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I read your support comment for RfA easing. While I can understand frustration, using such a helpless negative tone is detrimental to the open discussion process. While you assume RfA needs to be fixed, many others do not. Calling the the community "incompetent" for not reaching consensus for change assumes change must be made and implies that those who oppose the change are incompetent too. It's possible that the current process is the best it can be. There's no fiat that says an open vetting process needs to be all roses for everybody. Or maybe it could be improved but nobody has proposed a better way which explains the reason for no consensus. The point is that there are reasonable explanations besides incompetence that could explain why RfA hasn't been changed. So lets not get down, depressed, or pessimistic over RfA reform. Wikipedia has done quite well for itself even if the process is tough for candidates. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:24, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Jason. Thanks for telling me about this. Yes, that comment was made in frustration, and I seem to recall that I also wasn't having a very good day that day in real life, either. However, it's hard not to be somewhat pessimistic when you look over the years of previous archives for WT:RFA, the village pump proposals and idea lab, and see that almost no reforms have ever taken place. That's mainly why I stopped actively participating in those conversations: almost all proposals end up being shot down quickly. I might reword the comment in a less aggressive tone today, but I'd like to see someone try to find at least one major RfA reform that the community has ever agreed on and implemented. Back to the point, though, I apologize for the tone I used, and will make an effort to avoid that in the future. --Biblioworm15:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Side bar
Hi Biblioworm; Short comment from an uninvolved editor. In support of your recent volunteering at the Dispute resolution board regarding casualty stats. In my long-term readings on international military casualty statistics, there is often a suspicion of politically tainted data. For example, in prosecution of Genocide cases internationally, it is a recurrent phenomenon that one side claims vast losses (even millions), while the other side claims no casualties. This is the exaggerated case where both sides of a story ought to be presented separately rather than (and in place of a vast) five-to-one disparity ratio between what one side claims and what the other side claims. Or equivalently, what would your response be if a news report on the evening news reported casualty statistics for some event as being anywhere between 400 and 4000 persons. The range itself seems to become an issue of accuracy. In either case, maybe your current "compromise" edit shall do the trick for the editors involved, and I'll try to support whatever your take on this becomes. Cheers. FelixRosch (TALK) 17:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Articles for creation for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Thanks, Rcsprinter123(warn) @ 20:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Dispute Resolution Noticeboard on Mexicans of European Descent
Hello. You closed this resolution recently [1], but since then, the other user and I have had an exchange on my talk page. In the meanwhile, it has come to the attention of 2 different administrators to recommend action being specifically taken on the Dispute resolution noticeboard now.
We have a backlog of cases there which need volunteer attention. If you have time available, please take one or more of these cases.
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Best regards, TransporterMan 15:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC) (current DRN coordinator)
Thank you. :) You actually did give me something a few days ago, but I forgot to add it to my awards page. (I need to take care of arranging those some time in the near future!) --Biblioworm03:48, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You've got mail
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Hi Hipocrite. I really don't want to beat around the bush here, so I'll get directly to the point. Barring exceptional circumstances, I always try to assume good faith, and it is a direct violation of that policy (not to mention that it is just generally unkind, and far from being a logically valid argument) to automatically assume that a candidate is plotting some elaborate scheme to avoid accountability whenever s/he says that s/he will be open to recall. Also, although I might not ask every candidate about recall, I do have to ability to ask candidates any question I wish. After all, some people have been allowed to get away to extremely ridiculous questions, and asking about recall isn't even close to the silliness of those questions. In any case, I will not get into a protracted discussion over this, as people's opinions are rarely changed. --Biblioworm18:03, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that there was a longstanding agreement that questions asking candidates if they will be open to recall is disruptive and unhelpful. Hipocrite (talk) 18:10, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Biblioworm! Bananasoldier (talk) has given you a bit of sunshine to brighten your day! Sunshine promotes WikiLove and hopefully it has made your day better. Spread the sunshine by adding {{subst:User:Meaghan/Sunshine}} to someone else's talk page, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. In addition, you can spread the sunshine to anyone who visits your userpage and/or talk page by adding {{User:Meaghan/Sunshine icon}}. Happy editing! Bananasoldier (talk) 22:55, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oops sorry man I think this is the third time I've left something here. I like to give these things out to people who help out at the talk page! I hope you don't mind! Bananasoldier (talk) 22:57, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Seems a bit impersonal using the template... I noticed that the hook you are using does not have any direct inline citation, which is a requirement for DYK. Please see the comments left on your DYK nomination page.--Godot13 (talk) 08:06, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Learnerktm
Please look at the GOCE contributions of Learnerktm. The work is not well done, and it is important that these articles are either requested c/e articles or old, hard to do articles. I left him a talk page note, but after looking at his other editing, I think more attention is needed. --DThomsen8 (talk) 20:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Dthomsen8: The work is not very well done, as you have mentioned. I didn't do an extremely thorough review, but even a quick glance picked up some obvious capitalization and comma errors. For example, some sentences have way too many commas, making reading difficult, and some others are run-on. (I personally avoid copy editing articles that I feel are beyond my capabilities.) It might help to gently point out these errors and suggest that he stay with newer, easier articles until he feels more comfortable with the job. I'd also like to hear any ideas that you have, as well. Thanks, --Biblioworm23:35, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
All five of the copy edits by Lernerktm are not very well done. I told him "As a new GOCE member, you should start with easy, short articles. With over 2,000 to consider, they are easy to find." We don't want to bite the newbies, but the editors who requested copyediting on their articles should get a good job. Minimum is that we should put copy edit tags on Johannes Hint and Sampada Malla, but not right away. Perhaps you might consult the more senior coordinators before anything actively done.--DThomsen8 (talk) 01:49, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you!
The Copyeditor's Barnstar
Biblioworm, I hereby award you The Copyeditor's Barnstar for your tremendous undertaking in copyediting Capon Chapel. Your efforts are much appreciated, and I thank you for your continued stellar contributions to Wikipedia. -- Caponer (talk) 07:01, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Biblioworm, I wanted to touch base with you to let you know that I've nominated Capon Lake Whipple Truss Bridge for GOCE review. This is not a direct request, but more of a "for your situational awareness" message. You've always done a phenomenal job with my previous articles nominated at GOCE, so I thought you should know about this one in case you were interested. Again, this is not a direct request ;) Take care! -- Caponer (talk) 19:34, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Caponer: You caught me just before I was about to go offline for an hour or so. :) Well, I'm willing to make a few exceptions for articles that interest me, and I find historic places to be interesting, so I certainly consider it. --Biblioworm19:38, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Biblioworm, I appreciate and thank you for your consideration. Please take a look at it at your leisure and let me know if you're able to take it on--I'd be extremely grateful and appreciative! Thanks again! -- Caponer (talk) 19:41, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank your for your bold copyedit, I highly appreciate your hard work. I made minor changes and I would be grateful if you could review them [2]. Borsoka (talk) 04:45, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Borsoka: Sorry that I haven't been able to reply; I've been rather busy today. Your changes look good, and in any case, you probably know more about the subject, since you presumably have access to all the sources. :) --Biblioworm03:19, 26 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think a misunderstanding may have occurred (Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard)
"Conduct dispute. Telling someone that "he is wrong" is not the purpose of the DRN. ANI is the place to report conduct issues." About the "he is wrong" thing, by all respect, if you read everything i wrote, you would see why i said that. What should i do now then? he just keeps reverting my edit and doesn't want to respond (and when he does he denies something which is so clear that every person with a little bit of sense would understand - no rudeness intended by using that sentence). I am a major contributor here (i have created over 320 articles and expanded even more) but how can i continue my contribution when a disruptive editor suddenly reverts my edits and refuses to have a proper conversion with me? --HistoryofIran (talk) 17:09, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello HistoryofIran. Apologies for not being able to reply sooner. Since you mentioned that the user that you're in a dispute with refuses to discuss the matter, I'm afraid that DRN can't help you either way. DRN is not a place to seek opinions and judgements, and participation in a case is completely voluntary. If he refuses to discuss at all, then it is impossible to meet the requirement that there must have been significant discussion before a case is filed, and it is probably unlikely that the user in question would choose to participate in the case. As I said in my closing comment, WP:ANI would be best if you want an enforceable resolution/sanction. --Biblioworm22:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much :), i will do as you suggested. Have a nice day (by the way i didn't see that you already had suggested WP:ANI in your closing comment, my bad). --HistoryofIran (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
TWA consensus
Hi Biblioworm. Just a heads up that I closed the RfC you started about including a link to The Wikipedia Adventure in the welcome template as a consensus for supporting the idea, so you can go ahead and add it, though making the old version available as a different template may be a good idea per my note there. Sam Walton (talk) 21:09, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
GA Cup competitors and observers: Get ready, we're about to move into the finals of the inaugural GA Cup! Not nearly as important as another competition taking place this weekend, but significant none the less. No deflated footballs here, though!
Thursday saw the end of Round 4. Out of the 8 contestants in the semi-finals, 5 have moved to the finals. The semi-finals continued to be very competitive. The highest scorer overall was Ritchie333 from Pool B, with an impressive 488 points and a total of 36 articles reviewed, the most of any competitor; close behind was Jaguar (last round's wildcard), with 477 points and 29 reviews. At times, the competition between them was a real horse-race, and exciting for the judges to witness. Both Ritchie333 and Jaguar have moved onto the finals. In Pool A, Good888 with 294 points, and Wizardman with 179 also won slots in the final. 3family6 with 285 points, won the wildcard slot. We also had one withdrawal, due to outside-of-Wikipedia priorities. Congrats to all!
Although there were just 8 competitors, more reviews were conducted this round than in any other round—148, which demonstrates the commitment and enthusiasm of our participants. The most successful competitors, like in all previous rounds, reviewed articles that languished in the queue at GAC for at least five months (worth 18 points). The Boat Race articles were popular review choices again, with almost 20% of the articles reviewed this month.
In other news, we received another report from GA statistics page maintainer User:AmericanLemming. See here [3] for his take on the effect the GA Cup has had on Good Article reviews. He believes that we've made a real difference. AmericanLemming says: "As you can see, ...the GA Cup has done wonders when it comes to getting the oldest nominations reviewed much sooner thanks to the system whereby you get the most points for reviewing the oldest articles." Everyone involved with this competition, especially the competitors, should be very proud of what we've been able to accomplish!
The Final will start on February 1 at 0:00:01 UTC and end on February 26 at 23:59:59 UTC with a winner being crowned. Information about the Final can be found here.
To subscribe or unsubscribe to future GA Cup newsletters, please add or remove your name to our mailing list. If you are a participant still competing, you will be on the mailing list no matter what as this is the easiest way to communicate between all participants.
I'll be putting out a formal update sometime soon, but I wanted to inform you that I've decided to push our start date back to mid-February rather than in January. There are number of reasons for this, but the biggest factor is that we are now facing the hard work of implementing our designs on the Mediawiki interface. It's a limiting environment to work with from a web-building perspective, and the team that worked on the Teahouse can offer similar testimonials to these challenges. We also want to make sure there is time for us and for you to test the environment out, ask questions at our project's talk page, and give us a little time to make any last changes before we start inviting editors to the space. If some of you know you will be unavailable during this time, it's totally fine if you need to bow out for the pilot. But we do need all the mentors we can get, so even if you can take the time to mentor just one or two editors, that would be fantastic.
Thanks a bunch,
I, JethroBTdrop me a line on behalf of Wikipedia:Co-op.
I'm very pleased that you find it useful. You are most welcome to add items there if you ever come across them. Thank you kindly and best wishes. :) :) :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:01, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(Earth stalker) *lands spaceship* Greetings from NGC 4145. We are grateful that you decided to cover our galaxy on "Wikipedia". Please accept a treat from our home. *gets back into spaceship and launches it* This comment is definitely not from AmaryllisGardenertalk01:09, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree with your comments at Kudpung's talk page. The final warning was totally unnecessary when the user already agreed with the page's deletion. If you ask me, experience is not always the key. Experience doesn't make a man saint. And even the most experienced admins have made mistakes in the past but admiting their mistake is the key. And it seems like people often misinterpret WP:IAR. I don't know how giving a brand new user (who doesn't understand how Wikipedia works) a final warning will improve the encyclopedia. Anyway, I just want to say thank you for your comments there and nice to meet you. Have a nice day! JimCarter09:26, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Jim Carter: Hi, and thanks for your message. It rather frustrating when someone beats around the bush and, instead of directly explaining their actions and being accountable, tries to quiet you down and send you away by essentially saying, "I'm experienced, I know how to use IAR (implying that I don't), so I don't have to explain my actions to you newbies". In any case, continuing the "conversation" was bound to turn out badly for me, so I just left.
