User talk:Fetchcomms/Archive 28

h t u s m g

Archive 25

Archive 26

Archive 27

Archive 28

Archive 29

ARCHIVES       

• Archive 1 (2 October 2009 – 2 December 2009)
• Archive 2 (2 December 2009 – 2 January 2010)
• Archive 3 (2 January 2010 – 2 February 2010)
• Archive 4 (2 February 2010 – 2 March 2010)
• Archive 5 (2 March 2010 – 2 April 2010)
• Archive 6 (2 April 2010 – 2 May 2010)
• Archive 7 (2 May 2010 – 2 June 2010)
• Archive 8 (2 June 2010 – 2 July 2010)
• Archive 9 (2 July 2010 – 2 August 2010)
• Archive 10 (2 August 2010 – 2 September 2010)
• Archive 11 (2 September 2010 – 2 October 2010)
• Archive 12 (2 October 2010 – 2 November 2010)
• Archive 13 (2 November 2010 – 2 December 2010)
• Archive 14 (2 December 2010 – 2 January 2011)
• Archive 15 (2 January 2011 – 2 February 2011)
• Archive 16 (2 February 2011 – 2 March 2011)
• Archive 17 (2 March 2011 – 2 April 2011)
• Archive 18 (2 April 2011 – 2 May 2011)
• Archive 19 (2 May 2011 – 2 June 2011)
• Archive 20 (2 June 2011 – 2 July 2011)
• Archive 21 (2 July 2011 – 2 August 2011)
• Archive 22 (2 August 2011 – 2 September 2011)
• Archive 23 (2 September 2011 – 2 October 2011)
• Archive 24 (2 October 2011 – 2 November 2011)
• Archive 25 (2 November 2011 – 2 December 2011)
• Archive 26 (2 December 2011 – 2 January 2012)
• Archive 27 (2 January 2012 – 2 February 2012)
• Archive 28 (2 February 2012 –2 January 2014)
• Archive 29 (2 January 2014 –5 May 2016)

Please use this to leave me a new message:

Welcome!

Hello, Fetchcomms, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome!

City Colleges of Chicago

Hi! About this edit

The KMinottCCC user is likely an employee of CCC. I left a note on his/her talk page WhisperToMe (talk) 13:36, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, and thanks for the welcome :) /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 01:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Online Ambassador, Spring 2012

Hi, Fetchcomms! As you may know, the Wikipedia Education Program has instilled a new set of standards that courses must meet to officially join the program for the semester. As you can see, one of the requirements is that at least one ambassador or professor is a Wikipedian, as this should give students more access to helpful information about contributing to Wikipedia and creating good content. You are listed on the Online Ambassador page; are you still interested in remaining active this semester? Some of these classes will have to remove themselves from the program should they fail to meet these standards, but we would like to ensure that new students are receiving proper support during the editing process. Please let me know if you are still interested in mentoring these students this semester and/or visit the Online Ambassador talk page to select a course that still needs an Online Ambassador. Thank you! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 00:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jami, I'm just too busy to help out this semester but please keep my in the loop as I will hopefully have more time in the summer/fall. Regards, /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 02:49, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

UTRS Account Request

I confirm that I have requested an account on the UTRS tool. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 02:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Fetchcomms, thank you for your interest in the tool. I've approved your account, please feel free to login and test the system.

As part of this beta test, we'd like everyone to test every aspect of the tool. This includes acting as blocked users - we'd like each of you to file at least two appeals and respond to them as though you are blocked. Please try to act like a blocked user new to Wikipedia, unfamiliar with common terms and probably a bit frustrated at the situation.

When reviewing appeals, please act as though you are reviewing real blocks. You should be able to comment on any appeal, regardless of who has reserved it; reservations only ensure that reviewers don't send conflicting emails.

If you encounter any bugs (things not appearing to work right, and especially error messages), please file a bug report on JIRA. You will need to register an account there. New features can be suggested there as well, but please add the "after-beta" label to these so we can easily prioritize between bugs that must be fixed and features that can be added later.

Thank you again for volunteering to beta-test. The Helpful One 02:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

MSU Interview

Dear Fetchcommons,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 19:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

My RfA

Thanks for jumping in quickly to support my RfA, which was successful and nearly unanimous. Be among the first to see my L-plate! – Fayenatic L (talk) 13:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Cool

Hey I love your squirrel picture! Did you take that yourself? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.56.82.19 (talk) 20:22, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

No, the image description page credits the work to Ray eye. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Banner

Per a new, definitive consensus, please remove your practical joke banner from your miscellany subpage. Thank you, Magister Scienta^talk 02:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

No, thank you. Which do you consider the better amendment?

You have $1 (I have $2).

or

You have no life (get one).

I think the former is less likely to be understood by readers, but the latter is a tad cynical.

/ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Whatever you fancy, just please don't insult a fellow editor. Have a nice day, Magister Scienta^talk 14:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I think I shall use them both! /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 06:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Fight "the man". Killiondude (talk) 08:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

NCAT Pavement Test Track

Can you look at the NCAT Pavement Test Track article? I regret even having touched this article in 2010, having stepped on the copyright problem minefield in the process. If the original version of this article were to appear today as a new page, I would tag it as WP:CSD#G12 with sufficient explanation for the deleting admin. Do you think my current decision to stub this article to a bare minimum of text is appropriate? At the very least, I think it would be appropriate to delete all the old revisions, if not the entire article. Thanks, PleaseStand (talk) 05:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Stubbing is fine. Is there any old material you want to keep (e.g., citations so you can rephrase information) from the history? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 05:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I now have them on a talk subpage. It should be OK to delete the old revisions now. PleaseStand (talk) 05:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I've deleted the old revisions. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 05:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 February newsletter

Round 1 is already over! The 64 highest scorers have progressed to round 2. Our highest scorer was Grapple X (submissions), again thanks mostly to a swathe of good articles on The X-Files. In second place was Tigerboy1966 (submissions), thanks an impressive list of did you knows about racehorses. Both scored over 400 points. Following behind with over 300 points were Ruby2010 (submissions), Cwmhiraeth (submissions), Miyagawa (submissions) and Casliber (submissions). February also saw the competition's first featured list: List of colleges and universities in North Dakota, from Ruby2010 (submissions). At the other end of the scale, 11 points was enough to secure a place in this round, and some contestants with 10 points made it into the round on a tiebreaker. This is higher than the 8 points that were needed last year, but lower than the 20 points required the year before. The number of points required to progress to round 3 will be significantly higher.

The remaining contestants have been split into 8 pools of 8, named A through H. Round two will finish in two months time on 28 April, when the two highest scorers in each pool, as well as the next 16 highest scorers, will progress to round 3. The pools were entirely random, so while some pools may end up being more competitive than others, this is by chance rather than design.

The judges would like to point out two quick rules reminders. First, any content promoted during the interim period (that is, on or after 27 February) is eligible for points in round 2. Second, any content worked on significantly this year is eligible for points if promoted in this round. On a related note, if you are concerned that your nomination, be it at good article candidates, a featured process or anywhere else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAC, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which would otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 23:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

MOTDs (This space for rent)

You may have noticed over the past few days that the MOTD that you link to on your user page has simply displayed a red link. This is due to the fact that not enough people are reviewing pending MOTDs here. Please help us keep the MOTD template alive and simply go and review a few of the MOTDs in the list. That way we can have a real MOTD in the future rather than re-using (This space for rent). Any help would be appreciated! –pjoef (talk • contribs) 10:10, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Template:Welcome AfC

Hi, can you say, when/where and how this ^ template was used? It is unused, or? mabdul 19:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, all welcome templates should be subst'd, so it won't show up anywhere from WhatLinksHere. That being said, it was intended for welcoming users who have submitted articles to AfC and I strongly encourage its adoption if not already used by others. Perhaps a bot could auto-welcome users who submit articles to AfC with it? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:25, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Talkback Please

Hello, Fetchcomms. You have new messages at Yasht101's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Yasht101 14:49, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

User script listings cleanup project

I'm leaving this message for known script authors, recent contributors to Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts, and those who've shown interest in user scripts.

This scripts listing page is in dire need of cleanup. To facilitate this, I've created a new draft listing at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts cleanup. You're invited to list scripts you know to be currently working and relevant. Eventually this draft page can replace the current scripts listing.

If you'd like to comment or collaborate on this proposal, see the discussion I started here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject User scripts#Scripts listing cleanup project. Thanks! Equazcion ^(talk) 02:52, 25 Mar 2012 (UTC)

Help us develop better software!

Thanks to all of you for commenting on the NOINDEX RfC :). It's always great to be able to field questions like these to the community; it's genuinely the highlight of my work! The NOINDEX idea sprung from our New Page Triage discussion; we're developing a new patrolling interface for new articles, and we want your input like never before :). So if you haven't already seen it, please go there, take a look at the screenshots and mockups and ideas, and add any comments or suggestions you might have to the talkpage. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 March newsletter

We are over half way through the second round of this year's WikiCup and things are going well! Grapple X (submissions), of Pool B, is our highest overall scorer thanks to his prolific writings on television and film. In second place is Pool H's Cwmhiraeth (submissions), thanks primarily to work on biological articles, especially in marine biology and herpetology. Third place goes to Pool E's Casliber (submissions), who also writes primarily on biology (including ornithology and botany) and has already submitted two featured articles this round. Of the 63 contestants remaining, 15 (just under a quarter) have over 100 points this round. However, 25 are yet to score. Please remember to update your submission pages promptly. 32 contestants, the top two from each pool and the 16 next-highest scorers, will advance to round 3.

Congratulations to Matthewedwards (submissions), whose impressive File:Wacht am Rhein map (Opaque).svg became the competition's first featured picture. Also, congratulations to 12george1 (submissions), who claimed good topic points, our first contestant this year to do so, for his work on Wikipedia:Featured topics/1982 Atlantic hurricane season. This leaves featured topics and featured portals as the only sources of points not yet utilised. However, as recent statistics from Miyagawa (submissions) show, no source has yet been utilised this competition to the same extent it has been previously!

