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User talk:Ncmvocalist/Archive 10

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Latest comment: 5 years ago by Gerda Arendt in topic Precious anniversary
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Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Can you please tell me how you loaded the pages of Tag&Assess 2008 with article links for assessment? Can we also tempt you to return to editing full time with this version of Tag & Assess? AshLin (talk) 15:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

Sorry I didn't see your message on my talk page in February until now, but I see you've sorted it out now so all is good! Keep up the good work! Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:58, 29 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 05 March 2012

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WikiProject India Tag & Assess 2012 Contest

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Hello friends, we are a number of editors from WikiProject India have got together to assess the many thousands of articles under the stewardship of the project, and we'd love to have you, a fellow member, join us. These articles require assessment, that is, the addition of a WikiProject template to the talk page of an article, assessing it for quality and importance and adding a few extra parameters to it.

As of March 11, 2012, 07:00 UTC, WikiProject India has 95,998 articles under its stewardship. Of these 13,980 articles are completely unassessed (both for class and importance) and another 42,415 articles are unassessed for importance only. Accordingly, a Tag & Assess 2012 drive-cum-contest has begun from March 01, 2012 to last till May 31, 2012.

If you are new to assessment, you can learn the minimum about how to evaluate from Part One of the Assessment Guide. Part Two of the Guide will help you learn to employ the full functionality of the talk page template, should you choose to do so.

You can sign up on the Tag & Assess page. There are a number of awards to be given in recognition of your efforts. Come & join us to take part in this exciting new venture. You'll learn more about India in this way.

ssriram_mt (talk) & AshLin (talk) (Drive coordinators)

Delivered per request on Wikipedia:Bot requests. The Helpful Bot 01:24, 12 March 2012 (UTC) The Helpful Bot 01:24, 12 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 12 March 2012

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The Signpost: 19 March 2012

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The Signpost: 26 March 2012

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The Signpost: 02 April 2012

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Dispute resolution survey

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Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite

Hello Ncmvocalist. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five 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 had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 11:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 09 April 2012

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The Signpost: 16 April 2012

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The Signpost: 23 April 2012

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The Signpost: 30 April 2012

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Glad to see you back

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Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi, You have been an inspiration and motivation for me in Carnatic music area and glad to see you back... New juice is flowing in me already. Regards, VasuVR (talk, contribs) 04:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the note; I'm flattered! :) Will pop in every now and then to see how things are, and move them along. Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 07 May 2012

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Talkback

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Hello, Ncmvocalist. You have new messages at Hasteur's talk page.
Message added 06:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.Reply

Hasteur (talk) 06:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Urgent Help and Warning: the IP address, 212.121.219.1 is engaging in serious hacking activities, not just simple acts of vandalism in the other Wikipedia encyclopedias.

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Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Urgent Help and Warning: the IP address, 212.121.219.1 is engaging in serious hacking activities, not just simple acts of vandalism in the other Wikipedia encyclopedias.

Warning: the IP address, 212.121.219.1 registered to Oldham MBC public libraries, and which is permanently blocked in English Wikipedia since 2009, is the source of serious hacking activities. Today on 14 May 2012 other vulnerable Wikipedia encyclopedias are under attack from this address where it is not blocked. This source is capable of hacking Wikipedia, as it is the case today in the other Wikipedia encyclopedias, because it has erased the history archives for instance in the Azerbaijan articles of the Wikipedia encyclopedias and is doing it in other country articles as well, which no simple vandal can do. This source is freely roaming and usurping right now.

Can anyone inform the administrators of the other Wikipedia encyclopedias and help them against the IP address, 212.121.219.1, because most of the small Wikipedia encyclopedias are vulnerable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.224.23.137 (talk) 21:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 14 May 2012

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The Signpost: 21 May 2012

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Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough

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Resolved by motion that:

FoF 8 (Unblocking of SmackBot) changed to:

Rich Farmbrough has on many occasions, after another administrator has placed a block on his bot account, used his administrative tools to unblock his own bot without first remedying the underlying issue to the blocking admin's satisfaction or otherwise achieving consensus for such unblock (see block logs of SmackBot, Helpful Pixie Bot).

Notifying you as you were a main participant in the amendment discussion.

For the Arbitration Committee,

-- Lord Roem (talk) 15:13, 28 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 28 May 2012

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The Signpost: 04 June 2012

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The Signpost: 11 June 2012

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RFAR Perth opened

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An arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Perth. Evidence that you wish the Arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence sub-page, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Perth/Evidence. Please add your evidence by July 5, 2012, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can contribute to the case workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Perth/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Lord Roem (talk) 18:10, 14 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia Help Survey

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Hi there, my name's Peter Coombe and I'm a Wikimedia Community Fellow working on a project to improve Wikipedia's help system. At the moment I'm trying to learn more about how people use and find the current help pages. If you could help by filling out this brief survey about your experiences, I'd be very grateful. It should take less than 10 minutes, and your responses will not be tied to your username in any way.

Thank you for your time,
the wub (talk) 18:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC) (Delivered using Global message delivery)Reply

The Signpost: 18 June 2012

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Perth Move Review closure

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I am not sure how you find my closure of the move review disruptive (to what?). It was made in isolation of the Arbcom which I understand has little to do with the original close, but more about behaviors after that. I closed a Move Review (so far I am the only admin ever to do so) in a way I believed was consistent with the new Move Review process. As to my rationale, I believe that WP:RMCI does indeed weigh concensus versus policy interpretation very clearly, and that closing an RM in the spirit and intent of WP:RMCI does indeed demonstrate consideration of consensus. I believe the participants in the move review by and large supported that position. I have no problem with you bringing me into this contentious situation if that's what you desire. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:31, 22 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

Have replied to your email. Orderinchaos 09:58, 23 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

Note

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Latest comment: 13 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Hello, you left a note on my page, and I am not entirely sure why. I followed the link you included, but it goes to a page I have neither read nor contributed to, and I cannot see any reference to myself on that side either. Time is at a bit of a premium at the moment (you know, real-life things like earning a living and keeping the wolves from the door) and screeds of wikilawyering is just the type of thing guaranteed to make me long for a wikibreak. Can you please clarify exactly what it is you would like me to do, and why. (I understand I may have said something complimentary about a fellow Scot at some point. I would be happy to do so again if you feel it to be necessary.) --Mais oui! (talk) 13:17, 25 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

The particular discussion I linked to in this diff concerns the policy that specifies admins should not be involved when taking administrative action. The user who commented in that diff is suggesting that you may have been among the participants who "lauded" Deacon "as a key contributor to Scottish topics" on the Wikiproject Scotland talk page, and that therefore, when he took administrative action on the Perth article(s), he "left himself open to the perception of a conflict of interest" for his admin action. As a courtesy, I wished to make you aware that comment(s) you made are being commented on. By letting you know, you have an opportunity to comment regarding what you said, what you intended to convey, whether or not you think that Deacon would fit the definition of an involved admin due to his former/present membership with Wikiproject Scotland, or any other relevant comment you wish to make in relation to what you said there. Of course, it is up to you whether or not you wish to use that opportunity, but I figure that choice should be given to you first so that you can decide for yourself rather than others making that decision for you. Sorry for the lack of clarity. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:24, 25 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
I really do appreciate the time and the effort that you put in to your reply. Thank you. How on earth you (and others) can expend so much effort on something so mind-bogglingly trivial is genuinely a matter of utter wonder to myself (and no doubt the vast majority of normal people).
I am going to turn down your offer of becoming involved in any way in this infantile pseudo-legal case. It is palpably obvious that a User has been "caught in the act", has been justifiably countered, and is now using (and I mean "using") the Arbcom process to get his own way.
I am not only a member, but actually the founder of WikiProject Scotland. I fail to see how the original Move discussion was anything to do with my WikiProject, and we have not discussed it. No result of the (out of process) Move discussion would change the location of the Perth, Scotland article, and I personally voted for a Close As Out of Process, as it was obviously taking place in the wrong forum. It would be a grave error to think that all the members of our WikiProject are all flag-waving patriots and bravehearts. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, several past and current members actively employ themselves in trying to denigrate the country: something I have zero objection to, as long as their contributions satisfy WP:VERIFY and other official policy.
On a personal note, may I just say that Scots (if they are even aware of it, which many are not) take pride in our "daughter" cities around the world: the Australian Perth, the Texas Dallas, the New Zealand Dundedin. We wish them well.
Deacon by the way is a million miles from being a shallow flag-waver for Scotland. He is an intellectual and a scholar, not a populist. He gives every appearance in fact of disliking populism. I myself have had run-ins with him in the past, for example over the Scots language, which he appears to consider to be a big practical joke we just made up to wind-up our southern neighbours. And he has a point. He used to infuriate me with his anti-Scots edits, but over the years I have come to respect his point of view, and his work on the language issue(s) has certainly altered my own opinions of that topic.
I hope that you realise that you and your team are being taken advantage of. I feel sorry for everyone (and I mean every single one) involved, and I therefore reserve my right to not be one of them. --Mais oui! (talk) 04:45, 26 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 25 June 2012

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Reply

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It's probably more a matter of how I've handled similar situations in the past. Usually it's just an editor unaware of the bird exemption, so I revert with an edit summary explaining why. Sometimes an editor comes back asking for clarification, which I give, that usually suffices, occasionally it's discussed as a policy on the project talk page or elsewhere (there really isn't any sensible rationale for changing the case in individual bird articles, all or none). When it became clear that the other editor in this case wasn't going to discuss or stop reverting, I should have involved someone else. I think the torrential rain and lightning has addled my brain. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:32, 28 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure my input would be welcome, but I'll sleep on it anyway Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:51, 28 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

Re : Oversighting

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Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Unfortunately, not for this case because the oversightable info was left there for over 80 edits. This is why we usually ask that any oversightable information be edited out as soon as possible, especially for pages with high traffic such as AN/I. - Mailer Diablo 06:19, 1 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 02 July 2012

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WT:BLOCK

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Sorry I got impatient on the block page (I sometimes think I must have a cripplingly low boredom threshold) but no, I could not face researching the sections above for warnings. Actually, proving my lack of clue, I sort of assumed that a user referred to in such terms was most probably Jack. :-) Bishonen | talk 18:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC).Reply

No worries, Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:55, 14 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 09 July 2012

