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Dodgy Indic source

I may have found another dodgy Indic source but can only see the stuff in snippet view. Using this search of GBooks, the results include Bamber Gascoigne's 1971 The Great Moghuls, showing

During the next eight years Aurangzeb remained viceroy of the Deccan, a post which he filled very successfully, being ... rank and allowance.4 His dismissal occurred during a visit to Agra in the summer of 1644 to see his elder sister Jahanara ...

The next entry in the search results is Encyclopaedia Indica (1999) and the snippet is

During the next eight years Aurangzeb remained viceroy of the Deccan, a post which he filled very successfully, being ... His dismissal occurred during a visit to Agra in the summer of 1644 to see his elder sister Jahanara, who had acted ...

That second source - EI - is presently used on 60 pages, if we allow for variant spellings. - Sitush (talk) 13:20, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Of course, it could be that EI is quoting Gascoigne, but I doubt it. - Sitush (talk) 13:21, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Don't have much time now, but on first glance this kind of referencing appears to be Mughal Lohar's. Can you check with Doug on this? He and I have been tackling this clean up after Nev left. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 07:10, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Exactly what am I supposed to be looking at here? And I think the 1947 translation on the Scribd.com site is probably copyvio, as is much of the stuff on scribd. Dougweller (talk) 11:14, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I am not sure what you are supposed to be looking at either. I'm just passing on SS's message and was a bit confused about it myself. The source may have been inserted by Mughal Lohar, but that wasn't really my query. Probably, Spiffy was in a rush - been there, done that ;)

Yes, the 1947 translation link to scribd (which is a different issue - see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Primary_source_at_Aurangzeb) should go. - Sitush (talk) 11:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Meh, sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were querying about the referencing problem and the need for associated clean up -- and this one having all the trademarks of ML, I referred you to Doug. Didn't realize that it was on EI; I think it should be treated as a copyvio source as it's clearly not reproductions of out of copyright works. —SpacemanSpiff 12:30, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Diligence
For making some excellent pages on cricket Harishrawat11 (talk) 12:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

New Delhi

I encountered with this article.I think New Delhi is a part of Delhi.It is the most recent of the eight cities within Delhi.If we see the article most of the content or i say the whole is written in a manner that describes everything about Delhi. Aren't the article should say everything about New Delhi.Do correct if i am not knowing the difference.(please reply on my talk page as my watch list is overflowing)kind regards and Thank You. --25 CENTS VICTORIOUS ☣ 17:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see what you're saying, I find most of the info pertinent to New Delhi alone, except parts of the transport section which appears to have a lot of info irrelevant to ND. —SpacemanSpiff 03:32, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

Does Wikipedia Pay? is a Signpost series seeking to illuminate paid editing, paid advocacy, for-profit Wikipedia consultants, editing public relations professionals, conflict of interest guidelines in practice, and the Wikipedians who work on these issues by speaking openly with the people involved. This week, a scandal centering around Roger Bamkin's work with Wikimedia UK and Gibraltarpedia erupted ... In light of these events, opinions on how to avoid future controversy are as important as ever. ... The Signpost spoke with Jimmy Wales to better understand how he views the paid editing environment and what he thinks is needed to improve it.
Following considerable online and media reportage on the Gibraltar controversy and a Signpost report last week, the Wikimedia UK chapter and the foundation published a joint statement on September 28: "To better understand the facts and details of these allegations and to ensure that governance arrangements commensurate with the standing of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK and the worldwide Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia UK's trustees and the Wikimedia Foundation will jointly appoint an independent expert advisor to objectively review both Wikimedia UK's governance arrangements and its handling of the conflict of interest."
Five articles, three lists, and nine images were promoted to "featured" this week.
The Toolserver is an external service hosting the hundreds of webpages and scripts (collectively known as "tools") that assist Wikimedia communities in dozens of mostly menial tasks. Few people think that it has been operating well recently; the problems, which include high database replication lag and periods of total downtime, have caused considerable disruption to the Toolserver's usual functions. Those functions are highly valued by many Wikimedia communities ... In 2011, the Foundation announced the creation of Wikimedia Labs, a much better funded project that among other things aimed to mimic the Toolserver's functionality by mid-2013. At the same time, Erik Möller, the WMF's director of engineering, announced that the Foundation would no longer be supporting the Toolserver financially, but would continue to provide the same in-kind support as it had done previously.
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series, we spent some time bonding with WikiProject James Bond. The project is in the unique position of having already pushed all of its primary content to Good and Featured status, including all of Ian Fleming's novels, short stories, and every film that has been released. Work has begun in earnest on the article Skyfall for the release of the new Bond film later this month. The project could still use help improving articles about Bond actors, characters, gadgets, music, video games, and related topics

