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Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).

Guideline and policy news

  1. G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
  2. R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
  3. G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.

Technical news

  • Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:
  1. At least 8 characters in length
  2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
  3. Different from their username
User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.
  • Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
  • {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
  • Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Removing my information - Why?

Hello Donald: Why are you removing my information under notable person (current resident or past resident)? Thank you, Nikki Oldaker Noldaker (talk) 23:55, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Orange County, Florida Schools

Hi! In regards to this edit the template is intended to include both public and private schools. They are listed separately. See Template:Orange County, Florida Schools

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 00:57, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Sorry. - Donald Albury 01:07, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
No problem! Anyway, happy editing :) WhisperToMe (talk) 01:19, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day meetup at University of Florida on January 15

Remember when you asked to be notified about the next Wikipedia meetup in Gainesville, Florida? Good news! I'm organizing a meetup to celebrate Wikipedia Day at the University of Florida Marston Science Library from 4pm to 7pm on Tuesday, January 15, 2019. You can find more about the event on its event page -- I hope you'll be able to join us!

If you wish to opt-out of future notifications, please remove yourself from the list of interested users. Alternatively, to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Thank you so much for your attention! -- Gaurav (talk) 17:26, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Punta Rassa, Florida, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page San Carlos Bay (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:23, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Blue Fields Massacre

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Florida#Blue Fields Massacre. I think that was the best project to ask. Note its creator. Doug Weller talk 10:35, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:50, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Fishiness

It seems a little odd this one-month old account is making contributions in a manner similar to that of an experienced user. They have been putting out templates such as {{uw-v4}} and using terms like "rvv" that, from my experience, wouldn't typically be used by new users. "Flap" in the username also reminds me of a LTA case, particularly this one. It'd be slightly premature to start an SPI lacking adequate evidence whilst the user has done nothing significant to warrant a check. However, I think there should be some behind-the-scenes effort to determine if this really is a good faith user or a chronic block evader who's masking as a newcomer similar to 1. What do you think? -- Flooded w/them 100s 19:21, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Although the name seems familiar, I don't see where I would have run across the user. I am not experienced in sock investigations, so I'm not sure how I can help. - Donald Albury 19:36, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
Hmm... That's too bad. -- Flooded w/them 100s 06:53, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Boynton Beach as a "Principal" city in the Miami area?

Hi, Donald You reverted my deleting "principal" from the description of Boynton Beach, but I can't find any explanation why. I gave a reason why I deleted it. Principal is different from important or significant; it means what's on the top of the heap. High school principal runs the high school Principal in a business is the top dog, the owner. Looks to me like the two main or principal cities in southeast Florida are Miami and West Palm Beach. Why isn't calling Boynton Beach (about 32nd city in population in Florida) principal a little misleading? Thanks, Alan R Moabalan (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

@Moabalan: Principal cities in Metropolitan Statistical Areas are designated by the Census Bureau. Boynton Beach is the third largest city, and therefore a principal city, in the West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach metropolitan division of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida MSA. - Donald Albury 20:56, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. I don't agree with it, but I'm satisfied by the fact that you've stated a reason that works for you. Why don't I agree with it? Well, to me principal means "main" (actually the word principal comes from the same root as "first" or "prime." Primero in Spanish is the word for first. And the third-largest anything is not the main one. The Superbowl this weekend will be between the main teams from two halves of the NFL and who was third I've already started to forget because they weren't principal enough. Second, it's only third-largest in the West Palm Beach segment of the metro area. Maybe you could change the article to say in West Palm Beach division instead of Miami in general, where B Beach comes in something like 17th. But we're into shades of meaning here. You respond to Wikipedia changes in a matter of minutes; I respond to them a month or year later or not at all. Have it your way. Now I looked it up. Here's the Census on the subject from its own webpage. "Principal Cities of a CBSA include the largest incorporated place with a population of at least 10,000 in the CBSA (nope) or if no incorporated place of at least 10,000 population is present in the CBSA, the largest incorporated place or census designated place (CDP) in the CBSA. (nope) Principal cities also include any additional incorporated place or CDP with a population of at least 250,000 or in which 100,000 or more persons work; (nope) any additional incorporated place or CDP with a population of at least 50,000 and in which the number of jobs meets or exceeds the number of employed residents; (Maybe--this sounds like it wants to exclude bedroom communities from being "prinicipal" cities--do Boynton Beach folk tend to drive out of the city limits to work? Do you live there?) and any additional incorporated place or CDP with a population of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 and at least one-third the population size of the largest place and in which the number of jobs meets or exceeds the number of employed residents." (nope) Personally, I consider the census data included in so many Wikip. articles as the least useful part of the page. So I don't like the Wikipedia rules of the game in the first place and you do. Alan in Tucson Moabalan (talk) 21:38, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

We go by what the sources say. I used to live (many years ago) in Delray Beach, which is sandwiched between Boca Raton and Boynton Beach. Boynton has plenty of industries and businesses (At one time it was home to a Motorola pager plant that employed almost 4,000 people.) - Donald Albury 21:55, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).

