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CVUA

I think the task on the final exam is difficult, Because there aren't any pages i can find to request protection for.--Anderson - What's up? 07:42, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, skip that one and finish the rest of the questions and tasks in the exam. Keep looking out for pages that you might be able to request protection for; if you get to the end and you have still found none, let me know and we can think about what we'll do. Does that sound alright? ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 12:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I requested semi-protection for this page.. It was fully protected for 2 days.--Anderson - What's up? 19:50, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, ItsZippy. You have new messages at User:ItsZippy/CVUA/Anderson.
Message added 21:44, 1 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I successfully requested 1 page for protection.I'll leave the second one because i can't find any more pages to RPP for. Anderson - What's up? 21:44, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, that's fine. I'll have a look soon. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 15:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Curiosity

Hello Zippy. I see that user Qatarihistorian asks another user to join a discussion, so that a consensus may be reached at, here. S/He makes this request (is it canvassing?) at the said user's talk page. The said user must have accepted the invitation, so he goes to the said discussion page and makes his/her contribution. However, he does this not with his WP user name but his IP. (I wonder why?) Now you will wonder how I know his/her IP. Simple: The said user has talk in User:Dougweller's talk page both with his/her user name and the said IP. As all the talk therein is over an insistent claim (of sockpuppetry) it is very easy to understand to whom the IP belongs. (The topic of talk is about this scribe; something I have already labelled as harassment to Doug. I mean harassment to me, not to Doug. :-) FYI.

(Sorry if I could not make myself clear, it is quite past midnight here in the old continent and I am very sleepy. :-) Thanks for listening. All the best. --E4024 (talk) 23:43, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not quite sure what you mean. If you think someone is sockpuppetting, then you are free to open a sockpuppet investiation about it. I really don't have the time (nor the willingness) to get into a detailed sockpuppetting case. If you think someone is harassing you, it would be better to go to WP:ANI with enough evidence to present a good case; dealing just through me is not very transparent, and relies on me making a final decision, rather than the community. Your post above is quite unclear - I don't even know who you are making allegations about - but, if you have a genuine issue that needs resolving, there are plenty of open forums where the community can asses the evidence you provide. Even if I had the time and patience, I could not deal with this on my own, so bringing this to the talk page of an individual admin is not the best way to go about dealing with it. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 15:57, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I disturbed you like this. I think I just wanted to complain and looked for someone who would listen to me. I am afraid taking people to forums is not my way of doing things. Neither was, until recently, complaining to others about third parties, but some people really annoy me and I simply want a few others to know this, nothing more... All the best and sorry again. --E4024 (talk) 20:46, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

AN/I note

Just an FYI. I see you are attempting to help mentor Anderson. Anderson started an AN/I thread, which you may wish to look over. - jc37 20:36, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't find it (not at ANI, AN, or any archive). Could you point me towards it, please? ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:40, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

My apologies. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Rollback - jc37 21:11, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of New Labour

The article New Labour you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See Talk:New Labour for things which need to be addressed. Road Wizard (talk) 21:27, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

CVUA

I've added my name as in instructor, Let me know if you have any concerns.--Anderson - What's up? 05:09, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Anderson, I think that is too soon, especially while there is a current discussion about your rollback rights at AN. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:04, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Kudpung, Anderson. It is probably a good idea to wait a little while before signing up as an instructor, just so that you can get a bit more experience with all areas of anti-vandalism. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 12:53, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Should i start by reverting vandalism and inviting users to the CVUA for 1-3 months?--Anderson - What's up? 05:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I think you should just concentrate on chasing vandals and doing some content work for a while to gather more experience. The CVUA is currently restructuring their operation and may not be able to cope with an additional influx of students for a while. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:09, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

RPP

I applogise if I have stepped out of line - I didn't realise that Anderson was commenting on RPP at your recommendation. However, considering other issues that are under discussion, I have suggested there that perhaps he should leave such maintenance areas alone for a while at least until other issues are resolved. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:11, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No, that is quite alright. I haven't instructed Anderson to make comments like that to RPP; I have only instructed him to go there when learning about making protection requests. I don't encourage people 'clerk' at those noticeboards, I just try to help them use them properly if they need to. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 12:56, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Happy Labor day

I've left a few comments on the Divine Command GA review. Sorry if they're too jumbled. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I saw - thank you very much. I've got a bit of spare time now, so I will have a look. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion

I am suggesting the following addition to the section on John Hick in your excellent article “Augustinian theodicy.” Hick (esp. his Evil and the God of Love ) has been such a major voice in theodicy generally and in opposition to Augustine that it seems that he might warrant more voice in your article. What do you think?

• For Hick, suffering serves God’s purpose of bringing “imperfect and immature” humanity to himself “in uncompelled faith and love.” Hick acknowledges that this process often fails in our world. However, in the after-life, Hick asserts that “God will eventually succeed in His purpose of winning all men to Himself in faith and love.” Vejlefjord (talk) 20:46, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Vejlefjord, thank you very much for your message. The article is not 'mine', though I have worked on it a great deal, and you are free to edit it if you wish; still, I appreciate you wanting to discuss it with me first. I would personally be inclined to leave that out, as I think it would take the article off track a little. The article is about the Augustinian theodicy, so Hick is mentioned wherever he commented on the theodicy (both his classification of some theodicies as 'Augustinian', and his criticism of the same). I think it would be good to keep the bits on Hick strictly to his comments on the Augustinian theodicy (or we could fill a page with just what Hick said). Does that make sense? I don't know if you have seen the article on Irenaean theodicy, which I have also spent a lot of work on (though I have not brought it to the same standard as Augustinian theodicy yet) - there is certainly room to talk about Hick more in there; have a read and see if there's anything you could do to improve it. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:23, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, will do when I can. Vejlefjord (talk) 15:13, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 September 2012

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The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

Steven Zhang's Fellowship Slideshow

In this issue:

• Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
• Research: The most recent DR data
• Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
• Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
• DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
• Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
• Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->

--The Olive Branch 19:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Editor review/TheGeneralUser (2) Your review is required and will be greatly appreciated :)

Hi ItsZippy ! I have started my second editor review at Wikipedia:Editor review/TheGeneralUser (2). I will be greatly delighted, thankful and valued to have your review for me regarding my editing and possible candidate for Adminship. I see you also evaluate possible candidates for Adminship as you had chosen to do so on Wikipedia:Request an RfA nomination, so do evaluate me too! As you are a experienced and long term Wikipedian so i have asked for your kind review. Take your time to review my editing and give the best review that you can :). Feel free to ask me any questions you would like to on the review page itself. It will be a great honor to have you review me for which I will truly feel appreciated and helpful! I always work to improve Wikipedia and make it a more better place to be for Everyone :). Regards and Happy Editing! TheGeneralUser (talk) 19:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Mediation on Naturalistic Pantheism

ItsZippy, I would like to clarify whether this mediation also covers the Pantheism article, I believe it should, if that is allowed. The edit war exists there too, and for exactly the same reasons. If we don't deal with it now, we will need another mediation for it covering much of the same ground.--Naturalistic (talk) 02:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Yep, the mediation covers both articles - I have given a full response at the mediation page. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 10:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jack. I have proposed a compromise wording on the World Pantheist Movement, on the mediation page. It would be good if you take a look and suggest how to proceed.
Allisgod is being extremely inflexible, he won't budge an inch. He does not even seem to be reading what I write any more but simply responds by saying I write too much, or I am trying to bully him.
My compromise wording for the current question was 37 words long and included all 22 words of the version he said he would accept.
His own "compromise" however also involved my allowing him to edit the Naturalistic Pantheism page and agreeing not to remove any of his additions that were properly sourced, however:

1. This strays into areas we have not discussed yet and
2. It ignores issues such as synthesis, POV, incorrect reading of sources, and biassed POV selection of sources, all of which he has done a lot of.

I took another look at the Pantheism page recently and I do believe there is not much there that I would like to see changed. With any reasonable person it should be possible to come to an agreement, but with Allisgod I am not at all sure. What does one do about edit warriors who will not compromise in a mediation?--Naturalistic (talk) 00:29, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Requesting closure of an AfD discussion

The article Nishikant dixit was nominated for deletion --->Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nishikant dixit on 28 August, and is still not closed. The consensus has been reached to delete. I request that AfD discussion be closed so that the article can be deleted. Harsh (talk) 08:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. It seems the article was never properly listed (I think the user who relisted it the first time didn't quite do it right). Also, someone demonstrated at the end that the person might exist, so the hoax rationale is somewhat moot; I have relisted the article for those reasons. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 10:47, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it and relisting the article. You said that the article was removed from the AfD listing on 28. So if anyone deletes the log entry in AfD, wouldn't it be automatically/manually reverted? Harsh (talk) 13:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I am not quite sure what happened. Electric Catfish relisted it on the 28th August (I don't quite know why, as the discussion was posted on the 28th) - all I can assume is that, because he relisted it on the day that it was listed, the tool removed it from the 28th and didn't add it again. It's unusual, and I am not entirely sure why it happened. Anyway, the discussion will have another week and, hopefully, a clear consensus at the end of that. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 14:03, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Ohk...thanks. By the way, I wanted to know how would someone assess a user to be in good standing or not in good standing (as stated in WP:NAC). I also wanted to know if someone nominates an article about a village which isn't quite notable (and there are perhaps hundreds of villages of same name in that country), but its existence is still verified by a couple of sources, then should it be nominated under that reason? Would it be incorrect as per WP:NPLACE. Harsh (talk) 17:26, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

A user in good standing tends to be someone who has been around a little while (not ages - a few months, say) is not blocked or under any other sanctions, and has not been asked not to close AfDs. As a general rule, I advise non-admins only to close discussions that have a very obvious consensus - as in, a unanimous keep/redirect/merge verdict. With the village, if its existence can be verified, then it will generally be kept - is there a specific AfD you are referring to? ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 17:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes. There is this article named Nandnama. I nominated it without reading that relevant policy. Harsh (talk) 17:56, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

If you want to withdraw it, let me know and I'll speedy keep the article. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 17:57, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I want to withdraw it. Thank you so much for all prompt responses. Harsh (talk) 18:00, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem - I've done that for you now. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:01, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

CVU Gold Award

		CVU Anti-Vandalism Award
		Zip, you were the CVUA's first admin, a great instructor, and a visionary who took the Academy to heights heretofor unseen, it is my honor and priviledge to award you the Counter-Vandalism Unit's Gold Award, our highest decoration. Achowat (talk) 19:09, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Wow, thank you very much. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:10, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Six

Hi! Welcome to the sixth edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

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You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. EdwardsBot (talk) 00:08, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Requesting to review my request on AWB checkpage

Hi,
I have a pending request for AWB HERE, pending since 20 August. I want you to approve/reject my request based on your discretion. Thanks. Harsh (talk) 14:14, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure I am able to. If it was a simple request which hadn't been controversial, I probably would look at it, but as a few people have presented some concerns, I think I am probably too involved, especially as a direct response to a message on my talk page. I suggest you wait a little while and find something else to do, and request access in two or three weeks. In the meantime, if there is something urgent that needs doing, you might find someone with access who can help you - you can make a request at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 14:28, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks anyways. Harsh (talk) 06:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Anshuman Sharma

Would you delete this AfC submission that I tagged yesterday? As you can see from the page's history, I attempted to clean the article by removing promotional content and excessive URL links but it continues to be promotional and provides very little material appropriate for an encyclopedia. Thanks! SwisterTwister talk 19:05, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I had a look and it does seem very promotional; I have deleted the page. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:10, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to comment at Monty Hall problem RfC

Because of your interest in dispute resolution,, I am inviting you to comment on the following RfC:

Talk:Monty Hall problem#Conditional or Simple solutions for the Monty Hall problem?

