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Thursday December 4: NYC Wiki-Salon and Skill Share

Thursday December 4: NYC Wiki-Salon and Skill Share

You are invited to join the the Wikimedia NYC community for our upcoming wiki-salon and knowledge-sharing workshop in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

6:30pm–8pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street

Afterwards at 8pm, we'll walk to a social wiki-dinner together at a neighborhood restaurant (to be decided).

We hope to see you there!--Pharos (talk) 07:11, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

(You can unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by removing your name from this list.)

Wikidata weekly summary #135

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Extended protection to ISIL pages

Hi I saw that you added semi-protection to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant page (due to expire 13 December 2014) and I was wondering whether this could be extended and whether it could be extended to a range of ISIL related pages. Although I'm mainly involved in ISIL related issues at the moment I do a fair bit of editing on other pages and it seems to me that there is a far higher proportion of edits from IP edits on the ISIL pages than elsewhere. We have had vandalism and already have a problem with establishing consensus with logged on editors let alone IPs. As far as I can see it the more pages and templates that can get protection the better. When a new page starts then this will be the unestablished page with, as I see it, most potential controversy. Thanks Gregkaye ✍♪ 12:12, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd be willing to consider it, if you'd give me the pages that you think semiprotection could be useful on? Courcelles 18:18, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

A pie for you!

Happy Thanksgiving!! 5 albert square (talk) 05:11, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

You Have Email!

Hello, Courcelles. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
And you have another email :)--5 albert square (talk) 17:17, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 December 2014

WikiCup 2015 is just around the corner...

Hello everyone, and may we wish you all a happy holiday season. As you will probably already know, the 2015 WikiCup begins in the new year; there is still time to sign up. We have a few important announcements concerning the future of the WikiCup.

  • We would like to announce that Josh (J Milburn) and Ed (The ed17), who have been WikiCup judges since 2009 and 2010 respectively, are stepping down. This decision has been made for a number of reasons, but the main one is time. Both Josh and Ed have found that, over the previous year, they have been unable to devote the time necessary to the WikiCup, and it is not likely that they will be able to do this in the near future. Furthermore, new people at the helm can only help to invigorate the WikiCup and keep it dynamic. Josh and Ed will still be around, and will likely be participating in the Cup this following year as competitors, which is where both started out.
  • In a similar vein, we hope you will all join us in welcoming Jason (Sturmvogel 66) and Christine (Figureskatingfan), who are joining Brian (Miyagawa) to form the 2015 WikiCup judging team. Jason is a WikiCup veteran, having won in 2010 and finishing in fifth this year. Christine has participated in two WikiCups, reaching the semi-finals in both, and is responsible for the GA Cup, which she now co-runs.
  • The discussions/polls concerning the next competition's rules will be closed soon, and rules changes will be made clear on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring and talk pages. While it may be impossible to please everyone, the judges will make every effort to ensure that the new rules are both fair and in the best interests of the competition, which is, first and foremost, about improving Wikipedia.

If you have any questions or concerns, the judges can be reached on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, on their talk pages, or by email. We hope you will all join us in trying to make the 2015 WikiCup the most productive and enjoyable yet. You are receiving this message because you are listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk), The ed17 (talk), Miyagawa (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Figureskatingfan (talk) 18:53, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #136

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events/Blogs/Press
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • Wikimedia Commons now has access to the data on Wikidata
    • Statements on properties are now live
    • Sneak peek at a prototype for checking Wikidata's data against 3rd party databases
    • The Game has a new mode: alma mater
    • Work is ongoing for a bot job to tag thousands of objects in OpenStreetMap with the equivalent Wikidata ID
    • Resolver finds Wikidata items for a given identifier (VIAF, GND, IMDB, ...)
    • English-Wikipedia now has a template, RedQ, which puts a Wikidata link next to red links for subjects which have no Wikipedia article in any language, This should prevent duplicate Wikidata items from being created when an article is written, and assist Wikipedia editors to find relevant facts and sources. Please copy it to other-language Wikipedias.
  • Did you know?
  • Development
    • Started work on units
    • More work on evaluating options for querying
    • Implemented Property DataType (for relationships between properties)
    • Improvements to get by with fewer memcache request on clients
    • Work on file-based cache of the SiteStore
    • Work on improved label lookup performance
    • Wrapping up work on usage tracking
  • Monthly Tasks

Tech News: 2014-50

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • All users are now getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [1]
  • You can join a video chat about Phabricator on December 11 at 18:00 (UTC). Phabricator is the new tool to report issues. [2]

Problems

  • There was a problem with Phabricator on November 29. It was due to a network issue. [3]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf11) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 9. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 10 (calendar). [4]
  • You can now exit VisualEditor by pressing the "Esc" key. [5]
  • It is now easier to use VisualEditor with IMEs. Typing in Malayalam now works better. [6] [7]
  • The new version of OOjs UI fixed many issues with the size and layout of buttons in dialogs. [8] [9] [10]
  • (Lua) You can no longer use mw.text.unstrip to get the HTML from special page transclusion. You can see a list of scripts to fix. [11] [12]

Future changes

  • Starting next week JavaScript tools won't work if they use jQuery Migrate. [13]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:11, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Another Deletion Request

Bet you're probably thinking "Christ, Him again!" lol. In all seriousness I made an error in creating redirect that didn't need to be created Steven Ross (Home and Away) as it already exists under another spelling. Could you please delete this for me? Conquistador2k6 1 December (2014)

=Deleted page review

Hello Courcelles, I would like to create a page of a notable person who is an International Master in chess. When I tried to create the page it indicates that the page was deleted before. Page name is: Valeri Lilov. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rtweb1 (talk • contribs) 19:40, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

    • Thank you. I will look at the deletion review process. I do believe that the previous profile had elements that are not aligned to the Wikipedia policy and would like to post a simple entry with nothing but simple raw facts (that have got nothing related to any products or services that the person deals with or offers). Based on the International Chess Federation (FIDE) records, the person is an [Master] in chess. Profile from the International body: Status of Valeri Lilov — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.228.167.38 (talk) 08:31, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
      • The problem is that, usually, notability for chess players based purely on ranking is at the Grandmaster title, not the lower International Master one. Courcelles 14:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia genealogy project

Just wondering if you have any thoughts re: the idea of WMF hosting a genealogy project. If so, feel free to contribute to this discussion. And apologies if I have made this request before. ---Another Believer (Talk) 18:05, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

No offense, but I really couldn't imagine any subject that bores me more than genealogy, so, no interest at all in participating over there. Courcelles 20:21, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Procedural Question

Regarding Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Dragonron I noticed the check-user results confirmed Ruylon, Argotton, and Torga are connected. Torga was topic banned and it looks like those other two accounts have edited on the topic. Should I open a new SPI case or is there a better way to go about it? Thanks! — Strongjam (talk) 15:21, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Guess it doesn't matter anymore. Nevermind. — Strongjam (talk) 16:27, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 December 2014

Tech News: 2014-51

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • You may see a new tool tested on the mobile site of the English Wikipedia. It asks simple questions to make the article better. In the future, your answers will go to Wikidata. [14]
  • You can watch a video to learn how to use Phabricator to manage projects. [15]
  • You can test a new version of the Content Translation tool.

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf12) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 16. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 17 (calendar). [16]
  • You can now find and replace text in VisualEditor. You can open the tool via the menu, Ctrl+F or Cmd+F. [17]
  • VisualEditor now doesn't change the space at the end of a text that you make bold. [18]
  • The "Apply changes" button in the reference window of VisualEditor is now disabled until you make a change. [19]

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:43, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #137

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Wikidata weekly summary #138

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

The Signpost: 17 December 2014

Induction to the 2015 Arbitration Committee

Congratulations on your success in the elections and welcome onto the 2015 Arbitration Committee. In the next few days we will induct you and the other new arbitrators. Please email arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org from the email address you wish to use for registration on the various private wikis and mailing lists. Please also indicate which, if any, of the checkuser and oversight permissions you wish to be assigned for your term (if you don't already hold both).

Over the coming days, you will receive a small number of emails. Please carefully read them. If they are automated registration emails, please follow the instructions in them to finalise registration. You can contact me or GorillaWarfare (the designated newbie contacts) directly if you have difficulty with the induction process. Lastly, you must identify to the Wikimedia Foundation prior to being appointed. Please promptly go to the Identification Noticeboard and follow the instructions linked there if you are not already identified.

Thank you for volunteering to serve on the committee. We very much look forward to working with you this term.

For the Arbitration Committee,
AGK [•] 08:33, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-52

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • The Technical Operations team is now using Phabricator to track their tasks. The Operations team manages the Wikimedia servers. In the future you will be able to see the tasks that are not private. [24]

Software changes this week

  • There will be no software changes this week and next week. This is because of the end-of-year holidays. The next update of MediaWiki will be on January 6. [25]

Future changes

  • The system that displays citations will change in the future. The new system will not change the style of citations. [26]
  • A new design for VisualEditor will come in January. You can try it now on test wikis. [27]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:52, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Great Fire of London

Lower to PC? --George Ho (talk) 05:51, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Why? Given the page still gets vandalism even at semi? Courcelles 13:04, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!


