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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Backlog at Category:Wikipedia requested edits

Hello editors! We have 6 edit request queues (c.f. User:AnomieBOT/IPERTable), several of which require administrators or specialized technical editors to update - but one of them that is very backlogged can be processed by any neutral editor. If you have some time, please consider helping out at Category:Wikipedia requested edits. Thank you! — xaosflux Talk 18:40, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Call for Candidates

Submit your candidacy for the 2021 Board of Trustees election.

The 2021 Board of Trustees election is coming soon. Candidates from the community are needed to fill the available seats.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. Community trustees and appointed trustees make up the Board of Trustees. Each trustee serves a three year term. The Wikimedia community has the opportunity to vote for community trustees.

Wikimedia contributors will vote to fill four seats on the Board in 2021. This is an opportunity to improve the representation, diversity, and expertise of the Board as a team.

Who are potential candidates? Are you a potential candidate? Find out more on the Call for Candidates announcement.

Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:15, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television has an RFC

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:01, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

This RFC is worth a look. One possible outcome is the deletion of hundreds or thousands of contestant progress tables project-wide. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:02, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

A Sad Tale of Plagiarism, Original Research and Wikipedia

I recently came across an academic paper with this paragraph in the abstract:

In science fiction, an alien, android, robot, holo- gram or computer described as ‘sentient’ is usually treated in the same way as a human being. Foremost among these properties is human level intelligence (sapience) but sentient characters also typically dis- play desire, will, consciousness, ethic, personality, insight and humour. Sentience is used in this con- text to describe an essential human property that unites all of these other qualities. The words ‘sapi- ence’, ‘self-awareness’ and ‘consciousness’ are used in similar ways and sometimes – and confusingly – interchangeably in science fiction.

I wrote this paragraph for article sentience a long time ago, when I was newbie. This is how it appeared in 2010:

In science fiction, an alien, android, robot, hologram, or computer who is described as sentient is usually treated as a fully human character, with similar rights, qualities, and capabilities as any other character. Foremost among these properties is human level intelligence (see above), but sentient characters also typically display desire, will, consciousness, ethics, personality, insight, and many other human qualities. Sentience is being used in this context to describe an essential human property that brings all these other qualities with it. The words "sapience", "self-awareness", and "consciousness" are used in similar ways in science fiction.

Here was my first version, from 2007:

The issue of sentience also frequently arises in science fiction stories about aliens, robots and computers with artificial intelligence. A character who is described as sentient is assumed to have many human qualities, such as will, desire, consciousness, ethics, personality, intelligence, insight, and so on (although it may be conspicuously lacking one or two). Sentience is being used in this context to describe an essential human property that brings all these other qualities with it.

So, question one: what do we think about people plagiarizing Wikipedia, without attribution?

Here's the thing, though. This paragraph was straight up WP:ORIG. (I said I was newbie.) I suppose I should have deleted it myself at some point, as original research, but I thought for sure I would eventually find a source that made this point. I never did.

Eventually, after ten years or so, the entire section of the article was deleted, because it lacked sources. I had a bit of chuckle and a sigh -- somebody finally noticed.

That brings me to question two: what do we think about people plagiarizing original research from Wikipedia? (Now it's getting complicated.)

So I got to thinking -- I could restore the paragraph, because now I have a source -- I mean the source is me, still, but I've been plagiarized outside of Wikipedia, so now maybe Wikipedia can plagiarize them back? I know, I know -- I'm just asking.

Finally, question three: what do we think about citing a source that is plagiarized original research from Wikipedia?--- CharlesGillingham (talk) 08:30, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Rapid-fire responses: a) That would be worthy of a complaint if you are so inclined. That Wikipedia content is free content does not mean that there aren't some obligations - and attribution is one of the few obligations. b) Sigh. c) I'd be very dubious; if they take content from other websites without saying this, one wonders what other non-dependable source they might have used and how that OR influenced the conclusion of the paper. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:35, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Interesting. It seems to be in the text as well as the abstract. Both authors of the 2016 paper seem to be active academics. Might be interesting to alert the editorial board of SFRA Review. PamD 08:56, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
    • I googled the authors and found this: In this article that was published in a July 2016 issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction, on the PDF page 3/6 there is text that seems to be almost a word-for-word copy of the second lead paragraph in Robot-assisted surgery. In December 2015 the WP article read, In the case of robotically-assisted minimally-invasive surgery, instead of directly moving the instruments, the surgeon uses one of two methods to control the instruments; either a direct telemanipulator or through computer control. From the article (middle of the left column): In the case of robotically assisted, minimally invasive surgery, instead of directly moving the instruments, the surgeon uses one of two methods to control the instruments—either a direct tele-manipulator or through computer control. I cut it for space, but it's the whole second paragraph of the WP article's lead. I didn't check if there are more hits from Wikipedia in that article. -kyykaarme (talk) 12:15, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Agree with Pam on notifying the editors. I have come across errors in a peer-reviewed journal derived from cribbing Wikipedia before, but it wasn't quite as blatant as this. —Nizolan (talk · c.) 14:02, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
    I consider @Doc James to be one of the experts on this problem. He's found plagiarism in multiple textbooks and journal articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
  • On the last point: no, we shouldn't be citing this and including it. This is a copyright violation and we should not even really be linking to copyright violations, let alone using them as a source. But more fundamentally, the reason that we require reliable sources is because Wikipedia articles are not about us, what we think or how we would explain a topic. They're for summarising how experts do think and explain these topics. So an unsourced quick intro with mostly self-evident facts is better than nothing, but it should ultimately be replaced, and regardless of it going in one end of an academic source and out the other, it's still fundamentally not what we're looking for in an explanation. (But on the other hand, congrats on writing a summary good enough for those researchers to think it was valuable enough to steal...) — Bilorv (talk) 14:42, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Report the plagiarism and copyright violation to whomever is appropriate. If the paper was publisher, report it to the publisher. If it was an academic paper, report it to the university or school's academic honesty people. That said, I've reported multiple published academic papers for large-scale plagiarism of Wikipedia... and you know what's come of it so far? Nothing. Just boilerplate "thank you, we'll look into it" replies. I've even followed up on those only to get more of the same with nothing ever coming of it. Kind of depressing. But I will always go after people who plagiarize and try to maximally harm them. They should literally lose their jobs for it. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:49, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
You'd expect the numerous journalists lurking on Wikipedia to notice this post & do some reporting on this phenomena. Or maybe some have tried, only to have their editors or publishers spike the article, because this kind of publicity would look bad for them. Of course, plagiarism is a bad thing to do, whether by students or academics who know better -- & set the example. -- llywrch (talk) 17:05, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct News – Issue 1

Universal Code of Conduct News
Issue 1, June 2021Read the full newsletter

Welcome to the first issue of Universal Code of Conduct News! This newsletter will help Wikimedians stay involved with the development of the new code, and will distribute relevant news, research, and upcoming events related to the UCoC.

Please note, this is the first issue of UCoC Newsletter which is delivered to all subscribers and projects as an announcement of the initiative. If you want the future issues delivered to your talk page, village pumps, or any specific pages you find appropriate, you need to subscribe here.

You can help us by translating the newsletter issues in your languages to spread the news and create awareness of the new conduct to keep our beloved community safe for all of us. Please add your name here if you want to be informed of the draft issue to translate beforehand. Your participation is valued and appreciated.

  • Affiliate consultations – Wikimedia affiliates of all sizes and types were invited to participate in the UCoC affiliate consultation throughout March and April 2021. (continue reading)
  • 2021 key consultations – The Wikimedia Foundation held enforcement key questions consultations in April and May 2021 to request input about UCoC enforcement from the broader Wikimedia community. (continue reading)
  • Roundtable discussions – The UCoC facilitation team hosted two 90-minute-long public roundtable discussions in May 2021 to discuss UCoC key enforcement questions. More conversations are scheduled. (continue reading)
  • Phase 2 drafting committee – The drafting committee for the phase 2 of the UCoC started their work on 12 May 2021. Read more about their work. (continue reading)
  • Diff blogs – The UCoC facilitators wrote several blog posts based on interesting findings and insights from each community during local project consultation that took place in the 1st quarter of 2021. (continue reading)
@Johnuniq, @Vexations as you may or may not be aware I am a member of the drafting committee. I've actually specifically asked this question and the answer is that in the abstract the UCoC will definitely govern volunteer/WMF interactions (both ways). I hope that this answer will be confirmed in a more final form as the drafting process continues. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:08, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the above two comments but I was talking about how the UCoC would be applied in practice, rather than its theoretical boundary. Apart from the issues revealed above, plenty of evidence of problems has emerged in past years including a very inappropriate culture among some staff and troubles at senior management level. Johnuniq (talk) 23:23, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm also talking about how it would be applied in practice. Whether or not it covers Volunteer / foundation employee interaction feels like a significant thing in practice. What I don't think it would cover would be the situation harej describes above which is an unfortunate piece of foundation culture but only seems to involve foundation employees. I am of the general opinion we shouldn't tell the foundation how to do its job on internal matters, just as we don't want them telling us how to do our jobs. Except in one way: we have the fairly significant lever to impact how the foundation runs through the people we elect to the board. I know that I'm going to be examining potential community board candidates through the lens of a change I would like (a different philosophy for how developer time/energy is allocated, beginning with more resources given to the community tech team) and would suggest that, rather than the UCoC, might be a way for you to also advocate for this as an issue. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:36, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The round-table mentioned above is occurring in about 1h30m minutes from now and facilitated in English, Korean, and Indonesian. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 03:32, 12 June 2021 (UTC) (correction to previous message: it's at 05:00 UTC)

Board of Trustees candidates and questions

June 29th is the deadline to apply to the Board of Trustees, as well as sending questions for candidates, see meta:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021/Apply to be a Candidate. MarioGom (talk) 15:57, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

How can there be centralized discussion?

Let's say the primary topic is Murder of George Floyd or 2021 United States Capitol attack. The specific article that needs improvement, or the specific article that would be the appropriate place for information, is not known. It seems the logical starting place for figuring out where the information should go is the talk page of the central article unless there is a Wikiproject. But people object if I try to use those talk pages for improvements to other articles when is not known which other article would be the right place. — Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 14:34, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

In the discussion I believe you are referring to, after your initial comment, you mentioned making changes to another page, and there were some replies, followed by someone asking you to discuss changes about that page on its talk page. Since you had already identified and modified another page, follow-up discussion on the modified page is appropriate. isaacl (talk) 15:01, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
That's just one discussion, and I'm not absolutely sure I changed the right page. I just know that the information I wanted to add was in the same source as other information that was already there. Also, it complicates things if the discussion already started and it gets moved to a new place. And like I said, it the actual article needing a change is not known, the main article should be a starting point because then people can start by saying, "No, not here."— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:17, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
I haven't seen any issues with people starting discussions on a central page or a WikiProject discussion page. As far as I can tell, it's commonly done. If you have some other experiences to share, we can look at them. isaacl (talk) 15:31, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't know whether there was a project page for either of these. I just started where I thought I could get results.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:55, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
The original design for mw:Flow included a feature (never built) for having the same discussion thread on multiple pages, or even on more than one wiki, e.g., if you need to coordinate something with Commons. The idea was that a discussion could be moved or shared between multiple pages, while keeping the history intact. I still think there would be some value in that, especially for discussions that affect multiple articles. I don't think it's going to happen in the foreseeable future, though. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:50, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
  • @Vchimpanzee: I would not advise using a wikiproject talk page, as they are very easy to miss, unless you ensure that at the same time as you start one you place talk page notices to every significantly affected article Nosebagbear (talk) 12:27, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
Again, I'm trying to avoid having more than one page. I think what I did is just fine.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:20, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
When you don't know what pages might be used how do you even start?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:02, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
User:Vchimpanzee, in general a discussion should be started on a relevant page and a neutral notification should be given on others. If more relevant articles come to light during the discussion then more neutral notifications should be made. Any discussion anywhere is better than edit warring. In particular, good advice was given to you in the very first response in the discussion linked above: "you'll have to do the basic work". Editing an encyclopedia beyond the level of fixing typos and spelling mistakes is not easy, and people should put the thought in when needed rather than rely on others to do it. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:19, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
All I can say is if I have to figure out myself where to put something in an article where there is no clue, it will start out looking strange and others willend up fixing it. I'm just trying to get that part taken care of before anyone has to do any fixing.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:52, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

The results of Community Reporting System research are ready

Hello All,

To better understand the perspectives of individuals in the Wikimedia community who have experienced harassment, Wikimedia Foundation researched our community members’ knowledge of, and comfort with, existing enforcement and reporting processes.

An executive summary of the research report is now available on Meta.

Currently, the executive summary is available in English, Spanish, and German.

You can discuss the results or raise questions on talkpage or by contacting communityhealthwg@wikimedia.org. We will be collecting questions for review by staff and will have answers available starting June 28, 2021.

Warm regards, SPoore (WMF), Strategist, Community health initiative (talk) 18:47, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I cannot speak Japanese fluently, so I am request for Japanese-language admins to take action against the IP in question. He or she removed the template from articles that were related to the 2020 Paralympics. If the 2020 Olympics had a template, why can't the 2020 Paralympics had one. He or she even accused me of violating multiple account rules despite the fact that I was locked out of my previous accounts a few months ago. If anyone who is a admin of the Japanese Wikipedia, can either remind him/her that I cannot speak Japanese and that I created and added the template for a very good reason. Thanks. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 22:20, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Tense in year articles

Hello,

Not sure if the miscellaneous section of the village pump is the right place for this discussion, so please direct me to somewhere more suitable if not.

Currently, in year articles (as a random example since I have it open right now, 2015), it seems that tense is mixed between present and past. Most of the time, present tense is used – but when it doesn't work grammatically for a certain sentence structure, past tense has to be used. For example, from 2015, any time an eclipse is mentioned, past tense is used:

March 20 – A total solar eclipse was visible in the north Atlantic, Faroe Islands, Svalbard. It was the 61st eclipse of the 120th saros cycle which started on May 27, 933 AD and will end on July 7, 2195, which is 180 years ahead of 2015.

Therefore, my question is the following:

Should tense in this articles be standardised? If so, to what?

Any input is appreciated. Thanks, DesertPipeline (talk) 05:42, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

Please add a comment below. Use bullet points (*) for initial comments and indent (:) for replies to comments. Add an asterisk before the indent (*:) for accessibility reasons.

Server switch

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to other languages.

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

  • You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, 29 June 2021. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday 30 June).
  • If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

  • Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
  • There will be code freezes for the week of June 28. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) 01:19, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

A RfC that could do with some more input

There is a RfC under way about whether to add the European Union to the List of countries by GDP (nominal). Please share you thoughts. Thanks. M.Bitton (talk) 20:39, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Ex-Muslims, merge or split ?

Inputs requested:A discussion about whether to merge the article Ex-Muslims into the article Apostasy in Islam is underway @ Talk:Apostasy in Islam#Split or Merge ?

