I've been readingthis article, hoping to make some article out of it. On the last para, it syays Palmer Stadium was ravaged by Hurricane Flora durign a november 1950 game. Can;t find mention of a '50 Flroa anywhere else. Help please?Buggie111 (talk)16:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It took a while. I tried to hunt down the original Excel file, which disappeared. I appended the readings from that publication to the plot from the former spreadsheet. Changes were quite small.Thegreatdr (talk)00:46, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The rain accumulation estimation has nothing to do with the Doppler capabilities of a weather radar. This is totally a reflectivity issue. The use of "Doppler radar", mainly in US, is a mistake that imply that Doppler radar are equivalent to weather radar. Doppler radar is a category of radars with continuous waves or discrete pulse that are used in different systems ranging front fighter aircraft to police radar gunto estimate the speed of targets. In the case of meteorology, this is just an extra function added to the reflectivity of conventional radar. To link the accumulation of rain to Doppler radar is thus totally passing beside the point.
My name is Elaine and I'm a communications intern with the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco. I'm working on a post about the WikiCup for the Foundation blog[1]. Since you are the winner of the 2011 WikiCup, I would love to do a short interview with you either by phone, Skype, or email to ask you a few quick questions. Let me know if you're interested! You can reach me at communicationsinternwikimedia.org.
Hey, no worries. I was actually going to ask today, do you want me to just do a quick copyedit myself, or post a bunch of copyediting suggestions on the review page? Neither is too much trouble.Keilana|Parlez ici15:53, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Then I'll take care of all the stuff that wouldn't change the meaning of what's written, and put the rest on the GA review page. I'll have that all worked up within 24 hours, is that ok?Keilana|Parlez ici16:10, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, thanks for the GAN review. I'm about halfway through Lenny, so I'll get to your comments on Andromeda and post mine on Lenny after I get home (in about 5-6 hours). Sound good?Keilana|Parlez ici22:17, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Two of my favorite things - GAs about constellations and kittens! Thanks for the excellent review. Drop me a line if you ever need anything!Keilana|Parlez ici00:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How on earth could you tell? I thought I was being subtle. But yes, I noticed that all of the constellation articles were complete crap...not a single one out of 88 had passed any kind of formal review. That's sad.Keilana|Parlez ici01:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh God, 1 down, 87 to go. In that case, I may hit you up for a review or two. (BTW, I haven't forgotten about Lenny or Debby. I'll have those comments up for you in a little bit).Keilana|Parlez ici01:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's excellent! I definitely can't go it alone though. Unfortunately WikiProject Constellations is dead as a doornail. Ah well, it's not like I have much to do anyways.Keilana|Parlez ici02:43, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Hink. I just think, thatthis is not a good idea. Pittily it was decided with a few comments only and aside you none of those I ever saw in the WPTC. In this there are, IMO, two different questions to desolve:
whether the impact article needs an infobox at all
if they need what should be included into this infobox.
Independently on those two questions those articles should not have the same infobox like the main article. The Infobox hurricane is made for article about hurricanes. An arcticle about the effects of Hurricane XY isn't an article about a hurricane. You certainly won't put the Infobox settlement in theHistory of Atlanta article. So why would you place the Infobox hurricane in theEffects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans?
And then, the collection of infoboxes in all the hurricane articles are a database on their own. At the last dump EN Wikipedia had 483 articles using theTemplate:Infobox hurricane, andthis is a table of all parameters used in the articles (wether they exist in the template proper or not). Andthose are the first 30 of them. Can you imagine what the merging and usingTemplate:Infobox hurricane within the effects articles series will do with the value of the database,here in it's entirety?
