User talk:Sj/2013

New Article Feedback version available for testing

Hey all.

As promised, we've built a set of improvements to the Article Feedback Tool, which can be tested through the links here. Please do take the opportunity to play around with it, let me know of any bugs, and see what you think :).

A final reminder that the Request for Comment on whether AFT5 should be turned on on Wikipedia (and how) is soon to close; for those of you who have not submitted an opinion or !voted, it can be found here.

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Rodovid for deletion

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

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Canstandya (talk) 17:46, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2013 March newsletter

We are halfway through round two. Pool A sees the strongest competition, with five out of eight of its competitors scoring over 100, and Pool H is lagging, with half of its competitors yet to score. WikiCup veterans lead overall; Pool A's Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) (2010's winner) leads overall, with poolmate Miyagawa (submissions) (a finalist in 2011 and 2012) not far behind. Pool F's Casliber (submissions) (a finalist in 2010, 2011 and 2012) is in third. The top two scorers in each pool, as well as the next highest 16 scorers overall, will progress to round three at the end of April.

Today has seen a number of Easter-themed did you knows from WikiCup participants, and March has seen collaboration from contestants with WikiWomen's History Month. It's great to see the WikiCup being used as a locus of collaboration; if you know of any collaborative efforts going on, or want to start anything up, please feel free to use the WikiCup talk page to help find interested editors. As well as fostering collaboration, we're also seeing the Cup encouraging the improvement of high-importance articles through the bonus point system. Highlights from the last month include GAs on physicist Niels Bohr ( Hawkeye7 (submissions)), on the European hare ( Cwmhiraeth (submissions)), on the constellation Circinus ( Keilana (submissions) and Casliber (submissions)) and on the Third Epistle of John ( Cerebellum (submissions)). All of these subjects were covered on at least 50 Wikipedias at the beginning of the year and, subsequently, each contribution was awarded at least three times as many points as normal.

Wikipedians who enjoy friendly competition may be interested in participating in April's wikification drive. While wikifying an article is typically not considered "significant work" such that it can be claimed for WikiCup points, such gnomish work is often invaluable in keeping articles in shape, and is typically very helpful for new writers who may not be familiar with formatting norms.

A quick reminder: now, submission pages will need only a link to the article and a link to the nomination page, or, in the case of good article reviews, a link to the review only. See your submissions' page for details. This will hopefully make updating submission pages a little less tedious. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) J Milburn (talk) 22:51, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:USCOTM

Template:USCOTM has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Kumioko (talk) 02:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closed-form expression

Hey Sj,

I wanted to learn about Closed-form expression and wanted to read about it in Japanese. From the English page, there was a link to 解析解 in the Chinese Wikipedia (no link to JP WP), from which I got to 微分方程式, which is linked to Differential_equation. I don't know enough about closed-form expression to know what would be an appropriate link from Closed-form expression to JP WP page/section. If you have time, help!

hackfish 16:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

It may not be written yet. See the redlink in this article. Ask a japanese mathematician!

A closed-form expression is a type of Analytic expression (which unfortunately also links to 微分方程式). The idea of being closed here relates to "describable as the combination of a finite number of simple expressions", for a flexible definition of "simple". It's not really related to differential equations, except in the negative sense: most differential equations do not have closed form solutions. (Note that there is a confusingly named closed differential form which is quite different.) – SJ + 18:19, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Food for thought on "knowledge for ¢hange"

Hi Sj, first, thank you for your compliment regarding the holiday/Xmas greeting (with 2 children on a swing) I left on Rich Farmbrough's User talk page. On a different note, a while ago I left a post on the Wikimedia Foundation's feedback webpage for a suggested fundraising donation system to help WP bring in extra cash (doesn't everyone want a raise?). The idea likely has merit and can probably accomplish its goal of raising significant extra funds for Wikipedia if implemented (or at least, as Homer would say: D'oh! it sounded like a good idea in my mind at the time ;-).

