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P

ropter fratres meos,

et proximos meos...

Leave me a message! Or visit my user page.
View of the Fernsehturm (TV tower) from the bottom, Berlin, Germany. The tower, located close to Alexanderplatz in the center of the capital, was built between 1965 and 1969 by the government of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). It was intended to be both a symbol of Communist power and of the city and remains today as one of its landmarks.

The Signpost

The Signpost
2024-10-19
Volume 20, Issue 14

News and notes: One election's end, another election's beginning

Recent research: "As many as 5%" of new English Wikipedia articles "contain significant AI-generated content", says paper

In the media: Off to the races! Wikipedia wins!

Contest: A WikiCup for the Global South

Traffic report: A scream breaks the still of the night

Book review: The Editors

Humour: The Newspaper Editors

Crossword: Spilled Coffee Mug

About · Subscribe · Newsroom

Earlier

Proposed deletion of Blaise Agüera y Arcas

The article Blaise Agüera y Arcas has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

person not important enough

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. LMB (talk) 10:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting a bit much... the fact that the only "help fix this article" comments I get are people proposing them for deletion as nonnotable or bots suggests our social norms are lacking. B A y A for instance is a remarkably accomplished creator, director, and developer, who has been renowned in the national media for at least two different phases of his life; as a quick search would indicate. Slapping a deletion tag on an article should not be the default way to improve it. – SJ +

Wikiversity

Hi Sj, can you please come back to Wikiversity? --Goldenburg111 (talk) 23:59, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Very kind. I still visit and catch up on news there. I don't have an active project to work on at the moment... – SJ + 02:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary

Whole Earth
Thank you, Samuel, for ten years of sharing your experience in many languages and capacities, for quality articles such as Whole Earth and Attalus I, for seeking the peaceful resolution of disputes, - repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (6 July 2009)!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:51, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A year ago, you were the 877th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:41, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Gerda, you are wonderful and I am honored again to hear from you. Very warm regards from Texas. – SJ + 23:13, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I try to stay out of this dispute, - would like a peaceful resolution but my name alone would do the opposite ;) - Did you know that an admin protected an article in a dispute like that and blocked himself? - To his memory (on the German Main page right now). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:42, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Two years ago, you were recipient no. 877 of Precious, a prize of QAI! - Sad to say: the admin died in January. The arguments didn't die, see Max Reger, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:32, 5 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Three years now! I still miss Dreadstar. The arguments mostly died, and I don't miss them. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:38, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sic years, and same. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:04, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

Possibly unfree File:Wh-earth-69-cover.jpg
This Friday: Women in Architecture edit-a-thon @ Cambridge, MA (pharos)
Hi, I noticed you moved the article EmDrive to RF resonant cavity thruster. Brian Everlasting (talk) 02:43, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Orphaned non-free image File:LIPB-cover.png
Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy mailing list set up
Facto Post newsletter started

Facto Post '18

Metadata on the March

Wikidata as a Hub

Milestsone for mix'n'match

The 100 Skins of the onion

116th Congress

Hello! I've noticed that you have a page over at User:Sj/Update Congress that I can only presume is for the purposes of keeping List of current members of the United States House of Representatives and similar pages updated. Just so you know, I'm currently working on an update over at Talk:List of current members of the United States House of Representatives/116th Congress for the 116th Congress, so if you're planning on working on the House article, it would be more efficient to just work on the update I already have going. Cheers! Westroopnerd (talk) 02:03, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! – SJ +

Chonqing bus disaster

A failure of knowing: This blurb on the Chonqing bus tragedy was possibly the only media coverage that accurately describes what is observed in the video, and its different interpretations. Police, major news, local news all repeated third-hand summaries that were wrong. No head contact; intent; affect. A case of organic misinfo w no beneficiary (unless somehow the driver's fam was involved).

If all of our reporting institutions (official sources, official news, investigative indie news) are broken in this way, we need a different ecology of white cloaks to be able to have basic conversations about what goes on. (It's not tha people are bad at this; we're subtle - note in contrast the average sensibility of even low-grade social media discussion of this event.) – SJ + 17:45, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of common chemicals, claimed (c)vio of [1].

Today's Wikipedian 10 years ago

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:58, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Halloween 2019

Hi SJ, I'm not sure you received my initial ping about this AE case when I first mentioned your name there. Your opinion on the matter might be worth hearing since your contribution is the center of the case in question. 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 13:42, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It is no longer possible to reply at the initial AE, very shortly after I posted this comment, the case was finally closed. I hope you enjoyed the wiki-conference. I found the presentation on WikiCite interesting today (definitely one of my interests @ wikidata, though not one of my "compétences"/skills yet). At the moment I am disinclined to help en.wp of course, but there is a chance that someday that may change, especially if some of the dys-(cor-)ruptors are dealt with. Still, given the ossification of power at en.wp, I won't hold my breath. Just out of curiosity: did you have an organizational role in this year's wiki-conference N. America? Best, 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 23:03, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This year, I did indeed. :) – SJ +

Your input is requested

at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Community view before Friday.

Only 100 or so words. It should be fun and serious at the same time.

All the best,

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:49, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the invite Smallbones, another time :) – SJ + 04:15, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WikiLoop Battlefield new name vote

Dear Sj,

Thank you for your interest and contributions to WikiLoop Battlefield. We are holding a voting for proposed new name. We would like to invite you to this voting. The voting is held at m:WikiProject_WikiLoop/New_name_vote and ends on July 13th 00:00 UTC.

xinbenlv ^{Talk, Remember to "ping" me} 05:17, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Habari mzee!

Hi Sj, I had tried to contact you a while ago at swwiki without success so I better write here. You are still listed as admin but have been a bit quiet the last years. Do you intend to continue? As per our new policy we send admins on unpaid leave after a year of non-activity, but you just came back on 1 September. Would you mind to tell us how you see your admin situation? Kipala (talk) 08:58, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya @Kipala:! How are things with you? I have less time this year for sure, + don't mind taking unpaid leave now. – SJ + 03:14, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Missing your fine spirit, old friend. – SJ + 13:58, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Months of African Cinema Contest Continues in November!

Greetings,

Thank you very much for participating in the Months of African Cinema global contest/edit-a-thon, and thank you for your contributions so far.

It is already the middle of the contest and a lot have been achieved already! We have been able to get over 1,500 articles created in over fifteen (15) languages! This would not have been possible without your support and we want to thank you. If you have not yet listed your name as a participant in the contest page please do so.

Please make sure to list the articles you have created or improved in the article achievements' section of the contest page, so that they can be easily tracked. To be able to claim prizes, please also ensure to list your articles on the users by articles page. We would be awarding prizes to different categories of winners:

Overall winner
- 1st - $500
- 2nd - $200
- 3rd - $100
Diversity winner - $100
Gender-gap filler - $100
Language Winners - up to $100*

We are very excited about what has been achieved so far, but your contributions are still needed to further exceed all expectations! Let’s create more articles before the end of this contest, which is this November!!!

Thank you once again for being part of this global event! --Jamie Tubers (talk) 10:30, 06 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You can opt-out of this annual reminder from The Afrocine Project by removing your username from this list

Later (21+)

Signpost article?

Hey SJ, it's been awhile, I hope all is well with you.

I found the Signpost article: Jimmy Wales "shouldn't be kicked out before he's ready" very disturbing (see my comment there). Can you provide any more insight on what is really happening here, and on what the community ought to try to do about any of this? Thanks, Paul August ☎ 10:48, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Weighing in as you have is a good start. Even the framing of this article is problematic (in shifting the window) - in a community like this (not to mention ours where Jimmy continues to be a popular mainstream figurehead), you tend to want founders actively engaged in governance for as long as they can stand it. – SJ + 15:33, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can you elaborate on how the Signpost article has problematically shifted the "window"? Paul August ☎ 16:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Template:WP-Todo" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Template:WP-Todo. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 March 16#Template:WP-Todo until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:08, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Request for help

During our discussion on lists, you mentioned Britannica's Propaedia.

That reminded me that, years ago, Wikipedia had the entire classification system from the Propaedia's Outline of Knowledge, in the Wikipedia namespace, with classes linked to Wikipedia articles. It consisted of dozens of pages, if I remember right.

It was eventually deleted for copyright concerns, at least 12 years ago. Most likely, speedy deleted.

For the life of me, I can't recall what its title was.

I'd like a list of the titles of all the pages in the set.

Since I don't have access to the deletion graveyard, I need an admin's assistance.

It was absolutely amazing.

Please find it.

Thank you.

Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 11:40, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: By the way, is there a way to use a search engine on Wikipedia's deletion log?

