TheDecember 2011 issue of the Films WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.—Peppage (talk |contribs)22:02, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't change these to REFs! This is going to be the new style moving forward, and for good reason, they are *much* easier to edit and keep working after multiple edits. You should try them, I've converted over entirely.Maury Markowitz (talk)21:09, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
...the heading is encyclopedic, its a quote from Henri Fabre. Seriouly, I was wondering about your edit comment about gushing language... all I could see were corrections of the many typos I make. More substaially The Bleriot biography by Brian Elliott makes no mention of either the cooling rain shower or o the telgraph wires (mentioned in the Bleriot biography account if not here) & describes the flight in some detail, including a dissection of varying accounts of whether the reporter with the flag was there (why let facts stand in the way of a good story. The idea of Bleriot himself telegraphing an American paper seems most implausible to me. Back to the coalface.TheLongTone (talk)17:27, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Needs more work...you're tellng me! Unfortunately, I really can't find much to flesh out what the man was actually up to to after 1909. There are a bewildering number of sketchily documented (& not very notable) Bleriot types up to 1914, the Bleriot name was pretty well dormant during the Great War, and did little after it. Bleriot was obviously a worker, and an engineer rather than a manager or a businessman, but where all the effort went is difficult to pin down. The only biography I've found only devotes about twenty percent to his doings post-1909, and much of that is stuff which really belongs in the company history. Stone soup.TheLongTone (talk)16:53, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The date (Oct 1940) was specific to the P-64, which is just a development of the NA-50 - the date for first flight should be that of the NA-50, not that of a minor improvement to the original design (even if the page is labelled P-64). The P-51 page for instance lists the first flight as that of the NA-73X - not the actual P-51 which didn't appear until later. I just haven't found a date yet (it should have been in 1939 or before given the delivery of the NA-50s in 1939), and figured it was better to leave it empty until it was found than add a later date. The best I have so far is that the 7 Peruvian aircraft had all been flight tested by Feb 1939 (from the Hagedorn book)NiD.29 (talk)07:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please avoidWP:OWN with regard to this article. When a new guy comes in and tweaks the language in an article a bit, the edits don't require sources, and reverting on those grounds is just biting the new guy. This is an encyclopedia anyone can edit - not just you.Rklawton (talk)16:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I feel lucky having the opportunity to cross the road of a aviation enthusiast and multimedia author. For instance, I look forward to read your AVRO Arrow book, and educator too, among other centers of interest. Amazing, congratulations!
Former engineer in chemistry, I have been afterwards working as an IT expert. Now I also train computer users, and use my Linux/Free and Open Source Software skills for a living.
I do not find where this statement "that is the typical endnote of the lede" would apply.As far as I can see: simple repetition of a death date three times with no added information is not "standard", and is not mandatory.
In case we agree, may I know when you would kindly cancel your revert? Or shall I do it?
I have conveniently talked to you, and presented politely my position, on this personal page. You didn't return any answer. Since then, you have made several modifications to WP, so you had time and opportunity to answer me. I roll back to my modification.
I do hope this will be all, we both have so much better to contribute than to argue on those article lines. I am not here to vandalize WP, I am no offending newbie, and been here since 2008. My modification was made to improve style and simplicity.
The P-51 article claimes in the lead that the 4,950 enemy aircraft shot down by Mustang pilots are"second only to the Grumman F6F Hellcat." The question begs, second onlyin what - planes shot down by USAAF? Planes shot down by allies? It couldn't be planes shot down by any type of plane, as - while I didn't actually do the math - the Bf-109 isbound to have a higher number of enemy planes downed.
Since the statement was not sourced, I did a "best guess" qualification, limiting the statement to Allied forces (which is very likely doing the Spitfire a disfavor, but without sources I couldn't do better). You reverted that edit, claiming that the statement were clear because it said "enemy aircraft". I am somewhat dumbfounded by that comment. Do you care to elaborate why the word "enemy" makes the statement clear? --DevSolar (talk)17:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Cross-checking the Hellcat article just now - which makes it clear that the numbers are meant to mean planes shot down byallied aircraft, making my edit valid. --DevSolar (talk)17:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks and kudos again for swinging into action a second time, this time onThe Cassandra Crossing. Again, as you said, it could still use more work, but it's much better than it was yesterday. I, along with all who care about these older film articles, really appreciate it. People like you make WP a better place.Gothicfilm (talk)03:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I don't give these things out lightly. This is only the second Barnstar I've ever posted anywhere, and the first was yesterday... -Gothicfilm (talk)03:21, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Bzuk, the following sentence fromTora! Tora! Tora! doesn't make sense:
At the time of its initial movie release, Tora! Tora! Tora! proved to be a major box office flop in North America (despite being the ninth highest-grossing film of 1970), although it was a major hit in Japan; however, over the years, video releases provided an overall profit.[11]
If it was a box office flop, then how could it have been the ninth highest grossing film of 1970? I notice you reverted out my attempt to fix this, but I don't understand why.JoshuSasori (talk)03:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for adding the citations to "Tora! Tora! Tora!"
Thank you for taking the time to add the detailed citations to the Tora! Tora! Tora! article. Someone was concerned that the article contained original research[1], which is why I added the requests for citations. Thanks for sharing your expertise on naval aviation to improve the article. I really appreciate it.JoshuSasori (talk)03:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know why you undid the citation formatting. I was unable to salvage your constructive edits while reverting your citation changes. Please do not convert citation templates to manual citations, but feel free to revert the rest of your edits.--TonyTheTiger(T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR)08:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi Bzuk,We can talk about the stylistics on the article's page. My major issue is that your manual formatting is sometimes wrong for the type of citation being used. Since Wikipedia now makes it easy to use the most frequently used citation templates with a pull-down menu, I would suggest you start using this time-saving device. It also means that the citation is following the format that Wikipedia feels is the appropriate one for the content. As for date formatting, I always prefer to use the digital year-month-day format in citations as it is easier to type multiple times, and takes up significantly less space than fully spelled-out months; and that format is allowed for in citations while not conflicting with the WP rules around time/date in the main article.--Abebenjoe (talk)23:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that the formatting that you disagree with is not so much my inclusion of commas or periods within quotation marks — these aren't added by me, but automatically by the template — but with Wikipedia's templates themselves. My experience with editing Wikipedia is that templates are to be trusted, because they are what was agreed upon at some point by some consensus process. I am not saying you are wrong, because I have run into similar issues with Canadian politics: common academic and Elections Canada terminology or formats not being used. I have had to conform to WP's sometimes unique styles or rules, as I am sure you have as well, since you have written some admiral books on the Avro Arrow, that would be considered original research (a good-term in academia, butverboten by WP standards). My academic friends complain about WP for precisely these kinds of things. In the end, WP uses its own version of grammar and style, and I just follow that.
