User talk:VirusKA/Archive 5

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive 1←Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7→Archive 10

Orphaned non-free media (File:Susan Heffley.jpeg)

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

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Hazard-Bot (talk) 04:10, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 August 2012

  • Op-ed: Small Wikipedias' burden
    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.
  • News and notes: Bangla-language survey suggests the challenges for small Wikipedias
    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.
  • Featured content: On the road again
    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.
  • Technology report: "Phabricating" a serious alternative to Gerrit
    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.
  • WikiProject report: Dispute Resolution
    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 Signpost: 20 August 2012

  • Op-ed: Wikimedians are rightfully wary
    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.
  • News and notes: Core content competition in full swing; Wikinews fork taken offline
    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 news: American judges on citing Wikipedia
    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.
  • Featured content: Enough for a week – but I'm damned if I see how the helican.
    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.
  • Technology report: Lua onto test2wiki and news of a convention-al extension
    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.
  • WikiProject report: Land of Calm and Contrast: Korea
    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.

The Signpost: 27 August 2012

  • News and notes: Tough journey for new travel guide
    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.
  • Technology report: Just how bad is the code review backlog?
    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.
  • Featured content: Wikipedia rivals The New Yorker: Mark Arsten
    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.
  • WikiProject report: From sonic screwdrivers to jelly babies: Doctor Who
    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.

Adoption

Hi! I see you are requesting adoption and so would like to offer to adopt you. Myself and my replacement/assistant, RexRowan have an adoption school, which can teach you all the basics of Wikipedia. We believe the adoption course is a great beginning to your Wikipedia life and User talk:RexRowan, who has completed the course himself, will happily tell you how useful the course was.

The adoption school contains a series of 10 lessons, each focusing on a different aspect and with a short test at the end of each. The lessons are then followed by a final exam. You can find those at User:Adam mugliston/Adopt to see if they would be of interest to you.

We also offer an Express course, which means you can choose just one, a few or most of the lessons if you would prefer not to do the full course.

Should you be interested in getting adopted, please read this Code of Honour, then return here and press the button below, filling in USERNAME with your username with out the User: prefix. Please leave the User: prefix that is already there. This questionnaire gives me an insight into you and allows me to adjust the course should I need to, so please fill it in. In it, you will also be able to say whether you prefer the full or Express course.


Also, please drop a line to say you are interested either below this message or on my talk page at User talk:Adam mugliston.

Thanks,

 Adam Mugliston  Talk  21:41, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 September 2012

  • News and notes: World's largest photo competition kicks off; WMF legal fees proposal
    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.
  • Technology report: Time for a MediaWiki Foundation?
    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.
  • Featured content: Wikipedia's Seven Days of Terror
    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".
  • Op-ed: Dispute resolution – where we're at, what we're doing well, and what needs fixing
    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.

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot’s recommendations. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information in the consent information sheet.

We have added information about the opportunity to make substantial valuable contributions to an article using a Low/Medium/High scale which goes from Low Opportunity: Low to High Opportunity: High Opportunity: High Opportunity: High. The score is calculated by combining an article's readership and quality.

SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!

More information Stubs, Cleanup ...
Stubs   Cleanup
Opportunity: High Google Squared   Opportunity: High Swype
Opportunity: High Archos 101   Opportunity: Medium S60 (software platform)
Opportunity: High Windows Embedded Compact 7   Opportunity: High PBS Kids
Opportunity: Medium HTC One S   Merge
Opportunity: High Samsung Dart   Opportunity: High HTC Evo 4G+
Opportunity: High Drug-naïve   Opportunity: Low List of Angry Birds games
Opportunity: High HTC One V   Opportunity: High Mobile device
Opportunity: High Nokia Lumia 610   Add sources
Opportunity: High U.S. Route 340   Opportunity: High Samsung Galaxy Pocket
Opportunity: High Samsung S8300   Opportunity: High Nook Simple Touch
Opportunity: High Archos 70   Opportunity: High Yankee Group
Opportunity: High Ubuntu Mobile   Wikify
Opportunity: High T-Mobile G-Slate   Opportunity: High Nokia C3 Touch and Type
Opportunity: High Samsung Galaxy S Plus   Opportunity: Medium Takoradi International School
Opportunity: High Motorola Atrix 2   Opportunity: High Woodland High School (Cartersville, Georgia)
Opportunity: High Google X   Expand
Opportunity: Medium Huawei U8230   Opportunity: High Huawei Sonic
Opportunity: High LG Optimus 7   Opportunity: Low AMR Corporation
Opportunity: High Huawei U8800   Opportunity: Medium Samsung Galaxy Tab
Close

SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 14:49, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 September 2012

  • From the editor: Signpost adapts as news consumption changes
    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?
  • Op-ed: Fixing Wikipedia's help pages one key to editor retention
    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.
  • WikiProject report: WikiProject Fungi
    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.
  • Special report: Two Wikipedians set to face jury trial
    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.
  • News and notes: Researchers find that Simple English Wikipedia has "lost its focus"
    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".
  • Technology report: Mmmm, milkshake...
    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).

The Signpost: 17 September 2012

  • From the editor: Signpost expands to Facebook
    We now have a Facebook page at facebook.com/wikisignpost. We invite you to "like" the page and join the discussion there.
  • WikiProject report: Action! — The Indian Cinema Task Force
    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.
  • Featured content: Go into the light
    Eight featured articles, six featured lists, ten featured pictures, and one featured topic were promoted this week.
  • News and notes: Tens of thousands of monuments loved; members of new funding body announced
    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.
  • Technology report: Future-proofing: HTML5 and IPv6
    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.