Administrator changes

added Enterprisey • JJMC89
readded BorgQueen
removed Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

removedEnterprisey

Guideline and policy news

  • A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
  • Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
  • A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

  • A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

  • Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
  • A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Your warning to Atlantis Ralbadisole

Hey hey, I just wanted to drop you a note about this edit. I'm a little confused as to why you consider this name promotional; I googled "Atlantis Ralbadisole" and did not find any organizations under that name. I would also like to remind you that user warnings go on the user's talk page, rather than their user page. The general consensus to avoid editing another user's user page is reflected at Wikipedia:User pages § Editing of other editors' user and user talk pages. Cheers, cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 20:55, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

The user's only edit so far has been this. - Donald Albury 21:24, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
Donald Albury, that's fair! Just make sure next time it goes on the right page. They won't get a new message notification if you place it on their user page, and it's considered bad form to put talk messages on user pages. Cheers, cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 13:33, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
The placement on the user page was a mistake. I was switching back and forth between tabs while I was checking out the user, and ended up on the wrong page. - Donald Albury 14:16, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Gulf of Mexico short description

The short description says: "An ocean basin and marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent". Errrr... quite long at 17 words; still 12 words excluding noise words like a, an, the, by, of, etc. Tied for longest short description I've seen. Some short descriptions are obviously superfluous, like "lake" for Lake Superior. My criteria for revision is shorter than 5 words or longer than 10 words. We don't need to define gulf here as a marginal sea or ocean basin, because a 'gulf' which is neither is not a gulf. It's sufficient for this usage to simply say, "gulf of the Atlantic Ocean". We don't need to define the landforms of the gulf, because the gulf of California is also surrounded by the North American continent. It's sufficient to say it's a "gulf of the Atlantic Ocean in North America". But Hudson Bay and Gulf of St. Lawrence are also gulfs of the Atlantic Ocean in North America, so the description is ambiguous. So how about "gulf of the Atlantic Ocean in southeastern North America"? 9 words, getting close to a reasonable limit. The real question is, is this sufficient to notify the reader that this is the article he seeks, or it is not? There's an art to short descriptions - they're not part of text, more like directory entries. Clarity is more important than absolute accuracy. What else could be "gulf of the Atlantic Ocean in southeastern North America"? No, it's not exactly "in" North America, within the boundaries of the continent, any more than Gulf of California is "in" Mexico - it is not. But no one is going to call us on it. Sbalfour (talk) 01:11, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@Sbalfour: How about, "Atlantic Ocean basin extending into southern North America"? Just eight words, although more characters than your version. - Donald Albury 01:54, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Hmmmm... unambiguous, pretty clear. I'll take it. I see you already patched it. Regards, Sbalfour (talk) 02:02, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
@Sbalfour: I had started to edit the description, decided to bring my version back here, and inadvertantly committed my edit. Oh well. - Donald Albury 02:10, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 February 2019

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Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
    • paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
    • checkuser-en-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Art+Feminism editathon in Gainesville this Saturday, March 16, 2019

The Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida is organizing an Art+Feminism editathon this Saturday, March 16 from 11am to 4:30pm. You can find out more on their Outreach Dashboard or on the Harn's website.

If you wish to opt-out of future notifications, please remove yourself from the list of interested users. Alternatively, to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. -- Gaurav (talk) 00:13, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 March 2019

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Tropical trade-wind climates in Florida (Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, ...) and Liberia climates

Hello Mr. Albury,

you are right, I should have given the source of my edits. So I just did it a few minutes ago.


I) About Florida (Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach)

The source (Tropicalité Géographie physique intertropicale by Jean Demangeot, éditions Armand Colin, Paris, 1999? ISBN 2-200-25027-4, page 44, Figure 19 Génétique des climats intertropicaux, source Marcel Leroux 1989) comes from a book of a French expert of tropicality, Mr. Jean Demangeot who himself used many climate works from Marcel Leroux a French climatologist.

In fact, according to Leroux, all Florida is mainly under the aerological mechanism that he labelled AM 2 for "Alizé Maritime de type 2" (Maritime trade wind of type 2). There are 3 types of maritime trade winds : the type 1 which is the eastern branch of the trade wind directed towards the equator, the type 2 is the central branch of the trade wind and is roughly parallel to the equator, and is more or less directed from east to west (rather northeast to southwest in the northern hemisphere and southeast to northwest in the southern hemisphere) and finally the type 3, the western branch which goes up in latitude on the eastern face of a continent, for instance along the Brazilian Nordeste (there is also AMC for "Alizé Maritime Continentalisé" : continentalised maritime trade wind).

AM 2 is a humid trade wind which explains why Florida has a humid climate. Besides many (but not all) AM 2 regions are also subject to cyclones and Florida also suffers from cyclones. So AM 2 + cyclones are the main factors explaining Florida humidity.

At least another source states that Florida, many spots in the Caribbean area and in the North of South America, in the easten coast of Brazil (Salvador, Rio, ...), eastern coasts of [Madagascar, Southern Africa, Australia, Philippines] and many Pacific islands such as Fiji, Hawaii, ... have tropical trade-wind climates :

Climatologie by Pierre Estienne and Alain Godard (éditions ... Armand Colin).


I've written some stuff in the Tropical rainforest climate talk page to explain that all tropical rainforest climates AREN'T equatorial climates.

The latter are specific tropical rainforest climates because a) the aerological mechanism is different and b) there is no cyclone.

In equatorial climates, the main aerological mechanism is the alternation MAM2 that is "Meteorological Equator / AM 2" or "Monsoon / AM 2", but Monsoon here is defined as the Meteorological Equator (and not as the seasonal alternation occuring in the Indian Ocean or as the deviation of the trade winds when they pass the equator) that is the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).

So in Tropical rainforest climates either you have the MAM2 mechanism or the AM2 mechanism.

In the MAM2 regions, the Meteorological Equator (or ITCZ) is more frequent, dominant than the trade winds

while in AM2 regions, the maritime trade winds are dominant and in that case the climates are tropical trade-wind rainforest climates (with or without cyclones : "with" in Florida for instance, "without" in Eastern Brazil).

In MAM2 climates there is little wind (except when there are some storms or cyclones), the doldrums or the calms known by sailors

while in the AM2 climates you have a lot of wind often annoying.

In the Tropical rainforest MAM2 climates when you have no cyclones then the climates are equatorial (there are no cyclones in equatorial Africa for instance).


