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The Signpost: 16 October 2013

doctor who

Please cite your source for changing the response to Time of the Doctor from positive to mixed. I can find no reliable siurce supporting this claimShaolindoctorwho (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The only source right now giving any kind of overview is IMDB, and there the reaction is 8.2 positive. A rundown of all the major reviews is in line with this assessment. Rotten Tomates has it at 100 percent fresh but given the small number of reviews there, it is far too early to use it as a source. You cannot use your own opinion about the show or its reaction for this. This isn't a gut reaction kind of assesment. You must cite. You must abide by wikipedia policy and cite. I request that other editors be brought in to this matter. Clearly the article has become the focus of fan feuds. Shaolindoctorwho (talk) 14:23, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi! I've responded over at Talk:The Time of the Doctor. - Bilby (talk) 14:51, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 October 2013

The Signpost: 30 October 2013

I like the way you explained this to the IP. I guess I was just too lazy to do something about it myself - putting in effort to protect paid editors may be correct and of course policy is against outing but of course they damage Wikipedia and waste an inordinate amount of good editors time, so I'm afraid I couldn't be bothered. I should trout myself. Dougweller (talk) 08:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand exactly how you feel. :) I spend a lot of time trying to quietly counter some of the problems they produce, but I really wish the community could get some consensus on how to proceed, whatever it may be. - Bilby (talk) 08:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 November 2013

Help with C-SPAN?

Hi there, Bilby. I could be wrong, but I don't think our paths have ever crossed on Wikipedia, though I'm looking for help with a few minor suggestions to the C-SPAN article and I know that you've helped User:16912 Rhiannon—with whom I work—with a few COI projects of hers in the past. I'm hoping you might be able to help me as well.

My COI with C-SPAN is very straightforward: I have been a consultant to the network for several years now and have been working this year to improve the C-SPAN article so that I can submit it to WP:FAC. I had done so once, incorporated a good amount of feedback—it seems very close—but eventually time ran out on the first nomination.

Over the past few months, I had been working with a couple of editors to finalize some small changes to the page—but the editor with whom I'd been talking (User:Ruhrfisch) has drifted away as of late. Since then, I've posted about my two suggestions on the Paid Editor Help page, though it doesn't seem to be very active these days.

If you can help, the request at Paid Editor Help explains everything in more detail—and the key discussion itself is back at Talk:C-SPAN. In short, I'm looking to update the current XM radio channel listing in the article and to clarify one point in the History section. While I don't think these are remotely controversial or POV-ish, I'm also keen on following Jimbo's "bright line" so I won't be the person to make them myself.

Any chance you could take a look at this and, if the changes seem agreeable, update the entry? After that, it's over to FAC. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 02:30, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

This is now  Done. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:33, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 November 2013

November 2013

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Freelancer.com may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:
  • economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-02-09/news/31042112_1_indian-users-job-seekers-indian-currency],Indiatimes.com | work=The Times Of India | title=Website for freelance assignments launched in

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 07:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

This Month in Education: November 2013



Headlines

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VisualEditor newsletter for November 2013

Did you know?

VisualEditor's toolbar has a new feature (currently working only in some browsers), "Switch to source editing". By choosing this item, you can move directly into the wikitext source editor without saving. This is particularly useful if you need to make significant changes to tables, image galleries, or other elements that are not currently supported.

For more information about how to use VisualEditor, read Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some feature changes, major infrastructure improvements to make the system more stable, dependable and extensible, some minor toolbar improvements, and fixing bugs.

A new form parsing library for language characters in Parsoid caused the corruption of pages containing diacritics for about an hour two weeks ago. Relatively few pages at the English Wikipedia were affected, but this created immediate problems at some other Wikipedias, sometimes affecting several dozen pages. The development teams for Parsoid and VisualEditor apologize for the serious disruption and thank the people who reported this emergency at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and on the public IRC channel, #mediawiki-visualeditor.

There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

  • Accidental deletion of infoboxes and other items: You now need to press the Delete or ← Backspace key twice to delete a template, reference or image. The first time, the item becomes selected, and the second time, it is removed. The need to press the delete key twice should make it more obvious what you are doing and help avoid accidental removals of infoboxes and similar (bug 55336).
  • Switch from VisualEditor to the wikitext editor: A new feature lets you make a direct, one-way editing interface change, which will preserve your changes without needing to save the page and re-open it in the wikitext editor (bug 50687). It is available in a new menu in the action buttons by the Cancel button (where the "Page Settings" button used to be). Note that this new feature is not currently working in Firefox.
  • Categories and Languages are also now directly available in that menu. The category suggestions drop-down was appearing in the wrong place rather than below its input box, which is now fixed. An incompatibility between VisualEditor and the deployed Parsoid service that prevented editing categories and language links was fixed.
  • File:, Help: and Category: namespaces: VisualEditor was enabled for these namespaces the on all wikis (bug 55968), the Portal: and Viquiprojecte: namespaces on the Catalan Wikipedia (bug 56000), and the Portal: and Book: namespaces on the English Wikipedia (bug 56001).
  • Media item resizing: We improved how files are viewed in a few ways. First, inline media items can now be resized in the same way that has been possible with block ones (like thumbnails) before. When resizing a media item, you can see a live preview of how it will look as you drag it (bug 54298). While you are dragging an image to resize it, we now show a label with the current dimensions (bug 54297). Once you have resized it, we fetch a new, higher resolution image for the media item if necessary (bug 55697). Manual setting of media item sizes in their dialog is nearly complete and should be available next week. If you hold down the ⇧ Shift key whilst resizing an image, it will now snap to a 10 pixel grid instead of the normal free-hand sizing. The media item resize label now is centered while resizing regardless of which tool you use to resize it.
  • Undo and redo: A number of improvements were made to the transactions system which make undoing and redoing more reliable during real-time collaboration (bug 53224).
  • Save dialogue: The save page was re-written to use the same code as all other dialogs (bug 48566), and in the process fixed a number of issues. The save dialog is re-accessible if it loses focus (bug 50722), or if you review a null edit (bug 53313); its checkboxes for minor edit, watch the page, and flagged revisions options now layout much more cleanly (bug 52175), and the tab order of the buttons is now closer to what users will expect (bug 51918). There was a bug in the save dialog that caused it to crash if there was an error in loading the page from Parsoid, which is now fixed.
  • Links to other articles or pages sometimes sent people to invalid pages. VisualEditor now keeps track of the context in which you loaded the page, which lets us fix up links in document to point to the correct place regardless of what entry point you launched the editor from—so the content of pages loaded through /wiki/Foobar?veaction=edit and /w/index.php?title=Foobar&veaction=edit both now have text links that work if triggered (bug 48915).
  • Toolbar links: A bug that caused the toolbar's menus to get shorter or even blank when scrolled down the page in Firefox is now fixed (bug 55343).
  • Numbered external links: VisualEditor now supports Parsoid's changed representation of numbered external links (bug 53505).
  • Removed empty templates: We also fixed an issue that meant that completely empty templates became impossible to interact with inside VisualEditor, as they didn't show up (bug 55810).
  • Mathematics formulae: If you would like to try the experimental LaTeX mathematics tool in VisualEditor, you will need to opt-in to Beta Features. This is currently available on Meta-wiki, Wikimedia Commons, and Mediawiki.org. It will be available on all other Wikimedia sites on 21 November.
  • Browser testing support: If you are interested in technical details, the browser tests were expanded to cover some basic cursor operations, which uncovered an issue in our testing framework that doesn't work with cursoring in Firefox; the Chrome tests continue to fail due to a bug with the welcome message for that part of the testing framework.
  • Load time: VisualEditor now uses content language when fetching Wikipedia:TemplateData information, so reducing bandwidth use, and users on multi-language or multi-script wikis now get TemplateData hinting for templates as they would expect (bug 50888).
  • Reuse of VisualEditor: Work on spinning out the user experience (UX) framework from VisualEditor into oojs-ui, which lets other teams at Wikimedia (like Flow) and gadget authors re-use VisualEditor UX components, is now complete and is being moved to a shared code repository.
  • Support for private wikis: If you maintain a private wiki at home or at work, VisualEditor now supports editing of private wikis, by forwarding the Cookie: HTTP header to Parsoid ($wgVisualEditorParsoidForwardCookies set to true) (bug 44483). (Most private wikis will also need to install Parsoid and node.js, as VisualEditor requires them.)

Looking ahead:

  • VisualEditor will be released to some of the smaller Wikipedias on 02 December 2013. If you are active at one or more smaller Wikipedias where VisualEditor is not yet generally available, please see the list at VisualEditor/Rollouts.
  • Public office hours on IRC to discuss VisualEditor with Product Manager James Forrester will be held on Monday, 2 December, at 1900 UTC and on Tuesday, 3 December, at 0100 UTC. Bring your questions. Logs will be posted on Meta after each office hour completes.
  • In terms of feature improvements, one of the major infrastructure projects affects how inserting characters works, both using your computer's built-in Unicode input systems and through a planned character inserter tool for VisualEditor. The forthcoming rich copying and pasting feature was extended and greater testing is currently being done. Work continues to support the improved reference dialog to quickly add citations based on local templates.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 22:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 November 2013

Linode

Hey Bilby, I have a question about the Linode page. The page says "The neutrality of this article is disputed." I agree, without any context it reads non-neutral. Looking at the editing history, it looks like the removed History and other sections contexualized and balanced the page. I saw that you worked on the page in September and I thought I'd ask for your help and input. Reka olner (talk) 20:21, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

There were problems with those section, mostly to do with some sourcing issues, but I agree that they are much needed in order to help with balance. I've added a little back, and I'll keep looking for sources to expand it. - Bilby (talk) 06:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Linode, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages SSL and Load balancing (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:07, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 December 2013

The Signpost: 11 December 2013

Hensels

Thank you for attending to that. I was just wondering if it was possible to remove hate messages from articles of living people. Amandajm (talk) 13:20, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

The idiot has returned, twice. Amandajm (talk) 13:40, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for letting me know! I've protected the page for a short while, and blocked the IP. - Bilby (talk) 13:52, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

This Month in Education: December 2013



Headlines
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FemTechNet

Hey, you deleted my addition "Wikipedia movement" to this article and commented "will rewrite", you forgotten this perhaps or just too busy? Nosepea68 (talk) 03:50, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I realised that it was already covered in the previous paragraph. - Bilby (talk) 05:43, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 December 2013

VisualEditor newsletter • 19 December 2013

Did you know?

VisualEditor's toolbar has a new drop-down menu that contains all character formatting: bold, italics, subscript, superscript, strikethrough, computer code, underline, and the ability to remove all formatting from text.

For more information about how to use VisualEditor, read the user guide.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some toolbar improvements, fixing bugs, and improving support for Indic languages as well as other languages with complex characters. The current focus is on improving the reference dialog and expanding the new character inserter tool.

There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

  • Rich copying and pasting is now available. If you copy text from another website, then character formatting and some other HTML attributes are preserved. This means, for example, that if you copy a pre-formatted suggested citation from a source like this, then VisualEditor will preserve the formatting of the title in the citation. Keep in mind that copying the formatting may include formatting that you don't want (like section headings). If you want to paste plain, unformatted text onto a page, then use Control+⇧ Shift+V or ⌘ Command+⇧ Shift+V (Mac).
  • Auto-numbered external links like [1] can now be edited just like any other link. However, they cannot be created in VisualEditor easily.
  • Several changes to the toolbar and dialogs have been made, and more are on the way. The toolbar has been simplified with a new drop-down text styles menu and an "insert" menu. Your feedback on the toolbar is wanted here. The transclusion/template dialog has been simplified. If you have enabled mathematical formula editing, then the menu item is now called the formula editor instead of LaTeX.
  • There is a new character inserter, which you can find in the new "insert" menu, with a capital Omega ("Ω"). It's a very basic set of characters. Your feedback on the character inserter is wanted here.
  • Saving the page should seem faster by several seconds now.
  • It is now possible to access VisualEditor by manually editing the URL, even if you are not logged in or have not opted in to VisualEditor normally.  To do so, append ?veaction=edit to the end of the page name.  For example, change https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Random to https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Random?veaction=edit to open a random page in VisualEditor.  This is intended to support bug testing across multiple browsers, without requiring editors to login repeatedly.