Thanks

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias are for expanding information and knowledge' (talk) 04:32, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Another RfC needing outside input

See Talk:Prem Rawat#RfC regarding content concerning TimelessToday LLC and its app. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:58, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

July Good Article Nominations backlog drive

A Good Article Nominations backlog drive runs from 1 July 2021, 00:00 (UTC) and ends on 31 July 2021, 23:59 (UTC). This is a monthlong effort to cut the number of outstanding GANs and in particular those which have been in the queue 90 days or more. Awards will be given out to those individuals who do the most work in helping reduce the size of the backlog and reach milestones related to the number, age, and size, of articles reviewed. Currently there are 330 GANs which have been waiting for a review longer than 30 days, so help cutting the backlog is most appreciated. (t · c) buidhe 01:56, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

As Questia is no more, should Questia.com links in references be bulk-tagged as dead, or removed, or what? DuncanHill (talk) 08:47, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: Not that this should hold up any other work on this, but as both Questia and Gale are partners of The Wikipedia Library, I have been in contact with Gale to see if we might be able to get a mapping of Questia URLs to Gale URLs. This would mean a bot run could find-and-replace the URLs to somewhere helpful like we did when Highbeam shut down. No promises, I've been asking for a while :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:58, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
@Samwalton9 (WMF): Thanks - that would be great! DuncanHill (talk) 10:01, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
If there is a bot that can rewrite Highbeam urls, it still has work to do: this search suggests that there are some 16,500+ articles that have Highbeam links. Some of those have archive snapshots but those are mostly useless because they are teaser pages that ask for login – which of course, you can't do because Highbeam is dead...
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:34, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
When we did the Highbeam->Questia replacement we were only able to receive a partial match on the total list of links unfortunately. I don't recall the details now but as I recall there wasn't always a 1:1 replacement available. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:39, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

How do we find articles that have no files?

Hello, how do we find articles that have no files? After I tried a lot Such as: Special pages, Categories, Wikidata Query, using Regex in Wikipedia search engine, external ways and more, I found no way to show me articles that had no files used. I think we need a special page in this case. Is there any way to do so? Thanks! ⇒ AramTalk 21:40, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by "no files"? -- RoySmith (talk) 21:47, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
There isn't a specific tool, see mw:Topic:Vkht9t30wpxcw464. For pages that have been identified by editors in need of images see Category:Wikipedia requested images. — xaosflux Talk 21:55, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
@RoySmith:, @Xaosflux: replied. Thank you very much! That discussion link on Mediawiki is very useful and led me to a lot of very good ways. Thank you again! ⇒ AramTalk 12:18, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
@Aram Technically, quarry:query/56382 is a simple query that shows the articles with no files. However, note that this will not include any article with tags like {{unreferenced}}, {{more citations needed}}, etc since the icons on those maintenance templates count as a file. – SD0001 (talk) 15:58, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
@SD0001: Thank you, but I think the query is not accurate because of that restriction. It may need to be edited a little bit (if it's possible) to make the results more accurate, and so it can be added to here so that other users can benefit from it. ⇒ AramTalk 20:47, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Note that has a "limit 2000" on it, the FULL results would be HUGE. — xaosflux Talk 20:56, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Huge, as in 596538 pages. Almost one in ten pages in the main namespace. A couple clicks of Special:Randompage should suit your purpose just fine. —Cryptic 22:22, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
@Cryptic, could you filter that list to provide the top 10K (or some suitable number) based on the rating system for the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team or by page views? That would tend to focus efforts on articles that are getting read more frequently. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Not by pageviews anymore, I think, now that cross-database joins aren't possible anymore. But quarry:query/56422 has completely-imageless articles rated Top- or High-importance by any wikiproject. Pages assessed by more than one project will have multiple entries; it's not worth the effort to cull them out. And it has the same shortcoming as SD0001's query above, though I suppose images like File:Question book-new.svg that are on particularly common templates could be filtered out if someone were to compile a list of them. —Cryptic 21:03, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Membership guidelines

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Membership guidelines. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 10:45, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Getting access to deleted articles

Let us consider the situation. Some Wikipedia user wrote an article. Someone else nominated the article for removal, the nomination was discussed, and the article was removed.

As far as I understand the spirit of Wikipedia, the user should have the right to receive, if desired, the text of the deleted article - for example, for working on it in his Sandbox, or for publication on some other resource.

What should be the actions of such a user? Are there any policies/rules for getting access to deleted articles? --Perohanych (talk) 10:59, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

See WP:REFUND(Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion) or if you prefer most admins will e-mail you a copy if you ask them nice. If it was deleted due to consensus or because it was inappropriate then it probably won't be undeleted short of a successful deletion review. But again even in cases where it is not appropriate on Wikipedia it can be e-mailed to you. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 11:04, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
The only "rights" editors have are spelled out in the terms of use, for the most part they only deal with copyright. Besides that, there are plenty of reasons to deny such as request. If you write a libelous or attack article and we delete it as such, we're generally not going to restore it for you to continue working on it. — xaosflux Talk 11:13, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Probably we should elaborate some all-embracing list of such cases, like:
  • copyvio
  • libelous article
  • attack article
"Going or not going to restore" ? Probably "Should or should not restore" would sound better? --Perohanych (talk) 11:20, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Announcing the confirmed candidates for the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election

A short introduction to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Hello, I'm one of the facilitators working on Movement Strategy and Governance.

Today, we are delivering an announcement from The Elections Committee regarding the confirmed candidates for the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees elections. I have reproduced the announcement (below) and have also provided a brief introduction about the Board (right).

Please let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 15:59, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Announcement
Copied from original announcement (also available in other languages)

The 2021 Board of Trustees election opens 4 August 2021. Candidates from the community were asked to submit their candidacy. After a three week long Call for Candidates, there are 20 candidates for the 2021 election.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. The Board wants to improve their competences and diversity as a team. They have shared the areas of expertise that they are hoping to cover with new trustees.

The Wikimedia movement has the opportunity to vote for the selection of community-and-affiliate trustees. The Board is expected to afterwards select the four most voted candidates to serve as trustees starting in September for a term of three years.

How can you get involved?

Learn more about the candidates

Candidates from across the movement have submitted their candidatures. Learn about each candidate to inform your vote. The community submitted questions for the candidates to answer during the campaign. Candidates will answer the list of community questions collated by the Elections Committee on Meta. In the coming weeks, candidates will have the opportunity to submit videos of themselves speaking about their candidacy.

Participate in campaign activities

The team of facilitators supporting this Board election has planned some activities for the campaign period. These activities can be found on the Board election page on Meta.

Community members are welcome and encouraged to organize activities in their own communities. We do ask that any activities intended to involve candidates remain respectful of their time, since candidacy can be very time-consuming. Please list activities you organize on the Board election page on Meta so more people can find them. Facilitators and Election Volunteers are available if you need support.

Vote

Voting for the 2021 Board of Trustees election opens on 4 August 2021 and closes on 17 August 2021. The Elections Committee chose Single Transferable Vote for the voting system. Learn more about voting requirements, the process, and frequently asked questions about voting.

Single Transferable Vote

This voting system allows voters to rank candidates. The benefit of this is voters can rank their choices in order of preference. This helps share your preferences more clearly than support or oppose. If your top choice candidate already has enough votes to be selected, your vote will be moved to your second choice candidate. If your top choice candidate will not win, your vote will be moved to your second choice candidate. And so on. The facilitation team came up with a fun example. More information will be coming mid-July.

Please spread the word so more people can support finding the best candidates to help guide the Wikimedia Foundation and support the needs of the movement over the next few years.

Best,

The Elections Committee

Honestly, is everyone else crazy, or is it me?

So, universally (that is, literally everyone ever except me, that I have seen) uses the {{reflist}} template as the sole contents of the "References" section and mixes the body of the refs with the article text. I use {{reflist|refs= [then all the refs inside <ref>...</ref> brackets one after the other, then the "reflist" template closed with an }}]. It's so much better. It is. So when I go to edit a section (of anybody else's page) I see like:

'''The Crab Claw''' is a<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bbonline.com/articles/maryland/st-michaels/st-michaels-restaurants-mouth-watering-seafood-eateries.html |title=St. Michaels Restaurants: Mouth-Watering Seafood Eateries |author= |date= |work=Bed & Breakfast Inns Online |accessdate=February 25, 2011}}</ref> independent-owned restaurant located in [[St. Michaels, Maryland]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/restaurants/the-crab-claw,1155651.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091029142010/http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/restaurants/the-crab-claw,1155651.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 29, 2009 |title=The Crab Claw |author= |date= |work=Washington Post |accessdate=February 25, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/206/1051746/restaurant/Maryland/Easton/Crab-Claw-Restaurant-St-Michaelsdc |title=Crab Claw Restaurant |author= |date= |work=Urban Spoon |accessdate=February 25, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://national.citysearch.com/profile/5022923/st_michaels_md/crab_claw_restaurant.html |title=Crab Claw Restaurant |author= |date= |work=Citysearch |accessdate=February 25, 2011}}</ref> They have an extensively large amount of seafood on their menu, and they are known locally for their steamed crabs. The business evolved from a clam-shucking business established in the 1950s.<ref name="roadfood">{{cite web |url=http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Reviews/271/the-crab-claw |title=The Crab Claw |author= |date= |work=Roadfood |accessdate=February 25, 2011}}</ref> In 1965, they added a seafood eatery.

Whereas editing the same section in one of my articles you see:

'''The Crab Claw''' is a<ref name=Bbonline/> independent-owned restaurant located in [[St. Michaels, Maryland]].<ref name=WaPo/><refname=UrbanSpoon/><ref name=Citysearch/> They have an extensively large amount of seafood on their menu, and they are known locally for their steamed crabs. The business evolved from a clam-shucking business established in the 1950s.<ref name=Roadfood/> In 1965, they added a seafood eatery.

Boy howdy, you can read my version better can you not? By Grabthar's hammer, I can barely read the top version. What I usually do is go to thru it add a blank line before and after each ref (a hassle) so I can at least kind of figure out what is text and what is refs. And it's still a mess to work with.

With the "refs=" procedure, the details of the ref are segregated in the "References" section. I mean if you are editing, you very seldom need to know who the author of a ref is or whatever. And you very rarely want to edit an existing ref, unless you are specifically going in to fix an error (also rare, and in which case, knowing it's in the References section is maybe better anyway)

Virtually the only way you want to access an existing ref is to look at it, to check what's in it etc. You want to do that from the actual page by clicking the source's link (if there is one) which takes you directly to the source. If you're editing, you would need to pick thru the mess to find the url, copy it, open a tab, and paste in the url. Hardly any harder to jump down to the References section where it's all laid out neatly like little soldiers waiting for you command. (I usually keep a live version of the article open in a separate tab; if you're editing on your phone, I can't image that the top version above is easier to deal with tho.)

If for some reason you need to find the ref details, they're together with the other refs in the References section. It's not a lot harder to get to them, and as I said this is fairly rare. Also, if you want to look at the refs for the article generally (I suppose this is possible), there they are all together.

With the "refs=" procedure, all the refs are always named, and the contents are findable pretty easily in the References section, rather than having to comb thru the entire article to find the initial definition of the name with the ref details. This makes it much easier for writing the article, assuming you are re-using refs (which is fairly common) I also can copy in a blank ref at the bottom of the References section and bonk-bonk make a copy and fill it in when I'm adding another ref. What you guys do I can't imagine.

Great Caesar's ghost, what am I missing? All this is documented at {{reflist}} and has been since forever. I found it, why can't anyone else? I even (just once) had an admin come in and "fix" my stuff by jamming all the refs up into the article text. He'd never heard of the "refs=" method I guess.

As a programmer, it reminds me of mixing in your data with your code, which is terrible. Separate the data (the article text) from the code (the ref details). Using the "refs=" procedure, the refs are like calls to a subroutine, where the code for that subroutine is off somewhere else where it's not bothering you; you know what it does. And you can find it and look at if you want. Again, what is the downside here? (Yeah I know objects can contain code and data, but that ain't anything like the mess I'm describing here.)

I swear, I will give a crisp United States dollar to anyone who can convince me that the "refs=" method is worse, for either the writer or the editor (usually; I don't use this 100%, there are rare exceptions when it's better to use your guys's method. Rare.)

Or is just a matter of advertising this? If so, let's! "It's like discovering sex" might be a good (and accurate!) slogan.

Yr Obedient Servant, Herostratus (talk) 00:40, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I use the refs= method in my articles that have quite a few refs; I place them with the refname in alphabetical order so it's easier to find the definition. It's particularly useful when refs are reused several times, because I don't have to hunt to find where it's defined in the body. And I agree that it makes it easier to read the body in editing view. (adding) See Literary feud for an example; it would horrid to work on with the refs defined inline. Schazjmd (talk) 00:57, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
One drawback of list-defined references is that they're not compatible with VisualEditor; if you click on a ref defined this way, you get a message that "This reference is defined in a template or other generated block, and for now can only be edited in source mode." Additionally, if references are separated from their invocation, it's easier to get mismatches between references invoked and defined, leading to the bright red reference errors that populate Category:Pages with citation errors. This is not to say they're useless, but they're not perfect. Vahurzpu (talk) 03:50, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Herostratus, I was going to disagree with

literally everyone ever except me, that I have seen

but you did add the qualifier "that I have seen" so you may be correcct.
You are referring to LDR - list defined references.
I was a big fan.
Check out Reelin and my edits on 23 October 2009.
I used that approach on many articles for a period, but I stopped.
It used to be the case that creating footnotes was one of the more challenging tasks in Wikipedia. I created a suite of tools to build them in a word processor, and I decided that if I had to build them, the LDR approach was superior.
However, the VE team finally figured out how to do references, and once it was easy to drop in a url or DOI and let VE do the work, I decided that was the better approach even it it meant that the created ref was the old format rather than LDR. Even if you have to edit the ref, it can now usually be done in VE, so you rarely have to see the gory details.
So I stopped pushing for LDR. S Philbrick(Talk) 01:02, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
  • I largely agree, and I usually use LDRs when I create new articles. One minor downside no-one has mentioned is that, unlike inline references, LDRs entail some manual 'garbage collection'. An editor might delete the last citation of a given work without realizing it, which leaves an orphaned item in the reflist. Though this does lead to a big red 'Cite error' message after the rendered list of references, so it's pretty easily noticed and fixed. Colin M (talk) 18:06, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
  • I avoid trying to read the "junk code" by opening two windows, one with the article text and one with the code. My PC's CTRL-F works very well for rapid navigation and checking multiple uses of a citation. --Bejnar (talk) 03:46, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Afghan situation map RFC

An RFC is undergoing about whether or not a live situation map including information apparently partly sourced to the Taliban should be used on EN Wiki. The RFC can be seen here. FOARP (talk) 09:03, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion on Commons of fictional flags and of deleting files in use on English Wikipedia

On Commonsc:Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Fictional_flags_-_are_they_in_scope? there is a discussion of fictional flags etc. and that include deletions of files in use in articles and on userpages on English Wikipedia. There is also a test DR c:Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with Flag of the British Isles where it have been suggested to delete a file that is used on almost 100 userpages on English Wikipedia. That would be a change of c:COM:SCOPE where the general rule is in use = in scope. You are welcome to comment. --MGA73 (talk) 06:28, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikiredia

I searched for something using Bing (normally use Google 95% of the time) and a website called wikiredia.com came up in search results, second or third down the page. Just wondering what this website is and does it contain malware or viruses? 158.222.185.250 (talk) 15:14, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

It is listed at Wikipedia:mirrors and forks… but it is not connected to Wikipedia or any of its sister projects… so I would avoid - just to play it safe. Blueboar (talk) 16:18, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
Do fork websites like this typically contain viruses? I clicked on it by mistake because it looks so similar to Wikipedia, it's only different by one letter. 158.222.185.250 (talk) 01:40, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Upcoming UCOC/MSG round-table discussion on 17 July 2021 at 15:00 UTC

Hello,

The Movement Strategy and Governance facilitation team will be hosting round-table discussions for Wikimedians to talk together about the Universal Code of Conduct, Movement Charter, ongoing 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board Elections, and other Movement Strategy initiatives.

