This is an archive of past discussions with User:Sun Creator. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Thanks for letting me know. I've reverted. I'll work thought what is going on, but currently getting a technical error. Regards, SunCreator(talk)21:25, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi there again, all looks good. I have no idea what you're up to because it's way above my WP intelligence. But whatever it is, it seems you are fixing a lot of serious citation problems. I'm amazed you did all this within a span of a couple of hours. In any case, I'm glad someone like you has come along to update refs. The ones you've corrected were written by someone who wrote before I came along so it's a total mystery to me! Bravo! Have a good 4th and be sure to salute the flag of our declining nation.--Classicfilmbuff (talk) 01:02, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Your welcome! Unused commented out references have been move to the talk page to help ease maintenance and understanding. Regards, SunCreator(talk)
Excellent that you've moved all that content to the talk page. I' e always considered it superflous. Quick questions: First, how did you get interested in the vicissitudes of the old cits in the GG p in particular.? How did you know it was a mess? What motivated you to work on it so thoroughly? You can answer very briefly--if you're interested. In any case, you're making a huge and valuable contribution to this page.--Classicfilmbuff (talk) 18:00, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Because you asked me. Saw it was a mess because references section was not numbering the references even going back to versions a month ago, the code showed two {{Reflist}}'s, saw lots of commented out references that at first looked unbalanced, plus WP:AWB hadn't corrected it - a first time I ever encountered that in 50,000+ articles. Motivation was really to fix it, it's more of a challenge when it's difficult but have had positive experience of the shortened footnotes {{Sfn}} and a Bibliography section on featured content especially Painted turtle, Loggerhead sea turtle and U.S. state reptiles. Regards, SunCreator(talk)19:59, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Fascinating. A couple more: What's "the code showed two tlx|Reflict's mean"? What is this code and where is it located on the p.? what does tlx|Sfn mean? (All my zillion cits on the p. use Sfn format but what does tlx refer to? Finally, why did you mention Pt, Lst, and USsr? What do these have to do with GG p.? Thanks for responding!Don't worry, I won't keep bothering you. I love learning from WF experts.--Classicfilmbuff (talk) 23:16, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Verifiability RfC
Hi SunCreator! I just noticed that in this edit to the verifiability RfC subpage, it looks like you forgot to finish your comment under the "Oppose option D" heading. Do you think you could clarify what you meant? I'm going to leave a note in the RfC as well saying that it was you that made the comment. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius on tour(have a chat)02:18, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a long history of collaborating with educational institutions. The Schools and universities program — international and in many languages, but dominated by US institutions — started in 2003 and evolved case by case with little system. However, that changed in 2009 as Wikimedia embarked on its formal strategic process, and outreach in higher education came to be seen in terms of achieving explicit goals — especially that of increasing editor participation.
The Russian Wikipedia has been blacked out for 24 hours, ending 20:00 UTC Tuesday, as a protest against Russian State Duma Bill 89417-6, a bill currently before the Duma (the Russian parliament). Visitors to the Russian Wikipedia are confronted by the sign above in protest at a draconian internet censorship bill before the Duma. The Russian word for Wikipedia is crossed out in this banner, and the text says: "Imagine a world without free knowledge. The State Duma is currently conducting the second reading of a bill to amend the "Law on Information", which has the potential to lead to the creation of extra-judicial censorship of the Internet in Russia, including the closure of access to the Russian Wikipedia. Today, the Wikipedia community protests against censorship as a threat to free knowledge that is open to all mankind. We ask that you oppose this bill."
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Football, which focuses on the sport also known as association football or soccer. WikiProject Football is by far the largest sport project and one of the most active projects on Wikipedia in terms of the number of articles covered, edits to articles, and talk page watchers.
Eight featured articles were promoted this week: ... Aries (constellation) by Keilana. Aries the Ram (symbol ♈) is one of the constellations of the Zodiac and one of 88 currently recognised constellations. Its area is 441 square degrees (1.1% of the celestial sphere). Although fairly dim, with only three bright stars, it is home to several deep-sky objects.
No cases were closed or opened, leaving the number of open cases at three. ... The case concerns alleged misconduct with regards to aggressive responses and harassment by Fæ toward users who question his actions.
The results from last month's trial of the LastModified extension were published this week on the Wikimedia blog. The first analyses have indicated a significant positive impact, suggesting that the extension – which makes the time since a page's last edit much more prominent in the interface – could eventually find its way onto Wikimedia wikis.
Credo Reference, who generously donated 400 free Credo 250 research accounts to Wikipedia editors over the past two years, has offered to expand the program to include 100 additional reference resources. Credo wants Wikipedia editors to select which resources they want most. So, we put together a quick survey to do that:
It also asks some basic questions about what you like about the Credo program and what you might want to improve.
At this time only the initial 400 editors have accounts, but even if you do not have an account, you still might want to weigh in on which resources would be most valuable for the community (for example, through WikiProject Resource Exchange).
Also, if you have an account but no longer want to use it, please leave me a note so another editor can take your spot.
If you have any other questions or comments, drop by my talk page or email me at wikiocaasi@yahoo.com. Cheers! Ocaasit | c17:34, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
User:Fæ was elected as the inaugural chair of the new Wikimedia Chapters Association, despite the controversies that have surrounded Fæ on the English Wikipedia and Commons, most recently aired in a live case before the Arbitration Committee. This is in marked contrast with unexciting movement, during the Wikimania meeting, on the most important issues facing the establishment of the association.
During Wikimania (July 12-15), the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) board finalized and enacted long-discussed reforms of the movement's financial structures, and considered procedures for creating new ways for Wikimedians to organize themselves into offline communities. The board moved on the controversial image filter issue, approved the 2012–13 annual plan, and issued a statement on the wikitravel proposal. It also appointed the two new chapter-selected trustees and elected the four office-bearers.
