User talk:David Gerard/archive 13

VisualEditor News 2015—#1

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins.

Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements

The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:

• starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog:  blue ,
• takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation:  green ,
• might remove or lose your work, like removing a link:  red , or
• is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window:  gray.

The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).

Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.

Looking ahead

The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.

We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.

Let's work together

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Please help complete translations of the user guide for users who speak your language.
• Join the weekly bug triage meetings beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. Contact James F. for more information.
• Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 19:00 UTC.

Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Reported for Rollback issues

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --!BSGT! (talk) 19:06, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Did you make any attempt at all to communicate with David about your concerns before going to report him at a noticeboard? I think a bit of communication between you two would remove the need for the community to have to weigh in. Chillum 19:13, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Not a dot - David Gerard (talk) 19:16, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Very well, I know protectionism when I see it. David Gerard, I will be watching you from this point,every move and every edit, I will indeed notify you when I feel you have made an error and if you try to justify evident violations of policy again, I assure you it won't end so soon. --!BSGT! (talk) 19:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

@Boy Seeks Girl Tonight: Instead of making threats why don't you just go to the article talk page and discuss this content dispute?

I think you should read WP:BOOMERANG before going on some sort of mission to monitor and report this user. Nobody is protecting anybody. Your report rejected because it was frivolous and was done without any attempt to directly resolve it. WP:ANI is not for content disputes.

We don't escalate matters to admin noticeboards without there being first an attempt to resolve it. People disagree about article content all day long, they work it out on the article talk page and not on admin noticeboards. Chillum 19:32, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Love Will Tear Us Apart

There is no need to shout by using caps. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with WP:CIVIL. The edit was fine, I requested a source and you provided one, matter completely closed. Readers usually look at the mainspace before external link hunting and early on it mentions the song played the year before. Anyhow, I have no further edits to make to that article. --!BSGT! (talk) 20:06, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I fully expect your Wikipedia career this time around will be remarkable - David Gerard (talk) 20:16, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Latest stable software release/X.Org Server

Template:Latest stable software release/X.Org Server has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Safiel (talk) 17:46, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, we do

I know it seems odd to have a redir in the cat, but this actually triggers a very cool bit of wikitech. When you use a catted redir, it puts it into the cat in italics. So in this case the VT240 really is a graphics terminal and should be in the cat because that what the cat is, but the base article is a non-graphics terminal, so we don't want to cat that one. Presto, cat the redir and off you go. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:40, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah ... that makes sense and is useful! Thank you :-) - David Gerard (talk) 14:48, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 5

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Comparison of Office Open XML software, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page MPL. 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) 09:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Disagreement re Matthew VanDyke

Dear David, I wanted to reach out to you regarding our disagreement on the Matthew VanDyke page. I am sorry we do not agree because it never feels good to be at odds with someone (much less a stranger!). So I thought I'd give you a bit more context behind my motivations. I am relatively new to Wikipedia (I've been a member for years, but only began editing recently). I do not know all the WP rules and policies, but I am eager to learn. More importantly, I am keen to ensure it remains a balanced and neutral resource. I am not a troll and I have no vested interest or conflict of interest regarding Matthew VanDyke - I simply watched his film Point and Shoot when it was on the BBC. I understand the need to be extra-careful with BLPs, but I do not believe the article should be wholly silent on the issues I am seeking to cite. I have therefore requested a Third Opinion on the subject because I am keen to agree compromise edits. Finally, I'd opt for a half-shot of vermouth. - Slugfilm (talk) 01:30, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, this is basically why I threw it to BLPN :-) I could in fact be just wrong ... but I felt deeply uncomfortable about the para as it stood in a BLP. There should be good cites who criticise VanDyke without psychiatric ad hominem. There are certainly people I'd happily call a "narcissist" or "egomaniac" very loudly in public, but it would take a pretty high bar for that to make it into a BLP - David Gerard (talk) 09:05, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi David, when you get a moment please can you kindly reply to my three suggestions on the VanDyke talk page (and ideally the BLPN too, for completeness)? I think we have reached agreement on the egotism/motivation point, but I would welcome a formal response on the Che Guevara and CPJ issues as well. Thank you. - Slugfilm (talk) 01:20, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Will do, been seriously busy lately - David Gerard (talk) 08:21, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

No problem David. Just so you know, I have gone ahead and made my proposed changes to the article which I have moderated in line with recent 3Os, and with which I hope you will now agree. - Slugfilm (talk) 08:33, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

No worries, will look in a spare moment - David Gerard (talk) 16:48, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi David - bit frustrated by your latest reversion of MvD page. I disagree that all the reverted edits were "debunked" - I have clearly set out 3 proposed changes on the Talk page, two of which were supported by the BLPN discussion and the third (re Che Guevara) should simply be an uncontentious removal of unsourced text. One other user (Inquisito) has disagreed with one of the 3 issues but did not respond to my reply or to the other 2 points. The (now archived) discussion on the BLPN supported 2 of the changes. In the absence of a reply from the dissenting users (yourself and Inquisito) I considered it reasonable to make the edits in question. If you disagree with any individual part of the edits you reverted, it would be better practice to discuss each individually on the Talk page. Thanks. - Slugfilm (talk) 12:02, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Dear David - thank you for previously contributing to the discussion regarding the Matthew VanDyke page. As you may know, this page is currently subject to an editing dispute on both the Talk Page and the BLPN. In order to help resolve the dispute, please can you kindly confirm if your support for or objection to the debated edits has been fairly summarised in the table on the Talk Page? If your position has not been fairly summarised then I apologise and invite you to correct it (or let me know and I can do this for you). Thank you. - Slugfilm (talk) 01:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Invitation

Thank you for using VisualEditor and sharing your ideas with the developers.