My original post, "Food for thought, knowledge for change" has been archived, but when I saw your contributions to the organization it appears it would be good to discuss the concept to see if you could advocate it to your colleagues on the WM Board, or at least bring it to their attention. The suggestion's only remarks generated so far can be seen on my user Talk page, as shown here, which notes that "...a micropayment system created by MuCash [on] websites such as Cleantechnica, where you can see a Java-linked 'Donate....' button at the bottom of each article". (Cleantechnica no longer appears to use MuCash, but other sites such as Dailygiver.org do, where the blue and orange donate button can be seen near the bottom of this webpage).

As an afterthought to the concept, I would also permit the proposed system to allow Wikipedians the option to (voluntarily) automatically donate any funds they personally receive to Wikimedia. Doing so this way would generate a bit more cash to the organization, and allow the editors to receive some personal credit for such donations. Best: HarryZilber (talk) 18:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Tanzania

Mambo vipi, Sj? Kwangu poa kabisa. And the answer regarding "Kaswahili", no, I do not know him at all. Never heard of him before. But I was intrigued with his effort. Possibly we'll eventually get someone to establish the chapter!--_{Mwanaharakati}^(Longa) 14:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bus Routes

Just thought you would like to know that there has been a lot more lists which have been nominated for deletion which can be viewed here. Wilbysuffolk (Talk to me!) 12:37, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. They should really be transwikied - are there any active WV editors who would like to undertake that? – SJ + 21:07, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lithium burning possible violation

There are users claiming that Lithium burning has copy write issues. More specifically it is claimed that it was copied from this page. The title of the page was Brown dwarfs and is essentially a copy of the wikipedia page of the same name but an older version(I have not yet had the time to find out which), and contains information that also first appeared in wikipedia in 2005 in an edit by you. Could you please tell us more if all the text from Brown dwarf were written originally. And help us potentially resolve this issue. Andrew Luo(too lazy to log in) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.67.62 (talk) 00:03, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Andrew. I guess login should be made 2 seconds instead of 20 seconds :) You're right, it's not a copyvio; resolved. – SJ + 13:29, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Rules

Per Wikipedia:Merging#Proposing a merger, you did not perform Step I in the talk sections of the following articles: Common chemicals and List of commonly available chemicals. It's important to create a section specific for the merge discussion, otherwise people won't respond to a merge request. Also, you need to modify the merge template usage to point to the new section that you create. Thanks. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 01:45, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I see there was already a suggestion to merge a year ago; I'll go ahead and do it. The shorter article has no activity at present. – SJ + 13:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Personal comments

this

Talkback on Jack of Oz's page

Hello, Sj. You have new messages at JackofOz's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

wik-wik-wikify

I think a tiny old-school piece of me just died when I discovered this. A clear case for our old fogeys league, imho. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 19:55, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes... ! – SJ + 02:26, 20 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Genre sub-cats do not need to be in parent

People in Category:American mystery writers or Category:19th-century American novelists should not be in the parent category Category:American novelsits.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please take a look

• Wikipedia_talk:Category_intersection#A_working_category_intersection_today - A prototype for category intersection, that I tested with Nigerian novelists. It uses the catscan tool. My thought is, we could easily implement this, starting with gendered/ethnic/sexuality/religion cats of bios. Create a cat header template, clean up the output of the tool, make it look a bit more friendly, and then remove all of the gendered/ethnic/etc subcats and just use static cat intersections at the top for any key intersections people want. Best part is, regular editors can do this today, while waiting for wikidata to spin up - and we can maintain most of the existing category tree. Help/support requested. And it would show that we're responsive. Thanks! --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:37, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Role of JW and BoT on decisions per Wikipedia:PNSD

Hello SJ, nice to see you again. A Chinese version of Wikipedia:PNSD notes that BoT as the owner of Wikipedia and Mr. Wales as the "benevolent dictator" shall force directives regardless of conclusions from questionnaire, voting, or consensus. Is it true ? Shall you delineate more about PNSD ? According to the template on that page, PNSD in Chinese Wikipedia has not reached a consensus for its implementation so it is not a guideline per se. -- Ktsquare (talk) 03:52, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello KT, great to hear from you. :) This is not entirely true. The Board does not own Wikipedia communities, nor does it set policies (except where the Board sets very high-level policies, like the Terms of Use, for all wiki-projects - and that is generally done after building community consensus).