With the Tour de France in its final week, we traveled to the French Wikipedia for a chat with Projet Cyclisme (WikiProject Cycling). The French Wikipedia places a greater emphasis on portals than the English Wikipedia, which explains why WikiProject Cycling and its discussion page are actually extensions of the Cycling Portal. The project is home to two Article de Qualité (equivalent to Featured Articles) and eight Bon Article (Good Articles), primarily biographies of cyclists.
A brief overview of the current discussions on the English Wikipedia, including one regarding the purpose of the Community Portal. Started by Maryana, a Wikimedia Foundation employee, is this page for new users to be educated about the community, or is it for experienced users to find updates about the community?
Nearly 1400 Wikimedians and others from 87 countries descended on the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C., for Wikimania 2012. Even with an unprecedented number (1400) of conference attendees — the previous two Wikimanias, held in Gdańsk (Poland) and Haifa (Israel), were attended by fewer than 1100 people combined – Wikimania 2012 was a complete success, with attendees' reaction to the conference coming out as ecstatic and laudatory.
Eight featured articles were promoted this week, including Paul McCartney by GabeMc. McCartney (born 1942) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and composer. He gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and his collaboration with John Lennon is highly celebrated. After the band's break-up he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings. McCartney has been described by Guinness World Records as the "most successful composer and recording artist of all time", and his song "Yesterday" has been covered more than any other song in history.
As Wikimania, the annual conference targeted at Wikimedians and often well attended by those with a technical slant, draws to a close, comments have already begun to come in from attendees regarding the many tech-related features of the conference.
No cases were closed or opened, leaving the number of open cases at three. A new remedy in the Fæ case calls for him to be indefinitely banned from the site after his attempts to solicit intervention from the Foundation, claiming that publicly listing all his accounts would be too onerous due to "ongoing security risks." He was further criticised for attempting to dodge good-faith concerns; the committee believes that if Fæ's claims are valid then he must be removed from the community.
July 2012 Study of authors of health-related Wikipedia pages
Dear Author/SunCreator
My name is Nuša Farič and I am a Health Psychology MSc student at the University College London (UCL). I am currently running a quantitative study entitled Who edits health-related Wikipedia pages and why? I am interested in the editorial experience of people who edit health-related Wikipedia pages. I am interested to learn more about the authors of health-related pages on Wikipedia and what motivations they have for doing so. I am currently contacting the authors of randomly selected articles and I noticed that someone at this address edited an article on Cerebral palsy. I would like to ask you a few questions about you and your experience of editing the above mentioned article and or other health-related articles. If you would like more information about the project, please visit my user page (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Hydra_Rain) and if interested, please reply via my talk page or e-mail me on nusa.faric.11@ucl.ac.uk. Also, others interested in the study may contact me! If I do not hear back from you I will not contact this account again. Thank you very much in advance.Hydra Rain (talk) 16:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Rajesh Khanna
Are you seriously suggesting the news pof pakistan reliable and the hindustan times is not? [1][2]/ You can take tha RSN/ but youll have a very hard time getting anything there. Further the DNA source was also added to the article. I can tag that on to the respective section.Lihaas (talk) 19:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Most definably as the hindustan times url does not contain the information! I'm open to a better source if you have one. Regards, SunCreator(talk)19:14, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Added. Note you said it was not RS.
It seems like the content changed since i added, looks like the ingo was reoved. Anyhoo, also not the infobox.
I'm wondering why you are removing the hyphens from certain terms, such as the one above, especially at articles that are written in "British English". Radiopathy•talk•04:21, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for saying you have some sort of issue with this typo rule. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what you mean. Rajesh Khanna doesn't have that wording, maybe it was an early version? I did much diff checking but the article changed hundreds of times a day after the recent death. As a Brit myself I'm NOT aware of any British English hyphen issues for well received. The typo rule was made by User:Chris the speller and discussed here, please ask User:Chris the speller directly or raise at typo talk and provide a diff example. Regards, SunCreator(talk)11:41, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
AWB
I would ike to ask you to download the latest AWB's snapshot from http://toolserver.org/~awb/snapshots/ the version you are uisng is more than ayear old and we fixed a lot of things in the syntax since then. Having the latest snapshot helps the developers to detect new bugs and improve the logic futher. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 23:02, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
I have a new computer that is less then 2 weeks old and has a clean install of AWB. The AWB update(Help - check for updates) tells me I'm on the latest version. If you think otherwise can you you provide a link(woops I see you did) to a version you want me to download. Regards, SunCreator(talk)23:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
We are releasing a new version very soon. AWB snapshots tend to be stable for en.wiki. We try not to release very often to avoid complains from wikia users. Moreover, snapshots help us to fix new bugs as they found. Only drawback is that in snapshots empty pages can't be saved. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:19, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. There is also another minor drawback. Most probably you 'll have to upgrade manually ot the next release but this should not be a big problem. The snapshot you downloaded has 100 bugs less than the version you were using. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:27, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
The display(current revision/your text) has been altered and clutter added "Double click on a line to undo all changes on that line, or single click to focus the edit box to that line." plus the text area is smaller. It's very important that the text area is as big as possible (one reason I actually got a new computer with big monitor) to reduce time scrolling. Are there options to maximise the display area? Regards, SunCreator(talk)23:33, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
I've exited the new version now. It's so much worse that it's not sensible to use for me. It adds about 20% more empty space. I will continue with 5310. Regards, SunCreator(talk)23:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia pay? is an ongoing 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.