Hello, David Gerard,

The Editing team is asking for your help with VisualEditor. I am contacting you because you posted to a feedback page for VisualEditor. Please tell them what they need to change to make VisualEditor work well for you. The team has a list of top-priority problems, but they also want to hear about small problems. These problems may make editing less fun, take too much of your time, or be as annoying as a paper cut. The Editing team wants to hear about and try to fix these small things, too.

You can share your thoughts by clicking this link. You may respond to this quick, simple, anonymous survey in your own language. If you take the survey, then you agree your responses may be used in accordance with these terms. This survey is powered by Qualtrics and their use of your information is governed by their privacy policy.

More information (including a translateable list of the questions) is posted on wiki at mw:VisualEditor/Survey 2015. If you have questions, or prefer to respond on-wiki, then please leave a message on the survey's talk page.

Unsubscribe from this list • Sign up for VisualEditor's multilingual newsletter • Translate the user guide

Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Horizontal hold listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Horizontal hold. Since you had some involvement with the Horizontal hold redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Si Trew (talk) 14:30, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #2—2015

Did you know?

With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:

Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:

After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements

VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance ​on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).

Looking ahead

The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.

Let's work together

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language. Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
• File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

-Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 17:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Ps2 cheats listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Ps2 cheats. Since you had some involvement with the Ps2 cheats redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 18:07, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Grinspoon (EP)

The article has been significantly edited & referenced since it was listed as an AFD. Dan arndt (talk) 07:41, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

So it has! - David Gerard (talk) 10:48, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of .oz

The article .oz has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

non-notable alternative root spam

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Be..anyone (talk) 00:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia design discussion

Hi, was it your intent to delete the comments of several other people here? (Not that I necessarily agree with any of their comments, but...) -- llywrch (talk) 20:38, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Not at all, editing error! Thank you :-) - David Gerard (talk) 21:21, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Too bad after all these years I couldn't find a better reason for my first edit on your talk page. -- llywrch (talk) 14:21, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

It's a pretty quiet page these days ... - David Gerard (talk) 14:30, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Tablets

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T101483

Hi David,

I talked to James F about your tablet question, and he says that, in theory, you should see VisualEditor and be able to open if on the desktop site. (The Mobile site requires a separate opt-in step.) I have the impression that they don't do much testing on tablets right now (mobile devices have been proposed as the next major focus area). I suspect that this is going to be a "fix on their end" rather than anything wrong with your setup, but would you please double-check that you're actually logged in, and confirm that for me? There have been some problems on mobile devices with login status being misreported. I started a bug report for it so this wouldn't get forgotten.

Also, while I'm here: The A/B test for VisualEditor should have stopped about 10 hours ago, and if you saw or heard of anything during the last week that I should know about, please share. I couldn't spend as much time as I wanted to track it in real time, and I'm therefore worried that I'll have missed something important. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:49, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I'll have a poke at it. And just created a Phab login :-) - David Gerard (talk) 16:52, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

And I'm afraid I wasn't paying very close attention in the past week, sorry - David Gerard (talk) 17:51, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #3—2015

Did you know?

When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information:

The link tool has been re-designed:

There are separate tabs for linking to internal and external pages.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools, as well as fixing many bugs and changing some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.

Recent improvements

Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-auto⧽, ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-manual⧽, or ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-reuse⧽). The cite button is now labeled with the word "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "⧼Citoid-citeFromIDDialog-lookup-button⧽", for the submit button.

The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and/or appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages. Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector (T98085).

The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter (T70425).

Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "⧼visualeditor-dialog-transclusion-add-param⧽" each time they want to add another parameter (T95696). The team added a new property for TemplateData, "Example", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter (T53049).

The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.

The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.

Let's work together

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug.
• If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
• If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Ping

Hello David,

The research project about VisualEditor will be moving into the data-analysis phase soon, so I'm personally asking a few of the "regulars" at WP:VEF to let me know if they’d seen anything unusual during the last week or two. (You're in the top 10 all-time editors at WP:VEF.) Anyway, if you've seen anything or have any thoughts on it, then please let me know. There's a thread open at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#Test feedback if you want, or you can always leave a note at my talk page or send me e-mail. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:20, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Weak AI

Fully agree with your "Narrow != Weak" proposal for the "Weak AI" article; singularity is but speculation, should not be given the status that this article seems to grant it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quipa (talk • contribs) 08:36, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

The Singularity and singularitarianism in general are definitely noteworthy and well-covered in RSes ... however, I fully concur that the claims of proponents do warrant close checking and citing - David Gerard (talk) 09:34, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Regarding your edits to 21st Century Medicine

Mr. Gerard, review page 169 and figure 2 of the paper in question. The rabbit that lived for 9 days was among the non-survivors. The confusion is understandable given the imprecise wording on the previous page. The "sole survivor" referred to on page 168 is the rabbit that was euthanized 48 days after transplantation of the vitrified kidney. Blacksun1942 (talk) 20:22, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

References

COI on LibreOffice?

In case you might have any potential conflict of interest with regard to LibreOffice, would you mind disclosing it as per WP:COIN? Thanks. Fgnievinski (talk) 17:52, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

No, I don't. Nor do you have any reason to think I do - David Gerard (talk) 18:52, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Now that you ask, you do seem a bit overzealous reverting edits on those pages. Thanks for confirming that you are not a contributor to any of the external projects described in those articles. Fgnievinski (talk) 19:58, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I once again urge you to read the talk pages and their archives before continuing to assume bad faith. I also urge you to review Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Importance_of_civility - baseless accusations of COI are, in fact, personal attacks. All your proposals have been hashed and rehashed repeatedly on the associated talk pages - David Gerard (talk) 20:47, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for that; I'll stop contacting you, before I'm accused of harassment. Fgnievinski (talk) 23:22, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

As regards the message that you left on my talk page on this issue Lwangaman (talk) 22:17, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

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

COI on IEET

Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Administrator_David_Gerard Waters.Justin (talk) 21:37, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Conflict of interest in Wikipedia

hi David. I work on COI issues a lot in WIkipedia. I just closed the misfired COIN case here but wanted to follow up with you. Please bear with me here.