I don't know of an easy way; there have been a couple websites devoted to deleted pages, but they mainly limit themselves to the main namespace. – SJ +

@The Transhumanist: Are you sure it wasn't merged into Propædia#Outline_of_Knowledge? That seems to be where WP:OOK redirects now. – SJ + 19:12, 1 July 2021 (UTC) And who else should we invite to the conversation? Perhaps on the talk page of the new WP:HOLOW.[reply]

WP:HOLOW doesn't lead anywhere. Was that a typo? — The Transhumanist 22:20, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Resuming the hunt

One reason I wish to find it is to see what version it was lifted from. The Propaedia was published from 1976 to 2010. All I know so far is that the copy in the WP: namespace predated the 2010 Propaedia. Another is for the page titles. With those, it can be accessed via the Internet Archive, where it is most likely sitting and waiting.

Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 22:20, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2021 November newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year and the finalists can relax! Our Champion this year is The Rambling Man (submissions), who amassed over 5000 points in the final round, achieving 8 featured articles and almost 500 reviews. It was a very competitive round; seven of the finalists achieved over 1000 points in the round (enough to win the 2019 contest), and three scored over 3000 (enough to win the 2020 event). Our 2021 finalists and their scores were:

The Rambling Man (submissions) with 5072 points
Lee Vilenski (submissions) with 3276 points
Amakuru (submissions) with 3197 points
Epicgenius (submissions) with 1611 points
Gog the Mild (submissions) with 1571 points
BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 1420 points
Hog Farm (submissions) with 1043 points
Bloom6132 (submissions) with 528 points

All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the featured article prize, for 8 FAs in round 5.
Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the featured list prize, for 3 FLs in round 5.
Gog the Mild (submissions) wins the featured topic prize, for 13 articles in a featured topic in round 5.
Epicgenius (submissions) wins the good article prize, for 63 GAs in round 4.
The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the good topic prize, for 86 articles in good topics in round 5.
The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the reviewer prize, for 68 FAC reviews and 213 GAN reviews, both in round 5.
Epicgenius (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 30 did you know articles in round 3 and 105 overall.
Bloom6132 (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 71 in the news articles in round 1 and 284 overall.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition, not forgetting User:Jarry1250, who runs the scoring bot.

If you have views on whether the rules or scoring need adjustment for next year's contest, please comment on the WikiCup talk page. Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2022 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:56, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Months of African Cinema Contest Continues in November!

Greetings,

It is already past the middle of the contest and we are really excited about the Months of African Contest 2021 achievements so far! We want to extend our sincere gratitude for the time and energy you have invested. If you have not yet participated in the contest, it is not too late to do it. Please list your username as a participant on the contest’s main page.

Please remember to list the articles you have improved or created on the article achievements' section of the contest page so they can be tracked. In order to win prizes, be sure to also list your article in the users by articles. Please note that your articles must be present in both the article achievement section on the main contest page, as well as on the Users By Articles page for you to qualify for a prize.

We would be awarding prizes to different categories of winners:

Overall winner
- 1st - $500
- 2nd - $200
- 3rd - $100
Diversity winner - $100
Gender-gap filler - $100
Language Winners - up to $100*

Thank you once again for your valued participation! --Jamie Tubers (talk) 18:50, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You can opt-out of this annual reminder from The Afrocine Project by removing your username from this list

Abu Julia

I disagree with your acceptance, I'm afraid. I have asked the community to make a decision at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abu Julia. I don't really understand your accepting it with the sources that are present. Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 20:04, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note User:Timtrent! The lede al-Jazeera quote, in the context of being an anchor for a diaspora, seems like reason enough to let it develop in mainspace. Unusually prominent presence online from an underrepresented and mostly-offline community; plausible coverage in Ar news media; informational + not promotional. Start-class but no reason to delete. – SJ + 23:33, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a draft I would have accepted, and I do not believe you should have accepted it at AFC either. But the community will decide Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 23:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nanthida Rakwong article AfD discussion providing unreasonable delete comments

As you are the user who accepted my article about Nanthida Rakwong, and also added some comment on its AfD page ( Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Nanthida_Rakwong#Nanthida_Rakwong which was initiated only a short time after the article was accepted!) on how to improve the article, I would like to draw your attention again to the discussion and the fact that the comments suggesting deletion appear to disregard or even misrepresent the nature of the referenced sources (e.g. implying that The Times piece is produced by the subject, or that the subject is a spokesperson), as well as Wikipedia guidelines. As you are a more experienced and senior user, may I ask if you could look into this? Considering the additional context about censorship of any republic-related content in Thailand (see my notes in the discussion related press freedom and similarity to Venezuela), there is a general concern among Thai netizens that certain users from (or with an interest in) Thailand might be making an extra effort to maintain that censorship through these kinds of actions on Wikipedia, too... It would be good if this could be escalated somehow or at least verified more thoroughly. As far as I understand Wikipedia guidelines, the article meets all requirements and may simply need more detail and improvements, rather than deletion. Would really appreciate your help and advice in moving to keep the article, especially considering both the censorship context in Thailand, as well as the comments by users who misrepresent the sources and the Wikipedia guidelines. Thank you -- ThaiFactChecker (talk) 23:56, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello ThaiFactChecker, the article is borderline, and needs a lot of work to be kept. Are you able to find more material about her? Normally you would want significant non-interview coverage in reliable sources, about at least two distinct events. The Times interview is good, but the article would benefit from at least two solid non-interview sources, which clearly indicate the subject's role (e.g., not just naming her as part of a larger suit). I accepted perhaps prematurely, because I recognize the difficulty in getting first-hand sources, and our systemic bias in the area, but the article definitely needs more work to clearly 'meet all requirements'.

I don't think any of the delete comments so far have been unreasonable, however. If you don't want it to be deleted, you should find new sources + detail (in any language) about her work! I was not able to find any in English. And you should avoid dwelling on the AFD page, that's counterproductive; just make the article better. Regards, – SJ + 02:56, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AFC Helper News

Hello! I wanted to drop a quick note for all of our AFC participants; nothing huge and fancy like a newsletter, but a few points of interest.

AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline.
The template {{db-afc-move}} has been created - this template is similar to {{db-move}} when there is a redirect in the way of an acceptance, but specifically tells the patrolling admin to let you (the draft reviewer) take care of the actual move.

Short and sweet, but there's always more to discuss at WT:AFC. Stop on by, maybe review a draft on the way? Whether you're one of our top reviewers, or haven't reviewed in a while, I want to thank you for helping out in the past and in the future. Cheers, Primefac, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2022 May newsletter

The second round of the 2022 WikiCup has now finished. It was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 115 points to advance to round 3. There were some very impressive efforts in round 2, with the top seven contestants all scoring more than 500 points. A large number of the points came from the 11 featured articles and the 79 good articles achieved in total by contestants.

Our top scorers in round 2 were:

Epicgenius, with 1264 points from 2 featured article, 4 good articles and 18 DYKs. Epicgenius was a finalist last year but has now withdrawn from the contest as he pursues a new career path.
AryKun, with 1172 points from two featured articles, one good article and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews.
Bloom6132, with 605 points from 44 in the news items and 4 DYKs.
Sammi Brie, with 573 points from 8 GAs and 21 DYKs.
Ealdgyth, with 567 points from 11 GAs and 34 good and featured article reviews.
Panini!, with 549 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and several other sources.
Lee Vilenski, with 545 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and a number of reviews.

The rules for featured and good article reviews require the review to be of sufficient length; brief quick fails and very short reviews will generally not be awarded points. Remember also that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Request

If you know or come across or even hear about anyone who has successfully installed a Wikipedia mirror, please let me know. — The Transhumanist 09:39, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

With real-time updates? I'll inquire. Someone who runs a modern site listed at mirrors & forks? There is a project to host distributed mirrors on ipfs here. And I know @james hare is running a mirror of Wikidata... – SJ + 12:48, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Socialtext for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Socialtext is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Socialtext until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 13:13, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Accelerating change

Have you noticed this happening? (in the world)

An acceleration curve starts almost flat, curves up, until it is almost vertical.

https://milfordasset.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Accelerating-growth-in-technology-2017.jpg

As time goes on, major technological advances arrive in shorter and shorter intervals.

Currently, there appears to be a race between technological advance and existential risks (including Putin/WWIII, climate change, etc. -- see Doomsday Clock, currently set to 1 minute and 40 seconds to midnight).

Future technology has the potential to both quell existential risks and enable them.

My first question is, what do you suppose will happen, and when?

My next one is, what do you imagine Wikipedia's role will be in all of this?

And for my final query, how do you think technology could change Wikipedia? (Over the next 5, 10, 15 years)

Out of the blue, — The Transhumanist 11:29, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: Please {{Ping}} me upon answering.

P.P.S.: Here's a link, for perspective: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DGrXXlK4H6F2xwpRfSBrryRpx3LrNBlCyQ45tLMYkeU/present#slide=id.p4

Hello @The Transhumanist: thanks for this thought! Yes, it's on my mind. It's a sign that this is a good time for exercising free will; lots of different ways things can play out. WP should strengthen its place as a reminder of what we can accomplish together, so we don't develop a collective identity as a transactional group of local optimizers for short-term personal gain. Which doesn't map to the human condition very well, as extremely social and multifaceted creatures, but absolutely matches some popular norms that are enjoying the spotlight this generation.