It has been observed that the backlogs at good article candidates are building up again. While the points for good article reviews will be remaining constant, any help that can be offered keeping the backlog down would be appreciated. On a related note, if you are concerned that your nomination, be it at good article candidates, a featured process or anywhere else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 23:17, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite Hello Fetchcomms. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released. Please click HERE to participate. Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts. You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 23:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Fetchcomms. 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.

--Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:52, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Your HighBeam account is ready!

Good news! You now have access to 80 million articles in 6500 publications through HighBeam Research. Here's what you need to know:

• Your account activation code has been emailed to your Wikipedia email address.
  • Only 407 of 444 codes were successfully delivered; most failed because email was simply not set up (You can set it in Special:Preferences).
  • If you did not receive a code but were on the approved list, add your name to this section and we'll try again.
• The 1-year, free period begins when you enter the code.
• To activate your account: 1) Go to http://www.highbeam.com/prof1; 2) You’ll see the first page of a two-page registration. 3) Put in an email address and set up a password. (Use a different email address if you signed up for a free trial previously); 4) Click “Continue” to reach the second page of registration; 5) Input your basic information; 6) Input the activation code; 7) Click “Finish”. Note that the activation codes are one-time use only and are case-sensitive.
• If you need assistance, email "help at highbeam dot com", and include "HighBeam/Wikipedia" in the subject line. Or go to WP:HighBeam/Support, or ask User:Ocaasi. Please, per HighBeam's request, do not call the toll-free number for assistance with registration.
• A quick reminder about using the account: 1) try it out; 2) provide original citation information, in addition to linking to a HighBeam article; 3) avoid bare links to non-free HighBeam pages; 4) note "(subscription required)" in the citation, where appropriate
• HighBeam would love to hear feedback at WP:HighBeam/Experiences
• Show off your HighBeam access by placing {{User:Ocaasi/highbeam_userbox}} on your userpage
• When the 1-year period is up, check applications page to see if renewal is possible. We hope it will be.

Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Type message title here

Hello Fetchcomms,

I recently stumbled upon a page that seemed to be of quite some interest. It was about Deamons in regards to astrophysics. I was just curious as to why this page was deleted. Did it contain faulty information? I am not in need of information regarding daemons of astrophysics, I was just not sure why it was deemed inapropriate. its nice to see this is in html scrtipt ^{I feel like I'm on top of the world}!

173.161.144.1 (talk) 15:01, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Using my psychic powers, I have determined the page to which you referring as ... BEEP BEEP BEEP CRITICAL ERROR PROGRAM AUTOMATICALLY TERMINATED.

Whoops, my bad. Seems like those psychic powers don't work after all. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 00:45, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

:)

I really wish I could hug you right now. You made me smile. MBisanz ^talk 02:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 April newsletter

Round 2 of this year's WikiCup is over, and so we are down to our final 32, in what could be called our quarter-finals. The two highest scorers from each pool, as well as the next 16 highest scorers overall, have entered round 3, while 30 participants have been eliminated. Pool B's Grapple X (submissions) remains our top scorer with over 700 points; he continues to gain high numbers of points for his good articles on The X-Files, but also Millennium and other subjects. He has also gained points for a good topic, a featured list, multiple good article reviews and several did you knows. Pool E's Casliber (submissions) was second, thanks primarily to his biology articles, with Pool H's Muboshgu (submissions) coming in third, with an impressive 46 did you knows, mostly on the subject of baseball. Casliber and Cwmhiraeth both scored over 600 points. Pools E and H proved our most successful, with each seeing 5 members qualify for round 3, while Pools C and D were the least, with each seeing only 3 reach round 3. However, it was Pool G which saw the lowest scoring, with a little under 400 points combined; Pool H, the highest scoring group, saw over triple that score.

65 points was the lowest qualifying score for round 3; significantly higher than the 11 required to enter round 2, and also higher than the 41 required to reach round 3 last year. However, in 2010, 100 points were needed to secure a place in round 3. 16 will progress to round 4. In round 3, 150 points was the 16th highest score, though, statistically, people tend to up their game a little in later rounds. Last year, 76 points secured a place, while in 2010, a massive 250 points were needed. Guessing how many points will be required is not easy. We still have not seen any featured portals or topics this year, but, on the subject of less common content types, a small correction needs to be made to the previous newsletter: File:Wacht am Rhein map (Opaque).svg, our first featured picture, was the work of both Matthewedwards (submissions) and Grandiose (submissions), the latter of whom has also gone on to score with File:Map of the Battle of Guam, 1944.svg. Bonus points also continue to roll in; this round, Ealdgyth (submissions) earned triple points for her good articles on William the Conqueror and the Middle Ages, Casliber and Cwmhiraeth both earned triple points for their work on Western Jackdaw, now a good article, Dana Boomer (submissions) earned triple points for her work on lettuce and work by Stone (submissions) to ready antimony for good article status earned him triple points. Jarry1250 (submissions) managed to expand Vitus Bering far enough for a did you know, which was also worth triple points. All of these highly important topics featured on 50 or more Wikipedias at the start of the year.

An article on the WikiCup in the Wikimedia Blog, "Improving Wikipedia with friendly competition", was posted at the end of April. This may be of interest to those who are signed up to this newsletter, as well as serving as another way to draw attention to our project. Also, we would again like to thank Jarry1250 (submissions) and Stone (submissions), for continued help behind the scenes. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination, be it at good article candidates, a featured process or anywhere else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 23:09, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Recall procedure

Hi there. I have chosen you as one of the editors who may request my resignation as part of my my recall procedure. Could you have a look, and confirm whether you're happy being on the list? Thanks. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 17:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Sure. I'm perpetually a bit busy in RL but if you ever want my opinion on an administrative action, an email will merit a quick response. Cheers, /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 00:27, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Disputed non-free use rationale for File:Natural ni Koishite-Limited.jpg

Thank you for uploading File:Natural ni Koishite-Limited.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale provided for using this file on Wikipedia may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. This can be corrected by going to the file description page and adding or clarifying the reason why the file qualifies under this policy. Adding and completing one of the templates available from Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your file is in compliance with Wikipedia policy. Please be aware that a non-free use rationale is not the same as an image copyright tag; descriptions for files used under the non-free content policy require both a copyright tag and a non-free use rationale.

If it is determined that the file does not qualify under the non-free content policy, it might be deleted by an administrator within a few days in accordance with our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. — ξ^xplicit 23:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Life Sciences journal cover.gif

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Life Sciences journal cover.gif. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:26, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Upcoming Wikimedia events in Missouri and Kansas!

You're invited to 3 exciting events Wikipedians are planning in your region this June—a tour and meetup at the National Archives in Kansas City, and Wiknics in Wichita and St. Louis:

Kansas City Saturday, June 16, starting at 9 a.m. — National Archives in Kansas City This full-day event will include a tour of the facility; presentations from National Archives Wikipedian-in-Residence, Dominic McDevitt-Parks, and Exhibit Specialist, Dee Harris; and time in the research room to work on projects. The focus of the projects will be scanning, writing articles, transcribing, or categorizing images on Commons. Wikipedians from St. Louis and elsewhere in the region are encouraged to make a day-trip of it and come to Kansas City for this special opportunity!
And two local editions of the Great American Wiknic, the "picnic anyone can edit." Come meet (and geek out with, if you want) your local Wikipedians in a laid-back atmosphere: Wichita Saturday, June 23, starting at 1 p.m. — Central Riverside Park Join the 1st annual Wichita Wiknic: The Sunflower State blooms Free Knowledge! St. Louis Saturday, June 23, starting at 11 a.m. — Forest Park Visitors' Center Join the 2nd annual St Louis Wiknic: The Gateway to the West is now The Gateway to the Wiki!

Message delivered by Dominic·t 19:45, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Revert

I'm not sure how this happened, but I'm sorry about it. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

WT:RFA

Thought I should drop you a note that I mentioned you. - jc37 12:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Your signature

Hi, Fetchcomms. I am not able to view your signature with my settings. I have been asked to inform you to change your signature. Please see here. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:33, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

The request is inappropriate and has no grounding in policy. Feel free to ignore it. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:45, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Certain aspects of Wikipedia are genuinely absurd. The notion of adjusting one's signature for people with non-standard setups is one of them. Killiondude (talk) 02:40, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Uhh, what about non-standard signatures? I'm not sure why you're suggesting that people shouldn't be able to easily view and interact with the site simply because someone "must" have black in his or her user signature. The default signature doesn't present any accessibility problems. The customizations that specific users have made to their user signatures do cause problems. So... who's to blame here? --MZMcBride (talk) 14:15, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

And by the way, the non-standard layout on this very talk page also causes issues (e.g., [1] and [2]). Obviously these issues aren't as bad as not being able to read the text at all, but they still should be taken into consideration, particularly when weighing the cost agains the benefit. Not everyone keeps text at 12-point size (and frankly I think it's absurd that anyone does). Browser zooming is common and multi-column layouts like the one on this page immediately cause problems when mixed with indented text (as opposed to flat text that you might see on a page such as the Main Page). It's not so bad when section-editing, but when I view the entire page, it's a pretty awful experience. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:27, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

If I set body {background:#0645AD} because I think it is easier on my eyes than any other color, should I proceed to file a bug requesting that the default link color be changed in response to my accessibility needs? The sensible thing would be for me to set a {color:#fff} or something like that, I think. Regardless, the customizations that specific users have made to their user stylesheets do cause problems as well, evidently.

I acknowledge that custom signature colors do present a problem for a very, very small percentage of Wikipedia's readers and users. But to solve this problem, it would be more effective simply to disable custom signatures altogether (or implement a policy that forbids using colors other than the default, although this would still not address the issues of users who want, say, a blue background). Then, to ensure that accessibility concerns are minimized, we should have a bot go through every discussion page and change all custom-colored signatures to the default. (And let's get rid of illegible font choices, distracting backgrounds, text-shadows, and whatnot, too.) Alternatively, we could automatically wrap every signature in a white-background span tag as it is being transcluded, though that would just contribute unnecessary code.

I'm not going to change my signature now, but I will look into making my talk page design responsive in the near future. I've been putting that off until someone complained.

/ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:16, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 May newsletter

We're halfway through round 3 (or the quarter finals, if you prefer) and things are running smoothly. We're seeing very high scoring; as of the time of writing, the top 16 all have over 90 points. This has already proved to be more competative than this time last year- in 2011, 76 points secured a place, while in 2010, a massive 250 was the lowest qualifying score. People have also upped their game slightly from last round, which is to be expected as we approach the end of the competition. Leading Pool A is Cwmhiraeth (submissions), whose points have mostly come from a large number of did you knows on marine biology. Pool B's leader, Grapple X (submissions), is for the first time not our highest scorer at the time of newsletter publication, but his good articles on The X-Files and Millenium keep him in second place overall. Miyagawa (submissions) leads Pool C, our quietest pool, with content in a variety of areas on a variety of topics. Pool D is led by Casliber (submissions), our current overall leader. Nearly half of Casliber's points come from his triple-scored Western Jackdaw, which is now a featured article.

This round has seen an unusually high number of featured lists, with nearly one in five remaining participants claiming one, and one user, Muboshgu (submissions), claiming two. Miyagawa's featured list, 1936 Summer Olympics medal table, was even awarded double points. By comparison, good article reviews seem to be playing a smaller part, and featured topics portals remain two content-types still unutilised in this competition. Other than that, there isn't much to say! Things are coming along smoothly. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 23:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Assessment of Wikipedia:WikiProject Conservatism/Incubator/Tennessee Tax Revolt, Inc.

Hello, I noticed that you have Wikipedia:Article_Incubator/Userbox on your user page and I was hoping, if you get a second at some point, you could assess this article. I have completely rewritten it since this version which was deleted in this AfD. Thanks, --▸∮truthious ᛔandersnatch◂ 05:12, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

From a cursory readover, I notice a few occurrences of possible refbombing. The prose is also choppy, with many single-sentence paragraphs. This indicates to me that the information in such sentences is trivial or minor and probably not worthy of inclusion. For example consider this sentence: "In 2009 TTR spoke at a Nashville Tea Party rally in opposition to the federal bank bailouts in response to the financial crisis and in opposition to the stimulus expenditures". If we documented the location of every speech for each political group's article, we would end up with long lists of information that aren't crucial to an encyclopedia entry. Encyclopedias are meant to comprise overviews/outlines/summaries of topics, not detailed lists of a subject's accomplishments. The inclusion of all these unimportant, timeline-y tidbits in the TTR draft makes it seem like they're included just for the sake of it, or to puff up the references section. I would only mention activities that could be considered significant in the context of Tennessee politics or TTR's history; significance could be determined on the amount of media coverage received by a particular activity. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 19:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for those comments and thanks for the note on the logo discussion but I may have misunderstood something here... I haven't finished working on the article, I thought that Incubator assessment was a matter of gauging the sorts of basic criteria in {{Limbo_assessment}} as an independent evaluation of whether or not the article can be moved back to the mainspace. --▸∮truthious ᛔandersnatch◂ 00:49, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, that. I think it's fine for 2, 3, and 4, but I don't know about 1. As notability was a significant factor in the AfD, I think the refs and unimportant info should be groomed/pared down as I mentioned above, and then we can assess the depth of coverage in sources as well as the significant achievements of this organization. I don't see a real need to put the assessment criteria template stuff on the talk page if you're still working on the article; I don't think it's particularly useful for giving specific pointers, anyway. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:34, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, thank you for the editorial suggestions, but I guess I'm much more of an inclusionist than the author(s) of that refbomb essay. (And, honestly, I do not agree with you that encyclopedic coverage of a topic means a high-level summary or overview; in fact that's the complete opposite of what "encyclopedic" means to me. Besides that, in the interest of avoiding original research and synthesis I prefer to present discrete verifiable facts rather than attempting to summarize or paraphrase, when it's at all workable.)

I continue to be amazed that anyone would regard an organization with this much coverage, involving a hundred Google News hits showing basically all the statewide news sources in Tennessee regularly consulting them on tax issues over nearly a decade and in one case actually naming them a "leading anti-tax group", to be of questionable notability. I'm also amazed that anyone would take seriously editors like the ones in that AfD who, in claiming to have looked into the notability of the topic, would state that there are no credible sources acknowledging its importance.

I am politically on the left myself but this really confirms for me the systemic liberal bias of Wikipedia that JW himself acknowledges, though it does not seem "slight" to me as he describes it there. (But perhaps things have shifted further since that comment was made in 2007, I'd only been around for a year or so at the time.) In any case, thanks for taking a look. --▸∮truthious ᛔandersnatch◂ 05:51, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's a matter of inclusionism but rather of what material is relevant for the reader. Of course, this is all relative to the definition of "encyclopedic"—our own article on encyclopedias defines it as "a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge". Certainly, there's some discretion to be used when judging the level of detailed information needed to be considered excessive (e.g., we shouldn't try to include every tidbit gleaned from primary and secondary sources, as noted in WP:TERTIARY). I tend to share sympathize with your preference of presenting discrete verifiable facts, etc., and it usually doesn't matter unless readability is severely impacted, but I recommend against it in this case because of the AfD and potential controversy over recreating this article. From my own observations, I have found that many Wikipedians like to pursue article-fluffing "techniques" or characteristics like refbombing or including a long list of facts, and they could quickly jump on this article and say that the group is still not notable because many of the sources cited only offer passing mentions of the group's activities, regardless of the number of sources. (Although not a perfect comparison, the Campaign for "santorum" neologism debacle has some similarities to this situation.) I don't know whether TTR is notable or not, as I haven't read through all the sources. I do know, however, that many people say it's not notable. And because you want to recreate the article, I'm simply stating that the burden of proof is on you—clearly, defending the article during the AfD did not work out so well—so you'll need to make a bulletproof case for the subject's notability. And by leaving in things like refbombing and whatnot, you're making it easier for the opposition in a DR or future AfD even if they are wrong or blind or whatever. That was the point of my earlier advice. (For the record, I think that because the draft is substantially different than the deleted version, it should get another chance in mainspace.)

In any case, I don't think these types of debates have much to do with liberal vs. conservative. I mean, Santorum wasn't a liberal and consensus was still to pare down the neologism article.

/ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:21, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I would actually say that the AfD discussion went pretty well - nearly half of the editors commenting explicitly !voted to keep or merge, those being most of the ones who actually stayed to participate in the discussion, and of those popping in to !vote delete they made statements so obviously fallacious or flawed that they couldn't remain to defend what they'd said and even the one editor in favor of deletion who was actually willing and able to respond substantially to anyone else, the nominator, couldn't or didn't defend the others' claims and actually agreed with me on a couple points criticizing them. The problem is that the closing admin somehow arrived at the conclusion that this all meant there was a consensus for deletion supported by "thorough analysis of available sources" by "editors involved in the discussion" - not even finding a near 50/50 split or at least greater than ⅓ in favor of keeping material on the topic as "no consensus", much less appearing to seriously evaluate the validity of the arguments presented.

I guess I just disagree that the continued existence of an entire separate article about a single negative Santorum-related news story next to things like this entire TTR article being deleted show a pattern of absence of political bias... rather the opposite, IMO.

With the editors in the AfD already willing to ignore so much evidence in pursuit of deleting the article I don't think it really matters how much work anyone puts into it; if someone wants to delete it they'll just ignore it all again. At least if that happens again, this time I've done the due diligence to assess notability by going through the available sources that the other AfD commenters couldn't be arsed to do and I'm familiar enough with them now to point out things like the entire newspaper articles devoted just to interviewing the TTR's spokesman.

So, I'm planning to move this article back into the main namespace. Since you say "it should get another chance in mainspace", can I cite you on that? I really think that's all an Incubator Assessment is supposed to evaluate, not certify that there's a bulletproof case for the subject's notability, if you look at some of the other articles that have been moved from incubators back into mainspace. (Though actually I think that anyone fully reading through the article as it is now and reading the source material for it, if being sincere, would regard notability of this topic as bulletproof, and it took some severe dereliction of due diligence to find otherwise in the first place.) Honestly, I'm just trying to follow the rules about handling incubator articles so that simple procedural objections to my work on it can't be validly made. --▸∮truthious ᛔandersnatch◂ 02:17, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Ignorant comments decide a lot of AfDs, which is why I think your case for the article needs to be very strong. I would have taken the AfD to DR, but it's a little late for that now (and fairly useless, as you've got a completely different version already written). But anyway, you're free to cite me on anything I said here, and I'll explicitly say that the draft you have now can be moved into mainspace when you're done with it, regardless of my opinion on how the content is laid out. I really must admit that I have no idea how the incubator stuff works right now as I don't think it was ever a massively successful idea. But as the article is clearly not eligible for speedy deletion, I would say you're safe, incubator procedures or not. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 20:41, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Image OTRS has now been received for deleted image

I have now reinstated a deleted image on an article after receiving correct permission on file. Just letting you know to make sure all is ok. File: Red_lips_wall_decal_example.jpg. CreativelySpecialised (talk) 06:07, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Seems good. I apologize for not checking back after I left that message on your talk page, and for the inconvenience our system has caused. We take copyright very seriously and try to ensure that all the permission messages we receive are clear and correct so as not to unintentionally infringe on authors' rights. Regards, /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 16:00, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

MOTD

Hi there, Fetchcomms! Thought you might be interested in Motto of the Day, a collaborative (and totally voluntary) effort by a group of Wikipedians to create original, inspirational mottoes. Have a good motto idea? Share it here, comment on some of the mottoes there or just pass this message onto your friends.

MOTD Needs Your Help Desperately!

Delivered By Ankit Maity^Talk_Contribs 17:03, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Please note this has been given to random users. (A special note to you:I love your edit notice)

I think the MOTD is a waste of time. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 18:32, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Type message title here

I have been a victim of an illegal insurance comp as NY that keeps alienating And oppressing my life. They are contacting my friends and are excluding me from living my life. What help is there for people victims of a conspiracy and torture. This is h as opening psychologically and mentally. Please do save my life. There are many people involved.

