User talk:Sdkb/Archive 10

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Hello

Congratulations! Heads-up, the contrast in your signature is also off under the thing that I use to highlight admins(/superusers?). People (including me) might apprecitate it if you are able to find a combination that works with and without the blue that the script overlays. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 14:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Congratulations! Maliner (talk) 18:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks both! And thanks for flagging the concern with the script, Usedtobecool. When I designed my new signature, I wanted it to look similar enough to my old one to help others remember my identity, and with that goal in mind removing the blue background would unfortunately be difficult. Testing out the script, it looks like it highlights the "talk" part of my signature in blue but doesn't do anything with the "Sdkb" part (let me know if it's working differently for you), which seems like the desirable behavior in the situation. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 21:51, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I see your username highlighted, white text on [light teal(?)] (close to RGB 150, 250, 250). — Usedtobecool ☎️ 05:48, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe you tested on your userpage. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 05:48, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

For the transition period, this may work: Sdkb ^{user / talk}. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 05:53, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Ah, it was my own customization getting in the way. That contrast is unfortunate. But ultimately, it's the responsibility of user scripts to play nicely with otherwise accessibility-compliant signatures and to not introduce accessibility issues, rather than vice versa. If it bothers you, I'd suggest making a suggestion to the maintainer of the script (or, even better, to code it yourself if you can) to have the script recolor text being highlighted when it would otherwise result in an insufficient contrast. Best, Sdkb ^talk 06:17, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

But of course you have no policy obligation to accommodate editors who use optional features. As I said, it's something I might have appreciated, and potentially others, but ultimately, it is no more than an inconvinience to specifically me. Regards! — Usedtobecool ☎️ 06:40, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Followed up here, as it looks like @Theopolisme hasn't been active since 2019. Sdkb ^talk 17:43, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Congrats

Sorry for missing the RfA, but glad you got in, and congrats! DFlhb (talk) 21:16, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

No worries, and thanks! Sdkb ^talk 04:43, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry I also missed it, but I knew you'd pass! Congrats on the mop. Also, very cool new signature. ––FormalDude (talk) 01:04, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, FormalDude! Sdkb ^talk 01:06, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Coolguy12340 (13:52, 25 February 2024)

Are you really my mentor? --Coolguy12340 (talk) 13:52, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I am. Sdkb ^talk 15:38, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Faerlynwiki (15:06, 27 February 2024)

Hello, mentor. I have never edited before so I thought I'd let you know what I wanted to do. I don't want to change anything yet, but I've found a mistake on the Pupstruction page so I want to talk to someone about. If Disney came up with the mistake I'll drop it. One of the dogs is described as a neopolitan mastiff but the dog in the show is NOT that breed of dog, I've owned and rescued this breed and the defining characteristics are simply not there. I'd like to change this. Is there a chat feature within this program? Thank you for being my mentor! --Faerlynwiki (talk) 15:06, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to change it. We encourage you to be bold in updating pages, because wikis like ours develop faster when everybody edits. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. You can always preview your edits before you publish them.

To the extent possible, I'd encourage you to add a reference when you make the change, as it'll be more likely to stick that way. And talk pages are the closest we have to a chat function, but you could also get help on the Wikipedia Discord. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 15:24, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

A bot to check DYK QPQ automatically

Hello. I'm sure you're very busy, but if you have the time, I'd love your quick thoughts here. Thanks in advance. Mokadoshi (talk) 23:47, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Commented there; thanks for letting me know about that thread! Sdkb ^talk 23:56, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Conference funding

Thanks for your note at Jimbo's talk page. I've mentioned more funding for conferences on his page at least a couple times, without a response, and have contemplated doing a Signpost article which would include large-scale further funding of conferences. Seems a touchy subject, Foundation funds are gathered by pushing Wikipedia to the forefront. It's the elephant in the room: the difference between what the Foundation should allot to Wikipedia matters and what it actually does.

As for conferences, the yearly world conference as well as the North American, Indian, European (I don't think they have a regular one), etc. should be a major recipient of millions of dollars of funding. For example, I attended November's North American Conference in Toronto, and give the organizing committee full credit for a wonderful conference with what they had to work with (I don't know the exact amount of funding allotted - maybe SuperHamster and Econterms and others could elaborate - for the conference itself, for scholarships, etc.). But the Foundation, especially after a literal four-year conference hiatus per covid, should have thrown money at it and asked "Thank you Wikipedians, what else can we do?". All conferences should have hundreds of full scholarships. Evening events should be held every night of the conference - full catered banquets, speakers including officials from the city/state/country, a panel of celebrities talking of how they view and relate to Wikipedia, a dance night with live music, etc. etc. These conferences are both educational connections for participants and celebrations of their work - and by celebrations I envision as far as it can be taken. For example, I've been advocating for a large North American conference in Las Vegas in 2026 for the 25th Wikipedia anniversary year, a major event to augment the Paris Wikimedia conference.

"Lack of funding" should be no barrier, Wikipedians as a group being the recipient of donations is an obvious use of funds. I bet with a proposal in-hand for fully funding these large world-and-continental conferences, combined with visits to a couple of local millionaires or billionaires, these things can equate with and rival the best conferences of other major organizations and professional gatherings. There is a large playing field not being played on, and your unanswered query to Jimbo Wales adds one idea to a what-can-easily-be scenerios in terms of tying Wikipedians into Foundation funding (as the public appeals strongly imply). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:48, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

(a ping to the two other editors mentioned at Jimbo Wales' talk page: @Nadzik and @SGrabarczuk (WMF) and to our beloved Board Member and actual editor, Rosiestep who may have thoughts on this as well as on the VivaWikiVegas26 idea) Randy Kryn (talk) 14:28, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Update, Nadzik left a note on the discussion at Jimbo Wales' talk page, and I've left a note of their page per this subject. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:13, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Ella Honan (13:50, 29 February 2024)

Hello I am trying to get more information about myself and my acting I’ve done throughout previous years how can I get more information out? As there is bits and bobs on Google --Ella Honan (talk) 13:50, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ella — our goal here is to write an encyclopedia about notable topics, not to help you promote yourself. Your user page is not an article, and we'd want one about you only if you meet the criteria at WP:NACTOR. Please see WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY regarding the conflict of interest you have writing about yourself. Best, Sdkb ^talk 14:03, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Since I bookmarked this page because of an above section I saw your enquiry Ella. The best you can do is collect your press and other media mentions and, when you think you have enough for a Wikipedia article, query again. You cannot write it yourself, but if there is ample coverage, and hopefully your career takes off like a skylark, there will come a time for a Wikipedia page (is the Survivor series a major series? If so, press should follow, especially if you have the magic ingredient: a good agent). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:08, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Administrator changes

• Sdkb
• The Night Watch

• East718
• Isabelle Belato
• Mzajac
• Staecker
• Stan Shebs
• Sugarfish
• Tamzin

Bureaucrat changes

SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
• Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news

• The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. (T353388)

Miscellaneous

• The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Re:e-mail

Hello! Sorry, I'm missing something about what you wrote...

Maybe it's just because I'm feeling tired. : D Oltrepier (talk) 19:52, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh man, you're right, haha!

I'll do it real quick, thank you for flagging it! Oltrepier (talk) 21:24, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

So... now I genuinely feel like I forgot the birthday of a loved one. : D

By the way, congratulations on getting admin powers! Oltrepier (talk) 21:35, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Do you have plans for Template:User's RfA?