Based on the message he left on your talk page, I also get the impression that the message was left primarily because of what seems to be a dislike of newbies/children. While it's undeniable that both groups can sometimes be very annoying, the mere fact that they are what they are is no good reason to take extreme measures. --Biblioworm16:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Be very careful with your conjecture and innuendos. What I don't like is hypocrisy. I've done more to help the children on Wikipedia than all you have together. Are you both over 18 by any chance? (Rhetorical question).--Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:20, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, yes...I am over 18 (by quite a few years [decades?] in fact). Sorry if I sounded offensive, but I still haven't received an actual explanation as to why the rather extreme warning was left other than some vague invocation of IAR. Also, I do find it rather interesting that a person would leave WER and "slam the door behind them" merely because of a single revert that may have been an accident. Anyway, I'm just an eager-beaver newb, so what could I know? --Biblioworm19:42, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Kudpung I think you are being bitey to a new user with that warning. I think you are being condescending to others by making comments on their age. I have left a note on this users page that the warning was not appropriate and that any block based on running for RfA before being ready would likely be reversed. I know you have been an admin for 8 years but so have a lot of people including myself, it is not a big deal. Chillum19:57, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Stefan Vladislav of Serbia, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Ragusa. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in January's Backlog Elimination Drive. Of the 38 people who signed up for this drive, 21 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
Progress report: We were able to remove August 2013 from the general copyediting backlog and November 2014 from the request-page backlog. Many thanks, everyone!
Blitz: The February Blitz will run from February 15–21 and again focuses on the requests page. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one request article. Sign up here!
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Biblioworm and Philg88.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
Greetings, all! 4 months ago the GA Cup began and now as it comes to a close, it's time to start thinking about the next competition! Below is a link to a Google Form with several questions. We want to here from you what you thought about the GA Cup. Just over half of the questions are required while the others are optional. If you don't want to answer one of the optional questions, feel free to skip it.
Your responses will only be visible to the three judges.
Thank-you to all particpants for making the first GA Cup a success and we hope to see you all come out again for the next competition!
To subscribe or unsubscribe to future GA Cup newsletter, please add or remove your name to our mailing list. If you are a participant still competing, you will be on the mailing list no matter what as this is the easiest way to communicate between all participants.
Hey Biblioworm, it's been a while. The Co-op team has been hard at work during over the winter, so let's get right into what's been happening:
Landing page draft. You know it's a draft when you need to squint at the logo, ha ha.
Graphic design work is nearing completion and development work is coming along slowly but surely. The main components of the space, profiles, the landing page, and the mentor landing page have all been built, and we're basically just putting the pieces together. We have close-to-final draft of the landing page, which is currently at User:Slalani/Landing_page, and in the thumbnail to the right. You can check out other components over at User:Slalani if you're curious. Soni, Slalani, and I are working together on some of the front page elements. We've also been doing some testing on test.wikipedia.org for profile building and matching. If you're curious about checking that out, let me know.
We've finished up a survey for newer editors to assess their experiences of using existing help spaces (e.g. Reference Desk, Teahouse, IRC, The Wikipedia Adventure) on en.wikipedia. Gabrielm199 is putting together a summary of that survey, and in the meantime, some findings from that survey of 45 newer editors include:
On average, editors found contributing to Wikipedia to be easier after using the help space compared to before.
However, after using one or more help spaces, only half of editors reported that editing, addressing social challenges, and resolving technical issues were easy or very easy. The other half of editors were either neutral, or reported that these matters were difficult or very difficult.
Just under 30% (11 of 38 editors) of newer editors said they probably would have stopped editing entirely had they not received support from the help space they used.
Editors frequently reported either 1) that they would not have been learn what they needed without the help space, or 2) That they could have found it, but admitted that it would have been difficult or taken much longer.
We will be making one final move of the pilot start date to March 4th, 2015. This is the last move (I promise), because we can't afford to run the pilot any later than that. So there it is: March 4th or bust! But we won't bust, because there are just a few things left on our plate before we can run our pilot successfully. I'll be alerting you about when you will be able to make mentor profiles soon, so when you get a message about that, please take a minute or two to create your profile here (otherwise, you won't get matched to any editors!).
Hello Biblioworm: Thank you for your message. I will watch future edits of the Elliott Fitch Shepard article with interest. The one you made was a matter of style - not grammar, in my opinion. Look forward to learning from other edits. All the best. Twofingered Typist (talk) 15:28, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Berkhamsted may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "()"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.
List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:
English [[monarch]]s, [[queen consort]]s and other royals, including [[Edward, the Black Prince]]), royal favourites, and historical figures such as [[Thomas Becket]] and [[Geoffrey Chaucer]].
Very grateful that you are copy editing the page, my apologies for tinkering with the page while you working on it, will do my best to refrain. Hopefully with improved editing the page might recieve a higher rating/assessment. -- BOD -- 17:11, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Made a couple edits to the second Anglo-Saxon paragraph, tidying up my own editing. Hope you had not worked on that para yet. -- BOD -- 20:51, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Once again sorry to edit a section after your Copy Edit ...Please improve as you see fit...I have made a couple of edits to Anglo-Saxon settlement ... Northchurch is actually only a village ... Plus I had not made clear in my own edits - that while northchurch may have been regarded as the original location of Berko - the rest of paragraph (archeology/parish history etc) is about showing that stuff was actually going on within the area of the modern town of Berkhamsted itself. -- BOD -- 05:00, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
I am not sure if this is the right place to discuss edits to Berko. I hope I dont interfer much more. Please continue to improve my bad english/editing. -- BOD -- 05:06, 20 February 2015 (UTC) ... While I feel my corrections are so so (earth saving) vital ... I do suffer from Obsessive Tendacies ... tell me to stop or temp ban me from page if needed. -- BOD -- 06:10, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
I wouldn't worry about it too much; I'm somewhat of a perfectionist myself, but I'm even worse than most perfectionists, because I'm not exactly a fast person. That's why I'm usually left coughing in the dust whenever I try to participate a competition or just get to an article on the GOCE requests page before some of the hares do. --Biblioworm15:36, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Miniapolis there is another Berkhamsted discussion further down this talk page, in which he steps back from improving Berkhamsted. I am highly grateful for Biblioworms edits and regret if I caused any problem.-- BOD --18:46, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(←) Okay, but if you request a copyedit it's courteous (and advantageous to you) to let the copyeditor do their job. Once I'm done I don't care what an editor does with my edits, but think how you would feel having someone breathing down your neck like that. All the best, Miniapolis23:21, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I was at error in this instance, but I have always viewed Wikipedia as a collaborative effort, when the few errors inadvertantly occured (after all I did not expect the copy editor to be an expert on subject), I felt the need to correct them quickly for the unknowing reader, otherwise I was trying to improve things the best I could for each section, in advance of the language enhancements. -- BOD --06:29, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for my good faith edit on your Caracal draft. Though I have added clean information based on the references previously, I went a little bit over the top. Thanks for your undo! Gug01 (talk) 17:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to add information to the draft, but just remember that copying content from the old article defeats the purpose of a rewrite. ;) --Biblioworm18:07, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited NGC 695, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Aries. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
I think you'd make a fine admin given a little more experience. 6 months editing is unlikely to be enough to convince a meaningful number of editors, but give it another 6 and I think you could go for it. Sam Walton (talk) 20:42, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Different topic: You'll not get much response in this way because without evidence it is useless to tell people why I'm planning to physically restrict access to the New Pages Feed. I'm gathering evidence and it will take sometime for me to set up all those statistics, graphs etc for the RfC. On a different matter I'm thinking of another plan: How about a project like CVUA? Although I'm somewhat worried that projects like CVUA doesn't live for long; as time passes, activity becomes low and at last they are marked historical. But IMO a mentoring project (for example: New Page Patrolling Academy) will be helpful for new comers as they will learn the process. What you say?
About your RfA: I will certainly support you but I don't expect this from you. Even if you say, "this is not a threat", people will consider it as a threat. Always try to pour oil in troubled water. Anyway, I wish you luck if you run for adminship anytime soon and you will definitely find me in the support section. Cheers, JimCarter13:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Jim. Sorry if you see that diff as a threat, but it has happened to some admins with persistent problems, you know. That's one of the main reasons that DP was desysopped: he had problems with using the tools while involved, had harsh conduct towards users who didn't deserve it, and failed to react correctly when users tried to hold him accountable for his actions. A possibly disturbing warning about what might happen (I personally have absolutely no desire to start or get actively involved in any ArbCom cases) is not the same thing as threatening to actually do it. Thanks for the feedback, though, and I see your point; I'll try to sound less aggressive in my wording. --Biblioworm14:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Even though it seems that I already have quite a bit of potential support, I'm still very reluctant to go through such a notoriously brutal process. I've read over many failed RfAs, and I've been shocked at the some of the trivial reasons that people use as reasons to oppose. Not to mention that it seems to be a place where people can get away with incivility and gross personal attacks. --Biblioworm19:39, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
While I haven't done any sort of in-depth review of your contributions, you seem to me to be the kind of person we want as an admin: fights vandals but also creates content, does meta-work (such as GOCE) but realises content is the mission, demonstrates clue in general. More experience is probably necessary, for your own benefit and that of RfA voters, and yes, there always will be bad eggs at RfA, but if having a rough ride is what you're afraid of, I don't think you should worry. BethNaught (talk) 19:53, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry too much, friend. Editors who don't have bad history; need not to worry. But users like me can never think of running for RfA. Best, JimCarter04:53, 24 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Blitz: Thanks to everyone who participated in the February Blitz. Of the 21 people who signed up, eight copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
Progress report: The blitz removed 16 articles from the requests list, and we're almost done with December 2014. Many thanks, everyone!
Drive: The month-long March drive begins in about a week. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one article from the backlog. Sign up here!
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Biblioworm and Philg88.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
Hi Bilioworm, could you take another look at "He married the eldest daughter of Thomas Arthington in 1814.", I'm trying to write a stub on his son here (sorry, I always work in chaos - it usually comes right in the end) and have found that the General married a Mary Ann Carruthers (20 Jun 1814), who's father was William Carruthers, and it was he who married, Mary Anne Arthington, the daughter Thomas Arthington born 1757. (I've found this by researching through family-search etc). It probably doesn't seem that important, but it is because it looks like that's where the family money cam from. The General (through his wife) became patron of Adel church and was able to appoint young Chalrles to be its vicar. Giano(talk)21:50, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, take a look here [5]; I've been tracing the family through various genealogy sites. There's some other refs scattered all over that utidy page. I shall address it properly tomorrow, when I'm more awaks - it's too complex for this time of night and after a couple of glasses of wine. G'night. Giano(talk)22:23, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Biblioworm. I've put in a submission for a presentation at Wikimania 2015 called Is Two the Magic Number?: The Co-op and New Editor Engagement through Mentorship. I'll be talking about the state of finding help spaces on en.wiki and how our new mentorship space, The Co-op, factors into that picture. Reviewing will begin soon and I'll need your help to be able to present our work. Please review our proposal and give us feedback. If you would be interested in seeing this presentation, whether you are attending or not, please add your name to the signup at the bottom of the proposal (you do not need to attend Wikimania to express interest in presentations). I, JethroBTdrop me a line on behalf of Wikipedia:Co-op.
I have also proposed a proposal to make Wikipedia free of data charges for users from developing countries, I will be glad if you can sign up here (just to ensure that you are also interested in making Wikipedia free of data charges), signing up doesn't mean that you have to attend so don't worry. Thank you, friend. JimCarter13:47, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
William Gabriel Davy
Hi. It looks as if British English would be better for this article since he was an British general. That would mean renaming the Honors section Honours (that's the only problem spelling that jumped out at me). --Mirokado (talk) 19:37, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If the eager beavers around here would do some research instead of trying to be clever and critcise everyone and everything else, they would realise that the NPP school aready exists, modeled on the format of the suite of other schools we have here. See Wikipedia:New pages patrol/School. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:42, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was once aware that the school existed, but I suppose that I forgot. However, what's to say that the school can't be improved, expanded, or more publicized? There's always room for improvement. --Biblioworm22:47, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing, but please consider doing your homework before you keep rushing headlong into processes and policies you don't know or understand. That said, as long as it doesn't have headwear for the hat collectors, nobody is interested in learning how to patrol pages properly, The research has already been done - a project comissioned by the WMF. Meanwhile there are a couple of million articles that need to be improved ans expanded. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:10, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'm quite familiar with most processes and polices. I just said that I thought it was a good idea and gave a suggestion or two; I did not dive headlong into it or promise to be a co-founder. If I would have remembered the existing NPP school (my memory isn't as sharp as it used to be, you know), I would have brought it up. It's not like I haven't contributed to any content, either; I've copy edited quite a few articles and have some recognized content (1 GA; 2 DYKs [with about 3 nominations currently pending]). Actually, I was about to look for a new article to create when you left this message. --Biblioworm23:24, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Disambiguation link notification for February 26
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Andrew II of Hungary, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Braničevo. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Apologies again for my obssesive tinkering with the Berkhamsted page, I had hoped submitting it to the guild would stop me. I realise my actions could make the page too lively for someone to fairly copy edit. I respectfully ask, if you are able, please do continue the copy edit and I will try to limit my edits.(Early History is my main interest, so my need to fix things will decline post medieval.) -- BOD -- 14:01, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I was sort of waiting until you finished. It kept showing up at the top of my watchlist, so I wanted to avoid an edit conflict. --Biblioworm14:59, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Bad Bod will stop. -- BOD -- 15:06, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
Bodney: A friendly suggestion, because I feel your pain. Sometimes, when I am tempted to fiddle with an article, I remove it from my Watchlist for a while. You could do that and wait until Biblioworm notifies you that editing is done.