— Revi is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

— Revi 15:19, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Christmas to you and yours! Courcelles is travelling (talk) 20:46, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

SPI

Hi! You archived the Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Geographic.location/Archive investigation, but you forgot to move the investigation to new title. During the investigation it was found that the actual sockmaster was User:Armaanaziz, so the page should be moved to "Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Armaanaziz". Thanks! Vanjagenije (talk) 21:04, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Quite right, fixed up now. Courcelles 05:16, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/RealMadridCF2012

I think it would have been appropiate to confirm it if the three accounts are also related to the Salzburg IP who created a link for the article of the sock User:NKBratstvo. Although it is quite obvious that it is again the same sockmaster. I don't know if you're allowed to do so. But after reveiving such talk page messages by the sock I don't think he deserves consideration. --Yoda1893 (talk) 11:53, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

The thing is, we operate under a WMF mandated m:Privacy policy that makes it a very high burden to tie an account to an IP. (as it explicitly states that an IP address is private information) So, in almost all cases, checkusers just comment on the accounts involved, and leave the determination of IP's to a behavioural review by the admin who actions the case. Courcelles 17:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2014

Tech News: 2015-01

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Software changes

  • There are no technical changes this week.

Feedback about Tech News in 2014

  • The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2014? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us at m:Talk:Tech/News. You can write in your language. Thank you!

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:52, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Joe Williams (jazz singer)

A page you previously contributed to, Joe Williams (jazz singer), had many prior revisions deleted due to copyright issues. For details please see Talk:Joe Williams (jazz singer). Your prior version may be temporarily restored upon request if you need it for reference to re-incorporate constructive edits that do not make use of the copyright infringing material. Please feel free to leave me a talk message if you need this done. Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 22:29, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Seasonal Greets!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2015!!!

Hello Courcelles, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015.
Happy editing,
Mhannigan (talk) 04:07, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

And, to you as well. Courcelles 09:11, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Seasonal Greets!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2015!!!

Hello Courcelles, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015.
Happy editing,
--L235-Talk Ping when replying 03:44, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Merry Xmas!!

Merry Xmas!!
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!! 5 albert square (talk) 00:01, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Christmas to you!

Merry Christmas!
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! x - JuneGloom07 Talk 22:27, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
Merry Christmas, June! Courcelles 23:15, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 December 2014

WikiCup 2015 launch newsletter

Round one of the 2015 WikiCup has begun! So far we've had around 80 signups, which close on February 5. If you have not already signed up and want to do so, then you can add your name here. There have been changes to to several of the points scores for various categories, and the addition of Peer Reviews for the first time. These will work in the same manner as Good Article Reviews, and all of the changes are summarised here.

Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round, and one of the new changes this year is that all scores must be claimed within two weeks of an article's promotion or appearance, so don't forget to add them to your submissions pages! If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs), Miyagawa (talk · contribs) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs)
If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Congrats

Congratulations on being elected Arb for 2015-2016! Hopefully health issues won't get in your way again. KonveyorBelt 03:24, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I wouldn't have ran if I thought I'd have any big problems, but, here is hoping. Courcelles 07:09, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
I came also for congratulations! So far arbitration was (for me at least) a synonym for waste of time, and ideally it shouldn't even be needed, - let's work on that ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:08, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
In a perfect world, it wouldn't be. In this world, the best we can hope for in the near term is for the Committee to stop doing a little of everything... the scope creep needs a rollback button. Courcelles 04:16, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
My observation is that you have some very high quality companions this election cycle, so perhaps that can be worked on. (Dennis) Farmer Brown 2¢ 16:54, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Yep, the field was smaller than I'd consider ideal (18 candidates for 9 seats isn't anyone's ideal), but the community elected eight pretty good editors (and then myself. Oops.) Courcelles 07:56, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Your years of experience and hard work to build the encyclopedia made me confident that you will be elected. After all, Wikipedia and it's community never forgets anything. Btw Merry Christmas! Jim Carter 18:54, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

John B. Sullivan

Any chance you could expand on the reason for blocking John B. Sullivan? Just curious and I'll understand if policy prohibits you from doing so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:02, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

It was a cross-wiki CU investigation between here and Wikidata. The steward reported the results over on Meta. Courcelles 23:14, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
Many thanks. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:20, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #139

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

I sent you email!

Hello, Courcelles. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Replied, not particularly helpfully, I'm afraid. Courcelles 22:44, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment

This is related to your proposed wording changes for Andy's current restriction regarding infoboxes but, because I haven't had much experience at WP:ARCA, I wasn't sure whether I should address it there. One of the thing that I've been complaining about for some time is that Andy almost never (99.9% of the time) seems to engage in discussion with template maintainers or end users before nominating infoboxes for deletion or merging. The current restriction would seem to encourage him not to engage in discussion which, to me at least, seems counterproductive. An example is the nomination for {{Infobox Australian road}}, which was specifically kept after extended discussion, including an RfC attended by members of the Roads and Australian Roads projects. If Andy had discussed this first, the TfD might not have happened. I feel Andy's restriction should require that he engage in discussion before nominating infoboxes so my question is, what is the best way of having this addressed? --AussieLegend (✉) 02:54, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Just comment on your section on the ARCA page. That way everyone will read it, compared to just me on this backwater. (I was trying to come up with wording that would settle the sense of the existing sanction, and the way AE admins have been interpreting it into the restriction, not actually modify it.) Courcelles 03:31, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll do that. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:09, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Kezia Noble

Hi Courcelles, you create protected Kezia Noble back in 2010, following an AfD which resulted in delete. An editor is now trying to recreate that page via Articles for Creation. I have been assisting them with this and believe that the page can now stand in it's own right with a reasonable claim of notability, or, at the very least, stand a 50/50 chance of passing another AfD. Would you consider unprotecting the title please? The draft is at Draft:Kezia Noble, if you wanted to look it over. Bellerophon talk to me 16:58, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I see maybe one source there that's reliable... where's the notability here? Courcelles 20:12, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
The Daily Mail and Daily Express are both subject to journalistic oversight, and although both are typically considered at the more sensationalist end of the tabloid spectrum, their presence in this article does not hinge on verifying any dissentious facts, they mearly serve to show that she has recieved some media attention. Equally, I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of articles in LDNER and The Romance Files, and while their reader-base is almost certainly smaller than more mainstream press, I feel, when taken together with the other sources, and that she appeared on a mainstream UK television programme, that Noble probably meets the GNG. It seems to me she is notable in her field of relationship advice/coaching, and as we have several articles in that field, to argue that no relationship/dating coach can ever be considered notable on Wikipedia seems erroneous (I am referring to the reasoning in the original AfD). If you believe that my take on her notability is too liberal an interpretation of GNG then won't argue the point further. I'm just trying to help a new editor write an article. Bellerophon talk to me 08:23, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
The sources might just exist, but when I look at the article as it stands, well, I'll run through them:
  1. Wiki, not reliable for much of anything.
  2. Self published blog, again, not reliable
  3. Might be getting somewhere, shows she might be important, but not what GNG is looking for, either.
  4. She was on a morning show for ten minutes. Again, shows she could be important, but, we're looking for multiple, reliable sources about the subject.
  5. I'd need to look into this to see if it is reliable or not.
  6. The best source here, and it is the Mail.
  7. Mentions her in passing, very useless for writing a well-sourced biography.
  8. Can't find much about this source at all, and for soe reaosn, the website never lets me get down to the footer to investigate them.

(I"d guess it is just one or two decent sources from surviving AFD, but isn't there yet. Courcelles 08:57, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for taking the time to look at it. Bellerophon talk to me 08:05, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
@Bellerophon: Still looking into this, I was able to fish out a couple sources that, well, don't talk about her much, but make me think that it all just might squeak through. [28] and [29]. Courcelles 08:27, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

did you notice?

