2016

Rcbirds link down

The download page for Rcbirds has been returning a 404 error for a long time. I've replaced the link at Meta with one to the Internet Archive for now. Could you please look into this?

Thanks! --Ixfd64 (talk) 04:03, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ixfd64, I don't think Daniel is maintaining such packages anymore. A number of people have asked elian about this over the years, and I haven't seen a public response... perhaps related to why it was taken down. Would you be interested in maintaining the code? Do you just want someone to rehost the latest zipfile from years back? – SJ + 04:20, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information. I'm pretty busy in real life and unfortunately don't have the time to maintain any software. However, I did update the link on Meta to point to the Internet Archive for the time being. So at least the program is still available for download if anyone decides to look for it. --Ixfd64 (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That link describes the project, but I don't think the source file was copied over... at least not at that timestamp. – SJ + 20:36, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

Hi Sj! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.

-- 23:40, Tuesday, February 2, 2016 (UTC)

Mission 1	Mission 2	Mission 3	Mission 4	Mission 5	Mission 6	Mission 7
Say Hello to the World	An Invitation to Earth	Small Changes, Big Impact	The Neutral Point of View	The Veil of Verifiability	The Civility Code	Looking Good Together

Get Help

About The Wikipedia Adventure | Hang out in the Interstellar Lounge

I'm so glad to see you finally decided to do the Wikipedia Adventure! Godspeed! Bishonen | talk 23:43, 2 February 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Bish, indeed :0) I wanted to figure out why we didn't use that sort of .js magic for the strategy consult on Meta, with its comparatively simple three-task workflow. Wishing you the very best speed- and other-wise. – SJ + 00:13, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A librarian friend is a friend indeed

Check out who just made their first edit at the CFA event last night! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 16:49, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

CCE! Magic. More please. – SJ + 21:13, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

graphs :)

hi Sj, see you've been playing with graphs! Just in case you haven't seen it - Special:GraphSandbox is a great tool to debug them - you can copy paste the whole graph specification (the json part) and change it there. Just FYI :) --Yurik (talk) 06:11, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That is superb. Thank you. :) – SJ + 07:21, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you!

Nice dictionary. It's a useful tool. Thanks for taking the time to make it :)

David Straub (talk) 11:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks David -- which one are you referring to? :) – SJ + 22:29, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

GLAM Boot Camp announced (June 14-16 in DC)

You have expressed interest in the GLAM-Wiki US Consortium, so you may be interested in attending the GLAM Boot Camp next month in Washington, DC. This is a training designed to help Wikipedians interested in guiding museums, libraries, and other cultural institutions in wiki engagement. Travel funding available for those in North America. Since the event is coming up soon, please be sure to add your name to the page if you are interested -- and please pass this announcement along. (You may want to share on Facebook or on Twitter.) Thanks for your interest! -MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:24, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot Camp. -Pete (talk) 04:30, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiversity Journal of Medicine, an open access peer reviewed journal with no charges, invites you to participate

Hi

Did you know about Wikiversity Journal of Medicine? It is an open access, peer reviewed medical journal, with no publication charges. We welcome you to have a look. Feel free to participate.

You can participate in any one or more of the following ways:

Publish an article to the journal.
Sign up as a peer reviewer of potential upcoming articles. If you do not have expertise in these subjects, you can help in finding peer reviewers for current submissions.
Sign up as an editor, and help out in open tasks.
Outreach to potential contributors, with can include (but is not limited to) scholars and health professionals. In any mention of Wikiversity Journal of Medicine, there may be a reference to this Contribute-page. Example presentation about the journal.
Add a post-publication review of an existing publication. If errors are found, there are guidelines for editing published works.
Apply to become the treasurer of the journal
Join the editorial board.
Share your ideas of what the journal would be like in the future as separate Wikimedia project.
Donate to Wikimedia Foundation.
Translate journal pages into other languages. Wikiversity currently exists in the following other languages
- Ceština, Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, 한국어, Português, Slovenšcina, Suomi, Svenska, Ελληνικά, Русский, العربية, 日本語
Sign up to get emails related to the journal, which are sent to updateswijoumed.org. If you want to receive these emails too, state your interest at the talk page, or contact the Editor-in-chief at haggstrom.mikaelwikiversityjournal.org.
Spread the word to anyone who could be interested or could benefit from it.

The future of this journal as a separate Wikimedia project is under discussion and the name can be changed suitably. Currently a voting for the same is underway. Please cast your vote in the name you find most suitable. We would be glad to receive further suggestions from you. It is also acceptable to mention your votes in the wide-reachwikiversityjournal.org email list. Please note that the voting closes on 16th August, 2016, unless protracted by consensus, due to any reason.

-from Diptanshu.D (talk · contribs · count) and others of the Editorial Board, Wikiversity Journal of Medicine.

Diptanshu^Talk 10:20, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Genealogy project need your vote for creation of an email list

This is the third newsletter sent by mass mail to members in Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise.

Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator Dan Koehl.

