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Notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is College project that's introducing copyvios, plagiarism, OR and Non-NPOV content to wide variety of Indian history articles. —SpacemanSpiff 11:10, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Using your iPad on your exercise bike

Zen-master says: "When you walk, just walk; when you sit, just sit. But don't wobble!" Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:52, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Amnesty International India‎

Hello Doug Weller, I applied COI at Amnesty International India‎ about a week ago as per this ticket and I doubt sockpuppetry going on as well as per the article revision history and messages on my talk page so can you please take a look and suggest what to do? Thank you – GSS (talk|c|em) 15:39, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello, and thanks for the message on my talk page. I was not fully aware of guidelines for copying within Wikipedia articles, and thank you for fixing it (that said, the attribution was only for a short amount of text at the beginning referencing the work of Amnesty International). I have further fixed attributions and references per GSS-1987's self-published tag. I would appreciate it if you could review the page once more; as declared previously, I have no COI with the subject, I am merely a new-ish editor trying to improve my editing skills. Thanks. Amnemonic (talk) 11:35, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #245

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

• Discussions
  • Open request for adminship: ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Economists in Wikidata: Opportunities of Authority Linking
  • FOSDEM, February 4-5th in Brussels Come and talk about Wikidata with us! See also the talk about UX and users' needs for Wikidata
  • Web Search and Data Mining Conference, February 6-10th, Cambridge

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Data donation: BBC Things ID (P1617) for news topics, kindly supplied by the BBC. All now uploaded, via Mix'n'Match
  • The StrepHit grant tool was renewed, so the Primary Sources tool can be improved in the future
  • The Bodleian Libraries (Oxford University) are looking for a Wikimedia data assistant to work on Wikidata

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: FIBA player ID, MLB ID, NFL.com ID, fussballdaten.de ID, FootballDatabase.eu ID, euroleague.net ID, JapanTour ID, Australian Government Organisations Register ID, draftexpress.com ID, databaseFootball.com ID, AZBilliards ID, par, median income, Luding game ID, eurobasket.com ID, wisdenindia.com ID, acb.com ID, Simple Modular Architecture Research Tool ID, Rfam ID, NHL.com ID, EuroTour ID, databaseOlympics.com ID, Pfam ID, Smithsonian trinomial, Geographical Names Board of New South Wales ID, National Park Foundation ID, NPCA ID, U.S. National Geodetic Survey ID, peakware ID, means of locomotion, VGMDb label ID, Dagens Nyheter topic ID, Bivouac Mountain Encyclopedia ID, Luding designer ID, BoardGameGeek designer ID, Florentine Inventario Palatina art ID, LombardiaBeniCulturali building ID, Ameblo username, Catholic rite, Ringgold identifier, Gentoo package
  • Query examples:
    • Most articles about films in each Wikipedia
    • Largest companies by revenue in USD
    • Characters whose actors died recently (source)
    • Stock-listed US companies with founders who (or whose parents) were born outside the US (source)
    • Wizards from Harry Potter and their houses/groups (source)
  • Newest WikiProjects: Wikidata:WikiProject Companies
  • Newest database reports: film festivals this month

• Development
  • RDF exports will contain sitelink page names as strings in addition to the URLs (phab:T148923)
  • Switching the remaining special pages for labels, descriptions and aliases to the OOUI design (phab:T48248)
  • Finalizing the security review of the Cognate extension for Wiktionary (phab:T149082)
  • We plan to provide og:image Open Graph tags for sharing Item pages in social networks (phab:T51859)
  • Introducing a new test framework for special pages (phab:T69122)
  • Refactoring the wbeditentity API to work with the new Lexeme entity type (phab:T154288)
  • Added docs/change-op-serializations.wiki documenting how to use the wbeditentity API
  • Added a CREDITS file to the Wikibase code base, listing all authors

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Hack on one of these.
  • Help develop the next summary here!
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Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:41, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:2017 Chicago torture incident

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:2017 Chicago torture incident. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

yeah, well....guess this is what is called "finger-trouble"......

...sometimes my fingers seem to act without me knowing what the heck is going on....sorry! Huldra (talk) 20:05, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

...@Huldra: Meant to reply earlier, I have the same problem, particularly on my iPad. Embarrassing at times when I rollback something I just wanted to look at. Doug Weller talk 18:50, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi

HI, why did you post that on MY page ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trump supporter 1776 (talk • contribs) 09:30, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. Doug Weller talk 18:51, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
• Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
• Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

• When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
• Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
• The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

• JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

---

Discuss this newsletter • Subscribe • Archive

13:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Kalhor tribe

Dear Doug, The paper Kalhor tribe[اhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalhor_(Iranic_tribe)] is under persistent vandalism by an ethnocentric user. Despite well-equipped page with authentic citations, the source are being deleted and the page is being moved. Some Kalhor people consider themselves as Lur, some as Kurd and some as an ethnic identity. By the way, I think differnt opinions should be inserted. Best wishes Shadegan (talk) 18:48, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Kalhor tribe

Dear Doug, The paper Kalhor tribe[اhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalhor_(Iranic_tribe)] is under persistent vandalism by an ethnocentric user. Despite well-equipped page with authentic citations, the source are being deleted and the page is being moved. Some Kalhor people consider themselves as Lur, some as Kurd and some as an ethnic identity. By the way, I think differnt opinions should be inserted. Please help to protect this paper. Best wishes Shadegan (talk) 18:51, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. Legobot (talk) 04:32, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Dalai Lama Ding Dong/Ottawagalz

Why was Ottawagalz considered to be a sock of Dalai Lama Ding Dong? Just curious. Drsmoo (talk) 22:17, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: It's explained, in too much detail IMHO, on their talk page. See WP:DUCK. Doug Weller talk 15:51, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Citations

Hi Doug, I emailed you because trying to find this page on my mobile device was not working =)

I am wondering how to cite my info if the citations are simply the book itself?

thanks SperrysSpot (talk) 18:20, 1 February 2017 (UTC)SperrysSpot

Responded on editor's talk page. Doug Weller talk 15:52, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Issue on the Tel Dan Stele Talk Page

Hi DougWeller, since you already commented on the Tel Dan Stele page, I thought I would ask you for some help/policy guidance. There is a clear consensus of four-to-one in favor of keeping the recently added sources (Maeir and Fleming) and yet a single editor has refused to accept the consensus, as well as refusing to accept the reliable sources noticeboard.

The editor made up a nonsensical rationale for removing the sources, and demanded that I find a way to convince him, while stating that "wikipedia is not about votes" https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Tel_Dan_Stele&diff=next&oldid=758988527 and "If you cannot support your edit with a sensible rationale, it cannot remain." This is despite consensus on the talk page and the reliable sources noticeboard.

The editor then refused to accept the reliable sources noticeboard, saying it didn't deal with whether the source is relevant in context. I'm sure you know, that's exactly what the Reliable Sources Noticeboard does.

The editor has also been cursing me out during this whole process, and personally attacking all other editors who have contrary opinions to him. Ie: “If you answer with more general bullshit I will have no choice but to remove your sources.”, "you have exposed yourself as a fraud.” “You should be ashamed.” and so on.

Now a new editor with only 18 total edits made a revert using the exact same wording as the above editor, while their talk page discusses being behind a proxy. It's getting ridiculous and I'm not sure how to proceed. Any help/policy guidance would be appreciated. Thank you. Drsmoo (talk) 04:28, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: just seen this after suggesting at the talk page what's need sort an SPI. I really don't have time today to look at the content issue, taking granddaughter to see Rohue One and busy with other things. Maybe tomorrow. DRN or an RfC? Doug Weller talk 06:21, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Enjoy Rogue One! It was pretty good I thought! Thank you for your suggestions. Drsmoo (talk) 12:06, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: are you still planning to look at the Tel Dan Stele talk page? Oncenawhile is now blatantly disregarding consensus, and a noticeboard, while dismissing reliable sources because of a rule he just made up (he is making things up as her goes along in order to disrupt). It is disruptive, in addition to the cursing and personal attacks. Drsmoo (talk) 12:57, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

@Drsmoo: I thought you were going to either go to DRN or have an RfC. I really don't want to get involved there, I've too much on my plate and I'm letting myself get distracted by getting involved in other things without finishing stuff I really need to do. Sorry. Doug Weller talk 17:20, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: No worries, I totally understand. I don't personally need an RFC or DRN as there is a unanimous consensus in support of my edits. They are good suggestions in general however!Drsmoo (talk) 17:34, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 February 2017

• Arbitration report: WMF Legal and ArbCom weigh in on tension between disclosure requirements and user privacy

• Special report: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing

• News and notes: Official WMF rebuke to Trump policy; WMF secures restricted funds

• In focus: WMF strategy consultant brings background in crisis reputation management; Team behind popular WMF software put "on pause"

• WikiProject report: For the birds!

• Op-ed: How to make editing workshops useful, even if participants don't stick around

• In the media: Presidential politics, periodic table, and our periodic roundup of updates

• Technology report: Better PDFs, backup plans, and birthday wishes

• Traffic report: Cool It Now

• Featured content: Three weeks dominated by articles

• Forum: Productive collaboration around coordinated protest marches; Media and political personalities comment on Wikipedia at its 16th birthday celebration

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

"Pre-Columbian" is improper terminology.

"Pre-Columbian" is incorrect terminology. "Columbian" is French and Scottish and is in itself pre-Columbus in root and in tradition. The proper term is, "pre-Columbus". Very very different as Columbus implies hispanic or latin cultures from Europe which do not share similar traditions with the Columbians. I know this because my ancestors are of the Columbian surname and we don't share the traditions or cultures of those post-Columbus. Please correct this error. Thank you. are pre-Columbus Onewithnothing (talk) 16:04, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@Onewithnothing:It's not an error. See Columbia (name) for a start, or a dictionary. I have no idea why you think it is French or Scottish but that really doesn't matter. As I showed on your talk page, it's the term used in academic sources and we rely on such sources, see WP:VERIFY, not our own personal understanding. Please don't continue to change it. If you really think you are right then make a move request, see WP:MOVE to find out how to make a request, but don't edit to force your change. Doug Weller talk 16:16, 6 February 2017 (UTC) It's been a very very long journey tracing this back but we have uncovered many resources that lead us back to the Domesday book of 1066. In this book we find that our family of the surname Columbia is in fact the name given to a Scottish Lord who also owned many lands in France. The name is Columbe in French and means Dove. The traditions are those of Pagan and Masonic traditions that presuppose any Cristian or Catholic influences. Academic resources as I'm sure you're aware are very agendanbased and they don't want to teach the truth often times when the truth isn't Cristian in origin. This makes sense when you begin to look at the traditions of those who are Pre-Columbus or Pagan traditions for the most part and the Columbians of Scotland and France who had their origins originally in Scandanavia and were of course also here in the Americas long before Columbus. There is simply nothing righg with the term, Pre-Columbian when it comes to the way you and Academia is choosing to abuse the term. Pre-Columbus is the right term for what you're intending to say. It's also a personal affront to our noble family, our traditions and our values.