Hello C. Thanks for this. I gotta chuckle out of the day that the protection expires. It goes so well with an article about a fictional animal :-) I know it is a coincidence since you were simply setting a three month protection and I'm not asking that it be changed. I just wanted to pass along a thanks for tickling my funny bone. Happy New Year and cheers. MarnetteD|Talk 00:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Hahaha! Nope, it never occurred to me that it would be April Fool's! Courcelles 01:44, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Indeed. I don't suppose you could find it in your heart to make it a permanent semi? Montanabw(talk) 02:35, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
That really would be strange for a first protection without BLP issues, per commons practice. Courcelles 04:12, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Hmmm. I don't know how often we have to make requests, but I've gotten many articles with kiddie vandalism problems permanent semi on first ask... though it may be after multiple others did... is there a list somewhere of how many requests have been made? Montanabw(talk) 09:26, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Nope, archives for RFPP are only kept for the last eight days. Courcelles 17:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
The article does get a lot of nonsense edits - especially claims that they are real animals :-) I live in the part of the world that they are reputed to inhabit (as does Montanabw) and have not seen one hopping down the road heehee. It would be nice for a longer protection (except for the fact that it would slow down my edit count - more heehees) but I can understand the case against that. Maybe you could put the page on your watchlist Courcelles so you can monitor things after the protection expires. Cheers. MarnetteD|Talk 18:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
We'll make a stronger case for permanent semi the next time...!  ;-)
I usually watch pages I protect. Start using rollback and I'll come a looking, most likely. Courcelles 04:14, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:PERM Request

Would you please stop by Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Autopatrolled regarding an old rights change, my feeling is that this user has moved on since the prior copyright issues and has improved. Thanks, — xaosflux Talk 14:58, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Please note, this is not a request to explain administrative actions, no response needed if you want to just stay out of it; I'll take a non-response as a non-objection. — xaosflux Talk 16:06, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: The first article I checked was the recent General Post Office, Adelaide. That's not the kind of article I'd want bypassing NPP, the tone is completely wrong, and it is totally unsourced. Orders, decorations, and medals of Timor-Leste is similarly unsourced. Penrice Soda Products is poorly sourced. I wouldn't give this editor autopatrolled with these spotchecks. (I looked at five other pages, one was a redirect someone turned into an article (I missed that in my first reply, that he didn't write that thing), four were disambig pagees.) Courcelles 17:59, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you. — xaosflux Talk 18:42, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 9

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 9, November-December 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • New donations, including real-paper-and-everything books, e-books, science journal databases, and more
  • New TWL coordinators, conference news, a new open-access journal database, summary of library-related WMF grants, and more
  • Spotlight: "Global Impact: The Wikipedia Library and Persian Wikipedia" - a Persian Wikipedia editor talks about their experiences with database access in Iran, writing on the Persian project and the JSTOR partnership

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 January 2015

Request for page protection

Thank you for writing on a recent SPI, I will be reverting their changes anytime soon. Can you see this ->[30]? Too many nonsensical allegations, but I am sure that none of my changes were incorrect, I was only reverting the version of a banned sock (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Beh-nam/Archive 94.210.203.230) and IP hopping is becoming ridiculous on this page. If we are talking about content quality, it is still one IMDB spam. Bladesmulti (talk) 05:17, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Also look at [31] [32] same banned sock professing puppet who calls my changes a 'vandalism'. Obvious duck IP. Bladesmulti (talk) 05:28, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Why has that self-promo (look at the history) page not just been nominated for deletion? Okay, the latest IP here was a proxy, so that's gotten blocked for a while. Page semied three months. Courcelles 05:58, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
I was also thinking of AFD, but first I thought of sorting this ban evasion. Anyways starting a AFD now. Thanks again. Bladesmulti (talk) 05:59, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Anyone else is working today? I don't think so. This sock has made Wikipedia:ANEW a circus. I had posted this on Wikipedia:ANI, but no one is doing anything about it. Admin buddy Courcelles[33]-[34] forum shopping[35] -[36] - obvious duck IP. Bladesmulti (talk) 18:16, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

your assistance please

You closed a bulk deletion that included Abdul Ghani (Guantanamo detainee 934). He was recently repatriated, and I request userification of the revision history of this article and its talk page, so I can review the previous material, and make a decision how best to cover the new information. Geo Swan (talk) 18:06, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I"m generally quite against BLP's in userspace (and always decline such requests), so I'll email you the contents of the last revision. Courcelles 18:10, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Well, since the individuals who used the User:Iqinn wiki-id spent over 80 percent of their 22,000 edits, editing material I originally contributed, emailing me the most recent version is quite likely going to mean sending me a version that team gutted. That ID gutted something like 100 articles in the 48 hours prior to their final indefinite block.
If you could read my mind, and know which revisions I needed to look at, we'd be half-way there. But what if I choose to add the new references, to the old material, and post it to a non-WMF wiki with different inclusion criteria? If I can see the entire revision history I can properly honor any intellectual contributions made to the article by other contributors -- or alternately excise or rewrite those passages. If I can't see the entire revision history this choice is not really open to me.
So, I request you reconsider. Thanks Geo Swan (talk) 19:49, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
I sent you the last version you contributed to, which was before Iqinn showed up to the article. I feel like we've had this conversation before; userifying BLP's is something I've expressed as being a bad idea for a long time (To the point that when I was doing more deletions, it was in this page's editnotice) Courcelles 23:32, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Commons categories

Hello Courcelles. Sorry to bother you, but as I saw that you edited the file I just wandered if you could just indicate me how to properly include a category here. What am I doing wrong? FkpCascais (talk) 03:47, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

That image is hosted on enwp, you cannot add categories to it that exist on the Commons. Courcelles 03:55, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't even knew images could be hosted somewhere else then commons, I need to pay more attention. Many thanks, best regards, FkpCascais (talk) 05:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, fair-use files have to be hosted here, the Commons will delete them on sight. Courcelles 05:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #140

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Drive-by comments....

Two things - first, your contributions to WP are amazing, particularly the many FAs you have achieved. Second - I thought you might find the following beneficial: "And the boundaries between complementary and conventional medicine overlap and change with time. For example, guided imagery and massage, both once considered complementary or alternative, are used regularly in some hospitals to help with pain management." [37] The broadness and ambiguity of our current PS-Fringe policy is cause for concern because as things are now, it bleeds over to BLPs where it doesn't belong. Example - an author who has written many books, but one of those books happens to be about a natural substance that is surrounded in controversy and cover-ups. The focus of the BLP then changes to PS-Fringe, the disputes are never fully resolved, progress slows to a snail's pace or not at all, and the article suffers as a result. Editors are then forced to contend with both BLP & PS-Fringe sanctions, editors become frustrated, some end up getting blocked or TB because of the ambiguities, and the project loses as a result. The PS-Fringe momentum has grown to the point that even the slightest mention of CAM in an article tends to attract the attention of overzealous "quack busters" which leads to disputes over NPOV and/or PS-FRINGE. Perhaps WP would be better served to seriously rethink its position on this topic from a 21st Century perspective. Kindest regards Atsme☯Consult 13:24, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-03

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • Rotated PDF files in landscape format used to show too small. They will now display correctly. You may need to purge older files. [38]
  • You can now use the {{!}} magic word instead of Template:!. Many wikis used the template to create a pipe (|) in tables and templates. You can delete the template. [39]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf14) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since January 7. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from January 13. It will be on all Wikipedias from January 14 (calendar).
  • A bug in VisualEditor sometimes added a ☀ (Sun) character. This is now fixed. [40]
  • The search and replace tool in VisualEditor is now much faster in long pages. [41]
  • The TemplateData editor now uses the same design as VisualEditor. [42] [43] [44]
  • The thumb option is now shown in your language in the help of the classic editor toolbar. [45]

Future changes

  • You can sign up to answer questions from designers. It will help them make editing easier. [46]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

You started it

The Detective Barnstar
Thank you so much for kicking off the first of a series of SPIs against a sock farm which was trying to monopolize multiple AfD discussions. You rolled a snowball of goodness down a hill of success! MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:42, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, my good fellow! Courcelles 23:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't get the double standards used in AfD. I think the current process is elegant for 2001-2006 edit guidelines. Back in the days voting was the method of choice... but today?

I imagine the page could be formatted like any discussion page. It could have a standard/mandatory set of topics to post under. Say 1) Notability here the article sources are listed and we debate if they establish notability or not. 2) Merge/redirect here we debate if having an additional article provides the necessary context in relation to the parent and related articles. 3) Improve here we debate how the article can be improved.

It could be even more detailed but if one can create additional topics for debate that isn't even necessary. Lets have people run that extra mile to make a comment that is in line with the edit guidelines. If say, one considers an article self promotion, a Coat rack or a POV fork one can create a section about that and explain how it conflicts with Neutrality. The goal should be to create a useful record where anyone looking to create an article can see why it was deleted. Some ancient "I agree with Joe" consensus from 20 years ago just doesn't accomplish that. In other Wikipedia processes that involve voting votes actually matter, in AfD we only pretend it does.

The urgency to terminate the debate is also an artifact from the voting days. In a lot of cases there is no reason for the discussion to end after the article is deleted or kept. It would make it much easier for administrators to decide if the topic is worthy of an article or not. This is hard enough by it self. The illusion of voting creates unnecessary pressure on the Administrators who is expected to follow guidelines(!?) Significant events may happen that are worth mentioning under Improve so that others may find sources and list them in the Notability section.

I don't think I'm reinventing the wheel here, this is how we build consensus about many things. Having each "vote" as a top level discussion creates a contextual cluster fuck that lacks a meta data heading. Editors describe 5 or 6 things along with their "vote" the response can hardly be expected to address more than 2, bringing up the other topics in further comments on the "vote" makes it harder to debate the original comment. Then, however constructive the intend, the end result will be hard to find afterwards.

If the page gets to long start over from scratch summarizing the issues/ideas mentioned in the previous discussion.

