User talk:Howicus/Archive 6
Valentine Greets!!!
The Signpost: 18 February 2015Go Phightins! shares his thoughts on admin attrition and the size of the administrative backlog.
The Australian ("Wikipedia not destroying life as we know it", February 11) and Times Higher Education ("Wikipedia should be 'better integrated' into teaching", February 10) reported on a recent study performed at Monash University, titled "Students’ use of Wikipedia as an academic resource – patterns of use and perceptions of usefulness".
The authors of this report inform us that the "goal in the Revision Scoring project is to do the hard work of constructing and maintaining powerful AI so that tool developers don't have to. This cross-lingual, machine learning classifier service for edits will support new wiki tools that require edit quality measures."
Darwin Day is observed annually on February 12 to commemorate the life and work of scientist Charles Darwin. Here is a selection of images of life on the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin made key observations leading to his scientific theory of evolution by natural selection.
This week saw the 57th Annual Grammy Awards (#13 on the Top 25) held on 8 February dominating the traffic chart, as music lovers checked out Sam Smith (#3) picking up four awards, Beck taking album of the year, and performances including Sia (#9), Madonna (#11), and Annie Lennox (#16). But Valentine's Day (#1) proved the perfect time for the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, with the movie coming in at #5, the book of the same name at #2, and the primary actors at #14 and #15.
Five pictures, six lists, and seventeen pictures were promoted
The most significant item on ArbCom's agenda this fortnight has been the closure of the Wifione case and subsequent fallout, although the fallout from GamerGate continues to linger.
yeruhamHi, Yes - I am talking with Norty Noth, the person who wrote to me that he created the page for the Yeruham. I was not happy to see that it was edited one day ago, as all the news stories were being made up about my town. As far as the pictures go, yes - I can take photos of the lake area and its very pretty. The problem now is that its winter - and the place is covered in snow and water and mud. It does not look like its "normal" self at this time in season. But yes, I can take photos better than like the aerial shot on here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amandalee222 (talk • contribs) 05:54, 26 February 2015 (UTC) The Signpost: 25 February 2015
A report from the external research firm Lafayette Practice has declared that the Wikimedia Foundation is the "largest known participatory grantmaking fund." Several concerns have been raised with the report, the phrase being used (participatory grantmaking), the now-former Wikipedia article on that phrase, and an alleged conflict of interest by WMF staff members.
Doc James tells us that "The one good thing that has come out of all of this is that Wikipedia’s content passing a major textbook publisher review processes is some external validation of Wikipedia’s quality."
Andrew McMillen's February 3 profile of and his quest to rid Wikipedia of the phrase "comprised of" has been one of the most widely circulated and commented upon media stories about the encyclopedia recently.
Eleven articles and twenty pictures were promoted in the week covered by this report.
The Gallery is an occasional Signpost feature highlighting quality images and articles from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons based on a particular theme, as well as an article you could help improve. This week, we feature subjects that are "far from home".
An odd juxtaposition this week, as interest in Fifty Shades of Grey coincided with the observance of the Chinese New Year and the annual festival of penance, Ash Wednesday.
A monthly roundup of Wikimedia-related research
This week's project is on a youth activity, one of the largest in the world; its project is commensurately large, containing around 136 active editors. It's WikiProject Scouting, a group of editors whose remit is everything relating to the Scouting movement, which has around 42 million members worldwide and celebrated the centenary of its founding only eight years ago.
Editor's note: the Blog will be a recurring Signpost section that will highlight a recent post from the Wikimedia blog, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. This week's installment is written by Philippe Beaudette, the Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy, and focuses on planning for the future of the Wikimedia movement.
The Signpost: 25 February 2015
A report from the external research firm Lafayette Practice has declared that the Wikimedia Foundation is the "largest known participatory grantmaking fund." Several concerns have been raised with the report, the phrase being used (participatory grantmaking), the now-former Wikipedia article on that phrase, and an alleged conflict of interest by WMF staff members.
