title for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aylesham and the link http://telly.com/AllenVincent489#!BJP0TU

Should I change the title? What can I do to make it acceptable to add my link ?

Thank you

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.255.243.212 (talk) 11:01, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It won't be included because it isn't relevant to the topic of Aylesham at large. See our informational page on what can and cannot be included: WP:ELNO. I hope this helps. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 11:07, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

To Marcus Qwertyus. Thank you for prompt response. The closest rule that might be against my link appears to be No: 10 but Telly.com is not a social networking website, in fact it is a video hosting site. I ask you to please reconsider. I don't know what more to say except Mum and I are desperately trying to expose what is happening to us as we are on Autism Spectrum and we are trying to get help.

I will leave it at this but if there is any information I can give you that will help allow my link then please feel free to be proactively helpful.

Thank you. Allen Vincent 15.4.2013 approx 12.25hrs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.255.243.212 (talk) 11:25, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

ASD? Same here man. See #13 and also #4. More relevant: WP:NOTSOAPBOX. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 11:31, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

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The Fighter (2010 film)

Hi Marcus, You recently declined and then removed my request for a technical move of The Fighter to The Fighter (2010 film) with the summary, "Would be controversial since the move was done by consensus." Please could you tell me what that means. Was the article page previously moved from The Fighter (2010 film) to The Fighter? As you can see, both pages lead to the article (one is a redirect). The reason I thought it better to have them swapped around is because The Fighter (film) currently leads to Fighter (disambiguation page), wherein the list of films are all presented with the year of release apart from the 2010 film. I'd also suggest that The Fighter redirect to Fighter, and The Fighter (film) redirect to The Fighter (2010 film), but perhaps that would be controversial. Regards, nagualdesign (talk) 21:15, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Your guess is correct. See Talk:The Fighter#Requested move. The Fighter (film) also correctly (in my opinion) redirected to the 2010 film for a time. If you do not object, I would like to change it back. There are procedures for proposing a controversial move. See WP:RM/CM. I think I will abstain from opposing if you make the proposal. Regards. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 22:31, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately you've left me none the wiser. The original move was initiated by you (although a simple redirect would have sufficed, IMO), you declined my request to move it back and now you think I ought to propose a 'controversial move' which you would not oppose?! In all honesty I don't really go in for overly officious shenanigans on Wikipedia, I just edit for fun. I tried to move the page as I thought it would normalize things. You disagree? Then I'll leave it there. No worries. nagualdesign (talk) 23:16, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

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Year pagemoves

I've just noticed this series of moves, and I'm not sure they're all appropriate. WP:YEAR is intended as a style guide for running text, not specifically as a rule for article titles, and it feels wrong to me to use the shorter form (xxxx-yy) in titles. Byzantine–Sassanid War of 602–628 reads more naturally than Byzantine–Sassanid War of 602–28, and it's worth noting that that article in particular has gone through a peer review, two A-class reviews, a GA nomination, and FAC without anyone commenting on the title.

Dropping AD, on the other hand - Roman civil war of 350–351 - makes perfect sense, so please keep doing those ones! Andrew Gray (talk) 19:44, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I feel it is more important to keep the titles brief than running text. At any rate, the title should match the running text for the same reasons as ENGVAR WP:CONSISTENCY. I'm not surprised it went as long as it did without comment. I have moved plenty of uncontroversial FA pages for other reasons (hyphens instead of en dashes etc.) Resolving the three-digit years are less of a priority for me so I think I will put that on the back burner. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 23:48, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it should be forced to match - if nothing else, it's very rare to actually use the full form of a title like this in the article itself! As a title, 620-28 feels wrong to me in a way that inconsistency doesn't, and I think this may be one of those cases where a literal reading of a rule produces undesirable results. I'll leave some comments around and see if we can get a third opinion. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:56, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
On rereading WP:YEAR, incidentally, it is explicit on recommending xxx-xxx for three digit years ("For clarity, years with fewer than four digits should be written in full, (355–372) (not 355–72)"), so if we do go with this as the rule, we should leave the shorter ones. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:59, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
The three-digit exception is a new one [6] and apparently hasn't been discussed or at least mentioned. This is the second time in recent memory that I've been surprised by one of this editor's bold policy changes. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 23:08, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I've left a request for third opinions at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Years in titles. Thanks, Andrew Gray (talk) 13:13, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I prefer full dates. Otherwise, for example, "The Great SNAFU of 903-05" may be read by some as "...of May 903". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:46, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