The next call is 17 July 2021 at 15:00 UTC (check time). Conversations will be hosted in at least French, German, Spanish, and English.

The calls will last between 90 and 120 minutes and involve open discussions. The ideas shared during the calls will be summarized for the Wikimedia Foundation teams working on these topics.

We look forward to talking with you. Please see further details and sign up here.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 00:06, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Redirects

The following redirects were undone WKPJ-LP and W10DD-D. These radio stations aren't notable and were redirected for a reason. Also WDSJ-LP and WOFB-LP had there categories restored, these radio stations aren't notable either and were redirect for a reason. Enough is enough of editors not logged in undoing redirects!Catfurball (talk) 16:04, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Enough is enough when it comes to editors (logged in or not) who edit war rather than discuss things on article talk pages when they are disputed. Just talk about it rather than assume that you are right about content. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Do not remove categories from redirects without reason. In many cases they should be categorised. Eurohunter (talk) 15:31, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
Indeed, I restored them. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:43, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I feel like shit

Thank you to everyone who has commented, especially my former coworkers. It has been over a month since I made this original post, and more than a few people have responded, so I think at this point it's best to close the thread. Harej (talk) 01:49, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have been sitting on this for around two years. It has taken me a really long time to figure out how to express this.

As you may know I worked for the Wikimedia Foundation from 2018 to 2019. This was following a lifetime of service to the Wikimedia movement. I started contributing my time in 2004 and over time participated in greater and more consequential capacities. I am proud of the work I have done, from making workflows more efficient with bots, to organizing large and successful conferences, to my work on building an open citation graph on Wikidata.

What I am not proud of is working at the Wikimedia Foundation.

I worked very hard throughout my career and ultimately found full time work at one of the world’s most illustrious nonprofits. What I got for my lifetime of work was the experience of working with bullies.

The Wikimedia Foundation is run by bullies.

There are two members of executive management that come to mind. Both have made me the object of repeated ridicule over a period of several years in my volunteer and professional capacities. One has interacted with me a single digit number of times and only did so to make fun of some verbal gaffe I made or otherwise mock something I have said or done. Another liked to make jokes about me as well, often right in my face. I had an experience of interviewing with this executive, only for them to make fun of me to my face in subsequent encounters.

Both of these people still work at the Wikimedia Foundation. I am not referring to them directly because I don’t want them to sue me and I don’t want my post to be oversighted, but they still hold positions of power, and they are still responsible for managing staff.

There are a lot of things I could tell you about the foundation, good or bad. I could tell you about the brilliance of the staff, the genuine collaborations between professionals and volunteers that take place, and the sincere dedication of everyone I have met working there.

I could also tell you about the lack of leadership at the highest levels, and the interdepartmental war for resources that resulted. But I was merely demoralized by this chaos; it wasn’t my own personal experience. I could tell you about how women, and women of color in particular, are chewed up and spit out by the management. But that’s not my story to tell. I could complain that their growth strategy is complete nonsense and destined to fail, but that’s, just, like, my opinion.

But this is my story to tell: I am an adult with autism. Over the years, especially when I was younger, it is inevitable that I would say and do things that are kind of funny. And I have been made fun of my entire life for it. I can forgive myself for saying awkward things, and I can forgive people for what they did as children. What I cannot forgive is a fully grown adult, in a position of significant authority, bullying another adult in their workplace. It is unforgivable.

After a chaotic 18 or so months of working at Wikimedia, I turned in my badge. The experience left me with posttraumatic stress disorder, seriously adrift on a moral and emotional level, and occasionally prone to psychotic episodes. Over time I have been able to forgive the dysfunction that defined my work experience, but I could not let go of the fact that there are bullies who work for the Wikimedia Foundation and still work there.

As Wikipedians we are a neurodiverse community and come from many different backgrounds. We need management that is not just charismatic, not just good at giving speeches, but empathetic and compassionate, who genuinely understands our experiences.

I feel terrible and exposed writing this. I may be opening myself up to retaliation. But I have been sitting on this for so long, and it has tortured me so much. And I can’t live with myself not knowing that this perspective is invisible. You are not going to hear it from the slick Communications team, and you’re not going to hear it from people who think speaking up will make them unemployable. But at this point, I don’t think I have anything to lose. And if others speak up because of me I hope it will be worth it. Harej (talk) 03:14, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Harej, damn. I'm no WMF employee, but why do I not feel surprised? To answer my own question, it's probably due to how the WMF tends to steamroll over community wishes (Branding project insanity, WP:FRAMBAN, trying to kick out Jimbo, failing to adequately deal with WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU and the captions fiasco on Commons which is a story for another day and not sufficiently covered by that link) I've quoted you in full on User talk:Jimbo Wales. Getting bullied is devastating. WMF executive management bullying people is just lunacy. And the worst part is, the people who do it are typically too damn stupid to realize what they're doing. They're not compensating or "secretly insecure" as you often hear. They're just too damn stupid. They simply lack the brain capacity to understand the consequences of their actions. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 04:58, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
Not sure if I'd say that it's due to that, or if they have the same underlying problem (I'd be more inclined to think the latter). Elli (talk | contribs) 03:13, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Hey, Harej, I'm so sorry that happened to you, and thank you for standing up and saying it. Yngvadottir (talk) 05:59, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for stepping up and writing this. Legoktm (talk) 07:00, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for being honest about your experiences, Harej. It's really disappointing to hear this. As you'll well know, autistic people are a major part of our community, well in excess of their proportion in the general population. Any company which truly appreciated that it is built on and run by our volunteer labour would bend over backwards to be accommodating towards autistic and neurodivergent people. No doubt these management figures have also mocked neurotypicals and made them feel like shit too. And a disorganised workplace is a hotbed for mental health problems. Not a proud moment for the WMF. — Bilorv (talk) 14:31, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Well done on speaking out, Harej. As above, neither saddened nor surprised. (I note that this page has been archived in at least two major online archives—multiple times!—so oversighting would be a bit of a horse/stable door scenario.) ——Serial 17:27, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Thank you for sharing your experience James. We have worked together a bit and I'm really saddened by this. I wish WMF would have been a better place. Ladsgroupoverleg 18:07, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
  • I am very sorry you feel like that, and feel ashamed that there could be such people there. You are worth a lot, they are blind if they were simply unable to recognize that, going up to bullying... I don't have words to describe it. It's really saddening that you suffered such experience. Platonides (talk) 20:23, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Good gravy, Harej, I was so pleased when you finally had a career path open up after all your work. We should point out that you are not the only person in our group of wikibuddies who has had real life difficulties as a result of their good faith efforts on behalf of this encyclopedia. Please accept my best wishes in your future endeavors, and know that there are many places where ordinary civility and US EEO/ADA laws have made for a much less toxic environment than what you have experienced so far. It gets better-- stay in touch! Oliveleaf4 (talk) 21:45, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Harej, I'm so sorry to hear that. As the parent of child who was bullied because of their autism-spectrum-disorder, our collective failure to protect the neurodiverse members of our communities strikes me as particularly egregious and intolerable. We can and must do better. Thank you for speaking up. Vexations (talk) 22:01, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Sorry for your bad experience and I hope that telling your story helps somehow. Large organizations like the WMF can sometimes be unintentionally cruel and that's why it's so important for everyone to work hard to be extra friendly and inclusive. Flounder ceo (talk) 01:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

To add some clarifying remarks: I am not referring to the managers I reported directly to; they are incredible people. And I do believe most staff at the foundation are working in good faith and are trying to do right by the people they work with, professionally and in the community. I am gravely concerned that there is a culture among, specifically, the executives (i.e. direct reports to the CEO) that is toxic, and I have been on the receiving end of this in subtle ways that scarred me. While I worked there and especially since I left many of them have been replaced with new ones, and I have no opinion on them because I haven't worked with them. I've noticed a lot of people have brought their own grievances with the Wikimedia Foundation into this, and I completely understand that, just that I think my position is a bit more nuanced than the "community vs. foundation" dynamic I often see. And I also want to note that merely the experience of being able to write what I did, and the outpouring of support, has been immensely meaningful to me. Thank you. Harej (talk) 17:32, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

  • Thanks for speaking out about your experience, James. You've done a huge amount for the project, and I was saddened to read this. It takes a neurodiverse community to build this project and keep it running, and large parts of our movement could probably use more (or any) information and/or training regarding the neurodiversity of our valued contributors. Hopefully this thread helps to spur that on. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:28, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Like others above, I'm saddened but not surprised by this. Thank you for speaking out. One thing leapt immediately to mind when you wrote "We need management that is not just charismatic, not just good at giving speeches, but empathetic and compassionate, who genuinely understands our experiences" - people who are charismatic (or what passes for charismatic in some environments) and good at giving speeches are very rarely also empathetic and compassionate. Our articles superficial charm and psychopathy in the work-place may be of interest. DuncanHill (talk) 14:16, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
    Interesting, Robert D. Hare coined the term "Snakes in Suits" as a synonym for workplace psychopaths.

Manipulation involves the psychopath creating a scenario of “psychopathic fiction” where positive information about themselves and negative disinformation about others will be created, where your role as a part of a network of pawns or patrons will be utilised and you will be groomed into accepting the psychopath's agenda. Once on to the confrontation stage, the psychopath will use techniques of character assassination to maintain their agenda, and you will be either discarded as a pawn or used as a patron. Finally, in the ascension stage, the role of the subject as a patron in the psychopath’s quest for power will be discarded, and the psychopath will take for himself/herself a position of power and prestige from anyone who once supported them.

Who does that make you think of? wbm1058 (talk) 16:39, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
I know it's not my place, but that last link has nothing to do with what this discussion's supposed to be about. Golollop (bounce) 16:55, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
No problem, I know that link is off topic, and, I hope this sidebar about psychopathy in the workplace is off topic too. If it isn't we need to know. wbm1058 (talk) 17:03, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
You're babbling and what you're saying isn't helpful. Moneytrees🏝️Talk/CCI guide 21:01, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Hi harej, it was sad to read about your experience. The courage you have shown here in expressing how you felt is inspirational and I am glad that taking this step was personally meaningful to you in any case. I hope that others who feel the same way about their current or former workplaces will also express themselves effectively and provide an opportunity for positive changes to occur. Thank you for sharing this and I wish you all the best. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Harej, it's really a shame to hear that. I've worked at some places like that too, and it really does leave its mark on you. I hope the WMF will take this on board and worry about the conduct of its own employees and executives. We should do better than that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:57, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
  • That one of the nicest and most dedicated people in the site's history got treated so poorly is a damning indictment. I went through a similar situation as a kid and it's sad to see that that behavior is still considered acceptable that high up. Moneytrees🏝️Talk/CCI guide 22:17, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Harej I'm so sorry to hear this. I can relate a little, although what I experienced wasn't nearly as bad as what you've described here. Towards the end of my time at the WMF, I felt quite unwelcome due to the actions of some people there. I tried to find a different position from the one I was in, that would distance me from those people, but was told that that was not an option that was open to me. So, my options were to put up with it, or leave. I wish I didn't feel like I needed to leave in order to preserve my mental health, but I did. In the end, it wasn't the antagonistic relationship between the paid staff and volunteers that made me leave, it was internal antagonistic relationships. It's a shame, working at a company with global impact that isn't totally driven by profit, short term thinking, and next quarter's share prices could easily be the best job in the world... but, in the end, somehow it ends up not being that different from short term profit-focussed companies anyway, and it really isn't the best job in the world at all. I hope you can begin to recover from this trauma. All the best. --Deskana (talk) 09:11, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
    • I also relate. In my case I stuck around and tried to push back against increasing attempts at marginalization and workplace bullying. It got to the point where I officially complained to HR (and in retrospect I should have used stronger wording), they eventually claimed "no evidence" but everything I asked for happened anyway, then a month or so later allowed massive retaliation. It seems to me that the management at WMF has grown pretty dysfunctional, fostering a culture where their own image and career progression is a major goal in a way that I'd associate more with cut-throat for-profit companies than with a non-profit. Anomie⚔ 13:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Having the pleasure of working with you in the past, and also experiencing executive bullying at Wikimedia Foundation myself, I believe every detail of your story, and I can imagine exactly this sort of stratospheric managerial misconduct going unpunished. I don't want to dilute the conversation by giving my own opinion of how far up the organizational structure this rot extends, but let's say the Wikimedia Foundation would be a much better work environment, and would benefit even on a programmatic level, if the rank-and-file staff and community members were included in a democratic process. Hope we have another chance to work together! Adamw (talk) 07:23, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
    Adamw I also used to work at the Wikimedia Foundation and everything you and JHare, Anomie, and Deskana have said deeply resonates with my experiences as well. I'm sorry this happened to you and I really appreciate all four of you speaking up. You can add my name to this list. Melodykramer (talk) 13:06, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
  • So, now what? @Harej, Deskana, Anomie, and Adamw:, you have all courageously come forward ... in a thread that was going to be archived in a few days. This should not be forgotten. This deserves about 1000x more attention. But where? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:48, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
    Suffusion of Yellow, like Jimbo's talk page maybe? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 21:33, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
    Perhaps someone can volunteer to work with editors in question to discuss what next steps they'd like to see happen? isaacl (talk) 21:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
In a February 2021 call for feedback I requested a response to Wikimedia Foundation staff shenanigans from Wikimedia Foundation board members
We need a way to collect reports of misconduct to identify problems and provide de-identified annual status reports
  • "Bullying" is an appropriate term for Wikimedia Foundation staff misconduct There is an unacceptably high rate of Wikimedia Foundation staff and consultant misconduct in the Wikimedia Movement. Where money is involved, there are paid Wikimedia Foundation representatives who violate the meta:Universal Code of Conduct and stifle free discussion about the regularity of this problem. The Wikimedia community of volunteers sets the values and ethics of our movement. However, as Wikimedia Movement goals increasingly come into conflict with the Wikimedia Foundation's corporate interests, the Wikimedia Foundation is more regularly putting aside its nonprofit mission and values in favor of more desirable corporate operations for staff. The Wikimedia Foundation's normalization of misconduct is accumulating grievances and undermining community trust in the Foundation's role in the Movement. No one at the Wikimedia Foundation counts, documents, researches, reports, or will publicly discuss how frequently or how severely Wikimedia Foundation staff are reported to engage in misconduct. This failure to document leads to the consequence that every time I hear of someone reporting a complaint, the Wikimedia Foundation's response is always that they have no records of other such problems.
As a solution I will suggest that the Wikimedia community needs a way to collect reports of misconduct for a third-party researcher to de-identify, categorize, and publish so that we can establish a common knowledge and understanding of the extent to which corporate operations are conflicting with the nonprofit mission. Wikimedia Foundation staff misconduct is especially offensive because donor money sponsors it, and because vulnerability to misconduct is the consequence of the Wikimedia Foundation's lack of investment in Wikimedia community infrastructure that would have enabled the community to defend itself. As a Catholic I have great faith in the power of confession and forgiveness, and I believe that compassion can counter misconduct. Through open and transparent discussion I believe that we could effectively, inexpensively, and realistically eliminate misconduct which has negativity as its cause.
I want to clarify: the Wikimedia Foundation does not have higher rates of misconduct than typical corporations so far as I can guess about organizations with US$100+ million in annual revenue; but the normal rates of misconduct for typical organizations are much too high to tolerate in our non-profit, mission-driven, community-centered Wikimedia Movement. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:29, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Thanks for speaking up, Harej, and for contributing so remarkably much in other ways. I'm sorry this happened to you! I will remember this. I'd like to help wipe out bullying at the Foundation and elsewhere. Our movement involves volunteers so it's especially important to keep things positive and supportive. -- econterms (talk) 21:06, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm disappointed but not surprised by Harej's posting. The English-language Wikipedia -- & many of the other language Wikipedias -- function acceptably well with only volunteer contributions; having a paid staff to tend to the servers is really the only requirement we have from the Foundation. Were the Foundation's activities be limited to only that, there would be little or no negative effect on Wikipedia, either short term or long. People would continue to contribute to it, people would continue to use it, & it would be about as reliable as any proprietary, for-profit encyclopedia. Not to say that we -- as well as every other project -- couldn't use more support, but that means a large share of the WMF staff are free to screw off or engage in petty office politics, because there are no metrics to show how their irresponsibility effects the projects. Here we are being shown that some are doing just that: making a living from our altruistic efforts without positively contributing. As I said, this is disappointing to read about. -- llywrch (talk) 17:20, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Thank you Harej for sharing your experience, and I'm sorry you went through this. I'll take this chance to thank you for your work that we still leverage on WikiProjects. Thank you Deskana, Anomie, and Adamw for sharing too. It is important for the community to know that this is a long-term pattern and not just an isolated problem. Best, MarioGom (talk) 22:21, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Dear Harej: I have admired your work for a very long time. Your technical contributions are impressive, co-founding Wikimedia DC was visionary, and I know very well how much effort running Wikimania takes. I also think of your early days with the projects and our first meeting at Wikimania every time someone asks me about people who have spent a long time on Wikipedia. All that is to say is that your work is appreciated, and you should be proud of it. I am very sorry that this happened to you. I would like our movement and core institutions to be distinguished by remarkable kindness towards all of the people who work on our projects. It often is, but in the times when it is not we have failed each other. I will think about ways to fix this kind of failure systemically. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 01:02, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Harej, thank you for sharing your story. It is important that this is known, and it has also allowed others (e.g., 1, 2) to speak up about their experience at the Foundation, including myself. I really enjoyed working with you, as your vision and skill for Wikimedia product was exemplary, and your dedication to the projects was remarkable. I always felt very proud when you were able to move to engineering because I knew that's what you wanted, and where you really belonged. It's painful to see that you went through all this suffering and you got all this unfair treatment. You deserve better and I hope you can find healing in the near future. Sometimes it feels like I still am. I send you my love, Macruzbar (talk) 14:59, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Harej, I sent you a private response but I think it’s important to share my feelings here also, in public. You are a brilliant person. Hiring you was one of the smartest decisions I made as the CTO. I am furious learning that you were treated this way. I will not blame anyone else but I do blame myself for not knowing what happened and for not protecting you. It was my job to protect you and I did not. For this I am truly sorry. I will also say that passion, brilliance and excellence shine through. You are so much bigger than these bullies, whoever they happen to be. I hope you are healing. The movement cannot succeed without people like you. Audiohazel (talk) 01:17, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Media report