Doc James tells us that "The one good thing that has come out of all of this is that Wikipedia’s content passing a major textbook publisher review processes is some external validation of Wikipedia’s quality."
Andrew McMillen's February 3 profile of and his quest to rid Wikipedia of the phrase "comprised of" has been one of the most widely circulated and commented upon media stories about the encyclopedia recently.
Eleven articles and twenty pictures were promoted in the week covered by this report.
The Gallery is an occasional Signpost feature highlighting quality images and articles from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons based on a particular theme, as well as an article you could help improve. This week, we feature subjects that are "far from home".
An odd juxtaposition this week, as interest in Fifty Shades of Grey coincided with the observance of the Chinese New Year and the annual festival of penance, Ash Wednesday.
A monthly roundup of Wikimedia-related research
This week's project is on a youth activity, one of the largest in the world; its project is commensurately large, containing around 136 active editors. It's WikiProject Scouting, a group of editors whose remit is everything relating to the Scouting movement, which has around 42 million members worldwide and celebrated the centenary of its founding only eight years ago.
Editor's note: the Blog will be a recurring Signpost section that will highlight a recent post from the Wikimedia blog, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. This week's installment is written by Philippe Beaudette, the Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy, and focuses on planning for the future of the Wikimedia movement.
Message from User:Joshua0228 about adoptionHi there. I am a new Wikipedia user and I was wondering if you could adopt me? I am not even sure that I am creating the right subsection. I wish to create more articles, primarily songs, as I feel many vital albums need more individual articles on their songs. Contact me if you are willing to adopt me — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua0228 (talk • contribs) .
Thank you. I will be very happy to learn from you and I hope to help make Wikipedia a better place. Thanks for taking me in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua0228 (talk • contribs) 04:12, 19 February 2015 (UTC) I have a question. When you say post diffs of the results of the various tasks you have me do, what is a diff and how do I get it? I'm sorry for sounding like a noob — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua0228 (talk • contribs) 04:52, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Thank you. Much appreciated. Sorry for all the dumb sounding questions, also do check out my user page for your adoption school. I have a couple of questions about you on there. I am reading the assigned articles and will start posting answers soon. Joshua0228 (talk) 14:48, 19 February 2015 (UTC) I am so sorry on how long it has taken me to get to these assignments. i have been so busy recently in school. However, very soon I should be able to work on them, I apologize. Joshua0228 (talk) 04:23, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
Problems with upload of File:ILAI Fund logo.pngThanks for uploading File:ILAI Fund logo.png. You don't seem to have said where the image came from, who created it, or what the copyright status is. We require this information to verify that the image is legally usable on Wikipedia, and because most image licenses require giving credit to the image's creator. To add this information, click on this link, then click the "Edit" tab at the top of the page and add the information to the image's description. If you need help, post your question on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. For more information on using images, see the following pages: Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 20:05, 1 March 2015 (UTC) Editor of the Week
User:Lixxx235 submitted the following nomination for Editor of the Week:
You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week: {{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week/Recipient user box}}
Thanks again for your efforts! This nomination also received four seconds, so a quadruple thanks from the encyclopedia for your efforts! Go Phightins! 12:51, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 March 2015
We received a large amount of feedback in our survey indicating that our readers found the idea of contributing to the Signpost difficult due to our opaque internal structure.
The Wikimedia Foundation released their Quarterly Report last week covering the three months October to December of 2014.
Last week, my colleagues on the Signpost produced a news report covering a minor controversy about a report commissioned by the Wikimedia Foundation. Written by the staff of The Lafayette Practice, a French research firm, it proclaimed the WMF as a leader in the practice of participatory grantmaking.
The Report this week is dominated by the Academy Awards, taking the top 4 spots and 13 of the Top 25.
In the first of what the author hopes will become a regular feature of the Arbitration report, the Signpost speaks to veteran arbitrator Newyorkbrad, who recently retired from the committee after almost seven years of arbitrating. The Signpost was keen to hear his thoughts on his time on the committee and on the past, present, and future of ArbCom.