I'm not sure what our role will be, however, it would be bad to let our community fragment and dissipate, and surely lessen any role.

The greatest change is that we can do much of the writing and formatting now automatically; machine writing has gotten enormously good. We have the tools to break through another two orders of magnitude of breadth and granularity. We need to once more bee the place where high-volume writing and editing, with preserved context, takes off. It takes constant polishing and refining to really work, just as with thousands of casual partly-wrong edits by passersby.

Still thinking about these things... would love to hear what you think. – SJ + 12:23, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome.

I agree that there are many ways this could play out, but, at some point in the acceleration of technology, because technology is a geometric progression, its dynamic, and the dynamic of its effect upon civilization, will be that of an explosion. The main effect of an explosion is disruption. The question is, "Will it be like a firework (beautiful) or a mushroom cloud (ugly)?". That is, disruptively creative or disruptively destructive. Star Trek's Genesis Device, or Dr. Strangelove's doomsday bomb. Metaphorically speaking.

We (all of us) have no way of knowing what role we will play after that fateful transition. We don't even know if we could reliably forecast the scope or form of our role in such a future. But, leading up to it, our role is (and hopefully will continue to be) within our purview.

I find it interesting that you addressed "collective identity". Wikipedia's role, in essence, is being part of the world's collective memory and awareness -- key components of our collective consciousness: who we are as a whole.

And that's what's at stake.

I'm surprised that Wikipedia has held out against falling under corporate or governmental control as long as it has -- being the encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, including propagandists. Is Ukraine being invaded, or is it merely being subjected to a "special military operation"? What is that referred to as in the Russian language Wikipedia? What's next?

Which brings us to your last point: automation. While automating writing and formatting of collective memory has a major impact on collective intelligence, what effect would automating collective memory retrieval have on collective awareness? As a retrieval service, the Main Page presents articles, though not automatically, and not chosen by relevance or importance or urgency. And, because of WP's neutrality policy, such an algorithm would have to be 3rd-party software.

By the way, you didn't answer my first question: "What do you think will happen and when?" — The Transhumanist 08:23, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:10, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Gerda,

You are great.

<3 <4 <5 <6 <7 <8 – SJ + 18:20, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Improved draft (Kostka Bojana)

Hi Sj, I'd appreciate it if you can take a look at the improved draft and let me know if you have any other suggestions. Thanks! Miljan Simonović (talk) 12:12, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for tips on how to break out of one's filter bubble

I've become more aware lately that I'm not very aware.

I've been trying to see on the web what I haven't seen, but search engines aren't very useful for that, because you can generally only search for what you know of.

The search query "Show me what I don't know about" doesn't work.

I encountered the same problem on Wikipedia. What haven't I read about?

Though, Wikipedia does have a feature that helps with this...

The random article item in the menu can help break out of one's sphere of awareness, especially if you use it en masse... I've started using it like this: ctrl-click (or wheel click) on it about a hundred times in rapid fashion, which opens a hundred tabs each with a random article in it, and then I explore the tabs using ctrl-tab or ctrl-w (which deletes them as you go). When there's a topic belonging to a class that I'm unfamiliar with, I explore the parent article too.

Opening many tabs helps compensate for the drivel (because you can skip past them quickly), like sports articles, articles on tiny towns out in the middle of nowhere, insect species, articles on non-distinct roads, tropical storms, etc.

Using "random article" en masse is kind of like browsing the book shelves at the library, or joining a book club.

If you have any methods you use for breaking out of your own self-imposed filter bubble, or of expanding your awareness of topics, please share.

Looking forward to any ideas you might have, — The Transhumanist 09:05, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: I've tried perusing "All pages", but that puts me to sleep real quick.

This is a great question. I try category surfing instead. If we had size / quality / popularity data visible from the category pages, this would be the perfect way to browse and get a sense of what you're missing. Maybe something parallel to the work the Enterprise team is thinking about for signals of reliability of recent changes: relative notability of entire articles in their context. (pinging @Wittylama: :) – SJ + 00:11, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On the face of it I don't think that a "Serendipity engine" (for want of a better phrase) is not something that the Enterprise team would build itself - but hopefully the kind of metadata extraction that is being pulled out and mashed together [like the 'size, quality, popularity' that you referred to] would enable someone to build such a feature. At least, something more 'intelligent' than the existing Random Article button. In the mean time, I'm going to pass this question around to some other people to see if anyone has some ideas that work with existing software. Witty lama 10:13, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@The Transhumanist: - there's some interesting suggestions over on the WikipediaWeekly facebook group that you might find helpful. Including "The nearby option in the commons app", the "Cool Freaks' Wikipedia Club" Facebook group, Depths of Wikipedia Twitter account, Wikidata knowledge graph queries, and Browsing Featured articles, or Vital articles and its lower levels, or Article of the Day. Witty lama 14:06, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Extra suggestions, from a colleague:

Wikipedia:Contents or more concisely Template:Contents_pages_(footer_box)
Special:RandomInCategory which is interesting with things like...
- Category:Wikipedia pages under discretionary sanctions (for controversial/heated topics)
- Category:All Wikipedia vital articles
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#Current_discussions for potentially disappearing articles
And http://listen.hatnote.com/ for new articles!

Witty lama 12:21, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Wittylama: Thank you for the suggestions. It's ironic that you mentioned Wikipedia:Contents, as I spent years helping to build it (especially outlines), yet haven't used it much lately. Didn't know about Special:RandomInCategory. Thanks! And I look forward to what you find out in your quest for a serendipity engine. Keep me posted. ;) — The Transhumanist 12:09, 27 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:Notability on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health moved to draftspace

An article you recently created, Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, is not suitable as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of "Draft:" before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page. Waddles 🗩 🖉 22:30, 23 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

File permission problem with File:Maryanne Wolf (25 April 2008).jpg

Thanks for uploading File:Maryanne Wolf (25 April 2008).jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you are the copyright holder for this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add {{permission pending}} to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described in section F11 of the criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. --Minorax^«¦talk¦» 10:17, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on Modern Taino Identity

I'd appreciate your input on this topic to resolve some long disputed issues about modern Taino movements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Taíno#Request_for_Comment_on_Modern_Taino_Identity Poketama (talk) 22:58, 3 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback on Vector (2022) conversation

Hello! As a member of WikiProject Usability, I wanted to draw your attention to a conversation currently underway on WP:VPR (see the beginning of the discussion) around adopting Vector 2022 as the new default skin.

The Web team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been working on Vector 2022 for the past three years, collaborating with the English Wikipedia community as well as other wikis to ensure that the skin performs better qualitatively and quantitatively for readers and communities than the previous Vector skin. The goal of the new skin is to create a more welcoming and easier to use experience for readers and editors across the wiki. For more details, see our new FAQ.

For the past couple of months, we have collected thoughts from the English Wikipedia community on what changes need to be made to the skin prior to it being considered ready for deployment. Our next step would be to start an RfC to assess whether the community considers Vedtor 2022 ready.

Prior to the beginning of the RfC, we wanted to draw your attention to the current conversation and encourage your feedback on the skin.

Our results from Vector 2022 at a glance

The sticky header makes it easier to access tools that editors use often. It decreases scrolling to the top of the page by 16%
The new table of contents makes it easier to navigate to different sections. Readers and editors jumped between sections 50% more than with the old table of contents
The new search bar is easier to find and makes it easier to find the correct search result from the list. This increased the amount of searches started by 30% on the wikis we tested on
The collapsible sidebar allows readers and editors to choose whether they want to see the main menu or not. Our testing shows that this allows people to better focus on their current task - reading with a collapsed menu, or editing with an open menu
The language switching menu makes it possible to switch languages without scrolling
The user menu collects all user links in a single place, making it easier to understand what each link does. In testing, 71% of surveyed editors reported positive experiences with the new menu

Thank you, OVasileva (WMF), SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 12:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Vector 2022 debate - your comment is inside AHoellanders Comment

Hi, would you mind moving it down as his statement is confusing enough :-) Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 13:18, 22 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2022 November newsletter

The 2022 WikiCup has drawn to a close with the final round going down to the wire. The 2022 champion is

Lee Vilenski (1752 points), who won in 2020 and was runner up in both 2019 and last year. In the final round he achieved 3 FAs and 15 GAs, mostly on cue sports. He was closely followed by
Bloom6132 (1732), who specialised in "In the news" items and DYKs, and who has reached the final round of the Cup for the past three years. Next was
BennyOnTheLoose (1238), another cue sports enthusiast, also interested in songs, followed by
Muboshgu (1082), an "In the news" contributor, a seasoned contestant who first took part in the Cup ten years ago. Other finalists were
Sammi Brie (930), who scored with a featured article, good articles and DYKs on TV and radio stations,
Kavyansh.Singh (370), who created various articles on famous Americans, including an FA on Louis H. Bean, famed for his prediction of election outcomes. Next was
PCN02WPS (292), who scored with good articles and DYKs on sporting and other topics and
Z1720 (25) who had DYKs on various topics including historic Canadians.

