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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Closing discussions

Hi, I asked this question on the Wikipedia:Help desk, but did not get a reply. Not sure if it should go in the Policies section or not as it involves and unclear policy. My question: does a discussion on a Talk page have to be closed by an uninvolved third-party editor or can one of the editors involved in the discussion close it when it is clear that further discussion will be unproductive? It is not clear from Wikipedia:Closing discussions if it has to be an uninvolved editor. Also, if five editors are in agreement and one is not, does this count as a rough consensus WP:ROUGHCONSENSUS? I know consensus is not a head count, but I'm not sure if this is enough to assert a consensus. My apologies if this type of question is not appropriate for the Village pump. Thanks for your help. - Epinoia (talk) 17:45, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

There is some text in WP:RFCEND in this regard. WP:Consensus should probably have something similar. This question is fine here; the WP:Teahouse or WP:VPPOL can also be used. --Izno (talk) 18:58, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

A new discussion for content warnings

Okay so I know it's a perennial proposal but I think it needs discussing again. I am against the censorship of wikipedia but I don't see how putting a warning at the top of the page limits the sharing of information. For example, I don't think that discussing rape in the Did You Know section on todays home page would be something a rape victim with PTSD would be happy to see. Putting a simple banner at the top would be easy; the creation of an article could come with the options to include graphic violence or sexual violence, similar to how Archive Of Our Own works, which is also community based website that is VERY AGAINST censorship. It is unfair to subject unsuspecting people to things they did not want to see, especially when it can cause mental health problems. In recent news (this is me recalling a news report from BBC radio 3 this morning), police are getting more aggressive with making websites admit their responsibility in mental health cases that cause serious harm or death. I understand it would never be Wikipedia's intention to encourage these behaviours, but with the unpredictable nature of mental health, I think it would be a good way of protecting the website too from criticism or legal action. Zantarctica (talk) 12:10, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Protecting Wikipedia from legal action is the job of the lawyers that the Wikimedia Foundation hires to protect itself from legal action. Unless and until those lawyers say otherwise, there is no need for volunteer editors to take up any action for the reasons of legality. Legal rationales for undoing long-standing Wikipedia policy are a non-starter unless and until actual WMF lawyers tell us it is. --Jayron32 13:28, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Very long pages, redux

On 5 December last year I wrote:

"Our longest pages are, presently:

  1. ‎List of giant squid specimens and sightings [732,759 bytes]
  2. ‎List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach [720,509 bytes]
  3. ‎List of compositions by Franz Schubert [715,917 bytes]
  4. ‎List of Australian treaties [705,033 bytes]
  5. ‎2016–17 Coupe de France Preliminary Rounds [690,244 bytes]
  6. ‎List of members of the Lok Sabha (1952–present) [670,419 bytes]
  7. ‎List of International Organization for Standardization standards [659,272 bytes]
  8. ‎List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States [656,613 bytes]
  9. ‎Opinion polling for the United Kingdom general election, 2015 [656,161 bytes]
  10. ‎2017–18 Coupe de France Preliminary Rounds [655,564 bytes]
  11. ‎2018–19 Coupe de France Preliminary Rounds [652,633 bytes]
  12. ‎List of third party performances in United States elections [652,538 bytes]
  13. ‎1919 Birthday Honours [650,631 bytes]
  14. ‎List of BMTC routes [644,099 bytes]
  15. ‎Roush Fenway Racing [643,491 bytes]
  16. ‎2017 in American television [639,597 bytes]
  17. ‎Battle of Mosul (2016–2017) [637,308 bytes]
  18. ‎List of unnumbered trans-Neptunian objects [636,764 bytes]
  19. ‎Food Paradise [630,967 bytes]
  20. ‎2018 in American television [621,078 bytes]

and we have more than 500 articles that are over 300,000 bytes. That is far too big."

I am grateful to colleagues who have assisted me in subdividing many of the above articles. The "top 20" is now:

  1. List of 2017 albums (545,842 bytes)
  2. 2017 in American television (509,428 bytes)
  3. Sub-national opinion polling for the 2015 Spanish general election (507,892 bytes)
  4. List of compositions by Franz Schubert (504,384 bytes)
  5. List of 2016 albums (504,118 bytes)
  6. Opinion polling for the 2015 United Kingdom general election (502,311 bytes)
  7. List of inactive United States Navy aircraft squadrons (498,836 bytes)
  8. Opinion polling for the 2015 Spanish general election (498,087 bytes)
  9. List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach (494,826 bytes)
  10. List of association football families (494,049 bytes)
  11. 2018 in paleontology (490,002 bytes)
  12. List of Oldham R.L.F.C. players (486,503 bytes)
  13. List of German U-boat World War II raiding careers (486,218 bytes)
  14. List of cult films (484,460 bytes)
  15. Hendrick Motorsports (484,145 bytes)
  16. List of Warriors characters (483,050 bytes)
  17. 2013 in American television (480,035 bytes)
  18. Timeline of the Battle of Mosul (2016–2017) (478,894 bytes)
  19. 2018 in American television (477,446 bytes)
  20. List of least concern fishes (475,891 bytes)

There are again discussion on the talk pages of several of those listed above, and sometimes sadly editing disputes where splits have been reverted. As always additional input is welcome.

@Thincat, Jayron32, and GreenC: who commented in December. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:28, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Related; "Proposed: Splitting the List of 2017 albums into two articles" - please see Talk:List of 2017 albums#Request for comment. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:49, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Oldest unchanged redirects

What is the longest a redirect has not been edited. For example: the redirect from Tomato ketchup to Ketchup has not been edited since 2004. Are there any more redirects that have not been edited since 2003, 2002, or even 2001? Mstrojny (talk) 22:17, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles has some very old article names that might have some very old redirects. WilliamAlston dates to February 2001 .. it's been edited since then but the redirect is the same as it was originally. -- GreenC 22:33, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
The oldest unedited one I can find is Mariner8 from late February 2002. —Cryptic 23:15, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
I went to the article to see where it was then, compared to where it is now. Alas, however.... Britmax (talk) 10:30, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
Hm. There's actually a bunch with the same timestamp, to the second - at least User:Amillar/todo, Boardsports, CRC32, Capatalism, Charlamaine, Charlemaine, Charlimagne, Charlimaine, Cimbri/Waid, Clothes, Draupni, EthicalNaturalism, Fetishes, Fiber-optics, Fibre-optics, HEMTT, Homeomorphic, I.O.C., I.O.C, ICFTU, Innamorato, IsoImage, Junkfood, Lamberghini, Lebesgue-integrable, Mariner8, Maupassant, NPNF, Nucleosynthetic, OneTimePads, Oralloy, Pelegainisim, Polypeptide, Prosperpina, Provincetown, SHIRBRIG, Sacher-Masoch, SetTheory/OldVersion, Toscana, UNFCCC, UNMIBH, Underclothing, Weregeld, and Witan. Likely artifacts of a conversion script, or maybe bad data, as history that old tends to be. —Cryptic 23:31, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
It's possible redirect pages were not a part of MediaWiki until February 25, 2002 -- seeing a similar big bang oldest date, no redirect pages older than February 25, 2002. Prior to that they seemed to leave a wikilink of where one should browse to. This is like archaeology. -- GreenC 23:52, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
@GreenC, Britmax, and Cryptic: The February 2002 thing is due to what has been called the ""great oops", which is explained here (search for "This was my fault"). Graham87 14:52, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Ahh.. it's like an event horizon beyond which the true age can't be determined. -- GreenC 15:48, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Can you update the date parameter of template messages?

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Template messages#Can you update the date? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:10, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Daty Wikidata Editor alpha release

Hi everyone,

I am Pellegrino Prevete, aka Ogoorcs and I am proud to officially announce the alpha version (Q2122918) release of Daty (Daty (Q60949478)), the native Wikidata editor I proposed at the Ideathon of itWikiCon 2018 (Q43527331), which aims to hugely simplify Wikidata UX for new and old advanced users.

During this first development month, as hoped, Daty has found approvals outside of wiki communities, too: the GNOME (Q44316) project has in fact accepted to host it on its development platform and the software has already been published on Flathub (Q43089335), the free software GNU/Linux app store in Flatpak (Q22661286) format.

Unfortunately I was not able to pack all planned features in this first release, although I hope that, trying it, you will agree that the work done has been adequate.

Set up sound foundations for the program was where it took longer than expected, i.e. make it work on all supported platforms and on all screen format factors. In fact at the time of writing Daty is one of the few responsive GTK (Q189464) applications and the only cross-platform one.

To calm down the potential storm of people fearing for vandalisms caused by a simpler editor, I must warn you that until an adequate revert tool for mass edits made with the program will be made available, Daty will browse the database *read-only*. At this time already it has been made so (not specifically in Daty) that only registered users will be able to edit entities.

Download

Installer links are available for Microsoft Windows (64 bit) and GNU/Linux (all architectures).

You can read a more complete changelog on my blog; bug reports can be sent on the issues page.

Note for GNU/Linux users

If you use a Flathub-integrating distribution (Linux Mint, Endless OS and others), you can directly install the software from your graphical package manager. If your distribution preinstalls GNOME and GNOME Software (Q15968880), you will just need to open the *Activities* screen and search for "Daty", as seen in this picture.

In any case you can install flatpak on your distribution by visiting this page or follow the distro specific installation istructions on the Daty homepage.

If you already installed a previous flatpak of the software, I advice you to wait for the update of tomorrow (build already scheduled), because of a last-minute bug in the configuration directory permission settings which has been corrected this morning.

Note for Ubuntu users

Since at this time Ubuntu has decided to support by default only the Snap (Q22908866) package format, you will not directly find the program in the software center. If there are enough requests though, I will make a snap version of Daty.

In any case deb (Q305976) packages will be made available in due time.

Note for Mac users

The software works on Mac, but since I do not own one I could not create the executable file. Again, if there are enough requests, we can find a way to solve this.

Thanks

First of all I want to thank Wikimedia CH for trusting the idea; without them Daty would still be a mockup this day. I hope that the global community, as the Italian one already did at the ItWikiCon Ideathon, will see the impact and the usefulness of a native editor, to please advanced users and greet new ones.

Of course I have to thank the GNOME project, which accepted the project on its infrastructure, and its developers, volunteers and contributors, who saved me from many headaches this month and before. I think it is a really great community.

Ogoorcs (talk) 01:52, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Copy+paste information from Wikipedia to a book. Is that even legal?

I'm a Dutch Wikipedia contributor and a few weeks ago, I bought an English book (online, in The Netherlands). The book is called The History of French Toys Advertisements 1975 - 1989 and it also exists in a French version. It shows old French ads, with extra information on several brands/subjects. I noticed the texts are copied and pasted from Wikipedia into the book. The text about Playmobil is the same as this old version, but without the last part about movies and videogames. I noticed because the text seemed unfit (on corgi, there are 19 pages of text and just 2 pages with a total of 5 ads), I recognized a part of the Playmobil Wikipedia page and the author did not remove all the references (Quoting: "Currently available themes in US[12] and UK[13} official online stores") and file names. In text about other brands/subjects, there are also references which aren't deleted. Is this legal, to copy and paste from Wikipedia to a book, without even referring to Wikipedia? I do not have the French version, so I don't know if that book is similar. The English book does not seem to have an editor, just an autor. With kind regards, ABPMAB (talk) 10:39, 30 January 2019 (UTC).

Yes, ABPMAB, it is perfectly okay for a book publisher to copy and paste Wikipedia text to a book, then sell it. What is prohibited under the Creative Commons license [1] is to do so without acknowledging the source of the material. When the work is claimed as one's own, that plagiarism. Elsewhere, right now, there is a discussion of a college professor who lifted WP material and published it as his own. He will likely get into a lot of trouble with his administration. Rhadow (talk) 11:26, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
@Rhadow: Like stated, there is no mentioning of Wikipedia in the book (nor from a possible mirror website). So this is illegal? I think this could be the reason it is self-published (at least, that is what it looks like). With kind regards, ABPMAB (talk) 11:58, 30 January 2019 (UTC).
Hello, ABPMAB, the license includes the following text, "You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this License, and You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform. You may not offer or impose any terms on the Work that restrict the terms of this License or the ability of a recipient of the Work to exercise of the rights granted to that recipient under the terms of the License."
The book publisher MUST acknowledge the Creative Commons license and may not copyright the work as his or her own. Rhadow (talk) 12:38, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
Hello Rhadow, the book says "© 2014 by Geoffrey Montfort. All rights reserved", "No part of this book may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic of mechanical, including photocopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.” (about what I think should be ...electronic or mechanical...) and “The purpose and content of this book are solely intented as a reference guide to toy reviews and publications in France. This book is no way attempts to infringe any copyright” (about what I think should be ...This book in no way...). It also says “Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book, we assume no responsability for errors, inaccuracies, or any inconsistency herein. Any slights at people, places, or organisations are unintentional.” Nowhere it says it has a source other than the author and the publisher (whoever that may be, the book doesn't says who/what). To me, it seems like it is at least plagiarism. With kind regards, ABPMAB (talk) 13:11, 30 January 2019 (UTC).
Hello, ABPMAB, pursuing a Creative Commons license breach is above my pay grade. Here is the other discusssion Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics#Plagiarism in an India-related source, published by a reliable publisher, involving copying verbatim from a WP article. Rhadow (talk) 13:30, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Claiming 'All rights reserved' on CC content is definitely a copyright issue. No amount of disclaimers shield that fact. A cease and desist letter would hopefully be enough to get them to stop publication. Who is supposed to send the letter I don't know. Cesdeva (talk) 22:08, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

@Cesdeva: The letter can only be sent by one of the editors who added the specific text that is being misused; they own the copyright to their contributions. From Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks, "Consequently, complaints about violations need to be made by a person who actually wrote part of the improperly republished material." -- John of Reading (talk) 07:10, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
These unacknowledged reprinted articles can be such a problem for WP:CIRCULAR sourcing. I believe that User:Doc James has some experience with these letters, if you need help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Offline wikipedia readers

hi I use kiwix xowa bzreader wikitaxi to read Wikipedia offline do another software to read Wikipedia offline Amirh123 (talk) 14:16, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

WP:Database download#Offline Wikipedia readers mentions a few offline readers other than Kiwix, XOWA, BzReader and WikiTaxi. --Pipetricker (talk) 18:28, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism so bad there's no warning, or even evidence on the talk pages

I was curious to see what a certain Help Desk request was about, and I saw the vandalism here. One editor repeatedly vandalized, and yet there is a red link to the talk page. The same vandalism apparently took place with another name and, although that person was warned for other vandalism, there is no evidence of the worst offenses on the talk page. Shouldn't there be some evidence on the two talk pages?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:44, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Things that, to coin a phrase, "shock the conscience" are deleted totally from Wikipedia. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:46, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, but if you go to the offender's talk page, you can't tell he/she was blocked.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:48, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
If I were to hazard a guess, that was probably image vandalism from a compromised account. Something similar happened to Donald Trump's page over Thanksgiving weekend. Someone has a bunch of hacked passwords and is using those accounts to insert graphic porn on high profile pages. That was probably more of the same. The proper owner of the account had not edited with it since 2007. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:50, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
The Help Desk question said it was a photo of genitals. I'm just wondering how this situation should be mentioned on the talk page.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
The article talk page? It shouldn't. We don't want to feed the troll. The user talk page for the compromised account? Perhaps the blocking admin should have created a talk page and put a block notice on it, but given that the editor had not edited since 2007 and then had only edited their own userspace, it's reasonable not to. If they log in and try to edit they'll learn they are blocked. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 21:00, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
I was referring to the already-created talk page, but the idea is to show anyone who happens to look at the already-created page that action was taken.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:05, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
It is typical to look at the contributions where there is more than one big pink box showing the fact that the account is blocked (and the reason). -- zzuuzz (talk) 21:17, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
Right. I should do that, then.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:22, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
For anyone who wants to see whether an account is blocked, look in Special:Preferences under Gadgets for an item called "Strike out usernames that have been blocked". That uses strikethrough text to make it easier to see that an account is currently blocked when you're reading a page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

All wikis and largest wikis?

best site to see all wikis and see largest wikis Amirh123 (talk) 06:58, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi! You might want to view List of wikis. Killiondude (talk) 07:05, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
Or:
--Pipetricker (talk) 18:31, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Google Talk to Books

I'd never seen or heard of Google Talk to Books. It seems pretty useful for Wikipedia purposes. It takes search to the next level, using AI to better find results that may not be in a keyword search. -- GreenC 15:51, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

  • Thanks for sharing. I'd not heard of this before and it looks like a practical application of AI to the exploitation of a complex corpus. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:45, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment List of churches in Sweden

I am editing this list and would like some ideas about how do limit such a massive list. Thanks. Aurornisxui (talk) 17:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@Aurornisxui: Possibly something like "list of colors" where the page is split up into a few alphabetically ordered pages? — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 19:24, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Should The Signpost be allowed to publish defamatory POVs?

A recent Signpost News and notes piece about Wikipedia being blocked in Venezuela was met with some criticism and concern about how it chose to described Venezuela and its people:

"In Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world and where the population is starving and forced to eat garbage, access to Wikipedia has been blocked."

Several editors, including a former member of The Signpost writing staff and myself, pointed out its insulting tone and inaccurate generalization about the Venezuelan people as it does not apply to "the population", but rather allegedly only a portion. Another editor was quick to point, "Yes, some Venezuelans have been forced into that awful position but there are also plenty of Americans who dumpster dive because they have no other access to food." A correction by inserting 'some' would marginally help in clarifying intent.

The Signpost writers have since defended the piece as POV [2] and Wikipedia article policies and guidelines do not apply [3] [4]. In contrast, WP:LBL applies to all of Wikipedia and states:

"It is the responsibility of all contributors to ensure that the material posted on Wikipedia is not defamatory. It is Wikipedia policy to delete libelous material when it has been identified."