FAR?

Hi SpacemanSpiff! I was wandering around the dark halls of Wikipedia, and stumbled across Chola dynasty. I then stumbled across your message at Talk:Chola dynasty#Featured article review, which I see was made several months ago. It doesn't look like much work was done on the article, and there is still at least one major cleanup banner on it. Are you still thinking about putting it up for FAR? I was planning to put a "work needed" note on the talk page until I saw yours was already there, so I wanted to check and see what your thoughts were on the article in its current state. Thanks in advance for your thoughts, Dana boomer (talk) 16:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Dana, I've been meaning to get on this FAR cleanup around India articles for a long time. This is definitely high on the list, about two years back a lot of minority viewpoints came into the article. This isn't the only one of its kind, there are a few more of the Southern Indian kingdoms where these problems exist. Fowler and I've been meaning to get started on this, I'll work with him have a decent enough analysis for FAR over the next 2-4 of weeks on this one. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 17:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Wonderful! I'll be more than happy to turn over cleanup/FAR-ing (as necessary) of India articles to you and Fowler. Let me know if you need help with anything, Dana boomer (talk) 17:25, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Priyanka Chopra review

I nominated this for GA recently. An editor who just registered yesterday, has 'started' the review, and I don't think they know what to do with it now. They are adding all sorts of stuff about her music "career" to various articles that you can see here. I don't know if they are trying to hold the review hostage, so that I will make their requested changes, or if was an honest mistake, but I would like this article go through a genuine GA review. Is there something you can do to help this user give up the review and put it back in the pool without passing or failing it? BollyJeff | talk 14:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 October 2012

Wikipedia in education is far from a new idea: years of news stories, op-eds, and editorials have focused on the topic; and on Wikipedia itself, the Schools and universities projects page has existed in various forms since 2003. Over the next six years, the page was rarely developed, and when it did advance there was no clear goal in mind.
On this day five years ago, the WikiProject Report debuted as a new Signpost column with an overview of WikiProject Biography. Today, we're celebrating two milestone: five years of the WikiProject Report and the tenth birthday of our first featured project. WikiProject Biography is by far the largest WikiProject on Wikipedia, with over one million articles under the project's scope. As a comparison, WikiProject Biography is three times larger than Wikipedia's second largest project, and if WikiProject Biography were split into its 14 subprojects and work groups, it would still make the list of the 20 largest WikiProjects... four times.
This week the Signpost interviews Arsenikk, an editor of six years who has brought sixteen lists through our featured list process, mostly regarding transportation in Norway but also about the 1952 Winter Olympics and World Heritage Sites in Africa. Arsenikk tells us about why he joined the project, what moves him, and how editors can join the sometimes daunting world of featured lists.
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for September 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which is edging its way towards its first deployment). Three of the seven headline items in the report have already been covered in the Signpost: problems with the corruption of several Gerrit (code) repositories, the introduction of widespread translation memory across Wikimedia wikis, and the launch of the "Page Curation" tool on the English Wikipedia, with development work on that project now winding down. The report also drew attention to the end of Google Summer of Code 2012, the deployment to the English Wikipedia of a new ePUB (electronic book) export feature, and improvements to the WLM app aimed at more serious photographers.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...