During the WikiCup, contestants achieved 37 featured articles, 349 good articles, 360 featured article reviews, 683 good article reviews and 480 In the news items, so Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors. Well done everyone! All those who reached the final round will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or the overall leader in this field.

Lee Vilenski wins the featured article prize, for a total of 6 FAs during the course of the competition and 3 in the final round.
Kavyansh.Singh wins the featured list prize, for 3 FLs in round 2.
Adam Cuerden wins the featured picture prize, for 39 FPs during the competition.
Z1720 wins the featured article reviewer prize, for 35 FARs in round 4.
Epicgenius wins the good article prize, for 32 GAs in round 1.
SounderBruce wins the featured topic prize, for 4 FT articles in round 1.
Lee Vilenski wins the good topic prize, for 34 GT articles in round 5.
Sammi Brie wins the good article reviewer prize, for 71 GARs overall.
Sammi Brie wins the Did you know prize, for 30 DYKs in round 3 and 106 overall.
Bloom6132 wins the In the news prize, for 106 ITNs in round 5 and 289 overall.

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January and possible changes to the rules and scoring are being discussed on the discussion page. You are invited to sign up to take part in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to have a good turnout for the 2023 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners and finalists, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:28, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:Isaac Newton sidebar

Template:Isaac Newton sidebar has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Artem.G (talk) 13:53, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FAR for Attalus I

I have nominated Attalus I for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 13:22, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Featured Article Save Award for Attalus I

There is a Featured Article Save Award nomination at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Attalus I/archive2. Please join the discussion to recognize and celebrate editors who helped assure this article would retain its featured status. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:55, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are a Ray of Sunshine!

		You are a Ray of Sunshine!
		The Ray of Sunshine award, is bestowed on that person that, when you see their name at the top of your watchlist, you know that all is right with the world, you can relax, and do something besides cleaning up another mess. May be awarded to any person who consistently brightens your day. - jc37 23:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of my favourite awards that we have. And it's nice to give it to someone who so exemplifies it for me.

My experiences with you are, of course, in the long past. But yet, seeing your name on my watchlist today, made me smile : )

I hope that everything about your day today is going awesomely : ) - jc37 23:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Now that is ridiculously kind, jc. Wonderful to see you too, the larger the ziggurat of local pages the less it seems one crosses paths... Thanks for putting a smile on my face :) I'll pass it on! – SJ + 00:13, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Too true.

And I'm glad it made you smile too.

I wish you much happiness : ) - jc37 00:19, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Did you intend to revert changes from LK-99?

I'd like to confirm if it is intended or accidental to check how to fix it. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=LK-99&diff=1169305425&oldid=1169304194

Thanks. Youknowone (talk) 08:20, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Youknowone, it's not clear that the sections you created are separate mechanism proposals in the source material. We shouldn't create novel mechanism claims through selective summarization or section headers.

Please add to the mechanism discussion on the talk page + explain your thinking. Warmly, – SJ + 09:05, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think I added reference to newly added one and other sections already has its own reference already. Could you tell me which sentence was looking like novel machanism? They are based on difference authors' different theories. I only made sub-sections for them not to confuse it as single unified theory. Youknowone (talk) 09:42, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Another request. You didn't made a summary why do you remove or revert the changes. Leaving summary will make less confusion. Thanks! Youknowone (talk) 09:43, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

		Scholarly Barnstar
		For your contributions to LK-99. Lklundin (talk) 14:26, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Lklundin:, that makes my week.

– SJ + 03:51, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

tlc

We can't have enough of it ;) - I saw your comment on the tlc talk, and I had a different topic there today, here's my response. Gwendolyn Killebrew had her DYK in 2014, no need to improve, that's past. Berit Lindholm, however, will have hers in two days, on the day of her funeral, and I'd welcome better proposals than what we have. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aha! What a lovely person. I left an edit @Gerda Arendt: see what you think :) – SJ + 00:11, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that your editing of the hook made it bearable, - thank you! - I still think that it didn't represent the subject well, but wasn't even able to word that this is something I want in a hook. We can try the next time. I have come to avoid DYK altogether, but for a woman this notable, I made an exception. I don't think they even noticed the difference of the beginners at our local opera and this (at the time) world-famous personality. I like Alma Mahler on the Main page today, after I just heard some of her songs. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:33, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

About your Contributions section

Are you using some tool to find all of the articles that you've initiated, expanded, reduced, etc or are you manually recording them? Your bio is awesome btw. Dazzling4 (talk) 02:09, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there, thanks kindly. There's a tool for most everything -- xtools has nice views of edit size and pages created. And I believe there's a preferences toggle that adds links to xtools at the bottom of the User Contributions page. – SJ + 02:58, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alleged Genocide

Dear @Sj,

I thank you for trying to be reasonable in this hot topic! However, the main reason I do not support the merge is that the allegations against Israel and of Palestine of genocide deserve separate pages, and they should not be conflated. Genocide is a contentious topic and a major word to throw about, so I believe it is only respectful to issue the matters with their own pages and not hide away the topic in a sub-section.

Your thoughts? Scientelensia (talk) 21:26, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Scientelensia, if there were established positions on these topics, with a clear definition of what as meant and neutral analysis by geopolitical and human rights scholars, that would be one thing. But that hans't been possible, perhaps because neither side has committed genocide by any modern standard.

Global human rights trackers do continue to warn against the possibility of genocide, but not to classify the actions of any parties in this conflict as genocide. One party has regularly used express language of wishing to kill the other and push them into the sea, and the other has a military advantage that makes the outcome of skirmishes quite lopsided, and control over specifically Gaza's freedom of movement and access to fundamental resources. &c. Neither counts as genocide, and the human rights challenges specific to Gaza since Hamas took power and both Israel and Egypt cracked down on border porosity should not be generalized to Israel-Palestine interactions over the past 75 years.

Because of the history of the region, it is not really possible to disentangle the competing claims from one another. The forces that attacked Israel just after its declaration of independence intentionally used language of extermination to describe what they threatened would happen if independence was declared, despite following on the heels of an actual genocide. Language by the current administration in Iran is the most explicitly 'genocidal' of any party to the extended conflict. Meanwhile the proximal risk of harm to the largest body of civilians today is certainly to those in Gaza. Describing half of this without the other half is both unhelpful to understanding, and leads to articles that become hatracks for controversial claims that only biased sources on one 'side' maintain. (cf some of the latest additions you made, which I'm sure are claimed in some source)

We have shared definitions for things like genocide for a reason: to provide a modicum of clarity in difficult and heated discussions like this. An article about the ongoing human rights threats and repeated humanitarian crises in Gaza (perhaps a detailed break-out from Human rights in the State of Palestine) would be most relevant just now. But it should not have this title, should not rely on fringe sources, and should not mix together a range of contested historical claims with real data about risks and problems on the ground. – SJ + 22:27, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you are saying. Perhaps though you are showing Palestine to be more inclined to genocide with your statement “One party has regularly used express language of wishing to kill the other and push them into the sea, and the other has a military advantage that makes the outcome of skirmishes quite lopsided.” You maybe are diminishing the severity of the encounters as mere ‘skirmishes’ and are describing only Palestine as having used violent language, whereas both sides in fact have. Your statement, to me, seems biased.

In the words of Raz Segal:

“The UN Genocide Convention lists five acts that fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by its own account, has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the world—more bombs than the US dropped on all of Afghanistan in any year of its war there. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the weapons used included phosphorous bombs, which set fire to bodies and buildings, creating flames that aren’t extinguished on contact with water. This demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide Convention. Israel has also intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza—the longest in modern history, in clear violation of international humanitarian law—to a “complete siege,” in Gallant’s words. This turn of phrase that explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them, starving them, cutting off their water supplies, and bombing their hospitals.

It’s not only Israel’s leaders who are using such language. An interviewee on the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 called for Israel to “turn Gaza to Dresden.” Channel 12, Israel’s most-watched news station, published a report about left-leaning Israelis calling to “dance on what used to be Gaza.” Meanwhile, genocidal verbs—calls to “erase” and “flatten” Gaza—have become omnipresent on Israeli social media. In Tel Aviv, a banner reading “Zero Gazans” was seen hanging from a bridge.”

Moreover, one side has many more deaths and the violence committed against both nations is very different and cannot effectively be compared in one page alone. Moreover, nobody is saying objectively that it is a genocide, but that it is sometimes considered as one. Thus, the page is useful as it explains, critiques and explains who is in support of this view.

I don’t believe that the sources are merely fringe sources; this seems somewhat dismissive. Many of them in fact show that many Jews disapprove of the mass violence committed by Israel, and I personally believe that there is nothing wrong with this.