{{User's RfA}} has no transclusions, which usually leads to deletion. Did you have a plan to use this template somewhere? – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:55, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi Jonesey95; thanks for checking in! The plan for that template was to use it in {{Happy Adminship}} so that it would link to the RfA. If I recall correctly, I couldn't get it to substitute properly because it required checking categories. I or someone else might figure out a way to adjust the code to make it viable in the future, so I would oppose deletion per the and has no likelihood of being used part of WP:TFD#REASONS. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:05, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

It's really nice to see a message such as this @Jonesey95. Many times I have had stuff nominated at TfD and the nominator did not even bother to drop in and ask what the purpose is or what the future plans were, which always seems discourteous. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:32, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm not always this nice. You caught me on a good day. When a template has been created somewhat recently by an editor I know to be mostly competent (I put myself in this category, with "mostly" as a very deliberately chosen word), I'll try to drop a note. If the template is ancient and unused, or recent and created by someone with just a few contributions, I usually send it straight to TFD. [ETA: The problem with courtesy is that unlike holding the door open for someone at the supermarket entrance, it can take a ton of time here on WP. There is so much garbage to clean up that sometimes the only way through it is to mass-process stuff in a cold, cruel manner and miss the one bit of useful creative work that was in the dross heap. I am always happy to withdraw a TFD or other deletion nomination for stuff that is useful.] – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:58, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: I was skimming this about something else, and my eye got caught by mass-process stuff in a cold, cruel manner. I think I understand why you often see no better option, but I encountered a pretty prolific editor who also created an IMO harmful template. I succeeded to (kindly) show the author why I think it to be harmful, and he accepted the arguments and removed it himself (no TFD process needed). The expected advantage is he hopefully both gets a bit wiser, and stays prolific with (hopefully) good edits (and possibly future good templates too). I am glad to see you did something like that (in no cold, cruel manner) too here, and so I wish you a lot of (at least) similarly good days ;-) Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 03:19, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I try to be kind at least once a month. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:37, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request on draft Signpost op-ed on social apps/younger audiences

Hi! I'm working on an op-ed for the Signpost (gist: there's been a lot of attention on AI over the last year, but not as much attention on the other important socio-technical change that affects Wikipedia, the increasing popularity of getting information from personalities on social apps/platforms that cater to younger audiences). I've started a draft here – as someone who has been following the Future Audiences work and had some good feedback early on about the social apps space, I'd really appreciate it if you could take a look and let me know what you think! Open to any/all feedback. Thank you!! Maryana Pinchuk (WMF) (talk) 15:55, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Maryana; nice to hear from you! And that sounds like a very worthwhile op-ed for the Signpost! Taking a read, here are a few initial thoughts (feel free to take or leave whichever of them are helpful):

• The comparison between how much attention we're devoting to AI vs. the desire for info from personalities is an interesting framing device. But given that the article is focused on the personalities issue, it might help to dial in on that as early as possible.
• In the first bullet point, it seems you're talking in part about how editor attention has shifted, which doesn't seem to speak directly to the question you pose about reader attention.
• I want to hear from you, English Wikipedians – as the groundbreaking community that, 23 years ago, revolutionized how knowledge could be shared and accessed online This feels a little weird, given that most Wikipedians today weren't editing 23 years ago.
• The Basque Wikipedia example speaks to an attempt to pursue the "knowledge destination" approach. Is there an example of current work you could add that'd speak to the "free knowledge everywhere" approach? (Perhaps the sound logo?)
• I recall from your WCNA presentation (sidenote: Is that online anywhere? I don't see it in the category) that you had the third "Internet's Conscience" approach. Was there a reason you left that out from the article?

Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 04:46, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much – this was all extremely helpful feedback, and I've incorporated your suggestions into a revised draft. (Also, thanks for catching that my WCNA slides never made it to Commons, ack! Uploaded and in the category now.)

If you have time for another read-through of the refreshed draft, I'd appreciate it (but no pressure – I know you're a busy VIP admin now! ) Maryana Pinchuk (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Peter I. Klock (22:17, 5 March 2024)

Hi, I just entered an article I published and presented at the WGMSC. I want to add it to Wikipedia. Please help me to take the next step. --Peter I. Klock (talk) 22:17, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Peter! The page at Help:Your first article has instructions for you. The material at your user page does not currently resemble an encyclopedia article and would need significant editing before it could be submitted. Sdkb ^talk 22:25, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Typo

Noticed that in your recent edits to Template:User WikiProject Music of Canada and Template:User WikiProject Country Music, you accidentally wrote "particpant" instead of "participant". Don't have time to scour your edit history to find anywhere else you may have made the same error, so I figured I would let you know so, if need be, you can fix it yourself when you get a chance. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 05:24, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Eek! Thanks for letting me know. I'll review and fix anywhere else with the typo. Sdkb ^talk 05:26, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Should be all fixed now! Please let me know if I missed anything. Sdkb ^talk 04:05, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Re: Society

Great hook! Viriditas (talk) 10:22, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @Viriditas! (For anyone else wondering, the hook is Did you know ... that the use of trade in prehistoric society may have given humans an evolutionary advantage over Neanderthals? It was chosen from among a few options.) Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 17:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I feel like I should just give up and outsource all my hooks to you. Do you think being a professional journalist gives you some insight into how to create better hooks than others? And would you care to share some personal tips? Viriditas (talk) 23:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Haha I am by no means the best hook writer — you should look to editors like @Theleekycauldron, who has compiled some great tips herself.

But writing hooks does share a lot of similarities with writing teases (the text in a social media post accompanying a link to a journalistic work). The biggest thing I notice is that people need to let go of the idea that a hook should describe the article comprehensively. People tend to write articles because they're interested in the topic as a whole, and that translates to an impulse to include as many details about it as possible in the hook. But those details don't tend to be interesting, and by the time you add the year/nationality/other info that might normally go in an article's first sentence, the hook is overly long and there's no room for the actual fun factoid. What I try to do is find the interesting factoid — the nugget of info where I go "hmm, I didn't know or wouldn't have suspected that," even if it's not otherwise a big part of the article. I then use that as the basis for the hook, stripping out everything not directly needed to support it.

For instance, in my currently nominated hook, the article is about a 2022 documentary directed by Violet Du Feng on the Chinese language Nüshu. But almost none of that is needed to support the interesting factoid — or in this case two, that it was a secret women-only language and that marketers tried to turn it into a branding device for high-end potatoes (which is actually only a brief moment in the film). So I stripped out "2022," "Violet Du Feng," the word "Nüshu" and even "Chinese". By distilling in that way, I was able to keep it a medium-length hook even with the double-factoid. Readers will get those details once they click through, and to some extent the omissions may even encourage it (e.g. if someone wonders which culture created this language, they have to click to find out).

I hope that helps! Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 01:01, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

If I may bother you with a follow up question: how do you personally gauge interestingness? I recently was involved in a small discussion about this, and what I thought was an interesting hook, another found absolutely boring. I would appreciate some insight into this specific problem. I think what I like most about your hook up above is its brevity. But would others find it boring? I wouldn't, of course, but I'm curious how you bridge this somewhat subjective gap. Viriditas (talk) 20:49, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

That's certainly the perpetual question! And you're right that it's always going to be subjective. As best I can formalize it, interestingness derives from a fact being counter to what one might assume or guess. Most people don't propose marriage the same day they meet their spouse, most zippers don't weigh 1,500 pounds, and most concerts don't ask you to bring your own chair, so when I came across those things, I used them in my hooks.

A key element is that, because Main Page readers are a general audience, hooks need to appeal to someone with no special interest in the topic area. I think that a lot of uninteresting "first person to do X" hooks arise from forgetting this. The thought process behind a nomination of a hook like "... that Jane Smith was the first female train conductor in New Zealand?" is basically "I find New Zealand trains interesting, so this hook is interesting because it relates to New Zealand trains." But for general readers, who have no special interest in New Zealand trains, there's nothing surprising here — of course someone was the first female train conductor in New Zealand, so learning that they were named Smith doesn't change my perception of the world in any meaningful way, and I'm not likely to click.

Of course, there is an element of luck involved — some topics have a fact that leaps out (which journalists writing about it will typically use as a soft lead) and others don't. But even for relatively niche topics, you can stack the odds in your favor by doing deeper research — the Pete Sutherland fact above, for instance, wasn't mentioned in any of his obits, but turned up once I looked through the Newspapers.org archives. And for huge topics like Society, you can dig pretty much infinitely until you find something good. Sdkb ^talk 21:47, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

That's helpful. I will ruminate on it for several days until it sinks in and I become one with everything. Viriditas (talk) 21:58, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

A kitten for your successful adminship!

Congratulations!!

Waylon (he was here) (Does my editing suck? Let's talk.) (Also, not to brag, but...) 19:40, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Sdkb ^talk 19:41, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey, congrats! :D –07:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC) Fpmfpm (talk) 07:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Fpmfpm! Sdkb ^talk 15:14, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Technical question

Thought you might have some insight on this. My first batch of FGTC proposals passed, one of which is combining the pages Wikipedia talk:Featured and good topic candidates & Wikipedia talk:Featured and good topic questions.

