This is an archive of past discussions with User:MarioGom. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
If this is about the *Yseut229* entry getting mangled, I'm taking a look at it. The leading "*" is being mis-parsed as a list bullet. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 14:32, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, also keep in mind that while WPX templates are in a very precarious maintenance situation, they are used in some high-visibility pages. A few of them have a few quirks and interactions with bots, other templates and a MediaWiki gadget. I'm quite familiar with this mess, so I can help with input about these caveats. --MarioGom (talk) 14:46, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Okeydokey. The general goal I had in mind is replacing all usage of "[M|m]embers" with "[P|p]articipants", and "[J|j]oin" with "[P|p]articipate in", and also get rid of "[O|o]ur" in these and related constructions. We've sometimes had years of awful drama coming out of people trying to treat wikiprojects as private membership organization with their own rules, etc. E.g., WP:Esperanza was shut down, WP:CONLEVEL policy was created, and we had some of WP's longest and worst disputes and RfCs coming out of things relating to this WP:OWN and WP:FACTION stuff, including a bunch of ArbCom cases. While there are still various projects that need to have "Members" pages renamed and so forth, the fact that this template and module and form system is auto-creating more of them needs to be fixed first, or it will be a never-ending issue. If you know how to tweak these things without cracking anything, it would be a better use of time for you to do it than me to try to do it and fail. :-) In the interim, I'm still looking into how to patch that username bug. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, I see. Renaming in content is not problematic. Not for me, at least. But for page names, when it comes to WPX-based projects, it's going to require us to point somewhere with some consensus to try to get the bot maintainer to fix it (or make it configurable). MarioGom (talk) 15:09, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, thank you! I'll provide some more context about the /Participants page issue: /Participants seems quite standard for other projects, so I think it makes sense. However, these /Members pages are updated by a bot (which is running but not maintained or semi-maintained), so getting projects using WPX templates and Reports bot to switch to /Participants is tricky. Your change worked where only /Participants OR /Members existed, but some projects have them both for different reasons. In WP:SOCIALISM I have now redirected /Participants to /Members, because the former is just outdated and archived. But in Women in Red they serve different purposes. In any case, if the goal is to have fully consistent naming, it's going to require some consensus and preparation to change it in dozens of WikiProject pages and templates with minimal disruption. MarioGom (talk) 15:04, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Noted! It would be good to get this stop using "members" and "join" by default, though, as this just makes the problem larger and larger over time. For any cases where there's a members and a participants page and the one's not a redirect to the other, the other can be moved to a better name that makes more sense for what it is, like "/List of all prior participants" or whatever that page's goal is. Probably not great for the bot to presume a fixed page name for such lists, but get them from the project. That is, the humans in the projects should be getting the bot to work for them, rather than the humans have to do what the bot demands. >;-) Oh, and I fixed the *Username problem. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:14, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
SMcCandlish: In the case of WikiProject Women in Red, which I believe is the most active in regard to these features, we have always made a very clear distinction between members and participants. Members are those who have joined the project and registered with a "card". Participants are generally those who register for a specific event such as an editathon or meetup. In most cases they are also members but some add their names to meetup lists without becoming members. Then there are those who simply participate on our talk pages without registering anywhere else. To the best of my knowledge, other Project X-related wikiprojects behave in much the same way. May I suggest that any future work on these lists which is liable to affect the membership listing of Women in Red should be brought to the project's attention beforehand. In this case, thanks to your rapid responses, not much damage has been done but in the past we have encountered disruptive changes to WPX code which has taken several days to fix. Fortunately MarioGom picked up the ping very promptly today but it's not always the case that key people are around to jump in at a moment's notice.--Ipigott (talk) 16:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
@Ipigott: Yes, of course I don't want to break anything, and am not going to make further direct changes to this code, not without more understanding of dependencies I wasn't aware of, and more discussion with people.
However, this is the first time I've ever encountered a wikiproject making a distinction between "participants" and "members". It's not a norm at all, and it actually does raise the "wikiprojects are not private membership organizations" concerns (though I can see that's not quite the intent here, but rather an onsite/offsite distinction). It would be long-term better to use different terminology, like "[wikiproject] participants" and "event participants" or something like that. Or if there's some compelling rationale for WOMRED to continue doing as it is because of the unusual focus on meatspace events, that's going to remain uncommon and shouldn't become the terminological norm, or it will inspire people to try to treat "their" wikiproject like some kind of fiefdom not responsive to site-wide editorial norms (which is where all that old drama came from in the first place). The terminology and what it implies actually matters, as we've learned the hard way. It's been a long time since I or anyone else has gone on members→participants cleanup sprees, but one seems overdue.
WikiProject X is a dead development project, too. It's likely these over-complicated templates and scripts will just go away eventually. Only a small fraction of projects use them, and they have a high maintenance cost (increasing, really, since there are fewer and fewer editors with understanding of or interest in them and their code). Plus they generate a lot of unnecessary userspace pages, which never go away even after the user loses interest in the wikiproject or WP itself). The member-cards' output is a poor use of page space, and the nature of them is apt to raise WP:NOT#SOCIAL concerns, too. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 17:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
SMcCandlish: Thanks for these explanations. I have repeatedly questioned the usefulness of Women in Red sticking to the Project X approach but I have the feeling that Rosiestep and others who embarked on the project with the enthusiastic assistance of Harej have been reluctant to abandon some of its features. In regard to members vs participants, it was in fact WPX which introduced the approach. Earlier projects supporting women such as wp:Women writers had always used participants. Maybe this whole matter should be brought up elsewhere for discussion but for the time being, I think it is important to ensure continuity.--Ipigott (talk) 21:43, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Sure, the last thing I want to do is break stuff, especially for a large, active project. Given that WikiProject X is a dead stick, we (the community, not necessarily anyone right here) at some point need to figure out how to pull out useful features so any wikiproject can use them without being tied into a big system of code that's not going to evolve. E.g., the feature of sorting participants (or "members") into separate lists based on whether they've been active any time in the last few months – that's handy, but it doesn't really have anything to do with most of the other WikiProject X stuff, and would be useful for all wikiprojects. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 22:57, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
If someone just knows all this code like the back of their hand, that'd be great. In the absence of that, it might actually be worth a proposal or something at WP:VPTECH for a wikiproject overhaul designed to take the best features of WPX and previous approaches, and "objectize" them as features people can add at-will to various project with less of a setup overhead and with a minimum of interdependency. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 01:00, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