This dispute has been going on for over ten years and there have been over 1,300,000 words posted on the article talk page (by comparison, all of the Harry Potter books together total 1,084,170 words). Over the years the dispute has been through multiple noticeboards, mediators, and even the Arbitration Committee without resolving the conflict, so a lot of wisdom is needed here. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Minetest

Hello ItsZippy. I believe we communicated sometime in the last month, I was wondering whether the article I link you to in the header may have any position for a possible AfD or another type of deletion. Since I am new and I don't want to get a bad view of myself early I thought I would ask someone who is more experienced.

My reasoning behind my thought of possible deletion is the consideration that the article is about a game/software which is not really notable. 3 sources are provided. 35 references inline. 2 sources I say are notable but only a bit and they are Linuxgamenews and Iloveubuntu. They provide 18 of the inline sources. Then 17 inline sources are used by the main website. The website is only link where content can be questioned, half of the information used on all sources are not verified in the source provided which is increasing my questioning concern on whether it is notable or not. I personally would consider a propose deletion rather than any other or to leave it but if so the article will need the sources to be much more reliable and verify able. The reason I contacted you is to avoid taking action which was in appropriate. If you could contact me, that would be great. Thanks ItsZippy, John F. Lewis (talk) 20:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd say that would be a candidate for deletion. As far as I can see, all the sources provided are either unreliable or not independent. There might be one reliable source, , but even that is dubious and, alone, not enough to establish notability. Feel free to nominate it. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 14:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Deletion via AfD or via Speedy? John F. Lewis (talk) 15:24, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

AfD. A page like this would only be eligible for speedy deletion if it made no credible claim of significance at all. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:15, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Alright, Proposing the deletion now. Thanks! John F. Lewis (talk) 16:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

That was a PROD, rather than an AfD. Is that what you intended? ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

No, I must have made a mistake then. Ill fix it now. John F. Lewis (talk) 16:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

That's great, well done. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Solved. John F. Lewis (talk) 16:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Assaf Abu Rahhal

Zippy, Greetings, I understand that you were the admin for the Rahhal article that was soft deleted. If that would be the case, then may I request access to a copy so that I and my students might edit it for improvement. If that's not possible or my facts are wrong, could you as an admin explain my options. Thank you, user:crtew(no access to tildes now)

No problem, you can find it at User:Crtew/Assaf Abu Rahhal. Please try to address the issues raised in the AfD before moving it back into the mainspace (I can review it for you before hand, if you like). If you have any questions, please just ask. Also, if you have no access to tildes, the sign button at the top will insert them for you. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 14:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Crtew (talk) 16:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Zippy, An edited draft at the above location is ready for review. The two issues in the AfD as I saw it were a lack of any kind of notability statement and an indication of Abu Rahhal's relative importance. I used the notability statement to tackle both of these issues. In addition, I indirectly showed that Abu Rahhal received SIGCOV through numerous references. His career and life were fleshed out in the articles. As for republication, I would suggest the title be changed to "Death of Assaf Abu Rahhal" but I would defer to your opinion. The biggest problem with writing the narrative was dealing with the two hardened positions that contradict each other. My aim was to be fair and balanced, and I don't think either side would be happy by this account but I also don't think anybody would claim that this was a one-sided narrative. It was unfortunate that the original obituary was no longer available online, and I wonder if that was where the precise birth date already in the article came from. It is Wikipedia policy to delete sources no longer online or can this cite be restored? At least the article was cleaned up in the process! Also beneficial was that it opened up an article surrounding the death of Layal Najib. Thank you, Crtew (talk) 16:03, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

That looks better, and you have dealt with some of the concerns; however, I'm not entirely convinced that it's ready. For reference, I am looking at WP:SIGCOV and WP:BLP1E. You have found a wide range of sources, which is good, but they were all published all around the same time - all of them except one were published on the 3th, 4th or 5th of August 2010, the other was on the 15th. To really demonstrate notability, you would need to show that this had a lasting effect, which mean sources published after the event - can you find anything that was published later on, perhaps from 2011 onwards? If not, the article might just get through an AfD because of the geographical scope of the even, but it would be close (I wouldn't support keeping it yet, but I tend to fall towards the deletionist end of the scale). A source or two published a few months after the event would cement it, so that's where your work would be best spent. Also, sources that are not online are acceptable (and can often be more reliable), you just need to give enough information for someone to be able to find the source themselves if they wanted to. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 17:05, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Zippy, I added a source from 2012 that honored the second anniversary of the death of Abu Rahhal in the town where he was killed. Do you agree with moving it to "Death of ... " Thanks again, Crtew (talk) 20:50, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Added the 2nd 2012 source! Crtew (talk) 21:15, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

How does it get moved back into main article space? Crtew (talk) 01:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC) Should I move it? Or will you move it? How does the article get married up with its former talk page and with a link to the deletion discussion? Thanks, Crtew (talk) 16:15, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

That does look much better, well done. Notability might still be a little tenuous - this only mentions him once so is not really enough, but this is about him and published sufficiently after the event. If it were at AfD now I'd vote keep, but weak keep. If you want to move it into the mainspace, you may do that yourself now. If you intend to keep improving the article, I would look for some further sources (perhaps from another publication - Al Akhbar is good, but multiple sources would be useful). ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:13, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Argument from morality

Hi ItsZippy. I haven't looked at the FAC you suggested on my talk page, but saw that you are trying to get Argument from morality to GA. I've left a comment on Talk:Argument from morality. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:48, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

That's great - I'd been waiting for some feedback on that. Thanks. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:59, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, ItsZippy. You have new messages at Zeeyanketu's talk page.
Message added 19:30, 8 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

see i think i have completed my task ---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 19:30, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

That's great, I'll have a look at that later. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:55, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, ItsZippy. You have new messages at Zeeyanketu's talk page.
Message added 13:55, 9 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Please give a look ---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 13:55, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, ItsZippy. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 14:37, 9 September 2012 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

John F. Lewis (talk) 14:37, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Feedback at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/File mover

Hi there. I just wanted to let you know that your recent decision at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/File mover has received some feedback, and you might want to head over there and take a look. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, ItsZippy. You have new messages at Zeeyanketu's talk page.
Message added 07:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Please see! ---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 07:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Page Curation update

Hey all :). We've just deployed another set of features for Page Curation. They include flyouts from the icons in Special:NewPagesFeed, showing who reviewed an article and when, a listing of this in the "info" flyout, and a general re-jigging of the info flyout - we've also fixed the weird bug with page_titles_having_underscores_instead_of_spaces in messages sent to talkpages, and introduced CSD logging! As always, these features will need some work - but any feedback would be most welcome.

Done!

Talkback

Hello, ItsZippy. You have new messages at Zeeyanketu's talk page.
Message added 18:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Done! ---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 18:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 September 2012

• From the editor: Signpost adapts as news consumption changes
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• Op-ed: Fixing Wikipedia's help pages one key to editor retention
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• In the media: Author criticizes Wikipedia article; Wales attacks UK government proposal
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• Featured content: Not a "Gangsta's Paradise", but still rappin'
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• WikiProject report: WikiProject Fungi
  After a week's hiatus, the WikiProject Report returns with an interview featuring WikiProject Fungi. Started in March 2006, the project has grown to include over 9,000 pages, including 47 Featured Articles and 176 Good Articles. The project maintains a list of high priority missing articles and stubs that need expansion.

• Special report: Two Wikipedians set to face jury trial
  In dramatic events that came to light last week, two English Wikipedia volunteers—Doc James (James Heilman) and Wrh2 (Ryan Holliday)—are being sued in the Los Angeles County Superior Court by Internet Brands, the owner of Wikitravel.com. Both Wikipedians have also been volunteer Wikitravel editors (and in Holliday's case, a volunteer administrator). IB's complaints focus on both editors' encouragement of their fellow Wikitravel volunteers to migrate to a proposed non-commercial travel guidance site that would be under the umbrella of the WMF.

• News and notes: Researchers find that Simple English Wikipedia has "lost its focus"
  In its September issue, the peer-reviewed journal First Monday published The readability of Wikipedia, reporting research which shows that the English Wikipedia is struggling to meet Flesch reading ease test criteria, while the Simple English Wikipedia has "lost its focus".

• Technology report: Mmmm, milkshake...
  The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for August 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which is edging its way towards its first deployment).

• Discussion report: Closing Wikiquette; Image Filter; Education Program and Momento extensions
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 05:09, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Mediation on Pantheism articles

Hi ItsZippy. I wanted to ask about the presence of an uninvolved party in this mediation, Peter Morell. He seems intelligent, I have no objection to his comments, but when he makes specific requests I think that disturbs your methodical mediation process - eg he is asking us each to define Naturalistic Pantheism - and that should come in the next section.
What's the procedure on that point? What's to stop any number of editors coming in, if one is allowed? Then it becomes more like a DRN than a mediation.--Naturalistic (talk) 17:35, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

You are right, I will speak to him. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi again ItsZippy. Re Naturalistic Pantheism - are you waiting for me to launch the section of the mediation about the definition of naturalistic pantheism? It would probably be helpful if you made a short intro asking us each to state their definition/intro and whether we see any way of arriving at an agreed version.
We are dealing here with the very first paragraph of the article.
This section is crucial because Allisgod's claims for the definition are central to

1. his opposition to mentioning Naturalistic Pantheism in the Pantheism article, and to
2. his opposition to the World Pantheist Movement being included in the Naturalistic Pantheism article.
   

We have to deal with it in order to resolve both those issues.
I already know what his viewpoint will be and I suspect that he will stick to it regardless of how much evidence I bring forward, in which case we can then discuss and agree what wider forums could be used.
I hope you understand that my purpose in the Google Books and Google Scholar search counts is not to use them to find specific sources, but to empirically test claims that this or that author or concept are critical to the definition. In the absence of such research, we are left only with rival claims about what "most scholars" say.--Naturalistic (talk) 23:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

hello sir ,i have been contributing on some article and they are almost complete but dont know the procedure for reviewing them for a good article nomination then what to do.Thanx ---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 09:59, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Zeeyanketu. To get a good article review, you can follow the steps at WP:GAN, under the how to nominate an article section. If you tell me the article you've been working on, I can have a look before hand and let you know if I think it's ready. Also, you don't need to always use the talkback template when you talk to me - they're unnecessary if you are posting on my talkpage, and I am watching your talk page and CVUA page. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 14:42, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

OK,actually the article is (Rowdy Rathore)---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 19:18, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

That looks pretty good. I've not read it in depth, but the first thing that springs to mind is that the lead is too short. The lead should summarise the rest of the article, and there should be nothing in the lead that is not in the article, and not major points in the article that are not in the lead. At the moment, the lead seems far too small for the size of the article. I suggest: a paragraph on the plot, cast and characters; a paragraph on the production; and a paragraph on the release and box office. The rest seems ok, but I've not given it a thorough going over (if I have time tomorrow, I'll see if I can give a fuller review, though I might not have time). ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:27, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok then i will work to expand the lead .---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 16:14, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

you seems to be busy these days.---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 12:51, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

'Philosophy in Malta' page

Hi ItsZippy. Just to inform you that the 'Philosophy in Malta' page has been improved considerably. You had initially given it a Low status. Would you consider revising that? Thanks. --Katafore (talk) 07:16, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Katafore, thanks for your message. I'm not the one who initially rated that page (I've never read it myself); Gregbard was the first to give it that rating. If I have time later I might review it, but I can't promise anything. However, I don't imagine that it will ever be more than low importance - that is not because you've done a bad job, but because knowing about philosophy in Malta is not that important even for an extensive understanding of the subject; I image it would be low importance even if it was written perfectly. Still, the quality rating (that's the one which rates how well the article is written) may certainly improve. If I have time, I'll review it; as I said, I'm pretty busy at the moment so might not get round to it. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 10:08, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Much obliged. :) --Katafore (talk) 10:58, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

mentoring

FYI. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:20, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Query

Apart from the total edits,How to find the top edited pages by a user and how to create graphs on edit count page.---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 16:16, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

If you go to your edit count page, you will see instructions for creating month count & top edited pages graphs. To do this, create User:Zeeyanketu/EditCounterOptIn.js and put any content in it, it should then update (you might have to wait a while). ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:28, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanx,I got it.---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 06:14, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Can i show you example which i have done earlier as they are still protected.---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 15:49, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

You've done it - the extra information is now available. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:06, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I havent found any page for speedy deletion still .Can i do it myself with another ip account.---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 14:49, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried using the new pages feed? If you are really struggling to find something, let me know and we can move on to the next task. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:15, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah,I want to move on because it might take some time but if i will find latter then i would like to let you know.Anyway i know facts about CSD So,please move further.Thanx!---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 19:04, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, no problem - we can move on to the next task (you seem to know what you're doing there). The next task might not be there until late tomorrow, though. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:41, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 September 2012

• From the editor: Signpost expands to Facebook
  We now have a Facebook page at facebook.com/wikisignpost. We invite you to "like" the page and join the discussion there.