In my view, being a board member of an advocacy organization is an "external relationship" that is reasonable to consider in any WP:COI analysis in WP. I think it is reasonable to say that RMF is an advocacy organization. So... a discussion about potential COI for you as editor (and admin) in WP is not unreasonable, in my view.

So, I wanted to ask. Have you reflected on whether that board membership creates COI issues for your editing and admin work here in WP? The answer may be "no", and if it is, would you please take some time and think about that? Thanks in advance for being open to discussing this. Jytdog (talk) 22:53, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

It's something I do consider. OTOH, Wikipedia notability is a very different thing to advocacy or not. As I noted, there are organisations I personally consider reprehensible who totally warrant a Wikipedia article, and ones I consider quite nice who totally don't. But yes, I do consider it - David Gerard (talk) 22:55, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I wasn't asking anything about the invalid COIN case that was brought nor was I asking about your feelings. I am asking about conflict of interest and how it might affect your editing/adminnig here. Would you please share your thoughts about how your external relationship with RMF poses a conflict of interest with regard to your editing and adminning work here? Thanks very much. Jytdog (talk) 23:36, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, I've avoided RationalWiki (which I'm still not convinced is a good idea) and Conservapedia ... Your question and your followup question are vague. What specific problem that you see are you working around to talking about here? - David Gerard (talk) 23:59, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm being restrained for several reasons. First, I don't know you from Adam and am respecting the distance. Second, you are an admin, after all. Third, too many discussions about COI get coarse and bludgeon-y, which is unproductive. Fourth, you have been around a while and may have had a very well thought-out approach to this and I wanted to give you room to articulate whatever that was. Fifth, is the flipside of 4, namely, pretty often people with a COI are not only clueless about it, but blow up and get all defensive when I approach them. Sixth, this is a follow up on an invalid COIN case and I wanted to give you comfort that it is not more of the same. Seventh and most importantly... In other cases we've had at COIN where an editor held a key position at an advocacy organization in the RW, those editors came to agree that they had a COI with regard to articles related to their organization's mission, and agreed not to directly edit those articles. In those cases the mission was pretty narrow, so it wasn't hard to figure out the in-wiki scope of the COI. With RMF, the scope of the mission is very broad. So how does that map onto WP? That is not a simple question to me. And all those led me to be open-ended about this. Since you ask me to be less vague, here are my thoughts.

Getting concrete. I am glad that you are not directly editing RationalWiki and Conservapedia - your organization and (as I understand it) your mother/rival organization. Your instinct there is dead on. In my view it would be a good thing if you had a COI declaration section on your userpage and stated there, that you are not directly editing those two articles.

The live question to me, is what else should be on that list. As a board member of RMF, should you avoid directly editing articles about various quackeries? Or about people who are famous skeptics? Those are topics very much within the scope of the RMF's mission - fighting quackery and promoting clear thinking/rationality/what-have-you. (I am not even getting into issues of advocacy here, which strictly speaking are separate from COI)

This question was the heart of the invalid COIN case. I closed that case because it was invalid (of course you can !vote at an AfD regardless of whether you have a COI), but I wanted to address the tension underlying it. (btw, I spend the non-COI-dealing part of my WP time mostly on health related content, mostly beating down quackery and other crappy content about health - I am not grinding any axes here).

So would you please give me your thoughts about the scope of your COI within WP? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 00:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Skeptical thinking is, literally, joined-up thinking. RW's ambit is pretty much anything where there's bad thinking going on, well beyond any standard topics of skeptical interest (which, e.g. in the present case, IEET really isn't). So, all of thinking about anything? It's a pretty broad area to declare "your site's interested in it, therefore you should avoid it."

I do have considerable knowledge of standard topics of skeptical interest. I feel the best thing I can do is apply it here with Wikipedia sourcing rules clearly set out. That is, bringing knowledge to Wikipedia.

There's lots of ill-sourced rubbish on Wikipedia. I don't believe applying Wikipedia sourcing rules about something I know about constitutes a COI, even if I've written about it elsewhere.

So yes, you still haven't stated an actionable concern - you're talking at the "you're interested in the area so you should not edit in it" level and casting unsubstantiated aspersions of COI. I'm pretty sure I have no actual COI in play editing stuff on Wikipedia that I might edit on RW. My editing here doesn't promote RW. (Aggrieved advocates may do, of course.) I have no commercial interest relating to any of these topics. etc, etc. - David Gerard (talk) 07:12, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Hm. Your thinking is not clear here. The present case is not IEEE (as I mentioned earlier) and COI has nothing to do with what interests you (in the sense you just used the word). COI has to do with actual external relationships - namely your board membership, if they create a COI, and on what topics. Would you please read WP:COI and reflect on your board membership of RMF and your work here and then let me know your thoughts? After you read WP:COI, you might find it helpful to run a COI analysis with someone like, say a board member of the Discovery Institute, and pay attention to how you would think about whether and if they have a COI in Wikipedia, and on what topics, and then apply that same analysis to your situation. The analytical process should be consistent for both people, regardless of the mission of the nonprofit, which only comes into it on the last step - namely the scope of their COI within WP (if the analysis gets that far... one might take a position that a board membership is not a relationship that creates a COI. that would be a pretty shaky position, but I could see some arguments for it) I don't expect an answer right away. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 13:28, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I must ask yet again: give me your actual claim and I can answer it. Else, I ask (yet again) that you stop casting unfounded aspersions of an unspecified COI, which is what you're continuing to do - David Gerard (talk) 13:31, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The concrete situation here is that your board membership of RMF is an external relationship that arguably creates a COI. The relationship is a fact. The claim that the board relationship creates a COI is just that - a claim bsed on a reasonable argument. (it is one I am pretty confident most editors who work on COI issues in WP will agree with, but I may be wrong about that) What that COI means with regard to your activity here, is what I am trying to explore with you. This is a weird situation since the mission of RMF is so broad. I am trying to have a discussion with you to explore whether you agree that the board membership constitutes a COI (you seem to agree that it does per this comment) and what the scope of COI is - in that same comment you seemed to say that the scope is at least the two articles you mentioned there. You seem closed to any further discussion. Maybe the right answer to the scope question is just the two articles, but you are not presenting any reasoning as to why that is the case. In situations like this I generally take the case to COIN to have the community reflect on it and come to a determination. Is that where we are? Jytdog (talk) 14:32, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Another occurs to me: Kent Hovind, which I'm not touching since he's suing RMF. (This is an example of a substantiable case rather than a vague aspersion.)