Origin

Nobody is able to say what is the precise origin of the breed since it is a very ancient one. Some experts actually believe that it is a breed from the Mediterranean basin brought to Europe with the Arab conquest of Spain. Pictures representing the poodle can be found in Ancient Greece, and in the Roman Algeria and Carthage. It was believed to be a herding dog. This is not as easy to retrace the origin as for the Doberman or the bull terrier that have been created in England and Germany during the 19th century. If you are willing to apply your method to all breeds, then modify the majority of the wiki articles and try to retrace the origins of the breeds for centuries. The Irish water spaniel would not be Irish but probably Spanish for example, the Puli would not be Hungarian, but Mongol, the Whippet from the Arabian peninsula etc...What really matter is where the standart has been recongnized and fixed, since before that, this is not a breed. A breed is a race of dog with standards. This is the policy applied regarding international standards. I would remind you that the FCI is not a "French" organisation as you mentionned in one of your previous modification, but the major dog international organisation based in Belgium regrouping vast majority of countries worldwide (91 countries as up today) including France and Germany. And if you take a look on the german article about the poodle, it is also specified that the poodle is a French breed, like any other breed where the standart is fixed, and the country responsible to regulates all the aspects of the breed standard.. In my last edit I tried to be conciliant eventhought you erased an information accompanied with a serious reference. Why don't you add Russia, Hungary, and North Africa in addition to France and Germany in the article?? Take care--Gabriel HM (talk) 10:25, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I should know the Fédération Cynologique Internationale isn't entirely French and I apologise for that. But no, it does not govern all international standards quite obviously as major organisations such ash the American Kennel Club and the British Kennel Club and Wikipedia is not governed by the FCI. I mentioned other countries on the talk page - where you haven't responded to me. Please keep this on the talk page of the article, not here. Doug Weller talk 12:33, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

@Gabriel HM: pinging Doug Weller talk 12:35, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #246

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

• Discussions
  • We need your input about quality criteria for building a tool to evaluate item quality

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Past: FOSDEM
  • Upcoming: WSDM Cup 2017
  • Upcoming: WikiCite 2017, Vienna, May 23-25, 2017
  • Upcoming: A Gentle Introduction to Wikidata for Absolute Beginners, by Asaf Bartov, February 9th, 19:00 UTC (livestream on Youtube)
  • Scaling the matching of Wikidata to OpenStreetMap with wikimama
  • Software product management as an internship in the Wikidata development team
  • Being a Volunteer Developer for Wikimedia projects: An Interview with Greta Doçi

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Inspire Campaign on outside knowledge networks launched
  • What would you like to talk about during Wikimania Montreal?
  • Join the Wikimania program committee!
  • OpenStreetMap uses several wikidata-related tags in its database. See also the related documentation
  • Dutch is now the most used language for descriptions on Wikidata (56,7%), leaving English (55,8%) and German (34,7%) behind.
  • An OpenRefine service for Wikidata is waiting for testing: https://tools.wmflabs.org/openrefine-wikidata/
  • WMDE looking for a data analyst to work mostly on Wikidata
  • WMF looking for a project manager to work on structured data for Commons

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: Saros cycle of eclipse, World Checklist of Selected Plant Families ID, Relations Ontology ID, GCD series ID, WNBA player ID, Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures ID, CricketArchive playing ground ID, UltraSignup runner ID, ITRA runner ID, Surfline ID, SunshineTour ID, Pro Football Hall of Fame ID, SIPCA code, Sina Weibo id, autologous cell line, Croatian Football Federation player ID, TLG author ID, data size, Fangraphs ID, European Handball Federation ID, ESPNcricinfo playing ground ID, ESPN MLB player ID, European Case Law Identifier, Cultureel Woordenboek identifier, OWGR ID, Legends of Hockey ID, Just Sports Stats ID, J.League Data Site ID, Global Poker Index ID, NGA Lighthouse ID, Admiralty number, pro-football-reference ID, College Football Data Warehouse ID, maximum size or capacity, USCF ID, World Curling Federation ID, World Curling Tour ID, World Guide to Covered Bridges ID, World Series of Poker ID, Zhihu topic ID
  • Query examples:
    • Places of worship south of 48°S(source)
    • Fictional items named after real items(source)

• Development
  • You can now download query results as SVG images
  • When posting a link to an item to social networks and on messenger apps that show previews the previews will now be nicer and show an image. (phabricator:T51859)
  • We published the results of our research around Commons usage: How do heavy Commons users work? ...and what does that mean for structured data on Commons?
  • Setting up test system for federation (being able to use Wikidata's items and properties on Commons)
  • Setting up test system for lexemes
  • Setting up test system for improved change dispatching (sending notifications about edits on Wikidata to Wikipedia and co)
  • Doing more groundwork for lexemes
  • Working on better integration with Elastic
  • More work on Federation
  • Getting ready to deploy automated sitelinks for Wiktionary
  • Fixing a number of keyboard navigation issues based on your feedback
  • Working on the new datatype for geoshapes (phabricator:T57549)
  • Looking into linking more complicated external identifiers properly (phabricator:T151329)
  • Improved the link to the help portal on the query service (phabricator:T154993)

See all open tickets related to Wikidata.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Hack on one of these.
  • Help develop the next summary here!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item
  • Help translate or proofread pages in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention
  • The Cebuano and Swedish wikis have a lot of bot-created content which is unconnected to other wiki articles. A good way to tackle that problem is by checking constraint violations for property GeoNames ID.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:26, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Updates to Jordan Codices

There are several updates as of 2016 and 2017 that authenticate the Jordan Codices. It is becoming evident that fakers would have to violate known laws of science. It is not cool that this topic was left in the fake category. I thought Wikipedia was supposed to be non biased. At the very least it is important for users of Wikipedia to at least consider the possibility these could be authentic. Instead it is clear that Wikipedia is insisting on claims of forgery which have been disproven since 2012.

I was simply trying to get in this new update edit since last edit 2012:

2016 updates New testing said to confirm their age, say authors who have been campaigning since 2009 for the tablets to be recognised and protected. A further report by independent analyst Matthew Hood, an examiner of the erosion of the codices since 2009, has claimed that the “visible formation of mineral crystals as the metal reverts to organic compounds provides strong evidence of the great age of some of these artifacts”. "The suspicion of forgery, sown by the bloggers and a rashly published note in the Times Literary Supplement in 2011, has been disproved by several independent scientific tests of the metal as well as yet unpublished expert study of the writing. No one of those actually involved with research on the codices has any doubt about their antiquity," the statement said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3985150/Is-written-mention-Jesus-2-000-year-old-lead-tablets-remote-cave-genuine-claim-researchers.html

http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/jordan-lead-codices-not-modern-forgeries-%E2%80%94-british-experts — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fixthetruth123 (talk • contribs) 19:46, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)We are supposed to be not biased, and, so far as I can tell, the material as presented in the article is reasonable. Of the first link you provide, the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Daily Mail RfC indicates that, as per our guidelines, the Daily Mail is to be considered generally unreliable, so it doesn't count for much for these purposes. The Jordan Times article might be reliable, and I think Doug is probably a better judge of that than I, but I don't know if just one article in one newspaper is going to be sufficient to overrule the previous finding of the codices being fake. Regarding the unpublished study you mentioned, we really can't deal with those until they are published, so that isn't really useful either.

It is I think maybe not unreasonable to ask that the material be changed on the article talk page, maybe with some of this information added in a 2016 updates section, and I see that you have done that. But, otherwise, I think that if the new studies are more verifiable, they will almost certainly in short order be taken up by the academic journals and other media. Honestly, considering the Jordan Times article was in December and it is now February, I am more than a little surprised that this hasn't been widely reported in English already. That is, if the JT material is itself considered reliable. Hood's statement is presumably somewhere discussed in sources independent of him as well, and those sources would be useful. Regarding his own reliability, well, I don't know anything about him, but I am aware of several people in the broad field of Biblical archaeology who are about as scientifically reliable as Erick von Daniken or Edgar Cayce, and it might be best to have some discussion regarding the degree of his reliability as well. John Carter (talk) 21:17, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Britannica isn't a reliable source?

Hello. I was told (at User talk:HistoryofIran) that you ascribe to the view that "Britannica isn't a reliable source". I'm surprised to hear that, as it appears basically reliable to me. Can you help me understand the issue? —BarrelProof (talk) 22:05, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: Various reasons. Many of its articles are out of date, for a start. It's becoming more like Wikipedia with people contributing material, so we should avoid anonymous articles. Its articles are usually written by one person so many of them have a pov problem and don't present the full picture. I've found articles stating certain things as facts that a quick review of the literature show are disputed. I think we should avoid tertiary sources as much as possible, especially when it's not clear what sources they are using. It should almost always be possible to find a better sources, particularly in academic fields of study. Doug Weller talk 17:01, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps some advice on Britannica should be added to Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites or otherwise put somewhere in the WP namespace to advise readers about the issue (e.g., like Wikipedia:Citing IMDb). I would think that the gut instinct of naïve readers would be to think it is a reliable source, and this would occur in many places on Wikipedia. Currently, WP:WPNOTRS says "Reputable tertiary sources, such as introductory-level university textbooks, almanacs, and encyclopedias, may be cited", and I see no discouragement against using tertiary sources at WP:TERTIARY. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:19, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I would never use Britannica if an academic source is available, but I do find it useful for basic and uncontroversial facts which I cannot find elsewhere. For example, the first paragraph of List of Local Nature Reserves in Cambridgeshire is based on Britannica. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:26, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Pretty much like Wikipedia, no? Thanks. warshy ^(¥¥) 17:59, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Part of the problem here, I think, might relate to encyclopedias in general as well as Britannica itself. I've looked over quite a few topical encyclopedias on religion, for instance. Some of them cover fairly broad topics in only a single article, written by a single person, and so, on that basis, it isn't unreasonable to think that maybe the writer is just repeating what he saw printed elsewhere, sometimes things written years earlier. This might be particularly true if the writer had recently written something on the topic. Granted, on a lot of topics, like, maybe, Thomas Aquinas, where there haven't been many new developments in the topic area for a number of years, that might not be a problem. But in some others it could very easily be a problem, particularly areas in the broadly scientific area where technological developments have occurred and topics in which new discoveries have been made, where there are reasonable questions of possible POV questions of the authors themselves over- or under-stressing new material, or where the topic is of great breadth. Having said that, I think Doug might have been better to say something like "Britannica isn't as reliable as a lot of editors seem to think" or maybe, "Britannica is a suboptimal source in a lot of areas" or something similar. John Carter (talk) 17:32, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

@Warshy: very much like Wikipedia. @John Carter: I'm not really sure what I said or where. I think that you and Dudley Miles are pretty much correct.

Do your own research but I was once told that if the Britannica url has "EBChecked" in the string then it has been checked by the editorial board. But generally, yes, I don't like to see it being used ... and don't get me started on all the crap we still use from EB 1911. - Sitush (talk) 16:55, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:External links/Perennial websites#Encyclopædia Britannica. —BarrelProof (talk) 21:16, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

As a personal waypoint, I still own a hard copy of the 1911 edition. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 21:30, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Have you had it from new? <g> - Sitush (talk) 20:23, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:30, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #247

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

• Discussions
  • New request for comments: P171 (property "parent taxon"), changing the label of property "has role"

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Probing Parliament(s) with Wikidata, by Martin Poulter
  • Jan Dittrich and Charlie Kritschmar gave a talk at FOSDEM on finding user needs and gave some examples from their work.
  • A Gentle Introduction to Wikidata for Absolute Beginners by Asaf Bartov: video and slides
  • Validating Wikidata tags on OpenStreetMap
  • Reminder: the deadline for Wikimania's scholarship is February 20 (and you can discuss about your ideas for Wikidata here)

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • The satisfaction survey concerning Flow has been published (and Wikidata is the community which prefers Flow the most)
  • Module Wikidata on Wikidata received an update to improve its performance. If your wiki has forked this one, consider updating it and report any problems (already reported one).
  • Experimental c:Template:Category contains for categories on Commons, including a per-category Wikidata query. See introductory discussion on Commons Village Pump. Presented together with current statistics on Commons category <-> Wikidata links
  • ContentMine looking for a Wikimedian in Residence to work on Wikidata and WikiFactMine in Cambridge
  • It is now possible to edit the Wikidata description from the Wikipedia app in some languages in beta

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: base salary, Visions of Britain place ID, Visions of Britain unit ID, DigDag ID, Sweden Nature Reserve ID, Le Monde diplomatique subject ID, Borden Code, fare zone, Recreation.gov area ID, EU VAT number, Booking.com hotel ID, BOLD Systems taxon ID, 90minut player ID, ITU triathlete ID, Minneapolis Institute of Art Constituent ID, candidacy in election, MarineTraffic Lighthouse ID, protected heritage site in Brussels ID, Archives nationales producer record, Hockey-reference player ID, F-Droid package, Danish ancient monument ID, BLF article ID, Araneae Spider ID, AFI Catalog of Feature Films ID
  • Query examples:
    • Collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
    • Office-holders convicted of crimes (source)
    • Monarchs convicted of regicide (source)
    • Timeline of antipopes (source)
    • Battles etc of the U.S. Civil War, that have maps (source) -- but the results are a bit patchy.
    • Grade I listed buildings in Bedfordshire (source: Commons "category contains" template)
  • Newest external tools: new reconciliation for OpenRefine

• Development
  • Doing a trial run of allowing search engines to index a number of ArticlePlaceholder pages on Welsh Wikipedia. If there are no major issues we will enable this for all placeholders.
  • Improving Federation-related after initial tests,
  • Getting ready to deploy automated sitelinks for Wiktionary
  • Further work on the new datatype for geoshapes (phabricator:T57549)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Hack on one of these.
  • Help develop the next summary here!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item
  • Help translate or proofread pages in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 08:41, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Mitchell Falls visit

Just wondering if you've ever been there. I have, several times with permission. Not tours, just me and brother and our wives. Doug Weller talk 20:22, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, no, haven't been. I recently added a hatnote for disambiguation, because today I saw photos of the Mitchell Falls in Australia — amazing. That would be incredible to visit! --SidP (talk) 20:33, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:31, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

List of biblical places has incorrect link for "Sin Desert"

Doug,

Found your name associated with the wiki-page "List of biblical places" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biblical_places and hope you can help.