As for the dating schema, in the main article, I prefer how it is: day-month-year. However, I do have to disagree about using that style in the citations, as it is now fairly standard in WP to use full-year, two-digit month, and then two-digit day (YYYY-MM-DD). As I spend much of my time fixing citation formatting, I rely on this efficient style because it is much easier to edit. As I have said previously, it is also more compact. Many, albiet minor, mistakes keep appearing when you manually type citations: missing a bracket, missing one format control character, etc. (I make these mistakes all the time too, but significantly less so when utilizing templates). I write frequently about aerospace subjects as well, so the dating format that I use for citations is quite common, and also prevents the usual disagreements about full-date formats between North Americans and the rest of the English-speaking world in terms of what the correct order is (to a point, a user can set this in their preferences). The auto-date-conform does not always work, and at one time, WP autocorrected the date from YYYY-MM-DD to the full-date format the user wished, but apparently doesn't anymore. That's why I use the date style that I do, and why I think that should be the style used for the article's citations.--Abebenjoe (talk)01:19, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I've read your 2004 Arrow book, about six-years ago, and thought is was very good. What if any opinions do you have about Peter Zuuring's plans to rebuild a functioning Arrow, which I assume fell through, as I was at Baddeck on 22 February 2009, and it was only F-18s and an F-86 performing the fly-by?--Abebenjoe (talk)01:19, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
P.S.S. I knew the late Brian McInnis. He was a researcher with the CBC in the late '70s and worked on the documentaryThere Never Was an Arrow. He mentioned to me that he managed to contact the RCMP in Montreal, by pretending to be an RCMP agent, and was told that the RCMP and the Canadian military were hiding an Arrow, which Brian guessed was RL-206. When Brian asked for the location, the officer then suspected he wasn't who he claimed to be and clammed up (I've been on and off the phone for the past hour so this may not be as coherent as it should).--Abebenjoe (talk)01:19, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I try to include ISBN's as much as possible to help with the verification aspect of the citation. Also optional of course is the the url, if one exists. I try to include an url from either to the Toronto Public Library or the University of Toronto library system for books that do not have ISBNs. If it can help make it easier for verification, I'll try to do it. Likewise, when it comes to citing webpages, I try to use Webcite to archive the page. The problem with Webcite is that it doesn't always preserve the formatting. It also doesn't always copy the page — as an example, theGlobe and Mail orAviation Week — because those sites specifically ask that they not be archived.--Abebenjoe (talk)02:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll back you on this article, mainly because you seem to be the main contributor. In my academic work, I mostly used APA or Chicago-style formatting in both History, Semiotics, and Cinema Studies. I only used MLA-style pre-Microsoft Word 4.2 on a MacSE30, so that's one of the main reasons I don't mind the templates too much; but like you, I too have had to manually manipulate the template output to make it correct. BTW, I never use ISO as only a six-digit format, because that does cause confusion. The eight-digit ISO is not that confusing because the year is clearly stated, but some folks might still get the month and day aspect wrong if the day is below 13. As I said before, I like its compactness, but for this article, since there is likely not to be too much more work on it, I'll follow your lead on the citation formatting.--Abebenjoe (talk)15:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The mix of reference styles is something I am still contending with, as Sfn templates must have recently been re-written as they had previously left out a period (full stop) and when trying to put one manually, noted that it messed up the output and quickly reverted it. The dates appearing in the APA and MLA styles are in slightly different locations and for consistency, can be manipulated to output after the publisher. As to dates that mix ISO and WYSIWYG dating, it usually is easier for a reader to read the date in "clear." FWiWBzuk (talk)02:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC).[reply]
As far as I know{{sfn}} has always used periods. I consider them trivial. The value of the sfn template is in the autocollating of duplicate references. I'm the editor who reworked Macdonald and other to use this system. I see the the V-1 page still has some in 'plain' and will fix those. On the dates, moving the year out of "year =" breaks the links to the citations, so please don't do that. I generally prefer the 2012-02-27 date form as it's universal, but don't much care really.Alarbus (talk)02:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't there some citation style that ends up outputting into a Modern Language Association (MLA) style because the issue I see with the dates is that they are placed by the author not the publisher which is standard for determining when the publication is made. The template appears to mimic an APA guide but has no accommodation for any other style guide. Dates in different formats are inconsistent, and ISO dating is not read the same worldwide, ed. 2012-01-12, is it January 12, 2012 or December 1, 2012? FWiWBzuk(talk)02:59, 28 February 2012 (UTC).[reply]
Please keep this talk here; I'm watching this page.
I'm fine with whatever layout the templates emit; they facilitate formatting for those who don't care about what gets italics and what should be a comma vs a colon. TheISO form is defined; 2012-01-12, is January 12, 2012. I've put the other citations into{{citation}} so they're consistent now and the footnote links work. Several are not used and I'd be fine with removing them or dropping them to a further reading section. (Haining, Kay, King, Ramsay, Young). I'd also be fine with lonelyplanet and lulu being cut.Alarbus (talk)03:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Still that ISO dating presupposes that people get it; it's far easier to simply use the same date format throughout the entire article from body to references. I'm willing to try to use the citation format but the only real advantage seems to be in linking the citation to the bibliographic link. FWiWBzuk(talk)03:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC).[reply]
I'm not arguing for the ISO form, just explaining it. We both just edited the refs section and managed to not edit conflict. One of the ISBNs was invalid, and I fixed it and fiddled with some other things. Linking the footnote to the bibliography is helpful to readers, but it is also helpful to editors because it serves as a check that the full citation is actually defined. Many articles refer to "Smith 2012" without offering anything further. If you installUser:Ucucha/HarvErrors it will highlight broken links and citations that are not linked to. The other advantage of {sfn} is that the whole process of collating multiple references to the same page is done automatically, so editors can skip most uses of named refs. They are another common source of errors because editors often multiply define names with varying definitions (and MediaWIki combines them by tossing all but the first definition), and re-use named refs that are to a specific page when they really mean some other page.Alarbus (talk)03:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker) The{{sfn}} template hasn't been rewritten recently; the last change was in September 2011, and was trivial (it allows|loc= to coexist with either|p= or|pp=); the last unreverted non-trivial change was in December 2009 (to make the year optional instead of mandatory). It's included periods sincethis edit in June 2009 and they've been there ever since.{{Harvnb}}, by contrast, has never included a period - every now and then, somebody asks for it to be added but the request is always overturned, because that would introduce a double period to those articles where a perid has been added manually. Besides setting up a link for{{sfn}}, the{{citation}} template also exportsCOinS metadata, which handcrafted citations rarely do.MOS:DATEUNIFY permits either of two date formats in prose, but requires consistency, and publication dates in refs should follow the same format; access dates in refs may either be the same format as the pub date, or YYYY-MM-DD. --Redrose64 (talk)12:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
TheJanuary 2012 issue of the Films WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
We seem to have had a cross-editting session. What I am puzzled by is reverting the references from the latest format to an older format. I used the automatic citation feature - are you familiar with it?Petebutt (talk)18:05, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Bill: Props on the head start! I had a sixth sense you'd be on the job when I saw it was William Wellman day on TCM and then the blob that was the previous "article" yesterday morning. I was going to try to get in a few words last night, but UD is hosting the NCAA "First Four" again and with the POTUS attending the first game tonight we were making a lot of arrangements on the fly. I'll read it tonight.--Reedmalloy (talk)22:17, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In this edit, I've you added the headings ";Notes" and ";Bibliography". I've removed ";Notes" because notes can be confused with explanatory notes.