It is proper for opposing pages to be created, but they should both be mentioned in the lede of the other. I understand that this is controversial, and while “ We have shared definitions for things like genocide for a reason: to provide a modicum of clarity in difficult and heated discussions like this”, the violence is defined as genocide above, though this is not always accepted.

The historical claims made are not contested as far as I know. Which ones are?

Sincerely,

From Scientelensia (talk) 22:46, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, if the “primary box had… misstated data”, fix it, don’t delete it. Constructive edits are preferred to potentially destructive ones. I find your recent mass revert somewhat concerning and not well justified. Do you perchance hold a bias in the subject, against Palestine, seeing as you are removing figures of their deaths and removing the fact that the IDF and Israel are the perpetrators of such violence? Scientelensia (talk) 22:51, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You would improve the encyclopedia by summarizing the state and impact of the siege, and its history in restriction since 2007. This article however runs afoul of a number of guidelines and policies, and invites merging or deletion. It's hard to contribute constructively to an article designed to be non-neutral and owned by one or two editors committed to including claims by partisans. Thanks for engaging politely however. – SJ + 23:47, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I thank you also for engaging politely with this matter.

As you say, I will attempt to improve the encyclopedia in the ways you suggest.

You appear to be a very esteemed user on this platform, and thus may I ask if you could perchance aid me in this, knowing the guidelines and policies presumably much better than I.

I do recognise and appreciate the problems with the article, yet I still believe that the content deserves its own page on Wikipedia, and will attempt to resolve the problems. – Scientelensia (talk) 08:31, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Scientelensia, A rename to "Allegations of" is a start. Be sparing with sources that ascribe intent, including conspiracy or long-term planning, vs statistics and observations. Be careful of recency bias: claims about current events in the context of a crisis are often poor sources for how things were last year (and often sourced to pundits, politicians, or press releases). Be sparing and conservative with infobox claims, where there is no room for context. (many you used were biased, undefined, or wrong; e.g. refugee counts are baroquely defined and often contested and ≠ people displaced).

Avoid statements that claim to represent the positions of entire communities of people. Avoid contested claims made by people with a clear conflict of interest, or famous for being provocative. Try to avoid claims and data from avowed partisans; anything notable will also be referenced by more neutral parties.

Language online is becoming much more polarized and violent, including examples you mention above. It is indeed terrible and dangerous, and many factions (including those happy to see I/P fighting indefinitely) use polarization to fan the flames of war. Please help ensure no one is using Wikipedia as a proxy to hasten such polarization. – SJ + 01:34, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Clarion Fracture Zone on a "Maths, science, and technology" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 17:30, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ta, thanks and full marks for sorting out a Clarion-Clipperton Zone partial solution so quickly ChaseKiwi (talk) 22:50, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. I reckon you can make the move + dab any time and let people discuss tweaks on the resulting talk pages. Warmly, – SJ + 00:31, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

2 partial reverts

Hello Sj. I wanted to let you know I partially reverted two of your edits on 2023 Khan Yunis raid (Infobox was removed and I readded it) and 2023 Erez airstrike (Navigational template was removed and I readded it). Since it was only a partial revert, there was no automatic alert, so I wanted to alert you here. Thank you for improving Wikipedia. Cheers! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 02:36, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi WeatherWriter, two redundant navboxes can work for long articles, but is far too much nav for stubs or articles short enough that they're on the same screen. And that raid (which isn't named & doesn't rank its own article, and also isn't a battle) shouldn't have a 'battle' infobox. A good hint is that there isn't enough source material to fill out the standard details in such a box. – SJ + 04:42, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

November Articles for creation backlog drive

Hello Sj:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive!
The goal of this drive is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed drafts to less than 2 months outstanding reviews from the current 4+ months. Bonus points will be given for reviewing drafts that have been waiting more than 30 days. The drive is running from 1 November 2023 through 30 November 2023.

You may find Category:AfC pending submissions by age or other categories and sorting helpful.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.

There is a backlog of over 1000 pages, so start reviewing drafts. We're looking forward to your help! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:24, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2023 November newsletter

The WikiCup is a marathon rather than a sprint and all those reaching the final round have been involved in the competition for the last ten months, improving Wikipedia vastly during the process. After all this hard work, BeanieFan11 has emerged as the 2023 winner and the WikiCup Champion. The finalists this year were:-

BeanieFan11 with 2582 points
Thebiguglyalien with 1615 points
Epicgenius with 1518 points
MyCatIsAChonk with 1012 points
BennyOnTheLoose with 974 points
AirshipJungleman29 with 673 points
Sammi Brie with 520 points
Unlimitedlead with 5 points

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the competition, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

Unlimitedlead wins the featured article prize, for 7 FAs in total including 3 in round 2.
MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in total.
Lee Vilenski wins the featured topic prize, for a 6-article featured topic in round 4.
MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured picture prize, for 6 FPs in total.
BeanieFan11 wins the good article prize, for 75 GAs in total, including 61 in the final round.
Epicgenius wins the good topic prize, for a 41-article good topic in the final round.
LunaEatsTuna wins the GA reviewer prize, for 70 GA reviews in round 1.
MyCatIsAChonk wins the FA reviewer prize, for 66 FA reviews in the final round.
Epicgenius wins the DYK prize, for 49 did you know articles in total.
Muboshgu wins the ITN prize, for 46 in the news articles in total.

The WikiCup has run every year since 2007. With the 2023 contest now concluded, I will be standing down as a judge due to real life commitments, so I hope that another editor will take over running the competition. Please get in touch if you are interested. Next year's competition will hopefully begin on 1 January 2024. You are invited to sign up to participate in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors. It only remains to congratulate our worthy winners once again and thank all participants for their involvement! (If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.) Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:52, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for your efforts

		The Current Events Barnstar
		For your efforts contributing to the page 2023 Israel–Hamas war. Awarded by Cdjp1 (talk) 16:05, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why thank you Cdjp1, I really appreciate it. – SJ + 03:37, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Keith Garebian for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Keith Garebian is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Keith Garebian (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Bearcat (talk) 16:39, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – December 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

Administrator changes

Beeblebrox → Just Step Sideways

CheckUser changes

Oversight changes

Guideline and policy news

Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.

Arbitration

Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

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FF :)

Thank you dear Marinna! WL – SJ + 00:13, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! New Igor Fokin page

User:Krhettn/sandbox/Igor Fokin Memorial Krhettn (talk) 04:00, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Sj! I got carried away making another one, so I haven't made my overall explanation yet! User:Krhettn/sandbox/Henri A. Termeer Square Krhettn (talk) 05:59, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(I tried out adding a picture because this one already had one on the Commons anyway) Krhettn (talk) 05:59, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the 2024 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2024 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close on 31 January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius (talk · contribs · email), and Frostly (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:21, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – January 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

Administrator changes

Clovermoss

Dennis Brown

CheckUser changes

Maxim

Oversighter changes

Maxim

Arbitration

Following the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Cabayi, Firefly, HJ Mitchell, Maxim, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720.
Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that were enacted in June 2009.
The arbitration case Industrial agriculture has been closed.

Miscellaneous

The New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RM

can you get an admin to close this rm please Abo Yemen ✉ 15:20, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done. – SJ + 17:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Sam Gilliam

Hi! Glad to see someone else taking the mantle of adding/editing the article for Sam Gilliam. I would just note that the changes you've made to the exhibition section may not a be great precedent to set, from my perspective - not sure how much you edit artist biographies, but there are far too many to count that have exhaustive tables full of every solo and group exhibition that an artist has participated in. Per the MOS:VisArts/Exhibitions, long list of exhibitions should be avoided - I personally think the Gilliam article has reached its max, barring a major posthumous retrospective exhibition. Converting these prose lists into columns usually encourages folks to just keep adding and adding exhibitions until articles are 90% list and 10% biography. Obviously you've been editing for quite a while, so I don't mean to second guess, but just a note from someone who is constantly having to prune unsourced exhibitions lists. Thanks! 19h00s (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello 19h00s, I agree, list creep is real! I hope I've only reduced the total count, trying to reduce visual clutter while also reducing the total number of exhibits -- those list items were a subset drawn from removed paragraphs. I don't have a strong prose vs list preference, both can bloat. Please feel free to switch back to prose or prune further.

The works-list has a larger scope-creep problem, which I don't have context to tackle. How do you evaluate the signifiance of his individual works? I landed on Gilliam by working through the Arts on the Line pieces in Boston (he's one of the better-known contributors). Comparing this works section to Joyce Kozloff for instance, I at least prefer the list of works to the list of museums. – SJ + 02:30, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah Gilliam is one of the few ultra-successful, ultra-contemporary artists with such a broad base of museums that own their work, it can be difficult to decide which pieces should be included, especially as images are all under copyright. But absolutely, works is always better than a list of museums, which is inherently useless for anyone other than an art dealer/buyer.