The Signpost's goal is to provide readers with essential information about the Wikimedia movement and the English Wikipedia – both of which have become large and extremely complex institutions that require timely, balanced and in-depth coverage.
Two weeks ago the Signpost reported that the Russian Wikipedia had just begun a 24-hour blackout in protest at a bill that was before the Russian parliament that proposed mechanisms to block IP addresses and DNS records. The protest, implemented after on-wiki consensus was reached during the preceding days, concerned the potential of the amendment to the information law to allow extra-judicial censorship of the internet in Russia, including the closure of access to the Russian Wikipedia. Among the questions now are how effective the blackout was and where we go from here in terms of internet freedom in one of the world's biggest and most influential countries.
With the 2012 Summer Olympic Games beginning this weekend in London, we decided to catch up with the chaps at WikiProject Olympics. The last time we interviewed WikiProject Olympics was in February 2010 when the project was gearing up for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. We wanted to know how the project has grown since then and whether preparing for a Summer Olympics was more grueling.
For the second time this year (and the third in the history of the committee), there are no open cases, as all three active cases were closed last week.
There has never been a better time to improve the behavior of marketing professionals on Wikipedia. For the first time we're seeing self-imposed statements of ethics. Professional PR bodies around the globe have supported the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) guidance for ethical Wikipedia engagement. Although their tone is different, CREWE and the PRSA have brought more attention to the issues. Awareness among PR professionals is rising. So are the number of paid editing operations sprouting up and the opportunity for dialogue.
One featured article was promoted this week, Melville Island. A small peninsula in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, it was discovered by Europeans in the 1600s and initially used for storehouses. The land was purchased by the British and used to hold prisoners of war, then to receive escaped slaves from the United States. After being used as a place of quarantine and later a recruitment centre, the land was granted to Canada in 1907 and used to house prisoners of war. It is now home to the clubhouse and marina of the Armdale Yacht Club.
Please be careful when deciding to capitalize this in future. Celt (tool) is a kind of hand axe and has no need to be capitalized in a sentence, unlike Celts. Thanks and regards, Heiro18:07, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
I note you have changed “frostbitten”. I would hate to start an argument over technicalities but out of interest, according to Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary Frost bitten is two words, Collins English Dictionary gives it as one word, Webster’s Revised is hyphenated. However in Heslop’s own book the entries appear to be “fozy - applied to a turnip that is frost-bitten” and “phosey / fosey - frost bitten [re] turnips”. So while begging to differ, shouldn’t the spelling be as the original, warts and all, and not “sanitised” ? Alanfromwakefield (talk) 11:13, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
The modern spelling is one word. It's not hard to find older dictionaries (early-20th-century and older, such as Webster's Revised 1913) that show it hyphenated, but that's not "modern" or current. How old is the Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary that you mention? Curiously, the article already contained "A 'fozy' turnip = A woody one, possibly frostbitten", showing it as one word. I don't see why there is any question or complaint now that the spelling is uniform in that article, and SunCreator did not change any quoted material. Surely you don't object to using modern English spellings in Wikipedia? Christhe spelleryack12:33, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation published its Annual Plan, focusing on technical improvements, editor retention, and structural reforms over the coming year. The movement's total revenue, including almost all chapter funding, is slated to rise by 35%, from $34.2 million to $46.1 million, and global spending to more than $42.1 million. The foundation's own core spending will grow by 15% to $30.2 million in 2012–13.
We continue our Summer Sports Series this week with WikiProject Horse Racing. Started in November 2005, the project has grown to include nearly 8,000 articles maintained by 34 active members. There are 10 Featured Articles and 19 Good Articles included in the project's scope. In addition to preparing articles for GA and FA status, the project attempts to create requested articles and locate requested images. We interviewed Redrose64, Montanabw, Tigerboy1966, Ealdgyth, and Cuddy Wifter.
Eight new featured articles, five new featured lists, and eight new featured pictures. The highlights include a new featured picture of Frank Sinatra, created by William P. Gottlieb and nominated by Tomer T. Sinatra (1915–98) was a highly successful American singer and film actor whose career spanned 60 years. This image dates from around 1947.
In the light of recent questions over the long-term reliability of Wikimedia wikis, the Signpost caught up with CT Woo, the Wikimedia Foundation's director of technical operations.
Arbitrator Kirill Lokshin proposed a motion requiring the alteration of any instances of an editor's previous username in arbitration decisions to reflect their name changes. The Devil's Advocate has initiated an amendment request for the controversial Race and intelligence case.
Hi SunCreator. Per your request at WP:PERM I have removed rollback from your account - if you want it back at any point, just ask. Cheers, Yunshui雲水22:49, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Hi SunCreator! I see you've been working on a new rule to capitalize "March" when used as a calendar month that's better than the one in the Calendrical proper nouns section. Would it make sense to extend your rule to also fix "May", and have a similar rule for "August"?
Also, do you have a good way to do a case sensitive wiki text search? When I try to find a list of articles containing "march" (lowercase), I also get articles containing only "March" (uppercase).
Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Also, don't get to excited about this rule yet. Most of the 'march' are not in the prose but mostly in the references, i.e. the parts AWB ignores! Regards, SunCreator(talk)17:23, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
The only other thing I can think of is to do a text search in AWB and then preparse the list while I'm asleep. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:31, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
With your bot account, you could load the NoLimits plugin, get a much larger list, then change to your regular account before saving any edits. GoingBatty (talk) 01:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Looks like I provided incorrect info here. While you can use the NoLimits plugin to get larger lists by Category, User Contribs, and What transcludes here, you can't use it for wiki text searches. Sorry! GoingBatty (talk) 02:16, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
At this year's Wikimania, I [Brandon Harris] gave a talk entitled The Athena Project: Wikipedia in 2015. The talk broadly outlined several ideas the foundation is exploring for planned features, user interface changes, and workflow improvements. We expect that many of these changes will be welcomed, while others will be controversial. During the question-and-answer period, I was asked whether people should think of Athena as a skin, a project, or something else. I responded, "You should think of Athena as a kick in the head" – because that's exactly what it's supposed to be: a radical and bold re-examination of some of our sacred cows when it comes to the interface.