II) About Liberia

Just refer to the article where you have the "Liberia map of Köppen climate classification." which clearly indicates that only the south (in fact southeast) is equatorial (with no dry season at all). You also may have a look at the Monrovia article to note that Monrovia (which isn't in the south but in the center-west of Liberia) has what the article calls a "Monsoon climate" (in fact a subequatorial climate) because January is "dry" according to the Köppen climate classification (51 mm < 60 mm) and so is not strictly equatorial.

Carlo Colussi (talk) 07:25, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@Carlo Colussi: With regard to Liberia, I reverted you because your edit had created an ungrammatical and confusing sentence, as well as not being sourced. - Donald Albury 13:13, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
  • As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Florida Median Household Income

First of all if you click the link next to median household income it shows the correct Florida median household income. I don't understand how you can say what I posted was incorrect when it is correct? Sjj1091 (talk) 00:11, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Sjj1091: My apologies. I am too used to numbers being changed without updating sources, and I neglected to verify what the source said. I have restored your edit. - Donald Albury 01:36, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Jubilee Records

Thanks for your edits. However, some of the musicians you removed from the list probably are notable enough for an article - it's just that the articles haven't been created yet. For instance, I know that one or two have articles at German WP, so there is at least a case for notability. Over time I'll try to check them, so don't be surprised if one or two creep back onto that list. Regards, Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:02, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ghmyrtle: I did search for info on each artist, but didn't see much from reliable sources, but if you can find reliable sources and write articles based on them, that would be great. - Donald Albury 15:38, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 April 2019

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New River (Broward County, Florida)

Hmm, I note you reverted the lot of my extensive and well-cited edits to the New River (Broward County, Florida) page on the sole basis that they were good faith edits that may have unintentionally removed "all mention of the C-15 canal." The C-15 canal, however, is in Boca Raton, nowhere near the New River. I assume you may have been referring to the G-15, but note that I gave the G-15 its own entire (and well-researched!) section as the North New River Canal -- the name it was known by decades before the South Florida Water Management District even came into existence and labeled canals with letters and numbers. And I referred to it as the G-15 parenthetically, which should be sufficient given that it was only mentioned once in the previous version of the article.

In the end, I don't understand why all of the edits were just swept away on that erroneous basis you cite. I'm going to undo the reversion because what I added was more than simply "good faith edits" (i.e., presumably well-intentioned but patently misguided edits that add nothing to an article). They are informative, thoroughly researched, and important given the canal's contribution to the history of South Florida. Certainly, I do not want to get into an edit war, so if you have suggestions for improving the edits, by all means, let's discuss on our respective talk pages or the article's talk page. But I do not see what warrants such scholarly time and effort on my part being swept away with a click. Cheers (and certainly in good faith!) -- Jhw57 (talk) 19:08, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@Jhw57: I looked at the three edits you had made since the last time the article came up on my watchlist, which created this difference. The second paragraph of the History section after your last edit on April 26 read as follows:

Prior to the 20th century, the New River originated as two streams, the North Fork and South Fork, which merged and connected directly to the Atlantic Ocean via the now defunct New River Inlet. The river was heavily modified in the first half of the 20th century. The North Fork was extended as the C-12 Canal along present-day Sunrise Boulevard, while the South Fork was extended by two canals. The first was the G-15 or North New River Canal, which was created in 1912 to help drain the Everglades. It also served as a significant transportation route for shipping produce from the area just south of Lake Okeechobee.[1] The second canal extending the South Fork was the C-11 or South New River Canal, which connects to the Miami Canal.[2] The South New River Canal also connects to the Dania Cutoff Canal, which leads eastward from the C-11 canal to the Intracoastal Waterway. [3]

References

  1. ^ Roth, Patti (December 13, 1992). "Sewell Lock a Symbol of an Earlier Era - Historic Structure On Canal Was Crucial To Transportation". Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
  2. ^ http://www.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/xrepository/sfwmd_repository_pdf/facility_map_overview.pdf
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference boning was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Your edits earlier today left the second paragraph in the History section reading:

Prior to the 20th century, the New River originated as two streams, the North Fork and South Fork, which merged and connected directly to the Atlantic Ocean via the now defunct New River Inlet. The river was heavily modified in the first half of the 20th century. The North Fork was extended as the C-12 Canal along present-day Sunrise Boulevard, while the South Fork was extended by two canals, one of which was the C-11 or South New River Canal, which connects to the Miami Canal.[1]. The second canal extending the South Fork was the C-11 or South New River Canal, which connects to the Miami Canal.

References

  1. ^ http://www.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/xrepository/sfwmd_repository_pdf/facility_map_overview.pdf

This is what I was reacting to. The G-15 (I misremembered the letter when I wrote the edit summary, not being able to see the text on the page) or North New River Canal disappeared from the History section, and the mention of the C-11 or South New River Canal was duplicated.

I assumed your edits were in good faith, but I also assumed that an unintentional error had resulted in some information being deleted and other information duplicated. - Donald Albury 20:16, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@Donald Albury: Yes, I inadvertently duplicated the line of information on the C-11 canal when I created the new section on the G-15 (North New River) canal. (I think that still needs to be fixed.) It happened when I was trying to create a segue into the newly created section that made sense/had flow. In any event, nothing was deleted, only added to/expanded. It could be that the North New River Canal/G-15 deserves its own page, given the history behind it. The Miami Canal has one, albeit a stub, that is separate from the Miami River. Jhw57 (talk) 12:08, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Icon of a white exclamation mark within a black triangle
 Administrators must secure their accounts

The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:34, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • XTools Admin Stats, a tool to list admins by administrative actions, has been revamped to support more types of log entries such as AbuseFilter changes. Two additional tools have been integrated into it as well: Steward Stats and Patroller Stats.