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Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 16:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Inventing the AIDS Virus

I've made a comment on this page you may find of interest.Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 16:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

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Discussion notice

You participated in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#RFC-birth date format conformity when used to disambiguate so I thought you might want to comment at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Birth date format conformity .28second round.29.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:06, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Category:Amphibious vehicles by country

Category:Amphibious vehicles by country, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor (talk) 04:49, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Science fiction

I'm sure your intentions were of the best, but people don't attend science-fiction conventions or buy science-fiction novels: we attend science fiction conventions and buy science fiction novels. It may not be entirely logical by your standards, but it's the reality of common English usage. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Fine by me but you may want to bring List of science-fiction films et al. into consistency if that is the way we are going. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 16:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

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Century Theatre

After you created the disambiguation page Century Theatre, you apparently forgot to modify all the incoming links to point to the new target, Century Theatre (New York City). If these are not changed, the change would seem to be more detrimental than beneficial. Since there are a lot of these links, changing them will probably take quite a lot of work. (Perhaps this can be automated. I don't know.) Since a disambiguation page only becomes really necessary when there are more than three pages that need to be disambiguated, it may be easier to move Century Theatre (New York City) back to Century Theatre and use hatnotes for disambiguation instead. What do you think? --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:09, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Check back later for reply. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Good job! --Robert.Allen (talk) 16:32, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

May 2013

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Car automation info

If you really want to get nerdy and know more about the NHTSA levels of vehicle automation from the Verge article you linked to, here's the actual NHTSA report (PDF). The levels are explained starting on page 4. I think the vehicular automation article is very much on target about levels 1 and 2, while the autonomous/driverless article we're talking about is pretty specific to levels 3 and 4, so I think we have a good separation of articles already. And keep in mind the nuanced but important distinction between "autonomous" (self-governing) and "automated" (labor-saving). The perfectly understandable confusion people are having about this point is one of the reasons why I think the easier-to-visualize term "driverless" (or practically anything else that describes the technology, but "driverless" seems most common) is a better title than "autonomous." The fact that NHTSA calls everything just a different level of automation could further confuse people, even though autonomous systems really are just a very advanced form of automation. Pdxuser (talk) 21:28, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

June 2013

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Category:Amphibious vehicles of the Cold War