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Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  • Special report: Reforming the education programs: lessons from Cairo
    Wikipedia has a long history of collaborating with educational institutions. The Schools and universities program — international and in many languages, but dominated by US institutions — started in 2003 and evolved case by case with little system. However, that changed in 2009 as Wikimedia embarked on its formal strategic process, and outreach in higher education came to be seen in terms of achieving explicit goals — especially that of increasing editor participation.
  • News and notes: Russian Wikipedia blackout; WMF tools; Wikitravel proposal revisited
    The Russian Wikipedia has been blacked out for 24 hours, ending 20:00 UTC Tuesday, as a protest against Russian State Duma Bill 89417-6, a bill currently before the Duma (the Russian parliament). Visitors to the Russian Wikipedia are confronted by the sign above in protest at a draconian internet censorship bill before the Duma. The Russian word for Wikipedia is crossed out in this banner, and the text says: "Imagine a world without free knowledge. The State Duma is currently conducting the second reading of a bill to amend the "Law on Information", which has the potential to lead to the creation of extra-judicial censorship of the Internet in Russia, including the closure of access to the Russian Wikipedia. Today, the Wikipedia community protests against censorship as a threat to free knowledge that is open to all mankind. We ask that you oppose this bill."
  • WikiProject report: Summer sports series: WikiProject Football
    This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Football, which focuses on the sport also known as association football or soccer. WikiProject Football is by far the largest sport project and one of the most active projects on Wikipedia in terms of the number of articles covered, edits to articles, and talk page watchers.
  • Featured content: Keeps on chuggin'
    Eight featured articles were promoted this week: ... Aries (constellation) by Keilana. Aries the Ram (symbol ♈) is one of the constellations of the Zodiac and one of 88 currently recognised constellations. Its area is 441 square degrees (1.1% of the celestial sphere). Although fairly dim, with only three bright stars, it is home to several deep-sky objects.
  • Arbitration report: Three requests for arbitration
    No cases were closed or opened, leaving the number of open cases at three. ... The case concerns alleged misconduct with regards to aggressive responses and harassment by Fæ toward users who question his actions.
  • Technology report: Optimism over LastModified and MoodBar, but change in clock time causes downtime
    The results from last month's trial of the LastModified extension were published this week on the Wikimedia blog. The first analyses have indicated a significant positive impact, suggesting that the extension – which makes the time since a page's last edit much more prominent in the interface – could eventually find its way onto Wikimedia wikis.

The Signpost: 16 July 2012

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  • Special report: Chapters Association mired in controversy over new chair
    User:Fæ was elected as the inaugural chair of the new Wikimedia Chapters Association, despite the controversies that have surrounded Fæ on the English Wikipedia and Commons, most recently aired in a live case before the Arbitration Committee. This is in marked contrast with unexciting movement, during the Wikimania meeting, on the most important issues facing the establishment of the association.
  • News and notes: WMF enacts reforms at Wikimania; main page redesign; 4 millionth article milestone
    During Wikimania (July 12-15), the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) board finalized and enacted long-discussed reforms of the movement's financial structures, and considered procedures for creating new ways for Wikimedians to organize themselves into offline communities. The board moved on the controversial image filter issue, approved the 2012–13 annual plan, and issued a statement on the wikitravel proposal. It also appointed the two new chapter-selected trustees and elected the four office-bearers.
  • WikiProject report: Summer sports series: French WikiProject Cycling
    With the Tour de France in its final week, we traveled to the French Wikipedia for a chat with Projet Cyclisme (WikiProject Cycling). The French Wikipedia places a greater emphasis on portals than the English Wikipedia, which explains why WikiProject Cycling and its discussion page are actually extensions of the Cycling Portal. The project is home to two Article de Qualité (equivalent to Featured Articles) and eight Bon Article (Good Articles), primarily biographies of cyclists.
  • Discussion report: Discussion reports and miscellaneous articulations
    A brief overview of the current discussions on the English Wikipedia, including one regarding the purpose of the Community Portal. Started by Maryana, a Wikimedia Foundation employee, is this page for new users to be educated about the community, or is it for experienced users to find updates about the community?
  • Wikimania: Young chapter shows experience beyond its years
    Nearly 1400 Wikimedians and others from 87 countries descended on the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C., for Wikimania 2012. Even with an unprecedented number (1400) of conference attendees — the previous two Wikimanias, held in Gdańsk (Poland) and Haifa (Israel), were attended by fewer than 1100 people combined – Wikimania 2012 was a complete success, with attendees' reaction to the conference coming out as ecstatic and laudatory.
  • Featured content: Taking flight
    Eight featured articles were promoted this week, including Paul McCartney by GabeMc. McCartney (born 1942) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and composer. He gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and his collaboration with John Lennon is highly celebrated. After the band's break-up he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings. McCartney has been described by Guinness World Records as the "most successful composer and recording artist of all time", and his song "Yesterday" has been covered more than any other song in history.
  • Technology report: Tech talks at Wikimania amid news of a mixed June
    As Wikimania, the annual conference targeted at Wikimedians and often well attended by those with a technical slant, draws to a close, comments have already begun to come in from attendees regarding the many tech-related features of the conference.
  • Arbitration report: Fæ faces site-ban, proposed decisions posted
    No cases were closed or opened, leaving the number of open cases at three. A new remedy in the Fæ case calls for him to be indefinitely banned from the site after his attempts to solicit intervention from the Foundation, claiming that publicly listing all his accounts would be too onerous due to "ongoing security risks." He was further criticised for attempting to dodge good-faith concerns; the committee believes that if Fæ's claims are valid then he must be removed from the community.

The Signpost: 23 July 2012

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Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  • Paid editing: Does Wikipedia pay? The skeptic: Orange Mike
    Does Wikipedia pay? is an ongoing 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.
  • From the editor: Signpost developments
    The Signpost's goal is to provide readers with essential information about the Wikimedia movement and the English Wikipedia – both of which have become large and extremely complex institutions that require timely, balanced and in-depth coverage.
  • News and notes: Chapter head speaks about the aftermath of Russian Wikipedia shutdown
    Two weeks ago the Signpost reported that the Russian Wikipedia had just begun a 24-hour blackout in protest at a bill that was before the Russian parliament that proposed mechanisms to block IP addresses and DNS records. The protest, implemented after on-wiki consensus was reached during the preceding days, concerned the potential of the amendment to the information law to allow extra-judicial censorship of the internet in Russia, including the closure of access to the Russian Wikipedia. Among the questions now are how effective the blackout was and where we go from here in terms of internet freedom in one of the world's biggest and most influential countries.
  • WikiProject report: Summer sports series: WikiProject Olympics
    With the 2012 Summer Olympic Games beginning this weekend in London, we decided to catch up with the chaps at WikiProject Olympics. The last time we interviewed WikiProject Olympics was in February 2010 when the project was gearing up for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. We wanted to know how the project has grown since then and whether preparing for a Summer Olympics was more grueling.
  • Op-ed: The future of PR on Wikipedia
    There has never been a better time to improve the behavior of marketing professionals on Wikipedia. For the first time we're seeing self-imposed statements of ethics. Professional PR bodies around the globe have supported the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) guidance for ethical Wikipedia engagement. Although their tone is different, CREWE and the PRSA have brought more attention to the issues. Awareness among PR professionals is rising. So are the number of paid editing operations sprouting up and the opportunity for dialogue.
  • Featured content: When is an island not an island?
    One featured article was promoted this week, Melville Island. A small peninsula in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, it was discovered by Europeans in the 1600s and initially used for storehouses. The land was purchased by the British and used to hold prisoners of war, then to receive escaped slaves from the United States. After being used as a place of quarantine and later a recruitment centre, the land was granted to Canada in 1907 and used to house prisoners of war. It is now home to the clubhouse and marina of the Armdale Yacht Club.

WQA

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Latest comment: 13 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

At the WQA, what would you have done differently? IRWolfie- (talk) 14:42, 26 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Instead of "Do not make baseless accusations against me, or involve me in your dispute.", something like "Not sure what long term pattern you are talking about or how that is relevant to whether WLU has actually made personal attacks. Though you've made some claims, I don't think the evidence you have given supports those claims. But I can't comment as to whether other uninvolved editors agree with me or not." As to the closing, the allegation is about civility so NWQA is actually not right. I wouldn't put any tag on it; more reasoned discussion may have produced some better outcome. If not, or if that was all that could be done and I must put a tag on it, perhaps "stuck" to say no resolution between parties. ANI might be (in part) correct for wikihounding, and AN3 for edit-warring, but I would not have recommended either venue unless the request specifically asked for admin action. Would not have made the comments dated 23 July either; need to know when to let it go stale unless he is genuinely wanting some perspective - in which case direct answers to the questions would be more helpful. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)Reply
Cheers for the response, I agree, in hindsight, that I should have let it go stale. I pointed to ANI because there was an active and ongoing discussion on the wikiproject medicine page about this topic that was getting very messy. Some of the editors also have a large history of previous interactions with each other . IRWolfie- (talk) 15:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)Reply


Thanks

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Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Thanks for commenting at ANI. It was good to see a new face there. I wasn't given a chance to act on your input before the RFC/U, but my talk page will auto-archive in two weeks anyway. Not sure if I'll be around then. Given the persistent and well-supported hounding, I'm not sure I want to be. BitterGrey (talk) 07:57, 28 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Since Bittergrey has been indef'd for probable libel and not chosen to appeal it for almost two weeks now, it would probably be a good idea for someone to mothball Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bittergrey. There's no possibility of a voluntary resolution between the parties when one of them is blocked, and therefore no need to keep it open. It should probably be tagged with the usual note about being re-opened when/if he ever reappears. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:06, 12 August 2012 (UTC)Reply

Your comments

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Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Don't be dick. Because someone disagrees with you doesn't make his/her statement incompetent. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 20:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)Reply


The Signpost: 30 July 2012

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Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  • WikiProject report: Summer sports series: WikiProject Horse Racing
    We continue our Summer Sports Series this week with WikiProject Horse Racing. Started in November 2005, the project has grown to include nearly 8,000 articles maintained by 34 active members. There are 10 Featured Articles and 19 Good Articles included in the project's scope. In addition to preparing articles for GA and FA status, the project attempts to create requested articles and locate requested images. We interviewed Redrose64, Montanabw, Tigerboy1966, Ealdgyth, and Cuddy Wifter.
  • Featured content: One of a kind
    Eight new featured articles, five new featured lists, and eight new featured pictures. The highlights include a new featured picture of Frank Sinatra, created by William P. Gottlieb and nominated by Tomer T. Sinatra (1915–98) was a highly successful American singer and film actor whose career spanned 60 years. This image dates from around 1947.
  • Arbitration report: No pending or open arbitration cases
    Arbitrator Kirill Lokshin proposed a motion requiring the alteration of any instances of an editor's previous username in arbitration decisions to reflect their name changes. The Devil's Advocate has initiated an amendment request for the controversial Race and intelligence case.

