User talk:Joe Decker/Archive 28

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Wikidata weekly summary #227

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

• Discussions
  • We're starting working on lexicographical data! Please read the proposal and give us your feedback :)
  • New request for comments: Merging male and female labels

• Events/Press/Blogs
  • Upcoming: State of the map, September 23 - 25, Brussels
  • Next Wikidata office hour: Tuesday September 27th, from 18:00 to 19:00 (Berlin time, UTC+2), in #wikimedia-office
  • Video of a SPARQL workshop (& materials) organized by Wikimedia Foundation's Discovery and Research teams
  • Slides of Lydia's keynote about Wikidata at the DBpedia conference 2016
  • Slides of Andreas Thalhammer about Unified PageRank for DBpedia and Wikidata
  • #SundayQuery: ask for help on queries every Sunday on Twitter! This week, a tutorial about surnames by Harmonia Amanda, and how to use SPARQL and Python to fix typographical errors by Ash Crow

• Other Noteworthy Stuff

Quality process on Wikidata

• • The Project Grants program is accepting proposals from September 12 to October 11 to fund new tools, research, offline outreach, online organizing and other experiments that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers.
  • The RevisionSlider is now available as a beta feature, try it to have a visual overview of your diffs.
  • You can also activate ORES the review tool to watch damaging edits more easily!
  • There's an infographic on the quality process in Wikidata you can use and edit.
  • You can also use and translate this new datamodel representation.
  • How to fix taxon common names with Pywikibot, tutorial by TweetsFactsAndQueries and Tobias1984.

• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: Visual Novel Database ID, territory overlaps, Zaragoza monument ID, Patrimonio Web JCyL ID, uses property, Statoids ID, art director, offers view on, World Bridge Federation ID, Olympic.org ID, Cultural Heritage Armenia ID, Harasire ID, Sporthorse data ID, Allbreedpedigree ID, Webpedigrees ID, Horsetelex ID
  • Query examples:
    • Embassies (source)
    • World map of water towers (source)
    • "Battles of the Middle Ages" without place or date (source)
    • Asteroids named after characters from works by Lewis Caroll (source)
    • Map of Austrian cultural heritage (source)
    • Statues in Paris depicting historical female figures (source)
  • Newest database reports: list of embassies

• Development
  • We're working on entity usage on Wikimedia projects, check our different features
  • The Wikidata team attended and participated to a lot of conference these past days (WikiCon, ViewSource, DPpedia, SoCraTes, Write the doc) that's why we don't have many tasks to share with you this week :)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

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

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 16:05, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Joe Decker. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

• Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
• A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

New newsletter for Notifications

Hello

You are subscribing to the Notifications newsletter on English Wikipedia.

That newsletter is now replaced by the monthly and multilingual Collaboration team newsletter, which will include information and updates concerning Notifications but also concerning Flow and Edit Review Improvements.

Please subscribe!

All the best, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 10:51, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Center for Faith and Public Life

When this article was deleted I was in the midst of responding to several delete notices initiated by a new editor who is no longer with us. I just got a chance to enlarge the article and improve on external and independent references. I think it should be a stand-alone article separate from Fairfield University, even as athletics and alumni at times become excessive for inclusion in the main article. What can I do to propose my new version?Jzsj (talk) 16:18, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Jzsj:

Sorry for the delay in responding.

First, a bit of background: The principal bar for inclusion of a topic on Wikipedia is what is (somewhat misleadingly, I feel) described as our notability guideline, the policy form of it can be read at WP:GNG, but be warned that is a terrible way to make sense of what's actually being asked for, as it makes use of a number of common words in senses outside their usual meaning in English. A lot of legalese "terms of art", if you will. Sometime back, I attempted to make a clearer summary of the standard at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable, perhaps that will give you a better sense of what we're looking for.

As I closed the discussion, if your new draft (in your sandbox, if I'm not mistaken) doesn't so obviously meet this bar that I can suggest immediate recreation. There are a few paths forward. First, there's a couple ways you can go about getting help for trying to improve the references in the article to meet these standards. One I'd highly recommend is the WP:Teahouse, which is a help line specifically targeted at newer editors here, a second is the somewhat backlogged Articles for Creation process. You'll get a much quicker response, and more complete assistance, from the first path, in all likelihood.

Also, if you feel I've erred in this, there's a simple route for appeal, that would be Deletion Review, and you're welcome to ask there in that case.

Best of luck! --joe decker^talk 18:27, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I suppose the "if" in the first line of the second paragraph is a typo. I would like to re-present the article, but not as a review of the previous.and I'm not saying you erred in rejecting that version. Since then I've checked seven pages of Google and added several key references, and I have little hope that others will do better, or care to try. Could I just re-present it as a draft or article and wait for a response?Jzsj (talk) 19:36, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh, you can absolutely create a Draft and submit it to AFC. The only thing that gave me pause about recommending that first is that I know that some of the drafts are sitting there for several days, often a few weeks, before being responded to, and I hate leaving new contributors waiting. But that was my primary concern with that path.

One thought: Consider also asking for a second opinion and ideas from the folks at the Teahouse (link above) at the same time, but yeah, do go ahead and pursue a draft, and submitting it to AfC by adding a {{submit}} template. --joe decker^talk 01:55, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Elio Capradossi

Hi Joe Decker, recently an article that I started a couple years ago and that was deleted Elio Capradossi, has been started by another user. I was wondering if content from the original article could be accessed and cycled back into the new one. Thanks Inter&anthro (talk) 17:05, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

No problem, I've restored the old versions of the file into the article history, you should be able to see them now at [1]. It appears that the player has now had an appearance in a fully professional league, which should preclude future deletion. --joe decker^talk 17:19, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

User:Joe's Null Bot has stopped

Hi there Joe Decker. I see you are on vacation but I just wanted to alert you that User:Joe's Null Bot seems to have stopped performing its tasks. I wonder if the bot was intended remain idle while you are away, or if there's something you can do? Thanks, — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 14:53, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Joe Decker.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

New Page Review needs your help

Hi Joe Decker,

As an AfC reviewer you're probably aware that a new user right has been created for patrolling new pages (you might even have been granted the right already, and admins have it automatically).