• WikiProject report: Action! — The Indian Cinema Task Force
  This week, we shine the spotlight on the Indian Cinema Task Force, a subproject that seeks to improve the quality and quantity of articles about Indian cinema. As a child of WikiProject Film and WikiProject India, the Indian Cinema Task Force shares a variety of templates, resources, and members with its parent projects. The task force works on a to-do list, maintains the Bollywood Portal, and ensures articles follow the film style guidelines. With Indian cinema celebrating its 100th year of existence in 2013, we asked Karthik Nadar (Karthikndr), Secret of success, Ankit Bhatt, Dwaipayan, and AnimeshKulkarni what is in store for the Indian Cinema Task Force.

• Featured content: Go into the light
  Eight featured articles, six featured lists, ten featured pictures, and one featured topic were promoted this week.

• News and notes: Tens of thousands of monuments loved; members of new funding body announced
  The world's largest photo competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, is entering its final two weeks. The month-long event, of Dutch origin, is being held globally for the first time after the success of its European-level predecessor last year. During September 2011 more than 5000 volunteers from 18 countries took part and uploaded 168,208 free images. This year, volunteers and chapters from 35 countries around the world have organised the event. The best photographs will be determined by juries at the national and finally the global level.

• Technology report: Future-proofing: HTML5 and IPv6
  1.20wmf12, the 12th release to Wikimedia wikis from the 1.20 branch, was deployed to its first wikis on September 17; if things go well, it will be deployed to all wikis by September 26. Its 200 or so changes – 111 to WMF-deployed extensions plus 98 to core MediaWiki code – include support for links with mixed-case protocols (e.g. Http://example.com) and the removal of the "No higher resolution available" message on the file description pages of SVG images.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 16:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

CVUA

Hi. Could you please remove Anderson from the list of graduates (indefinitely blocked sock) - there's no point in any curious person clicking on his name. There won't be any clerking at CVUA in the future, so do continue to watch the pages and update any entries that concern your work there.. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh yeah, sorry. I tend not to keep things like that up to date, but I've done it now. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 14:52, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Hooray!

Congratulations! I know you've worked very hard on this for a long time. My hat's off to you. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:07, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thank you very much. I think that was one of the first articles I started working on when I arrived here, so I am very pleased. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 12:44, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Request for nomination for Adminship

Hello, I really wish to be reviewed for adminship as I feel I'm ready for more responsibility. I'm not going to lie, in the past few weeks or so I've had a few run ins with some admins and kind of acted like a baby, but I've put all of that behind me and I really want to do all I can to help out more here on WikiPedia. If you could review me and [if you feel I'm ready] nominate me for adminship, it'd be greatly appreciated, thank you so much, Djjazzyb (talk) 01:19, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

From what I can see, you probably need a bit more experience before running for adminship. I'm not one to put too much emphasis on edit count (I passed with fewer edits that was average), but you've only got about 800, which for many people at RfA is far too few. Additionally, there are certain areas where you need more experience to get the hang of how things work - I notice you've had some issues with copyright, and someone had to talk to you about removing AfD notices. While it seems you have the right kind of attitude, I think you need to spend some more time as a regular editor getting more experience; come back in about 6 months and I'd love to have another look at where you're at. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 13:02, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, well thanks anyway, I'll come back when I've more experience. Djjazzyb (talk) 14:01, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Page Curation newsletter

Hey ItsZippy. This will be, if not our final newsletter, one of the final ones :). After months of churning away at this project, our final version (apart from a few tweaks and bugfixes) is now live. Changes between this and the last release include deletion tag logging, a centralised log, and fixes to things like edit summaries.

Hopefully you like what we've done with the place; suggestions for future work on it, complaints and bugs to the usual address :). We'll be holding a couple of office hours sessions, which I hope you'll all attend. Many thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:59, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

CVUA

Hi ItsZippy. I'm leaving you this message because you have previously been involved with Counter-Vandalism, and may still be. The Academy project has been restructured, placing responsibility for it on the trainers themselves and as part of the process I am trying to find out who is still interested in remaining as active trainers.

In future, there will be no clerking or coordination, so If you are still active and can respond to requests from students within around 48 hours, you need do nothing until a new student contacts you on your talk page. Nevertheless, if your status changes, please update your entry on the table of active trainers at the new WP:CVUA page. If you no longer have sufficient time to commit to the CV training project, that's fine, but please remove your name from the active list. While on your travels however, should you come across users who are having a hard time with their reverts, don't hesitate to send them a link to the CVUA. Thanks, and happy editing! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:37, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 September 2012

• In the media: Editor's response to Roth draws internet attention
  Oliver Keyes' (User:Ironholds) defense of Wikipedia against the recent Philip Roth controversy has drawn a significant amount of attention over the last week. The problems between Roth, a widely known and acclaimed American author, and Wikipedia arose from an open letter he penned for the American magazine New Yorker, and were covered by the Signpost two weeks ago. Keyes—who wrote the piece as a prominent Wikipedian but is also a contractor for the Wikimedia Foundation—wrote a blog post on the topic, lamenting the factual errors in Roth's letter and criticizing the media for not investigating his claims: "[they took] Roth’s explanation as the truth and launched into a lengthy discussion of how we [Wikipedia] handle primary sourcing."

• Recent research: "Rise and decline" of Wikipedia participation, new literature overviews, a look back at WikiSym 2012
  A paper to appear in a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist (summarized in the research index) sheds new light on the English Wikipedia's declining editor growth and retention trends. The paper describes how "several changes that the Wikipedia community made to manage quality and consistency in the face of a massive growth in participation have lead to a more restrictive environment for newcomers". The number of active Wikipedia editors has been declining since 2007 and research examining data up to September 2009 has shown that the root of the problem has been the declining retention of new editors. The authors show this decline is mainly due to a decline among desirable, good-faith newcomers, and point to three factors contributing to the increasingly "restrictive environment" they face.

• WikiProject report: 01010010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 01101001 01100011 01110011
  This week, we tinkered with WikiProject Robotics. From the project's inception in December 2007, it has served as Wikipedia's hub for building and improving articles about robots and robotics, accumulating two Featured Articles and seven Good Articles along the way. The project covers both fictitious and real-life robots, the technology that powers them, and many of the brains behind the robotics field

• News and notes: UK chapter rocked by Gibraltar scandal
  In the second controversy to engulf Wikimedia UK in two months, its immediate past chair Roger Bamkin has resigned from the board of the chapter. The resignation last Wednesday followed a growing furore over the conflict of interest between two of Roger's roles outside the chapter and his close involvement in the UK board's decision-making process, including the access to private mailing lists that board members in all chapters need. But the irony surrounding Roger's resignation is its connection with efforts by Wikimedians and collaborators to strengthen the reach of Wikimedia projects through technical innovation.

• Technology report: Signpost investigation: code review times
  Late last month, the "Technology report" included a story using code review backlog figures – the only code review figures then available – to construct a rough narrative about the average experience of code contributors. This week, we hope to go one better, by looking directly at code review wait times, and, in particular, median code review times

• Featured content: Dead as...
  Fourteen featured articles were promoted this week, including Dodo, along with six featured lists and five featured pictures.

• Discussion report: Image filter; HotCat; Syntax highlighting; and more
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 17:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hi zippy,how are you doing?Seems busy! ---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 19:35, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I'm good thanks! Yes, I am very busy (can you tell!?!) - I'm off to university on Sunday, so there's lots to do. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:42, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I might be busy in coming days so its better to watch past five days.My real name is "Rahul Chauhan".May i know your name if you dont mind.Thanx---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 16:58, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'll do that. I leave for university tomorrow, so it might take a little while to get your final exam posted (and, if I get it done this evening, it'll take time for me to mark it) - thank you for your patience. And you can call me Jack (I'm surprised I forgot to introduce myself personally earlier - sorry about that). ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 15:13, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok! thanx Jack Smith. and i wish you all the best for you studies and administratorship.---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 18:19, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution RFC

Hello.As a member of Wikiproject Dispute Resolution I am just letting you know that there is an RFC discussing changes to dispute resolution on Wikipedia. You can find the RFC on this page. If you have already commented there, please disregard this message. Regards, Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 08:52, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

• Paid editing: Does Wikipedia Pay? The Founder: Jimmy Wales
  Does Wikipedia Pay? is a Signpost series seeking to illuminate paid editing, paid advocacy, for-profit Wikipedia consultants, editing public relations professionals, conflict of interest guidelines in practice, and the Wikipedians who work on these issues by speaking openly with the people involved. This week, a scandal centering around Roger Bamkin's work with Wikimedia UK and Gibraltarpedia erupted ... In light of these events, opinions on how to avoid future controversy are as important as ever. ... The Signpost spoke with Jimmy Wales to better understand how he views the paid editing environment and what he thinks is needed to improve it.

• News and notes: Independent review of UK chapter governance; editor files motion against Wikitravel owners
  Following considerable online and media reportage on the Gibraltar controversy and a Signpost report last week, the Wikimedia UK chapter and the foundation published a joint statement on September 28: "To better understand the facts and details of these allegations and to ensure that governance arrangements commensurate with the standing of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK and the worldwide Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia UK's trustees and the Wikimedia Foundation will jointly appoint an independent expert advisor to objectively review both Wikimedia UK's governance arrangements and its handling of the conflict of interest."

• Featured content: Mooned
  Five articles, three lists, and nine images were promoted to "featured" this week.

• Technology report: WMF and the German chapter face up to Toolserver uncertainty
  The Toolserver is an external service hosting the hundreds of webpages and scripts (collectively known as "tools") that assist Wikimedia communities in dozens of mostly menial tasks. Few people think that it has been operating well recently; the problems, which include high database replication lag and periods of total downtime, have caused considerable disruption to the Toolserver's usual functions. Those functions are highly valued by many Wikimedia communities ... In 2011, the Foundation announced the creation of Wikimedia Labs, a much better funded project that among other things aimed to mimic the Toolserver's functionality by mid-2013. At the same time, Erik Möller, the WMF's director of engineering, announced that the Foundation would no longer be supporting the Toolserver financially, but would continue to provide the same in-kind support as it had done previously.