I have removed ";Bibliography" because the reference style did not use a referencing style that aided the editor because there was a very long list of references, which is what the section ==Bibliography== would contain, while ==References== would include a "56.^ Smith 1936" style.Curb Chain (talk)07:41, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I brought back the cite coding you reverted. Here is why. I wish one day citation styles could selected in user's preferences and wiki could serve different styles to its users, separating formatting from content. Coding references using wiki templates is a small step into that direction. The style generated is not always to my personal taste. I don't like "&" neither in wiki harvard style citation style. Changing the wiki cite format would be welcome but an individual page is not the ideal place to discuss this issue. Hope this makes my point clearer--Alberto Fernandez Fernandez (talk)08:40, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've reverted it back to the original and left a note about WP:RETAIN and not edit warring to change established reference formats on User:Afernand74. Hopefully if anyone wants to change things further then they will discuss on the article talk page.Nigel Ish (talk)11:23, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO you are missing the point of the discussion. The article is using the harvard style for its citations (SeeParenthetical referencing#How to cite). I kept the same style but hardcoded references using the wikiTemplate:Harvnb which seems to generate an inappropriate format with "&". My edits were reverted because of that; not because I changed a long established reference format. Should the template have generated "and" instead of "&" we won't be having this discussion. So let's hope this will be changed in the future. I will leave the article as it is until then and I am sorry we all wasted our time on this.
By the way, I made the changes in good faith and there is little about citation styles in WP:RETAIN.
The funny thing is that all this started because the book of Jenkins and Landis has a wrong ISBN. It should be 1580070566 instead of 580070566. Other books also have wrong ISBNs like the one from Winchester (1592234801 instead of 1-84013-309-2). I leave those corrections up to you.
That'sexactly what the article says. I wrote that the State Department identified the landing gear in the photo as being that of an Electra. Here's what the article says: "But investigators took a new look at it in 2010 and, when their suspicions were triggered, had the photo checked by U.S. State Department experts. In a blind review,they determined the component in the picture is the landing gear of a Lockheed Electra." Am I missing something?bomb16:11, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Bzuk. 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[2] 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 associatedresearch page.01:31, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello Bzuk! I'm an Italian user, most active in the WikiProject Aviation of the Italian Wikipedia. I'm writing to you for you've welcomed me some time ago and for I've seen you're quite into aviation. Hope I'm not bothering you...
I haven't been editing the English Wikipedia very much so far, except for small corrections, but recently I started a collaboration with an Italian aviation museum (kinda GLAM-Wiki stuff) and, after writing the article about the museum in my native language, I tried to write the English article too. I just finished the translation, it's inmy sandbox. I don't think that moving an article with good contents and referencing but written in poor English into the main namespace could be regarded as vandalism, but still I would be extremely grateful if you could give a look to my translation, and make some corrections where needed, before I "publish" it. Just if you have time to do that, and with no hurry at all. Thank you very much :) With friendly regards, --M.L.WattsAir Mail ✈13:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! Another user, TheLongTone, saw this request and lent me a hand. Unexpectedly, he found that there weren't many issues about the quality of the writing, so making the needed corrections was easy enough. Thanks, anyway! --M.L.WattsAir Mail ✈12:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your thorough reading of the article. I knew I made lots of small mistakes and inaccuracies, some of them due to my poor knowledge of English and some others due to my poor knowledge of the rules of the English Wikipedia. I made more corrections similar to those you made, things like the style of the citation of book authors, the difference between "-" and "–" etc. There are just two corrections I am not sure about: the first one is related to aeropainting, an artistic movement which I am pretty sure has nothing to do with airbrushes – it rather concerns aircraft as subjects or points of view. I corrected this thing. The other one is the F-104G/S issue. I totally can't distinguish the two version by looking at a photograph, but there is a rather good source (the museum's website,here) stating it's a F-104G. I'm not sure about this, I'd like to know what you think. --M.L.WattsAir Mail ✈17:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I just wanted to thank you again for the great work you did copyediting the article and correcting all the issues related to grammar and spelling. The article is probably going to be featured as a DYK, and I must thank you for that. See you, and, well... In case you ever need some help with early Italian aviation or Caproni-related topics, you know who you can ask! Cheers, --M.L.WattsAir Mail ✈16:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A fact fromBzuk/Archive 11 appeared on Wikipedia'sMain Page in theDid you know column on 19 April 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that theGianni Caproni Museum of Aeronautics is Italy's oldest aviation museum, in addition to being the country's first corporate museum?
There are multiple problems with the submission, not the least being a rough translation from Italian.
As i wasted some hours in order to write that paragraph, i'd expect that you would waste some more lines to explain where and what are the 'multiple problems' with this submission. I know that i should quit to edit, but the (not exactly gently) wikipedian behauvoir is still surprising me. I did not wrote that GWB is gay, what was the point to make such straight counter-editing? Do you realize that this attitude (not talk about the Swiss Hunter last month) is really boring?
Maybe you and others should understand that even if Wikipedia is respectable, Wikipedians are not less respectables, instead to handle them as crap everytime.