One very useful feature of any new development would be the use of code which can easily be understood and updated by experienced editors rather than only by experts as is the case at the moment. The items which are still dependent on the WPX approach are the main Women in Red page and pages which are directly related to it, including the membership list(s) and their "cards", and the "transcluded" pages which list events, metrics, press and research. Thanks to the assistance given by MarioGom since the remaining members of Project X finally moved on, the pages on press and research can generally be edited without major difficulty although on occasion the "edit" link simply disappears. As you say, SMcCandlish, in regard to membership it's really useful to have separate lists of active and of inactive members, i.e. those who have not edited for three months or more. If I am not mistaken, all the other WiR pages and templates are similar to those in wikiprojects which developed without the involvement of WPX. Maybe the first step would be to prepare a work programme specifying the new features to be developed with an estimate of the time and effort which would be required for seamless integration. Perhaps you, MarioGom, would be able to put something together along these lines, suggesting who else might be able to contribute.--Ipigott (talk) 07:37, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Ipigott, SMcCandlish: sounds good! I'll try to put together a list of components that are worth documenting, maintaining and/or refactoring. Despite the appearance of cohesion, WPX is actually a collection of components, and the adoption of some of them would be easier if we remove the appearance of it being an all-or-nothing thing. MarioGom (talk) 10:34, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
One thing I was trying to figure out what how to get WPX to stop forcing the participants/members stuff to be displayed (always) and as a sidebar, rather than making it a module like everything else it does. I see kind of a kernel of code there, where there are various modules that can be enabled or disabled, and that seems like a good start. But then but some are "main body" only and others are sidebar only, some some are not really modules but just fixed features, and this seems rather arbitrary. The more it was just modules, and they could be placed arbitrarily (e.g. in a very linear traditional page or in one with a custom div-based layout), the better it would be reusable across any project. Especially if the modules could be used on their own in an existing project with addition of minimal code; or used to build wikiproject using a bunch of them, but not tied into an overall WPX system, in case one had a particular tabbed structure one like better. I think WPX is trying to be too many things at once, both something like a WordPress theme providing an entire project structure, and also being a supplier of [semi-]modular services. Better if they were just entirely modular templated things that were more agnostic as to which project content they were transcluded into. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 12:54, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Feedback request: History and geography request for comment
Hi! I'm not sure I get the point of additions like this. I would expect a COI tag to be there only if an editor who has contributed text to the article has had a conflict of interest on the topic of the article. Has that editor been paid to contribute to this specific article, or has he only been paid for some other contributions? Also, I would expect the tag to be there only if there's any meaningful COI text remaining in the article, I wouldn't expect that the template should be added to all and every page ever touched by a paid editor. – Uanfala (talk)16:01, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi Uanfala! {{Connected contributor (paid)}} is meant to be used as permanent documentation in the talk page. Pretty much like other notices such as copyright, merges, etc. It's added regardless of presence of any content problem. In the case of a content problem, it remains after the problem is solved too. This is essentially different from {{COI}}, which is a maintenance template meant to be removed after a review. Also all these accounts are blockable per username policy, because we don't allow role accounts. However, I'm not pursuing that since it's pointless after 10 years. The documentation in the talk pages is due though. MarioGom (talk) 16:06, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
I think it's safe to assume that role accounts (accounts not named after a person, but after an organization) represent edits by such organization, which are inherently paid. Regarding the articles you mention, yes, the SOIC task force provided information on a wide range of topics that, at the time of writing, were related to the interests of the US Army. In many cases, these were dumps of US Federal documents (which does not contavene any policy, since they are public domain). Some of these edits might be encyclopedic and helpful and some others might not, which is irrelevant in terms of disclosure. MarioGom (talk) 16:41, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Feedback request: History and geography request for comment
xeno: Systematic clean-ups are rarely organized at the moment. Small-scale ones are often done ad hoc at WP:COIN. The largest so far is probably WP:COIN#Wolfram refspam cleanup that led to User:Blablubbs/Wolfram. The later approach is what I'm taking as inspiration to setup more effective cleanups. That's in terms of cleanup. Investigation of the sockfarms themselves happens at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations with some summary entries occasionally added to WP:PAIDLIST (non-exhaustive).
Is this in preparation for a particular article that has had problems of WP:COI or are you preparing for a particular article. It is not 100% clear to me. Thanks in advance sir, and thanks for your hard work! Infinitepeace (talk) 13:54, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi Infinitepeace, I'm not sure to which of my comments you are referring too. I'm working both on the clean up for specific articles as well as in proposals to improve the process. I see you are now blocked, but I'll be happy to continue this conversation once you are back. Best, MarioGom (talk) 14:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi. I think you were dead on with your hunch on the Pearl Petroleum, Crescent Petroleum, Gulftainer, Badr Jafar edits. it looks like WP:SCRUTINY to me. I'll bet there are more accounts. See COIN. --- Possibly (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi Mario, hope you're well. Since you had reached out to me a couple weeks back about the sock networks you've been uncovering, I wanted to return the favor and share a bit about what I'm seeing from the consulting side of things, and to ask a question.
First thing: the decision to add the UPE templates fairly liberally across pages is bringing a fair number of tag removal requests into the new business inbox at Beutler Ink, although we are not considering any of them seriously at this time. (I assume it has not been standard in the past to add UPE tags so widely? We don't usually hear about this specific request very often—and now all of a sudden, we are.)
Meanwhile, I have heard from two different companies with UPE-tagged pages that they have been approached by Wikipedia-focused consultancies offering to remove the tags. The confidence with which these firms offered it leads me to believe they would be editing anonymously themselves. I have some idea who they might be, including at least one on the blocked list, and I also suspect at least one consultancy may be using more than one "front", but I'm mindful of WP:OUTING and will be very careful about saying more for now.
Finally, my question is this: have you or any of the editors applying these templates considered a process at some point to review and remove tags, either where it is decided the edits did not make substantial changes, or to remove the tags after the edits by the sock accounts have been reverted? While we aren't helping anyone do this now, it would be nice to have an accepted process for this in the future.
Thank you for letting me know. I have noticed this pattern before from the onwiki side, when a large sockfarm is blocked, some clients seem to switch providers. I have noticed one company who switched to an in-house disclosed paid editor, but often they switch to other blackhat agencies. Anyway, it's interesting to have an insider confirmation of this. I'm not sure UDP tags are being applied now more liberally, at least, not by me. For example, in a recent review of a blocked sockfarm, I tagged about 4 articles out of +800. However, since 2020 until now, some pretty big and long-term sockfarms have been discovered and blocked. I think that accounts for a UDP tag increase (at least, partially).
When there are WP:OUTING concerns, you can email ArbCom. There are also some admins that are probably willing to help with private evidence too.
Yes! I want to propose a formal (like CCI or SPI) or informal (within WikiProject Integrity) process for review of large-scale cases. The review work would look like this and this. This would have a few benefits: 1) clean up would happen faster, disincentivizing UPE, 2) we could avoid adding UDP tags for minor edits and 3) we could mark articles with a "last review date", which could be used to avoid re-tagging when no new UPE edits happened after the review.
