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MIT Journals

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NegMawon (talk) 14:58, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Shakespeare portraits

Thanks for your note. I've paid some attention to the articles on"Shakespeare" portrais.From what I've seen our coverage is pretty good! Do let me know if there's anywhere you particularly would like me to jump in. - - PKM (talk) 05:30, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Sonnet 11

Hello I was wondering about where the sonnet is on the spectrum for progress as it is still listed as stub. Is that where you believe it to be at and that much work needs to be done or have you just not got to the ranking part yet?

Thank you

Soban18 (talk) 23:06, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Soban18, 10/20/15

@Soban18: The "rating" (properly the "quality class") is really more of a maintenance thing for the WIkiProjects involved. WikiProjects are just a way for editors who are interested in a specific topic area to organise their work, and tagging articles with their project's banner is a way to keep track of which articles are within the scope of their project. So, for instance, WikiProject Shakespeare tags all the articles relating to Shakespeare and then we get statistics about the articles in our scope, notifications when one of those articles enters a process (like GA nomination), and automatically generated cleanup lists of problems that need to be dealt with. There's something in excess of 1200 Shakesepare-related articles on Wikipedia, so keeping track of them by hand would be a Herculean task.
The quality scale used in those banners is… not all that useful for the authors of the article. For example, the criteria for a "Stub" is that the article contains literally one line of text and no citations. "Start" class is a bit more expanded, but not necessarily even with internal headings or formatted with (wiki)links and such. And then there's "C" class which is what you'd expect a Wikipedia article to be, but perhaps with lots of problems, unsourced statements, etc. etc. The first level on that scale that really makes a big difference is GA-class, whose criteria is that it has passed through the—strictly speaking independent—process of Good Article review (which, incidentally, is not in itself a very high bar).
So… the reason I haven't updated it yet is that I was looking at the GA process, not maintenance of the quality parameter on the banner. Part of the GA review process is to update that parameter if the article passes, but otherwise they're not really connected. Since you asked about it I've gone ahead and updated it to a "C", and if the issues identified in the GA review are successfully addressed, part of the closing procedure for the GA review will be to update it to "GA".
Hope that made it clearer. And as always, feel free to ask if you have any questions or if I can help in any way. --Xover (talk) 05:33, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

GA Reviews for sonnet articles

Xover, would you be willing to review a few of the sonnet articles my students have submitted for GA status. We would greatly appreciate it. Thanks! Westhaddon (talk) 03:04, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

@Westhaddon: I can certainly take a look as time allows, but no promises. --Xover (talk) 03:55, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
Thank you so much for your thorough reviews. Westhaddon (talk) 19:18, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
@Westhaddon: No problem. Note that, with a few honorable exceptions, I'm seeing very little response from the nominators. I'm quite willing to be flexible on the timeframe (the 7 days is advisory), but that requires at least some kind of response from the nominator and some signs that the issues are being addressed. When I see neither I'm pretty much left the option of failing the article after 7 days. Are your students aware that editing the article to address reviewer concerns is not only allowed but actually expected in the GA process? --Xover (talk) 09:10, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
I've told them that reviews are happening, and that they should respond. It really is up to them to act or not. I'll communicate this to them one more time. Westhaddon (talk) 15:26, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
@Westhaddon: I mean, could they be confused as to the process, cf. the query below? Only one of the nominators has actually edited their article after nominating it for GA (and they addressed all the concerns, so the article was passed as GA). Could they be under the impression that this is like a paper that they've handed in and are no longer allowed to touch? I reiterate: the normal and expected process during GA reviews is that as the reviewer identifies issues the nominator edits the article to fix them. The article is in no way, shape, or form frozen or off limits during GA review. The goal on Wikipedia is improving articles, not slapping a grade on it. Even an immediate fail of a nominated article is expected to have review comments and suggestions for improvement, and there is no minimum wait period before you can nominate an article a second time. --Xover (talk) 16:01, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Folger digital library

Hi, saw your inquiry, two years ago, i surfed through their luna [1] and uploaded some good things, such as File:Edwin booth-staudenbaur.PNG. i'm sure wikimedia DC would be happy to have an editathon, about how to incorporate their collections. Duckduckstop (talk) 19:53, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