How might I go about doing so, considering that both pages have (somewhat) extensive archives? I could just leave a merge request, but I find those tend to go un-answered for a while, and I'd rather just do this myself then force it into another editor's hands. Aza24 (talk) 01:29, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not too familiar with talk page merges personally. If the documentation doesn't provide clear instruction, perhaps posting at WT:MERGE or somewhere similar might draw the attention of someone who would know. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 04:36, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Ironically, looks like a thread already began there earlier this year, Wikipedia talk:Merging#Talk page archives. Aza24 (talk) 04:48, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

RFA2024 update: no longer accepting new proposals in phase I

Hey there! This is to let you know that phase I of the 2024 requests for adminship (RfA) review is now no longer accepting new proposals. Lots of proposals remain open for discussion, and the current round of review looks to be on a good track towards making significant progress towards improving RfA's structure and environment. I'd like to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has given us their idea for change to make RfA better, and the same to everyone who has given the necessary feedback to improve those ideas. The following proposals remain open for discussion:

• Proposal 2, initiated by HouseBlaster, provides for the addition of a text box at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship reminding all editors of our policies and enforcement mechanisms around decorum.
• Proposals 3 and 3b, initiated by Barkeep49 and Usedtobecool, respectively, provide for trials of discussion-only periods at RfA. The first would add three extra discussion-only days to the beginning, while the second would convert the first two days to discussion-only.
• Proposal 5, initiated by SilkTork, provides for a trial of RfAs without threaded discussion in the voting sections.
• Proposals 6c and 6d, initiated by BilledMammal, provide for allowing users to be selected as provisional admins for a limited time through various concrete selection criteria and smaller-scale vetting.
• Proposal 7, initiated by Lee Vilenski, provides for the "General discussion" section being broken up with section headings.
• Proposal 9b, initiated by Reaper Eternal, provides for the requirement that allegations of policy violation be substantiated with appropriate links to where the alleged misconduct occured.
• Proposals 12c, 21, and 21b, initiated by City of Silver, Ritchie333, and HouseBlaster, respectively, provide for reducing the discretionary zone, which currently extends from 65% to 75%. The first would reduce it 65%–70%, the second would reduce it to 50%–66%, and the third would reduce it to 60%–70%.
• Proposal 13, initiated by Novem Lingaue, provides for periodic, privately balloted admin elections.
• Proposal 14, initiated by Kusma, provides for the creation of some minimum suffrage requirements to cast a vote.
• Proposals 16 and 16c, initiated by Thebiguglyalien and Soni, respectively, provide for community-based admin desysop procedures. 16 would desysop where consensus is established in favor at the administrators' noticeboard; 16c would allow a petition to force reconfirmation.
• Proposal 16e, initiated by BilledMammal, would extend the recall procedures of 16 to bureaucrats.
• Proposal 17, initiated by SchroCat, provides for "on-call" admins and 'crats to monitor RfAs for decorum.
• Proposal 18, initiated by theleekycauldron, provides for lowering the RfB target from 85% to 75%.
• Proposal 24, initiated by SportingFlyer, provides for a more robust alternate version of the optional candidate poll.
• Proposal 25, initiated by Femke, provides for the requirement that nominees be extended-confirmed in addition to their nominators.
• Proposal 27, initiated by WereSpielChequers, provides for the creation of a training course for admin hopefuls, as well as periodic retraining to keep admins from drifting out of sync with community norms.
• Proposal 28, initiated by HouseBlaster, tightens restrictions on multi-part questions.

To read proposals that were closed as unsuccessful, please see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I/Closed proposals. You are cordially invited once again to participate in the open discussions; when phase I ends, phase II will review the outcomes of trial proposals and refine the implementation details of other proposals. Another notification will be sent out when this phase begins, likely with the first successful close of a major proposal. Happy editing! theleekycauldron (talk • she/her), via:

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

n.d.

i can't really disagree with the {{notability}} challenge. But the reason that I felt we needed a better landing space for this abbreviation was my own experience many years ago when I first came across it. I had no idea what it meant and no idea how to find out. Until I created the page, n.d. redirected to ND (disambiguation), where it languished imperceptibly in the See Also section, so even if someone did search for n.d., there was a very high probability that that would leave none the wiser.

In CS1 citations, we actively encourage editors to use it: when templates like {{sfnp}} are used, it is essential.

My first thought was to redirect it to APA style but there is no obvious landing spot there.

Can you suggest a better idea? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:02, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

A soft redirect for the Wiktionary entry would be my suggestion. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 21:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Is it legitimate for the "article" n.d. to consist only of a redirect to Wiktionary? I didn't know you could do that (well I've only been editing for nearly 20 years. ) Yes, that would be ideal, how is it done? (Happy for you to point me at the Teahouse if it is not a trivial explanation.) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:37, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Yep, it can be done using {{Wiktionary redirect}}! Sdkb ^talk 18:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

TYVM, sorry for any inconvenience. Another one added to my user:JMF#Obscure but useful links:.

Not a problem in the slightest! Sharing with each other is the main way to learn about a lot of the more obscure things on Wikipedia. :) Sdkb ^talk 21:08, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Redirected to anchor

Hi,

I posted the § Showing "Redirected from" notice at top of section suggestion the other day, and realized just now that putting together the two points raised in the comments I replied to actually yields quite a nice solution for how to apply this to anchors as well.

I added a mock-up to my current IP's talk space, starting from User talk:2A02:560:5829:B000:3035:7BA6:5759:C13C/User test/Origin page. The bolded wikilink goes thru a redirect to one of the anchors on the target page, which is a slightly edited copy of an actual article. The full "Redirected from" notice is accessible via the {{NoteTag}} displayed at that anchor.

This one is hardcoded, of course, and is labelled "[note 1]" instead of something custom like "[Redirected here]", and clicking it jumps to the bottom instead of the top of the page, because putting the notes above the note tags apparently isn't allowed. But the functionality supplied by the notes system is an (in retrospect maybe not very) surprisingly good match for this scenario, with the ability to jump back and forth between the "top" and the redirect target as a pleasant bonus.

Could I trouble you to re-post this comment to the dev page? IPs can't post there, and I could not get Wikimedia's signup captcha to work despite trying multiple browsers.

Of course, if you notice any major issues that I overlooked, then do not do that last part! :)

- 2A02:560:5829:B000:3035:7BA6:5759:C13C (talk) 20:25, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi there! Sorry to hear of the Captcha troubles. Sometimes ad blockers can interfere with them, so I'd suggest trying with those turned off, or checking from a mobile device if that fails too. It'd be helpful to have any details about how the Captcha is failing, as others are unfortunately probably experiencing the same thing, and we'd like to figure out how to fix it.

Accounts are extremely useful for communicating about development topics like this, so if you're able to create one I'd suggest using it to post yourself. As a last resort, I'd of course be happy to copy your comments over to Phabricator, but that'd make it harder for others to ask you follow-up questions, etc. Sdkb ^talk 21:07, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

N. d.

Dear colleague, I have marked the article N.d. as being under review, and boarded the plane. Upon landing I have discovered that you have removed my hatnote and replaced the article with a soft redirect. I have no problem with this resolution, although I was planning to redirect it to some abbreviation list or APA style and checking the sources for potential Abbreviations for citations. Still, the purpose of placing the {{under review}} tag was to gain few hours' worth of time for the flight. Next time, please let me complete the review. Sincerely, Викидим (talk) 21:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Викидим! Apologies for disrupting your workflow. I was following up from the discussion above (itself flowing from here), and did notice the {{under review}} tag but saw it was half an hour old, which is longer than NPP reviewers typically spend on a page. That template appears pretty obscure, and given that it provides meaningful info only to editors, not readers, I question whether it should be being used in mainspace. Sdkb ^talk 21:24, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Semaj Jr (02:28, 23 March 2024)

Hello how do I create an article --Semaj Jr (talk) 02:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

See Help:Your first article. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 20:11, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks and question

Thank you for converting the links I added into proper references. Could I ask how you do that? I'm assuming it isn't done manually. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 20:04, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @IOHANNVSVERVS! It's semi-manual, in that the tools try to fill in the references, but often need proofing or fixing. I used the Reference Toolbar to make that particular edit, but you can also use VisualEditor. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 20:10, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

DYK for Hidden Letters

On 27 March 2024, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Hidden Letters, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that marketers try to turn a secret women-only language into a branding device for "high-end potatoes" in the documentary Hidden Letters? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Hidden Letters. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Hidden Letters), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:03, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Plopping for my records the pageviews link that includes Nüshu, which did even better than Hidden Letters. Sdkb ^talk 20:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Requesting user right removals

Hello, I am requesting the removal of my Page mover and Pending change user permissions, thank you. Jerium (talk) 20:15, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I'm not Sdkb, but I have fulfilled your request. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:23, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Jerium (talk) 20:41, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Wag1weliz (23:37, 28 March 2024)

Good day How i could change a misleading front page brother. Would like to know thank you. --Wag1weliz (talk) 23:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Wag1weliz! If you're referring to the Main Page, errors can be reported to WP:ERRORS. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 00:42, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Özcan gündük (21:25, 29 March 2024)

Resim eklemek ve profilimde meslek yazmak istiyorum --Özcan gündük (talk) 21:25, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Merhaba. Burası İngilizce Vikipedi. Görünüşe göre Türkçe konuşuyorsunuz, dolayısıyla bunun yerine Türkçe Vikipedi'ye katkıda bulunmak isteyebilirsiniz. Sdkb ^talk 21:28, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Removal of PROD tag

When you decided to remove this PROD tag, asserting that sources exist, did you consider adding any sources? WP:DEPROD encourages editors to "Improve the page to address the concerns raised." Instead we are now left with an article with zero sources. AusLondonder (talk) 17:46, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

The text you're quoting is an encouragement, not a requirement. What is not merely encouragement is the instruction that PROD must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected. Sdkb ^talk 03:16, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Back here pestering

Hey, if you have the time/inclination, could I request a template alteration from you? I see that you made Template:FC pass talk message (great idea btw!). In helping reform WP:FGTC, our bot operator is going to add the template to the system for completed nominations. It works great with promoted featured topics, but the issue is promoted good topics (which, for obvious reasons, it doesn't support at the moment).