On that page in section "S" is the entry "Sin Desert" and the link unfortunately goes to the page for the religious definition of sin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin instead of to the page for the geographical location "Wilderness of Sin" or "Desert of Sin" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_of_Sin

I did not find an obvious method to make the correction, so thought I'd kick it to you as someone more knowledgeable.

Best wishes,

Kiisu Buraun (talk) 03:26, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Fixed; thanks for reporting, @Kiisu Buraun. I haven‘t dug into the history, but I suspect an attempt at humour. It had been like that since links were first added in 2006.—Odysseus1479 06:48, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Doug,

Appreciate the correction.

Best wishes, Kiisu Buraun (talk) 08:26, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

Enjoy! :D Ethanbas (talk) 07:55, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Account

Since we previously had some interaction, I wanted to notify you that I finally created an account (previously 76.10.128.192). Thanks, PaleoNeonate (talk) 09:35, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

YGM - incoming

Hello, Doug Weller. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

EvergreenFir (talk) 06:09, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Could use some input

I'm looking over an old SPI, and it seems most or all of the admins involved have retired or gone inactive. I just Prodded one of a walled garden of SPA-ish, COI-vibe articles.[1] Twinkle notified the article creator, blocked user Daveyjosephjones (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), which showed that account as one of the socks of Judgegeoffrey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). If there look to be more accounts, such as ShannonJosephDoyle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), a "new" account that has picked up where the blocked accounts left off, do we need to reopen the SPI or is the very loud quacking enough? - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 22:01, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Request for Comment on the guidelines regarding "joke" categories

This is a notice that a discussion you participated in, either at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents or at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 February 8 has resulted in a Request for comment at Wikipedia talk:User categories#Request for Comment on the guidelines regarding "joke" categories. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:38, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Harassment

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Harassment. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Chester Oh Yeah!

If you really need to block one of my two accounts, please block this one, not ChesterOhYeah! Chester Oh Yeah (talk) 11:41, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Srinjoy Mukherjee

I don't know with the apparently now two deleted templates for references on the above page whether this subject qualifies as notable or not. With only the extant references, I have to say I don't see any real evidence of notability. John Carter (talk) 18:36, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

@John Carter: He'd probably scrape through. The main thing is to keep it unpromotional. Doug Weller talk 13:04, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

For information, SM is complaining about removal of text from article. Your removals seem fine to me and I've said as much. Mjroots (talk) 21:55, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Edit

Hi. Wanted to let you know that I restored one of your reversions. According to the history, the IP evidently is evading. However, the edit is sourced, and violating the rules does not make all the editors edits bad. Not sure what you think though. 2600:1:F15C:DB5B:AC3E:75E:5087:C25E (talk) 21:08, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Replied at your talk page. It's also a bad edit, source should discuss the subject, Doug Weller talk 22:05, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #248

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

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Past: GLAMwiki meeting in Paris, February 16-17th
  • Incoming: Wikidata workshop in Grenoble (France), March 7th
  • If Voltaire had used Wikipedia… using Wikidata to share knowledge about an author

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • WMF open call for Project Grant proposals (Feb 13-Mar 14)
  • Wikimania: the deadline for applying for scholarships is 20 February 2017 23:59 UTC. Submissions are running until end of March (see our discussions about Wikidata-related topics)
  • Wikimedia Deutschland is hiring a fullstack developer and an engineering manager to work on Wikidata
  • Editing Wikidata descriptions from Wikipedia app (beta)

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: USA Gymnastics athlete ID, Tennis Archives player ID, Swimming Australia swimmer ID, Sambafoot player ID, International Weightlifting Federation ID, EPCR player ID, L'Équipe football player ID, Futsal Planet player ID, Fotbal DNES player ID, Football Federation of Ukraine player ID, Fora De Jogo manager ID, FootballFacts.ru player ID, Estonian Football Association player ID, DZFoot.com player ID, Croatian Football Statistics ID, Cross-tables.com Scrabble player ID, BDFutbol player ID, Chess.com player ID, ARRS runner ID, Kontinental Hockey League player ID, American Hockey League player ID, JMK film rating, IDEAS person ID, NatureServe conservation status, NBA player ID, Basketball Hall of Fame ID, All Blacks player ID, FFR player ID, significant environmental impact, ARCHON code, Uniform Type Identifier, National Drug Code, Key to English Place-Names (KEPN) ID, Oorlogsmonument ID, European Medicines Agency product number, PDB ligand ID, Peakbagger area ID, The Met object ID, British Museum place ID, British Museum thesaurus ID, Babelio work ID, Babelio author ID, stated age at event, British History Online VCH ID, Historical Gazetteer of England's Place Names ID, Australian Antarctic Gazetteer ID, Kirshenbaum, Common Weakness Enumeration ID, BadmintonLink player ID, rusbandy player ID, Darts Database player ID, Bwfbadminton.com player ID, ski-db.com skier ID
  • Query examples:
    • People born at the sea (source)
    • Persons buried in Père-Lachaise cemetery, Paris (source)
    • Paintings by women painters in the Louvre (source)
    • People born on Valentine's day, colour coded by country of citizenship (source)
  • Newest external tools: wikidata-cli can now edit Wikidata, edit Wikidata from NodeJS

• Development
  • Making final fixes to initial version of Federation (needed to be able to use Wikidata items and properties to describe media on Commons in the future)
  • More work on baseline for Lexeme entity type for Wiktionary support
  • Fixed an error on d:Special:ConstraintReport (phabricator:T158183)
  • Wikidata Query Service got additional servers, the data has been reloaded to fix a number of issues caused by missed updates and an increase of the time-out of 30s is being looked into.

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Hack on one of these.
  • Help develop the next summary here!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item
  • Help translate or proofread pages in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 15:56, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:User categories

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:User categories. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Your feedback matters: Final reminder to take the global Wikimedia survey

Hello! This is a final reminder that the Wikimedia Foundation survey will close on 28 February, 2017 (23:59 UTC). The survey is available in various languages and will take between 20 and 40 minutes. Take the survey now.

If you already took the survey - thank you! We won't bother you again.

About this survey: You can find more information about this project here or you can read the frequently asked questions. This survey is hosted by a third-party service and governed by this privacy statement. If you need additional help, or if you wish to opt-out of future communications about this survey, send an email through EmailUser function to User:EGalvez (WMF) or surveys@wikimedia.org. About the Wikimedia Foundation: The Wikimedia Foundation supports you by working on the software and technology to keep the sites fast, secure, and accessible, as well as supports Wikimedia programs and initiatives to expand access and support free knowledge globally. Thank you! --EGalvez (WMF) (talk) 08:25, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Of possible interest

I notice that you have warned this editor twice: [2], [3]. They are still displaying a major attitude problem, as evidenced here: User talk:Kudpung#February 2017 (in case you do not have that page watchlisted). Softlavender (talk) 09:20, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

@Softlavender: Many apologies, I can't keep up! I don't think it would actually help to do anything now (or in fact at the time). We'll see what happens down the line. Doug Weller talk 16:26, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

No worries, looks like things calmed down for now. Softlavender (talk) 16:35, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Removal of static IP template

Hi. Just heads up, the editor removed it again [4] after you threatened to remove talkpage access and make block longer. Qed237 (talk) 12:16, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

@Qed237: Thanks, blocked for a month with no talk page access. If you look at their contributions, they don't seem here to improve the encyclopedia. Doug Weller talk 14:13, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

IP socks

I went ahead and tagged the User:Motbag12 IP socks as as such. Huggle happened to catch one of the edits from the latest one and I thought something seemed awry... Home Lander (talk) 20:55, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

ARBCOM quote

I think you've just copy-pasted my quote, without taking care about what I had struck and what I didn't strike. I wrote

"With the exception of existing Yobot tasks currently being re-reviewed, Magioladitis is requested to seek broad input into new Yobot tasks, such as by posting a link to the BRFA on AN the VPs, or by another method accepted by BAG or any other noticeboard deemed relevant by BAG."

Whereas you quoted

"With the exception of existing Yobot tasks currently being re-reviewed, Magioladitis is requested to seek broad input into new Yobot tasks, such as by posting a link to the BRFA on the [Village Pumps], or by another method accepted by BAG, or any other noticeboard deemed relevant by BAG."

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:28, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Damn, I must clean my glasses! I never remember to until it becomes a major pain. Sorry, I did remove "AN", but it's bad I missed the others. I did get VPs right I hope. Doug Weller talk 18:59, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

RevDel request

This edit, and the edit comment of the edit that follows it. Thanks. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:44, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

@NatGertler: Saw this when I got up this morning but it had been done. I'm afraid I was asleep when you posted! Doug Weller talk 19:11, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

How dare you sleep! No sleeping 'til Wikipedia is finished! --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:09, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Disruptive edits and hate propagating by a long-term vandal

Could you please take a look at here? Is it time to hard-block for his accounts and semi-protecting certain articles that i have mentioned on Drmies's talk page? It is like a vicious cycle. So semi-protecting for pages that i have mentioned on Drmies's talk page and hard-blocking for his multiple accounts are the only solutions. 46.221.168.189 (talk) 21:07, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #249

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

• Discussions
  • New request for comments: Proposal to include command line arguments to Command line tool
  • We need your input on SPARQL federation

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Describing Wikidata items with OpenStreetMap tags
  • Deadline for applying to Wikicite 2017 is February 27th
  • Quora blog post about their collaboration with Wikidata. They are now displaying links to Wikidata items in their topic management pages - about 88K of them, so far.
  • Community Digest: Using data to visualize Wikipedia knowledge gaps; news in brief

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • There is now a Community for Wikidata editors on Facebook
  • You can now make your Harvest Templates tasks run automatically. After you have generated a permalink to your task, add &run= to the url. When you open it next time, it will load and then run automatically. Alternatively, you can use &load= which will only prepare the task for running.
  • Wikidata description editing in the Wikipedia Android app for Hebrew, Russian and Catalan

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: GPnotebook ID, regulated by, NCMEC person ID, MEROPS enzyme ID, social classification, NISH Hall of Fame ID, Recreation.gov facility ID, category for value not in Wikidata, objective of a project or mission, Vanderkrogt.net Statues ID, Jewish Encyclopedia Daat ID, category for value different from Wikidata, PhDTree person ID, Gridabase glacier ID, RITVA Person ID, RITVA Program ID, KMDb film ID, JMDb person ID, Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts ID, incarnation of, NHF player ID, Transfermarkt referee ID, Tennis Australia player ID, SRCFB player ID, SRCBB player ID, SpeedSkatingStats speed skater ID, SpeedSkatingNews speed skater ID, ShorttrackOnLine speed skater ID, NCAA sports team ID, ISHOF swimmer ID, IFSC climber ID, ICF slalom canoer ID, ICF sprint canoer ID, ESPN NHL player ID, ESPN NFL player ID, ESPN NBA player ID, DriverDB driver ID, LFP.fr player ID, AOC athlete ID, ESPN FC player ID, statement supported by, stock market index, SA Rugby player ID, Wereld van Oranje player ID, National Bridge Inventory Number, Hans Christian Andersen Centre's work ID, Mutopia composer ID, film-documentaire.fr film ID, International Orienteering Federation athlete ID
  • Query examples:
    • Map of cheese by milk used (source)
    • The many flags of Afghanistan (source)
    • Real works written by fictional authors (source)
    • Maps of churches in Pyrénées-Orientales (France) (source)
    • Cities with millions of inhabitants that not a single person in Wikidata was born, has lived, or died in (source)

• Development
  • Continued to finalize the initial version of Federation (needed to be able to use Wikidata items and properties to describe media on Commons in the future)
  • More work on baseline for Lexeme entity type for Wiktionary support

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. These other tasks need a volunteer.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention
  • Suggested and open tasks!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item.
  • Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Help write the next summary!