The Signpost publishes its own content guideline which states, "Contributors should endeavor to avoid putting out material they know to be wrong or misleading." As The Signpost is published on Wikipedia in one of the namespaces, I would like to invite a community discussion about the limitations in which The Signpost may publish POV editorial. If an op-ed or editorial contains defamatory views, may the piece be published in The Signpost and therefore on Wikipedia? Are there limitations on the degree of severity such as racist views? Should the community be included in setting the content guidelines for The Signpost and respectively its enforcement? Mkdw talk 21:38, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

As a note, I am simply using the recent issue to frame a larger (and hopefully productive) discussion about how to publish important news about Wikipedia while maintaining a reasonable degree of integrity. Mkdw talk 21:38, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
@Mkdw: - I don't believe you can commit libel or defamation against a country. Additionally, unlike in an article where we edit intending facts, an opinion would already have broader exceptions as part of the definition of libel. That said, I do understand your point. I am however fairly willing to let the Signpost set its own content guidelines - the community doing it for them risks a) risking our own POV disruptions b) much more likely adding bureaucratic disruptions to a publication that already struggles to find sufficient volunteers. Complaints and the virtual equivalent of walking with our feet would seem the more viable approach Nosebagbear (talk) 22:41, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
Defamation is linked in WP:LBL and defined as, "the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of, depending on the law of the country, an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation" [my underline]. In this case it is both a group of people and a nation but this is beside the point. The main question is whether The Signpost is subject to Wikipedia policies and guidelines such as WP:LBL. I am not sure if I would be as willing to hand The Signpost an exemption to our defamation and harassment policy, such as WP:OUTING, for the sake of POV and writer retention. I also do not think a precedent of having a select group of editors above our policies is a good idea either. On the other hand, I do not like the idea of someone coming along and unilaterally deleting a story, like the current one exampled, using a policy-based argument. My hope would be for The Signpost to create a content guideline that complies with our site policies and enforce it without direct community involvement. In severe cases, such as racist views being published, the community through discussion and consensus would step in as a check and balance. Mkdw talk 00:17, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Wow, Mkdw. These are very strong words, especially for something that can be easily supported by reputable reliable sources. Whether or not the writing is POV, you're going too far in saying that writing something that (much to our mutual dismay, I am sure) meets our WP:RS standards (not to mention notability standards) is defamatory in any way. Tragic, yes. Defamatory, no. The Signpost can have a point of view; it's editorial, as opposed to encyclopedic. So are user pages, user talk pages, and almost all pages in Wikipedia space. There are plenty of points of view expressed in those places. I get that you find this disturbing, and that you didn't get the response you wanted. I think you're missing the mark, though. Risker (talk) 01:39, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
I just wanted to offer a +1 to Risker above. Calling this defamation is missing the mark. Even in more lax jurisdictions, this doesn't even come close. What you have is a legitimate disagreement with The Signpost's editorial policies, which is both okay and completely defensible. But to frame it as a legal issue ties you to a burden of persuasion, which is, I think higher than it needs to be. In short, should this be ameliorated? I think absolutely. Is it defamation? I think absolutely not. But I'm often wrong! Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 02:10, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
@Risker and Dumuzid: I am not trying to put the current issue on trial at this discussion. I used it as an example for this discussion about whether Wikipedia policy applies to The Signpost editorials. If you think it is a bad example, fine, but the question I am asking remains the same. Would you support The Signpost including defamatory or other editorials that violate Wikipedia policy in their issues? Using a hypothetical scenario instead, an op-ed in The Signpost includes a clearly defamatory statement about another editor. Do we accept that for the reasons you outlined above, "The Signpost can have a point of view; it's editorial, as opposed to encyclopedic" or do we still expect Wikipedia policies such as WP:LBL to apply, as we still do on user talk pages and other places you example? You are right that it is incumbent on the complainant to demonstrate whether Wikipedia policy has been violated. Maybe in the example I used I would not be successful, but I am not thinking so much about the current issue or even writers, but about the future should an editorial cross the line. Mkdw talk 08:16, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Risker, is cherry-picking sources to (intentionally) portray a negative viewpoint allowed? For an example, one can write the most blatant of hit-pieces about high-profile-persons or political parties (duly sourced from very reliable and reputable sources), without much of any painstaking effort. Are such stuff applicable over the Signpost? ∯WBGconverse 15:52, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Oi. I posted here because I see our own respected users abusing the term "defamation". This is bad; in fact, it's really bad. Snarky, salacious writing is not what I'd consider helpful or informative, and that's completely on the heads of the staff of The Signpost. But hyperbole on the part of critics just repeats the same mistake. Are all Venezuelans surviving by dumpster-diving? Of course not, but it took me literally 5 seconds to find a dozen reliable sources saying that dumpster diving is now commonplace in Venezuela and many of the stories specifically mentioned that an ever-growing percentage of those eating thrown-out food are of the middle class. So while the Signpost segment was unnecessarily hyperbolic (and the entire dietary issue was irrelevant), it wasn't completely wrong, and it certainly wasn't defamatory or libelous. Bottom line, bad writing isn't defamatory writing. If the topic of this thread was "what do we do about The Signpost's move toward tabloid journalism", that would be a different thing. In an ideal world, The Signpost would be as good as (if not better than) some of our articles. But that is not the standard to which it can reasonably be held. And to be honest, I'm a lot more bothered by the nonsense relating to James Alexander - a poorly written, sensationalized piece of WMF-whacking fluff - than I am about the Venezuela tidbit. Alexander leaving the WMF was barely notable (and I say that despite having worked closely with James for many years), but the Venezuela block is a pretty big deal. Unfortunately, the big deal story has been largely ignored because Signpost writers decided it was necessary to add irrelevant commentary about the diet of Venezuelans to a story that ought to be focused on authoritarian control of media. Risker (talk) 16:20, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Risker, agree about everything and that defamation is too strong a word; even in response to grossly poor writing. ∯WBGconverse 16:41, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
@Risker: Abuse? Your choice of wording seems rather hypocritical in light of the point you're trying to make. Mkdw talk 18:47, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Mkdw, my dictionary defines "abuse" as "[to] use wrongly; make bad use of; misuse". (Definition #1 in the Gage Canadian Dictionary). I believe you are using the word "defamation" wrongly, to be misusing the word, particularly when linking it to Wikipedia policies, when pointing to the example of the "News and Notes" section of the most current issue of The Signpost. I don't disagree that the section is written poorly, or that it is sensationalized and even possibly inflammatory. But the WP:LBL policy is pretty focused, and I do not see how anything written in that section is defamatory. Risker (talk) 19:05, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Risker, whether current editorial constitutes as defamation is not the point in having this discussion and I have raised that issue elsewhere. You have repeatedly made your view on this point abundantly clear here. I hear you. If you think it is a bad example and I am using it wrongly or poorly, fine. You have gone out of your way to avoid the main question and purpose of this discussion to express these views on a side issue. Maybe I have been unclear about it. The piece about James was equally motivating for me to want to have this discussion because while it was in bad taste and did not constitute defamation, the trend it still raises a more broad concern about whether potentially another editorial (in the future) could/should be published which does cross the line on something like OUTING. I think The Signpost operates in a grey area somewhere in between Wikipedia policy, their own content guidelines, and certain allowances the community will grant for the purposes of journalistic reporting and POV. That's the discussion I am trying to have. Mkdw talk 21:00, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Okay. But the header of this section refers specifically to defamation, and the example given in the first post is about the Venezuela note. I've just been following your lead. It's unfortunate that we've seemed to go around in circles here. It's perhaps worthwhile to note that, unlike Wikipedia articles, the commentary on Signpost pages shows up (to the ordinary viewing public) on the same page as the "article" itself. Thus, all of the concerns that have been expressed about that Signpost section are (almost) as visible as the editorial content. It's something I quite like; obviously it wouldn't work for articles because we use the article talk pages for a lot of other things besides commentary, and large and/or popular articles usually have multiple volumes of talk page archives. I would say, though, that's one area where there is a significant and mitigating difference. No, I don't think that it's good for Signpost to act as though it's a tabloid, which is what much of this month's News and Notes feels like. But at the same time, I don't think the editorial standard is the same for The Signpost as it is for articles. And to be fair, we have a disturbing number of articles that are poorly sourced, badly written, and not really written from NPOV. We also have tons of personal and sometimes Wikipedia space essays that are similarly awful (and those in Wikipedia space tend to be "read" as policy, too, which is even worse). The Signpost could benefit significantly from some tempering of its more flamboyant escapes into sensationalism. On the other hand, I'm not seeing a huge line-up of potential Signpost contributors who are willing and able to lead the charge. If the community comes to the conclusion that Signpost isn't worth their intellectual space to read, it will die of attrition fairly quickly. It's already come close more than once. Risker (talk) 21:27, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
We need to stop falling into the same trap that mainstraeam media does, which is editorializing on simple news items, and thus avoid POV. If it was an opinion/analysis piece, the language is fine, but not on what appears to be a legitimate news piece about the VZ situation and WP's coverage of it. There are better ways to give the same content ("where X% of the population lives in poverty", "where X% of the population have no access to a healthy diet"). --Masem (t) 01:53, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. I don't think that the comment was literally legal defamation, merely an ill-judged insertion of personal POV in a context where one wouldn't expect to find it, and where it isn't presented as such (rather, it's presented as a 'fact' which is obviously false if one reads it literally). — Bilorv(c)(talk) 02:35, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Masem. And it's not so much defamation (against a country?) that bothers me, but a clearly unsupportable proposition. Even in a Signpost oped we expect not to be confronted with outlandish claims. It diminishes the news outlet more generally. But this appeared in "News and notes", which has traditionally been the front-page news reportage. Why could that weird proposition not have simply been modified after initial complaints on the talkpage? The adversarial, defensive tone of the people running the outlet doesn't say much for its future. Tony (talk) 07:38, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
@Masem, Bilorv, and Tony1: The question I was asking in this Village Pump discussion was not intended to be about whether the current News and notes piece constituted defamation. I accept not everyone would share my views on it. I was instead trying to use it to frame a more broad question about whether editorials are subject to Wikipedia's policies such as on defamation and OUTING. If not in this case, others or in the future. I would still be interested to hear your thoughts. Mkdw talk 08:36, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
As a legal policy, LBL applies everywhere on Wikipedia. As a conduct policy, OUTING applies everywhere on Wikipedia. These matters are not up for debate. — Bilorv(c)(talk) 10:34, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Commenting in general and not on the specific case: Signpost articles can include content that wouldn't be suitable in a mainspace article. Much like essays and WP:DOF pages, they are not subject to article-space policies such as WP:NPOV, but they are subject to Wikipedia-wide policies like WP:NFCC. If anyone thinks there is an issue with a Signpost article, the same remedies that would be used for other Wikipedia-namespace pages can still be used (including revision deletion/oversight if applicable, e.g. the hypothetical OUTING editorial). What further guidance or enforcement are you looking for? - Evad37 [talk] 10:54, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Evad37, you are seriously proposing launching a RFC (or other allied measures) to determine whether The SignPost piece shall contain a part. line or not? ∯WBGconverse 15:54, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
If there's a content issue which talk page discussion doesn't resolve, the next step is too bring it up for wider community discussion (which doesn't have to be a formal RFC, particularly if its just one word or one line) – and is what this thread seems to be turning into for the most recent N&N piece, despite Mkdw wanting this to be a more general discussion. - Evad37 [talk] 23:07, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Much of the piece is just fairly badly written, not just the bit about Venezuela. A legitimate issue of widespread community concern, the blocking of Wikipedia across basically an entire country, doesn't need pulp language to be compelling. A guy taking a job elsewhere, somehow turned into a "turntable continuing to spin" as if the WMF is bleeding staff at an alarming rate. "RfA continues to be a pit of steely knives" turns out to actually be "two successful RfAs and three desysops for inactivity". So if the question is, "should the Signpost vet its pieces for badly written sensationalism", then I think we can all pretty much get on board with a big "yes". GMGtalk 16:36, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Starvation, malnutrition, and economic shortage have specific meanings. The following description from the Indian Famine Commission report of 1880 speaks to the many factors, and circumstances, that cause a section of a people to starve:

    "The first effect of a drought is to diminish greatly, and at last to stop, all field labour, and to throw out of employment the great mass of people who live on the wages of labour. A similar effect is produced next upon the artisans, the small shop-keepers, and traders, first in villages and country towns, and later on in the larger towns also, by depriving them of their profits, which are mainly dependent on dealings with the least wealthy classes; and, lastly, all classes become less able to give charitable help to public beggars, and to support their dependents. Such of the agricultural classes as possess a proprietary interest in the land, or a valuable right of occupancy in it, do not require as a rule to be protected against starvation in time of famine unless the calamity is unusually severe and prolonged, as they generally are provided with stocks of food or money, or have credit with money-lenders. But those who, owning only a small plot of land, eke out by its profits their wages as labourers, and rack-rented tenants-at-will living almost from hand-to-mouth, are only a little way removed from the class of field-labourers; they possess no credit, and on them pressure soon begins."

    Venezuela in 2019 is not India in 1880, but still, if the watchdogs of the world's food security, Oxfam, FAO, MSF, World Food Organization have said nothing, or next to nothing, about starvation in Venezuela, then, more than likely, it is not starvation that they have there. Please don't use that word lightly. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:13, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with many of the sentiments expressed above by people who are concerned by the tone of The Signpost, which seems to be more akin to tabloid journalism than to a serious news source. Leaving aside the important issue of the coverage of Venezuela, the headlines reported above by GreenMeansGo had also struck me, when I read them and the associated articles, as blatantly misrepresentative of the content of the articles. If we have to have an in-house newspaper then it should follow best journalistic practice of clearly separating news from opinion, including in the choice of headline. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:14, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • The discussion and comments at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom#Is it possible to delete an article after its publication or extensively modify it? reflect some of the concerns raised here. Mkdw talk 23:51, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Source-reviewing script recommendation

Note: Cross-posting Mike Christie's notice from WT:FAC

Cross-posted by  ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:32, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Need valid source(s) about Viva TV on IBC

I created Viva TV (IBC programming block) (now Draft:Viva TV (TV programming block)) in order to split off the thing about the former block broadcast on IBC from the Viva TV (Philippine TV channel) article (full-time linear TV channel launched in 2009). But since the new article don't cite any valid source, it's now moved to draft space. I'm looking for some reliable sources (especially news reports) about the block's launch and cancellation, in order to save the article from deletion, but Google searches yield no valid result. So I need some assistance from others.

Note that someone have suggested two YouTube clips (clip 1, clip 2) as sources (see also this revision and another revision), but I don't think these are valid ones for citation. JSH-alive/talk/cont/mail 11:09, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Anyone found something? JSH-alive/talk/cont/mail 13:04, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Petar Blagojevich

Article Petar Blagojevich needs to be renamed in Petar Blagojević --SrpskiAnonimac (talk) 20:31, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Done. However, you can make request like this at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical, where it will get more attention. –Ammarpad (talk) 17:52, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Ammarpad, I do not know English, see this: Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 60#Makovo, Macedonia --SrpskiAnonimac (talk) 12:32, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Language: Distinctions without differences

I launched a discussion in Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics#"Please use Indian English" asking for specific guidance on how to conform to the standards for Indian English, there being no guidelines for how to do so. I was dogged, some said annoying; some said trolling. I was given Trinidadian English as an analog. There are all of nine articles marked in their talk pages as being in Trinidadian English. Certainly the two-island state has a distinctive patois, but it's not appropriate for encyclopedia articles. Ask a Trini. I am willing to bet that British English would be the recommended standard for an encyclopedia article. My suggestion here is not a perennial request to standardize spelling, Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Enforce American or British spelling, but a request to discuss why it is appropriate to make the distinction among twenty-one varieties of English when there are basically only two standards for expository English writing: with or without Oxford spelling, with or without the Oxford comma. Where numbers are concerned, there is already a standard: unless a number is part of a quotation, zeros should be grouped in threes and the decimal point is a full stop (period). Wherever this topic is discussed, an assertion is made that spelling may differ from both American English and British English and so may syntax. I haven't seen it. It just seems to me that this is a distinction without a difference. I am told that "Reality is more complex than that." It may be, but I am a simple person. I would like someone to explain to me how the entreaties to use one of twenty-one varieties of English without any instructions for how to do so are valuable to the encyclopedia. Rhadow (talk) 02:47, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that there is no actionable proposal. What would conforming to the standards for Indian English actually mean? Please link to three articles and quote examples of inappropriate text along with the replacement text that would be recommended. My take on the problem is that WP:ENGVAR is fine for settling disagreements about spelling (color/colour, organize/organise) and date formats (mdy/dmy) but is not useful for a disagreement about text. I see text like "In the year 1998 such and such happened" where it would be standard at enwiki for the underlined "the year" to be deleted. More examples are needed to define what is proposed. A guideline that says "conform to Indian English" is useless without guidance about what that means. By the way, it is not a good idea to describe identifiable editors as dogged/annoying/trolling. Johnuniq (talk) 03:09, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
It looks like I misunderstood the OP. At the other discussion (link above) I somehow got the impression that a couple of people wanted "use X English" to mean more than "use date formats and spelling appropriate for X". It might be best to acknowledge that wikignomes expand templates and categories to fill all possibilities and I don't think anyone has ever explained what "use X English" means beyond what I mentioned, namely color/colour, -ize/-ise and mdy/dmy dates. My guess is that people don't feel comfortable putting {{Use British English}} on an article about an Indian topic, so {{Use Indian English}} was created. Johnuniq (talk) 09:24, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Your example of numbers is in fact one of the distinguishing features of Indian English, where lakh (1,00,000) and crore (1,00,00,000) are used rather than million (1,000,000). I do agree that if these templates are used there should be some accompanying instructions, and that 21 different varieties seems like overkill. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:06, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Draft proposal

Okay, then. I have a proposal that think would pass muster by SMcCandlish. Their analysis at Wikipedia talk:Identifying and using style guides#Style guides from around the anglosphere is a great start. The section MOS:ENGVAR should be expanded slightly to recognize all twenty-one dialects of English. A search for WP:Indian English takes you there in any case, implicitly suggesting that the English language tree has two trunks, after which the specific branch you choose is relatively insignificant. In that way, we would not offend the proponents of a tag for every regional dialect. I suggest that for every dialect we construct a short guide whose model sounds like this:

Trinidadian English is a dialect of English stemming originally from British English, enriched by native, Spanish, and French influences. In spoken form, it is a rich patois. For encyclopedia articles, formal language rules apply. In the absence of a published style guide as exists for American, Canadian and U.K. lects, a British style guide, for example Hart's Rules, is a reference for WP editors.[1] The nation uses the metric system, therefore metric units are preferred, with conversions to other units as appropriate. The spelling standard is Oxford Spelling (wp:EngvarB), although American spellings are common.