Before being indefinitely blocked, User:FergusM1970 made more than 4600 edits on the English Wikipedia, spread over eight years. In the last two years, he was paid to edit several articles for clients that included the Venezuelan energy company Derwick Associates. We spoke with him about his experiences.
Numerous news outlets are reporting that the domain loser.com now redirects to the Wikipedia article for rapper Kanye West. Page views on West's Wikipedia article skyrocketed to almost 250,000 views on March 2, up from less than 19 thousand the previous day.
Two featured articles, four featured lists, and 38 featured pictures were promoted this week..
The Signpost has arranged to mirror Tech news from Meta-Wiki to supplement the long-form tech coverage in our infrequent Technology report..
Black History Month is celebrated annually in the United States in February, to commemorate the history of the African diaspora. For this occasion, Wikipedians worked together to honor black history and to address Wikipedia's multicultural gaps in the encyclopedia, hosting Wikipedia edit-a-thons throughout the United States, from February 1 to 28, 2015.
Prompt and HelpfulHowicus promptly helped me while I was in an editing conundrum. Thanks for the help on the Kiwi help chat. --Edward Versaii (talk) 01:44, 6 March 2015 (UTC) Reintroduction pageHello! I was editing this page, but I am new to editing so thank you for telling me to put the reason why under the edit discussion page. I will do this from now on. Thank you. crastatter86 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crastatter86 (talk • contribs) 23:07, 8 March 2015 (UTC) The Signpost: 11 March 2015
The Wikimedia Foundation gave the Signpost an advance copy of the results of a survey of English Wikipedia readers regarding Wikimedia fundraising, due for official release today.
The community has arranged a number of commemorative initiatives focused on the gender gap, under the banner "WikiWomen's History Month".
ThinkProgress tech reporter Lauren C. Williams wrote a long article on how the Gamergate controversy has spilled over onto Wikipedia.
In an effort to protect and maintain the privacy of Wikipedia's thousands of editors, the Wikimedia Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the United States' National Security Agency, Department of Justice, and the Attorney General.
A dull week, with only three new entries in the top 10; a UFC champion, a Google Doodle and a Hindu festival involving people throwing powder at each other (though that does sound fun).
Six featured articles, three featured lists, and forty featured pictures were promoted this week.
I continue to be excited about the Core Contest because I see it as a way of encouraging the expansion of broad articles that are typically neglected by our article improvement incentives.
Naval battle of CasablancaI see your point about the transport losses. From your editing history, I assume you realize battle damage control and salvage appraisal takes time; and it is fairly common for ships to sink hours to days after they receive battle damage. I considered the final actions section the appropriate place to summarize the fate of the torpedo damaged American ships. I encourage you to summarize in a less confusing manner if you wish. In the absence of reference citations for time of sinking, please take care not to imply sinkings were on the day of damage. Thewellman (talk) 02:34, 14 March 2015 (UTC) Hello Howicus, Thanks for trying to help me out with this problem. I'm not sure how to go about doing what you suggest... I can find no other Harry McDonald on Wiki nor have I yet been able to find a link in any of the articles shown... how/why do the links keep appearing if they are not in the articles listed? Thanks. Regards, Eagleash (talk) 01:20, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
824767Hi Howicus r U a mathematician ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by C824767 (talk • contribs) 02:50, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
asking because I gave this mathematician Gordie something my email address last year when I first met him and he sent me an email ([email protected]) saying that it is an unusually impenetrable number resilient to mathematical break down or math speak to that effect. I am an artist so not much math speak from me haha. maybe he is on drugs ? I will try to send him an email and ask which tests he ran with this number. meanwhile, maybe you have a mathematician in your circle of friends who would like to take a look ? C824767 (talk) 14:49, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
K i put a question about it into the tea house since host bot invited me. haha C824767 (talk) 02:08, 21 March 2015 (UTC) The Signpost: 18 March 2015
We announce with sadness and gratitude that Signpost publication and newsroom manager Pine will be stepping back to focus on other Wikipedia and Wikimedia-related endeavors.