Allahabad

Hi, I've nominated this article for GA.It's been so long but no one is bother to review it(they might be busy).Since its my first GA nomination so i want of course good reviewer.Please let Me know if you're interested.Thank You & kind regards. 25 CENTS VICTORIOUS ☣ 14:12, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't have time for a review, but on first look, the article is not near a GA review. There are pictures used which have no relevance to the article, and a lot of the content consists of disparate factoids, not really a summary article. —SpacemanSpiff 07:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks.Well well i cant add those information which do no exits in city.I really dont feel that pictures i've used have no relevance to the article, but i'll follow your views for this article.You are more than welcome to leave your valuable suggestions on talk page.Once again thanks.Kind regards. 25 CENTS VICTORIOUS ☣ 06:47, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
The air force image clearly doesn't belong, I haven't checked everything. As far as random statements, an article shouldn't consist of mere factoids, WP:DUE applies and weight should be given to what's important. e.g. X is from Allahabad, Y is from Allahabad etc don't have much relevance unless there's a reason presented. This is just one example. —SpacemanSpiff 05:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Bt Brinjal

Hi, This is WebDTE. We hold the copyright permission from posting content from Down To Earth. It is our own magazine. So I think there is no copyright violation. We are will fully donating content. And I find reference to newspaper articles and stories in Wiki pages. So what is the problem if we do?

Thanks


Hi, I have tried to rework the sentences so that they do not look lifted up. Let me know if this works? Or what needs to be done. This information was missing from the page.


Thanks WebDTE — Preceding unsigned comment added by WebDTE (talk • contribs) 08:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

There are two problems here, first is the copyvio -- unless you send permission or change the license on your website to something compatible, the content will not be accepted. The second is a COI and promotion. You appear to be promoting your website by adding it as a source everywhere, I don't know if the site itself is a reliable source per our guidelines, but even otherwise, you are clearly representing the website and promoting it here, which is wrong. Also, you'll need to change your username as it promotes your organization. Please check WP:CHU on how to go about it. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 05:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

about retirement

are you crazy why you remove my request.--117.200.15.183 (talk) 14:32, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Porul Ilakkanam

Hi,

I have added references to the article Porul ilakkanam. Would you like to reconsider your opinion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Porul ilakkanam. --Anbu121 (talk me) 20:39, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

SpacemanSpiff, I saw your edit line saying that there is an OTRS request that the FRS letters not be added after his name. I would certainly honor any such request, but I haven't seen it. Perhaps you could prevent further reverts by adding a link to the request on the article's talk page. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:10, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll do that in a short while, I'll just need to find it. The user Riboman is the subject and he'd confirmed this through OTRS along with a request to not add the title ("Sir") or the letters ("FRS" etc). cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 02:46, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 Done—SpacemanSpiff 03:39, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I followed the ticket number and got "Request for comment/Legal Fees Assistance Program". RockMagnetist (talk) 04:33, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't know how you got there, but I just clicked the ticket again and it goes to a ticket with the subject "wikipedia page about me" that I was referring to, created "07/25/2012 18:17:17". As far as the subject's requests go, they are all in the edit summaries on the article history too. It was only much later that I suggested to him that he forward the email he sent me to OTRS instead as that would verify that he is indeed the subject and his request (although he didn't forward the email, he sent a new one). —SpacemanSpiff 04:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
This is one edit where he has also said that. He very often edits as an IP (which is why I suggested to him that he use his account and verify it) where he's noted the same while reverting. —SpacemanSpiff 04:50, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I guess I don't have login access to the OTRS site, but you have convinced me anyway. There might have been fewer reverts if he'd identified himself on the talk page. When I came into it, I saw an edit summary saying "please respect my wishes" and thought it was just some arbitrary editor who was trying to impose his own style on the page. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:16, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
To gain access to the OTRS site, you'll need to request at meta: m:OTRS/volunteering. There are many OTRS volunteers on en.wiki to verify tickets though, some of them are listed at Category:Wikipedia OTRS volunteers. As for your other point on the edits of "respect my wishes", that's precisely the reason I'd asked him to send the email to OTRS as without a confirmed identity, it just causes confusion and justified distrust. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 05:56, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

SPI

I love the dog. Reminds me of one of my family's dogs when I was a boy.