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:54, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Msg in Reply

Sir, thank you for the info. i will be concious to use such source further. however it is my earnest request to make the edit availble because all about the information regarding imprisoned revolutionary are true as per the record of indian freedom struggle. Those eminent nationalist and communist revolutionaries were there. I will refer authentic source shortly. I hope you and the sr. wiki team will help me edit more in this regard. thank you. Pinaki1983 (talk) 15:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

History of the Kurds

Hi Doug, thanks for taking a look at the dispute on this article. The anon IP has reverted your reinstatement, saying he's anon because he's at school, which doesn't make a lot of sense, and arguing that the article is only on the 'modern history' of the Kurds, as well as saying that Izady is not a reliable source, which is demonstrably untrue. I wonder if you could take another look, as it seems likely that there's a political angle to this editing.Jwslubbock (talk) 18:13, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 February 2017

• From the editors: Results from our poll on subscription and delivery, and a new RSS feed

• Recent research: Special issue: Wikipedia in education

• Technology report: Responsive content on desktop; Offline content in Android app

• In the media: The Daily Mail does not run Wikipedia

• Gallery: A Met montage

• Special report: Peer review – a history and call for reviewers

• Op-ed: Wikipedia has cancer

• Featured content: The dominance of articles continues

• Traffic report: Love, football, and politics

• Blog: WikiIndaba 2017: A continent gathers to chart a path forward

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:20, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Notation

Hi, I noticed you reverted a user who tried to restore the original and long-standing notation of Linear A. I recall that your edits in this area have fallen for years to one side, in favour of the BCE notation.

PS: A quick search shows that the edits you restored were in fact those of a one-purpose account. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 03:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

@Gun Powder Ma: sorry if I got that wrong, but how about some good faith? I restored BC 2 days ago here. The fact is most of the era changes made without discussion are, on my watchlist, BC to BCE. I usually take a quick look at old versions, looks like I failed to do it properly this time. Me culpa but please don't go around suggesting it might have been deliberate. I would have ignored the Imhotep change but didn't. By the way, original doesn't count, long-standing does. But that wasn't long ago enough to count, I agree.

Oh hell. That wasa year ago by a drive-by IP busy changing a number of instances of BC to BCE. How in the world did you notice it? Can you please reassure me that you did due diligence and checked the ones after that one?. Or do I need to?That doesn't excuse me of course. It is possible I got fed up checking, he obviously was making POV edits and that one was after another editor warned him. Doug Weller talk 06:39, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Missed the bit about fallen on one side. Yes, I support BCE for archeology and history, but I try to follow WP:ERA. Some readers might think you are accusing me of deliberately violating it. I've spent hours using Wikiblame to check, explained to editors that some of their edits complied and others, didn't, etc. There's nothing wrong with having a pov so long as you follow NPOV. Doug Weller talk 08:12, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

You've got email :)

Hey there! Sorry for writing in English. I just sent you an email about your participation in the Training Modules pilot testing. Thanks! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 09:23, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

Even though my edit was based on a published source, you rejected it. Anyway, here's some baklava for you, try the Armenian variant! ArmenianGuy (talk) 19:28, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

RosaLuxemburgOnFreedom

Take a look at this. This is getting pretty ridiculous, and while it's arguably not the same content, I'm already at two reverts for the day and don't want to go further. Also, did you see their combative response to your warning? If you think that's bad, check out the rest of their talk page history.

I guess what I'm asking here is, should I take this to ANI, should I 'let' you handle it, should I suck it up because I'm completely wrong? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:17, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2017).

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

Ronnotel • Islander • Chamal N • Isomorphic • Keeper76 • Lord Voldemort • Shereth • Bdesham • Pjacobi

Guideline and policy news

• A recent RfC has redefined how articles on schools are evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
• AfDs that receive little participation should now be closed like an expired proposed deletion, following a deletion process RfC.
• Defender, HakanIST, Matiia and Sjoerddebruin are our newest stewards, following the 2017 steward elections.
• The 2017 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Góngora, Krd, Lankiveil, Richwales and Vogone. They will serve for approximately 1 year.

Technical news

• A recent query shows that only 16% of administrators on the English Wikipedia have enabled two-factor authentication. If you haven't already enabled it please consider doing so.
• Cookie blocks should be deployed to the English Wikipedia soon. This will extend the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user after they switch accounts under a new IP.
• A bot will now automatically place a protection template on protected pages when admins forget to do so.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia and copyright

Thank you for your generous advice and guidance. I carefully read every parts to understand more about the topic and to better implement them in my edits. It is my principle to give honor to whom it's due, so I always try to acknowledge the original authors. However, the two main issues I face are the appropriateness and the presentation of those sources. The choices of reference are apparently subjective to a few users, but with open communication a consensus can be reached as to what publications would satisfy those few. The second one relies more on the style of writings and touches personal tastes. In this part, I am still learning to get the right recipes, as I am also aware it is the subject of the writing that causes the scrutiny of the style. Therefore, your kind reminders are very much appreciated. Gratefully, JohnThorne (talk) 22:55, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Edit filter

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Edit filter. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Revdel request

Greetings, Doug. I wonder if you could perform a revdel here (serious BLP vio): I'm somewhat involved in the topic, else I'd do it myself, and so are some others I might have asked. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 07:02, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Vanamonde Sorry I didn't notice this earlier, I've been busy and out. I've oversighted it rather than rev/del as "Potentially libelous/defamatory" . Doug Weller talk 11:30, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

No worries, and thank you. Vanamonde (talk) 11:34, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Our friend is back again, with the same edit [5]: perhaps semi-protection might be worthwhile, after suppression? Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 04:37, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: already protected, I can't translate the additions, you sure about them? Doug Weller talk 08:06, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah I noticed the protection. Google translate says this is the same term that was added previously in English, and I've seen the term crop up in sources, too: so yes, I'm sure. The previous vandalism does not seem to be out-of-the-ordinary vandalism. Vanamonde (talk) 08:45, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: Odd, I couldn't get Google translate to translate it. Anyway, done. Doug Weller talk 09:36, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

It did for me, and still does...there are other translations, including "defected" and "terrorist", but "traitor" is one of them. Thanks anyhow. Vanamonde (talk) 09:41, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

your opinion

re Andrew Lohrey would be appreciated thanks JarrahTree 09:51, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for that - we seem to have a pandemic (under the radar) of Australian subjects thinking they have inherent rights to edit the pages about themselves, but no one else seems to care that much - so much for BLP... so thank you JarrahTree 10:01, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Stone Age ref name

Hello, Doug. Why should the reference that figures at this edit not have a name? Largoplazo (talk) 13:25, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@Largoplazo: It should and I've restored it, blocking the editor who removed it - their only edits were vandalism. Possibly a sock as it was so specific. Our editing crossed and I hadn't noticed that you'd fixed it all, sorry. Doug Weller talk 13:32, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #250

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

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • International Open Data Day was on Saturday, 4 March (tweets about Wikidata)
  • Wikidata documentation sprint during the Wikimedia hackathon (May 19-21): We need your help to improve Wikidata help pages!
  • Getting to know Wikidata (from Bob DuCharme, author of the book "learning SPARQL")
  • Tutorial to mashup Wikidata and government data with Dataiku DSS and Palladio (fr)

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Library of Congress updated their inventory of Format Description Documents to include Wikidata URIs
  • Surfacing Wikidata objects with coordinates to match them with OSM
  • The Wikiproject Welcome has been created to work on welcoming the new editors, feel free to participate

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: FIH player ID, seed dispersal, number of works, inflorescence, minimum wavelength of electromagnetic sensitivity, maximum wavelength of electromagnetic sensitivity, Eurovision Song Contest song ID, Ghetto Encyclopedia ID, category for value same as Wikidata, MOOMA artist ID, PhilPapers record, Serbia cadastral municipality ID, next higher rank, next lower rank, New Zealand Heritage List number, Serbia municipality ID, Eu-football.info player ID, CEV player ID, USHMM Holocaust Encyclopedia ID, USCG Lighthouse ID, Commons maps category, public key fingerprint
  • Query examples:
    • Countries with similar populations (source)
    • Items that have "feminist art" as a value (source)
    • Books, incipits, concatenating a sentence to the incipit (source and inspiration)
    • Paintings by Vermeer depicting maps (source)
    • Painters sorted by the number of Wikipedia articles about their works (source)
  • Newest WikiProjects: WikiProject Fashion

• Development
  • Finishing touches on the new geo shape data type. It is available on the first test wiki now (phabricator:T57549).
  • SetLabel, SetDescription, SetAliases, SetLabelDescriptionAliases, SetSiteLink have been migrated to ooUI. Thanks, Ricordisamoa! (phabricator:T48248)
  • Making progress on integrating the new Lexeme entity type with the wbeditentity API (phabricator:T155699).

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Hack on one of these.
  • Help develop the next summary here!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item
  • Help translate or proofread pages in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:34, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Gary Anderson's missed field goal in the 1998 NFC Championship Game

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Gary Anderson's missed field goal in the 1998 NFC Championship Game. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks for the edit reversion on the Sphinx page; I wasn't aware that I was breaking a rule, so thank you for explaining it.

To4oo4 (talk) 18:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

67.128.203.6

67.128.203.6 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Hi,

When you last blocked this IP address it was for 6 months. Did you mean to only block it for 2 weeks? Regards. 172.58.33.126 (talk) 21:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, on the basis it hadn't been used for editing since September 2015, or I guess since the block expired at the end of March last year, so almost a year. It's on my watchlist, so if it's a problem I'll see it. Doug Weller talk 14:26, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

RfC about ancient genome content

Do you remember the RfC about this that happened within the last few years? Somebody I think initially proposed just banning discussion of ancient genomes at all, and I remember contributing something about sourcing. I can't find that discussion. If you remember it, do you remember where it took place? Thx. Jytdog (talk) 19:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Can't find anything. Sorry. Doug Weller talk 14:25, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

hm. thanks for trying. Jytdog (talk) 19:19, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

SomeGuyWhoRandomlyEdits

Hey Doug, hope you're doing okay and 2FA is treating you well? I've begun looking at SomeGuyWhoRandomlyEdits's unblock request, and have placed it on hold pending your comments -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 19:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@There'sNoTime: replied at his talk page. I hope 2FA is ok, I haven't had to login again for a while! It still makes me nervous. Doug Weller talk 19:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Bot policy

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Bot policy. Legobot (talk) 04:32, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Another Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Frangaspar sockpuppet

Another sockpuppet. User:BotEditor at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frany Dejota. Nfitz (talk) 02:40, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@Nfitz: someone beat me to it. The real challenge will be to see if the article gets recreated under a slightly different name. Doug Weller talk 18:49, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Rev Del?