The Signpost: 06 August 2012

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Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  • Op-ed: The Athena Project: being bold
    At this year's Wikimania, I [Brandon Harris] gave a talk entitled The Athena Project: Wikipedia in 2015. The talk broadly outlined several ideas the foundation is exploring for planned features, user interface changes, and workflow improvements. We expect that many of these changes will be welcomed, while others will be controversial. During the question-and-answer period, I was asked whether people should think of Athena as a skin, a project, or something else. I responded, "You should think of Athena as a kick in the head" – because that's exactly what it's supposed to be: a radical and bold re-examination of some of our sacred cows when it comes to the interface.
  • News and notes: FDC portal launched
    On August 1, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) portal was launched on Meta. The FDC will implement the Wikimedia movement's new grant-orientated finance structure in accordance with the WMF board's recent resolutions. As a volunteer committee, the FDC will make recommendations to the WMF board on a $11.4 million budget for 2012–13.
  • Arbitration report: No pending or open arbitration cases
    Arbitrator Kirill Lokshin proposed a motion for a procedure on the alteration of an editor's previous username(s) in arbitration decisions to reflect their name change(s). ... The Devil's Advocate initiated an amendment request for the controversial Race and intelligence case.
  • Featured content: Casliber's words take root
    This week the Signpost interviews Casliber, an editor who has written or contributed significantly to a startling 69 featured articles. We learn what makes him tick, why he edits, and why he can write on everything from vampires to dinosaurs, birds to plants. He also gives some advice to budding featured article writers.
  • Technology report: Wikidata nears first deployment but wikis go down in fibre cut calamity
    The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for July 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). ... At least one fibre-optic cable was damaged at the WMF's Tampa site on August 6, leading to a sharp downwards spike in traffic lasting over an hour and almost three hours of disruption for readers around the globe.
  • WikiProject report: Summer sports series: WikiProject Martial Arts
    This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Martial Arts. Since April 2004, the project has been the hub for discussion and improvement of martial arts articles, including all disciplines and national origins. The project maintains a variety of conventions for handling the names and descriptions of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Sikh, Filipino, Okinawan, and hybrid martial arts. WikiProject Martial Arts has spawned or absorbed several subprojects focusing on boxing, kickboxing, sumo, and mixed martial arts.

The Signpost: 13 August 2012

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  • Op-ed: Small Wikipedias' burden
    In a certain way, writing Wikipedia is the same everywhere, in every language or culture. You have to stick to the facts, aiming for the most objective way of describing them, including everything relevant and leaving out all the everyday trivia that is not really necessary to understand the context. You have to use critical thinking, trying to be independent of your own preferences and biases. To some effect, that's all there is to it. Naturally, Wikipedians have their biases, some of which can never be cured. Most Wikipedians tend to like encyclopedias; but millions of people in the world don't share that bias, and we represent them rather poorly. I'm also quite sure that an overwhelming majority of Wikipedia co-authors are literate. Again, that's not true for everyone in this world. Yet we have other, less noticeable but barely less fundamental biases.
  • News and notes: Bangla-language survey suggests the challenges for small Wikipedias
    The Bangla language, also known as Bengali, is spoken by some 200 million people in Bangladesh and India. The Bangla Wikipedia has a very small active community of about ten to fifteen very active editors, with another 35–40 as less active editors. The project faces particular challenges in being a small Wikipedia, and Dhaka-based WMF community fellow User:Tanvir Rahman is working to understand these challenges and to develop strategies that can improve small wikis that have strong potential to expand their editing communities.
  • Featured content: On the road again
    Six featured articles were promoted this week, including Business US Highway 41, which was a state trunkline highway that served as a business loop in Marquette in the US state of Michigan.
  • Technology report: "Phabricating" a serious alternative to Gerrit
    Three weeks into a month-long evaluation of code review tool Gerrit, a serious alternative has finally gained traction in the review process: Facebook-developed but now independently operated Phabricator and its sister command-line tool Arcanist.
  • WikiProject report: Dispute Resolution
    This week, we interviewed the lively bunch at WikiProject Dispute Resolution. Started in November 2011 to study and discuss improvements to Wikipedia's resources for resolving disputes between editors, the young project has supplemented dispute resolution efforts currently handled at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, Mediation Committee, and other venues. Over 40 editors have signed up to provide feedback, a variety of ideas have been proposed, and a manual for dispute resolution has been created.

The Signpost: 20 August 2012

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  • Op-ed: Wikimedians are rightfully wary
    The Wikimedia Foundation sometimes proposes new features that receive substantive criticism from Wikimedians, yet those criticisms may be dismissed on the basis that people are resistant to change—there's an unjustified view that the wikis have been overrun by vested contributors who hate all change. That view misses a lot of key details and insight because there are good reasons that Wikimedians are suspicious of features development, given past and present development of bad software, growing ties with the problematic Wikia, and a growing belief that it is acceptable to experiment on users.
  • News and notes: Core content competition in full swing; Wikinews fork taken offline
    The Core Contest is a month-long competition among editors to improve Wikipedia's most important "core" articles—especially those that are in a relatively poor state. Core articles, such as Music, Computer, and Philosophy, tend to lie in the trunk of the tree of knowledge; by analogy, featured-and good-article processes generally attract more specialist topics out on the branches.
  • In the news: American judges on citing Wikipedia
    In the Utah Court of Appeals this week, the majority opinion in Fire Insurance Exchange v. Robert Allen Oltmanns and Brady Blackner relied on Wikipedia for the basic premise of their legal opinion, and included a concurring opinion devoted solely to the issue of citing Wikipedia in a legal opinion.
  • Featured content: Enough for a week – but I'm damned if I see how the helican.
    Thirteen featured articles were promoted this week, including pelicans, which are a genus of large water birds comprising the family Pelecanidae, characterised by a long beak and large throat-pouch. They have a fossil record dating back at least 30 million years and are most closely related to the Shoebill and Hammerkop. These fish-feeders have a patchy relationship with humans: the birds are sometimes persecuted and sometimes feature in mythology.
  • Technology report: Lua onto test2wiki and news of a convention-al extension
    New embeddable scripting ("template replacement") language Lua received considerable scrutiny this week when it began its long road to widespread deployment, landing on the test2wiki test site on Wednesday (wikitech-l mailing list). ... the fourth in our series profiling participants in this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) programme.
  • WikiProject report: Land of Calm and Contrast: Korea
    This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Korea. Started in September 2006, WikiProject Korea covers the history and culture of the Korean people, including both countries that currently occupy the Korean peninsula. This task has proven difficult with North Koreans notably absent from the Wikipedia community due to tight control over access to external media. The project is home to over 16,000 pages, including 15 pieces of Featured material and 66 Good and A-class Articles.

The Signpost: 27 August 2012

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  • News and notes: Tough journey for new travel guide
    Wikimedia editors have been debating a community proposal for the adoption of a new project to host free travel-guide content. The debate reached a new stage when a three-month request for comment on Meta came to an end, with a decision to set up the first new type of Wikimedia project in half a decade. The original proposal for the travel guide unfolded during April on Meta and the Wikimedia-l mailing lists, centring around the wish of volunteer contributors to the WikiTravel project to work in a non-commercial environment.
  • Technology report: Just how bad is the code review backlog?
    Developers were left one step closer to an understanding of the code review outlook this week after the creation of a graph plotting "number changesets awaiting review" over time. The chart, which also shows the number of new changesets created on a daily basis, reveals a peak in the number of unreviewed changesets in mid-July, followed by a short drop. The current figure stands at approximately 219 unreviewed changesets.
  • Featured content: Wikipedia rivals The New Yorker: Mark Arsten
    This week the Signpost interviews Mark Arsten, who has written or contributed significantly to ten featured articles; most have related to new religious movements, and some have touched on other controversial or quirky topics. Mark gives us a rundown on how he keeps neutral and what drives him to write featured content; he also gives some hints for aspiring writers.
  • WikiProject report: From sonic screwdrivers to jelly babies: Doctor Who
    This week, we hopped in a little blue box with a batch of companions from WikiProject Doctor Who. Started in April 2005, the project has grown to include about 4,000 pages about the world's longest-running science fiction television show, its spinoffs, and various related material. The project is the parent of the Torchwood Taskforce and a child of WikiProject British TV and WikiProject Science Fiction. With new Doctor Who episodes airing this week and a 50th anniversary celebration around the corner, we thought now would be a good time to inquire about the famed Time Lord.

The Signpost: 03 September 2012

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  • News and notes: World's largest photo competition kicks off; WMF legal fees proposal
    Some of Wikimedia's most valuable photographs have been shot and uploaded under free licenses as a direct result of the annual Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) event each September. Last year, the project was conducted on a European level, resulting in the submission of an extraordinary 168,208 free images of cultural heritage sites ("monuments") from 18 countries, making it the world's largest photographic competition. Organising the 2012 event—which has just opened and will run for the full month of September—has required input from chapters and volunteers in 35 countries.
  • Technology report: Time for a MediaWiki Foundation?
    Developers are currently discussing the possibility of a MediaWiki Foundation to oversee those aspects of MediaWiki development that relate to non-Wikimedia wikis. The proposal was generated after a discussion on the wikitech-l mailing list about generalising Wikimedia's CentralAuth system.
  • Featured content: Wikipedia's Seven Days of Terror
    Five featured pictures were promoted this week, including a video explaining the recent landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. NASA called the final minutes of the complicated landing procedure "the seven minutes of terror".
  • Op-ed: Dispute resolution – where we're at, what we're doing well, and what needs fixing
    Since May 2012 I've been a Wikimedia Foundation community fellow with the task of researching and improving dispute resolution on English Wikipedia. Surveying members of the community has revealed much about their thoughts on and experiences with dispute resolution. I've analysed processes to determine their use and effectiveness, and have presented ideas that I hope will improve the future of dispute resolution.

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

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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?

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

The Signpost: 10 September 2012

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  • From the editor: Signpost adapts as news consumption changes
    Thanks to the initiative of Yuvi Panda and Notnarayan, the Signpost now has an Android app, free for download on Google Play. ... but would readers be interested in an iOS app for Apple devices?
  • Op-ed: Fixing Wikipedia's help pages one key to editor retention
    Much like article content, the English Wikipedia's help pages have grown organically over the years. Although this has produced a great deal of useful documentation, with time many of the pages have become poorly maintained or have grown overwhelmingly complicated.
  • 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).

The Signpost: 17 September 2012

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 24 September 2012

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

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  • 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

The Signpost: 08 October 2012

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 15 October 2012

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

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  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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.

The Signpost: 29 October 2012

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 05 November 2012

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  • 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?
  • 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.

The Signpost: 12 November 2012

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 19 November 2012

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 26 November 2012

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  • 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.
  • 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.

Information

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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) 09:37, 29 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 03 December 2012

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

The Signpost: 10 December 2012

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 17 December 2012

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  • 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.
  • 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.