However, that is not what I came here about. At Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mrpontiac1 you said "This is ABDEVILLIERS alright" ("This" presumably being Shahdaan Khan). If so, is there any reason you don't go ahead and indef-block? Alternatively, would you like to tell me why you are so sure? (By email if you wish to avoid "Beans" problems.) I would have gone ahead and indeffed without an SPI if I had been as sure as you seem to be. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The reason I didn't block is because I'm avoiding any blocks that may require an explanation later as I'm not very active right now and it could be a few days sometimes before I can actually respond with details, so I do only the most straightforward of admin actions currently. I will email you with some behavioral comparisons. That said, I too was of the initial opinion that AB was MrP but there's something a little odd about that. Elockid and I have had our doubts for a while. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 03:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the email. What you pointed out there, together with other evidence, and the fact that I was already 90% sure that Shahdaan Khan was a sockpuppet of someone, has added up to enough for me to indef-block Shahdaan Khan. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 October 2012

There is wide agreement among English Wikipedians that the administrator system is in some ways broken—but no consensus on how to fix it. Most suggestions have been relatively small in scope, and could at best produce small improvements. I would like to make a proposal to fundamentally restructure the administrator system, in a way that I believe would make it more effective and responsive. The proposal is to create an elected Administration Committee ("AdminCom") which would select, oversee, and deselect administrators.
This week saw a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal on editorial debates in Wikipedia. The story focused on the title-naming dispute surrounding the Beatles article, and specifically the RfC on whether the 'the' in the band's name should be capitalized or not.
On the English Wikipedia, five featured articles, ten featured lists, and four featured pictures were promoted, including USS Lexington, a ship built for the United States Navy that, although ordered in 1916 as a battlecruiser, was converted to an aircraft carrier. It was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea during the Second World War.
The volunteer-led Wikimedia Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and interested community members are looking at Wikimedia organization applications worth about US$10.4 million out of the committee's first full year's operation, in just the inaugural round one of two that have been planned for the year with a planned budget of US$11.4M.
A trial of the first phase of Wikimedia Deutschland's "Wikidata" project–implementing the first ever interwiki repository—may soon get underway following the successful passage of much of its code through MediaWiki's review processes this week.
This week, we experimented with WikiProject Chemicals. Started in August 2004, WikiProject Chemicals has grown to include over 10,000 articles about chemical compounds. The project has a unique assessment system that omits C-class, Good, and Featured Articles. As a result, the project's 11 GAs and 9 FAs are treated as A-class articles. WikiProject Chemicals is a child of WikiProject Chemistry (interviewed in 2009) and a parent of WikiProject Polymers.

User:Priyanku.Phukan's unblock request

Hi SpacemanSpiff. Priyanku.Phukan has posted a fairly reasaonable unblock request (he admits what he did was wrong and undertakes not to do it again) and since his sock account is now blocked the problem shouldn't reoccur. Given his edit history and pages created I have serious doubts about his ability to contribute constructively (and so would probably ask him to find an adopter or mentor as a condition of unblocking) but that's tangential to the reasons for the block, which he's addressed. Can I get your take on the issue before proceeding, please? Cheers, Yunshui 雲‍水 09:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I had only blocked one of his accounts (not the main one), so I'd left open the possibility of him editing constructively if he so wished (his copyvios both here and at Commons are worrisome though), so I have no objections at all to unblocking this account now since the other has been blocked as a sock. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 10:21, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I'll go let him loose. I share your concerns about copyvios, but he has claimed that he understands the policy now - we'll see what he does with a bit of rope. Yunshui 雲‍水 10:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Re: Indian history FARs