When twenty-one such paragraphs are published, it will become quite clear that the number is too high. In time then, the disused templates will become candidates for deletion. In my opinion, a gradual reduction in dialect templates is a better trend than the creation of a plethora. Any move to simplify the MOS and its templates in Wikipedia is a long-term plus.

A draft paragraph for Indian English follows. I searched for a style guide and did not find one, therefore the guidance is eerily similar to Trinidadian English.

Indian English is a dialect of English stemming originally from British English, enriched by native influences. In spoken form, it can vary substantially from its origin, including frequent use of the present continuous tense. For encyclopedia articles, formal language rules apply. In the absence of a published style guide as exists for American, Canadian and U.K. lects, a British style guide, for example Hart's Rules, is a reference for WP editors.[1] The spelling standard is Oxford Spelling (wp:EngvarB). The nation uses the metric system, therefore metric units are preferred, but imperial measures (e.g. acres and miles) are common and conversions should be provided. India uses a numbering system including the crore and lakh which require a nonstandard grouping of zeros in large numbers. When quoting or paraphrasing, these terms are fine, although an editor is entreated to convert or explain these numbers for readers unfamiliar with the units.

That's my two cents. Rhadow (talk) 13:32, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b https://www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/media_wysiwyg/University%20of%20Oxford%20Style%20Guide.pdf
We should be aiming to maximise the mutual intelligibility of the different varieties of English. Many of the differences are due to minor spelling, and these are no problem. But the use of regional vocabulary is a problem. Lakh and crore are a problem for the other readers. We will benefit from a paragraph explaining how the variety is to be used on Wikipedia, as the page in article space often covers colloquial use, and not what would be expected for a formal correct wr4iting. So perhaps for each variety we also need a list of problematic words that may need linking or in-text explanation. We also need to increase the quality of writing, and just because many Indian writers doe not know how to use capital letters or punctuation does not make that correct Indian English. I support the idea of saying what things should have conversions. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:31, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Continued discussion

This seems a lot like instructional WP:CREEP. There's established practice that exists at the respective WikiProjects already. Cesdeva (talk) 13:55, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

By 'this' i mean the draft proposal above. Cesdeva (talk) 15:59, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose WP:CREEP, also note that Wikipedia is built for the readers and standardisation must be avoided if it is detrimental to the readers. Regards. << FR 14:08, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment I could not agree more with FR. Hanging one of twenty-one tags specifying the dialect of English complicates the work of an editor. That itself is WP:CREEP. As described in the MOS, two are sufficient. Rhadow (talk) 14:58, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
It doesn't, and it isn't creep. Your sarcasm and ignorance just highlights the shallowness of your 'grievance'. I doubt anyone will try to engage with you on this topic now, after seeing your comment which borders on trolling. Cesdeva (talk) 15:59, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
  • It is common courtesy to post the link to this discussion at the page where you first posted your musings and where, through a long series of patient corrections by others, you acquired the knowledge which you have so glibly posted above. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:24, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose The 42 templates of the 21 regional varieties of English (which include Irish-, Scottish-, Jamaican-, American-, South African-, Australian-, New Zealand-, British-, Singapore-, and many others) appear in at least 300,000 WP articles. That system has worked for at least 12 years. Why should I even read anything written by someone with little knowledge of the underlying issues, whose motivations, as exhibited in his posts seem to be based on a fixed idea that there are only two varieties of the English language, British- and American-? What are the chances of something like this receiving WP-wide approval? Why should I waste my time? See Radhow's earlier efforts at: Talk:Asa Wright Nature Centre and Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics#"Please use Indian English" Note, especially Guettarda's insightful remarks about WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. That alone raises the prospects of endless discussions here where people are talking past each other. The above exchange with FR is a good example. . Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:55, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment All of the criticisms are fair enough. It strikes me that there are three options with respect to language tags: (1) the status quo, twenty-one identified varieties, none of which have a clearly defined distinction for the purposes of article editing between, say, Jamaican English and Trinidadian English, leaving the editor in a no-guidance situation, (2) and not much different, to allow the number of {use xxx English} templates to grow, each supporting another small variation on the language (adding {use Barbadian English} even if it is a matter of national pride, for example), or (3) to limit the number of templates to those lects for which there is style guide and dictionary to which an editor can refer.
My question was genuine and proposal respectfully submitted. I am mystified by the number of negative responses, "ass," "little knowledge," "trolling," and "bumbling, random, musings." I just don't hear any other suggestions on how to improve the situation. Rhadow (talk) 16:56, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Sadly, your history thus far has been one of ignoring in any conversation anything that is inconvenient for your theory. The half a dozen linguistics references on Indian English I posted, earlier, you dismissed by suggesting that the term register applies to only spoken language. See here, not to mention that four or five of those references were not about registers at all. (See also OED: register: Linguistics. In language: a variety or level of usage, esp. as determined by social context and characterized by the range of vocabulary, pronunciation, syntax, etc., used by a speaker or writer in particular circumstances.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:37, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
The existence of a style guide is not a prerequisite for the existence of a style in any variety of English. Nor are style guides comprehensive. In written American English for example, "likely" is now used as an adverb in fairly formal settings (e.g. "According to the National Weather Service, the hurricane will likely make landfall in the vicinity of XYZ, Florida." I haven't checked, but most likely this is not mentioned in style guides; at least if didn't use to be. If a WP article says, "This article is written in American English," it doesn't mean that any contributor needs to look up a style guide and write in the manner of a native speaker of AmE. All it means is that certain lexical or syntactical or stylistic features are acceptable in AmE, which speakers of other Englishes will not commonly employ in their own speech or writing, though they will very likely understand them. Such features should be respected in such an article, as long as they are not wildly confusing to others.
It is important to note that there are higher level features of any English that lie beyond the pale of any style guide. Would you like Americans to alter the sentence patterns of any BrE speaker editing an AmE tagged article, even though nothing he has written violates the Chicago Manual of Style? I think you are misinterpreting what "This article uses Indian English" means. It doesn't mean that you will need to pick up a hypothetical Mumbai manual of style, and write Indian English in the manner of an Indian. It doesn't even mean that the patterns that might seem peculiar to you will necessarily be mentioned in that Indian style guide. Yet is is undeniable that there is such a thing as Indian English, that a Martin Amis cannot write in the style of a Salman Rushdie. A hundred years ago, the Fowler Brothers, in The King's English were bemoaning the use of American expressions introduced by Kipling (who had written his Jungle Books in Brattleboro, Vermont). In those days there weren't style any guides for American English. These days no BrE style guide will be so prescriptive. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:14, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose any change. The vast majority of Wikipedia editors will continue editing using English that is recognisable as English everywhere, but with the occasional mistake due to their unawareness of differences. Those who know and care about the different varieties will correct things where necessary. That's the process that has worked well for many years, so why change anything? If the proposer of this change can't distinguish between standard Indian English and errors then that's fine - just let someone else fix it. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:31, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose. We actually need to scrap almost all of this "write in [X] English" stuff. For WP purposes, there are really only three standards, Commonwealth English, American English, and (kinda-sorta) Canadian English. All the dialects besides US and Canadian are essentially indistinguishable from British English in formal, written prose, with only minor local variation (mostly loanwords from other proximal languages, variety in slang and informalisms, and spoken differences that don't show up in formal writing). But these same levels of variation exists between, say, Yorkshire and Devon English, and New York and California English; they are not of a national character at all.

    A template that says something like "Please write this article in Indian English" is an excuse, an invitation, to write informal, non-MOS:COMMONALITY-compliant "localese" full of colloquialisms, and we need to strongly discourage this.

    As for Canadian, the major publications for Canadian English, including at least four style guides, and several dictionaries, are not actually in agreement with each other. CanEng is actually in flux, and even varies considerably by region and by age group. This stuff will probably not solidify for at least another generation, though we can be sure of a few things like theatre and colour being more common, but some Americanisms like program also being in more frequent use, along with North American terminology like trunk/hood/curb versus British boot/bonnet/kerb, meanwhile DMY versus MDY dates have a bit of a lead.

    That is arguably enough to support Canadian English templates. We also know that American English forked sharply from the rest by the 1830; this is very well documented in great detail. We don't have any data like this at all establishing something like Belizean or South African English as syntactically and orthographically distinct enough from "British" (general Commonwealth) English to support retaining templates for them (much less creating more of them and bloating MoS with dubious lectures on how to write them "correctly"!). We only have silly templates for Indian and Scottish and Jamaican and so on English because of inappropriate nationalistic sentiment. Most of these should simply be redirected to {{Use Commonwealth English}}.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:11, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: You write, "A template that says something like "Please write this article in Indian English" is an excuse, an invitation, to write informal, non-MOS:COMMONALITY-compliant "localese" full of colloquialisms, and we need to strongly discourage this."
I am afraid I have to disagree. An encyclopedia article written in Indian English will contain no greater proportion of Indian English slang than will a British English article of British slang. Why would Indians write in localese and the British not? Consider journalism. Some Indian English newspapers have seen continuous publication since the mid-19th century. The Statesman (founded as Friend of India in 1818), The Pioneer (established 1865), The Hindu (founded 1878), or The Times of India (founded 1838) have their in-house style guides (though the TOI has not been paying much attention to it lately). See an editorial in The Hindu belaboring the details in the announcement of their new style guide in 2017. Regardless of what these style guides say, it is undeniable that newspaper English has been read in India for a very long time.
English, moreover, has been taught in schools and colleges in India ever since the Anglicists got the better of the Orentalists in the debate on public instruction in India in the 1830s. (See Company rule in India#Education) Throughout the 20th century, all major British publishers of English language and literature books, published simultaneously in India. All had India divisions. In many, whether Oxford, Blackie, Longmans, or Macmillan, the trio of Indian cities, "Bombay, Calcutta, Madras" appeared emblazoned in the copyright page. In fact, I just looked at a 1937 copy of J. W. Mackail's translation of Virgil's Aneid. On the copyright page it says, "Macmillan and Co. Limited, London, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Melbourne." It is only below that it says, "New York, Chicago, ... Toronto." Whether in 1937, or today (see The Delhi University BA Hons syllabus in English), the people who have bought these books in India have been Indians, by the thousands. But, after 180 years of public instruction in English, the variety of English favored in India has diverged from British English, and there is no holding it back, especially as India ramps up economically, and literacy increases slowly to full. (There is a caveat: economic development in India, and literacy as well, is uneven. That means among Indian editors you will get those who write very well along with others who write poorly, whose writing has to be corrected.)
The language templates on Wikipedia allude to the higher order differences in the written languages (e.g. AmE's greater preference for the subjunctive ("He advised that I not go tonight" vs BrE's "He advised that I should/must not go tonight.") or Indian English's greater preference for languorous descriptions. The differences between encyclopedic Indian English and encyclopedic British English, are not one of ordinary syntax but of higher order style. The differences are there, but, among the educated people of both countries, they are ones of frequencies of certain constructions, callocations, and registers in the corpus of the writing.
Finally, there is a practical matter. The majority of Indians contributing to Wikipedia do so in India-related articles. For a topic such as train stations, they are the ones who have the proximity to occasionally spur their interest into expanding the stubs. If you either ignore their variety of English or pronounce it to be a part of a nebulous Commonwealth English—but at the same time exclude the Queen's English from that same Queen's Commonwealth—then there is the likelihood that you may turn some of these people off. (See Salman Rushdie's essay, Commonwealth literature does not exist from the mid-1980s.) Without them, who will bell the cats of Indian topics with expository or descriptive prose? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:22, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Repeat: In formal, written English, there is no codifiable difference between Indian, South African, New Zealand, Trinidadian, Irish, Belizean, etc., English, that distinguishes them from British. There's a provable, obvious reason for this: lack of style guides for them that establish any alleged differences. Writers in all these places depend on British style guides, especially New Hart's Rules. Australian English is the one variant of Commonwealth English most likely to start to fork at the formal-writing level, but there are only two non-trivial style guides for it: one published very infrequently by the Australian government, widely excoriated, and ignored by almost everyone (including Australian civil servants), and an edition of the Cambridge style guide for British English that is almost identical word-for-word other than the addition of some Australian colloqualisms.

Any linguist will tell you that classifications like "Pakistani English", "Zimbabwean English", etc., are linguistic terms for spoken language patterns, and that written English is primarily determined by publishing houses (i.e., by commerce). We know for a fact that major publishers are not producing customized national-level style guides, but defaulting to those put out by Oxford, Cambridge, and popular Commonwealth-wide news publishers like the BBC and the Economist Group. Asserting that, at an encyclopedic level of formality, Indian and Scottish and Hong Kong and British English are distinct enough for Wikipedia to codify rules regarding them is patent nationalism and original research.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:30, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Since this discussion seems to be degenerating into the usual long windy broadsides, perhaps you could give us (tersely) your views on how the lakh & crore question fits with your position. Personally I don't see change as necessary. Johnbod (talk) 02:42, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
@Johnbod: Although I have stayed away from using crores and lakhs in India-related articles, except in direct quotations, I now favor using both crore/lakh and, in parenthesis, hundred thousand/ten million. I'm sure someone can write a convert template for these. As for SMcCandlish's blanket assertions which seem to be shifting from regarding only BrE, AmE, and (kinda-sorta) CanE as the differentiated models of English to now including Australian English; from considering the "Indian English" tag to warrant "non-MOS=COMMONALITY-compliant" "localese," to considering it to be identical, in written form, to BrE, all I can say is that Indian English is neither a differentiated variety (such as Australian English), nor is it identical, in its written form, to British English. In Schnieder's model of language evolution, stated in Schilk, Marco (2011), Structural Nativization in Indian English Lexicogrammar, John Benjamins, pp. 9–, ISBN 90-272-0351-2, Indian English is well past stage 2, i.e. exonormative stabilization (OED exoˈnormative adj. Linguistics, of language standardization: drawing on foreign models of usage as a basis for the standard language.) Schilk, see page 11, restating more formally my intuition about Indian English, considers it to be at the beginning of stage 4, i.e. endonormative stabilization (OED: endonormative adj., Linguistics, of language standardization: drawing on native models of usage rather than on the standards for the language that are already established in other countries.) We can't, because of our fixed views, say "less than stage five is stage two." In other words, there is no need to tamper with the language-variety tags on Wikipedia. Codification in grammars and dictionaries does begin to take place later in Stage 4. PS There is early usage guide, Nihalani, Paroo; Tongue, Ray K.; Hosali, Priya; Crowther, Jonathan (2005), Indian And British English: A Handbook of Usage And Pronunciation, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-567313-5, but its examples are not based in the two corpora of Indian English (the Indian English section of the International Corpus of English (ICE) (see also: The ICE project) and the Kohlapur corpus). It is not considered comprehensive. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:22, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, "you" was meant to be SMcCandlish! Johnbod (talk) 16:59, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
I started this discussion. Now I can see it will have no resolution. I concede that it is a matter of national pride that there is Samoan English. I shall editorialise about some articles, editorialize on the rest, and disregard the admonitions for anything more specific, because no one can enumerate what the differences are. Rhadow (talk) 17:20, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Rhadow This is the problem with people such as you, or your cohorts, who appear here from time to time, attempting to force their simplistic ideas on others. When you find that the picture is muddier, that linguistic research more fine grained and comprehensive than what your prejudices (such as the doozy "Any linguist will tell you that classifications like "Pakistani English", "Zimbabwean English", etc., are linguistic terms for spoken language patterns, ...) have fossilized into, you quit, mumbling, "national pride," "no one can enumerate," soon after I have given you a modern linguistics take on spoken and written Indian English. It is not my job to make a precis of Schilk's book. That is for you to find out by delving. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:00, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