Hi. Could you make this and this disappear? Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 13:46, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi Doug, I happened to notice this request and when I looked I decided it needed to be dealt with PDQ as the IP was still actively vandalizing the article. I've also blocked the IP. I hope you don't mind. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:58, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ad Orientem: Thanks. Doug Weller talk 16:54, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Administrators

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Administrators. Legobot (talk) 04:32, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #251

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

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Ladies that FOSS, March 15th, 18:00, Berlin. Meetup dedicated to women who want to start coding for Wikidata, Mediawiki or other open source software
  • Wikidata workshop in Manchester, March 17th, 10:00, at the Manchester Central Library (information)
  • Wikidata workshop in Paris, March 17th, 20:30. More questions about SPARQL and the Query Service (information and registration)
  • Would you like to attend to a Wikidata meetup in Berlin? You can choose the next date!
  • Wizards, Muggles and Wikidata: The Room of Requirements for structured knowledge by Jens Ohlig, John Cummings and Navino Evans
  • Wikidata for winners (in Economics) by Martin Poulter
  • Des Successions à Wikidata : vers un réseau social des philosophes antiques ? (fr) by Pierre-Carl Langlais

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Do you want to help watching the recent changes? Have a look at this useful collection of links by YMS
  • Watch the gender gap on Wikipedia and Wikidata with this tool by Envlh
  • Play Stadt, Fluss, Land with Wikidata! (by Knut)
  • Deadline for submitting a presentation for Wikimania 2017 is March 30th: discuss about ideas or ask for help
  • WMF is hiring a program manager, a product manager and a community liaison to work on the structured data project on Commons

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: pole position, MIMO instrument ID, openMLOL author ID, IPv4 range, Iditarod musher ID, SAHRA heritage site ID, DOCOMOMO Ibérico ID, average space complexity, best-case space complexity, worst-case space complexity, average performance, best-case performance, worst-case performance, Shoftim BeIsrael judge ID, KMDb documentary ID, Google Maps CID, Israel Football Association player ID, SSRN author ID, Wildflowers of Israel ID, World Rugby Sevens Series ID, number of subscribers, ITU/ISO/IEC object identifier
  • Query examples:
    • List of female bioinformaticians/computational biologists (source)
    • Most gender-imbalanced occupations in US citizens (source)
    • Awards received by more women than men (source)
    • Transgender characters played by trangender actors/actresses (source)
    • The most famous astronomical objects in Solar System according to Wikipedia sitelinks (source)
    • Natural arches around the globe (source)
  • Newest WikiProjects: Board Games
  • Newest external tools: official first release of WikidataIntegrator

• Development
  • Converted undo/restore interface to use OOUI. You can test it here (phab:T134643).
  • Fixed an other rounding issue on geo coordinates (phab:T158772).
  • Added thumbnail images to the Wikimedia Commons suggester (phab:T160319).
  • Continued working on introducing Lexeme entity type.
  • Finishing federation prototype.
  • We are going to change all snak, reference, and qualifier hashes with the planned DataModel 7.0 release. If you are a tool developer, make sure you do not persist hashes, and never use them to request edits to entities. Statement IDs are safe (phab:T157965).
  • Removed unnecessary CSS on ooui special pages (phabricator:T159702)
  • Allowed example queries to be searched for SPARQL commands (phabricator:T154768)
  • Converted Wikibase interface for undoing/restoring a revision to OOUI (phabricator:T134643)
  • Converted image header user script to gadget (phabricator:T159929)
  • Started writing spec for technical data model for Wiktionary support (phabricator:T150785)
  • Worked on providing API for constraint check (phabricator:T102757)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention
  • Suggested and open tasks!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item.
  • Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Help write the next summary!

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 15:27, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:ERA

I can see what you mean that BCE had become the new "established" date format, although I'd say that WP:ERA is pretty unambiguous that it should not have been changed in the first place, and there's nothing there to suggest that time simply rights the wrong. More directly to your point, while the 2011 edit was the instance I identified as being the first unauthorized switch, it certainly hasn't been a settled issue since then: the date format went back and forth, was frequently mixed, and as late as April 2014 the intro still used BC.

WP:ERA certainly does allow for changing the date style through consensus, but until a new consensus is established, the era format should follow the original, prescribed by the policy. No? Korossyl (talk) 12:20, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I was about to revert that too. MOS:ERA is there to stop pointless disputes over era style. The edit that changed it in 2011 wasn't constructive; but surely you can see how coming back six years later (why were you even looking that far back!?) and doing the same thing isn't exactly an improvement either – especially when it's part of a pattern of similar edits to seemingly unrelated articles that only go in one direction. There may have been inconsistencies, but on the whole the use of BCE in Gobekli Tepe has been stable for years and changing it now serves no purpose. – Joe (talk) 13:41, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@Korossyl and Joe Roe: Thanks Joe, I agree. And Korossyl, if you really are trying to enforce WP:ERA I'd expect to see your actions also restoring BCE to articles where it was similarly removed. That happens at least as much if not more than changes from BC to BCE. Nowhere does our guideline (not policy) at MOS:ERA mention the original. I'm not sure why you think it does. Doug Weller talk 14:19, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Joe, I'd hope for at least an assumption of good faith on your part, rather than accuse me of deliberately disruptive editing -- which your link does.

Doug, I can see where you're getting your conception of "established" from in WP:ERA -- that since it's been used for three years, it's now established. I argue, it should not have been used in the past three years at all, since it was first established in a different format. I'm not sure which of our sides has more merit. But if there's a consensus on the new format -- as there seems to be among users here -- then the MOS is clear, and I'm happy to leave it be.

As for why I only edit in one direction -- I'll happily admit bias: I think BCE is a somewhat silly and unprofessional innovation, so where possible, I revert it under the rules at WP:ERA. About as frequently as I find reason to revert, I instead find that the original format was CE/BCE, and I leave it alone. I figure that there are also probably gnomes like me investigating articles for evidence of illegal conversion away from CE/BCE; if we all follow the rules, between all of us, we'll improve Wiki together, and bring articles (of both formats) more in line with the style regulations. Korossyl (talk) 20:35, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Not three years. Almost six. It's mainly used in academic works on history, archaeology and theology, which seems professional enough to me. Having preferences fine, I think BCE is more appropriate in many articles. Searching for articles, not a good idea or something I'd do. Doug Weller talk 21:27, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Six years ago is when BCE was first introduced to the formerly BC-exclusive article. But up until three years ago, they coexisted, which is also a style violation. So it's been three years since the article developed a BCE consensus. Not that any of this is relevant.

I understand it's used in professional publications. I should have been more precise in my words: to me, it seems silly and unserious. But why should anyone care about my judgment on the matter? --which is why I don't try to lobby to change the rules, nor do I edit outside of (my interpretation of) the rules.

I don't search for articles, it's too much work -- but I spend a lot of time on WP, and so run across a lot of diverse articles. Anyhow, as I said, if a consensus is developed -- per WP:ERA, and as apparently the case here -- then there's nothing to be argued about either way. Korossyl (talk) 22:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@Korossyl: WP:POINT states it more strongly than I would, but the point remains that lawyering MOS:ERA to do exactly what it's supposed to prevent (change articles to your preferred era style) is disruptive. It wastes all of our time in futile edit wars and discussions like this and does nothing to improve the encyclopaedia. – Joe (talk) 23:23, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

My goodness. I never edit warred. I attempted to apply the MOS as I (still) see it intended. I never even initiated a discussion with you, but you've been combative from the start and seem itching for a fight. This conversation's over; good bye. Korossyl (talk) 23:53, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Long-term disruptive editing by Ferakp

The same user was reported many times on ANI, AN, AIV, AN3...but nothing happened.

The same concerns regarding this editor was very well-explained by @LouisAragon: here. Additionally, the same user often involves in 'slow-burning edit wars in order not to be blocked for 3RR. And his last activity 1 with his ip.

I don't think that simply warning him will works. For example, despite you warned him regarding an unreliable source on 30 January 2017 1, he added exactly the same source at the beginning of the section with additional even more unreliable sources ( "Kemal Mirawdali", "Karim Hoshyar") on 31 January 2017 2. He clearly ignores warnings and continues the same disruption. Therefore, i request an another WP sanction for him (such as blocking, topic ban, etc) 46.221.190.141 (talk) 07:30, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

sorry, I'm already falling behind here and in real life, just no time for this. Doug Weller talk 20:21, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah Doug. I'm afraid I have to say as well, that its absolutely beyond me how this "editor" has managed to jump the gun for such a long time. I guess after all, that sticking to (relatively) low-profile articles, removing warnings from your talk page at all costs, and using IP socks can get one quite far in the game. And not to forget, using fake one-liner edit summaries on a constant basis that wouldn't drag too much attention of course (e.g. "fix",[6][7] "fixed",[8][9] "neutralized",[10][11][12], "details added"[13][14][15]) Despite the fact that he has been IP-socking for a pretty long time, and is being extremely tendentious with his self-interpreted/WP:OR/WP:AGENDA-loaded material (amongst others), he has managed to evade any sanction so far. As a result of that, he remains a very disruptive factor to this project.
Users, numbering within the double digits, place warnings and their concerns on your talk page? Just instantly remove them, and call it "cleaning"![16] Or better, just don't even use edit summaries! Oh, but please dont forget to leave that one barnstar in place, cause we have to maintain our disguise![17]

Here are some more of his IP socks btw; IP 86.50.110.79,IP 86.50.111.74. Same target articles, same edit summaries, same geo-location, exact same concerns. Clear cut. I believe that KrakatoaKatie is aware of these as well. All in all, this editor is pretty much WP:NOTHERE. All the best - LouisAragon (talk) 03:18, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Just saw this. Who told you they are my IP socks? These IPs belong to me and if you trace my edits, you will realize that I have mentioned before that I edit articles from my mobile phone, work computer and home computer. I don't always login and in some edits, I've clearly said (forgot to login). If you have something against my edits, use my talk page. I don't know even know what is your point here, do you want them to ban me? I can't care less about your conspiracy theories.Ferakp (talk) 19:56, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

About previous reports. I would like to remind you that in most of them, I was seen right. Ferakp (talk) 19:59, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that's utter nonsense. You use these IPs to come across as a different user. There's substantial evidence for this. Anyhow, the socking (to avoid scrutiny) is only the tip of the iceberg. - LouisAragon (talk) 03:43, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Non-urgent sock question

Hello, Doug Weller. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

EvergreenFir (talk) 05:46, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Possible Gonzales John sock

You said to let you know if I came across another one of GJ's socks - my gut feeling is that HeliumPearl (talk · contribs) may be one. There's a similarity in editing style (warring) and in the form of edit summaries. Not much overlap of specific articles, but definitely a religious and virtue/sin theme seen before. I don't know if my gut instinct is enough for a checkuser or full SPI but another pair of eyes familiar with GJ would be useful. Thanks. --FyzixFighter (talk) 04:33, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@FyzixFighter: Sorry, I've been busy. I'll try to find time tomorrow. Doug Weller talk 17:48, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Thoughts over at Black Drink talk

Your thoughts on this edit, (or rather series of edits that amount to one) [18]. And, while I am here, hope you are doing well. Heiro 16:20, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Weird, but at the moment not a worry and on my watchlist. I'm fine, hope you are. Doug Weller talk 20:29, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Request to overturn administrator's decision". Thank you. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:11, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Ivan Milat

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Ivan Milat. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Til?

[19] --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:37, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@NeilN: geolocation close, but this edit by him is very different in content. Still, Ethiopia? We'll just have to wait. Doug Weller talk 20:24, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Formal mediation has been requested

The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Jews - Origin section". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 24 March 2017.

Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you.
Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 23:02, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Request for mediation rejected

The request for formal mediation concerning Jews - Origin section, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 01:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
(Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)

Weekly Summary #252

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

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Upcoming: Wikidata meetup in Berlin on March 31st
  • Upcoming: Datensummit in Berlin, April 29th. We're looking for Wikidata editors to help :)
  • Upcoming: Wikidata Workshop in Rennes, March 22nd
  • A successful Wikidatathon about women's history in Puri, India
  • Wikidata as information source to support the Dutch elections
  • Quora: Adding Locations via Wikidata
  • Quora: Identifying Topics about People
  • How to quickly generate word analogy datasets with Wikidata by Finn Arup Nielsen

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Deadline for submitting a presentation for Wikimania 2017 is March 30th: discuss about ideas or ask for help
  • SWAT4LS 2016 poster Linking Wikidata to the Semantic Web
  • Mix’n’match interface update

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: FFA ID, European Athletics ID, All-Athletics.com ID
  • Query examples:
    • Gallery of authors of scientific articles that have been published on this day of the year (source)
    • Scholarly articles that have Wikipedia articles about them (source)
    • False Vermeer works (source)
    • From Natalie Portman to Paul Erdös graph (source)

• Development
  • Fixing a bug on the save button (phab:T159244)
  • Fixing a bug with the link to the Query Service on an ember query (phab:T156013)
  • More work on Federation (phab:T157442, phab:T158169)
  • Fixing a bug on geoformats (phab:T158772)
  • Fixing a bug on the treemap view (phab:T160320) Thanks EdouardHue for the patch!
  • More groundwork on Lexemes (phab:T157791)
  • Show thumbnails in commons suggester (phab:T160319)
  • Fixing a bug on coordinate (phab:T153429)
  • Applying WikimediaUI color palette to Wikibase (phab:T151194)
  • Writing spec for technical data model for Wiktionary support (phab:T150785)
  • Working on providing API for constraint check (phab:T102757)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention
  • Suggested and open tasks!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item.
  • Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Help write the next summary!