Arbitration

  • In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion amending the procedures for return of permissions (diff). In such cases, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions; administrators found failing to have adequately done so will not be resysopped automatically. All current administrators have been notified of this change.
  • Following a formal ratification process, the arbitration policy has been amended (diff). Specifically, the two-thirds majority required to remove or suspend an arbitrator now excludes (1) the arbitrator facing suspension or removal, and (2) any inactive arbitrator who does not respond within 30 days to attempts to solicit their feedback on the resolution through all known methods of communication.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject Tree of Life Newsletter

April 2019—Issue 001


Tree of Life


Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Tree of Life newsletter!
Newly recognized content

Sturgeon nominated by Atsme, reviewed by Chiswick Chap
Eastern brown snake nominated by Casliber, reviewed by Opabinia regalis
Cactus wren nominated by CaptainEek, reviewed by Sainsf
Bidni nominated by PolluxWorld, reviewed by DepressedPer
Crinoid nominated by Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by Chiswick Chap

Newly nominated FAs

Cretoxyrhina nominated by Macrophyseter
Eastern brown snake nominated by Casliber



WikiCup heating up

Tree of Life editors are making a respectable showing in this year's WikiCup, with three regular editors advancing to the third round. Overall winner from 2016, Casliber, topped the scoreboard in points for round 2, getting a nice bonus for bringing Black mamba to FA. Enwebb continues to favor things remotely related to bats, bringing Stellaluna to GA. Plants editor Guettarda also advanced to round 3 with several plant-related DYKs.

Wikipedia page views track animal migrations, flowers blooming

A March 2019 paper in PLOS Biology found that Wikipedia page views vary seasonally for species. With a dataset of 31,751 articles about species, the authors found that roughly a quarter of all articles had significant seasonal variations in page views on at least one language version of Wikipedia. They examined 245 language versions. Page views also peaked with cultural events, such as views of the Great white shark article during Shark Week or Turkey during Thanksgiving.

Seasonal variation in page views among nine bird species
Did you know ... that Tree of Life editors bring content to the front page nearly every day?

You are receiving this because you added your name to the subscribers list of the WikiProject Tree of Life. If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please remove your name.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:24, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Miami Oolite, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Oolitic (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

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i surely hope if my english was more skillful if i do not know how to say a certain word or word in english, then is it allowed to help yourself in using google translate? i know that some websites are against rules, is that so? (i'm really right now so if there is no permission then please avoid punishment.Atlantic Channel (talk) 21:30, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Protostome

I didn't notice your message before. I changed that content because it's clearly inaccurate. According to other articles that are about vertebrate and echinoderm, the total number of species of these two phylums are well beyond 70000. And I just checked the pdf version of the reference book, found no related content about the number of species. 七战功成 02:15, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Put in a number, as long as it is supported by a reliable source. - Donald Albury 01:31, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

INLCUDE LANTANA PUBLIC LIBRARY'S WEBSITE ADDRESS UNDER CULTURE SECTION OF LANTANA, FLORIDA, WIKIPEDIA PAGE

Dear Mr. Albury,

I recently edited the Wikipedia page for Lantana, Florida, to include a hyperlink to the Lantana Public Library's website in the section entitled "Culture." I noticed that someone restored the page to its previous setting and it appears to include your name. To include a link to the Palm Beach County Library System's site AND NOT THE TOWN OF LANTANA'S OWN LIBRARY is unfair and misleading to users and visitors wanting to find our Library. We predate the County's Lantana Road Branch by many years and frankly, by using a similar name to ours, the County Library System created confusion to patrons and newcomers alike. Stop contributing to the CONFUSION AND MISLEADING PEOPLE and INCLUDE A LINK IN THE TEXT TO THE TOWN OF LANTANA LIBRARY'S WEBSITE, PLEASE.

The argument that there is a link to the Lantana Public Library's website under "External Links" and that this is sufficient does not stand. The County Library System's Lantana Road Branch is NOT part of Lantana, Florida. And yet, the Lantana, Florida, Wikipedia page chooses to include a hyperlink link to it in the Culture section, and NOT TO OUR website. Yet, we are the Town of Lantana's library.

I will take this up with the Town of Lantana, Florida, if you are unwilling to correct and rectify this.

Sincerely,

Cathy BurnsMcb07d (talk) 21:34, 30 May 2019 (UTC) Webmistress Lantana Public Library 205 W. Ocean Ave Lantana, FL 33462 www.lantanalibrary.org

@Mcb07d: PLease note that I removed a bare URL from the article. Bare URLs are used in Wikipedia articles only in the External links section at the end of an article. Any link used to support content in an article needs to be used in a citation (WP:ELRC). (See Wikipedia:Citing sources.) That same paragraph already includes a citation linking to the Lantana library web site (the [23] following "The Lantana Public Library is an independent public library serving the town"), although I notice that it links to your web site's "History/Digital Library/Archive" page. I will change that to point directly to your web site's home page. I am aware of the confusion caused by the profusion of library systems in Palm Beach County (I worked for a few months at the Boca Raton Public Library, and had to explain to county residents that a Boca Raton address did not entitle them to a card in the city library). Also, while you are welcome to edit Wikipedia, please read over our policy at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, to avoid any misunderstandings about your edits. You always can request changes to the article on Talk:Lantana, Florida. - Donald Albury 22:50, 30 May 2019 (UTC) - Edited to correct new citation number. - Donald Albury 22:58, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 May 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:11, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Revert to Taino Article

I restored my edit to the Taino article which you reverted. You revert puzzles me because the original wording of the sentence I edited was grammatically incorrect. My edit not only corrected this problem but made it easier to understand. Please have a look at this diff: https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Ta%C3%ADno&diff=prev&oldid=899691183 Lechonero (talk) 18:03, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