I could give many examples but I think this relisted AfD should be the gold standard for how bad it gets. It goes from bad:[47] to worse:[48] I think it is a great example because most of the comments don't fit under a relevant heading. The false impression wikipedia articles are created and deleted by means of vote counting invites every editor to start his own topic thereby repeat things already said a thousand times. The result was keep but would it have been deleted any future editor looking to create the article would have to read and comprehend such a huge mess? Should the closing admin have to read everything and carefully considered the arguments? There are many new users on the page who are all potential wikipedians, it would make an excellent exercise for them to properly format the pros and the cons in such a way that the admin can figure out wtf is going on in seconds rather than days. AfD even has a talk page. A single posting about fringe not being an excuse for deleting articles would have prevented a huge number of "votes" or at least encourage editors to come up with something worthy of consideration.

On the other end of the spectrum there are hundreds if not thousands of AfD's with lack of discussion. If there was structured open debate those articles could be deleted rapidly, without much consideration. Or be ignored if the initial motivation doesn't touch the notability guidelines.

We could get rid of that ugly template in main space and the process Deletions for review could be dramatically simplified.

I could post this as a proposal but the response would be little more than IP addressed if not denounced by tag teams and sock farmers who would like nothing less. If you think I have a point worth consideration please forward my suggestion where you think it should go.

84.106.11.117 (talk) 13:09, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 January 2015

Comoros at the 2008 Summer Olympics

Comoros at the 2008 Summer Olympics, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schwede66 (talk • contribs) 18:17, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #141

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Tech News: 2015-04

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can download the new version of the Wikipedia app for Android. The new version shows lead images, better galleries and content from Wikidata. It also has many other new features.[49] [50]
  • Programs and bots still can't read information about images on many wikis. You can see the list of wikis with the most files to fix. Wikipedia in Italian, Indonesian and Japanese language have the most files to fix. On the biggest wikis you should use bots. Bots can add information templates to groups of files. You can ask other tech users to help you.

Problems

  • All JavaScript on Commons was broken for a few minutes on Tuesday. It was because of old code in the HotCat tool. The same problem happened on some Wikipedias on Wednesday. It is now fixed. [51]

Software changes this week

  • There are no software changes this week and next week due to annual meetings. [52]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 January 2015

Wikidata weekly summary #142

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Tech News: 2015-05

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

This week

  • There are no software changes this week due to annual meetings. [54]

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Just saying

Hi! I see you left a message in my talk page about safety and thanks about that. Heow did you know I am a kid? (Well, teenager in a few months). Also just saying that me and @Instalok: are friends so it's okay to leave his name and stuff down and that's why we are going to chat in Facebook tomorrow about Wikipedia,if okay. It's just because I need to teach him about editing appropriately. Thanks and yes I'll make sure I'll take care of him for safety as well. Typhoon2013 (talk) 10:29, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, I oversighted some posts you and he made. I can't control what you do on Facebook and the like, but please don't post any personal information on Wikipedia. Courcelles 12:32, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Case review

Can you make me understand what an arbcase review means. I would like to go into it a bit prepared. I was new to arbitration in the infoboxes case and made severe mistakes, for example thinking that it was about infoboxes. - Will a review look at the socalled evidence also? Including the diff that concerned one arb so severely that he mentioned it it as a reason to ban, while all that happened was uncollapsing an existing infobox and moving it to the normal position, - for me a reason to mistrust all reading of article history in the case. There is the talk of Rigoletto (Restoration of composer navbox), and that of Handel (Mini-infobox), - I fail to see anything disruptive in those discussions, and actually the others also. Needless to say, these articles obviously get their infoboxes without me ;) - I believe that an infobox, like an image, helps some readers, and doesn't take away from the others, - I fail to see why there is war about them as well. Help? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

This has been done exactly once in anything considered recent, the case Race and Intelligence. Starting here and moving through linked pages should show you what that was like. Basically, it is a case without a workshop, and with a limited scope. Only one party in this case, though that's not a feature of reviews in general. I think it actually worked in R&I, because it was multiple parties conduct at issue. This one is, at absolute best, going to be a waste of time. (A slow waste of time at that, knowing Arbcom). Basically, it is a focus on the current restriction on Pigsonthewing, and to decide whether it should be left alone or modified in some way. What my colleagues think is going to be presented as evidence in this Review that isn't already on a huge amendment request is quite a mystery to my mind, however. (Sorry for my skepticism, but what is going to happen at the end of this Review is basically going to be voting on what for all intents and purposes is a series of alternate motions, with a lot more paperwork) Courcelles 08:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
I share your scepticism, but it doesn't answer my question about the 2013 "evidence" which was was evidently wrong, as has been observed during the case by several users. I wonder if the arbitrators will care to look at project opera, where an infobox is now the standard, and project composers with promising talk. - I got so used to my absurd restrictions ;) - Look, TFA-to-be-soon BWV 22 has an infobox, of course, but not BWV 132, why? Because I didn't "create it" (turned red link to blue), just created it: wrote most of the content. How are we going to explain this ownership logic to our readers? - which isn't even ownership because there is no "owner", those who started the article are no longer active: no conflict. - I worked on Kafka, it helps ;) - The easy motion would be to drop all restrictions which were anachronistic at the time and are certainly now, but that is as certainly not on some people's mind who think that ideas can be stopped by eliminating people, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:01, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Oh, I think I get what you're asking now. The evidence from the case will not be reviewed, new evidence will be submitted and reviewed. The purpose isn't to re-litigate the evidence from 2013. Courcelles 09:06, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
I will look up "litigate" - lack of legal language was another of my mistakes. Thanks for listening to my frustration. Did you know that I made a DYK about singing in defiance? ... that the infobox wars made it to caricature? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:50, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
That mess... like so many others here, it is worthy of caricature... Courcelles 12:33, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Easter

There's a discussion on the talk page about improvements to the wording of this article, which you protected two years ago. Can you please unprotect? 156.61.250.250 (talk) 13:49, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Quack. User:156.61.250.250 JoeSperrazza (talk) 16:45, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Saturday February 7 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon

Saturday February 7 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon

You are invited to join us at New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for our upcoming editathon, a part of the Black WikiHistory Month campaign (which also includes events in Brooklyn and Westchester!).

12:00pm - 5:00 pm at NYPL Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue), by W 135th St

The Wikipedia training and editathon will take place in the Aaron Douglas Reading Room of the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, with a reception following in the Langston Hughes lobby on the first floor of the building at 5:00pm.

We hope to see you there!--Pharos (talk) 06:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Note

Before casting your vote in the Wifione case, please be sure to have read and understood this thread. If you have any questions, please ask. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Noted and read. (Wifione, I'll admit, has been a backburner for me in the flurry of voting on Gamergate... that'll change likely tomorrow) Courcelles 21:38, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
The above thread and 2 links in the last thread on that page are the case, basically. 2-4 hours reading, depending on your prior familiarity with the case, I think. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:27, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

RevisionDelete request

Blatant copyright violation. The same user also created an article with the same content, tagged csd-copyvio: History of the salvation of the Hebrews in Albania. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Handled. Courcelles 20:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #143

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

The Signpost: 28 January 2015

Wanted to inform you

I just wanted to let you know that, based on this, you may be targeted by Gamergate. They seem to be more focused on harassment of Hipocrite at the moment, but I wanted to let you know in case some harassment gets thrown your way out of left field. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help. SilverserenC 10:30, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Seren. Courcelles 17:24, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Administrators' noticeboard post

Information icon This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. -73.163.74.228 (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-06

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • There was a security issue on Wikimedia Labs. Many Labs tools were down after the issue was fixed. [57]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since January 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 3. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 4 (calendar).
  • The "Save page" button in the VisualEditor toolbar is now blue rather than green. This is the same as on the mobile site. [58]
  • You can now edit pages on the draft namespace with VisualEditor on the Russian Wikipedia and Hebrew Wikipedia. You can ask to get VisualEditor for a namespace on your wiki. When your community agrees, ask in Phabricator. [59] [60]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:31, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 February 2015

Workshop page for Infoboxes review

I noticed there's been no workshop page created for the Infoboxes case review, while the evidence and proposed decision pages do exist. Given that Martijn Hoekstra has written up something fitting for workshop, perhaps you could create the page and ping him to move his recommendations there? // coldacid (talk|contrib) 03:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Mail

Hello, Courcelles. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

VS6507 (talk) 10:46, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #144

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Discussions
  • Events/Blogs/Press
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Did you know?
  • Development
    • Did more work on Capiunto to get it into a state where it can be deployed to Wikimedia sites.
    • Mourned Titan (phabricator:T88550) as its developers were bought up. Began evaluation for which graph database to use instead for a Wikidata query service (mw:Wikibase/Indexing)
    • Further work on header section redesign
    • Tweaks to the sitelink section
    • Worked on making monolingual text datatype accept more languages
    • Finished showing the language when a language fallback is used
    • Started looking into fixing the existing Guided Tours after Guided Tours extension API changes
    • Worked on implementing Lua convenience functions for rendering arbitrary Snaks. This is useful for displaying references or qualifiers. (phabricator:T76213)
  • Monthly Tasks
    • Hack on one of these.
    • Help fix these items which have been flagged using Wikidata - The Game.
    • Help develop the next summary here!
    • Contribute to a Showcase item
    • Help translate or proofread pages in your own language!