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 16:28, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of all-female bands

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of all-female bands. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Please do not give other editors inappropriate warnings

Hi, thanks for posting to my page. Below is a copy of what you posted for reference: "An editor reverting you twice is not edit-warring, and you should not just copy the template over to them. Also please consider that an editor with almost 30,000 edits might know more about our policies and guidelines than you do. You're new so will probably be given some leeway, but that kind of warning doesn't help you. Doug Weller talk 13:10, 22 March 2017 (UTC)"

You misunderstood what I was doing, I was just quoting what they had posted to my page for reference purposes so that I could further dialogue about what they were trying to say to me. If you read my talk on their page you would indeed have seen that as you have put "please consider that an editor with almost 30,000 edits might know more about our policies and guidelines than you do". That is why I was asking questions to clarify the guidelines. Again it was not warning to him, it was what he had posted on my page which I was quoting for reference purposes. I don't mean to sound rude, but my short time in the Wikipedia world has been met with users that have failed to read text posted and respond in a logical manner. Moreover, rather than being helpful in providing sound reasons or dialogue for changes made there seems to be a heavy handed alpha mentality. In fact, this short time is beginning to make me question how accurate wikipedia articles are. The underbelly of Wikipedia is seemingly quite dark, I hope you are one that brings light to this darkness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lanecl1 (talk • contribs) 13:50, 22 March 2017 (UTC) Lanecl1 (talk) 14:17, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Joshua

An user is making mass edits based on joshuaproject[20]. Is it a reliable source? 88.232.102.155 (talk) 10:04, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

No.[21] Doug Weller talk 14:58, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Hawstom

I am emailing you with a request but thought it would be better to post the following information here.

• Background is at User talk:Johnuniq#User:Hawstom login (permalink).
• More at WP:VPT November 2016, archived here.
• Edits to User:Hawstom by Hawstom (talk · contribs):
  • 16:54, 26 April 2004

    Learn more about me at my Personal Site or my Business Sites.

  • 00:04, 6 January 2004

    Learn more about me at my Personal Site or my Business Site.

  • 13:03, 15 November 2005

    Learn more about me at my Personal Site or my Business Sites

Email to follow, thanks. Johnuniq (talk) 04:35, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

And thanks from me too. Tom Haws (talk) 06:59, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I got this web form message:

Hi Tom Sorry to take so long. Would you please: 1. Post to my talk page with your smartphone.copying this message. 2. Email me with the same. Thanks. Doug Weller

-Tom Haws (talk) 16:45, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your help. I am back in the saddles again! Tom Haws (talk) 20:41, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Kalhor

Hi. please check this. i translated sources and linked them but vandal user have continued to reverting my edits. he is doing none sense source forging (which he could not add them in Persian wiki). i don't want to start edit warring. i cited reliable sources about their identity like Encyclopædia Iranica and Nomadism in Iran: From Antiquity to the Modern Era (which published by Oxford University Press). he mentioned some sources to prove Lurish identity for them (specially itineraries) but there are nothing mentioned on that books about that (detailed debates about them done in talk page of Article in Persian wiki) . and about their language he did another forge. he mentioned this (Ethnologue) and he says it is a source that Kalhori is Lurish but if you check that there is nothing about Kalhori. in fact Ethnologue classified Kalhori is a Kurdish dialect (and also classified Luri as another Kurdish dialect but different from Kalhori) (here) and another of his sources is "International Encyclopedia of Linguistics& 4-Volume Set, Volume 1" which mentioned Laki dialect which is separate from Kalhori. I cited sources that about language with link that you can check all of them. nevertheless he sent a warning me in my Talk page that "You have better respect encyclopedia rules and stop your edit warring. This will be the final warning, please pay attention". --– Hossein Iran « talk » 22:00, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Indus Valley Civilisation

hi Doug! Regarding the "Disrupting Editing" that i have done in the Indus Valley Civilisation page. I am really sorry about not explaining why i removed the particular section. I realise that i have to provide more explanations in the future. Thanks for your warning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Achyuthan Sriram (talk • contribs) 17:16, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

@Achyuthan Sriram: A big problem is that you are removing what appears to be well-sourced content, and I see another editor has reverted you at another article. It would be better to discuss such edits on the talk page first as you are a new editor and won't be familiar with our policies and guidelines. Doug Weller talk 19:16, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (people). Legobot (talk) 04:29, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #253

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

This is the Wikidata summary of the week before 2017-03-27.

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Upcoming: Wikidata meetup in Berlin, Friday, March 31st at 19:30 in Neukölln
  • Upcoming: Wikidata IRC office hour, April 5th, 16:00 UTC, on #wikimedia-office ^connect
  • A tool to estimate gender gap on Wikidata and Wikipedia (source)
  • (fr) Odonymie rennaise : que nous apprend Wikidata sur les noms des voies de Rennes ? (source)
  • Wikidata's excellent sample SPARQL queries by Bob DuCharme
  • 10 steps to integrate CIViCdb with other public data in Wikidata

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • RFC: Wikidata → OSM lookup table
  • Participate to the definition of the Wikimedia movement's strategy
  • The deadline for Wikimania talks submission has been extended to April 10th (check what we're planning around Wikidata)
  • Conceptual documentation for the Lexemes and examples (feel free to help translating)

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: FI WarSampo army unit ID, KMRB film rating, FI WarSampo person ID, film script, volcano observatory, BoF person ID, Bivouac.com pass ID, Elle.fr person ID, Evidence & Conclusion Ontology ID, Parks.it ID, YerelNET district ID, The Numbers movie ID, S2A3 Biographical Database ID, Mapa place ID, Tax-exempt heritage asset ID, TV Guide show ID, original film format, Launchpad.net project ID, INEGI municipality ID, Safsal coach ID, Safsal player ID, Star Wars Databank ID, autonomous system number, Bureau of Meteorology station ID, Flora of Israel plant ID, Dictionary of Sydney ID, IPv6 routing prefix, rate of fire, Art Renewal Center ID, AnimeCons.com ID, Telegram username, BNA author ID, danskefilm silent film ID, danskefilm person ID, danskefilm film ID, CiteSeerX ID, Christie's work ID, Artnet artist ID, has active ingredient, active ingredient in, negative allosteric modulator of, positive allosteric modulator of, antisense inhibitor of, inhibitor of, disrupting agent for, blocker of, antagonist of, agonist of, activator of, PeakFinder ID, It's Rugby ID, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain Book ID
  • Query examples:
    • Time zones that are more than 12 hours away from UTC (source)
    • Countries which have the same name as their capital in their official language (source)
    • Roman amphitheatres on Wikidata (source)
    • Sluices on canals in Bretagne (France) (source)
  • Newest database reports: film scripts
  • Showcase items: Wressle Castle (Q8037764)

• Development
  • Fixing a bug that prevented users to edit descriptions in some non-latin alphabets (phab:T161263)
  • Worked on Special:NewLexeme which will be used to create new Lexemes for supporting lexicographical data (phabricator:T157973)
  • Aligned some more colors with Wikimedia color palete (phabricator:T151194)
  • Added more autocompletion for the Wikidata Query Service (phabricator:T150950)
  • Started working on support for Forms of words in the UI for supporting lexicographical data (phabricator:T160520)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention
  • Suggested and open tasks!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item.
  • Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Help write the next summary!

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:38, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Martin Sicker

Hi Doug. What do you think about Martin Sicker, author of f.e. The Islamic World in Decline: From the Treaty of Karlowitz to the Disintegration of the Ottoman Empire'. Would you think he's usable on history-related topics, and in particular Ottoman/Safavid/Early Modern-related history topics? Didn't really manage to find more than this;

"MARTIN SICKER is a private consultant who has served as a senior executive in the US government and has taught political science at the American University and George Washington University. Dr. Sicker has written extensively in the field of political science and international affairs. He is the author of 13 previous books, including the companion volumes, The Pre-Islamic Middle East (Praeger, 2000) and The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna (Praeger, 2000)."

- LouisAragon (talk) 16:16, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

@LouisAragon: Sorry, real life and all that, maybe tomorrow. But just looking at what you've written, sounds ok. Doug Weller talk 18:36, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok in what particular way? ;-) Yeah sure, let me know when you are able to give more feedback! Would appreciate it. - LouisAragon (talk) 00:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@LouisAragon: Ok - some of his stuff is self-published, but this and related books are reliably published and cited in other reliably published books. However, his "rise and fall" view doesn't seem so common today, see ["The Islamic World in Decline: From the Treaty of Karlowitz" Martin sicker this]. It depends on what you want to use him for. Straight forward history, yes. The rise and fall thesis, just as one view among others. Doug Weller talk 15:00, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks alot. Yeah, I just wanted to cite him on Azov campaigns (1695–96) and on Hasan-Ali Khan Daghestani (an early 18th-century Safavid official). Nothing related to the rise and fall view, I will add. - LouisAragon (talk) 22:18, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2017).

Administrator changes

TheDJ

Xnuala • CJ • Oldelpaso • Berean Hunter • Jimbo Wales • Andrew c • Karanacs • Modemac • Scott

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion on the backlog of unpatrolled files, consensus was found to create a new user right for autopatrolling file uploads. Implementation progress can be tracked on Phabricator.
• The BLPPROD grandfather clause, which stated that unreferenced biographies of living persons were only eligible for proposed deletion if they were created after March 18, 2010, has been removed following an RfC.
• An RfC has closed with consensus to allow proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
• After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was found to relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.

Technical news

• After a recent RfC, moved pages will soon be featured in a queue similar to Special:NewPagesFeed and require patrolling. Moves by administrators, page movers, and autopatrolled editors will be automatically marked as patrolled.
• Cookie blocks have been deployed. This extends the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user if they switch accounts, even under a new IP.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Salarpur Varanasi

So I was in this small village of varanasi, Where these people had done great effort in the Digital India Campaign really great to see that they had done many things with respect to the idea of digital India

I just want this village to be recognized. What would be the recognized material so that You allow it to those pages. Really want the work of these people to be visible to all across the Country, will provide every reference possible.

Thank You — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhijeet00 (talk • contribs) 08:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I can understand why you want this and it does sound really very interesting. But it needs (see WP:VERIFY sources meeting WP:RS, and I can't find any. If it gets coverage in the major media outlets that would be the time. When you first added it I was wondering if you were the entrepreneur you mentioned. A lot of village pages attract editors using them to promote their friends or family, probably most of the time because they don't understand Wikipedia and the fact that we are a real encyclopedia, like the Britannica (although studies have shown us to often be more accurate). Doug Weller talk 15:32, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Personal attack by Professoremeritus

Thanks!

Hi Dougweller. User:Professoremeritus just made this comment in an edit-summary at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Zenji Nio:

"added a quote from Joshua's user page which says "smash the Buddha" - this shows a racist propensity to attack Buddhism and Buddhist leaders and may be driving his agenda."

"Smash the Buddha" is a well-known Zen-phrase; this user is deliberately crossing a line here. I'd appreciate it if appropriate measures are being taken. See also Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Buddhakahika (you probably already noted). Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:14, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: I've been working on this, see[22] and the warning I added to his talk page. He seems to be self-destructing on his own. Who knows, he may even go to ANI. Waiting won't hurt. Doug Weller talk 15:25, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:50, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

A banned user appears to be back

Hey, I'm not sure exactly who to notify or what the process is for this, but since you were one of the last users to interact with the banned sockpuppeteer Aleksig 6 on his talk page, I thought I'd let you know that he appears to be back: Talk:Samaritan Pentateuch#RfC on Samaritan Pentateuch translation. Alephb (talk) 08:00, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Over here, I've posted the following:

Hey, Aleksandr Sigalov. Are you the same as the Aleksig6 who is banned indefinitely for abusively using multiple accounts, and who also made edits to the Samaritan Pentateuch page in favor of including Aleksandr Sigalov's work? Alephb (talk) 06:51, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

See Talk:Samaritan Pentateuch#Self-published sources where the previous identifies himself as the operator of Sigalov's websites. Alephb (talk) 07:06, 1 April 2017 (UTC) And this: Aleksig6 claiming to be Aleksandr Sigalov [23]. Alephb (talk) 07:15, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry to bug you again, but he's back under another IP. [24]. Alephb (talk) 05:55, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Blocked that one. Ian.thomson (talk) 06:01, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

• • • • @Ian.thomson: Could you close the RSN discussion? Or should I? Doug Weller talk 06:21, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would cry over involvement or anything, but I went ahead and did it just so there's absolutely no risk of that. Ian.thomson (talk) 06:27, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Bot policy

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Bot policy. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Islamophobia

Hi Doug. Instead of merely asserting that my edit was vandalism, please explain how my edit is incorrect. I've made an attempt to provide an accurate description of the current usage of this term. I hope that you could articulate where exactly I'm going wrong.Nick000000 (talk) 20:58, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Nick000000: Vandalism or completely incompetent editing if you think you provided an "accurate description of the current usage of this term". Either one will result in a block if continued. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:04, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) I agree with Neil. If you don't understand how heavy your POV is you've got some serious editing problems. On top of that, you added your POV at the lead of the article for maximum effect. To add insult to injury, you added your POV just before the reference, making it appear as if your opinion is sourced. You have to really slow down. Dr. K. 21:11, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the ad hominem attack, Neil. Have a great day.Nick000000 (talk) 21:29, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

"Ad hominem attack" is a term with a specific meaning; it doesn't mean "something, whatever, that I don't like to hear". You may want to look it up. We have an article about it. Bishonen | talk 21:41, 2 April 2017 (UTC).