If you are running a discussion whose outcome requires new software, then after the community decision, the community may need to write the necessary code. And code changes that require someone to update MediaWiki core are of course much harder to implement: that requires WMF staff approval. Sometimes WMF staff may take an action required by law, regardless of community consensus - cf. WP:OFFICE. But in those cases neither the BoT nor Jimbo are directly involved. On the English Wikipedia, Jimbo retains additional fiat power, with the trust of the community -- but this does not carry over to all projects.

Warmly, – SJ + 14:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, that particular version notes that in same "special examples" the BoT or JW will force directives under "some special circumstances" -- Cybercavalier (talk) 17:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see that quote. The part about JW should be limited to en:wp. The part about the BoT is not precise (and could be interpreted wrongly). It should say the WMF as maintainer of the sites may enforce directives. (It does say "developers" may enforce them... but this can also happen through the Legal & Community Advocacy department).

While the BoT can approve global policy, and can direct the WMF to implement new policy, there are many other ways the WMF could decide to implement a change. It is the WMF overall, not the BoT (which is part of the WMF), which maintains the sites. – SJ + 18:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC) (updated 05:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC))[reply]

That particular page was presented in Chinese language so I must guess you understand the language. -- Ktsquare (talk) 04:46, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just enough to parse 合适的情况下 :) – SJ + 05:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello long time no see. The content of that issue has not gathered noticed since and five years and months have passed. I have reposted this issue a day or two ago on zh.community portal. Shall I also ask JW on en.wikipedia because his name was explicitly stated? What shall I do? As that content meant roles of non-zh.wikipedia crossing into zh.wikipedia, blowbacks onto en.wikipedia can be possible. Or I guess possibly not... -- Ktsquare (talk) 19:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, Ktsquare -- is this a current problem on zh? You could just correct the matter, or wait to fix it until the issue comes up. I don't know if a comment from Jimbo will help resolve the matter; but e certainly cares about such things. – SJ + 20:48, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Making revision status visible

SJ, thanks for your reply over on Meta. You mentioned "better ways to show how trusted a version of an article is, such as: when the last edit was made, how many different major contributors an article has, whether an article has unreviewed flagged revs, how active the talk page is."

The authors of this piece at literary magazine talkingwriting.com ("What Should We Do About Wikipedia?", by Martha Nichols and Lorraine Berry) expressed a somewhat similar desire, namely that the article history and contributors should not be hidden behind a History link most people won't click. In most cases it's obviously impossible to list the entire history on the article page, but even having just the last five edits visible on the article page could have multiple benefits: readers could see how old the version is they're reading, and figure out whether it is a stable version or whether there is currently an edit war going on. An additional benefit is that the last few edits would get more scrutiny than they do now: you might get the odd reader who takes an interest in what has recently changed in the article, and thus more eyes on the edit.

If you haven't seen it, the talkingwriting piece is a good read, as is the discussion underneath – for once, a civil and cogent discussion in the Comments section of a web article. Regards. Andreas JN466 03:19, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is a fine piece indeed. This sort of feature is something we need, and that other online texts should have as well. I spent part of an evening in the Boston Globe offices, and it was amazing to see how much their workflow looks like that of a small-group of wiki editors. Scripts parsing through feeds of new changes and new articles, reputation tagging for how likely a change was to be reliable, decisions about when to merge or split articles, citation-needed markers. They had a few tools that we don't, but still lacked a clean way to visualize how active a changing article was or where the recent changes came from. – SJ + 02:17, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Glad you had the time to take a look. Andreas JN466 13:14, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board/USNCOTW

Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board/USNCOTW, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board/USNCOTW and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board/USNCOTW during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Kumioko (talk) 01:54, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cocktails needing pictures

Here's the current list. One of the pictures had been taking so I removed the BLT Cocktail, but the rest still need pictures.
User:Faolin42/ReqPhoto11
Faolin42 (talk) 01:28, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I'm going out to a pub for the OKFN meetup tonight, we'll see if one of the bartenders is interested... – SJ + 16:24, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hunting for embedded outlines

I'm looking for outlines embedded in articles.

I've run across a number of these over the years. One example is the Outline of fencing, which used to be part of the fencing article.

If you know about or spot any structured general topics lists in articles, please let me know (on my talk page).

Another thing you might find are articles that are comprised mostly of lists (without "Outline of" or "List of" being in the article's title). If you come across any of these, please report them to me on my talk page. I'd sure like to take a look at them.

Happy hunting.

I look forward to "hearing" from you (on my talk page). Sincerely, The Transhumanist 07:40, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Transhumanist! There are definitely some of these gems hidden in articles. I wish there were an easier way to search all articles for "Outline" in a section heading. For instance: Foundationalism. I think this can best be done by running a script across a dump. – SJ +

P.S.: Where do we place votes for WMF?

You can vote via Special:SecurePoll. Warmly, – SJ + 16:30, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Re: mw:Watchlist wishlist

You are welcome, Sj. Where did I link to that? I have been on so many pages and wikis lately. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:14, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I found where we discussed this:

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-05-27/Foundation elections

I could use a watchlist subsection just for talk pages where someone is directly replying to me. I may not notice replies otherwise to old discussions with multiple participants. But that would require MediaWiki software to figure out who is being replied to. More developers are needed. :)

You linked to a discussion at mw:Talk:Watchlist wishlist. It is good that discussion is going on somewhere about watchlists. The problem is that the discussion is doubly handicapped by being on a wiki that few people regularly follow, and that the wiki uses the much-hated mw:LiquidThreads ("no longer actively maintained"). I think plain old talk pages are much easier to scan. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:02, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor talkpage

Hey SJ.

I have (for a second time) reverted your formatting changes to the VisualEditor talkpage. If you read the edit summary behind the first revert, you know that a lot of the posts there come from the feedback button in the VisualEditor proper, which are automatically posted to the feedback page. The key word is "automatically"; they will not respect formatting or level 1 headers, they will go at the bottom of the page. Accordingly attempts to mass-reformat the page are doomed to require constant curation and maintenance to be meaningful, and in the meantime, very much frustrate Maggie and I, whose ability to reply to things via section editing is undermined every time someone rearranges the section numbers. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Oliver. You are mistaken: I reverted myself the second time after seeing your earlier comment and counting to ten ;). That feedback page like any high-volume talk page needs refactoring to be useful over time, and we need edit tools that make section clustering and outlining easy. But there is no point arguing over technique when you will have to maintain the page for some time. I see your frustration, and regret that section editing is so sensitive to the order of sections on a page; a long-standing bug. Section edits should be exactly as robust as section links: anchored based on the section title.

I hope that frustration re:refactoring is not becoming commonplace - it would sweet for Flow, for instance, to support curation (if not the old-school style of refactoring!). It will at least do away with this particular bug. – SJ + 12:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, yes; I think we both tried to undo at the same time :). I agree that things need to be more robust, and that factoring should be better; Flow is being built along the principle that sections and threads, rather than page titles, have primacy, which should help. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, interesting: it seems that double-reverts, and also noop edits that only add an edit summary, are being invisibly dropped. I tried to add a summary-only edit with no result and no warning that it didn't go through. Is this a documented feature/bug? – SJ +

Noop edits have always been dropped from history. It is a feature because "discussion through edit summaries" is a Bad Idea. However it's also a bug because there is no mechanism to change edit summaries, so minor edits are often done to leave a missed or previously mistaken edit summary. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:02, 23 May 2015 (UTC).