Looking ahead: The transclusion dialog will see further changes in the coming weeks, with a simple mode for single templates and an advanced mode for more complex transclusions. The new character formatting menu on the toolbar will get an arrow to show that it is a drop-down menu. The reference dialog will be improved, and the Reference item will become a button in the main toolbar, rather than an item in the Insert menu.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

If you have a problem with my style I think it's perfectly appropriate

There is obviously no clear and/or deliberate CV going on here, either intentional or otherwise and I'm getting sick and tired of your copy edits without raising the matter on my talk page. If you have a problem with my edits on these grounds you must discuss --Orestes1984 (talk) 11:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

You were right and I was wrong, my abrasive behaviour lately is uncalled for --Orestes1984 (talk) 14:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Season's Greetings


Merry Xmas!

Best wishes for a great Christmas, and for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014! Pdfpdf (talk) 13:06, 24 December 2013 (UTC)


Merry Christmas!

BOZ (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I'm wishing you a Merry Christmas, because that is what I celebrate. If you don't like Christmas or just don't celebrate it in any of its forms, then please accept a generic "Happy Holidays". If you celebrate no holidays at this time of year, then hopefully you will be satisfied with an even more generic "Season's Greetings".  :)

Happy New Year! MER-C 09:51, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 December 2013

Anxiety

Thank you for your advice regarding my post in the anxiety article I will get that dons when I get back home for New Years. I read on your user page that you like anime, if you want to, I sometimes draw anime so you could go to www.deviantart.com and then in the serch bar look up Dark Whispers123 then click on Dark Whispers123 to get to my profile. Stormy Nights (talk) 17:12, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-prot

Did it actually get applied? Timeshift (talk) 00:08, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

It did, but as a number of editors in the past have been against protecting their talk pages, I just went for something short-term until I heard from you. It worked at the time, though. After the IP showed up again, someone else has protected your page for longer before I could wander over. :) - Bilby (talk) 14:46, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Gamers in politics

First of all, I wrote the Clark A. Peterson article before I ever realized he was a judge.

Then just today, I realized that Rob Bell (Virginia politician) was the same Rob Bell who worked for Iron Crown Enterprises.

John Nephew of Atlas Games was also a city councilman in Minnesota - turning the redirect into an article is on my to-do list. BOZ (talk) 03:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 January 2014

date and New York Times (blunt description - no wikilawyering)

I reverted your revert at Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia. It may be the same old story, but it's the recent 2014 version, after all the previous nonsense. It's also written by the New York Times, without any wishy-washy wikilawyering language. Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:10, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

It is also written by a columnist calling for an army of sockpuppets to improve her article, only says stuff that is already in the article, and has nothing to do with "Wikipedia and Wikimedia reaction". And then, of course, you are highlighting that comment, without including any of Wiki-PRs response. I don't see any value in the quote. - Bilby (talk) 05:16, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 January 2014

MIS page

Hey. Well, you did not have to bring the page back. It is wrong. The correct title should be Management Information Systems. with an "s" in the end! That page should not even exist! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amjad z4 (talk • contribs) 06:16, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Alright. Lets start a discussion. But there really should be a page on the field too. I wonder why there isn't! Some info can be taken from this page too: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Master_of_Science_in_Information_Systems

Health psychology

Could you weigh in on an editorial dispute between Mrm7171 and me on how to edit the health psychology entry? Thank you Iss246 (talk) 15:36, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Added the reference from iss246 and whatamidoing that Occupational health psych is a specialization of health psychology. 'Their supposed' reliable source, not mine is attached. Are they wrong? I'm confused Probably best to discuss rather than blindly revert their reliable source. I Have no idea what OHP is actually?Mrm7171 (talk) 11:32, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Would you like to OA for a Molecular Biology course project?

Hi,

I and User:Keilana are OAs for a course project in Molecular Biology, taught at John Hopkins University for the upcoming Spring, 2014 semester. We ran the same course last semester, and you can check out the course page. I will be putting together the new course pages (two, one each for two sections) for the upcoming semester in the next couple of days.

We are wondering if you would be willing to help with this. Mostly, it involves hand-holding and answering questions for students who are new to Wikipedia. However, we also hope that you would be able to help review articles as they become mature, during the review cycles in units 9, 11, and 13. Here is an example review by Keilana.

Depending on how many other OAs we get, we'd be asking for commitment of between two - four reviews for each of those three cycles, and each might take about an hour.

Would you be able to help with this? If so, could you please let us know as soon as possible? Thanks! Klortho (talk) 03:52, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

This Month in Education: January 2014



Headlines

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VisualEditor newsletter for Janaury 2014

Did you know?

To add templates, go to the "Insert" menu and choose the "Transclusion" (puzzle piece) item. Enter the name of the template and click "Add template". If TemplateData exists for the template, then a list of possible parameters will appear. If not, you can add parameters yourself by typing the parameter name under "Add parameter". For unnamed parameters, use numbers ("1" for the first unnamed parameter).

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked mostly minor features and fixing bugs. A few significant bugs include working around a bug in CSSJanus that was wrongly flipping images used in some templates in right-to-left (RTL) environments (bug 50910) a major bug that meant inserting any template or other transclusion failed (bug 59002), a major but quickly resolved problem due to an unannounced change in MediaWiki core, which caused VisualEditor to crash on trying to save (bug 59867). This last bugs did not appear on any Wikipedia. Additionally, significant work has been done in the background to make VisualEditor work as an independent editing system.

As of today, VisualEditor is now available as an opt-out feature to all users at 149 active Wikipedias.

  • The character inserter tool in the "Insert" menu has a very basic set of characters. The character inserter is especially important for languages that use Latin and Cyrillic alphabets with unusual characters or frequent diacritics. Your feedback on the character inserter is requested. In addition to feedback from any interested editor, the developers would particularly like to hear from anyone who speaks any of the 50+ languages listed under Phase 5 at mw:VisualEditor/Rollouts, including Breton, Mongolian, Icelandic, Welsh, Afrikaans, Macedonian, and Azerbaijani.
  • meta:Office hours on IRC have been heavily attended recently. The next one will be held this coming Wednesday, 22 January at 23:00 UTC.
  • You can now edit some of the page settings in the "options" dialog – __NOTOC__ and __FORCETOC__ as selection (forced on, forced off, or default setting; bugs 56866 and 56867) and __NOEDITSECTION__ as a checkbox (bug 57166).
  • The automated browser tests were adjusted to speed them up and bind more correctly to list items in lists, and updated to a newer version of their ruby dependencies. You can monitor the automated browser tests' results (triggered every twelve hours) live on the server.
  • Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide was updated recently to show some new and upcoming features.

Looking ahead: The character formatting menu on the toolbar will get a drop-down indicator next Thursday. The reference and media items will be the first two listed in the Insert menu. The help menu will get a page listing the keyboard shortcuts. Looking further out, image handling will be improved, including support for alignment (left, right, and center) and better control over image size (including default and upright sizes). The developers are also working on support for editing redirects and image galleries.

Subscriptions to this newsletter are managed at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Please add or remove your name to change your subscription settings. If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:07, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 January 2014

Thanks!

I think we have enough OAs now, but thanks very much for your offer to help. Klortho (talk) 13:51, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 January 2014

Talkback

Hello, Bilby. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/LumCel.
Message added 23:44, 27 January 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thank you! —Unforgettableid (talk) 23:44, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

question re: your interpretation of WP:INVOLVED

Hi Bilby - as initial clarity, this is not a block I am intending to make, at least at any point before discussions have fully played out (and probably not after,) because blocking a single paidsock isn't a time sensitive issue. I'd been categorically avoiding the idea of conducting any paidsockblock myself given my past involvement with Wiki-PR, but at least one person disagreed that I would be involved given that Wiki-PR has been banned and socking is generally considered an egregiously blockable act anyway, and I'm curious to get your take on it. Out of curiosity: if I blocked User:PetarrPoznic for violating WP:SOCK (which doesn't require ID'ing a master as far as I can tell) with a clearly laid out chain of evidence indicating why there's an overwhelming probability that that account is in violation of WP:SOCK, would you consider my block as in violation of WP:INVOLVED? (Whether you consider it a good or bad block is a separate question, since making a block another admin considers incorrect and making a block another admin considers in violation of WP:INVOLVED are quite different things.) Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:56, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi! Sorry for being away - I picked up a bit of a bug. :) I think there's a good case for blocking PetarrPoznic under the duck test - it is a bit secondary, but I was planning to dig a bit more anyway. I think Rybec is correct that there is good evidence pointing to some of the recently listed accounts. WP:Involved has always been a bit complex here - we haven't necessarily been considered involved if our actions were in admin actions, without any other interaction, especially in long-term sock cases. But I seem to recall a couple of situations where an admin was deemed involved because of the long-term situation. I'll see if I can remember when they came up.
On related issues, Morning277 has been active recently, so I'll be keeping an eye out for him. - Bilby (talk) 23:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

RE: WikiExperts

Hi Trident13. I gather you might not be aware, so to clarify the current situation, WikiExperts.us has been community banned from Wikipedia. It is an unusual case, as the same model was applied as that given to Wiki-PR, whereby the ban extends to all related organisations, people connected with WikiExperts, and employees. - Bilby (talk) 02:31, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the message - I am not surprised! He approached me re doing some work for him, asked me to sign an NDA, then - nowt! Used some of my day-job skills then to do some background research, and was resultantly happy that the "opportunity" didn't go any further. I didn't see any of the organisations or subjects that he had as clients, but some of the projects that he was offering services to wouldn't have passed WP:NOTAB with a gale force wind behind them. Rgds, --Trident13 (talk) 10:45, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

Industrial/organizational psychology

I could use your help on the industrial/organizational psychology talk page. Iss246 (talk) 02:43, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 February 2014

This Month in Education: February 2014



Headlines

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VisualEditor Newsletter—February 2014

Did you know?
Click this image to see the details.

You can easily re-use references by going to the Insert menu, choosing "Reference", and clicking on "Use an existing reference" in the lower left corner. A list of all references, their numbers, and their ref names (if any) will be shown. You can search the list for any author, title, date, or other keyword. Read the user guide for more information.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some small changes to the user interface, such as moving the reference item to the top of the Insert menu, as well as some minor features and fixing bugs, especially for rich copying and pasting of references.

The biggest change was the addition of more features to the image dialog, including the ability to set alignment (left, right, center), framing options (thumbnail, frame, frameless, and none), adding alt text, and defining the size manually. There is still some work to be done here, including a quick way to set the default size.

  • The main priority is redesigning the reference dialog, with the goal of providing autofill features for ISBNs and URLs and streamlining the process. Current concept drawings are available at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog. Please share your ideas about making referencing quick and easy with the designers.
  • A few bugs in the existing reference dialog were fixed. The toolbar was simplified to remove galleries and lists from the reference dialog. When you re-use references, it now correctly displays the references again, rather than just the number and name. If you paste content into a dialog that can't fit there (e.g. ==section headings== in references), it now strips out the inappropriate HTML.
  • You can now edit image galleries inside VisualEditor. At this time, the gallery tool is a very limited option that gives you access to the wikitext. It will see significant improvements at a later date.
  • The character inserter tool in the "Insert" menu is being redesigned. Your feedback on the special character inserter is still wanted, especially if you depend on Wikipedia's character inserters for your normal editing rather than using the ones built into your computer.
  • You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu (three bars next to the Cancel button) (T54844).
  • If you edit categories, your changes will now display correctly after saving the page (T50560).
  • Saving the page should be faster now (T61660).
  • Any community can ask to test a new tool to edit TemplateData by leaving a note at T53734.