This process is now entering its long-awaited final phase with the upcoming SUL finalization, scheduled for April 15, less than a month away. ... Wikimedia Foundation chief talent and culture officer Gayle Karen Young announced her retirement from the Foundation this week. Young will be replaced in that role by interim chief operating officer Terry Gilbey. According to the Foundation's job description for the title as it was applied in the past, Gilbey will be in charge of "overall administration and business operations of the Wikimedia Foundation."
On March 13, Kelly Weill of Capital New York revealed that numerous Wikipedia edits originated from 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters of the NYPD. Most of the attention has focused on a number of their edits to articles about incidents of alleged police brutality and controversial police practices.
The publication of the Wikimedia survey findings on fundraising questions came three months after significant concerns were voiced about the design and wording of the December 2014 fundraising banners and e-mails.
Four featured articles, four featured lists, and thirty-five featured pictures were promoted this week.
If not for Kayne West's dubious repeat at #1, the 2015 Cricket World Cup (#2) would have made the top spot, albeit in a generally slow news week. . Reply To Your PostHowicus: Thank you for the post; I am sure it will help me in the future. That being so, May I ask what prompted you to post the message concerning editing etiquette on my profile? I would like to know if there is something specific which I am doing incorrectly. TheDevLee (talk) 14:59, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost – Volume 11, Issue 12 – 25 March 2015
Last week the WMF announced the release of its long-awaited open-access policy.
Once when I was young, growing up in the 1990s, my father pulled his collection of railroad slides out from the basement, set up his projector, and shared a glimpse into American railway history with our family.
Four featured articles, three featured lists, and twenty-two featured pictures were promoted this week.
The Wikipedia Commons annual Picture of the Year contest has concluded, with 6,698 people voting, its largest participation yet.
This week's list is reminiscent of lists from the early days of this project: a preponderance of famous faces, Reddit threads, and Google Doodles.
The authors attempt to answer the question "Who are the most important people of all times?" Their findings clearly show that different Wikipedias give different prominence to different individuals.
A university gives a top Wikipedia editor free and full access to the university library's entire online content—and the Wikipedia editor, who is unpaid and not on campus, then creates and improves Wikipedia articles in a subject area of interest to the institution. Talkback![]() Message added 16:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. Jay Σεβαστόςdiscuss 16:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC) Percy SchmeiserHi Howicus! Thanks for letting me know you undid my change on Percy Schmeiser. After reading the source more closely I realized I had made a mistake but found that you had already fixed it, nice work! Thank you for your professionalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208s (talk • contribs) 04:52, 29 March 2015 (UTC) A Barnstar For You
The Signpost, 1 April 2015The Wikimedia Foundation this week released a State of the WMF report, a 38-page "snapshot" of where it is and where it wants to go in the future.
TruthRevolt targets another editor; edit stage right; the Nine Best Hoaxes to Have Hit Wikipedia
Six featured articles, first featured lists, and twenty-four featured pictures were promoted this week.
The Report is more of a mix of random topics than usual this week. The top spot is taken by Bhutanese passport, a Wikipedia article which contained a crazed spoken word version which drew widespread attention.
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) will announce later today that it will begin accepting edits by mail for all of the projects under its scope, including Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons.
The Wikimedia Commons' annual Picture of the Year contest has concluded. The first 53 top-voted entries were disqualified because they were all nude.
AdoptionHi! I am looking to be adopted. I have some random edits under my belt, but want more experience with adding photos to Wikicommons and then adding them to pages. Do you have time to help me out? Thanks for reading! Statistique (talk) 16:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 01 April 2015The Wikimedia Foundation this week released a State of the WMF report, a 38-page "snapshot" of where it is and where it wants to go in the future.
TruthRevolt targets another editor; edit stage right; the Nine Best Hoaxes to Have Hit Wikipedia
Six featured articles, first featured lists, and twenty-four featured pictures were promoted this week.