OpIndia has published a – factual, as far as I can see – report on this. I cannot link to it, as the site is blacklisted. --Andreas JN466 14:42, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

@Jayen46: Try using the webarchive to bypass it. --Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 16:28, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

World Cities in the MOS or somewhere?

Hello. Sorry if this is an FAQ, stupid, etc. But ... I am pretty sure that I have seen somewhere a policy or guideline, perhaps in the MOS, that suggests that if you are writing about a well-enough-known city, such as Paris, you do not need necessarily to specify that it is Paris, France as opposed to Paris, Texas or [[Paris, Wherever]]. Initial searches have not been a success. If this still exists, can you please point me to it? Thank you. Best to all, DBaK (talk) 08:52, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

  • WP:Naming conventions (geographic names) talks about this a bit, so perhaps that is what you were looking for? Note that our naming conventions are focused more on how we present place names in article titles than on how we present the place names in running text (in the body of an article we can often be somewhat flexible, due to provided context). Note the section on disambiguation, and also the section outlining our conventions in specific countries and areas. We are not always consistent… intentionally so. Blueboar (talk) 11:47, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
    • Thanks Blueboar for this, and I apologize for my slow reply. It is helpful, thank you. Nevertheless I am left with the weird feeling that I did somewhere – perhaps long ago – see somewhere where it said this quite specifically. As in, it gave examples of, say, Paris or Berlin or wherever and said clearly that it was not usually necessary to specify the country, because you could assume that people knew; plus it was only a click or hover away; and perhaps just that it looks and reads hideously, at least to some of us, if you say Berlin, Germany though I do know that others like it! <g> Or maybe some of that is just wishful thinking and/or my faulty memory. But thank you again for a useful pointer. If I do ever track this thing down I will come back here and mention it. With all good wishes DBaK (talk) 13:04, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
MOS:OVERLINK sails close to it. - X201 (talk) 13:12, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
I think that WP:OHTHATPARIS may be the essay you are remembering, DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:41, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
Thank you X201 and Michael D. Turnbull both very much. Both help and neither are quite what I "remember" seeing though that it no guarantee that it actually exists in the form I am thinking ... maybe actually it was just a discussion on someone's own Talk page rather than a policy and in the many years I have been here I have recrafted the memory into something different! But I must say how very much I enjoyed WP:OHTHATPARIS so that is a lovely bonus, thanks. And yes, both do help in the direction I am looking. I think the rest of it may just have to be left to editors' discussion and common sense ... ermmm ... if we can find any on Wikipedia! Cheers DBaK (talk) 11:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

USA Today going paywall

Per https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/business/usa-today-paywall.html, USA Today is going to put most of their content behind a paywall. Actually, based on what I can see, it's already happened. I suspect that means we're going to have a lot of inaccessible links in references. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:33, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Thay are accesible for those who paid for content. News at Nytimes is also restricted to registered users. I think free accessible sources should be preffered in articles. We can use archived versions too. Eurohunter (talk) 15:27, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
Free accessible sources should be preferred only when the content can be cross-verified through reliable sources writ large. For example, if a fact is publicized by Buzzfeed and that fact is not circulated through New York Times or other reliable sources that happen to be paywalled, that does not mean we publish that fact. WaltCip-(talk) 23:20, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
per WP:PAYWALL this doesn't change the ability to use USA Today, just like the NYTimes is not diminished due to most of its current content being a paywall as well. --Masem (t) 05:22, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
I'd recommend archiving links to it when you can, websites like archive.is allow for paywalled content to be viewed. Paragon Deku (talk) 05:29, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
A good number of "paywalls" are a simple CSS/JavaScript popup overlaid over the actual article content. It's possible to dismiss the popup with an extension like Bypass Paywalls (Chrome Firefox). Doesn't work for everything obviously, YMMV. -FASTILY 23:48, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

DeepL on Content Translation?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T86700

Can we use DeepL on the Content Translation tool? If not, why not? Javiermes (talk) 14:39, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

@Javiermes: see phab:T86700 for some development efforts on that topic. — xaosflux Talk 18:51, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
Thanks @Xaosflux:!! Javiermes (talk) 21:48, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced reference for Afghanistan War POWs

Category:American_prisoners_of_war has what appears to be a good-faith reference added. But I don't think a reference belongs in a category page. At the same time I don't see any specific article where this would be appropriate to move the reference and am not sure what to do with it. United States military casualties in the War in Afghanistan exists, but a POW is not usually regarded as a casualty. - Bri.public (talk) 19:53, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Women South Asia 2021

Wiki Loves Women South Asia is back with the 2021 edition. Join us to minify gender gaps and enrich Wikipedia with more diversity. Happening from 1 September - 30 September, Wiki Loves Women South Asia welcomes the articles created on gender gap theme. This year we will focus on women's empowerment and gender discrimination related topics.

We warmly invite you to help organize or participate in the competition in your community. You can learn more about the scope and the prizes at the project page.

Best wishes,
Wiki Loves Women Team
10:42, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct News – Issue 2

Universal Code of Conduct News
Issue 2, July 2021Read the full newsletter

Welcome to the second issue of Universal Code of Conduct News! This newsletter will help Wikimedians stay involved with the development of the new code and will distribute relevant news, research, and upcoming events related to the UCoC.

If you haven’t already, please remember to subscribe here if you would like to be notified about future editions of the newsletter, and also leave your username here if you’d like to be contacted to help with translations in the future.

  • Enforcement Draft Guidelines Review - Initial meetings of the drafting committee have helped to connect and align key topics on enforcement, while highlighting prior research around existing processes and gaps within our movement. (continue reading)
  • Targets of Harassment Research - To support the drafting committee, the Wikimedia Foundation has conducted a research project focused on experiences of harassment on Wikimedia projects. (continue reading)
  • Functionaries’ Consultation - Since June, Functionaries from across the various wikis have been meeting to discuss what the future will look like in a global context with the UCoC. (continue reading)
  • Roundtable Discussions - The UCoC facilitation team once again, hosted another roundtable discussion, this time for Korean-speaking community members and participants of other ESEAP projects to discuss the enforcement of the UCoC. (continue reading)
  • Early Adoption of UCoC by Communities - Since its ratification by the Board in February 2021, situations whereby UCoC is being adopted and applied within the Wikimedia community has grown. (continue reading)
  • New Timeline for the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee - The CRC was originally expected to conclude by July 1. However, with the UCoC now expected to be in development until December, the timeline for the CRC has also changed. (continue reading)
  • Wikimania - The UCoC team is planning to hold a moderated discussion featuring representatives across the movement during Wikimania 2021. It also plans to have a presence at the conference’s Community Village. (continue reading)
  • Diff blogs - Check out the most recent publications about the UCoC on Wikimedia Diff blog. (continue reading)

Invitation to round-table discussion 17 July 15:00 UTC

Hello again! Please see above and the full newsletter for updates about the Universal Code of Conduct project.

The Movement Strategy and Governance facilitation team will be hosting round-table discussions for Wikimedians to talk together about the Universal Code of Conduct, Movement Charter, ongoing 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board Elections, and other Movement Strategy initiatives.

The next call is 17 July 2021 at 15:00 UTC. Conversations will be hosted in at least French, German, Spanish, and English.

The calls will last between 90 and 120 minutes and involve open discussions. The ideas shared during the calls will be summarized for the Wikimedia Foundation teams working on these topics.

We look forward to talking with you. Please see further details and sign up here.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC needing outside input (second time of asking)

See Talk:Prem Rawat#RfC regarding content concerning TimelessToday LLC and its app. AndyTheGrump (talk)

Tags in Welsh

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T286679

Just noticed a tag in Welsh and English on my watchlist. "Tags: Golygu ar declyn symudol Golygiad gwe symudol Advanced mobile edit". Google translates the Welsh parts as "Edit on mobile tool‎‎ ‎‎Mobile web edit‎". Is this a new feature and why do we have it? Is Welsh now an official language of en-wiki? Will other random languages crop up? DuncanHill (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Blimey. as if we need even more signposting?! Martinevans123 (talk) 20:52, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can see all tags relating to mobile edits are either wholly in Welsh, or with an English bit at the end, as in my example above. Tags which are not about mobile edits are not affected. DuncanHill (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Try reading Wikidata in "British English" – I don't know any Welsh, but stuff like Wicidestun, Wicidaith, Wicinewyddion and Wiciddyfynnu seems to have a Welsh ring to it. Switch to the language called "English" (actually American English) and those names go back to Wikivoyage and so on. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:17, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
Compare these lists:
I've said it before: don't select "en-GB - British English" for your language preference. Use "en - English" unless you want something radically different, such as French, German or japanese. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:42, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
@Redrose64: I am well aware that en-wiki discriminates against unAmericans, but what has that got to do with the sudden appearance of Welsh? DuncanHill (talk) 21:44, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
@Justlettersandnumbers and DuncanHill: "en - English" is not American English; it's an internationalised form. The point of my post is to show where those Welsh phrases are coming from. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:14, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Education in Guinea-Bissau is a super-stub

In the Guinea-Bissau article under education (Guinea-Bissau#Education) there is one paragraph with a link to the "main article". But the main article is even shorter! It's existed since 2008 but should it just get deleted? Unless someone wants to translate the Portuguese version... Human-potato hybrid (talk) 05:19, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Weekly Fundraising Banner Tests between July and November

Dear all,

The Wikimedia Foundation will be running weekly fundraising banner tests on the English Wikipedia between now and the 24th of November (they will be visible every Wednesday for a few hours). We will be looking to see how our infrastructure (both human and machine alike) perform over a short period of time. Thank you to those in the communities who have supported us already and I'd like to thank you all in advance for your support and patience.

We are always looking for ways to improve our campaigns and appreciate your feedback regarding banner messages and design.

  • If you have specific ideas to share, please feel invited to add them to our fundraising ideas page.
  • If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a phabricator ticket
  • If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS or social media having difficulties in donating, please refer them to donate@wikimedia.org

Best wishes,

JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 12:29, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Just a small update. We continue to run banner test for a few hours each week for non-logged in users, but from this week on the days might vary and you might see them on other days than Wednesdays. JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 10:57, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

EDM music on genre section

On Electronic dance music, it doesn't say it's a genre. Neither me. It's not really a genre. But i always found it on some song articles. It sould be removed on genre section on every music-related article.


We need to discuss this issue. -GogoLion (talk) 14:02, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

The linked article says that EDM is "is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres" and that it is "an umbrella term for multiple genres". Sometimes it's better to list the broad category rather than the specific genre. For example, if you have sources that say a song could be classified as house or techno, or that it transitions between the two, or that it blends the two, then it's often better to say "EDM" and explain the specific details afterwards. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:13, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Clarifying small detail in an RfC

I've opened an RfC, and inside the reference section (beneath the actual references) I added notes about who the sources are. Three of the forty-two sources are notable scholars interviewed by mainstream media, but instead of noting the scholars I mistakenly noted the interviewers. Is there a problem in terms of Policy with making those clarifications a day later with an "(Updated ~~~~~)" note? François Robere (talk) 18:19, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Please don't make us guess. If you want us to help, you need to link to the location of that RfC. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:20, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
Oh, you already commented there... François Robere (talk) 19:25, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
First, I comment on lots of RfCs, I cannot be expected to remember who is involved in each one. Second, other people coming across this thread might not be aware of the Jan Żaryn RfC and will not be able to make the connection unless a link is supplied. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:18, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
There's no problem with any clarifications anywhere, as long as they are genuine clarifications, and clarify what was said originally and what was meant. Both should be clarified, and neither should be removed, particularly if there have been replies to the original wording. As long as you are open about everything there should be no problem. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:36, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
Done. Thanks! François Robere (talk) 20:15, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

2021 Board of Trustees election confirmed candidates and campaign events

It’s time to meet the candidates!