Ps in the CF-104 article i still fail to see any mention of an RWR, as i tried to add only to be reverted by you. 5 years ago and after one year ban this information (and others) still is lacking. 'for the sake of Wikipedia' i imagine.Stefanomencarelli (talk)16:00, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was looking at this FFD; it's a bit of a hard call on theWP:NFCC#8 issue. In the discussion, you stated that the author had emailed you to release permission. If the release is specific enough, it would really be best to sidestep the entire issue by getting that permission filed inWP:OTRS. To be "specific enough", the permission would have to include:
It would be best if the photographer is also the creator of the model (as opposed to having built the model from a kit). The linked Flickr discussion makes it seem this could be the case. Or else you'd have to be convincing that Magog the Ogre's statement at the FFD is actually the case (particularly when applied to a model of a vehicle rather than a copy of another model) and that there isn't any copyright in the original plane's design or artwork.
The creator must specifically state that he is making the photograph available under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, or under any other terms considered free by Wikipedia. Just saying "Wikipedia can use this" is not good enough, unfortunately. The permission must specifically include permission for anyone to reuse the image, to make and distribute modified versions of the image, and to use the image for any purpose (including commercial purposes). And none of these permissions can be specific to Wikipedia.
Hi. When you recently editedTitanine Ltd., you added a link pointing to the disambiguation pageTetrachloride (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles.Read theFAQ • Join us at theDPL WikiProject.
Thank you for tweaking the Alex Henshaw page. I had some rude comments from an anonymous contributor who doesn't seem to understand the difference being being "pilot in command" of an aircraft and handling the controls. You rightly pointed out that "pilot in command" is an official status, adding a reference.
I've amended your edit slightly removing the words "although he did fly at times, with others." I see what you're getting at, but this could refer to anyone who flies as a passenger. To clarify this issue I've added a reference to his rides in a two-seater Spitfire, when he was sometimes able to handle the controls. I think this is what the edit-war contributor had in mind.
The point I was trying to make when I made my original contribution was that Alex suddenly gave up flying at the age of 37, which is remarkable considering this had filled his life for the previous 16 years. I thought that the addition of the word "officially" detracted from this point, and means nothing as you cannot be "unofficially" the pilot in command. This is why I reverted.
I might add that I have a special knowledge of this subject as producer of the TV biography on Henshaw. I am one of the few people to have seen his original log book entries.
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So who are you, the President of the Charles Lindbergh Fan Club? As A. Scott Berg notes in his book, "Lindbergh," Charles Lindbergh, even after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, expressed regret that white people had to be divided in the conflict. Simply because he fought in the armed forces does not necessarily mean that he "supported" the war. If Lindbergh did anything more than what his duty as a citizen required, then there needs to be verification of that in the article.John Paul Parks (talk)07:14, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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As I said before, nice work -- but it would be appreciated if you consulted with other editors before making major change like combining two pages into one.Tchaliburton (talk)02:39, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
C. D. Howe (1886–1960) was a powerfulCanadian Cabinet minister of theLiberal Party. He is credited with transforming the Canadian economy from agriculture-based to industrial. Born in Massachusetts, Howe moved toNova Scotia as a young adult to take up a professorship atDalhousie University. After working for the Canadian government as an engineer, he began his own firm, and became a wealthy man. In 1935, he was recruited as a Liberal candidate for theCanadian House of Commons by then Opposition leader Mackenzie King. The Liberals won the election in a landslide, and Howe won his seat. Mackenzie King appointed him to the Cabinet. There, he took major parts in many new enterprises, including the founding of theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation andTrans-Canada Air Lines. When World War II began in 1939, Howe played a crucial role in Canada's war effort, and recruited many corporate executives to serve in wartime enterprises. Howe's impatience with the necessity for parliamentary debate of his proposals won him few friends, and he was often accused of dictatorial conduct by the Opposition. Inthe 1957 election, Howe's actions and policies were made an issue byOpposition leaderJohn Diefenbaker. He lost his seat in the election, and Diefenbaker became Prime Minister, ending almost 22 years of Liberal rule. (more...)
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To add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag fromthis list, click onthis link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message onWikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation.--ImageTaggingBot (talk)04:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see you added a note to the Glenn Curtiss article. A note looks a bit awkward to me. Most articles don't have notes. Couldn't you include the information in the article without making a note?GroveGuy (talk)04:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Curtiss' holding of French Aero Club certificate certainly should be somewhere, but the award was nothing to do with the Gordon Bennett, because the first sixteen licenses (1-15, because Ferber got 5b) were issued in January 1909. I'm fairly sure that you had to have a certificate to fly at Reims, btw.TheLongTone (talk)06:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Before you restore any more of those references, please seeWikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#thestopbutton.com to understand what led me to remove them. As far as I've been able to tell, there's been an attempt to drive traffic to this site by spamming several articles, and this film critic is not notable by any stretch, especially in articles that mentioned him in the same breath with Roger Ebert or Rotten Tomatoes. ~Amatulić(talk)01:45, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Only according to The Bushranger. Also as mentioned by multiple others at RSN, whether a critic is notable isquite relevant for the purpose of quoting and citations. ~Amatulić(talk)15:39, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! Your submission ofAmelia Earhart (1976 film) at theDid You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneathyour nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know!
Dear Buzuk, I don't know what will happen. But you know all thosePopular Science andPopular Mechanics references I posted in aviation articles that you followed up and cleaned up with the correct citation format? Well they might all be deleted. It seems a Wiki Fanatic with roll back authority says it is against Wiki Policy to use googlebooks to cite an old publication page(s) for a reference. And this guy makes is clear that he/she is on a mission for Gawd to make sure all Wikipedia articles comply 100% with Wikipedia policy -- no exceptions. JEEZ! If they say you can't use the FLIGHT archives internet databases, it will gut the aviation articles. Jack--Jackehammond (talk)14:57, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Bushranger -- Thanks for resolving the situation. I have learned "the hard way" not to argue with Wiki Fanatics. I was just going to let it stand on the monorail page and move on editing, when I suddenly thought that editor might follow my contributes and revert all of them where I used PM and PS references that Buzuk aided me with (they are in the hundreds). Also, FYI, don't worry, I don't spike the football when an administrator upholds my references. I just get back to work editing like Buzuk does. And thanksBuzukfor bringing it to Bushrangers attention. Best Jack--Jackehammond (talk)16:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
An editor "with rollback authority" who uses rollback for anything other than reverting obvious vandalism or spam should not have rollback privilege. Rollback should never be used for content disputes. Report rollback abusers onWP:ANI with sufficient evidence and they will likely get that privilege revoked.