Tech News: 2015-07

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

Problems

  • MediaWiki was reverted to the previous version on February 4. It was because of a performance issue. It was restored later. [62]
  • UploadWizard was broken on February 4 because of the revert of MediaWiki. [63]
  • All sites were broken for 30 minutes on February 5. It was due to a network problem. [64]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 11 (calendar).
  • You can have one user page for all wikis. Your Meta user page will show if you don't have a user page on a wiki. You can test this tool on test wikis. [65] [66] [67]
  • You can search for media files in VisualEditor more easily. Images are bigger and you see the size and license. [68] [69]
  • It is easier to review your changes when you save the page in VisualEditor. The window is wider. [70]
  • You can read the latest news about VisualEditor. You can now join weekly meetings with developers. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The first meeting is on February 11 at 20:00 (UTC).

Future changes

  • Administrators will soon be able to delete change tags used fewer than 5,000 times. [71]
  • In the future you will be able to have personal lists of articles on the mobile site. [72]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:26, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Trisha Krishnan

Can you unblock this article? I dont know what to say to convince you seeing that its blocked for the fourth year now... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.172.27.203 (talk) 14:03, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

GGTF

Hi Courcelles, I saw your comment about the GGTF decision having been problematic. Some of the main issues are:

  • Not all the men who caused a problem on and around the GGTF were topic banned, so a few continued as before, either on the GGTF talk page or elsewhere.
  • The topic bans are not being respected or (for the most part) enforced. For example, Two kinds of pork is topic-banned from the "gender gap topic," which includes "participating in any process broadly construed to do with [the GGTF or gender disparity among Wikipedians]," but he continues to comment on it, including before the committee. (I'm offering this just as one example, by the way, not because I'm requesting action).
  • The discretionary sanctions are not being enforced, and their existence makes the GGTF look contentious, so we've ended up with the worst of both worlds.

The problem with discretionary sanctions is that it places the onus on editors to initiate action, rather than on the committee or admins. Women who initiate action risk being called vexatious litigants, followed to articles they are editing, etc. In addition, it means that editors who care about the GGTF and related issues are expected to spend their volunteer time taking people to AE. If this burden falls disproportionately on women, as is likely, it introduces yet another gender bias.

The whole point of the GGTF was to host a friendly space where women and male allies – and, in particular, new women editors – would feel comfortable posting about the gender gap, or asking for help with articles they were working on, without the usual undermining and challenges that we see elsewhere on WP. A small number of people decided to turn it into the opposite of that, and the ArbCom case didn't do anything to resolve that key issue.

I'm pinging GorillaWarfare, as she was one of the committee members who (I believe) saw that the decision was problematic. Sarah (SV) (talk) 19:10, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I think I agree with everything you've said, SlimVirgin. I really don't think that case did anything useful. The DS as written was so narrow that it was almost worse than no DS authorisation at all; if we change that, at least actually useful topic bans could be imposed. The AE model is difficult, as it tends to turn things into an adversarial proceeding with the reporter and the reportee, which is particularly bad here. The problem is that a committee of 15 is also too slow to take every report, and it your point about reporting, moving where things are reported doesn't actually fix that issue. I'm kind of brain-dead today, but at this moment, I've got no real ideas on how to improve it. Courcelles 02:27, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
Hi Courcelles, thanks for the response and new motion, which will definitely help. What would also help would be to have a few admins willing to look out for, and act on, GG topic bans or DS violations, without waiting for a complaint. If we had that in place, individual editors (more likely to be women) wouldn't have to file complaints and risk becoming a target.
I wonder whether the committee would be willing to encourage admins. Something like (adapting words from Gamergate): "Administrators are asked to provide assistance to enforce the topic bans and discretionary sanctions." Sarah (SV) (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

About your (non)participation in the January 2012 SOPA vote

Hi. I am Piotr Konieczny (User:Piotrus), you may know me as an active content creator (see my userpage), but I am also a professional researcher of Wikipedia. Recently I published a paper (downloadable here) on reasons editors participated in Wikipedia's biggest vote to date (January 2012 WP:SOPA). I am now developing a supplementary paper, which analyzes why many editors did not take part in that vote. Which is where you come in :) You are a highly active Wikipedian, and you were active back during the January 2012 discussion/voting for the SOPA, yet you did not chose to participate in said vote. I'd appreciate it if you could tell me why was that so? For your convenience, I prepared a short survey at meta, which should not take more than a minute of your time. I would dearly appreciate you taking this minute; not only as a Wikipedia researcher but as a fellow content creator and concerned member of the community (I believe your answers may help us eventually improve our policies and thus, the project's governance). PS. If you chose to reply here (on your userpage), please WP:ECHO me. Thank you! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 15:00, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Salvio's oppose

Please consider the merits of Salvio's oppose. I think it's the best idea in front of the committee now for this situation and will help vastly address both peoples complaints. Nothing say it has to be a popular result but a fair result that benefits the encyclopedia that stops disruption is the way to go. Those sanctions of admin boards removal is something that has seemed to work well with Tarc. I would ddefintely sacrifice my pride for such an equitable result. It doesn't address the off wiki issues butI don't follow people on private websites and can easily ignore the attack page. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 14:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Cascading on Emma Sulkowicz

Hi Courcelles, I've turned off the cascading option on the full protection you placed on Emma Sulkowicz as I don't think you meant it and it's affecting other pages. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:01, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Nope, definitely not intended. Just clicked by mistake. Courcelles 18:10, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 February 2015

Tech News: 2015-08

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 17. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 18 (calendar).
  • On Wednesday your Meta user page will be shown if you don't have a user page on a wiki. [73] [74] [75]
  • You can now change the order of categories in VisualEditor using drag-and-drop. [76]
  • In VisualEditor, you now need to make a change before you can "Apply Changes" to citations and templates. [77]
  • The way the cursor moves in VisualEditor is changing. Your browser now handles the cursor directly. Most of you will see no change. In right-to-left text, the cursor now moves in a 'visible' rather than 'logical' way. This is like other sites but you may be surprised at first.​ [78]

Meetings

  • The VisualEditor Team had their first public bug triage meeting on February 11. They will post the results on the meeting page. [79]
  • You can join the second weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on February 18 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join. [80]
  • You can join a meeting with the developers of the Content Translation tool. It will be on February 18 at 13:00 (UTC). [81]

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Quick question:

Was the idea for the recent arbcom press statement (gamergate) initiated by Arbcom itself or was it a suggestion by the WMF? Regards, Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:53, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I've just re-reviewed the thread to make certain I had the timeline right. The general idea of doing something relating to the Guardian formed on 23 January internally, though no one had formed any concrete ideas on what that "something" should be. No one associated with the WMF was involved until the 24th. (For point of reference, the statement was released very early on the 27th, so it was literally thrown together in a weekend.) Courcelles 16:01, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for prompt reply. You can probably guess what caused the question, but I thought if I was going to get a straight answer I might as well ask one of the dissenters. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:22, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
I can guess. And I've tried to give you as straight an answer as I can without going too far towards anything that could be accused as leaking. Courcelles 01:29, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #145

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events/Blogs/Press
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • Spiffy new project building on top of Wikidata: inventaire.io. Check out this example entry!
    • You will now see when a language fallback for a label is used on an item or property. The language name will be shown next to it.
    • Automatic descriptions for Wikidata items by Magnus
    • The templates for adding badges (good article, featured article, etc) to articles on Wikipedia in the sidebar are getting removed from articles rapidly in favor of getting that information from Wikidata \o/ German Wikipedia even deleted those templates already. English Wikipedia seems to be getting close.
  • Did you know?
  • Development
    • <3
    • We are hiring! Passionate about Wikidata and know your way around Java Script and co? Apply!
    • We'll spend the next week working with Nik and Stas from WMF to move queries forward in Berlin
    • Worked on implementing a Lua interface for arbitrary Snak rendering. This can be used to render eg. qualifiers or references in Wikipedia infoboxes.
    • Did groundwork for Lua convenience functions that render data in the user’s interface language, rather than the content language (for multilingual wikis, like Commons or Wikidata only)
    • Did further work on making the Lua interface code nicer and share code with the parser functions
    • Removed input method selector in the sitelink input as it was hiding the actual input and not very useful there
    • Fixed some issues in diff views showing new data instead of old data
    • Created a few scripts to make it easier for 3rd parties to install Wikibase
    • Fixed icinga notification that tests if dispatch lag gets high
    • Investigated several issues regarding storage of time values and started fixing them
    • Fixed editing of qualifiers
    • Fixed most browser tests after introduction of new header design
  • Monthly Tasks
    • Hack on one of these.
    • Help fix these items which have been flagged using Wikidata - The Game.
    • Help develop the next summary here!
    • Contribute to a Showcase item
    • Help translate or proofread pages in your own language!