"The problem with ... you ... [and] your simplistic ideas." When first we started this discussion, I asked for guidance in distinguishing twenty-one varieties of written, encyclopedic English and, if necessary, a style guide to help me do so. After several days of back and forth, it seems that the {{Use Indian English}} tag applies to quotes and there is a guide, Schilk. It would have been so much easier to say that at the outset rather than lectures of of endonormative stabilization. Many thanks. Rhadow (talk) 20:23, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
I did refer you to seven fairly recent linguistics books on Indian English, which included Schilk. That was ten days ago. But you didn't seem interested. Perhaps the fault was mine: I should have given more guidance. I can't speak to all 21 varieties, but expect that they too have diverged to varying degrees from BrE. The terms endonormative stabilization etc are Schilk's, or rather used by linguists studying the evolution of languages. As you will see on page 9 of his book, there are five stages in the evolution resulting from settlers arriving in a new colonized land. He thinks Indian English is at the beginning of stage four. AmE and AusE are in stage five. I'll give you two examples from Schilk in a minute. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:31, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
He says on page 37, "Olivarria de Ersson & Shaw (2003) show, for example, that significant differences can be observed for the frequencies of the complementation patterns of pelt-verbs in Indian and British English (cf. Olivarria de Ersson & Shaw 2003:154). Specifically, they observed clear variety-specific tendencies in the verb-complementational patterns of the pelt-verbs PELT and SHOWER: while in British English one of the most frequent patterns is the complementation with a with-prepositional phrase, in Indian English there are strong tendencies to complement PELT with an at-prepositional phrase and SHOWER with an on-prepositional phrase (cf. Olivarria de Ersson & Shaw 2003:154)." Sure enough, when I did a quick search I found, "some miscreants pelted stones at the Railways' fastest train, damaging one of its windows." (see here) Note that the direct and indirect object switch in the IndE constructions. What does one do with such constructions on WP? If they are causing wild confusion, one could change them, but most people will understand what they mean. I would let them stand in IndE tagged articles. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:47, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
On page 38–39, he says, "Mukherjee & lIoffmann (2006) compiled a 31-million-word newspaper database for Indian English derived from the online archive of the Calcutta-based national newspaper The Statesman 21 They show that there are many verbs that Indian English users use in this pattern which are not admissible in the type-I pattern in British English, for example the verb GIFT: (10) He was forced to bring down Nabi in the danger zone after gifting him the ball. <The Statesman 2003-12-12> (11) Delay means serious risk of gifting Islamabad a talking point. <The Statesman 2002-10-26> (12) She said she wanted to gift him a dream. <The Statesman 2003-02-17>" Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan. Most people will understand what these sentences mean. I wouldn't add a "with" to such constructions in IndE tagged articles. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:08, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
In American English, we have a saying, "Don't sell past the close," in other words, don't pursue an argument after you have already won. Tell me please whether these phrases are {{Indian English}} or just bad writing:
  • "It [the station] halts for trains everyday"
  • Starting a sentence with a digit.
  • "Renigunta railway station is junction of tracks from 4 different directions to Renigunta:" (dispensing with a preposition, perhaps at, and the definite article the)
  • "Present this station operates trains to Tenali and Secunderabad stations" (substitution of adjective for adverb)
  • "... and has bus facility to the nearby city ..." (no indefinite article a or a plural noun -- and perhaps a substitution of "to" for "serving")
The atrocious constructions gifted (v) and gifting are an everyday occurrence where I live. I hear them every day. It grates on me as much as a request to dialog. Rhadow (talk) 23:53, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
Those are obviously not examples of Indian English. As for gift(v), I don't think you understand. gift (v) is perfectly legitimate in AmE or BrE. For example: Nature gifted her with an ethereal voice (AmE/BrE), or "He gifted the money in memory of the tsunami victims." (BrE), only it doesn't take a ditransitive form (i.e. with both direct and indirect objiect) as it does in Indian English. In Indian English, "She gifted her brother an iPhone" (i.e. presented her brother with an iPhone) is legitimate construction. That you find it grating is your problem. This is about as far I will go in engaging you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:18, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler's hypothesis about Indian English, its level of bifurcation, and what that might imply for Wikipedia is patent OR; it's opinion, an extrapolation from one single source (which has a much more limited context) to leap to conclusions that F&f favors. If it were actually true that Indian English were a solidified, codified dialect at the written level, we would see overwhelming evidence of this, in the form of Indian English dictionaries, Indian English style guides, and similar works, but nearly zero of them exist, and actually zero from reputable publishers. Meanwhile, the "British" (general Commonwealth) English works of this sort from Oxford, Cambridge, and other high-end British publishers are the standard English-language reference works among anglophones in India (and in Hong Kong, and insert 100+ other places).

Worse yet for the fantasy that Indian English is a formal written dialect, we know for a fact that Indian English varies regionally more than any other alleged "national dialect", due to the strong influence of radically different indigenous languages (most of which are the first languages of the majority of anglophones in India), which are often not even in the same language families, and which thus produce radically different influences on the "flavor" of local English around India.

In short, do not confuse either a) well-documented trends in spoken English usage in India, or b) undocumented but observable trends in Indian journalism, blogging, and other informal writing in English, with something very, very different: c) formal, academic English as used in encyclopedia writing. What's going on here is a sore confusion and commingling of Indian pride and "Indian English is real" sentiment (which is correct with regard to spoken usage, though there is not one, consistent dialect, but a broad continuum, probably better thought of as Hindi English, etc., by languages of influence), versus what we need to actually focus on here: is there a codified, standardized Indian English that differs enough from British and other Englishes that we need to have huge, gloating banner templates about it? The answer to the latter question is obviously "no". There's simply no evidence in favor of such a notion. The sources that would demonstrate it (high-quality reference works on using formal Indian English) simply do not exist. Tellingly, the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary have a more prosaic take on the matter [5], and have sum up Indian English as about 70 words (loan words) common in Indian English to include in the online OED. By this measure, New Mexican English has at least as strong a claim to "banner advertising" on Wikipedia, since even more regionally distinct words (from Spanish and from Native American languages) are found in that regional dialect. Similar stories will be found for Australian English and for every variety of African English, and Hong Kong and Sinaporean English, and all the Caribbean Englishes. They all have one really important thing in common with Indian English: they are vernaculars, and do not exist as defined, separate formal written Englishes codified as a rule-set by any reliable sources.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:33, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: You state, "Tellingly, the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary have a more prosaic take on the matter [6], and have sum up Indian English as about 70 words (loan words) common in Indian English to include in the online OED." In fact, that OED blog is referring to the latest addition of 70 IndE words to the 900 that already are in the dictionary." It is true that some of the 900 are archaic even in Indian English, but many such as "tiffin," "out-of-station," "needful," are not. There are others such as the expression, "on the anvil," that are not listed in the OED's list of IndE words, but are considered to be chiefly South Asian usage. (See OED on-line entry: on (also upon) the anvil: being dealt with or considered; in preparation, in hand. Now chiefly S. Asian. The OED-online lists ten examples, beginning in 1645, including: 1818 Byron Let. 28 June (1976) VI. 56 "I shall positively offer my next year to Longman—& I have lots upon the anvil," and ending with: 1986 Sunday (Calcutta) 22 June 49/3 A new Rs 400-crore debenture issue was reportedly on the anvil. (for Johnbod's reading pleasure. :)) 2005 Asian Age 28 Sept. 13/2 "Important initiatives to support the growth of the sector have already been taken by the policy makers and we believe several more are on the anvil." There are others such as "walk the talk," which are reaching a level of frequency in usage in IndE that they will very likely be inducted into the OED in the near future. Please note that words become archaic in one English but don't in others. "Torch," for example, preserves its original meaning in AmE, but in BrE has come to mean what is flashlight (in AmE). In other words, BrE no longer has any mandate on deciding what words are archaic and what are not in the world Englishes. Anyway, it was fun talking about these things. I doubt there will be a resolution on this topic. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:21, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
More OR and point-missing. Southwestern American English has at least as many loan words from Spanish, but it wouldn't matter anyway: the point is that having a bunch of loan words in common parlance doesn't make for a written, formal dialect that WP is required to treat with templates, because few of those words are ever used in encyclopedic writing (and would be explained in situ if they were). You're assuming that the appearance of a word or phrase in a dialect is especially significant, but it's not. For example, "needful" is also Northwestern American English (with no influence from India on its use); there's nothing especially Indian about it. "On the anvil" (which isn't Indian English, but simply lingering more in South Asia than in other dialects) isn't any more evidentiary of a marked dialect fork between written, formal British and Indian English than any other random colloquial phrase, like "fair dinkum" (Australian), "on the lash" (Irish), "slap chips" (South African), etc. This kind of variation exists down to the rather local subnational level, yet we are never going to have a "This article is written in New England English" or "This article is written in Philadelphia English" template. If we don't need one for either of those, then we don't need one for Indian. The only reason to want one is nationalistic sentiment. You cannot actually draw the kinds of conclusions you want to from the available data.

There's probably more distinction between the everyday English of Scotland and that of England than between the Queen's English and Indian English (because Scottish English is actually an amalgam of English and Scots, a closely related derivative of Anglo-Saxon, plus Gaelic loans, and going back to emergence of Middle English, while Indian English is mostly much later England-English with inconsistent loanwords from Indian languages). But we don't need templates for Scottish English, either. Encyclopedic Scottish English isn't reliably distinguishable from that written by someone from London, or Melbourne or (as a native speaker) New Delhi.

Lastly, no one said anything about "mandates". Despite all I've said, you continue to approach this from a national-pride and nationalism perspective. Your "BrE no longer has any mandate on deciding ..." stuff is a straw man (and provably wrong anyay, since Britsh reference works on English are the go-to reference works on the language also in India, Australia, South Africa, etc.). No amount of observation of colloquial talk is ever going to change that. The only thing that will change is major publishers in India putting out competing reference works, and them diverging from British/Commonwealth English, and doing so consistently. Whether you understand it or not there's an all-important gulf between colloquial Indian English dialect (which is well-attested) versus an utter lack of any evidence that such a dialect exists as a formal, written dialect the way American English does. India has had no Noah Webster (or any modern organization serving a similar orthography-forking role).

I'm not likely to respond again, because this side discussion has turned utterly circular, and no amount of handwaving is ever going to wave away the fact that there are no reliable sources establishing Indian English as a distinct variety of written, formal-register English. The best anyone can muster is observation that it exists as a spoken dialect continuum, and that (like all varieties of English down to a local level), in written form it can optionally invoke various colloquialisms that won't be understood by outsiders. Nothing unusual about this. Nothing Wikipedia needs to make special allowances for.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:21, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Pedestrian overpass

I am trying to comply with {{Use Indian English}}}. Should I refer to a pedestrian overpass as an "overbridge," "over bridge," "foot-over bridge," or what? Rhadow (talk) 00:34, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

@Rhadow: "foot over bridge" as far as I know. << FR (mobileUndo) 02:52, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
Prefer the Saxon to the Romance. Prefer anything to Latinate AmE ugliness. (OED: foot overbridge n. Indian English a footbridge.
1883 Times 27 Feb. 1/3 (advt.) Class A.—Machine Tools, Wrought-iron Foot Overbridges.
1956 Times of India 1 June 3/5 The foot over-bridge across the railway lines in front of the Government of India offices on Queen's Road will be closed to pedestrians from the Queen's Road end.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:47, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia didn’t get actress Olivia Colman’s birthdate wrong

If you allow me this self promotion, I want to say here that the piece I just wrote in The Conversation about Olivia Colman's issues with Wikipedia is based on fact-checking made by Wikipedians that dig through the entire history of her page, and that the paper is a tribute to them. It says a lot about how Wikipedia is still regarded in the media in 2019, and how journalists should instead take fact-checking lessons from it. More details about the story at Colman's talk page. Comments welcome (if constructive!) Alexandre Hocquet (talk) 00:08, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi Alexandre Hocquet! I noted this since I have Wikipedia:Press coverage 2019 on my watchlist, and you added it there. I have no problem with that, had I found it first I would have added it myself (though The Conversation (website) has more primary sources than I'd like).
Anyway, what struck me with your addition there was the innovative use of the "authorlink" which now links to your WP-userpage, I've never seen that before. I know of no chapter and verse against this, but my knee-jerk reaction is that if there's an author-link, it should go to a WP-article (like with the Jess Wade-piece just above). If others can be bothered to have an opinion, I'd like to hear it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:59, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
Indeed, author link is intended for the Wikipedia article, at least in the mainspace. It's not unreasonable to use it to point to a user page when the citation is used outside of the mainspace. However, by doing so and then linking to an external website, the user is willingly outing himself. --Izno (talk) 13:05, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
I understand that. I actually always feel a tension between transparency (revealing where this piece of information is coming from as a disclaimer, and even encouraging discussion about the topic) and self promotion (talking about myself in Wikipedia) even though the edit is relevant and properly sourced. I can remove the User link if it's deemed inappropriate, just say it @Gråbergs Gråa Sång: or @Izno: or anyone else. Alexandre Hocquet (talk) 13:54, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
I doubt it will cause the end of WP as we know it, like Izno said, it is not mainspace. I'm good with either. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:08, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

What is your favorite article?

Persononthinternet (talk) 01:05, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I enjoyed helping to write James Shield, who almost killed Abraham Lincoln once. GMGtalk 01:14, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
I liked writing Augustus Barrows: nobody had connected the keeper of a stagecoach stop/inn in frontier U-Bet, Montana, with the third-party freshman Assemblyman who had become Speaker of the Wisconsin House, then walked away from the job after the end of the session. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:52, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

CrashCourse video on Wikipedia

I want everyone to have a look at this video from Crash Course (YouTube), hosted by John Green. I think they have done a great job educating readers how to effectively utilize the medium. Let me know your thoughts. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 15:31, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

...I emailed them about this like a year ago. So basically I take credit for everything and will be expecting royalties. GMGtalk 15:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
@GreenMeansGo: probably who knows. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 16:29, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
I'm sure you'll be paid just as much as an editor gets for taking an article to FA. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:40, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Very good. I'd like him to make one for beginner editors. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:31, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
I love it. I would add that one of Wikipedia's strengths is that anyone can edit. If you see something wrong, fix it. Qzekrom (talk) 18:24, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Survey regarding the community guidelines for my master thesis

Hello Wikipedia-Community,

I am Robert Wintermeyer, and I am a student at the university of cologne. I am conducting a research in various social media platforms including collaborative projects for my master thesis. The purpose of this research is to gather information on the community guidelines and their acceptance by the user. For that reason, I am conducting surveys that take about 10-15 minutes. If you are willing to participate, our survey will ask you about your opinion towards the community guidelines of Wikipedia. There are no foreseeable risks nor benefits to you associated with this project. All responses are confidential. Your participation is voluntarily, and you can ask me if you have any questions. The participation offers an OPTIONAL chance of a 10€ (~11$) Amazon voucher.

I already approached the community before I started with my survey. The links to the discussions are Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive306#Survey regarding the community guidelines for my master thesis and Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2019 January 24#Survey regarding the community guidelines for my master thesis.
Since a lot of research that is relevant for my master thesis focuses on Wikipedia it would be great to have a good sample to evaluate. The survey ends on the first of March.

The following link goes to the Wikipedia EN survey which is hosted on google forms:

Wikipedia Survey


Thank you very much for your time,

Robert Wintermeyer--Rwinterm (talk) 09:12, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I filled it out. Qzekrom (talk) 19:02, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

RfC in Wikidata: semi-protection to prevent vandalism on most used Items

Hi everyone,

In Wikidata has been opened the RfC semi-protection to prevent vandalism on most used Items and I think it might be interesting for many of you. Thus I encourage to you to read and participate in the RfC and comment whatever you have in mind about this topic.

Thanks in advance for you attention!

Regards, Ivanhercaz (Talk) 22:25, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

  • And they wonder why so many of us here at Wikipedia don’t want things exported from Wikidata... oh well, at least they are trying to fix this particular issue. Blueboar (talk) 23:58, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
@Blueboar: The situation of the English Wikipedia isn't explained in the RfC but that's the main reason why I thought it might be of your interest. Regards, Ivanhercaz (Talk) 01:05, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

When will this article be indexed by Google?

I wonder if it could be explained how United States support for ISIS would be indexed in Google in order to get access comfortably? Saff V. (talk) 11:46, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

New articles are generally indexed quickly. However, articles which are listed for deletion are marked as {{NOINDEX}}, which stops them being indexed by external search engines until the deletion template is removed. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:54, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
The NOINDEX rule for AFD pages apparently only applies to pages that are less than 90 days old. There's discussion on the template's talk page about this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
The page in question is less than 90 days old... so NOINDEX should apply. Discussion is currently leaning towards: “keep, but rename”. Blueboar (talk) 21:58, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

An update on templates on mobile web

Hello,

A few months ago we mentioned a change that was coming to how certain templates appear on mobile web. I just wanted to drop a note that this change is now in effect here on English Wikipedia. This is the result of a request from 2016 to better display templates on mobile. As you may be aware, since early 2018 mobile traffic counts for the majority of traffic on English Wikipedia (and more than twice as many unique devices access the mobile site over the desktop site), so making templates present on mobile is important.

We've deployed this update to all other wikis and ran A/B tests to measure the impact (Summary: Users interact with the new treatment more frequently than the old. They interact with higher-severity issues more than than lower-severity issues. The new design does not cause more frequent edits).

For template editors, we have some recommendations on how to make templates that are mobile-friendly and further documentation on our work so far.

If you have questions about formatting templates for mobile, please leave a note on the project talk page or file a task in Phabricator and we can help.

Yours, CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk to us about talking

" icon depicting two speech Bubbles"

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.

We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.

We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.

We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

  1. First, sign up your group here.
  2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
  3. Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
    1. When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
    2. What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
    3. What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
    4. What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
    5. What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
  4. Finally, please go to Talk pages consultation 2019 on Mediawiki.org and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.

Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell us how your group communicates.

You can read more about the overall process on mediawiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you.

Trizek (WMF) 15:01, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

What if a Google search won't work? Hatnotes could help

This is just one example, but it is something that could happen with other search terms. I made a note several months ago about an article in an actual newspaper about "WALL-E" that I wanted to learn more about. I forgot to make a note about which newspaper figuring it would be easy enough to find the information, but every single Google result for "WALL-E" is about the movie or the character. Had I made a note about what it was about, I might have had better luck. Guessing which newspaper didn't help since a search of its web site didn't work, but another resource I could access this week gave me what I needed, and I made an improvement to a Wikipedia article and was able to link to it, after which I was reverted, along with a change that would work better. Well, maybe. It depends on whether a person would actually look at "See also". If you remember only that something else is called "WALL-E", Wikipedia is not very helpful at this point. Although maybe that is unlikely. Either the WALL-E article needs a hatnote or there needs to be a disambiguation page. Also see this discussion.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:46, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Page for deletion requests on Wikipedia

I was just wondering... does Wikipedia have a page where requests for deletion are made? Just curious, to vote on them and perhaps better understand the deletion policy.

I searched to try and find the page, but I couldn't. I'll try again.

Thanks.

--Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 06:11, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@SelfieCity: See WP:AFD --DannyS712 (talk) 06:13, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 06:15, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation 2019

The Wikimedia Foundation has invited the various Wikimedia communities, including the English Wikipedia, to participate in a consultation on improving communication methods within the Wikimedia projects. As such, a request for comment has been created at Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019. All users are invited to express their views and to add new topics for discussion. (To keep discussion in one place, please don't reply to this comment.) Jc86035 (talk) 14:57, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:About stat incorrect

It states there are 5,808,126 articles on Wikipedia, but that is outdated. I cannot edit the article so please fix it — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brainiac245 (talk • contribs) 18:23, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

5,808,167 articles is the actual number — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brainiac245 (talk • contribs) 18:24, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

5,808,172 articles is the last number I checked — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brainiac245 (talk • contribs) 18:31, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

5,808,177 articles — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brainiac245 (talk • contribs) 18:35, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Building relationships among Wikipedians

What initiatives do we have in place to help Wikipedians build relationships? I often feel alone while editing, and I realized that social capital might encourage new users to stay and contribute more. Qzekrom (talk) 18:35, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

That I know of : not much, and the lack of interactions between users certainly is a major problem here... I think a factor is the extreme confusion (and age) of the community part of the website, and the lack of a real common place (even a subreddit) for wikipedians to come together, the village pump hardly filling this role. Louis H. G. (talk) 02:21, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
While I agree more venues would be better, you can currently participate on IRC, Discord, mailing lists, and wiki meetups. Do you have any ideas for further collaborative environments? Killiondude (talk) 02:10, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
I've tried to compile a related list at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Tools in use. My immediate goal is less about social connections, and more about where/how you might talk to someone about an article you're working on, but this will often be the same place. Please feel free to contribute examples that you're familiar with – the more, the merrier at this stage. Also, there's a chance that you might find links to an example that interests you on that page. Louis H. G., I don't think that Reddit has made it onto the list yet, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised to find a subreddit or two out there. There are tens of thousands of editors here, and surely some of them are also Redditors. If you find a good one, then feel free to add it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:58, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
I would like to add a word of warning here. It's all very well to build relationships among Wikipedians, but no decisions about the actual content of Wikipedia should be made anywhere other than on Wikipedia. I have several times been on the wrong end of off-Wikipedia collusion, which for the most part I'm pretty sure has taken place on IRC. I'm pretty well versed in policy and guidelines, so have been able to respond robustly to such things, but many people who are not quite so Wikipedia-obsessed can be intimidated by such action. It would be much better if all discussion could be where we can all see it, i.e. on this site. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:36, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
Of course, but the confusion of wp paradoxically makes it very hard for someone to access these discussions, especially non-wikipedians. Despite the intention, transparency is a questionable reality here.Louis H. G. (talk) 22:47, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
re: "where/how you might talk to someone about an article you're working on"—I agree with that. I love WikiProjects as a concept because they're (at least in theory) a good place to find subject-matter experts to collaborate with, but I often can't tell how active a WikiProject really is; just counting the number of signatures on the page or the number of users in e.g. Category:WikiProject Computer science participants are very misleading statistics. I've been reluctant to take on large-scale article work because I fare better when I can get real-time feedback on my ideas, and I often don't know the best place to find that. Qzekrom (talk) 02:49, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
@Killiondude: So, a few iconoclastic thoughts, because I often suggest people in my academic field to improve articles and keep getting (very) negative views on the wp community. I would argue that none of the venues you mentions really work, regarding editors'sociability. I think wiki as a community is hardly enticing for newcomers, and remains more than discouraging for the advanced editor, for a few reasons :
1. Lack of accessibility. The online geography of the community is very confused. This falls under the general maze of this website, which is really outdated. It is very difficult to know where to go just to meet the people who write here. There should be a central square in this place.
2. Theres is too many venues, none of them being on point. The sedimentation of layers and layers of cubbyholes over the years is perhaps the most noticeable feature of the website : I think it really is detrimental to the general communication, and, on another level, make the functioning of the website very obscure and aristocratic, especially for the general public. Only those who master this labyrinth can really contribute.
3. Technically, the venues are inconvenient, and tend to desynchronise wp with the rest of the web. This is just not how people get together online, which makes wp pretty repulsive to newbies. Editing a source code to reply, as i'm doing rn, is quite a tedious way to communicate.
I think this is a great problem for the future of wp, and should be addressed.Louis H. G. (talk) 22:47, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
I agree with (1) and (2), but I'm confused about (3). What do you mean by that? Qzekrom (talk) 02:54, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
@Qzekrom: Well, for example, I did not see this reply, because there's no real notification system, except ping. If I want to build discussion with anyone, I have to keep track and get back to everything I write on every project in every language. However the main flaw is the source-coding aspect. It's incredibly tedious, antiquated, and, most of all, it prevent people from entering the project. It's a 90's website logic.Louis H. G. (talk) 22:11, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
@Louis H. G.: I kind of agree with that. I think it has some strengths. For instance, I'd like to be able to collaboratively edit outlines or research notes on an article talk page, but I can't trust that others realize that's my intention because the expectation that talk pages be used for convos is so great. Also, <aside>it's really easy for discussions to happen all over the place instead of in an orderly manner, as is currently happening at Talk:Rent regulation. We've been reviving months-old threads left and right.</aside> Qzekrom (talk) 22:38, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
I think they work but are not perfect. A top 5 website has been built and thousands of volunteers have participated across the external social venues (non-wiki) that I listed. In any case, it seems like the participants of this thread might be interested in mw:Talk pages consultation 2019. Killiondude (talk) 17:16, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
@Killiondude: This website was created 18 years ago. The question is not how it succeeded in the 2000's with this system (which was still frequent then) ; the certainty is that it won't attract people for much longer if it remains in this sad state. The consultation is indeed very welcome, and hopefully will lead to some change. Louis H. G. (talk) 22:11, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
  • This is a problem with both retention and effective indoctrination, in a project with such a large amount of rules that one needs to familiarize oneself with in order to contribute effectively. The English Wikipedia very much caters to the type of person who is fine working alone for long stretches of time, and the vastness of the project means that, unless you edit in hot-button areas like modern politics, you can do so for weeks at a time without ever really encountering another person. It's not that way on all projects, for example, on projects that are small enough that you don't need a watchlist, because recent changes passes slowly enough for you to keep up with, it's difficult for everyone in the community not to be aware of every talk page discussion going on everywhere.
I don't have a solution for it, but I would be interested in anyone that had any novel ideas. GMGtalk 23:39, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
​ I have some ideas policy-wise and some thoughts on the community (which I'll share later when I have them more fully thought out):
  • Do an annual (or every two years) review of Wikipedia's sitewide policies as well as individual WikiProjects' policies to see what provisions ought to be added, updated, refactored, or "repealed" (i.e. archived and retained for "historical purposes", but deactivated as official policy).
  • Encourage more content and policy disputes to be resolved through RfCs etc. so they can set sitewide precedent. Furthermore, make it easier to find relevant "case law" for specific types of disputes. Right now, I'm involved in an (imo) unprecedented POV dispute on an econ article, and I feel that similar POV disputes on similar econ articles haven't been fully resolved, at least not transparently.
Qzekrom (talk) 06:32, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Well if you want to see a well functioning project, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history. They are the gold standard for how a project should operate. GMGtalk 22:51, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Daty Wikidata Editor beta release

Hi everyone,

Pellegrino Prevete, aka Ogoorcs, here again to announce the release of the beta version of Daty, the native Wikidata editor that has already been mentioned here last month, which aims to simplify Wikidata user experience for new as for old users.

This month saw a rewrite of the open entities dialog, which first version was righteous found not much intuitive.

Filter search (i.e. graphical SPARQL queries) has been introduced, too, which usability is of course on you to test.

In fact, despite the improvements, the failure of many testers in using filters, brought me to write and integrate a little manual to the program which has been made available online for windows users.

In this version you will also find:

  • a new GTK+ theme,
  • close buttons for entities in the editor,
  • unsourced statement visually distinguished from referenced ones,
  • huge performance improvements and
  • an entities download cache.

Editing has been disabled in this release, too. It will probably be activated in one of the march intermediate releases, just after refereces visualization will be completed.

I recently published the issue boards, which I am using as to-do manager. So, if you want to follow the work but you do not want to read the commit list you can read that.

I recommended current and future users to endorse the project at this page.

Download

Installers are available for Microsoft Windows (64 bit) and GNU/Linux.

Complete release notes have been published on my website; bug reporting happens here.

Notes for Mac users

I recently buyed a used mac which should arrive mid march, so the .app will probably be ready for the next release, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Ogoorcs (talk) 23:45, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

Signpost item is up for deletion

A Signpost article which concerns personal pronouns has been put up for deletion. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Notification for a survey

Hi everyone! This is Isaac from WMF Research team. In a nutshell: We are planning to run a survey of Wikipedia readers as a follow up to two previous studies communicated on VP:EN (previous post; previous post) on English Wikipedia and 13 other languages (https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.00474). We expect no disruptions in the workflow of editors during this study. The Wikimedia Foundation Research team is continuing the project on understanding the motivations, needs, and backgrounds of the different populations of people that read Wikipedia. The current state of the project aims to improve our understanding of the diversity of readers as well as how the needs and experience of Wikipedia readers varies across different populations. Some more information about this research on the project page.

To be able to do this, we would like to pilot a survey asking readers about their motivation (using the three questions we have asked in the previous surveys) and demographics (age, gender, education, locale, native language as described on our project page). The plan is for the survey to go out around 2019-02-27, at first to just a few hundred randomly-sampled readers on English Wikipedia. Based on the outcome of the pilot, we will consider expanding to a larger sample of readers and more languages. We will keep this thread posted with changes if they occur, and we will update our project page. To follow the progress of the project and monitor our research results, please also look at this task. If you are interested to know more, or if you have any question, or any observation, please ping Isaac (WMF) or leave a comment on the project page. Thank you! --Isaac (WMF) (talk) 20:51, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Just an update that this pilot will not be launched until next week, but we will update when it is complete. --Isaac (WMF) (talk) 21:57, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Video tutorial regarding Wikipedia referencing with VisualEditor

Hi, I have received a grant from WMF to support production of a video tutorial regarding creating references with VisualEditor. I anticipate that the video will be published in March 2019. Depending on funding considerations, this tutorial might be published in both English and Spanish. If this tutorial is well received then I may produce additional tutorials in the future. If you would like to receive notifications on your talk page when drafts and finished products from this project are ready for review, then please sign up for the project newsletter.
Regards, --Pine✉ 06:03, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I signed up. You might want to post directions on what to do here ... it's "non intuitive" ☆ Bri (talk) 03:35, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Hi Bri, thanks for your note. Are you saying that you think that the newsletter subscription page is not intuitive? In that case, I could provide more specific instructions on the newsletter subscription page. --Pine✉ 01:31, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
Yes exactly. I was expecting to just enter my username somewhere. Instead, I have to enter User talk:Bri on the left and en.wikipedia.org on the right. It's not like any other signup page I've used. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:58, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
Hi Bri, based on your suggestions I provided more detailed instructions on the project newsletter page. --Pine✉ 21:19, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
It's better now. Generally in UX design, you want the thing-to-twiddle as close as possible to the instructions for the twiddler. But I see that you don't have control over the text box placement. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:47, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Editors / page authors deliberately introducing errors

I recently have been patrolling a certain editors new articles and have become aware that he/she is deliberately introducing errors into their articles. Is there some way we can intercept them and vet for errors before release into mainspace?--Petebutt (talk) 01:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Not really no. If it's specific to a certain editor, they should be blocked as a vandal. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:48, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

The United Kingdoms exit from the European Union....

On March 29 th of 2019, the United Kingdom will be leaving the EU (unless the date is changed in the next few weeks.). I am posting this here because it would I think be reasonable for Wikipedians to figure out what articles would need to be updated as a priority in the days and weeks following this.

Also there are some maps (some of which are on Commmons) which would need to be updated to indicate that the UK was no longer member, whilst the Republic of Ireland remains one.

Is there a list of articles and media which would need to be updated if the March 29th date doesn't change? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:02, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

It will likely affect 1000s of articles in interesting ways, including categories, infoboxes, templates, redirects, files, bots, scripts, commons, etc.. not to mention sourcing and link rot as domains and institutions change. It will take years to root out the old and replace with new. But we will have an easy transition compared to the UK itself! -- GreenC 16:05, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
@ShakespeareFan00 and GreenC: see {{Brexit note}} – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:06, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi,
today I received the following email:

Dear [my name],
Have you ever wondered of having a Wikipedia page for yourself or your company? We can help you get a Wikipedia page for yourself or your brand.
Usually Wikipedia only accepts pages on celebrities and famous companies, if you are looking to get one for your self, we can help you with that. Having a page for yourself in Wikipedia, brings you more credibility and makes you more famous.
We have been editing on Wikipedia for 7+ years and We've created tons of pages for companies, people, brands, products, and of course for academic purposes as well.
We own multiple accounts on Wikipedia with page curation and new page reviewer rights, so i can create and moderate pages with almost zero risk of another mod taking it down.
There are few wikipedia editors who are willing to create a page for money, and most of them are scared to offer this service directly, so they do it through their trusted sellers who markup the price to $1500 - $2500 per page.
Because you're buying directly from an experienced wikipedia editor and mod, you'll get your page a lot cheaper, faster and with more reliability.
Let me know if you are interested
Regards
[signature]

What the heck? Did you ever see anything like this? If you find typos in the text, you can keep them (1:1 copypasted). Alfie↑↓© 15:22, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Sure. Email them back. Tell them you're quite interested but you need to see some examples from their portfolio that demonstrate the quality of their work. GMGtalk 15:25, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

This email is from scammer lauren@worldresearchernews.com -- more about it here and here. -- GreenC 15:48, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Amazing. Identical text like there (including the subject line "Get Featured in Wikipedia" and typos) but different name and email address. Alfie↑↓© 16:05, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Captcha at login

I just tried to log in as usual and I get a flippin' captcha! Please forgive my vulgarity but SOD IT! I will not fart around with trash like that every time I want to log in. I care not whether this is a mobile thing or a test thing or the magic future to die for. I do not need this SHIT. I am outta here unless and until I can log in without morons pissing me off. Your problem is how to let me know when sanity finally prevails, if it ever does. Goodbye Wikipedia. Cheers 83.104.46.71 (talk) 22:10, 26 February 2019 (UTC) (aka Steelpillow (talk · contribs))

If there are too many recent unsuccessful login attempts from an IP or for a user name, a captcha will be served. Anomie⚔ 00:19, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
If morons don't piss you off when log in, morons will piss you off shortly thereafter. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:34, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Not what actually happened. But if you are more interested in being right than listening, I'll leave you to it. 83.104.46.71 (talk) 06:34, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
If you want to tell us exactly what happened with full details such as device, program, etc., then do so, but I log in new every day and sometimes multiple times a day and I have never got a captcha. From my point of view there's more than likely something wrong at your end, but if you want to use this as an excuse to leave, it's as good as any. — TransporterMan (TALK) 21:26, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Simplest explanation is probably that someone else has been trying and failing to log in to the account. the wub "?!" 22:50, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

New articles by year

how to find new articles on each wiki by year example in 2019 43000 articles add in English Wikipedia or in 2019 70000 articles add in enwiktionary Amirh123 (talk) 08:41, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

The easiest way I can think of is to look at the Wayback Machine's archives of the wiki's main page and compare article counts. The first 2019 archive of enwiki's main page shows 5,773,610, and {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} produces 6,928,761 for right now; so there's a net change of 1155151 articles. —Cryptic 16:39, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
@Amirh123: I ran a query and found that a total of 303570 articles were created in 2018, including redirects, but excluding redirects created by a specific bot. Hope this help --DannyS712 (talk) 02:37, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
That's not accurate, though I'll admit my first impulse was to run a similar query. At best, it only includes pages created after the start of the creation log (late on 27 June 2018). Depending on exactly which data the OP is looking for, it might be even worse: for example, it only includes pages created directly in the main namespace instead of ones moved there (particularly from Draft:), it includes pages that aren't articles (ie, redirects, pages with zero links, and ideally disambigs), and it includes pages that were subsequently deleted or moved out of the main namespace. —Cryptic 02:51, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
Actually, duh, an even easier way: https://stats.wikimedia.org. —Cryptic 03:01, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism of the Taos, New Mexico article

Perusing the Taos, New Mexico article, I came across the sentence, "Taos was established c. 1615 as Don Fernando de Taos, following the Spanish conquest of the Indian Pueblo villages by Geneva Vigil."

Looking up Geneva Virgil on the internet, I think the article likely refers to a person living in Taos in 2008. An article in the Taos News, dated December 21, 2008, says that Geneva Vigil was thrown out of a Catholic girl's school for being pregnant and later completed her GED. The article contains an amusing photo of her blowing a bubble with bubble gum. Ms. Vigil looks like a fun person.

However, to my knowledge, a person named Geneva Vigil did not conquer Taos in 1615, and thus I deleted her name from the article. Her name had been added by IP no. 198.59.155.187 on April 26, 2012. Given that Wikipedia articles are republished widely, it seems possible that historians of the year 3000 will cite Geneva Vigil as the conqueror of Taos. She may become famous as a New World explorer. Congrats, Geneva!

Well, we can't be serious all the time. Smallchief (talk) 13:49, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Need help with requested articles with existing images

I put Wikipedia:Requested articles/Images together ages ago and maintained it for years. I haven't got the time these days.

Is anyone interesting in repopulating it with good items? It gets a solid 60 page views a day, so could mean plenty of new articles over time. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:55, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Also just asking

I'm out of coffee, and I have a linguistic thing to do, so can one of you maybe write up a stub for Driffield, Gloucestershire? There's a bit of info on List of United Kingdom locations: Dr#Dr. Reason I'm asking is the unattractive redlinked hatnote on Driffield. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 16:58, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Done. I couldn't find much info online but interestingly I found existing articles at a couple of other Wikipedias. They seemed to all have dead links for refs. See the "languages" links in the stub. Johnuniq (talk) 06:49, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Bringing in an external wiki (drawdownwiki.info) for support and discussion?

There's a non-Wikipedia Wiki at https://drawdownwiki.info/ that I think is really important, and would like to make both better supported and more accessible. Unfortunately it'd practically dead; it is all but unsupported, the contents are out of date and it's a pain to try to access.

I do have login access to it, and can contact some facsimile of administration. However, I am an almost total neophyte to wiki administration. And I really don't even know who I should be asking about this.

I would appreciate help or guidance on a couple of things:

1. Would it be permitted and/or practical to import that Wiki into Wikipedia, to improve management? Setting aside for the moment 'how'.

2. Would doing so make the wiki more accessible for forum-style discussion as well as normal wiki-style updates?

I'd really appreciate any pointers or suggestions.