I am curious what policy prohibits using Google books to cite old publication pages. As far as I know, there is none, but I'd like to see what that editor actually claimed.
The exact quote from their edit summary[3] was "Google is not a reliable source". Clearly a kneejerk reaction to mash the undo button eagerly.And I might point out that based on his user pageWP:OWB#22 seems applicable. -The BushrangerOne ping only19:54, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. Yeah. I don't know where he gets the idea that an edit count of 8000 is some magic threshold, but to his credit, he doesn't appear to be using any automated tools to grow it. Me, I became an admin only reluctantly after several years,answering a call to duty, and in some ways I regret it. It tends to stop you from being a productive editor because there's always so much mopping up to do. Occasionally I'll take a break for a month and edit as an anonymous IP just to feel "normal" again. ~Amatulić(talk)22:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi all, no problem in using this talk page as a forum. I have been away from my desk with a family emergency but noted just now, that a lot of things have been revolved for Jack. Thanks, Bushranger (gotta ask you sometime about that name!). FWiWBzuk (talk)23:21, 29 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]
Ask and ye shall receive! It started out as a pun; the first forum I used it on was one dedicated to theNASCAR Busch Series, and I'd been doing a lot of reading aboutAustralian history, so I signed up as..."The Buschranger". ;) Since the pun would be impenetrable away from its racing origin, it lost the "c" elsewhere! -The BushrangerOne ping only22:26, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Folks, I hope no one cares if I but in, but I have a suggestion to Wikipedia's problem with administrators. And I am going to be denounced as a Wiki-heretic and probably banned for the suggestion. But please bare with me till I cut my throat.
When I first came to Wikipedia I was both Wiki-terrible and Wiki-stupid. Many thought I was a supreme vandal. But eventually before I got banned, I wondered what that "talk" meant at the top of my user page and discovered I had a lynch mob after me and started to learn some need to know Wiki-rule, customs, etc with the help of three old timers on Wikipedia. Eventually I started just correcting or adding references. Then I redone some pages and then I wrote complete pages with the help ofUser:W. B. Wilson andUser:Dave1185. I did several new pages but didn't like writing completely new pages as that is HARD WORK- ie getting the first intro paragraph especially. Taking a stub or a page that needed to be reworked and expanded and moving it to a sandboxes was not that bad. But I really like checking articles (weapons and defence) and old publication and adding content or references where they are lacking, I liked. THAT IS FUN.
But the recent problem with maybe a mass delete of references and external links I provided, got my curiosity about rollback authority and indirectly being an administrator, got me to thinking. Why would anyone want rollback authority except an administrator. It is like being handed a stick of dynamite that can blow up in your face if you make a mistake. Not Me! Then I read the link about lack of volunteers to be an administrator and I though why would anyone want that job as it takes the fun out of Wikipedia. I don't know if any administrators has noticed, but it seems every Wikipedia editors, whether male or female, and any age always have a raging case ofPMS.
Now the Wiki-heretic part. I started on cyper-space in 1986 before the internet was opened to anyone. I worked on Compuserve when it was owned by H&R Block and was a professionals forum on defence issues as either an ast-sysop or sysop. Those two position carried the privilages of free access (when it was $6 to $12 an hour); use of the toll free numbers to call in (I lived where there was no direct toll free line for users) and access to the data bases. Above section leaders, ast-sysop and sysops, were managers who managed everyone on several forums; took care of forums software issues; settled cat-fights; and had B-flag authority (blocked access to members -- ast-sysops and sysops could move messages out of public view). Now here what I warned about comes. The managers were paid by Compuserve. And as a results Compuserve worked very well. When Compuserve decided they were no longer pay managers, Compuserve when from #1 to no-number rating. All in one year! To whit, this Wiki-heretic believes the solution to the lack of "good" volunteers to be administrators, is to consider making the awful movement of paying them -- ie I still would not want to be an adm (nor would they consider me) unless the pay was in the upper five figures. Told you I was a Wiki-heretic. Jack --Jackehammond (talk)17:08, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding rollback. Originally, rollback was an administrator-only privilege. The community decided some years ago that it should be granted to anyone on a case-by-case basis. Any administrator can grant it. I've done so several times, based on how constructive and an editor has been in both their edits and interactions with others. You wonder why anyone would want that authority except an administrator? Well, what do you like doing? Everyone enjoys Wikipedia for different reasons. Some editors enjoy spending their time fighting spammers and vandals rather than contributing to articles. That's an important function, and it's a good thing that some editors gravitate to that role. And if you're busy reverting obvious vandals or spammers, rollback is a convenient tool, and should be available to anyone who can use it responsibly. But what one admin giveth, any other admin can taketh away with a mouse click, if a rollbacker starts abusing the privilege. It is intended as a more efficient way of reverting obvious vandalism or spam. It should never be used as a weapon in disputes.
I don't regard your comments as heretical. Being an admin here, you may have noticed, is often equated to being a janitor with a mop. And that's exactly right. While I wouldn't mind getting paid for this, the actual wage may be more on the order of a janitor than a software developer. My view is, an admin is just another editor who has been entrusted by the community with a few extra tools, namely blocking, protecting pages, deleting and restoring pages, and granting others privileges like rollback. But Wikipedia is so vast, there aren't enough admins around to get all the mopping-up work done. There are always so many backlogs, and they aren't fun to deal with.
There is a major difference between CompuServe and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a forum(although it can seem so at times, such as right here on this talk page). CompuServe was not only a forum site, but it was acommercial forum site that charged customers for using it. Furthermore, CompuServe had no concept ofcrowdsourcing. It didn't exist then. Times have changed. As a free encyclopedia that anyone can view and anyone can edit, Wikipedia is a crowdsourced volunteer community. Nobody is forced to participate here. Nobody who steps up to volunteer for adminship is forced to do so, and those who survive theWP:RfA wringer aren't forced to participate as admins; they can continue just being editors if they want. If you don't want the job, or don't believe in the value of the work, don't volunteer. That's the principle behind crowdsourcing: given a big enough population, those folks whowant to perform volunteer tasks will generally be the ones best at doing so if they aren't being paid. ~Amatulić(talk)18:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Amatulic, Thanks for your reply. And double thanks for not getting the firewood, and a stake out and a match out. <GRIN> Jack --Jackehammond (talk)21:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear andThe Bushranger andAmatulić Could you please checkthis discussion on my talk page. It is sort of urgent -- ie this is the first time I have reverted multi-reverts since I have been on Wikipedia since 2009 that was not vandalism or someone doing a test edit. On this I can not just move on to other pages. If you can't become involved I understand. Jack --Jackehammond (talk)17:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your point is well taken re current B18 operators. However, if you would click on the active links of the civilian operators (at least for the Canadian ones that keep getting edited out), you'll see that there still are current operators of the B18. (Including myself - ref: timetravelair.com)
My concern is that there isn't a definitive list (as of yet) saying who operated what and when. And, my understanding is that this is a page referring to the current and historical operation of the B18.