User socking to evade block

Hello, Renejs whom you blocked for 36 hours is using an IP-sock to evade the block. [82] Given that it's such an obvious case, I thought to just notify you rather than file an SPI.Jeppiz (talk) 10:27, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Jeppiz is in error. I am not Renejs and have in fact been attacked by Renejs in the past. I am extremely surprised, in fact, that Jeppiz has made this mistake given the content of the edit in question. I have left a fuller response on Jeppiz's talk page.
However, I only left that comment to help matters. If it is decided to leave it deleted, although as I understand it is against normal WP policy, I don't mind at all.109.156.158.20 (talk) 13:26, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
Sorry to bother you, Courcelles, but would a check-user be possible to establish that the IP is not Renejs. As Renejs had just posted long about his book project, was blocked, and an IP appeared and as its first edit headed to the same article to talk about the book project, I assumed by WP:DUCK it was Renejs. So did the admin who extended Renejs block to two weeks for socking. If a check-user can establish that the IP and Renejs are not the same, I hope Renejs extended block can be shortened back to the original 36 hours.Jeppiz (talk) 16:15, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
Looking at their contribs, I don't think the IP is Renejs. However, CU can't usually link accounts to an IP anyhow per global policy. Courcelles 16:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Protect

- thank you for protecting Chopin even if the "wrong version" - in my view ;) - I started a discussion, expecting to be taken to arbitration enforcement for that, by the logic of the infobox case decision, - another nod to Kafka ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:57, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Gerda :) Courcelles 16:39, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
I think the discussion is developing nicely, not without the usual misunderstandings but better communication than by reverts and edit summaries. I would like someone to talk to the IP who started the infobox and diligently worked step by step, - explaining why their work of love is refused. I like the curtain image, the exact opposite of an infobox that tries to offer insight ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:02, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Linguistic cleansing

There is nothing ambiguous about the adjective "American" in the English language. Any attempt to cleanse the word from the language will fail. Taking political positions on the definitions of certain words amidst Arbitration Committee business is unacceptable. Please rescind these offensive remarks. RGloucester — ☎ 03:37, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

There is no one that can say that the United States of America is not the primary topic of the word "America". We only have those disambiguation pages in the way they are because there are foreigners pushing their own languages on ours. Never mind them, though, because they are irrelevant. "American" is unambiguous in the English language. It refers to things from the United States of America. The other usages are niche, not common, and not relevant. Common usage dictates the use of "American", the standard adjective for things from the United States of America. I fear you have turned down a terrible road. An advocate for the cleansing of language to suit foreigners surely cannot hold a position of power on the English Wikipedia. RGloucester — ☎ 04:01, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
I think your tone gives us about zero chance of having a productive discussion. I'll not respond to this any further than to say this: Remedies and motions must, to the best extent of our efforts, be unambiguous. "United States" is far clearer than "American". If you want the dab pages changed, there are ways to suggest that. I'll just finish with a quote form the article about the word :"the entry for "America" in The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage from 1999 reads: '[the] terms "America", "American(s)" and "Americas" refer not only to the United States, but to all of North America and South America. They may be used in any of their senses, including references to just the United States, if the context is clear." A motion has no context, it just is. And a source no less than the New York (a source that unquestionably speaks English) would seem to agree to not using "American" in this case. Courcelles 04:18, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Absurd that you would defer to foreigners. The "context" is most obviously the Arbitration case called "American politics". Please explain what else "American politics" could possibly refer to? Is there some "Federated State of the Americas" that I'm not aware of? There is nothing less clear about "American", the standard and common way to refer to these things, "politics" and otherwise. Pleasing foreigners will not gain you any votes. It will only lead to societal destruction at the hand of linguistic corruption. A terrible turn, for you, and for English. For such an important English language resource to actively strive to destroy the language is troubling. RGloucester — ☎ 04:22, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
An attempt at intimidation, perhaps? I don't go paranoid easily, so that won't work on me. RGloucester — ☎ 02:52, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Making cases without me?

I just discovered this case: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Review/Proposed decision, and to my surprise the train is running at high speed before my screen. I am quite related to the case, and mentioned (indirectly but explicitly) in cases. Now steps seem to be closed. First, I wonder why I was not notified at all. And, what is my current position? Did I lose rights to speak? A very disappointing situation. -DePiep (talk) 16:03, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

  • No proposals/remedies can be proposed on you in this review, as POTW was the only authorised party. You of course, are welcome to comment on the PD talk. I imagine the clerks only notified the named party and the person who filed the initial WP:ARCA. Courcelles (talk) 21:15, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
If I hadn't discovered it, I'd be late for PD too. And ArbCom people read the Evidence, full of accusations and smears on me to free another editor. And then decide in the dark? I'd expect the process being more careful than WP:ANI. Except, instead of bullying by admins, this page is about neglecting. -DePiep (talk) 21:58, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 February 2015

Beach volleyball at the 2014 Asian Games

Hello, Courcelles. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Multi-sport events#Separate Beach volleyball at the 2014 Asian Games regarding an issue of split between Volleyball and Beach volleyball. Sawol (talk) 03:34, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Category:Grammy Award-winning artists

Category:Grammy Award-winning artists, 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. Snuggums (talk / edits) 20:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #146

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Remember and enjoy

in the review, you write: "I remember the 2013 case, and I honestly believe Andy's conduct is better than it was back then." - If you remember, you will be able to tell me one instance, just one, where you think Andy's behaviour was problematic in 2013. - DYK that I brought "seeking joy" to the Main page today? (Better than "singing in defiance" last year.) Enjoy, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:03, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I thought about it some more - after I could happily add Chopin to the resolved cases (can you please close the discussions there?) - and believe that very simple rules for all (!) participants in (infobox) discussions would be more helpful than restricting one person: Think twice before reverting the same thing a second time, and think three times before making a third comment in the same matter. (Beethoven, for example, quote: "bla bla bla".) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:21, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I cannot close the Chopin matter as I am out of town and I'm typing this on my telephone which does not lend itself to closing of discussions. Courcelles (talk)
A general 1RR for adding or removing an infobox would help a lot, but given how it can apply to every single page, I'm not convinced it is actually practical. The Israel-Palestine 1RR has been highly useful, but even tagging those pages was a lot of work so unaware people didn't get blocked without knowledge... Courcelles is travelling (talk) 04:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Closing: comments still come ;) - good that it wasn't closed. I could say many things about those late comments but now I try to stay with two comments, and Charles01 said it all and better than I could (but will people read?).
The other: just an appeal to make people THINK, - in the hope to deal among grown-up people who respect each other. I sing the praises of the banned, and I will never understand the search for minor things to complain about. "He formatted an infobox = he broke his restrictions". The edit was good for the article, - even IF he broke his restictions (he didn't), that could just be ignored. - Enjoy your travel, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:12, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Gerda, the particular report you refer to was an error in judgement. "grown-up people who respect each other" would be a good solution to the battleground, if it could be achieved. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:57, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Courcelles. I was having trouble sleeping (thinking about a different wiki matter), and noticed you posting the PD on the inforbox review. I know we've interacted before this, perhaps even disagreed - but I've always thought highly of you. Now that the obligatory "sucking up" phase is covered, ... I wanted to catch you before you left on vacation (enjoy by the way).

First, I really do appreciate you taking point and keeping everyone up to date on the process; especially given that it is/was not a typical one. While I had hoped for a better PD, I was prepared for much worse. My guess is that you spent a great deal of time actually reading the evidence, and even clicking through the links - and I really appreciate that. The other Arb tasked with drafting is Salvio, and although I have a huge amount of respect for him, I've seen that he has strong feelings on the matter; so I'm interested in what his PD will be.

I honestly do appreciate you (offering to) give Andy more leeway, and I think he's earned it. And I do understand that it would be tough to just "vacate" a previous arb decision. (that sentence isnt quite right .. but meh).