Personal and Moral Rights?

In a discussion with Jimmy Wales on the moral rights of the photographers and the personal rights of the subjects, he said "I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed."

We further requested him to bring this matter to the attention of WMF and make a resolution or something to force Commons make enough policies to protect our rights as a photographer and our commitments to our subjects. He replied: "I am just one board member on this issue. I will continue to call this to the attention of the board and staff, but I need help from the community to illustrate that this is a problem that concerns many of us."

So we would like to bring that discussion to the attention of every member on board. JKadavoor Jee 11:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, JKJ. I agree that we should take these rights seriously, and second Kat's comments on the matter. As Jimbo says, a clear community position is needed - even if it is a minority position - to articulate the problem and potential solution. – SJ + 04:48, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Samuel Klein, for you valuable reply. Please note a somewhat related discussion at Commons too: Concern about the bureaucrat role of Russavia JKadavoor Jee 06:35, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to let you know that your strong opinion along with others ([1], [2]) influenced the Commons community to initiate a discussion to develop a policy for courtesy deletions. We expect guidance, opinions, and participation in the development of similar policies and guidelines in future too. Thanks. JKadavoor Jee 02:45, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

NB, duped on meta. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 15:58, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation

As there is a Wikipedia article about you, you are cordially invited to contribute a short audio recoding of your spoken voice, so that our readers may know what you sound like and how you pronounce your name. Details of how to do so, and examples, are at Wikipedia:Voice intro project. You can ask for help or clarification on the project talk page, or my talk page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:05, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the invitation. I need to reinstate my podcast setup. – SJ +

Serendipity

Thought of you today when the articles Samuel Beckett and Klein bottle showed up one after the other in my watchlist ;-) Regards 17:50, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

:-) And I love both of those things. – SJ +

Please comment on Talk:Yuilop

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Yuilop. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 20:15, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article Feedback Tool update

Hey Sj. I'm contacting you because you're involved in the Article Feedback Tool in some way, either as a previous newsletter recipient or as an active user of the system. As you might have heard, a user recently anonymously disabled the feedback tool on 2,000 pages. We were unable to track or prevent this due to the lack of logging feature in AFT5. We're deeply sorry for this, as we know that quite a few users found the software very useful, and were using it on their articles.

We've now re-released the software, with the addition of a logging feature and restrictions on the ability to disable. Obviously, we're not going to automatically re-enable it on each article—we don't want to create a situation where it was enabled by users who have now moved on, and feedback would sit there unattended—but if you're interested in enabling it for your articles, it's pretty simple to do. Just go to the article you want to enable it on, click the "request feedback" link in the toolbox in the sidebar, and AFT5 will be enabled for that article.

Again, we're very sorry about this issue; hopefully it'll be smooth sailing after this :). If you have any questions, just drop them at the talkpage. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) 21:35, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Wikimania 2006 for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Wikimania 2006 is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikimania 2006 until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Ypnypn (talk) 21:20, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Whole Earth Catalog wikibook

Phoebe mentioned you had investigated getting The Whole Earth Catalog on-wiki somehow, I found your proposal on wikibooks, interested in following up on it. — Mattsenate (talk) 22:57, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for getting in touch. I'd love to make this happen now. – SJ +

I still have yellowing, crumbling paper copies of this reference classic, and mourned its disappearance along with its descendant, the Co-Evolution Quarterly. It would be great to have this information online as a Wikibook, both as a historical reference, and for the (relatively) timeless content that is still directly relevant today. Reify-tech (talk) 18:27, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on VisualEditor takedown

Hello. I am writing you because you are an elected community representative on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. I am writing my other two representatives also. At some point in an appropriate venue, would you please comment on the community's decision to take down the VisualEditor? At the Administrator's Noticeboard right now there is a recently closed request for comment on a community-forced removal of the VisualEditor. I think that none of you three participated in that last discussion which resulted in the community changing MediaWiki code to remove the VisualEditor.