The Report is more of a mix of random topics than usual this week. The top spot is taken by Bhutanese passport, a Wikipedia article which contained a crazed spoken word version which drew widespread attention.
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) will announce later today that it will begin accepting edits by mail for all of the projects under its scope, including Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons.
The Wikimedia Commons' annual Picture of the Year contest has concluded. The first 53 top-voted entries were disqualified because they were all nude.
VisualEditor News #2—2015![]() With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:
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Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator. The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal. Recent improvementsVisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%. The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website. Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki. The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users. The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images. You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance on the page. The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item. Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings. Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734). Looking aheadThe special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org. The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon. Let's work together
Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! -Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 17:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC) ULTRASATULTRASAT is a planned space project, so there are as yet no articles on what it has done – only on what it will do if implemented and what needs to be done. Ref. 1 says it is important to have an instrument to explore this spectral region, the article by Prof. Crawford says that the transient astronomical events which ULTRASAT will detect are very important to understanding the universe, Ref. 3 says that a wide field telescope will discover many more transient events than present existing instruments having small fields of view can detect, Ref. 5 quantifies the expected results from ULTRASAT, etc. Future space telescopes are notable and worthy of being covered by Wikipedia – the future James Webb telescope is larger than ULTRASAT and will cost more, but the latter has a much larger field of view and will detect more transients. I do not see how we can find more definitive citations until the satellite is actually launched. Skyfan31 20:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Railfan31 (talk • contribs)
The Signpost: 08 April 2015Wikipedia has been gravitating towards a vehicle for business and product promotion for too long.
March saw a number of high-level hirings and executive reorganizations in the Wikimedia Foundation.
The venerable CBS news program 60 Minutes profiled Wikipedia and the Wikimedia community.
How appropriate that the theme of Easter week would be resurrection from the dead.
Four featured articles, seven featured lists, and 23 featured pictures were promoted this week.
With Holy Week having recently drawn to a close, it is an apt time to examine WikiProject Christianity, which was created in 2006, and boasts over 200 active members.
The Committee has voted on the 2015 appointments to the Functionary team.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community.
Mentor neededHey Howicus. Is there any chance you might be able to mentor this editor? They were matched with Theonesean, but he does not appear to be active right now. Let me know if you can. Thanks, I, JethroBT drop me a line 20:35, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
Clarification need on fair use of imageThank you for responding so promptly to my question. However, I would appreciate clarification for a particular instance of Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Specifically, I am asking about the use of the gorilla image on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baby_gorilla_sleeping.jpg I know that with this license, "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." However, it seems this author has not specified any manner in which the work must be attributed. (If so, please point out where this instruction occurs.) Does that mean the work does not need to be attributed?Saenger (talk) 02:29, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I am still confused. The license says, "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." Doesn't that mean the author or copyright holder would specify the manner in which the attribution is made? For example, The New Yorker once gave me permission to reprint a cartoon in a non-profit newsletter. It specified exactly (and I mean EXACTLY) how I should make the attribution, and even how I should reproduce the cartoon. It seems there is a conflict between what I read and the information you are citing. Can you clarify this, or suggest a way to do so? It feels to me like we've reached a dead end. Thanks.Saenger (talk) 02:31, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the samples. I can't help feeling that the author didn't care whether he received attribution, which is why he didn't specify it. At any rate, I can't afford to pay extra to include links and/or attributions in what I'm doing, which is set up for images only, so I think I will just forget about using this image.Saenger (talk) 00:12, 15 April 2015 (UTC) Marching For Liberty (Wisdom album)Hi, could you make a quick review on this draft again? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deligabi/Marching_For_Liberty I've added a lot of references, and made some changes. Thanks! Deligabi (talk) 21:54, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
Yasar Kemal.jpgHi Howicus. Regarding File:Yasar Kemal.jpg, please be aware that photos from press agencies (like Getty) are strictly prohibited, unless we are using the image for sourced commentary about the photo itself. (For example, iconic historic photos like Kent State shootings or Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima are okay.) Please see the second bullet of WP:CSD#F7. --B (talk) 01:19, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 15 April 2015The Wikimedia Foundation's vice president for engineering, Erik Möller, will leave the WMF on April 30.