• WikiProject report: The Name's Bond... WikiProject James Bond
  In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series, we spent some time bonding with WikiProject James Bond. The project is in the unique position of having already pushed all of its primary content to Good and Featured status, including all of Ian Fleming's novels, short stories, and every film that has been released. Work has begun in earnest on the article Skyfall for the release of the new Bond film later this month. The project could still use help improving articles about Bond actors, characters, gadgets, music, video games, and related topics

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 20:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

You can tell me to do whatever you think is appropriate.Anyways, all the best for your university begining,By the way which course you choose at university.Thanx---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 17:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I recently nominated a page for deletion and it has been deleted now.See here *.---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 07:02, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

C'mon on back to the Teahouse!

It's easier than ever to be a Host at the Teahouse

Hi ItsZippy! The Teahouse has recently went through some design changes in order to improve it's usability for new editors and for our Hosts. As a former Host, we'd love to see you back. A few changes have taken place about hosting: A new and improved Host Lounge which features calls to action and resources. A simplified Host sign up process. It just takes a few simple steps to add your new profile to our new Host profile page. Concerned about how much time you have to contribute? Don't be. With our new automated Host check in system Hosts can feel less pressure to participate outside of their volunteer capacity - only participate when you want. Teahouse invitations are currently automated! We encourage you to keep inviting, but, there is no pressure or quotas as HostBot does the task for the you. I hope you'll come back and join us, your skills at making new editors feel welcome and appreciated are invaluable to the Teahouse, and the Wikipedia community. See you there! EdwardsBot (talk) 17:31, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 October 2012

• News and notes: Education Program faces community resistance
  Wikipedia in education is far from a new idea: years of news stories, op-eds, and editorials have focused on the topic; and on Wikipedia itself, the Schools and universities projects page has existed in various forms since 2003. Over the next six years, the page was rarely developed, and when it did advance there was no clear goal in mind.

• WikiProject report: Ten years and one million articles: WikiProject Biography
  On this day five years ago, the WikiProject Report debuted as a new Signpost column with an overview of WikiProject Biography. Today, we're celebrating two milestone: five years of the WikiProject Report and the tenth birthday of our first featured project. WikiProject Biography is by far the largest WikiProject on Wikipedia, with over one million articles under the project's scope. As a comparison, WikiProject Biography is three times larger than Wikipedia's second largest project, and if WikiProject Biography were split into its 14 subprojects and work groups, it would still make the list of the 20 largest WikiProjects... four times.

• Featured content: A dash of Arsenikk
  This week the Signpost interviews Arsenikk, an editor of six years who has brought sixteen lists through our featured list process, mostly regarding transportation in Norway but also about the 1952 Winter Olympics and World Heritage Sites in Africa. Arsenikk tells us about why he joined the project, what moves him, and how editors can join the sometimes daunting world of featured lists.

• Technology report: The ups and downs of September and October, plus extension code review analysis
  The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for September 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which is edging its way towards its first deployment). Three of the seven headline items in the report have already been covered in the Signpost: problems with the corruption of several Gerrit (code) repositories, the introduction of widespread translation memory across Wikimedia wikis, and the launch of the "Page Curation" tool on the English Wikipedia, with development work on that project now winding down. The report also drew attention to the end of Google Summer of Code 2012, the deployment to the English Wikipedia of a new ePUB (electronic book) export feature, and improvements to the WLM app aimed at more serious photographers.

• Discussion report: Closing RfAs: Stewards or Bureaucrats?; Redesign of Help:Contents
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 20:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 October 2012

• Op-ed: AdminCom: A proposal for changing the way we select admins
  There is wide agreement among English Wikipedians that the administrator system is in some ways broken—but no consensus on how to fix it. Most suggestions have been relatively small in scope, and could at best produce small improvements. I would like to make a proposal to fundamentally restructure the administrator system, in a way that I believe would make it more effective and responsive. The proposal is to create an elected Administration Committee ("AdminCom") which would select, oversee, and deselect administrators.

• In the media: Wikipedia's language nerds hit the front page
  This week saw a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal on editorial debates in Wikipedia. The story focused on the title-naming dispute surrounding the Beatles article, and specifically the RfC on whether the 'the' in the band's name should be capitalized or not.

• Featured content: Second star to the left
  On the English Wikipedia, five featured articles, ten featured lists, and four featured pictures were promoted, including USS Lexington, a ship built for the United States Navy that, although ordered in 1916 as a battlecruiser, was converted to an aircraft carrier. It was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea during the Second World War.

• News and notes: Chapters ask for big bucks
  The volunteer-led Wikimedia Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and interested community members are looking at Wikimedia organization applications worth about US$10.4 million out of the committee's first full year's operation, in just the inaugural round one of two that have been planned for the year with a planned budget of US$11.4M.

• Technology report: Wikidata is a go: well, almost
  A trial of the first phase of Wikimedia Deutschland's "Wikidata" project–implementing the first ever interwiki repository—may soon get underway following the successful passage of much of its code through MediaWiki's review processes this week.

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Chemicals
  This week, we experimented with WikiProject Chemicals. Started in August 2004, WikiProject Chemicals has grown to include over 10,000 articles about chemical compounds. The project has a unique assessment system that omits C-class, Good, and Featured Articles. As a result, the project's 11 GAs and 9 FAs are treated as A-class articles. WikiProject Chemicals is a child of WikiProject Chemistry (interviewed in 2009) and a parent of WikiProject Polymers.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 21:08, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to comment on notability discussion in Afd

Hi, I was thrilled with your clear and objective argument you've provided in the past. I thought you would be able to provide valuable insight on this Afd discussion SEOmoz.org Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Page Curation newsletter - closing up!

Hey all :).

We're (very shortly) closing down this development cycle for Page Curation. It's genuinely been a pleasure to talk with you all and build software that is so close to my own heart, and also so effective. The current backlog is 9 days, and I've never seen it that low before.

However! Closing up shop does not mean not making any improvements. First-off, this is your last chance to give us a poke about unresolved bugs or report new ones on the talkpage. If something's going wrong, we want to know about it :). Second, we'll hopefully be taking another pass over the software next year. If you've got ideas for features Page Curation doesn't currently have, stick them here.

Again, it's been an honour. Thanks :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

• Special report: Examining adminship from the German perspective
  Unlike the long-running disputes that have characterised attempts to reform the RfA process on the English Wikipedia, the German Wikipedia's tradition of making decisions not by consensus but knife-edged 50% + 1 votes has led to a fundamentally different outcome. In 2009, the project managed to largely settle the RfA mode issue in 2009 indirectly.

• Arbitration report: Malleus Fatuorum accused of circumventing topic ban; motion to change "net four votes" rule
  One clarification request concerns the civility enforcement case – specifically, Malleus Fatuorum's perceived circumvention of his topic ban. It has resulted in thousands of bytes spent in vitriolic discussions, multiple blocks, and "no confidence" motions against the Arbitration Committee and one arbitrator, among other ramifications.

• Technology report: Wikivoyage migration: technical strategy announced
  Planning for Wikivoyage's migration into the WMF fold built up steam this week following a statement by WMF Deputy Director Erik Möller about what the technical side of the migration will involve. Wikivoyage, which split from sister site Wikitravel in 2006, is hoping to migrate its own not-inconsiderable user base to Wikimedia, as well as much of its content, presenting novel challenges for Wikimedia developers

• Discussion report: Good articles on the main page?; reforming dispute resolution
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

• News and notes: Wikimedians get serious about women in science
  It is well known that women are underrepresented in the sciences, and that high-achieving female scientists have often been excluded from authorship lists and passed over for awards and honours solely on the basis of gender. Also significant has been the underplaying in the academic literature, news reporting, and online, of women's current and historical contributions to science.

• WikiProject report: Where in the world is Wikipedia?
  The WikiProject Report normally brings tidings from Wikipedia's most active, inventive, and unique WikiProjects. This week, we're trying something new by focusing on Wikipedia's dark side: the various regional and national WikiProjects that are dead or dying. How can some tiny municipalities and exclaves generate highly active, cross-language, multimedia platforms be successful while the projects representing many sovereign countries and entire continents wallow in obscurity? Today, we'll search for answers among geographic projects large and small, highly active and barely functioning, enthusiastic about the future and mired in past conflicts.

• Featured content: Is RfA Kafkaesque?
  Eleven articles, including one on Franz Kafka, three lists, one image, and one portal were promoted to 'featured' status this week.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 10:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2012

• News and notes: First chickens come home to roost for FDC funding applicants; WMF board discusses governance issues and scope of programs
  The first round of the Wikimedia Foundation's new financial arrangements has proceeded as planned, with the publication of scores and feedback by Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) staff on applications for funding by 11 entities—10 chapters, independent membership organisations supporting the WMF's mission in different countries, and the foundation itself. The results are preliminary assessments that will soon be put to the FDC's seven voting members and two non-voting board representatives. The FDC in turn will send its recommendations to the board of trustees on 15 November, which will announce its decision by 15 December. Funding applications have been on-wiki since 1 October, and the talk pages of applications were open for community comment and discussion from 2 to 22 October, though apart from queries by FDC staff, there was little activity.

• WikiProject report: In recognition of... WikiProject Military History
  This week, we're checking out ways to motivate editors and recognize valuable contributions by focusing on the awards and rewards of WikiProject Military History. Anyone unfamiliar with WikiProject Military History is encouraged to start at the report's first article about the project and make your way forward. While many WikiProjects provide a barnstar that can be awarded to helpful contributors, WikiProject Military History has gone a step further by creating a variety of awards with different criteria ranging from the all-purpose WikiChevrons to rewards for participating in drives and improving special topics to medals for improving articles up to A-class status to the coveted "Military Historian of the Year" award.

• Technology report: Improved video support imminent and Wikidata.org live
  The TimedMediaHandler extension (TMH), which brings dramatic improvements to MediaWiki's video handling capabilities, will go live to the English Wikipedia this week following a long and turbulent development, WMF Director of Platform Engineering Rob Lanphier announced on Monday ... Wikidata.org, a new repository designed to host interwiki links, launched this week and will begin accepting links shortly. The site, which is one half of the forthcoming Wikidata trial (the other half being the Wikidata client, which will be deployed to the Hungarian Wikipedia shortly) will also act as a testing area for phase 2 of Wikidata (centralised data storage). The longer term plan is for Wikidata.org to become a "Wikimedia Commons for data" as phases 2 and 3 (dynamic lists) are developed, project managers say.

• Featured content: On the road again
  Thirteen articles, ten lists, nine images, one topic, and one portal were promoted to featured after peer reviews.

