User talk:Ceradon/Archive 3
Latest comment: 12 years ago by SuggestBot in topic Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
 | This is an archive of past discussions with User:Ceradon. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
| Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
The Signpost: 25 March 2013
- WikiProject report: The 'Burgh: WikiProject Pittsburgh
Our travels have brought us to Pittsburgh, the American city known for steelworks and bridges.
- Featured content: One and a half soursops
Seven articles, one list, six pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Arbitration report: Two open cases
This case, brought by Mark Arsten, was opened over a dispute over transgenderism topics that began off-wiki. The evidence phase was scheduled to close March 7, 2013, with a proposed decision due to be posted by March 29.
- News and notes: Sue Gardner to leave WMF; German Wikipedians spearhead another effort to close Wikinews
Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation since December 2007, has announced her plans to leave the position when a successor is recruited. Ranked as one of the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine, Sue Gardner is widely associated with the rise of the Wikimedia movement as a major custodian of human knowledge and cultural products.
- Technology report: The Visual Editor: Where are we now, and where are we headed?
Since its inception in May 2011, the Foundation's Visual Editor project has grown to become one of its main focuses. As the project nears its two-year birthday, the Signpost caught up with Visual Editor project manager James Forrester to discuss the progress on the project.
- Recent research: "Ignore all rules" in deletions; anonymity and groupthink; how readers react when shown talk pages
A paper presented at last month's CSCW Conference observes that "Mass collaboration systems are often characterized as unstructured organizations lacking rule and order", yet Wikipedia has a well developed body of policies to support it as an organization.
The Signpost: 01 April 2013
- Special report: Who reads which Wikipedia?
The Wikimedia Foundation has released its latest report card for the movement's hundreds of sites. The WMF has published statistics about the sites since 2009, but only recently have these been expanded in scope and depth to provide a rich source of data for investigating the movement and the world it serves. Dutch-born Erik Zachte is the driver of the WMF's statistical output, and he writes that the report card and accompanying traffic statistics comprise "enough tables, bar charts and plots to keep you busy for a while".
- WikiProject report: Special: FAQs
This week's Report is dedicated to answering our readers' questions about WikiProjects. The following Frequently Asked Questions came from feedback at the WikiProject Report's talk page, the WikiProject Council's talk page, and from previous lists of FAQs.
- Featured content: What the ?
The Signpost interviewed prolific featured content creator and former Signpost "featured content" report writer Crisco 1492 about ? and Indonesian cinema. ? was the "Today's featured article" for 1 April 2013. 1 April is popularly known as April Fools' Day in many countries.
- News and notes: Grants given for Wikipedia Library, six others; April Fool's Day ructions
The first round of individual engagement grants (IEGs) have been awarded, disbursing about $55.6k (€42.7k) to seven applicants.
- Arbitration report: Three open cases
A case brought by Lecen involves several articles about former Argentinian president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).
- Technology report: Wikidata phase 2 deployment timetable in doubt
Users of ten Wikipedias got access to phase 2 of Wikidata following its first rollout to production wikis.
The Signpost: 08 April 2013
- Wikizine: WMF scales back feature after outcry
Numerous Wikimedia Commons editors have chimed in on the Wikimedia Foundation's deployment of a new feature to its mobile website. Allowing anonymous users to register and upload pictures for use in an article, the feature was placed prominently at the top of Wikipedia articles in multiple languages.
- WikiProject report: Earthshattering WikiProject Earthquakes
This week, we felt the world tremble in the presence of WikiProject Earthquakes. The project was started in May 2008 to deal with articles about earthquakes, aftershocks, seismology, seismologists, plate tectonics, and related articles. While the project has seen success building 14 Featured Articles, one A-class Article, and 21 Good Articles, a fairly heavy workload remains, with a relative WikiWork rating of 4.94. WikiProject Earthquakes maintains a portal, a list of open tasks, a popular pages listing, and an article alerts watchlist.
- News and notes: French intelligence agents threaten Wikimedia volunteer
Last Friday, the Wikimedia movement awoke to news that one of their number—Rémi Mathis, a French volunteer editor—had been summoned to the offices of the interior intelligence service DCRI and threatened with criminal charges and fines if he did not delete an article on the French Wikipedia about a radio station used by the French military.
- Arbitration report: Subject experts needed for Argentine History
The arbitration committee is looking for expertise in Argentina and the Spanish language for a case involving former Argentinean president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).
- Featured content: Wikipedia loves poetry
Four articles and two pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Technology report: Testing week
The deployment of phase 2 of Wikidata to the English Wikipedia, originally scheduled for 8 April but delayed due to technical problems, may be rescheduled again as the result of community resistance.
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot’s recommendations. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information in the consent information sheet.
We have added information about the opportunity to make substantial valuable contributions to an article using a Low/Medium/High scale which goes from Low 
to High . The score is calculated by combining an article's readership and quality.
SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 12:18, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 15 April 2013
- Op-ed: How do we fix RfA inactivity?
The RfA process is widely discussed here on the English Wikipedia and it has been well documented that less and less new Requests for adminship are being filed. There are an abundance of bytes devoted to the discussion and analysis of this situation and plenty of hands have been wrung over the matter. Various RfCs have attempted to find a way to fix the problem. Many proposals have been made offering solutions, some more potentially drastic than others, with the goal of making the changes necessary to kick–start RfA back into regular action. However, Wikipedia operates based on consensus and, to this point, there are have simply been too many disagreeing views for us to reach a consensus on how to increase RfA activity.
- WikiProject report: Unity in Diversity: South Africa
This week, we ventured to WikiProject South Africa. The project was started in February 2005 and is home to thirteen pieces of featured material, two A-class articles, and twenty-one good articles.
- News and notes: Another admin reform attempt flops
The most recent move to reform the requests for adminship process on the English Wikipedia has failed, after a complex and drawn-out three-step procedure for community input was subject to decreasing participation as time wore on and came up with no clear consensus.
- Featured content: The featured process swings into high gear
Four articles, twelve lists, and seven pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The Bugle: Issue LXXXV, April 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 15:33, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 22 April 2013
- In the media: Wikipedia inaccurate, says Florence; New Wikipedia app for breaking news
An article by John Sweeney published on 22 April 2013 on scnow.com, the website of the Florence, South Carolina Morning News, reported that Florence city officials have taken to monitoring and correcting the Wikipedia article on their city.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Editor Retention
This week, we spent some time with a project that develops tools and methods for improving the user experience in the hope that new users will continue editing the encyclopedia. The project was started in July 2012 and has grown to include 124 members. The project's members partner with the Teahouse and the Welcoming Committee to spread WikiLove, welcome new users, encourage civility, and other related activities.
- News and notes: Milan conference a mixed bag
The Wikimedia Conference is an annual meeting of the chapters to discuss their status and the organisational development of the Wikimedia movement. For the first time it included groups that wish to be considered for WMF affiliation as thematic organisations and one of the three groups that was recently affiliated as a user group. The conference was also attended by members of the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), the WMF Affiliations Committee, and a representative of the Wikivoyage Association.
- Featured content: Batfish in the Red Sea
Nine articles, four lists, eight pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
- Arbitration report: Sexology case nears closure after stalling over topic ban
The Sexology case is nearing completion after arbitrators were unable to agree on a topic ban for one of the participants.
- Technology report: A flurry of deployments
On Monday, the English Wikipedia became the 12th wiki to be able to pull data from the central Wikidata.org repository, with other wikis scheduled to receive the update on Wednesday.
The Signpost: 29 April 2013
- News and notes: Chapter furore over FDC knockbacks; First DC GLAM boot-camp
The Funds Dissemination Committee released its recommendations to the WMF board last Sunday. The news that the Hong Kong chapter's application for US$212K had failed was followed by a strongly worded resignation announcement by Deryck Chan on the public Wikimedia-l mailing-list.
- In the media: Wikipedia's sexism; Yuri Gadyukin hoax
On 24 April 2013, novelist Amanda Filipacchi published what turned out to be an influential op-ed in the New York Times; illuminating the unusual background of the Yuri Gadyukin hoax.
- Featured content: Wiki loves video games
Nine articles, three lists, three pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" this week.
- WikiProject report: Japanese WikiProject Baseball
This week, we traveled to the Japanese Wikipedia's WikiProject Baseball for perspectives from a version of Wikipedia that treats WikiProjects as their own unique namespace (プロジェクト:) independent of "Wikipedia:".
- Traffic report: Most popular Wikipedia articles
The WP:TOP25 and WP:5000 reports chronicle the most popular Wikipedia articles on a weekly basis.
- Arbitration report: Sexology closed; two open cases
The Sexology case closed shortly after publication with no changes.
- Recent research: Sentiment monitoring; UNESCO and systemic bias; and more
A report on an online service which was created to conduct real-time monitoring of Wikipedia articles of companies, and more.
- Technology report: New notifications system deployed across Wikipedia
This week saw the deployment of the Echo extension, also known as "notifications".
Notifications box replacement prototypes released
Hey Ceradon; Kaldari has finished scripting a set of potential replacements available to test and give feedback on. Please go to this thread for more detail on how to enable them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:55, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot’s recommendations. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information in the consent information sheet.
We have added information about the opportunity to make substantial valuable contributions to an article using a Low/Medium/High scale which goes from Low to High . The score is calculated by combining an article's readership and quality.
SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 18:00, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 06 May 2013
- News and notes: Candidates nominating for Foundation elections; Looking ahead to Wikimania 2014
Although not yet in great numbers, candidates are coming forward for Wikimedia Foundation elections, which will be held from 1 to 15 June. The elections will fill vacancies in three categories, the most prominent of which will be the three community-elected seats on the ten-member Board of Trustees (or the first Board meeting after the election results are announced, if sooner). The current two-year terms for these trustee positions ends on 1 September.
- Technology report: Foundation successful in bid for larger Google subsidy
The Wikimedia Foundation will be receiving more than $100,000 worth of free developer time courtesy of internet giant Google, it was announced this week. The funds, allocated as part of Google's Summer of Code programme, will support up to 21 student developers through three months of coding time.
- Featured content: WikiCup update: full speed ahead!
May sees the beginning of Round 3 of the 2013 WikiCup, with 33 of the original 127 competitors remaining. ... six articles, ten pictures, and two portals were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- In the media: New Wikipedia for Schools edition; Anders Behring Breivik's Wikipedia contributions
The SOS Children's Villages news service advised on 3 May 2013 that Wikipedia for Schools 2013 is nearly ready for release. ... On 26 April 2013, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation published an article reviewing Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik's edits to the English Wikipedia, where it revealed the name of Breivik's English Wikipedia account.
- WikiProject report: Earn $100 in cash... and a button!
This week's English Wikipedia project, WikiProject Biophysics, is home to several experts in their fields and a collaboration with the Biophysical Society. The project is hosting a contest through July 15 with six contributors winning $100 in cash and given the opportunity to attend the 2014 meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Francisco. Other strong entries will be awarded barnstars online and everyone who contributes can receive a physical button mailed out to them.
The Signpost: 13 May 2013
- News and notes: WMF–community ruckus on Wikimedia mailing list
The removal of administrator rights from all volunteers on the Wikimedia Foundation's official website sparked a highly emotional reaction on the Wikimedia-l mailing list—one of the largest off-wiki methods of communication for the Wikimedia movement.