Well, it's all about redundancy, isn't it? Why we should include the hurricane infobox in an sub-article on a specific storm again, if it already is included in the main article? Let's take Katrina with three? four? different effects articles? In each of them? I don't know any other example in the WP in which sub-articles get the infobox from the main article. Putting the IB fromHurricane Katrina intoEffects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans is actually the same as would be putting the IB fromNew York City into the article on theUpper West Side as well. Would you do the latter? The more we discuss on it the more I think those infoboxes should be dropped from the effects articles series completely. --Matthiasb (talk)23:31, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If the template is the same then the content will be the same and therefor is unneeded as I tried to explain with my NYC-UWS example. And, if the infobox is used within the effects articles series then the value of the hurricane infobox database (see above) is hampered because then the same entry is included twice or even more times. The problem isn't in the redundancy between both templates, the problem is the redundancy of the content of the infobox within theHurricane Katrina andEffects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the wrong use at all. Could you perhaps explain why the latter article should infcude the Hurricane Katrina infobox? The day when Katrina formed and that it affected other areas before, even the satellite image, even the peak intensity is of no interest withinEffects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It's just creating redundancy and kind of spamming an article with information unnecessary within the specific context. However I guess you're not understanding what actually I want to say and I am not really sure wether it's because of my Pidgin English or because of dissenting opionions. Sorry if I am confusing you. --Matthiasb (talk)06:15, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
PS: Trying another approach... If the effects articles series needs an infobox then it needs to include values describing the effects of the storm. How many people where affected. When where they affected. How much was insured damage. Which aid agencies got in. How many people have been evacuated. Was it a mandatory evac. Wether there have been electricity of communication outages. In which time the area was affected (that's not when the storm formed and dissipated). What is not needed from the Infobox hurricane: satellite image, formed, dissipated, peak intensity – those are informations of no interest for the effects article. Template:Infobox hurricane is not useful in effect articles. --Matthiasb (talk)06:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well I don't think the discussion is heated or even lame. I only observe that you do not refer to any of the reasons I mentioned above, and you're constantly repeating the one issue, that one infobox redudant to the other. But that is not and never was my point. That's quite disappointing and frustrating, you know, but what the matter.
For shorten this: No. I don't need an infobox for the effects article series. I just don't want the normal hurricane infobox used in the effects article because of that articles do not describe hurricanes. Stop. And readers may find this confusing, especially ifIt's not like the effects template would include the exact same info as the regular hurricane one. Nice. People see the infobox in the New Orleans article and soon wrong numbers will flow around in the wild. Am I really the only who thinks that this will not work out good? Let's end this discussion here. Let us rather clean up the mess in a year or two. --Matthiasb (talk)09:52, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I saw that you put upa copy edit request for this article back in January, but that it's already moving through the FAC process, and looks to be close to passing. It also looks like someone else did a lot of copy editing of the article at the end of January. Would you still like someone fromWP:GOCE to copy edit the article, or would it be okay to remove it from the requests list?—Torchiesttalkedits19:10, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I saw you at the featured topic board, and wanted to ask you something. I am currently working on the articleRa.One, and its aiming for an FA. I had to cut down on the article's content a lot so as to make the article concise, hence allowing me to make a number of daughter articles such asPrincipal photography of Ra.One,Post-production of Ra.One,Marketing of Ra.One andEconomics of Ra.One; not to mention the already-existing daughter articlesSoundtrack of Ra.One andList of accolades received by Ra.One. I was wondering whether this would be applicable for a good/featured topicafter I can get them to GA/FA status. Something like this :-
P.S. Could you also explain to me about the details of making a book out of these articles? i;m rather fascinated with this aspect. Thanks. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~07:59, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You know, all those articles had been part of the main article. It was only on FAC insistence that they were split :P. Yes, it does seem a lot, but I guess its just because there so much information regarding this film. Thanks for the information :). ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~17:52, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hurricane John was the eleventhnamed storm, seventhhurricane, and fifth major hurricane of the2006 Pacific hurricane season. Hurricane John developed on August 28 from atropical wave to the south of Mexico. Favorable conditions allowed the storm to intensify quickly, and it attained peak winds of 135 mph (215 km/h) on August 30.Eyewall replacement cycles and land interaction with western Mexico weakened the hurricane, and John made landfall on southeasternBaja California Sur with winds of 110 mph (180 km/h) on September 1. It slowly weakened as it moved northwestward through the Baja California peninsula, and dissipated on September 4. The hurricane threatened large portions of the western coastline ofMexico, resulting in the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. In coastal portions of western Mexico, strong winds downed trees, while heavy rain resulted in mudslides. Hurricane John caused moderate damage on the Baja California peninsula, including the destruction of more than 200 houses and thousands of flimsy shacks. The hurricane killed five people in Mexico, and damage totaled $663 million (2006 MXN, $60.8 million 2006 USD). (more...)
The rain is just ending in NC. I have to wait for the COOP reports to come in tomorrow, which won't be in an ingestable format until late afternoon tomorrow. The rainfall spreadsheet should be complete enough to create graphics on Friday, with the webpage created on Saturday. That's the goal anyway.Thegreatdr (talk)00:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was from the India Met Dept RSMC Page. As you suggested, i'll make the changes. I'll let you decide if you want to keep or not, when a new, legit version is ready.