See User:SpacemanSpiff/FAR

Hi Dana, I've been looking through a few articles and whilst Chola dynasty has a few tags, it's probably one of the better ones! Western Ganga Dynasty is a bigger problem as the article does not rely on mainstream sources at all, unlike the Chola dynasty one where use of outdated or fringe sources is in the minority. A bigger problem here is the level of synth in it. While the Chola one deviates from key sources (Stein / Kulke / U Singh / Thapar et al) on occasion, some of the others hardly ever find commonality with them. Our article on the main source doesn't give me any confidence either. There's a cluster of these FAs related to Western Ganga (I think around ten when I counted -- Chalukya, Hoysala, Mysore etc) and they all have this problem. How do you suggest we go about this? cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 14:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi SpacemanSpiff - Thanks for your note, and for taking the time to look through these articles. It sounds like they all need either significant work or FARs. Is there anyone interested in working on these articles to bring them into compliance with FA criteria? Would messages to the relevant project(s) bring any positive response? If so, that would be my first step. If not, I guess just begin posting messages on each articles' talk page outlining your concerns and stating that if they're not addressed, the article will need to go to FAR. If no work is done, they can start being brought to FAR. I don't think we should pile them in there all at one time - maybe one every two weeks or so? Then, if someone pops up who is interested in working on them, we can work with their schedule. I know this means that it will be something like five months, best case scenario, before they're all brought to FAR, but we do try hard to not pile on a bunch of articles from one project at a time, just in case someone is interested in working on them. Thoughts, comments, concerns? Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you with this - I'm willing, but without a background in the sources, I don't know if I'll be more of a help or a hindrance :) Dana boomer (talk) 14:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I'll ask Fowler and RegentsPark (he identified the seriousness of the WG mess, apparently everything online is just a mirror!) to take a look and participate in this conversation. I'll do that at my talk page (and copy my post above) so that it's centralized, hopefully you can watchlist it. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 15:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Sounds good. I already had this page (your talk page) watchlisted, and I'll keep abreast of the conversation and give my two cents if I feel I have anything valuable to contribute. Dana boomer (talk) 15:43, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think WG can be salvaged, the article is riddled with POV. There may though be editors interested in saving Chola dynasty. --regentspark (comment) 16:28, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
RP, can you add the problems to that page then? I think one point of discussion ought to be Kamath as a source, another is a comparison with Stein / Kulke / Thapar etc (and I'll review any content related to WG in them sometime during the next week). Meanwhile, perhaps it might be a good option to list Chola at WT:INB for clean up too as it's probably salvageable in comparison. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 12:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Frankly, the FA status should just be taken away from WG but I'll try. Am busy for a bit but will get to it if fowler doesn't take care of it first - the spouse is away on a long trip and the kids and RL work are simultaneously clamoring for attention! --regentspark (comment) 15:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with RgPk. Not just WG, but really all should be simply de-FA'd. They have strong POV based either on regional nationalism, or on monarchistic, pro-Wodeyar, view of Karnataka history. It would be very difficult to save them. Besides, if someone is going to take the time to do salvage work, they would be spending their time more profitably working on the more vital India-related articles which are languishing in neglect, some even in Start- or C-class. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry

Hello, I am so sorry that i gave the title different I didn't Know that but slowly slowly I have come to Know, Sorry & Thank You Greatuser (talk) 04:03, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

Unlike the long-running disputes that have characterised attempts to reform the RfA process on the English Wikipedia, the German Wikipedia's tradition of making decisions not by consensus but knife-edged 50% + 1 votes has led to a fundamentally different outcome. In 2009, the project managed to largely settle the RfA mode issue in 2009 indirectly.
One clarification request concerns the civility enforcement case – specifically, Malleus Fatuorum's perceived circumvention of his topic ban. It has resulted in thousands of bytes spent in vitriolic discussions, multiple blocks, and "no confidence" motions against the Arbitration Committee and one arbitrator, among other ramifications.
Planning for Wikivoyage's migration into the WMF fold built up steam this week following a statement by WMF Deputy Director Erik Möller about what the technical side of the migration will involve. Wikivoyage, which split from sister site Wikitravel in 2006, is hoping to migrate its own not-inconsiderable user base to Wikimedia, as well as much of its content, presenting novel challenges for Wikimedia developers
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
It is well known that women are underrepresented in the sciences, and that high-achieving female scientists have often been excluded from authorship lists and passed over for awards and honours solely on the basis of gender. Also significant has been the underplaying in the academic literature, news reporting, and online, of women's current and historical contributions to science.
The WikiProject Report normally brings tidings from Wikipedia's most active, inventive, and unique WikiProjects. This week, we're trying something new by focusing on Wikipedia's dark side: the various regional and national WikiProjects that are dead or dying. How can some tiny municipalities and exclaves generate highly active, cross-language, multimedia platforms be successful while the projects representing many sovereign countries and entire continents wallow in obscurity? Today, we'll search for answers among geographic projects large and small, highly active and barely functioning, enthusiastic about the future and mired in past conflicts.
Eleven articles, including one on Franz Kafka, three lists, one image, and one portal were promoted to 'featured' status this week.