- WikiProject report: Knock Out: WikiProject Mixed Martial Arts
This week, we spent some time watching WikiProject Mixed Martial Arts, which was started in August 2005 and has grown to include 12 Good Articles and a Featured List.
- Featured content: A mushroom, a motorway, a Munich gallery, and a map
Fourteen articles, three lists, and three pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia, including Boletus luridus, seen above.
- In the media: PR firm accused of editing Wikipedia for government clients; can Wikipedia predict the stock market?
An article published on May 10 on Odwyerpr.com written by Greg Hazley documented a "spar" between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and public relations firm Qorvis partner Matt Lauer, who disputes Wikipedia's guideline discouraging public relations firms from editing articles on their clients.
- Arbitration report: Race and politics opened; three open cases
The Race and politics case has been accepted for arbitration, and the evidence phase is now open. Two other cases remain open.
The Bugle: Issue LXXXVI, May 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 13:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 May 2013
- Foundation elections: Trustee candidates speak about Board structure, China, gender, global south, endowment
Nominations closed last Friday for the three community-elected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) ten-member Board of Trustees—the ultimate corporate authority of the worldwide WMF. The Board has influential roles and responsibilities over one of the most powerful global information sources on the Internet.
- WikiProject report: Classical Greece and Rome
This week, we traveled to WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. The project was started in May 2006 and has 37 featured articles.
- News and notes: Spanish Wikipedia leaps past one million articles
On 16 May, the Spanish Wikipedia became the seventh Wikipedia to cross the million article Rubicon, a symbolic yet important achievement.
- In the media: Qworty incident continues
Salon.com published another article detailing the ongoing incidents with Wikipedia user Qworty, who has identified himself as Robert Clark Young. It documents Qworty's role in the controversy involving Amanda Filipacchi's op-ed, which kindled a debate on Wikipedia sexism as it relates to categories, where Qworty was responsible for a series of revenge edits against Filipacchi in the days after she released her op-ed.
- Featured content: Up in the air
Nine articles, six lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The Signpost: 27 May 2013
- News and notes: First-ever community election for FDC positions
Alongside the Signpost's interviews with the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees candidates, the Signpost asked the candidates for the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and its Ombudsperson position a series of questions relating to the positions they may be taking on. For the FDC candidates, this will include specific recommendations to the WMF on how to disburse over US$11 million in donors' funds to affiliate organizations, something which appears to have garnered little attention from the editing community at large so far.
- In the media: Pagans complain about Qworty's anti-Pagan editing
In the continuing saga of User:Qworty's outing as author Robert Clark Young, several blogs and websites covered the now-banned user's anti-Pagan editing. In an article published on 22 May 2013, TechEye described Qworty's edits as a "reign of terror" and were pleased to find that he had not succeeded in removing several prominent Pagan biographies from the encyclopedia.
- Foundation elections: Candidates talk about the Meta problem, the nation-based chapter model, world languages, and value for money
The elections for the three community seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees start on 8 June. This second and final part of the interview explores two broad themes: Meta, the site that hosts movement-wide coordination; and offline entities—the chapters and the new thematic organisations and user groups.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Geographical Coordinates
This week, we plotted out the demarcations of WikiProject Geographical Coordinates, which aims to create a single standard of handling coordinates in Wikipedia articles.
- Featured content: Life of 2π
Twelve articles, four lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Recent research: Motivations on the Persian Wikipedia; is science eight times more popular on the Spanish Wikipedia than the English Wikipedia?
An article in Library Review offers a much-needed comparison of data from a population of editors outside the English Wikipedia.
- Technology report: Amsterdam hackathon: continuity, change, and stroopwafels
Second only to the technical track of Wikimania in terms of numbers, the Berlin Hackathon (2009–2012) provided those with an interest in the software that underpins Wikimedia wikis and supports its editors a place to gather, exchange ideas and learn new skills.
The Signpost: 05 June 2013
- From the editor: Signpost developments
I am excited to announce that a Portuguese-language journal, Correio da Wikipédia has been launched by Vitorvicentevalente. It has just published its third edition, and I encourage readers who speak the language to read and contribute to its already-expansive coverage of the Portuguese Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement.
- Featured content: A week of portraits
Five articles, four lists, and thirteen images were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
- Discussion report: Return of the Discussion report
This is mostly a list of requests for comment believed to be active on 4 June 2013 linked from subpages of Wikipedia:RfC or watchlist notices.
- News and notes: "Cease and desist", World Trade Organization says to Wikivoyage; Could WikiLang be the next WMF project?
On 31 May, the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal and Community Advocacy team announced that the Wikivoyage logo would have to be replaced, because it has become the subject of a cease-and-desist letter from the World Trade Organization (WTO).
- In the media: China blocks secure version of Wikipedia
An article on TheNextWeb.com says that the Chinese Government has effectively blocked Wikipedia by cutting off access to the HTTP Secure (https) "workaround", almost completely cutting off access to those in China.
- WikiProject report: Operation Normandy
This week, we reflect on the anniversary of D-Day by storming the shores of Operation Normandy, a special initiative of WikiProject Military History.
- Technology report: Developers accused of making Toolserver fight 'pointless'
Last week, the Signpost reported on a feeling at the Amsterdam hackathon that Toolserver developers were coming round to the idea of migrating to Wikimedia Labs.
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot's suggestions. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information on the SuggestBot study page.
IMPORTANT CHANGES: We have modified the selection of articles SuggestBot suggests and altered the design to incorporate more information about the articles, as described in this explanation.
Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information.
Changes to SuggestBot's suggestions
We have changed the number of suggested articles and which categories they are selected from. The number of stubs has been greatly reduced, the number of articles needing sources doubled, and two new categories added (orphans and unencyclopaedic articles). We have also modified the layout of the suggestions and added sortable columns with various types of information about each article. The first two columns are:
- Views/Day
- Daily average number of views an article's had over the past 14 days.
- Quality
- Predicted article quality on a 1- to 3-star scale. Placing your cursor over the stars should give you a pop-up describing the article's quality (Low/Medium/High), current assessment class, and predicted assessment class.
The method we use to predict article quality also allows us to assess whether an article might need specific types of work in order to improve its quality. The work needed might not correspond to cleanup tags added to the article, since our method is not based on those. We have added five columns reflecting this work assessment, where a red X indicates improvement is needed. Placing your cursor over an X should give you a pop-up with a short description of the work needed. The five columns seek to answer the following five questions:
- Content
- Is more content needed?
- Headings
- Does this article have an appropriate section structure?
- Images
- Is the number of illustrative images about right?
- Links
- Does this article link to enough other Wikipedia articles?
- Sources
- For its length, is there an appropriate number of citations to sources in this article?
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 17:35, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Cerabot and dating templates
Hi, re this edit: the template has been left with a superfluous June 2013. Other bots that date the {{cn}} template - such as AnomieBOT (talk · contribs) - recognise that there is an existing date and incorporate that into their cleanup. Would it be possible for your bot to do the same? --Redrose64 (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
- I've added code to handle that type of thing, Thanks. --ceradon talkcontribs 23:41, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 12 June 2013
- News and notes: How Wikimedia affiliates are spending $8.4 million; PRISM scandal
Late last year, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) awarded $8.4 million in donors' money to 11 Wikimedia entities, including the Wikimedia Foundation and 10 nationally defined chapters. Under this arrangement, these organisations are required to issue quarterly reports on how far they have progressed towards their declared programmatic and financial goals. The FDC has now announced that all 11 completed and submitted their reports by the 1 April deadline, and have responded to each.
- Featured content: Mixing Bowl Interchange
Seven articles, two lists, five pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- In the media: VisualEditor will "change world history"
In an article published by the Huffington Post's United Kingdom edition, writer Thomas Church asserts that the new VisualEditor will change history, literally. It says that Wikipedia's mark-up language has been to its advantage, as most people didn't bother trying to learn it
- Op-ed: The tragedy of Wikipedia's commons
I've long thought that we should get rid of the Wikimedia Commons as we know it. Commons has evolved into a project with interests that compete with the needs of the primary users of Commons and the reason it was created. It's also understaffed, which results in poor curation, large administrative backlogs, and poor policy development.
- Discussion report: VisualEditor, elections, bots, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
- Traffic report: Who holds the throne?
Last week's most popular article list on the English Wikipedia was dominated by the massively popular TV series Game of Thrones, which claimed six slots in the top 25, including the top three. Its popularity was likely stoked by the most recent episode, The Rains of Castamere. Bollywood continued to increase its share of views as well, aided by the tragic suicide of star Nafisa Khan.
- Arbitration report: Two cases suspended; proposed decision posted in Argentine History
Two cases, Race and politics and Tea Party movement have been suspended. Argentine History remains open, and a proposed decision was posted on 12 June.
- WikiProject report: Processing WikiProject Computing
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Computing. Started in October 2003, the project has grown to include 17 featured articles, 11 featured lists, 3 pieces of featured media, and 80 good articles.
Help on AIG article
The Cerabot posted banners that are unwarranted. Would you kindly take a look at the references? Documenting an encyclopedic chronology and sourcing public information and data from the US Department of Treasury is a verifiable and highly authoritative source. The research conducted shows AIG sent out press releases but no business media wrote articles on each instance of loan repayment or stock sale. Removing the banners makes a lot more sense at this point, would you agree? Thanks for helping out.Hiland109 (talk) 18:04, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) I assume that you refer to this edit. Cerabot did not add any banners - it adjusted some templates (only one of which was a banner) that were there already. In three cases, it altered the redirects
{{CN}}and{{cn}}to the non-redirected form{{Citation needed}}; in one case, it altered the redirect{{Primary source}}to the non-redirected form{{Primary sources}}; and in two cases, it added a|date=parameter which is required by all three of these templates. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 19 June 2013
- Op-ed: Two responses to the 'Tragedy of Wikipedia's Commons'
Following last week's op-ed by Gigs ("The Tragedy of Wikipedia's Commons"), the Signpost is carrying two contrary opinions from MichaelMaggs, a bureaucrat on Wikimedia Commons, and Mattbuck, a British Commons administrator.
- Traffic report: Most popular Wikipedia articles of the last week
The season finale of Game of Thrones ensured that the epic high fantasy series would dominate the top 10 again last week; however, it was joined by Maurice Sendak and Man of Steel.
- In the media: South African learners want Wikipedia; Editing of Israel topics
Memeburn.com published an article on the yearning of students in South Africa for free knowledge through Wikipedia Zero.
- WikiProject report: The Volunteer State: WikiProject Tennessee
This week, we visited WikiProject Tennessee, a project dedicate to the state at the geographic and cultural crossroads of the United States.
- News and notes: Swedish Wikipedia's millionth article leads to protests; WMF elections—where are all the voters?
With erysichton elaborata, the Swedish Wikipedia passed the one million article Rubicon this week. While this is a mostly symbolic achievement, serving as a convenient benchmark with which to gain publicity and attention in an increasingly statistical world, the particular method by which the Swedish site has passed the mark has garnered significant attention—and controversy.
- Featured content: Cheaper by the dozen
Eleven articles, twelve lists, and eleven pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Discussion report: Citations, non-free content, and a MediaWiki meeting
A list of current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
- Technology report: May engineering report published
The WMF's engineering report for May was published recently on the Wikimedia blog and on the MediaWiki wiki ("friendly" summary version), giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month.