@Lechonero: Frankly, I don't find your version particularly easier to read and understand than the previous version. It also strongly implies that women made the important decisions in Taino villages. I do not have access to the full article cited after that section, but the abstract does not seem to support such an interpretation (it does mention relatively unspecialized gender roles). - Donald Albury 18:38, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
@Lechonero: I withdraw my comments above. For some reason, you edit looks much better to me than it did before. I don't why I was reading it wrong. Now, it looks fine. I did find the source cited at the end of that sentence, and it really does not support the statement very well, being about archaeology supporting the stability of Taino social structure for a while after the Spanish arrival, and mentioning only in passing that there were some cazicas. My apologies for my misunderstanding. - Donald Albury 21:55, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. Lechonero (talk) 22:01, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Revert to List of ships of the CSN

Hello! I want to say, it was never my intention to present that link as a source bur rather, just to compensate for there not being an article about that ship on English Wikipedia, as I've seen it's been done whenever there's not an existing English article on a certain subject, but another Wiki does have an article for said subject (example).

If adding an interlanguage link violates WP's policy, then I'll do it no more. --179.6.199.252 (talk) 01:19, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I restored and fixed the link. Please note the recommended way to make such links, at Help:Interlanguage links#Inline links (I had to look it up, myself). - Donald Albury 01:55, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you!--179.6.199.252 (talk) 03:38, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

May 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

May 2019—Issue 002


Tree of Life


Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Newly recognized content

Cretoxyrhina by Macrophyseter
Bramble Cay melomys by The lorax/Vanamonde93, reviewed by Jens Lallensack
Chimpanzee by LittleJerry/Chiswick Chap, reviewed by Tim riley
Spinophorosaurus by FunkMonk/Jens Lallensack, reviewed by Enwebb
Trachodon mummy by Jens Lallensack, reviewed by Gog the Mild
Megabat by Enwebb, reviewed by Jens Lallensack

Newly nominated FAs

Spinophorosaurus by FunkMonk/Jens Lallensack
Trachodon mummy by Jens Lallensack




Fundamental changes being discussed at WikiProject Biology

On 23 May, user Prometheus720 created a talk page post, "Revamp of Wikiproject Biology--Who is In?". In the days since, WP:BIOL has been bustling with activity, with over a dozen editors weighing in on this discussion, as well as several others that have subsequently spawned. An undercurrent of thought is that WP:BIOL has too many subprojects, preventing editors from easily interacting and stopping a "critical mass" of collaboration and engagement. Many mergers and consolidations of subprojects have been tentatively listed, with a consolidation of WikiProjects Genetics + Molecular and Cell Biology + Computational Biology + Biophysics currently in discussion. Other ideas being aired include updating old participants lists, redesigning project pages to make them more user-friendly, and clearly identifying long- and short-term goals.

Editor Spotlight: These editors want you to write about dinosaurs

Editors FunkMonk and Jens Lallensack had a very fruitful month, collaborating to bring two dinosaur articles to GA and then nominating them both for FA. They graciously decided to answer some questions for the first ToL Editor Spotlight, giving insight to their successful collaborations, explaining why you should collaborate with them, and also sharing some tidbits about their lives off-Wikipedia.

1) Enwebb: How long have you two been collaborating on articles?

  • Jens Lallensack: I started in the German Wikipedia in 2005 but switched to the English Wikipedia because of its very active dinosaur project. My first major collaboration with FunkMonk was on Heterodontosaurus in 2015.
  • FunkMonk: Yeah, we had interacted already on talk pages and through reviewing each other's articles, and at some point I was thinking of expanding Heterodontosaurus, and realised Jens had already written the German Wikipedia version, so it seemed natural to work together on the English one. Our latest collaboration was Spinophorosaurus, where by another coincidence, I had wanted to work on that article for the WP:Four Award, and it turned out that Jens had a German book about the expedition that found the dinosaur, which I wouldn't have been able to utilise with my meagre German skills. Between those, we also worked on Brachiosaurus, a wider Dinosaur Project collaboration between several editors.

2) Enwebb: Why dinosaurs?

  • JL: Because of the huge public interest in them. But dinosaurs are also highly interesting from a scientific point of view: key evolutionary innovations emerged within this group, such as warm-bloodedness, gigantism, and flight. Dinosaur research is, together with the study of fossil human remains, the most active field in paleontology. New scientific techniques and approaches tend to get developed within this field. Dinosaur research became increasingly interdisciplinary, and now does not only rely on various fields of biology and geology, but also on chemistry and physics, among others. Dinosaurs are therefore ideal to convey scientific methodology to the general public.
  • FM: As outlined above, dinosaurs have been described as a "gateway to science"; if you learn about dinosaurs, you will most likely also learn about a lot of scientific fields you would not necessarily be exposed to otherwise. On a more personal level, having grown up with and being influenced by various dinosaur media, it feels pretty cool to help spread knowledge about these animals, closest we can get to keeping them alive.

3) Enwebb: Why should other editors join you in writing articles related to paleontology? Are you looking to attract new editors, or draw in experienced editors from other areas of Wikipedia?

  • JL: Because we are a small but active and helpful community. Our Dinosaur collaboration, one of the very few active open collaborations in Wikipedia, makes high-level writing on important articles easier and more fun. Our collaboration is especially open to editors without prior experience in high-level writing. But we do not only write articles: several WikiProject Dinosaur participants are artists who do a great job illustrating the articles, and maintain an extensive and very active image review system. In fact, a number of later authors started with contributing images.
  • FM: Anyone who is interested in palaeontology is welcome to try writing articles, and we would be more than willing to help. I find that the more people that work on articles simultaneously with me, the more motivation I get to write myself. I am also one of those editors who started out contributing dinosaur illustrations and making minor edits, and only began writing after some years. But when I got to it, it wasn't as intimidating as I had feared, and I've learned a lot in the process. For example anatomy; if you know dinosaur anatomy, you have a very good framework for understanding the anatomy of other tetrapod animals, including humans.