That's why I'm trying to post the list of B18 operators.
Be my guest Bzuk! I always think Wikipedia is likeStone Soup where everyone contributes things for the benefit of all! Thanks for your courtesy in letting me know. After a long absence of seeing the made during WWII films I was brought up on, quite a few seem to be coming back. I've been trying to findChina's Little Devils and stuff about Ducky Louie.Foofbun (talk)23:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Yesterday I was expecting to have time to go through all the citations and expand them using the citation templates, and I ran out of time. I went back today and finished the job. Please don't revert it again. Thanks! --Mblumber (talk)20:30, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is no requirement to have citation templates when an established style of citation and bibliographic notations are already in place. Please do not make any further changes without referring to the talk page, or in speaking to me on my talk page. AFAIK, you are making no improvements, have made no additions to the article and are merely inserting a format of your choice. FWiW, see Wp:Retain,Bzuk (talk)20:43, 7 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]
Hi. I'm sorry about the tone that I took above. I don't mean you any offense. I was my understanding that the citation templates are not only there for the convenience of wp editors but also so that there's uniformity across the entire project. They also have added functionality where the reader can click on an ISSN/DOI and it'll direct them to the source material. Even though I spent a significant amount of time doing this conversion, it's not a big deal enough to me personally to fight you on it. Thank you for taking the time to respond. Have a great day and happy editing. --Mblumber (talk)21:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would just like to add that you should have pointed me toWikipedia:CITEVAR rather thanwp:retain. Having read that statement, you are within your rights to put it back the way it was. Thanks for educating me and assuming good faith. --Mblumber (talk) 21:22, 7 June 2012
Oh, how I wish there was a standard format or even the prospect of citation templates that are properly designed and formatted, but there isn't and many editors have become proficient in creating a round-about by manually forming the citation and bibliographic notation. My background as a reference librarian for over 30 years before I turned to the "dark" side of becoming a writer and editor in the "real" and "reel" world, is to assure you that I am no Luddite as I have championed and used MARC record templates for cataloguing for over 20 years; but those templates were "bullet-proof" and not the "buggy" home-made #$%^&* citation templates that the Wiki gods on high have proffered on us. To begin with they are formatted to output in the simplified APA style guide which is supremely unsuitable for academic work in the social sciences or in use for non-print materials which have led to a profusion of templates for news releases, video, magazines/journals, encyclopedias, ad infinitum. After years of trying to get the template designers to reconfigure their designs, and it can be done but it takes a rewrite of the template that is waaaaaaay more work to do than entering the bibliographic fields by hand, I have a diffident opinion about referencing. Sorry for the effusive reply, but the Amelia Earhart article is an older one that has been reviewed and analyzed to death and survives as an example of a different but acceptable example of use of the amalgam of MLA/Harvard citation style guides. FWiWBzuk (talk)21:37, 7 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]
Thanks for uploadingFile:Flight oct1934.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under aclaim of fair use. However, it is currentlyorphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed.You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (seeour policy for non-free media).
If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in anyarticles will be deleted after seven days, as described oncriteria for speedy deletion. Thank you.Hazard-Bot (talk)04:06, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It might be slightly outside your usual area, but I got the bug to work up an article for a made-for-TV movie that was intended to, but did not, launch a 13 (at least)-episode TV series:Steel Chariots from 1997, starring (to my surprise) one of my favourite actors,Ben Browder. Work startinghere, any help appreciated! -The BushrangerOne ping only08:29, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Still to add refs but I based the number on the contract which was originally for 30 S.1 aircraft later changed to ten S.1 and 18 target tugs then changed to all 28 as target tugs later reduced to 23. It may well have been the intention to order 100 but only one contract had been placed. Might need a tweak to include both figures.MilborneOne (talk)18:35, 16 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Bzuk, I had intentionally stated that Amelia was the first to cross the Atlantic in an 'airplane' as the British dirigibleR34 made the first Atlantic passenger flight by air in 1919. However I searched for a passenger list indicating any women aboard R34 during the dirigible's Atlantic flight(Westbound or Eastbound) and I can't find a passenger list. So for now we can take it for granted Amelia was the first woman to cross in an 'aircraft'. If anyone discovers an R34 passenger list with a female aboard then the Amelia miniseries article can be amended as such. Thanks again, happy editing.Koplimek (talk)00:19, 27 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I have made an addition to the page Alexander Bell, which has beer reverted as considered vandalism. My addition is factual and is not vandalism. Why is this happening? Why am I not able to add facts that are relevant to the subject?
I've only just noticed it because I don't have my userpage watchlisted. Thanks very much! I couldn't do it without your help.Roger (talk)19:36, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Happy Cqnqdq Dqy from Brugge and a French keyboard thqt has a where q is qnd q few other surprises. After Paris spent quality time in Bayeaux that is like a French Canterbury. Visited Omaha Beach, Pointe du Hoc that was kept like it was from, the invasion and filming of 'The Longest Day', ran into a mob of Ami and Royal Brit Legion bikies there and ran into them aqain at Ypres where they laid q wreqth at the nightly Last Post ceremonyFoofbun (talk)09:27, 2 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Actually ... I think theU.S. Centennial Of Flight Commission is a special commission formed by the US federal government. (It seems have been supported jointly from the budgets of the FAA and NASA.) Anyhow, The material might be PD.I'm not advocating that the material be put back, because the article doesn't really need it. It already has an extensive history section. Just a point of interest.APL (talk)18:25, 7 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yea, it was clearly redundant. So I'm absolutely not arguing that it should be put back.
I'm just pedantically pointing out that the material could well have been Public Domain, and therefore not a copyvio.APL (talk)19:18, 7 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pere Ubu's album has nothing about the film in the cited reference (I checked), are you going to remove it too now? Also, use article talk pages to communicate. --Niemti (talk)22:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
TheSignpost'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.
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.
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.
For the second time this year (and the third in the history of the committee), there are no open cases, as all three active cases were closed last week.