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Border Peaks

Um, yes it IS a proper noun, please research before making a change; it's in the treaty....and while "Border Peak X" is a proper name, times 150 or so, "Border Peaks" is stupilated in the treaty. It was named that way for a reason.Skookum1 (talk) 08:21, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Border peak or boundary peak? Mild Bill Hiccup is the one who actually made the change in the first place. His grammar checks out if you ask me. @User:Mild Bill Hiccup, what say you? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 08:49, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Look at the citations (of which there is a plethora). This isn't about grammar, this is about official names and terminology and style specified by international treaty. See further comments on User talk:Ground Zero, who is another Canadian editor like myself, and also comment on the article talkpage which is linked from Ground Zero's. Yes I'm t he architect of that page, but there are issues with such a change that defy any imposition of WP:MOS on official names. There's a reason they were all-caps "Border Peaks". And see the BC-Alberta one where that term or phrasing is not used, because they are not named/legally defined as such (and not all define the border but simply are on it, or are named because they are on it (e.g. Intersection Mountain. As I recall, though I haven't read back over the talkpage yet or scanned the article history, the title of that page evolved. "List of Border Peaks" wasn't accurate or specific enough and "List of Border Peaks specified by the Alaska Boundary Award of 1903 overly so, and cumbersome; the current title is awkward, but unavoidable. And the product of not just myself, but others who helped work/develop the page and its title.Skookum1 (talk) 14:13, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
To me I would assume that we would treat this just like we would handle list of fire departments in Los Angeles: while Fire Station No. 14 is reasonable, "List of Fire Departments" isn't. If that isn't the crux of your argument, forgive me, I'll prattle on. The references I browsed before moving the page said nothing about "Boundary Peak(s)" in running text, while the first few sources I found in Gbooks treated it as a common noun.[7] I'm always skeptical when someone wants to go by what is official. The U.S. Army advises capitalizing the word "soldier" at any mention. Obviously that directive isn't followed here. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 20:22, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Yes, you're quite right. Mild Bill Hiccup (talk) 00:20, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
To me the phrase "to me, it would seem" is an indicator of original research and opinion. That this discussion is going on at all - and such comments and equivocations are being presented to defend the move, means that it should not have geen speedied, and should have been an RM. And you should read up on these, and investigate the treaty as I indicated. The more accurate title (that I think we discussed long ago) was "List of summits named "Border Peak" in the Alaska-British Columbia/Yukon border", or something along those lines. Border Peak itself could be used, in fact, as though formatted as a list table and with a geotemplate, it's essentially a dab. Note that "border" was used because of the terminology used for "US-Canada border". The title was arrived at be consensual discussion; your move was not.Skookum1 (talk) 01:05, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
"Border peak or boundary peak" is a clear demonstration that you don't know the subject, nor did you read the sources nor looked at the citations nor understand the history behind these names or the treaty that created them. I'm getting tired of having to do RMs to correct unwarranted speedies like this one; if I were an admin, I'd have reverted this myself. If you want to argue that the legal name should be reverted, it's you that should have tried an RM, and IMO it would fail. This should be reverted forthwith. This is no more valid than changing Boundary Ranges to boundary ranges.Skookum1 (talk) 01:19, 5 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.

iOS

Marcus. I don't have access to the general internet from this machine. That's the reason I forgot to add the citation. I will do the edit later, once I have my hands at the proper sources.

Thanks for your message. Carlos Osuna207.248.54.99 (talk) 17:06, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm looking forward to reading that. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 17:27, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Information on removal of copyrighted contents on Pinterest

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at WPSamson's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks WPSamson (talk) 05:49, 11 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.

St Louis Wiknic

Can you create a WP:Wiknic page for St Louis, maybe at Wikipedia:Meetup/St. Louis? I saw they;'re been some interest at Twitter for the STL Wiknic...--Pharos (talk) 18:59, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

CFDS thanks

Thank you for nominating all of the non-English-foreign-language external links categories. If I can get the bot working, I may start the bot on these early, as I've had a few inquiries now about why the redlinks are starting to appear post-template edits. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:02, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The University of Missouri edit in the AAU article.

Hi Marcus,

I visited Mizzou's website before I made the edit and it is based on information that is current as of the day of edit, which I obtained from their website and the AAU's. The University of Missouri website displays "University of Missouri" as you noted, but changing the name on the AAU article to reflect that is incorrect. The AAU, which is the topic of this article, lists only "University of Missouri-Columbia" as a member of their organization rather than other campuses of the system. The University of Missouri is branding for the system and the website reflects their current branding for their campus, but the AAU website lists the official name as supplied by the institution to the AAU. Universities change their branding frequently, but not their official names. The AAU website is updated frequently when official names are changed, such as when the University of Colorado at Boulder became officially the "University of Colorado Boulder." Colorado officially changed the name of the campus and no longer uses their former name (all offical documents of the University have been changed) and the AAU updated it within a couple of weeks of the change. If you go to the AAU's website, you will only find the name "University of Missouri-Columbia", which is also the official name for the flagship campus. As such, editing to the "University of Missouri" is not consistent with the website just as changing all of the University of California campus names to just "University of California" would not be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rpfitzgerald (talk • contribs) 07:32, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

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."

Can you remove this item?

Dear Marcus Qwertyus

Please can you remove the three leters V. T. E, in the bottom of the text (box on right side) here[[8]]??