I'm having trouble seeing what the philosophically possible conflict in other than such cases is supposed to be. A drive to exclude topics from Wikipedia because RW has a disapproving article? I don't think that's actually something that one would reasonably expect to happen. Advocates of the sort of things RW has disapproving articles on will routinely claim COI, paid shilling and so forth, without bothering to substantiate (as we see here). But in practice, many things RW has a disapproving article on are unambiguously Wikipedia-notable. The claims of COI usually come in when the thing probably isn't Wikipedia-notable, and you'll see advocates on fringe topic on AFD consistently fail to grasp that and claim a COI (because they literally don't understand that someone could know something about their favourite topic and not agree with them).

What being an active RW contributor means - and it is important to note that that's the thing actually being objected to, not RMF board membership - is that I will often in fact be knowledgeable on whatever the topic is, and have an opinion on it. But y'know, I've been on Wikipedia long enough to be able to edit beyond my personal opinions, supply substantiation, link the WP:WTF, and so forth. However, advocates routinely take disagreement as a personal attack, as you'll see in that AFD.

Apart from cases where it's literally about something directly linked to RMF in this manner, what hypothetical cases can you think of? Pick a made-up topic of skeptical interest that isn't directly linked to RMF by being about it or suing it, and set out your thinking on how RMF board membership makes editing on the topic conflicted - David Gerard (talk) 15:08, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

You started out well there - thanks for adding a third article to the list. About claims of being shill, as I mentioned above, I work on GMO and alt-med topics and am routinely attacked with the pharma-shill gambit. Again, I mentioned that above but since you seem to not have heard that, see this and this and User:SageRad and I can show you about a zillion more. So drop the defensive stick already, OK? Jytdog (talk) 13:17, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

o_0 You have my complete sympathy and empathy! Sorry, I'll stop snapping - David Gerard (talk) 13:21, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

You have mine as well! gotta run to work but would like to pick this up later. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 13:42, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

OK, I have been thinking this through, and I think it would be useful to build some concentric circles and define where the line is between reasonable COI and unreasonable claim of COI:

• 1 content directly about RMF and RW
• 2 content about anyone or any organization with a significant direct relationship with RMF or RW: (other board members, anyone in litigation with RWF, any major donors who are publicly known)
• 3 content anyone or any organization or topic that RMF or RW is in significant public (ideological) disputes with or about: Conservapedia... you would know others much better than I
• 4 content about skepticism (your "side") or pseudoscience or the like (the other "side") generally that is not 1 - 3.
• 5 content not covered in 1 -4

Please note that I said "content" not "articles" - so for #1 - content in any article about RMF or RW, not just those articles in particular. I think it would be reasonable to draw the line between 3 and 4 - anything above the line, your board relationship constitutes a COI and you should not directly edit such content. The hard liminal question to me, is whether the line should be above or below #3. I put it below #3, since RMF is a non-profit that depends on donations, and high-profile disputes are (probably?) the kind of thing that drives donations, and one could, I think, reasonably argue that a board member editing content about those disputes/organizations/people/topics would not be appropriate. That would be the most rigorous/ethical/defensible-to-all-comers stance, I think. I exclude #4 because if the editing wouldn't financially benefit RMF/RW by possibly promoting it or possibly denigrating its opponents in a way that is in the media and could drive donations, there is no COI - that is you just doing your thing. In the field of #4 you do have to watch out for ADVOCACY but we all have our passions. And #5 is of course fine.

My goal here is to have a clearly thought-out plan for managing your COI and that you would post the final schematic on your userpage as your COI declaration. This would save everybody time, is actually minding the integrity of WP with respect to COI, and demonstrates to everybody that WP (and RMF) cares about and effectively manages COI. The "demonstrating" thing is important and I shouldn't have to explain why to a board member of a nonprofit. :)

Thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 14:48, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

1 and 2 are pretty obvious bright line "don't". 4 looks to the subjects a lot like 3, though, meaning for practical purposes having to prove everything in 4 isn't in 3 - advocates of the subjects of skeptical criticism assuming critique is an ideological attack. 1 and 2 are pretty obvious bright line "don't". 4 is why I think really hard about Wikipedia editorial policy regarding edits on these topics, because the advocates so reliably explode if someone disagrees with them. 3 is a number of things that aren't well defined.

I'm thinking of the CoI advice that I myself have given to PR people: imagine the media finding your edit in five years and writing a story about a CoI. This gets the point across to PR people nicely - detailed rules are one thing, but PR disasters are another. A substantial chunk of CoI is other people's impressions, not quantifiable policy - I look at some media pilloryings of people for editing Wikipedia articles and think "steady on!" I do tend to think "how will this edit or this series of edits look?" This is where quotable editorial policy helps a lot in practical work.