Hi everyone! The 2021 Board of Trustees election opens 4 August 2021. Candidates from the community were asked to submit their candidacy. After a three-week-long Call for Candidates, there are 20 candidates for the 2021 election.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. The Board wants to improve their competence and diversity as a team. They have shared the areas of expertise that they are hoping to find in new trustees.

The Wikimedia movement has the opportunity to vote for the selection of community-and-affiliate trustees. The Board is expected to afterwards select the four most-voted candidates to serve as trustees, starting in September, for a term of three years.

How can you get involved?

Learn more about the candidates

Candidates from across the movement have submitted their candidatures. Learn about each candidate to inform your vote. The community submitted questions for the candidates to answer during the campaign. Candidates will answer the list of community questions collated by the Elections Committee on Meta. In the coming weeks, candidates will have the opportunity to submit videos of themselves speaking about their candidacies.

Participate in campaign activities

The team of facilitators supporting this Board election has planned some activities for the campaign period. These activities can be found on the Board election page on Meta.

Community members are encouraged to organize activities in their own communities. We do ask that any activities intended to involve candidates remain respectful of their time, since candidacy can be very time-consuming. Please list activities you organize on the Board election page on Meta so that more people can find them. Facilitators and Election Volunteers are available if you need support.

Vote

Voting for the 2021 Board of Trustees election opens on 4 August 2021 and closes on 17 August 2021. The Elections Committee chose Single Transferable Vote for the voting system. Learn more about voting requirements, the process, and frequently asked questions about voting.

Single Transferable Vote

This voting system allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. This helps voters share their preferences more clearly than simple support or oppose votes. If your top-choice candidate already has enough votes to be selected or will not win, your vote will be moved to your second-choice candidate. And so on. The facilitation team came up with a fun example. More information will be coming mid-July.

Please spread the word so that more people can support finding the best candidates to help guide the Wikimedia Foundation and support the needs of the movement over the next few years. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 04:02, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Upcoming opportunities to meet the Board candidates: 23 July, 28 July, 31 July, 1 August 2021

Hey all, we have four meetings set with interpretation support based on the regional focus. Please sign up and ask questions in advance. Voting begins 4 August 2021. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 00:45, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello

OP was directed to the correct venues for this. — xaosflux Talk 14:59, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please update information about matches played in Uefa Conference League on 15 july. Thank you--109.185.175.84 (talk) 11:15, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

You need to comment at Talk:UEFA Europa Conference League? Or maybe just update there yourself? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:41, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Slideshow of old versions of the Main_Page.

Hi, is there any way to see a slideshow of preceding Main_Pages? I recall a photo from one but can't find it. In a slideshow I might spot the picture and then view the page itself; then identify the photo. Thx, ... PeterEasthope (talk) 16:26, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

@PeterEasthope: I don't think there's an archive of the main page overall since it just transudes content from other places and isn't actually updated itself, but there are monthly archives for most of the individual sections. The featured pictures can be found at Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Archive, the archives for the featured articles are listed at Wikipedia:Today's featured article and the archives for did you know are at Wikipedia:Recent additions. 192.76.8.91 (talk) 19:45, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
You could try the snapshots on the wayback machine site. — xaosflux Talk 00:14, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
PeterEasthope, Wikipedia:Main Page history has a directory of daily main page snapshots of the last 10 years. This is probably the best way to find what you are looking for. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 03:36, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Harv and Sfn no-target errors

Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors contains, as I type this, 25,610 articles. Fewer than 30 editors watch the category. I think only about 150 editors use either User:Svick/HarvErrors.js or User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors.js which clearly mark such errors when viewing articles. Referencing errors such as these undermine the encyclopaedia. They place an unnecessary burden on readers who wish to look into a subject further, likewise they impede the efforts of editors to check that material is supported by the references we use.

We have a bot that informs editors when they introduce links to disambiguation pages, and very helpful it is too. Would it be possible to have a bot or suchlike which does the same when an edit introduces a Harv or Sfn no-target error? This would help editors correct such slips as soon as they were made, when hopefully they have their sources to hand. I don't know how it would work - perhaps something in the tools I linked above could be adapted, or some method of monitoring the membership of the category could work.

Anyway, I'm just throwing this out there for comments and suggestions. Pinging @Svick: and @Trappist the monk: as I mentioned their tools above. DuncanHill (talk) 12:11, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps WP:BOTREQ a better place to post this message?
Module:Footnotes can create error messages for all to see but that error messaging is subject to false positives; see Category:Harv and Sfn template errors for an explanation of that. Were it up to me, I would restore the error messaging so that all editors can see that the problems are there rather than the select few who use the Svick or Ucucha scripts but, alas, when the messaging was initially enabled, the false positives (~10%?) provoked an 'oh-my-god-the-sky-is-falling' reaction so the messaging was hidden.
Of course, showing the error messages may not result in a demonstrable decrease in the number of articles in the category. On 27 April 2021, we restored the multiple targets error messaging and, as I write this, Category:Harv and Sfn multiple-target errors list 2,201 articles ...
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:54, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

On Commons there is for example c:Category:Undelete in 2030 for this, but locally we didn't seem to have anything for this. I created Category:Future copyright expiration but did yolo it a bit and Verbcatcher has questions. It's a tad messy on Commons as well though. List, category, both. Suggestions to structure this are welcome. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 06:49, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps a crazy idea: Move the files to Commons, delete them there and categorize the request appropriately since a file undeleted on Commons can then be used here. But ask on Commons before doing this, I can imagine several objections to such a course of action. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:42, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Jo-Jo Eumerus, seems like a reasonable idea, but I wouldn't be able to do anything about it since I'm indeffed. There are also several Wikipedians who dislike Commons, there is currently no Wikipedia policy to copy such files to Commons and we may upset the Commons community if we started doing that. For the short term, we should at least start tracking these files somewhere. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:52, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Highjacking of Wikipedia

I have loved Wikipedia for almost two decades. I have even donated more than I’ve been asked to. I have noticed in the last year that information on Wikipedia has been blatantly controlled by organizations that have a specific political agenda. It was confirmed to me by a nationally syndicated newspaper quoting one of the founding fathers of Wikipedia.

In short let me use a quote that has been used throughout history- “Nihilne Sanctum Est?” “Is nothing sacred?” — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.57.243.65 (talk) 23:07, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Would this quoted founding father have a name that rhymes with "Glarey Anger"? BD2412 T 23:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Would that be like a Hairy Mangler or even a Wary Strangler?? Lost me there, mate ... DBaK (talk) 23:40, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
There has been something of a script followed by IPs lately (or by one IP with access to many addresses), where the poster claims to have been a long-time Wikipedia donor who has just recently noticed a change in Wikipedia coverage of the >.5% of Wikipedia articles dealing with American politics, and who is therefore going to stop giving their precious funds to the project. BD2412 T 23:49, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
We're in charge of content, not of the money. Donating money to WMF isn't leverage over our articles. Wikipedia is dominated by the left or by the right wing, depending upon who makes the call (China, Venezuela, etc., would say that Wikipedians are the lackeys of capitalism and liberal democracy). tgeorgescu (talk) 01:06, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm a bit disappointed here tbh. I had rather hoped that my incredibly generous sponsorship of this poor and impoverished project over many years would have led by now to my having massive nay mahoosive influence. Are you telling me I can't dictate how it should write about cheese, or London buses?? Sheesh. Let-down much? DBaK (talk) 09:24, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
Shall we forward your mail to Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells? WaltCip-(talk) 12:45, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
Definitely. Thank you, yes. I am very upset at having bought influence I can't use. Where's the personal gain in that? Sheesh! DBaK (talk) 14:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
And as for your views on London buses, there are practical difficulties in adding a third deck, even if one deck is reserved for school children. It isn't just that overhanging trees would be too low, many bridges over London roads have been designed for double deckers to get underneath. ϢereSpielChequers 14:45, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
Then they need the same technology that the Knight Bus uses - it's a triple-decker that squeezes under low bridges. And through narrow gaps. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:33, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
You may find this article interesting: Wikipedia coverage of American politics. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:15, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
Anyway, who cares what a right wing conspiracy theorist says? Doug Weller talk 09:20, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
Other right wing conspiracy theorists? (And perhaps a few left wing conspiracy theorists) Blueboar (talk) 12:48, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
I find Wikipedia coverage of American politics very interesting. I created that article. BD2412 T 16:45, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
We've been here before. Wikipedia is either too left-wing, or too right-wing, or too technocratic, or too anarchic, or.....[Continues, page 94] doktorb wordsdeeds 09:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
If we are upsetting everyone doesn't this mean we are getting it, roughly, right?? :) DBaK (talk) 14:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
That's the BBC argument (If everyone complains equally we are neutral), and I never bought it from them; two wrongs don't make a right! as a random made-up example, if the Republican Party article read like a party-political advertisement, it wouldn't be fixed by making the Democrat party read like one too! JeffUK (talk) 08:50, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
Without digging into the merits of Larry Sanger or his rather astonishing views on left-wing politics, let's be clear here: Wikipedia doesn't give a damn if you donate a dime. Do not expect withholding donations to have any impact.--WaltCip-(talk) 12:48, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
Bother. DBaK (talk) 14:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Call for Advisory Board members for Web2Cit

Hello everyone!

Web2Cit: Visual Editor for Citoid Web Translators project is moving!

With Diegodlh we are inviting people to apply to be an Advisory Board member. Is this you? Is this someone you know?

Check the Call for members and apply to be an Advisory Board member before August 6th!

If you are too busy this time around to apply, don't worry: we get it. You can also help us by spreading the word! We sincerely appreciate it. --Scann (talk) 18:59, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

suitability of source?

I have a thorny issue over at the Karman Line article, somewhat like {{Expert needed}} but for placement at the talk page instead of the article page itself. One of the suggested alternatives to placing that template was to ask here.

Basically we have a scientific article where editors add as a source an article that basically denies the entire concept (that is the article subject). If you're interested (and ideally consider yourself a technical expert on the subject matter) have a look yourself:

Talk:Kármán_line#The_Non_Kármán_Line:_An_Urban_Legend_of_the_Space_Age

"As a more general question, if asking here isn't the best course of action, what do you recommend? The Expert Needed documentation suggests: If you want help for most of the page, or if you want help soon, then try these much more effective options:

The last one is really the only one I fully grok. Which would you prefer and how would you go about it? CapnZapp (talk) 11:49, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Desktop Improvements update

Intro

Did you know?

According to our latest data, 88% of active editors of the 13 pilot wikis have decided to keep our improvements.

Hello, I wanted to give you an update about the Desktop Improvements project.

The Wikimedia Foundation Web team has been working on it since 2019. The goals of the project are to make the interface useful for advanced users and more comfortable for readers. The project consists of a series of feature improvements which make it easier to read and learn, navigate within the page, search, switch between languages, use article tabs and the user menu, and more.

The improvements are already visible by default for readers and editors on 13 wikis, including Wikipedias in French, Portuguese, and Persian.

The changes apply to the Vector skin only. Monobook or Timeless users are not affected.

Features deployed so far

So far, we have deployed the following features:

  • Reconfigured logo - which will allow us to make the header sticky (fixed at the top of the screen). The sticky header will include the search, article tabs, and the user menu.
  • Collapsible sidebar - which allows to focus on the content. On some wikis, this has been a gadget.
  • Limited content width in articles and similar pages (not special pages or other pages containing logs) - which makes reading and learning easier. For more details about this change, like what we would do with the empty space or how this relates to large tables, see our FAQ.
  • Moved and improved search - which allows searching more quickly and effectively (provides pictures and descriptions of the search terms).
  • Exposed language button - which helps to notice the interlanguage links and allows to switch between the languages more often.

How we collaborate with the communities

We do not have one final vision of the interface after the deployment of all changes. Instead, we measure the impact of each change individually. In addition to that, we learn about the communities' preferences using a variety of methods. You can find all major reports on our Repository page.

  • Prior to building any feature, we performed research with readers and editors. We identified the problems with usability, and based our decisions on the findings of this research (example).
  • We also perform user research on prototypes of our proposed changes to make sure they address the identified problems (example).
  • We have run two larger-scale prototype testing rounds (first, second). In these, editors could gain an understanding of our ideas, and share what they appreciate or find confusing.
  • Shortly after the deployment of each change, we collect we collect data on how readers and editors use the changed functionality. Depending on the feature, we may divide users into two groups where only one can see the change. After the test, we compare the results and establish whether the changed interface works better.
  • Volunteers have shared feedback on talk pages. This has been taking place on the project talk page, but also on the Village Pumps.
  • In 2019 at Wikimania, we had a roundtable discussion (outcomes). We are planning to have a similar discussion this year as well.

How to enable the improvements

Global preferences
  • It is possible to opt-in individually in the appearance tab within the preferences by unchecking the "Use Legacy Vector" box. (It has to be empty.) Also, it is possible to opt-in on all wikis using the global preferences.
  • If you think this would be good as a default for all readers and editors of this wiki, feel free to start a conversation with the community and contact me.
  • On wikis where the changes are visible by default for all, logged-in users can always opt-out to the Legacy Vector. There is an easily accessible link in the sidebar of the new Vector.

Learn more and join our events

If you would like to follow the progress of our project, you can subscribe to our newsletter.

You can read the pages of the project, check our FAQ, write on the project talk page, and join an online meeting with us (August 6th, 16:00 UTC). You will also be able to take part in our Wikimania discussion (we will share the details later).

How to join our online meeting

Thank you!

On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:32, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (Aug 2 - Sept 1, 2021)

Hello everyone, the call for candidates to draft a Movement Charter opens in a little under 8 hours from now. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 16:15, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Read in other languages

Movement Strategy announces the Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. The Call opens August 2, 2021 and closes September 1, 2021.

The Committee is expected to represent diversity in the Movement. Diversity includes gender, language, geography, and experience. This comprises participation in projects, affiliates, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

English fluency is not required to become a member. If needed, translation and interpretation support is provided. Members will receive an allowance to offset participation costs. It is US$100 every two months.

We are looking for people who have some of the following skills:

  • Know how to write collaboratively. (demonstrated experience is a plus)
  • Are ready to find compromises.
  • Focus on inclusion and diversity.
  • Have knowledge of community consultations.
  • Have intercultural communication experience.
  • Have governance or organization experience in non-profits or communities.
  • Have experience negotiating with different parties.

The Committee is expected to start with 15 people. If there are 20 or more candidates, a mixed election and selection process will happen. If there are 19 or fewer candidates, then the process of selection without election takes place.