@Duckduckstop: Thanks, I'll keep that in mind if anything comes of this. Incidentally, could you link me to the correct "wikimedia DC"? --Xover (talk) 05:13, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
sorry, well on wiki is Wikipedia:Meetup/DC; m:Wikimedia District of Columbia, or their own webpage [2]. cheers Duckduckstop (talk) 17:37, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back from me, too

Hi Xover, good to see you active again after a hiatus of years. I was kind of concerned, and my concern was renewed especially after the loss of Paul Barlow. But I was delighted to see, by your response to that very unfortunate event, that Wikipedia did not lose you in the same way! (And yes, Wadewitz, a.k.a. Awedewit, what an awful loss that was. I never had the pleasure of working with her, but I was aware of her contributions and admired them immensely.) And now I'm glad to see you active again, even if on a limited basis.

Anyway, to get to the point. I have not said anything before now, as I did not want to appear to be pressuring you. But now that I see signs that you are still interested in completing the article on Edmond Malone, my offer of years ago, to add that second pair of eyes, still stands. Whenever you are ready. I know that might not be for some time, as you are always mentioning how busy you are. I understand, as one thing or another in "real life" always seems to keep me busy as well, so I never manage to do what I want to here as quickly as I would like, either.

Best regards, Alan W (talk) 17:45, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Alan! My faithful companion! The Gilbert to my Sullivan! :-)
I'm glad to see you're still around! Just as I logged on here for the first time in several years the news of Paul broke, and then I found out about Awadewit; real gut punches both. It sure makes me appreciate everyone that's left all the more!
Anyways… Mostly I was plain burned out on the project after all the SAQ ArbCom stuff and the surrounding drama. Insanely busy IRL, sure, but mostly I just couldn't muster the energy for any more wikidrama. These days it's not so much that I'm busy as that I have several things that take priority and so I struggle to find the kinds of uninterrupted stretches of time that are needed for things like Edmond Malone. As you can see, anything that can be done in bursts and spare moments is a lot easier to find the time for.
That said I do indeed plan to get back to it. I've been a bit stuck, finding it hard to make progress (more or less writer's block, in effect); but I now think I've figured out what the problem was. The article had hit the point in Malone's life where it becomes impossible to separate his biography from his work, and I was focussing on the biography and saving the works for a separate section. Now I've figured that out I think I see how to proceed. And hopefully, as is often the case, once I get started again, the rest will follow more easily. And there, or anywhere else, I will very much appreciate whatever attention you can spare! Your help, encouragement, and good advice has been much cherished, and balances out a lot of the drama elsewhere (I note there's another little soap opera going on these last few days).
And finally, don't worry about "pressure". Your interest brings me nothing but happiness, and should I ever feel pressured you can be sure I'll let you know. I may with some justification be accused of having gone soft in the head, but a wilting flower I am not. I'm glad to hear from you, and I'm glad to hear that you're still up for being my extra pair of eyes on Malone. --Xover (talk) 18:39, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
"I'm glad to see you're still around!" Well, yes, that's just it, just how I felt when I saw you back here again. And yes, I too missed the days of our being companions in Wiki-arms. I use the military metaphor deliberately: indeed, much of the time it was like an ongoing war; at least we were on the same side! As you say, the wikidrama can be hard to take. I'm glad for myself that I was not in the center of the turmoil in that drama of dramas, the SAQ uproar. You got more involved, as did a few others, especially, of course, Tom, who as the biggest contributor had the most at stake, and I wonder how he kept his sanity (yet glad to see he's still around and contributing).
Not sure what current "soap opera" you are referring to, but besides all the SAQ turmoil, I was involved in contentions in one or two in other areas that you probably had nothing to do with, which I'm saying to show that I certainly know what you mean. Hurricane Sandy was a major one for me, mostly a couple of years ago, but there are still some stray shots being fired now and then. I will fight for what is right when I feel I have to; but, really, at heart I am a peaceful soul and would rather just work quietly, by myself or with other sympathetic and reasonable folks like yourself, who simply want to collaboratively augment this great repository of human knowledge, bit by bit. (And it still astounds me that, thanks to modern technology, this is the most comprehensive encyclopedia, by far, in history.)
I do go on, as I tend to. So I will just add a reminder that Edmond Malone is still on my watchlist. 'Nuff said about that for now. Hope to "see" you again soon! --Alan W (talk) 22:16, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Sonnet 30