Since July there has been a very serious backlog at Special:NewPagesFeed of over 14,000 pages, by far the worst since 2011, and we need an all out drive to get this back down to just a few hundred that can be easily maintained in the future. Unlike AfC, these pages are already in mainspace, and the thought of what might be there is quite scary. There are also many good faith article creators who need a simple, gentle push to the Tea House or their pages converted to Draft rather than being deleted.

Although New Page Reviewing can occasionally be somewhat more challenging than AfC, the criteria for obtaining the right are roughly the same. The Page Curation tool is even easier to use than the Helper Script, so it's likely that most AfC reviewers already have more than enough knowledge for the task of New Page Review.

It is hoped that AfC reviewers will apply for this right at WP:PERM and lend a hand. You'll need to have read the page at WP:NPR and the new tutorial.

(Sent to all active AfC reviewers) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:33, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Re-edit: EMedia Productions

Hi!

Please reconsider the edits I made for EMedia Productions. I added references regarding to the page which was failed from the old edits.

Thanks! Bumbl_loid 01:06, 16 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bumbl loid (talk • contribs)

New Page Review needs your help

Hi Joe Decker,

As an AfC reviewer you're probably aware that a new user right has been created for patrolling new pages (you might even have been granted the right already, and admins have it automatically).

Since July there has been a very serious backlog at Special:NewPagesFeed of over 14,000 pages, by far the worst since 2011, and we need an all out drive to get this back down to just a few hundred that can be easily maintained in the future. Unlike AfC, these pages are already in mainspace, and the thought of what might be there is quite scary. There are also many good faith article creators who need a simple, gentle push to the Tea House or their pages converted to Draft rather than being deleted.

Although New Page Reviewing can occasionally be somewhat more challenging than AfC, the criteria for obtaining the right are roughly the same. The Page Curation tool is even easier to use than the Helper Script, so it's likely that most AfC reviewers already have more than enough knowledge for the task of New Page Review.

It is hoped that AfC reviewers will apply for this right at WP:PERM and lend a hand. You'll need to have read the page at WP:NPR and the new tutorial.

(Sent to all active AfC reviewers) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:33, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Re-edit: EMedia Productions

Hi!

Please reconsider the edits I made for EMedia Productions. I added references regarding to the page which was failed from the old edits.

Thanks! Bumbl_loid 01:06, 16 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bumbl loid (talk • contribs)

The Challenge Series

The Challenge Series is a current drive on English Wikipedia to encourage article improvements and creations globally through a series of 50,000/10,000/1000 Challenges for different regions, countries and topics. All Wikipedia editors in good standing are invited to participate.

• Use {{subst:The Challenge series invitation}} to invite others using this template.
• Sent to users at Northamerica1000/Mailing list using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:15, 19 November 2016 (UTC).

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Joe Decker. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Joe Decker.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Sounds interesting, I'll look before touching anything involved, of course. --joe decker^talk 00:50, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

User:Joe's Null Bot has stopped

Hi there Joe Decker. I see you are on vacation but I just wanted to alert you that User:Joe's Null Bot seems to have stopped performing its tasks. I wonder if the bot was intended remain idle while you are away, or if there's something you can do? Thanks, — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 14:53, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

@Diannaa: Huh. I'm just back now, and while I'd hoped this was just a Sierra update issue, my best guess now is that the Wikipedia server APIs have changed behind my back, getting can't connect to en.wiki port 443 errors. The PERL API code hasn't been modified... anyway, ... Humph.

I'm blathering, but I'm on the problem, and hope to resolve it promptly. --joe decker^talk 00:49, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 00:55, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Will take a look. --joe decker^talk 00:50, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Hey, that looks nice. Enabled. --joe decker^talk 00:02, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

BBC 12-hour Editathon - large influx of new pages & drafts expected

AfC Reviewers are asked to be especially on the look out 08:00-20:00 UTC (that's local London time - check your USA and AUS times) on Thursday 8 December for new pages. The BBC together with Wikimedia UK is holding a large 12-hour editathon. Many new articles and drafts are expected. See BBC 100 Women 2016: How to join our edit-a-thon. Follow also on #100womenwiki, and please, don't bite the newbies :) (user:Kudpung for NPR. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:02, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Roger wilco... --joe decker^talk 15:49, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Only 2 days left...

Hi Joe,

Community wishlist poll

Getting the tools we need

ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT TO VOTE

• Improve the tools for reviewing new pages: Vote here.
• Reduce the reviewer workload : Vote here

For NPP: Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:23, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

 Done --joe decker^talk 07:44, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Message for Joe

Hi Joe,

Greetings. I have been editing for Wikipedia part time and I am keen on living persons and on technology. I realized you had previously reviewed the article related to "Chai Keong Toh" and lately, I saw 2 editors inserting maintenance tags into the article without explanation or notes on the article talk page. Also, one of them removed quite a bit of content without reasons, including changing a section label.

I had tried to remove those tags and each time, they were reverted back by the 2 editors (see edit history).

Would like to hear your views on how to address those 2 editors. The page has been stable since your last review in 2013, until now. Thanks. signed by 14.100.136.144 (talk) 16:13, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I hope to get a chance to take a look at this tonight. I haven't yet. --joe decker^talk 22:35, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, first, I have some sympathy with the maintenance tags, so I'll try to make some constructive suggestions. First, there are a few places whether the article takes a non-neutral tone. "thought leader", "pioneering", and other laudatory adjectives should generally be things we put in an article in other people's voice, not in Wikipedia's, and should generally be backed by reliable sources that put those words onto Toh from arm's length. This comes up in subtler ways, his "challenge" to the always-on internet model probably needs more than a copy of his paper on the subject to include. The article should generally be based on sources at arm's length from Toh. A tiny bit of judicious editing would go a long way here, I feel.

A few non-urgent issues, which don't relate to the tags: Our manual of style says that footnotes should follow punctuation rather than precede it (see WP:REFPUNC.) The extra capital letters in the lalst sentence of the closing paragraph need to go as well, articles on Wikipedia should be written in normal text.

These are largely wording issues, I have no question whatsoever that Toh has received more than enough recognition to warrant an article on Wikipedia.