- Arbitration report: The Farmbrough amendment request—automation and arbitration enforcement
Richard Farmbrough was set to have his day in court, but as events transpired, this was not to be so. On 25 March 2013, an accusation was made against Farmbrough at Arbitration Enforcement (AE), claiming that he violated the terms of an automated edit restriction. Within hours, Farmbrough had filed his own request with the arbitration committee, citing the newly filed AE request and claiming that the motion was being used "in an absurd way" in the filing of enforcement requests: "I have not made any edits that a sane person would consider automation."
The Bugle: Issue LXXXVII, June 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:05, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 26 June 2013
- Traffic report: Most-viewed articles of the week
With most TV shows on hiatus for the summer, attention has turned to movies, celebrity and sports. The dramatic events at the 2013 Confederations Cup drew massive attention, as did summer blockbusters like Man of Steel and World War Z. But the most searched event of the week was the tragic and unexpected death of popular actor James Gandolfini on June 19.
- In the media: Daily Dot on Commons and porn; Jimmy Wales accused of breaking Wikipedia rules in hunt for Snowden
The Daily Dot has examined the perennial controversy over explicit or pornographic media on Commons. This latest salvo was touched off when Russavia uploaded a portrait of Jimmy Wales made by the artist Pricasso, who paints with his genitalia.
- Recent research: Most controversial Wikipedia topics, automatic detection of sockpuppets
A comparative work by T. Yasseri., A. Spoerri, M. Graham and J. Kertész looks at the 100 most controversial topics in 10 language versions of Wikipedia, and tries to make sense of the similarities and differences in these lists.
- News and notes: Election results released
Less than three days after the close of voting, the volunteer election committee posted the results on Meta. The worldwide Wikimedia movement has elected three WMF trustees for two-year terms on the 10-seat Board: Samuel Klein (supported by 43.5% of voters), Phoebe Ayers (38.3%), and María Sefidari (35.6%). The new trustees will take their seats at a critical time for the movement: one of the first tasks in their terms will be to help the Board to find and approve the new executive director to take up the top job when Sue Gardner departs.
- Discussion report: Privacy policy, X!'s edit counter, old rangeblocks, and the Article Incubator
A list of current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
- Featured content: Wikipedia in black + Adam Cuerden
This week, the Signpost interviews Adam Cuerden, a Wikimedian who has been for years gathering featured pictures, and who constantly participates in what could be his favourite part of the project. Cuerden dedicates most of his time to scanning and restoring old, valuable illustrative works. He explains to us how the featured process works, its relation with other parts of the encyclopedia, and how pictures evolve before reaching featured status.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Fashion
This week, we walked the runway with WikiProject Fashion. Started in March 2007, the project is home to 4 Featured Articles and 41 Good Articles. The project has a lengthy list of how you can help and a list of Article Alerts.
- Arbitration report: Argentine History closed; two cases remain suspended
Argentine History was closed. Two cases, Race and politics and Tea Party movement, remain suspended until July.
Marking cerabot changes
Dear Ceradon, thanks for your very helpful bot's work on Wikipedia. The bot's changes are currently displayed on changelog as having been made by a human. Would you be able to change it as having been made by a bot? The current situation is very confusing, and so forth. Yours, LT90001 (talk) 10:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for July 1
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Mitchell Grobb, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Carberry (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 11:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 03 July 2013
- In the media: Jimmy Wales is not an Internet billionaire; a mass shooter's alleged Wikipedia editing
Amy Chozick's profile of Jimmy Wales in the New York Times sparked significant controversy in international news outlets this week. Chozick's profile covered Wales's personal life, including his 12-year-old daughter, ex-wife, and current wife Kate Garvey, describing Wales himself as "a well-groomed version of a person who has been slumped over a computer drinking Yoo-hoo for hours." Chozick described his current role in Wikipedia as "Benevolent Dictator for Life", a statement which garnered conflict from all corners of the web, including from Wales, who responded to the piece as a whole with a lengthy talk page statement.
- Featured content: Queen of France
Four articles, four lists, and fifteen pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
- WikiProject report: Puppies!
This week, the Signpost went to the kennel and interviewed WikiProject Dogs. The project has several featured and good articles, along with a large number of "Did you know" entries. We asked three project members about the challenges of creating, curating, and maintaining canine content in an increasingly dog-obsessed world.
- News and notes: Wikipedia's medical collaborations gathering pace
The key annual event in the Wikimedia calendar, Wikimania 2013, will be held in Hong Kong in just five weeks' time. Among the events will be a presentation by two people who are working to promote the development of medical content on Wikimedia projects. One is James Heilman of Wiki Project Med, a non-profit dedicated to making "clear, reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date educational resources and information in the biomedical and related social sciences freely available to all people in the language of their choice". The other is Lori Thicke, president of Translators Without Borders (TWB), the Connecticut-based organisation set up in 2010 to provide pro-bono translation services for humanitarian non-profits
- Discussion report: Snuggle, mainpage link to Wikinews, 3RR, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- Technology report: VisualEditor in midst of game-changing deployment series
The VisualEditor extension has gone live by default to registered users on the English Wikipedia, marking a huge milestone in a project that has taken the best part of a decade to reach fruition. The extension was previously described as "the biggest and most important change to our user experience we’ve ever undertaken" by the WMF team behind it.
- Traffic report: Yahoo! crushes the competition ... in Wikipedia views
The real world made a strong showing in the top 10 last week, as news stories such as Yahoo!'s purchase of Tumblr, the murder of Odin Lloyd, the continuing drama over NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the ill-health of Nelson Mandela crowded out the usual roster of TV shows, movies, websites and video games. Not that they were entirely excluded, of course.
- Arbitration report: Tea Party movement reopened, new AUSC appointments
Following a one-month period of moderated discussion, Tea Party movement has been reopened by the Committee. The proposed decisions are currently being voted upon. Race and politics remains suspended pending the return of User:Apostle12.
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot's suggestions. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information on the SuggestBot study page.
IMPORTANT CHANGES: We have modified the selection of articles SuggestBot suggests and altered the design to incorporate more information about the articles, as described in this explanation.
Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information.
Changes to SuggestBot's suggestions
We have changed the number of suggested articles and which categories they are selected from. The number of stubs has been greatly reduced, the number of articles needing sources doubled, and two new categories added (orphans and unencyclopaedic articles). We have also modified the layout of the suggestions and added sortable columns with various types of information about each article. The first two columns are:
- Views/Day
- Daily average number of views an article's had over the past 14 days.
- Quality
- Predicted article quality on a 1- to 3-star scale. Placing your cursor over the stars should give you a pop-up describing the article's quality (Low/Medium/High), current assessment class, and predicted assessment class.
The method we use to predict article quality also allows us to assess whether an article might need specific types of work in order to improve its quality. The work needed might not correspond to cleanup tags added to the article, since our method is not based on those. We have added five columns reflecting this work assessment, where a red X indicates improvement is needed. Placing your cursor over an X should give you a pop-up with a short description of the work needed. The five columns seek to answer the following five questions:
- Content
- Is more content needed?
- Headings
- Does this article have an appropriate section structure?
- Images
- Is the number of illustrative images about right?
- Links
- Does this article link to enough other Wikipedia articles?
- Sources
- For its length, is there an appropriate number of citations to sources in this article?
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 23:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 10 July 2013
- Op-ed: It's time to stop pretending the English-language Wikinews is a viable project
This is Wikinews' fundamental problem: it can neither do a good job providing a summary of world news, nor does it have any special focus that it does well. It's a collection of random articles, with only the occasional, passing resemblance to important current events.
- WikiProject report: Not Jimbo: WikiProject Wales
This week, we traveled to Cymru with the folks at WikiProject Wales.
- Traffic report: Inflated view counts here, there, and everywhere
The most-viewed articles on the English Wikipedia last week include...
- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation Board appoints world expert in women's issues, global south
In apparent acknowledgment of the urgency of two issues facing the Wikimedia movement—the need to engage both women and the global south—the WMF Board has appointed Ana Toni as one of its four expert members. Toni will bring rare expertise to the movement, and the Signpost understands that her skills in advocacy and her key roles in international NGOs are likely to be a natural match with the WMF as the hub of disseminating free knowledge around the world.
- Dispatches: Infoboxes: time for a fresh look?
The fundamental idea of an infobox is clear: keep it simple and limited to essentials. At some point, however, these basic principles seem to have been abandoned, in favour of an approach akin to "the more the merrier".
- Featured content: The week of the birds
Five articles, six lists, and ten pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Discussion report: Featured article process governance, signature templates, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...
The Signpost: 17 July 2013
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Square Enix
This week, we explored the fantasy worlds of video game developer Square Enix by interviewing WikiProject Square Enix. The project began in September 2006 as a spin-off of WikiProject Final Fantasy, but today covers that, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, and a variety of other game series, with exceptions explained in the interview below. The project is home to 32 pieces of Featured material and 104 Good and A-class articles.
- Traffic report: Most-viewed articles of the week
The most-viewed articles on the English Wikipedia last week include...
- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation's new plans announced
Last week the Wikimedia Foundation released its annual plan for July 2013 to June 2014. It provides a surprisingly frank view—of past achievements and failures, and future goals and risks—that could be afforded only by a non-profit that is confident and beholden to no commercial or political interests.
- Featured content: Documents and sports
Four articles, five lists, and sixteen pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Arbitration report: Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case opens; July 22 deadline for checkuser and oversight applications
The case Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds was opened. Voting on the Tea Party movement case continued, after a failed attempt at moderated discussion. A group tasked with deciding the content of the lead section of the Jerusalem article has reported back to the committee. Applications for checkuser and oversight permissions close on 22 July.
The Bugle: Issue LXXXVIII, July 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 15:41, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 24 July 2013
- In the media: Wikipedia flamewars
The Washington Post reported Tuesday on the most controversial articles on various language Wikipedias as determined by a cross-continental research group.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Religion
This week, the Signpost delved into the vast and complex areas of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that make up religion. WikiProject Religion has been around since 2005 and has a complex scope, in that it only takes articles that deal with religion in a non-sectarian sense, along with any articles that do not have a dedicated daughter project.
- Discussion report: Partially disambiguated page names, page protection policy, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- News and notes: Wikivoyage turns ten, but where to now?; Wikipedia Zero expands into India
Contributors to Wikivoyage, the sister project adopted by the Wikimedia Foundation last year, are celebrating their 10th anniversary this week. ... The Wikimedia Foundation has announced via press release that it has partnered with Aircel to provide free mobile access to Wikipedia.
- Traffic report: Gleeless
Death hangs over the top 10 this week, as tragic deaths both past and present continued to cast their pall over an already troubled world. The death of Corey Monteith led to a spike in interest in the man himself, his girlfriend and co-star Lea Michele, and the show that made them both famous, Glee.
- Featured content: Engineering and the arts
Twelve articles, seven lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Arbitration report: Infoboxes case opens
The case Infoboxes was opened. The evidence phase continues in Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds. Voting on the proposed decision continues in the Tea Party movement case.
The Signpost: 31 July 2013
- Op-ed: The VisualEditor Beta and the path to change
One of the narratives I've heard a lot is that Wikipedia is unable to change, that it's too stagnant, too poorly resourced, too inherently resistant to change. I don't believe that at all.