Adoption

Hi ElectroPro. I notice you've put a "request for adoption" template on your userpage. Given the number of users starting on the encyclopedia each day and the number who look for adoption, there can often be a backlog when just displaying the request. You are much more likely to find an adopter if you are pro-active about it, perhaps asking an editor or two from the list of adopters if they would consider adopting you? Good luck in finding someone to help out. WormTT(talk) 09:33, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Microsoft Security Essentials is now a featured article

We did it!
Microsoft Security Essentials is now a featured article. Thanks for your assistance and support in making it possible. Codename Lisa (talk) 22:39, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 September 2012

  • In the media: Editor's response to Roth draws internet attention
    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."
  • Recent research: "Rise and decline" of Wikipedia participation, new literature overviews, a look back at WikiSym 2012
    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.
  • WikiProject report: 01010010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 01101001 01100011 01110011
    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
  • News and notes: UK chapter rocked by Gibraltar scandal
    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.
  • Technology report: Signpost investigation: code review times
    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
  • Featured content: Dead as...
    Fourteen featured articles were promoted this week, including Dodo, along with six featured lists and five featured pictures.

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot’s recommendations. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information in the consent information sheet.

We have added information about the readership and quality of the suggested articles using a Low/Medium/High scale. For readership the scale goes from Low Readership: Low to High Readership: High, while for quality the scale goes from Low Quality: Low to High Quality: High.

SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!

More information Stubs, Cleanup ...
Stubs   Cleanup
Readership: High Quality: Low Samsung Focus   Readership: High Quality: Low Sony Xperia acro S
Readership: High Quality: Low Baidu Yi   Readership: High Quality: Medium Windows Phone version history
Readership: High Quality: Low Kyocera Zio   Readership: High Quality: High Android software development
Readership: High Quality: Low Fastboot   Merge
Readership: High Quality: Low Motoblur   Readership: High Quality: Low HTC Evo 4G+
Readership: High Quality: Low Armor Games   Readership: High Quality: Low TouchFLO 3D
Readership: High Quality: Low Android Developer Lab   Readership: High Quality: Low Microsoft Streets & Trips
Readership: High Quality: Low APK (file format)   Add sources
Readership: High Quality: Medium Samsung Omnia Series   Readership: High Quality: Medium RootzWiki
Readership: High Quality: Low Samsung Captivate Glide   Readership: High Quality: Low Thor Freudenthal
Readership: High Quality: Low Drug-naïve   Readership: High Quality: Low Diary of a Wimpy Kid (film)
Readership: Low Quality: Low Samsung Rugby Smart   Wikify
Readership: High Quality: Low Android Debug Bridge   Readership: High Quality: Medium TeleNav
Readership: High Quality: Low Samsung i5500   Readership: High Quality: High Make Compatible
Readership: High Quality: Low Yves Meyer   Readership: High Quality: Low Google Image Labeler
Readership: High Quality: Low IT as a service   Expand
Readership: High Quality: Low Replicant (operating system)   Readership: High Quality: High Samsung Galaxy Tab
Readership: High Quality: Low Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc.   Readership: High Quality: High MeeGo
Readership: High Quality: Low Google Now   Readership: High Quality: Low Samsung Galaxy Ace
Close

SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 13:48, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

  • Paid editing: Does Wikipedia Pay? The Founder: Jimmy Wales
    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.
  • News and notes: Independent review of UK chapter governance; editor files motion against Wikitravel owners
    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."
  • Featured content: Mooned
    Five articles, three lists, and nine images were promoted to "featured" this week.
  • Technology report: WMF and the German chapter face up to Toolserver uncertainty
    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.
  • WikiProject report: The Name's Bond... WikiProject James Bond
    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 Signpost: 08 October 2012

  • News and notes: Education Program faces community resistance
    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.
  • WikiProject report: Ten years and one million articles: WikiProject Biography
    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.
  • Featured content: A dash of Arsenikk
    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.
  • Technology report: The ups and downs of September and October, plus extension code review analysis
    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.

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Just because. :) Theopolisme 21:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, VirusKA. You have new messages at Theopolisme's talk page.
Message added 22:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Theopolisme 22:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 October 2012

  • Op-ed: AdminCom: A proposal for changing the way we select admins
    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.
  • In the media: Wikipedia's language nerds hit the front page
    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.
  • Featured content: Second star to the left
    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.
  • News and notes: Chapters ask for big bucks
    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.
  • Technology report: Wikidata is a go: well, almost
    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.
  • WikiProject report: WikiProject Chemicals
    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.

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

  • Special report: Examining adminship from the German perspective
    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.
  • Technology report: Wikivoyage migration: technical strategy announced
    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
  • News and notes: Wikimedians get serious about women in science
    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.
  • WikiProject report: Where in the world is Wikipedia?
    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.
  • Featured content: Is RfA Kafkaesque?
    Eleven articles, including one on Franz Kafka, three lists, one image, and one portal were promoted to 'featured' status this week.

Reviewer

Hello, following a review of your contributions, I have enabled reviewer rights on your account. This gives you the ability to:

  • Accept changes on pages undergoing pending changes,
  • Have your changes automatically accepted on pending changes level 2 protected pages, and
  • Administrate article feedback.

Please remember that this user right:

  • Can be removed at any time for misuse, and
  • Does not grant you any special status above other editors.
You should probably also read WP:PROTECT, since this user privilege deals largely with page protection. As the requirements for this privilege are still in a state of flux, I would encourage you to keep up to date on the WP:REVIEWER page. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions! Happy editing! Reaper Eternal (talk) 01:15, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Related Articles

Wikiwand AI