If you have any suggestion, let me know. My current thinking is that it may be good to start with an informal (but well-structured) process, and move to a formal process only if it proves successful and there are enough editors interested. MarioGom (talk) 19:41, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the speedy reply! Glad to offer some confirmation, at least. I don't know whether I'll get the specific information to take to ArbCom since most of this was relayed to me verbally, but I'll see what I can do. Thanks for sharing those reviews. All I can say is: wow, that is a staggering amount of work. This is WP:BOGO in action; I'm grateful that you're taking it on, but what a lot of effort that could have been put somewhere else more productively. Anyway, thanks for the advice and thanks for the work you're doing here. More from me if I think I have something useful to add. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:17, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Hi again, just closing the loop: I asked if my latest contact was willing to share the emails. They wanted to stay out of it, but gave me the names of the companies (which I won't mention publicly). Anyway, that's all for now. Let me know if you have any other questions I might be able to help with. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 22:09, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment
Wait. Lexicon Branding? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure Yoodaba is 3Q Digital. But it is plausible that part of the sockfarm is an outsourcing company doing some work for other agencies. I can share more info in private. MarioGom (talk) 20:47, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Hello, Thank you for posting the guide. I added a connected user note on my page. I did mention my connection during the process of suggesting the update from the UK Web Consortium article which was there before, but didn't know about the connected contributor note which is clearer and should have been on my contributions. This was one of my first edits and I thought keeping to my subject would help, but reading the guide has rather put me right there! I hope this can be resolved, even if it means rolling back my edits to the old version. Best wishes, Timeousbeastie (talk) 11:04, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Timeousbeastie, thank you for getting back to me. No rollback is required as long as nobody really thinks the old version was better. Is this part of some sort of paid position? If that's the case, it is also required to note it, ideally with the {{Connected contributor (paid)}} template on Talk:UK Web Archive. Let me know if I can help with it. MarioGom (talk) 11:11, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks - I do have a question, having read the templates. As I was editing on my own initiative, I can declare my employer, but don't think I can honestly name them as a client for this work. Do you know what might be the best way to record this? Timeousbeastie (talk) 12:34, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Timeousbeastie: If this is done as part of your job, you can name the employer (the client field would be empty). If your employer has nothing to do with this work, you don't need any disclosure about payments, your current COI disclosure would be enough. MarioGom (talk) 12:39, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Email
Hi, I don't feel familiar enough with that issue to follow up on a report provided by email, especially as some of the examples given date to 2018 which aren't really actionable. This isn't a subject matter area or Wikipedia area I'm particularly familiar with, so I'm not confident I can accurately analyse those examples - especially regarding whether there's an agenda, etc. I'd suggest starting a SPI. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 10:26, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi again! Can you check the reply regarding your question on my user talk page? Do you think we can conduct a peer-review to improve the page? Thank you. Monday123456789 (talk) 07:28, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
Wikidata list request
Apologies for bothering you - I'm in need of a Wikidata list and made many attempts in vain to make one; since you know how to make them can you make one? I would like one that's akin to your standard Wikidata list like the example seen here, but one with different parameters - specifically, one that would list all recipients of the award Hero of the Soviet Union with 5 or more interwiki links but no article on English Wikipedia. How feasible is this, and can you do it (and send me a link to it so I can make it my to-do list)? Thank you!--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 15:54, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
Hello! I'm an editor who is mostly active on Turkish Wikipedia, and just saw your work on UPE as I was looking into what could be a case of undisclosed COI editing around Türk Ekonomi Bankası, both on Turkish- and English-language Wikipedias (articles in question are CEPTETEB, TEB Family Academy and tr:TEB Çocuk). I noticed that CEPTETEB is listed in your autogenerated TOPCOI list, and I've read the explanation on what the list is, but not being the most technically inclined person, I'm still at a loss about what this actually means. An explanation would be massively helpful. Best wishes. --GGT (talk) 16:50, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
Hi GGT: that list won't be too helpful here. CEPTETEB was included because Escritor83 (an account blocked in a sockpuppet investigation related to undisclosed paid editing) edited it, but it seems these edits were not significative. If I can help with anything else, let me know. If you need to discuss anything that could be sensitive, feel free to send me an email. MarioGom (talk) 17:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't mind where I get it from. My target is a list of article titles, which I can then process in various ways. I don't mind too much what format it comes in, so long as I can download or screen-grab a list which I can with regexes into a plain text list of one-title-per-line.
If I can learn some way of using Wikidata properties, it will be much more accurate than my current methods of list-making. So far I have relied on subcategories (which are often polluted) and WikiProject banners (which are not always present). --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 13:52, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
Edits made on Wikipedia in Health Professions Education page
Hi MarioGom,
Thank you for fixing/reverting the changes I made to the template on the Wikipedia in Health Professions Education project page. I thought that section was local to the page and not shared. I am sorry about that and glad you fixed it.
I was trying to remove the "Meet the Participants" box and also do some styling throughout that project page especially the main page title and the section titles.
Would you be able to point me to a resource that could help me with that? Is there a way to create a local template specific to that page?
Hi and thank you for your offer of assistance on SPARQL/Listeria queries that are hanging me up! Very new to this and am grateful for guidance. I successfully made some country and a couple of region lists (listed under “Poets by country of citizenship or region” at: WP:WikiProject_Women_in_Red/Redlist_index#Occupation_and_country), but for Asia and Africa it looks like it needs to be the whole continent (North and West Africa put together would have fewer than 100 names, for instance), and I’m have trouble swapping in a continent name for region—I’m sure you know the problem but it is opaque to me. If it’s convenient for you at some point, might you show me how to make, say, this Latin America list, but for Africa? And if you notice any other ways what I’ve done could be improved, I’m all ears. Thank you so much. Innisfree987 (talk) 23:28, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
LSGH: I don't think there will be ever as many users involved as in early 2020. The interest has naturally decreased, and since most of us are not under full lockdown anymore, there's probably no more people dedicated full time to this task (it used to be the case). We might need some semi-automated tools to be able to keep up with updates with less manual effort. I'm giving a try to updating a script I wrote last year to notify about updates. I'll come back to you if anything useful comes out of it. MarioGom (talk) 06:58, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. Just take your time :) It's already becoming more tedious to do the updates as less people are involved. Hopefully, we could get some more help there. It is not beneficial if only one person is trying to update the template all by himself at the expense of others. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 15:00, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
There is no available script yet, but I do not know how at least one other person can determine what time several countries are publishing their daily figures. Almost every day, he tries to be the first person to update those countries. I do not know why he thinks that updates need to be made "on time". Updates have already become less meaningful. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 03:50, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
There is an ongoing effort to implement automated updates to this template, but I do not know how much progress is being made here and here. It might take a while before the content of the template is replaced. Also, consensus and a BRFA would also be needed when the replacement is ready. Some of the few editors who were still updating the template regularly seem to have already left the topic area. In the meantime, are there any other ways to make manual editing easier? LSGH (talk) (contributions) 02:58, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
LSGH: I've been playing around with this, but I have nothing quite ready yet. I'm a bit skeptical about using ourworldindata as the source for every figure. It's a good source, but we'd probably need a way to introduce manual exceptions based on other reliable sources. MarioGom (talk) 10:17, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Retaining the manual sources is doable, but it would likely take much longer to do. Currently, TolBot updates the data subpage once every day, though I do not know yet how it will use data from sources other than OWID. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 10:33, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Page protection
Hey Mario! Given recent events, I think it might be a good idea to semiprotect your talk page and talk archives for a bit. Would you be ok with that? --Blablubbs (talk) 19:55, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Sure thing. Johnuniq already protected archive 1 for a year, I gave 2 and 3 a one month semi, and 1 week for your main talk page. Please give me a ping if this needs extending. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:06, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
New page reviewer granted
Hi MarioGom. Your account has been added to the "New page reviewers" user group. Please check back at WP:PERM in case your user right is time limited or probationary. This user group allows you to review new pages through the Curation system and mark them as patrolled, tag them for maintenance issues, or nominate them for deletion. The list of articles awaiting review is located at the New Pages Feed. New page reviewing is vital to maintaining the integrity of the encyclopedia. If you have not already done so, you must read the tutorial at New Pages Review, the linked guides and essays, and fully understand the deletion policy. If you need any help or want to discuss the process, you are welcome to use the new page reviewer talk page. In addition, please remember:
Be nice to new editors. They are usually not aware that they are doing anything wrong. Do make use of the message feature when tagging pages for maintenance so that they are aware.