I'll admit though, that works list scope creep in particular was my fault, I got over-excited that a catalogue raisonné of his work was being published and started putting together a list before I was too familiar with the MOS, eventually moved that over-eagerness to my sandbox to publish as a standalone article similar to List of works by Félix González-Torres once the catalogue raisonné is out. But that's why I'm quick to tell others not to enable that kind of list-building, I don't want anyone else to suffer the feeling of realizing they were too exhaustive.

I've wanted to pare it down for a while, but I still haven't found a good marker for how long these kinds of lists for contemporary artists should be. There's no real measure of the correct length and the MOS warns against generic lists of works bc of private collections moving things around all the time, so the most important parts of an artist's oeuvre could be totally excluded if you just pick a few random pieces from museums. It's definitely partly case-by-case, but I wish the Visual Arts MOS were more fleshed out/relevant for contemporary artists. 19h00s (talk) 02:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I sympathize entirely, catalogs are seductive and the style guide is thin for less traditional work. I took a pass at condensing a bit and deduping with the section on public art, see what you think. He certainly deserves a List of works (no need to wait for the catalog to come out, this is already enough to start); then the bio section could be cut back to exemplars of each technique or style, or works that headlined their own exhibition, with a {{detail}} link. – SJ + 21:40, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Teahouse edit

This one. Sorry about the revert. Perhaps you were working with an old version and ignored the edit conflicts? I reverted because it will be cumbersome to do so after the page gets other edits. I bring it here because you'd know best what you were trying to accomplish. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 07:34, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since it appears you've been gone, I've made the following edits: [2] Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 10:26, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Usedtobecool: Interesting! I didn't get an edit conflict notice at the time. (And yes, it was the end of the day here 😅) Thanks kindly for noticing and fixing it. – SJ + 18:35, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers SJ! It's weird. I've made a couple edits in high volume pages that I got in trouble for but that was 4-5 years ago. I guess the bug's still around. Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Point me in the right direction?

I'm interested in reading discussions and announcements on the future of Wikipedia and MediaWiki, especially new programming features and the application of AI to either. In a word: automation.

What such current or recent conversations and announcements are you aware of?

I look forward to your replies. — The Transhumanist 19:56, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: Please ping me upon answering. Thank you.

Thinking about this! Not a lot on this front, but there's the ML team at Wikimedia... – SJ + 15:53, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Transhumanist: Now there's discussion on Meta about "Future audiences", led by MPinchuk, which touches on this. – SJ +

I was thinking more in terms of how Wikipedia would fare in competition with future AI knowledge compilation technologies, i.e., generative AI, and what efforts were underway, if any, to adapt to it. As some of the better hybrid chatbots (that combine distinct AI technologies, like AI_search+AI_chat) produce output that compares favorably with WP articles including in content and format, it doesn't take much imagination to see future versions of these things leapfrogging WP entirely.

Some current chatbot hybrids generate WP-like articles of small to medium size within seconds, while mostly avoiding problems such as chatbot hallucinations.

A type of AI chatbot hybrid that looks like it will be a game changer is the combining of generative AI with AI reasoning engines to be able to fulfill project requests, in which the AI continues in multiple iterations until the project is complete. One type of task you could give an app like that would be to "research and write an article on such and such". The AI would then do a search, write the start of the article, do another search and add more material from those sources, and continue searching and writing until it had a full-blown comprehensive article on the subject. All the while, the user can provide further instruction to the AI, on how to tailor the output to the user's specifications. ("Add a section on this", add a table to section n," etc.

Such project capacity will grow rapidly, until a project request like "build an online encyclopedia" would be within its capabilities.

The only way I can see for Wikipedia to compete with development vectors like these is with generative_AI+reasoning_AI initiatives of its own, and I don't see any such efforts underway. Without that, we're looking at a timeline of between 4 and 8 years, maybe less, of Wikipedia becoming obsolete. So, we really need to avoid the "Without that" path.

The WikiMedia Foundation is behind in automated knowledge management technology, and needs to hurry up and shift from encyclopedia publishing to knowledgebase compilation in formats suitable as training data for its own AI models.

If they haven't already, the AI giants will start buying up publishers (or licensing their entire collections) en masse to feed their training data sets, to get past the copyright problems they are now experiencing in the courts. The WikiMedia foundation should be gathering such resources as well for its own reference base.

My two cents worth, — The Transhumanist 20:59, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: If you come across anything relative to Wikipedia adapting to the generative AI cyberscape, let me know. —TT

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for being so welcoming at the meetup today! Keplersj (talk) 23:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It was a real pleasure, thanks for the company and inspiration :) Perhaps we can even get a longer term collab going with the archives. Stay well, – SJ + 01:47, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Notification: Feedback request service is down

Hello, Sj

You may have noticed that you have not received any messages from the Wikipedia:Feedback request service for over a month. Yapperbot appears to have stopped delivering messages. Until that can be resolved, please watch pages that interest you, such as Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines.

This notification has been sent to you as you are subscribed to the Feedback Request Service. - MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:11, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Box on talk pages

I have encountered a talk pages ‘in the wild’ that I am unsure about. Could you weigh in whether or not they are permitted to have their talk page like this? User:Heuh0/Userboxes/American terrorism . FortunateSons (talk) 18:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. – SJ + 21:28, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A Sundance Barnstar for you

	Sundance Barnstar
	Thanks for working on the Sundance film article Ibelin (film)~ Fuzheado \| Talk 19:25, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

🤗🎞️🎥 Thank you. – SJ +

Administrators' newsletter – February 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2024).

Administrator changes

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

CheckUser changes

Wugapodes

Interface administrator changes

Guideline and policy news

An RfC about increasing the inactivity requirement for Interface administrators is open for feedback.

Technical news

Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. (T326065)

Arbitration

Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee adopted a new enforcement restriction on January 4, 2024, wherein the Committee may apply the 'Reliable source consensus-required restriction' to specified topic areas.
Community feedback is requested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section at WP:AE.

Miscellaneous

Voting in the 2024 Steward elections will begin on 06 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 27 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
A vote to ratify the charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open till 2 February 2024, 23:59:59 (UTC) via Secure Poll. All eligible voters within the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to either support or oppose the adoption of the U4C Charter and share their reasons. The details of the voting process and voter eligibility can be found here.
Community Tech has made some preliminary decisions about the future of the Community Wishlist Survey. In summary, they aim to develop a new, continuous intake system for community technical requests that improves prioritization, resource allocation, and communication regarding wishes. Read more
The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in February 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:01, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Anupama Srinivasan

Hi Sj. Is it okay if I pitch in on developing Draft:Anupama Srinivasan and Draft:Anirban Dutta? Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 06:37, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Jeraxmoira: Of course, please do, it's a wiki :) – SJ + 04:51, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2024 February newsletter

The 2024 WikiCup is off to a flying start, with 135 participants. This is the largest number of participants we have seen since 2017.

Our current leader is newcomer Generalissima (submissions), who has one FA on John Littlejohn (preacher) and 10 GAs and 12 DYKs mostly on New Zealand coinage and Inuit figures. Here are some more noteworthy scorers:

AirshipJungleman29 (submissions), with one FA on Hö'elün, two GAs on Mongolia-related articles, and two DYKs;
Vami_IV (submissions), with one FA on Doom (2016 video game), one GA on Boundary Fire (2017), and 11 reviews;
MaranoFan (submissions), with one FA on Holidays (Meghan Trainor song), a nine-article FT on 30 (album), and two DYKs;
Skyshifter (submissions), with one FA on OneShot and one DYK;
Sammi Brie (submissions), with five GAs and five DYKs on television and radio stations;
voorts (submissions) and Elli (submissions), both with one FA and one DYK each.

As a reminder, competitors may submit work for the first round until 23:59 (UTC) on 27 February, and the second round starts 1 March. Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round; currently, competitors need at least 15 points to progress. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yapperbot

FYI. I just posted here: User_talk:Yapperbot#Moving_Forward. Is there anyone else I should do some outreach to that could help answer some of the questions? --David Tornheim (talk) 22:20, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Shuchi Talati draftified

I restored a draft you started, Draft:Shuchi Talati, to draft space for further work before it is moved to article space. It had been edited and then moved to article space by a sock of a long-term abuser. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2024 March newsletter

The first round of the 2024 WikiCup ended at 23:59 (UTC) on 27 February. Everyone with at least 30 points moved on to Round 2, the highest number of points required to advance to the second round since 2014. Due to a six-way tie for the 64th-place spot, 67 contestants have qualified for Round 2.