216.198.139.84 (talk) 20:06, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Excuse me, but how is this related to Wikipedia? If you're a victim of corporate abuse, it might be best to contact your local law enforcement agency. ~ Matthewrbowker ^{Talk to me}

It's almost poetic ... /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 18:34, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

File:The Alchemyst- The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel alternative cover.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:The Alchemyst- The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel alternative cover.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 16:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 June newsletter

Apologies for the lateness of this letter; our usual bot wasn't working. We are now entering round 4, our semi-finals, and have our final 16. A score of 243 was required to reach this round; significantly more than 2011's 76 points, and only a little behind 2010's 250 points. By comparison, last year, 150 points in round 4 secured a place in the final; in 2010, 430 were needed. Commiserations to Pool A's igordebraga (submissions), who scored 242 points, missing out on a place in the round by a whisker. However, congratulations to Pool B's Grapple X (submissions), whose television articles have brought him another round victory. Pool A's Cwmhiraeth (submissions) came second overall, with an impressive list of biological did you knows, good articles and featured articles. Third overall was Pool D's Muboshgu (submissions), with a long list of contibutions, mostly relating to baseball. Of course, with the points resetting every round, the playing field has been levelled. The most successful Pool was Pool D, which saw seven into the final round. Pool B saw four, C saw three and Pool A saw only the two round leaders.

A quick note about other competitions taking place on Wikipedia which may be of interest. There are 13 days remaining in the June-July GAN backlog elimination drive, but it is not too late to take part. August will also see the return of The Core Contest- a one month long competition first run in 2007. While the WikiCup awards points for audited content on any subject, The Core Contest about is raw article improvement, focussing heavily on the most important articles on Wikipedia. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 10:53, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Fetchcomms. You have new messages at Thine Antique Pen's talk page.
Message added 17:59, 5 July 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Found an efficient way to link the nominations through topicons. Thanks! ⇒TAP 17:59, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Fetchcomms. You have new messages at [[User talk:User: Penguin 236|User talk:User: Penguin 236]].
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Credo Reference Update & Survey (your opinion requested)

Credo Reference, who generously donated 400 free Credo 250 research accounts to Wikipedia editors over the past two years, has offered to expand the program to include 100 additional reference resources. Credo wants Wikipedia editors to select which resources they want most. So, we put together a quick survey to do that:

• Link to Survey (should take between 5-10 minutes): http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N8FQ6MM

It also asks some basic questions about what you like about the Credo program and what you might want to improve.

At this time only the initial 400 editors have accounts, but even if you do not have an account, you still might want to weigh in on which resources would be most valuable for the community (for example, through WikiProject Resource Exchange).

Also, if you have an account but no longer want to use it, please leave me a note so another editor can take your spot.

If you have any other questions or comments, drop by my talk page or email me at wikiocaasi@yahoo.com. Cheers! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 17:16, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 July newsletter

We're approaching the beginning of 2012's final round. Pool A sees Cwmhiraeth (submissions) as the leader, with 300 points being awarded for the featured article Bivalvia, and Pool B sees Grapple X (submissions) in the lead, with 10 good articles, and over 35 articles eligible for good topic points. Pool A sees Muboshgu (submissions) in second place with a number of articles relating to baseball, while Pool B's Ruby2010 (submissions) follows Grapple X, with a variety of contributions including the high-scoring, high-importance featured article on the 2010 film Pride & Prejudice. Ruby2010, like Grapple X, also claimed a number of good topic points; despite this, not a single point has been claimed for featured topics in the contest so far. The same is true for featured portals.

Currently, the eighth-place competitor (and so the lowest scorer who would reach the final round right now) has scored 332, more than double the 150 needed to reach the final round last year. In 2010, however, 430 was the lowest qualifying score. In this competition, we have generally seen scores closer to those in 2010 than those in 2011. Let's see what kind of benchmark we can set for future competitions! As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 22:22, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

AFC Backlog

Articles for Creation urgently needs YOUR help! Articles for Creation is desperately short of reviewers! We are looking for urgent help, from experienced editors, in reviewing submissions in the pending submissions queue. Currently there are 1276 submissions waiting to be reviewed and many help requests at our Help Desk. Do you have what it takes? Are you familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines? Do you know what Wikipedia is and is not? Do you have a working knowledge of the Manual of Style, particularly article naming conventions? Are you autoconfirmed? Can you review submissions based on their individual merits? If the answer to these questions is yes, then please read the reviewing instructions and donate a little of your time to helping tackle the backlog. You might wish to add {{AFC status}} or {{AfC Defcon}} to your userpage, which will alert you to the number of open submissions. PS: we have a great AFC helper script at User:Timotheus Canens/afchelper4.js which helps in reviewing in just few edits easily! We would greatly appreciate your help. Currently, only a small handful of users are reviewing articles. Any help, even if it's just 2 or 3 reviews, it would be extremely beneficial. On behalf of the Articles for Creation project, TheSpecialUser TSU

Geo Swan issue at ANI

Another discussion has sprung up at WP:ANI to Topic ban Geo Swan about a year after this RfC that you participated in where you are recommended as a mentor to Geo Swan. You should probably comment at ANI and explain whether the recommended actions for the past RfC were followed and where you stand on the topic since. --Joshuaism (talk) 13:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

your assistance please

I suggested, several times, that articles on Guantanamo captives that do not measure up to today's more stringent standards, should be redirected to the articles on the article on captives of that nationality.

I have said, several times, most recently here, that I would go through those individuals, look to see if there were sufficient high quality references to bring those articles up to the wikipedia's current standard, try to fix drafts of them, outside of article space, but only restore them to article space if senior trusted contributors agreed they measured up to our current standards.

Would you agree to be one of those trusted senior contributors?

If my very persistent challengers can lay off, I think I might call on that team once or twice a week.

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 15:58, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 August newsletter

The final is upon us! We are down to our final 8. A massive 573 was our lowest qualifying score; this is higher than the 150 points needed last year and the 430 needed in 2010. Even in 2009, when points were acquired for mainspace edit count in addition to audited content, 417 points secured a place. That leaves this year's WikiCup, by one measure at least, our most competitive ever. Our finalists, ordered by round 4 score, are:

1. Grapple X (submissions) once again finishes the round in first place, leading Pool B. Grapple X writes articles about television, and especially The X-Files and Millenium, with good articles making up the bulk of the score.
2. Miyagawa (submissions) led Pool A this round. Fourth-place finalist last year, Miyagawa writes on a variety of topics, and has reached the final primarily off the back of his massive number of did you knows.
3. Ruby2010 (submissions) was second in Pool B. Ruby2010 writes primarily on television and film, and scores primarily from good articles.
4. Casliber (submissions) finished third in Pool B. Casliber is something of a WikiCup veteran, having finished sixth in 2011 and fourth in 2010. Casliber writes on the natural sciences, including ornithology, botany and astronomy. Over half of Casliber's points this round were bonus points from the high-importance articles he has worked on.
5. Cwmhiraeth (submissions) came second in Pool A. Also writing on biology, especially marine biology, Cwmhiraeth received 390 points for one featured article (Bivalvia) and one good article (pelican), topping up with a large number of did you knows.
6. Muboshgu (submissions) was third in Pool A. Muboshgu writes primarily on baseball, and this round saw Muboshgu's first featured article, Derek Jeter, promoted on its fourth attempt at FAC.
7. Dana Boomer (submissions) was fourth in Pool A. She writes on a variety of topics, including horses, but this round also saw the high-importance lettuce reach featured article status.
8. Sasata (submissions) is another WikiCup veteran, having been a finalist in 2009 and 2010. He writes mostly on mycology.

However, we must also say goodbye to the eight who did not make the final, having fallen at the last hurdle: GreatOrangePumpkin (submissions), Ealdgyth (submissions), Calvin999 (submissions), Piotrus (submissions), Toa Nidhiki05 (submissions), 12george1 (submissions), The Bushranger (submissions) and 1111tomica (submissions). We hope to see you all next year.

On the subject of next year, a discussion has been opened here. Come and have your say about the competition, and how you'd like it to run in the future. This brainstorming will go on for some time before more focused discussions/polls are opened. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 00:13, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

You're invited to Wikipedia Takes St. Louis!

Dust off your Polaroid camera and pack your best lenses. The first-ever Wikipedia Takes St. Louis photo hunt kicks off Sat, Sept. 15, at 12:30 in downtown St. Louis. Tour the streets of the Rome of the West with other Wikipedians and even learn a little St. Louis history. This event is a fun and collaborative way to enhance St. Louis articles with visual content. Novice photographers welcome! Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 21:56, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

Steven Zhang's Fellowship Slideshow

In this issue:

• Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
• Research: The most recent DR data
• Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
• Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
• DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
• Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
• Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->

--The Olive Branch 19:02, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Request for Administrative Review

Fetchcomms, you were the closing administrator on an RfD dated 31 Oct 2010 as listed here involving Global Defense Initiative which was voted by consensus to keep with a weak consensus to merge the article into a related Command and Conquer article. It came to my attention through a recent search for the article that modified and turned into a redirect page to List_of_Command_&_Conquer_factions#Global_Defense_Initiative.

I am requesting that you look into if the article can be reverted, as the primary reason for the article being RfD'd was because it did not meet WP:V and WP:N. I respectfully wish to challenge the decision, however WP:REVDEL instructions indicate that I must bring the issue before the closing administrator, which is you.

I understand that this is a rather old issue, and if the article was able to withstand an RfD with a consensus to keep and that it met WP:V and WP:N based on the fact that fictional organizations and factions have limited means of verifiability, and the fact that the series is being re-released, which will garner public interest, alongside a new MMO browser game that has over 1 million users and it's own wikipedia (to which I am an extensive contributor) all of which prominently feature the faction should be enough to meet the guidelines of WP:N, and to a lesser extent WP:V.

I'd like to revert the redirect back into an article and i'd like the opportunity to re-write and re-work the article to bring it to wikipedia standards. If I need to take this to RevDel, I have no problem with that, I'm just following instructions, primarily seeing as I haven't dealt with RevDel ever before.

I'd also humbly request that you reply on my talk page.