Thanks --Yamoulat (talk) 13:26, 23 June 2013 (UTC)--

What?

I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Daren420c (talk) 19:55, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Northwest_Airlines_Flight_253&diff=504546478&oldid=504433436]. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 20:03, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

That was almost a year ago and at the time Anwar al-Awlaki's Wikipedia article had been renamed to the alternate spelling of Aulaqi before being reverted back to Awlaki, which is the only reason why I made the changes you referenced. Check the date on his article for yourself, my edits were with good and honest intent, certainly not vandalism.

However, you're correct that it should also have been reverted on the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 article much sooner and I would have done so myself but I've long even forgot about making those particular edits. Daren420c (talk) 21:36, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

That isn't the problem. The spelling was justified then. It is just the altering of the spelling of al-Awlaki's name in several headlines and at least two direct quotes from newspapers that causes problems. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 05:38, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay I understand now you're right, I'll make sure not to change direct quotes from references in the future. Thanks Daren420c (talk) 06:39, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

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.

Category:Military vehicles of the United States Marine Corps

Category:Military vehicles of the United States Marine Corps, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor (talk) 05:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Amusement Park Quarter 3, 2013 Newsletter

WikiProject Amusement Parks Newsletter

Quarter 3, 2013

463 124 5.13 50 30% »
Full edition
Unassessed Articles Coordinates Needed WikiWork Load Project Members B&M articles are GA or FA

23:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

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 ...

Category:Medical evacuation vehicles

Category:Medical evacuation vehicles, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor (talk) 05:50, 18 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.

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...
A Barnstar!
Great American Wiknic Barnstar
You are awarded this mighty Great American Wiknic Barnstar for your valorous efforts in helping to organize the 2013 Great American Wiknic in the great city of St. Louis. -—Pharos (talk) 15:46, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Aaqib Wikia

Can you join this wiki link. --216.54.100.70 (talk) 15:49, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at WP:CFDS.
Message added 08:44, 9 August 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Armbrust The Homunculus 08:44, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikileaks edits on Presidential scandal

Hi! I noticed that you didn't accept the latest revisions to the Wikileaks article and puzzled at why. Is it because the contributor didn't provide any citations? Please note that I have seen this news too, and I'm very concerned about it. I have reliable sources like the last person (The Guardian, CNN, Wikileaks), but I'm a new-comer to Wikipedia and I don't really know how to cite very well. Would you please reconsider these edits, and maybe we can work out something later? I'm watching this story right now on GB7 news. Thanks. 212.36.226.185 (talk) 04:57, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Hil-ar-i-ous. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 05:06, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at WP:CFDS.
Message added 10:00, 14 August 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Armbrust The Homunculus 10:00, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

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.

STiki emergency

Wikipedia:Meetup/St. Louis: Wikipedia Takes St. Louis 2013

Hi Marcus! Could you maybe put up a stater page for Wikipedia Takes St. Louis 2013, so that we can link to it from Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes America. You can just use last year's Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes St. Louis 2012 as a base if you like.--Pharos (talk) 06:03, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Category:Follow on Incremental Capabilities

Category:Follow on Incremental Capabilities, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor (talk) 05:34, 25 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.

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.

Edit war

Stop icon

Your recent editing history at iPhone 5s shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.

To avoid being blocked, instead of reverting please consider using the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. See BRD for how this is done. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Please achieve consensus before repeatedly making drastic changes. CaseyPenk (talk) 22:04, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

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.

WikiProject Military history coordinator election

Greetings from WikiProject Military history! As a member of the project, you are invited to take part in our annual project coordinator election, which will determine our coordinators for the next twelve months. If you wish to cast a vote, please do so on the election page by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September! Kirill [talk] 16:10, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

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.

Talkback

Hello, Schierbecker. You have new messages at WP:CFDS.
Message added 06:26, 22 September 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Armbrust The Homunculus 06:26, 22 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."