The bottom line here is that I wanted to say thank you for your work on this. Enjoy your vacation. — Ched :  ?  10:35, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I strongly suspect other arbs will add other things to the PD; I fully suspect both a stronger topic-ban for Andy is going to be among them. As to vacating the sanctions, I think the proposed 1.1 is as close to it as had a snowball's chance; and 4 would even mitigate that. (I've got plenty of other comments to reply to, but I really need to get off the computer and go drive for a few hours.) Courcelles (talk) 14:32, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
thank you ... be safe. Talk to you when you get back. 18:12, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
I see Yunshui has added a lifting of the sanctions all-together, and Salvio has added a full topic ban. Not surprised by either action, and I've already opposed Salvio's proposal. I don't think either has a chance -- I was trying to write things I had a chance in hell. Courcelles (talk) 21:18, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
  • OH WAIT One complaint ... you really should have worked in the evidence of Andy's contributions in regards to the project as a whole. FoF, ... whatever, it deserves to be stated. I will go to the mat on that one sir. "Just do it", "Get it done" ... it absolutely deserves to be stated by the "high powers that be". Andy has more than earned that recognition. These things live on for years, and it deserves to be stated, it needs to be stated. — Ched :  ?  10:47, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
  • At this point, can you ask NativeForeigner or Salvio and see if they are willing add this? We don't normally do "valuned contributor" FoF's, because in multiple party cases, singling out one editor as a "valued contributor" is sort of a back-handed slap that the other parties are not valued contributors. In this case, it would not do that, being as there only one party listed., but I'm on highly rationed internet for a few days. (And for the record, (especally after reading all that evidence) I absolutely agree with the sentiment. He's not perfect, bno one is, but he tries his hardest to make us a better project.) Courcelles is travelling (talk) 13:44, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Update Regretfully NativeForeigner declined your request of professional courtesy in proposing this FoF. Salvio has not been available (and hopefully is doing well). I was tempted to post to the PD talk page, but considering that it speaks for itself as far as where the true disruption comes from, I've resisted posting there. I'm also not sure how much the other Arbs read of that talk page, the evidence, and links; or if other Arbs would be allowed by procedure to offer the FoF. If by any chance the review is still open when you return, I'm willing to offer precedent for such a finding. (hang on ...) — Ched :  ?  05:16, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
examples:
  1. "9) GainLine (talk · contribs) is commended for desisting from early problematic behaviours and encouraged to pursue appropriate dispute resolution methods, and seek administrator intervention when required. (Passed 6 to 0 with 2 abstentions)" [83]
  2. "3) Kelly Martin is thanked for her long and honorable service. (Passed 4-0)" [84]
  3. "10.1) ... Jayjg is also thanked for his years of service. (Passed 10 to 3)" [85]
That was just a very quick look through the Arbcom archives, I can find more if it would be helpful. Note No need to use your limited data to respond now. Enjoy the rest of your vacation, be safe, and perhaps we can discuss it a bit further when you return. — Ched :  ?  05:31, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-09

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 25. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 26 (calendar).
  • It is now easier to see template fields in VisualEditor. The fields are bigger. [90]
  • It is now easier to see when a button is disabled in VisualEditor. [91]
  • Sometimes when you copy-pasted a template in VisualEditor, it was replaced by HTML. This problem is now fixed. [92]
  • Tools in Labs will stop working for a few hours on February 24. [93]

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on February 26 at 00:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • At the moment you need to log in to edit Wikimedia wikis on mobile devices. You can say if anyone should be allowed to edit on the mobile sites. The discussion ends on March 15.
  • Images in the interface will soon work better in Opera 12. [94]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:28, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 March newsletter

One of several of Godot13's quality submissions during round 1

That's it, the first round is done, sign-ups are closed and we're into round 2. 64 competitors made it into this round, and are now broken into eight groups of eight. The top two of each group will go through to round 3, and then the top scoring 16 "wildcards" across all groups. Round 1 saw some interesting work on some very important articles, with the round leader Australia Freikorp (submissions) owing most of his 622 points scored to a Featured Article on the 2001 film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within which qualified for a times-two multiplier. This is a higher score than in previous years, as Smithsonian Institution Godot13 (submissions) had 500 points in 2014 at the end of round 1, and our very own judge, Colorado Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) led round 1 with 601 points in 2013.

In addition to Freikorp's work, some other important articles and pictures were improved during round one, here's a snapshot of a few of them:

You may also wish to know that The Core Contest is running through the month of March. Head there for further details - they even have actual prizes!

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), Miyagawa (talk · contribs · email) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email)

Thanks for your assistance! Miyagawa (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiCup.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:54, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #147

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

The Signpost: 25 February 2015

The Signpost: 25 February 2015

Tech News: 2015-10

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • A Lua function to use Wikidata has changed. You need to update the pages that use it. [95]
  • You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Uzbek and Minangkabau. You need to enable it in your Beta options.
  • You can now hide banners if you don't have an account. [96] [97]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 3. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 4 (calendar).
  • You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Punjabi and Kyrgyz. You can ask for the tool in other languages.
  • Editing the fake blank line in VisualEditor is now simpler. This change also fixed a few bugs. [98] [99] [100] [101]
  • The TemplateData editor now warns you if a related page already has TemplateData. [102]
  • The TemplateData table now tells you if a template doesn't take any parameters. [103]

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 4 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join technical meetings in France and Mexico this year. You will be able to ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [104]

Future changes

  • You will be able to get a direct link for a section of a page. [105]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:41, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 10

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 10, January-February 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - ProjectMUSE, Dynamed, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and Women Writers Online
  • New TWL coordinator, conference news, and a new guide and template for archivists
  • TWL moves into the new Community Engagement department at the WMF, quarterly review

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #148

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

The Signpost: 04 March 2015

Tech News: 2015-11

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now create books on almost all wikis. It doesn't work yet on wikis using the language converter. [106] [107]
  • VisualEditor had problems with categories in Safari. It sometimes moved or removed the categories. The issue is now fixed. [108] [109] [110]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 11 (calendar).
  • In VisualEditor the "Edit beta" button is now called "Edit" on the English Wikipedia. [111] [112]
  • The feedback tool in VisualEditor now looks like the other tools. It also asks for information about your browser to help fix bugs. [113] [114]
  • You now see the VisualEditor toolbar even if the rest of the page is still loading. [115] [116]
  • You now see more information when you edit a link, a reference or other items in VisualEditor. You also see a clearer edit button in those tools. [117] [118]
  • If you use the ContentTranslation tool you now see red links in the list of articles in other languages. The link is red if the article doesn't exist in the language of your options or of your browser. You can translate the article by clicking on the red link.

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 11 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join a technical meeting in France in May. You can ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [119]

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:18, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Sunday March 22: Wikipedia Day NYC Celebration and Mini-Conference

Sunday March 22: Wikipedia Day NYC 2015

You are invited to join us at Barnard College for Wikipedia Day NYC 2015, a Wikipedia celebration and mini-conference for the project's 14th birthday. In addition to the party, the event will be a participatory unconference, with plenary panels, lightning talks, and of course open space sessions.

We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.

10:00pm - 9:00 pm at Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, by W 118th St

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 21:58, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

make us a better project

I keep "make us a better project" on my user page, thank you for reminding us, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:31, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm just hopeful this time does better than the 2013 one. Courcelles (talk) 04:57, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
Did you know that Hope is the beginning of the first comment on my talk, - the one comment kept from 2014 because it will stay needed. Incidentally, I just came across my comment about Patience, also then, with a short description "The arbitration committee works like this ..." ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:03, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
I decorated my talk with a strong woman ;) - For more images, check out a lily, - did you know that I replaced "singing in defiance" (2014) by "seek delight"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:37, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Mass destruction

Thanks for that. I was just going to try to find out how to do that - I've seen del-batch as a button but never used it yet. (Funny thing - I was just commenting to MelanieN that the Delete button is missing from the Main Page, but Del-batch is there.) Peridon (talk) 16:12, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

@Peridon: Haha... if the comment didn't tell me otherwise, I'd have thought your section header was a joke :D. The page that does that is Special:Nuke! Courcelles (talk) 16:14, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks again. So what are del-batch and d-batch, then? Peridon (talk) 16:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
@Peridon: Deli-batch deletes all files on a page (or in a category. Works on files only). D-batch deletes all pages linked from another page. Useful those times when you, say, close a CFD and need 100 categories and their talk pages to go away. Nuke deletes all pages created by a username. Courcelles (talk) 16:20, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
I usually only close CfD, RfD and MfD when I have (or someone else has) already deleted the thing under discussion. But it's nice to know what they do. Ta. Peridon (talk) 16:28, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
See the deleted [122] for how you create a page listing all the pages you want to make disappear, and then use d-batch.

Query to the Audit Subcommittee

Hello. As per Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Audit_Subcommittee#Procedure, I have twice emailed the audit subcommittee regarding a potential misuse of CheckUser tools. I have not received a response to either of those emails, so I am attempting to ask the relevant questions here without revealing private information.

Multiple editors (Manul, Astynax, and John Carter) are claiming that a member of this audit subcommittee has (off-wiki) provided them with evidence of sock puppetry by me. I deny that any such evidence could possibly exist (given that I have never engaged in puppetry of any kind, ever), but that is not why I am coming here.

I am coming here so that this subcommittee can determine if a member performed a CU, despite a recent SPI request being declined, and – if a check was run – what the reasoning was per Wikipedia:CheckUser#CheckUser_and_privacy_policy (“The onus is on an individual CheckUser to explain, if challenged, why a check was run.”). And finally, why CU results would possibly be given off-wiki to other editors to resolve.

I find it extremely unlikely that an audit committee member is in any way involved in providing personal or other non-public information to editors, or in discussing any off-wiki “evidence”, but the editors are claiming such.