I'll contemplate this a bit myself. Meanwhile, back to work ... - David Gerard (talk) 15:04, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

In my view the line between 3 and 4 is "significant public" - there would have to coverage of the dispute in really reliable sources (NYT, not some blog) for something to be in 3. Thank you for considering, and I mean that. Jytdog (talk) 15:26, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

With my RMF hat on, not causing a PR disaster on Wikipedia for RMF is part of the job :-D - David Gerard (talk) 15:30, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Heck yes. I wanted to say that I very much understand how woo-advocates would consider their topic in #3. Totally get that. I think part of the advantage of having this laid out and defined via thoughtful discussion with "conflict management" within WP, is that when advocates do that, you can point to the scehmatic and say "show me the mainstream sources that put this in #3" and be done with it.

btw, in my day job at the university where I work I deal with COI issues all the time and with the policies and procedures we use to identify and manage COI. So i am not totally flying by the seat of my pants. Part of the work I do at COIN is building practices to manage COI - working on the guideline/policy front is a dead end b/c of the tension b/n OUTING and COI, and b/c people have such strong feelings and poorly thought out positions about it. So building practices - the culture of how we identify and manage COI - is really important. We have a good set of editors regularly working at COIN which for now at least is working in a pretty consistent way.

i mention all that b/c if you wanted to go that far, once you and i agree on this, we could bring it to COIN and have it commented on, tweaked if need be, and ultimately ratified there. Which would make it even stronger, and thus a better tool to give other editors (and therefore you as well) more comfort. That may not be of interest to you, but I wanted to offer it. Jytdog (talk) 15:40, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Jerry Leaf page

Thanks for the heads-up on my Talk page re your proposal to delete the Jerry Leaf article I created a long time ago due to skimpy references. The references have been somewhat beefed up now, so I took the liberty of removing the tag. I'm not on Wikipedia often, but if you're interested in pursuing discussion further on the article's Talk page I'll respond as best able. Cryobiologist (talk) 07:02, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Way better now. Cheers! - David Gerard (talk) 15:09, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Zoltan Istvan category

Dear @David Gerard:, I noticed that you reverted my inclusion of a comma and a category. The category is supported by the text in the lead paragraph that has a citation. Let us discuss the change. Thank you. Geraldshields11 (talk) 12:14, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Category:Transhumanist doesn't exist, and he's already in subcategories of Category:Transhumanists - David Gerard (talk) 17:18, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Dear @David Gerard:, Thank you for the quick response. I must have dropped the lower case s and did not realize. What about the comma? It is part of my wikignome work. Geraldshields11 (talk) 19:21, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for zapping the comma too :-) I've put it back. Sorry for my preremptory editing - David Gerard (talk) 19:30, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Dear @David Gerard:, Thank you. I just did not want to step on toes. :) Geraldshields11 (talk) 12:24, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Fallacy of gray listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Fallacy of gray. Since you had some involvement with the Fallacy of gray redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. —Keφr 15:14, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #4—2015

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Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team have been working on mobile phone support. They have fixed many bugs and improved language support. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving language support and functionality on mobile devices.

Wikimania

The team attended Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City. There they participated in the Hackathon and met with individuals and groups of users. They also made several presentations about VisualEditor and the future of editing.

Following Wikimania, we announced winners for the VisualEditor 2015 Translathon. Our thanks and congratulations to users Halan-tul, Renessaince, जनक राज भट्ट (Janak Bhatta), Vahe Gharakhanyan, Warrakkk, and Eduardogobi.

For interface messages (translated at translatewiki.net), we saw the initiative affecting 42 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 56.5% before the translathon, and 78.2% after (+21.7%). In particular, Sakha improved from 12.2% to 94.2%; Brazilian Portuguese went from 50.6% to 100%; Taraškievica went from 44.9% to 85.3%; Doteli went from 1.3% to 41.2%. Also, while 1.7% of the messages were outdated across all languages before the translathon, the percentage dropped to 0.8% afterwards (-0.9%).

For documentation messages (on mediawiki.org), we saw the initiative affecting 24 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 26.6% before translathon, and 46.9% after (+20.3%). There were particularly notable achievements for three languages. Armenian improved from 1% to 99%; Swedish, from 21% to 99%, and Brazilian Portuguese, from 34% to 83%. Outdated translations across all languages were reduced from 8.4% before translathon to 4.8% afterwards (-3.6%).

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Future changes

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If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre directly, so that she can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 15 August

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The trouble with an archiveurl that works, but the domain's since been spammed enough to get on the blacklist ... - David Gerard (talk) 00:39, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 16 August

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Can't see the error, and there's no red warnings in the ref list ... if any reader can spot what I did wrong, that would be welcomed ... - David Gerard (talk) 07:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Rollback feature

As a retired Wikipedian who used to have the rollback feature when I was around and who now edit occasionally Wikipedia as an IP, I would like to remind you that the rollback feature is to be used only in case of clear vandalism.

I have reverted your edit here because you didn't bothered explaining why my edit had to be reverted.

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.57.17.58 (talk) 09:44, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

My apologies - in removing a claim detailed in the article body (this was part of the case brought by Martha Wash), you were behaving indistinguishably from a random drive-by IP vandal. I've put the statement back with a summary - David Gerard (talk) 09:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

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Brustopher (talk) 10:16, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Piggate

A) The IP user who decided to change the entire topic of the article did not 'discuss' as you have suggested me to do. Why should it be one rule for one person and a different for another?