The Signpost: 24 December 2012

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 31 December 2012

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  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

The Signpost: 07 January 2013

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 14 January 2013

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  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

The Signpost: 21 January 2013

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 28 January 2013

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  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

The Signpost: 04 February 2013

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 11 February 2013

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

The Signpost: 18 February 2013

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  • 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.

The Signpost: 25 February 2013

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  • 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).
  • 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.

The Signpost: 04 March 2013

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  • Op-ed: We must do more to turn readers into editors
    Recently I was having a casual conversation with a friend, and he mentioned that he spent too many hours a day playing video games. I responded with a comment that I, too, spent way too much time on an activity of my own – Wikipedia. In an attempt to reply with a relevant remark, he offered something along the lines of: "So have you ever written anything?" After a second, I quickly answered yes, but I was still in shock over his question. It seemed to be rooted in a belief on his part that using Wikipedia meant just reading the articles, and that editing was something that someone, hypothetically, might do, but not really more likely than randomly counting to 7,744.
  • News and notes: Outing of editor causes firestorm
    "WP:OUTING", the normally little-noticed policy corner of the English Wikipedia that governs the release of editors' personal information, has suddenly been brought to wider attention after long-term contributor and featured article writer Cla68 was indefinitely blocked last week. This snowballed into several other blocks, a desysopping by ArbCom, and a request for arbitration.
  • Featured content: Slow week for featured content
    Three articles, six lists, and three pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including the article on "Laura Secord", who was a Canadian heroine of the War of 1812 best known for warning the British of an impending American attack.
  • WikiProject report: WikiProject Television Stations
    This week, we tuned to WikiProject Television Stations, a project that dates back to March 2004. WikiProject Television Stations primarily focuses on local stations, national networks, television markets, and other topics related to television channels in North America, the Caribbean, and some Pacific countries. The project has a fair bit of work ahead of them with over 4,000 unassessed articles and only one Good Article out of 626 assessed articles, giving the project a relative WikiWork rating of 5.262.

The Signpost: 11 March 2013

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  • From the editor: Signpost–Wikizine merger
    I am pleased to announce that the Signpost and Wikizine have reached an in-principle agreement that will see Wikizine published as a special Signpost section at the beginning of each month.
  • News and notes: Finance committee updates
    During March, three of the Wikimedia Foundation's grantmaking schemes on Meta will reach important crossroads, which will shape how both the editing communities and Wikimedia institutions handle the distribution of donors' money across the movement.
  • Featured content: Batman, three birds and a Mercedes
    Twelve articles, five lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including an image of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, a front-engine, 2-seat luxury grand tourer automobile developed by Mercedes-AMG.
  • WikiProject report: Setting a precedent
    This week, we spent some time with WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court Cases.
  • Technology report: Article Feedback reversal
    The WMF has aborted a plan to deploy version 5 of the Article Feedback tool (AFTv5) rolled out to all English Wikipedia articles.

The Signpost: 18 March 2013

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  • News and notes: Resigning arbitrator slams Committee
    Just two months into his second term as an arbitrator on the English Wikipedia, Coren resigned from the Committee with a blistering attack on his fellow arbitrators. At the heart of a strongly worded statement, posted both on his talk page and the arbitration notice board, was the claim that ArbCom has become politicised to the extent that "it can no longer do the job it was ostensibly elected for".
  • WikiProject report: Making music
    This week, we composed a tribute to WikiProject Composers. The project was created during the final hours of 2004 and finalized in early January 2005. It has grown to encompass over 8,000 pages, including 26 Featured Articles and 23 Good Articles. WikiProject Composers faces a difficult workload, with a relative WikiWork rating of 5.45.
  • Interview: Meeting in the middle: Wikipedia and libraries
    Ask librarians what they think about Wikipedia and you might get some interesting answers. Some will throw up their hands about the laziness of the Google generation and their overdependence on Wikipedia. Some see it as the "competition". And some will tell you it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
  • Featured content: Wikipedia stays warm
    Nine articles, seven lists, eleven images, and one topic were promoted to "featured status" this week on the English Wikipedia.
  • Arbitration report: Richard case closes
    On Thursday, arbitrator Coren resigned, following closely on the heels of Hersfold's resignation on Wednesday. There are two open cases. A final decision has been given in the Richard case.
  • Technology report: Visual Editor "on schedule"
    The WMF's engineering report for January was published this week, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month.

The Signpost: 25 March 2013

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  • Featured content: One and a half soursops
    Seven articles, one list, six pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
  • Arbitration report: Two open cases
    This case, brought by Mark Arsten, was opened over a dispute over transgenderism topics that began off-wiki. The evidence phase was scheduled to close March 7, 2013, with a proposed decision due to be posted by March 29.
  • News and notes: Sue Gardner to leave WMF; German Wikipedians spearhead another effort to close Wikinews
    Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation since December 2007, has announced her plans to leave the position when a successor is recruited. Ranked as one of the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine, Sue Gardner is widely associated with the rise of the Wikimedia movement as a major custodian of human knowledge and cultural products.
  • Technology report: The Visual Editor: Where are we now, and where are we headed?
    Since its inception in May 2011, the Foundation's Visual Editor project has grown to become one of its main focuses. As the project nears its two-year birthday, the Signpost caught up with Visual Editor project manager James Forrester to discuss the progress on the project.

The Signpost: 01 April 2013

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  • Special report: Who reads which Wikipedia?
    The Wikimedia Foundation has released its latest report card for the movement's hundreds of sites. The WMF has published statistics about the sites since 2009, but only recently have these been expanded in scope and depth to provide a rich source of data for investigating the movement and the world it serves. Dutch-born Erik Zachte is the driver of the WMF's statistical output, and he writes that the report card and accompanying traffic statistics comprise "enough tables, bar charts and plots to keep you busy for a while".
  • WikiProject report: Special: FAQs
    This week's Report is dedicated to answering our readers' questions about WikiProjects. The following Frequently Asked Questions came from feedback at the WikiProject Report's talk page, the WikiProject Council's talk page, and from previous lists of FAQs.
  • Featured content: What the ?
    The Signpost interviewed prolific featured content creator and former Signpost "featured content" report writer Crisco 1492 about ? and Indonesian cinema. ? was the "Today's featured article" for 1 April 2013. 1 April is popularly known as April Fools' Day in many countries.
  • Arbitration report: Three open cases
    A case brought by Lecen involves several articles about former Argentinian president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).

The Signpost: 08 April 2013

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  • Wikizine: WMF scales back feature after outcry
    Numerous Wikimedia Commons editors have chimed in on the Wikimedia Foundation's deployment of a new feature to its mobile website. Allowing anonymous users to register and upload pictures for use in an article, the feature was placed prominently at the top of Wikipedia articles in multiple languages.
  • WikiProject report: Earthshattering WikiProject Earthquakes
    This week, we felt the world tremble in the presence of WikiProject Earthquakes. The project was started in May 2008 to deal with articles about earthquakes, aftershocks, seismology, seismologists, plate tectonics, and related articles. While the project has seen success building 14 Featured Articles, one A-class Article, and 21 Good Articles, a fairly heavy workload remains, with a relative WikiWork rating of 4.94. WikiProject Earthquakes maintains a portal, a list of open tasks, a popular pages listing, and an article alerts watchlist.
  • News and notes: French intelligence agents threaten Wikimedia volunteer
    Last Friday, the Wikimedia movement awoke to news that one of their number—Rémi Mathis, a French volunteer editor—had been summoned to the offices of the interior intelligence service DCRI and threatened with criminal charges and fines if he did not delete an article on the French Wikipedia about a radio station used by the French military.
  • Arbitration report: Subject experts needed for Argentine History
    The arbitration committee is looking for expertise in Argentina and the Spanish language for a case involving former Argentinean president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).
  • Featured content: Wikipedia loves poetry
    Four articles and two pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
  • Technology report: Testing week
    The deployment of phase 2 of Wikidata to the English Wikipedia, originally scheduled for 8 April but delayed due to technical problems, may be rescheduled again as the result of community resistance.

The Signpost: 15 April 2013

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  • Op-ed: How do we fix RfA inactivity?
    The RfA process is widely discussed here on the English Wikipedia and it has been well documented that less and less new Requests for adminship are being filed. There are an abundance of bytes devoted to the discussion and analysis of this situation and plenty of hands have been wrung over the matter. Various RfCs have attempted to find a way to fix the problem. Many proposals have been made offering solutions, some more potentially drastic than others, with the goal of making the changes necessary to kick–start RfA back into regular action. However, Wikipedia operates based on consensus and, to this point, there are have simply been too many disagreeing views for us to reach a consensus on how to increase RfA activity.
  • WikiProject report: Unity in Diversity: South Africa
    This week, we ventured to WikiProject South Africa. The project was started in February 2005 and is home to thirteen pieces of featured material, two A-class articles, and twenty-one good articles.
  • News and notes: Another admin reform attempt flops
    The most recent move to reform the requests for adminship process on the English Wikipedia has failed, after a complex and drawn-out three-step procedure for community input was subject to decreasing participation as time wore on and came up with no clear consensus.

The Signpost: 22 April 2013

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  • WikiProject report: WikiProject Editor Retention
    This week, we spent some time with a project that develops tools and methods for improving the user experience in the hope that new users will continue editing the encyclopedia. The project was started in July 2012 and has grown to include 124 members. The project's members partner with the Teahouse and the Welcoming Committee to spread WikiLove, welcome new users, encourage civility, and other related activities.
  • News and notes: Milan conference a mixed bag
    The Wikimedia Conference is an annual meeting of the chapters to discuss their status and the organisational development of the Wikimedia movement. For the first time it included groups that wish to be considered for WMF affiliation as thematic organisations and one of the three groups that was recently affiliated as a user group. The conference was also attended by members of the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), the WMF Affiliations Committee, and a representative of the Wikivoyage Association.
  • Featured content: Batfish in the Red Sea
    Nine articles, four lists, eight pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
  • Technology report: A flurry of deployments
    On Monday, the English Wikipedia became the 12th wiki to be able to pull data from the central Wikidata.org repository, with other wikis scheduled to receive the update on Wednesday.

The Signpost: 29 April 2013

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  • News and notes: Chapter furore over FDC knockbacks; First DC GLAM boot-camp
    The Funds Dissemination Committee released its recommendations to the WMF board last Sunday. The news that the Hong Kong chapter's application for US$212K had failed was followed by a strongly worded resignation announcement by Deryck Chan on the public Wikimedia-l mailing-list.
  • In the media: Wikipedia's sexism; Yuri Gadyukin hoax
    On 24 April 2013, novelist Amanda Filipacchi published what turned out to be an influential op-ed in the New York Times; illuminating the unusual background of the Yuri Gadyukin hoax.
  • Featured content: Wiki loves video games
    Nine articles, three lists, three pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" this week.
  • WikiProject report: Japanese WikiProject Baseball
    This week, we traveled to the Japanese Wikipedia's WikiProject Baseball for perspectives from a version of Wikipedia that treats WikiProjects as their own unique namespace (プロジェクト:) independent of "Wikipedia:".