My questions:

  • Was a CU run against my account?
  • If yes, by whom and at who’s request?
  • What was the rationale for running the check (why was a check run)?
  • Did a CU provide personal or other non-public data of any kind, including insinuation or anything that could be interpreted as linking my account to others, to other editors off-wiki?

I request an Audit Subcommittee investigation of this situation and the involved editors' claims.

Thank you, Tgeairn (talk) 23:24, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

We are still looking into this report. Checking the relevant logs, however, no CU has ever been ran against your account. Courcelles (talk) 16:22, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for the update. I have assembled a partial list of diffs demonstrating where multiple editors have based statements on the supposed off-wiki communication. Hopefully this list will assist in the investigation. Thanks again, Tgeairn (talk) 20:11, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Deletion of Judith Novellino

Why was the page Judith Novellino deleted? There was nothing wrong with it, it had a lot of text in it, had references, and was not an orphan, so why was it deleted? Coolpug05 (talk) 21:40, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

It was an article on a woman with no assertion of importance, see WP:A7. Courcelles (talk) 23:50, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Timothy McAllister

Hi Courcelles, in 2011, you deleted the page Timothy McAllister for general consensus about not meeting notability requirements. Since that time the page Tim McAllister was created at which point confusing edits made it clear that there are two American musicians both called Timothy McAllister. One is a (clearly notable) classical saxophonist and one is an unknown contemporary guitarist. Different editors were adding information specific to the two different people creating a hybrid page. I have tried to rectify the situation by creating a third page Timothy McAllister (saxophonist) with a redirect from Tim McAllister.

Firstly I wanted to check that I haven't overstepped any lines (and apologise if I have!) by recreating deleted pages. I am happy to respond to any disputes on the new page if you or others feel the saxophonist is also a candidate for deletion. I was also hoping you had the user permissions (or could direct me to someone who does) to add a redirect from the Timothy McAllister page to the Timothy McAllister (saxophonist) page. I think I have cleaned up all the links from other saxophone articles but I am sure they will reappear.

All the best, and thanks for any help you can offer! Storeye (talk) 10:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I've created the redirect, but I have to be frank, that article is going to need more quality references to avoid yet another trip to AFD. (The old AFD's were actually about the saxophonist, but the claim of a Grammy changes everything. But that needs to be independently sources.) Courcelles (talk) 17:49, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for this, I've added some stuff and I'll keep an eye on it regarding AFD. Cheers Storeye (talk) 02:00, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 March 2015

Wikidata weekly summary #149

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

My revert

I noticed your comment. Please see my revert of the IP's questions before your comment. Please also see here (no response from Mike yet). If you believe I should reinstate the questions, I will do so (easy enough to fix the formatting problem). Please let me know as I wouldn't want anyone to think I reverted in bad faith, even though one editor already does. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 19:24, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I didn't see your revert, just what I thought were badly placed questions (and honestly didn't consider it worth any thought into who the IP was, a gentle request to move them elsewhere was sufficient to my knowledge at the time. But if they are evading a block, that's another matter entirely.) If they're evading a block, then, good removal. Courcelles (talk) 20:05, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
The problem is I can't prove they're evading a block based on technical evidence, only behavioral. This IP is one of the blocked ones I'm referring to. Based on conservative advice, I've reinstated and answered the questions.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:00, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
As good a path as any. They seem a little axe-gridning to me, but nothing overtly enough to tell me who it is. Courcelles (talk) 21:25, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

"Battleground on e-cig articles" arbitration: Question

"Okay, if QuackGuru, an editor in good standing,..."? Is there another editor with the same name or is this now considered "good standing"? Could you please enlighten me? Thanks --TMCk (talk) 00:07, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

  • "Good standing" doesn't mean "has a spotless record". Given that blocks are not punative, once someone is unblocked, they are once again considered to be in good standing with the community, and able to participate in community processes. The original filer of the case, however, is community banned; and as such, has no right to file the request. Courcelles (talk) 12:49, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-12

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • The servers that resize images are using new software. You should report new problems that you notice with images. [123]
  • You can now see lists of bugs about Commons, Wikisource and Wiktionary. [124]
  • It is now easier to add special characters in VisualEditor. You can edit the list of characters for your wiki. [125] [126]

Problems

  • Wikis were broken for a few minutes on Thursday due to a code error.

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 17. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 18 (calendar).
  • A puzzle piece icon (icon) now shows hidden templates in VisualEditor. You can edit the template by clicking the icon. For example, you can now edit anchor templates. [127] [128]
  • You can now add examples, and details about old parameters, in TemplateData. [129] [130]

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 18 at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The list of bad user names on your wiki will no longer work. The global list will replace it. You can ask to add rules for bad user names on Meta. [131] [132]
  • You can comment on how you want to see Wikidata edits in your watchlist on other wikis. [133]
  • The final steps of single user login (SUL) will happen in April. You can see the rules to rename accounts. [134]

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15:14, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Same issue with GG general sanction warning.

I asked the same question that you brought up. Thyrduulf stated that despite the wording, the sanction didn't apply to the article and was the standard language. [135] --DHeyward (talk) 09:55, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I think people honestly forgot about clause c when they commented. It is the only logical thing that makes sense with the commentary. Courcelles (talk) 13:52, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 March 2015

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

.

Wikidata weekly summary #150

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Tech News: 2015-13

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 24. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 25 (calendar).
  • The text of a reference is now more visible when you click on it. It has a blue background. Many wikis already have the blue color. Those wikis can now remove it from their CSS page. [136]
  • VisualEditor is now much faster. For many users it is now at least as fast as the wikitext editor. [137] [138] [139]
  • When you add a list of references in VisualEditor, you now see it right away. You can still change its group by editing it. [140]

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 25 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Talk pages using "LiquidThreads" on mediawiki.org will soon use the new system. [141]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:09, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost – Volume 11, Issue 12 – 25 March 2015

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:24, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Accounts

I do have an alternate for mobile use, Wanna block it? Darkness Shines (talk) 17:59, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah. It seems stupid to, but I probably should. Courcelles (talk) 19:54, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #151

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Tech News: 2015-14

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now hide site banners even if you don't have an account. [142]
  • You can now add citations more easily with VisualEditor on the French and Italian Wikipedia. The tool adds the information when you add some types of links. In the future you will be able to add this tool to your wiki. [143] [144] [145]
  • All sites should now be faster if you have a recent browser. [146]
  • You could see a serious bug when editing some templates with VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [147]
  • VisualEditor could break when you edited an image. The issue was fixed quickly. [148]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 31. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 1 (calendar).
  • VisualEditor is now the main editing tool on 53 more Wikipedias. [149]
  • You can now edit the mobile site of all wikis without an account. [150]
  • You can test a new tool on the beta mobile site on the English Wikipedia. With the new tool, you can create lists of articles. [151]
  • You can now see that VisualEditor is opening even if you're not looking at the top of the page. [152]
  • VisualEditor doesn't leave empty titles with just nowiki tags any more. [153] [154] [155] [156]

Meetings

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:18, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost, 1 April 2015

Your request (identification)

Hi Courcelles, you asked several of the candidates to initiate the identification process. I'm a bit confused. It doesn't appear to me - although it's hard to tell given the back-and-forth among the arbitrators and others - that anyone has been officially appointed yet (subject, of course, to identification). Also, as an aside, it looks like HJ has already had his identity confirmed, although I can't tell when. Thanks for clarifying.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:04, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

The motion to appoint folks is going to carry in two more arb votes. At that point, I will confirm the appointments to the Stewards over at Meta. You will then get the flags, after identifying. So, everyone should get the paperwork done now to save people work in a day or two. Courcelles (talk) 22:10, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
All done. Even received a very friendly acknowledgment. (I struck the when part in my first comment because it does show when, just like any diff).--Bbb23 (talk) 00:17, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

On this note, I just wanted to say thanks for your involvement in leading this process and keeping all of us candidates informed. I think you did a great job, and I'll work hard to justify the trust that the committee has placed in me. Lankiveil (speak to me) 13:09, 31 March 2015 (UTC).

Thanks. It was very important to me that the process stay on time and under budget... well, sort of, given the budget was zero ;) I've confidence in all the new appointees will be assets to the team. Courcelles (talk) 03:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 April 2015

The Signpost: 01 April 2015

You have email!!

Hello, Courcelles. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Wikidata weekly summary #152

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Tech News: 2015-15

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

  • The import tool was broken for a few days. Imports didn't add log entries. You can delete and import pages again if necessary. [163]
  • Labs was broken several times this week. [164] [165] [166] [167]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 1. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 7. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 8 (calendar).
  • You can now add the same special characters with VisualEditor as with the wikitext editor. [168]
  • Many bugs around copy-paste in VisualEditor are now fixed. [169] [170]
  • You can now use basic tools of VisualEditor in the new talk tool. You can add links, bold and italics. You can also mention people. [171]

Meetings

  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 8 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • You can again comment on how you want to see Wikidata edits in your watchlist on other wikis. [172]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:41, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

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