Looking ahead: The link tool will tell you when you're linking to a disambiguation or redirect page. The warning about wikitext will hide itself after you remove the wikitext markup in that paragraph. Support for creating and editing redirects is in the pipeline. Looking further out, image handling will be improved, including default and upright sizes. The developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments, some behavioral magic words like DISPLAYTITLE, and in-line language setting (dir="rtl").

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 04:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 February 2014

The Signpost: 26 February 2014

Talkback

Hello, Bilby. You have new messages at Talk:INPEX (invention show).
Message added 00:27, 7 March 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Cheers! —Unforgettableid (talk) 00:27, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Ahem

Special:Contributions/Micky m salesman no 2. He's back. Ishdarian 23:48, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. :) I've blocked, and protected the page. - Bilby (talk) 23:51, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, he's back on the talk page now. Ishdarian 23:52, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. That's now protected too. - Bilby (talk) 23:54, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

(test) The Signpost: 05 March 2014

CCI update

It's more fun to count the ones going down than the ones coming in. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 March 2014

VisualEditor newsletter—March 2014

Did you know?
Click this image to see the details.

The template dialog has been simplified to make it faster and easier to add parameter data. Read the user guide for more information.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has mostly worked on changes to the template and image dialogs.

The biggest change in the last few weeks was the redesign of the template dialog. The template dialog now opens in a simplified mode that lists parameters and their descriptions. (The complex multi-item transclusion mode can be reached by clicking on "Show options" from inside the simplified template dialog.) Template parameters now have a bigger, auto-sizing input box for easier editing.  With today's update, searching for template parameters will become case-insensitive, and required template parameters will display an asterisk (*) next to their edit boxes. In addition to making it quicker and easier to see everything when you edit typical templates, this work was necessary to prepare for the forthcoming simplified citation dialog. The main priority in the coming weeks is building this new citation dialog, with the ultimate goal of providing autofill features for ISBNs, URLs, DOIs and other quick-fills. This will add a new button on the toolbar, with the citation templates available picked by each wiki's community. Concept drawings can be seen at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog. Please share your ideas about making referencing quick and easy with the designers.

  • The link tool now tells you when you're linking to a disambiguation or redirect page. Pages that exist, but are not indexed by the search engine, are treated like non-existent pages (T56361).
  • Wikitext warnings will now hide when you remove wikitext from the paragraph you are editing.
  • The character inserter tool in the "Insert" menu has been slightly redesigned, to introduce larger buttons. Your suggestions for more significant changes to the special character inserter are still wanted.
  • The page options menu (three bars, next to the Cancel button) has expanded. You can create and edit redirect pages, set page options like __STATICREDIRECT__, __[NO]INDEX__ and __[NO]NEWEDITSECTION__, and more.  New keyboard shortcuts are listed there, and include undoing the last action, clearing formatting, and showing the shortcut help window. If you switch from VisualEditor to wikitext editing, your edit will now be tagged.
  • It is easier to edit images. There are more options and they are explained better. If you add new images to pages, they will also be default size.  You can now set image sizes to the default, if another size was previously specified. Full support for upright sizing systems, which more readily adapt image sizes to the reader's screen size, is planned.
  • VisualEditor adds fake blank lines so you can put your cursor there. These "slugs" are now smaller than normal blank lines, and are animated to be different from actual blank lines.
  • You can use the Ctrl+Alt+S or ⌘ Command+⌥ Option+S shortcuts to open the save window, and you can preview your edit summary when checking your changes in the save window.
  • After community requests, VisualEditor has been deployed to the Interlingual Occidental Wikipedia, the Portuguese Wikibooks, and the French Wikiversity.
  • Any community can ask for custom icons for their language in the character formatting menu (bold, italic, etc.) by making a request on Bugzilla or by contacting Product Manager James Forrester.

The developers apologize for a regression bug with the deployment on 6 March 2014, which caused the incorrect removal of |upright size definitions on a handful of pages on the English Wikipedia, among others. The root cause was fixed, and the broken pages were fixed soon after.

Looking ahead:  Several template dialogs will become more compact. Looking further out, the developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments. You will be able to see the Table of Contents change live as you edit the page, rather than it being hidden. In-line language setting (dir="rtl") may be offered to a few Wikipedias soon.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback or by joining the office hours on 19 April 2014 at 2000 UTC. Thank you! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:44, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Your Jay Weatherill photo

Hey! I'm just wondering when you took this photo if it was the only one you took of him or if there are others you took that you may have not uploaded? Timeshift (talk) 01:21, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

There might be some others, but that was before I picked up the fast long lens, so I don't know how well they worked, as I was still using the f4. I'll see if I can dig them up. - Bilby (talk) 00:09, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! Timeshift (talk) 00:14, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Another RfC on naming

Please see the further RfC here. --John (talk) 18:59, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Quick note

Hi Bilby. Given your involvement in the occupational health psychology article over time, can you comment, on talk, as to a couple of clear points I've left there. Just want a civil resolution and to bring some much needed NPOV to that very biased article. Was not sure why you were so keen to get rid of the reference to the scientific committee at the University of South Australia conference, but anyway have compromised on that too.Mrm7171 (talk) 03:32, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

For your interest

FYI. I had enough of the attacks and accusations today [2]

The Signpost: 19 March 2014

Re: Theodore Katsanevas

The first set of proposals didn't seem contentious, only the second section. I'm not the author of the article nor of the hook and it was passed by two separate users; it should have been added several weeks ago. WP:DYKNN doesn't even discourage adding a hook in my case, though it mentions other cases. Of course, if you want to add it yourself better so. --Nemo 13:10, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

System for Award Management

Hi Bilby, thanks for removing all the copyright vio text from System for Award Management. I worked on the US Federal Contractor Registration article a couple times before it was merged and I still have a couple decent sources with small amounts of information on the company. I'd like to add some of them to the article, probably near the bottom where it talks about registration. I just wanted to give you a heads-up so that when you see the edits, you don't think someone is trying to add back the same info that you removed. HtownCat (talk) 22:13, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 March 2014

The Signpost: 02 April 2014

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion

As you are one of the editors who have reverted him, this is a courtesy advisory that I have reported 124.171.36.210 at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:124.171.36.210 reported by User:AussieLegend (Result: ) about his edt-warring at Talk:Hey Dad..!. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:44, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 09 April 2014

Notice of complaint

FYI, I filed another complaint[3].Psyc12 (talk) 12:25, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

This Month in Education: April 2014



Headlines

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 21:44, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

If this message is not on your home wiki's talk page, update your subscription.

Heleen Mees

The concern you expressed here is fully justified. I am an editor at nl.wiki and have been involved in disputes with bmwz3hm there. I have no connection to either party and my own interest is the encyclopedia. Nevertheless I find myself (to my dismay) confronted with someone who is determined to win an edit war. I tried to open up a dispute on the talk page, but to no avail. Mrs. Mees is quite wellknown in the Netherlands, but mainly as an opinion writer with provocative feminist views. She is often called a "power feminist", someone who promotes third-wave-feminism. As a scientist or a lawyer she is up till now not particularly notable. The version in which is said that all charges in the court case are set for dismissal (without mentioning the conditions forced upon Mees, but not failing to mention that it is alleged that Buiter in spite of the accusations contacted Mees) is certainly POV in favour of Mees. On the Dutch Wikipedia she made clear that she wants to be notable as a scientist and a lawyer to contradict and to counteract Buiters low opinion of her capacities. Could you give me advice what would be the next thing to do. I have stopped edit warring, so the current article is the preferred version of bmwz3hm. Thanks in advance, Theobald Tiger (talk) 08:31, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

On my talk page I already received a warning not to disclose real-life identities again. OK, but how could anyone possibly reveal self-promotion if disclosing identities in obvious cases is strictly forbidden? Theobald Tiger (talk) 20:31, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
It can be a problem. The English Wikipedia's approach has been to regard privacy as more important than conflict of interest editing. Accordingly, if we can only show that someone has a COI by publicly revealing their identity, we have to choose not to prove the COI. When you get down to it, the COI guideline is just a guideline, not policy, so privacy issues trump it every time.
That said, we don't need to publicly prove the nature of the COI. In this case, the editor hasn't denied having one, and the complete focus on only two articles, along with other issues, makes it clear that some sort of conflict of interest exists. It doesn't really matter what the nature of it is - we know that there is a concern, and we can act on that without knowing more. In many cases, like this, that is enough - the conflict of interest is clear. - Bilby (talk) 14:21, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your clear answer. It helped me to understand en.wiki. I will act accordingly. Theobald Tiger (talk) 14:58, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Meetup

It was decided the meeting should be written up, and that this should be a collaborative exercise. I have "started the ball rolling" at Wikipedia:Meetup/Adelaide/Meetup 8#Meeting summary Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 15:25, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Thankyou. I'll try to build on that. - Bilby (talk) 14:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

May meetup

Can we get the date sorted a.s.a.p. please? Then we can start "recruiting" attendees ... Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:31, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

P.S. I'm happy to start ... errrrr ... (posting to / spamming / choose-your-expression) user talk pages, provided we can decide what to post ... Pdfpdf (talk) 11:31, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Expression of gratitude

Dear Bilby, I would like to thank you for your patience and constructive approach. You contacted me this January to express your concern about some of my edits (I mean these your messages about conflict of interest). I assured you that there was no reason for concern, but I was wrong. With all my desire to be neutral and follow the principles of Wikipedia, I could not create new articles with any personal or professionally connection so as not to draw criticism from other editors. My work has become unpleasant, I was discouraged from editing. So I really appreciate your help (I mean this comment and some others). I have reconsidered my attitude to this situation and decided to follow your initial advice. Now I don't add any new articles with possible conflict of interest directly. I have tried to use the "Articles for creation" section and would be very grateful if you can just have a look at it and express your opinion about the quality of my submission or even accept it, if you think that it complies with the rules (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Serguei_Netessine). Anyway, thank you for everything. I hope your communication with me wasn't in vain. —Alexandra Goncharik -sms- 15:01, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox big thing

Template:Infobox big thing has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:58, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 April 2014

VisualEditor newsletter—April 2014

Did you know?

You can use VisualEditor to make redirects. First, remove any unwanted content from the page. Then go to the "Page options" menu (next to "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cancel⧽") and choose the "Page settings" item. Click the box to "Redirect this page to". In the box, type in the name of the page that you want to redirect this page to.

You can also set or remove categories for the redirect in the "Page options" menu. Read the user guide for more information.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has mostly worked on performance improvements, image settings, and preparation for a simplified citation template tool in its own menu.

  • In an oft-requested improvement, VisualEditor now displays red links (links to non-existent pages) in the proper color. Links to sister projects and external URLs are still the same blue as local links.
  • You can now open templates by double-clicking them or by selecting them and pressing  Return.  This also works for references, images, galleries, mathematical equations, and other "nodes".
  • VisualEditor has been disabled for pages that were created as translations of other pages using the Translate extension (common at Meta and MediaWiki.org). If a page has been marked for translation, you will see a warning if you try to edit it using VisualEditor.
  • When you try to edit protected pages with VisualEditor, the full protection notice and most recent log entry are displayed. Blocked users see the standard message for blocked users.
  • The developers fixed a bug that caused links on sub-pages to point to the wrong location.
  • The size-changing controls in the advanced settings section of the media or image dialog were simplified further. VisualEditor's media dialog supports more image display styles, like borderless images.
  • If there is not enough space on your screen to display all of the tabs (for instance, if your browser window is too narrow), the second edit tab will now fold into the drop-down menu (where the "Move" item is currently housed). On the English Wikipedia, this moves the "Edit beta" tab into the menu; on most projects, it moves the "Edit source" tab. This is only enabled in the default Vector skin, not for Monobook users. See this image for an example showing the "Edit source" and "View history" tabs after they moved into the drop-down menu.
  • After community requests, VisualEditor has been deployed as an opt-in feature at Meta and on the French Wikinews.
The drop-down menu is on the right, next to the search box.