The Signpost: 06 May 2013

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  • News and notes: Candidates nominating for Foundation elections; Looking ahead to Wikimania 2014
    Although not yet in great numbers, candidates are coming forward for Wikimedia Foundation elections, which will be held from 1 to 15 June. The elections will fill vacancies in three categories, the most prominent of which will be the three community-elected seats on the ten-member Board of Trustees (or the first Board meeting after the election results are announced, if sooner). The current two-year terms for these trustee positions ends on 1 September.
  • Technology report: Foundation successful in bid for larger Google subsidy
    The Wikimedia Foundation will be receiving more than $100,000 worth of free developer time courtesy of internet giant Google, it was announced this week. The funds, allocated as part of Google's Summer of Code programme, will support up to 21 student developers through three months of coding time.
  • Featured content: WikiCup update: full speed ahead!
    May sees the beginning of Round 3 of the 2013 WikiCup, with 33 of the original 127 competitors remaining. ... six articles, ten pictures, and two portals were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
  • In the media: New Wikipedia for Schools edition; Anders Behring Breivik's Wikipedia contributions
    The SOS Children's Villages news service advised on 3 May 2013 that Wikipedia for Schools 2013 is nearly ready for release. ... On 26 April 2013, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation published an article reviewing Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik's edits to the English Wikipedia, where it revealed the name of Breivik's English Wikipedia account.
  • WikiProject report: Earn $100 in cash... and a button!
    This week's English Wikipedia project, WikiProject Biophysics, is home to several experts in their fields and a collaboration with the Biophysical Society. The project is hosting a contest through July 15 with six contributors winning $100 in cash and given the opportunity to attend the 2014 meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Francisco. Other strong entries will be awarded barnstars online and everyone who contributes can receive a physical button mailed out to them.

The Signpost: 13 May 2013

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  • News and notes: WMF–community ruckus on Wikimedia mailing list
    The removal of administrator rights from all volunteers on the Wikimedia Foundation's official website sparked a highly emotional reaction on the Wikimedia-l mailing list—one of the largest off-wiki methods of communication for the Wikimedia movement.
  • WikiProject report: Knock Out: WikiProject Mixed Martial Arts
    This week, we spent some time watching WikiProject Mixed Martial Arts, which was started in August 2005 and has grown to include 12 Good Articles and a Featured List.

The Signpost: 20 May 2013

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  • WikiProject report: Classical Greece and Rome
    This week, we traveled to WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. The project was started in May 2006 and has 37 featured articles.
  • In the media: Qworty incident continues
    Salon.com published another article detailing the ongoing incidents with Wikipedia user Qworty, who has identified himself as Robert Clark Young. It documents Qworty's role in the controversy involving Amanda Filipacchi's op-ed, which kindled a debate on Wikipedia sexism as it relates to categories, where Qworty was responsible for a series of revenge edits against Filipacchi in the days after she released her op-ed.
  • Featured content: Up in the air
    Nine articles, six lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.

The Signpost: 27 May 2013

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  • News and notes: First-ever community election for FDC positions
    Alongside the Signpost's interviews with the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees candidates, the Signpost asked the candidates for the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and its Ombudsperson position a series of questions relating to the positions they may be taking on. For the FDC candidates, this will include specific recommendations to the WMF on how to disburse over US$11 million in donors' funds to affiliate organizations, something which appears to have garnered little attention from the editing community at large so far.
  • In the media: Pagans complain about Qworty's anti-Pagan editing
    In the continuing saga of User:Qworty's outing as author Robert Clark Young, several blogs and websites covered the now-banned user's anti-Pagan editing. In an article published on 22 May 2013, TechEye described Qworty's edits as a "reign of terror" and were pleased to find that he had not succeeded in removing several prominent Pagan biographies from the encyclopedia.
  • WikiProject report: WikiProject Geographical Coordinates
    This week, we plotted out the demarcations of WikiProject Geographical Coordinates, which aims to create a single standard of handling coordinates in Wikipedia articles.
  • Featured content: Life of 2π
    Twelve articles, four lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
  • Technology report: Amsterdam hackathon: continuity, change, and stroopwafels
    Second only to the technical track of Wikimania in terms of numbers, the Berlin Hackathon (2009–2012) provided those with an interest in the software that underpins Wikimedia wikis and supports its editors a place to gather, exchange ideas and learn new skills.

The Signpost: 05 June 2013

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  • From the editor: Signpost developments
    I am excited to announce that a Portuguese-language journal, Correio da Wikipédia has been launched by Vitorvicentevalente. It has just published its third edition, and I encourage readers who speak the language to read and contribute to its already-expansive coverage of the Portuguese Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement.
  • Featured content: A week of portraits
    Five articles, four lists, and thirteen images were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
  • Discussion report: Return of the Discussion report
    This is mostly a list of requests for comment believed to be active on 4 June 2013 linked from subpages of Wikipedia:RfC or watchlist notices.
  • In the media: China blocks secure version of Wikipedia
    An article on TheNextWeb.com says that the Chinese Government has effectively blocked Wikipedia by cutting off access to the HTTP Secure (https) "workaround", almost completely cutting off access to those in China.
  • WikiProject report: Operation Normandy
    This week, we reflect on the anniversary of D-Day by storming the shores of Operation Normandy, a special initiative of WikiProject Military History.

The Signpost: 12 June 2013

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  • News and notes: How Wikimedia affiliates are spending $8.4 million; PRISM scandal
    Late last year, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) awarded $8.4 million in donors' money to 11 Wikimedia entities, including the Wikimedia Foundation and 10 nationally defined chapters. Under this arrangement, these organisations are required to issue quarterly reports on how far they have progressed towards their declared programmatic and financial goals. The FDC has now announced that all 11 completed and submitted their reports by the 1 April deadline, and have responded to each.
  • Featured content: Mixing Bowl Interchange
    Seven articles, two lists, five pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
  • In the media: VisualEditor will "change world history"
    In an article published by the Huffington Post's United Kingdom edition, writer Thomas Church asserts that the new VisualEditor will change history, literally. It says that Wikipedia's mark-up language has been to its advantage, as most people didn't bother trying to learn it
  • Op-ed: The tragedy of Wikipedia's commons
    I've long thought that we should get rid of the Wikimedia Commons as we know it. Commons has evolved into a project with interests that compete with the needs of the primary users of Commons and the reason it was created. It's also understaffed, which results in poor curation, large administrative backlogs, and poor policy development.
  • Traffic report: Who holds the throne?
    Last week's most popular article list on the English Wikipedia was dominated by the massively popular TV series Game of Thrones, which claimed six slots in the top 25, including the top three. Its popularity was likely stoked by the most recent episode, The Rains of Castamere. Bollywood continued to increase its share of views as well, aided by the tragic suicide of star Nafisa Khan.
  • WikiProject report: Processing WikiProject Computing
    This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Computing. Started in October 2003, the project has grown to include 17 featured articles, 11 featured lists, 3 pieces of featured media, and 80 good articles.

Request for draft RFC/U review

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Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

You're said to be an expert on these matters. While I am sure you're busy, would you be able to take a look here and grant some feedback? MezzoMezzo (talk) 07:40, 15 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Nice to see you back

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Latest comment: 12 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

Hello there, Nice to see you back... Hope you will be a bit active again... Regards. VasuVR (talk, contribs) 17:37, 22 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi! :) Thanks; nice to see someone familiar even after all this time. I'm not expecting to be online very often at this point, but more than before. Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:39, 25 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Just checked in today after a while off-wiki and was pleasantly surprised to see you at ANI. Good to see you back and hope you're here to stay! --regentspark (comment) 23:35, 12 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hiya...your return has made my day...I have not seen you online in ages! Actually, I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly VasuVR noticed my return (barely made a few edits I think), but it was depressing when I found that so many went on wikibreak or were not longer active - yourself included. At the time I left, I could see the ultimate fate of the project and accepted it, but I'm here with the mindframe that it can be delayed at least. It's funny that with so many neat bells and whistles (improvements technically to the site) since I left, the deeper issues and fundamental problems thrive in a lot of ways and still chip away at the roots; that part is a pity and I don't miss it at all. Anyway, I am very pleased to see you back also, and hope you've had a well-rested break - and that you're staying for as long as I am here at the very least. :) Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:32, 13 May 2014 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. But, this is merely a curiosity visit. Wikipedia is, unfortunately, a time sink of colossal proportions with no obvious real life return and I find that it detracts from the many other things I would like to do. Fowler has the right approach to editing here. Edit for a few months and then disappear for long periods of time. My goal is to emulate him as far as possible :) But it is good to see you providing your common sense perspective again - much needed on wiki. --regentspark (comment) 18:37, 13 May 2014 (UTC)Reply
That's a fair point, and my findings are fairly indifferent. I expect I will be following a similar example too. :) As for common sense perspective, I find that attempts are too often made to drown or discourage it, as it usually does not bode well with the other agendas being pushed around at this place. Unfortunately, the product doesn't match what is said on the label/packaging. Overall, that's when it seems that the time, effort, stress, or hassle is simply not worth it. Well, I hope you do hang around for a bit longer at least, but I can't blame you and will probably follow suit soon. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:17, 14 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Pono (digital music service)

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Latest comment: 12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is a tendency (on the Internet), in the domain of Digital Audio, to misinform people and I have been a victim of this for too long. I have found that people on Internet want to harm the movement of PonoMusic and music itself as an art form and they refuse to understand anything else beside conservative studies that are around ~92 years old. These people are uneducated about the subject and/or have hidden agenda. I want this to change as I strongly believe in high definition music. Sorry for the numerous edits, I don't write often. Joey192 (talk) 17:15, 19 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Scholarlyarticles

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Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Thanks for the close and your summary. --NeilN talk to me 16:10, 24 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

You're welcome. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:14, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Thanks Ncmvocalist. I'm a bit new to this. I've noticed many discussions about me (of which i was not informed)- a bit difficult to grasp (or even find) at once. The most serious charge was WP:Libel charged leveled against me by Neil|N in connection with James Rosemond. May I or he address that on the BLP board where I believe it is most appropriate? Of course I would need clear archives on James Rosemond. As they stand they are illegible and appear to have been corrupted. Would it be possible to get clear chronological archives on the subject? It would be impossible to argue the data with this. Gotta work. I'll check back on your page in a few day on your talk board. BestScholarlyarticles (talk) 16:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Par for the course. Accusations without a diff. And competence issues as no archives have been "corrupted". --NeilN talk to me 00:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Disruption? What disruption? What was disrupted by my action?