4) Enwebb: Between the two of you, you have over 300 GA reviews. FunkMonk, you have over 250 of those. What keeps you coming back to review more articles?

  • FM: One of the main reasons I review GANs is to learn more about subjects that seem interesting (or which I would perhaps not come across otherwise). There are of course also more practical reasons, such as helping an article on its way towards FAC, to reduce the GAN backlog, and to "pay back" when I have a nomination up myself. It feels like a win-win situation where I can be entertained by interesting info, while also helping other editors get their nominations in shape, and we'll end up with an article that hopefully serves to educate a lot of people (the greater good).
  • JL: Because I enjoy reading Wikipedia articles and like to learn new things. In addition, reviews give me the opportunity to have direct contact with the authors, and help them to make their articles even better. This is quite rewarding for me personally. But I also review because I consider our GA and FA system to be of fundamental importance for Wikipedia. When I started editing Wikipedia (the German version), the article promotion reviews motivated me and improved my writing skills a lot. Submitting an article for review requires one to get serious and take additional steps to bring the article to the best quality possible. GAs and FAs are also a good starting point for readers, and may motivate them to become authors themselves.

5) Enwebb: What are your editing preferences? Any scripts or gadgets you find invaluable?

  • FM: One script that everyone should know about is the duplink highlight tool. It will show duplinks within the intro and body of a given article separately, and it seems a lot of people still don't know about it, though they are happy when introduced to it. I really liked the citationbot too (since citation consistency is a boring chore to me), but it seems to be blocked at the moment due to some technical issues.
  • JL: I often review using the Wikipedia Beta app on my smartphone, as it allows me to read without needing to sit in front of the PC. For writing, I find the reference management software Zotero invaluable, as it generates citation templates automatically, saving a lot of time.
    • Editor's note: I downloaded Zotero and tried it for the first time and think it is a very useful tool. More here.

6) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-wiki?

  • FM: Perhaps that I have no background in natural history/science, but work with animation and games. But fascination with and knowledge of nature and animals is actually very helpful when designing and animating characters and creatures, so it isn't that far off, and I can actually use some of the things I learn while writing here for my work (when I wrote the Dromaeosauroides article, it was partially to learn more about the animal for a design-school project).
  • JL: That I am actually doing research on dinosaurs. Though I avoid writing about topics I publish research on, my Wikipedia work helps me to keep a good general overview over the field, and quite regularly I can use what I learned while writing for Wikipedia for my research.

Get in touch with these editors regarding collaboration at WikiProject Dinosaurs!

Marine life continues to dominate ToL DYKs

Discuss this issue

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Sent by DannyS712 (talk) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 03:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

FYI

First batch: [1]

Regards! --T*U (talk) 11:55, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2019).

Administrator changes

removed Andonic • Consumed Crustacean • Enigmaman • Euryalus • EWS23 • HereToHelp • Nv8200pa • Peripitus • StringTheory11 • Vejvančický

CheckUser changes

removed Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC seeks to clarify whether WP:OUTING should include information on just the English Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project.
  • An RfC on WT:RfA concluded that Requests for adminship and bureaucratship are discussions seeking to build consensus.
  • An RfC proposal to make the templates for discussion (TfD) process more like the requested moves (RM) process, i.e. "as a clearinghouse of template discussions", was closed as successful.

Technical news

  • The CSD feature of Twinkle now allows admins to notify page creators of deletion if the page had not been tagged. The default behavior matches that of tagging notifications, and replaces the ability to open the user talk page upon deletion. You can customize which criteria receive notifications in your Twinkle preferences: look for Notify page creator when deleting under these criteria.
  • Twinkle's d-batch (batch delete) feature now supports deleting subpages (and related redirects and talk pages) of each page. The pages will be listed first but use with caution! The und-batch (batch undelete) option can now also restore talk pages.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

DeLand Spur past passenger service

Would you mind examining this century-old photograph? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 02:41, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

You'll see that it was on the DeLand spur, and for the record, freight service is still rail transportation.
@DanTD: Your edit did not mention how that spur was relevant. When the only mention of rail transportation in the article is that Amtrak serves the city, a brief mention of a spur that was used for passenger service many decades ago seems like excessive detail. Plus, you did not cite any reliable sources. The more obscure a detail is, the more it needs an in-line citation. I've worked on a number of articles about railroads in Florida. Details about trackage supported by reliable sources are appropriate in those articles, but unnecessary in articles about cities and towns, unless such trackage is a notable feature of the city (for example, that trains used to run down the middle of a busy street). - Donald Albury 11:12, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Gainesville, Florida

Hey, I reported an editor to ANI and one of the administrators suggested that I invite editors active on that page to assist with coming to a consensus. Since I personally know you I was hoping that you could help. I understand if you don't want to get involved though. PopularOutcasttalk2me! 21:45, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@PopularOutcast: I'll try to help, but I was off line all day and don't know how much time I'll have for WP tomorrow. - Donald Albury 02:09, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Donald Albury, if you have time. Another editor took the matter to AN/3 and the user in question was warned. Still, it would be nice for another party to look at the edits and decide what should stay or go. There have now been a lot of edits but not a lot has changed. My objections have been about verifiability. If you do take a look, I would start on the talk page because I think that gives a good idea of what was contentious. Thanks so much. PopularOutcasttalk2me! 02:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
The issue I think has been resolved but you are welcome to look if you like. PopularOutcasttalk2me! 22:52, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
@PopularOutcast: I saw that in AN/I. I'm still short of time for WP, and trying to catch up on my watchlist.It will be tomorrrow afternoon before I have much time. - Donald Albury 00:53, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

The June 2019 Signpost is out!