• Recent research: WP governance informal; community as social network; efficiency of recruitment and content production; Rorschach news
  A paper in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, coming from the social control perspective and employing the repertory grid technique, has contributed interesting observations about the governance of Wikipedia.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 08:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Soviet Union

Hello, in April you removed the move-sysop protection from the page Soviet Union. Considering that it has been moved in the past before (both in good and bad faith), could you restore it? Thank you. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 18:46, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

The page has not been moved at all since the move protection expired back in April. There doesn't seem to be a dispute any more, so I don't think move protection is necessary at this time; if that changes, then I'm happy to restore (or for another admin to restore) that protection. For now, I think it's fine. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:30, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Welcome back!How are you doing?---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 19:54, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really 'back'; I was just looking at something and saw the yellow banner. I'm doing good though, thanks. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok that's fine!May i know when you will be back on track.---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 18:41, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Kaitlyn

Ribbon Salminen (talk) is using inappropriate language (bringing my parents into it) on using resources on the Kaitlyn page. Since I was blocked months ago for reverting the page, I thought I should tell you that he/she is deleting resources because it does not have TWO sources to back it up. I never heard that before, and he/she is picking and choosing resources that should stay and shouldn't when they are from the same sites calling some unreliable when they are reliable. I went back over five times changing resources to "reliable" ones but he/she keeps deleting them still claiming it to be unreliable. He/She also stated that Ringside Xcess is an unreliable site even after I got the opinions from other users stating that the site is indeed reliable. Instead of reverting and having a conversation with them, I came to you for help. 75.176.3.213 (talk) 5:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried talking to the user yet? Try starting a discussion on the article's talk page to see if the two of you can come to an agreement. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 11:40, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I have been trying to explain to the user for hours now, but he/she keep using profanity, name calling, and does not care for anyone else's opinion. He/she is being really immature about the entire situation and is making it a bigger problem that it has to be. You can read mine and his comments on our talk pages. 75.176.3.213 (talk) 11:22, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

It might be worth using the dispute resolution noticeboard; they have impartial volunteers there who can help guide a discussion and achieve consensus. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:22, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Nominate

Hi there. I'm going to apply for administrator status when I remove part vandalism, reporting and requesting deletion of some pages. It would be great to have the features that come with it. So to see if I (perhaps) could be administered, so I just wanted to contact you. Greetings Simeondahl (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Simeondahl, thanks for your message. It's good to hear that you'd be willing to try for adminship; unfortunately, I don't really have enough time to properly review your contributions and give you any feedback (with something like this, I wouldn't want to rush, because that would be no help to you at all). There are plenty of people who I'm sure will give you feedback about your suitability - Worm That Turned and Kudpung are two users whose opinions I hold in high regard. They will be able to give you useful feedback and let you know whether adminship is something you'd be ready for or not. Best of luck with whatever you end up doing. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 November 2012

• Op-ed: 2012 WikiCup comes to an end
  J Milburn is a British editor who has been on the site since 2006. He is one of two judges of the WikiCup. Here, he uses an op-ed to explain the way the WikiCup works and to review this year's competition, which ended recently.

• News and notes: Wikimedian photographic talent on display in national submissions to Wiki Loves Monuments
  The results of most of the national heats for Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) have been published on Commons. A maximum of 10 images have been submitted by all but eight of the 34 participating countries, and the international jury for what is the largest competition of its type in the world is set to announce the global winner in four weeks' time.

• In the media: Was climate change a factor in Hurricane Sandy?
  Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record and has caused millions of dollars in damage. Naturally, Wikipedia covered it. But was Wikipedia's coverage unbiased?

• Discussion report: Protected Page Editor right; Gibraltar hooks
  The Signpost's weekly roundup of topics for discussion on the English Wikipedia.

• Featured content: Jack-O'-Lanterns and Toads
  This week, the Signpost interviewed two editors. The first, PumpkinSky, collaborated with Gerda Arendt in writing the recently featured article on Franz Kafka and won second prize in the Core contest last August. The second, Cwmhiraeth, collaborated with Thompsma in promoting the article Frog, which was featured last week. We asked them about the special challenges faced while writing Core content and things to watch out for.

• Technology report: Hue, Sqoop, Oozie, Zookeeper, Hive, Pig and Kafka
  The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for October 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month. TimedMediaHandler also went live.

• WikiProject report: Listening to WikiProject Songs
  This week, The Signpost sings along with WikiProject Songs which focuses on articles about songs of every generation and genre. The project initially began as a rough outline in October 2002 and was reimagined in March 2004 using its parent WikiProject Albums as a template.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 23:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

This is not a newsletter

This is just a tribute.

Anyway. You're getting this note because you've participated in discussion and/or asked for updates to either the Article Feedback Tool or Page Curation. This isn't about either of those things, I'm afraid ;p. We've recently started working on yet another project: Echo, a notifications system to augment the watchlist. There's not much information at the moment, because we're still working out the scope and the concepts, but if you're interested in further updates you can sign up here.

In addition, we'll be holding an office hours session at 21:00 UTC on Wednesday, 14 November in #wikimedia-office - hope to see you all there :). I appreciate it's an annoying time for non-Europeans: if you're interested in chatting about the project but can't make it, give me a shout and I can set up another session if there's enough interest in one particular timezone or a skype call if there isn't. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:01, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 November 2012

• News and notes: Court ruling complicates the paid-editing debate
  Last week, media outlets reported a ruling by a German court on the problem of businesses using Wikipedia for marketing purposes. The issue goes beyond the direct management of marketing-related edits by Wikipedians; it involves cross-monitoring and interacting among market competitors themselves on Wikipedia. A company that sells dietary supplements made from frankincense had taken a competitor to court. The recently published judgment by the Higher Regional Court of Munich, in dealing with the German Wikipedia article on frankincense products, was handed down in May and is based on European competition law.

• Featured content: The table has turned
  Thirteen articles, six lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status last week.

• Technology report: MediaWiki 1.20 and the prospects for getting 1.21 code reviewed promptly
  In late September, the Technology report published its findings about (particularly median) code review times. To the 23,900 changesets analysed the first time (the data for which has been updated), the Signpost added data from the 9,000 or so changesets contributed between September 17 and November 9 to a total of 93,000 reviews across 45,000 patchsets. Bots and self-reviews were also discarded, but reviews made by a different user in the form of a superseding patch were retained. Finally, users were categorised by hand according to whether they would be best regarded as staff or volunteers. The new analyses were consistent with the predictions of the previous analysis.

• WikiProject report: Land of parrots, palm trees, and the Holy Cross: WikiProject Brazil
  As promised, we're expanding our horizons by featuring projects that cover underrepresented areas of the globe. This week, we headed to WikiProject Brazil which keeps track of articles about the world's largest Portuguese-speaking country. The project has shown spurts of activity and continues to serve as a hub for discussions, despite the project's collaborations, peer reviews, and outreach activities being largely inactive.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 12:32, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

AFT5 newsletter

Hey all :). A couple of quick updates (one small, one large)

First, we're continuing to work on some ways to increase the quality of feedback and make it easier to eliminate and deal with non-useful feedback: hopefully I'll have more news for you on this soon :).

Second, we're looking at ways to increase the actual number of users patrolling and take off some of the workload from you lot. Part of this is increasing the prominence of the feedback page, which we're going to try to do with a link at the top of each article to the relevant page. This should be deployed on Tuesday (touch wood!) and we'll be closely monitoring what happens. Let me know if you have any questions or issues :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:32, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 November 2012

• News and notes: FDC's financial muscle kicks in
  The WMF's Funds Dissemination Committee has published its recommendations for the inaugural round 1 of funding. Requests totalled US$10.4M, nearly all of the FDC's budget for both first and second rounds. The seven-member committee of community volunteers appointed in September advises the WMF board on the distribution of grant funds among applying Wikimedia organizations. The committee, which has a separate operating budget of $276k for salaries and expenses, considered 12 applications for funds, from 11 chapters and from the WMF itself for its non-core activities. The decision-making process included community and FDC staff input after October 1, the closing date for submissions. Taken together, the volunteers decided to endorse an average of 81% of the funding sought—a total of $8.43M, which went to 11 of the 12 applicants. This leaves $2.71M to be distributed in round 2, for which applications are due in little more than three months' time.

• WikiProject report: No teenagers, mutants, or ninjas: WikiProject Turtles
  This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Turtles. The young project started in January 2011 and has accumulated 5 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, and 6 Featured Pictures. The project maintains a combined to-do list and hot articles meter, a popular pages ranking, and a collection of resources for turtle articles. We interviewed Faendalimas and NYMFan69-86.

• Technology report: Structural reorganisation "not a done deal"
  WMF Executive Director Sue Gardner was forced to clarify this week that proposed structural changes to the Foundation's Engineering and Product Development Department were not a "done deal" and that it was "important that you [particularly affected staff] realise that ... your input is wanted". The reorganisation, announced on November 5 and planned for the middle of next year, will see its two components split off into their own departments.

• Featured content: Wikipedia hit by the Streisand effect
  Seven featured articles, four featured lists and ten featured pictures – including the photograph that spawned the Streisand effect – were promoted this week.

• Discussion report: GOOG, MSFT, WMT: the ticker symbol placement question
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include the question of ticker symbol placement and the notability of various types of creative performer.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 02:59, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

AFT5 office hours

Hey all :). Just a quick note to say we'll be holding office hours in #wikimedia-office at 21:30 UTC this Thursday (the 29th) to show everyone the additional tools we're thinking of working on. All attendence and feedback is appreciated :). Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:04, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 November 2012

• News and notes: Toolserver finance remains uncertain
  On November 24, a general assembly of Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) voted on the fate of the Wikimedia Toolserver, a central external piece of technical infrastructure supporting the editing communities with volunteer-developed scripts and webpages of various kinds that are assisting in performing mostly menial tasks.

• Recent research: Movie success predictions, readability, credentials and authority, geographical comparisons
  An open-access preprint presents the results from a study attempting to predict early box office revenues from Wikipedia traffic and activity data. The authors – a team of computational social scientists from Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Aalto University and the Central European University – submit that behavioral patterns on Wikipedia can be used for accurate forecasting, matching and in some cases outperforming the use of social media data for predictive modeling. The results, based on a corpus of 312 English Wikipedia articles on movies released in 2010, indicate that the joint editing activity and traffic measures on Wikipedia are strong predictors of box office revenue for highly successful movies.

• Featured content: Panoramic views, history, and a celestial constellation
  Six articles, one list, and six images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.

• Technology report: Wikidata reaches 100,000 entries
  Wikidata, the new "Wikimedia Commons for data" and the first new Wikimedia project since 2006, reached 100,000 entries this week. The project aims to be a single, human- and machine-readable database for common data, spanning across all Wikipedia projects, which will "lead to a higher consistency and quality within Wikipedia articles, as well as increased availability of information in the smaller language editions" while lowering the burden on Wikipedia's volunteer editors—whose numbers have stalled overall, and continue to dwindle on the English Wikipedia.

• WikiProject report: Directing Discussion: WikiProject Deletion Sorting
  This week, we uncovered WikiProject Deletion Sorting, Wikipedia's most active project by number of edits to all the project's pages. This special project seeks to increase participation in Articles for Deletion nominations by categorizing the AfD discussions by various topic areas that may draw the attention of editors. The project was started in August 2005 with manual processes that are continued today by a bevy of bots, categories, and transclusions. The project took inspiration from WikiProject Stub Sorting and some historical discussions on deletion reform. As the sheer number of AfDs continues to grow, the project is seeking better tools to manage the deletion sorting process and attract editors to comment on these deletion discussions.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 11:59, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello

Hi jack,how are you,I hope everything is going up to the mark regarding you.---zeeyanketu ^{talk to me} 19:42, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution volunteer survey

Dispute Resolution – Volunteer Survey Invite Hello ItsZippy. To follow up on the first survey in April, I am conducting a second survey to learn more about dispute resolution volunteers - their motivations for resolving disputes, the experiences they've had, and their ideas for the future. I would appreciate your thoughts. I hope that with the results of this survey, we will learn how to increase the amount of active, engaged volunteers, and further improve dispute resolution processes. The survey takes around five to ten minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released. Please click HERE to participate. Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts. You are receiving this invitation because you have either listed yourself as a volunteer at a dispute resolution forum, or are a member of a dispute resolution committee. For more information, please see the page that describes my fellowship work which can be found here. Szhang (WMF) (talk) 02:46, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Information

I noticed your username commenting at an Arbcom discussion regarding civility. An effort is underway that would likely benifit if your views were included. I hope you will append regards at: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Civility enforcement/Questionnaire Thank you for considering this request. My76Strat (talk) 08:21, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 December 2012

• News and notes: Wiki Loves Monuments announces 2012 winner
  The global jury of Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), the world’s largest photo contest, announced its results on 3 December.