Sincere Regards, LTC b2412 Troops Talk RFC Inbox 12:10, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

hi there

Hey Fletcher! Just wanted to say hi, that you're awesome, and that I hope you're doing well. If you're diving back into Wikipedia any time soon and want to do the Online Ambassador thing with any classes, let me know (or just do it).--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:12, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Articles for Creation urgently needs your help!

Articles for Creation is desperately short of reviewers! We are looking for urgent help, from experienced editors, in reviewing submissions in the pending submissions queue. Currently there are 1276 submissions waiting to be reviewed and many help requests at our Help Desk. Do you have what it takes? Are you familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines? Do you know what Wikipedia is and is not? Do you have a working knowledge of the Manual of Style, particularly article naming conventions? Can you review submissions based on their individual merits? If the answer to these questions is yes, then please read the reviewing instructions and donate a little of your time to helping tackle the backlog. You might wish to add {{AFC status}} or {{AfC Defcon}} to your userpage, which will alert you to the number of open submissions. PS: we have a great AFC helper script at WP:AFCH! News Good article nominee 04 Aug 2012 – Parental brain (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Carina1205 (t · c); see discussion AFCH script improvements 1.16 to 1.17 Batman still works!

Sent on behalf of WikiProject Articles for creation. If you do not wish to receive anymore messages from this WikiProject, please remove your username from this page.
Happy reviewing! TheSpecialUser ^TSU

• Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 08:59, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 September newsletter

We're over half way through the final, and so it is less than a month until we know for certain our 2012 WikiCup champion. Grapple X (submissions) currently leads, followed by Sasata (submissions), Cwmhiraeth (submissions) and Casliber (submissions). However, we have no one resembling a breakaway leader, and so the competition is a long way from over. Next month's newsletter will feature a list of our winners (who are not necessarily only the finalists) and keep your eyes open for an article on the WikiCup in a future edition of The Signpost. The leaders are already on a par with last year's winners, but a long way from the huge scores seen in 2010. That said, a repeat of the competition from 2010 seems unlikely.

It is good to see that three-quarters of our finalists have already scored bonus points this round. This shows that, contrary to criticism that the WikiCup has received in the past, the competition does not merely incentivise the writing of trivial articles; instead, our top competitors are still spending their time contributing to high-importance articles, and bringing them to a high standard. This does a great service to the encyclopedia and its readers. Thank you, and good work!

The planning for next year's WikiCup is ongoing. Some straw polls have been opened concerning the scoring, and you can now sign up for next year's competition. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) J Milburn (talk) 19:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

An idea to improve the ArbCom body

A very good start would involve your candidacy for the upcoming election. I can understand why you might not wish to run, but I can also hope that you will. 76Strat ^String da _Broke da (talk) 06:32, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject:Articles for Creation October - November 2012 Backlog Elimination Drive

WikiProject Articles for creation Backlog Elimination Drive

WikiProject AFC is holding a one month long Backlog Elimination Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running from October 22, 2012 – November 21, 2012.

Awards will be given out for all reviewers participating in the drive in the form of barnstars at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 1000 articles, so start reviewing articles! Visit the drive's page and help out!

EdwardsBot (talk) 00:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 October newsletter

The 2012 WikiCup has come to a close; congratulations to Cwmhiraeth (submissions), our 2012 champion! Cwmhiraeth joins our exclusive club of previous winners: Dreamafter (2007), jj137 (2008), Durova (2009), Sturmvogel 66 (2010) and Hurricanehink (2011). Our final standings were as follows:

1. Cwmhiraeth (submissions)
2. Sasata (submissions)
3. Grapple X (submissions)
4. Casliber (submissions)
5. Muboshgu (submissions)
6. Miyagawa (submissions)
7. Ruby2010 (submissions)
8. Dana Boomer (submissions)

Prizes for first, second, third and fourth will be awarded, as will prizes for all those who reached the final eight. Every participant who scored in the competition will receive a ribbon of participation. In addition to the prizes based on placement, the following special prizes will be awarded based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, the prize is awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round.

• The featured article award goes to Grapple X (submissions), for four featured articles in the final round.
• The good article award also goes to Grapple X (submissions), for 19 good articles in the second round.
• The list award goes to Muboshgu (submissions), for three featured lists in the final round.
• The topic award goes to Grapple X (submissions), for three good topics (with around 40 articles) in round 4.
• The did you know award goes to Cwmhiraeth (submissions), for well over 100 DYKs in the final round.
• The news award goes to ThaddeusB (submissions), for 10 in the news items in round 3.
• The picture award goes to Grandiose (submissions), for two featured pictures in round 2.
• The reviewer award goes to both Ruby2010 (submissions) (14 reviews in round 1) and Grandiose (submissions) (14 reviews in round 3).
• Finally, for achieving an incredible bonus point total in the final round, and for bringing the top-importance article frog to featured status, a biostar has been awarded to Cwmhiraeth (submissions).

Awards will be handed out in the coming days; please bear with us! This year's competition also saw fantastic contributions in all rounds, from newer Wikipedians contributing their first good or featured articles, right up to highly experienced Wikipedians chasing high scores and contributing to topics outside of their usual comfort zones. It would be impossible to name all of the participants who have achieved things to be proud of, but well done to all of you, and thanks! Wikipedia has certainly benefited from the work of this year's WikiCup participants.

Next year's WikiCup will begin in January. Currently, discussions and polls are open, and all contributions are welcome. You can also sign up for next year's competition. There will be no further newsletters this year, although brief notes may be sent out in December to remind everyone about the upcoming competition. It's been a pleasure to work with you all, and we hope to see you all in January! J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 00:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Articles for creation needs YOUR help!

Articles for creation is desperately short of reviewers! We are looking for urgent help, from experienced editors, in reviewing submissions in the pending submissions queue. Currently there are 1276 submissions waiting to be reviewed and many help requests at our help desk. Do you have what it takes? Are you familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines? Do you know what Wikipedia is and is not? Do you have a working knowledge of the Manual of Style, particularly article naming conventions? Can you review submissions based on their individual merits? If the answer to these questions is yes, then please read the reviewing instructions and donate a little of your time to helping tackle the backlog. You might wish to add {{AFC status}} or {{AfC Defcon}} to your userpage, which will alert you to the number of open submissions. Plus, reviewing is easy when you use our new semi-automated reviewing script! Thanks in advance, Nathan2055talk - contribs

Sent on behalf of WikiProject Articles for creation at 22:34, 29 November 2012 (UTC). If you do not wish to receive anymore messages from this WikiProject, please remove your username from this page.

Wikipedia Loves Libraries Seattle

Decemmber 8 - Wikipedia Loves Libraries Seattle - You're invited

Seattle Public Library

Date Saturday, December 8, 2012 Time 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Location Seattle Public Library Meeting Room 1 on Level 4, Central Library, 1000 4th Avenue, Seattle WA, 98104 Event An editathon on Seattle-related Wikipedia articles with Wikipedia tutorials and Librarian assistance on hand. Hashtag #wikiloveslib or #glamwiki. Registration http://wll-seattle.eventbrite.com or use on-wiki regsistration. Yours, Maximilianklein (talk) 04:08, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Diiie

Hey Fetch, I've started working on expanding Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Die [3]. You probably know that I've been working on Angelou articles for the past several years, so I thought that I'd tackle this article now, mostly for selfish reasons: it's my goal to create an Angelou FT [4] so that I can have a chance in the 2013 Wikicup, which I've entered. I wanted to ask you, as the main editor of this article up to now, if it would be all right if I changed the citation format. You use Harvard ref, which to be honest, I hate. I find it difficult to manage, confusing, and annoying. Continuing with my honesty, I've come to hate inline references as well. (Here's an example of what's becoming my preference: On the Pulse of Morning.) If you're committed to retaining your format, I can adapt, but I'm old, so I'd rather not. Or we can go in the middle and change to inline refs, as in the first tables in WP:CT. Let me know what you'd like, and we can talk. Thanks. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:39, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed that you haven't edited since August! Whoa! I'm gonna go ahead and make the changes as suggested above; if you come back and disagree with me, let me know at that time. Before that, if you're still lurking, best to you and happy holidays. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:30, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Wow, this is a little Christmas gift. If you're taking an interest in improving the article, go ahead and change the citation format to what makes it easier on you, and thanks so much for leaving a note here. I'm just super happy that the article is going to be more than what I left it as, because I exhausted all the resources I had access to and felt a little sad that I couldn't flesh it out more. I had a dream once of an FT for Angelou's poetry volumes, but that never happened because real life got busy. Maybe I'll find time someday; my to-do list is mighty long but I'm always hopeful. So glad you want to make this article better, because it was stagnant for a couple of years and I began to wonder if that would ever change. Regards, /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 05:30, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, you're welcome, and thank you for the cupcake on my talk page. I'm glad that you're open to me murking about in one of the articles you've managed up to now. My goal for the Angelou FT mentioned above is a bit more ambitious, but more realistic, I think. I don't think that there are enough sources out there for Angelou's poetry to warrant FAs about them. I think that the best to hope for is one about her in general. All of the articles about her 6 autobiographies are at least GAs and 2 are FAs. It's my New Year's resolution to create a MA FT in 2013, or at least get closer to it. The barrier to accomplishing it is the breadth of articles that need to be created and brought to at least GA, since my understanding of the FT rules is that it has to be comprehensive, and you can't pick and choose what to include. This next week, it's my intention to ask one of the FT monitors what to do, and if there's even the potential for an MA FT. I'm sure that I'll ask for help from you if you're available. I get being busy; that's one of the reason it's taken me so long to get this far. Thanks and Happy New Year. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:15, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd be happy to help with an article if needed. I check this page occasionally, more so than I do my WP email nowadays, so leave a message here. I hope you have a good new year, too. Good luck in the WikiCup! /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:44, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Articles for creation newsletter

Delivered 01:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC) by EdwardsBot. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, please remove your name from the spamlist.

Holiday cheer

		Holiday Cheer
		Michael Q. Schmidt my talk page is wishing you Season's Greetings! This message celebrates the holiday season, promotes WikiLove, and hopefully makes your day a little better. Spread the seasonal good cheer by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Share the good feelings.