Good idea ... (plus it will help that from tomorrow for five days I will have just a rebellious ipad & a very bad internet connection)
(I apologise for the bad grammer errors in the medieval section my fiddling created yesterday ... this article will never reach GA unless I limit myself. -- BOD --20:48, 26 February 2015 (UTC) )[reply]
Also, Wikipedia:Signatures#Links requires that your signature have "at least one direct internal link to your user page, user talk page, or contributions page". Please fix your custom signature ASAP. Contact me if you need assistance. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:06, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi biblioworm I am ignoring a few of my editing/grammar errors i can see, but i saw a whopper i had made in the last paragraph of the castle section, which i am very sure you had reached yet. It contained an error, identifying the wrong part of the castle that may have confused the copy edit; plus the was an associated citation that did not relate to the text and the whole sentence was a duplication...So i removed it... Hope that is ok, averting my eyes from the article again ;) -- BOD --09:16, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi
A question or two. Berkhamsted is the first article i have requested to be copy edited, so i am unsure about the process. Apart from bad English, I do in deed suffer from daft mental health issues, including obssessive tendacies, exampled by my past general tinkering with the article. One thing i do worry about is inaccuracy, wikipedia must be right mustn't it? (Is mustn't a word?) Even for a small town, which only a few folks are going to read about. Question is would you prefer i correct factual inaccuracies that creep in during the copy edit as you go along, should I ask you kindly to correct them or wait until you have finished? I have no idea how long the copyedit process will take. If i do correct them, should i attempt to support them with better citations? As Maybe it was unclear. Sorry to be such a worryfuss. (It is not the very end of the known universe, but the following four errors crept in during your last edit session. 1104 the castle was confiscated rather than captured. 1165, after Becket was removed, Henry II made use of the castle, it was one of the kings favourite and more comfortable residences. In 1300 the castle reverted back to the King Edward rather than being given to him. Less important - 1206 it is unclear if Geoff Fitz Peter was given the castle, better just say he resided there. I am unable to make any proper edits until tuesday evening GMT.) -- BOD --16:49, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, you're welcome to fix factual errors that I inadvertently introduce to the article. I'm only a copy editor and sometimes have to make guesses when trying to correct prose. If you notice any errors, just tell me about them here. --Biblioworm17:08, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Biblioworm. Very much understand. Anything you are unsure about let me know. I have just returned from Berkhamsted, I spend four days every fourtnight looking after my 87 year old mother there (pass the castle etc. twice each long weekend, but unable to visit). So i know the town well, it is a pleasent town, but far far too expensive for me to move back there after 30 years. I wish I could be confident about tackling a new subject.-- BOD --16:39, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Biblioworm, a couple of small factual errors popped up with the your previous last ongoing improvement of the Berko article... I have made corrections, please feel free to improve the language etc. I remain very grateful of your CE improvements, plus it is a good test to see if someone who has no knowledge of the town understands what I have written. :)
Yes, I did notice. However, I unfortunately happen to be extremely busy in real life at the moment (I am actually a breathing human being with a life, you know ), so it would not be fair for me to keep others from editing the page while I'm not doing anything to it. --Biblioworm14:47, 10 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Again, Biblioworm ...I changed the first two sentenances of the top of the article. To me the original might have been misinterped to suggest that all the Chilterns Hills where in Hertfordshire, while only a small part is in the county, with more being in the adjoining English counties of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. -- BOD --14:33, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you are having trouble finding time to work on the berko page for a thousand good reasons ....Do you think we should we invite another copy editor to tackle it on the Guild page?-- BOD --18:04, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Biblioworm: would you note on the requests page how far you've gotten into the article? This way, when another editor gets to it they may not have to start from scratch. Thanks and all the best, Miniapolis23:28, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'll at least try to finish up the section I'm working on now. I might get the chance tomorrow. (Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of retirement just yet...) --Biblioworm03:04, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm actually working on a draft here. I'm the type of person who works on more than one thing at a time, but everything usually comes together in the end. ;) --Biblioworm02:07, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The inaugural GA Cup is now over! The competition officially ended Thursday. Congrats to everyone who participated, and especially to our finalists.
The winner of the 2014/2015 GA Cup is Jaguar! He earned an impressive 615 points, despite only being a wildcard in the Round 4. The key to Jaguar's success seemed to be reviewing lots of articles as well as reviewer the oldest nominations; he reviewed 39 nominations in this round. Overall, the key to everyone's success was reviewing articles that had been in the queue for at least three months, which was true throughout the competition. In second place was Wizardman, with 241 points, and following close behind in third place was Good888, with 211 points. Congrats!
Although there were a couple of bumps along the way, the judges have thoroughly enjoyed managing this competition. We hope that the participants had fun as well. The GA Cup was a resounding success, and that's due to all of you. The judges sincerely thank each and every participant, and for the editors who were willing to subject their articles to this process. We learned a lot. For example, we learned that even with meticulous planning, it's impossible to anticipate every problem. We learned that the scoring system we set up wasn't always the most effective. The enthusiasm and motivation of Wikipedians is awesome, and we enjoyed watching what was sometimes fierce competition. We look forward to the second GA Cup later this year.
We reached many of our goals. See here for GA Cup statistics. We made a big difference, especially in shortening the length of time articles spend in the queue, and in reducing the backlog. Overall, 578 nominations were reviewed throughout the competition and a total of 8,184 points were awarded. Everyone involved should be very proud of what we've accomplished through the GA Cup. Stay tuned for more information about our next competition.
There will be some much-needed changes made in the scoring system next time. We appreciate your feedback, and commit to seriously consider it. If you haven't already, please fill out the feedback form here. If you're interested in being a judge in our second GA Cup, please let one of our judges know or click on the tab found in the feedback form.
Again, thanks to all and congratulations to our winners!
You can now make your profile at The Co-op! Please set up your mentor profile here as soon as you are able, as the pilot begins on March 4th. It isn't very involved and should only take a minute. If you need more info about what the different skills mean (e.g. writing, communication), please refer to these descriptions.
Profile creation, invitations, and automated matching of editors, profile creation, that will be coordinated through HostBot and a few gadgets may not be ready for our pilot, and will have to be done manually until they are ready. In preparation for the pilot, please read over these instructions on how we will be manually performing these tasks until the automated components are ready. I, JethroBTdrop me a line on behalf of Wikipedia:Co-op.
Hi TransporterMan. I've been virtually inactive for almost a month due to real life business, so I didn't get the time to email him. I sent an email just a minute ago. Thanks, --Biblioworm03:05, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone ahead and taken the slot and left a note on the DRN talk page noting that I've done it and offering to step aside if someone else wants it, instead. Do you think that you'll still want the June-July slot? If not, you might want to remove your name to open it up for someone else, but if you're uncertain then you can leave it, of course. I removed my name from the August-September slot when I took April-May, so if you think you might want a longer break or longer time to decide you could also move your name there and leave June-July open. For that matter, you're welcome to April-May if your real world issues have subsided to the point that you might want it. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:29, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This award comes in five grades: Base Grade (no stars, awardable to DRN volunteers or to individuals involved in a dispute) and Grades 1-4 (1-4 stars, respectively, awardable only to DRN volunteers).
Thanks TransporterMan, but I must respectfully decline the award. Since I was rather inactive on Wikipedia, and consequently didn't do much work on the DRN, I don't feel that I deserve it. Of course, it is my intention to be more active if I ever take the position again, so I'll most likely accept the award next time. Regards, --Biblioworm21:30, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
March drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 38 people who signed up, 18 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
April blitz: The one-week April blitz, again targeting our long requests list, will run from April 19–25. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one article from the requests page. Sign up here!
May drive: The month-long May backlog-reduction drive, with extra credit for articles tagged in December 2013, January and February 2014 and all request articles, begins soon. Sign up now!
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Biblioworm and Philg88.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article William Gabriel Davy you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Calvin999 -- Calvin999 (talk) 10:01, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Calvin. I was planning on making some of the other requested changes today (the ones that were possible, of course), but I greatly appreciate your promotion of the article. --Biblioworm17:12, 25 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the reply I had already written when you removed the post: They are red for me. When you loaded the page they had probably been deleted after the page was last rendered. A purge should render the page again and show they are deleted. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:13, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Biblioworm. Please check your email; you've got mail! Message added 15:33, 8 May 2015 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Hi. I think we're in a bit of a quandry. I'd quite like to carry on going through your GA review comments, but the IP has reverted everything so none of your action points make sense anymore. I could revert myself, but I'd rather not as I find it's easier to get effective dispute resolution when the article is on the WP:WRONGVERSION. Unfortunately, an edit war is grounds to quickfail a GA review, which would be a real kick in the teeth after we've both spent several days working diligently on this. What else can we do? Ritchie333(talk)(cont)15:46, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Are you planning to finish copyediting this article? It's the last one left from February (and we're almost done with March), and you accepted the request almost a month ago. All the best, Miniapolis17:08, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Jonas Vinther: Yes, of course; I'll get started shortly. I was busy over the past few days as a result of some things which needed to get done. Not to mention that I've been researching and reading about historical subjects whose articles I'm planning to improve. Regards, --Biblioworm21:36, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Biblioworm. I can understand and respect the fact you're busy with real life things, but the GA-review of Erhard Heiden has, still, not begun. If you won't have time to do it, please let me know and I will try to find someone else to review it. Cheers, Jonas Vinther • (speak to me!) 11:18, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's strange that WP don't have independent Heroine article yet. It exists as redirect to Hero. I can't create it. You are copy editor; you can create it.--C E (talk)12:42, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@CosmicEmperor: Hi. I don't understand why you can't create the article. Simply being a copy editor, or even a GOCE coordinator, gives me no extra authority over anyone here. You have just as much of a right to create the article as I do. Regards, --Biblioworm21:36, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Removing copyedit template
Hi, I have just finished copyediting this article, but I can't find the copyedit template to remove. Would you mind giving me a hint regards what I am supposed to be looking for? Thank you Cottonshirtτ13:13, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker)Hi Cottonshirt, thanks for your copy-editing work; the template markup you were looking for is at the top of the article, nested inside the {{Multiple issues}} template:
This produces the text: "This article needs copy editing in order to create readable prose, proper spacing, and/or standard section length." I've taken the liberty of removing it and re-tagging with more appropriate templates; the article has more problems than a copy-edit can fix. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 20:57, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for responding, Baffle. I see that I have 40 talk page stalkers already; I take it that you're one of them? ;) --Biblioworm21:36, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We would like to announce the start of the 2nd GA Cup, a competition that seeks to encourage the reviewing of Good article nominations! Our inaugural competition, which ran from October 2014 to April 2015, was such a resounding success that we'd like to do it again. Currently, there are over 500 GANs ready to be reviewed; competitors in the previous GA Cup reviewed about 570 GAs, so we can again make a huge impact in helping editors improve articles in Wikipedia and decrease the traditionally long queue at GAN.
The 2nd GA Cup will begin on July 1, 2015. As last time, five rounds are currently scheduled (which will bring the competition to a close on November 28, 2015), but this may change based on participant numbers. The judges learned a lot during the 1st GA Cup which exposed weaknesses in its system. Using both the feedback from last year's participants and the weaknesses discovered, we've revised the scoring system to make it more fair. The sign-up and submissions process will remain the same.
We also are introducing three new judges: 3family6, Jaguar and MrWooHoo. So in total, there will be six judges. We hope this will allow the competition to run more smoothly.
Sign-ups for the upcoming competition are currently open and will close on July 15, 2015. Everyone is welcome to join; new and old editors, so sign-up now!
If you have any questions, take a look at the FAQ page and/or contact one of the judges.
May drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 38 people who signed up, 29 copyedited at least one article, and we got within 50 articles of our all-time low in the backlog. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
Coordinator elections:
Nominations are open through June 15 for GOCE coordinators, with voting from June 16–30. Self-nominations are welcome and encouraged.
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Biblioworm and Philg88.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
What is the difference between fairy tales, Folk tales and folklore?
There is a space in between Scottish Folk Tales and there is not Japanese folktales.
Concerning the article titles, "Scottish Folk Tales" is spaced because it is the title of a book, and that is how the author titled it. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if you write "folk tales" or "folktales". To answer your second question, none have weight, since they are not based upon established fact. I don't know too much about this topic, but I'll try to explain from my understanding. "Folklore" is a general term for tales or stories told in a certain culture. However, some types of these stories are different in nature. Fairy tales are undoubtedly fictional, and were told purely for entertainment. However, some other stories, or myths, were (and are) actually believed by some people. British and Celtic mythology is a good example of this. For instance, there are accounts that claim the existence of creatures such as the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland or the Black Shuck in East Anglia. However, there are not enough reliable confirmations for these creatures' existence to be considered a fact, and there almost certainly never will be. In summary, fairy tales are universally acknowledged as fictional, while other types of lore, such as the existence of mythological creatures, are believed by some. I might be over-simplifying this explanation, so if I happen to have any talk page watchers who are more knowledgeable in this field, I'd appreciate a better answer. Finally, once again, being a copy editor does not make me a dictionary or an authoritative source... --Biblioworm17:31, 12 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Due to some issues that have recently arisen in real life, I'm afraid that Wikipedia is of comparatively quite low priority. Therefore, I am currently taking a break of indeterminate length, which may last for a considerable time (i.e., weeks). Messages left on this talk page will not receive a timely reply. My email, though, is enabled, so any messages of very significant importance can be sent there through Wikipedia's email system. I do, however, hope to return in the near future. Regards, --Biblioworm01:55, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I am still not back to full activity levels, and may not be for quite some time, but I feel that it's now appropriate to change the banner on my talk page to "semi-wikibreak", since I may make the occasional edit(s). Regards, --Biblioworm23:00, 27 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hey there! The Co-op has been on a hiatus for a bit, but we are planning on opening up shop again soon. When you're able, please read over and respond to this update on our talk page. We have favorable results from our final report regarding the pilot, and we are interested in seeing who is available to mentor when we reopen our space and begin to send out invites again. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:16, 24 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I might be wrong but I don't think this is right. DQ voted once and proxied for Native Foreigner, who apparently voted via a mailing list. No biggie, certainly not in the scale of all the crap that is flying around! - Sitush (talk) 00:07, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
By motion, the Arbitration Committee authorises the following injunction effective immediately:
The case is to be opened forthwith and entitled "Arbitration enforcement";
During the case, no user who has commented about this matter on the AN page, the AE page or the Case Requests page, may take or initiate administrative action involving any of the named parties in this case.