As for how to proceed, the usual back-and-forth process of coming to resolution on stuff like this is WP:BRD. The first person to revert a change is expected to defend their reasoning, preferably on the talk page. If they won't, it's reasonable to ask for outside assistance, perhaps at the Dispute resolution noticeboard. Be sure to avoid reverting the same change (even if the other person started it), look over WP:3RR as this is a hard-line behavioral rule.

Best of luck on getting this resolved, and thank you for your contributions to the encyclopedia! --joe decker^talk 00:56, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Joe, Thanks for your useful comments. I have made revisions to the article considering your inputs on neutrality, tone, and also added more inline citations. I have removed "pioneering" and also "thought leader". I have also added information and explanation on the changes and improvements made, on the article's "Talk Page". The maintenance tags have now been removed. I have invited the earlier 2 editors to make their comments on the talk page (previously they did not do so). If they still continue to revert the article back to a previous state without explanation, then the next step could be to request for assistance from Wiki Administrators, for a full or semi-protection on that page. Thank you so much for your guidance. Signed by 14.100.136.130 (talk) 09:40, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

You are most welcome! --joe decker^talk 01:40, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Hello Joe Decker: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 15:30, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings1}} to send this message

thanks! --joe decker^talk 21:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Old deletion for Nichole Galicia

Hey, Joe! You deleted the article on Nichole some time ago after a deletion discussion. Well, she was interviewed in Ebony Magazine (see here, which I think means she now qualifies. Do you think you would consider undeleting? I will add the Ebony ref if so. If you do, please ping me so I know. Thanks! KDS4444 (talk) 15:24, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@KDS4444: First, my apologies for being slow to respond. [2] looks like solid coverage by itself, but given that it's still close to the line, and that there is a prior request, apparently from the subject, requesting the deletion, I'm not comfortable restoring the article at this time on my own authority. I am, however, more than happy for you to pass the question up the line to Deletion review, our appeals process. Best of luck, --joe decker^talk 21:10, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Nah, I ain't interested in rocking the boat. It can stay deleted for now. (This is KDS4444, but I am traveling on a bus at the moment and had to sign in using an IP address, so forgive this signature). 166.130.69.152 (talk) 01:46, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

No trouble about the signature, and if you change your mind, it's no skin off my nose if you appeal, either. Safe travels! --joe decker^talk 02:41, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Perl

I came across Perlbrew that allows one to set up a completely isolated Perl environments. I tried it on my laptop and it seems to be really nice. I can do everything in a Perl 5.24 environment whereas my Linux version has 5.20. Not counting compiling Perl, it took under an hour to be up and running. Some good instructions can be found here. I'm contemplating on doing this at WMFLabs. If you have questions about Perl and WMFLabs, give a yell. Bgwhite (talk) 19:35, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll take a look, finally getting a chance to get stuff going today, looking at the Tools acct first, --joe decker^talk 19:39, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

@Bgwhite:: Looks like getting things to work on Tools is going to be really straightforward, I have tasks running already. I really appreciate all your patient help here, thank you! --joe decker^talk 21:54, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm moving to use Perlbrew on labs. It's more straightforward to install modules and it improves performance. I see websites saying numbers of over 20% speed improvement of 5.24 over 5.18. Running Checkwiki on enwiki dumps usually takes 24 hours on my 5-year old laptop (labs is slower). Running the NYTProf profiler with the Checkwiki code shows 12% speed increase with 5.24. Thank you for your question on the tech pump. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have gone looking and come across perlbrew. Bgwhite (talk) 23:12, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion requested

Hi Joe. Needed your suggestion. I recently created a script for viewing WP:TFA history in a recent changes format. I needed to know what alternatives are there to force purge WP:TFA Title once every day some time after UTC midnight, so that the script can take the right article that is featured as day's FA on the main page. Any suggestions or advise would be welcome (also, would it be possible to perhaps allow the inclusion of a few set of pages to be covered by your purging bot, including the above page)? Thanks. Lourdes 05:18, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi! We're having some technical difficulties with the bot right now, but I would guess that this would be a relatively uncontroversial and easy thing for Joe's Null Bot to do once it can log in at all again.  :) --joe decker^talk 05:21, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you :) Lourdes 09:58, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Just an additional note Joe. While WP:TFA Title is the only page I need help with, I've noticed that the standard purge doesn't help resolve the link. But a null edit always does the job. (I know you know this already – your bot and the explanations et al – but just thought of sharing my experience). Thanks again. Lourdes 02:47, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. Not sure that my Bot's usual operation (which is a purge that takes the special "nolinkupdate" option, sort of inbetween a purge and a true null edit) would work there, but again, I'm sure it's simple enough either way, when and if I have a working API again. --joe decker^talk 07:48, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• What I did in the meanwhile (after badgering Anomie and Xaosflux) was that I made an automated workflow Automator process bot which uses the forcelinkupdate api action (which actually works wonderfully). The bot is in a trial run but I have mentioned at the request page that if your bot starts and if you include the page in your series of updates, then I'll be more than pleased to stop my bot. Thanks. Lourdes 13:56, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

  Thank you, and thank you! I will definitely keep you informed. I've got a Labs/Tools account now, I'm hoping that transitioning there will both solve the problem and put me on a more stable footing going forward. I only wish it'd been possible for me to put more time into this more promptly. Thank you again! --joe decker^talk 05:14, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Lourdes:, I believe I have the bot working on old tasks, if that stays working for a day or two I'll start in on adding your task. Thank you for your extreme patience. --joe decker^talk 21:52, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

That would be wonderful. I'll await your confirmation. Thanks so much. Lourdes 01:48, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion

Hello,

I saw that your bot was operating to purge this category once per day so that categories are automatically deleted after the waiting period. It looks like this is currently malfunctioning (not sure if the issue is with your bot or somewhere else along the line) because I tagged a category over 10 days ago that is still not deleted. Care to investigate? Thanks, 73.11.16.51 (talk) 21:30, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, Joe's Null Bot is broken, previously working code stopped working while I was away in November. I have so far been unsuccessful at getting support figure out why the PERL API library for Wikipedia no longer functions from my machine, see the various threads at WP:VPT. I wish I could promise a quicker resolution, but I'm more or less stuck at the moment. --joe decker^talk 22:33, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I will go through the category manually in the meantime. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:37, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your help and patience, and my apologies for the delay. --joe decker^talk 00:38, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. 73.11.16.51 (talk) 21:55, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Impact

@Diannaa: Okay, I believe that I now have the bot running up at Tools/Labs, etc. Please accept my apologies for the delay, and I'll try and keep an eye on it the next couple days to see if it's stable. Let me know if you notice any oddities, etc. Thanks! --joe decker^talk 21:50, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

That's awesome news! Thanks so much for taking the time to get this important tool working again. It's behind-the scenes work with a big impact. I will let you know if I notice any glitches. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 21:55, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks :) --joe decker^talk 06:05, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

RE: Wiki page issue - advice please

Dear Joe

Greetings and happy new year 2017.