Happy Holidays

Hi Fetchcomms - warm wishes for a wonderful season and a happy new year!

Mono 04:43, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 starting soon

Hi there; you're receiving this message because you have previously shown interest in the WikiCup. This is just to remind you that the 2013 WikiCup will be starting on 1 January, and that signups will remain open throughout January. Old and new Wikipedians and WikiCup participants are warmly invited to take part in this year's competition. (Though, as a note to the more experienced participants, there have been a few small rules changes in the last few months.) If you have already signed up, let this be a reminder; you will receive a message with your submissions' page soon. Please direct any questions to the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! J Milburn 19:49, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassadors update

Hi! You're getting this message because you are or have been a Wikipedia Ambassador. A new term is beginning for the United States and Canada Education Programs, and I wanted to give you an update on some important new information if you're interested in continuing your work this term as a Wikipedia Ambassador.

You may have heard a reference to a transition the education program is going through. This is the last term that the Wikimedia Foundation will directly run the U.S. and Canada programs; beginning in June, a proposed thematic organization is likely to take over organizing the program. You can read more about the proposal here.

Another major change in the program will take effect immediately. Beginning this term, a new MediaWiki education extension will replace all course pages and Ambassador lists. (See Wikipedia:Course pages and Help:Education Program extension for more details.) Included in the extension are online volunteer and campus volunteer user rights, which let you create and edit course pages and sign up as an ambassador for a particular course.

If you would like to continue serving as a Wikipedia Ambassador — even if you do not support a class this term — you must create an ambassador profile. If you're no longer interested in being a Wikipedia Ambassador, you don't need to do anything.

Please do these steps as soon as possible

First, you need the relevant user rights for Online and/or Campus Ambassadors. (If you are an admin, you can grant the rights yourself, for you as well as other ambassadors.) Just post your rights request here, and we'll get you set up as quickly as possible.

Once you've got the ambassador rights, please set up at a Campus and/or Online Ambassador profile. You can do so at:

• Special:CampusAmbassadorProfile
• Special:OnlineAmbassadorProfile

Going forward, the lists of Ambassadors at Special:CampusAmbassadors and Special:OnlineAmbassadors will be the official roster of who is an active Ambassador. If you would like to be an Ambassador but not ready to serve this term, you can un-check the option in your profile to publicly list it (which will remove your profile from the list).

After that, you can sign on to support courses. The list of courses will be at Special:Courses. (By default, this lists "Current" courses, but you can change the Status filter to "Planned" to see courses for this term that haven't reached their listed start date yet.)

As this is the first term we have used the extension, we know there will be some bugs, and we know the feature set is not as rich as it could be. (A big wave of improvements is already in the pipeline. And if you know MediaWiki and could help with code review, we'd love to have your help!) Please reach out to me (Sage Ross) with any complaints, bug reports, and feature suggestions. The basic features of the extension are documented at Wikipedia:Course pages, and you can see a tutorial for setting up and using them here.

Communication and keeping up to date

In the past, the Education Program has had a pretty fragmented set of communication channels. We're trying to fix that. These are the recommended places to discuss and stay up-to-date on the education program:

1. The education noticeboard has become the main on-wiki location for discussion of the Education Program. You can post there about broad education program issues as well as issues with individual courses.
2. The Ambassadors Announce email list is a very low-traffic announcements list of important information all Ambassadors need to be aware of. We encourage all Ambassadors (and other interested Wikipedians) to subscribe to the list; follow the instructions on the link to add your email address.
3. If you use IRC regularly, or need to try to reach someone immediately, the #wikipedia-en-ambassadors ^connect IRC channel is the place to find me and fellow Ambassadors.

Ambassador training and resources

We now have an online training for Ambassadors, which is intended to be both an orientation about the Wikipedia Ambassador role for newcomers and the manual for how to do the role. (There are parallel trainings for students and for educators as well.)

Please go through the training if you feel like you need a refresher on how a typical class is supposed to go and where the Ambassadors fit in, or if you want to review and help improve it. If there's something you'd like to see added, or other suggestions you have for it, feel free to edit the training and/or leave feedback. A primer on setting up and using course pages is included in the educators' training.

The Resources page of the training is the main place for Ambassador-related resources. If there's something you think is important as a resource that's not on there, please add it.

Finally, whether or not you work with any classes this term, I encourage you to post entries to the Trophy Case whenever you see excellent work from students or if you have great examples from past semesters. And, as always, let students (and other editors!) know when they do things well; a little WikiLove goes a long way!

--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

RevDel request

This revision of this page has what could easily be someone's mobile phone number on it - I'm not sure it is, but it wouldn't hurt to hide it anyway. demize (t · c) 13:26, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:Bot Colony cover.jpg)

Thanks for uploading File:Bot Colony cover.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

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WikiCup 2013 January newsletter

Signups are now closed; we have our final 127 contestants for this year's competition. 64 contestants will make it to the next round at the end of February, but we're already seeing strong scoring compared to previous years. Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) currently leads, with 358 points. At this stage in 2012, the leader ( Grapple X (submissions)) had 342 points, while in 2011, the leader had 228 points. We also have a large number of scorers when compared with this stage in previous years. 12george1 (submissions) was the first competitor to score this year, as he was last year, with a detailed good article review. Some other firsts:

• 12george1 (submissions) was also the first to score for an article, with the good article Hurricane Gordon (2000). Again, this is a repeat of last year!
• Buggie111 (submissions) was the first to score for a did you know, with Marquis Flowers.
• Spencer (submissions) was the first to score for an in the news, with 2013 Houphouët-Boigny stampede.
• Status (submissions) was the first to score for a featured list, with list of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists.
• Adam Cuerden (submissions) was the first to score for a featured picture, with File:Thure de Thulstrup - L. Prang and Co. - Battle of Gettysburg - Restoration by Adam Cuerden.jpg.

Featured articles, portals and topics, as well as good topics, are yet to feature in the competition.

This year, the bonus points system has been reworked, with bonus points on offer for old articles prepared for did you know, and "multiplier" points reworked to become more linear. For details, please see Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring. There have been some teething problems as the bot has worked its way around the new system, but issues should mostly be ironed out- please report any problems to the WikiCup talk page. Here are some participants worthy of note with regards to the bonus points:

• Ed! (submissions) was the first to score bonus points, with Portland-class cruiser, a good article.
• Hawkeye7 (submissions) has the highest overall bonus points, as well as the highest scoring article, thanks to his work on Enrico Fermi, now a good article. The biography of such a significant figure to the history of science warrants nearly five times the normal score.
• HueSatLum (submissions) claimed bonus points for René Vautier and Nicolas de Fer, articles that did not exist on the English Wikipedia at the start of the year; a first for the WikiCup. The articles were eligible for bonus points because of fact they were both covered on a number of other Wikipedias.

Also, a quick mention of The C of E (submissions), who may well have already written the oddest article of the WikiCup this year: did you know that the Fucking mayor objected to Fucking Hell on the grounds that there was no Fucking brewery? The gauntlet has been thrown down; can anyone beat it?

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 01:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

TParis

G'day Fetchcomms. TParis has you listed as an editor from whom he will accept a nudge that he might not be acting as an admin in the right way. I have been involved with him in a conflict for the past couple of weeks that he is prosecuting way too personally. The latest incident is particularly disappointing as it was essentially an attempt by him to restart the conflict after it had fallen into a lull (diff), and an attempt by two other editors on either side of the divide to approach a resolution (see Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Epeefleche#Discussion_redirect until TParis' attempt to close down the discussion, which was shortly followed by the diff above).

At the moment, I'd like to ask that you talk with TParis about the above diff, which was a clear attempt to restart the drama machine and probably WP:BAITING, and ask for him to back off. If he does not, then I'll leave it to your consideration as to whether this is now grounds for recall, but, personally, I have a high expectations of behaviour for admins, and, on top of everything else, WP:BAITING is a clear breach of that.

In terms of TParis' criteria:

1. I have previously discussed the issue with him at his talkpage at User_talk:TParis/Archive_9#Follow-up and User_talk:TParis/Archive_9#Your_actions.2Fcomments_at_RFC.2FU.
2. The issues at hand have been extensively discussed at ANI, where TParis proposed a onesided interaction ban, which I view essentially as an attempt to silence me.
3. There has been time to cool down since the issue started, but TParis can not let go.
4. In terms of actions as an administrator, TParis closed my initial complaint against ANI with poor wording, that has been discussed at User_talk:TParis/Archive_9#Follow-up, where I repeatedly reject what I read as a suggestion that I follow Epeefleche around and fix his problems. I have since had to keep repeatedly saying that I'm not interesting in doing that at, for example, Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Epeefleche#TParis.27_concerns_regarding_.22wikistalking.22. The Wikipedia:ANI#Formal_interaction_ban_proposal made by TParis at ANI was also made from an administrative perspective.
5. The key policy issue here is WP:CIVIL.

As I said, I'm leaving any decisions about whether TParis' behaviour is not what is expected of an admin in your hands. However, I would ask that you suggest that he consider stopping.

I am also posting this message to the other admins on TParis' recall list. Also, I am scaling back my involvement with wikipedia, so I might not see replies very quickly. If you have something you want me to respond to, I'd like to ask that you e-mail me at "daniel.judd@gmail.com". Cheers. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 14:46, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

"Write essays about radical rethinkings of Wikipedia's fundamentals"

Cough, cough, cough. ResMar 01:05, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Missed

Less lurk,
more wiki.

:-)

You're missed at wikimediafoundation.org and elsewhere. I can only hope you find time and inclination to edit again soon. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:08, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Your email account has been compromised

Your email account is sending out spam links to advertisements for raspberry flavored weight loss substances. Since this is the only way I know of to contact you that isn't your email address, and since it's being sent to other Wikipedians, I figured I'd let you know here. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:53, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikiproject Articles for creation Needs You!

WikiProject Articles for creation Backlog Elimination Drive

WikiProject AFC is holding a one month long Backlog Elimination Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running from March 1st, 2013 – March 31st, 2013.