It is my wish that at least one of you would say something encouraging to show respect to the Wikimedia Foundation and to the Wikipedia community and their ability to work collaboratively to meet contributor needs. It might be the case that this event would be looked upon by people outside the community and perhaps even remembered in the future. Since you three are elected representatives who relay messages between the Wikimedia Foundation and the community, I would like for any of you to publicly comment on the situation in a succinct and positive way which demonstrates the constructive aspects of the relationships we all have with each other. I hope that this could be done in a venue which people would be likely to find if they started reading about this, but this need not be done in a place which would send people to this issue if they were not already searching for it.

I do not know who might be covering this in the The Signpost, for example, but if it is covered I wish that if you did not give statements in the article space then perhaps you could comment in the comment section if any article on the topic is published and you find this venue to be appropriate enough for your attention. Thank you for maintaining good relations between Wikimedia Foundation staff and community members. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:16, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick heads up

Hi Samuel,

I wanted to bring this to your attention: http://www.suburbanexpress.com/arneklempert/ screenshot — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.78.1 (talk) 19:18, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. – SJ + 23:14, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion going on about continuing to block the Wikipedia user responsible for the harassment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Arri_at_Suburban_Express - Gulugawa (talk) 19:01, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reward board discussion

Given it's been kept at MfD, I've reposted a proposal to tighten it. See header. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:46, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads up. – SJ + 01:46, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aaron Swartz

Working on Aaron Swartz as we speak. The MIT police log is a public record, was published (by MIT), though not archived, and has historical importance, so it should be cool for Wikisource. The other records may or may not have been published. Thoughts? --Dervorguilla (talk) 21:44, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. A TOC or list of the other records would be worth having; even if we can't publish the underlying records. That's worth a section on talk:Aaron Swartz. – SJ + 22:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ANI Board

Hey Sj, I'm sorry I keep bugging you, and I know this is extraordinarily minor and of little/no interest to you. But, all I ask is that you review my latest post discussion with Drmies. Once again, I'm really sorry to bother you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Suburban_Express 24.15.78.1 (talk) 22:36, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for tagging you. I think my lack of experience on WP got the best of me. I attempted to tag you only when I was threatened with being blocked since you had seen some of what was happening play out. I was surprised by that since I was literally quoting the editor in question, but was being told I was incorrect. I don't want to cause problems, I really am trying to be genuine here. I'm sure you have heard this before, and I don't know how exactly I can demonstrate that. I suppose it does take me removing myself altogether from Wikipedia. I just see admins making dramatic edits despite consistently repeating that everything should be discussed until there is consensus...but then making undiscussed edits, teaming up (which I suppose makes sense), and turning a blind eye to the input.suggestions/proposals of others not in their circle after the fact. Thanks for commenting. You have more experience than most, so in the end, I will take your suggestion(s) to heart. 24.15.78.1 (talk) 02:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tagging me is fine - just don't tag people at the end of a paragraph next to your own signature: it makes it look like the person you tagged wrote the text preceding it.

If you assume that a) people are working in good faith to improve the article, b) there's no conspiracy - noone is teaming up, and c) people tend to be narrowly focused on their approach to a problem, and so sometimes make contextual mistakes -- you will be right most of the time :) As I make those assumptions myself, I can see that you're trying to be genuine. The earlier version of the article was however too strongly weighted in one direction; so it's not surprising that the next iteration was shifted strongly in the opposite direction. Over time it will balance out. When you feel emotional about a topic, I find it helps to read what you write twice before posting, try to remove any emotional or accusatory language, and cut out 80% of what you were going to say - so you don't overwhelm people with less time to focus on it.