Me: "please explain how my edit is incorrect". Neil: "completely incompetent editing". "Ad Hominem: directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining." You are correct, it does have a specific meaning but only one of us seems to know what that is.Nick000000 (talk) 21:52, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Neil didn't say you are incompetent. He said your editing is. There is a difference. In any case, do you understand how your editing is heavily POV, and the other points I made to you about your editing? Dr. K. 21:59, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you write, "Antisemitism is anti-Jewish sentiment. Is assumes that the Jews get a free pass on everything because of the Holocaust" you are either vandalizing, trolling, or are completely incompetent at evaluating what reliable sources say. Same thing with your Islamophobia edit. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:02, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I didn't write that Neil, and that is a straw man argument. But instead of merely asserting so, here is why: Antisemitism is prejudice against jews, which is prejudice against a group of people. Islam is not a group of people, it is a set of ideas. The current edit conflates the criticism of ideas with the criticism of people, and I see you do too.Nick000000 (talk) 22:34, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm really not interested in arguing semantics. If you don't understand why your edit was unacceptable best steer clear of the topic lest you be blocked by an admin even less interested in engaging with you. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:45, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) This is an etymological fallacy; Islamophobia isn’t restricted to the ideas of Islam any more than homophobia means “fear of sameness”.—Odysseus1479 00:58, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry but no, homophobia comes from 'homosexual' and 'fear', not 'homogeneous' and 'fear'. Homosexual is, again, a group of people, not a set of ideas. You guys are really bad at this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nick000000 (talk • contribs) 11:06, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #254

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

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Upcoming: Wikidata workshop in Grenoble (France), April 4th (more info)
  • Upcoming: Wikidata IRC office hour, April 5th, 16:00 UTC, on #wikimedia-office ^connect
  • Upcoming: Wikidata workshop in London (UK), April 8th (more info)
  • Bunhill Fields: Wikimedia, gamification and richer media content
  • Biocuration 2017
    • Talk: Repurpos.us: A fully open and expandable drug repurposing portal by Sebastian Burgstaller-Muehlbacher, PhD
    • Poster: Best practices for data provenance in Wikidata by Gregory S. Stupp et al.
    • Poster: Using Shape Expressions (ShEx) to model, validate and curate Wikidata by Andra Waagmeester et al.
  • Five years ago, the development of Wikidata started

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Attention: Editing will be disabled during parts of April 19 and May 3, to allow a server switch
  • New filters for the Recent Changes will be deployed on April 11. (more info)
  • Data donation: Songkick have donated a datafile with 155K of their Songkick artist ID (P3478). ~45K are already matched, and the rest are in Mix'n'Match, awaiting your kind attention.
  • Query Service: you can now create a template to explain what your query is doing
  • new data type for geographical shapes will be enabled on April 24th
  • Several CC0 databases are now federated with the Query Service endpoint

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: located in present-day administrative territorial entity, Human Phenotype Ontology ID, slope rating, Tab4u artist ID, Tab4u song ID, United States Public Law, Pinterest username, Mendeley person ID, RTC film rating, diaspora, Europeana Fashion Vocabulary ID, object has role, CueTracker player ID, Publons author ID, wears, JSTOR topic ID, Welsh Rugby Union player ID, United States Statutes at Large citation, VTJ-PRT building ID, Ethnologue language status, rules for classification, Bangla Movie Database ID, Flanders Arts Institute venue ID
  • Query examples:
    • Map of the megaliths of the World, coloured by type (showing some nice paterns, source)
    • French people without a gender (source)
    • Eldest members of noble families (source)
    • Map of places with population “zero” (0) (source)

• External Tools News
  • wikidata-cli
    • new command: wd summary
    • improved support for custom Wikibase instances
  • wikidata-edit:
    • new function: remove claim
    • improved support for custom Wikibase instances
  • wikidata-sdk:
    • new function: simplify.entity
    • major documentation restructuration
  • wikidata-filter:
    • new filter criteria: sitelinks. Example of a query that times out on the SPARQL endpoint but that is now possible with wikidata-filter: Get all entities with a Chinese and a French Wikipedia article, keeping only id, labels, and sitelinks matching those languages
  • Monumental: brand new app for displaying heritage data

• Development
  • A warm welcome to our new intern, Lucas Werkmeister! You may now him for his work on queries as WikidataFacts. He will work in the team for the next months.
  • Attending to Wikimedia Conference, talking with Wikidata and Wiktionary users
  • Improving performance on Special:Entities pages (phab:T161631)
  • Tracking the number of identifier properties on an item in page_props (phab:T114617)
  • More work on Senses (phab:T161523) and Forms (phab:T160524)
  • Improving the autocompletions of Query Service (phab:T150950)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention
  • Suggested and open tasks!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item.
  • Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Help write the next summary!

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:35, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

The general 1RR restriction in ARBPIA

User:Doug Weller, it has been pointed out to me the New Guidelines (in the section "Motion: ARBPIA" near the bottom of the page). The key part is the sentence underlined in black. Question: Is this to imply that all new edits made since 26 December 2016 in Palestine-Israel articles can be deleted by editors, and they can challenge the editors who put them there in the first place, without the first editors restoring their edits until a new consensus has been reached? If so, you open the door for "abusive editing," that is to say, the new guidelines allow editors to freely delete areas in articles based on their sole judgment and conviction and which edits had earlier been agreed upon by consensus, and that such changes will remain in force until such a time that a new consensus can be reached. As you see, this can be problematic. Second Question: Do the new guidelines also apply to reverts made in articles where a consensus had already been reached before 26 December 2016, or do they only apply to reverts made after 26 December 2016? To avoid future problems arising from this new edict, can I make this one suggestion, namely, that the new guidelines in Palestine-Israel articles be amended to read with this addition: "Editors who violate this restriction may be blocked without warning by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offense, or where abuses arise over reverts made in an article where a consensus had already been reached before or after the edict of 26 December 2016 took effect, such editors make themselves liable to disciplinary actions, including blocking."Davidbena (talk) 14:21, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@Davidbena: Would you like to ask this at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: ARBPIA3 as there's a related discussion there and you'd get more input both from Arbs and other editors. I'd much rather reply there in any case, and if we are going to make changes we should try to do them all at once, IMHO. Doug Weller talk 15:33, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I just now saw that discussion that you mentioned and I pasted my statement there. Thanks.Davidbena (talk) 15:38, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

(Doug Weller: hope you don't mind me answering User:Davidbena here, as I don't want to clutter up the WP:ARCA) Davidbena: when I took this to WP:ARCA in December, it was because I noted that if one editor wanted to insert anything, it took two editors to remove it. This seemed illogical to me, and I wanted a rule where "status quo" was more favoured. However, by some slip up, we got a rule where there has to be a "consensus" (however that will be established?) on the talk page before we could have any controversial change. This rule seem to me too draconian, and will basically "freeze" many articles in their present form. And I don't understand you sentence or where abuses arise over reverts made in an article where a consensus had already been reached before or after the edict of 26 December 2016 took effect. If there is consensus, there will be no reverts, will there? Huldra (talk) 21:01, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

User:Huldra, the appropriate place for discussing this subject is on the ARBPIA noticeboard.Davidbena (talk) 21:08, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Belintash

Hello Doug. Why did you remove my edit below Robert Bauval photograph? What is the issue? Belintash is located in Bulgaria and it is proven that served as a cult place in the prehistory. --Filipov Ivo (talk) 06:48, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@Filipov Ivo: Examining it again, although I think there may be some disputed material there's enough for the note, although the other Wikipedia articles on him don't add that. I've tweaked and restored it. Doug Weller talk 09:14, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I have examined it. Thank you for the restoration! Apart from everything else I am an editor in the Bulgarian Wikipedia and I am aware of the rules of the project and I personally know Bauval and some of the researchers of the Belintash, so I was ready with a full and a long list of arguments/sources in support of what I was going to claim :) Anyways, thank you again Doug!--Filipov Ivo (talk) 12:06, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Glass Flowers needs arbitration

Hello Doug Weller. It has been a while, and I hope you notice that my offenses have dwindled to nothing now that I know the rules of Wikipedia. Anyway, I write to ask for your Administrative help. The Glass Flowers page has been suffering repeated attacks of by User:EEng in his breaking of the 3RR rule, and I lack the required know-how and authority to fully stop it. I know we have clashed in the past, and I apologize for the mistakes I made as a New User, but I have tried to keep the Glass Flowers page and is affiliates as professional as possible and would dearly like your assistance. If you need proof that the page has suffered possible vandalism, just look at the Revision History and the talk page. I have sent a similar message CorbieV asking for his aid, but have gotten no reply and the matter is immediate and urgent. (Forgive me for posting this cry for help here, but I could not find the appropriate arbitration page you spoke of)--Bard Cadarn (talk) 00:53, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@Bard Cadarn: Hi. Good to hear from you. This really isn't a matter for us (the Arbitration Committee) if for no other reason that it hasn't gone through the usual dispute procedures.

EEng (despite his block log, which is not as bad as it looks at first glance if you understand it) and David are respected editors and know a lot. You need to listen and learn from them. Sorry, that's not what you want to hear, I know that. I don't see anyone breaking 3RR (consecutive edits count as one). Both Andy and EEng have block logs but they aren't relevant. There is a real problem of flowery language and I've said that on the talk page. More tomorrow, I have to go. Please don't comment on other editors there anymore, you all should be able to work together. And you have a WP:COI and probably shouldn't be making more than technical edits on the article. Doug Weller talk 17:17, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I hear you, Doug Weller, though I am actually an armature historian who volunteers (i.e. am unpaid) for HMNH in their continuing research on the Blaschkas. So not quite a WP:COI so much as a personal passion. More to the point, though, I have no issue with them rewording my flowery language (most of which is actually backed up by sources). It is the massive cuts done without discussion or cited, scholarly, reason that I have a problem with.--Bard Cadarn (talk) 17:29, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 21

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 21, January-March 2017
by Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs), Samwalton9 (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

• #1lib1ref 2017
• Wikipedia Library User Group
• Wikipedia + Libraries at Wikimedia Conference 2017
• Spotlight: Library Card Platform

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Administrators

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Administrators. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 7

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Ark Encounter, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Bow. 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) 10:40, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Alchemy of Love Mindfulness Training Page

Dear Doug,

just to let you know that I followed your instructions and send an e-mail from Artof4elements.com to permissions-en@wikimedia.org to confirm that I represent the copy-right holder.

Many thanks, Mario — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mariojohns2010 (talk • contribs) 10:42, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you but that doesn't help with the fact that we would rarely use material from a self-publisher. Doug Weller talk 10:50, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

The Artof4Elements (www.artof4elements.com) is the Publisher of the books. It uses print on demand to reach other than Maltese markets. It is based in Malta. The books published are from a group of authors (Mirjana Musulin, Olivera Rosić, Ivana Milosavljević, Jason Lu, Christine Cutajar, Jeni Caruana and Nataša Pantović). Both Malta National Books Council Database (http://ktieb.org.mt/) and http://www.isbndatabasemalta.org/ have Artof4elements within their database. I hope this helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mariojohns2010 (talk • contribs) 14:44, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Wouldn't mind your eyes at S.E.C.C.