B) I had in fact attempted to change the title to 'Ashcroft Allegations', while this was overly bold of me, this title would allow the more credible accusations to be mentioned. However it has been decided that the article should only focus on the single accusation and subsequent fallout. Reaganomics88 (talk) 22:08, 24 September 2015 (UTC) Reaganomics88 (talk) 22:08, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Free Speech Flag

Hi there David, I hope you are doing well. :)

A while ago you created a page as a redirect.

Just wanted to let you know I've researched and created an article for the Free Speech Flag.

Enjoy,

— Cirt (talk) 18:13, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Ha! Well done on finding sufficient sources for that one separate from AACS :-) - David Gerard (talk) 18:14, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I've also contacted the original author, John Marcotte, and successfully got him to confirm via OTRS that the image itself is "public domain", as opposed to his previous statement about simply allowing derivative works. :) — Cirt (talk) 18:20, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor update

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Vani Hari

You should be very aware that dispute tags should not be removed from articles until the dispute is resolved. BLP's especialy so. If you think there's a more specific one to replace it with, let us know. Thanks. --Ronz (talk) 20:36, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

While BLP issues are serious, that doesn't mean placing a random and indeed misleading tag on an article is a good idea - David Gerard (talk) 20:39, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Given that editors refuse to keep the disputed content out as dictated by BLP, I have chosen NPOV to indicate the underlying problem with "unduly self-serving" self-published material. If you think there's a more specific one to replace it with, let me know. Maybe tag all such content with an inline? I hesitated to do so because of the recent BLPN discussion, which indicates other NPOV problems. Thanks. --Ronz (talk) 20:42, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Grants:IEG/Wikipedia likes Galactic Exploration for Posterity 2015

Dear Fellow Wikipedians,

I JethroBT (WMF) suggested that I consult with fellow Wikipedians to get feedback and help to improve my idea about "As an unparalleled way to raise awareness of the Wikimedia projects, I propose to create a tremendous media opportunity presented by launching Wikipedia via space travel."

Please see the idea at meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Wikipedia_likes_Galactic_Exploration_for_Posterity_2015. Please post your suggestions on the talk page and please feel free to edit the idea and join the project.

Thank you for your time and attention in this matter. I appreciate it.

My best regards, Geraldshields11 (talk) 22:07, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for October 16

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WikiProject Alternative Views?

Back in June you stamped "Keith Henson" with wikiproject alternate views.

Not upset, but wondered why?Keith Henson (talk) 15:01, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

'Cos you've been involved in all manner of non-mainstream to fringe stuff. (Scientology, cryonics, weird science ...) It's not a value judgement :-) Main use is for the article alerts system - I added a huge swathe of articles to it around then. (Apologies that it presently seems to put you in a category with Vani Hari ...) - David Gerard (talk) 16:07, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #5—2015

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Did you know?

You can use the visual editor on smartphones and tablets.

Click the pencil icon to open the editor for a page. Inside that, use the gear menu in the upper right corner to "Switch to visual editing".

The editing button will remember which editing environment you used last time, and give you the same one next time. The desktop site will be switching to a system similar to this one in the coming months.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs, added new features, and made some small design changes. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages like Japanese and Arabic, making it easier to edit on mobile devices, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements

Educational features: The first time you use the visual editor, it now draws your attention to the Link and ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽ tools. When you click on the tools, it explains why you should use them. (T108620) Alongside this, the welcome message for new users has been simplified to make editing more welcoming. (T112354) More in-software educational features are planned.

Links: It is now easier to understand when you are adding text to a link and when you are typing plain text next to it. (T74108, T91285) The editor now fully supports ISBN, PMID or RFC numbers. (T109498, T110347, T63558) These "magic links" use a custom link editing tool.

Uploads: Registered editors can now upload images and other media to Commons while editing. Click the new tab in the "Insert Images and media" tool. You will be guided through the process without having to leave your edit. At the end, the image will be inserted. This tool is limited to one file at a time, owned by the user, and licensed under Commons's standard license. For more complex situations, the tool links to more advanced upload tools. You can also drag the image into the editor. This will be available in the wikitext editor later.

Mobile: Previously, the visual editor was available on the mobile Wikipedia site only on tablets. Now, editors can use the visual editor on any size of device. (T85630) Edit conflicts were previously broken on the mobile website. Edit conflicts can now be resolved in both wikitext and visual editors. (T111894) Sometimes templates and similar items could not be deleted on the mobile website. Selecting them caused the on-screen keyboard to hide with some browsers. Now there is a new "Delete" button, so that these things can be removed if the keyboard hides. (T62110) You can also edit table cells in mobile now.

Rich editing tools: You can now add and edit sheet music in the visual editor. (T112925) There are separate tabs for advanced options, such as MIDI and Ogg audio files. (T114227 and T113354) When editing formulæ and other blocks, errors are shown as you edit. It is also possible to edit some types of graphs; adding new ones, and support for new types, will be coming.

On the English Wikipedia, the visual editor is now automatically available to anyone who creates an account. The preference switch was moved to the normal location, under Special:Preferences.

Future changes

You will soon be able to switch from the wikitext to the visual editor after you start editing. (T49779) Previously, you could only switch from the visual editor to the wikitext editor. Bi-directional switching will make possible a single edit tab. (T102398) This project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, similar to the system already used on the mobile website. The "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time.