Ok, what i'll do is downgrade the number of lines from four to two, one each for the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. That seems fair for me. Just let me know your viewRishabh Tatiraju (talk)17:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes its true that every TC has a unique track, but for an average person, he would like to know where they form and where they usually go. This is not achieved by a simple Basin map. An average track map will fulfill the same. Hope you get what i want to say.Rishabh Tatiraju (talk)17:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, they look similar too, ill add an extra arrow for EPAC, as the map shows, pointing towards the west pacific. Similarly reduce the NIO arrows to two. Will even add one more in the Madagascar area, and one in the eastern Australian Region. Basically i'll combine both.Rishabh Tatiraju (talk)18:02, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A good question. Most probably the IMD image would be copyrighted. I will recreate the NOAA version only, since it falls in public domain. Will have it ready by tomorrow. Thanks for your support.Rishabh Tatiraju (talk)18:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The NOAA Image is very small, i am recreating it in Scalable Vector Garphics (SVG), which allows the user to render the image to any size he wants. As simple as that.Rishabh Tatiraju (talk)14:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we all expect quality images in Wikipedia, right? Even if we upload the NOAA version, it will soon be converted into an SVG by someone else.Rishabh Tatiraju (talk)13:19, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that too, you know! How stupid am i? I must have gotten Bret, which i was trying to edit, gotten confused with Beryl.Plmnji (talk)20:24, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is a techinical memorandum from 1956 detailing tropical cyclone rainfall for the United States on a case-by-case basis back to 1899. I don't know if it's been scanned online or not since I haven't tried searching for it online in over 10 years.Thegreatdr (talk)15:02, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Great work with getting all those tropical-cyclone-related articles up to featured status! I am concerned about the titles of three central articles that fall within the scope of tropical cyclones and I was hoping that you would engage in discussion with me about them. The three articles areNorth Atlantic tropical cyclone,Pacific hurricane, andTyphoon. As far as I can tell from theNorth Atlantic tropical cyclone article, Atlantic tropical cyclones sometimes form in the southern hemisphere, so to call the article "North Atlantic" is to make it too specific, even if the vast majority form in the northern hemisphere. Similarly, theTropical cyclone article tells me that hurricanes and typhoons are only one level of intensity of tropical cyclones, so the titles "Pacific hurricane" and "Typhoon" seem to be too specific to be the Pacific analogues of theNorth Atlantic tropical cyclone article. In the interest of consistency of scope across articles, I would like to seeNorth Atlantic tropical cyclone,Pacific hurricane, andTyphoon be moved toAtlantic tropical cyclone,Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone, andWestern Pacific tropical cyclone respectively. I recognize that you have more background in this subject than I do, so I would be grateful for your help in working out these issues.
Article titles are a specific passion of mine on Wikipedia; I think they are one of the most important elements of an article, partly because they demonstrate their connection to the other articles on Wikipedia and partly because they are so easily and subtlely distorted by POV in ways that have major implications for article content. I am mostly interested in organization on Wikipedia, so I do a lot of work with article titles, navboxes, and hatnotes. I'm also very active atToday's featured list and I'm trying to getList of wettest tropical cyclones in the United States up on the main page. Feel free to contribute to the discussionhere.
The Mos is quite clear that the dates have to be in the same format throughout the article, which is backed up by the numerous amount of people going around and changing the dates and alignign them to which ever is the preferred format in the article. Also i note that there is a typo in the first paragraph which i had corrected.Jason Rees (talk)20:48, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It must be in the MoS as otherwise i doubt the script i use would be removing them, I cant be asked to go through it right now though as im going through the rainfall. I also note though that there was a lot more to my edit then just removing the  s, i alligned all of the dates and corrected a couple of typos.Jason Rees (talk)03:59, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There was no need for you to RV in the first place by just stating that "isn't any cleaner", when it is a lot cleaner than it was as all of the dates were spelled out properly and in to the same format and i had corrected a typo or two. As for which policy it is, there must be something on it in the MoS since the whole script is built around maintaining the standards of the MoS.Jason Rees (talk)12:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The  s; are removed by the script because they are not useful for dates and just clutter the place up (except when editors want to stop a line feed by default).Jason Rees (talk)14:40, 14 June 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.