October 2013 Wikification Drive

This message was delivered on behalf of WikiProject Wikify. To stop receiving messages from WikiProject Wikify, remove your name from the recipients page. -- EdwardsBot (talk) 18:48, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:CFDS

There are still 3 of your nominations in the "Current nominations" sections (Super Bowl related trophies and awards, WikiProject Science fiction related WikiProjects and Super Bowl related lists), with alternate target names. Could you make your opinion about them clear on the page? Regards, Armbrust The Homunculus 07:51, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed/requested move of multi-boot

Hi Marcus. Can you tell me how you submitted this requested move? Curious because I noted two section headers and would like to try to fix things so that a redundant section header isn't created by mistake. Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 16:57, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Got it. My mistake, I copy pasta'ed the WP:RM template and added a Proposed move section but forgot to take off the now-redundant "Requested" part. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 17:39, 4 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.

List of newspapers in the United States by circulation

I was following the method suggested at sections 6.10 or 6.13 of Help:Sorting. Is there a better way to make the numbers static? If so, please feel free to improve the list. Woodshed (talk) 09:35, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

That's better. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 17:28, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Red light disctrict (disambiguation)

Hi there. I'm going to replace the automated message with a personal note that you created an implausible typo in Red light disctrict (disambiguation) (the first "c"). I've placed a speedy tag on it. best, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:25, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for catching the typo, however for future reference, moving a page yourself is a relatively simple process that does not require a speedy. Regarding the later swap to A10, you should first make sure there is no content to merge and even then, it should be redirected instead of deleted. Regards, Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 07:32, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
I know, I just wanted the move to be done without a redirect, as was the case; I didn't know how to do that w/o an admin. But I suppose I could have redirected your duplicate and poorly named disambig page to the preexisting page, then tagged the redirect as implausible and have it deleted that way. It would still have required an admin. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 11:05, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

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...

Please comment on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/HD media player

Greetings! As a member of WikiProject Computing, You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the Article for deletion on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/HD media player. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! Thanks. 188.245.75.122 (talk) 20:23, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

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.

The CCI you requested has been opened

Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/America789 is now open. Thank you for flagging the issue. If you can assist, it would be very welcome! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:14, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

PAK FA and F-35

Hi Marcus, thank you very much for your response to my questionnaire I'd issued back in 2011. I apologise for not following up with a reply -- I've been busy with schooling and other areas of Wikipedia. Please forgive me.

Like you, I really want to see Wikipedia improve various stealth aircraft articles, particularly Sukhoi PAK FA. This aircraft seems to be the talk of the town at the moment, and boy does it look good! If you are interested in a future revamp of the article, I'd like you to check out the various English editions of the Russian magazine Vzlet, some of which have very fine details of the aircraft, to give yourself a good understanding of this jet (if you don't already). You might also like to get access to WP:HIGHBEAM, which contains fantastic articles of the Sukhoi jet. In the meantime, I'm building up a respiratory of news and article links about the aircraft in preparation for the revamp. Many hands make light work, so it would be great if you are prepared to contribute, and get others to contribute, to this small project.

Regarding F-35, the article is really bloated, and actually requires a tightening instead of an expansion. If you're not aware of them already (which I doubt) and if you're interested, Flight International and Flightglobal provide great coverage of the jet's design and manufacture.

But for the moment, I want to concentrate on the Russian jet. Thoughts? --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 11:53, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I'd be happy to help. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 18:32, 31 October 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.

A barnstar for you!

The Minor barnstar
no problem, marcus Kenneth16622 (talk) 18:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Wikify: November Newsletter and December Drive

Delivered on behalf of WikiProject Wikify. To unsubscribe remove your username from this list. EdwardsBot (talk) 22:23, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Evan Spiegel

The article Evan Spiegel has been proposed for deletion because it appears to have no references. Under Wikipedia policy, this newly created biography of a living person will be deleted unless it has at least one reference to a reliable source that directly supports material in the article.

If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article. For help on inserting references, see Referencing for beginners, or ask at the help desk. Once you have provided at least one reliable source, you may remove the {{prod blp}} tag. Please do not remove the tag unless the article is sourced. If you cannot provide such a source within ten days, the article may be deleted, but you can request that it be undeleted when you are ready to add one. Fiddle Faddle 23:18, 1 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.