I'm seeing three possibilities here: (1) GTs are added as a fifth option, but that may be a little awkward to include (and the image would have to change, just for them). (2) A second template is created for just GTs? (3) I'm almost wondering if both FTs and GTs should be in a separate template, since the multi-star File:Cscr-featuredtopic.svg probably works better than the single File:Featured article star.svg for FTs anyways? Sorry to be rambling here. Aza24 (talk) 19:12, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey Sdkb, wondering if you've had a chance to look at this? Aza24 (talk) 23:41, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Aza; sorry for the delayed reply! That template is actually one of my prouder template creations — the editor retention value in having it vs. nothing shouldn't be underestimated. So I'm glad to hear you're looking to extend its use! I changed it so that the appropriate image is used for featured topics. It wouldn't be impossible to modify it to accept good topic nominations as well, but that'd go a little beyond its intended scope, and some of the other language wouldn't fit. So I'd suggest copying to a new template specifically for good topic nominations (which can be linked in the documentation as a "see also"). Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 03:08, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you! I will endeavor to copy the code over for GT-specific purposes. Thanks for adjusting for FTs! Aza24 (talk) 03:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2024).

Administrator changes

• Kbdank71
• Kosack
• NrDg
• TLSuda

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to convert all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure.

Technical news

• The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)

Arbitration

• An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".

Miscellaneous

• Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.

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• Subscribe
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

New Pages Patrol newsletter April 2024

Hello Sdkb,

New Page Review queue January to March 2024

Backlog update: The October drive reduced the article backlog from 11,626 to 7,609 and the redirect backlog from 16,985 to 6,431! Congratulations to Schminnte, who led with over 2,300 points.

Following that, New Page Patrol organized another backlog drive for articles in January 2024. The January drive started with 13,650 articles and reduced the backlog to 7,430 articles. Congratulations to JTtheOG, who achieved first place with 1,340 points in this drive.

Looking at the graph, it seems like backlog drives are one of the only things keeping the backlog under control. Another backlog drive is being planned for May. Feel free to participate in the May backlog drive planning discussion.

It's worth noting that both queues are gradually increasing again and are nearing 14,034 articles and 22,540 redirects. We encourage you to keep contributing, even if it's just a single patrol per day. Your support is greatly appreciated!

2023 Awards

Onel5969 won the 2023 cup with 17,761 article reviews last year - that's an average of nearly 50/day. There was one Platinum Award (10,000+ reviews), 2 Gold Awards (5000+ reviews), 6 Silver (2000+), 8 Bronze (1000+), 30 Iron (360+) and 70 more for the 100+ barnstar. Hey man im josh led on redirect reviews by clearing 36,175 of them. For the full details, see the Awards page and the Hall of Fame. Congratulations everyone for their efforts in reviewing!

WMF work on PageTriage: The WMF Moderator Tools team and volunteer software developers deployed the rewritten NewPagesFeed in October, and then gave the NewPagesFeed a slight visual facelift in November. This concludes most major work to Special:NewPagesFeed, and most major work by the WMF Moderator Tools team, who wrapped up their major work on PageTriage in October. The WMF Moderator Tools team and volunteer software developers will continue small work on PageTriage as time permits.

Recruitment: A couple of the coordinators have been inviting editors to become reviewers, via mass-messages to their talk pages. If you know someone who you'd think would make a good reviewer, then a personal invitation to them would be great. Additionally, if there are Wikiprojects that you are active on, then you can add a post there asking participants to join NPP. Please be careful not to double invite folks that have already been invited.

Reviewing tip: Reviewers who prefer to patrol new pages within their most familiar subjects can use the regularly updated NPP Browser tool.

Reminders:

• You can access live chat with patrollers on the New Pages Patrol Discord.
• Consider adding the project discussion page to your watchlist.
• To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:27, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Sexy primes

My impression is that 90% of the mathematical facts in these number pages are just anecdotal with no particular importance, and there is after all a wikipedia article about sexy numbers. But whatever. Vegan416 (talk) 16:21, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, number pages are rather notorious for trivia content that goes against our general style (the dearth of good examples is part of the issue, as it's not clear what we'd replace the cruft with). The addition of the sexy prime factoid to 47 didn't really make it any worse than it already was, but we have to draw the line somewhere. I probably wouldn't have reverted if you'd included an appropriate source, and if you wanted to restore it with one, I wouldn't personally remove it again. Sdkb ^talk 16:42, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Endowment thing

Could you take a look at my latest edit on the university endowments article? Its my effort to contextualize the large endowments. --Smokefoot (talk) 17:27, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

You mentioned a source in the edit summary, but don't appear to have included one in the edit. Sdkb ^talk 17:38, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, the source is in the linked article, but I will make it explicit. --Smokefoot (talk) 17:49, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Help

Dear Sdkb, I would like some help for a draft article I have related to Prime Press. It is confused with the Prime Press, Inc while this is an all new publishing house created in 2019, Prime Press Ltd.

I see you have edited several publishers articles and have also experience.

Please give me a hand on this, also with fixing the logo case.

All the best Khufu2019 (talk) 20:05, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Khufu2019, you were given good advice on your talk page; follow it. Your draft needs sources to establish organizational notability. Once that's resolved, we can address the disambiguation question. Sdkb ^talk 20:22, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I understand, but it was not easy to solve this case, I tried several times. It has just started the activity in the ELT market. It is enough even “ X is an educational …..based in …….”.

I am not requesting to skip any regulation, just finding a middle solution for this case.

thanks a lot for the sensibility and assistance Khufu2019 (talk) 21:50, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia only covers notable organizations. If this publisher has only just started operation, and has not yet received qualifying coverage, then it is likely too soon for it to have an article, and no amount of effort will be able to change that. Sdkb ^talk 21:58, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from Aedipikiw (17:10, 13 April 2024)

what criteria is needed to make a good functioning article? --Aedipikiw (talk) 17:10, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Aedipikiw! See Help:Your first article. Sdkb ^talk 18:47, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks so much!! For your help

- Wikipedia backwards (almost) Aedipikiw (talk) 01:43, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

New page patrol May 2024 Backlog drive

New Page Patrol | May 2024 Articles Backlog Drive
On 1 May 2024, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Each review will earn 1 point. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:15, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Haupt garden

A tag has been placed on Haupt garden requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done for the following reason:

not needed, inconsistent with Enid A. Haupt Garden and Garden

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, pages that meet certain criteria may be deleted at any time.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here.

Gadfium has reverted the (test?) nomination. Sdkb ^talk 21:21, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Growth News, April 2024

The Growth team will now send quarterly reports to keep you in the loop. Growth team weekly updates are available on wiki (in English) if you want to know more about our day-to-day work.

If you want to receive more general updates about technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement (including Growth work), we encourage you to subscribe to Tech News.

Community Configuration

Growth features are currently configurable at Special:EditGrowthConfig. This quarter we are working on making Community Configuration accessible for other MediaWiki developers while also moving Growth feature configuration to the new CommunityConfiguration extension.

An early version of Community Configuration can be tested at Spanish Beta Wikipedia. We plan to release the new Community Configuration extension to pilot wikis (Arabic and Spanish Wikipedia) in early May, 2024. The first non-Growth team feature to utilize Community Configuration will be Automoderator.

In parallel with the development, the Growth team will propose Community Configuration usage guidelines, Community Configuration design guidelines, and provide technical documentation.