Thanks for all the comments in theList of wettest tropical cyclones in the United States TFL discussion. I believe all of your concerns have been addressed; if you would comment there to let us know whether or not there is more work required, it would be greatly appreciated. Some concerns have been raised at theSnow in Florida TFL discussion as well; if you have time, your help in addressing those concerns would be appreciated as well. Specifically, I do not know how to address the concern regarding the lead graph, and I feel as though you are probably more qualified to extend the lead than I am.
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, Hurricanehink. You have new messages atEarth100's talk page. Message added 28 July 2012. You canremove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Hello Hurricanehink,I noticed that the Statistics section was removed from the WIkipedia page on June 1. That section contained my contributions to research on Hurricane Andrew, and fixed some errors (e.g. Clemson University did not conduct the Perrine anemometer wind tunnel tests). I spent four years of research on Hurricane Andrew, leading to two peer-reviewed papers which were cited in that section. Rather than edit the page again myself, it would be great if you could reinstate that material. It could be contained in the section on Meteorology if there was a desire to remove material in the statistics section. You can contact me at Mark.Powell@noaa.gov if you have any questions.
My web page is: www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Powell/index.html
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.
I don't know how much you've been following the Istanbul FAC, but I believe I've responded to all of your comments there. --tariqabjotu20:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Now that the candidacy is closed, as should have been expected (and, frankly, was expected by me when I penned the two offending comments on the FAC), I would like to take the time to apologize for my comments directed at you in the Istanbul FAC. Indeed, I can imagine the "few hours" you noted you spent reviewing the article was an understatement, given the article's immense length, and for me to use words suggesting I found your comments "nonsense" or "inane" was inappropriate and unfair, especially given -- as I did notice well before my remarks -- you did say you were overall pleased with the article. Reviewers there should never have to be subjected to such hostility, and I am truly saddened that I contributed to your reluctance to participate in future FACs (and that this is not the first issue like this you've run into at the FAC).
In the interest of being honest, rather than simply angling for forgiveness, I will say that even now, I still disagree with the points that I kept unaddressed (although, as you point out, I did not notice that the 17,000 figure should have been replaced with 18,000). But, of course, my approach of choosing to outright ignore you was inappropriate and immature. I could come up with a few excuses -- it was late at night, I really wasn't expecting to deal with so many comments late in the FAC, blah, blah -- but the real explanation is just that my disagreement with you and bewilderment with some of the issues you had had become so strong that my judgment was clouded. Okay, that sounded like an excuse as well, but what I mean is, instead of commenting in the heat of the moment, I should have taken a step back, gotten a good night's sleep, and waited before expressing how I felt. And, as Mitch suggested, the more appropriate course of action would have been to just state that I would like a second opinion before modifying content I otherwise felt didn't need to be modified.
Not trying to change the subject, after getting that night's sleep, rethinking the matter, and seeing the conclusion I directly created, I see that my remarks were not only inconsiderate to you, but to the process as a whole (as stated by Graham) and to the other editors who have contributed to the article in some way over the years. I presume that your disdain for my outburst does not change your opinion about the article itself, and so for it to fail to gain featured status because of what ultimately weremy inane remarks is not fair to these other editors either. For that reason, at some point, I would like to either reinstate the existing FAC -- sans the offending remarks, of course -- or otherwise start a second FAC. However (or nevertheless), I would prefer that you let me know or decide when you feel it's acceptable for me to do that -- even if it's never.
But most importantly, I hope that at some point, and I don't necessarily expect now, you'll forgive me for my comments at the FAC. --tariqabjotu02:52, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for the kind post, and I very much forgive you. The unfortunate things about arguments on Wikipedia is that they're simply through text (so wording can becoming amplified in our head) and that they are time-delayed (so that you might not see something I wrote until hours later, and I might not be able to reply back until hours after that). In my seven years on Wikipedia, I've had several little spats between myself and another editor, and all of them ended amicably whenever the other editor was a fairly prolific article-writer.
Personally, I blame you being on vacation :P I'll admit, if I had a FAC that was up for a while, and then when I was on vacation I got a ton of comments (some of which I disagreed with), I might be a little annoyed too. To be honest, I was a little facetious when I said I wouldn't be continuing to participate on future FAC's. I mostly just said that to mimic what you said, and so I do apologize and take back those remarks. I've retired Wiki twice, gone on several Wiki breaks, and gone through a lot of other stuff here on Wiki, so don't worry, you're not going to be the cause of me stopping FAC reviewing. That's fine if you disagree with some of my comments - it's only one user's comments out of millions. If you do put Istanbul up for FAC again, either some of those comments will come up again, or no one will care about them, in which case, hopefully no significant harm done. I do suggest you put it back up for FAC at some point. It is a fantastic article, and you deserve the star after your years of work on there.