On August 1, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) portal was launched on Meta. The FDC will implement the Wikimedia movement's new grant-orientated finance structure in accordance with the WMF board's recent resolutions. As a volunteer committee, the FDC will make recommendations to the WMF board on a $11.4 million budget for 2012–13.
Arbitrator Kirill Lokshin proposed a motion for a procedure on the alteration of an editor's previous username(s) in arbitration decisions to reflect their name change(s). ... The Devil's Advocate initiated an amendment request for the controversial Race and intelligence case.
This week the Signpost interviews Casliber, an editor who has written or contributed significantly to a startling 69 featured articles. We learn what makes him tick, why he edits, and why he can write on everything from vampires to dinosaurs, birds to plants. He also gives some advice to budding featured article writers.
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for July 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). ... At least one fibre-optic cable was damaged at the WMF's Tampa site on August 6, leading to a sharp downwards spike in traffic lasting over an hour and almost three hours of disruption for readers around the globe.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Martial Arts. Since April 2004, the project has been the hub for discussion and improvement of martial arts articles, including all disciplines and national origins. The project maintains a variety of conventions for handling the names and descriptions of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Sikh, Filipino, Okinawan, and hybrid martial arts. WikiProject Martial Arts has spawned or absorbed several subprojects focusing on boxing, kickboxing, sumo, and mixed martial arts.
I don't think this edit is very useful. If your spell checker can't handle blocks of source code, it would be better to fix your spell checker instead of adding those annotations all over the place. —Ruud22:47, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Fair point, I'll make a request for code block ignoring by default. Until that's done you may see more not a typos about, especially in articles on computer code.Regards, Sun Creator(talk)23:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
And another one that isn't technically a piece of code. I think you'll find that periods as part of a name are quite common in articles on computing and probably some other areas as well. I think you should at least surround the would whole word with a template, and not only the period, but I'm afraid you're going to find more instances that are correctly spelled words, than places where someone accidentally omitted a space. Perhaps you can add a heuristic that the word left of the period shouldn't start with a capital letter, but even then you'll probably run in too many false positives. —Ruud23:21, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) When they are not required. Yes. I'm in the process of adding not a typo to false positive typos and amending the AWB typo rules (within technical restrictions) to reduce false typos and then remove the templates. There is about 8000 articles in total that have a requirement for not a typo and so far about 1500 or so have been marked. So still some way to go. The article stuff I can do but the AWB coding is by others and will take a while longer! Regards, Sun Creator(talk)23:25, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
You can see that I already fixed that later. But that is the conundrum, you either mark it as not a typo or it looks like a sensible grammar correction. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)23:31, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I can see that you have been editing the above page and was wondering what your thoughts would be on merging it with the List of computer viruses page.
Both articles are dealing with essentially the same subject, but have filtered their lists differently. The List of computer viruses (all) has a more complete "Notable viruses section", and I believe that by merging the two would be of enormous benefit.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. The talk page on this subject is as follows:
Thanks for all previous feedback in relation to this matter.
I have now fully removed all redlinks from the List of computer viruses (x-x) pages leaving them quite empty. Due to this I am proposing a further merger of these lists into the List of computer viruses article. I have also produced a mockup of this in my sandbox.
Any feedback on this matter would be appriciated (again).
In a certain way, writing Wikipedia is the same everywhere, in every language or culture. You have to stick to the facts, aiming for the most objective way of describing them, including everything relevant and leaving out all the everyday trivia that is not really necessary to understand the context. You have to use critical thinking, trying to be independent of your own preferences and biases. To some effect, that's all there is to it. Naturally, Wikipedians have their biases, some of which can never be cured. Most Wikipedians tend to like encyclopedias; but millions of people in the world don't share that bias, and we represent them rather poorly. I'm also quite sure that an overwhelming majority of Wikipedia co-authors are literate. Again, that's not true for everyone in this world. Yet we have other, less noticeable but barely less fundamental biases.
The Bangla language, also known as Bengali, is spoken by some 200 million people in Bangladesh and India. The Bangla Wikipedia has a very small active community of about ten to fifteen very active editors, with another 35–40 as less active editors. The project faces particular challenges in being a small Wikipedia, and Dhaka-based WMF community fellow User:Tanvir Rahman is working to understand these challenges and to develop strategies that can improve small wikis that have strong potential to expand their editing communities.
Six featured articles were promoted this week, including Business US Highway 41, which was a state trunkline highway that served as a business loop in Marquette in the US state of Michigan.
Three weeks into a month-long evaluation of code review tool Gerrit, a serious alternative has finally gained traction in the review process: Facebook-developed but now independently operated Phabricator and its sister command-line tool Arcanist.
This week, we interviewed the lively bunch at WikiProject Dispute Resolution. Started in November 2011 to study and discuss improvements to Wikipedia's resources for resolving disputes between editors, the young project has supplemented dispute resolution efforts currently handled at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, Mediation Committee, and other venues. Over 40 editors have signed up to provide feedback, a variety of ideas have been proposed, and a manual for dispute resolution has been created.