Reports of alleged breaches of (2) are to be made only by email to the Arbitration Committee, via the main contact page.
By motion, the committee authorises the following injunction effective immediately:
The [Arbitration enforcement] case [request] is to be opened forthwith and entitled "Arbitration enforcement";
During the case, no user who has commented about this matter on the AN page, the AE page or the Case Requests page, may take or initiate administrative action involving any of the named parties in this case.
Reports of alleged breaches of (2) are to be made only by email to the Arbitration Committee, via the main contact page.
Hi there! I'm User:Adelaide from wikiHow, but not very active here, I just come in occasionally to sign in and check my notifications and everything. We communicate a lot on wikiHow, so I just thought I'd stop in and say hi to a familiar 'face'! Are you still active here? EmilyREditor (talk)
Hello! Yes, I'm still quite active here, although temporarily not as active as normal. I had no idea that you had an account here... --Biblioworm14:13, 1 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh! I've had an account for years, longer than wikiHow...and yeah, if you had seen me two years ago, I was a lot less mature, and even went so far as to get blocked and whine when I was blocked...I am now maturing my attitude and trying to pop in here when I can. I need to get to editing here a bit! EmilyREditor (talk) 23:41, 1 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Just wondering! Are you an admin here? I'm looking at your contributions so I can get some inspiration and perhaps do more here, in addition to all the stuff I do for wikiHow.... EmilyREditor (talk) 03:36, 3 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You are receiving this message either because you are a party to the Arbitration enforcement arbitration case, because you have commented in the case request, or the AN or AE discussions leading to this arbitration case, or because you have specifically opted in to receiving these messages. Unless you are a party to this arbitration case, you may opt out of receiving further messages at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement/Notification list. The drafters of the Arbitration enforcement arbitration case have published a revised timetable for the case, which changes what you may have been told when the case was opened. The dates have been revised as follows: the Evidence phase will close 5 July 2015, one week earlier than originally scheduled; the Workshop phase will close 26 July 2015, one week later than originally scheduled; the Proposed decision is scheduled to be posted 9 August 2015, two weeks later than originally scheduled. Thank you. On behalf of the arbitration clerks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:58, 1 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@EmilyREditor: No, I'm not an admin here, but I do have about 7.6k edits and 10 months of experience, so I'll do what I can. To answer your question on editing constructively, it really depends on your interests. I could give general advice, but it would be somewhat better for you if I were able to give more specific advice. Also, it is important to keep in mind that Wikipedia is quite different from wikiHow in many ways. Perhaps the most relevant example here is that Wikipedia is not a how-to site, so attempts to add instructions to an article will almost always be reverted. (Adding instructions on avoiding sunburn in the sunburn article, for instance.) It is also important to keep in mind that Wikipedia is overall run by much more direct community involvement than on wikiHow, where most of the deletion voting and other things are done by special usergroups. Overall, a good starting point might be Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. --Biblioworm15:22, 3 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@EmilyREditor: It just occurred to me that you may want to check out the Community Portal. There are many possible tasks listed there, and you can always click "More..." if you're interested in a specific task. Also, a very helpful tool is CatScan. For instance, if you're interested in copy editing articles about the Middle Ages (one of my personal interests), you would enter "Wikipedia articles needing copy edit" and "Middle Ages" in the "Categories" text box. For "Depth", something like 5 is typically best. After that, click the "Do It!" button near the bottom of the page. Using the tool, you may be able to get a list of articles you're interested in which need a specific type of work. I hope that's helpful. --Biblioworm00:25, 4 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Motion passed in AE arbitration case granting amnesty and rescinding previous temporary injunction
This message is sent at 12:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC) by Arbitration Clerk User:Penwhale via MassMessage on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. You are receiving this message because your name appears on this list and have not elected to opt-out of being notified of development in the arbitration case.
On 5 July, 2015, the following motion was passed and enacted:
Paragraphs (2) and (3) of the Arbitration Committee's motion of 29 June 2015 about the injunction and reporting breaches of it are hereby rescinded.
The Arbitration Committee hereby declares an amnesty covering:
the original comment made by Eric Corbett on 25 June 2015 and any subsequent related comments made by him up until the enactment of this current motion; and
the subsequent actions related to that comment taken by Black Kite, GorillaWarfare, Reaper Eternal, Kevin Gorman, GregJackP and RGloucester before this case was opened on 29 June 2015.
The next step is to wait a few days and see how many applicants we get. In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions you like. - Dank (push to talk) 04:42, 12 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, odds are good that you've got the job. I'm assuming you don't want to do Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 24, 2015, and I've done all the other TFAs that have been scheduled so far. Brian hasn't scheduled the last 3 days of July yet, and Chris will be doing August. It would probably be best for you to keep an eye on WP:TFAA, and if you see something get scheduled that you'd like to do, let me know before I get started on it. - Dank (push to talk) 22:18, 14 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing happens on that page that will show up on your watchlist, you have to actually eyeball the page. (You could watchlist each day's TFA separately like I do, but that would probably be overkill.) - Dank (push to talk) 03:03, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it was summarized at TFAR. I haven't read it yet, but I find that I usually make tweaks to columns that have been through TFAR. If nothing jumps out at you, then it's fine to do a different column. - Dank (push to talk) 15:05, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's nearly perfect. I made some minor tweaks ... nothing for you to worry about, but I can explain if you like. I'm happy you're on board. - Dank (push to talk) 01:05, 19 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article William G. Farrow you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ceradon -- Ceradon (talk) 05:21, 14 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@SovalValtos: Hi. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking here. Are you asking if the wreck took place near Scotland? I uploaded the new image because I wanted to fix an issue or two and have a more specific name for it. --Biblioworm21:28, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think the newspaper that the image is sourced from is likely Dundee Scotland rather than Dundee Africa, so I am suggesting adding to the caption '(Scotland)' so that it reads "A sketch depicting the wreck of the RIMS Warren Hastings, published by the Dundee Courier (Scotland) on 24 March 1897." ie disambiguation as to which paper is the source. SovalValtos (talk) 21:33, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Dream Focus: If your account is doing things which you don't recall doing, you might consider changing your password as a safety precaution, just in case it's been hacked. --Biblioworm21:37, 21 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wednesday saw the end of Round 1. The Rambling Man, who was eliminated during the first round in our last competition, earned an impressive 513 points, reviewed twice as many articles (26) as any other competitor. It was a tight race for second for first-time competitors BenLinus1214 and Tomandjerry211, who finished second and third with 243 and 224 points, respectively. Close behind was Wugapodes, who earned 205 points.
The change in our points system had an impact on scoring. It was easier to earn higher points, although the key to success didn't change from last time, which was choosing articles with older nomination dates. For example, most of the articles The Rambling Man reviewed were worth 18 points in the nomination date category, and he benefited from it. BenLinus1214 reviewed the longest article, A Simple Plan (at 26,536 characters, or 4,477 words), the 1994 film starring Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bridget Fonda and directed by Sam Raimi, and earned all possible 5 points in that category.
After feedback from our participants, the judges slightly changed the rule about review length this time out. Shorter reviews are now allowed, as long as reviewers give nominators an opportunity to address their feedback. Shorter reviews are subject to the judges' discretion; the judges will continue their diligence as we continue the competition.
Despite having fewer contestants at the beginning of Round 1 than last time, 132 articles were reviewed, far more than the 117 articles that were reviewed in Round 1 of the inaugural GA Cup. All of us involved should be very proud of what we've accomplished thus far. The judges are certain that Round 2 will be just as successful.
16 contestants have moved onto Round 2 and have been randomly placed in 4 groups of 4, with the top 2 in each pool progressing to Round 3, as well as the top participant ("9th place") of all remaining competitors. Round 2 has already begun and will end on August 29 at 23:59:59 UTC. Information about Round 2 and the pools can be found here.
To subscribe or unsubscribe to future GA Cup newsletter, please add or remove your name to our mailing list. If you are a participant still competing, you will be on the mailing list no matter what as this is the easiest way to communicate between all participants.
Congratulations, that went really well ... people made only minor tweaks on its TFA day. You may want to watchlist the last 3 days in August and every day in September, if you'd like to grab more TFAs to do before I do them (I generally can't afford to wait more than a day or two to get started on them). - Dank (push to talk) 17:12, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The person who nominated the article at FAC (hereafter "the nom") has condensed it. You're still welcome to work on it. - Dank (push to talk) 15:39, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I had a look and fixed some minor issues and MOS stuff. It's in pretty good shape now. Brian will get back to scheduling new TFAs tomorrow; keep an eye out for them. - Dank (push to talk) 17:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
RfA
With further reference to your comment here, the fact is you coudn't possibly have known, not from anywhere on Wikipedia, and not from any email I sent and that at no time did I ever make such a suggestion to the candidate. In fact my message was a clear piece of advice warning the candidate that they are not ready. You can understand therefore that this issue gives me pause. Bear in mind also that if I had produced a link to the thread on my talk page to the bureaucrats, as I could have done and nearly did, it may well have been the deal breaker for that RfA. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:56, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Kudpung: Hi. Unless my brain is becoming severely delusional, I do seem to recall that you once made a very vague insinuation that you would support Liz at RfA. Of course, I'm no email hacker, and there have not been any correspondence leaks that I'm aware of, so this comment I recall was made publlcly. If you wish to know the details, then I will mention what I remember: You once commented that a certain candidate (was it MelanieN?) practically had to be forced to RfA, and I seem to remember that you addressed Liz in some related discussion asking if she would resist the prospect of an RfA. I don't remember the details of the wording or anything of that sort, but I interpreted the comment as something of an unclear suggestion that you might want Liz to be an administrator. That's what I remember, but perhaps it was all false and I've gone mad or it was just a dream. ;) --Biblioworm(talk)05:24, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Before messaging you, and because today was the first occasion I had time, I checked every message from me to Liz since 2013 and every message from her to me. That said, I usually keep extremely quiet about whom I suggest might be ready for RfA, as most of us do, that's why I was very surprised when I woke up one morning to see an RfA from her, especially as I had sent her some advice only a couple of weeks previously. Perhaps what you thought was wishful thinking. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:05, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe. It wouldn't be the first time, since I occasionally "remember" things that no one else does. I could look for that diff, but I would be a time-consuming process and in any case I'm not sure if the matter is really so important that I should put so much effort into it. --Biblioworm(talk)14:30, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I put the time into it. But then, I'm old-fashioned stickler for correctitude. I suppose I can't expect everyone on Wikipedia to be the same or to have the same amount of time. But that's the problem here when people make assumptions that get challenged. If push came to shove, I'm very sure you would vehemently protest your integrity if someone challenged you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:05, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you please, I will try to look for it, but is what might perhaps be a little mistake on my part be turned into such a large issue? Of course I care about correctness, and I would (and do) defend my integrity, but the difference is that you're retired and could theoretically spend all the time in the world searching for something on Wikipedia, while I on the other hand do have a certain amount of time restraints, and therefore I prefer to spend my time here on larger-scale efforts; not hunting for a single diff that might simply be a wild goose chase and in the long run is quite insignificant. Maybe it was another user who said that to Liz, or you did say it but addressed it to another user. I might have made a mistake, and anyhow I simply came to your talk page to ask you a question. I see enough disproportionate inflation of minor issues in real life, and I don't edit here to see more of it. --Biblioworm(talk)03:04, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Don't bother. The purpose of my message was to point out that it is possibly not prudent to challenge people's integrity if one is not sure. AGF is a Wikipedia policy. And as for me being retired, don't kid yourself - some of us have even more things, important ones, to do than when we were active for the organisations that employed us. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:35, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I was challenging your integrity. How could I possibly have challenged your integrity and violated AGF in my comment? I said, "Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think I recall you making several comments in the past..." (emphasis mine) Although it was not a question in the fullest sense, it was written with the intention of receiving your clarification, and words I italicized quite plainly show that I left open the possibility that I was incorrect. Therefore, I was not sure. As I have said above, I likely made a mistake (which everyone makes plenty of), especially when I said "several comments". --Biblioworm(talk)21:02, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the late response, We were still in the process of writing up content for our Wiki Page.
Please let me know when you're ready and I'll send the content over to you. Thanks!
July drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 24 people who signed up, 17 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
August blitz: The one-week April blitz, targeting biographical articles that have been tagged for copy editing for over a year, will run from August 16–22. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one article from the article list on the blitz page. Sign up here!
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators, Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, KieranTribe, Miniapolis, and Pax85.
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Hi Biblioworm. I noticed your comments at WT:RfA about possibly running for adminship. For what it's worth I've been keeping half an eye on you as a possible admin candidate and concur with the sentiment that you'd probably do quite well given 3-6 more months :) Sam Walton (talk) 17:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Biblioworm! You said you've been collecting Admin attrition data – I was wondering if you had starting working up that data on a userpage that the rest of us could take a look at?... Thanks in advance! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:50, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@IJBall: I do have that data, in fact. It's here if you want to see it (you may also find the brief history I wrote interesting), but at the moment it's quite raw and I have yet to organize it so that it's actually useful. --Biblioworm19:48, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, some minor suggestions here (which I don't think affect anything you've done here, really):
First, this is incidental (as it's not even the main thrust of your analysis), but I would appraise "active" Admins differently – what Wikipedia:List of administrators/Active is pretty close to useless, so instead I'd use AdminStats and use that to figure out which of the 66 promoted (or repromoted) Admins have done at least one Admin action per month since passing their RfA.
Second, I would include a link to User:WereSpielChequers/RFA by month in the article text itself, not just in the 'Note' – it's important data, and probably needs to be linked to, front-and-center, in the article. And in regards to the RfA per Month results, I think I interpret a little differently: I'd argue that the number of successful RfA's per year has actually been relatively static (2013 is a bit of an outlier) since 2012 – but if there end up being about 25 promotions in 2015 like I expect, then 2012, 2014, and 2015 will yield pretty similar RfA success results. Now, I dunno what that means towards your analysis, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.
Finally, a bit of "extra" data that might be interesting is a breakdown in the "Desysopped admins since 1/1/14" numbers between those desysopped for inactivity (e.g. Wikipedia:Inactive administrators) or asked to be desysopped for inactivity at WP:BN vs. those desysopped by Arbcom (e.g. Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/for cause or who apparently resigned "under a cloud" (that'll be harder to figure out – it'd probably involve looking at Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/resigned and then possibly searching through ANI...). (*Also, note that one Admin, Cindamuse, apparently died in the time period you're looking at...)
I'll try to implement some of your suggestions. The issue with the first one is that active admins is intended to be one of the central points of my analysis (e.g., by showing how we're gaining active admins at a pitifully slow rate compared to the admins we're losing). And I'm not sure how to use that AdminStats tool... --Biblioworm15:11, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think I can answer the last one – set the starting date to "2014-01-01" (as that's your analysis' starting date), and leave the end date blank (it will be up to the present day); that will get you a list of all of the Admins, and their Admin actions, during that period (warning, it took me a long time to get this – the search took 2 minutes! note also that, for some reason, when I did this, it didn't include the Admins who have done zero Admin actions during the time period like it has when I've done this before). Now, this is where things get tedious – you'd have to manually search through the list for the 66 Admins promoted during your time period, look at their total number of Admin actions, and then divide that by the number of months they were an Admin during their period, to see how many Admin actions they did per month... The reason why I think this data (as opposed to just the official "Active" data) is interesting, is that it'll give a better idea of which editors passed RfA and then basically didn't use their tool! (much). I'm actually interested if there any people going through RfA essentially to "hat collect" and thus who never really end up using the tools after passing. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:55, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Biblioworm. I saw your comment about gathering admin data on the RfA talk page and I thought I might be able to collect some of that data quicker. Like IJBall said, active admin is a far more important measure than just admin. So, I wrote a Java script that pulls data from Special:Log for each admin. So far I have the last block each admin performed as well as the last delete they performed (either page or revdel). Is there any other admin actions you think I should include in that? I can pull information from any log I have access to. The data I have so far is actually really interesting. A little more than half of those with admin flags have done either a block or a delete in 2015. I am putting together a chart as well and, if it is alright, I would be happy to share all the data I have pulled. --Stabila711 (talk) 10:34, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I just wanted to let you know that I finished going through the data and making the chart. You can see it at my sandbox. It is interesting that the data fell into a basic reverse bell curve. Admins who are active are active now (339 270 out of the 1310 have performed an admin action in the last week). However there are a lot of admins who have not touched the mop in over two years, 300 340 to be exact (at least not in the deletion or blocking fields). --Stabila711 (talk) 11:34, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting data, and tracks with what I've found separately – that when it comes to real "activity", there are really only about 300 or so Admins that are "active" at any given time. @Stabila711: the one other Admin "action" you want to include besides blocking, deleting or revdeling is page protection/unprotection – so I'd add article protection actions to your script. (You could also include User Rights changes in "Admin actions", but there are so few of those that I don't think it would change your overall numbers...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:22, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There was a flaw in my IF statements that was causing the values to be off. I fixed it and have updated the chart to reflect the true values --Stabila711 (talk) 12:03, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting data, Stabila. I originally wanted to measure activity based upon admin actions, but unfortunately I didn't know how to do that. Now, I'd like to request something: would you know how to make a script that measures activity based upon admin actions according to the activity standard used here? In other words, find the number of current admins who have made at least thirty admin actions over the last two months. And then, if you don't mind, could you do the same for the admins promoted since the beginning of last year? Include both successful RfAs and resysopped users. (If only I knew how to do scripting like that, I would do it myself, but I only know how to use HTML and CSS.) If it's too much for you then I'll post a request elsewhere. --Biblioworm15:42, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Biblioworm: If I am measuring 30 administrative actions that should be doable I just have to think about it for a little bit script wise. Also, if you are looking for 30 admin actions are you alright with the ones I am using currently (plus the page protection that I am adding now)? Once the script is worked out for everyone it will just be a matter of picking out those that have been given the mop in 2015. Quick question though, I know where to find those that passed RfA in 2015 but where do I find resyops? --Stabila711 (talk) 16:22, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@IJBall: I will run the script again looking for page protections as well. It might change the numbers a little but as for the active admins (actions in the last week), I don't think it will change that much. --Stabila711 (talk) 16:22, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@IJBall:@Biblioworm: Alright, so I reran the numbers for a single administrative action including page protection changes and it did change the stats a little but not enough to make a significant difference. The chart on my sandbox has been updated to reflect these changes. The number of admins who have done a single action in the last week is 284 out of 1,310. I will start to work on the 30 actions in two months script after I grab some lunch. I want to say give me a few hours to get everything working right but that may be overly optimistic. In any case I should have it done relatively soon. --Stabila711 (talk) 17:14, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
So I believe I finally got the script to cooperate. The problem right now is the sheer amount of data that is being sifted through. It is probably going to take a few hours just to count the admin actions performed. In the meantime, @Biblioworm: what format are you looking for with this data? Do you just want a list of names of admins who have performed over 30 actions in the last two months? Do you want a chart of the "most active" admins? Or something else? --Stabila711 (talk) 01:27, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Biblioworm:@IJBall: Alright so the data finally finished pulling. There are 243 admins who have performed 30 admin actions within the last two months. The data regarding the 2015 new admins and resyops are below in the collapsed table. There are 30 people who have gained admin status in 2015. Of those 16 are definitely active, 11 are definitely inactive, and the other 3 have special circumstances and can't be accurately included in either group.
Thank you, Stabila711. So this shows that only a little over 50% of admins we've "gained" this year actually make substantial contributions. This is incredibly useful. How nice it would be if we had a WMFlabs tool that updated the list of active admins (based upon admin actions), or a page periodically updated by a bot (like this one, but as I mentioned above it would list admins based upon actions they have taken as an admins). I know he has a lot of work to do already, but perhaps Cyberpower678 could be of help or at least refer us to someone who would be willing to do this. --Biblioworm15:45, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, more specifically, I think it shows that a significant percentage of Admins who've been resysopped (esp. those resysopped by making a request to WP:BN) aren't making substantial contributions. Which certainly calls the rationale for allowing "inactive-to-lapsed Admins" to simply ask WP:BN to get their bits back into question... But the RfA-passed "new" Admins are all looking fine, at least within the first months of gaining Adminship. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:31, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think the most interesting part of all this is the idea that the "we have 1,300" admins statistic, while technically correct, is in practice completely wrong. Only around 300 (about 20%) of those with admin flags are actually actively performing admin activities. I believe it was Jimbo that originally said (and I may be paraphrasing), adminship was granted to people who proved they weren't idiots. Now with the gauntlet of RfA, are we really attracting enough admins to perform the job and who will perform the job? --Stabila711 (talk) 22:50, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I kind of felt sorry for the nominator as he/she had been led up the garden path by a reviewer who passed it in order to get his GA passes up, and paid little regard to the fact that the article was...well...terrible! As I know very little, I came across DrChrissy who knows a thing or two about animals, so I roped her in too. You are very welcome and the more the merrier! CassiantoTalk18:21, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I ask you to assist in a dispute. You are listed as a helper. Others that I checked are not active anymore but you are.
Versus was edit warring and was blocked twice for that. He is blocked for a few more hours. As soon as he was blocked, new people appeared to argue his way, people that weren't around before.
Let's get the to fact, though.
2015 Thalys train attack
There is a passenger list. It has changed many times. Sometimes it is about the people who subdued the gunman. Other times it was the injured passengers. Still other times, the involved passengers. The list, no matter how it is phrased is quite short.
There is an effort to hide the name of one passenger, Anglade, who is very well cited in many reports. All news reports mention Stone. Many mention Skarlatos. The third most cited is Anglade. Granted, he did not shoot the attacker but is mentioned many times in many sources and was injured. Incidentally, sources also mention that Anglade starred in the French film (was the lead actor) "The Wounded Man". Some editors do not want this even though this was one of the actors most cited work (probably his 3rd most famous film).
Wikipedia should not hide stuff.
I am mindful of consensus but there is no consensus here. Some editors are busy and have chimed in only once or twice (in my favor), such as Green Cardamom and Tough Sailor. However, correctness has a value, not only consensus. There is a consensus in eastern Syria to behead Americans and Europeans but that doesn't make it right. There is also a consensus for the election which elected Hitler and Kim Jong Un. Sandra opposed to terrorism (talk) 19:39, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sandra. Unfortunately, I'm quite busy with other projects here and currently I really don't have time to resolve complicated disputes. I see that you posted at the DRN a few minutes ago, so just wait for someone to take the case. There are many other active users who help there. If that fails after several rounds, there is always WP:MEDCOM. Thanks, --Biblioworm20:42, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Greetings, all! We hope that everyone had a nice summer.
Saturday saw the end of Round 2. Things went relatively smoothly this month. The top 2 from 4 pools, plus the top participant (the wildcard, or "9th place") of all remaining competitors, moved onto Round 3. We had one withdrawal early in Round 2, so he was replaced by the next-highest scorer from Round 1. Round 2's highest scorer was Pool D's Tomandjerry211, who earned an impressive 366 points; he also reviewed the most articles (19). Close behind was Zwerg Nase, also in Pool D, at 297 points and 16 articles. The wildcard slot went to Good888. Congrats to all!
Round 3 will have 9 competitors in 3 pools. The key to moving forward was reviewing articles with the longest nomination dates, as it has been in every round up to now. For example, 2 competitors only needed to review 2 articles each to win in their pools, and each article were either from the pink nomination box (20 points) or had languished in the queue for over 5 months (18 points). The GA Cup continues to be a success in many ways, even with fewer competitors this time. For some reason, the competitors in the 2015 GA Cup have reviewed fewer articles in Round 2, which has made the judges scratch their head in confusion. We've speculated many reasons for that: the summer months and vacations, our competitors are saving their strength for the final rounds, or they all live in the Pacific Northwest and the heavy wildfire smoke has affected their thinking. Whatever the reason, Round 2 competitors reviewed almost 100 articles, which is a significant impact in the task of reviewing articles for GA status. We've considered that the lower participation this competition is due to timing, so we intend to discuss the best time frame for future GA Cups.
For Round 3, participants have been placed randomly in 3 pools of 3 contestants each; the top editor in each pool will progress, as well as the top 2 of all remaining users. Round 3 will start on September 1 at 0:00:01 UTC and end on September 28 at 23:59:59 UTC. Information about Round 3 and the pools can be found here.
Good luck to the remaining contestants, and have fun!
To subscribe or unsubscribe to future GA Cup newsletter, please add or remove your name to our mailing list. If you are a participant still competing, you will be on the mailing list no matter what as this is the easiest way to communicate between all participants.