Thanks!

-- Ken

Wallewekw (talk) 17:46, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

No, an external wiki is not suitable for inclusion at Wikipedia. There are a lot of policies and guidelines (see overview at WP:5P) that apply to pages here and it is extremely unlikely that an external wiki would have information that would comply. Also, copyright issues would be a problem. Johnuniq (talk) 01:31, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Number of articles by type of content in each Wikipedia?

how to find how many articles about human or articles about taxon or movie in each Wikipedia example this link

but this link not updated Amirh123 (talk) 15:48, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Best site for sports archives?

best site to see archive of all sports compatations and all games and all players and all leagues SofaScore have many sports leagues but not archive of all leagues Amirh123 (talk) 09:41, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

https://www.google.com Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:35, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Template documentation directing editors to "go ask"

See Template talk:Aircraft specifications#this REALLY needs an example

This template's documentation amounts to "go ask".

That is not good enough. Something as easy as an infobox's templates should not require manual assistance. Please tell the members of this project to step up their game and not just design templates for their own use. Their templates must be sufficiently easy to use and sufficiently well-documented so to not create unnecessary obstacles to "anyone can edit wikipedia". Thanks CapnZapp (talk) 10:15, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Seems like fairly straightforward, helpful and intuitive documentation to me. I think the line you're referring to means "read the documentation, if you have any questions afterwards this is a helpful place to go", not "here's the template without any explanation, if you need explanation our WikiProject is thataway". Also, WP:SOFIXIT. – Teratix ₵ 10:47, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Note: Template:Aircraft specifications has now been marked as deprecated. --Pipetricker (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Captchas and accessibility

Hello, my name is Ahab Ali and I am a blind IP user. I am tired of on my various IP addresses either being blocked for no inline citations for sources I find. So why not just do it, you ask. Well, there's a problem. When I post me a link in the citation thingy, i get a verification captcha thing. "But Ahab, just click the aduio option!" you say. Only, there's no audio option! you know, muc hlike the captchas from the late 2000's and early 2010's. I'm Tired of y'all guys always going at me because i didn't cite a source. I want to cite sources, I plan on it, and I wish I could, but with the captchas in their present system, I can't. Simple as that. "So what do we do Ahab?" you ask, well simple, put in a more modern system. I ask you guys, "It's 2019, not 2009, so why have a 2009 style captcha system?" "just create an account Ahab!" I have a hard time remembering all the passwords for my google, and other accounts. and I don't edit all that much, I'm only really active right now because I ketp getting pinged for not sourcing on various IP addresses around the world I edit from. I'm not saying get rid of your verification system, but rather, update it to have an audio option, this way I can listen to the thingy, enter it in, and boom! i'm on my merry way. thanks so much. 199.101.61.34 (talk) 09:47, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

There's a bug report on Phabricator, T6845: CAPTCHA doesn't work for blind people. Ping to Graham87. --Pipetricker (talk) 13:14, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

It appears this has been going on for eons. Seriously if Wikipedia admins want citations then no problem, just make it possible for us to put them in. I get protecting against spam, but google has a better verification system, many other websites have a better verification system. Wikipedia however is stuck in 2007 for whatever reason. 199.101.61.34 (talk) 13:35, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Ahab, please email me at grahamwp@gmail.com with your desired username and I will create you an account that bypasses all the captchas. A temporary password will be sent to the email address you use. Graham87 13:40, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Just asking

I am working hard in patrolling new pages. There is a huge backlog. I have begun to think the articles are all notable and non-notable Indians. I love Indians-a beautiful people I admire. I just am more motivated to review science topics. I skip over 50 articles to find the topics with which I am familiar. I honestly don't care if some obscure indian/pakistani/malaysian plumber makes it into the encyclopedia. Is there something wrong with me? (well, yes of course but I am referring to the prior statements.) Just looking for some chatter. Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉ 20:50, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

No, but there is an article on your condition. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:19, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Don't be so quick to call me names. I am proud to say I am an inclusionist and have saved many articles that were up for deletion. I don't think I made myself clear-I have no context and don't understand how any plumber is considered notable. Aren't the notability standards for non-American-English-speakers the same? On other Wikipedias, they have other means to determine notability..it seems. Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉ 20:21, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Barbara (WVS), I've suspected for a while now that being included on enwiki is very important to Indian nationals for reasons I in the US am fuzzy on. valereee (talk) 20:31, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
India is a big country with a high degree of English usage (one of two official languages at the national level), decent internet connectivity, a booming film industry and minimal Wikipedia censorship. signed, Rosguill talk 20:35, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
This provides me more context, so thank you. If we could more Indians on WP to do some page patrolling then I think this backlog could get taken care of. I think being on Wikipedia can be heady. It looks good on a resume that you have a page. Thanks for the chatter. Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉ 20:59, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
For every Joe the Plumber article there should be 3-5 Indian plumbers. All things being equal. They are not, but getting there fortunately. The future of enwiki is a lot more India and Nigeria. It presents an interesting problem when veteran editors tune out of these high-volume topic areas for lack of contextual understanding (understandable). Hopefully the WMF is fostering this through outreach programs, though it's hard to find any admins much less from certain backgrounds. -- GreenC 21:25, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
BTW not kidding about outreach programs. "Swedish govt trains Nigerian women to increase Wikipedia presence". Nigeria will be larger than China is today by 2100, and it is English-speaking officially. Nigerian film, sports, books, biographies etc.. should explode in numbers. Is the community prepared? The wave is coming, demography is (sometimes) destiny. -- GreenC 16:46, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Barbara, I think that User:EpochFail was working on a system to classify new articles, so that it'd be possible for new page patrollers to focus on, say, people vs everything else. I haven't heard anything about it for a while, though. In the meantime, you might look at User:AlexNewArtBot. User:Fred Gandt wrote a script that plugged into that, and (if it's still working) it might be able to help you filter the new pages. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
"if it's still working" :D Yeah it's still working. Hi What :) Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 20:47, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
(EC)User:SQL has been experimenting with the model that we have live right now. See User:SQL/AFC-Ores. I'm not sure if there's anything similar for the page patrolling backlog, but maybe SQL could help out. Right now, I'm focused on making this kind of topic routing work more robustly on the back-end. My team is really small, so we need to rely on others to deliver these prediction through a user interface. It's quite possible that these topical categories could be integrated into the NewPagesFeed though there are certainly some technical hurdles. I made a task for that. See Phab:T218132 --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 17:24, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
Barbara (WVS), NPP browser? Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:14, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (March 2019)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access, accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials on the Library Card platform:

  • Kinige – Primarily Indian-language ebooks - 10 books per month
  • Gale – Times Digital Archive collection added (covering 1785-2013)
  • JSTOR – New applications now being taken again

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Baylor University Press, Taylor & Francis, Cairn, Annual Reviews and Bloomsbury. You can request new partnerships on our Suggestions page.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 17:40, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).
This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

Was the album Truth Beyond... ever officially released on Morbid Records?

Could anybody help me out with this? Oxygene7-13 (talk) 12:13, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

There were replies (without an answer to the question) at WP:Help desk/Archives/2019 March 13#Neuraxis - Truth beyond (metal album). --Pipetricker (talk) 01:27, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Syed Nabeel

Can someone take a look at Syed Nabeel (playwright/director/actor) which has content and redirects to Syed Nabeel. Any idea what's happened ? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 21:18, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

@GrahamHardy: There were duplicate articles created, and that one was redirected without the content being removed.  Done --DannyS712 (talk) 21:34, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
(The content of) the article now at Syed Nabeel was originally created at Draft:Syed Nabeel, which was then moved to Syed Nabeel (playwright/director/actor). From there the content was copied and pasted onto the former redirect Syed Nabeel (which had been blanked), and Syed Nabeel (playwright/director/actor) was redirected to Syed Nabeel (without removing the article content from Syed Nabeel (playwright/director/actor)).

All this was done by the same user, so the pasting of the article text onto Syed Nabeel was (presumably) done by the original author, but the pasting (without mentioning in the edit summary where the text was copied from) made this less clear than it would have been if Syed Nabeel (playwright/director/actor) instead had been renamed by using the move function. --Pipetricker (talk) 10:10, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I fixed the attribution of the copy-pasted content, even though being copied by (presumably) the original author, it maybe wasn't strictly required. --Pipetricker (talk) 14:30, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikimania data science space

Hey guys, I'm leading a space at Wikimania 2019 in Stockholm on data science. I do not want it to be restrictive with a subset of artificial intelligence at all and want it to be as diverse and easy to approach as possible. I'm looking for co-leaders to organize the space with me and lead it in the event I cannot make it to the event. Here's a link to the proposal: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Draft/Data_Science_space . Any feedback, criticism and suggestion can be thrown my way. Or else, do you just want to present a subject related to this space? That's fine too, just apply when the call for submissions open and I'll get in touch with you. Do you think someone else is a good fit for this space? Do let them know! I'm available on my talk and email and suggestions on how my proposal can be improved here are all greatly appreciated. --QEDK (後 ☕ 桜) 17:16, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

New Results and third experiment to understand Wikipedia citation usage

Hi everyone,

We performed some analysis of the data collected last October reflecting readers' interactions with references in English Wikipedia. Please find our first analysis of this data in our project page. This work is part of the "Citation Usage" research project, which aims to understand how Wikipedia readers interact with citations, and the role of external citations in Wikipedia reading. The analysis resulting from this project could inform the editor and tool developer communities about the usage (or not) of citations by Wikipedia readers.

After the second round of data collection, which ended on 2018-25-10, we have modified the code behind our instrumentation to address a number of bugs related to specific fields of the Schema, and we will start a second round of data collection next Thursday, March 21st. The structure is similar to last round of data collection: we will collect data that captures readers' (not logged-in users only) page views, as well as their interactions with references and footnotes. We will initially sample 1–15% of the traffic to validate the data quality, then turn at 100% sampling rate for a period of one month. All details can be found at this task.

To follow the progress of the project and monitor our research results, please also look at this task. If you are interested to know more, or if you have any question, or any observation, please ping me or leave a message on the project page! Miriam (WMF) (talk) 16:21, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Miriam (WMF), oops, sorry, I didn't see that you wanted messages on the project page itself -- I just created a the 'discussion' page, sorry to post in the wrong place! I was commenting on the stunning finding that 1 in 4 articles has no references at all! --valereee (talk) 17:19, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
"1 in 4 articles has no references at all" whatever methodology gave you those numbers is deeply flawed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:57, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Actually, that can't be right. Are you sure you don't have a decimal point misplaced? Report says 24.5% have no references. --valereee (talk) 19:38, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
It seems unlikely that 24.5 percent of articles do not have a single reference. My interests are mostly obscure geographical and historical subjects, and only rarely do I find an article without footnotes. I realize that my experience is anecdotal, but I'll have to be persuaded that your finding is correct. Smallchief (talk) 19:39, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
I think it's unlikely but not impossible. I just sampled 20 random pages and two (1 2) had no references at all while a third had only a single external link (not a reference) in a References section. That being said, today I happened to come accross a completely unreferenced page (and an ex-DYK at that) and added a reference to it, and I don't remember the last time I did something like that. It could well be that unreferenced pages are somehow outside our interest/hyperlink sphere as regular editors. Daß Wölf 20:02, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
It could be that it's 24.5% without either {{reflist}}/</references>, 24.5% without a cite template, or 24.% without <ref></ref> tags or something like that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:09, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
If they're counting articles which don't use a cite template as unreferenced it would be a larger percentage -- but that would be misleading. I'm careful to reference an article -- but I don't use cite templates to do so, because I can't figure out how to use them.Smallchief (talk) 23:15, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
There are over 200k in {{unreferenced}} which is about 4%. But that list is incomplete so a double or more would be possible depending how you define "reference". That gets up to 10% easily. Then looking at pages that contain marginal references that may or may not count as a real reference, and stubs and list-of articles and set index pages and yeah could see 25%. -- GreenC 20:29, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Assuming that we do actually have this many articles without sources, it would be helpful to know if there are any patterns that could help us resolve the problem... for example, do they fall mostly within the same topic area (Pop culture? Geography? History? STEM topics? Etc) ... or the same kind of article (mostly Lists? mostly Stubs? Etc.) Blueboar (talk) 20:58, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Smallchief, you might be interested in the 'A' section for Articles_lacking_sources_from_November_2006 --valereee (talk) 21:03, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Hi all. Thanks for your question and flagging this. Miriam and team are looking into it and they will get back to you as soon as we have a definitive answer. --LZia (WMF) (talk) 00:31, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi all, thank you for your comments! I can confirm that ~25% of the pages have not standard references. The misunderstanding is on the definition of reference: we considered only the references used in the body of the article. For example, external links without a context in the text (i.e. [1]) are not included. Here some example of pages that are considered without references by this analysis:

Tizianopiccardi (talk) 08:56, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you all for your comments! We have updated our project page with a more clear definition of reference, and we will get back to you shortly with a more detailed analysis of breakdown of pages without references by topics and quality. Thanks! Miriam (WMF) (talk) 11:19, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your clarification. I assume that most un-referenced articles are stubs -- and stubs make up more than one-half of Wikipedia articles. So, a recommendation might be for reviewers to look more critically at stubs without in-line references--and delete a lot of them. Maybe a one-line article without an in-line reference is not worth having? I'm an inclusionist -- but only for verifiable, i.e. referenced, articles.Smallchief (talk) 21:03, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Size of non-non-free SVG

What's the point of restricting the size of non-free Scalable Vector Graphics files? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:49, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

This tends to come up relatively often. The most recent, I think, was Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 147#Small logos and svg which has links to previous discussions too. I doubt anyone will say anything new, we'll all just re-argue the same points again and continue to have no consensus. Anomie⚔ 21:28, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Lede section of Abiy Ahmed

Original topic heading: "Wikipedia's lede at odds with the Pope"

Although last year the German Federal Foreign Office issued a statement saying that Prime Minister Abiy and President Isaias "have shown that it is possible to move beyond long years of animosity and to open a new chapter in their relations" and that the declaration of peace and friendship signed by the two leaders 'provides grounds for hope that the conflict, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, can be permanently resolved',[1] and the Pope stated "in the midst of so many conflicts, it's dutiful to point out an initiative that can be called historic", expressing hope that talks between the two nations would "turn on a light of hope for these two countries in the Horn of Africa and for the entire African continent",[2]

currently our lede characterizes the Ethiopian prime minister as having launched a wide programme of political and economic reforms which destabilized Ethiopia. Since Abiy came to power in April 2018, Ethiopia went into high number of ethnic-based beheadings, lynchings, rapes, lawlessness and barbaric murders; which led Ethiopia to be the country with the highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world, for 2018 & 2019.[3][4] As of February 2019, there are 3 million internally displaced persons in Ethiopia.[5] As international news medias reported on March 2019, Abiy's new administration is doing organised ethnic cleansing, and in some areas denying basic emergency food aid for displaced people in an effort to force them to return to their previous cities. He is doing this to glorify his new federal government administration's public image, and to avoid his administration being permanently associated with IDPs. However, these has led to a humanitarian crisis with children being malnourished & adults starving, since they are too afraid to go back from where they were displaced from, because of continued violence.[3]

References

  1. ^ "Statement by the Federal Foreign Office on the joint declaration by Ethiopia and Eritrea". Berlin: Federal Foreign Office. p. 10 July 2018. Retrieved 11 July 2018.
  2. ^ "Pope singles out 'good news' about Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict". Washington Post. Associated Press. 1 July 2018. Retrieved 9 July 2018.
  3. ^ a b "TheGuardian, "Shadow falls over Ethiopia reforms as warnings of crisis go unheeded"".
  4. ^ "Reuters, "Ethnic unrest tarnishes new Ethiopian leader's reforms"".
  5. ^ "EuroNews, "Ethiopia: 3 million internally displaced in escalating humanitarian crisis"".

Is some balance needed in our biography of an important political person still alive? --BushelCandle (talk) 09:46, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

The Pope is free to think whatever he wants, he's no authority on geopolitics. And whatever people hope happens, what matters is what does happen. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:11, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
To quote Joseph Stalin, "The Pope! How many divisions has he got?" The case is the Pope's opinion should not supersede reliable sources (I am operating under the assumption the article in question is adequately sourced), and using a quote from the Pope to contest the existing information smacks too much of WP:OR. SamHolt6 (talk) 14:44, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
I apologise that my original posting was not clear.
The "meat" of our article on Abiy Ahmed, the current prime minister of Ethiopia is balanced and reasonably well sourced.
Unfortunately, in the last week or so one prolific editor has heavily slanted the opening lede section so that it is no longer a balanced and fair "executive summary" of the rest of this BLP. --BushelCandle (talk) 21:17, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
BushelCandle, I changed the heading of this talk section to make it clearer. --Pipetricker (talk) 15:02, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Happily, the opening section has now been reformed to be a fairer "executive summary" of the rest of the article and subsequently effective administrative action has been taken. --BushelCandle (talk) 02:31, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Change of EC numbers by a bot

Hi, I'm sorry if this is totally wrong section, as it probably is, but I didn't want to bother where I shouldn't. But feel free to direct me to something more appropriate.
Anyway, there is new class of enzymes in biochemistry. This change has been already reflected on the main page of Enzyme Commission number, but this would require to change the numbers on pages of many enzymes. This would be probably best done by some bot.
Also, I changed the number on page of ATP synthase (in the panel on right), but it doesn't work. It's been a while since I was working on Wiki (and on Czech one mostly), but if I remember correctly, that panel on right has some page of it's own that should be editable?
Thanks
--HlTo CZ (talk) 15:26, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Try WP:BOTREQ. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:01, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

The panel on the right is Template:Infobox enzyme. You can try its talk page or the WikiProject Molecular and Cell Biology talk page. (By the way, the parameter IUBMB_EC_number isn't used by that template anymore.) See also Template:EC number. --Pipetricker (talk) 19:16, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

anti- vs neutral vs patriotic search results

On one Wikipedia page I searched from upper right search box for "constitution of the united states.' The autofill suggestions made me type all the way into 'united' before it brought the United States into play. This site should know if its users are based here in the US vs elsewhere and provide its user's country first under certain searches, especially searches which are clearly tied predominantly to a user's country's history. And it's not about the number of keystrokes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.46.208.172 (talk) 14:24, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

  • I don't believe the chances are very good that someone is going to implement a complex technical solution to ensure that you are required to type a few less letters, on the off chance you happen to be searching for a topic that is related to your geographical location. Be strong. Be brave. I am confident you will survive having to occasionally type words in their entirety. GMGtalk 14:49, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
You could also have searched for "US Constitution" if you wanted to save yourself the keystrokes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:04, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Hey that was rude, the author was just trying to make Wikipedia a better place. Do you think your comments here really do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Government Man (talk • contribs) 14:39, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

How would you do that technically? I mean, it's easy to point out one example, but actually implementing it seems difficult. One could maybe look at page views by country to populate, but I suspect anything too complicated would be slow and resource-intensive enough to negate any good done by the marginally improved auto-complete. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 6.4% of all FPs 14:54, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Essays

I've written a few sentences about essays below. This isn't an RfC, although I would appreciate feedback on whether this is valid or if I'm a bit out of my depth.