Will you help move Wikimedia forward in this important role? Submit your candidacy here. Please contact strategy2030@wikimedia.org with questions.

Delay of the 2021 Board of Trustees election

Hello, I've posted previously to this board about the upcoming Board of Trustees election. There has been a delay in the voting period, which is now scheduled to begin 18 August 2021. Please see more details below. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 23:13, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Read in other languages

We are reaching out to you today regarding the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election. This election was due to open on August 4th. Due to some technical issues with SecurePoll, the election must be delayed by two weeks. This means we plan to launch the election on August 18th, which is the day after Wikimania concludes.

For information on the technical issues, you can see the Phabricator ticket.

We are truly sorry for this delay and hope that we will get back on schedule on August 18th. We are in touch with the Elections Committee and the candidates to coordinate next steps. We will update the Board election Talk page and Telegram channel as we know more.

Centenary & Tricentenary

Centenary & Tricentenary redirect to different pages......... 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 00:30, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

@0mtwb9gd5wx: Is that a problem? If you think so, send the incorrect one to WP:RFD. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:40, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
@Redrose64: Perhaps, as a quick-fix, both Centennial and Anniversary should have hatnotes to each other? Like mauve and umami, Bicentennial is a product description, by a business. Prior to the 1976 Bicentennial Commission for the anniversary of the USA founding, the USA government used the word centenary in its publications. I propose that Centennial, Bicentennial, Tricentennial, Quadricentennial... etc., and Centenary Bicentenary Tricentenary Quadricentenary... etc. content be merged to, and name redirected to, Anniversary. WP:RFD started. .... 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 02:01, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Web application for explaining the automatic article quality grading (with ORES) of English Wikipedia articles

Hello Everyone!

I am working on a web application for my bachelor thesis, that aims to explain the automatic grade predictions of ORES articlequality model and on what they are based on, to make it more transparent what an article might be lacking or what makes it so good.

For a last evaluation, I am searching for participants for an usability test to test a functional prototype. It would be especially interesting to test the application with (new) editors of the English Wikipedia, because my main goal is to help editors improving their editing skills.

If someone is interested in participation, feel free to contact me in any way.

Any Questions about it are also welcome.

Background Information

Articles on Wikipedia are rated and receive a grade. The English Wikipedia uses ORES, a machine learning web service created by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Machine Learning team. ORES offers a variety of machine learning models and one of them is the article quality model. This model assesses existing articles automatically and predicts the most likely grade for them based on their structural characteristics. [1]

Update

If someone is still interested in testing, here is a link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScVm0c5ezw18KRNf4UxbaKchOVwkMDIUGUQDuk8OvleEcunEg/viewform?usp=sf_link

--Endoplasma (talk) 13:31, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Pinging Nettrom and EpochFail. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
  1. ^ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ORES
Endoplasma, maybe it would be helpful if you could directly link to the tool so that people can have a look at it? Alternatively, you could take a screenshot that shows the relevant functionality.
If you are planning to do a proper study (interviewing people, writing up results, etc.), consider creating a project page on Meta. See m:R:New project. That page will help you set up something that you can share as a reference for the project and that we'll be able to use to track your activities/progress. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 19:36, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library collections and design update (August 2021)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says log in today!

The Wikipedia Library is pleased to announce the addition of new collections, alongside a new interface design. New collections include:

Additionally, De Gruyter and Nomos have been centralised from their previous on-wiki signup location on the German Wikipedia. Many other collections are freely available by simply logging in to The Wikipedia Library with your Wikimedia login!

We are also excited to announce that the first version of a new design for My Library was deployed this week. We will be iterating on this design with more features over the coming weeks. Read more on the project page on Meta.

Lastly, an Echo notification will begin rolling out soon to notify eligible editors about the library (T132084). If you can translate the notification please do so at TranslateWiki!

--The Wikipedia Library Team, sent by Samwalton9 13:23, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

Is there any sort of archive that keeps track of copyright permission requests?

c:Commons:WikiProject Permission requests only shows a handful of entries. This suggests either 1) people don't really bother to ask authors for a release of rights or 2) most of those requests are not publicly recorded. If someone else has requested permission to publish a work under a free license and was denied, then it would be useful for others to know so that they don't waste time trying to contact the same author. Ixfd64 (talk) 21:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Publicising peer review discussion

This article had press coverage; for this reason, I think this peer review about it requires attention. Thank you.--V. E. (talk) 11:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Kamarinskaïa - The Grand Budapest Hotel

Hi, Sorry if I'm writing in the wrong heading (sysop on the french WP). Do you know where I can find the score of Kamarinskaïa that we may hear in the The Grand Budapest Hotel ? OT38 (talk) 21:10, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

I was going to point you to the ref desk but I see you have found it at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment#Kamarinskaïa - The Grand Budapest Hotel. Johnuniq (talk) 23:16, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Request for comment notification

Here is a link to a RFC on Meta concerning all Wikimedia projects. Best, Lionel Scheepmans ✉ Contact (French native speaker) 01:03, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

How long can it take a new page to get reviewed?

Most of my pages have been reviewed with 24 hours, so I am wondering why a page I submitted a few days ago has still not been reviewed. Are all pages eventually reviewed and how long can it take please? Amirah talk 20:32, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Your question has been answered where you asked it at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers. Please don't post the same question in multiple locations. Schazjmd (talk) 20:41, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

RPP systemic conduct issue

Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Decrease is not working as intended since RPP was reformatted because most users are filing ambiguous requests under the placeholder title "Example Article Name". At Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Edit, users are also not filling in the placeholder title "Name of page you are requesting an edit to" with the page they want to be edited, and are also frequently submitting malformed requests and even attempting to create articles here. I'm not seeing this issue at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Increase. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:18, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:Requests for page protection#Bad requests. (And, to engage in a bit of shameless self-advertisement, this is precisely the sort of reason why I made this proposal.) Enterprisey (talk!) 08:42, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Flag of the Empire of Vietnam

The File:Flag of the Empire of Vietnam (1945).svg used on Wikipedia is now become questionable. Yesterday someone argued that that this flag shouldn't be similar dimensions to the South Vietnamese flag, and all red stripes shouldn't reach to the side of flag. However he posted on my talk page at the Wikimedia Commons. It would be nice if anyone can help to investigate. --Great Brightstar (talk) 09:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Dummy ISBN

By coincidence, I noticed multiple references use this "dummy" ISBN: 978-1-234-56789-7. (Note the pattern of increasing numbers, except the prefix and the checksum.) Although it does correspond to a book, all the references (I suppose) actually deal with completely different works. It might be worth investigating where these ISBNs come from (and fix the invalid references).

Strange enough, this is what citoid (citation generator in visual editor) generates from it:

  • Kumar, Ranjit (2011). Research methodology : a step-by-step guide for beginners (3rd ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE. ISBN 978-1-84920-300-5. OCLC 688576521.

--Matěj Suchánek (talk) 12:42, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

The ISBN is used in Template:Cite book#Examples. I guess some editors copy the example code and change other parameters but don't know what to do with the ISBN. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:20, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Maybe the example should be changed to something with an invalid checksum. That ought to avoid any clash with a real ISBN. Phil Bridger (talk) 06:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
I have removed the pseudo-"dummy ISBN" from these examples for now. I also considered to just invalidate the checksum but felt it could raise even more questions in new editors than provide answers for them. Is there a true dummy ISBN that could be used for such purposes instead?
--Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:21, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

YouTube Music stealing English Wikipedia content without attribution

I'm one of the schmucks in the world who pays for YouTube music and recently came across the artist biographies in the app that nobody ever reads. I've discovered that they wholesale steal Wikipedia content in pretty much all the artist biographies. For instance, here's the page on Daft Punk (scroll down to bottom) [1], wholesale taken from our article with no attribution. Likewise for 50 Cent. [2] When I emailed YTM support they told me that the artist biographies are provided by the artists themselves (sure they are) and that I should use the "feedback" button in the app, which we all know worked amazing for WP:CALIPH. They also said that they only provided support for purchases and my concern was out of scope.

Normally I'd follow our policies on mirrors and forks but Google doesn't provide any actual contact information to send the CC-BY-SA template to anymore, unless I am willing to send a physical letter to the Google headquarters. Anyone else got any ideas? The last time I asked WMF legal about this issue back in 2015 with Google Play Music doing this they told me to send the amazing CC-BY-SA compliance letter, so that's likely a dead end. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 20:17, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

@Chess: Found this after searching for the past 15 minutes. YouTube (and Google, for that matter) certainly doesn't make it easy to find contact information for them. OhKayeSierra (talk) 20:39, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
If that email doesn't lead to anything, you could at least try pinging someone from the WMF legal department. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:27, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
@OhKayeSierra: Went ahead and emailed them. They responded saying "We're unable to determine your authority to bring this legal claim. The party whose legal rights are at issue - or their authorized representative - must notify us directly. If you're authorized to act on the party's behalf, please respond to this email specifying your relationship." as well as complaining that I didn't provide timestamps or enough information.
I wonder if there's some way to trigger the 30 day period mentioned in the CC-BY-SA under which the licence is terminated if licensee is made aware of a licence violation and doesn't do anything about it. It's either that or I start editing the lede of random musician articles. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 17:19, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
The response that you got is correct. Copyright is a civil matter, and only the copyright holders (which in this case would be the editors who produced the content) can make any claim for redress. The advice to contact the WMF legal department is simply wrong. They will only tell you the same. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:06, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
@Phil Bridger: Yeah it's legally correct but disregarding our licence terms is generally considered a "dick move". Fuck Google, really. They suck out our content to power their Knowledge Graph and provide the tiniest of hyperlinks that doesn't even properly clarify that the content they're using is from Wikipedia which leads to people being mislead about the source of the content and sucking away all of our readership. Then they pay off the WMF with a few million dollars possibly so the WMF doesn't do anything that would actually make a difference. [3] They don't give a shit about FOSS and they're a cancer that sucks the life out of everything they touch. They know I can't do anything and neither can our community, so Google just acts with the impunity to do stuff like this. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 20:47, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
You are right that you can't do anything about it. Only the copyright holders can, and for them it would be very expensive and a huge risk. That's the world that we live in. I don't think that it makes any difference whether Google gives money to the WMF or not. The WMF (very rightly) does not hold the copyright to our content, so cannot do anything. Having half-agreed with you, could I suggest that "sucking away all of our readership" is a bit of an exaggeration? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:00, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Sounds like our Wikipedia:Purpose and the Wikimedia Foundation purpose is being fulfilled.Moxy- 21:06, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Not when there isn't appropriate attribution. Thanks @Chess for spotting this and attempting to contact YouTube. I've mentioned this situation to the WMF Partnerships team, who are going to raise it with their contacts at YouTube. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 21:18, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
@Pcoombe (WMF): Thanks for the reply. I can't wait until action is taken. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 09:05, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
It is possible the Wikipedia content is provided by the "artist" ie. whoever represents the artist which is like 3 or 4 big media companies these days. It's probably cheaper for those companies then creating content inhouse. And who knows it might be a third party company selling the content back to the media company and they are unaware of the origin or not care. But even if true, Google should have some responsibility if made aware of it. -- GreenC 21:44, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

A truly strange error that is widespread on Wikipedia

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Best known for IP -- RoySmith (talk) 23:46, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I observe that in many biographical articles on Wikipedia, the surname of the subject is repeated over and over again, where in normal English writing of any basic standard, a pronoun would be used. In some articles, this jarring error is so frequent that it makes them almost unreadable.

The example which has prompted me to post this is Simo Häyhä, in which this person's surname is repeated five times in the five-sentence lead section (twice in one of those sentences), and appears 100 times in the article overall. I estimate that about 70 of those should be replaced by a pronoun.

Many, many articles are similarly written. I find this utterly baffling. Why are so many people writing in this way? Is there some rational explanation for this? Some guideline suggesting that it should be done, perhaps? Or is it really the case that very large numbers of Wikipedia editors simply do not know how to use pronouns correctly in English? Saturated flux (talk) 16:18, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

The usage of "error" is odd. I don't think its an attempt to write professionally, and most people are doing Wikipedia as a hobby, not a job or for school projects on improving their grammar. It's a simple fix really, just use pronouns when acceptable. The goal is to avoid using "he/she" too much. So you'll see editors use the surname more. But its supposed to be a balance.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 17:09, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
I think that in good writing there is certainly some latitude in when one uses pronouns or when one repeats a surname. But the examples I keep on seeing are definitely bad. Repeating a surname once or twice within a paragraph may be reasonable. Repeating it multiple times in a paragraph, and even within a sentence, is not. I cannot imagine that any authority on good writing has ever argued otherwise. And it is not a simple fix when the error is so widespread as to be almost universal.
The goal is to avoid using "he/she" too much. - why would that be the goal?
I know that everyone is doing Wikipedia is a hobby. But the idea is it should be a work of quality, no? On coming to Wikipedia, a reader should find a well-written and factually correct article, shouldn't they? Saturated flux (talk) 18:16, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
he/she is just as redundant as the surname. So it's best to make sure there is a balance to avoid redundancy. If multiple people are being mentioned, it's even more important to distinguish (obviously).
Wikipedia is independent and all contributed by everyday people. And not everyone has the resources to fix all the articles that you may find issues. We encourage you to be bold and edit the article if you find any issues.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
I would agree that this is not an error, although Häyhä's case could be cut back in several places. BD2412 T 19:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
MOS:SURNAME says, After the initial mention, a person should generally be referred to by surname only. I do agree that excessive repetition of a person's name makes for stilted prose. I'll generally use "he" or "she" when it's in close proximity to the last time I used a person's name and it's completely unambiguous who the referent is: "Fred Flintstone ordered a full rack of brontosaurus ribs at the drive-in. His car fell over when it was delivered". -- RoySmith (talk) 19:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
I must say I very strongly disagree with Blue Pumpkin Pie's claim that pronouns are "just as redundant as the surname". They are not redundant at all; they are the English language's specific means of avoiding the redundancy of repeating names. That is the entire point of them. Saturated flux (talk) 09:25, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
@Saturated flux: Not saying they are automatically redundant. but with poor writing, it can be just as redundant. Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 16:12, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
MOS:SURNAME is concerned about whether we should use the surname or the full name. It says nothing about when pronouns should be used rather than some form of the name, which is a matter of good English writing, not something that is subject to Wikipedia-specific policies and guidelines. All we need to do there is to set the requirement that articles in the English Wikipedia should be written in good English that your high-school teacher wouldn't cringe at. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:52, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

See also the wonderful essay Wikipedia:The problem with elegant variation. Switching up surname with he/she can "fail to fix the real cause of repetitive prose, which is usually repeated information, not repeated words." -- GreenC 19:41, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I haven't looked at any specific examples, but in general would encourage only those who can already write half-way decent English to write an English-language encyclopedia article. It is not our job to rectify the failings of elementary school teaching. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Also to quote Cicero, "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter". We can't assume that typos are all based on a lack of skill or education. Some people don't have the time Wikipedia requires to make a single clean edit. Some of us make a group of edits to fix one issue and may end up not being as coherent at first. TLDR: Wikipedia is a collaboration. Just be bold and make the fixes you believe are necessary to improve the articles. Not everyone has the time/resources to make the edits you want to see.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 21:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
There's a lot of room between "half-way decent English" and elegant writing. Spelling, grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, and overall flow are the basics, and I think that's about all we can reasonably require. We can't all be Hemingway. There's some good material at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/How to. And The Elements of Style is required reading for anybody who wants to write better. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:19, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
@Phil Bridger: I suppose it could be very interesting to see a strict, unambiguous criterion of decent English, as well as a precise measure for half-way. Do you think you might provide one? --CiaPan (talk) 21:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
There obviously is not any "strict", "unambiguous" or "precise" quantification of good writing in general. One could easily make a quantification of this particular issue though - if an editor writes text that repeats a surname in two consecutive sentences, their English is probably not decent. If they repeat it in three consecutive sentences, it definitely isn't. Saturated flux (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm extremely surprised that some people are arguing that this is not an error. Another example that I fixed yesterday was this:

Hedges has performed DJ sets at various clubs and festivals. In 2014, Hedges released a single titled "Best Night OML" with vocals from JB Gill. In 2016, Hedges released a single titled "Kaleidoscope" on Armada Deep featuring vocalist Sonny Reeves.