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex I'm at 2RR and have real life to go tend to right now. A pair of un-involved eyes knowledgeable of the subject would be appreciated.Talk:Southeastern_Ceremonial_Complex#Obsolete_terms. Cheers, Heiro 17:49, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry I feel a bit unsure here but you've got support anyway. I may be able to help later. Doug Weller talk 20:55, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. We'll see if they decide to join the talk page dialogue. Heiro 15:25, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Dlogan1995

Greetings, I'm Exemplo347 (obviously!) - I noticed that you've blocked Dlogan1995 for vandalism and I thought I'd point out that they're currently using their User Talk page to promote their Deviantart page - [25]. That's right, I'm a filthy snitch. Regards Exemplo347 (talk) 19:57, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

@Exemplo347: Well spotted and thanks. Blanked it and removed talk page privileges, obviously not here to improve the encyclopedia. Doug Weller talk 20:34, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Continued edit warring at First Epistle to Timothy and 1 Timothy 1

I'm not clear on how these things work, but you may be interested to know that editor 66.215.220.110 has resumed edit warring on these pages once their page edit blocks expired, without achieving consensus or getting anywhere at NPOVN, which has yet to be closed. I've already notified the NPOVN and the administrator who originally warned the IP and me about edit warring regarding this matter. Antinoos69 (talk) 07:35, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

@Antinoos69: There seems to be a good discussion there now, I don't see a role for me. Sorry. Doug Weller talk 18:41, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #255

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

• Discussions
  • Open request for adminship: Zolo
  • New request for comments: Proposed client side disambiguation page

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • The Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) helps unlock millions of connections between scholarly research, on WMF blog, by Dario Taborelli
  • Le canal de Nantes à Brest sur Wikidata (fr) by Édouard Hue
  • Comprende!, a quiz interface on top of MediaWiki/WikiBase by Magnus Manske
  • Next Wikidata meetup in Berlin: April 26th, 18:00 in WMDE's office

• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Deadline for submitting a talk, workshop or roundtable for Wikimania is today, April 10th, at midnight (UTC)!
  • There's now also a #100wikidays challenge on Wikidata, aptly named #100wikidatadays! It is a personal challenge in which a person very significantly improves (at least) one Wikidata items per day, for 100 days in a row. There was already a version of the challenge on various Wikipedias, on Commons and on Wikisource - now on Wikidata as well. Participate and make Wikidata shine!
  • New filters for Recent Changes: the beta deployment is rescheduled on May 9th
  • Grant application to extend the work of John Commings at UNESCO
  • New MapRoulette challenges: Add missing Wikidata ids to cities and capitals on OpenStreetMap
  • You can be a candidate for the Wikimedia Foundation's board of trustees
  • Log of the last IRC office hour with Wikidata development team
  • Help us translating this short message in your language

• Did you know?
• Newest properties: TV Guide person ID, Deutsche Synchronkartei film ID, DLV athlete ID
  • Query examples:
    • Notable integers
    • Longest streets of Moscow
    • Top 20 of heaviest humans in Wikidata (source)
    • Timeline of Paris marathons (source)
    • Countries not involved in any world war (source)
    • People whose place of birth is named after them (source)
  • Newest WikiProjects: Figure skating
  • Newest external tools: Sistercities, an overview of sister cities of German cities on Wikipedia and Wikidata
  • Newest database reports: list of duos

• Development
  • Preparing for making more ArticlePlaceholder indexable by search engines on Welsh Wikipedia (phab:T162244)
  • Preparing the deployments of Cognate and geoshape data type
  • Lexemes: starting adding sections for forms and senses

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

• Monthly Tasks
  • Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
  • Comment on property proposals: all open proposals - proposals needing attention
  • Suggested and open tasks!
  • Contribute to a Showcase item.
  • Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
  • Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
  • Help write the next summary!

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 12:26, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Islamic Military Alliance link on Islamism

I reverted the change on this because you had reverted what appeared to be a good-faith edit without a reason. It seemed as relevant as List of Islamic democratic political parties in the same article and it didn't appear that the editor had any ulterior motives in adding it. Not going to fight for it though - if you really think it shouldn't belong then fair enough. Just didn't think it warranted reverting without comment. (EDIT: just spotted your message to me. Crossed wires I guess) carelesshx _talk 15:15, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

About a ref

Hello Doug
Is this an Highly unreliable source ? What's your thoughts about this ? Regards -Aṭlas (talk) 20:58, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Quack

As ironic as it seems, given the accusation that all adversaries are you, you can't tell me this [26], with its bulloxed faux-section heading and lack of signature, wasn't done by the same human as this [27]. There is no way she isn't socking again. Agricolae (talk) 04:58, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Suzanne Olsson

Why is her topic ban, which took me forever to find, not listed in WP:Editing restrictions?--Bbb23 (talk) 14:45, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps User:GiantSnowman wasn't aware they needed to list it? I don't know. As I kept telling her, I wasn't involved, let alone responsible for it although she seems to be sure it was all me. Doug Weller talk 15:08, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Ah, thanks, well it wasn't just GS, it was also Salvio who extended the ban based on yet another discussion.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:12, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I admit I need to think hard to make sure I log anything that needs logging. I hope I haven't missed anything! Doug Weller talk 15:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, I've done GS and Salvio an injustice. Both of them logged the restrictions at WP:Editing restrictions. For reasons I don't understand Beeblebrox "archived" them recently, along with a lot of others. I've left a note on his Talk page asking why.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Ouch. That's odd as it's not whole years being archived, and in any case I'd like to know why also. Doug Weller talk 15:38, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Hopefully this discussion will clarify things.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:08, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing it up, all. GiantSnowman 10:25, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Legobot (talk) 04:25, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Battle of the Persian Gate

I have restored your edit with the Encyclopedia Iranica source. It would appear user:Simanos is removing information/sources he does not like, and changing figures without any sources. Simanos likes to throw around the terms, OR and fringe, in an attempt to prove his edits are justified. --Kansas Bear (talk) 20:32, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

You can add cherry-picking information to the laundry list of Simanos' issues.[28] Where Simanos adds;"but it admits that the modern historians follow Arrian Curtius and Diodorus unreservedly.", which Iranica mentions, yet the next sentence, which Simanos ignores, states,"However, Greek estimates for Persian infantries were generally valueless (C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece, Oxford, 1962, pp. 350f.), and Ariobarzanes could hardly have mustered more troops than he had taken to Gaugamela. Arrian’s 700 can thus be interpreted as indicating the total strength of Ariobarzanes."
Which is a clear case of cherry-picking information. --Kansas Bear (talk) 01:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, lack of time for this. I see he's posted to your talk page, maybe you all can work it out. @Kansas Bear:. Doug Weller talk 19:42, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I am not so sure. [29] --Kansas Bear (talk) 19:44, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

@Kansas Bear: Check this review of Farrokh's work ([30], [31]) -Aṭlas (talk) 19:53, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I have tried removing the Farrokh sources from that article as well. --Kansas Bear (talk) 19:56, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Farrokh is actually a very nice guy, which surprised me. We had a very good email conversation a few years ago. But I wouldn't use hom. I did a lot of research on him years ago. Doug Weller talk 19:59, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

"Ignoring recent scholarship, relying on the internet, confusing hypotheses with facts, and repeating propaganda: this is why Shadows in the Desert is a bad book." per review.-Aṭlas (talk) 20:01, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

This coupled with statements from Simanos, " Iranica admits on its own that its view is opposite to modern consensus (fringe view) and this should be noted", "Iranica is FRINGE view by its own admission. Iranica says modern historians agree with ancients". Where he uses half of what the Iranica source states, which is STILL being used in the article, and removes 700 from the inbox stating "fringe". Pretty sure that is the definition of cherry-picking. --Kansas Bear (talk) 20:05, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I see you are trying to form a team here, but I would like to defend myself anyway. I removed Farrokh myself as you asked, but I'm not so sure now

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-02-02.html

At any rate I don't claim to be an expert on Farrokh (or agree with him in all), but I'd like to see where it was decided in wikipedia that he's to be removed from all?

As for Iranica on Persian Gates, here's the full text:

"Alexander historians give Ariobarzanes a large army (40,000 infantry and 700 cavalry in Arrian, Anabasis 3.18.2; 25,000 infantry in Curtius 5.3.17 and Diodorus 17.68.1; the latter adds 300 horsemen), and their modern successors follow them unreservedly (e.g., Th. Doge, Alexander, Boston and New York, 1890, p. 401; J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great, London, 1958, pp. 228ff.; N. G. L. Hammond, *Alexander the Great: King, Commander and Statesman, London, 1981, p. 185). However, Greek estimates for Persian infantries were generally valueless (C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece, Oxford, 1962, pp. 350f.), and Ariobarzanes could hardly have mustered more troops than he had taken to Gaugamela. Arrian's 700 can thus be interpreted as indicating the total strength of Ariobarzanes. Against them Alexander led an army of well over 10,000 men, for having sent Parmenion with the baggage train and heavier-armed troops down the carriage road, he himself took the Macedonian infantry, the lancers and archers through the mountainous track (Arrian, Anabasis 3.18.1; Curtius 5.3.16f.; Diodorus 17.68.1; Stein, op. cit., pp. 19f.)"

As you can clearly see Iranica admits the modern historians, the successors of ancient/old Alexander historians, follow them "unreservedly". It sets up itself as a fringe view in opposition to modern consensus. Also it's arguments like "Greek estimates for Persian infantries were generally valueless" are laughable at best (worthy of a forum troll more than a historian). Fringe views do NOT belong in the infobox and should be noted in the main article text as fringe views if included at all. Simple logic 20:37, 14 April 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simanos (talk • contribs)

Also this is worth a look (for the type of people pushing this POV originally) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Battle_of_the_Persian_Gate#Hey_asshole. 20:42, 14 April 2017 (UTC) Last thing I want to add about Lendering and his livius.org , it is hardly the pinnacle of "historianship" or even just consistency: http://www.livius.org/articles/person/ariobarzanes-2/? Many Persians were massacred. Ariobarzanes managed to escape, but when he reached Persepolis, he was denied entrance to the city. The commander of the city's garrison had already learned the outcome of the battle, and was convinced that Alexander was invincible. No one needed Ariobarzanes alive; he was probably killed by the Macedonians. but in another article it states: http://www.livius.org/articles/battle/persian-gate-330-bce/ Many Persians were massacred. Ariobarzanes managed to escape, but was killed before he reached Persepolis. Alexander reached the beautiful palace on one of the last days of January 330. Four months later, he burned it down. Simanos (talk) 20:57, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Simanos Farrokh is basically an amateur historian. He works as a student counsellor[32] and has a Ph.D. from the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at the University of British Columbia, where he specialized in the cognitive and linguistic processes of Persian speakers. Note that 'linguistic processes' is about the cognitive processes involved in producing and understanding linguistic communication and is not the same as the study of languages. Doug Weller talk 16:28, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Lemba

Hello Doug, do you mean Lemba people? Thanks. I know that if something is referenced thorughout the article, a doubled note is unnecessary, but in this particular case I think that the sources don't state something so strong as it is written in the last lead sentence. ;) --Lucas (talk) 10:19, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

@Lucas: The last three sources in the DNA section, the earliest dating to 2013 and the latest to last year, seem enough to me to say "More recent research argues that DNA studies do not support claims for a Jewish genetic heritage." Do you want these sources added to the lead? Maybe this is the wrong place for this discussion if you are unhappy about the statement. Doug Weller talk 10:25, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Hello. It's not a question of "happiness" :-) (and it is always possibile to add a couple of <reference name="sourcename" /> near the sentence, if needed). I simply do not agree that those sources are so firm in stating "DNA studies do not support claims for a Jewish genetic heritage", they actually look more nuanced. But you are right, this is not the right place to talk about this. Thanks for your messages. :-) --Lucas (talk) 10:58, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Suzanne Olsson lead

The last sentence in the lead reads: "Accusations about her actions at the shrine would lead to it being closed to the public." I've read the newspaper article (first source) and looked at a preview of the book (second source), which appears to be a repeat of the newspaper article in the part about Olsson, and I simply can't parse the sentence. Why is it in conditional tense? Why is the subject "accusations"? The sentence should say something along the lines that Olsson's actions led to the closure of the tomb and perhaps a bit about why, although I don't know how much detail should be in the lead. Anyway, there's a fair amount of contention on the Talk page about the content and structure of the article, and I don't want to get involved, literally or administratively, by discussing it there or editing the article, so I figured I'd ask you.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:53, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) It's a classic: the talk page is about six times as big as the article itself- and yet it stayed in that shoddy condition. Anway, I've filleted of all the crap sourcing / citations needed etc., but some admin eyes on it would be a bonus  :) Thanks for the heads up though! — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 15:33, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

@Bbb23: I don't like t "would lead" eitherso have brought it up on the talk page. Accusations is gone. Doug Weller talk 16:38, 16 April 2017 (UTC)