Wikipedia:The value of essays basically states that it's impossible to determine the value of a given essay, even if all essays are supposed to have some sort of purpose. There are at least 1,959 self-described essays in Category:Wikipedia essays (although some are not actually essays).

  1. What's the point of reading unsolicited opinion pieces?
    • Wikipedia:Essays states that the reader is expected to use "common sense and discretion" to understand whether an essay is contextually important. If essays are supposed to be related to the project itself, isn't it impossible for a new user to actually understand whether an author's point of view is sensible (regardless of whether an essay was written in good faith), since new users usually aren't aware of Wikipedia's internal affairs to begin with?
    • By extension, if those who read essays are expected to understand the importance of individual essays in order to understand the essays themselves, aren't all essays just preaching to the choir (since the target audience is effectively just other experienced editors)?
    • If it's impossible to objectively consider essays to be important, is it a waste of time to read them? In other words, if I wanted to figure out the consensus of the hive mind on a particular topic, why would I want to read a dozen separately developed opinions instead of reading a short summary?
  2. Are all essays created equal (or put another way, are all essays equally unimportant)?
    • If importance cannot actually be determined, why is there a large navbox (among several navboxes) which contains a limited subset of essays but which may appear to be presented as a collection of important essays? (Alternately, if there's a navbox that supposedly links to all 357 essays of value, why is it stated that importance cannot be determined?)
    • The only actual metric mentioned by Wikipedia:The value of essays is page views. If no one is reading an essay (and no one has read it for years and years), is that enough to consider it unimportant?

Should essays be actively curated by the community in order to reduce the amount of required reading for someone aiming to actually understand the culture/hive mind? 2,000 essays is probably overkill, and the massive number of forgotten essays probably diminishes the perceived value of more important essays.

  1. Only experienced users tend to create new essays. Is it useful to read those essays?
    • Only 13 categorized essays were created in the 76 days between 1 January and today. In the same period, only one tagged essay (ignoring the three Signpost-related pages) was nominated for deletion. All 14 of the aforementioned essays are in the Wikipedia namespace.
    • A majority of the creators of those 13 new essays have more than 10,000 edits, and the few who don't joined Wikipedia more than ten years ago. If only the "old guard" and otherwise experienced users are creating essays anyway, wouldn't it make sense to make the effort to actually ensure that those essays are useful in some way, instead of letting them all sit around with ambiguous significance?
  2. Is it appropriate to unilaterally redirect redundant essays, just as articles can be unilaterally redirected? (Or should essays always be taken to MfD?)
    • If an essay's content or point of view is substantially duplicated by the text of a policy or guideline, would it be appropriate to unilaterally redirect the page to the related policy or guideline?
    • Similarly, if an essay is duplicative of another essay which has more page views, would it be appropriate to unilaterally redirect the lesser-known essay and/or merge the contents?
  3. Should more essays be semi-formally established as being actually important, at a level below guidelines? (I know there's already a large amount of guidelines, but that number is an order of magnitude less than the number of essays.)
    • Would it be appropriate to separate essays that espouse particular viewpoints from those that describe multiple editors' viewpoints (e.g. by "officially" labeling them as information pages or explanatory supplements)?
    • Would it be appropriate to move unimportant or redundant essays – particularly old essays that don't have many incoming links – out of the Wikipedia namespace?

Jc86035 (talk) 16:55, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I've numbered your questions, to make it easier to follow along.
From the first set:
  1. Who says that they're unsolicited opinions? I've written essays at the direct request of other experienced editors. In other cases, I've written essays because I keep having to explain the same things over and over, like Wikipedia:Secondary is not another way to spell good or Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent.
  2. Essays are not all created equal. But since we don't realistically expect inexperienced people to encounter many of them, that's okay. If the essay is well-written and you have some experience, then you should be able to identify its boundaries. This process is helped by links to related essays, e.g., BLUE linking to NOTBLUE, so that interested editors can see that different views exist.
    • We do have some that aren't well-written in that regard. For example, WP:BRD was called an essay for years, although it was changed to a "supplement" a year or two ago, and every now and again, it's necessary to go back and re-emphasize its purely optional only-for-the-grown-ups nature in the face of editors who wrongly claim that it's a mandatory process.
From the second set:
  1. The fact that essays are created primarily by experienced editors is probably correlated with their practical utility. An essay from a brand-new editor on how sourcing ought to work is very likely to be wrong.
  2. You can WP:MERGE redundant essays, using exactly the same best judgment that you would use in deciding whether to merge articles. For example, a few years ago, I merged WP:3PARTY and WP:INDY. In the end, I talked about it on the various talk pages for more than two years before I actually merged the pages.
  3. No. The trend is to declare popular essays to be "supplements" to guidelines and policies. That works passably well in many cases, but it's a problem in others. For example, WP:INDY was tagged as a supplement to two policies, but it's actually a supplement to explain a term used in at least four policies and all of the notability guidelines. (Just imagine what that tag would look like.  ;-) Ultimately, I think it ought to be a guideline, but IMO that will require a serious re-write for cohesion and concision, which I haven't made time for.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:32, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: Thanks for responding. I largely agree with your points. Having actually nominated two essays for deletion, in hindsight I think the main issue with my reasoning is that I underestimated the utility of certain essays by incorrectly assuming that most useful essays would already be linked to from {{Wikipedia essays}}. I also didn't realize that most of the recently created essays had already been edited by more than one user.
Regarding "not all created equal": I think it might be appropriate to modify Wikipedia:The value of essays to reflect this a little more and mention the navbox effect. Only a few essay authors have added their own essays to that template. Jc86035 (talk) 05:03, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

888888888

At 2019-03-22T01:06:49Z, EmausBot (operated by Emaus) performed revision 888888888 on the English Wikipedia – a perfectly mundane double-redirect fix to Oxford High School (Oxford). Let's hear it for the WP:GNOMES!

Runners up were:

See you all again at 999999999 (about 2 years if edits continue at the same rate as the last week). —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:30, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Which also means 1 billion edits. --Izno (talk) 01:44, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Congratulations to the winner and the runners-up, but the prize for gnoming (churning?) goes to Wikidata which now officially has more total edits than English language Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 07:06, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Strange things

I've just started making repairs at Category:Pages with broken reference names. I don't understand how people make changes without see if it works probably.

Really strange things are fairly infrequent. Yesterday I had trouble with Ateneo Lady Eagles Volleyball Team. It transcludes a chunk from {{#section-h:Ateneo Blue Eagles|Ateneo Lady Eagles Volleyball Team Pool}}. But before it had {{#section:Ateneo Blue Eagles|Ateneo Lady Eagles Volleyball Team Pool}}. I don't know #section is but made the page absolute terrible. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ateneo_Lady_Eagles_Volleyball_Team&oldid=886750924 Who could not see it was wrong.

Another one was Windows XP now and before https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Windows_XP&oldid=886364097#System_requirements

However, there is another kind of mistake which could be bad in the wrong hands. Basically, many different infoboxes, e.g. {{Infobox Wrestling event}}, can have unknown parameters, and they can be swallowed nothing happens. E.g. WrestleMania 34: 

|theme = 'theme' is not a parameter
"[[Rebel Soul (Kid Rock album)|Celebrate]]" by [[Kid Rock]]<ref>{{cite web|title=It's a party on The #GrandestStageOfThemAll, "Celebrate" by #WWEHOF Class of 2018 Inductee @KidRock is an #OfficialThemeSong of #WrestleMania 34.|url=https://twitter.com/wwe/status/974737159755268097?s=21|date=March 16, 2018|publisher=WWE on Twitter|accessdate=March 29, 2018|deadurl=no|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180404074759/https://twitter.com/wwe/status/974737159755268097?s=21|archivedate=April 4, 2018|df=}}</ref><br/>"Let The Good Times Roll" by [[Freddie King]]<ref name=33Theme2/><br/>"[[Rock n Roll Jesus|New Orleans]]" by Kid Rock<ref name=33Theme3/>

It's not good here, but not bad either.

But something sinister, see White Eagles (paramilitary). {{Infobox military unit}} there were pseudo-parameter:

ideology =
| ideology         = {{plainlist|
* [[Ultranationalism|Turkish ultranationalism]]
* [[Neo-fascism]]<ref>[https://www.politico.eu/article/turkish-grey-wolves-target-chinese/ Turkish Grey Wolves target ‘Chinese’]. ''POLITICO''. Authors - Aykan Erdemir and Merve Tahiroglu. Published 30 July 2015. Retrieved 22 April 2018.</ref><ref>[https://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/grey-wolves Grey Wolves]. ''Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium''. Retrieved 22 April 2018.</ref><ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11824202/Adriana-Lima-tricked-into-flashing-neo-Fascist-symbol.html Adriana Lima 'tricked into flashing neo-Fascist symbol']. ''The Telegraph''. Author - Louisa Loveluck. Published 25 August 2015. Retrieved 22 April 2018.</ref>
* [[Pan-Turkism]] and [[Turanism]]<ref name="Hunter"/><ref name="Østergaard"/>
* [[Anti-Armenian sentiment]]<ref name=spiegel>{{cite web|first=Renate|last=Flottau|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,580422,00.html|title=Albania's House at the End of the World: Family Denies Organ Harvesting Allegations|work=Der Spiegel|date=22 September 2008|accessdate=4 August 2012}}</ref>
* [[Anti-Greek sentiment]]<ref name="spiegel"/>
* [[Anti-Kurdish sentiment]]<ref name="Østergaard"/><ref>{{cite news|last1=Humer|first1=Stephan|title=Turkish elections: Turkey's Kurd-hating Grey Wolves spreading neo-nazi poison across Europe|url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/turkish-elections-turkeys-kurd-hating-grey-wolves-spreading-neo-nazi-poison-across-europe-1504725|work=[[International Business Times]]|date=5 June 2015}}</ref><ref name="lefigaro"/><ref name="2013 report"/>
* [[Anti-communism]]<ref name="Atkins"/><ref name="crisisgroup"/>}}

Obviously (?) now the messages are harmless, but what I'm saying is that there should be better control of non-parameters. The easiest way would be for the 'publish changes' button to be "greyed out".

Other places which allow the same sort of thing, to me is {{reflist}}.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Talk about confusing (talk • contribs) 07:01, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I suspect many do not realise they are doing anything wrong, and do not know how to do it right. Sometimes I will have a wrong parameter, but I don't have time to find out the correct name. So I will save the page to get it preserved, and then hopefully come back to fix it up. Other times I wish there was such a parameter, so I add in the parameter and its value so that when it comes live sometimes in the future it will be filled in. I do this for the infoboxes, and not so much for references though. I suspect most people don't know about the tools that help fill in the fields. But some are not in the assistance, such as cite thesis or cite patent. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:11, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

The infobox at Syrian Civil War

Original topic heading: Is there any kind of policy or guideline that governs the size of infoboxes?

Hoo-boy, yeah...two (yes two!) hot-button issues on Wikipedia... Infoboxes! and the Syrian Civil War! Anyway,...
Take a look at Syrian Civil War with its associated Template:Syrian Civil War infobox.... I have tried to discuss the size of the infobox as it relates to the article, I edited it down at one point in time to not be as long, though I was unable to adjust the width. It's causing readability issues for folks using mobile devices and it overwhelms the text. The editors who usually edit the article seem generally satisfied with the content of the infobox but...but...it's *so* huge. Wiki-codeing is not my strong suit so I thought it would be a good idea for some other editors to look it over, try to adjust the size in the Template's sandbox and take a look at how the various versions - Template vs sandbox - look in its testcases page.
I opened a WP:RFC on the talk page and the consensus was to reduce the size but the one version I came up with was reverted to its original form. I subsequently posted in the talkpage about my edits and the size. Maybe some of you coding wizards around here can take a look at the situation and come up with a better solution than mine. Shearonink (talk) 00:29, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Shearonink, I can't recall any guidelines specifically addressing infobox size. On my large-screen desktop the article seemed ok, but I can easily imagine issues for smaller screens or mobile. You could try posting at WT:WikiProject Templates. They might not want to get involved in content of the template, but they may have expertise in addressing smaller screens or mobile. I know that the WikimediaFoundation has been concerned with improving template display for mobile, but I haven't closely followed current or future work in this area. As far as the content of the template, a quick skim of the RFC on the article talk page seems to show reasonable discussion of how the content might be trimmed. Content discussion should continue on that page. Alsee (talk) 17:06, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
I've basically almost given-up. To me the amount of content that the infobox contains makes it seem like the article is summarizing/explaining the infobox rather than the other way around. This infobox is a minefield, both because of the article's subject matter and because infoboxes are...well...infoboxes. I'll post over at the Template Project to see if someone with more expertise could take a crack at it. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 20:20, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi, Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates‎ needs more votes. Thanks, Yann (talk) 17:06, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@Yann: And if anyone wants to vote without having to click edit, I just made User:DannyS712/FPC voter. --DannyS712 (talk) 04:20, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

What is the best method for article creation?

I've been on hiatus for the last 4 years. The usual method back then was to create the article in your userspace, then move it to main space and hope it doesn't get nominated for deletion. Is there now a better way to create an article where it's worked upon in neutral space and when there is a consensus it's then moved to mainspace and not likely to be deleted? I want to create an article on "aspirational recycling". Technophant (talk) 16:32, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Technophant creating a page in mainspace now requires auto-confirmed userright (you're well past that, I'm just updating you on that detail.) Articles created in mainspace or page-moved into mainspace are initially noindexed (the article is live, but search engines won't pick it up yet.) They get reviewed by New Page Patrol, a basic review for obvious problems or possible AFD/speedydelete tagging. Experienced editors can directly build an article in mainspace, however unless the very first save is well developed some an over-hasty NewPagePatroller will likely tag-bomb the incomplete page within minutes. You can try warding off over-hasty Patrol tagging with an {{Under construction}} at the top of the article.
Developing an article in a userpage is fine, but the Draft namespace is the preferred place to develop an article (i.e. start it at draft:aspirational recycling). It's a public area, and it increases the chance people will help develop it. Note that pages which are abandoned in in draft space (six months with zero edits) may get deleted.
Experienced editors can page-move from userspace or draftspace out to mainspace, which will go on the list for NewPagePatrol. If you're specifically looking for review prior to moving to mainspace, you can have the draft reviewed by AFC. More specifically you can go through the Article wizard link - that will give basic info about new articles and then it will create your article-page in draft space, and it will put a template on the article to simplify the AFC review process. There will be a handy link that requests that the draft be reviewed for promotion to mainspace. Review standards at AFC might be a little high, with requests for cleanup of things that aren't absolutely necessary to survive in mainspace. Note that a page promoted to mainspace by an AFC reviewer will still get reviewed by NewPagePatrol.
Note that AFC review and NewPagePatrol are each done by an individual experienced editor. There's no consensus involved. The only special power of a NewPagePatroller is to mark the page as patrolled, but anyone might still nominate the page for deletion discussion. AFC reviewers don't really have special powers either. If an AFC reviewer unreasonably declines your draft, simply requesting another review may get a more lenient reviewer. Mostly AFC helps new users attempting to create their first article. That means AFC deals with a very high percentage of completely non-viable submissions - a lot of selfpromotion and non-notable topics. I haven't checked lately, but I think AFC is generally backlogged a few weeks before a page gets reviewed. Experienced editors really don't need to go the AFC route, and unnecessarily going though AFC increases the general workload. The main reason I focused on AFC so much is because you seemed to to be specifically looking for extra review before moving to mainspace. But there's nothing that can prevent a random editor from nominating any article for AFD. You just need to make sure your article has multiple solid sources to demonstrate notability. Another possibly relevant point, there is somewhat less tolerance for weak articles about companies. The NCORP guideline has somewhat raised the standards for corporate/organisation notability. Some sources about companies which may have previously been accepted are now considered routine coverage, which does not contribute to notability. Alsee (talk) 05:33, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks user:Alsee. Good answer, thorough. Consider adding this to a faq or something. Technophant (talk) 16:17, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
@Technophant: I don't create a lot of new articles, but when I do, I usually use Draft: space first as well, mostly to keep the new page reviewers away while I'm working on it! — xaosflux Talk 17:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Getting locked out