The Wikimedia Foundation sometimes proposes new features that receive substantive criticism from Wikimedians, yet those criticisms may be dismissed on the basis that people are resistant to change—there's an unjustified view that the wikis have been overrun by vested contributors who hate all change. That view misses a lot of key details and insight because there are good reasons that Wikimedians are suspicious of features development, given past and present development of bad software, growing ties with the problematic Wikia, and a growing belief that it is acceptable to experiment on users.
The Core Contest is a month-long competition among editors to improve Wikipedia's most important "core" articles—especially those that are in a relatively poor state. Core articles, such as Music, Computer, and Philosophy, tend to lie in the trunk of the tree of knowledge; by analogy, featured-and good-article processes generally attract more specialist topics out on the branches.
In the Utah Court of Appeals this week, the majority opinion in Fire Insurance Exchange v. Robert Allen Oltmanns and Brady Blackner relied on Wikipedia for the basic premise of their legal opinion, and included a concurring opinion devoted solely to the issue of citing Wikipedia in a legal opinion.
Thirteen featured articles were promoted this week, including pelicans, which are a genus of large water birds comprising the family Pelecanidae, characterised by a long beak and large throat-pouch. They have a fossil record dating back at least 30 million years and are most closely related to the Shoebill and Hammerkop. These fish-feeders have a patchy relationship with humans: the birds are sometimes persecuted and sometimes feature in mythology.
New embeddable scripting ("template replacement") language Lua received considerable scrutiny this week when it began its long road to widespread deployment, landing on the test2wiki test site on Wednesday (wikitech-l mailing list). ... the fourth in our series profiling participants in this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) programme.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Korea. Started in September 2006, WikiProject Korea covers the history and culture of the Korean people, including both countries that currently occupy the Korean peninsula. This task has proven difficult with North Koreans notably absent from the Wikipedia community due to tight control over access to external media. The project is home to over 16,000 pages, including 15 pieces of Featured material and 66 Good and A-class Articles.
Hello Sun Creator. First of all let me compliment you on all the fine work you've done editing herpetological WP articles.
Lately I've noticed that you've been deleting all the dashes (between the scientific name and the authority) from some turtle synonymys. While I would agree that having no dashes is better than having all dashes (or dashes in the wrong places), I think it would be best to have dashes only in the proper places. If one peruses carefully the turtle synonymys in Checklist of Chelonians of the World by Fritz & Havaš, one finds dashes used only for new combinations, not for synonyms that were new names for new species (i.e., what were at the time presumed to be new species). A new combination is created when a species is reassigned to a different genus, or when a subspecies is reassigned to a different species.
If you go to the talk page for the "Box turtle" WP article, you will find a section titled "Box turtle and parentheses (continued)". In that section is a hypothetical synonymy which I constructed in May 2011 (when my IP address was 74.109.236.194) to answer a question from another editor. This example may be helpful in illustrating when to use dashes.
I realize this can be a little perplexing at times. I won't even get into "ex errore", "nomen suppressum", etc.
Fortunately, as far as turtle synonymys are concerned, we do have Fritz & Havaš as a reliable source, and I would respectfully recommend that they be considered the ultimate authority for when to use a dash or when not to use a dash.
Hi, thank you. The reason why I was removing dashes from some turtle articles was because when initially added the dash was used as a seperator of information and not intended to have an alternative meaning. Afterwards it transpired that the dash had specific meaning in a taxonomy context. Now we are left with how to make the presentation clear to none technical readers per WP:TECHNICAL. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)21:25, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
a/an
Also glad you're cleaning up. Be careful, though, about the use of a/an before abbreviations; it depends on the sound, not the letter. So "a NATO meeting", but "an NCAA team". Thanks. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 17:15, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
FcEV is pronounced "eff-see-ee-vee", and "NCAA" is pronounced "en-see-double-ay", both beginning with a vowel sound. On the other hand, NATO is pronounced "nay-toe", and begins with a consonant sound. It's the initial SOUND that determines whether a or an is used, not the initial letter. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 17:45, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Related is the word "herb", which takes "a" in British English because the "h" is pronounced, but "an" in American English because the "h" is silent. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 17:48, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! I've been working out exceptions here for some time. Today I just started looking at abbreviations so this information is perfectly timed. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)18:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Your welcome to change it however you want. What I'm mainly looking for is exceptions. i.e. words begining with a vowel that are not pronouced with a vowel and in the future for the reverse, so words that are spelt starting with a consonant but are pronouced as starting with a vowel. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)18:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Two observations: "an 80% chance", but "a 90% chance". Also, NY is practically never pronounced "En-why" except in zip codes, but is read out as "New York", so "a NY senator". There's also "a opossum", which usually has a silent "o", at least by people who are familiar with the animal. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
It starts with a "y" consonantal sound: you-view-luh, so it takes "a" as the article. I've never heard anyone in the medical field pronounce it otherwise. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:18, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
The key does not say that /ju/ is pronounced the same as /u/, it says that in yod dropping dialects, like American English, there is no /j/ consonant before a long U after certain letters. So tune is pronounced "toon" in American English, but "tyoon" in British English. The "j" is the IPA symbol for the "y" consonantal sound. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Ah, I think the error I'm making is thinking U is a vowel sound, but in seems the /ˈjuː/ as in U.S. is not considered a vowel sound. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)01:34, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
It's not a single sound, but a consonant sound (j) followed by a vowel sound (u:). The first sound is what determines a or an, in this case, a because j is a consonant sound. The u vowel sound is irrelevant here because it is not the initial sound. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:42, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Well if it's j consonant followed by the u vowel it begs the question why is juː listed as a full vowel on Wikipedia:IPA_for_English#Key rather then a consonant. 01:48, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
"Full vowel" means "not a reduced vowel". It does not mean "purely a vowel". Technically, /j/ as in "use" or "united" is called a semivowel, but for simplicity's sake, it is grouped with the consonants because it is treated as a consonant in English language pronunciation rules such as the a/an rule. The same is true with the "w" sound in "won" or "one". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:06, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
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Wikimedia editors have been debating a community proposal for the adoption of a new project to host free travel-guide content. The debate reached a new stage when a three-month request for comment on Meta came to an end, with a decision to set up the first new type of Wikimedia project in half a decade. The original proposal for the travel guide unfolded during April on Meta and the Wikimedia-l mailing lists, centring around the wish of volunteer contributors to the WikiTravel project to work in a non-commercial environment.