You will frequently be asked by users to explain why their page is being deleted. Please be formal and polite in your approach to them – even if they are not.
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New Page Patrol newsletter September 2021
New Page Review queue September 2021
Hello MarioGom,
Please join this discussion - there is increase in the abuse of Wikipedia and its processes by POV pushers, Paid Editors, and by holders of various user rights including Autopatrolled. Even our review systems themselves at AfC and NPR have been infiltrated. The good news is that detection is improving, but the downside is that it creates the need for a huge clean up - which of course adds to backlogs.
Copyright violations are also a serious issue. Most non-regular contributors do not understand why, and most of our Reviewers are not experts on copyright law - and can't be expected to be, but there is excellent, easy-to-follow advice on COPYVIO detection here.
At the time of the last newsletter (#25, December 2020) the backlog was only just over 2,000 articles. New Page Review is an official system. It's the only firewall against the inclusion of new, improper pages.
There are currently 706 New Page Reviewers plus a further 1,080 admins, but as much as nearly 90% of the patrolling is still being done by around only the 20 or so most regular patrollers.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process or its software.
Various awards are due to be allocated by the end of the year and barnstars are overdue. If you would like to manage this, please let us know. Indeed, if you are interested in coordinating NPR, it does not involve much time and the tasks are described here.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. Sent to 827 users. 04:32, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Editor of the Week
Editor of the Week
Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Editor of the Week in recognition of your administrative work. Thank you for the great contributions! (courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)
I am very proud to nominate MarioGom to be the next Editor of the Week. A multi-faceted writer, MarioGom's 50+ article creations (such as Murder of Miquel Grau) include both translations and original writing. But it's on the administrative side of Wikipedia where they really shine: MarioGom is an absolutely invaluable contributor at WP:SPI, where they are primarily responsible for rooting out dozens of the most sophisticated UPE socks that Wikipedia has ever experienced. MarioGom is one of the most dedicated editors I know and is a model Editor of the Week.
You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week:
A multi-faceted writer with over 50 article creations which include translations and original writing. An absolutely invaluable contributor at sockpuppet investigations where they are primarily responsible for rooting out dozens of the most sophisticated UPE socks that Wikipedia has ever experienced. One of the most dedicated editors and a model Editor of the Week.
I just came accross this SPI-- I remember sending an email related to this case to paid-en-wp(at)wikipedia.org in late June that I honestly forgot about until earlier today. Interesting how the evidence backed up some of my suspicions, and furthermore it was just the tip of the iceberg to the long list of names there. Outstanding work. SpencerT•C05:49, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Spencer: Thanks for the info! Paultimothyjones714 was already in the initial report. Unfortunately, most accounts are not actionable because they are stale. But at least current activity is more or less disrupted and it's now easier to find new accounts. MarioGom (talk) 07:34, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment
I have tried to give all sources from publsihed, and verified sources. Although I may be misinformed. Please let me know the citations that are not acceptable. So that I can remove and replace them. OR As you suggest would remove the lines that cant be supported with reliable reference. Thanks RelianceOnHimAlone (talk) 19:35, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Your reply has been really comforting and clear. Thanks. I will study the guidelines. It will be really kind and supportive, if you can atleast let me know the sources which are acceptable, so that I can remove the rest. THANKS again.
RelianceOnHimAlone: You don't necessarily need to remove all of them. For example, a primary source, like bitraser.com, may be used to source some uncontroversial claim (see WP:ABOUTSELF), but it does not count to determine notability. From what I can see on the article, none of the sources is independent, secondary, and reliable source (see WP:RS). But I might have overlooked something. Let me know if you think any of these sources is independent and reliable. MarioGom (talk) 20:34, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
I am associated with the organization and I am not directly paid for this or I am not a paid editor.
PS: I may not also know the jargon on what paid editor means.
RelianceOnHimAlone: I have a hard time believing that you represent the company, and are not paid for it. Note that unpaid internships are covered by this policy too, even if strictly they are not paid. What kind of association do you have with the organization? MarioGom (talk) 20:36, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Sure, I will study everything in detail. So that I dont unnecessarily bother you with qustions. Its way past midnight here at 5:30 GMT in India. Thanks, I will get back with proper/informed questions. Have a great day and wish you all that is Good. THANKS. I have had very strict and little rude experience here on wiki, so ur replies have really sounded soothing. CANT thank more! :) RelianceOnHimAlone (talk) 20:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
My PS was apt. I am paid monthly salary. So, I am a paid editor. GOT IT. thanks
Thanks so much for participating in Phase 1 of the RfA 2021 review. 8 out of the 21 issues discussed were found to have consensus. Thanks to our closers of Phase 1, Primefac and Wugapodes.
The following had consensus support of participating editors:
Corrosive RfA atmosphere
The atmosphere at RfA is deeply unpleasant. This makes it so fewer candidates wish to run and also means that some members of our community don't comment/vote.
Level of scrutiny
Many editors believe it would be unpleasant to have so much attention focused on them. This includes being indirectly a part of watchlists and editors going through your edit history with the chance that some event, possibly a relatively trivial event, becomes the focus of editor discussion for up to a week.
Standards needed to pass keep rising
It used to be far easier to pass RfA however the standards necessary to pass have continued to rise such that only "perfect" candidates will pass now.
Too few candidates
There are too few candidates. This not only limits the number of new admin we get but also makes it harder to identify other RfA issues because we have such a small sample size.
"No need for the tools" is a poor reason as we can find work for new admins
The following issues had a rough consensus of support from editors:
Lifetime tenure (high stakes atmosphere) Because RfA carries with it lifetime tenure, granting any given editor sysop feels incredibly important. This creates a risk adverse and high stakes atmosphere.
Admin permissions and unbundling There is a large gap between the permissions an editor can obtain and the admin toolset. This brings increased scrutiny for RFA candidates, as editors evaluate their feasibility in lots of areas.