Looking ahead:  A new, locally controlled menu of citation templates will put citations immediately in front of users. You will soon be able to see the Table of Contents while editing. Support for upright image sizes (preferred for accessibility) is being developed. In-line language setting (dir="rtl") will be offered as a Beta Feature soon. Looking further out, the developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments. It will be possible to upload images to Commons from inside VisualEditor.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback or by joining the office hours on Monday, 19 May 2014 at 18:00 UTC. If you'd like to get this on your own page, subscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor#Newsletter for English Wikipedia only or at meta:VisualEditor/Newsletter for any project. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Tonsley Line (Revisited - for the 463rd time?)

Further to our last face-to-face discussion ...
Whose turn is it this time? Is it just you and me, or are there others prepared to, yet again, pseudo-apologise for Trans-Adelaide's incompetent communication skills? Pdfpdf (talk) 13:03, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

If it goes as planned, it is due to reopen the end of this week. So I'm inclined to sit back and see if that happens. Although I'll be surprised if they finally manage to hit a deadline. - Bilby (talk) 05:07, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm 100% certain...

...that this was an accident on your part. I'm literally 30 seconds from blocking that editor, and it's time to appeal to their sense of ethics the panda ₯’ 23:55, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately no, it wasn't an accident. I fully understand what you are trying to do, but the problem is that you've gotten too close to outing. It is an understandable mistake, especially given the circumstances, but I'm going to have to risk erring on the side of caution. - Bilby (talk) 02:07, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, when they identified themselves on Commons, it's hardly Outing the panda ₯’ 08:53, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 April 2014

The Signpost: 07 May 2014

Heleen Mees

[4] Probably not a good idea to implement any of those suggested edits. It would be block evasion and per WP:DENY it would be perfectly legitimate to remove them. I would suggest it is probably better to allow the article to develop naturally without being engineered by a serial sockpuppeteer. Until that editor comes to realise that wikipedia is a co-operative enterprise built on consensus I doubt they can edit constructively. WCMemail 12:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

It isn't a problem to consider suggestions made by a blocked (not banned) editor - it is, however, a problem to blindly implement them. I am willing to consider them, especially as this is a BLP, and therefore we need to take extra care that we consider all viewpoints in order to make it neutral and factual. - Bilby (talk) 12:14, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
You should never encourage serial sockpuppeteers to continue their disruption, their condescension towards others, their image building activities, their rudeness. Theobald Tiger (talk) 12:34, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, I fully agree. However, if it is true that the editor concerned is representing Heleen Mees, then I will certainly listen to what they have to say, so long as they are not using socks or breaking policies to do so. I feel that we are obligated to listen, although we then need to decide if what they are saying is something that we can or should act on. - Bilby (talk) 12:38, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Except they are using socks, you actually replied to one of the socks. The only reason for talk page access at the moment is for an unblock request, it isn't a vehicle for block evasion by proxy editing. And at this time you're proxy editing on her behalf. WCMemail 12:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
No, proxy editing would be acting on behalf of the blocked editor. I will not act on their behalf, and I am unwilling to ever edit based on someone else's instructions. I am willing to consider issues that they raise, as I would with any editor where a BLP is concerned. - Bilby (talk) 12:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Could you address the point about continuing to encourage sock puppetry, talk page access was denied as they were using it to ask for proxy editing. They immediately switch to another sock and you continue where you left of. Surely you can see that is not a sensible thing to do and is encouraging them to continue socking. It certainly won't encourage them to edit collaboratively. WCMemail 13:00, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
I specifically said that they should not use alternative accounts to evade restrictions. I have no wish to encourage the use of socks. - Bilby (talk) 13:04, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Heleen Mees lead

Bilby, about your most recent edit to Heleen Mees:

Currently, the Heleen Mees article says "While completing her research, she worked as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Tilburg University.[14] From September 2012 until July 2013, Mees was employed as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Administration at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.[15]"

You added to the lead: "Mees completed a doctorate in 2012, and subsequently worked for a time at Tilburg University and New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service."

It is my understanding that she worked at Tilburg University while completing her doctoral research, not after ("subsequently"). --TheCockroach (talk) 03:17, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. :) I'm not sure how I managed to forget that. - Bilby (talk) 03:27, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Versallion

Hi Bilby. I've just placed a note at Talk:Mark Versallion pointing out that the post signed by "Colin Fine" was actually posted by User:Merv96. Do you think there's a conduct issue here? Regards, --Stfg (talk) 19:13, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about that. It seems to be a newbie doing something ill-advised, but innocently. --Stfg (talk) 19:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

This Month in Education: May 2014



Headlines

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:08, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

If this message is not on your home wiki's talk page, update your subscription.

The Signpost: 14 May 2014

VisualEditor newsletter—May 2014

Did you know?

The cite menu offers quick access to up to five citation templates.  If your wiki has enabled the "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" menu, press "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" and select the appropriate template from the menu.

Existing citations that use these templates can be edited either using the "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" tool or by selecting the reference and choosing the "⧼visualeditor-dialogbutton-reference-tooltip⧽" item in the "Insert" menu.

Read the user guide for more information.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has mostly worked on the new citation tool, improving performance, reducing technical debt, and other infrastructure needs.

The biggest change in the last few weeks is the new citation template menu, labeled "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽". The new citation menu offers a locally configurable list of citation templates on the main toolbar. It adds or opens references using the simplified template dialog that was deployed last month. This tool is in addition to the "⧼visualeditor-dialogbutton-reference-tooltip⧽" item in the "Insert" menu, and it is not displayed unless it has been configured for that wiki. To enable this tool on your wiki, see the instructions at VisualEditor/Citation tool.

Eventually, the VisualEditor team plans to add autofill features for these citations. When this long-awaited feature is created, you could add an ISBN, URL, DOI or other identifier to the citation tool, and VisualEditor would automatically fill in as much information for that source as possible. The concept drawings can be seen at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog, and your ideas about making referencing quick and easy are still wanted.

  • There is a new Beta Feature for setting content language and direction.  This allows editors who have opted in to use the "Language" tool in the "Insert" menu to add HTML span tags that label text with the language and as being left-to-right (LTR) or right-to-left (RTL), like this:  <span lang="en" dir="ltr">English</span>. This tool is most useful for pages whose text combines multiple languages with different directions, common on Right-to-Left wikis.
  • The tool for editing mathematics formulae in VisualEditor has been slightly updated and is now available to all users, as the "⧼math-visualeditor-mwmathinspector-title⧽" item in the "Insert" menu. It uses LaTeX like in the wikitext editor.
  • The layout of template dialogs has been changed, putting the label above the field.  Parameters are now called "fields", to avoid a technical term that many editors are unfamiliar with.
  • TemplateData has been expanded:  You can now add "suggested" parameters in TemplateData, and VisualEditor will display them in the template dialogs like required ones.  "Suggested" is recommended for parameters that are commonly used, but not actually required to make the template work.  There is also a new type for TemplateData parameters: wiki-file-name, for file names.  The template tool can now tell you if a parameter is marked as being obsolete.
  • Some templates that previously displayed strangely due to absolute CSS positioning hacks should now display correctly.
  • Several messages have changed: The notices shown when you save a page have been merged into those used in the wikitext editor, for consistency.  The message shown when you "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cancel⧽" out of an edit is clearer. The beta dialog notice, which is shown the first time you open VisualEditor, will be hidden for logged-in users via a user preference rather than a cookie.  As a result of this change, the beta notice will show up one last time for all logged-in users on their next VisualEditor use after Thursday's upgrade.
  • Adding a category that is a redirect to another category prompts you to add the target category instead of the redirect.
  • In the "Images and media" dialog, it is no longer possible to set a redundant border for thumbnail and framed images.
  • There is a new Template Documentation Editor for TemplateData.  You can test it by editing a documentation subpage (not a template page) at Mediawiki.org: edit mw:Template:Sandbox/doc, and then click "Manage template documentation" above the wikitext edit box.  If your community would like to use this TemplateData editor at your project, please contact product manager James Forrester or file an enhancement request in Bugzilla.
  • There have been multiple small changes to the appearance:  External links are shown in the same light blue color as in MediaWiki.  This is a lighter shade of blue than the internal links.  The styling of the "Style text" (character formatting) drop-down menu has been synchronized with the recent font changes to the Vector skin.  VisualEditor dialogs, such as the "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽" dialog, now use a "loading" animation of moving lines, rather than animated GIF images.  Other changes were made to the appearance upon opening a page in VisualEditor which should make the transition between reading and editing be smoother.
  • The developers merged in many minor fixes and improvements to MediaWiki interface integration (e.g., edit notices), and made VisualEditor handle Education Program pages better.
  • At the request of the community, VisualEditor has been deployed to Commons as an opt-in. It is currently available by default for 161 Wikipedia language editions and by opt-in through Beta Features at all others, as well as on several non-Wikipedia sites.

Looking ahead:  The toolbar from the PageTriage extension will no longer be visible inside VisualEditor. More buttons and icons will be accessible from the keyboard.  The "Keyboard shortcuts" link will be moved out of the "Page options" menu, into the "Help" menu. Support for upright image sizes (preferred for accessibility) and inline images is being developed. You will be able to see the Table of Contents while editing. Looking further out, the developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments. VisualEditor will be available to all users on mobile devices and tablet computers. It will be possible to upload images to Commons from inside VisualEditor.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback or by joining the office hours on Thursday, 19 June 2014 at 10:00 UTC. If you'd like to get this newsletter on your own page (about once a month), please subscribe at w:en:Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter for English Wikipedia only or at meta:VisualEditor/Newsletter for any project. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 22:16, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 May 2014

Survey for editors who mentor newcomer

Dear Wikipedia Ambassador,

I am seeking input on your experience as a mentor to new Wikipedians. This survey is designed to provide insight for the development of a new mentorship support tool on Wikipedia. If you have a moment, please take this survey, it should not take more than 10 minutes of your time to complete.

https://syracuseuniversity.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_4V2SSrhU2NFOVAV

Also, if you are able to, I would greatly appreciate it if you would send the following survey to the mentee you worked with:

https://syracuseuniversity.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_4V1quUdMZ1By3Ah

Thank you in advance for your participation, Gabriel Mugar 13:33, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Manoj Saxena petition

Hi, I would like to work on Mano Saxena's page but it seems it has been deleted. I have new material and sources. Could you please move the article to my sandbox so I can work on it? Thanks. Peluchon (talk) 20:47, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Meeting 9?