Previously, I contacted you concerning a page that I edited on a living person and technologist - "Chai Keong Toh" page. You had earlier (in 2013 or earlier) reviewed and approved this article and had recently given me advice on how to deal with constant disturbance from an abuser or vandalizer "Rms125a@hotmail.com".

The past editor "Rms125a@hotmail.com" is back again modifying the page and removing information without adding any info or comments on the talk page. See "view history" to see what he had done, even on 01 Jan 2017 - a holiday. Previously, this person had removed quite a bit of content without explanation too.

I would like to seek your help to stop this constant disturbance and modification without documentation (on Talk page) by Rms125a@hotmail.com

Perhaps the solution is to request a permanent freeze on that page or a block on this person Rms125a@hotmail.com

Thank you and hear from you soon. Cheers, signed by 14.100.132.188 (talk) 15:50, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Happy new year!

Neither marking a page as potentially involving a conflict of interest, nor as reading like a resume, strikes me as vandalism. Both strike me as arguably correct. Removing such tags while a disagreement persists about their accuracy, however, may be seen as vandalism.

I strongly suggest you have a discussion with the editor involved at their talk page. If that doesn't work, please read and consider following steps based on our dispute resolution process, WP:DR.

By the way, since most contributors here are volunteers, in fact, essentially all are, most edits are actually made during weekends and holidays, or evenings in the time zone of the editor involved. There is nothing unusual or problematic about this, it is simply the nature of Wikipedia.

I would also suggest you make an account. It will be easier for other editors to communicate back with you in a timely manner if you do. It's not required, but there are several benefits to you if you do so, see WP:BENEFITS. Thank you. --joe decker^talk 00:30, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

=

Dear Joe - Thanks for your advice. I am also doing this part-time on a variety of living persons and technologists. I use google to search, add citations, and expand content of pages. As for this editor "Rms125a@hotmail.com", it appears (from a few incidents) that his edits contribute to vandalism and does not help to improve the content of the Wikipedia page concerned:

1. His last edits - he removed contents from "notable awards section" for no reasons.

  a. IET Ambrose Fleming Medal removed
  b. BCS Fellow removed
  c. Added errata into references, example "Retrieved 1 January 2017" for first reference - this is vandalism

2. Previous edits, he removed

  a. Inblox - "D. Greaves - advisor" was removed for no apparent reason
  b. visiting professorships at YALE, Stanford, etc etc was removed 
  c. earlier work at Archive, Advanced Logic Research and board member of 
     convergence corporation (acquired by Amazon) was removed
  d. subheading title "Innovations & Awards" was changed to "Others" without explanation
  e. Invention on car-to-car communication networks was removed

I had earlier documented all his actions on the "Talk Page". So far, he hasn't helped to rewrite nor expand the article but have been removing things and adding errata ... Not sure if he knows all his actions are tracked on Wikipedia.

I really hope he can help strengthen Wikipedia's mission to improve and expand on articles, and to openly communicate with other editors on his edits and actions.

PS: I traced his history and he was previously blocked by Wiki administrators, for a variety of his past actions.

Signed by Mercer - 14.100.132.155 (talk) 06:13, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Antartica!

Wow! Lourdes 03:39, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh, it was incredible! Just along and onto the coast of the Antarctic peninsula--I've now managed three trips there, I feel so incredibly fortunate! --joe decker^talk 03:42, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Like I said, Wow! Lourdes 03:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Joe's Null Bot 11

Your BRFA for task 11 has been approved. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 02:56, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! --joe decker^talk 03:02, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• Just a quick note, per this diff. You need to update WP:TFA Title and not WP:TFA TITLE. Thanks. Lourdes 03:53, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oh, good catch! Thanks! --joe decker^talk 04:01, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Fixed both there and in the code, so your awareness just saved me some debugging in the future. Thanks! --joe decker^talk 04:04, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
      • You're welcome. Lourdes 04:11, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Block today

You did a block in the last 24 hours w/o providing a specific declaration of fact. Was the cause of your block the use of the nickname "Rosy"? The person in question is long-dead and her role as a martyr to women's lib is all a retrofit by others who never knew her personally. She left no document that she was to be remembered as such. Perhaps you could reserve that "political correctness" stuff for living people or at least contemporary people (who might have had some expectations of PC) or something like that. As you might be aware, the small edit on James Watson (which is an important matter of historical scientific fact) was accepted.--123.30.130.215 (talk) 05:44, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I have done a block today, but it was completely unrelated to "Rosy", let me see if there's been an error, orif I can see what account and/or article you are referring to. Back in a moment. --joe decker^talk 05:46, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Ahh, I see. You are welcome to take this up at Wikipedia:Unblock_Ticket_Request_System. I don't believe there will be any question about the reasons for my blocking. (For the record, though, I hadn't noticed, nor do I care, about the trivial edit (I am assuming [3]) at the Watson article.) --joe decker^talk 05:54, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Oversight on Chelsea Manning talk page?