RfA should not be the only road to adminship Right now, RfA is the only way we can get new admins, but it doesn't have to be.
Please consider joining the brainstorming which will last for the next 1-2 weeks. This will be followed by Phase 2, a 30 day discussion to consider solutions to the problems identified in Phase 1.
There are 2 future mailings planned. One when Phase 2 opens and one with the results of Phase 2. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Hello! Would it be possible to request an update on the gender imbalance per country list? I've been working my way through the lower 20 countries, and have just finished it for the third time. I imagine its a bit of a job, so if there are ways I can help, I would be happy to. Best Lajmmoore (talk) 20:19, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Be it article spamming, url spamming, nabbing undisclosed paid editing and other unethical practices such as sock puppetry, you have shown a natural predisposition to “knowing” unethical edits when you “see it” and also tackling it accordingly. Thank you for all your efforts, we are grateful to have you. Celestina007 (talk) 23:05, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Asking you, as you're experienced with SPIs. There is a long-time banned editor who keeps making sockpuppets. Each time they do, they are caught and blocked. But after their last sock was blocked, they seem to have returned as an IP and are trying to edit war. What is the solution here? Try to semi-protect the articles they're on? But they'll just move to other articles. Try to get the IP addresses blocked somehow? How? They keep coming back with slightly different IP addresses and I don't understand rangeblocks as well as I should. Thanks VRtalk19:43, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
If the disruption is currently limited to one or two pages, you can ask for protection.
If the range is stable (i.e. are the 2 or 3 first numbers of the IP always the same?), and there is a previous SPI case, you can report the IPs to that existing SPI case. If you do this, don't request a checkuser check, since checkusers cannot comment on IPs.
You may contact the last blocking admin or checkuser on their talk page for advice, or you can send them an email with the list of IPs you believe are used by the same user.
Following a 2 week brainstorming period and a 1 week proposal period, the 30 day discussion of changes to our Request for Adminship process has begun. Following feedback on Phase 1, in order to ensure that the largest number of people possible can see all proposals, new proposals will only be accepted for the for the first 7 days of Phase 2. The 30 day discussion is scheduled to last until November 30. Please join the discussion or even submit your own proposal.
There is 1 future mailing planned with the results of Phase 2. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
16:13, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Feedback request: History and geography request for comment
Thanks for uploading File:CanSinoBIO logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
You mentioned pinging you for "further analysis notes and off-wiki evidence" in this case. I would be interested in seeing them, if it's ethical for you to provide them. Boud (talk) 18:20, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Hi Boud, I rarely send this kind of notes except for SPI clerks, admins, and functionaries. But given that there's nothing sensitive in the notes about on-wiki behavior, I added them now to the case page. Best, MarioGom (talk) 19:13, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
hi again MarioGom. Your note wasn't clear if it was directed to general Wikipedians, or rather only to SPI clerks or other people with specific roles, so that's what I meant by the "if ethical" clause. Anyway, thanks for the analysis. Boud (talk) 23:04, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for your participation in the November 2021 New Pages Patrol drive
The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
For reviewing at least 25 articles during the drive.
Thank you for reviewing or re-reviewing 26 articles, which helped contribute to an overall 1276-article reduction in the backlog during the drive. (t · c) buidhe12:43, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
Feedback request: History and geography request for comment
Hello Mario, thank you for your feedback. However, I think that there has been some misunderstanding regarding the "Bigmoon Entertainment" Wikipedia page.
Let me make it clear, Bigmoon Entertainment was a company that was founded in 2008 and stopped laboring in 2019. I never worked there, during that time I was a student and a volunteer games journalist.
When I was at University, taking a degree in Journalism, I did a study about the History of Bigmoon Entertainment, because I discovered it was a game development studio from my country.
I was never paid to gather and write about this topic: "Bigmoon Entertainment", it was all volunteer and academic work/search that I decided to share on this platform because it is an important subject for the gaming industry of our country (Portugal).
My only objective in doing that article was to give the opportunity to people also know the story of this studio, that was written with an objective point of view, with serious and multiple references. The only information in the article that doesn't have references are the canceled games, because they were never released.
AmendesSaber3d: Thank you for your response. So obviously I got it wrong. You can remove the warning I posted on your talk page if you want. Let me know if I can help you in any other way. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. MarioGom (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
It's alright, I'm glad I could clarify the situation. Thank you for your understanding! There is one thing I would appreciate you or some other Wikipedia editor doing, that would be reverting "Bigmoon Entertainment" to its original title. The current title can be a little misleading, due to the information of the article being completely directed and focused on the "Bigmoon Entertainment" story.
That statement is not wrong, but I think it would be better and clearer if eventually, someone created a separate page for Saber Interactive Porto, instead of mixing the two of them together. User:AmendesSaber3d17:55, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
You can propose that at Talk:Saber Porto, but it's probably better to have a single article, unless both historic periods get long enough. I cannot help but see Saber in your username. If you work for Saber, you still need to read our WP:COI guide. MarioGom (talk) 18:07, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment
May this content be restored please? I see a valid deletion criterion, but it also happened to be important information about a serving UK Cabinet member, and it seems well sourced. Clark42 (talk) 13:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
The 2021 re-examination of RFA has been completed. 23 (plus 2 variants) ideas were proposed. Over 200 editors participated in this final phase. Three changes gained consensus and two proposals were identified by the closers as having the potential to gain consensus with some further discussion and iteration. Thanks to all who helped to close the discussion, and in particular Primefac, Lee Vilenski, and Ymblanter for closing the most difficult conversations and for TonyBallioni for closing the review of one of the closes.
The following proposals gained consensus and have all been implemented:
Revision of standard question 1 to Why are you interested in becoming an administrator? Special thanks to xaosflux for help with implementation.
A new process, Administrative Action Review (XRV) designed to review if an editor's specific use of an advanced permission, including the admin tools, is consistent with policy in a process similar to that of deletion review and move review. Thanks to all the editors who contributed (and are continuing to contribute) to the discussion of how to implement this proposal.
Removal of autopatrol from the administrator's toolkit. Special thanks to Wugapodes and Seddon for their help with implementation.
The following proposals were identified by the closers as having the potential to gain consensus with some further discussion and iteration:
Editors who wish to discuss these ideas or other ideas on how to try to address any of the six issues identified during phase 1 for which no proposal gained are encouraged to do so at RFA's talk page or an appropriate village pump.
A final and huge thanks all those who participated in this effort to improve our RFA process over the last 4 months.
This is the final update with no further talk page messages planned.