- Recent research: Napoleon, Michael Jackson and Srebrenica across cultures, 90% of Wikipedia better than Britannica, WikiSym preview
An ArXiv preprint titled "Highlighting entanglement of cultures via ranking of multilingual Wikipedia articles" is about the Wikipedia articles on individuals and their position in the hyperlink network of the articles in each Wikipedia language edition, considering the whole hyperlink network.
- Traffic report: Bouncing Baby Brouhaha
Somewhat predictably, the birth of a new heir to the House of Windsor on 22 July led the English-speaking world to suddenly embrace Monarchism. In honour of this occasion, the Traffic report will be assiduously employing British spelling and dating conventions. Cheers.
- WikiProject report: Babel Series: Politics on the Turkish Wikipedia
This week, we visited the Turkish Wikipedia for an interview with VikiProje Siyaset (WikiProject Politics). The project began in April 2010 and has sustained a small but enthusiastic group of editors focusing on both the domestic politics of Turkey and international politics. The basics for article quality and importance ratings have been determined, but tracking this data has not yet become widespread on the Turkish Wikipedia. The project maintains a portal, a variety of resources, and a rotating selection of images to spruce up the project's page.
- News and notes: Gearing up for Wikimania 2013
The ninth annual Wikimania conference will open in just over a week at the Jockey Club Auditorium, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Wikimania is for people worldwide who have an interest in Wikimedia Foundation projects. It features presentations and discussions on those projects, on free knowledge and content, and on related social and technical issues.
- Arbitration report: Race and politics case closes
The case Race and politics was closed, while three other cases remain open.
- Featured content: Caterpillars, warblers, and frogs—oh my!
Eight articles, five lists, seven pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Discussion report: Defining consensus; VisualEditor default state; expert and layperson terms in article titles
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia this week include...
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot's suggestions. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information on the SuggestBot study page.
IMPORTANT CHANGES: We have modified the selection of articles SuggestBot suggests and altered the design to incorporate more information about the articles, as described in this explanation.
Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information.
Changes to SuggestBot's suggestions
We have changed the number of suggested articles and which categories they are selected from. The number of stubs has been greatly reduced, the number of articles needing sources doubled, and two new categories added (orphans and unencyclopaedic articles). We have also modified the layout of the suggestions and added sortable columns with various types of information about each article. The first two columns are:
- Views/Day
- Daily average number of views an article's had over the past 14 days.
- Quality
- Predicted article quality on a 1- to 3-star scale. Placing your cursor over the stars should give you a pop-up describing the article's quality (Low/Medium/High), current assessment class, and predicted assessment class.
The method we use to predict article quality also allows us to assess whether an article might need specific types of work in order to improve its quality. The work needed might not correspond to cleanup tags added to the article, since our method is not based on those. We have added five columns reflecting this work assessment, where a red X indicates improvement is needed. Placing your cursor over an X should give you a pop-up with a short description of the work needed. The five columns seek to answer the following five questions:
- Content
- Is more content needed?
- Headings
- Does this article have an appropriate section structure?
- Images
- Is the number of illustrative images about right?
- Links
- Does this article link to enough other Wikipedia articles?
- Sources
- For its length, is there an appropriate number of citations to sources in this article?
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 11:41, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 07 August 2013
- Arbitration report: Fourteen editors proposed for ban in Tea Party movement case
Fourteen editors have been proposed for a six-month page ban in the Tea Party movement case. In the Infoboxes and Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds cases, the workshop and evidence phases have closed, and proposed decisions are scheduled to be posted.
- Traffic report: Greetings from the graveyard
It's crickets and tumbleweeds this week, as the top 10 sees its lowest view-count since the project began. If Wikipedia were selling anything, we'd be having a fire sale by now.
- News and notes: Chapters Association self-destructs
The opening days of the annual Wikimania, referred to as the "pre-conference", are not typically newsworthy. This changed dramatically when the Chapters Association council met on Thursday.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Freedom of Speech
This week, we journey into a WikiProject that focuses about what keeps Wikipedia running, the freedom of speech.
- Featured content: Mysterious case of the grand duchess
The week's newest featured content includes...
- Discussion report: CheckUser and Oversighter candidates, and more
Recent discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The Signpost: 14 August 2013
- News and notes: "Beautifully smooth" Wikimania with few hitches
About a thousand Wikimedians journeyed to Hong Kong this week for the annual Wikimania conference, the annual gathering of the Wikimedia movement. Wikimania, which has been held since 2005, serves as the principal physical meetup for Wikimedians around the world.
- In the media: Chinese censorship
One major story that came out of Wikimania was Jimmy Wales' statements at the conference that he would prefer to have Wikipedia banned entirely in mainland China than censored as it is currently.
- Featured content: Wikipedia takes the cities
The week's newest featured content includes seven articles, four lists, and twelve pictures.
- Special report: Jimmy Wales: media favors entertainment over raising public awareness
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia and its public face to most of the media, has declared that media organizations are missing out on the "opportunity of the century" by not conducting true investigative reporting into American surveillance practices, a debate kindled by information leaked by Edward Snowden.
- Discussion report: Wikivoyage, reliable sources, music bands, account creators, and OTRS
Recent discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- WikiProject report: For the love of stamps
- Arbitration report: Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case closes
The Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case has closed, with a unanimous decision to desysop a Wikimedia Foundation employee and indefinitely ban another editor. The Tea Party movement case has stalled yet again, in the wake of a controversial proposal to ban 14 editors. A proposed decision in the Infoboxes case was scheduled to be posted on 14 August.
Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Bill Keenan, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 180 days. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.
If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.
You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements.
If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13.
Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 13:54, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
The Bugle: Issue LXXXIX, August 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 00:17, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 21 August 2013
- In the media: Chelsea Manning, Box-office predictors, and 'Storming Wikipedia'
Wikipedia's gender identity MOS section and its effect on Chelsea Manning was both praised and emulated in the media this week. ... Coverage of the distributed open collaborative course called "Storming Wikipedia" continued this week.
- Recent research: WikiSym 2013 retrospective
98 registered participants attended the annual WikiSym+OpenSym conference from August 5-7 at Hong Kong's Cyberport facility.
- WikiProject report: Loop-the-loop: Amusement Parks
This week, we secured free admission for WikiProject Amusement Parks, the project dedicated to amusement rides, roller coasters, theme parks, traveling carnivals, and funfairs.
- Traffic report: Reddit creep
The debt that Wikipedia owes sites like Reddit or Google often goes unacknowledged around here. If the purpose of Wikipedia is to bring knowledge to the world, then it is sites like these that are actually doing it.
- Featured content: WikiCup update, and the gardens of Finland
The 2013 WikiCup competition is entering its final round. Eleven articles and nine pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- News and notes: Looking ahead to Wiki Loves Monuments
Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), Wikimedia's annual volunteer-driven and the world largest photo contest, is gearing up to be conducted throughout September 2013. The event, originally developed in the Netherlands in 2010, has gone global with 34 countries taking part last and 49 this year.
- Technology report: Gallery improvements launch on Wikipedia
Wikipedia's traditional image gallery format, produced by the markup, has remained largely unchanged for years. The resulting layout, seen below, does not adapt well to variations in image size, and has been characterized by some critics as aesthetically unappealing.
The Signpost: 28 August 2013
- In the media: Chelsea Manning, Box-office predictors, and 'Storming Wikipedia'
Wikipedia's gender identity MOS section and its effect on Chelsea Manning was both praised and emulated in the media this week. ... Coverage of the distributed open collaborative course called "Storming Wikipedia" continued this week.
- Recent research: WikiSym 2013 retrospective
98 registered participants attended the annual WikiSym+OpenSym conference from August 5-7 at Hong Kong's Cyberport facility.
- WikiProject report: Loop-the-loop: Amusement Parks
This week, we secured free admission for WikiProject Amusement Parks, the project dedicated to amusement rides, roller coasters, theme parks, traveling carnivals, and funfairs.
- Traffic report: Reddit creep
The debt that Wikipedia owes sites like Reddit or Google often goes unacknowledged around here. If the purpose of Wikipedia is to bring knowledge to the world, then it is sites like these that are actually doing it.
- Featured content: WikiCup update, and the gardens of Finland
The 2013 WikiCup competition is entering its final round. Eleven articles and nine pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- News and notes: Looking ahead to Wiki Loves Monuments
Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), Wikimedia's annual volunteer-driven and the world largest photo contest, is gearing up to be conducted throughout September 2013. The event, originally developed in the Netherlands in 2010, has gone global with 34 countries taking part last and 49 this year.
- Technology report: Gallery improvements launch on Wikipedia
Wikipedia's traditional image gallery format, produced by the markup, has remained largely unchanged for years. The resulting layout, seen below, does not adapt well to variations in image size, and has been characterized by some critics as aesthetically unappealing.
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot's suggestions. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information on the SuggestBot study page.
IMPORTANT CHANGES: We have modified the selection of articles SuggestBot suggests and altered the design to incorporate more information about the articles, as described in this explanation.
Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information.
Changes to SuggestBot's suggestions
We have changed the number of suggested articles and which categories they are selected from. The number of stubs has been greatly reduced, the number of articles needing sources doubled, and two new categories added (orphans and unencyclopaedic articles). We have also modified the layout of the suggestions and added sortable columns with various types of information about each article. The first two columns are:
- Views/Day
- Daily average number of views an article's had over the past 14 days.
- Quality
- Predicted article quality on a 1- to 3-star scale. Placing your cursor over the stars should give you a pop-up describing the article's quality (Low/Medium/High), current assessment class, and predicted assessment class.
The method we use to predict article quality also allows us to assess whether an article might need specific types of work in order to improve its quality. The work needed might not correspond to cleanup tags added to the article, since our method is not based on those. We have added five columns reflecting this work assessment, where a red X indicates improvement is needed. Placing your cursor over an X should give you a pop-up with a short description of the work needed. The five columns seek to answer the following five questions:
- Content
- Is more content needed?
- Headings
- Does this article have an appropriate section structure?
- Images
- Is the number of illustrative images about right?
- Links
- Does this article link to enough other Wikipedia articles?
- Sources
- For its length, is there an appropriate number of citations to sources in this article?
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 11:31, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Bill Keenan, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 180 days. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.
If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.
You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements.
If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13.
Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 19:46, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 September 2013
- In the media: Manning "put back in the closet"; State involvement in Azerbaijani Wikipedia
After media praise for Wikipedia's decision to move the Bradley Manning article to Chelsea Manning, the reversion of that page move on August 31, after a discussion in which several hundred Wikipedians participated, has so far triggered less favourable feedback, as well as a blog post from Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner expressing her disappointment with the decision.
- News and notes: Privacy policy debate gears up
On September 3, the Wikimedia Foundation launched the second stage of the process to improve the privacy policy implemented on most Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia and its sister projects, by publishing a policy draft.
- Traffic report: No accounting for the wisdom of crowds
A news-heavy week offers some insight, perhaps, into humanity's priorities.
- Discussion report: Arbcom election procedures, Wiki Loves Monuments, Privacy policy, FDC, and more
As mentioned in "In the news" on Wikipedia's main page, the Library of Birmingham in the United Kingdom has opened. This interior photo was taken a week before opening. The article reports that the library "has been described as the largest public library in the United Kingdom, the largest public cultural space in Europe, and the largest regional library in Europe."
- Featured content: Bridging the way to a Peasants' Revolt
Four articles, four lists, and eight pictures were promoted to 'featured' status this week on the English Wikipedia
- WikiProject report: Writing on the frontier: Psychology on Wikipedia
This week, we spent some time with the minds behind WikiProject Psychology. The project was created in March 2006 and has grown to include 14 Featured Articles and 43 Good Articles.