• Featured content: The play's the thing
  Three articles, two lists, and four images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.

• Discussion report: Concise Wikipedia; standardize version history tables
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

• Technology report: MediaWiki problems but good news for Toolserver stability
  Deployments of MediaWiki 1.21wmf5 cause widespread problems for users across wikis when HTML and CSS updates came temporarily out of sync. On the first wikis targeted for deployment, this was caused by the different cache invalidation rates for HTML (typically one month) and CSS (typically five minutes). The retrospective on the problem highlighted the fact that that the test wiki – the WMF's answer to a production environment that individual developers can no longer practically emulate themselves – actually demonstrated the exact problem that would later manifest itself on production wikis. It went unnoticed.

• WikiProject report: The White Rose: WikiProject Yorkshire
  This week, we went searching for white roses in the lands of WikiProject Yorkshire. The project began in May 2007 as a way to improve articles about the historic English county of Yorkshire and its modern-day administrative divisions and cities. Since then, the project has accumulated 31 Featured Articles, 14 Featured Lists, 91 Good Articles, and a monstrous list of Did You Know entries. Despite all of the effort improving Yorkshire articles, the project has experienced waning participation in the last few years. The project still publishes a newsletter each month, monitors the popularity of and recent changes to its articles, maintains a portal, and collects resources for contributors to use.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 21:18, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 December 2012

• News and notes: Wobbly start to ArbCom election, but turnout beats last year's
  At the time of writing, this year's election has just closed after a two-week voting period. The eight seats were contested by 21 candidates. Of these, 15 have not been arbitrators (Beeblebrox, Count Iblis, Guerillero, Jc37, Keilana, Ks0stm, Kww, NuclearWarfare, Pgallert, RegentsPark, Richwales, Salvio giuliano, Timotheus Canens, Worm That Turned, and YOLO Swag); four candidates are sitting arbitrators (David Fuchs, Elen of the Roads, Jclemens, and Newyorkbrad); and two have previously served on the committee (Carcharoth and Coren). Four Wikimedia stewards from outside the English Wikipedia stepped forward as election scrutineers: Pundit, from the Polish Wikipedia; Teles, from the Portuguese Wikipedia; Quentinv57, from the French Wikipedia; and Mardetanha, from the Persian Wikipedia. The scrutineers' task is to ensure that the election is free of multiple votes from the same person, to tally the results, and to announce them. The full results are expected to be released within the next few days and will be reported in next week's edition of the Signpost.

• Featured content: Wikipedia goes to Hell
  Eight articles, four images, six lists, and one topic were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.

• Technology report: The new Visual Editor gets a bit more visual
  The Visual Editor project – an attempt to create the first WMF-deployable WYSIWYG editor – will go live on its first Wikipedias imminently following nearly six months of testing on MediaWiki.org. A full explanatory blog post accompanied the news, explaining the project and its setup. Once a user has opted-in, the editor can handle basic formatting, headings and lists, while safely ignoring elements it is yet to understand, including references, categories, templates, tables and images. At the last count, approximately 2% of pages would break in some way if a user tried the Visual Editor on them; it is unclear whether any specific protection will be put in place beyond relying on editors to spot problems.

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Human Rights
  In celebration of Human Rights Day, we checked out WikiProject Human Rights. Started in February 2006, the project has grown to include over 3,000 articles, including 12 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, 66 Good Articles, a large collection of Did You Know entries, and a few mentions "in the news". The project monitors listings of popular pages and cleanup tags. We interviewed Khazar2, Cirt, and Boud.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 22:25, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Main page appearance: Prosperity theology

This is a note to let the main editors of Prosperity theology know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on January 4, 2013. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 4, 2013. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director Raul654 (talk · contribs) or his delegates Dabomb87 (talk · contribs), Gimmetoo (talk · contribs), and Bencherlite (talk · contribs), or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you can change it—following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:

Prosperity theology is a Christian religious doctrine that financial blessing is the will of God, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will increase one's material wealth. Based on non-traditional interpretations of the Bible, often with emphasis on the Book of Malachi, the doctrine views the Bible as a contract between God and humans: if humans have faith in God, he will deliver his promises of security and prosperity. The doctrine emphasizes the importance of personal empowerment, proposing that it is God's will for his people to be happy. It came to prominence in the United States during the Healing Revivals of the 1950s and later figured prominently in the Word of Faith movement and 1980s televangelism. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was adopted by influential leaders in the Charismatic Movement and promoted by Christian missionaries throughout the world. Churches in which the prosperity gospel is taught are often non-denominational and usually directed by a sole pastor or leader, although some have developed multi-church networks. Prosperity theology has been criticized by leaders in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, as well as other Christian denominations, who maintain that it is irresponsible and theologically unsound. (Full article...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Congrats on your first TFA... main page appearances can be quite vexing though, it brings out all the trolls. Oh well, hope you're having a happy holiday season! Mark Arsten (talk) 14:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 December 2012

• News and notes: Arbitrator election: stewards release the results
  Seven days after the close of voting, the results of the recent Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) elections have been announced by two of the four stewards overseeing the election, Mardetanha and Pundit. Of the 21 candidates, 13 managed to gain positive support-to-oppose ratios, and the top eight will be appointed to two-year terms on the committee by Jimbo Wales, exercising one of his traditional responsibilities.

• WikiProject report: WikiProjekt Computerspiel: Covering Computer Games in Germany
  In the past year, we've tried to expand our horizons by looking at how WikiProjects work in other languages of Wikipedia. Following in the footsteps of our previously interviewed Czech and French projects, we visited the German Wikipedia to explore WikiProjekt Computerspiel (WikiProject Computer Games). The project dates back to November 2004 and has become the back-end of the Computer Games Portal, which covers all video games regardless of platform. Editors writing about computer games at the German Wikipedia deal with unique cultural and legal challenges, ranging from a lack of fair use precedents to the limited availability of games deemed harmful for youths to strong standards for the inclusion of material on the German Wikipedia.

• Discussion report: Concise Wikipedia; section headings for navboxes
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...

• Op-ed: Finding truth in Sandy Hook
  This week's big story on the English Wikipedia is obviously the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (which, by the time you read this, may be renamed 2012 Connecticut school shooting). Quickly created and nominated for deletion not once but twice, and both times speedily kept, the article saw the expected flurry of edits (a look at the history suggests an average of at least one a minute over the first day and a half) and more than half a million page views on the first full day.

• Featured content: Wikipedia's cute ass
  Four articles, three lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week, including a picture of a three-week old donkey (also known as an 'ass').

• Technology report: MediaWiki groups and why you might want to start snuggling newbie editors
  MediaWiki users (including Wikimedians) can now organise themselves into groups, receiving recognition and support-in-kind from the Wikimedia Foundation. The project, backed by new Wikimedia technical contributor coordinator Quim Gil, has seen five proposals lodged in its first week of operation. The idea of MediaWiki groups mimics that of Wikimedia User Groups.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 00:45, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Holiday cheer

		Holiday Cheer
		Michael Q. Schmidt my talk page is wishing you Season's Greetings! This message celebrates the holiday season, promotes WikiLove, and hopefully makes your day a little better. Spread the seasonal good cheer by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Share the good feelings.

The Signpost: 24 December 2012

• News and notes: Debates on Meta sparking along—grants, new entities, and conflicts of interest
  As part of its new focus on core responsibilities, the Wikimedia Foundation is reforming its grant schemes so that they are more accessible to individual volunteers. The community is invited to look at proposals for a new scheme—for now called Individual engagement grants (IEGs)—which is due to kick off on January 15. On Meta, the community is once again debating the two new offline participation models—user groups (open membership groups designed to be easy to form) and thematic organizations (incorporated non-profits representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting work on a specific theme within or across countries). In a consultation process on Meta that will last until January 15, the community will be discussing WMF proposals for a new guideline on conflicts of interests concerning Wikimedia resources. The draft covers COI issues for both volunteers and organizations across the movement.

• WikiProject report: A Song of Ice and Fire
  This week, we spent some time with WikiProject A Song of Ice and Fire, which focuses on the eponymous series of high fantasy literature, the television series Game of Thrones, and related works by George R. R. Martin. The project was started in July 2006 and has grown to include 11 Good Articles maintained by a small yet enthusiastic band of editors.

• Featured content: Battlecruiser operational
  Seven articles and two lists were promoted to 'featured' status this week, including List of battlecruisers. The article covers all of the battlecruisers—which were a type of warship similar in size to a battleship but with several defining characteristics—ever planned or constructed. The last British battlecruiser built, HMS Hood, is pictured at right.

• Technology report: Efforts to "normalise" Toolserver relations stepped up
  Efforts were stepped up this week to sow a feeling of trust between the major parties with an interest in the future of the Toolserver. The tool- and bot-hosting server – more accurately servers – are currently operated by German chapter, Wikimedia Germany, with assistance from the Foundation and numerous volunteers, including long-time system administrator Daniel Baur (more commonly known by his pseudonym DaB). However, those parties have more recently failed to see eye-to-eye on the trajectory for the Toolserver, which is scheduled to be replaced by Wikimedia Labs in late 2013, with increasing concern about the tone of discussions.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 07:54, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Happy New Year

File:Happy New Year 2013.jpg		Have an enjoyable New Year!
		Hello ItsZippy: Thanks for all of your contributions to Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable New Year! Cheers, ---zeeyanketu talk to me 19:32, 31 December 2012 (UTC) Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2013}} to people's talk pages with a friendly message.

The Signpost: 31 December 2012

• From the editor: Wikipedia, our Colosseum
  In the impersonal, detached Colosseum that is Wikipedia, people find it much easier to put their thumbs down. As such, many people active in the Wikimedia movement have witnessed a precipitous decline in civil discourse. This is far from a new trend, yet many people would agree that it all seemed somehow worse in 2012.

• In the media: Is the Wikimedia movement too 'cash rich'?
  A recent, poorly researched and poorly written story in the Register highlighted the perceived "cash rich" status of the Wikimedia movement. ... The Telegraph and Daily Dot, among others, have alleged that there are multiple links between the WMF, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and Kazakhstan's government, which is, for all intents and purposes, a one-party non-democratic state.

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser a success; Czech parliament releases photographs to chapter
  On 27 December the Wikimedia Foundation announced the conclusion of their ninth annual fundraiser, which attracted more than 1.2 million donors. The appeal reached its goal of US$25 million, even though fundraising banners ran for only nine days.

• Technology report: Looking back on a year of incremental changes
  In the first of two features, the Signpost this week looks back on 2012, a year when developers finally made inroads into three issues that had been put off for far too long (the need for editors to learn wiki-markup, the lack of a proper template language and the centralisation of data) but left all three projects far from finished.

• Discussion report: Image policy and guidelines; resysopping policy
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...

• Interview: Interview with Brion Vibber, the WMF's first employee
  Brion Vibber has been a Wikipedia editor for nearly 11 years and was the first person officially hired to work for the Wikimedia Foundation. He was instrumental in early development of the MediaWiki software and is now the lead software architect for the foundation's mobile development team.

• Featured content: Whoa Nelly! Featured content in review
  At the beginning of the year, we began a series of interviews with editors who have worked hard to combat systemic bias through the creation of featured content; although we haven't seen six installments yet, we've also had some delightful interviews with people who write articles on some of our most core topics. Now, as we close the year, I would like to present some of my own musings on the state of featured content—especially as it pertains to systemic bias and core topics.