I think that is awful writing. I think that normal English demands that the second and third sentences contain a pronoun and not a repetition of the surname. Do people really disagree? Does any guide to good English writing disagree?

Meanwhile I see people saying "just fix what you think needs fixing". Sure. But the point is, the error is everywhere. If the error is arising because most editors don't really know how to use pronouns, then there's no point in the minority who do fixing anything because their efforts are logically doomed to failure. Saturated flux (talk) 09:25, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's an "error", because it's not ungrammatical as such, but I'd agree that it's poor writing. I suspect that the reason a lot of the time is that each sentence has been added by a different editor, so no one person has drafted a particular paragraph from start to finish in a coherent and elegant manner. That's the nature of a collaborative project, and unless other editors devote time to making articles read more smoothly, there will often be jarring elements like this. Proteus (Talk) 10:14, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
@Saturated flux: I don't believe anyone disagreed that its poor writing. The choice to use "error" shouldn't be the problem. We can all agree it can be written better. Are you going to be bold and fix the issues?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 14:37, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
To further quote WP:BOLD, Fix it yourself instead of just talking about it. If you notice an unambiguous error or problem that any reasonable person would recommend fixing, the best course of action may be to be bold and fix it yourself rather than bringing it to someone's attention in the form of a comment or complaint. In the time it takes to write about the problem, you could instead improve the encyclopedia.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 14:39, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Some people did disagree that it is poor writing. Am I going to be bold and fix the issues? I have done, and that completely misses the point. If it occurred in a handful of articles, that rather patronising suggestion might be applicable. But it is all over Wikipedia, and I am not asking if the error should be fixed, I am asking why it is so widespread. If the general attitude is "meh, doesn't really matter" then nobody has any incentive to fix it. Saturated flux (talk) 15:02, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
To put a different slant on things, many different skills go into writing a good encyclopedia article. You need to research the facts. You need to organize them into a coherent story. You need to have the references formatted properly. You need the article categorized properly. And connected to wikidata. You need good photos/illustrations. You need well-written prose. You need to ensure copyright compliance (hint: I recently had some photos I took deleted from commons because it turns out I misunderstood how Freedom of panorama works) And lots of other things I can't think of right now. It's not reasonable to require that any single person have all of these skills. That's what makes this collaborative project work; somebody can research a topic and write a first draft, then somebody else can come along and improve the prose. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:03, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
I agree of course that the whole thing is incremental and no one editor need contribute everything that a quality article needs. But it only works if the increments are predominantly in the right direction. In the case of proper use of pronouns, it does look like the majority of editors are incrementally making articles worse. I can certainly see how some of these cases arise - like someone said, if a few different editors each add a sentence without considering how it fits into the context, you could end up with a few repetitions of a surname. But that can still only happen if the majority of editors don't bother to consider the context. That's troubling, isn't it? Saturated flux (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
There's also a factor here of "monkey see, monkey do". If there is a line of established established text, and a new editor comes along, wanting to add new information but aren't confident how to add it, they will follow the format they see of other sentences already on the page, since this seems to "work". This is exactly how WP:PROSELINE can become a problem in an article, and would also explain why one would see the frequent repeated use of a surname rather than balancing uses of pronouns or more compound sentences to avoid that. --Masem (t) 15:13, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
I can see the logic, but find it hard to imagine how this could play out. It would require the error to become widespread in the first place, and then the majority of editors to either lack knowledge of how to use pronouns, or to decide to abandon it in favour of what they perceive as some "house style". I don't remotely understand how either of those could come to pass. Saturated flux (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia doesn't reward exemplary prose. Inserting new information that differs from the format of the existing prose tends to draw attention, which then tends to lead to "no consensus" reverts and that hampers the writing process somewhat. Some people don't feel like engaging in that sort of back-and-forth exercise, so they go with the flow even if it looks somewhat awful as you said. WaltCip-(talk) 12:55, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm so glad others have noticed this! Gratuitous topic-restatement is, IMHO, one of WP's most consistently amateurish-looking syndromes. Do that many authors worry that their readers may have attention challenges and must be continually reminded of the topic? And yes, I do fix it, rather than just complaining about it—and fix it, and fix it, and fix it… I just wish someone could write a macro and fix it all in one swell foop. It'd free up so much of our time for less prosaic edits. – AndyFielding (talk) 12:03, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Another issue that may be a factor in this is gender identification. Editors may be unsure about which pronouns to use (he, she, they, Xer, etc) for a bio subject, and so avoid using pronouns altogether. This leads to constant repetition of the person’s name instead of a pronoun. Blueboar (talk) 16:08, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Could be possible I guess, but surely that could only explain a tiny minority of cases. For the vast majority of biographical articles there is no doubt about which pronouns one should use.

Well, there are some plausible theories about how this error could arise, and I can see how they might apply in some cases. But I really cannot see how any of them would account for what I found at Simo Häyhä, and what I see at many other articles. Personally, I am finding it pretty hard to avoid concluding that a very significant proportion of the editors of English Wikipedia must simply not know when pronouns should be used. However, my observation is still a bit anecdotal. I think I will try to investigate some defined set of biographical articles to see how widespread the problem is. Saturated flux (talk) 16:36, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

I think it's probably just that each editor adds the sentence they want to add, and that they don't take time to read the context and decide whether to use a pronoun. But it would be interesting to get the views of someone who teaches English as a foreign language, to know whether failing to use pronouns is a common fault, either with learners in general or with those with a particular first-language background. PamD 16:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
That's the nub of the issue. Each of those sentences is correct on its own, and they were probably written by different people, but when taken as a whole they constitute bad writing style. That's one of the drawbacks of this being an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The best thing to do when seeing such things is simply to rewrite them in better style. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:59, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Pretty much this, particularly for pages where there are a large number of edits (without any serious edit warring on content) in a short amount of time. Nearly all of our "COVID in (location)" pages suffer from excessive proseline and poor writing style, composition, etc. only because it was far easier to add events that happened in a chronological manner while things were going off nearly daily. Now that most of COVID has waned (not completed), it would be rather helpful for editors to go back and actually try to work out a better prose narrative to incorporate all that information holistically rather than piecemeal. This is just the happenstance of Wikipedia's open nature, and not really an "error" per se. --Masem (t) 17:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
A few comments on this theory:
  • it's definitely not always true. In the case of Charlie Hedges which I fixed the other day, the three consecutive sentences each containing a repetition of the surname were added by one editor.
  • I don't think I've often seen a sentence containing a repeated surname that didn't at least follow logically from the sentence before. So the person adding it must have checked the context, presumably?
  • but if it is true in a lot of cases, it would mean that there are a lot of editors who simply don't bother to consider how their edit fits into the article. That's pretty troubling too, isn't it?
  • The best thing to do when seeing such things is simply to rewrite them in better style. - sure but why bother, when all the indications are that the error is being added at a far greater rate than anyone's fixing it? It was, in fact, extremely boring to go through Simo Häyhä and make it less awful. If such articles were a rarity, an occasional effort like that might be tolerable. But when I seem to encounter this error in many or even most articles, the issue cannot be addressed by simply saying "go fix it". And this issue of pronouns is definitely not the only type of glaringly bad writing that can be found all over Wikipedia. Saturated flux (talk) 17:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Saturated flux I think we have more than ample answers to your query. if none of these answers are satisfactory, then there's not much we can do from this point further, and you should drop the stick. Are you asking just to ask and have no intention of trying to improve the status quo? if so, it can be a waste of time just to cater to answering you only to not be satisfied and continue this discussion. If you don't want to edit the article, you don't have to. The article Simo Häyhä is a C-class article, which means Wikipedia recognizes that it requires copy editing and other improvements. Charlie Hedges is a start class. For more information on the classes, I recommend looking at WP:ASSESS.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:02, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Who said that "none of these answers are satisfactory"? I certainly didn't. And why else do you think I am asking this, other than to try to improve the status quo? I am finding it an interesting discussion, and if I raise awareness of a widespread problem, I think that is a good thing. Really not sure why you are being confrontational here. Saturated flux (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Because you said "Why bother".Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:30, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
And that made you confrontational why, exactly? Saturated flux (talk) 21:54, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
I apologize if you think I'm being confrontational. Don't you think we addressed this enough? Are you genuinely interested in improving these articles? Remember Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. So unless you are actively looking for a solution and are planning to propose a change to improve articles or help editors improve their writing skills. I think we gave more than ample answers for why you are baffled that bad writing exists on a site that publishes free information edited by potentially anybody of any age and demographic. Wikipedia is home to 6,359,745 (and counting) with only 120,060 active editors (not all highly skilled in writing). That means there are 350 articles out there per active editor. And that's a lot to manage. So I understand you are baffled but just by understanding What Wikipedia is, helps understand why there's bad writing.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 22:14, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
there are a lot of editors who simply don't bother to consider how their edit fits into the article. That's pretty troubling too, isn't it? I'd rather see editors include information as best they can (and ideally with some source) as an easy step that requires minimal learning of our systems, rather than chastise them for not working to improve the prose or flow or other more nuanced things that are fixable by others. We have enough problems with editor retention already that I'd rather see editors do the minimum required for verifyability so that they keep adding and have to "clean up the mess" later. --Masem (t) 22:32, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Saturated flux, If you want to know why editor(s) did that in that article, you could go ask them (see the editing history). There may be multiple and disparate reasons, depending on the article, but probably all related to lack of copy editing across the project. (Adding: Isn't the copy editing problem now at Simo Häyhä after fixing the name issue, that all the sentences are structured repetitiously?) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:21, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
I have considered that. But of the two articles I've mentioned here, in one of them the text was added years ago, and in the other there were just way too many instances to work out who added them and when.
I don't think the sentences at Simo Häyhä are structured repetitiously. I didn't find it repetitive, other than the dozens of occurrences of "Häyhä". I don't doubt it could be improved further though. Saturated flux (talk) 17:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Actually my mistake, the text in Charlie Hedges was added a few months ago, not years. Anyway if I have the time to have a look at a sample of articles, and dig through the history to see when the problem was introduced, if it is present, I'll do some asking. Saturated flux (talk) 21:57, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Voting in the 2021 Board of Trustees election is now open

Hello, and thank you for your patience. The voting is now open in the 2021 Board of Trustees election.

Eligible voters can enter their vote at Special:SecurePoll/vote/791.

Please see the full announcement below, and let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Announcement in other languages

Voting for the 2021 Board of Trustees election is now open. Candidates from the community were asked to submit their candidacy. After a three week long Call for Candidates, there are 19 candidates for the 2021 election.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. The Board wants to improve their competences and diversity as a team. They have shared the areas of expertise that they are hoping to cover with new trustees.

The Wikimedia movement has the opportunity to select candidates who have the qualities to best serve the needs of the movement for the next several years. The Board is expected to select the four most voted candidates to serve as trustees. This term starts in September and lasts for three years. Learn more about the Board of Trustees in this short video.

Vote now until August 31.

Below is some useful information about the election process.

Learn more about the candidates

Candidates from across the movement have submitted their candidatures. Learn about each candidate to inform your vote. The community submitted questions for the candidates to answer during the campaign. Candidates answered the list of community questions collated by the Elections Committee on Meta.

Vote

Voting for the 2021 Board of Trustees election opened on 18 August 2021 and closes on 31 August 2021. The Elections Committee chose Single Transferable Vote for the voting system. The benefit of this is voters can rank their choices in order of preference. Learn more about voting requirements, how to vote, and frequently asked questions about voting.

Please help in the selection of those people who best fit the needs of the movement at this time. Vote and spread the word so more people can vote for candidates. Those selected will help guide the Wikimedia Foundation and support the needs of the movement over the next few years.

Best,

The Elections Committee

Full list of Community questions

Hello fellow editors,

I would like to draw your attention to the complete list of 61 questions which were asked by the Community here from the candidates appearing in the Board of Trustees election process. The Election Committee of the WMF selected eleven of these questions which were mandatorily needed to be answered by the candidates in the link given in the announcement post by WMF above. Some candidates answered the complete list of 61 questions and you can read their views in their questions, however please note there was severe time pressure on the candidates in this election and all candidates were genuinely not able to answer all the questions due to commitments in real life.

Please do go through candidate statements, their answers to the mandatory 11 questions and to the complete set of community questions before voting. Vote wisely, and Happy Editting. :) AshLin (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Disclaimer: I am a candidate for the Board of Trustees Election and this post is only for information of editors on my home wiki. AshLin (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Definition of the Donbas

I would like to draw the attention of users to the discussion of the definition of the Donbas. So far, only the user interested in promoting his point of view has spoken out there, who previously removed a number of reliable sources from the article (and earlier). Therefore, there is a need for a neutral point of view from the outside. Please read the sources on this issue and express your opinion. Thank you.94.181.192.62 (talk) 05:15, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

I think this is not the place for content dispute resolution. Going to WP:3O or WP:DRN will yield better results. Thanks. SunDawntalk 02:31, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.--5.167.164.20 (talk) 05:42, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct: Enforcement draft guidelines review

The Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee would like comments about the enforcement draft guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). This review period is planned to begin 17 August 2021.

Community and staff members collaborated to develop these draft guidelines based on consultations, discussions, and research. These guidelines are not final but you can help move the progress forward. Provide comments about these guidelines by 17 October 2021. The committee will be revising the guidelines based upon community input.

Everyone may share comments in a number of places. Facilitators welcome comments in any language on the draft review talk page or by email. Comments can also be shared on talk pages of translations, at local discussions, or during round-table discussions and conversation hours.

There are planned live discussions about the UCoC enforcement draft guidelines:

Wikimania 2021 session (recorded 16 August)
Conversation hours - 24 August, 31 August, 7 September @ 03:00 UTC & 14:00 UTC
Roundtable calls - 18 September @ 03:00 UTC & 15:00 UTC

The facilitation team supporting this review period hopes to reach a large number of communities. Having a shared understanding is important. If you do not see a conversation happening in your community, please organize a discussion. Facilitators can assist you in setting up the conversations.