Experiment Results

Add a Image experiment analysis results

The Growth team conducted an experiment to assess the impact of the “Add an Image” structured task on the Newcomer Homepage's "Suggested Edits" module. This analysis finds that the Add an Image structured task leads to an increase in newcomer participation on the mobile web platform, particularly by making constructive (non-reverted) article edits:

• The likelihood that mobile web newcomers make their first article edit (+17.0% over baseline)
• The likelihood that they are retained as newcomers (+24.3% over baseline)
• The number of edits they make during their first two weeks on the wiki (+21.8% over baseline)
• A lower probability of the newcomers' edits will be reverted (-3.3% over baseline).

Personalized praise experiment results

This feature was developed for Mentors as part of the Growth team's Positive Reinforcement project. When A/B testing on Spanish Wikipedia, we found no significant impact on retention, but we found a significant positive impact on newcomer productivity. However, we concluded that the results weren’t positive enough to justify the time investment from Mentors. We plan to discuss this feature with our pilot wikis, and consider further improvements before scaling this feature further. Meanwhile, communities willing to test the feature can ask to have it deployed. (T361763)

English donors encouraged to try editing

As in previous years, donors were directed to a Thank you page after donation (example). However, this year we tested a new “Try editing Wikipedia,” call to action on the Thank You page. This call to action linked to a unique account creation page. From this account creation page we were able to track Registrations and Activation (editing for the first time). During the English banner campaign, the Donor Thank you page led to 4,398 new accounts, and 441 of those accounts went on to constructively edit within 24 hours. (T352900)

Future work

Annual Plan

The Growth team and the Editing team will work on the WE1.2 Key Result in the coming fiscal year. We will start initial discussions with communities soon to help finalize our plans. (T361657)

Newcomer Homepage Community Updates module

We plan to A/B test adding a new Community Configurable module to the Newcomer Homepage that will allow communities to highlight specific events, projects, campaigns, and initiatives. We are early in the planning phase of this project that will take place first at our pilot wikis and wikis volunteering. We welcome community feedback on initial designs and plans, in any language at our project talk page.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:55, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from Adnankhan2 (12:33, 27 April 2024)

hello Sdkb, can you please tell me whats the criteria are for uploading image? --Adnankhan2 (talk) 12:33, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@Adnankhan2, see Wikipedia:Uploading images, and let me know if you have any more specific questions (it's not fully clear what you mean by "criteria"). Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 16:23, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2024).

Administrator changes

Nyttend

• JohnOwens
• Killiondude
• MelanieN
• Nihonjoe

Bureaucrat changes

Nihonjoe

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe

Oversight changes

GeneralNotability

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 requests for adminship review has concluded. Several proposals have passed outright and will proceed to implementation, including creating a discussion-only period (3b) and administrator elections (13) on a trial basis. Other successful proposals, such as creating a reminder of civility norms (2), will undergo further refinement in Phase II. Proposals passed on a trial basis will be discussed in Phase II, after their trials conclude. Further details on specific proposals can be found in the full report.

Technical news

• Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks. T280531

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Conflict of interest management has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• This may be a good time to reach out to potential nominees to ask if they would consider an RfA.
• A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in May 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 15,000 articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!
• Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is open until 9 May 2024. Read the voting page on Meta-Wiki and cast your vote here!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Reminder to vote now to select members of the first U4C

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Dear Wikimedian,

You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.

This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 23:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

RFA2024 update: phase I concluded, phase II begins

Hi there! Phase I of the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review has concluded, with several impactful changes gaining community consensus and proceeding to various stages of implementation. Some proposals will be implemented in full outright; others will be discussed at phase II before being implemented; and still others will proceed on a trial basis before being brought to phase II. The following proposals have gained consensus:

• Proposals 2 and 9b (phase II discussion): Add a reminder of civility norms at RfA and Require links for claims of specific policy violations
• Proposal 3b (in trial): Make the first two days discussion-only
• Proposal 13 (in trial): Admin elections
• Proposal 14 (implemented): Suffrage requirements
• Proposals 16 and 16c (phase II discussion): Allow the community to initiate recall RfAs and Community recall process based on dewiki
• Proposal 17 (phase II discussion): Have named Admins/crats to monitor infractions
• Proposal 24 (phase II discussion): Provide better mentoring for becoming an admin and the RfA process
• Proposal 25 (implemented): Require nominees to be extended confirmed

See the project page for a full list of proposals and their outcomes. A huge thank-you to everyone who has participated so far :) looking forward to seeing lots of hard work become a reality in phase II. theleekycauldron (talk), via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:09, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Question from Oanvoovad (15:58, 8 May 2024)

Hello, I have made a translation of an article. How can it be published? --Oanvoovad (talk) 15:58, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Oanvoovad! It looks like you've already published Simão da Silva Ferraz de Lima e Castro by moving it from draft space to article space. It will be reviewed as part of our new page patrol process likely sometime over the next month or so, so be on the lookout for feedback from the reviewer (who may move it back to draft space temporarily if there are concerns that need to be addressed). Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 16:33, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I see. It doesn't seem to be available when searching from google, and the link to the Portuguese article in the 'add languages' section seems to have been lost. Perhaps I've done something wrong... Oanvoovad (talk) 17:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Oanvoovad: I've connected the article to the Wikidata item that the Portuguese article was linked to, so hopefully there should now be a link to that article from the English article :) ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 17:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Regarding appearing on Google, that'll happen once the new page patroller reviews the article. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 17:26, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks all. Oanvoovad (talk) 17:40, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:The Rounds

Hello, Sdkb. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:The Rounds, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 04:07, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Question from Johnsamuels0 (01:48, 12 May 2024)

i have made a sandbox about Dr. Dawood Suleiman Alsaadi, when will you think it will be reviewed? --Johnsamuels0 (talk) 01:48, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

@Johnsamuels0, per the notice, it may take 3 months or more, since drafts are reviewed in no specific order. Sdkb ^talk 01:50, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Cafeteria

In reply to User talk:Bearcat § Wiki Education at its finest.

Ahhhhh, okay, that makes sense. Frankly, I suspect that's the explanation for a lot of things that make me go hmmmm... Bearcat (talk) 23:03, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

The CTOP template

Hi there. Out of curiosity, did you ever finish Template_talk:Contentious_topics/talk_notice#When_an_article_deals_with_multiple_contentious_topics?

I am a bit rusty at templates, but would be happy to look at it if it's still blocked for some reason. I messaged you on Discord earlier as well, if that's a more convenient discussion place for you Soni (talk) 08:26, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi Soni; thanks for following up about that! (I generally prefer to collaborate on-wiki just so everything is public.)

I did code a solution in the sandbox, which can be seen in the testcases. It'd be great to get it over the finish line, and would love your help if you're interested! It seems these are the remaining steps:

• There have been a few changes to {{Contentious topics/talk notice}} since I made the sandbox last year; those should be ported over so that the sandbox is synced up.
• It seems that there were some special use cases with the gmo, a-i, tt topic areas that need to be handled. It looks like Sideswipe9th had some thoughts on those and might be willing to help with that.
• I'm not a specialist in contentious topics designations, and given how complex of an area it is, I think it'd be helpful for someone who is to look everything over before it goes live. I know that Tamzin was involved in contentious topics reform, and that Oshwah has contributed to interface changes in this area, so they might be good editors to ping.

I hope that provides a bit of a roadmap! I don't have the capacity to take those steps myself currently, and may not for a while, but if you want to dive in, I'll be happy to clarify anything that's unclear and to chime in if you hit any snags. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 17:32, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

RE:

In reply to User talk:Red Director § Cosmetic edits

Thanks for your concern but what is the purpose of that MOS tool if it is cosmetic only? Cosmetic only has been defined as reordering reference fields if no others are added or a mdy/dmy date update if no further changes. That change you referenced was something I have done for years. The purpose of those changes are to get the reference date fields and other dates in the article up to date. That is the whole point of the script and tool. Not arguing because I do see where what I mentioned above and can only be comestic. I do not do those. If I preview the edit and nothing is changed, I do not publish. Red Director (talk) 20:15, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

See the following when you get a chance: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Dates, months, and years. Those changes solely are to make all the dates on the articles match the MDY/DMY. A lot of those changes have dates that are deemed unacceptable by that page. The script makes those default numbered dates to a country-based date. Red Director (talk) 20:27, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