- Arbitration report: Manning naming dispute case opens; Tea Party case closes ; Infoboxes nears completion
The dispute over the title for the Manning article escalated quickly to arbitration levels, as the Bradley/Chelsea Manning naming dispute case was accepted for arbitration.
- Technology report: Making Wikipedia more accessible
In this week's "Technology report", we explore ways of making Wikipedia more accessible to users of screen readers. Graham87 is a highly active contributor who is also blind and accesses the site through a screen reader.
The Signpost: 11 September 2013
- In the media: Lawyer goes to court to discover Wikipedian's identity; Storming Wikipedia; Wikimedia UK Secretary in conflict-of-interest controversy; Does Wikipedia need a "right to reply" box?
'The National Law Journal reported on September 9 that lawyer Susan L. Burke has been taking legal steps to discover the identity of Wikipedia editor . Zujua had edited her biography, allegedly adding misleading content about various lawsuits in the process
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Indonesia
The Signpost went to Indonesia this week.
- Featured content: Tintin goes featured
Four articles, eight lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
- News and notes: As deadline approaches, Individual Engagement Grants looks for ideas
The deadline for proposals to the Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) volunteer committee on Meta will pass on 30 September. The program is designed to fund projects that tackle long-term problem and have a significant editing community impact; it has previously supported solutions like The Wikipedia Library, which improves Wikipedian access to online reference sources like JSTOR (see Signpost coverage).
- Traffic report: Syria, celebrities, and association football: oh my!
While the Syrian Civil War crept its slow way into the minds of the public, with a new fourth related entry in the top 25, the top 10 remained dominated by celebrity, mainly sports and music. Two megabucks transfers stimulated public interest in football/soccer ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, while Lil Wayne's public apology ahead of his latest album release sent him to the top.
- Arbitration report: Workshop phase opens in Manning naming dispute ; Infoboxes case closes
Discussion over the Manning title dispute was off to a running start as evidence and workshop phases continued in the Bradley/Chelsea Manning naming dispute. The Infoboxes case closed with topic bans for two users, and a recommendation for community discussion of infoboxes.
WikiProject Military history coordinator election
Greetings from WikiProject Military history! As a member of the project, you are invited to take part in our annual project coordinator election, which will determine our coordinators for the next twelve months. If you wish to cast a vote, please do so on the election page by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September! Kirill [talk] 16:48, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 18 September 2013
- News and notes: Third time's the charm: the FDC's newest round of funding requests
The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), the volunteer-led body that evaluates chapter and (for the first time) thematic organizational annual plan grant requests to the Wikimedia Foundation, is preparing for its third round of public proceedings to deliberate on the distribution of several million US dollars of Wikimedia movement funds.
- WikiProject report: 18,464 Good Articles on the wall
This week, the Signpost headed to WikiProject Good Articles. As of publishing time, out of the 4,331,477 articles on Wikipedia, only 18,464 are rated as "good" (about 1 in 235).
- Featured content: Hurricane Diane and Van Gogh
Thirteen articles, six lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status last week on the English Wikipedia.
- Technology report: What can Wikidata do for Wikipedia?
In this week's "Technology report", we look at how the growth of Wikidata can benefit Wikipedia. Gerard Meijssen is a highly active contributor and frequent blogger about Wikidata. We asked him to share his thoughts on how the new project benefits Wikipedia.
- Traffic report: Twerking, tragedy and TV
The top 10 is bookended by unlucky dates, as Friday the 13th fell just after the anniversary of 9/11. Breaking Bad's final season continued to draw attention, while interest in Miley Cyrus's youthful exuberance is fading only slowly.
The Bugle: Issue LXXXXX, September 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 00:08, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Bill Keenan, a page you created, has not been edited in 6 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.
If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.
You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements.
If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13.
Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 02:03, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 25 September 2013
- Op-ed: Q&A on Public Relations and Wikipedia
Over the last year, there's been extensive debate about whether public relations professionals and other corporate representatives should participate on Wikipedia and, if so, to what extent and what kinds of rules should be followed.
- Traffic report: Look on Walter's works
The saga of Walter White, chemistry teacher-turned-drug kingpin, as told in the critically adored television series Breaking Bad, has been a water-cooler necessity for years, and now, as it nears its end, audiences are feverishly following every plot thread to guess what the finale will reveal.
- In the media: Fox News: Wikipedia abandons efforts to purge porn from online encyclopedia
Fox News writer Perry Chiaramonte published an article detailing Wikipedia's alleged abandonment of its fight to remove pornography.
- News and notes: Last call for Wiki Loves Monuments; Community–WMF tension over VisualEditor
On 30 September, Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), the Wikimedia community's global photo competition, will reach to the end of its submission period. The proceedings have been underway since the first of this month; national juries will start reviewing submissions for the first round of selections after it closes ... Community aggravation with one of the Wikimedia Foundation's signature initiatives, the VisualEditor, came to the fore again this week with the announcement and implementation of code blocking the tool.
- WikiProject report: Babel Series: GOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!
This week, we continued our exploration of other language editions of Wikipedia by visiting the Spanish Wikipedia's Wikiproyecto Fútbol (WikiProject Football).
- Featured content: Wikipedia takes the stage
Twelve articles, six lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Recent research: Automatic detection of "infiltrating" Wikipedia admins; Wiki, or 'pedia?
A conference paper makes a rather serious claim: "We find a surprisingly large number of editors who change their behavior and begin focusing more on a particular controversial topic once they are promoted to administrator status."
The Signpost: 02 October 2013
- Op-ed: Commons medical diagnostic images under threat from unresolved ownership
Medical images have transformed many aspects of modern medicine. Over the past two decades the increasing sophistication of MRI, CT-scanning, and X-ray techniques has made these technologies the cornerstone of diagnosing a range of conditions, replacing what used to be largely guesswork by doctors. They can be the difference between life and death for a patient, and their importance is underlined by the tens of billions of dollars spent on them annually just in North America. For Wikimedia Foundation projects, advanced images are now a powerful tool for describing and explaining, and educating our worldwide readership of medical articles.
- Discussion report: References to individuals and groups, merging wikiprojects, portals on the Main page, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- News and notes: WMF signals new grantmaking priorities
In what will be remembered as a game-changing week for Wikimedia grantmaking, the Foundation's executive director, Sue Gardner, published a forthright and in places highly critical statement, Reflections on the FDC process, and grantmaking staff revealed that the WMF will significantly strengthen its targeting of optimal impact in funding.
- Featured content: Bobby, Ben, Roger and a fantasia
Six articles and two pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
- Arbitration report: Infoboxes: After the war
Editor's note: To go beyond the mere facts of cases, the "Arbitration report" invited several editors who participated in the recent Infoboxes case to comment on infoboxes: what they are, where new users can go to find out about them, specifications and protocols, best practices, and how the upcoming community discussion recommended by the Committee in the case decision should be framed.
- WikiProject report: U2 Too
This week, we revisited the enthusiastic editors at WikiProject U2. Started in June 2007, the project has grown in spurts, resulting in a collection of 8 Featured Articles and 24 Good Articles. The project maintains a to do list, portal, and a list of references.
The Signpost: 09 October 2013
- Traffic report: Shutdown shenanigans
If you're living in the United States, what did you do during the government shutdown? Well, it seems most people watched the final episode of Breaking Bad.
- WikiProject report: Australian Roads
This week, we moved to the esoteric world of Australian roads.
- Featured content: Under the sea
Seven articles, six lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
- News and notes: Extensive network of clandestine paid advocacy exposed
An investigation by the English Wikipedia community into suspicious edits and sockpuppet activity has led to astonishing revelations that Wiki-PR, a multi-million-dollar US-based company, has created, edited, or maintained several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients using a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts.
- In the media: College credit for editing Wikipedia
The University of California, San Francisco attracted substantial media attention over its new course offering that will give credit to fourth year medical students for editing Wikipedia articles about medicine.
- Arbitration report: Manning naming dispute and Ebionites 3 cases continue; third arbitrator resigns
A proposed decision has been posted in the Manning naming dispute. The workshop phase of the Ebionites 3 case closes 13 October. Arbitrator NuclearWarfare has resigned.
The Signpost: 16 October 2013
- News and notes: Vice on Wiki-PR's paid advocacy; Featured list elections begin
Media coverage on Wiki-PR, the multi-million-dollar US-based company that has broken several policies and guidelines on the English Wikipedia in its quest to create and maintain thousands of articles for paying clients, continued this week with a feature story by Martin Robbins in the British edition of Vice magazine.
- Traffic report: Peaceful potpourri
A slow week, with low overall views and the Top 10 dominated by longstanding pages. Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron's outer space-set action art film, not only held its position at the top of the US box office but climbed to the top of the Wikipedia chart as well, showing that it has become a major talking point.
- WikiProject report: Heraldry and Vexillology
This week, we studied coats of arms and flags with the folks at WikiProject Heraldry and Vexillology. Started in September 2006, the project has grown to include 20 Featured Articles and nearly 50 Good Articles. The project maintains a portal, a list of resources, and a variety of images and templates.
- Featured content: That's a lot of pictures
Six articles, two lists, and thirty-three pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
- Arbitration report: Manning naming dispute case closes
The Manning naming dispute case has closed, with a strong and unanimous statement by the Committee against disparaging references to transgendered persons. Sanctions were enacted against six editors.
- Discussion report: Ada Lovelace Day, paid advocacy on Wikipedia, sidebar update, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The Bugle: Issue XCI, October 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 22:52, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 23 October 2013
- News and notes: Grantmaking season—rumblings in the German-language community
The next twice-yearly round of Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) grantmaking is soon to close for community questioning and commentary. Ten nation-based Wikimedia chapters and one thematic organisation are asking for a total of more than US$5M of donors’ money from the Foundation’s renamed annual plan grant process. Aside from Wikimedia UK ($708k), the three biggest asks are from the German-speaking chapters: Wikimedia Germany is asking for $2.4M and Wikimedia Austria $311k; and the German-language-related Swiss chapter is applying for $500k.
- Traffic report: Your average week ... and a fish
Media, sports and Google Doodles dominate, though a very odd fish decided to crash the party.
- Featured content: Your worst nightmare as a child is now featured on Wikipedia
Twelve articles, four lists, and four pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including the article on cabbage.
- Discussion report: More discussion of paid advocacy, upcoming arbitrator elections, research hackathon, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- In the media: The decline of Wikipedia; Sue Gardner releases statement on Wiki-PR; Australian minister relies on Wikipedia
MIT Technology Review published a long article on what it called "The decline of Wikipedia". Editor involvement has decreased since 2007; according to the article, this has had an adverse qualitative effect on content, particularly on issues pertinent to non-British and American male geeks.
- WikiProject report: Elements of the world
This week, we headed to an elementary subject with WikiProject Elements. Founded by Mav in 2002, this project has grown to have 19 featured articles, 2 featured topics, and 68 good articles. The project also has a list of templates, and a periodic table of elements filled with pictures.
Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter
Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...
New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian
Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.
New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??
New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges
News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY
Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions
New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration
Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 21:17, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 October 2013
- Traffic report: 200 miles in 200 years
The top 10 encapsulates the history of human aviation; at #1, a Google Doodle celebrating the 216th anniversary of the first parachute jump; at #10, the enduringly popular scifi film Gravity, a paean to human spaceflight. It's odd to think it's taken us 200 years to travel about that many miles up.