Thanks for blocking. Can you revdelete the recent string of death threats? Funcrunch (talk) 05:10, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

On it, just finishing the block first. --joe decker^talk 05:10, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Looks like they're back already... Funcrunch (talk) 05:24, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to AIV for folks who are a little more familiar with this sort of work, I'm out of practice. --joe decker^talk 05:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

PS: Thank you for the report! Best, --joe decker^talk 05:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

PS: I'm no longer an oversighter, but I've revdelled and informed the Oversight team. Oversight is a maybe here on policy grounds, but revdel is an easy call.. --joe decker^talk 05:38, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I get the terms confused. What's the difference? Funcrunch (talk) 05:50, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

No trouble! It's confusing. Oversight is sort of a "second tier" of revdel, whereas any admin can delete, undelete, and view deleted content (there are about 1300 admins), only about 30 or 50 folks can do oversight. The latter is limited to use on a small number of use cases, a key one would be say, a SSN or a home address that could lead to stalking or ID theft, you wouldn't want 1000+ people to be able to view that content. WP:OVERSIGHT has the nitty-gritty. --joe decker^talk 06:21, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again Joe. Here's another IP to add to your proxy check (I reported them on Commons, don't know if you're an admin there too) Funcrunch (talk) 08:03, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Glad to be able to help a bti, and I'll follow up on the rest. Nope, I don't have a mop (or even much history) on Commons, ironic in a way. --joe decker^talk 17:19, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Small request

Hi Joe. How are you doing? I had a small request. Would you mind changing your close at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hello Neighbor from Draftify to "Delete" and draftify? This would help the Afd script understand the right close. Thanks. Lourdes 15:09, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

:D Thanks. Lourdes 15:13, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Most welcome, no trouble! I think the bolding is slightly different than requested, if that's a problem you are welcome to tweak it on my authority.  :) --joe decker^talk 15:15, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

:D No it's perfect. Your edit summary was hilarious :D Good to see admins with lovely sense of humor. See you around. Lourdes 15:16, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

See ya! --joe decker^talk 15:17, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for accepting my first article! Very first time on Wikipedia as a user. Glad I met the standards! :-)

Sincerely, StreetMath — Preceding unsigned comment added by StreetMath (talk • contribs) 18:51, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

@StreetMath:, You're welcome! Thanks for joining us and helping us build our encyclopedia! --joe decker^talk 19:07, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Salted page recreation case

• 02:08, 3 June 2016 KrakatoaKatie (talk | contribs) deleted page Saverio Fabbri (G4: Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saverio Fabbri (TW))
• 23:37, 21 November 2015 Joe Decker (talk | contribs) deleted page Saverio Fabbri (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saverio Fabbri closed as delete)
• 03:15, 28 April 2013 Boing! said Zebedee (talk | contribs) deleted page Saverio Fabbri (A7: Article about a real person, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject)

It was recreated as Saverio Fabbri (aka Savv Fabb), which I unwittingly moved to Saverio Fabbri (actor) after seeing an unusual title. Then I checked Saverio Fabbri to chech for disambiguation and found it salted.

Please check the deleted version and see whether this one of up for CSD of AFD. (KrakatoaKatie talk page says she is busy now, and you are second in line :-).

Thank you, Staszek Lem (talk) 01:27, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

@Staszek Lem: I've deleted it, I think it was close enough to pass as a G4, and as this is the third or fourth creation I'm starting to see the editor's behavior as disruptive. Thanks. --joe decker^talk 18:55, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi! Wanted to add on here as I'm putting together an SPI case (really a meatpuppet case, tbh) as this has been recreated again today. I've requested it be salted under the current title(Saverio Fabbri (aka Savv Fabb, Actor)) as well. Chrissymad ❯❯❯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 14:37, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the legwork! --joe decker^talk 16:22, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

:Pavement Entertainment, etc.

Hello JoeDecker!

Could you please check my article again on Pavement Entertainment? I received another rejection after adding sources, but I had trouble understanding what the person meant and thought I'd come to you instead. SwisterTwister seemed to reject me based on not having enough independent sources, but I did use a Chicago Tribune article as one of my sources. SwisterTwister also seemed to think what I wrote was too close to sounding like a business listing, though I thought I wrote the article in a neutral tone. I'm not exactly certain of what changes I'd need to make to have this article up to Wikipedia's standards, as I modeled it after a Wikipedia article published on another record company (Napalm Records), and they have similar types of sources listed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Pavement_Entertainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm_Records

Thanks for your help! Hiku64 (talk) 18:58, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

@Hiku64: Sorry for the delay in responding, I've been busy with various work-related things...

I generally don't rereview articles myself, often other editors see positives or negatives I miss (and vice versa), but I'd probably still decline the article were I to review it myself. The guidance in our policieis about organizations and corporations, in particular the section at WP:CORPDEPTH, requires a fairly significant amount of broad coverage in at least two independent, reliable sources, and those factors have to all be present in the same source. The source that mention's it's an official press release isn't independent, for example, and the book reference doesn't seem to go into much depth about the organization. Probably the closest source to meeting the bar is the piece from the Chicago Tribune, but even that might not be seen as meeting CORPDEPTH, and we'd need two in any case.

It is completely reasonable of you to try and look at similar articles about other organizations, however, sometimes you'll find stuff in our encyclopedia that doesn't meet our standards either. I haven't looked hard at Napalm, I will, but it won't surprise me if it didn't meet them. (If it's egregious, I might nominate it for deletion.) I'm sorry if this seems a little confusing, but it's our system.

In terms of finding better sources for Pavement, you might consider leaving a note on the talk page of one of the WikiProjects associated with Music and/or Corporations, e.g., Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music. There may, just possibly, be editors there who are more familiar with specialist music industry sources than I am who could point you at sources that are better matched to our needs.

Best of luck! --joe decker^talk 00:35, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Trout check

Checking whether I need to be {{trout}}ed:

• WT:WikiProject Geology#Should Arc be capitalized in fault names?
• User_talk:Droll/Archive 1#Please stop adding convert templates to mountain elevation and prominences using AWB

Wikipedia seems to be consumed by minutiae, rather than making substantive progress towards making a good encyclopedia. I wonder if I'm part of the problem. When does WikiGnoming transition into wikilawyering? —hike395 (talk) 03:26, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry it's been a bit since you sent this, @Hike395:, and let me start by saying that it's good to hear from you again, and I hope you are well. Work has been busy.