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.
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.
Hello there. As you expressed interest in hearing updates to my research in thedispute resolution survey that was done a few months ago, I just wanted to let you know that I am hosting anIRC office hours session this coming Saturday, 28th July at 19:00 UTC (approximately 12 hours from now). This will be located in the#wikimedia-officeconnect IRC channel - if you have not participated in an IRC discussion before you can connect to IRChere.
Wikimedia Foundation published its Annual Plan, focusing on technical improvements, editor retention, and structural reforms over the coming year. The movement's total revenue, including almost all chapter funding, is slated to rise by 35%, from $34.2 million to $46.1 million, and global spending to more than $42.1 million. The foundation's own core spending will grow by 15% to $30.2 million in 2012–13.
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.
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.
In the light of recent questions over the long-term reliability of Wikimedia wikis, theSignpost caught up with CT Woo, the Wikimedia Foundation's director of technical operations.
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.
At this year's Wikimania, I [Brandon Harris] gave a talk entitledThe 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.
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.
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.
This week theSignpost 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.
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.
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.
Could you clarify? The edits on the pages I watch don't seem to make significant changes in this regard so I am confused as your meaning.NiD.29 (talk)17:25, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you for uploadingFile:Gregor FDB-1 test.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so thecopyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the page from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of the website's terms of use of its content. If the original copyright holder is a party unaffiliated with the website, that author should also be credited. Please add this information by editing theimage description page.
If the necessary information is not added within the next days, the image will be deleted. If the file is already gone, you can still make arequest for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem.
I see someone who is probably you changed the source information atcommons:File:Gregor FDB-1 test.jpg. If that was you, could you please be more specific than "a film project on Canadian 'what-if' projects?" Like, the name of the film, or if you don't have that, who created the film and/or its date and/or who is in possession of it.Magog the Ogre (talk•edits)23:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That is a new one on me! I actually, thought I was correcting one of my own frequent spelling errors -- I am always typing ON for "1" instead of ONE. Learn something every day. If it had not come from you, I would probably debated the point, but I have never found you wrong. Thanks for correcting it --- twice.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Hi Bzuk, just for my edification, are you the user at IP 50.71.14.251 who commented on thedeletion request over there? Also, just for clarification sake, can you verify the copyright status of the image? Specifically, what year was it taken? 50.71's comment on the deletion request suggests this image was likely taken in the 1930s. Thanks,Resolute14:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You re-added the statement "Of the four pioneering wide-body aircraft (Boeing 747, McDonnell Douglas DC-10, L-1011 and Airbus A300/A310 family), the Lockheed L-1011 had an admirable safety record.". The reference cited doesn't say that. Given the context, such a statement would have to have a comparative value, and "Admirable" doesn't actually say anything meaningful. To add such a statement, you would need to find a reference comparing the safety records, as opposed to one which shows hull-loss rates in isolation.Tarl.Neustaedter (talk)16:29, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I came across the information in Military.com News that the historical attacks on the bridges themselves were by ADs, not jets. One thing led to another... I'm starting a cutdown of the plot summary at work late tonight, amidst keeping an eye on Isaac.--Reedmalloy (talk)23:02, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My concern (being in Ohio and out of the path) is for an acquaintance who is a Hurricane Hunter and flying the mission in progress right now. They are due to leave station at 10 o'clock EDT and due back at Ellington at Midnight.--Reedmalloy (talk)23:11, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, edited jointly with the Wikimedia Research Committee and republished as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.
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.
This week theSignpost 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.
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.
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.
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.
Five featured pictures were promoted this week, including a video explaining the recent landing of theCuriosity rover on Mars. NASA called the final minutes of the complicated landing procedure "the seven minutes of terror".
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 Military history WikiProject has started its2012 project coordinator election process, where we will select a team of coordinators to organize the project over the coming year. If you would like to be considered as a candidate, please submit your nomination by 14 September. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact one of thecurrent coordinators on their talk page.This message was delivered here because you are amember of the Military history WikiProject. –Military history coordinators (about the project •what coordinators do) 08:44, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
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?
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.
Philip Roth, a widely known and acclaimed American author, wrote an open letter in the New Yorker addressed to Wikipedia this week, alleging severe inaccuracies in the article on hisThe Human Stain (2000).
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.
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.
In its September issue, the peer-reviewed journalFirst Monday publishedThe 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".
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).
I thought "Cite book" template was the best way to write a bibliography (this allow bots to make update or something else avoiding mistake(s)) that the way we use in many wikis. As I translate some articles to improve french wiki i've supposed my work could be valuable to the english one. But it is not a good idea. So I will use the "talk page" when i'll notice something that could be inproved.
Willis, David. "Boeing B-29 and B-50 Superfortress". International Air Power Review, Volume 22, 2007, pp. 136–169. Westport, Connecticut: AIRtime Publishing. ISSN 1473-9917.ISBN1-880588-79-X.
should be : David Donald, International Air Power Review, vol. 22, Westport, Connecticut, AIRtime Publishing, 2007, 174 p. (ISBN1880588935)(ISSN 1473-9917), p. 136–169.because accordining to amazon 1-880588-79-X refers to Russian Military Aviation Directory Volume 2: Strategic Bombers, Maritime Aircraft, Special Operations Aircraft, Trainers, Airborne Weapons, Organizat witch is not the right book.
makining a search with title an author I've found author's first-name is not good and isbn # is wrong I've fixed french wiki 'no action' to others.
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links pointing todisambiguation pages. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles.Read theFAQ • Join us at theDPL WikiProject.
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.
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.
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.
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you editedToday We Live, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation pageRobert Young(check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles.Read theFAQ • Join us at theDPL WikiProject.
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."
A paper to appear in a special issue ofAmerican 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.
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
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.
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
Hi again Bzuk: I quite agree the extra spacing doesn't appear in the finished article viewed by readers, but that's not why I add the spacing; its added as a courtesy to new and inexperienced editors. I can recall my first impressions as a newbie editor several years ago attempting to edit formidable citation-laced articles: the edit boxes appeared so jumbled with wikicode that I had no clue where or how to proceed with small cursory edits -I was put off editing for quite a while. Researching citation and other procedures, combined with patient trial and error obviously got me past that stage, but it became apparent to me that the same unnecessary hurdles are faced by other people who want to contribute to Wikipedia's articles but who don't possess higher level technical abilities. As a courtesy to such less experienced editors we can remove this obstacle with extra spacing in the wikitext of our articles, IMHO. This helps separate text from cites and clearly shows section structure as its principle benefit. My 2¢s. Best:HarryZilber (talk)14:15, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Does Wikipedia Pay? is aSignpost 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.