Thanks for tackling this one. You've got it down to 1207 characters. The new cap (per discussion at WT:TFA) is 1200. You could probably do without "September and October". It's looking good. - Dank (push to talk) 20:25, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I did some tightening on this, I hope that's okay. I didn't have a chance to give it much thought until I went back through this month's TFAs yesterday. In the future, I'll try to give you whatever feedback I have within a day or two of your work. - Dank (push to talk) 09:41, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Biblioworm. You sorta-kinda offered to copyedit this requested article, but you haven't worked on it in a couple of weeks and it's now near the top of the queue (which means that I'll bite the bullet and take it :-)). Are you done with it, or do you intend to continue? If the former, please strike through your acceptance (so other copyeditors will know it's available) and indicate what you've already done so they don't have to wade through the history. All the best, Miniapolis14:12, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
My last edit was actually on the 14th. Anyway, I intend to work on this article through the history section, since that is the most interesting part to me. Afterwards, I'll tag the request as partly done. --Biblioworm16:07, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Just note on the request where you leave off; it'll make it easier for whoever takes over (which may be me :-)). All the best, Miniapolis22:55, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @IJBall:. Many apologies for the late reply. I had been busier than usual for the past week or two, and I on top of that I was dealing with computer speed issues. These two things settled down recently, and yesterday I was taking care of something else. So, back to the point, my RfA criteria is here. --Biblioworm19:48, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
GA Cup competitors and observers: Happy Fall! Get ready, we're about to move into the finals of the second-ever GA Cup!
Monday saw the end of Round 3. Out of the 8 contestants in the semi-finals, 5 have moved to the finals. The semi-finals were competitive. Our semi-finalists reviewed a total of 61 articles, or a grand total of 1,151 points. If you were to lump the top winners from each of the three pools together, it'd be a close horse race; they were within 35 points of each other, which can only mean that the finals will be an exciting race. Tomandjerry211, our top scorer in Round 2, again earned the most points in the semi-finals, with 288 points and 16 articles reviewed. Johanna came in second overall, with 251 points and 13 articles reviewed; Sturmvogel 66 came in third overall, with 221 points and 16 articles. Rounding out our wildcard slots are Zwerg Nase and The Rambling Man. These contestants were very strategic in how they reviewed articles. Like every other round in the history of the GA Cup, success depended upon reviewing oldest-nominated articles. For example, Johanna reviewed 5 articles that were worth the highest possible points. Congrats to all our finalists, and good luck!
Stay tuned to this space for more information about the 2nd GA Cup, including overall statistics and how this competition has affected Wikipedia. We regret to inform you that Dom497, one of our original judges and co-creator of the GA Cup, has stepped down as a judge. Dom, a longtime member of WP:WikiProject Good articles, is responsible for the look of the GA Cup and has been instrumental in its upkeep. We wish him the best as he starts his university education, and are certain that he'll make an impact there as he has in Wikipedia.
The finals started on October 1 at 0:00:01 UTC and will end on Ocober 29 at 23:59:59 UTC with a winner being crowned. Information about the Final can be found here.
To subscribe or unsubscribe to future GA Cup newsletter, please add or remove your name to our mailing list. If you are a participant still competing, you will be on the mailing list no matter what as this is the easiest way to communicate between all participants.
@Biblioworm:, I very much enjoyed reading your op-ed which covers the admin issues which is a nice follow-up to the last op-ed about admins (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-02-18/Editorial). I did have a couple of questions/points I wanted to make:
There have been 47 closed RfAs as of October 3, 2015. A mere 15 of these (about 32%) were successful, and 32 were unsuccessful. Is this since January 2015 or is it a 12 month period you are looking at? It would be nice to know the date where this calculation began.
...the typical 2015 RfA candidate has around 6–9 years of experience and 30,000–50,000 edits...I've probably read over a hundred successful and unsuccessful RfAs and it might be nice for you to look at some RfAs from the boom years (2005-2007) and see what the typical requirements were then, for comparisons' sake. I remember seeing editors who had been active for 3 months and had 1,000 edits passing their RfA and I don't think that was unusual.
You mention that there now are 1.7 new admins/month and it also might be useful to mention during the boom years, there was an average of 1 new admin/day. When I archived all of the Signpost's articles, I noticed that there was once a record week when there were twenty new admins that had passed RfAs and who were welcomed.
Now, before I'm misunderstood, I am not at all opposed to the act of content creation itself. I think this sentence will have the opposite affect you intend. Instead of saying, "I'm not opposed to content creation" say "Now, I support content creation, but...". It says the same thing but what the reader's mind remembers from the first sentence is "I", "opposed", "content". I think it will provoke a reaction in the comments section and will distract from your main points.
It makes more sense for every !vote to be given equal consideration, which would mean a 50%+1 bar for passing. It also might be useful to point out that the bar for becoming an arbitrator, which is a responsibility that can have an enormous impact on the project, is typically 50%+. If we required 75%+ support for arbitrators, the committee would be about 3 members.
While this is a subject for another op-ed piece, I think it is informative to look at the year 2007, see what issues the community was dealing with and see why the requirements for candidates and the scrutiny that they are given increased astronomically. There were some bad cases of admins screwing up, lying and getting dessyoped and therefore many editors became more suspicious of candidates because they were no longer looked at as benign figures. Part of the decrease in candidates has to do with the lifecycle of online communities but when you are proposing lowering requirements, it's important to see why they went up in the first place...when adminship was given easily, there were a few truly unqualified editors getting the tools and doing damage. This led to a backlash that exists to this day along with a general fear of promoting editors who will misuse or abuse the tools. It's too bad that a few awful admins led to this perspective but it exists, even years later.
Thank you for the op-ed, we appreciate your contribution. We may be publishing within the next hour or two, so please make any final edits to your piece before then. If you want me to delay until next week, let me know asap. Gamaliel (talk) 20:38, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Gamaliel. I was off doing something else for a few hours which needed undivided attention, so unfortunately I was unable to do anything else with the article. --Biblioworm02:26, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I, too, appreciate the research and effort that went into that op-ed, Biblioworm. I disagree with most of your sentiment but I can see you want what's best for the project and taking the time to address a perceived problem is the right thing to do. Chris Troutman (talk)19:34, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Biblioworm – I too just read your Signpost essay, and it is very good. But I wonder if it's missing a very important factor: it may not be just that the RfA process is too rigorous and unpleasant – what if part of the problem that the very job of Adminship has become unattractive to most experienced editors?! (I know that's kind of where I've ended up on the question...) If this is the problem, reforming RfA may actually not help in getting more Admin candidates all that much!... Anyway, just an idea had after reading your essay. Anyway, kudos! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:56, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Here's another one, dating from 2008 - Wikipedia:RfA Review. We took statistical data and user responses and tried to put together proposals, but it petered out when one coordinator left the project entirely and the other (me) had a family health crisis. The first bits might be useful, despite their age. Good luck. UltraExactZZSaid~ Did13:09, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Times for more admins?
Thanks for the RFA work. I hope you don't mind me dumping this here until I find somewhere better.. With more admins we get more 24-hour coverage, which has always been of great importance to Wikipedia. I've noticed there are some parts of the week when there's only a few admins around to deal with time-sensitive issues. Perhaps you'd be interested in looking out for this time element next time you're analysing data. -- zzuuzz(talk)19:03, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
RfA reform
I'm sorry if it sounds as if I'm giving you a hard time at WT:RfA, no one realises more than I do how important it is to get RfA cleaned up once and for all and encourage more candidates of the right calibre to come forward, and I do understand your passion for bringing about some positive change. However, as I think you already said once, on some things we'll have to agree to disagree. There is a lot of talk at WT:RfA - that's what the page is for - but that's all it is: just talk. At the end of the day, as far as reform goes, it's very rare that anyone actually does anything. I did in 2011, Dank did a couple of years later, and there may have been a few minor proposals that petered out. Whether I concur with your theories or not I would like to encourage you to consider consolidating your thoughts and theories soon and offer them as a formal proposal for change. A well formed RfC should be on its own page rather than something in the middle of a noisy page at the VP, and well publicised.. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:47, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kudpung. I'm actually already doing that at Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform. I'm beginning to comment less at the RfC I started, since it's descending into chaos and becoming very confusing. (As all things on that page usually do.) The first phase of the more formal reform project that I mentioned just now is scheduled to begin on November 1, 2015, when the action at the current RfC will likely have died down. --Biblioworm20:55, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping. This does seem to be a really tough problem. I'd love to see everyone get a win for once. I'll read up and put on my thinking cap. - Dank (push to talk) 00:49, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'm going to make a proposal that won't conflict with the current RfC, maybe in a day or two. Watchlist my talk page if you guys want to work on it. - Dank (push to talk) 21:08, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The kind of nonsense attacks on the format we are seeing there are exactly why I gave up on constructing big policy RFAs. It has gotten so hard to get anything done because people will always accuse you of poisoning the well by asking leading questions, even if they seem unable to clearly define where they believe they are being led. Good luck. It's a bit late in the game, but you may find this helpful, or at least mildly amusing. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:44, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Your essay greatly enlightened me: I now penitently realize how incredibly foolish it is to try to get anything serious done. ;) --Biblioworm23:02, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry but I have to say bye to Wikipedia. I have too many commitments to contribute here and I personally like the community at wikiHow better, best wishes. EmilyREditor (talk) 20:29, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for asking, but I can't close, I'm in the process of getting a relevant RfC started myself. In your Phase I, it looks like people are thoroughly engaged, that's good to see. - Dank (push to talk) 23:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I added a section ... sorry, I just saw that you changed the 3-day rule; I forgot you wanted to limit new proposals to the first 3 days. If it's your preference to deal with my section after Phrase I is over, that's fine. Mine is meant to deal with the case where none of the proposals that would have a substantial impact passes ... but that's how things are shaping up already, so I thought it might be timely. Before I see discussion, I can't be sure what we would be voting on (since this is a new idea) ... if you'd rather I go ahead and guess what's best to vote on without prior discussion, I'll add something to the voting section. - Dank (push to talk) 21:07, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
RfC proposal B question
I think you might've missed my request for clarity on proposal B. The way it's worded, I really can't tell what it's trying to achieve and which side I fall on. —烏Γ(kaw), 05:53, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
September drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 25 editors who signed up, 18 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
October blitz: The one-week October blitz, targeting requests, has just concluded. Of the nine editors who signed up, seven copyedited at least one request; check your talk page for your barnstar!
The month-long November drive, focusing on our oldest backlog articles (June, July, and August 2014) and the October requests, is just around the corner. Hope to see you there!
I've created Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Biblioworm and should be able to finish the nomination statement today or tomorrow. Remember not to transclude until the start of your first long editing session of a week when you can be around quite a bit. Better still transclude an hour before you start a long editing session. ϢereSpielChequers15:21, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I just searched a page looking for your comments, but came up dry. You might change your signature so searching for "Biblioworm" will find it. Several !voters have publicly announced that an unsearchable signature is an automatic oppose. Glrx (talk) 02:19, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Biblioworm, I don't think we have worked together but I encourage you to rethink Question 3. Candidates often think that voters don't want admins who have been in conflict so they say they've never had any serious problems. But conflict is part of editing on the project. Voters expect you to specify conflict situations you've been in and how you work to resolve them. Because, being an admin brings conflict to your talk page and voters want to see that you have experience defusing troubled situations. So, have an example or two where there was disagreement and how you and the other editor worked it out. Additionally, if you say you haven't had any conflict and you have (and everyone has), you can expect the editor you had problems with to appear at your RfA and challenge you on it. And it is better to be upfront and honest about any problems you've had than have voters uncover them. Just some unasked-for advice, LizRead!Talk!00:22, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I truly never have been in a dispute about article content, because I don't edit articles in the areas that attract controversy. However, I have been in a few disagreements in the Wikipedia(_talk) namespace, so I might perhaps add a couple of examples there. I did say that I had been involved in disagreements; I just didn't give any specific examples. --Biblioworm14:51, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In your defense, I had a similar answer; I simply hadn't been in all that many conflicts/disputes beyond one or two disagreements with newer editors and it wasn't a serious issue for me. The most likely reason is that I expressed no interest in the user conduct areas, and I notice you haven't either. Sam Walton (talk) 15:54, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Biblioworm. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
The second-ever GA Cup is now over! The competition officially ended Thursday. Congrats to everyone who participated, and especially to our finalists.
The winner of the 2nd GA Cup is Zwerg Nase! He earned 408 points, over 100 points more than he earned in all previous rounds. He tied with our second-place winner, Sturmvogel 66 with 367 points, in number of articles reviewed (24), and they earned almost the same points for reviewing articles that were in the queue the longest (Zwerg with 322, Sturmvogel with 326). Basically, they tied in points, but what made the different for Zwerg was the advantage he had in reviewing longer articles. It seems that the rule change of earning more realistic points for longer articles made a difference. All of our contestants should be proud of the work they were able to accomplish through the GA Cup. Congrats to these worthy opponents!
Our third and fourth place winners, Johanna and Tomandjerry211, also ran a close race, with 167 points and 147 points respectfully. We had one withdrawal; we found it interesting that competitors dropped out in Round 2 and 3 as well. One of the original judges and co-creator of this competition, User:Dom497 stepped down as judge during Round 3; as stated previously, we will miss his input and wish him the best.
The judges were pleased with our results, even though fewer users competed this time compared to our inaugural competition. We recognize that this might be due to holding the competition during the summer months. We intend on looking more closely when we should conduct this contest, as well as other aspects of the GA Cup. We've set up a feedback page for everyone's input about how we should conduct the contest and what rule changes should be made. If you have any ideas about how we can improve things, please visit it and give us your input.
Again, thanks to all and congratulations to our winners! Please stay tuned for the start of GA Cup #3.