I haven't read through every line of both links, but I don't see any signs that you're committing any behavioral errors under Wikipedia. (And I'd be pretty shocked if I'd seen otherwise!) There are many places where writing an encyclopedia generates conflict, and that isn't bad in and of itself. It's just frustrating as all Hell to experience it about what seem like minutae.

From what I've been seen, you've been a good, positive force in improving our coverage of mountains and other natural areas. Looking at the arc discussion, I see places where you changed your mind about a certain point because of a good counterargument, I see places where you went to an appropriate place to try and gain a wider consensus, those strike me very much as good ways to keep engaging.

I find, sometimes, that I have to disengage from some of these, and pick my battles. I'm not saying you should do this--I'm saying it's a choice many of us have to make at times even when the other person is wrong. One thing that's great about Wikipedia is that there's always something else I can make better over there.

Anyway, while I'm someone who has very little tolerance for misbehavior over minutiae, I'm not seeing it from you here, I'm seeing a dedicated editor working to improve the encyclopedia using the processes and norms we ask them to follow. I wish I had a better answer for why the smallest details often seem to bring the most heat, but I've kinda accepted that they do. I wish it were different, I share your frustration.

All the best, and I hope things are (otherwise) well, --joe decker^talk 00:56, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for checking, Joe. Good advice re go elsewhere -- I think I will stay away from geology articles for a while. Hope you are having fun with your penguin friends :-) —hike395 (talk) 01:31, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Any advice?

Hi Joe Decker. You recently protected this article, but the same actor is continuing their trolling on the talk page ([4], [5], plus a RevDel from 8 December}. My recollection from a few years ago is that there was reason to believe that people related to the deceased were visiting the talk page, and there was concern about their grief being compounded by callous comments there. Talk pages rarely get semi'd per policy, but I was wondering if a range block would be possible. The IPs involved are (in numerical order): 172.56.3.85, 172.56.23.87, 172.58.184.146, 172.58.216.164, 172.58.216.167, 172.58.217.16, 172.58.217.236. That sounds like too wide a range, but I really don't know. I'm guessing that you admins have a cool way to check that sort of thing. Any advice would be appreciated. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 15:08, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Rivertorch: Hey, sorry I've been unavailable, I'm guessing this has been looked at by now, but let me know if it still needs attention. I should be more available the next few weeks. --joe decker^talk 04:30, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Found the ANI thread, I think the right call was made. I will try and keep an extra eye on the article, though. Thanks! --joe decker^talk 04:40, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

restore text of an old deleted article?

Joe,

Hi, I'm writing to you because you were part of a list of administrators willing to restore the text of a deleted article. My article was deleted in December 2015, so hopefully it is not too late?

Many thanks, Lincoln — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lincoln Athas (talk • contribs) 15:52, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

@Lincoln Athas:: Sorry for the delay in responding. I've restored it at Draft:Archipelago films. I see it's been deleted and restored a few times, I hope that you'll work to find sources which show that the company meets our notability criteria. The WP:Teahouse may be of some help in understanding what we require there. Best of luck, --joe decker^talk 04:37, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Joe Decker:: Thank you for restoring! In the mean time, I've created another draft of this in my sandbox, at User:Lincoln Athas/sandbox/Archipelago films. But now I'll pull some things from what you've restored into my new draft. Once I've done that, what would be the best way of moving forward with submission? Thanks, --Lincoln

@Lincoln Athas:, if you think the article now meets our notability standards (and you can read through my notes at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable for my attempt at making that complex standard a little less difficult), you can add {{submit}} to your article, which should submit it for assessment. If you need more assistance, I've been fairly distracted by other life events of recent, I'd strongly recommend asking for assistance at the WP:Teahouse in that case. Best of luck! --joe decker^talk 02:19, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry

On my sister's PC...she has the John Oliver thing installed that changes every instance of "Trump" to "Drumpf." MAINEiac4434 (talk) 19:07, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

*laughs* Thanks for the explanation, it did seem out of character. Happy editing! --joe decker^talk 19:13, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Infobox single

Hello, Infobox single has a tracking category Category:Pages using infobox single with unknown parameters. I've just cleaned 4500 articles out of it, but I know that there are more articles out there just waiting for a null edit that forces the template code to be re-rendered. Is this something that your bot could do? - X201 (talk) 16:54, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll have to look deeper, but I don't think so. The issue is that I need a category of the articles which *may* be in category, ... umm, not explaining this well. For the BLPPROD case, for example, I have a full category of all the articles which have a BLPPROD template (which works correctly) and then a separate category of the expired ones, and I can traverse the former to poke at each article in it to try and force the reevaluation of the involved macro so that MediaWiki notices the expiration. The underlying module here doesn't have such a category.. e.g., everything that includes Module:Check for unknown parameters, and even if it did it'd have 4.5 million entries. Is there (or could there be) any category I'm missing which might help me better limit how many articles I have to poke at? --joe decker^talk 17:23, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

In a nutshell, its any article that transcludes Infobox single. If it has to be a category, would the sub-cats in Category:Singles by year be any help? Its not comprehensive, but it would probably hit most articles that I want targeted and limit the size of the list for you. - X201 (talk) 19:56, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. That should work in theory, a little concerned about the size of the problem if this is going to be a regular thing. Let me run a little test on the 2008 singles and get back to you tomorrow. --joe decker^talk 02:40, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Hmmm, I did a test traversing the 2008 singles directory, and nothing bounced out--any chance you have an example of a single whose article isn't being categorized? This might be the first time I've seen the categorization update problem in the context of Modules, and I'm not sure exactly how the current purge/forcelinkupdate stuff interacts with that. --joe decker^talk 03:33, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

07:49:15, 12 April 2017 review of submission by Mhhamza123

• Mhhamza123 (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Fibi & clo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

{{SAFESUBST:Void| content having issues is possibly changed and removed.

? --joe decker^talk 14:07, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Joke party

I edited Al-Zebabist Nation of Ooog then noticed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Al-Zebabist Nation of OOOG, which you closed. The current article was created a month after the deletion. Boaler has created a stir in Kent since, so I'm not sure where this article should stand. Fences&Windows 22:41, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

The sourcing is more than significantly different (and at first glance, improved) since the version that was deleted, so I'd leave it--it's not eligible for speedy. Thanks for the note! --joe decker^talk 23:46, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

16:41:04, 16 April 2017 review of submission by Bonniedust

• Bonniedust (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Alice Creischer (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hello, I've added references for every statement in the text, including an English quote to the one that was pointed out as missing a reference. Would the article be accepted after these corrections, or are there still things that need to be changed? Thank you!