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:52, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2019).

Administrator changes

removed 28bytes • Ad Orientem • Ansh666 • Beeblebrox • Boing! said Zebedee • BU Rob13 • Dennis Brown • Deor • DoRD • Floquenbeam1 • Flyguy649 • Fram2 • Gadfium • GB fan • Jonathunder • Kusma • Lectonar • Moink • MSGJ • Nick • Od Mishehu • Rama • Spartaz • Syrthiss • TheDJ • WJBscribe
1Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
2Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

Guideline and policy news

  • In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.

Technical news

  • The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Community feedback is invited.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:19, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

June 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

June 2019—Issue 003


Tree of Life


Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Newly recognized content

Masked booby by Casliber and Aa77zz, reviewed by Jens Lallensack
Rook (bird) by Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by J Milburn
Vernonopterus by Ichthyovenator, reviewed by Super Dromaeosaurus
Campylocephalus by Ichthyovenator, reviewed by Super Dromaeosaurus
Unionopterus by Super Dromaeosaurus, reviewed by Ashorocetus
Big Cat, Little Cat by Barkeep49, reviewed by J Milburn
Félicette by Kees08, reviewed by Nova Crystallis

Newly nominated content

Masked booby by Casliber
Adelophthalmidae
Plains zebra by LittleJerry
Letter-winged kite by Casliber



Relative WikiWork
Project name Relative WikiWork
Cats
4.79
Fisheries and fishing
4.9
Dogs
4.91
Viruses
4.91
ToL
4.94
Cetaceans
4.97
Primates
4.98
Sharks
5.04
All wikiprojects average
5.05
Dinosaurs
5.12
Equine
5.15
Bats
5.25
Mammals
5.32
Aquarium fishes
5.35
Hypericaceae
5.38
Turtles
5.4
Birds
5.46
Australian biota
5.5
Marine life
5.54
Animals
5.56
Paleontology
5.57
Rodents
5.58
Amphibians and Reptiles
5.64
Fungi
5.65
Bivalves
5.66
Plants
5.67
Algae
5.68
Arthropods
5.69
Hymenoptera
5.72
Microbiology
5.72
Cephalopods
5.74
Fishes
5.76
Ants
5.79
Gastropods
5.8
Spiders
5.86
Insects
5.9
Beetles
5.98
Lepidoptera
5.98
Spineless editors overwhelmed by stubs

Within the Tree of Life and its many subprojects, there is an abundance of stubs. Welcome to Wikipedia, what's new, right? However, based on all wikiprojects listed (just over two thousand), the Tree of Life project is worse off in average article quality than most. Based on the concept of relative WikiWork (the average number of "steps" needed to have a project consisting of all featured articles (FAs), where stub status → FA consists of six steps), only seven projects within the ToL have an average rating of "start class" or better. Many projects, particularly those involving invertebrates, hover at an average article quality slightly better than a stub. With relative WikiWorks of 5.98 each, WikiProject Lepidoptera and WikiProject Beetles have the highest relative WikiWork of any project. Given that invertebrates are incredibly speciose, it may not surprise you that many articles about them are lower quality. WikiProject Beetles, for example, has over 20 times more articles than WikiProject Cats. Wikipedia will always be incomplete, so we should take our relatively low WikiWork as motivation to write more articles that are also better in quality.

Editor Spotlight: Showing love to misfit taxa

We're joined for this month's Editor Spotlight by NessieVL, a long-time contributor who lists themselves as a member of WikiProject Fungus, WikiProject Algae, and WikiProject Cephalopods.

1) Enwebb: How did you come to edit articles about organisms and taxonomic groups?

  • Nessie: The main force, then and now, driving me to create or edit articles is thinking "Why isn't there an article on that on Wikipedia?" Either I'll read about some rarely-sighted creature in the deep sea or find something new on iNaturalist and want to learn more. First stop (surprise!) is Wikipedia, and many times there is just a stub or no page at all. Sometimes I just add the source that got me to the article, not sometimes I go deep and try to get everything from the library or online journals and put it all in an article. The nice thing about taxa is the strong precedent that all accepted extant taxa are notable, so one does not need to really worry about doing a ton of research and having the page get removed. I was super worried about this as a new editor: I still really dislike conflict so if I can avoid it I do. Anyway, the most important part is stitching an article in to the rest of Wikipedia: Linking all the jargon, taxonomers, pollinators, etc., adding categories, and putting in the correct WikiProjects. Recently I have been doing more of the stitching-in stuff with extant articles. The last deep-dive article I made was Karuka at the end of last year, which is a bit of a break for me. I guess it's easier to do all the other stuff on my tablet while watching TV.

2) Enwebb: Many editors in the ToL are highly specialized on a group of taxa. A look at your recently created articles includes much diversity, though, with viruses, bacteria, algae, and cnidarians all represented—are there any commonalities for the articles you work on? Would you say you're particularly interested in certain groups?