There's no need for you to leave Wikipedia - you write well! - just take a break from this article for a while. It would help you get a sense of perspective to edit other topics; to see what sorts of back-and-forth is normal. Regards, – SJ + 18:56, 12 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I really do appreciate the advice as well as your extreme patience with me. I know you are very busy and this is just an unnecessary distraction from your real work here. In the past few weeks, I have learned quite a bit about Wikipedia's culture, etiquette, formalities, and expectations. I had no idea how complex these things can be. I also know there is no conspiracy here and all the admins are trying to get it right in good faith. It's just the real-world situation, as I'm sure you have read in articles and on the SubEx page, is beyond terrible. Thanks again. 24.15.78.1 (talk) 01:47, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Moody's and "Credit rating agency"

Many thanks for your note, SJ, and I am sorry I did not respond sooner. I have agreed to work on behalf of Moody's over time. Previously I had helped to reorganize and improve entries about the company and its principal entities. This year, I have focused on "Credit rating agency". I do all of my own research and my own writing, following Wikipedia's guidelines to the best of my ability, including on the subject of WP:COI. Moody's is very much a publisher (although primarily its opinions on creditworthiness of bonds) but I have avoided using Moody's materials except where necessary to confirm unexceptional details. Meanwhile, I have just minutes ago posted a comment on the recent edits to the entry, on the discussion page here. You would be most welcome to join the discussion if you have the time and interest. I feel that this topic has not received the attention it deserves. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 00:42, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WMF Board and paid advocacy

Thanks for contributing to the RfC discussions on paid advocacy. I've heard that you guys on the the WMF Board may be outlining your position sometime soon; do you know when that's coming? I'm thinking yet another RfC may be useful, this time focused on giving Wikipedians guidelines to help them stay out of trouble (if they want to stay out of trouble). If the Board is going to say something soon-ish, it would probably be good to get that information first. - Dank (push to talk) 14:09, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a place I can find more information about what Dank mentioned: "on the the WMF Board may be outlining your position sometime soon" A couple years back at Wikimania Philippe said WMF was Switzerland on the issue, but I'm happy to see WMF get involved.

I just spent three days at a marketing conference with a lot of lawyers that specialize in legal compliance in marketing activities. Some of them worked with the FTC themselves to develop their guidelines. Could probably connect WMF to some folks that would be ideal to talk with about it.

Sincerely, a frequent marketing contributor. CorporateM (Talk) 17:21, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I just saw the discussion on Jimbo's page where it is mentioned. I'd love to see the "statement" whenever it is made public. I like to think I planted the seed for discussions about FTC's laws, though I imagine WMF will probably only stick to its Terms of Use. It's important to me since I need to make sure I am acting in a compliant manner, though I suppose that will be ambiguous. Eager to see it! CorporateM (Talk) 20:00, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The reliability of Wikipedia's medical content

Hi. This may interest you. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:15, 27 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. That discussion has been archived. As a volunteer representative on the WMF board, I'd be very interested to hear any thoughts you may have about scholarly review of our medical content. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:02, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Swartz

The five documents cited at Aaron Swartz Timeline are scanned copies of the original sources. (The text was converted using ClearScan OCR, so the output files don't open properly in Firefox; but Adobe says they're still "admissible in court".)

The passages below support the proposition that an "unaltered scanned copy" of a government document can in some cases be an appropriate wikisource, even if it's published on a random hacktivist site.

The reputation of the publisher doesn't seem to matter. (Indeed, the publisher's name is supposed to be omitted from the citation.) Rather, "all efforts should be made to cite to the most stable electronic location available." (Rule 18.2.2, Direct Citations to Internet Sources.) Implication: A page that can be accessed in the Internet Archive should be preferred over one that's hidden behind a firewall.