Time profiles Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, and paints a grim picture of the challenges faced by Tretikov and the encyclopedia.
Later this month, everyone will be able to use the same user name on every wiki, thanks to Single-User Login.
If it wasn't for Easter, Fast and Furious related articles would have taken the top four spots this week. The latest installment of the movie franchise, Furious 7, tops the chart for the second straight week.
Six featured articles, four featured lists, and fourteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
Admin Asking
The Signpost: 22 April 2015A Signpost investigation of the released data has revealed Sony's corporate practices regarding Wikipedia and uncovered what appears to be undisclosed advocacy editing of Wikipedia by Sony employees and possibly by others.
Wikipedia appears to have been drawn into the drama of the upcoming, hotly contested UK general election.
The Affiliates Committee this week announced the organization of a community referral for comment, currently open on the meta-wiki, to address upcoming changes to the way that the Affiliations Committee will review movement-affiliated user-groups in the future.
2015 will see through the biennial community election for the three community-elected seats on the Board of Trustees—the "ultimate corporate authority" of the Wikimedia Foundation and the level at which the strategic decisions regarding the Wikimedia movement are made.
Six featured articles and fifteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
Couch potatoes rule this week, as 9 of the top 10 slots were taken by either movies, TV, or sports.
The Gallery is an occasional Signpost feature highlighting quality images and articles from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons based on a particular theme.
Hiding editThank you! that magic word has successfully fulfilled what I wanted! And sorry due to network error, I was disconnected from chat. But thank you foe introducing me to Magic Words! I have unreviewed a page you curatedHi, I'm NHCLS. I wanted to let you know that I saw the page you reviewed, 2018 AFC Autism Championship, and have un-reviewed it again. If you have any questions, please ask them on my talk page. Thank you. NHCLS (talk) 01:20, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
changes to Roaches IllinoisI noticed you immediately removed my addition to my home (Roaches). I own the property and the deed to the town, How do I "prove" these facts to you so I may edit the information on the page? Brad Reynolds — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gtnby2 (talk • contribs) 22:47, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 April 2015Esino Lario is set to host Wikimania 2016, but volunteers and others have raised a host of concerns that raise serious questions about the town's suitability for hosting such a large conference.
The evaluations reveal that in the last three years, WLM has possibly fallen victim to its own success and seen diminishing returns.
David Coburn, a Member of the European Parliament for the Scotland region for the UK Independence Party, was blocked from editing Wikipedia on April 6.
Ten featured articles, nine featured lists, and twenty-eight featured pictures were promoted this week.
Though the continued predominance of movies, TV, and sports noted in last week's report largely continues, three additional topics joined the Top 10 this week.
Reader demand for some topics (e.g. LGBT topics or pages about countries) is poorly satisfied, whereas there is over-abundance of quality on topics of comparatively little interest, such as military history.
deOrphaning scriptHello everyone! I was just working on responding to a couple bug reports for a script that I worked up as part of a request from this project, and I noticed that only a couple people (who weren't even on this mailing list) are actually using the script. A little history on the script: In March of 2014, Jim Cartar came to my user talk page and said he needed some help in acquiring a script for a backlog drive that he was working on that could keep track of and score deOrphanings for a scored backlog drive. I took that request to the project's talk page (BackLog Drive "DO" (De-Orphaning) script proposal) and there was near unanimous support for this. I thought about the proposal and decided the best way to do it was to build a new script (which is still no where near as comprehensive as Manishearth's OrphanTabs) and build into it a mechanism that will make BLD scoring easy. What I'm wondering at this point is, since there appears to be only two people using the script, should I continue to develop this script with a goal of using it for scoring BLDs or just debug the existing script and leave it at that. Thanks for any replies or comments. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page.