Please read this. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 06:30, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Penny Wong

Woo hoo! White Knight to the rescue?
How's the editathon going? Pdfpdf (talk) 12:35, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Had a few people turn up, and we had a lot of really valuable discussion. We've locked in 6 July as a day long session focused on North Terrace, with cameras to take photos as requried - 11:30 am to 7:30 pm, with pizza provided. We've had a few ideas about promotion. It should be fun. :) - Bilby (talk) 12:40, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Angus Taylor

Bilby, please take a look at the article Angus Taylor (politician). There has been significant discussion and proposed edits that would seem to address the BLP issues raised. The COI complainant appears to have gone missing immediately after succeeding in her goal to shut down the page. It's probably past due time that a process of reinstating appropriate content is commenced. ArthurSkittle (talk) 04:52, 30 May 2014 (UTC)


Bilby, I refer you back to the article Angus Taylor (politician). I think it's time to unlock the page. ArthurSkittle (talk) 13:35, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 May 2014

Heleen Mees

This is awkward, on Heleen Mees twitter page, a guy claiming to be an admin on wikipedia promised to edit her article on her behalf (now deleted). Within 24 hrs of publishing you're adding an article reference to her wikipedia entry. I have to ask, do you have a personal connection with her? WCMemail 21:49, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I can understand your concern. No, I don't have a personal connection, and I never promised to edit on her behalf. It appears that she is overstating what I said some weeks ago. At the time, I said that I would consider some changes she proposed on her talk page. I was willing to consider the suggestions she made in the same sense that I would consider changes suggested by any subject of a BLP, as we would with communications via OTRS or on talk pages, but I'm not willing to edit on anyone's behalf but my own. :)
The edit I just made was the result of a talk page discussion, in which it seemed we decided that we shouldn't mention that she was writing for Capital as there was no evidence that any articles by her had been published. I noticed that she had now been published, so I figured that it was correct to mention it. I became aware that she had been published in Capital via a Google search. - Bilby (talk) 23:29, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

SPI

Hi, I wanted to bring this to your attention. [5]. Looks like another sock, editing the same articles as the others. Thanks. Logical Cowboy (talk) 00:09, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that - it certainly seems like a duck. (Picking those two unrelated articles is too much of a coincidence to treat any other way). I'lll block and delete if there hasn't been any movement, but I'm off to give a lecture so I'll have to handle it later today. An SPI would help, as I suspect there are a lot of other socks to dig up - I'll leave a note to that effect on the SPI. - Bilby (talk) 00:31, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Re the article you mentioned on the Wales talk page: Egad, which one was that? Maybe I ought to get on the gravy train myself. That's good money. Coretheapple (talk)

FYI - I brought it back up at COIN here. I find many of the circumstances surrounding this article very suspicious. I think the $5 per edit offer on Jimbo's Talk page was shared on that discussion string because it's related. In other words, some editors are being paid $5 an edit to make them look bad and others are looking to make them look positive in order to cash in on the $10k.
This does make me wonder, in my paranoia, if the admin adding full protection to the attack page filled with junk sources is paid as well. But since we have no way of proving anything, what can we do?
Sadly, I'll probably just move on elsewhere. It took 3 months to fight off a POV pusher on Matthew Bryden and just as long to fight off an army of secretly paid accounts on Suburban Express and it's a very draining exercise. (user:DGG knows about both of those)
Do you know anyone that might be better suited for the task? Who likes fighting POV pushers and uncovering these Wikipedia manipulation schemes?
CorporateM (Talk) 01:31, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
For starters, I wouldn't post paranoid speculation on Wikipedia with no proof. Most editors would take great offense at the insinuation they are editing for pay. And that goes triple if you are insinuating an admin was paid to use his tools. Black Kite even promptly reduced the protection when you asked. --NeilN talk to me 03:18, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I haven't seen many ads asking for people to negatively edit articles about others - there has been one or two, but it is rare. I don't think it is generally necessary, though - due to the nature of the media, controversial or negative commentary tends to be easier to come by than positive accounts, and people with strong negative views of an organisation are common, especially regarding an organisation through which they can loose money. Plus, when we get situations where there is a clear attempt by someone to remove negative comments, it isn't unusual for it to raise the hackles of more established editors. We don't need to assume conspiracy, so much as standard editing practices, both good and bad. :)
There are a few people who like to edit against COI editors, but to be honest, my general feeling is that what we need aren't anti-COI editors, but neutral editors actively fighting for neutrality, if that makes sense. I'll check my db, though, and see what I have in regards to Banc De Binary editing that may be valuable. I think I have a couple of entries than can be used to get a picture. - Bilby (talk) 04:46, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes, but in this case the context is that there is a specific ad offering cash for negative edits and an involved admin has added page protection to the article twice now. Surely our admins know our NPOV and V policies well-enough to realize protecting the page in that version is inappropriate. CorporateM (Talk) 22:29, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Hey, you don't understand WP:PRIMARY (and enforce it very selectively) so I wouldn't be throwing stones... --NeilN talk to me 01:19, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 June 2014

Banc De Binary request

Regards, Bilby. I am a manager at Banc De Binary with a disclosed conflict of interest. Banc De Binary is concerned that the article continues to violate various Wikipedia policies in its present protected state. It also appears I am unable to edit the talk page, so I have decided to ask administrators familiar with the case to review some of the most obvious edit requests.

This request is for the "orphan" template to be removed from the page, as the page is linked by three or four other articles. This should be straightforward and should not require obtaining a consensus because of its clear-cut nature. This would involve deleting the entire second line of the article code as it stands now.

My intent is to organize discussion on the talk page if I am allowed to edit there. I believe, based on discussion with an OTRS volunteer, that there is consensus for "stubbing" the article, and that "stubbing" would also reduce the number of requests and potential for cross-talk. I would like your assistance with the edit request and your advice on bringing the article into Wikipedia compliance by "stubbing" or other means. BDBIsrael (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

  • Shouldn't this request template be at the article talk page? Also, re the last paragraph, I think that it is inappropriate for a corporate employee to "organize discussion" on the talk page of an article about the company. Coretheapple (talk) 16:12, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Regards, Coretheapple. Yes, I believe the request should have been at the talk page, but I am unable to edit there. However, if I can determine how to edit the page, it is my goal to ensure that Banc De Binary's interests are communicated there and that Wikipedia policy is upheld. If "organizing discussion" is the wrong term for this, I am grateful for your correction.
    • I was also notified that you commented at the article talkpage. Your comments seem to refer to press releases about the open negotiations rather than about the social marketing protocols. The Board's decision was not in reference to any particular comments, but in reference to a general misconception about Banc De Binary's relationship with Wikipedia that seems widespread. However, I will certainly recommend to our PR department that they supplement the Board's emergency action with appropriate press releases, whether they relate to social marketing or the open negotiations or other topics. That final decision is not mine to make. I will update the appropriate thread if such a release ensues. BDBIsrael (talk) 16:31, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
No, you can edit there. I will reference your request on that page. Coretheapple (talk) 16:42, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Also: I think that you guys need to settle on one account to represent your interest here. Honestly, dealing with your company on Wikipedia is a real time suck. You folks have got to mend your ways. This is getting ridiculous. Coretheapple (talk) 16:52, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, Coretheapple. I appreciate your conveying the request and your frank opinions. It is my understanding that I am not here to represent BDB's independent interests but to work toward neutral coverage of the company and other topics. That said, it is obvious that BDB has an interest in the same. I am also quite in agreement with you about the personal time resources required to accomplish this task. As you probably know, BDB has dealt with a pattern of harmful rumor and potential slander for nearly a year, while our attempts to correct the most basic information in the article have been defeated by various tactics. I trust the Board's decision to ask me to interact with Wikipedia personally has not been ill-founded. I have been personally responsible for establishing new protocols across the board in regulating social networking resources used by employees and contractors, and so I am interested in hearing about additional mending we can accomplish; for this I have a user talkpage. BDBIsrael (talk) 17:21, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Done I've removed the orphan tag, as it seems uncontroversial, and the mainspace pages to it seem legitimate. I've also made User:BDBIsrael confirmed so that they can post at Talk:Banc De Binary. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 17:29, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
@Coretheapple: Just in case you didn't catch this from earlier in the discussion, the BDB article talk page has been semi-protected due to disruption from IPs, so BDBIsrael would have been unable to make comments there earlier. -- Atama頭 18:57, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 June 2014

This Month in Education: June 2014



Headlines
Highlights  · Single page edition

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

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Glen Ridge Rape

I see nothing in WP:BLP that would prohibit including the text I've inserted, furthermore one of the two names mentioned is no longer living. What exactly is the issue MikeyLin (talk) 00:08, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Re: article deletion of Joel Fu (entrepreneur)

Hi, I hope that this message finds you well! I note that you deleted the article Joel Fu (entrepreneur) on 15 June 2014 with notes (G5: Creation by a blocked or banned user in violation of block or ban (TW)). I can not comment on that, but someone is looking to recreate that page. I looked underneath it/at the subject, and aside from the original being horribly promotional, can not see how that person would presently pass WP:NOTAB. I advised them of this, but I doubt that they will listen to this advice! Rgds, - Trident13 (talk) 14:29, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 June 2014

Frustration !!!!!

Ain't it handy that I can "vent my spleen" tomorrow night! Pdfpdf (talk) 13:09, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

(P.S. I think you might need to consider archiving the contents of your talk page ... Pdfpdf (talk) 13:12, 24 June 2014 (UTC))

VisualEditor global newsletter—June 2014

The character formatting menu

Did you know?

The character formatting menu, or "Style text" menu lets you set bold, italic, and other text styles. "Clear formatting" removes all text styles and removes links to other pages.

Do you think that clear formatting should remove links? Are there changes you would like to see for this menu? Share your opinion at MediaWiki.org.

The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor.

The VisualEditor team is mostly working to fix bugs, improve performance, reduce technical debt, and other infrastructure needs. You can find on Mediawiki.org weekly updates detailing recent work.

  • They have moved the "Keyboard shortcuts" link out of the "Page options" menu, into the "Help" menu. Within dialog boxes, buttons are now more accessible (via the Tab key) from the keyboard.
  • You can now see the target of the link when you click on it, without having to open the inspector.
  • The team also expanded TemplateData: You can now add a parameter type  "date" for dates and times in the ISO 8601 format, and  "boolean" for values which are true or false. Also, templates that redirect to other templates (like {{citeweb}} → {{cite web}}) now get the TemplateData of their target (bug 50964). You can test TemplateData by editing mw:Template:Sandbox/doc.
  • Category: and File: pages now display their contents correctly after saving an edit (bug 65349, bug 64239)
  • They have also improved reference editing: You should no longer be able to add empty citations with VisualEditor (bug 64715), as with references. When you edit a reference, you can now empty it and click the "use an existing reference" button to replace it with another reference instead. 
  • It is now possible to edit inline images with VisualEditor. Remember that inline images cannot display captions, so existing captions get removed. Many other bugs related to images were also fixed.
  • You can now add and edit {{DISPLAYTITLE}} and __DISAMBIG__ in the "Page options" menu, rounding out the full set of page options currently planned.
  • The tool to insert special characters is now wider and simpler.

Looking ahead

The VisualEditor team has posted a draft of their goals for the next fiscal year. You can read them and suggest changes on MediaWiki.org.

The team posts details about planned work on VisualEditor's roadmap. You will soon be able to drag-and-drop text as well as images. If you drag an image to a new place, it won't let you place it in the middle of a paragraph. All dialog boxes and windows will be simplified based on user testing and feedback. The VisualEditor team plans to add autofill features for citations. Your ideas about making referencing quick and easy are still wanted. Support for upright image sizes is being developed. The designers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments and adding rows and columns to tables.

Supporting your wiki

Please read VisualEditor/Citation tool for information on configuring the new citation template menu, labeled "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽". This menu will not appear unless it has been configured on your wiki.

If you speak a language other than English, we need your help with translating the user guide. The guide is out of date or incomplete for many languages, and what's on your wiki may not be the most recent translation. Please contact me if you need help getting started with translation work on MediaWiki.org.

VisualEditor can be made available to most non-Wikipedia projects. If your community would like to test VisualEditor, please contact product manager James Forrester or file an enhancement request in Bugzilla.

Please share your questions, suggestions, or problems by posting a note at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback or by joining the office hours on Saturday, 19 July 2014 at 21:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas and Pacific Islands) or on Thursday, 14 August 2014 at 9:00 UTC (daytime for Europe, Middle East, Asia).