- In the media: Rand Paul plagiarizes Wikipedia?
While giving a speech on behalf of a gubernatorial candidate, Paul advocated his pro-life position, and compared allowing unrestricted abortions to the film Gattaca. He went on to use strikingly similar language and phraseology in his speech to what the Wikipedia page reads. The Washington Post's article conceded that Wikipedia is a widely used source for trivial information, but mocked the fact that a politician would view it as a reliable source.
- News and notes: Sex and drug tourism—Wikivoyage's soft underbelly?
In January we raised several potentially troublesome issues for the Wikimedia movement in taking on Wikivoyage, including the apparent inadequacy of the English Wikivoyage sex-tourism policy, hurriedly strengthened against mention of child sex after our inquiries. However, both sex-tourism and illegal-activities policies remain equivocal about how the site should treat entries about sex tourism more generally, and drugs that are classed as illicit in almost every country. Yet the Signpost has found it remarkably easy to locate material in Wikivoyage that violates both the spirit and the letter of the policies.
- Featured content: Wrestling with featured content
This year's WikiCup competition has finished, while three articles, five lists, and six pictures, were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
- Recent research: User influence on site policies: Wikipedia vs. Facebook vs. Youtube
Laura Stein, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, has concluded that, based on her comparison of user policy documents (including the Terms of Service) of YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia, Wikipedia offers the highest level of participation power overall.
- WikiProject report: Special: Lessons from the dead and dying
With Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and other gloomy celebrations this week, we're taking a look at Wikipedia's dead and dying. For some dead WikiProjects, the sole purpose of their life was simply to serve as a warning to others. Some of these projects may still be salvageable, but for most, a revival is unlikely. Here are some projects that never got off the ground and the lessons that can be gleaned from their follies
The Signpost: 06 November 2013
- News and notes: Alleged "outing" of editor's personal information leads to Wikipedia ban
As part of the second major "outing" controversy to hit the English Wikipedia in less than a year, the Chelsea/Bradley Manning naming dispute was dragged into the spotlight yet again when the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee ruled by motion to remove the administrator tools from and ban long-time Wikipedia contributor Phil Sandifer.
- Traffic report: Danse Macabre
It's fair to say that commemorating death was a strong theme this week, with Lou Reed's passing generating interest, as well as a Google Doodle celebrating the costume designer Edith Head. And of course, the world's greatest celebrations of the dead, Halloween and the Day of the Dead, were also popular this week.
- Featured content: Five years of work leads to 63-article featured topic
HMS Hood, one of the most famous warships of the Second World War, was a battlecruiser and therefore part of what is now the largest featured topic on Wikipedia: "Battlecruisers of the world". The topic was promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week alongside eleven articles, three lists, four pictures, and two other topics.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Accessibility
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Accessibility, a project that strives to make Wikipedia accessible for users with disabilities. The project improves Wikipedia's guidelines and Manual of Style, collects useful templates and scripts, and provides support to impaired Wikipedians.
- Arbitration report: Ebionites 3 case closed
The Ebionites 3 case has closed with an interaction ban for the two editors involved in the dispute.
- Discussion report: Sockpuppet investigations, VisualEditor, Wikidata's birthday, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Huggle 3
Hey Ceradon! I am Petrb, one of core developers of Huggle, the antivandalism tool, which you are beta testing (according to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Huggle/Members#Beta_testers). I am happy to announce that Huggle 3 is ready for some testing. You can read more about it at WP:Huggle/Huggle3_Beta. Please keep in mind that this is a development version and it is not ready for regular use. That means you must:
- Watch your contribs - when anything happens you didn't want, fix it and report a bug
- Frequently checkout source code and build latest version, we change it a lot
If you find any problem with a feature that is supposed to work perfectly, please let us know. Some features are not ready yet, it is listed in known problems on Huggle3 beta page, you don't need to report these - we know it! So, that's it. Have fun testing and please let us know about any problems, either using bugzilla @ http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ or #huggle connect. Please respond to my talk page, I am not going to watch your talk page. Thank you Petrb (talk) 10:57, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
Huggle 3
Hey Ceradon! I am Petrb, one of core developers of Huggle, the antivandalism tool, which you are beta testing (according to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Huggle/Members#Beta_testers). I am happy to announce that Huggle 3 is ready for some testing. You can read more about it at WP:Huggle/Huggle3_Beta. Please keep in mind that this is a development version and it is not ready for regular use. That means you must:
- Watch your contribs - when anything happens you didn't want, fix it and report a bug
- Frequently checkout source code and build latest version, we change it a lot
If you find any problem with a feature that is supposed to work perfectly, please let us know. Some features are not ready yet, it is listed in known problems on Huggle3 beta page, you don't need to report these - we know it! So, that's it. Have fun testing and please let us know about any problems, either using bugzilla @ http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ or #huggle connect. Please respond to my talk page, I am not going to watch your talk page. Thank you Petrb (talk) 10:58, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
Huggle 3
Hey Ceradon! I am Petrb, one of core developers of Huggle, the antivandalism tool, which you are beta testing (according to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Huggle/Members#Beta_testers). I am happy to announce that Huggle 3 is ready for some testing. You can read more about it at WP:Huggle/Huggle3_Beta. Please keep in mind that this is a development version and it is not ready for regular use. That means you must:
- Watch your contribs - when anything happens you didn't want, fix it and report a bug
- Frequently checkout source code and build latest version, we change it a lot
If you find any problem with a feature that is supposed to work perfectly, please let us know. Some features are not ready yet, it is listed in known problems on Huggle3 beta page, you don't need to report these - we know it! So, that's it. Have fun testing and please let us know about any problems, either using bugzilla @ http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ or #huggle connect. Please respond to my talk page, I am not going to watch your talk page. Thank you Petrb (talk) 10:59, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 13 November 2013
- Traffic report: Google Doodlebugs bust the block
The numbers this week are beyond anything that has been seen since this report began. The top view count beats the average by an order of magnitude. Usually the appearance of numbers this big on the list is due to spamming, but in this case it seems they are due to honest interest; more specifically, Google Doodles, which for the first time claimed all five top slots. This column has raised numerous times the power of a Google Doodle to shine light on Wikipedia, but the wattage has never been as high as this.
- Featured content: 1244 Chinese handscroll leads nine-strong picture contingent
Five articles, two lists, one topic, and nine pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
- Special report: FDC staff raise the benchmarks for activities, impact, planning, and governance
The supporting staff of the Wikimedia Foundation’s powerful volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) have released their assessments for the third half-yearly round of funding applications. The applications for the newly named annual plan grants were submitted by affiliated entities on 1 October, and comprise a total of more than US$5M in bids.
- News and notes: Trademark at issue again with the Italian Wikipedia and wikipedia.it
The Italian-language Wikipedia community has overwhelmingly voted to request the Wikimedia Foundation's assistance in recovering wikipedia.it, a website that has been frequently confused with the Italian Wikipedia.
- WikiProject report: The world of soap operas
This week, we followed the intricate storylines of WikiProject Soap Operas.
- Discussion report: Commas, Draft namespace proposal, education updates, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The Signpost: 13 November 2013
- Traffic report: Google Doodlebugs bust the block
The numbers this week are beyond anything that has been seen since this report began. The top view count beats the average by an order of magnitude. Usually the appearance of numbers this big on the list is due to spamming, but in this case it seems they are due to honest interest; more specifically, Google Doodles, which for the first time claimed all five top slots. This column has raised numerous times the power of a Google Doodle to shine light on Wikipedia, but the wattage has never been as high as this.
- Featured content: 1244 Chinese handscroll leads nine-strong picture contingent
Five articles, two lists, one topic, and nine pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
- Special report: FDC staff raise the benchmarks for activities, impact, planning, and governance
The supporting staff of the Wikimedia Foundation’s powerful volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) have released their assessments for the third half-yearly round of funding applications. The applications for the newly named annual plan grants were submitted by affiliated entities on 1 October, and comprise a total of more than US$5M in bids.
- News and notes: Trademark at issue again with the Italian Wikipedia and wikipedia.it
The Italian-language Wikipedia community has overwhelmingly voted to request the Wikimedia Foundation's assistance in recovering wikipedia.it, a website that has been frequently confused with the Italian Wikipedia.
- WikiProject report: The world of soap operas
This week, we followed the intricate storylines of WikiProject Soap Operas.
- Discussion report: Commas, Draft namespace proposal, education updates, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The Bugle: Issue XCII, November 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 05:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
The Bugle: Issue XCII, November 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 05:56, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 November 2013
- From the editor: The Signpost needs your help
As I said in August, contributing to the Signpost can be one of the most rewarding things an editor can do. The genre is refreshingly different from that of Wikipedia articles, and can allow writers to use a different range of skills. The need for an independent, volunteer-run Signpost continues to grow, given the increasing complexity and financial expenditures of the global Wikimedia movement, not to mention the English Wikipedia.
- Book review: Peter Burke's Social History of Knowledge—ambitious, fascinating, and exhaustive
Peter Burke's A Social History of Knowledge: Volume II: From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia is a broad and wide-ranging look at how knowledge has been created, acquired, organized, disseminated, and sometimes lost in the Western world over the last two and a half centuries, a sequel to his 2000 book covering the prior three centuries, A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot.
- Featured content: Rockin' the featured pictures
Four articles, five lists, and thirty-four pictures were promoted to 'featured status' this week, including an image of a small fraction of the 18,000 taxis that serve Hong Kong.
- WikiProject report: Score! American football on Wikipedia
This week, we headed over to WikiProject National Football League. With 10 Featured Articles, 61 Featured Lists, and 142 Good Articles (as of publication), this WikiProject has done a lot of work improving American football articles.
- News and notes: Foundation to Wiki-PR: cease and desist; Arbitration Committee elections starting
The Wikimedia Foundation has sent a formal cease and desist letter to Wiki-PR—the public relations agency accused of breaking Wikipedia policies and guidelines by creating, editing, and maintaining several thousand articles for paying clients through a sophisticated array of accounts. The Foundation's attorneys, Cooley LLP, have demanded that Wiki-PR's employees abide by the site's Terms of Use and the language of a community ban from the English Wikipedia.
- Traffic report: Ill Winds
It's not hard to guess which event is leading interest in the top 25 this week. The sheer scale of Typhoon Haiyan is staggering; estimates place its maximum windspeed upon first landfall in the Philippines on November 6 at 315 km/h, which would make it the most powerful tropical cyclone ever to reach land. To date, the storm has killed nearly 4000 people and damaged or destroyed nearly 4 million homes.
- Arbitration report: WMF opens the door for non-admin arbitrators
Back in March, when the March 25 Arbitration Report covered the Audit Subcommittee appointment discussion, a statement from the WMF legal division clarified its position that access to deleted revisions required an RFA or RFA-identical process; therefore AUSC committee appointments were not open to non-admins. The WMF legal team has now further clarified its position, saying that running for and winning an election for arbitrator would qualify as the type of rigorous community selection process required for the checkuser and oversight rights held by arbitrators.
The Signpost: 20 November 2013
- From the editor: The Signpost needs your help
As I said in August, contributing to the Signpost can be one of the most rewarding things an editor can do. The genre is refreshingly different from that of Wikipedia articles, and can allow writers to use a different range of skills. The need for an independent, volunteer-run Signpost continues to grow, given the increasing complexity and financial expenditures of the global Wikimedia movement, not to mention the English Wikipedia.