Awards will be given out for all reviewers participating in the drive in the form of barnstars at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 2000 articles, so start reviewing articles! Visit the drive's page and help out!

Delivered by User:EdwardsBot on behalf of Wikiproject Articles for Creation at 14:07, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 February newsletter

Round 1 is now over. The top 64 scorers have progressed to round 2, where they have been randomly split into eight pools of eight. At the end of April, the top two from each pool, as well as the 16 highest scorers from those remaining, will progress to round 3. Commiserations to those eliminated; if you're interested in still being involved in the WikiCup, able and willing reviewers will always be needed, and if you're interested in getting involved with other collaborative projects, take a look at the WikiWomen's Month discussed below.

Round 1 saw 21 competitors with over 100 points, which is fantastic; that suggests that this year's competition is going to be highly competative. Our lower scores indicate this, too: A score of 19 was required to reach round 2, which was significantly higher than the 11 points required in 2012 and 8 points required in 2011. The score needed to reach round 3 will be higher, and may depend on pool groupings. In 2011, 41 points secured a round 3 place, while in 2012, 65 was needed. Our top three scorers in round 1 were:

1. Sturmvogel_66 (submissions), primarily for an array of warship GAs.
2. Miyagawa (submissions), primarily for an array of did you knows and good articles, some of which were awarded bonus points.
3. Casliber (submissions), due in no small part to Canis Minor, a featured article awarded a total of 340 points. A joint submission with Keilana (submissions), this is the highest scoring single article yet submitted in this year's competition.

Other contributors of note include:

• Sven Manguard (submissions), whose Portal:Massachusetts is the first featured portal this year. The featured portal process is one of the less well-known featured processes, and featured portals have traditionally had little impact on WikiCup scores.
• Sasata (submissions), whose Mycena aurantiomarginata was the first featured article this year.
• Muboshgu (submissions) and Wizardman (submissions), who both claimed points for articles in the Major League Baseball tie-breakers topic, the first topic points in the competition.
• Toa Nidhiki05 (submissions), who claimed for the first full good topic with the Casting Crowns studio albums topic.

Featured topics have still played no part in this year's competition, but once again, a curious contribution has been offered by The C of E (submissions): did you know that there is a Shit Brook in Shropshire? With April Fools' Day during the next round, there will probably be a good chance of more unusual articles...

March sees the WikiWomen's History Month, a series of collaborative efforts to aid the women's history WikiProject to coincide with Women's History Month and International Women's Day. A number of WikiCup participants have already started to take part. The project has a to-do list of articles needing work on the topic of women's history. Those interested in helping out with the project can find articles in need of attention there, or, alternatively, add articles to the list. Those interested in collaborating on articles on women's history are also welcome to use the WikiCup talk page to find others willing to lend a helping hand. Another collaboration currently running is an an effort from WikiCup participants to coordinate a number of Easter-themed did you know articles. Contributions are welcome!

A few final administrative issues. From now on, submission pages will need only a link to the article and a link to the nomination page, or, in the case of good article reviews, a link to the review only. See your submissions' page for details. This will hopefully make updating submission pages a little less tedious. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) J Milburn (talk) 11:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:Morrison & Foerster logo.gif)

Thanks for uploading File:Morrison & Foerster logo.gif. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Hazard-Bot (talk) 04:08, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 March newsletter

We are halfway through round two. Pool A sees the strongest competition, with five out of eight of its competitors scoring over 100, and Pool H is lagging, with half of its competitors yet to score. WikiCup veterans lead overall; Pool A's Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) (2010's winner) leads overall, with poolmate Miyagawa (submissions) (a finalist in 2011 and 2012) not far behind. Pool F's Casliber (submissions) (a finalist in 2010, 2011 and 2012) is in third. The top two scorers in each pool, as well as the next highest 16 scorers overall, will progress to round three at the end of April.

Today has seen a number of Easter-themed did you knows from WikiCup participants, and March has seen collaboration from contestants with WikiWomen's History Month. It's great to see the WikiCup being used as a locus of collaboration; if you know of any collaborative efforts going on, or want to start anything up, please feel free to use the WikiCup talk page to help find interested editors. As well as fostering collaboration, we're also seeing the Cup encouraging the improvement of high-importance articles through the bonus point system. Highlights from the last month include GAs on physicist Niels Bohr ( Hawkeye7 (submissions)), on the European hare ( Cwmhiraeth (submissions)), on the constellation Circinus ( Keilana (submissions) and Casliber (submissions)) and on the Third Epistle of John ( Cerebellum (submissions)). All of these subjects were covered on at least 50 Wikipedias at the beginning of the year and, subsequently, each contribution was awarded at least three times as many points as normal.

Wikipedians who enjoy friendly competition may be interested in participating in April's wikification drive. While wikifying an article is typically not considered "significant work" such that it can be claimed for WikiCup points, such gnomish work is often invaluable in keeping articles in shape, and is typically very helpful for new writers who may not be familiar with formatting norms.

A quick reminder: now, submission pages will need only a link to the article and a link to the nomination page, or, in the case of good article reviews, a link to the review only. See your submissions' page for details. This will hopefully make updating submission pages a little less tedious. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) J Milburn (talk) 23:03, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Administrator hopeful

Hi Fetchcomms! I thought that this was fairly amusing, so I thought I'd tell you about it. And then I saw that you haven't edited for two months, so I fixed it for you. Feel free to revert if that's not what you wanted. Perhaps we need a new category for you of "hopeful administrators", rather than "administrator hopefuls"? Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 18:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 April newsletter

We are a week into Round 3, but it is off to a flying start, with Sven Manguard (submissions) claiming for the high-importance Portal:Sports and Portal:Geography (which are the first portals ever awarded bonus points in the WikiCup) and Cwmhiraeth (submissions) claiming for a did you know of sea, the highest scoring individual did you know article ever submitted for the WikiCup. Round 2 saw very impressive scores at close; first place Casliber (submissions) and second place Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) both scored over 1000 points; a feat not seen in Round 2 since 2010. This, in part, has been made possible by the change in the bonus points rules, but is also testament to the quality of the competition this year. Pool C and Pool G were most competitive, with three quarters of participants making it to Round 3, while Pool D was the least, with only the top two scorers making it through. The lowest qualifying score was 123, significantly higher than last year's 65, 2011's 41 or even 2010's 100.

The next issue of The Signpost is due to include a brief update on the current WikiCup, comparing it to previous years' competitions. This may be of interest to current WikiCup followers, and may help bring some more new faces into the community. We would also like to note that this round includes an extra competitor to the 32 advertised, who has been added to a random pool. This extra inclusion seems to have been the fairest way to deal with a small mistake made before the beginning of this round, but should not affect the competition in a large way. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please feel free to contact one of the judges.

A rules clarification: content promoted between rounds can be claimed in the round after the break, but not the round before. The case in point is content promoted on 29/30 April, which may be claimed in this round. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 16:27, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

AN

I just praised your good works at AN. Be well! Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:48, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject AFC needs your help... again

WikiProject Articles for creation Backlog Elimination Drive

WikiProject AFC is holding a one month long Backlog Elimination Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running from July 1st, 2013 – July 31st, 2013.

Awards will be given out for all reviewers participating in the drive in the form of barnstars at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 1000 articles, so start reviewing articles! Visit the drive's page and help out!

A new version of our AfC helper script is released! It includes many bug fixes, new improvements and features, code cleanup, and more page cleanups. If you want to see a full list of changes, go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Helper script/Development page. Please report bugs and feature requests there, too! Thanks.

Delivered at 13:13, 19 June 2013 (UTC) by EdwardsBot (talk), on behalf of WikiProject AFC

WikiCup 2013 June newsletter

We are down to our final 16: the 2013 semi-finals are upon us. A score of 321 was required to survive round 3, further cementing this as the most competitive WikiCup yet; round 3 was survived in 2012 with 243 points, in 2011 with 76 points and in 2010 with 250 points. The change may in part be to do with the fact that more articles are now awarded bonus points, in addition to more competitive play. Reaching the final has, in the past, required 573 points (2012, a 135% increase on the score needed to reach round 4), 150 points (2011, a 97% increase) and 417 points (2010, a 72% increase). This round has seen over a third of participants claiming points for featured articles (with seven users claiming for multiple featured articles) and most users have also gained bonus points. However, the majority of points continue to come from good articles, followed by did you know articles. In this round, every content type was utilised by at least one user, proving that the WikiCup brings together content contributors from all corners of the project.

Round 3 saw a number of contributions of note. Figureskatingfan (submissions) claimed the first featured topic points in this year's competition for her excellent work on topics related to Maya Angelou, the noted American author and poet. We have also continued to see high-importance articles improved as part of the competition: Ealdgyth (submissions) was awarded a thoroughly well-earned 560 points for her featured article Middle Ages and 102 points for her good article Battle of Hastings. Good articles James Chadwick and Stanislaw Ulam netted Hawkeye7 (submissions) 102 and 72 points respectively, while 72 points were awarded to Piotrus (submissions) for each of Władysław Sikorski and Emilia Plater, both recently promoted to good article status. Collaborative efforts between WikiCup participants have continued, with, for example, Casliber (submissions) and Sasata (submissions) being awarded 180 points each for their featured article on Boletus luridus.

A rules reminder: content promoted between rounds can be claimed in the round after the break, but not the round before. The case in point is content promoted on the 29/30 June, which may be claimed in this round. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. We are currently seeing concern about the amount of time people have to wait for reviews, especially at GAC- if you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 10:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 July newsletter

We're halfway through this year's penultimate round, and the competition is moving along well. Pool A's Sasata (submissions) currently leads overall, while Pool B's Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) is second. Both leaders are WikiCup veterans, and both have already scored over 600 points this month. If the round were to end today, Miyagawa (submissions), with 274 points, would be the lowest-scoring participant to make it through. This indicates that participants will need a score comparable to last year's (573, the highest ever) to qualify for the final. The high scores this year are a testament both to the quality of participants and to the increased focus on significant content (eligible for bonus points) in this year's competition. So far this round, both Sasata and Cwmhiraeth (submissions) have made up over half of their score through bonus points, with, for example, high importance FA koala earning Sasata a total of 440 points (from a multiplier of 4.4) and high-importance GA sea earning Cwmhiraeth a total of 216 points (from a multiplier of 7.2). Other articles on important topics submitted this round include a featured article on the Norman conquest of England by Ealdgyth (submissions), and good articles on Nobel laureate in literature Henryk Sienkiewicz, Nobel laureate in physics Hans Bethe, and the noted Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū. These articles are by Piotrus (submissions), Hawkeye7 (submissions) and Sturmvogel_66 respectively.