@Red Director: Unless I missed something, all the dates changed in the edit I came across were to citations. Those are already formatted by the {{Use mdy dates}} template to match the page's citation style, regardless of how they appear in the source code. Thus, there is no change to the visible output for readers in changing the source code, which is why I characterized them as cosmetic. Does that help clarify? Sdkb ^talk 20:44, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense from a reader view point. From an editors' view point, it does help with dates having names instead of a bunch of numbers stacked along. Previous runs of the date tool from years cause the coded ref dates to mismatch on date format. A user a while back tagged a lot of articles with an update without actually updating them so the audits are off really badly. Cosmetic is defined on the ProveIt Tool as nothing else being added or reference field orders just being reorganized as cosmetic. I just have only received mainly positive feedback over the years on that. If you want me to stop doing those, I can, but those edits I feel actually do serve a purpose for aiding editing. Red Director (talk) 20:54, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

@Red Director:, I cannot find the ProveIt tool's definition of cosmetic, but regardless of what it says (and ProveIt's definition should be changed if it's wrong), the governing one is the policy definition of cosmetic changes, which defines them clearly, and makes clear that edits that impact only the wikitext an editor sees are considered cosmetic. If you wish to continue making edits like that, you could check at WP:BOTN to see whether there is consensus for them, but my prediction is that they will be deemed cosmetic changes and therefore discouraged unless they come along with something substantive. Sdkb ^talk 14:44, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I will abide by that definition on those. Red Director (talk) 15:06, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Three years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:46, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

story · music · places

Today's TFA, Felix M. Warburg House, was written by Vami_IV and Epicgenius, introduced: "This article is about another of the great houses that once lined Fifth Avenue in New York. Specifically, this is the mansion of Felix M. Warburg, a Jewish financier who ignored fears of anti-Semitic reprisal to his decided to build himself a big Gothic manor in the middle of New York City. Although the Warburgs no longer remain, their legacy does: the museum is now the home of the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) and the building largely survives as they left it. It's a beautiful building and I hope you will all enjoy it."! - in memory --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:15, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Today's story mentions a concert I loved to hear and a piece I loved to sing in choir, 150 years old OTD. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:31, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Redirect question

Hello again, just need to pick your brain on another topic when you get a chance. When redirects are created, does it make since to sync the talk page to the talk page redirect as well? The feature on the redirect helper tool provides that. Also, some redirect talk pages have banners. Do those need to be there? Best wishes. Red Director (talk) 17:47, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Red Director; good question! The redirect guideline advises that, where they exist, talk pages of redirects should be tagged with {{Talk page of redirect}}. However, that template's documentation makes clear that talk pages of redirects should never be created solely to tag them with it. The rationale behind this, to my understanding, is that talk pages of redirects don't really serve any purpose: Readers won't encounter them because they'll always be directed to the destination article and its talk page, and for editors, any discussion pertaining to the redirect would be better centralized to its destination's talk page (or WP:RfD). Therefore, all their existence does is add complexity (and surface area for vandalism, etc.).

Regarding banners, the principle of recording every piece of information only once indicates to me that we should not be attempting to tag redirect talk pages with them, as that would create a bunch of duplication (and thus complexity, syncing issues, etc.); it's better for any editor or tool to just assume that whatever project banners apply to a redirect's target also apply to the redirect itself. The only time I'd add banners to the redirect would be when they apply only to that redirect, not its destination (for instance, Campus of Foobar University, a redirect to Foobar University, might be tagged with {{WikiProject Architecture}}), similar to how we categorize redirects.

For all of this, if you're planning to do any large-scale editing, you could check with WT:REDIRECT, where folks more specialized in redirects than me might be able to provide thoughts. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 20:33, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. The redirect-helper tool allows for the creation of the talk pages with no other content but redirecting the talk page of the redirect to the main article's talk page. Is that alright to do using the tool? That process only creates the bridge and does not have any tags or banners. I do not plan to do anything major. Basic redirect creation with the new tool allows for instant sync if the editor wishes. Red Director (talk) 21:01, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that — I'd ask at WT:REDIRECT or at the tool's talk page. I'm guessing you're not the only one who has had that question, so the tool's interface should be improved to provide a clearer link to the applicable guidance. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 21:26, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Contra dance user box

@Sdkb, you might like this. I created a userbox for contra dancing wikipedians. User:UBX/contra_dancing Paulmlieberman (talk) 14:17, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Cool to see, @Paulmlieberman! It looks like there unfortunately may be some issues with the image, though. The one you're using, File:Contra dancers right-hand star.jpg, is a low-resolution version of the PNG version, which will be deleted soon if a valid license tag is not added. The JPG version is tagged as public domain due to publication before 1929, which is not compatible with the stated 2019 creation date. Do we know that the illustration came from a contra dance book published before 1929? We'll need to confirm the original source in order to keep using it. Sdkb ^talk 16:56, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I've never been able to navigate the wikimedia image upload rules and regs. I don't know anything about the image, except that it appears on websites of several local dance groups. I grabbed it from sierracontra.org.

Can you help me clean this up?

Paulmlieberman (talk) 17:44, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Sure, no worries! I tagged those images for deletion and swapped in a different, freely licensed one. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 18:11, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Simplifying CSD

Given your work with simplifying welcome templates, I was wondering if you had any ideas about the speedy deletion notices we give users when a page of theirs has been csd'd? I can't help but think there ought be something we could do better in regards to that. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:02, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi Clovermoss; nice to hear from you! I don't work in CSD enough to have super strong views here, but happy to muse a bit, and perhaps that'll give you or others ideas for improvements.

Starting broadly, when designing a talk page notice, we always want to think about the effect we hope for it to have. For CSD notices, we ideally want them to give instruction to the user about how to edit the page to turn it into a notable article, or, if that's not possible, to get them to understand/accept the decision not to have it enough that they don't keep trying (a maintenance burden) or leave angry at us (and become vandals or stop donating or badmouth our reputation).

There are some barriers when it comes to CSDs. For one thing, anyone encountering one has already failed to follow instructions well enough to avoid a tag, so we're not dealing with the most competent user group. Further, by the time a notice is received, the page has often been deleted, and if someone's not able to make a page good enough to avoid a CSD tag, they're also probably not able to navigate the process of contacting the deleting admin and asking for it to be restored so that they can work on it more. Further further, the nature of the notice I think will communicate to users more (some other editor used this sort of language, but I forget who) "nice try, but game over, you failed Wikipedia, bye," rather than the intended message of "this isn't currently suitable for our site, but with improvements X Y Z we could reevaluate".

So given all that, I think it's sorta already too late by the point someone gets a CSD notice — our article wizard (if they even used it) has failed to get them to make a non-CSDable page, and now they've invested time into writing something that they're going to be angry to see deleted and unsure how to resurrect. The better intervention point would have been through a better article wizard, which would have either gotten them to realize the subject isn't suitable and quit or to make a suitable draft.

Looking more specifically at some of the CSD notices, they have the problem that a lot of groups of notices have, in that they're written broadly in a way that tries to cover every circumstance but ultimately comes across as non-personalized and bureaucratic. For an article on Jane Smith, there's a difference between the article appears to be about a real person or group of people that does not credibly indicate how or why the subject is important and the way a human might write, the article does not indicate how or why she is important. It probably wouldn't be worth the complexity it'd require to figure out and customize for the subject's pronouns in order to use she correctly, but we want it to sound a little more like that. Certainly the "or" statement in real person or group of people, like any "or" statement in a notice, is a dead giveaway that it's boilerplate.

Also, there's an emphasis on policy that isn't useful for the recipient — This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion doesn't have to be emphasized by placing it in the second sentence, and Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time would read much better as The article may be deleted at any time. And while we're tightening language, I also notice that the info is repeated later (be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay), which should absolutely be avoided, as the longer a notice is the less likely folks will be to actually read it.

I'll leave it there for now, but happy to continue chatting about this! Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 03:40, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess my concern is that they tend to be huge walls of text. I don't think it's impossible for someone whose received a csd notice to eventually figure things out. Maybe it's unlikely but I don't think it should stop us from trying to improve the templates. I'd say the most important ones to focus on would probably be U5 and G11, because that's what I've seen the most in the queue. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 12:32, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

For U5, I notice that the notice advises going to WP:RFUD, but RFUD itself says that it should not be used for U5 requests. That paradox should be resolved.