Thanks, and perhaps your analysis of the situation is correct. I'll probably wait until my vacation finishes in a week's time before starting a second nomination, but the academic year is looming ahead for me, and disruption of my studies would be even worse than disruption of my vacation. I might actually take a look at the article you have up for featured status; I do have some interest in hurricanes, and I've never done a review before. One thing I noticed right away is that the first paragraph mentions the storm forming on June 28, but -- as far as I can tell -- the year has not been mentioned yet by then. --tariqabjotu20:38, 9 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.
That guy is clearly not willing to talk. He just keeps vandalizing by plausible misinformation to articles (minor alteration of facts), which is categorized under sneaky vandalism.165.125.180.10 (talk)02:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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.
Thanks for your(?) comments. Searching online for sources other than the three I linked to does not bring up much with any detail. Multiple wikipedia mirrors/cut'n paste sites are also clouding the issue. One possibly useful site hurricanearchive.com has disappeared and been replaced by a japanese language site about back pain.Graham1973 (talk)00:23, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again, the new information should help. I should make clear that I did not create the page. I am only trying to improve what the original anonymous author did, I'm assuming he was working entirely from:
Thanks again for the additional information/advice. BTW you might also want to take a quick look atTropical cyclones in popular culture where I've mounted a major effort to clean up the references. The task is not finished yet and there are a few changes to entries to come, but the article is much improved.Graham1973 (talk)02:07, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've done a few more tweaks, but I think I've hit the wall regarding citations (at least online ones), I'm going to try and locate some of the uncited books in the local library system.Graham1973 (talk)04:49, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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).
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.
yh it did you read this it says Delaware Emergency Management Agency so obvs he was in delaware he went to ny too I had to go back to Manchester UK School from ny because of this. -_- --188.223.248.201 (talk)18:20, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As i though the other storms section in the western pacific was just a hunk of words, i thought it would be better if i added the inbox hurricane thing to show each TD's track and satellite image for viewers to see.This is my version of the Other storms section of the page(go down to the other storms section), but Jason just changed it to the original blob of words, with nothing interesting. As i thought, if the viewers were thinking of hey, all i see is just words and no track or image for me too see. As i do not like being involved in a edit war, so i decide to talk here and to decide on what to do. Please reply in my talk page, all i just want it to make Wikipedia better.-- ✯Earth100✯ ☉‿☉TalkContribs02:12, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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
Would you considerthe texas flooding related to Norman as most sources do not attribute it to Norma, but Acuweather and Wunderground do. What do you think is the best treatment here? Give a separate article on the flood or have the content in Normans' article or have info on the Texas flooding not exist on WP? Normally, I would ask on IRC, but I can not acess IRC on a school computer.YEPacificHurricane16:48, 1 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
Hello, there is a new article called2012-13 United States winter storm season that is providing information about the new naming system thatThe Weather Channel is giving major winter storms. I would much appreciate help from you there. I understand that you might be only based around tropical cyclones, but the way that the page should look is expected to be similar to most hurricane articles. Stop by and comment on the talk page if you would like to help, thanks!STO12 (talk)22:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you editedTyphoon Rammasun (2002), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation pageChongming (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.
I oppose info on Hector to go into Ernesto's article as the storms are separate. "what sort of different info would a Hector article have than what's already in the season article and what's in Ernesto's article" is exactly why I said "WPTC sucks" I could bring this up, however, it would be extremely counterproductive and make the edit atmosphere toxic.YEPacificHurricane16:06, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're fast at replying :P As I've said many times, I don't like the closed minded article mentality no offense, but for I start whining, ill warp it up here.YEPacificHurricane16:11, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I truly more or less think, we as a project should do 3 things, in particular the first. I hope you take no offense to this, but it is how I really feel.