Yes, congratulations. If I'd had more faith in the process, I'd have voted support too. I don't doubt you'd make a good admin; by God we need them! CassiantoTalk00:49, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, everyone. I went through RfA and lived to tell the story. ;) I'm still greatly surprised that I passed while some other quite frankly much more qualified editors don't. By the way, I promise that I won't use any of the tools until I write up a recall criteria, which I'll do in the next few hours. --Biblioworm01:10, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Drmies. So, first question: there's a sort of admin dashboard I've seen before, that has all the major admin areas transcluded on it (perhaps all collapsed in boxes for compactness). I'd like to have that, but I can't seem to find it now. Does anyone know where that might be? --Biblioworm16:12, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, being that I arguably just set the record in recent times as the most "inexperienced" (in the way of numerical measures) editor to pass RfA, it does seem apparent that most RfA participants do actually judge candidates quite reasonably according to their competence rather than arbitrary standards. I'm beginning to see that it's the loud, unreasonable minority that causes the trouble at RfA and discourages candidates from running. But, yes, I do certainly believe that it still needs fixing. As I've pointed out, as well, the result of an RfA does very much depend upon who shows up. A single person who skillfully twists diffs out of context and makes them out to be something that they're not (after, just the presence of diff links may look impressive to some people, and they may not even read them). It's fully possible that I would have failed if I had run a couple of months from now. --Biblioworm16:12, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well done. When you get bored scrabbling round for the right block message to go with each block have a look at my monobook. Some kind person put some code there that gives an invaluable drop down menu. I've never once had to scrabble down the side of the sofa looking for the right block message since. ϢereSpielChequers05:17, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations on receiving the mop and bucket. If I had to give one bit of advice, it would be to keep your toes in content creation (Leicester Square could do with a GA review, hint hint) so you don't distance yourself from the regular editors. As Drmies says, advice is on hand. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)09:22, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I do plan to stay involved in content creation. I'll shortly be getting back to the article I'm working on now, in fact, as soon as I get used to the new buttons. --Biblioworm16:12, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well done, my old friend! You maybe the first editor [in the recent times after User:Writ Keeper] to get the mop so early in their Wikipedia career. But yes, no wonder we are talking about one of the most sensible editors around. JimCarter11:27, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I already installed responseHelper and closeAFD. I'm beginning to like RFPP, so responseHelper is a rather convenient tool, as is closeAFD. I've seen all the new buttons on Twinkle, and they're very convenient. --Biblioworm21:59, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Biblioworm. I wanted to leave you a message and offer my personal congratulations on passing your RfA. You definitely deserve the flag, and I'm glad to see that you received it. I wish you good judgment and the best of luck with your new responsibilities. Also, it looks like we got a cleanup on isle 5!Pats Biblioworm's back - you're up, buddy. :-) ~Oshwah~ (talk)(contribs)05:43, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
the information of tehran and mashhad and esfahan and karaj and tabriz is Wrong. please fix it. thank you
please can you correct the current article which is wrong in that:
the number of highrises about tehran, mashhad, isfahan, shiraz, tabriz and karaj cities are totally wrong. this is not according to emporis or any other reliable site. can you find the correct number of highrises of these cities and write it because it is wrong. the same applies to the cities with most skyscrapers article. thank you.--Elmdoostab (talk) 08:10, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. This dispute seems to center around whether or not skyscrapers should be included in the article. I imagine that this could be contentious subject indeed. However, being an administrator does not give me any authority or responsibility over content, so it's not for me to decide which side of the dispute is correct. I would start a request for comment, in which multiple members of the community give their opinion on the subject. To start one, just follow the instructions on the page I just linked to in the previous sentence. In this way, consensus can develop on the issue, which is far more meaningful than one admin's opinion. --Biblioworm16:43, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What in hell is wrong with you? Can't you see that you are involved in that article? My lord, even a pencil-headed hedgehog could have realized that applying protection to this article was catastrophically stupid! How dare you! I'm shortly going to be making a report about this incident to WP:AN/I.
Just kidding :) Congratulations on becoming an administrator :) I've long said anyone willing to be an admin must be insane. Welcome to insanity :) The above, all meant in jest of course, is your free sample of the derision that will be coming your way now that you are an administrator. Enjoy :) --Hammersoft (talk) 15:42, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for this question, which you've asked of the various candidates. I feel one of the most serious problems plaguing ArbCom is their (for the most part) utter lack of training/experience in dispute resolution. This helps to highlight their experience. I appreciate that. The responses have been and should be very informative. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:27, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree. We should have mature adults with dispute resolution experience on ArbCom, if we want it to be a respectable and competent body. The problem seems to be that ArbCom just hands out sanctions, causes even more controversy, and doesn't really solve the problem at all (and sometimes even makes things worse). They should be focused upon actually resolving the dispute, and the people most likely to do that are people who have experience in actually resolving disputes. I also personally will not be voting for any current or former arbitrators, since I personally think it is time for a completely clean start on ArbCom. --Biblioworm20:09, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For my part, I see ArbCom as a incomprehensibly tangled morass. I don't think any efforts to reform it will work. ArbCom's been heavily resistant to any reform efforts over the years, and even willfully plods ahead when they know they are wrong, are violating policy, etc. The send-it-to-ArbCom solution has failed too often, and sometimes even catastrophically, for it to be considered a reasonable means of dispute resolution. For an analogy, it's like having a dispute with your neighbor over a tree that overhangs your property and theirs. The neighborhood association agrees to take the case, levels both houses (and takes several other houses with it) while maybe (maybe) taking out the tree in dispute. When you complain to them about this behavior (since there's no other place to complain to), their response is "Enjoy your new park-like grassland!". I think it's long overdue that we had a completely clean start on dispute resolution. Some ground has been gained in recent times, but not enough. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:22, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The page was properly locked, as there was an ongoing edit war. Edit warring isn't a question of counting edits. A dispute arose about the content of the page, and the contributors were attempting to resolve it by way of reverting each other. That virtually never works. Protection is our means of solving such disputes, as it usually forces people to discuss the issue rather than edit war over it. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:12, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Contesting an edit a few times isn't an edit war. It's ridiculous to lock the page over that. In fact, it seems like this strategy is being used as a way to revert edits and then shut down the discussion for a few days/weeks. 2606:6000:610A:9000:4B:3F3C:E92B:5B77 (talk) 15:16, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Multiple editors have attempted to communicate with this IP-hopping editor. It is a strong case of WP:IDHT and editing against consensus. Discussion - across multiple generation-related pages - has been fruitless. Unfortunately, protection has been needed across multiple pages to prevent such disruption. I and at least three other editors have had no other choice than to request protection, which has fortunately been granted. Scr★pIronIV15:24, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
After further review: It appears from the edit histories that User:ScrapIronIV went to the Generation talk page at 21:34 and opened a discussion over the disputed edit. Then at 21:39 (five minutes later) he/she requested page protection. User:ScrapIronIV waited five minutes after opening a discussion on the subject talk page to ask an admin to lock it over a phony edit war. The user did post a standard edit-war warning at 21:24 to my talk page (even though there was only 3 edits from me). A grand total of 15 minutes is clearly not enough time to respond when nobody approached the bright line that would indicate or require a page lock. 2606:6000:610A:9000:4B:3F3C:E92B:5B77 (talk) 16:20, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I will not unprotect the page. An IP-hopping editor constantly reverts specific material supported by apparently three sources in favor of his vague range, and I'm expected to unprotect just so that it can continue? And yes, it was an edit war. This is the definition of an edit war: "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions." Wasn't there repeated overriding of contributions? 3RR is just a bright line; there doesn't have to be three reverts for an edit war to take place. And in any case, you were IP hopping and definitely reverted more than three times; you were just smart enough to not do it all within 24 hours. (By the way, what account do you edit under? It's rare to see a legitimate IP editor so knowledgeable about the rules.) Discuss the issue on the talk page or use dispute resolution. By the way, if the edit war resumes after the protection expires, the subsequent protection will likely be considerably longer than this one (i.e., on the order of months). --Biblioworm16:23, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
ScrapIron never crossed 3RR. These are his recent edits: [7] (revert), [8] (revert), [9] (addition of source), [10] (addition of source). So, by my count, that's only two reverts. Here are your recent edits, on the other hand: [11] (revert), [12] (revert), [13] (revert), [14] (revert), [15] (addition of, and giving preference to, your preferred wording). So, you reverted a total of four times, but you were just careful not to do it within the 24-hour window. By the way, the semi-protection is justified per the WP:SEMI policy; according to this quote, administrators may temporarily semi-protect a page when the page is: "[s]ubject to...edit-warring where unregistered editors are engaging in IP-hopping." You're clearly IP hopping. And there was clearly edit warring. There is nothing else to discuss. --Biblioworm16:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The disruption doesn't seem to be recent enough to justify protection at the moment, since most of it seems to be from a few weeks ago. Please do let me know if the disruption actively resumes, however, and I'll protect it. You could also post at WP:RFPP. --Biblioworm05:47, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Rob984: Please give a reason for the protection, and I'll look into the situation. (How funny that I logged in just a few seconds after you left your message!) --Biblioworm23:29, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Rob984: Yes, I'm aware of the event. But it seems the page is already protected. Do want me to extend the duration, change it to full protection, or do something else? --Biblioworm23:33, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
On 15 November 2015, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Brecon Castle, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Brecon Castle was attacked by the Welsh six times in 58 years? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Brecon Castle. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
Your RfC will, hopefully, come to a close today. I'm sure you saw my comment near the footer. In the grand scheme of things on Wikipedia, reinventing the wheel and/or rehashing perennial themes do not bode well for an RfC getting the consensus hoped for by the proposer. If you are now going to take ideas for reform a stage further, none of which are your own because they've all been suggested at some time or another, you will have to choose very carefully which ones to focus on, and know how to make a compelling argument for them. Although you recently passed at RfA yourself (and with my support) you still have relatively little experience in this area and I remain convinced that you have not wished to catch up on the 6 years of RfA reform discussions before you took the plunge with your RfC. While I naturally wholeheartedly support any reasonable, logical, and doable reforms for RfA, and am genuinely very glad that other editors are now taking the relay, these things need a breath of fresh air and not the recycled atmosphere they practically always are. Voices like mine (though not mine alone) can make or break a proposal for RfA reform, especially if the RfCs are so long winded that participants get bored and pissed off and give up halfway through, as I did with this one; one single aspect of a reform to a major Wikiedia process such as RfA needs hundreds of participants and a very clear majority to be carried, thus with all due respect, don't hesitate to ask me to cast an eye over what you are proposing before you go live with it. I'm here to help, not put you off, and I and many others really appreciate what you are doing. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:55, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
First: congratulations, you did a good job and your hard work paid off. Many have tried before, and no one else got this far.
Disclaimer: I won't consider myself neutral on RfA reform questions until something has happened that actually raises promotion rates, and possibly not even then; I'll have to see. So, there could be unintended bias whenever I try to help, so I don't try (mainly because there may come a time when I could be a neutral closer on these issues again, and I don't want to screw that up with anything I do now). But I think you might be making a mistake here that has the unintended consequence of torpedoing the whole venture, based on how voters have reacted in the past. I'm referring to "The closer suggested that proposal E, which dealt with the issue of making desysopping easier (and obtained 58% support), be incorporated carefully into Phase II." That wasn't my reading; I thought the main thing he was saying was that he couldn't tell and it wasn't his call. You might want to skim the most recent two polls on that, one's at WT:RFA#Wikipedia:Requests for removal of adminship and the other was linked from there. - Dank (push to talk) 22:32, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Rethinking: I'm being too namby-pamby here, it's a straightforward call. 1. The closer said "it would possibly be an overreach of this process to try and implement that during the later phases." 2. Given the closer's comment, the numerical results of Proposal E, and the arguments, very few Wikipedians will think that it achieved consensus, the way these things are normally tallied. 3. We just had a well-attended RfC with essentially the same opposition only two months ago, where it was thoroughly shot down, and the thread I linked above at WT:RFA supports that result. Even Wikipedians who are in favor of a proposal don't generally support bringing it back for a vote every couple of months. 4. There's an easy, and well-established, path here: Don't do anything. Put it off to another day. Usually, people expect a wait of at least six months after a well-attended RfC such as the one we had in September. If you push it in Phase II, despite the apparent lack of consensus in Phase I, then that may color how voters see the other proposals, the ones that actually did get consensus. - Dank (push to talk) 23:35, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Very good point. I personally didn't think the proposal attained consensus, either. In any case, I'll probably leave that out in Phase II. --Biblioworm00:03, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually ... one more suggestion. The closer chose his words carefully, for example, for Proposal A: " It's likely that some well worded proposals in the next phase will find consensus, so I think this is valid to pass to the next phase." If you say that he found that Prop A had consensus, then people will devote time to arguing over what you're saying, rather than focusing on what the closer said, which is harder to argue with, I think (both because it's more careful and because he was the closer). - Dank (push to talk) 00:42, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
He said "7 items passed through to the next stage" and (for Prop A) "It's likely that some well worded proposals in the next phase will find consensus, so I think this is valid to pass to the next phase". He doesn't say that A does or doesn't have consensus, only that some proposal based on Prop A that takes the opposition statements into account is likely to gain consensus in Phase II. He didn't put Prop A in the "Clear Consensus" section. - Dank (push to talk) 01:19, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I took the advice anyway and re-wrote the pages a few seconds ago. I used the less contentious wording "passed to Phase II", instead of "gained consensus". That should work, hopefully. Thanks again. --Biblioworm01:24, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've heeded your advice and I'm currently being trained in the CVU. A question however- once I have completed training and attained 200 edits, do I go about applying with the same application or a different one? The StormCatcher (talk) 04:14, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
JSTOR cleanup drive
Hello TWL users! We hope JSTOR has been a useful resource for your work. We're organizing a cleanup drive to correct dead links to JSTOR articles – these require JSTOR access and cannot easily be corrected by bot. We'd love for you to jump in and help out!