For G11, assuming it's being used correctly (and I'm not sure it always is), I think the chance of turning the recipient into a productive editor is approximately zero, as they are fundamentally not here. In that case, the language there should be tailored with the primary goal of getting them out of our hair as cleanly as possible. Sdkb ^talk 16:11, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

RfA debrief

Hi Sdkb, thanks for writing the RfA debrief. I found your point on conferences and building trust there interesting. It's a topic that has crossed my mind quite a few times, and instinctually it makes me unsure, as I wonder how conferences might muddle the perception of on-wiki work, positively and/or negatively. For example, it comes at a slight cross-purpose to the anonymity and gender/pronoun point you make (which I happen to agree with and also try to practice, although I've never to my recollection seen anyone else say they do this before). Anyway, it's something that I would be interested in reading a fuller write-up on at some point, if there is more you have in mind on this brief bullet (noting I have also seen your comments on various pages about conference funding before). Best, CMD (talk) 01:42, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I found your debrief interesting too. It's also a reminder that I should probably start drafting mine out 😅 Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 02:17, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

😅 Sdkb ^talk 15:34, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Glad you found the debrief interesting, and happy to muse on this!

Wikipedia is fundamentally a weird environment — I cannot think of any other situation in which I could have a fairly deep working relationship with someone and yet know them only by their username, with no clue where they live or what they look like. It's also limited to text communication, which lacks all of the additional information that you'd get even from someone's tone of voice and facial expressions over video chat, let alone in person. Those elements make it a hard environment in which to build trust. One possible lens for why fears of sockpuppetry have come up at several recent RfAs is that, beyond the (understandable) skittishness post-Eostrix, there's a baseline (also understandable) hesitation to trust the internet stranger. By de-anonymizing editors, conferences can help break through that.

They also work well as RfA breeding grounds because they concentrate a ton of interaction with a group of editors over a short time, and because someone's very presence at the conference is evidence of their commitment to the project.

The community has a hesitancy around doing Wikipedia-related activities off-wiki. Part of that is for justifiable reasons — we've seen the difficulty reconciling policies like WP:Outing with Wikipediocracy and even Discord, and further down the off-wiki path is the affiliate world with all of its ineffectualities. But another part of it is just that Wikipedia talk pages are our home comfort zone, and sometimes we need to push ourselves to step out of it (this applies also to e.g. emailing article subjects). The purist "everything should be public on-wiki all the time" view has limits, particularly around things like RfA preparation. Overall, I view conferences as an instance where activity off-wiki can directly lead to benefits on-wiki, and we should embrace that.

That said, there are certainly tradeoffs/risks. Bias in who ends up at conferences is a big one. The existence of scholarships (where they are given out...) removes some of the socioeconomic barrier, but even so, people need PTO and the ability to travel to be able to attend. And then there's the geographic factor — due to systemic bias, a disproportionate number of admins/functionaries are in North America, so editors who get to attend WCNA have access to more possible nominators than those whose regional conference is, say, WikiConference India. And as you allude, the de-anonymizing that happens at conferences also raises the possibility of discrimination based on ethnicity, race, physical attractiveness, etc. compared to online.

Given that, I would certainly never want to see conferences become the only path to adminship. But in our present world, where we just need more admins, I do think we ought to make more use of them as one option. Does all that help speak to your thoughts? Sdkb ^talk 06:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the considered musings. Your use of "purist" is especially noted, as during my drafting of the above message I at one point had "this might be a bit purist" or similar. Alternatively, perhaps I am institutionalised into the existing system, as I found the equalising power of the anonymity an attractive feature in my early days here. I have not considered that trust aspect before. I do trust some editors on-wiki purely due to their writing, but thinking about it now it does not remotely scale up to the needs of RfA as we are all working within our small areas (perhaps also on immediate reflection one of the reasons I hesitate to contribute to most RfAs).

I find myself agreeing with the thrust of your description about off-wiki activities. I have also found them fundamentally weird, having first learnt how everything works through activities on-wiki. I would posit an addition to your thoughts on regional conferences, that perhaps a big difference between your North American experience and mine (non-North American experiences) is that the North American experience may focus a lot more on en.wiki, while other regions have a a much more diverse focus on various language projects. Would this ring true? If so, that might be a reinforcing element of the systematic bias you mention.

Despite all this, I have enjoyed the few off-wiki meetings I have attended, and really came away feeling I'd learnt and met some great people. There is also the moral boost of actually meeting others who do similar activities and face similar challenges; the social aspect of editing doesn't really happen much on here. I would be interested in whether and how much the conferences do affect nominations. I do again suspect the North American experience may be quite different in this regard, and certainly isn't something I'd thought about in my initial reflections to your debrief. Best, CMD (talk) 10:24, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you're correct that WCNA had a fairly strong focus on English Wikipedia, which I suspect might not be true of other conferences. Sdkb ^talk 15:34, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I also think it's a really interesting point about conferences and scholarships. I've never attended one, because they're so distant and expensive – and that's speaking as someone who could probably get my work or an external grant to cover it. In academia, though people aren't pseudonymous, we do maintain a lot of working relationships at a distance, through written communication (I've written papers with people I've never met, for example), and in-person conferences are an essential an essential social release valve. The onus really should be on the WMF to actively fund and encourage participation from the communities as well as the affiliates.

Relatedly, though it's no longer a very popular view, I still think there is a lot to be said for editing under your real identity and "humanising" your user page with a photo and personal details – recognising of course that it is a privilege to be able to do so, and that those who can't should not be in any way disadvantaged. I think it was a mistake, inherited from early internet hacker culture, to make pseudonymity the default on Wikipedia. – Joe (talk) 12:23, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually I think Wikipedia did used to be more "humanised" before and became more anonymous with time. I've seen a bunch of old-timers with their photos out (like you) but hardly any newbies who are that way. Everyone wants to be anonymous on the internet - now more than ever before. If I edit under my real name I might have have Hindu nationalists on my ass (and possibly outside my window) in no time, even though most of my content work is hardly controversial. A majority of the world's population lives under such regimes, although maybe not the core enwiki editor base. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (^{talk to me!}/_{my edits}) 13:16, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2024).

Administrator changes

Graham Beards

• Deskana
• Mets501
• Staxringold

Bureaucrat changes

• Deskana
• Warofdreams

Oversight changes

Dreamy Jazz

Guideline and policy news

• Phase II of the 2024 RfA review has commenced to improve and refine the proposals passed in Phase I.

Technical news

• The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. T43351

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Venezuelan politics has been closed.
• The Committee is seeking volunteers for various roles, including access to the conflict of interest VRT queue.

Miscellaneous

• WikiProject Reliability's unsourced statements drive is happening in June 2024 to replace {{citation needed}} tags with references! Sign up here to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Question from Boikemisetso mokase (20:24, 6 June 2024)

Hello 👋 How do I create a good story --Boikemisetso mokase (talk) 20:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Boikemisetso mokase. I'm not sure what you mean by "story" — if you are referring to articles, see Help:Your first article. If English is not your native language, you may wish to contribute in the wiki for your native language. Sdkb ^talk 20:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

DYK for Reuben Solo

On 8 June 2024, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Reuben Solo, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that during a comedy routine Reuben Solo drew a graph plotting the audience's reaction to his routine? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Reuben Solo. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Reuben Solo), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Z1720 (talk) 00:04, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Escape page link from within

Template:Escape page link from within has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 06:26, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

A brainstorm: how reducing banner clutter (re: VA merger) links up with an article table generator

Your ideas about reducing banner clutter in the Vital article Tfd merger proposal (which I only just now discovered) resonated with me, especially the part where you proposed the concise version, with your example of VA-3, and I wanted to link this up with something I've been thinking about and get your feedback on it, as there may be some beneficial cross-pollination avenues here.

I have long been thinking about how to efficiently represent article page characteristics (such as article quality, length, protection level, etc.) so that WikiProjects and other similar pages can have lists or tables of articles and economically represent such metadata without heaps of repetitive text bloating the list or table rows. This led to creation of Template:Article attribute decoration which uses icon images or unicode characters to graphically encode such metadata.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist working on a table summarizing which language Wikipedias have articles on Transgender history or trans rights, to be added at some point as a monitor or progress tracker perhaps at the WP:LGBT WikiProject or somewhere, and I proposed some ideas that might be useful to her table idea using the {{Aad}} template. Since then, there's been an on-and-off collaboration going on, and the single-table idea has morphed into more of a platform idea to assist editors who want to develop any kind of table or list of related articles as a tracker for their WikiProject. Having short symbols or icons, like your VA symbol, fits right in with this scheme.

And that's where you come in. I think you are ideally placed to be a third member of a small dev team geared to developing some tools or a platform or whatever it ends up being, to lower the bar of entry for others who might like to build tables or lists to track or monitor groups of articles, in the way that, say, Trans articles by region2 tracks and compares trans history and trans rights articles across Wikipedias. For a glimpse of the power of the (then current) version, see the (surprisingly brief) wikicode, and the config file at {{Trans articles for region/config}}.