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Latest comment: 12 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

There is nothing more disruptive than closing an ongoing discussion. True serious disruption involves article space. This is about a discussion on a talk page - a discussion which is the hallmark of how we achieve consensus on Wikipedia. If you want to accuse me of me being disruptive by reopening that discussion, then please explain what or who exactly was "disrupted" by my action. It's like accusing someone of stealing without identifying what was stolen. Without a stolen object, there has been no stealing. Without a disrupted article, activity or person, there is no disruption. Please identify what you believe was disrupted by my action, or rescind your accusation. An apology would be appropriate as well. --B2C 16:41, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

An apology for what? While it might be your personal view that true serious disruption involves or is limited to the article space, the fact that behavioral policies and guidelines have been effected by the Community for all pages on Wikipedia should indicate to you that true serious disruption is not limited to the article space and extends to talk pages too.
Yes, a talk page is a venue where discussions occur so that a consensus can be reached on Wikipedia, but as you would have read from my comment, the policy against edit-warring applies to any page on Wikipedia. If you felt that an action to close a discussion on the article talk page was disruptive, or you were not happy with the conflict evident from the edit-war, or you yourself had a dispute that there was or was not consensus, you are expected to comply with policies and guidelines by utilising Wikipedia dispute resolution. The fact is: you chose not to.
To make matters worse, you also chose to actively breach policies and guidelines by engaging in battleground behaviour. This is evident from your incivility or inflammatory bad faith accusations/assumptions about other contributors (even now), and when you prolonged or participated in the edit war - and to be even clearer than in my comment above, your reversion to reopen the discussion was not exempt from the policy against edit-warring. This type of conduct is disruptive to the editing atmosphere and to the project.
Of course, you may disagree with the behavioral requirements imposed on you through these policies and guidelines, or the extent of the disruption caused by breaching the same. If that's the case, you can seek a community consensus to change the policies and guidelines. However, if you fail to adhere to the requirements in the meantime, your account may end up blocked or you may be banned from the project. Although I personally hope you will voluntarily make changes to your approach very soon so that neither would be necessary, it's beyond my control whether you actually do or not. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:51, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
When I close discussions due to a good faith application of SNOW, I don't start slapping people with trouts when they are reopened. Neither should you. Re-opening a closed discussion is prima facie evidence that the discussion was closed prematurely. That's all. It's a good faith close; but mistaken. So it's reopened. If it's mistakenly closed again, it can be re-opened again. A repeated closing is obviously disruptive - disruptive to those who are trying to develop consensus through the discussion that is being closed. The re-opens are not disruptive - they're not disruptive to anyone.

If you think a discussion is unnecessary, stupid, or pointless, ignore it. Don't engage. Walk away. Do something else. But don't prevent those who wish to participate from participating. There would have been no edit-warring in this case if nobody had tried to suppress discussion. Reverting a close of an ongoing discussion is not edit warring - it's the R in BRD. If you think a discussion is over, then boldly close. Fine. But if a close is reverted, then join the discussion or walk away. Don't close again. It's called BRD; not BRBRBRBR. And opening up a discussion at AN/I about a discussion you want to close is ridiculous.

It's like people are talking in the town square, perhaps quarreling some, but everything is peaceful. Then some newly deputized thugs come in who decide the discussion is "disruptive" (or some other trumped up charge) and try to break up the discussions. Thankfully in the free world such behavior is unconstitutional. But on WP apparently there is no freedom of speech (and no, nobody was doing anything close to yelling "fire!" in a theater). That's wrong. Nobody should ever be penalized for trying to develop consensus through discussion. Ever. Attempting to reaching consensus through discussion should be encouraged in practice, just as it is in policy.

I, for one, am deeply disappointed with your behavior and the lack of respect you have demonstrated to editors who were doing nothing wrong — just trying to develop consensus about a title by discussing a move proposal — and understandably reverting those who attempted to stop them. --B2C 00:38, 26 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

You say that there would have been no edit-warring in this case if nobody had tried to suppress discussion, but the fact is, that reason does not make the edit-warring acceptable. Editwarring policy expressly says when it is acceptable to editwar, and this is not one of them. If you use that reason again in future to participate in an edit war, and your action is made in good faith, you still are at strong risk of being sanctioned for it. I think my attempts to make you and the others understand why to avoid that behaviour (and warn about the risks associated with that approach) are not disrespectful. In fact, my attempts weren't intended to be disrespectful either.
However, if you disagree, then the next appropriate step for you (and for that matter, any/all of the other users who were involved in this incident or who were slapped with a trout) to seek further input about my conduct using the appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms. I have faith that the community would agree that your disappointment was unjustified, and that as I've said, while you may have had the best of intentions (good faith), your behavior is still unacceptable for the reasons specified on your talk page.
As to why, policy does indeed say that if a bold action is reverted (BR), there should be discussion (D) - but it also says that is not appropriate to continue a series of reverts to reinstate or maintain some sort of status quo in the meantime. What I am suggesting is not BRBRBR as you indicate; what happened was simply BRRRRR. If the last reversion to re-open or close the discussion was unacceptable to you or any other user, consensus should be built by seeking dispute resolution. That is what is encouraged in policy, and is what is being encouraged in practice. The use of reverts is expressly discouraged in practice, in the same way that it is discouraged in policy. There was nothing to justify the rate at which reversions were made, and each of them was disruptive to the editing environment. If you don't agree with the policy in that you think it's wrong or you think "no one should be penalized", then you are achieving nothing by telling me about it; you need to (as I already indicated in my last reply) seek a community consensus to change the policy. In the meantime, by simply refusing to comply with it or ignoring it, you risk being sanctioned. It really is that simple. Good luck. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:22, 26 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

Two Qs for you

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Latest comment: 12 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

I was on your user talk page typing a message just as you added your apology/comment at the ANI. I think that was a really big step to take, and I applaud you for your initiative as it so happens. [...] Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:59, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

  1. Who do you perceive said apology is to?
  2. Who do you feel/think said apology should be to?

Ihardlythinkso (talk) 11:57, 3 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Please move on in accordance with the advice that many users have already given you. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:03, 4 May 2014 (UTC)Reply
It's so-so easy for anyone to advise "forget about it" when they aren't the offended party. And WP:STICK as an artificial and shallow meme used mostly to service the needs of the issuing user (be they bored, irritated, lazy, whatever) not the victim. I've seen you write lengthy commentary at other admins' Talks suggesting their behaviors in their adminships haven't been ideal or perfect. But I had no interest in such fine-tuning in my Qs to you, only recognition of a glaring problem and omission of who got an apology and for what. It's nearly impossible to get straight answers from admin, no one apparently likes to take any stand that could potentially irritate an admin who has already exposed themselved intellectually and ethically with bald and absurd statements in black & white here (example: admin Bwilkins back-tracking when I questioned him on the unaddressed blatant personal attack sent my way by Bushranger when Bwilins replied to me: "So what if you're a narcissist?" then later claimed the "you" in that retort was somehow not referring to me!). After amazingly stupid and grossly offensive and blatantly counter-policy stuff like that pushed in my face for my enjoyment, tell me again how easy it is to "forget about it" (paraphrase of your "move on"). Just for your info and to answer another confused editor wondering why I let something like this consume some of my attention and so forth, I don't see how sticking one's head in the sand accomplishes anything except to embolden the offender. Also I never waste my energy, so all the words and thoughts generated from me over the issues is and has helped me on my own work out what I can or cannot do, or want or do not want to do. Because the system is so corrupt here, unless people like me complain, why ever would it have any cause to change. p.s. This site makes me laugh, because it is the most dumbed-down place I've ever experienced beyond watching many of the old black & white The Three Stooges. "Rant" = "Diatribe" = anything anyone writes that another editor is irritated by or doesn't like and wants to criticize and issue ad hominem or deliver chilling threat over; "TL;DR" = any text of any length that another editor [... the same]; "TENDENTIOUS" = "BATTLEGROUND" = "NOTHERE" = any text anyone writes that another editor [... the same]; and my favorites: "He/she is a net negative for the encyclopedia" = "He/she is incapable of working collegially with other editors" = "He/she is apparently not suited to working on a collaborative project" = I-don't-like-this-editor-they've-miffed-me-so-come-one-come-all-with-torches-lit-to-help-ban-him/her-it-will-be-fun-and-we-get-to-take-out-our-hostilities-and-frustrations-with-life-in-general-all-in-the-guise-of-being-community-minded-editors-simply-following-policy-out-of-dedication-to-what's-best-for-the-encyclopedia-what-a-deal-ha-ha. Cheers, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 00:48, 20 May 2014 (UTC)Reply
There is a distinction between moving on and forgetting about it; I haven't asked that you do the latter. While I think you have some fair points, I don't think some of your remarks are justified, and I am not so convinced that you are aware when you have wasted your energy. For example, do you think you have taken enough time to think about (or given enough thought to) your comment before posting it here? As you appear pretty aware that you have rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, surely you would realise that someone will end up finding this gem of a comment you made to use as evidence against you at one point or another? Can you point to any instance where your "complaining" has caused any real "change" to the system here for the better? Or is this all just a facade to kill time that you have too much of? I find my time is too limited to do much at all, so any spare time is a pure luxury which I don't have enough of. And even after having had an extensive break from here, I've found that with the exception of some new technical features, the underlying and fundamental problems at this place have remained (and grown) - and aren't being weeded out at a reasonable rate. But like most websites, this is not for everyone. Sometimes it's worth acknowledging when to find something more useful to do with one's time - be it at this website, or whether or not to even spend more time contributing in relation to this one. There's certainly more worthwhile things/interests outside of Wikipedia which can be worth the time and pursuit. But either way, even at this site, I find people always end up reaping what they have sown in some form or another - even if it's not apparent on-wiki or an immediate consequence. It gets them personally often enough too. If you genuinely want to change something here more generally for the better though, when it comes to these sorts of issues, I think you are probably going to have to change the way you go about it because what you have attempted so far doesn't appear to have worked. Anyway, I have no more time I can afford to spare on it, so good luck. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:51, 20 May 2014 (UTC)Reply
I didn't expect your lengthy reply, I appreciate that, I can see you mean well. (There are numerous assumptions and presumptions you've made, however, that don't really apply to me.) Anyway, just so you know, I don't expect anything of you, and wouldn't lean on your time. (I wanted to have some interface w/ you however, in light of your comments to other admins.) I might have some minor answers for your minor Qs, however, I'll be sure to keep it short to not tie up your time. (Everyone's time is valuable in the end; but have you seen how gobs & gobs of time are spent in lengthy ANI/AN threads that are closed with the flippant or even appropriate and certainly classic as to reach meme-status: "Closing. More heat than light."?! Whyforever [does the culture here] start and continue tremendously lengthy threads consuming multiple editors' time, with result in such closes that essentially brand the experience a total loss of time? I guess my point is, if you think I'm wasting my time lately [which I don't see it that way however], then what of the down-the-sewer-significant-time-sinks that are so popular and reoccuring here as to reach meme status!?) Nice chatting w/ you -- you're nicer than I imagined you'd be; thx. Will reply with brevity in a week or so to your points. Cheers, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 02:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