Request
Next week is finals week for me. I need to focus on my academics, and I want to make sure I stay away from Wikipedia until the finals are over. To that end, if I make any edits between 01:30 UTC 2 May 2015 and 17:00 UTC 7 May 2015 I would like to request that I be blocked for one week starting at the time I made the edits. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 01:15, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 06 May 2015
The Wikimedia Foundation this week announced the winning grantees in March's "Inspire" grant-making campaign.
Seven articles, three lists, and ten pictures were promoted to "featured" status this week. The second round of the WikiCup has ended.
artnet and The Next Web report (May 6) that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is releasing a hundred images of works in its collection under Creative Commons licences in conjunction with a May 19 editathon.
Elections have begun for five community members of the Funds Dissemination Committee, the Foundation's volunteer body for judging and recommending millions of dollars worth of annual grants to affiliates in the movement. The election lasts just eight days, from Sunday 3 May until 23:59 UTC on Sunday 10 May, so at the time of publication, voters will need to act promptly.
Like colliding ocean liners, rousing entertainment and harsh reality merged ungainly in this week's top 10 list. The much heralded pay-per-view pummeling of Manny Pacquiao by Floyd Mayweather, Jr. dominated the list's top slots, giving this list one of its highest total view counts in months.
Farm ShopSorted! --Hash Tag 444 (talk) 17:48, 13 May 2015 (UTC) Permission to enroll in your adoption schoolReally appreciated your assistance in the IRC channel earlier, and was as hoping there might be an open spot in your adoption school. Assuming a reasonable rate of tuition, I'd love to enroll. (talk) 01:03, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
Just completed my first section in adoption school. Just out of curiosity, how i officially enroll on the Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user/Adoptee's Area/Adopters page and reflect it in a banner on my user page?
The Signpost: 13 May 2015
Three community-elected seats on the Board of Trustees—the ultimate governing authority of the Wikimedia Foundation—will be decided by Wikimedians in the election to be held 17–31 May.
This week has been a busy one for the Wikidata project, with nearly simultaneous Wikidata contests, both organized by Wikimedia Sweden, now underway.
Casual viewers may think I've posted the same list twice. But no, readers just happen to be really interested in May 2's Big Fight. In fact, last week was just the weigh-in and the trash talk. This week, the numbers actually increased.
Grant Shapps, who was the co-chairman of the UK's Conservative Party until this week, has been accused of maliciously editing the Wikipedia biographies of his party's rivals.
There is a public misconception of Wikipedia: that any anonymous editor can edit Wikipedia at any time, and cannot be tracked or identified.
Eight articles, one list, and five pictures were promoted to featured status on the English Wikipedia in a slow week.
Speedy deletion removalThanks for keeping me right. I think I might've been a bit overzealous in applying it, and I wasn't quite sure if it qualified for G1 or not. Cheers. :) TheMoxLotus (talk) 19:46, 18 May 2015 (UTC) Sir Matthew EdwardDear Howicus, I noticed that you had the page for Sir Matthew Edward removed due to you thinking it was a hoax. Sir Matthew Edward is indeed a real person who is related to each of the people listed. He is the youngest president to serve The Southern Social Register and is a founding member. He has modeled, acted, and preformed at William Morris Talent Agency in California. If you have any further reasons to prevent this page to dye your ignorance of affluent people in the United States please let me know.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MPerez1922 (talk • contribs)
DRAFT:ULTRASATHi Howicus, Thank you for reviewing the draft of ULTRASAT. you rejected it because it is lacking relevant sources that cover ULTRASAT specifically in depth. I was trying to help Railfan31 and I have found the lectures given in the Ilan Ramon International annual Space Conference in 2013: two specific lectures about ULTRASAT - one about the payload in minute 52:16- ULTRASAT even if the lecture is in HEBREW all the slides are in English, and I also have the English transcript of the lecture published by the Fisher Institute in hard copy. in This lecture minute 1:11:04 you can see they call it still LIMSAT. In the 2015 conference minute 34:13 the head of IAI MBT mentions the changes in concept and aiming now for the GEO orbit. On the ISA website there is also a dedicated page for ULTRASAT. Are these sufficiant sources? if so, I will update the draft accordingly. Thanks Golan's mom (talk) 07:03, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
A new user who you might be able to helpHello! My name is Howicus, I believe we may have talked on IRC. Today I ran into the user Denizeryuruk. They keep creating pages on the English Wikipedia, in the Turkish language, about subjects that already have English language articles. Since you have Turkish in your Wikipedia Babel box, I was wondering if you could perhaps leave them a message in Turkish, and try to point them to tr.wikipedia.org instead of here. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 19:29, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Goggles accidental removal.I think that was an incidental removal by one of my students. I am checking. Thanks for the revert. HullIntegrity\ talk / 17:47, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
Template:Guggenheim MuseumNice idea, but did you realize that there is more than one Guggenheim Museum? Ten to be exact. So could you solve the link to the disambiguation page? The Banner talk 19:20, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 May 2015
The Wikimedia Foundation's bi-annual Board of Trustees election is open for voting. Of the ten seats on the board, three are elected representatives of the global Wikimedia community—you.