I do not understand Wikipedia:Simple 2FA and once lost encrypted data using blowfish? I fear that I will get locked out if I do this 2FA thing. I have a really, really strong password, but just in case, can't I just email a few admins with a simple code word, so in case I get locked out, I can just email those admins again and say the code word to prove identity? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:13, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Your concern about being locked out is well founded. WP:Simple 2FA (please see the move request at its talk) has good advice but doesn't point out that phones get lost or stolen, or that spear phishing can lure an unsuspecting user into visiting a fake website which mimics Wikipedia's log in, and that fake website can be used to steal your log in credentials even if you are using 2FA. It is likely that the many compromised accounts are due to password reuse where you might have a really good password at Wikipedia, but also use that password at another website. If someone hacks that website (which happens every day!), they might get a list of user/passwords and use that to log in at Wikipedia with your account.
Emailing a code to a few people is susceptible to your email account being compromised. If someone manages to hack your Wikipedia account, maybe they can also hack the account you use for Wikipedia email. In that case they might see the codes you sent. What you can do is publish a committed identity on your user page. I've said enough at the moment but I have some thoughts about that if needed. Johnuniq (talk) 23:53, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
Hi Johnuniq. Yes, hacking of emails. I didn't think of that. Well, I guess I'll stick with what I have: I do not own a phone, Wikipedia is via home PC only, my password is very strong and only used for Wikipedia. I'll take my chances. Many thanks for the thoughtful response. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:46, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
@Anna Frodesiak: admins can not reset passwords or 2FA settings, only system developers can. Should you need to ever deal with a developer for this, you can look in to publishing a Committed identity or the public portion of an asymmetrical encryption key that could be used in the future to authenticate you. — xaosflux Talk 17:47, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, Xaosflux. Understood. I'll check that out. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:51, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion on random articles

I have a suggestion concerning the 'random button' that presents random articles to read. Everytime I use that button a page shows up about a sleepy village with less than 100 inhabitants and where nothing ever happens, or a weird moth or other type of bug that is so rare and uninteresting that there are only 10 lines of information about it. I would like to suggest that the random pages that show up are pages of things (or people, places, etc) that have a minimum length and are pages that are frequently visited by people who are looking for information about that subject. Thank you. Stijn Adriaansen (talk) 12:51, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

You might like the results from Special:RandomInCategory/Featured articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:15, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Random. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:28, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Typing consecutive spaces in the Wikipedia iOS app editor causes NBSPs, which can break templates

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T218993
Earlier topic heading: "NBSPs in inappropriate places break template parameters"

What happened here? Some spaces seem to be replaced by spaces of a different kind. After this edit, the items type and fatalities are no longer displayed in the infobox. --FredTC (talk) 07:54, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Those were "raw" (meaning not encoded like &nbsp; or &#160;) non-breaking spaces (NBSP), and those don't work as separators in template parameter assignments like regular spaces do, hence the disappearing items – same thing happens if you replace those spaces with &nbsp;. --Pipetricker (talk) 10:22, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
But how did such spaces get there? I have no way to detect that they are there. When I edit the version I mentioned, and select/copy (ctrl-C) the code for the infobox, then paste it to a notepad.exe file, I cannot see a difference. Can I produce it by accident? How? --FredTC (talk) 11:13, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Per the tag of the edit you linked to, in this case the culprit was the official Wikipedia iOS app.
Some text editors highlight NBSPs (for example LibreOffice Writer) or have an option to do so (the Show all formatting marks, ¶, option in Microsoft Word). There are feature requests for MediaWiki at Phabricator:
--Pipetricker (talk) 15:10, 15 March (UTC), 23:27, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I have copied the above to WP:Village pump (technical). Please make any technical comments there, and feel free to continue non-technical discussion here. --Pipetricker (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I had neglected to answer the question of if and how NBSPs can be produced by accident: Per Non-breaking space#Keyboard entry methods it appears to be quite possible if you're using a Mac or Linux, and the lack of visual indication doesn't help. But I would guess they are more likely to be caused by some software bug, such as this current bug in the iOS app.

There appears to be at least one utility which as a side effect of its function converts encountered "raw" NBSPs to &nbsp; when saving them. This doesn't stop them from breaking things if in the wrong place, but it makes them easier to spot and fix. --Pipetricker (talk) 16:07, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

VisibleWikiWomen editathon in Bangalore

Hello, Co Media Lab and Design Beku are organising an editathon in support of Whose Knowledge's Visible Wiki Women campaign in Bangalore on 30th March, 2019. You will find all details of the event in the link below. Looking forward to participation from Bangalore Wikipedians.

--Shobhasv (talk) 15:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment at Talk:List of works by Leonardo da Vinci

A request for comment is underway at Talk:List of works by Leonardo da Vinci#RfC - Horse and Rider. The RfC addresses the following question:

  • Should the wax statue entitled Horse and Rider on the List of works by Leonardo da Vinci page be included in the Recent Attributions or Disputed Attributions section?

All are invited to participate. SamHolt6 (talk) 22:59, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Article "0" has no display title

Resolved
Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Article "0" has no display title
 – --Pipetricker (talk) 07:21, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Name of Wikidata ID parameter in templates

We have several templates that take a Wikidata ID ("QID") as a parameter; and those parameters don't have a standard name. For example:

Can we rationalise these? QID or qid seem to be the most common. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:44, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I support adding |qid= as a standard to all templates that call wikidata from parameters. Most templates use all-lower-case parameter names, "QID" is the canonical name of the thing being requested, and "qid" is short and (relatively) easy to remember. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:50, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Not sure how to handle redirect target

Given the length of the list that is the redirect target, I'm thinking this may not be a notable publication, but I wanted to include it in Sad (disambiguation). I used a piped link for Sad!: Doonesbury in the Time of Trump but the actual title is #Sad!: Doonesbury in the Time of Trump. I'm thinking the publication is not notable enough for its own article, though there is this, which mentions the publication briefly. Due to the special nature of Garry Trudeau's satirizing of Donald Trump, perhaps I'm looking at adding some information to the Doonesbury article.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:57, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

(I replied at WP:VPT about the technical limitation. --Pipetricker (talk) 16:38, 4 April 2019 (UTC))
Thanks, and I replied with what I tried. Does anyone have any thoughts about what I should do about a redirect target? I added basic information about Trump to Doonesbury.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:14, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Starting a new WikiProject?

How does one start a new WikiProject, please? I have just had a look at several Wikipedia articles on Christian mystics, and looked to see whether they are of interest to a WikiProject called "WikiProject: Mysticism" but there does not appear to be a WikiProject of that name. It might be that we could have a task force in related WikiProjects, such as WikiProject Spirituality or WikiProject Religion. Vorbee (talk) 17:24, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Vorbee: There's a page Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals that may be of use. See also guideline at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 19:38, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Finding out which articles in a category don't have images?

Probably a silly question, but is there a way to quickly find out which articles in a given category don't have images without having to manually check them one by one?

Thanks. Ixfd64 (talk) 00:36, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ixfd64: if you have a specific category in mind, I can run it through AWB? --DannyS712 (talk) 00:43, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
WP:PETSCAN can search for articles with no lead image. Not what you're looking for, but depending on the category it might narrow it down considerably. Daß Wölf 00:44, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
@Daß Wölf and Ixfd64: actually, you can use petscan for the entire thing - put the category you want at the start, and then at the "output" tab select "Image" under page metadata. If the page has an image, it'll be shown; the ones without any image shown don't have one. Eg, https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=8644694 --DannyS712 (talk) 00:48, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712 and Daß Wölf: Thanks for the response. I'll give PetScan a try. Ixfd64 (talk) 01:44, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Pages that don't exist

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)
 – --Pipetricker (talk) 08:15, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I have a problem with @Srnec: and @Joshua Jonathan:. First, I put the Template:Heathenry to the Germanic paganism article and user Srnec remove it with reason "modern stuff has nothing to do with ancient religion". So due to this rule, I removed Template:Hinduism from article historical Vedic religion and then it's restored by Joshua Jonathan, because he think that it doesn't have sense. So let me explain please: who of them are right? These templates should be included in this articles, or not? --Wojsław Brożyna (talk) 06:13, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the Historical Vedic religion, see Talk:Historical Vedic religion#Hinduism sidebar. Regarding Germanic paganism and Heathenry (new religious movement), I think you've got a point:

Its practitioners model it on the pre-Christian belief systems adhered to by the Germanic peoples of Iron Age and Early Medieval Europe.

Germanic paganism should be added to the Heathenry-sidebar. See also Talk:Germanic paganism#Heathenry sidebar. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:47, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
Hinduism descends from the historical Vedic religion in a way that Germanic and Slavic neo-paganism do not descend from their ancient forebears. They are revivalist or reconstructionist, but the chain of tradition was completely broken. They do not meaningfully "descend" from ancient paganisms. Srnec (talk) 16:58, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
This is not true that chain of tradition was completely broken in case of Slavic paganism; modern Slavic Native Faith derives from folk culture. --Wojsław Brożyna (talk) 06:17, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
@Bloodofox: please look at this discussion. --Wojsław Brożyna (talk) 06:17, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Overlong/excessive fictional storyline content

Hey. Not sure if this is the right place, apologies. I tripped over the article Insignia trilogy and the long-term editor in me had to be talked off the ledge. This is by far the worst example of allowing an entire book to be written as a plot summary I've seen for years. Possibly the absolute worst. I've no idea how to approach dealing with this article, or if I should. Please advise: is it our policy to slash these "summaries" or is it somehow accepted that books can have articles like this? Thanks. doktorb wordsdeeds 01:42, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Yeah editors get carried away. According to "The Longest Plot Summary on Wikipedia" (2014) it used to be Alley Cats Strike around 23.9k -- but Insignia trilogy may be as high as 40k. This is a common problem. But try to keep it down, the history of Alley Cats shows a years-long battle. -- GreenC 01:53, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
I have been as bold as I can, removing almost everything. It was rather obvious when I pressed "edit" to find the paragraphs were clearly copy and pasted from notepad or something similar, justified in one narrow column. Clear WP:PLOTBLOAT and WP:NOT violation, ditto COPYVIO I suspect too. doktorb wordsdeeds 16:56, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Read-only mode, not for this wiki, but for most of the others

Read-only mode for up to 30 minutes on 11 April

You will not be able to edit most Wikimedia wikis for up to 30 minutes on 11 April 05:00 UTC. This is because of a hardware problem. You can still read the wikis. You can see which wikis are affected. The time you can not edit might be shorter than 30 minutes. /Johan (WMF)

10:56, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Just to save everyone having to look: enwiki is not on that list. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:15, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Analyzing fake language problems?

Are there any tools to look at a bit of fractured English and figure out if it's really a lack of fluency, or somebody faking poor grammar? Every so often, I'll ask somebody a question which I know they'd prefer not to answer (i.e., "Do you have a WP:COI"), and get back an answer in broken English. Often, I'll look at the response and think, "This person really does understand what I'm asking, they're just faking a language issue to avoid answering".

When a non-native English speaker messes up a sentence (easy to do; English spelling and grammar are total disasters), there's usually common mistakes based on what their first language is. For example, native Spanish speakers often misuse "in" and "on", since they're the same word in Spanish. It seems like it would be within the realm of current language recognition technology to look at a bit of broken English and say, "This is indicative of a native XXX speaker, based on the way they misuse YYY construction", or, "This doesn't look like anything expected from any non-native English speaker". Or even, "Given the existing samples of other stuff this person has written, they're grasp of English is probably better than they're letting on here"? -- RoySmith (talk) 20:57, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

RoySmith, as someone who works on natural language processing, this is an interesting engineering/research problem. That having been said, I think that ultimately in the context of wikipedia this is something that is best judged by humans on a case-by-case basis rather than automated. For example, someone may make frequent and consistent errors writing in English, but still be able to understand you well enough to comply with a request to disclose COI. At its most useful, I could see something like this being brought up as evidence at ANI, but even then you need to have a human make a judgment about what the best way to deal with the issue is. signed, Rosguill talk 21:07, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

How to credit the author when I copy their text from one article to another?

This work by User:Michaelneurosx is too much detail (about postoperative pain) for the broad overview article, Pain. Presently, Postoperative pain is a redirect to Pain. I'd like to use Michael's contribution to start Postoperative pain as a stand-alone article. How best to attribute it to him. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:33, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

The policy is WP:CWW. The requirement is to link to the source article in the edit summary when adding it to the destination. Crediting the particular author is not required (and is often not practical because multiple people will be responsible for a paragraph). The theory is that attribution can be determined from the source page's history. However, in this case the solution is to use edit summary:
copy text from [[Pain]] by [[User:Michaelneurosx|Michaelneurosx]]
Johnuniq (talk) 07:44, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, John. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Template:Newsletters

I made the following template to replace the horrible Wikipedia:List of newsletters.

It only includes active newsletters, as far as I could determine what they were. The small t links take you to Google translate for newsletters that are not in English. Inactive newsletters can be found by clicking "see all". 'RC' gives recent changes on the English Wikipedia for a quick review of what's new.

If you know of missing newsletters, please add them to this template. It's not the most well-designed of templates, so if you run into issues, just drop a message on the template's talk page and I'll update things accordingly. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:21, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing, RexxS, Tom.Reding, and Lea Lacroix (WMDE): now that I think of it, this is something that would be very nice for Wikidata to have a category/structure on. I don't really know how things are categorized over there, but some structure could be

With further substructure as warranted (e.g. language categories), individual newsletters categories, and so on. So something like Wikipedia:Bots/News/201808 would be found in

⯆Wikimedia newsletters
⯆Active newsletters
⯈Bots/News
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201608
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201702
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201704
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201707
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201803
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201808
⯆English newsletters
⯈Bots/News
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201608
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201702
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201704
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201707
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201803
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201808
⯆Wikipedia newsletters
⯆English Wikipedia newsletters
⯆Bots/News
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201608
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201702
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201704
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201707
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201803
⯈en:Wikipedia:Bots/News/201808

or something like it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:41, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I've created Wikimedia newsletter (Q63108743), which may help. See This Month in GLAM (Q15868218) for an example. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:55, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost (Q7395165) is popular enough, so using that as a guide - there's no "Wikipedia newsletter" Wikidata item (afaict); instead, instance of (P31): Wikimedia project page (Q14204246) + newsletter (Q264238) are used. When combined, they can be used to effectively search for "Wikimedia newsletters".
Magazines aren't sorted by genre (e.g. Elle (Q154020)), so newsletters wouldn't be either. I'm not going to be doing anything with these, but to whoever does, it'd be a good idea to see how the majority of the most popular newsletters are currently described in Wikidata, as a starting point.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:06, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Medium-Term Plan feedback request

Please help translate to other languages.

The Wikimedia Foundation has published a Medium-Term Plan proposal covering the next 3–5 years. We want your feedback! Please leave all comments and questions, in any language, on the talk page, by April 20. Thank you! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I think I missed the part where the actual plan is. All I see is a bunch of marketing jargon, vague platitudes and fairly arbitrary percentages. Maybe you provided the wrong link. GMGtalk 23:30, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Number of Wikidata edits per year?

Original topic heading: wikidata

how to find how many edits in wikidata in this year or last years Amirh123 (talk) 10:57, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Not sure what is being asked... are you asking how much Wikidata has taken from Wikipedia, or how much Wikipedia has taken from Wikidata? It goes both ways. Blueboar (talk) 11:34, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
The question doesn't mention Wikipedia, so I think Amirh123 is just asking about the number of edits on Wikidata per year. --Pipetricker (talk) 12:28, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
Ah... then you would have to ask at Wikidata itself. That said, I am not sure if the question can be answered. From what I understand (and those more familiar with Wikidata can correct me if I misunderstand) Wikidata compiles much of its data by automatic downloading from various other on-line databases... if the data on those sites change, the data on Wikidata automatically changes as well... without any edit showing on Wikidata itself (Because the coding that automatically pulled in the data did not change). Blueboar (talk) 13:00, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
That is not how that works at all. Wikidata is still a wiki. --Izno (talk) 13:21, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
Exactly the same way as when you asked the same question about Wikipedia a month and a half ago - https://stats.wikimedia.org/. —Cryptic 13:36, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
example wikidata has 912000 edits I want find how many edits in year or last years
I go to stats.wikimedia.org but not any find about wikidata edits
Amirh123 (talk) 15:15, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
@Amirh123: Did you see the selector at the upper right? This is the more specific link. If you click on the Edits pane, you can drill down further. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 17:29, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
AlanM1, does https://stats.wikimedia.org/ take you directly to the V2 version of the Stats site? It doesn't for me; I have to click on "Wikistats 2 Alpha" to get there from stats.wikimedia.org. On the V2 page, I can type Wikidata into the small search box (which initially says "All wikis") and then select Wikidata which takes me to stats.wikimedia.org/v2/#/wikidata.org. --Pipetricker (talk) 11:29, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
@Pipetricker: No, which is why I gave the more specific link. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:00, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

List of banned users at MfD

Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Rockstone35/list of banned users. Johnuniq (talk) 23:36, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Clubs?

I was wondering if there was any sort of clubs on Wikipedia, and if i could create on if i wanted to.The 2nd Red Guy (talk) 21:53, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

There are WikiProject Groups - how do the clubs you have in mind differ from WikiProject Groups? Vorbee (talk) 17:21, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

There’s an RfC about CBD and Epilepsy

Located here. petrarchan47คุก 17:26, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Hello, there's this user (User:Aspects), who constantly deletes red-links from navigation boxes by referring to "per WP:NAV". Do we have a policy like this? --Joseph (talk) 20:58, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Someone who cares about an article may very well adjust links as part of other work on that topic. However, no one should systematically remove links or anything else without first getting consensus that such activity would be worthwhile. In addition to WP:NAV, WP:REDNO has some guidance. Similar discussions are WT:Navigation template#Red links and WT:Manual of Style/Infoboxes/Archive 12#RfC: Red links in infoboxes. Johnuniq (talk) 23:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
I wrote a long response, but while adding to it, kept coming across debates that show there is not much consensus regarding redlinks in navigational templates, so I will stop removing them, but will not revert any previous edits I made since I still agree with them. If I am reverted and in this case, I will not remove them again. Aspects (talk) 19:54, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
I think you made a fair decision here. It's probably best to stop removing those links, but you should basically never revert a change that you believe improves a page – even if someone else disagrees with it. You should only revert or otherwise adjust changes that you believe make a page worse, and you should let other people revert the changes they disagree with. IMO this standard should be documented in the Wikipedia:Editing policy. Back in the day, we didn't really need to write that down, but it seems that it might be helpful now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
I've had someone remove a redlink I added to a navbox by citing WP:WTAF (an essay, not a policy, for what it's worth). I don't have a strong opinion as to whether or not it's a good idea to allow redlinks in navboxes. - Sdkb (talk) 03:52, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
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