- Book review: Peter Burke's Social History of Knowledge—ambitious, fascinating, and exhaustive
Peter Burke's A Social History of Knowledge: Volume II: From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia is a broad and wide-ranging look at how knowledge has been created, acquired, organized, disseminated, and sometimes lost in the Western world over the last two and a half centuries, a sequel to his 2000 book covering the prior three centuries, A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot.
- Featured content: Rockin' the featured pictures
Four articles, five lists, and thirty-four pictures were promoted to 'featured status' this week, including an image of a small fraction of the 18,000 taxis that serve Hong Kong.
- WikiProject report: Score! American football on Wikipedia
This week, we headed over to WikiProject National Football League. With 10 Featured Articles, 61 Featured Lists, and 142 Good Articles (as of publication), this WikiProject has done a lot of work improving American football articles.
- News and notes: Foundation to Wiki-PR: cease and desist; Arbitration Committee elections starting
The Wikimedia Foundation has sent a formal cease and desist letter to Wiki-PR—the public relations agency accused of breaking Wikipedia policies and guidelines by creating, editing, and maintaining several thousand articles for paying clients through a sophisticated array of accounts. The Foundation's attorneys, Cooley LLP, have demanded that Wiki-PR's employees abide by the site's Terms of Use and the language of a community ban from the English Wikipedia.
- Traffic report: Ill Winds
It's not hard to guess which event is leading interest in the top 25 this week. The sheer scale of Typhoon Haiyan is staggering; estimates place its maximum windspeed upon first landfall in the Philippines on November 6 at 315 km/h, which would make it the most powerful tropical cyclone ever to reach land. To date, the storm has killed nearly 4000 people and damaged or destroyed nearly 4 million homes.
- Arbitration report: WMF opens the door for non-admin arbitrators
Back in March, when the March 25 Arbitration Report covered the Audit Subcommittee appointment discussion, a statement from the WMF legal division clarified its position that access to deleted revisions required an RFA or RFA-identical process; therefore AUSC committee appointments were not open to non-admins. The WMF legal team has now further clarified its position, saying that running for and winning an election for arbitrator would qualify as the type of rigorous community selection process required for the checkuser and oversight rights held by arbitrators.
Huggle 3 beta is out - and we need more feedback!
Hey Ceradon, how are you? I am Petrb, one of huggle developers, and you are currently subscribed as a beta tester of huggle on meta (meta:Huggle/Members. You may not have noticed, but this week I released first beta precompiled installers for ubuntu and microsoft windows! Wikipedia:Huggle/Huggle3_Beta has all the links you need. So if you can, please download it, test it and report all bugs that is really what we need now. Don't forgot that as it's just a beta it's unstable and there are some known issues. Be carefull! Thank you for helping us with huggle Petrb (talk) 16:18, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 December 2013
- Traffic report: Kennedy shot Who
Summary:Doctor Who nearly got cancelled in its first week because its premiere was swamped by coverage of the JFK assassination, which happened the same day. Thankfully, producers saw fit to rerun it the next day, which is now its official anniversary date.
- Recent research: Reciprocity and reputation motivate contributions to Wikipedia; indigenous knowledge and "cultural imperialism"; how PR people see Wikipedia
Wikipedia works on the efforts of unpaid volunteers who choose to donate their time to advance the cause of free knowledge. This phenomenon, as trivial as it may sound to those acquainted with Wikipedia inner workings, has always puzzled economists and social scientists alike, in that standard Economic theory would not predict that such enterprises would thrive without any form of remuneration.
- Discussion report: Musical scores, diversity conference, Module:Convert, and more
Recent discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- News and notes: One decade of Wikisource; FDC recommendations raise serious questions
The sister project Wikisource, the digital library that hosts free-content primary sources, is now a decade old. Wikisource, which now has versions in 63 languages, is the sixth type of project to reach ten-year milestone and will be the last until 2016. The Wikimedia Foundation's volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee has published its recommendations to the Board of Trustees on 11 new applications for annual grants by 11 WMF-affiliated organisations. The maximum total budget for the current and upcoming March rounds is US$6M.
- WikiProject report: Electronic Apple Pie
This week, we returned to WikiProject Apple Inc. for a peek at their newest articles about the latest in gadgets and software. The last time we took a bite out of WikiProject Apple, they had just finished merging WikiProject Macintosh and WikiProject iPhone OS. Today, the project is hard at work rewriting their primary article, improving the subject's outline, and adding to the project's list of 25 Good Articles and 6 Featured Articles.
- Featured content: F*&!
Seventeen articles, four lists, and twenty-eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status in the last two weeks.
- Arbitration report: Ottoman Empire–Turkey naming dispute case opens; New discretionary sanctions draft proposal available for review
The Ottoman Empire–Turkey naming dispute case has opened. The second draft of the discretionary sanctions proposal is now open for review.
The Wikipedia Library Survey
As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi t | c 15:32, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 11 December 2013
- Traffic report: Deaths of Mandela, Walker top the list
When one edits this page for too long, one is tempted to appoint oneself as the psychoanalyst for the human race, or at least the English-speaking portion thereof. Since nearly everyone uses Wikipedia, the constant stream of TV updates, pointless celebrity scandals, and inquiries after who has died can seem like a dreary peek into humanity's surprisingly banal collective consciousness.
- In the media: Edward Snowden a "hero"; German Wikipedia court ruling
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales caught headlines last week when he referred to former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden ... Loek Essers of the International Data Group, (IDG) News Service is reporting that a German court has held Wikipedia liable for its content, but still does not have to fact check the information in advance.
- News and notes: Wiki Loves Monuments—winners announced
Amid great anticipation the international prize winners have just been announced for the fourth annual Wiki Loves Monuments, now the world's largest photographic competition and one of the biggest events on the Wikimedia movement's calendar. ... The first prize has gone to David Gubler's photograph of a Swiss train crossing a viaduct.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Wine
This week, the Signpost interviewed the Wine WikiProject.
- Interview: Wikipedia's first Featured Article centurion
On 7 December, Wikipedia editor Wehwalt reached the momentous milestone of 100 featured articles with History of Chincoteague, Virginia. Quite apart from the reading and research, that's around three-quarters of a million words of finalised text, not counting footnotes, image captions and the rest.
- Featured content: Viewer discretion advised
Three articles, one list, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
- Technology report: MediaWiki 1.22 released
On 6 December, the latest version of the MediaWiki software was released. In development from March 2013 through October 2013, the release featured anti-spam and counter-vandalism improvements.
The Bugle: Issue XCIII, December 2013
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 00:17, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 18 December 2013
- WikiProject report: Babel Series: Tunisia on the French Wikipedia
This week, the Signpost interviewed the Tunisia WikiProject on the French Wikipedia.
- Traffic report: Hopper to the top
An animated Google Doodle for computer programmer and naval rear admiral Grace Hopper generated another record-breaking hit count for the year, though the count for the list overall was lower than for that of the previous holder.
- Discussion report: Usernames, template data and documentation, Main page, and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- News and notes: Nine new arbitrators announced
A little more than six days after the close of voting, the results of the annual Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) elections have been announced. Of the 22 candidates, 13 managed to gain more supports than opposes, though only one gained the support of more than half of the voters. Eight were elected to two-year terms, and a ninth will serve for one year.
- Featured content: Triangulum, the most boring constellation in the universe
Seven articles, three lists, and eight pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Technology report: Introducing the GLAMWikiToolset
This week, the GLAMWikiToolset, or GWToolset, is being deployed to the Wikimedia Commons. It allows for GLAM organizations to batch upload content based on various metadata stored in an XML schema. In the past this has been done by various bots, but now it will be easier for GLAMs to do it directly.
The Signpost: 25 December 2013
- Recent research: Cross-language editors, election predictions, vandalism experiments
Analyzing edits to the-then 46 largest Wikipedias between July 9 and August 8, 2013, a study identified a set of about 8,000 contributors with a global user account who have edited more than one of these language versions in that time frame.
- Featured content: Drunken birds and treasonous kings
Five articles, two lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia.
- Discussion report: Draft namespace, VisualEditor meetings
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- WikiProject report: More Great WikiProject Logos
We saved one last special report for 2013. After our well-received review of great WikiProject logos a couple years ago, it was only a matter of time before we collected a new batch of interesting iconography that showcases the creativity of the Wikipedia community. Hopefully, these logos will also inspire other projects to liven up their drab pages.
- News and notes: IEG round 2 funding rewards diverse ambitions
A significant move by the Wikimedia Foundation has been to broaden the types of activities it funds to develop several different programs for judging and allocating that funding, and to set up volunteer committees that initially assess applications for funding.
- Technology report: OAuth: future of user designed tools
Last month, the OAuth extension was deployed to all Wikimedia wikis. OAuth is a standard used for allowing users to authenticate third-party applications, also known as consumers, to take actions on their behalf.
The Signpost: 01 January 2014
- Traffic report: A year stuck in traffic
In fact, the majority are relatively evenly split between three themes: people of interest, television, and websites.
- Arbitration report: Examining the Committee's year
In 2013, the arbitration committee closed 10 cases, 9 amendment requests, and 26 clarification requests.
- In the media: Does Wikipedia need a medical disclaimer?
On New Year's Day, an article by Tim Sampson published in The Daily Dot and republished shortly after on Mashable covered the currently ongoing medical disclaimer RfC.
- Book review: Common Knowledge: An Ethnography of Wikipedia
Dariusz Jemielniak's book is the newest about Wikipedia, published in Poland in 2013 and with an English edition forthcoming in 2014.
- News and notes: The year in review
This was the year in which one journalist described the flagship site, Wikipedia, as "wickedly seductive". It was the year Wikipedia's replacement value was estimated at $6.6bn, its market value at "tens of billions of dollars", and its consumer benefit "hundreds of billions of dollars". But it was also the year in which one commentator forecast the decline of Wikipedia—that the project is in trouble from its shrinking volunteer workforce, skewed coverage, "crushing bureaucracy" and 90 percent male community.
- Discussion report: Article incubator, dates and fractions, medical disclaimer
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia and around the Wikimedia movement include...
- WikiProject report: Where Are They Now? Fifth Edition
The year 2013 has come and gone, adding 50 new WikiProject Reports to our long list of projects we've had the privilege to meet. Last year saw the continuation of our Babel series, featuring WikiProjects from other languages of Wikipedia. We also expanded our selection of special reports, offering readers a growing collection of helpful tips and tools as they participate in WikiProjects.
- Featured content: 2013—the trends
Over the past year 1181 pieces of featured content were promoted. The most active of the featured content programs was featured picture candidates (FPC), which promoted an average of 46 pictures a month. This was followed by featured article candidates (FAC; 32.5 a month). Coming in third was featured list candidates (FLC; 18 a month).
- Technology report: Looking back on 2013
2013 saw a lot of changes to MediaWiki software and Wikimedia infrastructure.
The Signpost: 08 January 2014
- Public Domain Day: Why the year 2019 is so significant
Public Domain Day—January 1, 2014—gives me an opportunity to reflect on this important asset, mandated by the Constitution of the United States.