I've been away for a bit and just got back, so YFNS may have updated it or taken it off in a different direction by now, but it's still very much a work in progress, afaik. Anyhow, if any of this intrigues you, I know I'd welcome your participation as you have a lot of strengths in envisioning what would be most useful for a project and coming up with just the right approach, and critiquing current ones or seeing the essential points in something of this nature, and I think YFNS would agree. Have a look around, and see what you think; would love to hear your thoughts about it. YFNS may have some newer/better links for you. Mathglot (talk) 00:54, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi Mathglot! Great to hear from you, and that seems like interesting work!

My overall view of icons is that they present a tradeoff — on the one hand, they take up less space and are cleaner/easier to understand at a glance than text, but on the other, if you don't know what they represent, they're confusing, which can add to the barriers newcomers (or any of us, for newly introduced icons like the contentious topics one you included) face. Tooltips can partially mitigate that; I see you've used them for some of the icons already.

There's some existing infrastructure at {{Icon}} and related pages that it might be good to check to make sure there's no template duplication going on/integrate your new system into the existing documentation to make it discoverable.

Good luck with this work! Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 17:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The best-designed icons are self-evident or nearly so, but as with international road signage, they generally require a legend that describes them, and that is the approach I am following. If iconic enough, the description is easily associated with the icon and thenceforth they are no longer needed. Come to think of it, I should have the template generate a legend upon request as well. Mathglot (talk) 17:49, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Chester Whitmore

Hello, Sdkb. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Chester Whitmore, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 18:06, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Question from DandelionFluff (04:16, 12 June 2024)

Hello! I just made some edits to the page of Lynn Conway. Sounds like there's a lot of that happening right now as she died over the weekend. Just wanted to make sure I did all right! (I've done some editing in the past, but I just established a username.) --DandelionFluff (talk) 04:16, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi @DandelionFluff! Welcome to Wikipedia and thanks for checking in! Your edit looks fine to me at a quick glance. Biographies of recently deceased persons often see a lot of editing activity; feel free to edit boldly, and if there are any issues another editor watching the page will be able to help out. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 04:52, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! DandelionFluff (talk) 05:18, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Longform.org

Hello, Sdkb. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Longform.org, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 20:06, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Editnotice/doc#Namespace key Off-topic

At 03:25, 17 June 2024 in [1], you undid my {{off topic}} tag, saying it was an "unexplained tag." However, I already explained it 2 hours ago at 1:39, 17 June 2024‎ in [2]. Since you do not feel the section is off-topic, could you explain, on the actual documentation page, the relevance of all those namespace IDs? 184.146.170.127 (talk) 04:09, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi! Generally, editors are expected to explain their edits in the edit summary (which can take the form of see [wikilink to talk page thread]). I did not see your talk page comment and did not understand the removal, thus the revert. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 19:00, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Men's colleges

Hi there - I see you cc'ed me. Is everything all good? It seems like you did some redirects but I don't quite work a ton on that part of Wikipedia. As you can see I've been trying to work cleaning up the page and also giving more nuance to the incorrect assumption that Catholic (and other religious) seminaries are always men's only colleges. The reality is some are, some aren't. Jjazz76 (talk) 17:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Jjazz76! Thanks for checking in and apologies I didn't explain further in my summary of the edit. I created List of men's colleges in the United States as a redirect to Men's colleges in the United States § List of men's colleges a while back. I recently noticed that a bot tagged the redirect as broken (no longer going to a valid target section name), and that the page no longer had that section as a result of your reorganization, so I removed the section link. Everything is good; the ping was just so you're aware. When doing major restructuring of a page, it can often be a good idea to check the incoming links (available under the tools menu) to make sure that nothing is being messed up. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 19:32, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks! I will definitely do that in the future. And thanks for noticing/fixing it on the backend! Jjazz76 (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Newspaper of record

Template:Newspaper of record has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 06:31, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Question from Kang Ticino X Fabi on User:Kang Ticino X Fabi (21:13, 23 June 2024)

Hi --Kang Ticino X Fabi (talk) 21:13, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Floquengrump

I don't actively object, but I still ... I guess "passively" object to people altering the way I chose to add myself. As far as I know, there is no policy, guideline, essay, or even good reason not to add the vote count. I certainly didn't boldly add it for others, without their OK, even though I think it's useful. Yet you and someone else (who I won't look up to avoid getting annoyed again) felt fine just overruling my choice. It's not like I accidentally did it and you're fixing it (for example, I love it when people fix my near-constant screwups). I know it wasn't the intent, but it sure felt disrespectful. I'm honestly not sure if it's a problem with your approach or mine. Probably mine; I'm increasingly annoyed at more and more stuff I see here. Anyway, the "Floq" part i don't actually care about, so feel free to change to "Floquenbeam" if you prefer. Floquenbeam (talk) 12:36, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

(Diff for reference) Thanks for the note, Floq; that's helpfully clarifying. Until pretty recently, the debriefs page had a mix of links to debriefs and transclusions of debriefs, which I found suboptimal as it gave unfair prominence to some over others and just made it harder to navigate the page. So myself and a few others discussed and arrived at the format now used. I'd say the reason for using only the percentage support rather than that and also the !vote counts is (a) that it's more concise (while still communicating the degree to which an RfA was contentious) and (b) that another editor didn't want it to replicate the format of WP:RFAY too closely. It's not the biggest decision (which is to say that we could easily have gone with something different), but once we have a format, the reason to use it consistently is just to make the page more easily scannable (combined with a tidying impulse, which, uh, is a rather common trait among Wikimedians ). I think the other editor and I assumed you'd just miscopied the format rather than deliberately deviating from it.

Overall, the formatting stuff is minor compared to just ensuring that debriefs are listed — I enjoyed reading yours and am glad that others visiting the debriefs page will be able to discover it! Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 16:11, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Blacklisted links

Hi Sdkb, hope you're well. I've just cleaned up Musopen, which really took off after funding from a Kickstarter campaign. I'm trying to link to two Kickstart links from 10+ years ago, which include important information on the nature of the projects. Alas, it seems the links are on Wikipedia's blacklist. Is there anyway around this? Aza24 (talk) 02:56, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi Aza! I think MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist may be what you're looking for? Beyond that, I'm not sure; good luck with your efforts! Sdkb ^talk 04:25, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Ah yes, I think so, thank you! Aza24 (talk) 20:24, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Backstory to Special:Diff/1231608002

I don't have a strong opinion about the edit either way, but to provide the backstory to my edit that you reverted: I added the additional text because that page is transcluded in another page (WP:REFBEGIN) where another editor redundantly added a link to WP:RSP in the "See also" section (which I reverted) despite the link being in the transcluded text, which led me to wonder if the transcluded text needed to be clearer. Apparently not! Biogeographist (talk) 13:03, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Thomas A. Moore moved to draftspace

Thanks for your contributions to Thomas A. Moore. Unfortunately, I do not think it is ready for publishing at this time because it needs more sources to establish notability and there is another person with the same name at ASUA who has a high h-factor (if there are no overlapping papers) so there is nothing to demonstrate his publication notability. His page shows no significant, peer recognition awards. Please establish these and go the AfC route rather than creating it directly.. I have converted your article to a draft which you can improve, undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page OR move the page back. Ldm1954 (talk) 12:14, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ldm1954, as mentioned in the edit summary when I created the page, the relevant notability criterion is WP:NPROF #5, as he holds an endowed chair. I am reverting the move, and suggest you familiarize yourself with or check the applicable SNGs before draftifying in the future, as not all editors will know to revert and draftifying can bite them or deprive us of notable content. Sdkb ^talk 13:13, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Please read the recent discussions on academic notability #5, just having an endowed chair does not qualify. As many have said, someone who is notable has many other achievements such as peer recognition APS fellowships, FRS, major awards, high h-factor etc. His page has nothing, and as I said above there is no other proof. I will hold off temporarily from an AfD to let you add the material requested. Ldm1954 (talk) 13:41, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks; I am on vacation until July 5, but I'll do a deeper dive for sources once I return. Sdkb ^talk 20:13, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2024).

Administrator changes

• Elli
• HouseBlaster
• Pickersgill-Cunliffe

• Brianga
• De728631
• Georgewilliamherbert
• Hyacinth (deceased)
• ProveIt
• The Night Watch

Technical news

• Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript. Documentation is available on MediaWiki. (T6086)

Miscellaneous

• The Community Wishlist is re-opening on 15 July 2024. Read more

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Nomination of Thomas A. Moore for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Thomas A. Moore is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas A. Moore until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Ldm1954 (talk) 07:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

check ur dms

jp×g🗯️ 20:58, 9 July 2024 (UTC)