To change your subscription to this newsletter, please see the subscription pages on Meta or the English Wikipedia. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 04:59, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 June 2014

Damien Miller

Hello, I can see that you deleted Damien Miller (an article which I approved from AfC) as a G5 (which does not apply if it had substantial edits by others, like me). I added an infobox, accepted it from Draft-space (AfC) and I wrote it a DYK, which I think makes G5 invalid. I don't know who was the blocked user and I honestly don't care. This is an encyclopedia and that article was suitable and notable to be included in Wikipedia, no matter if the user was blocked/banned, what ever.

I please ask you to reconsider the deletion of the article and as always: "Happy editing!" (t) Josve05a (c) 15:53, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Bilby. I went ahead and restored the article as there have been substantial edits by other editors and was up for a DYK nomination which was declined solely on the basis that the article was deleted. While I agree that it likely initially met the letter of CSD G5, we are ultimately here to build an encyclopedia and we shouldn't let "the rules" stand in the way of doing so. Please do not consider this wheel warring, and if you completely disagree with my evaluation of the situation you are more than welcome to re-delete the article. Best, Tiptoety talk 17:02, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
I disagree, on the grounds that we're getting into a situation where Russavia is de-facto unbanned, as he is free to continue to edit as all of his work with socks is immediately accepted. I'm not comfortable with a situation where a community consensus to ban is effectively made redundant mere days after it was made through this process. That said, it was always going to be undeleted, and I was certainly not going to stand in anyone's way if they wanted to make that call. So I may disagree, but I won't object, if that makes sense. (I was considering Josve05a's request anyway, but I think in the end I would have been unable to restore it because of my concerns about the process we're seeing). - Bilby (talk) 17:08, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
I respect your position Bilby, truly I do. I'd be happy to ask for another administrator to weigh in here, if you like. Tiptoety talk 17:10, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
There's no need - I think in the end the result will be the same, given the situation, although we might see a bit more drama before it is done, and I'd rather save everyone from that. :) We're in a position where only one person has to accept Russavia's edits, and they become fine. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, as banned editors either don't have the support for this to occur, or don't continue to sock on this level. But the conflict comes from the provisions in policy, so that's how things sit. I seem to recall the reverse case with Peter Damien, who added content with the expectation that it would be deleted so that he could make his point that way. - Bilby (talk) 17:21, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 July 2014

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Lena Nyadbi, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Kimberley. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 08:51, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Technical Mentors - Unleashed Adelaide, 11-13 July 2014

Free this weekend? Please see Wikipedia:Meetup/Adelaide/Future meetings#Technical Mentors - Unleashed (GovHack Adelaide) for details. Alex Sims (talk) 11:38, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I'm already down as a mentor for it. :) If not, I'm a competitor (especially for MoD) - but it should be the former. - Bilby (talk) 12:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 09 July 2014

This Month in Education: July 2014



To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed in the archives.

14:07, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

If this message is not on your home wiki's talk page, update your subscription.

The Signpost: 16 July 2014

Thank you!

Hello! I know this is rather late, but just wanted to pop by and thank you for this edit you made on my behalf to Robert J. Sawyer! (Sorry for the mobile diff; I'm writing this from my phone. Also, apologies for the delay in thanking you. I only just now saw your edit!) While I'm definitely not new to Wikipedia, I am new to having a COI, so I wanted to play it safe and post to the talk page rather than updating the article myself. Again, thank you for checking out my request :) Cheers, and happy editing! cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 17:35, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Problems with Tim Leffel article

Hi! A few days ago I edited the Tim Leffel article. You said me that the article was ok, and you asked me to make a disclosure, as you can see on my talk page https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Ane_wiki. Now an editor is questioning the article and he has reinstalled the removed templates. Can you come to the article´s talk page to give us your opinion and to solve the problem? Thank you.--Ane wiki (talk) 22:17, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I'd hoped to help out on this today, but I kept getting caught up. I'll see if I can assist in the morning, though - my apologies for not being able to do anything earlier. - Bilby (talk) 13:49, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
While/when you're over on the talk page for this article, would you mind taking a look at the two brand new, IP-only accounts that are commenting anti-deletion? Please note, the subject has been editing his own page since 2009. Feels like sockpuppetry, or conceivably meatpuppetry to me, looking at the limited engagement on the page and, in particular, the talk page over its (rather chequered) history, but I could be wrong, and they're just brand new users who happened to stumble on the page and have very strong opinions. If you could cast an eye over them, or run CheckUser if you have access, that would be great. I know there are more worthwhile things you could be doing - sorry! AdventurousMe (talk) 16:22, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
There's now a third brand new, apparently single-purpose account, popped up on the afD page for the article, here Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tim_Leffel - User:Andyopteris. Is this normal for deletion discussions on BLP? Really feels like sockpuppetry to me, particularly given the history of the article. AdventurousMe (talk) 02:52, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
My apologies. User:Andyopteris is not a single-use account. The two IPs are single-use accounts. AdventurousMe (talk) 04:04, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Ratel/TickleMeister/Jabbsworth

It is a long time ago (2011) that the Ratel/TickleMeister/Jabbsworth-case was in full focus. Yesterday, I came across some edits on Philip Nitschke by user "Jabba the Hot", which set of the alarm bells. I can't really pinpoint it, but the tone of his edits is what worries me. And gave me the idea of a relation with Ratel. Older edits on Nitschke and on YourLastRight.com fuel the worries.

Perhaps I am wrong, so I like your opinion. The Banner talk 04:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I'll do some digging tomorrow - it might not be the same person, but it is worth looking into. - Bilby (talk) 13:51, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Photography Hints - expansion of article

Hi, I'm wondering if you could expand the article Commons:How to take pictures for Wikimedia Commons, particularly the section on photographing objects? Alex Sims (talk) 08:17, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 July 2014

Tim Leffel

hello again! Please remember to go to https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tim_Leffel--Ane wiki (talk) 23:09, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

A slight misunderstanding !!!

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

The Signpost: 30 July 2014

Re:New disclosure requirements

Dear User:Bilby, hello! I appreciate your message on my talk page as well as your effort to uphold the integrity of Wikipedia. After seeing your message on my talk page, I along with a couple other editors, developed Template:Paid article so all editors who are being paid to create articles (or edit them) can add them to the the talk pages of those articles (per bullet two under the section "Paid contributions without disclosure") if they wish to do so. This template is great because by clicking the "What links here" button, one can access all of the articles that have paid contributions to ensure that vital policies, such as WP:NPOV, are fulfilled in those paid articles. I have advised other editors to practice disclosure when creating paid articles as well by using this template. To date, I have added this template to all completed projects that I have received payment for. What do you think about mentioning the template at WP:COI? I write this message to you because I just noticed that you mentioned my name here. I am assuming that you did not leave a message on my talk page, as you did with others, about the Nofel Izz article because I added disclosure on that talk page. I hope you are having a great weekend thus far. Let me know if you have any questions. With regards, AnupamTalk 23:46, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

@Anupam Where I have a COI/financial connection, I typically use Template:Connected contributor, which is currently used on more than 4,000 pages. It's not as explicit/direct as your proposed template, but I think it would be a technicality/nit-pick for someone to say I am not complying with the ToU because the standard template uses the word "may" and "professional affiliation" rather than "financial connection." It should do the trick I think. CorporateM (Talk) 13:53, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Special Barnstar
Dear Bilby, I award you the Special Barnstar for your effort to uphold the integrity of Wikipedia! Keep up the good work! You are making a difference here! With regards, AnupamTalk 23:49, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Derwick August

Hi Bilby! I noticed you've made some edits to Derwick Associates in the past and I recently made some changes to the page, along with related pages, myself to try and improve it. I wanted to invite you to take a look at the current version and see what you think.Righteousskills (talk) 08:19, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

User talk:ImiBill

You blocked him as a sock, but there was no SPI and no evidence presented (that I am aware of). I can't find similar unblock requests from other socks in the SPI. His explanations don't seem immediately false. Can you share some insight into your block before I process the unblock request? Thanks. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:26, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—July and August 2014

The VisualEditor team is currently working mostly to fix bugs, improve performance, reduce technical debt, and other infrastructure needs. You can find on Mediawiki.org weekly updates detailing recent work.

Screenshot of VisualEditor's link tool
Dialog boxes in VisualEditor have been re-designed to use action words instead of icons. This has increased the number of items that need to be translated. The user guide is also being updated.

The biggest visible change since the last newsletter was to the dialog boxes. The design for each dialog box and window was simplified. The most commonly needed buttons are now at the top. Based on user feedback, the buttons are now labeled with simple words (like "Cancel" or "Done") instead of potentially confusing icons (like "<" or "X"). Many of the buttons to edit links, images, and other items now also show the linked page, image name, or other useful information when you click on them.

  • Hidden HTML comments (notes visible to editors, but not to readers) can now be read, edited, inserted, and removed. A small icon (a white exclamation mark on a dot) marks the location of each comments. You can click on the icon to see the comment.
  • You can now drag and drop text and templates as well as images. A new placement line makes it much easier to see where you are dropping the item. Images can no longer be dropped into the middle of paragraphs.
  • All references and footnotes (<ref> tags) are now made through the "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" menu, including the "⧼visualeditor-dialogbutton-reference-tooltip⧽" (manual formatting) footnotes and the ability to re-use an existing citation, both of which were previously accessible only through the "Insert" menu. The "⧼visualeditor-dialogbutton-referencelist-tooltip⧽" is still added via the "Insert" menu.
  • When you add an image or other media file, you are now prompted to add an image caption immediately. You can also replace an image whilst keeping the original caption and other settings.
  • All tablet users visiting the mobile web version of Wikipedias will be able to opt-in to a version of VisualEditor from 14 August. You can test the new tool by choosing the beta version of the mobile view in the Settings menu.
  • The link tool has a new "Open" button that will open a linked page in another tab so you can make sure a link is the right one.
  • The "Cancel" button in the toolbar has been removed based on user testing. To cancel any edit, you can leave the page by clicking the Read tab, the back button in your browser, or closing the browser window without saving your changes.

Looking ahead

The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. Your ideas about making referencing quick and easy are still wanted. Support for upright image sizes is being developed. The designers are also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables. Work to support Internet Explorer is ongoing.

Feedback opportunities

The Editing team will be making two presentations this weekend at Wikimania in London. The first is with product manager James Forrester and developer Trevor Parscal on Saturday at 16:30. The second is with developers Roan Kattouw and Trevor Parscal on Sunday at 12:30.

Please share your questions, suggestions, or problems by posting a note at the VisualEditor feedback page or by joining the office hours discussion on Thursday, 14 August 2014 at 09:00 UTC (daytime for Europe, Middle East and Asia) or on Thursday, 18 September 2014 at 16:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas; evening for Europe).