A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, edited jointly with the Wikimedia Research Committee and republished as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.
Developers were left one step closer to an understanding of the code review outlook this week after the creation of a graph plotting "number changesets awaiting review" over time. The chart, which also shows the number of new changesets created on a daily basis, reveals a peak in the number of unreviewed changesets in mid-July, followed by a short drop. The current figure stands at approximately 219 unreviewed changesets.
This week the Signpost interviews Mark Arsten, who has written or contributed significantly to ten featured articles; most have related to new religious movements, and some have touched on other controversial or quirky topics. Mark gives us a rundown on how he keeps neutral and what drives him to write featured content; he also gives some hints for aspiring writers.
This week, we hopped in a little blue box with a batch of companions from WikiProject Doctor Who. Started in April 2005, the project has grown to include about 4,000 pages about the world's longest-running science fiction television show, its spinoffs, and various related material. The project is the parent of the Torchwood Taskforce and a child of WikiProject British TV and WikiProject Science Fiction. With new Doctor Who episodes airing this week and a 50th anniversary celebration around the corner, we thought now would be a good time to inquire about the famed Time Lord.
Hi. I have most Wikipedia school articles on my wtchlist and I see you do a lot of great corrections using AWB. If you have a moment and if speed is not essential, when you come across unsourced alumni entries in school articles as you did at Nkuutu Memorial Secondary School, please consider removing them completely per WP:LISTPEOPLE, or letting me know about them. Cheers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:49, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Some of Wikimedia's most valuable photographs have been shot and uploaded under free licenses as a direct result of the annual Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) event each September. Last year, the project was conducted on a European level, resulting in the submission of an extraordinary 168,208 free images of cultural heritage sites ("monuments") from 18 countries, making it the world's largest photographic competition. Organising the 2012 event—which has just opened and will run for the full month of September—has required input from chapters and volunteers in 35 countries.
Developers are currently discussing the possibility of a MediaWiki Foundation to oversee those aspects of MediaWiki development that relate to non-Wikimedia wikis. The proposal was generated after a discussion on the wikitech-l mailing list about generalising Wikimedia's CentralAuth system.
Five featured pictures were promoted this week, including a video explaining the recent landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. NASA called the final minutes of the complicated landing procedure "the seven minutes of terror".
Since May 2012 I've been a Wikimedia Foundation community fellow with the task of researching and improving dispute resolution on English Wikipedia. Surveying members of the community has revealed much about their thoughts on and experiences with dispute resolution. I've analysed processes to determine their use and effectiveness, and have presented ideas that I hope will improve the future of dispute resolution.
I can't see anything wrong with the "-struct" rule, and have tried it out in a sandbox. Are you sure it was that rule doing the damage? Do you have a particular article in mind? -- John of Reading (talk) 15:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately I reloaded AWB to get an old list which might of included the article in question, but now I find AWB is disabled. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)15:24, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Have you upgraded to 5.3.1.2? That's working for me. I'm wondering if you found an article containing a hidden control character between "instruc" and "tions" - AWB would see that as two words, and would add a "t" to "instruc". -- John of Reading (talk) 15:28, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Only the one line disappears after 10 edits, there is still several additional white space lines above and below and an inch or so to the left and the right which is not in 5.3.x Regards, Sun Creator(talk)17:19, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Have you got specific examples of a page where processing is noticeably slower than previously with AWB? And is this the first page processed in the AWB session or not? What setting do you have for watchlist at the bottom of the Options menu? Rjwilmsi17:33, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Any page is noticably slower with newer version. Not the first page processed that is always slow. My watchlist is "Leave watchlist unchanged". It could be use secure server because that is now missing and has been since 5.3.1.1 when it went slower. 5.3.1.0 is faster but has a "secure server" option which I ticked. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)
enabled -struct. Been looking for the article with the instruction that triggers but it was not in my saved articles. The article in question is within my last 25000 contributions must likely in an article I edited between 18 and 29 July(but that's a lot of articles). I will go back to find it, but could take a while. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)12:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Reference your change of the page on British reptiles: I think you are confusing US with UK English, with the latter (IMO) more appropriate for said list.
In UK English, we do not "lump" turtles, terrapins and tortoises as they do in US English: hence, "land turtle" is "tortoise"; we use "terrapin" (no idea what US English uses!); and "sea turtles" are simply "turtles" in UK.
If you are happy with this explanation, I shall revert the changes.
Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation style: "Wikipedia does not have a single house style, though citations within any given article should follow a consistent style." "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, or without first seeking consensus for the change. If the article you are editing is already using a particular citation style, you should follow it; if you believe it is inappropriate for the needs of the article, seek consensus for a change on the talk page. As with spelling differences, if there is disagreement about which style is best, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. If you are the first contributor to add citations to an article, you may choose whichever style you think best for the article." Savidan15:38, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks to the initiative of Yuvi Panda and Notnarayan, the Signpost now has an Android app, free for download on Google Play. ... but would readers be interested in an iOS app for Apple devices?