Merging Porul ilakkanam to Tamil grammar

I have proposed that Porul ilakkanam be merged to Tamil grammar. Since you recently discussed the articles at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Porul ilakkanam, I would welcome any comments you may have on the proposed merge. The discussion is at Talk:Tamil grammar#Merge discussion. Thanks, and happy editing. Cnilep (talk) 04:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Reverts of Goldduck58's contributions

Most of the contributions are good, not vandalism. Why are you reverting them? --Redtigerxyz Talk 13:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

He's a banned editor, he has caused more than enough problems here and there's no reason to sift through individual edits. If you wish, you can reinstate good ones. —SpacemanSpiff 13:26, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
He is a sockpuppet, but that does not mean all edits are bad. Reverting your revert when appropriate. --Redtigerxyz Talk 13:30, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
As I said, you are free to restore wherever you find validity, but he's not welcome to contribute here until he has his ban revoked and for the remaining duration that I edit on Wikipedia, I will revert these people. That said, my revert on your talk page was accidental, I didn't mean to revert that, so I have self reverted there. —SpacemanSpiff 13:32, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2012

The first round of the Wikimedia Foundation's new financial arrangements has proceeded as planned, with the publication of scores and feedback by Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) staff on applications for funding by 11 entities—10 chapters, independent membership organisations supporting the WMF's mission in different countries, and the foundation itself. The results are preliminary assessments that will soon be put to the FDC's seven voting members and two non-voting board representatives. The FDC in turn will send its recommendations to the board of trustees on 15 November, which will announce its decision by 15 December. Funding applications have been on-wiki since 1 October, and the talk pages of applications were open for community comment and discussion from 2 to 22 October, though apart from queries by FDC staff, there was little activity.
This week, we're checking out ways to motivate editors and recognize valuable contributions by focusing on the awards and rewards of WikiProject Military History. Anyone unfamiliar with WikiProject Military History is encouraged to start at the report's first article about the project and make your way forward. While many WikiProjects provide a barnstar that can be awarded to helpful contributors, WikiProject Military History has gone a step further by creating a variety of awards with different criteria ranging from the all-purpose WikiChevrons to rewards for participating in drives and improving special topics to medals for improving articles up to A-class status to the coveted "Military Historian of the Year" award.
The TimedMediaHandler extension (TMH), which brings dramatic improvements to MediaWiki's video handling capabilities, will go live to the English Wikipedia this week following a long and turbulent development, WMF Director of Platform Engineering Rob Lanphier announced on Monday ... Wikidata.org, a new repository designed to host interwiki links, launched this week and will begin accepting links shortly. The site, which is one half of the forthcoming Wikidata trial (the other half being the Wikidata client, which will be deployed to the Hungarian Wikipedia shortly) will also act as a testing area for phase 2 of Wikidata (centralised data storage). The longer term plan is for Wikidata.org to become a "Wikimedia Commons for data" as phases 2 and 3 (dynamic lists) are developed, project managers say.
Thirteen articles, ten lists, nine images, one topic, and one portal were promoted to featured after peer reviews.
A paper in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, coming from the social control perspective and employing the repertory grid technique, has contributed interesting observations about the governance of Wikipedia.
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