If you'd like to get this newsletter on your own page (about once a month), please subscribe at w:en:Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter for English Wikipedia only or at Meta for any project. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:14, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 August 2014

Nofel Izz

Were you going to follow up with problems we'd been discussion here? Johnmoor (talk · contribs) seems to be looking to repeat his past one last time. --Ronz (talk) 15:44, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Nofel Izz (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), particularly Talk:Nofel Izz#Puffery, and other talks like User talk:Johnmoor#If you have a problem with my editing, bring it to an appropriate forum which originates from User talk:Ronz#Primary Sources and User talk:Johnmoor#Please do not remove maintenance templates while the concerns are under discussion which originates from User talk:Ronz#Edit warring on Nofel Izz should shed more light on this. Thank you. —JOHNMOORofMOORLAND (talk) 18:25, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
Johnmoor, those have nothing to do with the matter, other than your involvement. --Ronz (talk) 20:45, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I started an RfC, and it's resulted in some of the same editors taking notice. Do you still think they are all paid editors? --Ronz (talk) 16:52, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm chasing it up. Renzoy16 is a paid editor previously hired to work on the article, but I don't know if he is currently being employed to do so. JohnMoor is still being paid to edit the article. BiH is a paid editor previously hired for the article, and is currently working for them. I had hoped that they would started seeing sense and follow the ToU. It looks like they won't. I'm going to have to line up the ducks and look to blocks. - Bilby (talk) 11:24, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Clarifying, Renzoy16's contract has been very long term, and is still open with the client. So Renzoy16, JohnMoor & BiH can still be regarded as paid editors. - Bilby (talk) 15:06, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! --Ronz (talk) 16:25, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Ronz, WP:FOC would do you much good! —JOHNMOORofMOORLAND (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

We appear to differ on what is good for Wikipedia, which appears a result of your COI. Please do FOC on the article talk page though. --Ronz (talk) 15:45, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 August 2014

This Month in Education: August 2014

Updates, reports, news, and stories about how Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects are used in education around the world.

Anita Sarkeesian

You reverted my tagging of Anita Sarkeesian's article, which required citations on the 2nd paragraph, but your response was that the citations are included in the body, I don't believe that is acceptable. The citations should be provided where the claims first appear, not tucked away somewhere in the body. Claims in the lead should including citations with further explanation in the body not the other way around. Can you please revert back to my changes unless you can prove me wrong by citing WP policy, otherwise I will go ahead and revert your good faith revert back to my version. Syanaee (talk) 23:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I will check for a response sometime at 10am BST tomorrow. I am going to bed right now. Syanaee (talk) 00:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
Under the citation policy, non-controversial statements in the lead, where they are cited in the body, do not need additional citations. As the lead is intended to be a summary, it is sometimes regarded as making it overly complex to duplicate citations that also appear in the body of the article where the full text of the statement is provided, although it varies considerably according to the different styles in different articles. I've always been in two minds about it, but I tend to defer to whatever the existing standard is on an article. Quotations, of course, are always cited. - Bilby (talk) 00:09, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
Additionally, WP:LEADCITE states "citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus" and the consensus on that article has been to keep references in the body. Obviously, consensus can change, but this should be discussed at Talk:Anita Sarkeesian. Sorry, didn't mean to intrude, just thought I'd throw that in there. Cheers! Woodroar (talk) 00:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
@Woodroar:, @Bilby:, I know I might be being a bit of a pain however since this is a biography of a living person can we move the tags to the lead, I'm in favour of having a discussion on this, and establishing a consensus, I have also noticed at least one citation in the body which might not meet the standard of WP citation policy, it refers to a blog post, which is posted on kickstarter, which may not meet the reliability standard. Since I have noticed similar issues on Pz myers (which I had also tagged and was reverted back by @Johnuniq: stating it was drive-by-tagging), and on the Thunderf00t article. Pz's article has issue of relying on self-published referencing, all thrice of these articles need to be checked thoroughly, which I would like to help on and bring them to a higher standard, not give undue weight to some citations, and bring in line with balance and neutrality. Of course I can discuss each of these points thoroughly on each article's talk page, and hopefully get more editors involved to bring these articles to a higher standard i.e. hopefully to GA standard. Anita's article isn't too bad, but the other two require considerable work, which I can help put in. This is my opinion. In the long run this will help with problematic editing where some editors feel there is a bias on one or more of these articles. I would like to get your opinions on my suggestions. Thanks. Syanaee (talk) 08:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
You will definitely want to bring your concerns to Talk:Anita Sarkeesian, where a discussion has already started regarding citations in the lead. Just a friendly head's up, though: using certain tags without starting a Talk page discussion—"drive-by tagging"—is increasingly viewed as WP:POINT behavior. Obviously, adding an Unreferenced tag to an unreferenced article is one thing, but adding a Primary Sources tag to an article with at least 10 third-party sources is another. Not to say you're wrong in preferring third-party sources, but when other editors remove a questionable tag, it tends to get you noticed for the wrong reasons. Anyways, see you on Talk:Anita Sarkeesian. Cheers! Woodroar (talk) 08:47, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 August 2014

User:Greg115 and Troy Fodemski

Hi Bilby. You blocked this user as a sock back in July - do you remember who the sockmaster was? There is a new editor (Svenstpaul) who has appeared at Troy Fodemski and it seems likely to me that they're another sock. I thought it would be related to Sibtain 007 but I can't find Greg115 there. Cheers SmartSE (talk) 19:18, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Doh. I should have checked their userpage! SmartSE (talk) 19:20, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Really?

[6]. Sources are key, 'jumping to conclusions' only source is the person jumping. Reliable sources don't jump. At best, it's WP:OR, which is also a BLP vio. "Oh, I read this, so I think THIS.".....um no, what do the sources say? Not what you jump to conclusions on what they say. Dreadstar ☥ 03:40, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 August 2014

August 2014

Please stop. Wikipedia is not censored. Any further changes which have the effect of censoring an article, such as you did to Talk:Depression Quest, will be regarded as vandalism. If you continue in this manner, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. You are not to remove talk page comments that are not vandalism Retartist (talk) 12:02, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

@Retartist: Have you read {{uw-dttr}}? *cough* ^^^ *cough* (t) Josve05a (c) 12:04, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
I have an issue with blatant censorship and no explanation, i don't care how long an editor has been around if my comments are reverted with no explanation Retartist (talk) 12:07, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
To be honest, I was hoping that you would understand - a message left on your talk page is public, and so I was hoping you'd just rethink your post without it needing to be highlighted. But leaving highly negative and (in this case) incorrect statements about living people, even on talk pages, runs fairly heavily into BLP. - Bilby (talk) 12:10, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
added new comment removed libel but keeping the message, we hate censorship, i'm going to bed, also the info was true just unsourceable Retartist (talk) 12:14, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Zoe Quinn article

You reverted Zoe Quinn claiming lack of consensus and claimed that the revisions violated the biography of a living person guidelines; however, had you read the talk page, you'd find that we'd spoken about this and had worked on hashing out finding RSes for the various issues involved; all of the sources in the article were written by news organizations with editoral staffs, and met with RS standards. You didn't even leave a note on the talk page saying what you found inappropriate about the section; it was worded neutrally, was sourced using only reliable sources, was not derogatory, and covered the issue in a neutral manner. Simply coming along and reverting a page without even bothering to contribute to the talk page, merely claiming lack of consensus and deleting the revisions so that they could not be recovered is unacceptable behavior. Please assume good faith in the future and work with editors in the article's talk space instead of coming along and reverting, especially given that the previous reversion had issues with WP:BIAS. If you found some section of that specifically violated the biography of living persons, please make a note of it; removing it would be fine if you actually explained what it was, but surely the whole section was not a violation. Titanium Dragon (talk) 23:11, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I did assume good faith - I have no doubt that you meant well by including it in the article. But the extensive discussion on the talk page has focused on how to tackle this, with the current consensus supporting the minimal version that was there before. The issue is not simply of sourcing (although one of the most contentious claims you added was sourced to Talking Ship, which in turn was directly referencing the ex's blog post), but also of due weight and appropriateness of the content. The current consensus was the Talk:Zoe Quinn#Bold edit discussion, and that was very different from your additions. - Bilby (talk) 23:27, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 September 2014

Deletion of GamerGate

Why did you delete that article? Titanium Dragon (talk) 20:43, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Apologies; re-reading the deletion log you were just cleaning up after another admin who didn't do it properly. I shall go discuss with User:RHaworth. Titanium Dragon (talk) 20:44, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Could you please change back the visibility of this revision from an IP user at the AfD for GamerGate? Removing it from the discussion was the right thing to do, but it shouldn't be fully removed from view as it didn't contain gross nor demeaning material nor personal identifiable information, so it should be available through history, and personal attacks are not a reason for revdel. History pages are all about accountability, and such removals hurt non-admin users like me. Thanks! Diego (talk) 08:50, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Diego. I had a look, as I thought my understanding of what was posted might have been incorrect, but sadly no - the edit contained libel intended to smear the subject, and as such warrants the additional removal from the history. On the plus side, I can't see it being of any use in the discussion, and the post was very unlikely to have had an effect on the outcome of the AfD. - Bilby (talk) 10:19, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Ok thanks, I'm still working on my understanding of what's oversightable information and what can be considered libel. Diego (talk) 12:07, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Vaiben Louis Solomon

Good morning Bilby! The politician usually referred to as Vaiben Louis Solomon is at present on a page Vaiben Solomon and Vaiben Louis Solomon is a redirect page. The only problem is that he had an uncle Vaiben Solomon (no middle name) who, though probably not needing his own article, does get a few mentions in Wikipedia. Assuming you agree, could you please swap the page and redirect for me? (I could do it by cutting and pasting but not sure that's kosher.) I can do the appropriate hatnote. I think I've ensured that all relevant articles use the full length version of his name. Doug butler (talk) 23:01, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 September 2014

Assisted Suicide

Hi, I recently added a section to Opponents of Assisted Suicide that you edited out. I was wondering what were your reasons? And what I can do to fix it.

True Dignity Vermont is a notable organization in the fight against Assisted Suicide in Vermont and the United States. It is well known in Vermont, as well as by other opposition groups, becoming one of the primary news sources for both.

Thank you, Sirhair (talk) 21:12, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

This Month in Education: September 2014

Updates, reports, news, and stories about how Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects are used in education around the world.

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September 2014

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The Signpost: 01 October 2014


BLP Discretionary sanctions notice

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding living or recently deceased people, and edits relating to the subject (living or recently deceased) of such biographical articles, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date.

Dreadstar ☥ 16:15, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

This notice relates to Gamergate controversy, Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and related articles and edits, but note this this alert applies to all edits related to the area identified above. Dreadstar ☥ 16:17, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
I was aware of this, yes. I'm not sure why you're leaving the message, but so be it. - Bilby (talk) 16:24, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Virtually all editors contributing to those articles are being notified, it's not just you. Dreadstar ☥ 20:17, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
I assumed that. :) - Bilby (talk) 21:31, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—September and October 2014

Did you know?

TemplateData is a separate program that organizes information about the parameters that can be used in a template. VisualEditor reads that data, and uses it to populate its simplified template dialogs.

With the new TemplateData editor, it is easier to add information about parameters, because the ones you need to use are pre-loaded.

See the help page for TemplateData for more information about adding TemplateData. The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing team has reduced technical debt, simplified some workflows for template and citation editing, made major progress on Internet Explorer support, and fixed over 125 bugs and requests. Several performance improvements were made, especially to the system around re-using references and reference lists. Weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org.

There were three issues that required urgent fixes: a deployment error that meant that many buttons didn't work correctly (bugs 69856 and 69864), a problem with edit conflicts that left the editor with nowhere to go (bug 69150), and a problem in Internet Explorer 11 that caused replaced some categories with a link to the system message, MediaWiki:Badtitletext (bug 70894) when you saved. The developers apologize for the disruption, and thank the people who reported these problems quickly.

Increased support for devices and browsers

Internet Explorer 10 and 11 users now have access to VisualEditor. This means that about 5% of Wikimedia's users will now get an "Edit" tab alongside the existing "Edit source" tab. Support for Internet Explorer 9 is planned for the future.

Tablet users browsing the site's mobile mode now have the option of using a mobile-specific form of VisualEditor. More editing tools, and availability of VisualEditor on smartphones, is planned for the future. The mobile version of VisualEditor was tweaked to show the context menu for citations instead of basic references (bug 68897). A bug that broke the editor in iOS was corrected and released early (bug 68949). For mobile tablet users, three bugs related to scrolling were fixed (bug 66697, bug 68828, bug 69630). You can use VisualEditor on the mobile version of Wikipedia from your tablet by clicking on the cog in the top-right when editing a page and choosing which editor to use.