Earlier, you and I discussed the 'Sonnet 30' article. An unregistered User using the moniker 'Purpledaisy2000' has been making numerous edits to 'Sonnet 30' since Oct. 5. In fact that User's only edits in their contributions history are to 'Sonnet 30'. Curious. You may want to see what you think of the edits, which seem to be in good faith, but are at times somewhat incomplete and even incoherent, although then at times later corrected; and I have been reverted by that User several times, not that that's a big problem, just bothersome. --- Professor JR (talk) 16:50, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

@Professor JR: The account isn't unregistered (if so it would just show up as an IP address), it's just an editor that hasn't created their user page yet and so the link to it in article histories and such is a redlink (much like an article that doesn't exist yet).
Anyways, Purpledaisy2000 is one of the students involved in the sonnets project, and was one of two students who had chosen Sonnet 30 as their project. The article was nominated for GA and was failed (it didn't meet the criteria at the time), but they may be trying to address concerns from the GA review, or just generally improve the article, in the hopes of nominating it for GA again.
I think it's generally safe to assume that students involved in such projects are not terribly familiar with Wikipedia as a project, and have not had a lot of experience writing encyclopedic content, much less in such a relentlessly collaborative (for good and bad) environment as Wikipedia is. I'm sure the practices vary from institution to institution, but I image what they're used to is some variant of getting an assignment; working on it in a small group that they select themselves, among people they know; possibly getting some kind of advice on it from a TA or something, but more likely just working in a vacuum in their group; and finally handing it in and getting a single grade back to tell them how they did.
Going from that experience to Wikipedia must be a recipe for culture shock of the highest order, so I am not at all surprised that that some of them will struggle to understand all the strange little special rules and practices that have developed on the project in the last 15 years. I recommend generous helpings of patience, and a very low threshold for discussing things on talk pages, when dealing with editors that fall in this category (remember, don't bite the newbies).
In this particular case I've posted a message to their user talk page explaining the problem and suggesting a way to address it. --Xover (talk) 20:28, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
@Xover: Thank you so much. It had in fact occurred to me that perhaps Purpledaisy2000 was one of the students you mentioned in our earlier exchange. I will post a message on Purpledaisy2000's TalkPage, and will only encourage them to continue with their well-intentioned work improving the 'Sonnet 30' article. I am certainly (having at one time taught Shakespeare) always delighted when students discover and take an interest in the Bard's works, as that can, as you know, lead them to a lifetime of inexhaustibly rich, incomparable literary rewards. --- Professor JR (talk) 08:43, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

GA review of Sonnet 101

Xover, Thank you (!) for extensive comments in your review of our article for Sonnet 101. We will try and make revisions within the next week. Gswan333 (talk) 20:39, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

@Gswan333: Don't be overly concerned with the 7 day limit. There is considerable leeway for reviewers, so as long as the article keeps making progress I'd be happy to keep it on hold beyond the suggested 7 days. Note that I'll be travelling most of next week so I may not be able to follow up on reviews until closer to next weekend. I'll be watching for changes, I just won't subject myself to trying to edit Wikipedia from a mobile device (doing that voluntarily must qualify as a pathology of some sort). --Xover (talk) 06:53, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
I saw by your notes that you were concerned with lack of progress in review. We've been generally jammed with midterms and papers this last week, and could use another week. I had hoped to get started with a few edits today. Gswan333 (talk) 15:54, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
I've responded over on the review page. --Xover (talk) 17:35, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
I've responded to your ping on the review page. Gswan333 (talk) 15:17, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
(I've moved over here for our discussion since it is only indirectly germaine to the sonnet article and review.) Thanks for some more fleshing out of, and advice on the process (i.e., your comments over on the GA talk page). I do think both my English class and the GA process were weighing on me. Slow and steady, as you suggest, in little bits feels much more how I'd like to be doing it. And if others want to contribute now they can. I think that's it for now. Thanks again. review page. -- Gswan333 (talk) 21:09, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

JSTOR cleanup drive

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November 2015

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Wikidata weekly summary #186

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
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