I'm not sure, honestly, I have one remaining concern, which is regard to our notability criteria, which is generally the hardest issue here. Other common reasons proposed articles are rejected don't seem a problem here, I don't see copyright issues or promotional language issues.

Our notability criteria are probably better thought of as criteria about the amount and kind of sources available which discuss the subject in some level of detail. We need multiple sources, and each must be from a source which is "reliable" and "independent". In this context, "reliable" generally refers to sources that have gone through an editorial process, so newspapers, magazines, books, scholarly journals, tend to fall into this category. "independent" removes sources which have any sort of provenance with anyone or any organization associated with the subject, so the subject themselves, their galleries, etc., would be excluded. In this particular case, I'm not familiar enough with one or two of the sources -- this article deals with a topic area I'm less familar with -- so I generally would leave that call to another reviewer, but I do have some concerns. You may want to drop a note at the WP:Teahouse for some more focused assistance on what we need, I've also attempted in the past to make a more readable introduction to our so-callled notability guideline at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable. Sorry my answer isn't black and white, but I hope it's helpful, and I wish you luck and encourage you to continue forward. Cheers, --joe decker^talk 16:55, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Mistake with image?

Hey, so I thought I did the image thing right, but it turns out my real name is in the metadata! I'm not sure how that happened or how I can prevent that from happening in the future if I were to try that again. Is there anyway that can be deleted? Umimmak (talk) 15:41, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Edit: okay I now know how to scrub metadata from an image. But it doesn't seem like I can replace the old image, just add a new image. :/ Umimmak (talk) 15:48, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Edit Oh weird, okay before there were two images and you could still access the original image with the metadata. But now it's no longer there? So ... nevermind and or thanks! Umimmak (talk) 15:51, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

@Umimmak: I have removed the revision in question from public view, that's why it disappeared for you. It would still be visible to administrators who look, will that be sufficient? --joe decker^talk 15:53, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Joe Decker! And yeah if it's still visible for admins it's fine! Sorry for needing all the help / being clueless. Umimmak (talk) 15:59, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

No worries at all! Thanks for helping build the encyclopedia! --joe decker^talk 16:02, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Nuveen

Hi – My name is Jake Holtgrewe, and I work on digital and social media strategy for Nuveen. We noticed that several elements of Nuveen’s Wikipedia page are becoming outdated, and I wanted to see what we can do to help provide more current information around such items as assets under management, descriptions of our business, etc. Given Wikipedia’s guidelines around self-editing, I imagine it would be more appropriate to include the relevant facts/updates on the discussion page rather than making edits directly to the site itself. Since you have updated the page in the past, I thought you would be a good person to try and contact.

As a starting point, I would direct people to this recent article in Barrons (), which includes the following statistics/updates:

• As a description of our firm, I would suggest: “Nuveen is the asset management arm of TIAA, which purchased Nuveen in 2014.” • Nuveen’s Assets Under Management are $882 billion as of December 31, 2016 • Nuveen is the world’s 15th largest mutual fund company, with $169 billion invested in 164 funds • Also, while it is not cited in the article, Nuveen currently has approximately 3,000 employees

Thanks much, and I look forward to continuing this dialogue.

Jholtgrewe (talk) 01:31, 19 April 2017 (UTC)jholtgrewe

Hi Jake,

Sorry for the delay in responding--I see you've also left an {{editprotected}} request at Talk:Nuveen which is probably the better way to proceed here. Thanks for the note, and thanks for being clear about your association, much appreciated. --joe decker^talk 21:23, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

16:48:22, 24 April 2017 review of submission by Paledin

• Paledin (talk · contribs)
  • User:Paledin/sandbox (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Thank you for your feedback. I was under the impression that I was adding information to the Monsanto article and not that I was creating a new one. Since it turns out that I was mistakenly creating a new article, I need to know how to just add the information to the article you mentioned and then find out how to add it appropriately. I have added information successfully to articles in the past however it seems I need some direction. Thank you for your help in this regard. Michael Newell Paledin (talk) 16:48, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

As a matter of technical requirements, you will likely be able to edit Monsanto (or other articles) by clicking "Edit" on that page. Occasional pages are protected from editing when there's large-scale vandalism, but very few. In terms of "appropriate" there's a lot of guidelines and rules, but in general we recommend attempting to write neutral, accurate prose that can be verified by citations (references) to reliable sources. Oh, and that don't hit any copyright issues. Within those guidelines, we try and practice what we call Bold, Revert, Discuss, in other words, make an edit you think will improve the encyclopedia. If it does, you're done! If someone disagrees, they may revert your edit, at which point you can discuss the change and try and reach some sort of consensus. Such discussions are usually held on the talk page of the article. Hope this helps! --joe decker^talk 19:50, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Challenge Project

Hi Joe, Centre for Turkey Studies has been added to the list in Wikipedia:The 1000 Challenge (Turkey). Please feel free to revert if you disagree. Cheers. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 17:58, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I'll take a look, I don't know about the 1000 Challenge in general, sounds interesting! --joe decker^talk 19:51, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Request on 08:23:23, 25 April 2017 for assistance on AfC submission by Martha.Savage

• Martha.Savage (talk · contribs)
  • User:Martha.Savage (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I followed your suggestion and rewrote the article from the last version before you deleted it. I had based the original article on an obituary written by David Levit, Evan Kane's son-in-law. He was fully aware of my use of the article and wants to see the article in Wikipedia. Although I liked his words and would have preferred to use them, it seemed easier to just rewrite it rather than trying to deal with the copyright issues, so I rewrote it in my own words. But now I can't see any way to resubmit it. It seems to still say that it was submitted in March. The new, edited draft is at this web page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Evan_O%27Neill_Kane,_Physicist

Thanks for your help.

Martha.Savage (talk) 08:23, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Your BRFA

Your BRFA, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Joe's Null Bot 12 has been approved for a task trial. Please update the BRFA with your results when complete. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:36, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! will do. --joe decker^talk 18:41, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your help!