1) Keep an open mind on article creation and not go wtf did it do and/or "is this really necessary" towards creating/merging articles
2) Work around notability and stay focused on article writing
While I feel it is pointless to do articles for "every storm", I do believe that all (or almost all) Car 4 and 5's should get articles, along with pretty much all land impacting systems.YEPacificHurricane00:57, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Most Cat 4's (as for pre-1988, I can only go so far with those) have enough for their own article. "How is it better to have hundreds of additional articles when we already have hundreds of stubs and start class articles? "How is it better to have hundreds of additional articles when we already have hundreds of stubs and start class articles?" is not really relevant, merging articles will not get me to work on more important articles. I don't think the number of paragraphs is a good indicator of article length as some editors write longer paragraphs than others.YEPacificHurricane01:21, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
IMO seasons describe what happens in the season (why it was so inactive/active, how did it compare to average) and comprehensive summaries of the weak fishes while storms are physical entries describing a storm, not a season.YEPacificHurricane02:32, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
They should. I don't think there should be 15 storm articles a season. Some, but not all tropical cyclone can support a reasonably sized article (500-700 words) and for those systems that can support that, they should get articles. Now, for newer systems, alomst every tropical cyclone can support a realistically sized, so notability and sources should be more of a factor here. When articles are given for marginally notable storms, there should not be a two paragraph summary in the season section.YEPacificHurricane02:56, 9 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.
Hi! If that's the case, then a full citation, which is what the tag added indicates, to say that. As the citations currently exist, there is no way to know they can be found on Lexis Nexis. If you could improve the citations like issn, doi, author, page number, etc. I use databases a lot and there are ways to do that, such as using the author, agency, newspaper while using the publisher as Lexis Nexis. Otherwise, they aren't verifiable. If I was reviewing this at GA, which I debated after seeing it getting listed, I'd pretty much require it as well, no plagiarism checks are possible, no ability exists to verify, etc. --LauraHale (talk)04:06, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've decided to do the GA. As you used these sources and I cannot verify these sources existence, it is up to you to figure out how to provide a full citation so I can do that. --LauraHale (talk)04:17, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to upload the picture of the winter waterspout picturedhere. It is by Environment Canada with an exception for educational purposes, so it still falls under the non-free image policy. By my reading ofWP:NFC, I believe it meets the requirements of fair use, since it is one of the only pictures of a winter waterspout, thus falling under a unique historical image. Since you're an administrator, I was hoping you could confirm/deny my interpretation and let me know if I should be ok to upload the file. Thank you.Inks.LWC (talk)06:38, 16 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.
Hi. I sawTropical Storm Kammuri (2002) was recently passed as GA. I am considering opening aGood Article Review on this article, and potentially more GAs on hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms that you have assisted in elevating where full citations have not been provided, AND where the reviewer appears to have failed to assess the article on criteria two. Please provide full, complete citations by including a URL for verification, or the page number for the physical copy of the text. If you cannot provide a way for a reviewer to access this information, I will happily delist the article as it fails criteria 2. --LauraHale (talk)19:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That is fine.Talk:Tropical Storm Kammuri (2002)/GA2 has been opened. As I get the time, I will work on this review. I will give it one week. It will be easier if the citations are full so I can verify. Your assistance in improving the article so it meets criteria 2 would be appreciated. The goal here is to make sure the article keeps its GA status. It clearly does not pass criteria as it stands, and we can work together to fix this.--LauraHale (talk)19:53, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you editedEffects of Hurricane Sandy in Canada, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation pageHalifax (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.
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.
I drafted a timeline for the Winter Storm Season this time around, would you mind taking a look? It's in mysandbox for now, I'm waiting for people to decide what we're going to do before I create a timeline page in articlespace. Thanks!gwickwire |Leave a message04:17, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Since you've been involved with articles on non-tropical cyclones in the past, I thought this might be a relevant area for you to give some input. At the moment, there is discussion going on about whether we should adoptThe Weather Channel's new procedure of using names for winter storms that will have a significant impact. There are two discussions going on: anAFD of the article about the current winter storm season and aproposal to not use TWC's naming system as the title for an ongoing storm. Out of full disclosure, I've started both of those discussions, and while I have my own opinions, I wanted to get fresh opinions from editors who, like me, have a history of editing similar articles in the past. Thank you.Inks.LWC (talk)20:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
The tropical cyclone pages says that my article is useful and will learn something new. The article is just a weeks ago then you just only noticed that it has a violation? Besides, you must ask a permission to me before you delete my article. I don't care if you have many stars but my point is that I worked it so hard researching about it what happened to the next day. I know I worked for it for one week then you will just redirect it for one day? You have to use your common sense if you have some 09:03, 19 November 2012 (UTC)09:03, 19 November 2012 (UTC)Hurricane trackers (talk)09:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
wikimedia.org.
; see the GA review for comments about the article. Well done!
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