Other than that, there is not much to report! If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 00:07, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC Reviewer permission

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC Reviewer permission. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:36, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 August newsletter

This year's final is upon us. Our final eight, in order of last round's score, are:

1. Hawkeye7 (submissions), a WikiCup newcomer who has contributed on topics of military history and physics, including a number of high-importance topics. Good articles have made up the bulk of his points, but he has also scored a great deal of bonus points. He has the second highest score overall so far, with more than 3000 points accumulated.
2. Casliber (submissions), another WikiCup veteran who reached the finals in 2012, 2011 and 2010. He writes on a variety of topics including botany, mycology and astronomy, and has claimed the highest or joint highest number of featured articles every round so far this year. He has the third highest score overall, with just under 3000 points accumulated.
3. Cwmhiraeth (submissions), 2012 WikiCup champion, who writes mostly on marine biology. She has also contributed to high-importance topics, seeing huge numbers of bonus points for high-importance featured and good articles. Previous rounds have seen her scoring the most bonus points, with scoring spread across did you knows, good articles and featured articles.
4. Sasata (submissions), a WikiCup veteran who finished in second place in 2012, and competed as early as 2009. He writes articles on biology, especially mycology, and has scored highly for a number of collaborations at featured article candidates.
5. Sturmvogel_66 (submissions), the winner of the 2010 competition. His contributions mostly concern Naval history, and he has scored a very large number of points for good articles and good article reviews in every round. He is the highest scorer overall this year, with over 3500 points in total.
6. Ealdgyth (submissions), who is competing in the WikiCup for the second time, though this will be her first time in the final. A regular at FAC, she is mostly interested in British medieval history, and has scored very highly for some top-importance featured articles on the topic.
7. Miyagawa (submissions), a finalist in 2012 and 2011. He writes on a broad variety of topics, with many of this year's points coming from good articles about Star Trek. Good articles make up the bulk of his points, and he had the most good articles back in round 2; he was also the highest scorer for DYK in rounds 1 and 2.
8. Adam Cuerden (submissions) has previously been involved with the WikiCup, but hasn't participated for a number of years. He scores mostly from restoration work leading to featured picture credits, but has also done some article writing and reviewing.

We say goodbye to eight great participants who did not qualify for the final: Piotrus (submissions), Figureskatingfan (submissions), ThaddeusB (submissions), Dana boomer (submissions), Status (submissions), Ed! (submissions), 12george1 (submissions), Calvin999 (submissions). Having made it to this stage is still an excellent achievement, and you can leave with your heads held high. We hope to see you all again next year. Signups are now open for the 2014 WikiCup, which will begin on 1 January. All Wikipedians, whatever their interest or level of experience, are warmly invited to participate in next year's competition.

This last month has seen some incredible contributions; for instance, Cwmhiraeth's Starfish and Ealdgyth's Battle of Hastings—two highly important, highly viewed pages—made it to featured article status. It would be all too easy to focus solely on these stunning achievements at the expense of those participants working in lower-scoring areas, when in fact all WikiCup participants are doing excellent work. A mention of everything done is impossible, but here are a few: Last round saw the completion of several good topics (on the 1958, 1959 and 1962 Atlantic hurricane seasons) to which 12george1 had contributed. Calvin999 saw "S&M" (song), on which he has been working for several years, through to featured article status on its tenth try. Figureskatingfan continued towards her goal of a broad featured/good topic on Maya Angelou, with two featured and four good articles. ThaddeusB contributed significantly to over 20 articles which appeared on the main page's "in the news" section. Adam Cuerden continued to restore a large number of historical images, resulting in over a dozen FP credits this round alone. The WikiCup is not just about top-importance featured articles, and the work of all of these users is worthy of commendation.

Finally, the usual notices: If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 06:27, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

PRISM

Do you not get that on iTunes, Prism is called PRISM ...ALL CAPS!!!!!

Kcarlson1999 (talk) 19:39, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:A&M logo transitional black-typeface.jpg)

Thanks for uploading File:A&M logo transitional black-typeface.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Werieth (talk) 13:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment

Hello. Im assuming you are either a friend of Telfordbuck or Telfordbuck. I corrected your changes to my contribution. As I mentioned to telford it's obvious you are intelligent enough to know that willie nelson did not write bach minuet in G nor did he write half the songs accredited him. Im trying to get you (telford) not to display intentionally incorrect information as it is confusing & misleading my grandchildren who are trying to research willie nelson for a school project. It looks like Im being bullied for telling the truth here. So. Can you help us out? Why dont you title the page songs willie nelson possibly sang some of which he has written. to state it as fact is confusion.

I see by your many badges you do this all the time. I dont want to invade your "turf". But you are invading mine. when you offer these things in a public forum you have a responsibility to be as accurate as you can. So if you undo my contributions in the future could you please make sure you are correct? Thank you Steve Green. (Swallowacamel (talk) 09:33, 29 September 2013 (UTC))

October 2013 AFC Backlog elimination drive

WikiProject Articles for creation Backlog Elimination Drive

WikiProject AFC is holding a one month long Backlog Elimination Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running from October 1st, 2013 – October 31st, 2013.

Awards will be given out for all reviewers participating in the drive in the form of barnstars at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 1200 articles, so start reviewing articles! Visit the drive's page and help out!

A new version of our AfC helper script is released! It includes many bug fixes, new improvements and features, code enhancements, and more. If you want to see a full list of changes, visit the changelog. Please report bugs and feature requests there, too! Thanks. --Mdann52talk to me!

This newsletter was delivered on behalf of WPAFC by EdwardsBot (talk) 15:45, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 September newsletter

In 30 days, we will know the identity of our 2013 WikiCup champion. Cwmhiraeth (submissions) currently leads; if that lead is held, she will become the first person to have won the WikiCup twice. Sasata (submissions), Hawkeye7 (submissions)—who has never participated in the competition before—and Casliber (submissions) follow. The majority of points in this round have come from a mix of good articles and bonus points. This final round is seeing contributions to a number of highly important topics; recent submissions include Phoenix (constellation) (FA by Casliber), Ernest Lawrence (GA by Hawkeye7), Pinniped, and red fox (both GAs by Sasata).

The did you know (DYK) eligibility criteria have recently changed, meaning that newly passed good articles are accepted as "new" for did you know purposes. However, in the interests of not changing the WikiCup rules mid-competition, please note that only articles eligible for DYK under the old system (that is, newly created articles or 5x expansions) will be eligible for points in this year's WikiCup. We do, however, have time to discuss how this new system will work for next year's competition; a discussion will be opened in due course. On that note, thoughts are welcome on changes you'd like to see for next year. What worked? What didn't work? What would you like to see more of? What would you like to see less of? All Wikipedians, new or old, are also warmly invited to sign up for the 2014 WikiCup.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 23:49, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter

Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013

by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...

New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian

Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.

New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??

New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges

News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY

Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions

New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration

Read the full newsletter

Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 21:36, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 October newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our champion, for the second year running, is Cwmhiraeth (submissions). Our final nine were as follows:

1. Cwmhiraeth (submissions)
2. Hawkeye7 (submissions)
3. Sasata (submissions)
4. Sturmvogel_66 (submissions)
5. Casliber (submissions)
6. Adam Cuerden (submissions)
7. Miyagawa (submissions)
8. Piotrus (submissions)
9. Ealdgyth (submissions)

All those who reached the final win prizes, and prizes will also be going to the following participants:

• Casliber (submissions) wins the FA prize, for four featured articles in round 4, worth 400 points.
• Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) wins the GA prize, for 20 good articles in round 3, worth 600 points.
• Another Believer (submissions) wins the FL prize, for four featured lists in round 2, worth 180 points.
• Adam Cuerden (submissions) wins the FP prize, for 23 featured pictures in round 5, worth 805 point.
• Sven Manguard (submissions) wins the FPo prize, for 2 featured portals in round 3, worth 70 points.
• Hawkeye7 (submissions) wins the topic prize, for a 23-article featured topic in round 5, worth 230 points.
• Cwmhiraeth (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 79 did you know articles in round 5, worth 570 points.
• ThaddeusB (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 23 in the news articles in round 4, worth 270 points.
• Ed! (submissions) wins the GAR prize, for 24 good article reviews in round 1, worth 96 points.
• The judges are awarding the Oddball Barnstar to The C of E (submissions), for some curious contributions in earlier rounds.
• Finally, the judges are awarding Cwmhiraeth (submissions) the Geography Barnstar for her work on sea, now a featured article. This top-importance article was the highest-scoring this year; when it was promoted to FA status, Cwmhiraeth could claim 720 points.

Prizes will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

Congratulations to everyone who has been successful in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and a particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition. While it has been an excellent year, errors have opened up the judges' eyes to the need for a third judge, and it is with pleasure that we announce that experienced WikiCup participant Miyagawa will be acting as a judge from now on. We hope you will all join us in welcoming him to the team.

Next year's competition begins on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; it is open to all Wikipedians, new and old. Brainstorming and discussion remains open for how next year's competition will work, and straw polls will be opened by the judges soon. Those interested in friendly competition may also like to keep an eye on the stub contest, being organised by Casliber. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2014 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 01:35, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Help ammending Madonna's page

Hi there,

you left me a message that I need to cite an example.

I don't think I do! Madonna was raped, she didn't just categorize it thusly. I don't need to prove this.

I find talk Wikedpdia hard to navigate, if you can help me in any way I would greatly appreciate this.

Aliciagrrr (talk) 11:41, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library Survey

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:44, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

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