  • Nessie: I was a nerd from a time when that would get you beat up, so I like odd things and underdogs. I also avoid butting heads, so not only do I find siphonophores and seaweeds fascinating I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes. I go down rabbitholes where I start writing an article like Mastocarpus papillatus because I found some growing on some rocks, then in my research I see it is parasitized by Pythium porphyrae, which has no article, and how can that be for an oomycete that oddly lives in the ocean and also attacks my tasty nori. So then I wrote that article and that got me blowing off the dust on other Oomycota articles, encouraged by the pull of propagating automatic taxoboxes. Once you've done the taxonomy template for the genus, well then you might as well do all the species now that the template is taken care of for them too. and so on until I get sucked in somewhere else. I think it's good to advocate for some of these 'oddball' taxa as it makes it easier for editors to expand their range from say plants to the pathogenic microorganisms of their favorite plant.
My favorite clades though, It's hard to pick for a dilettante like me. I like working on virus taxonomy, but I can't think of a specific virus species that I am awed by. Maybe Tulip breaking virus for teaching us economics or Variola virus for having so many smallpox deities, one of which was popularly sung about by Desi Arnaz and then inspired the name of a cartoon character who was then misremembered and then turned into a nickname for Howard Stern's producer Gary Dell'Abate. Sorry, really had to share that chain, but for a species that's not a staple food it probably has the most deities. But anyway, for having the most species that wow me, I love a good fungus or algae, but that often is led by my stomach. Also why I seem to research so many plant articles. You can't eat siphonophores, at least I don't, but they are fascinating with their federalist colonies of zooids. Bats are all amazing, but the task force seems to have done so much I feel the oomycetes and slime moulds need more love. Same thing with dinosaurs (I'm team Therizinosaurus though). But honestly, every species has that one moment in the research where you just go, wow, that's so interesting. For instance, I loved discovering that the picture-winged fly (Delphinia picta) has a mating dance that involves blowing bubbles. Now I keep expecting them to show me when they land on my arm, but no such luck yet.

3) Enwebb: I noticed that many of your recent edits utilize the script Rater, which aids in quickly reassessing the quality and importance of an article. Why is it important to update talk page assessments of articles? I also noticed that the quality rating you assign often aligns with ORES, a script that uses machine-learning to predict article quality. Coincidence?

  • Nessie: I initially started focusing on WikiProject talk page templates because they seem to be the key to data collecting and maintenance for articles, much more so than categories. This is where you note of an article needs an image, or audio, or a range map. It's how the cleanup listing bot sorts articles, and how Plantdrew does his automated taxobox usage stats. The latter inspired me to look for articles on organisms that are not assigned to any ToL WikiProjects which initially was in the thousands. I got it down to zero with just copypasta so you can imagine I was excited when I saw the rater tool. Back then I rated everything stub/low because it was faster: I couldn't check every article for the items on the B-class checklists. Plus each project has their own nuances to rating scales and I thought the editors in the individual projects would take it from there. I also thought all species were important, so how can I choose a favorite? Now it is much easier with the rater tool and the apparent consensus with Abductive's method of rating by the pageviews (0-9 views/day is low, 10-99 is med, 100-999 is high...). For the quality I generally go by the ORES rating, you caught me. It sometimes is thrown off by a long list of species or something, but it's generally good for stub to C: above that needs formal investigation and procedures I am still learning about. It seems that in the ToL projects we don't focus so much on getting articles to GA/FA so it's been harder to pick up. It was a little culture shock when I went on the Discord server and it seemed everyone was obsessed with getting articles up in quality. I think ToL is focusing on all the missing taxa and (re)organizing it all, which when you already have articles on every anime series or whatever you can focus on bulking the articles up more. In any event, on my growing to-do list is trying to get an article up to FA or GA and learn the process that way so I can better do the quality ratings and not just kick the can down the road.

4) Enwebb: What, if anything, can ToL and its subprojects do to better support collaboration and coordination among editors? How can we improve?

  • Nessie: I mentioned earlier that the projects are the main way maintenance is done. And it is good that we have a bunch of subprojects that let those tasks get broken up into manageable pieces. Frankly I'm amazed anything gets done with WikiProject Plants with how huge its scope is. Yet this not only parcels out the work but the discussion as well. A few editors like Peter coxhead and Plantdrew keep an eye on many of the subprojects and spread the word, but it's still easy for newer editors to get a little lost. There should be balance between the lumping and splitting. The newsletter helps by crossing over all the WikiProjects, and if the discord channel picked up that would help too. Possibly the big Enwiki talk page changes will help as well.

5) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-Wikipedia?

  • Nessie: I'm not sure anything would be surprising. I focus on nature offline too, foraging for mushrooms or wild plants and trying to avoid ticks and mosquitos. I have started going magnet fishing lately, more to help clean up the environment than in the hopes of finding anything valuable. But it would be fun to find a weapon and help solve a cold case or something.
June DYKs

Discuss this issue

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sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Seminoles

The page says 18th century. It's 19th...? Peterpeter1978 (talk) 07:41, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

@Peterpeter1978: A quick quote: "The first documented use of the term Seminole was in 1771 during the British era. The term, an anglicized corruption of the Spanish cimarron, was first applied to Muscogulges who migrated to Alachua, and later to those who settled in Apalachee."[1] Another author states that between 1740 and 1812 at least six Seminole villages were established in Florida, and that there were large Seminole camps in what are now Alachua, Leon and Levy counties by the 1760s.[2] - Donald Albury 16:32, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Wright, J. Leitch (1986). Creeks and Seminoles. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. p. 104. ISBN 0-8032-9728-9.
  2. ^ Covington, James W. (1993). The Seminoles of Florida. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. pp. 5, 13. ISBN 0-8130-1196-5.

The Signpost: 31 July 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:17, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Tree of Life Newsletter

Shortcut
July 2019—Issue 004


Tree of Life


Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Newly recognized content

List of felids by PresN
Masked booby by Casliber
Letter-winged kite by Casliber, reviewed by Jens Lallensack
Plains zebra by LittleJerry, reviewed by starsandwhales
Ornithogalum umbellatum by Michael Goodyear, reviewed by Jens Lallensack



Newly nominated content

Letter-winged kite by Casliber
Megabat by Enwebb
Onychopterella by Super Dromaeosaurus
Dvulikiaspis by Super Dromaeosaurus
Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk
Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee by Hunter Kahn
Giant golden-crowned flying fox by Enwebb
Myxomatosis by Rabbit Vet

Discuss this issue

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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:59, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
  • The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.

    Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:23, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 August 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:41, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
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