Following considerable online and media reportage on the Gibraltar controversy and aSignpost 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."
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.
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
A very good day to you. This is a request for advice: I'm asking you because, inter alia, you're thes last editor to do anyting to this article & I assume it's on your watchlist. As you know, I've contibuted substantially to the arti cle as it stands &therefore take an interest in it. So I'm slightly concerned over the cite tags that have recently been added, particularly as I made a concerted effort to cite it adequately a couple of months back. It seem to me that most of the tags are on uncontentious statements: for instance there is one tag in the final fight section that could either be adressed by moving a cite from the middle of a para to the end, or by including cite to probably the next page of the same book. Which seems stupid. The only statement which to my mind really needs a cite is the statement about getting the engines to run in reverse with a simple camshaft modification. I'd put this in, but i've returned Masefield, the major source, to the library. I guess the basic question is can I simply remove tags?TheLongTone(talk)16:49, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
On this day five years ago, the WikiProject Report debuted as a newSignpost 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.
This week theSignpost 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.
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 theSignpost: 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.
I just reprotectedCat Creek, Montana due to the sockpuppetry returning after the last protection expired. I was reading over the article checking to make sure no vandalism slipped through and I noticed that when you expanded the article,you added mountain lionsto the wildlife section. I checked thesourcethat you provided and I see mention of all of the animals except the mountain lion. Unfortunately, the source I read is a scanned image, so I can't search and perhaps I missed it. Can you point me to the paragraph that you got it from? --Gogo Dodo (talk)05:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
This week saw a front-page story in theWall 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.
On the English Wikipedia, five featured articles, ten featured lists, and four featured pictures were promoted, including USSLexington, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One clarification request concerns the civility enforcement case – specifically, Malleus Fatuorum's perceived circumvention of his topic ban. It has resulted in thousands of bytes spent in vitriolic discussions, multiple blocks, and "no confidence" motions against the Arbitration Committee and one arbitrator, among other ramifications.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A paper in theJournal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, coming from the social control perspective and employing the repertory grid technique, has contributed interesting observations about the governance of Wikipedia.
The article will be discussed atWikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Ruptured Duck (B-25) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article.MilborneOne (talk)16:07, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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.
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?
This week, theSignpost 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.
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.
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.
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.
In late September, theTechnology 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), theSignpost 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.
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.
Regardingyour edit and summary, what was contentious about my edit? The link goes toLothar Sieber where it says"It isassumed that during the vertical drop, with the engine firing, Sieber inadvertently also became the first human to break the sound barrier." Nowhere does it say"There have beenclaims advanced that Luftwaffe test pilot......."That's why I changed it to assumption. I faithfully and accurately reflected what our other article says.Moriori (talk)00:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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.
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.
Seven featured articles, four featured lists and ten featured pictures – including the photograph that spawned the Streisand effect – were promoted this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include the question of ticker symbol placement and the notability of various types of creative performer.
Sorry but you are INCORRECT. It is not I who am engaged in anything other than making reasonable and accurate corrections. Now, as to you: Your message on my talk page is threatening and uncalled for. Please do not threaten me again, it is really not the way to go about things and is infact quite childish and unproductive. Have a nice day. =//=Johnny Squeaky23:53, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you editedThe Iron Petticoat, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation pageSidney James(check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles.Read theFAQ • Join us at theDPL WikiProject.
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.
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.
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 theSignpost.
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.
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.
Bzuk, Joepa and a couple other editors are trying to bring this article on LeMond up to Good Article status, and one thing we need to do is split off a section. Do you know of an administrator that might be able to help us with this? Thanks.Gunbirddriver (talk)20:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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.
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.
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').
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.
P.S.: I've just been introduced to{{refs|30em|refs=}} style referencing, and hereby pledge to stop messing up webpages, with extra spacing, as a New Year's resolution;-)
At this wonderful time of year, I would like to give season’s greetings to all the fellow Wikipedians I have interacted with in the past! May you have a wonderful holiday season!MarnetteD |Talk01:32, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your kind thoughts! I believe you're back in the film industry? Stay in touch and all the best to you and yours.Foofbun (talk)03:38, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
GoingBatty (talk) is wishing you aMerryChristmas! This greeting (and season) promotesWikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user aMerry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!
Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Had a little holiday fun with the above article - without any false modesty I think it is rather improved now, at least it is no longer a "stub"!! Do you suppose anyone would like to assess it?--Soundofmusicals (talk)05:12, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! – –Gareth Griffith-Jones |The Welsh Buzzard| gives you thispuppy! Puppies promoteWikiLove and I hope this little fellow/girl(your choice) has made your day better. Remember! Your puppy must be fed three times a day and will be your faithful companion forever.
Merry Christmas and a happy 2013 22:37, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
Michael Q. Schmidtmy talk page is wishing you Season's Greetings! This message celebrates the holiday season, promotesWikiLove, and hopefully makes your day a little better. Spread the seasonal good cheer by wishing another user aMerry Christmas and aHappy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Share the good feelings.
TheGeneralUser(talk) is wishing you aMerryChristmas! This greeting (and season) promotesWikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user aMerry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!
Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
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 calledIndividual 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.
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.
Seven articles and two lists were promoted to 'featured' status this week, includingList 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, HMSHood, is pictured at right.
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.
Hi,Is that definitely the way to go? I only ask because a while back I was told otherwise on a FA review and I'd hate to start adding something that would just have to be changed again eventually. Thank you for your constructive edits.--Deoliveirafan (talk)09:20, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The article has been moved to its correct title per the consensus that emerged at the discussion. IMHO, WP:UE doesn't apply in this case. I'll leave you to clean up after the move.Mjroots (talk)18:05, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
G'day Bill; thanks very much for your Season's best wishes. As in previous years, it is much appreciated. I hope you are having a nice relaxing time, I am! Cheers.YSSYguy (talk)05:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
A recent, poorly researched and poorly written story in theRegister highlighted the perceived "cash rich" status of the Wikimedia movement. ... TheTelegraph andDaily 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.
On 27 December the Wikimedia Foundation announced the conclusion of their ninth annual fundraiser, which attracted more than 1.2 million donors. The appeal reached its goal of US$25 million, even though fundraising banners ran for only nine days.
In the first of two features, theSignpost 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hello! Your submission ofCat Creek, Montana at theDid You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneathyour nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know!Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs)04:22, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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