Your interest in One Laptop per Child and my interest in v:Miraheze

You appeared on my radar due to your comment on Wikiversity becoming an unrefereed warehouse for junk, and that led me to suspect you have high standards and caused me to peek at your user page. Then, your interest in physics and One Laptop per Child really piqued my interest. Regarding your comment, I personally feel it will be easier to let Wikiversity allow anything that is not dangerous. Since it is a place where students can write, we need to expect childish efforts. Policing Wikiversity might be as futile as trying to rid the world-wide-web of nonsense. I remain flexible on that matter, and would never oppose an effort to clean up Wikiversity.

But here is the real reason I am contacting you: While your interest in One Laptop per Child suggests in interest in childhood education, my interests are focused on adults seeking a college education. College students are focused on grades and degrees and view education competitively. For that reason, I am beginning to work on the private-wiki-farm v:Miraheze. I have well over 50 college students, and am attempting with having them work on private wikis that only I and the individual student can see. That way only the best material goes onto Wikiversity, and students cannot peek into each others efforts for inspiration until their efforts have been graded. My node to these student wikis is at

https://wright.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page

I am as interested in receiving some quick advice as in long-term collaboration with you: Is this the best way to set up such student wikis?-Guy vandegrift (talk) 17:05, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I take it you've talked w/ the miraheze team about this idea, and they're happy with generating 50 new wikis each year that later get deleted? If it's just a single student working w/ you on each page, and material not meant to be public, why not use something like a google-drive folder instead? – SJ + 00:49, 23 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Miraheze gave me wikimaking privileges, so I can create the wikis myself. Also, I intend to recycle the 100 wikis by changing the password. I am basically a sock and/or dual user of the accounts user:wsul001, user:wsul002, ... . The seem to be operating on a shoestring budget, so a modest donation from my university made them very happy with me.

Facto Post

Facto Post – Issue 2 – 13 July 2017

Editorial: Core models and topics

Wikimedians interest themselves in everything under the sun — and then some. Discussion on "core topics" may, oddly, be a fringe activity, and was popular here a decade ago.

The situation on Wikidata today does resemble the halcyon days of 2006 of the English Wikipedia. The growth is there, and the reliability and stylistic issues are not yet pressing in on the project. Its Berlin conference at the end of October will have five years of achievement to celebrate. Think Wikimania Frankfurt 2005.

Progress must be made, however, on referencing "core facts". This has two parts: replacing "imported from Wikipedia" in referencing by external authorities; and picking out statements, such as dates and family relationships, that must not only be reliable but be seen to be reliable.

In addition, there are many properties on Wikidata lacking a clear data model. An emerging consensus may push to the front key sourcing and biomedical properties as requiring urgent attention. Wikidata's "manual of style" is currently distributed over thousands of discussions. To make it coalesce, work on such a core is needed.

Links

WikiFactMine project pages on Wikidata, including a SPARQL library (in development).
Fatameh tool for adding items on scientific papers to Wikidata, by User: T Arrow. It has made a big recent impact. Offline for maintenance as we go to press, it is expected back soon.
As of July 2017, Zotero has a Wikidata translator. A personal Zotero library acts as an intermediary in managing and storing citation metadata.
GLAM Newsletter June 2017, Wikidata report. This is a good monthly round-up to follow, and welcomes contributions.
Exciting and Impressive! The Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) was launched in April: Infodocket on the first three months.
Olivia Solon in San Francisco, Why the net neutrality protest matters, opinion piece in The Guardian on 11 July.

Editorial: Annotations

Annotation is nothing new. The glossators of medieval Europe annotated between the lines, or in the margins of legal manuscripts of texts going back to Roman times, and created a new discipline. In the form of web annotation, the idea is back, with texts being marked up inline, or with a stand-off system. Where could it lead?

ContentMine operates in the field of text and data mining (TDM), where annotation, simply put, can add value to mined text. It now sees annotation as a possible advance in semi-automation, the use of human judgement assisted by bot editing, which now plays a large part in Wikidata tools. While a human judgement call of yes/no, on the addition of a statement to Wikidata, is usually taken as decisive, it need not be. The human assent may be passed into an annotation system, and stored: this idea is standard on Wikisource, for example, where text is considered "validated" only when two different accounts have stated that the proof-reading is correct. A typical application would be to require more than one person to agree that what is said in the reference translates correctly into the formal Wikidata statement. Rejections are also potentially useful to record, for machine learning.

As a contribution to data integrity on Wikidata, annotation has much to offer. Some "hard cases" on importing data are much more difficult than average. There are for example biographical puzzles: whether person A in one context is really identical with person B, of the same name, in another context. In science, clinical medicine require special attention to sourcing (WP:MEDRS), and is challenging in terms of connecting findings with the methodology employed. Currently decisions in areas such as these, on Wikipedia and Wikidata, are often made ad hoc. In particular there may be no audit trail for those who want to check what is decided.

Annotations are subject to a World Wide Web Consortium standard, and behind the terminology constitute a simple JSON data structure. What WikiFactMine proposes to do with them is to implement the MEDRS guideline, as a formal algorithm, on bibliographical and methodological data. The structure will integrate with those inputs the human decisions on the interpretation of scientific papers that underlie claims on Wikidata. What is added to Wikidata will therefore be supported by a transparent and rigorous system that documents decisions.

An example of the possible future scope of annotation, for medical content, is in the first link below. That sort of detailed abstract of a publication can be a target for TDM, adds great value, and could be presented in machine-readable form. You are invited to discuss the detailed proposal on Wikidata, via its talk page.