@GeneralNotability: I'll post some evidence on my sandbox and ping you two. I have a hunch and I think its worth exploring, otherwise the next time the master will use a more careful puppet. Such puppets are a huge drain on volunteer time. TDB was a tendentious editor who WP:GAMED our rules for disruptive purposes - I have evidence of that too. A few more TDB's and good editors will be pushed away from this topic area.VRtalk21:32, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Or maybe posting it publicly isn't the best idea as it enables future puppetry. Should I email it to ArbCom or someone in private?VRtalk21:37, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Should I also start an ANI thread about TDB? The proxying + this thread is enough evidence that TDB is WP:NOTHERE. And if proxying is what's happening with Rondolinda, then they are NOTHERE either.VRtalk21:43, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
GeneralNotability I see you're a checkuser, so I want to ask you some questions. Can CU link a current account to one that hasn't edited in months? Is it because IP addresses change location after a while? What if an account was CU'd, say, last year as part of a SPI? Do checkusers keep notes on an account's location (eg. account X was in city Y on date Z), so that even if an account hasn't edited in months its location can still be linked to a current account? Thanks, VRtalk21:59, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Vice regent: CheckUser data (e.g. IP) is retained for 90 days. So you can assume that a CheckUser can only confirm accounts within a 90-day window. There's a private CU wiki and mailing list, and CheckUsers might know some additional long-term info about some SPI cases (e.g. sockfarm geolocates to country X). Reporting stale accounts (no edits in 90 days) is usually not useful at SPI. MarioGom (talk) 23:46, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, and that's what I suspected. The question I've been asking is why would someone resort to meatpuppetry as opposed to make the edit themselves? The most obvious reason is to evade CU. But who would need to evade CU? It seems like someone who has another active(-ish) account on wikipedia. An account inactive for years probably won't get caught by CU. Feel free to play the devil's advocate.VRtalk02:24, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Vice regent, someone who is unable to make the edit - perhaps someone who is thoroughly blocked right now, including their IP(s). Alternatively (and this is very much hypothetical), multiple separate editors who are being coordinated by a third party. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:37, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment
Hi. you recently marked the Xerox 1200 article as having unreliable sources, but I am unsure as to which ones you mean. is there a tool you used to determine this? Or did you see a source you know to be unreliable? I apologise for my ignorance in not knowing how to determine this myself. Can you give me a pointer? AVandewerdt (talk) 21:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Hi AVandewerdt: First of all, thank you for creating the article.I didn't review every source, but I spotted a couple of problems:
This archive.org description seems to contain article copied from the Xerox Wikipedia article. This seems to be a circular reference (Wikipedia using a source which uses Wikipedia as a source). These are never allowed.
Got it. Thanks. I have removed four cites including the two you identified as well as a corporate blog post. The facts cited are now supported by new cites that are reliable AVandewerdt (talk) 23:46, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Hi MarioGom, thanks for reviewing the article and take your time to help new reviewers like me. It was based on the Portuguese page, but I tried to use references in English as much as I could. It would be great if you help me to add the Translated page tag in the right place.
TL-WP-CA (talk) 04:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
I already debated this with some users roughly 2 years ago. I am a volunteer at MQW and Medienkunstarchiv Vienna, Austria. I am interested in working on articles related to art and (subversive) culture in Austria, because I think there is a lot of interesting stuff out there, but it's hardly covered. And sometimes, if it is covered, let's say the article about Public Netbase, it is rather bad. I'm not part of TEDxVienna, monochrom, etc. As an example, I do indeed know about involve.me because it was started by the TEDxVienna founder, and I like that event here in Vienna. That's why I looked into involve.me and thought it might be worth an entry. To be honest, software is not my area of expertise, and that's why I also think the article turned out a bit subpar. In case you have specific questions, please let me know. All the very best. ☆☆☆ interstellarpoliceman ☆☆☆21:20, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
Q21 consists of more than 60 institutions, all of them have their scenes and connections, but they are not related to each other besides the fact that they are located at Museumsquartier, a big cultural area in Vienna. There is no common employer or financial gain. If you like I can provide you with info. You refer to users who "jumped in" (as you call it). I know one of them and he is part of the Vienna hacker community and a member of the hackspace Metalab. All the best. ☆☆☆ interstellarpoliceman ☆☆☆23:41, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
Will do. I can definitely talk to the guy, I see him every now and then at events. My main job is working at a publishing house. I never added anything related to my day job to WP, just interesting stuff from my art background. I am definitely a fan of projects like Public Netbase, TEDxVienna, monochrom... that's why I am interested in helping with their WP articles, but I do not know any of them personally. Thanks for the conversation. ☆☆☆ interstellarpoliceman ☆☆☆10:02, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Dear Sir, I am trying to cope with all the regulations but the demands are contradicting. I had added lots of references from literature about the history of the Association and its website but previous mods removed them. I can add them back again and submit for review if that would make things clearer. Thank You — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pianzaco (talk • contribs) 19:22, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for your message and the information about disclosure of Interest. The page was edited without knowing about these regulations for two purposes:
. There were wrong data regarding university affiliation and authorships that could have consequences for the person affected and others. The person who wrote the article did a good job but was not well-informed. I did not know that the way to correct mistakes in a page was by making a complaint through talk. I assume that the complaint goes to the initial author of the page or to the person who made the changes, I do not know. In this case, any of those persons could read it or not and could have time to change it or not and in the meanwhile, the persons affected are unnecessarily exposed to the spread of harmful information.
. Additionally, there was a note saying that the article lacked references and I took the time to add them.
Thanks for the info MarioGom. Sometimes complex to understand how does this work, but happy at the same time to see and learn Lucastron21 (talk) 10:03, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
February with Women in Red
Women in Red Feb 2022, Vol 8, Issue 2, Nos 214, 217, 220, 221, 222
Nthep: Hi! You performed a revdel I requested at Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation. It turns out the content is BSD licensed, which might be compatible with Wikipedia if the appropriate license boilerplate (license text copy) is placed in the talk page. I'm not sure what should be done in this kind of case...? Thank you. MarioGom (talk) 13:50, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
@MarioGom@Heikkikoskinen As I read it the BSD license applies to the software, not the website. The website carries a clear copyright notice as MarioGom points out. Reading the license it talks about the software code and binary forms thereof, nothing else. Nthep (talk) 14:39, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Nthep: Note that the above repository holds the source code (and content) for the website, not the software. But still it might be ambiguous. I'm also ok with everything staying as is, since the website has no clearly marked content license. MarioGom (talk) 14:43, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
It's analogous to the MediaWiki software which is available under the GNU GPL and text content here on Wikipedia which is not under the GNU GPL but another license. Just because the Rockylinux software is available under BSD doesn't mean that covers the website too. If it did why does the website contain a prominent copyright notice and not "this content is under the BSD license"? Nthep (talk) 14:55, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Meant to add, I'm always open to reconsidering if there is new information e.g. the license statement on the webpage changes. Nthep (talk) 15:04, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Feedback request: History and geography request for comment
I sent you a message on the 30 of January (see below). I have not received any answer. My situation is quite uncomfortable. There is a page on me that I modify because it was not well documented and there was information that was creating trouble for me including a wrong affiliation. This is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of fact. Additionally, I add some references to the parts that were (more or less) correct.