RfC

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Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

As you participated in a previous related discussion you are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Administrators/RfC for an Admin Review Board. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:58, 19 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

‎Recent WP:AN post

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Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

This whole situation has arisen because people will not read what I have written. Let me be blunt: you failed to observe that I already told CIreland to make a request, so you gave me a long and irrelevant statement. Nyttend (talk) 13:47, 7 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Let me quote CIreland's comment from higher up on the same talk page where you just left messages. I might ask again when arbitration is concluded. Since I couldn't give him a good answer, and since he didn't feel like doing it now, I decided to be courteous and ask any other administrator for a good answer. You say it is irresponible to simply accede to a request made by an involved party in circumstances where you are not satisfied that you are informed enough to make a call. You're correct: that's why I went looking for an uninvolved administrator, and that's why uninformed and inaccurate comments like yours are thoroughly unwelcome. Nyttend (talk) 14:04, 7 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

James Clerk Maxwell

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Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Based on your comment at WP:ANI, it seems you have an idea of what this dispute has spawned, so would you like to add an entry for it at WP:LAME? Thryduulf (talk) 14:13, 26 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Thryduulf: OK, I've tried my hand at an entry there. I don't remember adding any entry there before (or in recent years anyway) so it felt a little bit new for me. Not sure if it can be edited to be more effective, so if you or anyone else feels that way, would be happy for it to be dealt with accordingly. :) Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:25, 28 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
Looks good to me, thanks! Thryduulf (talk) 19:03, 28 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Should we sockpuppet check Martin?

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Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Started filling this out, but it's a big project...


11 January 2015
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– This SPI case is new and awaits sorting by an SPI clerk or administrator.

Suspected sockpuppets

Martin Hogbin has been engaging in a largely one-man crusade against calling James Clerk Maxwell Scottish for some time now. Talk:James Clerk Maxwell has literally pages and pages of debates he's started, there's also Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Policy_on_nationality_statements, which he started, an RFC there, that he started. Attempts to change Nationality of people from the United Kingdom I don't think it's necessary to go into the whole history here, but you get the idea.

A number of IPs have poked up to support his views, most of them single purpose accounts. I'm using the list pointed out by Ncmvocalist here.

So:

86.145.98.85
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86.145.98.85 (talk · contribs · IP contribs · WHOIS) a check of their contributions shows them to be an SPA, outside of a previous edit back in 2008 (to be expected from a dynamic IP) His responses primarily consists of replies to Martin or others, backing up Martin's statements: e.g. , ("That I believe is the way Martin Hogbin put it.") - It's hard to know how much to describe, so I'm just going to give a few examples of him doing the same thing as Martin. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:07, 11 January 2015 (UTC)Reply


I'm reluctant to get involved in this I'm afraid (don't really have the time even if I wasn't).
I can say I haven't myself looked for possible sock/meat puppets in detail, and whatever little time and useful assistance I could provide is pretty much in my statement already. But if you can see a link from that material and after analysing other behavioural patterns, then I guess a sock check is a reasonable course of action.
The one other thing I have observed (which isn't in my statement) is that I do recall that Martin seemed to be involved in some arbcom cases previously (the ones I remember him participating in were Speed of light, Monty Hall problem, and Tree shaping). I really don't know or remember the extent of his involvement or whether there were issues with his conduct or whether he was helpful. But the only reason I mention it is because I did think it was weird I remembered that he was around in all of those matters when I was looking at this one.
Still, hope that helps and that the project succeeds in resolving the issues which are currently unresolved. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:06, 12 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
Rather hoping it shows he isn't one. It would be far preferable. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:29, 12 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
Well, his last couple of comments ended with something to the effect of Wikipedia was an "interesting social experiment" to him. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:40, 14 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

troll turning

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Latest comment: 11 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

re . Please explain how & why you turn the trolling into an error of me. -DePiep (talk)

DePiep, every user who commented there has said that it is not trolling, so it seems to me you are deliberately treading on thin ice. A proper characterisation may have been that his etiquette was not perfect (as he could have approached you personally), but it's so petty that it did not warrant the ANI request you posted. As to your other errors, if you properly indented your comment in the first place, or sensibly fixed your indenting after seeing the OD tag, there would likely be no issue. And in case you don't understand the issue with your indenting, see the way replies are indented between Dirtlawyer1 and Pigsonthewing in the comments immediately above Montanabw's comment, and compare that to the way you indented your reply to Montanabw. You just needed to take a bit more care. But editing his comment (particularly without fixing your indenting issue), and then sustaining an edit-war to change his comment in a way which he clearly did not agree to was terribly inappropriate. The incident, and the way you tried to handle it, has made it clear that you lack the judgment required when (1) editing other people's comments and (2) characterising edits as trolling or users as trolls, so again, I suggest you voluntarily refrain from doing either. Knock it off. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
"... that it is not trolling" - not true. Only one commenter said so. Lankiveil (you agreed with) even invented a whole new non-existing case. An other injected content discussion (unnoticed by you then).
"if you properly indented your comment in the first place" - Wrong. It was indented properly . You have based you conclusion on a wrong finding. It is brutal to then tell me to shut up and threat with restrictions. Next time you better be more careful.
"petty" -- does not change the facts. I am surprised that most commenters there stated it is a petty case (could be), and so conclude I am wrong. You too are mixing up this.
Andy's comment does not belong in the TfD. But since you sanctioned it, it now is promoted into an argument for the closer. Great. -DePiep (talk) 17:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you, Ncmvocalist. I have previously, more than once, asked DePiep not to break indenting in that manner. As here, he denies that there is a problem. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:55, 26 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
Also, Ncmvocalist, there is the risk of feeding the troll. They might show up gravedancing. -DePiep (talk) 19:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • OK, this last one was not helpful so I <s>truck. Ncmvocalist, I'm asking for a few days time to prepare a good post about this. I want to make an elaborated base, and make my points & questions & diffs. From a distance, the line "you are wrong and stop talking" is not appreciated. And I think I deserve a second consideration, with time. -DePiep (talk) 21:19, 26 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
    • DePiep, the proper indent is the indent used in the previous comment. So if it's a bullet point, you would indent like how I've done it in this reply (and how Dirtlawyer1 did in the diff ). If it's a threaded discussion without bullet points, you would do it in the same way you've done above. But when it's started as a bullet point, the indenting becomes broken if your reply is indented like this because anyone who wants to reply cannot follow the original indent style without the indenting becoming broken. I'm sorry to say that's all the time, and willingness I have to discuss this with you. So if you don't understand want to discuss it further, rather than come back here, you would better spend your time finding someone else to ask about this, or better still, moving on. Thanks and good luck. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:22, 27 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Airtel Super Singer Junior, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Bharathi. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Clarification request archived

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Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi. This is to let you know that I have archived an Arbitration Clarification request involving you to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling. For the Arbitration Committee, --L235 (talk) As a courtesy, please ping me when replying. 20:45, 8 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

HelP

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Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Please help improve This article Mahabharatham, Aathira (TV series). -- Arnav19 (talk) 19:30, 30 March 2015 (UTC) 178.194.86.7 (talk) 19:29, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Arnav19: Time is never something I have enough of but the sources in the Mahabharatham article are not very good; you should consider incorporating this and this into the article, and focus more on what is said in those two articles and incorporating that content. As for the Aathira article, I don't think it can be saved at this stage I'm afraid. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

"Bogus sourcing"

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Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

You tagged File:Spoorthi with the Title Trophy after winning the Super Singer Junior 4.jpg as having no source information, labeling the uploader's claim of having personally taken the photo himself as "bogus". Why? It's rather obvious from their contributions that Merinsan is strongly associated with Spoorthi, and while such a conflict of interest may prove problematic in other regards, it also means they may well be able to personally take photos of the subject they're writing about. For all I can tell, the image hasn't been published elsewhere, either, supporting the idea that it was specially created for Wikipedia. Thus I'd ask you to please explain what issues with the sourcing you see. Huon (talk) 19:28, 1 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Huon: I think merely asserting "own work" does not properly clarify whether the user has personally taken the photos, owns it, and was authorised to upload it here. Leaving aside my other concerns with the veracity of the assertions made by this user, the user has gone some way in clarifying it after my "label", and if that is all that is needed, I leave it there and withdraw the "label". By the way Huon (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), given that you think his editing only "may" prove problematic in some regards and given that you (like the other sysops) appear to have taken no action whatsoever in relation to the obvious problems (identified here) for almost 24 hours after it was reported, you would be right if you assumed I am declining to waste more time on this subject until further notice. Your request has given me a lot to think about, so thanks for that. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:10, 2 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
I'm sorry, but I don't keep a close eye on that particular noticeboard and wasn't aware of your report; neither had I looked into Merinsan's contributions in detail. They came to the IRC help channel and asked about the image, so that's what I looked into. The article has by now been protected, and a talk page discussion seems to be underway; no further action seems to be required right now. If you want me, specifically, to help with anything, you're welcome to leave me a message, but I can't guarantee I'm faster than the noticeboard. Huon (talk) 21:59, 2 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

hors de combat

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Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Per ArbCom case I am hors de combat on the blatant BLP issues involved, blatant SPA issues etc. on the "Spoorthi" BLP. You are, of course, correct - and no one is guarding the henhouse at all to speak of. I properly ought not even opine on the AfD per the "evidence" against me at this point. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Changes on Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U

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Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hello, I'm Ncmvocalist. I noticed that you made a change to an article, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, but you didn't provide a source. I’ve removed it for now, but if you’d like to include a citation to a reliable source and re-add it, please do so! If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:45, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I added a link to tri-Crescendo in the developers' reference because as they comment in their web page, they collaborate in the development of the videogames. You can see it in the following address (in japanese): http://www.tri-crescendo.co.jp/product_info.html

Please, revert the change when you can do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.42.43.30 (talk) 16:06, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

OK, I've self-reverted the change for now so that others can review and keep/improve/remove your insertion if necessary, but please bear in mind that it is always best to cite the source that you are relying on for content you insert on Wikipedia. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:13, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Teekyuu

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Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I edited the Teekyu article because it's actually called Teekyuu

Tēkyū

ē = ee

ū = uu

Therefore it's Teekyuu not Teekyu. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.77.237.117 (talk) 18:11, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