Yes, that is correct. You just need a reason to believe that what you have is indeed an unaltered scanned copy. Are you looking for the right place to add them on wikisource? You might start with pages in your userspace there. – SJ + 17:43, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

10.3 [Case] Reporters and Other Sources
10.3.1 Parallel Citations and Which Source to Cite
... Cite a [case] reporter, a widely used computer database, a [looseleaf] service, a slip opinion, an Internet source, or a [print] newspaper, in that order of preference.
  [1] ...
  [5] State v. McArthur, [Docket] No. C4-99-502 (Minn. Ct. App. Sept. 28, 1999), http://www.lawlibrary.state.mn.us/archive/ctapun/9909/502.htm.
  [6] United States v. Palermo, N.Y. Times, Aug. 27, 1957 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 26, 1957).

18.1 Basic Citation Forms
(a) Internet Sources
  [1] authenticated or official documents
  [2] unaltered scanned copies of print source
  [3] documents for which print copy is practically unavailable
  [4] ...

18.2.1 General Internet Citation Principles
(a) Sources that can be cited as if to the original print source. When an authenticated, official, or exact copy of a source is available online, citation can be made as if to the original print source....
(i) Authenticated Documents.... “Authenticated” sources ... use an encryption-based authentication method ... to ensure the accuracy of the online source....
(ii) Official Versions. Some state have designated ... that the online source is the“official” source for a particular legal document....
(iii) Exact Copies. An exact copy is one that is an unaltered copy of the printed source in a widely used format that preserves pagination and other attributes of the printed work (such as Adobe’s portable document format).

The Bluebook (Columbia Law Review Ass'n et al. eds., 19th ed. 2010). --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:03, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've found scant evidence as to what The Bluebook means by 'unaltered copy.' Rule 5.2 (Alterations and Quotations Within Quotations) does talk about "substitutions," "insert[ions]" [of bracketed letters or words], "omissions" . . . , "mistakes in original," and such. This just suggests that we don’t want to cite to a scanned copy that appears to have been edited, or that adds corrections or annotations or comments or 'helpful' background material, or whatever. --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:47, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of Marvel Comics characters

Hi. I've just reverted your November 28 edits to List of Marvel Comics characters: A for a couple reasons. One is that per WP: Header, section headings should not be wikilinked. The second is to maintain a consistent format across the List of Marvel Comics characters articles. I just recently went through these articles to ensure that they all followed the most popular format; since it's now been five days and you haven't edited any of the articles for the other 25 letters of the alphabet, I'm guessing that you weren't planning on doing so, so I've reverted to keep the articles all in one format. If you still think these articles should follow the format exemplified in your November 28 edits, I recommend trying to build a consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics; that way you won't need to specifically convince me in order to get support for your format.--NukeofEarl (talk) 18:02, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of reverting, why not start a conversation on the wikiproject about it? A culture of reversion is much slower than alternatives that continually explore possible improvements. – SJ + 00:48, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My first three years on Wikipedia taught me that pretty much anything one says is ignored unless one reverts first. Even Wikipedia policy recommends the WP: Bold, revert, discuss cycle.--NukeofEarl (talk) 15:03, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose :) BRD's not policy, and does include "consider Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary. It is not the intention of WP:BRD to encourage reverting." But I can see more efficient norms losing out to / being replaced by oppositional ones. That's a community-wide challenge. – SJ +

Photo

Hi SJ. Meta:Press Corps says you can take photos in US (anywhere) and you have a Category:Wikipedians in New York City category on your user page. Can you take some photos in New York City for an article I'm working on or know of someone who can? Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Photographers does not list anyone in New York. Thanks. -- Jreferee (talk) 03:37, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aha! There are people in m:Wikimedia NYC who are all over NYC, more often than I am. I would start by asking on that talk page. I am there regularly (later this month), but my high-quality camera currently needs repair. Warmly, – SJ + 17:49, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Great! I'll post there. -- Jreferee (talk) 02:26, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Should en.Wikipedia medical articles have a prominent disclaimer?

As a WMF board member, you should be aware of this discussion. I'd appreciate an acknowledgment that you have seen this notice. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:46, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The Portuguese and German solutions seem thoughtful, and don't trigger the concerns that most of the opponents mention. – SJ +