Much like article content, the English Wikipedia's help pages have grown organically over the years. Although this has produced a great deal of useful documentation, with time many of the pages have become poorly maintained or have grown overwhelmingly complicated.
Philip Roth, a widely known and acclaimed American author, wrote an open letter in the New Yorker addressed to Wikipedia this week, alleging severe inaccuracies in the article on his The Human Stain (2000).
After a week's hiatus, the WikiProject Report returns with an interview featuring WikiProject Fungi. Started in March 2006, the project has grown to include over 9,000 pages, including 47 Featured Articles and 176 Good Articles. The project maintains a list of high priority missing articles and stubs that need expansion.
In dramatic events that came to light last week, two English Wikipedia volunteers—Doc James (James Heilman) and Wrh2 (Ryan Holliday)—are being sued in the Los Angeles County Superior Court by Internet Brands, the owner of Wikitravel.com. Both Wikipedians have also been volunteer Wikitravel editors (and in Holliday's case, a volunteer administrator). IB's complaints focus on both editors' encouragement of their fellow Wikitravel volunteers to migrate to a proposed non-commercial travel guidance site that would be under the umbrella of the WMF.
In its September issue, the peer-reviewed journal First Monday published The readability of Wikipedia, reporting research which shows that the English Wikipedia is struggling to meet Flesch reading ease test criteria, while the Simple English Wikipedia has "lost its focus".
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for August 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).
In general, people think this design is ugly, unnecessarily "flamboyant" and too childish, like a website for primary school pupils. They believe that Wikipedia should be a serious website with a serious main page. They don't like the blue colour either. Some people even thought that the change to this design was a April Fool joke or some kind of vandalism...Most of the people on Chinese Wikipedia were asking for changing it back to the previous version, which is very similar to the current enwiki one.--Jsjsjs1111 (talk) 10:14, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi. Could you help clear up something at the FAC page for Rhythm Killers? An editor suggested removing the publisher, location, or both (not sure which) and keeping them for the ambiguous sources, but I'm not sure which would be ambiguous and have always thought that that the more complete a citation is, the better. Dan56 (talk) 17:45, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
WP:FAC is a good place to test an assumption and a fast way to learn. Given the specifics check out, unless you can find a written policy or guideline that supports 'the more complete a citation is, the better' then I'd go with the editors recommendations provided. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)18:15, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Reread, it makes sense, it least that part. Or maybe, I've got use to reading those Indian articles! Seems the article need gutting really but I like to keep to typos. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)09:59, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
This week, we shine the spotlight on the Indian Cinema Task Force, a subproject that seeks to improve the quality and quantity of articles about Indian cinema. As a child of WikiProject Film and WikiProject India, the Indian Cinema Task Force shares a variety of templates, resources, and members with its parent projects. The task force works on a to-do list, maintains the Bollywood Portal, and ensures articles follow the film style guidelines. With Indian cinema celebrating its 100th year of existence in 2013, we asked Karthik Nadar (Karthikndr), Secret of success, Ankit Bhatt, Dwaipayan, and AnimeshKulkarni what is in store for the Indian Cinema Task Force.
The world's largest photo competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, is entering its final two weeks. The month-long event, of Dutch origin, is being held globally for the first time after the success of its European-level predecessor last year. During September 2011 more than 5000 volunteers from 18 countries took part and uploaded 168,208 free images. This year, volunteers and chapters from 35 countries around the world have organised the event. The best photographs will be determined by juries at the national and finally the global level.
1.20wmf12, the 12th release to Wikimedia wikis from the 1.20 branch, was deployed to its first wikis on September 17; if things go well, it will be deployed to all wikis by September 26. Its 200 or so changes – 111 to WMF-deployed extensions plus 98 to core MediaWiki code – include support for links with mixed-case protocols (e.g. Http://example.com) and the removal of the "No higher resolution available" message on the file description pages of SVG images.
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You may like to check Tania Rattray. But, seriously, was your question on Norwegian Chess Championship about the hyphen in time-limit not stopping the rule? That's what I was searching for ("full time-") when I found Tania's page, where skipping "time-" would miss an error that should at least be fixed manually. Same for Northeast Florida Regional Airport and probably couple of others. Maybe a negative lookahead for "-limit" would be in order? Cheers. Christhe spelleryack16:23, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, question was about time-limit in Norwegian Chess Championship. If you wanted to exclude all of those examples then check for an advanced hyphen by added "(?!-)" to the end of the rule. i.e. find="\b([Ff]ull|[Pp]art)\s?time\b(?!-)". Whether you could have two hyphens in any of those examples I'm not sure and hence I can to you to check. :) Regards, Sun Creator(talk)16:35, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be better to put the ~5000 pages you just posted in the talk page on a separate page within the TS project, that way the talk page doesn't get all cluttered up? (It froze my Internet browser just trying to open it.) I was going to do it myself, but I didn't want to seem like I was going behind your back. I'd have said this on the talk page, but I didn't want to spazz out my browser again. ;) Inks.LWC (talk) 02:51, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #2)
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This edition The Olive Branch is focusing on a 2nd dispute resolution RfC. Two significant proposals have been made. Below we describe the background and recent progress and detail those proposals. Please review them and follow the link at the bottom to comment at the RfC. We need your input!
View the full newsletter
Background
Until late 2003, Jimmy Wales was the arbiter in all major disputes. After the Mediation Committee and the Arbitration Committee were founded, Wales delegated his roles of dispute resolution to these bodies. In addition to these committees, the community has developed a number of informal processes of dispute resolution. At its peak, over 17 dispute resolution venues existed. Disputes were submitted in each venue in a different way.