Now, you include a message on the article regarding potential payments that is quite ambiguous. Someone could even interpret that I was paying myself, while I have no relation at all with the person that wrote the original article. I feel this is very unfair, to be honest.
I think there must be some kind of solution. I wait for your instructions on how to solve this. As a curator, I suggest you revert those changes you think are inappropriate. Just be aware that this will mean going back to providing inaccurate and potentially harmful information on me.
I fully rely on your wise criteria and advice
Thanks for your message and the information about disclosure of Interest. The page was edited without knowing about these regulations for two purposes:
. There were wrong data regarding university affiliation and authorships that could have consequences for the person affected and others. The person who wrote the article did a good job but was not well-informed. I did not know that the way to correct mistakes in a page was by making a complaint through talk. I assume that the complaint goes to the initial author of the page or to the person who made the changes, I do not know. In this case, any of those persons could read it or not and could have time to change it or not and in the meanwhile, the persons affected are unnecessarily exposed to the spread of harmful information.
. Additionally, there was a note saying that the article lacked references and I took the time to add them.
Thanks for the info MarioGom. Sometimes complex to understand how does this work, but happy at the same time to see and learn Lucastron21 (talk) 10:03, 30 January 2022 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucastron21 (talk • contribs)
Lucastron21: I added the message about undisclosed payments because Captainoatmeal was a sockpuppet by Index of Sciences LTD, a spam company paid by Pau Pérez-Sales to create the article. In case of COI, you can edit the article, in particular uncontroversial edits, although you are recommended to request changes in the talk page. Changes can be requested using the {{Request edit}} template, which will add your request to a queue monitored by other users. You can receive further help at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Edit requests. Best, MarioGom (talk) 09:11, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
Dear Mario: This is fascinating. I have Googled them and found no info on that company. And Index of Science has just a facebook acount with not much info. Where can I consult that info on the disclosure of payment?. Furthermore, if you have that info, as a curator, it wouldn't be better to simply delete the page?. Hope you can advice.Lucastron21 (talk) 10:37, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
Lucastron21: Most of their creations were deleted under speedy deletion criteria G5 (Creations by banned or blocked users). However, it does not apply in this case because the page has substantial edits by other users. About Index of Sciences LTD, you can check more info at Wikipedia:List of paid editing companies#Index of Sciences LTD. I'm not posting here the billing records, since they contain some sensitive information. MarioGom (talk) 13:59, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
GlobalPlatform
I noticed that Draft:GlobalPlatform was incubated and I’m trying to understand why to rectify the problem. I was directed to WP:COIEDIT, despite following the rules regarding COI declaration and going through AfC. Hopefully this is a case that my COI declaration was missed and nothing more serious than that.
If there was a problem with the references on the draft, it would be good to understand which I should avoid using. The draft included a number of what I would deem to be credible independent references, such as Computerworld, Electronics Weekly and EE Times. If it is the case that more references need to be added to the existing ones, then please let us know and we can look into this.
Please, see the Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies): A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. Independent reliable sources do not include press releases [2][3], or self-published sources [4]. Your draft was moved to article space by someone who is not an AfC reviewer, which is discouraged (ping Popo le Chien), so I'd suggest to submit the article again. For the shake of transparency, per WP:DRAFTOBJECT, if either of you object this draftification, you can move the article back to article space or I will do it myself. Best, MarioGom (talk) 21:35, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
March editathons
Women in Red Mar 2022, Vol 8, Issue 3, Nos 214, 217, 222, 223, 224, 225
First, every year and your presence is good, you and the honorable family are fine, health and happiness, Lord of the worlds , The sources have already been added to the article, so please look at them.
Thanks Kitrsjlhf (talk) 23:17, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
Hi Plumber: thanks. I was already aware. I'd suggest you to avoid any notification about AfD in user talk pages. That's the easiest rule of thumb to avoid canvassing issues. Neutral notifications to WikiProjects in the projects' talk pages can sometimes be a good idea, and if you choose to use them, it's a good idea to note it in the AfD with the {{Notified}} template. Best, MarioGom (talk) 18:10, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
Hi, I'm Atsme. I wanted to let you know that I saw the page you reviewed, Blue Paul Terrier, and have marked it as unreviewed. If you have any questions, please ask them on my talk page. Thank you.
(Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)
Atsme: Articles that are at AfD can generally be marked reviewed, since the AfD result will override anything else. Also, this is hardly a new article. Anyway, I won't touch it myself again. Best, MarioGom (talk) 07:23, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Hey MarioGom - I've just been going through some undisclosed paid contributor articles and seeing if they can be cleaned-up and de-promotionalized. I just took a crack at ASPCA which you'd tagged back in November and was going to remove the template but wanted to make sure you didn't have any objections first? THX! Chetsford (talk) 23:56, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
At the time of the last newsletter (No.26, September 2021), the backlog was 'only' just over 6,000 articles. In the past six months, the backlog has reached nearly 16,000, a staggering level not seen in several years. A very small number of users had been doing the vast majority of the reviews. Due to "burn-out", we have recently lost most of this effort. Furthermore, several reviewers have been stripped of the user right for abuse of privilege and the articles they patrolled were put back in the queue.
Several discussions on the state of the process have taken place on the talk page, but there has been no action to make any changes. The project also lacks coordination since the "position" is vacant.
In the last 30 days, only 100 reviewers have made more than 8 patrols and only 50 have averaged one review a day. There are currently 822 New Page Reviewers, but about a third have not had any activity in the past month. All 847 administrators have this permission, but only about a dozen significantly contribute to NPP.
This means we have an active pool of about 450 to address the backlog. We cannot rely on a few to do most of the work as that inevitably leads to burnout. A fairly experienced reviewer can usually do a review in a few minutes. If every active reviewer would patrol just one article per day, the backlog would very quickly disappear.
If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, do suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. Sent 05:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
non-constructive unsplit
About you unsplitting Tai Xuan Jing Symbols[5] etc. Your es does not make sense: if indeed it had not enough reliable secondary sources to justify, that very issue is not solved by putting the whole article into a section. IOW, that section would still have "not enough reliable secondary sources"per your own claim. (To be clear, I do reject that claim, but that obviously does not matter at this point).
So please revert (=restore the split), and be specific, at the talkpage as disputing, in the actual wrong you see (and that would merit an unssplit). -DePiep (talk) 19:32, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
DePiep: Yes, the non-split article has problems, but you're just making them worse with the split. If there are no reliable secondary sources, the standalone article should not be created. Please, see WP:GNG. MarioGom (talk) 19:42, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
For starters, you yourself added the {{Primary sources}} tag, i.e., admitting there was a maintenance issue, not article removal. Of course you and everyone is supposed to leave the tag & let maintenance be done. (But instead you removed the tag without solving: a sin). In the GNG claim you make here, in all possible issues mentioned in there you'd have to hang into the most extreme interpretation to get a point; you did so but without igniting a discussion as may be expected for controversial editing. -DePiep (talk) 20:24, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
DePiep: Feel free to revert my merge. A different new page reviewer will review it at some point, not me. But I would suggest adding at least one reliable secondary source. Best, MarioGom (talk) 22:40, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
DePiep: For further clarification of my actions here:
I saw this article for the first time when patrolling new pages on 7 May. I had a quick look and noticed it relied on primary sources alone, so I added the {{Primary sources}} tag. Note that adding a maintenance tag does not protect an article from deletion, draftification, merge, or blank-and-redirect, even by the same editor who placed the tag. I don't understand your point here, or why it's a sin.