• WikiProject report: New Year, New York
  This week, we're celebrating the New Year from Times Square by interviewing WikiProject New York City. Since December 2004, WikiProject NYC has had the difficult task of maintaining articles about the largest city in the United States, many of which are also among the the most viewed articles on Wikipedia. The project is home to 22 Featured Articles, 7 Featured Lists, 32 pieces of Featured Media, and a lengthy list of Did You Know? entries.

• Recent research: Wikipedia and Sandy Hook; SOPA blackout reexamined
  Northeastern University researcher Brian Keegan analyzed the gathering of hundreds of Wikipedians to cover the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. ... A First Monday article reviews several aspects of the Wikipedia participation in the 18 January 2012, protests against SOPA and PIPA legislation in the USA. The paper focuses on the question of legitimacy, looking at how the Wikipedia community arrived at the decision to participate in those protests.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 07:16, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Precious

philosophy of religion
Thank you for quality articles in philosophy of religion, such as Prosperity theology, for the project's template and sidebar, for mediating and seeking dispute resolutions, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:20, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Interesting article. Kudos to you for getting it to FA status. Killiondude (talk) 18:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Belated Happy New Year with a Toast!

float	Here's a toast to the host Of those who edit wiki near and far, To a friend we send a message, "keep the data up to par". We drink to those who wrote a lot of prose, And then they whacked a vandal several dozen blows. A toast to the host of those who boast, the Wikipedians! - From {{subst:TheGeneralUser}}

~TheGeneralUser (talk) has bought you a whisky! Sharing a whisky is a great way to bond with other editors after a day of hard work. Spread the WikiLove by buying someone else a whisky, whether it be someone with whom you have collaborated or had disagreements. Enjoy!

Spread the good cheer and camaraderie by adding {{WikiScotch}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Message received at ~~~~~

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

Spread the New Year cheer by adding {{subst:New Year 1}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

A Very Happy (belated) New Year to you ItsZippy! Enjoy the Whisky ~TheGeneralUser (talk) 23:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 January 2013

• Op-ed: Meta, where innovative ideas die
  Meta is the wiki that has coordinated a wide range of cross-project Wikimedia activities, such as the activities of stewards, the archiving of chapter reports, and WMF trustee elections. The project has long been an out-of-the-way corner for technocratic working groups, unaccountable mandarins, and in-house bureaucratic proceedings. Largely ignored by the editing communities of projects such as Wikipedia and organizations that serve them, Meta has evolved into a huge and relatively disorganized repository, where the few archivists running it also happen to be the main authors of some of its key documents. While Meta is well-designed for supporting the librarians and mandarins who stride along its corridors, visitors tend to find the site impenetrable—or so many people have argued over the past decade. This impenetrability runs counter to Meta's increasingly central role in the Wikimedia movement.

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

• News and notes: 2012—the big year
  The past 12 months have seen a multitude of issues and events in the Wikimedia foundation, the movement at large, and the English Wikipedia. The movement, now in its second decade, is growing apace in its international reach, cultural and linguistic diversity, technical development, and financial complexity; and many factors have combined to produce what has in many ways been the biggest, most dynamic year in the movement's history. Looking back at 2012, we faced a difficult task in doing justice to all of the notable events in a single article; so the Signpost has selected just a few examples from outside the anglosphere, from the English Wikipedia, and from the Wikimedia Foundation, rather than attempting to cover every detail that happened.

• Featured content: Featured content in review
  Over the past year, 963 pieces of featured content were promoted. The most active of the featured content programs was featured article candidates (FAC), which promoted an average of 31 articles a month. This was followed by featured picture candidates (FPC; 28 a month). Coming in third was featured list candidates (FLC; 20 a month). Featured topic and featured portal candidates remained sluggish, each promoting fewer than 20 items over the year.

• Technology report: Looking ahead to 2013
  Following on from last week's reflections on 2012, this week the Technology report looks ahead to 2013, a year that will almost certainly be dominated by the juggernauts of Wikidata, Lua and the Visual Editor.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 14:03, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

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

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

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

Case		Created		Last volunteer edit		Last modified
Title	Status	User	Time	User	Time	User	Time
2025 Africa Cup of Nations	In Progress	DimaMaghrib34 (t)	27 days, 10 hours	WhiteTailedEagle (t)	1 days, 8 hours	WhiteTailedEagle (t)	1 days, 8 hours
Imran Khan	In Progress	Burrobert (t)	18 days, 17 hours	WhiteTailedEagle (t)	1 days, 8 hours	SheriffIsInTown (t)	6 hours
Federal subjects of Russia	In Progress	PharaohCrab (t)	17 days, 2 hours	WhiteTailedEagle (t)	1 days, 8 hours	WhiteTailedEagle (t)	1 days, 8 hours
SCUM Manifesto	New	TaqPCR (t)	3 days, 7 hours	Robert McClenon (t)	3 days, 3 hours	TaqPCR (t)	3 days,
ika people	Closed	Jeremiah uduak nome (t)	2 days, 18 hours	Robert McClenon (t)	2 days, 4 hours	Robert McClenon (t)	2 days, 4 hours
Direct Democracy Cyprus	Closed	Helper201 (t)	20 hours	Amatmilen (t)	6 hours	Amatmilen (t)	6 hours

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

• Always use {{subst :DRN Volunteer-notice }} when using this template as notification.
• If your replies are directed to the template talkpage, the template was used without subst.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:33, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 January 2013

• Investigative report: Ship ahoy! New travel site finally afloat
  After six years without creating a new class of content projects, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has finally expanded into a new area: travel. Wikivoyage was formally launched—though without a traditional ship's christening—on 15 January, having started as a beta trial on 10 November. Wikivoyage has been taken under the WMF's umbrella on the argument that information resources that help with travel are educational and therefore within the scope of the foundation's mission.g

• News and notes: Launch of annual picture competition, new grant scheme
  On January 16, voting for the first round of the 2012 Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest will begin. Wikimedia editors with 75 edits or one project are eligible to vote to select their favorite image featured in 2012. ... On January 15, the foundation launched its latest grant scheme, called Individual Engagement Grants (IEG).

• WikiProject report: Reach for the Stars: WikiProject Astronomy
  This week, we set off for the final frontier with WikiProject Astronomy. The project was started in August 2006 using the now-defunct WikiProject Space as inspiration. WikiProject Astronomy is home to 101 pieces of Featured material and 148 Good Articles maintained by a band of 186 members. The project maintains a portal, works on an assortment of vital astronomy articles, and provides resources for editors adding or requesting astronomy images.

• Discussion report: Flag Manual of Style; accessibility and equality
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

• Special report: Loss of an Internet genius
  Comforting those grieving after the loss of a loved one is an impossible task. How then, can an entire community be comforted? The Internet struggled to answer that question this week after the suicide of Aaron Swartz, a celebrated free-culture activist, programmer, and Wikipedian at the age of 26.

• Featured content: Featured articles: Quality of reviews, quality of writing in 2012
  Continuing our recap of the featured content promoted in 2012, this week the Signpost interviewed three editors, asking them about featured articles which stuck out in their minds. Two, Ian Rose and Graham Colm, are current featured article candidates (FAC) delegates, while Brian Boulton is an active featured article writer and reviewer.

• Arbitration report: First arbitration case in almost six months
  The opening of the Doncram case marks the end of almost 6 months without any open cases, the longest in the history of the Committee.

• Technology report: Intermittent outages planned, first Wikidata client deployment
  The Wikidata client extension was successfully deployed to the Hungarian Wikipedia on 14 January, its team reports. The interwiki language links can now come from wikidata.org, though "manual" interwiki links remain functional, overriding those from the central repository.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 15:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

AFT5 newsletter

Hey all; another newsletter.

• If you're not already aware, a Request for Comment on the future of the Article Feedback Tool on the English-language Wikipedia is open; any and all comments, regardless of opinion and perspective, are welcome.
• Our final round of hand-coding is complete, and the results can be found here; thanks to everyone who took part!
• We've made test deployments to the German and French-language projects; if you are aware of any other projects that might like to test out or use the tool, please let me know :).
• Developers continue to work on the upgraded version of the feedback page that was discussed during our last office hours session, with a prototype ready for you to play around with in a few weeks.

That's all for now! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 January 2013

• News and notes: Requests for adminship reform moves forward
  The English Wikipedia's requests for adminship (RfA) process has entered another cycle of proposed reforms. Over the last three weeks, various proposals, ranging from as large as a transition to a representative democracy to as small as a required edit count and service length, have been debated on the RfA talk page. The total number of new administrators for 2012 was just 28, barely more than half of 2011's total and less than a quarter of 2009's total. The total number of unsuccessful RfAs has fallen as well. These declining numbers, which were described in what would now be considered a successful year (2010) as an emerging "wikigeneration gulf", have been coupled with a sharp decline in the number of active administrators since February 2008 (1,021), reaching a low of 653 in November 2012.

• WikiProject report: Say What? — WikiProject Linguistics
  This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Linguistics. Started in January 2004, the project has grown to include 7 Featured Articles, 4 Featured Lists, 2 A-class Articles, and 15 Good Articles maintained by 43 members. The project's members keep an eye on several watchlists, maintain the linguistics category, and continue to build a collection of Did You Know? entries. The project is home to six task forces and works with WikiProject Languages and WikiProject Writing Systems.

• Featured content: Wazzup, G? Delegates and featured topics in review
  This week, the Signpost's featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured topics. We interviewed Grapple X and GamerPro64, who are delegates at the featured topic candidates.

• Arbitration report: Doncram case continues
  The opening of the Doncram case marks the end of almost 6 months without any open cases, the longest in the history of the Committee.

• Technology report: Data centre switchover a tentative success
  On 22 January, WMF staff and contractors switched incoming, non-cached requests (including edits) to the Foundation's newer data centre in Ashburn, Virginia, making it responsible for handling almost all regular traffic. For the first time since 2004, virtually no traffic will be handled by the WMF's other facility in Tampa, Florida.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 00:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Your free 1-year Questia online library account is approved and ready

Good news! You are approved for access to 77,000 full-text books and 4 million journal, magazine, newspaper articles, and encyclopedia entries. Check your Wikipedia email!

• • Then go to https://www.questia.com/specialoffer
  • Input your unique Offer ID and Promotional code. Click Continue. (Note that the activation codes are one-time use only and are case-sensitive).
  • Create your account by entering the requested information. (This is private and no one from Wikipedia will see it).
  • You'll then see the welcome page with your Login ID. (Your account is now active for 1 year!).
• If you need help, please first ask Ocaasi at wikiocaasi@yahoo.com and, second, email QuestiaHelpcengage.com along with your Offer ID and Promotional Code (subject: Wikipedia).
• A quick reminder about using the account: 1) try it out; 2) provide original citation information, in addition to linking to a Questia article; 3) avoid bare links to non-free Questia pages; 4) note "(subscription required)" in the citation, where appropriate. Examples are at WP:Questia/Citations.
• Questia would love to hear feedback at WP:Questia/Experiences
• Show off your Questia access by placing {{User:Ocaasi/Questia_userbox}} on your userpage
• When the 1-year period is up, check the applications page to see if renewal is possible. We hope it will be.

Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi 18:26, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Questia email failure: Will resend codes

Sorry for the disruption but apparently the email bot failed. We'll resend the codes this week. (note: If you were notified directly that your email preferences were not enabled, you still need to contact Ocaasi). Cheers, User:Ocaasi 21:16, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Questia email success: Codes resent

Check your email. Enjoy! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 21:41, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 January 2013

• In the media: Hoaxes draw media attention
  On New Year's Day, the Daily Dot reported that a "massive Wikipedia hoax" had been exposed after more than five years. The article on the Bicholim conflict had been listed as a "Good Article" for the past half-decade, yet turned out to be an ingenious hoax. Created in July 2007 by User:A-b-a-a-a-a-a-a-b-a, the meticulously detailed piece was approved as a GA in October 2007. A subsequent submission for FA was unsuccessful, but failed to discover that the article's key sources were made up. While the User:A-b-a-a-a-a-a-a-b-a account then stopped editing, the hoax remained listed as a Good Article for five years, receiving in the region of 150 to 250 page views a month in 2012. It was finally nominated for deletion on 29 December 2012 by ShelfSkewed—who had discovered the hoax while doing work on Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs—and deleted the same day.

• Recent research: Lessons from the research literature on open collaboration; clicks on featured articles; credibility heuristics
  A special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist is devoted to "open collaboration".

• WikiProject report: Checkmate! — WikiProject Chess
  When we challenged the masters of WikiProject Chess to an interview, Sjakkalle answered our call. WikiProject Chess dates back to December 2003 and has grown to include 4 Featured Articles and 15 Good Articles maintained by over 100 members. The project typically operates independently of other WikiProjects, although the project would theoretically be a child of WikiProject Board and Table Games (interviewed in 2011). WikiProject Chess provides a collection of resources, seeks missing photographs of chess players, and helps determine ways that Wikipedia's coverage of chess can be expanded.

• Discussion report: Administrator conduct and requests
  New discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

• News and notes: Khan Academy's Smarthistory and Wikipedia collaborate
  To many Wikimedians, the Khan Academy would seem like a close cousin: the academy is a non-profit educational website and a development of the massive open online course concept that has delivered over 227 million lessons in 22 different languages. Its mission is to give "a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere." This complements Wikipedia's stated goal to "imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge", then go and create that world. It should come as no surprise, then, that the highly successful GLAM-Wiki (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) initiative has partnered with the Khan Academy's Smarthistory project to further both its and Wikipedia's goals.

• Featured content: Listing off progress from 2012
  This week, the Signpost featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured lists. We interviewed FLC directors Giants2008 and The Rambling Man as well as active reviewer and writer PresN.

• Arbitration report: Doncram continues
  The Doncram case has continued into its third week.

• Technology report: Developers get ready for FOSDEM amid caching problems
  As reported in last week's "Technology Report", the WMF's data centre in Ashburn, Virginia took over responsibility for almost all of the remaining functions that had previously been handled by their old facility in Tampa, Florida on 22 January. The Signpost reported then that few problems had arisen since handover. Unfortunately that was not to remain the case, with reports of caching problems (which typically only affect anonymous users) starting to come in.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 19:09, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 February 2013

• Special report: Examining the popularity of Wikipedia articles
  On February 12, 2012, news of Whitney Houston's death brought 425 hits per second to her Wikipedia article, the highest peak traffic on any article since at least January 2010. It is broadly known that Wikipedia is the sixth most popular website on the Internet, but the English Wikipedia now has over 4 million articles and 29 million total pages. Much less attention has been given to traffic patterns and trends in content viewed.

• News and notes: Article Feedback Tool faces community resistance
  Article feedback, at least through talk pages, has been a part of Wikipedia since its inception in 2001. The use of these pages, though, has typically been limited to experienced editors who know how to use them.

• WikiProject report: Land of the Midnight Sun
  This week, we took a trip to WikiProject Norway. Started in February 2005, WikiProject Norway has become the home for almost 34,000 articles about the world's best place to live, including 16 Featured Articles, 19 Featured Lists, and nearly 250 Good Articles. The project works on a to do list, maintains a categorization system, watches article alerts, and serves as a discussion forum.

• Featured content: Portal people on potent potables and portable potholes
  This week, the Signpost's featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured portals, a small yet active part of the project. We interviewed FPOC directors Cirt and OhanaUnited.

• In the media: Star Trek Into Pedantry
  On 30 January 2013, Kevin Morris in the Daily Dot summarised the bitter debates in Wikipedia around capitalisation or non-capitalisation of the word "into" in the title of the upcoming Star Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness.

• Technology report: Wikidata team targets English Wikipedia deployment
  Following the deployment of the Wikidata client to the Hungarian Wikipedia last month, the client was also deployed to the Italian and Hebrew Wikipedias on Wednesday. The next target for the client, which automatically provides phase 1 functionality, is the English Wikipedia, with a deployment date of 11 February already set.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 02:48, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Seven

Check out the Teahouse Genie Badge, awarded for solving issues on the Teahouse Wishlist.

Hello again! We have some neat updates about the Teahouse:

• We’ve added badges! Teahouse awards is a pilot project to learn how acknowledgement impacts engagement and retention in Teahouse and Wikipedia.

• We’ve got a new WikiLove Badge script that makes giving badges quick and easy. Add it here. You can give out badges to thank helpful hosts, welcome guests, acknowledge great questions and more.

• Come join the experiment and let us know what you think!

• And...for all of your great work and all of the progress that you've helped the Teahouse make, we hereby award you the Host Badge:

	Teahouse Host Badge
	Awarded to hosts at the Wikipedia Teahouse. Experienced editors with this badge have committed to welcoming guests, helping new editors, and upholding the standards of the Teahouse by giving friendly and patient guidance—at least for a time. Hosts illuminate the path for new Wikipedians, like Tōrō in a Teahouse garden. Earn more badges at: Teahouse Badges

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here

Thanks again! Ocaasi 01:58, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 February 2013

• Op-ed: An article is a construct – hoaxes and Wikipedia
  Wikipedia has a long, daresay storied history with hoaxes; our internal list documents 198 of the largest ones we have caught as of 4 January 2013. Why?

• Featured content: A lousy week
  Six articles, one list, and fourteen pictures were promoted to "featured" states this week on the English Wikipedia.

• WikiProject report: Just the Facts
  This week, we got the details on WikiProject Infoboxes.

• In the media: Wikipedia mirroring life in island ownership dispute
  Foreign Policy has published a report on editing of the Wikipedia articles on the Senkaku Islands and Senkaku Islands dispute. The uninhabited islands are under the control of Japan, but China and Taiwan are asserting rival territorial claims. Tensions have risen of late—and not just in the waters surrounding the actual islands.

• News and notes: UK chapter governance review marks the end of a controversial year
  Wikimedia UK, the non-profit organization devoted to furthering the goals of the Wikimedia movement in the United Kingdom, has published the findings of a governance review conducted by Compass Partnership.

• Discussion report: WebCite proposal
  Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

• Technology report: Wikidata client rollout stutters
  The WMF's engineering report for January was published this week.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 09:02, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

New Article Feedback version available for testing

Hey all.

As promised, we've built a set of improvements to the Article Feedback Tool, which can be tested through the links here. Please do take the opportunity to play around with it, let me know of any bugs, and see what you think :).

A final reminder that the Request for Comment on whether AFT5 should be turned on on Wikipedia (and how) is soon to close; for those of you who have not submitted an opinion or !voted, it can be found here.

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 February 2013

• WikiProject report: Thank you for flying WikiProject Airlines
  This week, we put our life in the hands of WikiProject Airlines. Starting in July 2005, the project has improved articles relating to airline companies, alliances, destination lists, and travel benefit programs. WikiProject Airlines has accumulated over 4,000 pages, including 4 Featured Articles and 26 Good Articles.

• Technology report: Better templates and 3D buildings
  As of time of writing, twenty wikis (including the English, French and Hungarian Wikipedias) are in the process of getting access to the Lua scripting language, an optional substitute for the clunky template code that exists at present.

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation declares 'victory' in Wikivoyage lawsuit
  On February 15, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) declared 'victory' in its counter-lawsuit against Internet Brands (IB), the owner of Wikitravel and the operator of several online media, community, and e-commerce sites in vertical markets. The lawsuit clears the last remaining hurdles for the WMF's new travel guide project, Wikivoyage.

• In the media: Sue Gardner interviewed by the Australian press
  Sue Gardner's visit to Australia sparked a number of interviews in the Australian press. An interview published in the Daily Telegraph on 12 February 2013, titled "Data plans 'unnerving': Wikipedia boss", saw Gardner comment on Australian plans to store personal internet and telephone data. The planned measure, intended to assist crime prevention, would involve internet service providers and mobile phone firms storing customer usage data for up to two years.

• Featured content: Featured content gets schooled
  Two articles, nine lists, and thirteen pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 19:57, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note

First of all, welcome back. And secondly, thanks for the note you left on WP:RPP. Anyway, Bollyjeff contacted both IP and Bongaliaa on their talk pages but there were no responses from them, they just went on adding the same materials over and over again. I also requested for protection earlier and was suggested to report the user to admin by HJ Mitchell when they edit again. So, I reported Bongaliaa to WP:AIV but was sent to WP:BLP/N where I left a note about the issue. Do you have any suggestions regarding the issue? Torreslfchero (talk) 11:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the message. I'm only nominally back, but thanks for the welcome. The very first step I'd suggest is making a note on the talk page of the actual article - that is a central place and should catch anyone interested in improving it. A note on the talk pages of the involved editors linking them to the discussion would help too - it'll let them feel involved in editing, rather than feel that they're just being reverted. That also allows us to assume good faith - they may genuinely want to improve the article. If you do that and they are either unresponsive or continue to be disruptive, we can look at further action; ideally, we won't get to that point. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 12:50, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Seven (special Birthday recap)

A celebratory cupcake from the Teahouse Birthday Badge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Ocaasi and the rest of the Teahouse Team 20:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To add or remove yourself for receiving future newsletters, please update the list here

The Teahouse Turns One!

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

	Teahouse First Birthday Badge
	Awarded to everyone who participated in the Wikipedia Teahouse during its first year! To celebrate the many hosts and guests we've met and the nearly 2000 questions asked and answered during this excellent first year, we're giving out this tasty cupcake badge. Earn more badges at: Teahouse Badges

--Ocaasi and the rest of the Teahouse Team 22:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 February 2013

• In the media: Ex-WMF trustee creates "Wikipedia Corporate Index" for PR agency
  On 13 February 2013, PR Report, the German sister publication of PR Week, published an article announcing that PR agency Fleishman-Hillard was offering a new analysis tool enabling companies to assess their articles in the German-language Wikipedia: the Wikipedia Corporate Index (WCI).

• Recent research: Wikipedia not so novel after all, except to UK university lecturers
  "Wikipedia and Encyclopedic Production" by Jeff Loveland (a historian of encyclopedias) and Joseph Reagle situates Wikipedia within the context of encyclopedic production historically, arguing that the features that many claim to be unique about Wikipedia actually have roots in encyclopedias of the past.

• News and notes: "Very lucky" Picture of the Year
  The Wikimedia Commons 2012 Picture of the Year contest has ended, with the winner being Pair of Merops apiaster feeding, taken by Pierre Dalous. The picture shows a pair of European Bee-eaters in a mating ritual—the male bird (right) has tossed the wasp into the air, and he will eventually offer it to the female (left).

• Discussion report: Wikivoyage links; overcategorization
  Current discussions include...

• Featured content: Blue birds be bouncin'
  Six articles, three lists, and twelve images were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this month.

• WikiProject report: How to measure a WikiProject's workload
  How can we measure the challenges facing a project or determine a WikiProject's productivity? Several prominent projects have been doing it for years: WikiWork.

• Technology report: Wikidata development to be continued indefinitely
  Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) this week committed itself to funding the Wikidata development team, ending fears that phase three would be abandoned.

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 06:33, 28 February 2013 (UTC)