TemplateData editor

A tool for editing TemplateData will be deployed to more Wikipedias soon.  Other Wikipedias and some other projects may receive access next month. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation.  When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top.  Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

Other changes

Several interface messages and labels were changed to be simpler, clearer, or shorter, based on feedback from translators and editors. The formatting of dialogs was changed, and more changes to the appearance will be coming soon, when VisualEditor implements the new MediaWiki theme from Design. (A preview of the theme is available on Labs for developers.) The team also made some improvements for users of the Monobook skin that improved the size of text in toolbars and fixed selections that overlapped menus.

VisualEditor-MediaWiki now supplies the mw-redirect or mw-disambig class on links to redirects and disambiguation pages, so that user gadgets that colour in these in types of links can be created.

Templates' fields can be marked as 'required' in TemplateData. If a parameter is marked as required, then you cannot delete that field when you add a new template or edit an existing one (bug 60358). 

Language support improved by making annotations use bi-directional isolation (so they display correctly with cursoring behaviour as expected) and by fixing a bug that crashed VisualEditor when trying to edit a page with a dir attribute but no lang set (bug 69955).

Looking ahead

The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon, perhaps in late October.

The team is also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables, and early work for this may appear within the month. Please comment on the design at Mediawiki.org.

In the future, real-time collaborative editing may be possible in VisualEditor. Some early preparatory work for this was recently done.

Supporting your wiki

At Wikimania, several developers gave presentations about VisualEditor. A translation sprint focused on improving access to VisualEditor was supported by many people. Deryck Chan was the top translator. Special honors also go to संजीव कुमार (Sanjeev Kumar), Robby, Takot, Bachounda, Bjankuloski06 and Ата. A summary of the work achieved by the translation community has been posted here. Thank you all for your work.

VisualEditor can be made available to most non-Wikipedia projects. If your community would like to test VisualEditor, please contact product manager James Forrester or file an enhancement request in Bugzilla.

Please join the office hours on Saturday, 18 October 2014 at 18:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas; evening for Africa and Europe) and on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC on IRC.

Give feedback on VisualEditor at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta. To help with translations, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre at Meta. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 October 2014

The Signpost: 15 October 2014

The Signpost: 22 October 2014

GG

Please read this notification carefully:
A community decision has authorised the use of general sanctions for pages related to the Gamergate controversy.
The details of these sanctions are described here.

General sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimise disruption in controversial topic areas. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to these topics that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behaviour, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. An editor can only be sanctioned after he or she has been made aware that general sanctions are in effect. This notification is meant to inform you that sanctions are authorised in these topic areas, which you have been editing. It is only effective if it is logged here. Before continuing to edit pages in these topic areas, please familiarise yourself with the general sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date.

Ato Boldon, Nova Peris

Hi, I notice you've reverted my edits at these two articles. The issue has gained very wide coverage in all Australian media in the past two days — it is literally front page news in every city — and has been presented in a cautious manner and based on very reliable media sources. I believe it complies with BLP. BlackCab (TALK) 10:29, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Interesting too, that you've tagged my edits as RD2: "Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material that has little/no encyclopedic or project value ... slurs, smears, and grossly offensive material". I would say the widespread media coverage this has received would certainly elevate it to the level of encyclopedic notability. Peris has made a speech in the Senate in response, going about as public as one could ever do. I think your reversion is overkill, particularly given the statement in WP:RVDL: "Material must be grossly offensive, with little likelihood of significant dissent about its removal. Otherwise it should not be removed." A response from you would be nice. BlackCab (TALK) 11:06, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi BlackCab. My apologies fro not replying sooner - I was in transit, saw the edit, and had to respond quickly, but it wasn't until now when I could sit down and follow things up. My concern was not whether or not the issue warrants coverage - it does, I believe, warrant a mention on the article about Peris, although I'm far from certain that it is worth mentioning on the Ato Boldon article. However, what you wrote was a significant BLP concern, as you went beyond what the sources said to make serious allegations about Peris. The wording will have to be far more careful. Not that I'm at home I'll see if I can come up with something that will work, although I think that we may more than those two sources. - Bilby (talk) 11:31, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
I actually think I provided the minimum information to describe the events that have become news. I think the absence of material smacks of censorship, but I'll certainly be interested to see something there, whatever you can manage. BlackCab (TALK) 11:42, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2014

Fargum

Please mail Fargum to me. I wanna complete and correct it. Thanks--Freshman404Talk 12:14, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—November 2014

Screenshot on an iPad, showing how to switch from one editor to the other
Did you know?

VisualEditor is also available on the mobile version of Wikipedia. Login and click the pencil icon to open the page you want to edit. Click on the gear-shaped settings in the upper-right corner, to pick which editor to use. Choose "Edit" to use VisualEditor, or "Edit source" to use the wikitext editor.

It will remember whether you used wikitext or VisualEditor, and use the same editor the next time you edit an article.

The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor. Not all features are available in Mobile Web.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and requests, and worked on support for editing tables and for using non-Latin languages. Their weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org. Informal notes from the recent quarterly review were posted on Meta.

Recent improvements

The French Wikipedia should see better search results for links, templates, and media because the new search engine was turned on for everyone there. This change is expected at the Chinese and German Wikipedias next week, and eventually at the English Wikipedia.

The "pawn" system has been mostly replaced. Bugs in this system sometimes added a chess pawn character to wikitext. The replacement provides better support for non-Latin languages, with full support hopefully coming soon.

VisualEditor is now provided to editors who use Internet Explorer 10 or 11 on desktop and mobile devices. Internet Explorer 9 is not supported yet.

The keyboard shortcuts for items in the toolbar's menus are now shown in the menus. VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme from the User Experience / Design group. The appearance of dialogs has already changed in one Mobile version. The appearance on desktops will change soon. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" design and the new "MediaWiki" theme which will replace it.)

Several bugs were fixed for internal and external links. Improvements to MediaWiki's search solved an annoying problem: If you searched for the full name of the page or file that you wanted to link, sometimes the search program could not find the page. A link inside a template, to a local page that does not exist, will now show red, exactly as it does when reading the page. Due to a error, for about two weeks this also affected all external links inside templates. Opening an auto-numbered link node like [7] with the keyboard used to open the wrong link tool. These problems have all been fixed.

TemplateData

The tool for quickly editing TemplateData will be deployed to all Wikimedia Foundation wikis on Thursday, 6 November.  This tool is already available on the biggest 40 Wikipedias, and now all wikis will have access to it. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation.  When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top.  Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

You can use the new autovalue setting to pre-load a value into a template. This can be used to substitute dates, as in this example, or to add the most common response for that parameter. The autovalue can be easily overridden by the editor, by typing something else in the field.

In TemplateData, you may define a parameter as "required". The template dialog in VisualEditor will warn editors if they leave a "required" parameter empty, and they will not be able to delete that parameter. If the template can function without this parameter, then please mark it as "suggested" or "optional" in TemplateData instead.

Looking ahead

Basic support for inserting tables and changing the number of rows and columns in tables will appear next Wednesday. Advanced features, like dragging columns to different places, will be possible later. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. To help editors find the most important items more quickly, some items in the toolbar menus will be hidden behind a "More" item, such as "underlining" in the styling menu. The appearance of the media search dialog will improve, to make picking between possible images easier and more visual. The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap.

The user guide will be updated soon to add information about editing tables. The translations for most languages except Spanish, French, and Dutch are significantly out of date. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language. Talk to us if you need help exporting the translated guide to your wiki.

You can influence VisualEditor's design. Tell the VisualEditor team what you want changed during the office hours via IRC. The next sessions are on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC and on Wednesday 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC. You can also share your ideas at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Also, user experience researcher Abbey Ripstra is looking for editors to show her how they edit Wikipedia. Please sign up for the research program if you would like to hear about opportunities.

If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 November 2014

ArbCom notification

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#GamerGate and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

Thanks,--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 00:46, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting me

Hey, thanks for the heads up on the BLP issues there. I appreciate you keeping an eye out for that. If you have any further issues there, please let me know. Titanium Dragon (talk) 09:27, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

JournoList

Hate to bother you again, but there's another IP back reverting material into that article, hours after the protection expires, natch. Should probably be long-term semi-protected. 08:10, 13 November 2014 (UTC)=

Disclosure

Hello and thank you for contacting me. Sorry for my late reply, I was personally away from home for a few days and I do not like to contribute via mobile phone. First of all, thank you for your polite and informative message, unlike some other editors that were not so polite and that were jumping to conclusions - something that most users hate on Wikipedia. I want to say that if I am offered money for my edits in the future, I will properly disclose it on article's talk page, as suggested. Thank you again. --BiH (talk) 15:02, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Page reverted

Hello,

I have searched in vain for the good path to get administrator’s help for the following issue and so I decided to send this request to some including you.

I have considerably expanded the article Guerrilla filmmaking and took care in referencing it as far as I could (over 90 links to trustful sources). I am an experienced editor of Wikipedia. For my surprise, the article was reverted by user CIRT to a preceding stub version mainly consisting of a very narrow list of films. Many important contents were removed. Self promotional vandalism seems to be the reason of such intervention, sustained by acute threats. I do not intend to respond with helpless and inconsequent arguments and the time I have to dedicate to Wikipedia is quite limited.

I’d be happy if you could pay some attention to this occurrence and let you decide whatever you think is reasonable.

My best,

Tertulius (User talk:Tertulius) 04,44, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to have a look, but I'm a bit caught up for a couple for a while today. I'll be able to see what I can do later today, though. - Bilby (talk) 04:52, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 November 2014

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate opened

You were recently listed as a party to a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Evidence. Please add your evidence by December 11, 2014, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 22:26, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 November 2014

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This Month in Education: October 2014

Updates, reports, news, and stories about how Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects are used in education around the world.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:55, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

This Month in Education: November 2014

Updates, reports, news, and stories about how Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects are used in education around the world.

Gamergate evidence limits

The arbs are leaning toward a doubling of the usual limits on evidence for this specific case. I am still waiting for final sign-off, but it seems likely that most participants will not need to trim evidence. Three relevant points:

  • Given the substantial increase in limits, the usual acceptance if counts go a bit over will not be granted. Treat the limits as absolute.
  • The limits apply to both direct evidence and rebuttal to others.
  • Despite the increase, it is highly desirable to be as succinct as possible. For the arbitration committee --S Philbrick(Talk) 17:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 December 2014

GamerGate arbitration case: evidence and workshop

In the interests of making this case more easily manageable, it is likely that we will prune the parties list to limit it to those against whom evidence has been submitted. Therefore, if anyone has anything to add, now is the time to do so.

See the list of parties not included in the evidence as of 8 Dec 14.

Please note that the purpose of the /Evidence page is to provide narrative, context and all the diffs. As diffs can usually be interpreted in various ways, to avoid ambiguity, they should be appended to the allegation that's being made. If the material is private and the detail has been emailed to ArbCom, add [private evidence] instead of diffs.

The /Workshop page builds on evidence. FOFs about individual editors should contain a summary of the allegation made in /Evidence, and diffs to illustrate the allegation. Supplying diffs makes it easier for the subject of the FOF to respond and much easier for arbitrators to see whether your FOF has substance.

No allegations about other editors should be made either in /Evdence or in the /Workshop without supporting diffs. Doing so may expose you to findings of making personal attacks and casting aspersions.

Also, please note that the evidence lengths have been increased from about 1000 words and about 100 diffs for parties and about 500 words and about diffs for non-parties to a maximum of 2000 words and 200 diffs for parties and 1000 words and 100 diffs for non-parties. For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:09, 10 December 2014 (UTC) Message delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk)

The Signpost: 10 December 2014
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The Signpost: 17 December 2014

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