Due to the complexity of Wikipedia dispute resolution, members of the community were surveyed in April 2012 about their experiences with dispute resolution. In general, the community believes that dispute resolution is too hard to use and is divided among too many venues. Many respondents also reported their experience with dispute resolution had suffered due to a shortage of volunteers and backlogging, which may be due to the disparate nature of the process.
An evaluation of dispute resolution forums was made in May this year, in which data on response and resolution time, as well as success rates, was collated. This data is here.
Progress so far
Stage one of the dispute resolution noticeboard request form. Here, participants fill out a request through a form, instead of through wikitext, making it easier for them to use, but also imposing word restrictions so volunteers can review the dispute in a timely manner.
Leading off from the survey in April and the evaluation in May, several changes to dispute resolution noticeboard (DRN) were proposed. Rather than using a wikitext template to bring disputes to DRN, editors used a new javascript form. This form was simpler to use, but also standardised the format of submissions and applied a word limit so that DRN volunteers could more easily review disputes. A template to summarise, and a robot to maintain the noticeboard, were also created.
As a result of these changes, volunteers responded to disputes in a third of the time, and resolved them 60% faster when compared to May. Successful resolution of disputes increased by 17%. Submissions were 25% shorter by word count.(see Dispute Resolution Noticeboard Statistics - August compared to May)
Outside of DRN other simplification has taken place. The Mediation Cabal was closed in August, and Wikiquette assistance was closed in September. Nevertheless, around fifteen different forums still exist for the resolution of Wikipedia disputes.
Proposed changes
Given the success of the past efforts at DR reform, the current RFC proposes we implement:
1) A submission gadget for every DR venue tailored to the unique needs of that forum.
Similar to the one that was deployed, with great success, to the DRN.
Structured based on the specific issues most commonly dealt with at each forum.
Designed to improve the quality of requests for DR and the efficiency of DR at that forum.
Forms will merely fill out any existing templates (such as Arbcom's) and create a markup-free form in line with specific noticeboard practices otherwise.
Example form fields: What pages are involved? What users are involved? What is the issue? What resolution is desired?
This wizard would ask a series of structured questions about the nature of the dispute.
It would then determine to which dispute resolution venue a dispute should be sent.
If the user agrees with the wizard's selection, s/he would then be asked a series of questions about the details of the dispute (for example, the usernames of the involved editors).
The wizard would then submit a request for dispute resolution to the selected venue, in that venue's required format (using the logic of each venue's specialized form, as in proposal #1). The wizard would not suggest a venue which the user has already identified in answer to a question like "What other steps of dispute resolution have you tried?".
Similar to the way the DRN request form operates, this would be enabled for all users. A user could still file a request for dispute resolution manually if they so desired.
Coding such a wizard would be complex, but the DRN gadget would be used as an outline.
Once the universal request form is ready (coded by those who helped create the DRN request form) the community will be asked to try out and give feedback on the wizard. The wizard's logic in deciding the scope and requirements of each venue would be open to change by the community at any time.
3) Additionally, we're seeking any ideas on how we can attract and retain more dispute resolution volunteers.
Oliver Keyes' (User:Ironholds) defense of Wikipedia against the recent Philip Roth controversy has drawn a significant amount of attention over the last week. The problems between Roth, a widely known and acclaimed American author, and Wikipedia arose from an open letter he penned for the American magazine New Yorker, and were covered by the Signpost two weeks ago. Keyes—who wrote the piece as a prominent Wikipedian but is also a contractor for the Wikimedia Foundation—wrote a blog post on the topic, lamenting the factual errors in Roth's letter and criticizing the media for not investigating his claims: "[they took] Roth’s explanation as the truth and launched into a lengthy discussion of how we [Wikipedia] handle primary sourcing."
A paper to appear in a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist (summarized in the research index) sheds new light on the English Wikipedia's declining editor growth and retention trends. The paper describes how "several changes that the Wikipedia community made to manage quality and consistency in the face of a massive growth in participation have lead to a more restrictive environment for newcomers". The number of active Wikipedia editors has been declining since 2007 and research examining data up to September 2009 has shown that the root of the problem has been the declining retention of new editors. The authors show this decline is mainly due to a decline among desirable, good-faith newcomers, and point to three factors contributing to the increasingly "restrictive environment" they face.
This week, we tinkered with WikiProject Robotics. From the project's inception in December 2007, it has served as Wikipedia's hub for building and improving articles about robots and robotics, accumulating two Featured Articles and seven Good Articles along the way. The project covers both fictitious and real-life robots, the technology that powers them, and many of the brains behind the robotics field
In the second controversy to engulf Wikimedia UK in two months, its immediate past chair Roger Bamkin has resigned from the board of the chapter. The resignation last Wednesday followed a growing furore over the conflict of interest between two of Roger's roles outside the chapter and his close involvement in the UK board's decision-making process, including the access to private mailing lists that board members in all chapters need. But the irony surrounding Roger's resignation is its connection with efforts by Wikimedians and collaborators to strengthen the reach of Wikimedia projects through technical innovation.
Late last month, the "Technology report" included a story using code review backlog figures – the only code review figures then available – to construct a rough narrative about the average experience of code contributors. This week, we hope to go one better, by looking directly at code review wait times, and, in particular, median code review times
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."
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
The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Songs for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 23:09, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
List of Clark County School District schools
Please don't simply edit articles mainly to change the case of templates like cite or reflist. This is an unnecessary edit and upsets many editors. At least one editor has been blocked for doing this, albeit with automated editing. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Read the line school colrors red blue and white mascot the scots => School colour's red, blue and white. mascot the Scots{{Clarify|date=October 2012}}. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)11:28, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
In fact I didn't alter the 'case of templates like cite or reflist' so seems you refer to an edit by another editor. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)13:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
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.