The article counts of many Wikimedia wikis suddenly changed on 29 March 2015: as the Signpost reported at the time, sixty-five wikis fell below milestones tracked at the Wikimedia News Meta page, and three increased to new milestones.
The list is topped this week by Danish scientist Inge Lehmann, thanks to a Google Doodle celebrating her 127th birthday. Lehmann discovered in 1936 that the Earth has a solid inner core. It is sometimes surprising to realize how recently such basic scientific knowledge of the Earth, which we now take for granted, was discovered.
Wikipedia editors logging in on May 19 found themselves walking into an unexpected amount of anti-vandal work to keep the site in line with its extensive biographies of living persons policy. A plethora of Wikipedia articles related to the United States House Committee on Appropriations, and the fifty-one representatives serving on it, have been hit by a raft of anonymous editors making often vulgar edits referencing "chicken fucker," or more creative combinations: "sexual conduct", "sexual congress", "fornicator", "intimate relations", or "trysts with chickens."
Three articles, seven lists, and seven pictures were featured on the English Wikipedia.
Jimmy Wales and five others accepted the 2015 Dan David Prize at Tel Aviv University on May 17. The prize comes with US$1 million, ten percent of which goes to doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships.
This week, we had the pleasure of interviewing WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology, which has come a long way since our last interview in 2008. Like most projects, it has a long member list, but only a small subset of that group regularly contributes. With 28 featured articles and 58 top-importance start class ones, the project has clearly had some success, but has a ways to go. We talked to three regular project contributors.
The Arbitration Committee has an unusually large case load at present. Although perhaps not on a par with the high-profile, multi-party cases seen towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year, with five open cases the arbitrators are likely to be kept busy for the next several weeks.
Answer the messageI had for youToweringpeaks3 (talk) 05:28, 22 May 2015 (UTC) Some stroopwafels for you!
Orphaned non-free image File:Radio Lobo 97.7 FM logo.png![]() Thanks for uploading File:Radio Lobo 97.7 FM logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image 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 images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media). Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 02:24, 23 May 2015 (UTC) Your submission at Articles for creation: Peerio has been accepted![]() The article has been assessed as Start-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article. You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for Creation if you prefer.
Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia! /wia /talk 14:52, 23 May 2015 (UTC)AdoptionI'm fascinated in military history. I'd like to enroll. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spikesjb (talk • contribs) 00:19, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Adoption RequestHey Howicus, I'm seeking adoption and you were recommended to me from user Missionedit, and i was wondering if you would consider adopting me! I deal with naval/military articles, and i'm a member of:
So how about it? Take all the time you need though, i aint tryna rush anyone haha! Thanks for any help you can provide, --Luis Santos24 (talk) 11:42, 27 May 2015 (UTC) :-)
Didn't knew about it, sorry won't add more linksI also added the links here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_cashback with other links and other pages. Won't do it again ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nik007hik (talk • contribs) 16:57, 27 May 2015 (UTC) |