On 12 May, since no other new page reviewer reviewed the page yet, I decided to look at it closer. The split did not seem to be any improvement over the merged version, and it didn't look like passing WP:GNG (not an extreme reading, just a basic one). So reverting the split was a fair option, and non-destructive, since it preserves history, and also the previous content on the redirect target.
If you're sure this passes WP:GNG, you'll make a great favor to the next reviewer if you come up with 1 or 2 reliable secondary sources. Of course, you're not required to. Best, MarioGom (talk) 00:33, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
OK, that's to do then. FYI, the tag was removed when all content moved back into the broader article: while the cause i.e., lack of sources was not remedied (no sources added) for the very same body of text. Hence, I said: a sin. -DePiep (talk) 17:20, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
June events from Women in Red
Women in Red June 2022, Vol 8, Issue 6, Nos 214, 217, 227, 231, 232, 233
Thanks! I will ping you when I publish my message there in english, so you can translate it in spanish then if you want. — Jules*talk16:17, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
Hi Slovena4ther: Most new pages in the English Wikipedia go through new pages review. That means a reviewer (me, in this case), assesses whether an article meets our notability policy or not. For an article about an album, it should meet the general notability guideline, that means the topic should have received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Alternatively, the article may meet some of the notability criteria for recordings). As far as I can tell, there is not enough coverage in reliable sources for Anđele, so I nominated it for deletion. Now it's up for others to discuss if the topic is notable or not.If you think the topic is notable, you can help by adding new reliable sources to the article, or bringing them up to the deletion discussion.Best, MarioGom (talk) 21:06, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
That is an argument that will not get you very far. Please, see WP:OTHERSTUFF. I haven't reviewed the articles you mention. I have reviewed Anđele, and that's the one I assessed and nominated. Best, MarioGom (talk) 22:32, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
New Page Patrol newsletter June 2022
New Page Review queue June 2022
Hello MarioGom,
Backlog status
At the time of the last newsletter (No.27, May 2022), the backlog was approaching 16,000, having shot up rapidly from 6,000 over the prior two months. The attention the newsletter brought to the backlog sparked a flurry of activity. There was new discussion on process improvements, efforts to invite new editors to participate in NPP increased and more editors requested the NPP user right so they could help, and most importantly, the number of reviews picked up and the backlog decreased, dipping below 14,000[a] at the end of May.
Since then, the news has not been so good. The backlog is basically flat, hovering around 14,200. I wish I could report the number of reviews done and the number of new articles added to the queue. But the available statistics we have are woefully inadequate. The only real number we have is the net queue size.[b]
In the last 30 days, the top 100 reviewers have all made more than 16 patrols (up from 8 last month), and about 70 have averaged one review a day (up from 50 last month).
While there are more people doing more reviews, many of the ~730 with the NPP right are doing little. Most of the reviews are being done by the top 50 or 100 reviewers. They need your help. We appreciate every review done, but please aim to do one a day (on average, or 30 a month).
Backlog drive
A backlog reduction drive, coordinated by buidhe and Zippybonzo, will be held from July 1 to July 31. Sign up here. Barnstars will be awarded.
TIP – New school articles
Many new articles on schools are being created by new users in developing and/or non-English-speaking countries. The authors are probably not even aware of Wikipedia's projects and policy pages. WP:WPSCH/AG has some excellent advice and resources specifically written for these users. Reviewers could consider providing such first-time article creators with a link to it while also mentioning that not all schools pass the GNG and that elementary schools are almost certainly not notable.
Misc
There is a new template available, {{NPP backlog}}, to show the current backlog. You can place it on your user or talk page as a reminder:
Very high unreviewed pages backlog: 12484 articles, as of 16:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC), according to DatBot
There has been significant discussion at WP:VPP recently on NPP-related matters (Draftification, Deletion, Notability, Verifiability, Burden). Proposals that would somewhat ease the burden on NPP aren't gaining much traction, although there are suggestions that the role of NPP be fundamentally changed to focus only on major CSD-type issues.
If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Hi Mario, I have improved the articles about Ramón Álvarez de Mon and Tomás Roncero, could you please remove the tags? They are very famous sports journalists in Spain, if you need to make any other change, let me know and I will be glad to do it. Dandilero (talk) 20:58, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for uploading File:Shamama Hasanova (non-free).jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
This award is given to MarioGom for 18 reviews in the July NPP backlog reduction drive. Your contributions played a part in the 9895 reviews that took place during the drive. Thank you for your contributions. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 09:13, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
New Page Patrol newsletter August 2022
New Page Review queue August 2022
Hello MarioGom,
Backlog status
After the last newsletter (No.28, June 2022), the backlog declined another 1,000 to 13,000 in the last week of June. Then the July backlog drive began, during which 9,900 articles were reviewed and the backlog fell by 4,500 to just under 8,500 (these numbers illustrate how many new articles regularly flow into the queue). Thanks go to the coordinators Buidhe and Zippybonzo, as well as all the nearly 100 participants. Congratulations to Dr vulpes who led with 880 points. See this page for further details.
Unfortunately, most of the decline happened in the first half of the month, and the backlog has already risen to 9,600. Understandably, it seems many backlog drive participants are taking a break from reviewing and unfortunately, we are not even keeping up with the inflow let alone driving it lower. We need the other 600 reviewers to do more! Please try to do at least one a day.
Coordination
MB and Novem Linguae have taken on some of the coordination tasks. Please let them know if you are interested in helping out. MPGuy2824 will be handling recognition, and will be retroactively awarding the annual barnstars that have not been issued for a few years.
Open letter to the WMF
The Page Curation software needs urgent attention. There are dozens of bug fixes and enhancements that are stalled (listed at Suggested improvements). We have written a letter to be sent to the WMF and we encourage as many patrollers as possible to sign it here. We are also in negotiation with the Board of Trustees to press for assistance. Better software will make the active reviewers we have more productive.
TIP - Reviewing by subject
Reviewers who prefer to patrol new pages by their most familiar subjects can do so from the regularly updated sorted topic list.
New reviewers
The NPP School is being underused. The learning curve for NPP is quite steep, but a detailed and easy-to-read tutorial exists, and the Curation Tool's many features are fully described and illustrated on the updated page here.
If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
For those who may have missed it in our last newsletter, here's a quick reminder to see the letter we have drafted, and if you support it, do please go ahead and sign it. If you already signed, thanks. Also, if you haven't noticed, the backlog has been trending up lately; all reviews are greatly appreciated.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
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