All of the sources provided in the references section of the article suggest that it's actually Teekyū, and one can only work according to the sources. If you have sources which show that it's actually Tēkyū, you'd best raise and discuss it on the the article talk page. If there's a consensus which supports what you are saying, the changes can be made and it may also possibly go some way towards changing the spelling of the article title too. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:17, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

The ANI report

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Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hello! Just a reminder: when you closed the ANI report, you forgot to sign as closer. --MelanieN (talk) 00:38, 7 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

I think I'm a bit late for that now, but thanks for that. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Wesley Livsey Jones

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Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

What was the problem with this? The source seems to support Jones' prior "Washington representative at large". Also U.S. REPRESENTATIVES FROM WASHINGTON The Wikipedia links on that addition appear consistent. Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 05:21, 7 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

I'm going to put that down to being a mistake on my part; I can't remember reviewing that content, making the revert or issuing the warning at all, and even on reviewing it now, it's not something I'd be comfortable making a call on. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Precious

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Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

vocal spiral
Thank you, veteran editor defined by appreciation, recognition and nice things, for contributions to articles about India, such as "lots of bits and pieces" on Carnatic music, for quality articles from Nithyasree Mahadevan to Zee Tamil Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2009 Challenge, for encouraging comments and warning of unconstructive editing, for Signpost arbitration reports, "There is a distinction between moving on and forgetting about it", and for voicing the spiral of justice (pictured) - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:41, 23 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Looking back through some of those things made me cringe but some of those things I'm rather pleasantly surprised with too. I suppose that's the reaction to be expected of a "veteran" editor though huh? ;) Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:43, 25 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
I was pleasantly surprised by you seeing a person where others saw only saw admin abuse, and I looked a bit deeper, but naturally only a bit. "Veteran editor" is for me anybody who is here longer than I am, so I will never be one ;) - You deserve the image, part of my memories.
Thank you for reflecting the Gerechtigkeitsspirale!

Did you know ... that a church's 1510 spiral of justice declares: "Justice suffered in great need. Truth is slain dead. Faith has lost the battle"?

The poem ends with "Praise the right thing".
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:55, 25 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
A year ago, you were recipient no. 1191 of Precious, a prize of QAI! - My friend, mentioned above, died in January. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:29, 23 April 2016 (UTC)Reply
Five years now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:53, 23 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

mistake in 2015 nepal earthquake

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Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Oh that was my mistake thai I didnt provide ref..sorry Oikuchu (talk) 16:01, 30 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Arbitration Case

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Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

The arbitration case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/OccultZone_and_Others has been opened. For the arbitration committee, Robert McClenon (talk) 17:52, 30 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

You were recently listed as a party to a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/OccultZone and others. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/OccultZone and others/Evidence. Please add your evidence by May 15, 2015, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/OccultZone and others/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 1 May 2015 (UTC) Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 1 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Nice to see you again

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Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Invitation to comment on VP proposal: Establish WT:MoS as the official site for style Q&A on Wikipedia

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Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

You are being contacted because of your participation in the proposal to create a style noticeboard. An alternate solution, the full or partial endorsement of the style Q&A currently performed at WT:MoS, is now under discussion at the Village Pump. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:28, 22 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Request to reassess quality scale

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Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi,

Seasons Greetings. This is a request to article Legal awareness, This article has complted three years since I started it on 24th May 2012 since then it has 257 edits and 42 distinct authors. If further supported the article may reach to GA level in future. As of now I want to include article on Law portal page. Undersigned requests to reassess the same on quality scale as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Law/Assessment, If you approve it for B class we can include it in Law portal.

Thanks and regards.

Mahitgar (talk) 04:34, 9 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks...

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Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

...For the link to the old clarification request. Yesterday I commented on AN that I remembered saying that closing an AE thread is an admin action, but could not find where I had said that and today you point to it. You've spared me from having to go through my old edits... Salvio Let's talk about it! 19:03, 27 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Salvio giuliano: Very welcome; I'm happy to have helped. I have to confess though that I dreaded that I'd have to go through old edits too. It was only as I typed the words "is open to resolving the concerns moving forward, or whether the admin wishes to behave as rigidly as other admins at AE have done previously", I remembered the case name and found the request there - much to my relief. =) Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:46, 27 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Please trim your statement at arbitration case requests

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Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi, Ncmvocalist. I'm an arbitration clerk, which means I help manage and administer the arbitration process (on behalf of the committee). Thank you for making a statement in an arbitration request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#AE closes, timelines, and independent admin actions. However, we ask all participants and commentators to limit the size of their initial statements to 500 words. Your statement significantly exceeds this limit. Please reduce the length of your statement when you are next online. If the case is accepted, you will have the opportunity to present more evidence; and concise, factual statements are much more likely to be understood and to influence the decisions of the Arbitrators.

For the Arbitration Committee, Liz Read! Talk! 21:33, 28 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi Liz (and Roger). I'm late to the party again so it may be moot, but if needed, please extend my collapse box to cover my bullets points concerning all four users rather than just two. That should address the word limit issue. Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:11, 29 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Arbitration motion regarding Arbitration enforcement

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Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

By motion, the Arbitration Committee authorises the following injunction effective immediately:

  1. The case is to be opened forthwith and entitled "Arbitration enforcement";
  2. During the case, no user who has commented about this matter on the AN page, the AE page or the Case Requests page, may take or initiate administrative action involving any of the named parties in this case.
  3. Reports of alleged breaches of (2) are to be made only by email to the Arbitration Committee, via the main contact page.

You are receiving this message because you have commented about this matter on the AN page, the AE page or the Case Requests page and are therefore restricted as specified in (2). For the Arbitration Committee, L235 (t / c / ping in reply) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:30, 29 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Arbitration enforcement arbitration case opened

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Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

By motion, the committee authorises the following injunction effective immediately:

  1. The [Arbitration enforcement] case [request] is to be opened forthwith and entitled "Arbitration enforcement";
  2. During the case, no user who has commented about this matter on the AN page, the AE page or the Case Requests page, may take or initiate administrative action involving any of the named parties in this case.
  3. Reports of alleged breaches of (2) are to be made only by email to the Arbitration Committee, via the main contact page.

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has, per the above, accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement/Evidence. Please add your evidence by July 13, 2015, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. Apologies for the potential duplicate message. For the Arbitration Committee, L235 (t / c / ping in reply) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:43, 29 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Change from announced time table for the Arbitration enforcement arbitration case

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Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

You are receiving this message either because you are a party to the Arbitration enforcement arbitration case, because you have commented in the case request, or the AN or AE discussions leading to this arbitration case, or because you have specifically opted in to receiving these messages. Unless you are a party to this arbitration case, you may opt out of receiving further messages at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement/Notification list. The drafters of the Arbitration enforcement arbitration case have published a revised timetable for the case, which changes what you may have been told when the case was opened. The dates have been revised as follows: the Evidence phase will close 5 July 2015, one week earlier than originally scheduled; the Workshop phase will close 26 July 2015, one week later than originally scheduled; the Proposed decision is scheduled to be posted 9 August 2015, two weeks later than originally scheduled. Thank you. On behalf of the arbitration clerks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:58, 1 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Motion passed in AE arbitration case granting amnesty and rescinding previous temporary injunction

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This message is sent at 12:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC) by Arbitration Clerk User:Penwhale via MassMessage on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. You are receiving this message because your name appears on this list and have not elected to opt-out of being notified of development in the arbitration case.

On 5 July, 2015, the following motion was passed and enacted:

  1. Paragraphs (2) and (3) of the Arbitration Committee's motion of 29 June 2015 about the injunction and reporting breaches of it are hereby rescinded.
  2. The Arbitration Committee hereby declares an amnesty covering:
    1. the original comment made by Eric Corbett on 25 June 2015 and any subsequent related comments made by him up until the enactment of this current motion; and
    2. the subsequent actions related to that comment taken by Black Kite, GorillaWarfare, Reaper Eternal, Kevin Gorman, GregJackP and RGloucester before this case was opened on 29 June 2015.
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Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Nithyasree Mahadevan, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Sun TV. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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ArbCom elections are now open!

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Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:21, 23 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Best of the Season to you

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Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you Ncmvocalist and a Happy and Prosperous New Year! Thank you for everything you do in this place. Cheers. :) Dr. K. 07:31, 25 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Sun Singer, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Krish. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Thanks for your support

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Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Peacemaker67 RfA Appreciation award
Thank you for participating and supporting at my RfA. It was very much appreciated, and I am humbled that the community saw fit to trust me with the tools. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:49, 6 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for supporting my RfA

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Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Human lightning rod not to scale Brianhe RfA Appreciation award
Thank you for participating at my RfA. Your support was very much appreciated even if I did get a bit scorched. Brianhe (talk) 07:56, 6 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

RM: St Mirren

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Latest comment: 10 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Hi

Thanks for taking the time to carefully review and close Talk:St. Mirren F.C.#Requested_move_20_January_2016. I understand why you felt it appropriate to revert due to lack of tools.

However, I do have the tools, and as nominator I am very happy to take responsibility for implementing the close. So if you felt able to reinstate the close, I can do the rest.

If feel that's inappropriate, the no prob ... but the offer is there. Either way, thanks again. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

@BrownHairedGirl: I'm happy to reinstate the close if you can do the rest; have reinstated on that basis. Glad to have assisted. Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:06, 16 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
Many thanks. I'll do it now. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:30, 16 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
Done, in these edits. Thanks again. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:50, 16 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
@BrownHairedGirl: I must say it was very kind of you to pro-actively volunteer to take that responsibility, and spend the time doing that, especially as it saves requiring yet another person to do it when it is not critically necessary here. Thank you. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

Assessment request

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Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi Ncmvocalist. I'd appreciate you taking a glance at the article I've just published. Macleod v Macleod. Many thanks! Shayday~enwiki (talk) 18:52, 20 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

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Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hello, Ncmvocalist. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Request for reassessment

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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

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Hello, Ncmvocalist. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Proposed deletion of Papanasam Sivan

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Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Notice

The article Papanasam Sivan has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Spammy article with spammy external links and WP:PEACOCK writings.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. » Shadowowl | talk 21:32, 12 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

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Hello, Ncmvocalist. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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Your access to AWB may be temporarily removed

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Hello Ncmvocalist! This message is to inform you that due to editing inactivity, your access to AutoWikiBrowser may be temporarily removed. If you do not resume editing within the next week, your username will be removed from the CheckPage. This is purely for routine maintenance and is not indicative of wrongdoing on your part. You may regain access at any time by simply requesting it at WP:PERM/AWB. Thank you! — MusikBot II talk 17:12, 21 March 2019 (UTC)Reply

ANI NOTICE

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Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Here Regice2020 (talk) 09:48, 8 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

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Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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Precious anniversary

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Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Add topic
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