The following scorers in Round 1 all scored more than 300 points:

Generalissima (submissions), who has 916 points mostly from one FA on John Littlejohn (preacher), 15 GAs, and 16 DYKs on a variety of topics including New Zealand coinage and Inuit figures, in addition to seven reviews
Vami_IV (submissions), who has 790 points from two FAs on Felix M. Warburg House and Doom (2016 video game), two GAs, one DYK, and 11 reviews
AirshipJungleman29 (submissions), who has 580 points from one FA on Hö'elün, two GAs on Mongolia-related articles, two DYKs, and five reviews
Sammi Brie (submissions), who has 420 points mostly from nine GAs and seven DYKs on television and radio stations
MaranoFan (submissions), who has 351 points from one FA on Holidays (Meghan Trainor song), a nine-article FT on 30 (album), and three DYKs
Skyshifter (submissions), who has 345 points from one FA on OneShot, one DYK and two reviews

In this newsletter, the judges would like to pay a special tribute to Vami_IV (submissions), who unfortunately passed away this February. At the time of his death, he was the second-highest-scoring competitor. Outside the WikiCup, he had eight other featured articles, five A-class articles, eight other good articles, and two Four Awards. Vami also wrote an essay on completionism, a philosophy in which he deeply believed. If you can, please join us in honoring his memory by improving one of the articles on his to-do list.

Remember that any content promoted after 27 February but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, feel free to review one of the nominations listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:41, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Administrator changes

Bureaucrat changes

SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news

The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. (T353388)

Miscellaneous

The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Maersk Hangzhou on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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TFA

story · music · places

Thank you today - and all who helped with the FAR - for Attalus I, a 2004 FA! -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:31, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I uploaded vacation pics (from back home), at least the first day, - and remember Aribert Reimann. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:14, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt a fine memory indeed. Thinking of you and getting back into photography, after a WikiPortraits outing last week! – SJ + 20:18, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - have some more, a calf in the mist and chocolate cake, and a story of collaboration --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:02, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I listen to Bach's St John Passion today, - 300 years after it was first performed. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Two days later in time, a different music, - Happy Easter! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:02, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah @Gerda Arendt: how wonderful. I am listening to the St John Passion now and have a Requiem queued up... I dearly miss singing these. – SJ + 21:34, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – April 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2024).

Administrator changes

Guideline and policy news

An RfC is open to convert all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure.

Technical news

The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)

Arbitration

An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".

Miscellaneous

Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2024 April newsletter

We are approaching the end of the 2024 WikiCup's second round, with a little over two weeks remaining. Currently, contestants must score at least 105 points to progress to the third round.

Our current top scorers are as follows:

Sammi Brie (submissions) with 642 points, mostly from 11 GAs about radio and television;
voorts (submissions) with 530 points, mostly from two FAs (Well he would, wouldn't he? and Cora Agnes Benneson) and three GAs;
Generalissima (submissions) with 523 points, mostly from 11 GAs about coinage and history;
SounderBruce (submissions) with 497 points, mostly from a FA about the 2020 season of the soccer club Seattle Sounders FC and two GAs;
Tamzin (submissions) with 410 points, mostly from a FA about the drink Capri-Sun and three GAs;
Kusma (submissions) with 330 points, mostly from a FA about the English botanist Anna Blackburne and a GA.

Competitors may submit work for the second round until the end of 28 April, and the third round starts 1 May. Remember that only competitors with the top 32 scores will make it through to the third round. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs. As a reminder, competitors are strictly prohibited from gaming Wikipedia policies or processes to receive more points.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please read Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:06, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of Logos Dictionary

The article Logos Dictionary has been proposed for deletion. The proposed deletion notice added to the article should explain why.

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

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

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion.

Ways to improve Juan Benet (computer scientist)

Hello, Sj,

Thank you for creating Juan Benet (computer scientist).

I have tagged the page as having some issues to fix, as a part of our page curation process and note that:

There doesn't seem to have been a significant change in status since this page was deleted back in 2021 (see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Juan_Benet_(computer_scientist)); have there been any new markers of notability since 2021?

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, leave a comment here and begin it with {{Re|Klbrain}}. Remember to sign your reply with ~~~~. For broader editing help, please visit the Teahouse.

Delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.

Klbrain (talk) 20:06, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Klbrain:, the most notable work seems to have been done before 2021, but the closure then was for [too soon], while the amount or research and mainstream coverage of that work has grown, and the core project (IPFS and its descendants) and the extended network around it have become well established, with their own coverage.[3][4][5] I'll try to clarify that in the article. I suspect a better-sourced article at the time would also have passed GNG (there were also concerns about its tone) but notability is clearer now. – SJ + 21:30, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I applaud your eventualist tone! Let's give it a while and see what others think too. Klbrain (talk) 08:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Proposed deletion of Umbrella organization

The article Umbrella organization has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Fails GNG

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

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

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. 🥒Greenish Pickle!🥒 (🔔) 12:36, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2024 May newsletter

The second round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 28 April. This round was particularly competitive: each of the 32 contestants who advanced to Round 3 scored at least 141 points. This is the highest number of points required to advance to Round 3 since 2014.

The following scorers in Round 2 all scored more than 500 points:

Sammi Brie (submissions) with 707 points, mostly from 45 good article nomination reviews and 12 good articless about radio and television;
Generalissima (submissions) with 600 points, mostly from 12 good articles and 12 did you know nominations about coinage and history;
SounderBruce (submissions) with 552 points, mostly from a featured article about the 2020 Seattle Sounders FC season, three featured lists, and two good articles;
BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 548 points, mostly from a featured article about the snooker player John Pulman, two featured lists, and one good article;
voorts (submissions) with 530 points, mostly from two featured articles (Well he would, wouldn't he? and Cora Agnes Benneson) and three good articles.

The full scores for Round 2 can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 18 featured articles, 22 featured lists, and 186 good articles, 76 in the news credits and at least 200 did you know credits. They have conducted 165 featured article reviews, as well as 399 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 21 articles to featured topics and good topics.

Remember that any content promoted after 28 April but before the start of Round 3 can be claimed during Round 3, which starts on 1 May at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please see this page. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:38, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – May 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2024).

Administrator changes

Nyttend

Bureaucrat changes

Nihonjoe

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe

Oversight changes

GeneralNotability

Guideline and policy news

Phase I of the 2024 requests for adminship review has concluded. Several proposals have passed outright and will proceed to implementation, including creating a discussion-only period (3b) and administrator elections (13) on a trial basis. Other successful proposals, such as creating a reminder of civility norms (2), will undergo further refinement in Phase II. Proposals passed on a trial basis will be discussed in Phase II, after their trials conclude. Further details on specific proposals can be found in the full report.

Technical news

Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks. T280531

Arbitration

The arbitration case Conflict of interest management has been closed.

Miscellaneous

This may be a good time to reach out to potential nominees to ask if they would consider an RfA.
A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in May 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 15,000 articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!
Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is open until 9 May 2024. Read the voting page on Meta-Wiki and cast your vote here!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder to vote now to select members of the first U4C

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Dear Wikimedian,

You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.

This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 23:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:SpaceX Starship flight tests on a "Maths, science, and technology" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 12:31, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Firelei Báez has been nominated for deletion

Category:Firelei Báez has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 04:56, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Always precious

Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:18, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2024).

Administrator changes

Graham Beards

Bureaucrat changes

Oversight changes

Dreamy Jazz

Guideline and policy news

Phase II of the 2024 RfA review has commenced to improve and refine the proposals passed in Phase I.

Technical news

The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. T43351

Arbitration

The arbitration case Venezuelan politics has been closed.
The Committee is seeking volunteers for various roles, including access to the conflict of interest VRT queue.

Miscellaneous

WikiProject Reliability's unsourced statements drive is happening in June 2024 to replace {{citation needed}} tags with references! Sign up here to participate!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2024 July newsletter

The third round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 28 June. As with Round 2, this round was competitive: each of the 16 contestants who advanced to Round 4 scored at least 256 points.

The following editors all scored more than 400 points in Round 3:

Generalissima (submissions) with 1,059 points, mostly from 1 featured article on DeLancey W. Gill, 11 good articles, 18 did you know nominations, and dozens of reviews;
Skyshifter (submissions) with 673 points, mostly from 2 featured articles on Worlds (Porter Robinson album) and I'm God, 5 good articles, and 2 did you know nominations;
Sammi Brie (submissions) with 557 points, mostly from 1 featured article on KNXV-TV, 5 good articles, and 8 did you know nominations; and
AryKun (submissions) with 415 points, mostly from 1 featured article on Great cuckoo-dove, with a high number of bonus points from that article.

The full scores for round 3 can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 28 featured articles, 38 featured lists, 240 good articles, 92 in the news credits, and at least 285 did you know credits. They have conducted 279 featured article reviews, as well as 492 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 22 articles to featured topics and good topics.

Remember that any content promoted after 28 June but before the start of Round 4 can be claimed during Round 4, which starts on 1 July at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether for a good article, featured content, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please see this page. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:30, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Concern regarding Draft:Silje Evensmo Jacobsen

Hello, Sj. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 01:06, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

note re drafts

hi.; i left you a note at your talk page on meta. if you prefer to discuss here, then whatever you prefer is fine. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 14:02, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

would you be open to launching a committee effort in the near future, to work together on the great draft that you have composed? pls feel free to let me know any thoughts on this. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 15:43, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It would be good to flesh out a simpler and more inspiring alternate text, as a better foundation for developing something we could quickly get universal approval. I don't know that we need an explicit committee, but a barnraising effort makes sense! There is a deadline. We should have clarity by Wikimania.