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.

Difficult communications channels within Wikipedia

This is intended as a reply to a comment I believe you directed at me regarding an article about someone named Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr. Since I have no idea what that was about, I believe that I was there because of spam, specifically the kind of spam that attempts to exploit Wikipedia's credibility for the sake of victimizing suckers. It is already bad enough that they are robbing people with the help of Wikipedia, but the larger threat is that they may start vandalizing Wikipedia in support of their scams. In the examples that I have noticed previously, it appears that the scammers are weaving their scams around existing articles, but if the spammers think they can make another nickel by 'customizing' the articles to support details of their scams, then you can safely bet they will do so. Having said that, I do think that Wikipedia's anti-spammer efforts must be at least moderately effective insofar as I have noticed less spam of this sort recently. (Or maybe I've just been too busy to notice it?)

I would guess that in the case of this article I added an anti-spammer warning to the front of the article to counteract the spammer's pitch. Usually I also add a comment in the Talk, per your suggestion in the comment to which I am replying, but it sounds like I did not bother that time, probably because I was in a hurry (as already noted, but which is not true today, obviously). I usually include a suggestion that there should be a convenient mechanism to add such warnings with automatic removal after some period of time.

Now for the background about the "Difficult communications channels within Wikipedia". Your comment addressed to me was from last April, and I had no idea you had said anything. I have no idea why it was called to my attention today. My actual goal today was to add a suggestion in Talk to the Hadoop page. I do feel there is a weakness in the article, but I don't know enough about it except to add a question and hope that someone else can address it... I basically like Wikipedia, think it is a good idea, and I use it with trust pretty often, but at this level it feels like a closed community and makes me feel like an alien intruder. Shanen (talk) 07:34, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I figured out one small part of the large mysteries of Wikipedia... I clicked on the top right "Talk" link instead of the "Talk" tab for the article where I was trying to ask my question. Either I've never noticed that "Talk" link before (which is quite plausible) or it's a relatively recent thing. However, mostly I remain in my usual state of confusion. Shanen (talk) 07:50, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Haha. Talk pages are one of the more convoluted systems in place here, so no worries. You should get an orange "You have new messages" placard (formerly a large orange banner) at the top of the page if you get a new message. Its conceivable you missed it until now or it was latently delivered.
I can't pick up on what scam you are talking about. Can you point it out to me? Normally we would just revert on sight until the page could be "edit protected." In addition to the talk page (which was a good idea) there are various noticeboards you can post to. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 06:50, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
The scam was in email, but lately I haven't seen much spam that is using (=abusing) Wikipedia. I don't know if I can claim 'the kill', but I did add a number of warnings back in the days when the spammers were citing Wikipedia fairly often. Essentially the spammer is trying to make the scam see more plausible by basing the cock-and-bull story on an actual article or story that appears on some legitimate website with recognized credibility, and the spam includes the appropriate link. Of course, there is an added threat in the case of Wikipedia, in that the spammers could be motivated to vandalize Wikipedia to create a better scam. I don't think most of the spammers are so good at planning, but right now there doesn't seem to be any barrier to adding special bait to a Wikipedia article and waiting some period of time before launching the spam.
However, that does give me a new idea for an even stronger countermeasure than the temporary warnings (which I already suggested). If Wikipedia had a mechanism to collect the spam that references Wikipedia, then the spam itself could be analyzed to see which parts of the article are most closely linked to the scam, and those reputed facts could be checked more carefully. I'm not saying that everyone should donate some time to reducing the spammers' profits, but I think LOTS of people hate spam and that many of them would volunteer a bit of their time if better anti-spammer tools were available... Shanen (talk) 07:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
I think the community would be strongly resistant to any public notices within the article (WP:NDA may be relevant). However if the spammers' edits are directly affecting the article (either through misinformation or indirectly cheapening our brand by association) I'm sure others would be all ears if you have any ideas. You can cross-post this conversation onto Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam if you like. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 11:27, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
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