Dear Joe Decker, Thanks for your help with the article on Evan O'Neill Kane. I really appreciate it.

Martha Savage — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martha.Savage (talk • contribs) 04:44, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

You're welcome! Sorry it took so long! --joe decker^talk 05:17, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Request on 07:56:37, 29 April 2017 for assistance on AfC submission by Lynn Wood

• Lynn Wood (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:An ideas platform to encourage innovation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Thanks Joe for reviewing my submission so quickly. I note that the main reason for refusal was "this submission's references do not adequately show the subject's notability.". During my previous career such references are available. Would it be possible to consider an entry instead for myself, citing those references, if it is drafted and submitted? if so does it matter if I or someone else submits it? Best wishes Lynn

Lynn Wood (talk) 07:56, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Lynn,. By references I mean citations to reliable, independent works discussing the topic of the article, things like newspaper articles, magazine articles, books, and papers from scholarly journals that have gone through an editorial process. But you can submit them, by just adding them to the article--you've included some in the article (at the bottom), but they didn't meet all the "ifs ands and buts" of the what we need from those sources. The Teahouse (there should be a link on your talk page) may also be able to help guide you to the sorts of sources we need in the article in order to accept it. Best of luck. --joe decker^talk 14:45, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

19:59:25, 5 May 2017 review of submission by Queengenademedicietherton

• Queengenademedicietherton (talk · contribs)
  • User:Queengenademedicietherton/sandbox (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hi, I have more references than Dan Brown the writer? We could end homelessness in America. The Roman Catholic Church has the Queen Gena de' Medici Etherton trust. If I could just have an article I could get my trust and I could end homelessness in America. Iraq, Exxon and Chevron are all the da' Vinci code. Please consider my article, you did post my da Vinci code article before? Peacefully, Queen Gena de' Medici Etherton

Hi, I have more references than Dan Brown the writer? Please consider my article you did post it once before. The Roman Catholic church has my trust the Queen /Gena de' Medici Etherton Trust. If I could just get an article I could end homelessness in America. Iraq, Exxon and Chevron are the da Vinci code. Peacefully, Queen Gena de' Medici Etherton

If you have sources, please feel free to put them into the article. There are none visible within the article. --joe decker^talk 20:08, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Page of Cedric Manhoef

Hi! I see you deleted this page in 2014. Meanwhile this kickboxer meets the rules of Wikipedia in terms of kickboxing. Cedric Manhoef now is the 6th lightweight in the world. LiverKick Rankings Update: April, 2017 So can you please restore the article? Thank you! I will complete it after. ChelseaODB (talk) 00:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

@ChelseaODB: Done, your argument appears correct. If you could update the article to indicate the ranking, that would be greatly appreciated. --joe decker^talk 02:18, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Done, Joe! And I will also develop it more now. One more, Ibrahim El Bouni, is it possible? He is 7th light-heavyweight now. It was also previously deleted but the admin that deleted it didn't help me. [Combat Press Kickboxing Rankings: May 2017] Thank you for all! ChelseaODB (talk) 15:07, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Ooops, dropped the ball here. Looks like it's addressd, but I'll restore old revisions into the history of the current article if that hasn't been done already. Sorry about that! --joe decker^talk 19:36, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Editing News #1—2017

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Did you know?

Did you know that you can review your changes visually?

When you are finished editing the page, type your edit summary and then choose "Review your changes".

In visual mode, you will see additions, removals, new links, and formatting highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.

Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.

The wikitext diff is the same diff tool that is used in the wikitext editors and in the page history.

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

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and adding the new visual diff tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes

A new wikitext editing mode is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. The 2017 wikitext editor has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures to enable the ⧼Visualeditor-preference-newwikitexteditor-label⧽.

A new visual diff tool is available in VisualEditor's visual mode. You can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. More features will be added to this later. In the future, this tool may be integrated into other MediaWiki components. [6]

The team have added multi-column support for lists of footnotes. The <references /> block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. You can request multi-column support for your wiki. [7]

Other changes:

• You can now use your web browser's function to switch typing direction in the new wikitext mode. This is particularly helpful for RTL language users like Urdu or Hebrew who have to write JavaScript or CSS. You can use Command+Shift+X or Control+Shift+X to trigger this. [8]
• The way to switch between the visual editing mode and the wikitext editing mode is now consistent. There is a drop-down menu that shows the two options. This is now the same in desktop and mobile web editing, and inside things that embed editing, such as Flow. [9]
• The Categories item has been moved to the top of the Page options menu (from clicking on the icon) for quicker access. [10] There is also now a "Templates used on this page" feature there. [11]
• You can now create <chem> tags (sometimes used as <ce>) for chemical formulas inside the visual editor. [12]
• Tables can be set as collapsed or un-collapsed. [13]
• The Special character menu now includes characters for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and angle quotation marks (‹› and ⟨⟩) . The team thanks the volunteer developer, Tpt. [14]
• A bug caused some section edit conflicts to blank the rest of the page. This has been fixed. The team are sorry for the disruption. [15]
• There is a new keyboard shortcut for citations: Control+Shift+K on a PC, or Command+Shift+K on a Mac. It is based on the keyboard shortcut for making links, which is Control+K on a PC or Command+K on a Mac. [16]

Future changes

• The VisualEditor team is working with the Community Tech team on a syntax highlighting tool. It will highlight matching pairs of <ref> tags and other types of wikitext syntax. You will be able to turn it on and off. It will first become available in VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode, maybe late in 2017. [17]
• The kind of button used to Show preview, Show changes, and finish an edit will change in all WMF-supported wikitext editors. The new buttons will use OOjs UI. The buttons will be larger, brighter, and easier to read. The labels will remain the same. You can test the new button by editing a page and adding &ooui=1 to the end of the URL, like this: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Sandbox?action=edit&ooui=1 The old appearance will no longer be possible, even with local CSS changes. [18]
• The outdated 2006 wikitext editor will be removed later this year. It is used by approximately 0.03% of active editors. See a list of editing tools on mediawiki.org if you are uncertain which one you use. [19]

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 9 May 2017 (UTC)