- Traffic report: Tragedy and television
The various maladies that befall humanity got some well-known faces this week: the death of the well-liked actor James Avery topped the list, but Michael Schumacher, who is in a coma after a skiing accident, also drew attention.
- Technology report: Gearing up for the Architecture Summit
MediaWiki developers will be meeting in San Francisco on January 23–24 for an Architecture Summit.
- News and notes: WMF employee forced out over "paid advocacy editing"
On 8 January, the Wikimedia Foundation notified the Wikimedia-l mailing list that Sarah Stierch, a popular Wikimedian and the Foundation's Program Evaluation Community Coordinator, was no longer an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, as a result of being paid to create articles on the English Wikipedia.
- Op-ed: WikiCup competition beginning a new year
At the very start of the new year, 2014's WikiCup—an annual competition which has been held on Wikipedia in various forms since 2007—began.
- WikiProject report: Jumping into the television universe
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Television.
- Featured content: A portal to the wonderful world of technology
Twelve articles, three lists, seven pictures, and a portal were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia in the last two weeks.
The Bugle: Issue XCIV, January 2014
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 13:30, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
The Signpost: 15 January 2014
- News and notes: German chapter asks for "reworking" of Funds Dissemination Committee; should MP4 be allowed on Wikimedia sites?
Wikimedia Germany, the largest national affiliate, has authored an extensive critique of the Funds Dissemination Committee's process for issuing funding recommendations for the various large organizations in the movement.
- Technology report: Architecture Summit schedule published
The proposed schedule for the MediaWiki Archicture Summit has been published. The two main plenary sessions will be about HTML templating, and Service-oriented architecture.
- Op-ed: Licensed for reuse? Citing open-access sources in Wikipedia articles
It is heavily ironic that two decades after the World Wide Web was started — largely to make it easier to share scholarly research — most of our past and present research publications are still hidden behind paywalls for private profit. The bitter twist is that the vast majority of this research is publicly funded, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide each year.
- In the media: Is Google hurting Wikipedia traffic?; "Wikipedia-Mania" in the New York Times
Wikipedia's recent decline in readership, possibly due to Google's Knowledge Graph. ... Judith Newman in the New York Times asks "What Does Judith Newman Have to Do to Get a Page?"
- Traffic report: The Hours are Ours
We now can get a far more accurate picture of which short surges in popularity are likely natural and which are not.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Sociology
This week, we studied human social behavior with the folks at WikiProject Sociology.
The Signpost: 22 January 2014
- Book review: Missing Links and Secret Histories: A Selection of Wikipedia Entries from Across the Known Multiverse
A particularly esoteric anthology of speculative fiction, filled with imaginary Wikipedia entries from, as the introduction puts it, "the many Wikipedias across the Multiverse."
- News and notes: Modification of WMF protection brought to Arbcom
The Wikimedia Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy's application of pending changes level two on the article Conventional PCI—an action taken under its rarely used office actions policy—has escalated to the Arbitration Committee after an editor upgraded it to full protection.
- Featured content: Dr. Watson, I presume
Fifteen articles, nine lists, twenty pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia over the last two weeks.
- Special report: The few who write Wikipedia
On 15 January, Wikipedia turned thirteen years old. In that time, this site has grown from a small site that was known to only a select few to one of the most popular websites on the internet. At the same time, recent data suggests that there is a power curve among users, where the comparative few who are writing most of Wikipedia have most of the edits. The result of this is that there is going to be bias in what is created, and how we deal with it as Wikipedians is indicative of the future of the site. Furthermore, this brings up what we have to do in order to combat this bias, as there are many ideas, but the question is whether they will work or not.
- Technology report: Architecting the future of MediaWiki
This week we're interviewing Brion Vibber about the then-upcoming Architecture Summit. Brion is a long time Wikipedian, the first employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, and currently the lead software architect working with the mobile team.
- In the media: Wikipedia for robots; Wikipedia—a temperamental teenager
An article in USA Today announced that a European-funded project called RoboEarth that is designed to give robots a mechanism by which to access information to dispense.
- Traffic report: No show for the Globes
While the 71st Golden Globe Awards, held on 12 January, had an impact on the top 25, their presence was largely absent from the Top 10. With the exception of Best Actor winner Leonardo DiCaprio, the only Golden Globe entrants in the Top 10 are films that would have been there anyway.
The Signpost: 29 January 2014
- Traffic report: Six strikes out
There are times when this job is hard. As an analogy, imagine navigating in fog at night, except you don't know where you are, you don't know where you want to go, and your flashlight keeps dying on you.
- WikiProject report: Special report: Contesting contests
Contests have existed almost as long as the English Wikipedia. Contestants have expanded hundreds of articles and made tens of thousands of edits. Although it may seem as though there aren't any negatives to contests, they have occasionally become a divisive topic on the English Wikipedia.
- News and notes: Wiki-PR defends itself, condemns Wikipedia's actions
Wiki-PR, a public relations agency, whose employees used a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts to create, edit, and maintain several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients, has told Business Insider that it was demonized by the online encyclopedia. Jordan French, Wiki-PR's CEO, said he believes the Wikimedia Foundation "painted" his company to look like an "evil entity" that is "scrubbing truths from Wikipedia".
- Arbitration report: Kafziel case closed; Kww admonished by motion
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result.
- Recent research: Translation assignments, weasel words, and Wikipedia's content in its later years
An author experimented with "a promising type of assignment in formal translator training which involves translating and publishing Wikipedia articles", in three courses with students at the University of Warsaw.
The Signpost: 29 January 2014
- Traffic report: Six strikes out
There are times when this job is hard. As an analogy, imagine navigating in fog at night, except you don't know where you are, you don't know where you want to go, and your flashlight keeps dying on you.
- WikiProject report: Special report: Contesting contests
Contests have existed almost as long as the English Wikipedia. Contestants have expanded hundreds of articles and made tens of thousands of edits. Although it may seem as though there aren't any negatives to contests, they have occasionally become a divisive topic on the English Wikipedia.
- News and notes: Wiki-PR defends itself, condemns Wikipedia's actions
Wiki-PR, a public relations agency, whose employees used a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts to create, edit, and maintain several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients, has told Business Insider that it was demonized by the online encyclopedia. Jordan French, Wiki-PR's CEO, said he believes the Wikimedia Foundation "painted" his company to look like an "evil entity" that is "scrubbing truths from Wikipedia".
- Arbitration report: Kafziel case closed; Kww admonished by motion
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result.
- Recent research: Translation assignments, weasel words, and Wikipedia's content in its later years
An author experimented with "a promising type of assignment in formal translator training which involves translating and publishing Wikipedia articles", in three courses with students at the University of Warsaw.
The Signpost: 12 February 2014
- In the media: WikiVIP; Art Feminism; Medical articles; PR manipulation; Azerbaijani Wikipedia
As reported in various media outlets this week, including The Next Web and The Daily Dot, this past week, Wikimedia Commons and various language Wikipedias are working together to encourage subjects of Wikipedia articles to record a 10-second clip of their voice to be appended to their Wikipedia article.
- Technology report: Left with no choice
Software evolution does not always mean that features are being added. It also means that old fat is being trimmed. It is no different for MediaWiki.
- News and notes: WMF bites the bullet on affiliation and FDC funding, elevates Wikimedia user groups
In a bold move, the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees has announced a major change in policy concerning affiliated groups in the worldwide movement, and FDC funding levels to eligible chapters and thematic organizations over the next two years. Both decisions were published last Tuesday after considerable post-meeting consultation with the FDC and the Affiliations Committee (AffCom). The core of the first decision is
- Featured content: Space selfie
Thirteen articles, three lists, and twenty-five images were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia from 19 January to 1 February.
- Traffic report: Sports Day
Two great sporting events, the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics, collide in one week, transforming the top ten into a festival of flying feet, a carnival of colliding caraniums and a bacchanal of bouncing balls, combined to influence Wikipedia's most popular articles last week.
- WikiProject report: Game Time in Russia
In celebration of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, we revisited the team at WikiProject Russia to learn how the project has changed since our first interview in 2011.
The Signpost: 19 February 2014
- News and notes: Foundation takes aim at undisclosed paid editing; Greek Wikipedia editor faces down legal challenge
The Wikimedia Foundation has proposed to modify the Wikimedia projects' Terms of use to specifically ban undisclosed paid editing. ... Dimitris Liourdis, a lawyer in training who moonlights as an administrator on the Greek Wikipedia, is embroiled in a legal dispute with a Greek politician over alleged edits made to his Wikipedia article.
- Technology report: ULS Comeback
Runa Bhattacharjee has notified the community that the Foundation is ready to turn the Universal Language Selector back on.
- WikiProject report: Countering Systemic Bias
WikiProject Countering System Bias aims to combat imbalanced coverage while encouraging neglected cultural perspectives and points of view, both in articles and in the larger Wikipedia community. As you'll see from the varied experiences and motivations of our nine respondents, the biases that the folks at WP CSB tackle run the full gamut of human characteristics and dispositions. The interview that follows unveils many of Wikipedia's greatest shortcomings.
- Featured content: Holotype
Five articles, seven lists, forty-three pictures, and two portals were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia in the last two weeks.
- Traffic report: Chilly Valentines
Valentines Day got a somewhat muted reception this week, overshadowed by continuing coverage of the Winter Olympics in Sochi and the death of Shirley Temple.
The Bugle: Issue XCV, February 2014
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 23:36, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
The Signpost: 26 February 2014
- Forum: Should Wikimedia modify its terms of use to require disclosure?
About a week ago, the Wikimedia Foundation proposed to modify the Wikimedia projects' terms of use to specifically ban paid editing, by adding a new clause titled "Paid contributions without disclosure". We have asked two users, one in favor of the measure (Smallbones) and one opposed (Pete Forsyth), to contribute their opinions on the matter.
- Featured content: Odin salutes you
Eight articles, three lists, and nine pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
- WikiProject report: Racking brains with neuroscience
This week, we found three Ph.D.s willing to give us a crash course on WikiProject Neuroscience.
- Special report: Diary of a protester: Wikimedian perishes in Ukrainian unrest
Ukraine has been gripped by widespread protests over the past three months. Due to a decision by former president Viktor Yanukovych—at Russia's urging—to abandon integration with the European Union, the country was (and in many ways still is) split between the Europe-favoring Ukrainian-speaking western half and the Russian-speaking east and south. Hundreds have died during the unrest, leaving thousands of family members and friends to bury their loved ones. This week our Wikimedian colleagues in Ukraine are facing that challenge after the death of one of their own.
- News and notes: Wikimedia chapters and communities challenge Commons' URAA policy
Following a trend started by Wikimedia Israel, Wikimedia Argentina has published an open letter challenging the recent deletion of hundreds of images from the Commons under its policy on URAA-restored copyrights, relating to the United States' 1994 Uruguay Round Agreements Act.
- Traffic report: Snow big deal
The 2014 Winter Olympics had more of an impact on the Top 25 than the Top 10, which had to shoulder old stalwarts like the death list, Reddit threads, TV shows and the eternal presence of Facebook; still, with four slots, it's the most searched topic on the list.
- Recent research: CSCW '14 retrospective; the impact of SOPA on deletionism
The monthly roundup of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, edited jointly with the Wikimedia Research Committee.
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information. For more information about the columns and categories, please consult the documentation, and please do get in touch on SuggestBot's talk page with any questions you might have.
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 12:29, 2 March 2014 (UTC)