Could you ping the strategy forum to see if people there have comments or feedback on the draft? – SJ + 17:21, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ok., thanks! just a question, which strategy forum do you mean? do you mean the ms strategy forums, at their own website? or do you mean something at the meta: website? thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 17:36, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I meant the now dormant MS strategy forums, which I recall you were quite active on; they at least were used by a different cross-section of editors than Meta policy pages usually are. – SJ + 18:17, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

yes, indeed. ok! thanks so much! yes, that happens to be my favorite general resource, in the wiki-verse!! i thought that's what you meant, but i just wanted to make sure. very glad to hear that you like that resource, as well! no problem, i will post a simple inquiry there. thanks!!! Sm8900 (talk) 19:44, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ok, i have now posted a new thread there, at this link: https://forum.movement-strategy.org/t/new-draft-for-review-and-comments/5398

if you wish, feel free to let me know if you would like me to revise any phrasing there at all. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – July 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2024).

Administrator changes

Technical news

Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript. Documentation is available on MediaWiki. (T6086)

Miscellaneous

The Community Wishlist is re-opening on 15 July 2024. Read more

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent you a note about a page you started

Hi Sj. Thank you for your work on Gaucho Gaucho.

Hi Sj. Thank you for your work on Brendan Bellomo.

Hi Sj. Thank you for your work on Astrid Rondero.

Hi Sj. Thank you for your work on Rich Peppiatt.

Hi Sj. Thank you for your work on Preeti Panigrahi.

Hi Sj. Thank you for your work on Stephen Maing. Another editor, North8000, has reviewed it as part of new pages patrol and left the following comment:

Nice work

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{Re|North8000}}. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

North8000 (talk) 13:44, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chidananda S Naik

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chidananda S Naik. You are invited because you seem to have extensively edited articles and topics related to awards. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 19:05, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your draft article, Draft:Natalie Rae

Hello, Sj. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "Natalie Rae".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:04, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your draft article, Draft:Veni Vidi Vici (film)

Hello, Sj. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "Veni Vidi Vici".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:54, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your draft article, Draft:Gregory Kershaw

Hello, Sj. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "Gregory Kershaw".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:42, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your draft article, Draft:Jack Begert

Hello, Sj. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "Jack Begert".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:42, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your draft article, Draft:Silje Evensmo Jacobsen

Hello, Sj. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "Silje Evensmo Jacobsen".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:42, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Concern regarding Draft:Carla Gutiérrez

Hello, Sj. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Carla Gutiérrez, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 02:05, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – August 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2024).

Administrator changes

Isabelle Belato

Interface administrator changes

Izno

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49

Technical news

Global blocks may now target accounts as well as IP's. Administrators may locally unblock when appropriate.
Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee appointed the following administrators to the conflict of interest volunteer response team: Bilby, Extraordinary Writ

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Concern regarding Draft:Anirban Dutta

Hello, Sj. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Anirban Dutta, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 11:06, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Concern regarding Draft:Alessandra Lacorazza

Hello, Sj. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Alessandra Lacorazza, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 19:09, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2024 August newsletter

The fourth round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 29 August. Each of the 8 contestants who advanced to Round 4 scored at least 472 points, and the following contestants scored more than 700 points:

Generalissima (submissions) with 1,150 points, mostly from 3 featured articles, 2 featured lists, 7 good articles, and 13 did you know nominations;
Arconning (submissions) with 791 points, mostly from 2 featured lists, 8 good articles, 4 did you know nominations, and plenty of reviews;
AirshipJungleman29 (submissions) with 718 points, mostly from a high-multiplier featured article on Genghis Khan and 2 good articles; and
BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 714 points, mostly from 1 featured article on Susanna Hoffs, 2 featured lists, and 3 good articles.

Congratulations to our eight finalists and all who participated. Contestants put in extraordinary amounts of effort during this round, and their scores can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 36 featured articles, 55 featured lists, 15 good articles, 93 in the news credits, and at least 333 did you know credits. They have conducted 357 featured content reviews, as well as 553 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 30 articles to featured topics and good topics.

Any content promoted after 29 August but before the start of Round 5 can be claimed during Round 5, which starts on 1 September at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. If two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether for a good article, featured content, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Remember to claim your points within 14 days of earning them, and importantly, before the deadline on 31 October.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please see this page. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:12, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – September 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2024).

Administrator changes

Pppery

Interface administrator changes

Pppery

Oversighter changes

Wugapodes

CheckUser changes

Guideline and policy news

Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past.
A request for comment is open to discuss whether Notability (species) should be adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.

Arbitration

Following a motion, remedies 5.1 and 5.2 of World War II and the history of Jews in Poland (the topic and interaction bans on My very best wishes, respectively) were repealed.
Remedy 3C of the German war effort case ("Cinderella157 German history topic ban") was suspended for a period of six months.
The arbitration case Historical Elections is currently open. Proposed decision is expected by 3 September 2024 for this case.

Miscellaneous

Editors can now enter into good article review circles, an alternative for informal quid pro quo arrangements, to have a GAN reviewed in return for reviewing a different editor's nomination.
A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in September 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles and redirects in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,900 articles and 26,200 redirects awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:44, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your draft article, Draft:Alessandra Lacorazza

Hello, Sj. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "Alessandra Lacorazza".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:52, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – October 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2024).

Administrator changes

CheckUser changes

Guideline and policy news

Administrator elections are a proposed new process for selecting administrators, offering an alternative to requests for adminship (RfA). The first trial election will take place in October 2024, with candidate sign-up from October 8 to 14, a discussion phase from October 22 to 24, and SecurePoll voting from October 25 to 31. For questions or to help out, please visit the talk page at Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections.
Following a discussion, the speedy deletion reason "File pages without a corresponding file" has been moved from criterion G8 to F2. This does not change what can be speedily deleted.
A request for comment is open to discuss whether there is a consensus to have an administrator recall process.

Arbitration

The arbitration case Historical elections has been closed.
An arbitration case regarding Backlash to diversity and inclusion has been opened.
Editors are invited to nominate themselves to serve on the 2024 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission until 23:59 October 8, 2024 (UTC).

Miscellaneous

If you are interested in stopping spammers, please put MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist and MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist on your watchlist, and help out when you can.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 17:31, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to participate in a research

Hello,

The Wikimedia Foundation is conducting a survey of Wikipedians to better understand what draws administrators to contribute to Wikipedia, and what affects administrator retention. We will use this research to improve experiences for Wikipedians, and address common problems and needs. We have identified you as a good candidate for this research, and would greatly appreciate your participation in this anonymous survey.

You do not have to be an Administrator to participate.

The survey should take around 10-15 minutes to complete. You may read more about the study on its Meta page and view its privacy statement .

Please find our contact on the project Meta page if you have any questions or concerns.

Kind Regards,

WMF Research Team

BGerdemann (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 23 October 2024 (UTC) [reply]

WikiCup 2024 November newsletter

The 2024 WikiCup has come to an end, with the final round being a very tight race. Our new champion is AirshipJungleman29 (submissions), who scored 2,283 points mainly through 3 high-multiplier FAs and 3 GAs on military history topics. By a 1% margin, Airship beat out last year's champion, BeanieFan11 (submissions), who scored second with 2,264 points, mainly from an impressive 58 GAs about athletes. In third place, Generalissima (submissions) scored 1,528 points, primarily from two FAs on U.S. Librarians of Congress and 20 GAs about various historical topics. Our other finalists are: Sammi Brie (submissions) with 879 points, Hey man im josh (submissions) with 533 points, BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 432 points, Arconning (submissions) with 244 points, and AryKun (submissions) with 15 points. Congratulations to our finalists and all who participated!

The final round was very productive, and contestants had 7 FAs, 9 FLs, 94 GAs, 73 FAC reviews, and 79 GAN reviews and peer reviews. Altogether, Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors all through the contest. Well done everyone!

All those who reached the final will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field.

Generalissima (submissions) wins the featured article prize for 3 FAs in round 4, and 7 FAs overall.
Hey man im josh (submissions) wins the featured list prize for 23 FLs overall.
MaranoFan (submissions) wins the featured topic prize for 9 articles in featured topics in round 1.
Hey man im josh (submissions) wins the featured content reviewer prize for 110 FA/FL reviews overall.
BeanieFan11 (submissions) wins the good article prize for 58 GAs in round 5, and 70 GAs overall.
Fritzmann (submissions) wins the good topic prize for 6 articles in good topics in round 2.
Sammi Brie (submissions) wins the good article reviewer prize for 45 GA reviews in round 2, and 78 GA reviews overall.
BeanieFan11 (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 131 Did you know articles overall.
Muboshgu (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 15 In the news articles in round 1, and 36 overall.

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2025 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement!

If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:49, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]