Let's work together

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. This feedback page uses Flow for discussions.
• Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - Japanese).
• Local admins can set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki. If you need help, then please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.
• The weekly task triage meetings are open to volunteers. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you can't read this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) 04:16, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi

I was thinking about quoting you when you once said something about telling a new ArbCom that they were heading for a cliff, so high, that would hurt so much when they struck bottom. I can't help but be reminded of this as they take on the "Vested contributors" case, now renamed "Arbitration enforcement 2". Jehochman ^Talk 03:05, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Hex Enduction Hour

Have incorporated Brian Edge, and I know what you were saying, but nothing included that isn't found elsewhere and he is no worse than the usual cheap cut and paste merchant from the then music weeklies. I'd like to build in more on the lead up to the album, esp the mounting difficulties with Rough Trade. Smith and Travis give very different accounts. Ceoil (talk) 00:08, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I think Paintwork is not likely to be actually wrong :-) You've done amazing things for that article - David Gerard (talk) 00:28, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, I've been sparing and treated him with jaundice. Its fun researching this, MES is a such great interviewee- the secret to that band is the humour. Anyway I'd appreciate if you kept an eye on progress and jump in if things go off track anywhere. Ceoil (talk) 11:32, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Myspace.con listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Myspace.con. Since you had some involvement with the Myspace.con redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:50, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

December 2015

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to The Durutti Column 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:

• . The name was also taken from a four-page comic strip entitled "The Return Of The Durruti Column" ("Le Retour de la Colonne Durruti"<ref>''Shadowplayers'', p49</ref> by André Bertrand, which was
• 02/short-stories-for-pauline-ltm-2012.html |title=The Durutti Column: Short Stories For Pauline [LTM, 2012&#93; |publisher=Discography.thedurutticolumn.info |date=2013-02-19 |accessdate=2013-

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"lawyer" and "solicitor"

Jackman is described as a "solicitor" in the UK, and the use of the second source is useless as it refers to the other source <g>. I did not remove anything Jackman was quoted as saying, so I wonder why you think the vice.com source which refers to The Independent material has any use at all, and why you prefer the US term to the UK term for his profession where Jackman is, in fact, British. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:40, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Signpost exit poll

Dear Wikipedian, you recently voted in the ArbCom election. Your username, along with around 155 other usernames of your fellow Wikipedians, was randomly selected from the 2000+ Wikipedians who voted this year, with the help of one of the election-commissioners. If you are willing, could you please participate (at your option either on-wiki via userspace or off-wiki via email) in an exit poll, and answer some questions about how you decided amongst the ArbCom candidates?

  If you decide to participate in this exit poll, the statistical results will be published in the Signpost, an online newspaper with over 1000 Wikipedians among the readership. There are about twelve questions, which have alphanumerical answers; it should take you a few minutes to complete the exit poll questionnaire, and will help improve Wikipedia by giving future candidates information about what you think is important. This is only an unofficial survey, and will have no impact on your actual vote during this election, nor in any future election.

  All questions are individually optional, and this entire exit poll itself is also entirely optional, though if you choose not to participate, I would appreciate a brief reply indicating why you decided not to take part (see Question Zero). Thanks for being a Wikipedian

The questionnaire

Dear Wikipedian, please fill out these questions -- at your option via usertalk or via email, see Detailed Instructions at the end of the twelve questions -- by putting the appropriate answer in the blanks provided. If you decide not to answer a question (all questions are optional), please put the reason down: "undecided" / "private information" / "prefer not to answer" / "question is not well-posed" / "other: please specify". Although the Signpost cannot guarantee that complex answers can be processed for publication, it will help us improve future exit polls, if you give us comments about why you could not answer specific questions.

quick and easy exit poll , estimated time required: 4 minutes

Q#0. Will you be responding to the questions in this exit poll? Why or why not? Your Answer: Your Comments: Q#1. Arbs must have at least 0k / 2k / 4k / 8k / 16k / 32k+ edits to Wikipedia. Your Numeric Answer: Your Comments: Q#2. Arbs must have at least 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7+ years editing Wikipedia. Your Numeric Answer: Your Comments: Q#3. Arbs... A: should not be an admin B: should preferably not be an admin C: can be but need not be an admin D: should preferably be an admin E: must be or have been an admin F: must currently be an admin Your Single-Letter Answer: Your Comments: Q#4. Arbs must have at least 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7+ years of experience as an admin. Your Numeric Answer: Your Comments: Q#5. Completely optional, as all these questions are completely optional: which candidates did you support this year, and why? Your List-Of-Usernames You Supported: Your Comments: The Quick&Easy End. Thank you for your answers. Please sign with your Wikipedia username here, especially important if you are emailing your answers, so we can avoid double-counting and similar confusion. Your Wikipedia Username: General Comments:

the extended exit poll, estimated time required: depends

Q#6. Completely optional, as all these questions are completely optional: which candidates did you oppose this year, and why? Your List-Of-Usernames You Opposed: Your Comments: Q#7. Are there any Wikipedians you would like to see run for ArbCom, in the December 2016 election, twelve months from now? Who? Your List-Of-Usernames As Potential Future Candidates: Your Comments: Q#8. Why did you vote in the 2015 ArbCom elections? In particular, how did you learn about the election, and what motivated you to participate this year? Your Answer: Your Comments: Q#9. For potential arbs, good indicators of the right kind of contributions outside noticeboard activity, would be: A: discussions on the talkpages of articles which ARE subject to ArbCom sanctions B: discussions on the talkpages of articles NOT subject to ArbCom restrictions C: sending talkpage notifications e.g. with Twinkle, sticking to formal language D: sending talkpage notifications manually, and explaining with informal English E: working on policies/guidelines F: working on essays/helpdocs G: working on GA/FA/DYK/similar content H: working on copyedits/infoboxes/pictures/similar content I: working on categorization e.g. with HotCat J: working on autofixes e.g. with AWB or REFILL K: working with other Wikipedians via wikiprojects e.g. with MILHIST L: working with other Wikipedians via IRC e.g. with #wikipedia-en-help connect or informally M: working with other Wikipedians via email e.g. with UTRS or informally N: working with other Wikipedians in person e.g. at edit-a-thons / Wikipedian-in-residence / Wikimania / etc O: other types of contribution, please specify in your comments Please specify a comma-separated list of the types of contributions you see as positive indicators for arb-candidates to have. Your List-Of-Letters Answer: Your Comments: Q#10. Arbs who make many well-informed comments at these noticeboards (please specify which!) have the right kind of background, or experience, for ArbCom. Options: A: AE, B: arbCases, C: LTA, D: OTRS, E: AN, continued: F: OS/REVDEL, G: CU/SPI, H: AN/I, I: pageprot, J: NAC, continued: K: RfC, L: RM, M: DRN, N: EA, O: 3o, continued: P: NPOVN, Q: BLPN, R: RSN, S: NORN, T: FTN, continued: U: teahouse, V: helpdesk, W: AfC, X: NPP, Y: AfD, continued: 1: UAA, 2: COIN, 3: antiSpam, 4: AIV, 5: 3RR, continued: 6: CCI, 7: NFCC, 8: abusefilter, 9: BAG, 0: VPT, continued: Z: Other_noticeboard_not_listed_here_please_wikilink_your_answer Please specify a comma-separated list of the noticeboards you see as important background-experience for arb-candidates to have. Your List-Of-Letters Answer: Your Comments: Q#11. Arbs who make many comments at these noticeboards (please specify!) have the wrong kind of temperament, or personality, for ArbCom. Options: (same as previous question -- please see above) Please specify a comma-separated list of the noticeboards you see as worrisome personality-indicators for arb-candidates to have. Your List-Of-Letters Answer: Your Comments: Q#12. Anything else we ought to know? Your Custom-Designed Question(s): Your Custom-Designed Answer(s): The Extended-Answers End. Thank you for your answers. Please sign with your Wikipedia username here, especially important if you are emailing your answers, so we can avoid double-counting and similar confusion. Your Wikipedia Username: General Comments:

Detailed Instructions: you are welcome to answer these questions via usertalk (easiest), or via email (for a modicum of privacy).

how to submit your answers , estimated time required: 2 minutes

If you wish to answer via usertalk, go ahead and fill in the blanks by editing this subsection. Once you have completed the usertalk-based exit poll answers, , leave a short usertalk note, and click save. The point of leaving the usertalk note, is to make sure your answers are processed and published. If you wish to answer via email, create a new email to the Signpost column-editor by clicking Special:EmailUser/GamerPro64, and then paste the *plaintext* of the questions therein. Once you have completed the email-based exit poll answers, , leave a short usertalk note specifying the *time* you sent the email, and click save. The point of leaving the usertalk note, is to make sure your answers are processed and published (not stuck in the spam-folder). Processing of responses will be performed in batches of ten, prior to publication in the Signpost. GamerPro64 will be processing the email-based answers, and will strive to maintain the privacy of your answers (as well as your email address and the associated IP address typically found in the email-headers), though of course as a volunteer effort, we cannot legally guarantee that GamerPro64 will have a system free from computer virii, we cannot legally guarantee that GamerPro64 will resist hypothetical bribes offered by the KGB/NSA/MI6 to reveal your secrets, and we cannot legally guarantee that GamerPro64 will make no mistakes. If you choose to answer on-wiki, your answers will be visible to other Wikipedians. If you choose to answer via email, your answers will be sent unencrypted over the internet, and we will do our best to protect your privacy, but unencrypted email is inherently an improper mechanism for doing so. Sorry!  :-)

We do promise to try hard, not to make any mistakes, in the processing and presentation of your answers. If you have any questions or concerns, you may contact column-editor GamerPro64, copy-editor 75.108.94.227, or copy-editor Ryk72. Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping Wikipedia. Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 14:53, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #6—2015

Read this in another language • Subscription list

Did you know?

A new, simpler system for editing will offer a single Edit button. Once the page has opened, you can switch back and forth between visual and wikitext editing.

If you prefer having separate edit buttons, then you can set that option in your preferences, either in a pop-up dialog the next time you open the visual editor, or by going to Special:Preferences and choosing the setting that you want:

The current plan is for the default setting to have the Edit button open the editing environment you used most recently.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs and expanded the mathematics formula tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages such as Japanese and Arabic, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements

You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing.

The LaTeX mathematics formula editor has been significantly expanded. (T118616) You can see the formula as you change the LaTeX code. You can click buttons to insert the correct LaTeX code for many symbols.

Future changes

The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, like the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as a cookie for logged-out users and as an account preference for logged-in editors. Logged-in editors will be able to set a default editor in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences in the drop-down menu about "Editing mode:".

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the following Wikipedias in early 2016: Amharic, Buginese, Min Dong, Cree, Manx, Hakka, Armenian, Georgian, Pontic, Serbo-Croatian, Tigrinya, Mingrelian, Zhuang, and Min Nan. (T116523) Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. The developers would like to know how well it works. Please tell them what kind of computer, web browser, and keyboard you are using.

In 2016, the feedback pages for the visual editor on many Wikipedias will be redirected to mediawiki.org. (T92661)

Testing opportunities

• Please try the new system for the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You can edit while logged out to see how it works for logged-out editors, or you can create a separate account to be able to set your account's preferences. Please share your thoughts about the single edit tab system at the feedback topic on mediawiki.org or sign up for formal user research (type "single edit tab" in the question about other areas you're interested in). The new system has not been finalized, and your feedback can affect the outcome. The team particularly wants your thoughts about the options in Special:Preferences. The current choices in Special:Preferences are:
  • Remember my last editor,
  • Always give me the visual editor if possible,
  • Always give me the source editor, and
  • Show me both editor tabs. (This is the current state for people using the visual editor. None of these options will be visible if you have disabled the visual editor in your preferences at that wiki.)
• Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - Japanese).

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF), 00:54, 24 December 2015 (UTC)