Congrats on becoming an admin! I haven't actively edited here since last December (I was only really here for about 4 months), but I still remember you from when I was active ;) -Fimatic(talk | contribs)00:27, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm late, but congratulations on your successful RFA! Allow me to impart the words of wisdom I received from the puppy after my RFA passed – eight long, sordid, should-have-found-a-better-hobby years ago:
Remember you will always protect the wrong version. (I got nothing here. It's inevitable.)
Remember you must always follow the rules, except for when you ignore them. Without exception, you will pick the wrong one to do. (See #5.)
Remember to assume good faith and not bite. Remember that when you are applying these principles most diligently, you are probably dealing with a troll. (You'll attract many more of those now, because mop. They must like to drink the dirty water in the bucket.)
Use the block ability sparingly. Enjoy the insults you receive when you do block, because really, what else is there to live for?
Remember that when you make these errors, someone will be more than happy to point them out to you in dazzling clarity and descriptive terminology. It will not be a personal attack because we are admins and, therefore, we are all rouge anyway.
Finally, remember to contact me if you ever need assistance, and I will do what I am able.
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Help needed at DRN
You are receiving this message because you are signed up as a volunteer at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. We have a number of pending requests which need a volunteer to address them. Unless you are an inexperienced volunteer who is currently just watching DRN to learn our processes, please take a case. If you do not see yourself taking cases in the foreseeable future, please remove yourself from the volunteer list so that we can have a better idea of the size of our pool of volunteers; if you do see yourself taking cases, please watchlist the DRN page and keep an eye out to see if there are cases which are ready for a volunteer. We have recently had to refuse a number of cases because they were listed for days with no volunteer willing to take them, despite there being almost 150 volunteers listed on the volunteer page. Regards, TransporterMan (talk·contribs) (Current DRN coordinator) (Not watching this page) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:48, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I notice you haven't (so far) included proposals on Question E (removal of admins) in Phase II. In closing Phase I, ErrantX called Question E "discretionary", saying that it "needs discussing in the next phase - but with care". I believe desysopping reform must be integral to effective RfA reform, and I'd like to include proposals, but I want to do so in a way that won't step on toes. I have a few ideas:
E: Difficult to remove admins
E1: Force admins who receive [x] requests for desysopping in [y] months to go through a retention RfA
Establish a location to tally "votes of no confidence", or requests for desysopping with rationale, for each admin. Possibly limit to auto-confirmed users. Admins receiving more than a set number of requests within a set time window must pass RfA again to retain their adminship. (Analogous to some U.S. states requiring a certain number of signatures to force a recall election.)
E2: Force admins who receive [x] requests for desysopping in [y] months from other admins to go through a retention RfA
As an alternative, limit the authority to request desysopping to other admins.
E3: Force all admins to go through a retention RfA every [y] years, possibly with a lowered bar of approval
Self-explanatory. Would incur the most overhead.
Hi Swpb. I decided not to include issue E in this RfC because of its extremely complex nature (not to mention that it barely "passed"); I think an entirely independent RfC would be best in this case, and I may put one together after the upcoming one is over. --Biblioworm01:00, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Battle of Brunanburh, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Moor. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
List of El Clásico matches and El Clásico - Thank you for protecting this articles after the constant vandalism attacks, but I want to say it is not enough 3 days protection. I am a constant reader of this article, and will be always vandalism attacks there, can I change the date, for one year or for more years, and only to allow just the users to can edit it ?--Alexiulian25 (talk) 18:27, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Alex. We generally aim to protect for long periods of time only when absolutely necessary. I protected the pages for a relatively short duration because: (1) The latest event seems to be very recent, and the excitement will likely die down over the next few days; (2) There are several constructive edits from other IPs, so I don't want to prevent them from editing the page for too long. If all IP edits are nothing (or almost nothing) but vandalism over a long period of time, then I consider indefinite protection. --Biblioworm18:46, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I usually do that, but it seems that I forgot to do so in the requests I granted today. It'll be somewhat belated, but I suppose I'll do that now. Thanks for reminding me; I become more forgetful at time goes on, you know... --Biblioworm02:00, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, my point was not about the requirements necessary to receive advanced user rights, just that editors receiving these rights need a notification. You can often see by their requests that the applicants have a fuzzy or inadequate notion of what having the user right involves. Besides granting them the right, I think it's important to provide them with some guidance for how it is to be used. Not everyone will read the guidelines but at least we can say that they were given instructions. Thanks for your receptiveness, Biblioworm, and for watching over this area which often suffers from a backlog of requests. LizRead!Talk!02:30, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I looked into this a bit, Kudpung, and it seems that the 200 mainspace edits standard was implemented in early January of this year. Some discussion on WT:PERM was referenced by the person making the change, but I can't seem to find it. Biblioworm17:16, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Disambiguation link notification for November 28
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Battle of Brunanburh, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page White Hill. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
For your information, I have just moved the clause related to ArbCom desysops of marginally active admins to a seperate section for a seperate discusion, and have added a few words to it. You are receiving this message because you explicitly mentioned it as at least part of the reason for your opposition. Beeblebrox (talk) 09:34, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Rollback privelige
Katie has explained to me why she did not grant me the right, and I understand the policies and differences between edit warring and vandalism, and have about completed my training in the CVU. I'm currently using Twinkle and want to move on to a more advanced tool like HG or STiki. However, you denied my first request because I didn't have 200 mainspace edits, which now I have nearly 500. I have a proven record of counter-vandalism using TW and manual reverting. Since I have now 2 requests for rollback denied in the past 90 days, I was wondering if it would be suitable to re-apply for this permission now.
I noticed you are the user who started the RfA reform project page, so I thought it was appropriate to bring this statement to you. I know that unbundling the tools had mixed results and ultimately did not succeed in making it to Phase 2, but I would like to bring up a good point, that cannot be expressed on the current RfC page and I joined Wikipedia too late to make a comment in Phase 1. The highest office in the Ancient Roman Republic was consul and that person was given many wide ranging powers to deal with issues, but before the community normally elected the consul the person had to work his way up the Cursus honorum "course of offices". The lowest position was the quaestors where all the new officers started out with limited powers and if the person worked hard enough he could be one of the few (because the higher someone went, less people held each higher office) to get promoted to the next position like aedile, with more power and greater responsibility. The reason I bring this up is because Wikipedia needs something like this, because people can go from very little power to a lot through a successfully RfA, which is a rightly grueling process. If Wikipedia had a cursus honorum type system it would allow the person to prove him/herself at each new step that gives them greater positions of power and responsibility, so when it came to time for a RfA the person could show a track record of using their power wisely. At the same time it would allow Administrators to focus on the bigger issue facing Wikipedia. Much discussion would be needed on how many steps and what each step's power would be, but I think it is definitely something Wikipedia should check out. I know I am a relatively new user who has only been on Wikipedia less than a month and may not know all of the polices, but I do think this is something that might solve many problems for the RfA process and possibly Wikipedia. Thank you for considering this idea. In veritas (talk) 05:19, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker)@In veritas: Wikipedia will never be an attempt at creating an hierarchy; we do not want hat collectors to look at the horizon of ranks and run blindly for power. Adding even more social structure to the social structure that already exists is not a good idea in any society or organization. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit and anyone trusted can maintain; every editor should be part of the "proletariat". Esquivaliencet06:14, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Esquivalience: Thank you for telling me this, as I said relatively new user and so not totally familiar with all the intricacies of the current Wikipedia culture. I totally am behind the idea that anyone can edit Wikipedia and everyone has an equal say. I understand what you mean and was not trying to create that type of system, I was just merely suggesting that maybe giving people different levels of responsibilities might allow during a RfA the ability to show a track record and lessen the load on sysops. In veritas (talk) 06:21, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for responding, Esquivalience. I didn't get the opportunity to read through the whole message and reply. I've now read it, though, and I think Esquivalience summed things up rather well. I would simply add that RfA is not "rightly" grueling; there is no good reason for it to be especially grueling. You just get a few extra buttons that are not glorious at all, and the better part of admin tasks are simply maintenance. It isn't really anything to be excited about. If you grossly misuse the tools, ArbCom can have them removed in a flash. Biblioworm01:33, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for these comments, I understand more about the role of admins. I put in the grueling part, because from what I have read from RfAs and policies it seemed like most people involved take approving or denying adminships very seriously because of some of the powers they had, which I thought made sense because they can block and delete pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by In veritas (talk • contribs) 02:35, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
RfA clerking
Per your recommendation, I have put the RfC on hold until the end of this month and archived (can't remove per WP:TPG) the "Basic provisions" section. However, you said that you wanted to discuss further about the proposal; do you have any more recommendations for the proposal? Esquivaliencet05:09, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I believe you made a mistake regarding Edgar Dale.
I did not post this Modification, I randomly was informed I had a message... I have no knowledge of Edgar Dale.
Hello, I'm WritingEnthusiast14. I wanted to let you know that I undid one of your recent contributions —the one you made with this edit to Edgar Dale— because it didn’t appear constructive to me. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. Writing Enthusiast (talk | contribs) 00:27, 10 October 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.144.64 (talk)
Thank you. I hope the dispute over closing gets resolved soon, though. I figured this would probably happen, but I agreed that there was no point whatsoever in leaving a dead RfC open just for the sake of leaving it open. Biblioworm17:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The RfC ran for over two weeks, was advertised on at least five or six venues (including a watchlist notice) and showed no signs of any further major activity (definitely none that would change the results, anyway). All the proposals that passed had over 3/4 supermajority support, and all except the CENT proposal had 70–75 participants each. On the discretionary range proposal, there were very, very few that made their support on the condition that it must be 67%; some said that was their preference, but they often expressed flexibility. Biblioworm17:00, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've just removed the note from the watchlist notice, because I think this RfC has already had plenty of exposure on there. Much more than an RfC would normally get. I hope you're okay with that. Cheers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:00, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Since this whole ordeal got much publicity on the noticeboards, I wanted to ensure a broader range of views by readding the notice and ensure that a small group of anti-change people who watch those boards couldn't take down the whole thing without anyone else knowing about it, and give them an unfair advantage which they did not have previously. Biblioworm14:40, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Please can you propose all watchlist messages on the talk page before posting? Most discussions do not require such prominence, and as you are involved in these proposals you are not the right admin to make that call. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:04, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Where is that in the policies or guidelines? An RfC about potentially major changes to the RfA process does not require such prominence? Biblioworm16:30, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Biblioworm, thanks for preparing the RfC abou RFA clerks. The RfC needs a question right at the start, in its own section, as to whether the community wants clerks at all. Currently, it operates on the premise that this has already been decided, and that the RfC is just hashing out the details. SarahSV(talk)22:42, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sarah. I excluded that because in the Phase I RfC, the closer indicated that the community would like to discuss RfA clerking in further detail, so this RfC is intended to go into more detail on the issue instead of rehashing the basic idea. After all, if the proposals there gain consensus, that would naturally imply that there is consensus for clerking. I expect that people who oppose the concept will just oppose all the proposals anyway. Biblioworm22:51, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Btw Biblio, unless they've changed how the RfC software works, it requires a signature from you, and it will copy everything from the start down to the first signature for the RfC page. Currently, the first signature is mine, so people will think this is my RfC until you fix it. - Dank (push to talk) 23:01, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I see you already have a Brilliant Idea Barnstar, but your input and devotion to improving the RfA process is inspiring - thank you have a great winter festival! -- samtarwhisper13:40, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the participation and support at my RFA. It is truly appreciated. I hope to be of further help around here, and if you see me doing something dumb, you know where to find me. Again, I thank you. 78.26(spin me / revolutions)02:08, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Merry Christmas!
AmaryllisGardenertalk is wishing you a MerryChristmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!
Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Best wishes for your Christmas Is all you get from me 'Cause I ain't no Santa Claus Don't own no Christmas tree. But if wishes was health and money I'd fill your buck-skin poke Your doctor would go hungry An' you never would be broke." —C.M. Russell, Christmas greeting 1914. Montanabw(talk)
Hello,
Few days ago you deleted my created article. Where was the problem with it? Because I want to create this article again.
Best regards from Lithuania [1]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Krusa90 (talk • contribs) 22:34, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for persevering towards RfA reform, which have led to actual change. It takes diligence to do so while the infamous minority of participants at RfA attack reform efforts with all of their diminishing might. Esquivaliencet04:50, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes indeed, and considering my early close had the same outcome as this one, I will stand by the barnstar I gave a few weeks back. It's rare to get anything changed with RfA these days. You should be proud. :-)—cyberpowerChat:Offline05:20, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, congratulations from me, too. I think I'll follow Begoon's lead and stop my attempts at constructive criticism, as we weren't really connecting. Would have been nice if this could have been done with less drama, but maybe that wasn't possible, hard to say... Wbm1058 (talk) 18:11, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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