Discussions will be summarized and presented to the drafting committee every two weeks. The summaries will be published here.

The full announcement and translations can be found here.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Britannica

Can i use Encyclopædia Britannica as reference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GogoLion (talk • contribs) 07:18, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@GogoLion: yes, you can, but it is regarded as a tertiary source, and secondary sources are preferred if available. See WP:BRITANNICA for details. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 07:38, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Webcitation.org

The site is down (again, again..). The last time in 2019, it was down for 5 weeks. And when it came up, they no longer accepted new archives, and many archives no longer worked correctly (showing replacement ? characters). Enwiki currently has 239,069 webcitation.org links. In theory it is possible for bots to move to other providers, but in practice there is a fair amount of content-drift that means manual conversions are still best. An RfC was held in 2019 to deprecate the site which had SNOW support. If there is an article you care about, get rid of these links where possible. Two providers have good replacements available: Archive.today and Archive.org -- GreenC 15:50, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Info at Help:Archiving a source. Johnuniq (talk) 03:39, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Announcement

See User_talk:Secret for people that know/knew him who want to pass on best wishes, prayers or support Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:40, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Zoophoria

Issue resolved. — xaosflux Talk 18:22, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I raised an AfD for Zoophoria on the 15th. I can see it in some places but not others and there has been no activity.Slimy asparagus (talk) 06:59, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

@Slimy asparagus It looks like the issue is the AfD wasn't transcluded to the log (WP:AFDHOWTO step 3 for reference). I have done that. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 14:28, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. Slimy asparagus (talk) 14:39, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Can we write articles about the Wikimedia movement?

Wikimedia movement has been tagged for "original research & "primary sources", and individual sources tagged as "third-party source needed".

Can works written by people who have volunteered on Wikimedia projects be cited on articles about the movement? What is the cut off point - a thousand edits? Ten? One? Running a meetup or editathon? A talk at Wikimania?

Are editors involved in the movement, in any way, conflicted in writing about it?

Otherwise, how can we write about Wikipedia? Or Earth? Or Human? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:10, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I think you'll find that in the discussion there, the 'cutoff point' was whether people who had been employed by or received funding from the WMF or one of its projects could be cited as third-party sources in order to establish notability of the topic (whatever the topic is - it is evident from discussions that there is a great deal of debate about this). This is a question of independent sourcing to justify articles - something Wikipedia is normally insistent on, and which some people might consider it to be highly inappropriate to make exceptions for.
Nice canvassing effort, by the way... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:19, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Pigsonthewing, there are editors who don't consider themselves part of the "Movement". Vexations (talk) 22:30, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Surely you can find sufficient high quality sources written independently of Wikimedia with which to write an article? --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:18, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
With an article like this, I'd worry about how many sources are talking about a "Wikimedia movement" or just about individual communities. I would not categorically assume that the latter is part of the former. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:54, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
That is of course at the heart of much of the rather heated debate over this particular exercise in navel-gazing: The article concerned starts with an unequivocal assertion regarding a putative 'Wikipmedia movement' which it claims consists of a 'global community'. And while I'm sure that many of the more deeply-involved contributors to one or more of the many WMF-hosted projects may consider themselves as members of a 'global community', and/or a 'movement', it seems entirely unreasonable, to me at least, to assert that everyone posting stuff on any of the many projects, anywhere, can be reasonably described as a member of a 'movement' they may very well never have heard of: a position being advocated by some in the debate. A 'movement' which seems, depending on who you ask, to consist of the WMF's formal structure, or of the less-than-structured 'communities' within individual projects that it would seems self-evident often have little consistency over who they consider part of their own individual 'community', never mind any of the others. If we can't agree amongst ourselves exactly what the heck it is we are participating in, should we really be present to our readership an article which writes as if it is a tertiary source on the question? The article presents one perspective on the issue as if it were unequivocal fact, and, in my opinion does so in a manner which denies the autonomy of individual projects, the cultural diversity and political histories that shape such projects, and the social agency of individual participants. People use WMF-hosted user-editable-media for all sorts of reasons, and co-opting them into a global 'movement' without their knowledge or consent, even only rhetorically, isn't, in my opinion, something the English-language Wikipedia (or rather some of the participants within it) should be doing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:32, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
It sounds like it might be useful to look at m:Wikimedia movement.
Reasonable people could disagree about whether the people who participate in any social movement "count" if they don't personally self-identify as a part of that movement. It is the nature of loosely organized group that Alice can say that Bob is part of the group, and Bob can say that he's not, and neither of them are wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure how looking at a Mediawiki website would help resolve the issue of our own article lacking third-party sources. As for your comment about personal self-identification, I'm fairly certain that where there is a disagreement amongst 'reasonable people', Wikipedia policy isn't to assert definitively that one person is right and the other is wrong. Which is why I object to the article making sweeping statements about what this nebulous 'movement' consists of, based entirely on what some participants and/or the WMF say. More so when it is making statements about real people, rather than hypothetical Bobs and Alice's. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:20, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
If you read the page at Meta-Wiki, you might discover that there are multiple possible definitions of "the movement", some of which do not line up with the editor-focused first sentence in the article.
Movements are always nebulous. That's what makes them be movements. (Alice and Bob are real enough to be notable. ;-) ) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
  • This strikes me as being less a content issue and more a titling issue. There is a notable topic in there somewhere… but we need to more clearly determine what that notable topic actually is. The dispute appears to be over using the term “movement” in the title, and whether that term is used by anyone outside of the various projects under the wikimedia umbrella (ie a source that is independent of the topic). Simply removing that term from the title would help. There are lots of independent sources that discuss Wikimedia without calling it a movement. We can still mention that many within the various projects see what we do as being part of a broader “movement” (the current non-independent sources are reliable for that). Blueboar (talk) 20:05, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

100 graphs from the largest survey of the public's attitude to what actions should be taken on climate change

Hi all

I'm very pleased to say the EU's European Investment Bank (the largest not for profit bank in the world) has released its first batch of content under an open license. To the best of my knowledge this is only the second EU body to make content available under an open license, after the Commission.

They're released around 100 amazing graphs from the largest survey of the public's attitude to what actions should be taken on climate change (+some photos of their buildings). Broadly it shows widespread support for significant action on climate change.

Please help to encourage them to release more by adding them to articles.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Content_produced_by_the_European_Investment_Bank

Thanks

~~~~ John Cummings (talk) 19:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@John Cummings, I've added some of the photos they released to their own page. I'm glad they included those rather than just graphs, since I tend to find that photos are more useful than graphs for Wikipedia purposes (it's still great to have the graphs on Commons for other purposes). {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:16, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Origins of bread

in List of breads, how are origins of white bread and whole wheat bread usa and canada? -- RZuo (talk) 21:41, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

they were added by Pufferfishmax (talk · contribs) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_breads&type=revision&diff=1026628397&oldid=1020137574. i dont know much about bread. could other users please help verify these edits? RZuo (talk) 07:08, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
This discussion really belongs at Talk:List of breads, but, now we are here, I am sure that white bread and whole wheat bread existed before the US and Canada, so the origins seem spurious. Looking at the list I see that nearly all of the origins are unsourced, and many seem equally spurious. One particularly egregious example seems to be flatbread, for which Kenya is given as the origin. Flatbread has existed for millenia, and is indigenous to more than one continent, so to ascribe its origin to just one country is not possible. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:42, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Copycat site

I'm not sure if this is the best place to add this, but I hope this is the right place. But hmoob.in has rather just copied the entirety of the English Wikipedia, with no attribution whatsoever. Unlike other copycat sites, this one is just rather everything translated into Hindi. So the main page ends up being a copy of our main page featured a couple of days ago. hmoob.in and ours. Similarly with the page Antandrus which is similar to their's, but in Hindi, with no attribution whatsoever. I checked Longhair's userpage (copycat site), which there seems to be a delay. I can't understand any non latin script so I'm not too sure what's on the website anyway, but I'm going off the images and the formatting. Thanks! SHB2000 (talk) 11:31, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

While I don't speak much Hindi (or Sanskrit or whatever language this is), there does appear to be some kind of attribution in the page footer area. Third line up from the bottom on both pages mentioned here seems to be the source URL, or at least a diff in relation to my own userpage pointing to an older revision? -- Longhair\talk 14:44, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Don't really see it, unless I'm missing something (although I can not understand any non latin script language so I might be missing it). SHB2000 (talk) 01:27, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Oh wait, never mind. Saw the link although it just redirects to the article's header. SHB2000 (talk) 01:28, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks has some information on how to handle non-compliant sites. --Jayron32 16:08, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
I wish we had a perfect copy of Wikipedia because the original is full of itself.Thecleanerand (talk) 14:45, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

What is the Best AI model for Content Moderation on Wikipedia?

Imagine you’ve just spent 27 minutes working on what you earnestly thought would be a helpful edit to your favorite article. You click that bright blue “Publish changes” button for the very first time, and you see your edit go live! Weeee! But 52 seconds later, you refresh the page and discover that your edit has been reverted and wiped off the planet.

An AI system - called ORES - has been contributing to this rapid judgement of hundreds of thousands of editors’ work on Wikipedia. ORES is a Machine Learning (ML) system that automatically predicts edit and article quality to support content moderation and vandalism fighting on Wikipedia. For example, when you go to RecentChanges, you can see whether an edit is flagged as damaging and should be reviewed. This is based on the ORES predictions. RecentChanges even allows you to change the sensitivity of the algorithm to "Very Likely Have Problems (flags fewer edits)" or "May Have Problems (flags more edits)”.

In this discussion post, we want to invite you to discuss the following *THREE potential ORES models* -- Among those three models, which one do you think presents the best outcomes and would recommend for the English Wikipedia community to use? Why?

ABOUT US: We are a group of Human–computer interaction researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and we are inviting editors to discuss the trade-offs in AI-supported content moderation systems like ORES; your input here has the potential to enhance the transparency and community agency of the design and deployment of AI-based systems on Wikipedia. We will share the results of the discussion with the ML platform team which is responsible for maintaining the ORES infrastructure. However, the decisions of the discussion are not promised to be implemented. More details are available at our research meta-pages: Facilitating Public Deliberation of Algorithmic Decisions and Applying Value-Sensitive Algorithm Design to ORES.

Model Card One: High Accuracy

  • Performance table
Group / Metrics Accuracy
Percentage of edits that are correctly predicted
 Damaging Rate
Percentage of edits that are identified as damaging
 False Positive Rate
Percentage of good edits that are falsely
identified as damaging
 False Negative Rate
Percentage of damaging edits that are
falsely identified as good
Overall 98.5% 3.4% 0.5% 26.3%
Experienced 99.7% 0.2% 0.0% 61.2%
Newcomer 95.7% 10.7% 1.8% 23.0%
Anonymous 94.8% 12.7% 2.4% 22.8%
  • Explanation: this model has the highest overall accuracy.

Model Card Two: Fair Treatment

  • Performance table
Group / Metrics Accuracy
Percentage of edits that are correctly predicted
 Damaging Rate
Percentage of edits that are identified as damaging
 False Positive Rate
Percentage of good edits that are falsely
identified as damaging
 False Negative Rate
Percentage of damaging edits that are
falsely identified as good
Overall 97.2% 1.2% 0.1% 69.9%
Experienced 99.6% 0.0% 0.0% 94.0%
Newcomer 91.2% 4.4% 0.8% 68.5%
Anonymous 90.7% 4.5% 0.0% 67.2%
  • Explanation: Compared to Model One, this model treats experienced editors, newcomers, and anonymous editors more similarly, but it has lower overall accuracy.

Model Card Three: Balanced

  • Performance table
Group / Metrics Accuracy
Percentage of edits that are correctly predicted
 Damaging Rate
Percentage of edits that are identified as damaging
 False Positive Rate
Percentage of good edits that are falsely
identified as damaging
 False Negative Rate
Percentage of damaging edits that are
falsely identified as good
Overall 96.1% 7.6% 4.0% 2.4%
Experienced 99.9% 0.4% 0.0% 17.9%
Newcomer 91.8% 19.8% 9.1% 1.0%
Anonymous 82.7% 30.8% 19.9% 0.8%
  • Explanation: Compared to Model One and Two, Model Three attempts to achieve a better balance between false positive rate and false negative rate. The false negative rate is the best among the three models. But this model has lower accuracy and higher damaging rate.

If you are not satisfied with any of the models described above, you can try out this interface, pick a model on your own, and share your chosen model card in the discussion by copying and pasting the wikitext offered in the interface.

Bobo.03 (talk) 15:32, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Honestly, after looking at them and comparing them, in my opinion I think Option 2 would be a better option. While it has a nice high false negative rate of 69.9% overall, looking at the individual percentages show that it's mostly experienced users that would have their edits identified as false negatives. However I think that percentages don't always show the full picture. Instead I think it would be better for it to be shown as like 1 in every thousand edits is identified as a false negative, that way we can actually see what scale we're looking at. However, I think a combination of models 2 and 3 would be best as Option 2 has a low False Positive rate but a high False Negative rate and Option 3 has a high(ish) false positive rate and a low false negative rate. Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 16:32, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Discussion Break

Hi @Bobo.03: I'm sure this has come along since my very early engagement with it. I know you are well-aware of CluebotNG, but I'd like to draw a highlight that although it once accepted a false positive rate of 0.25%, it has been changed to use 0.1% as its threshold. That hit 55% and 40% of vandalism (thus 45% and 60% false negative). That, I think, gives a pretty clear marker that Wikipedians are way more willing to accept it missing something than an unwarranted hit. Unwarranted hits kill off new users, and irk experienced users, while many issues missed can be caught by alternate means. I tried to have a fiddle with the interface but couldn't figure out how to make it apply different tolerable false positive rates to different groups. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:43, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I would add my opinion that the false positive rates reported for option 3 are way too high for me, and I suspect for most other editors. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:08, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
I'd like to add that IMO, whatever happens to 'Experienced' editors is pretty irrelevant to me, so that leaves newcomers and anonymous edits. False positives rates above 1% are unacceptable from the outset IMO. So the 'fair treatment' table approach is the most viable one, IMO. Since this only flags, but doesn't revert, I'm OK with a higher false positive rate than ClueBot NG, but it should be sub 1% on any given categories, and lower would be even better. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:24, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Hi @Nosebagbear: Thanks for your questions! The interface, based on ORES, indeed does not allow users to apply different FPR tolerance level to different groups! Would you mind to share that in your opinion, which level of FPR is tolerable for different groups? The information would be extremely useful to improve the interface and the ORES model itself. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobo.03 (talk • contribs) 18:20, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Support Model 1. This was derived by eliminating Model 2, which has very high false negative rates; and Model 3 has a high False Positive rate for Anonymous editors. Model 1 is a good middle ground, no one area is particularly bad; and has best accuracy. -- GreenC 03:35, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Odd closing "nowiki" tags.

Occasionally I find an article with a closing "nowiki" tag, with no corresponding opening tag. Is there a reason for these? If not, can we get a full list of them for cleanup? BD2412 T 02:01, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

There is no reason for a closing </nowiki> with no opening <nowiki>. They can cause errors and confusion later and should be removed or fixed. There is sometimes a reason for a self-closing <nowiki/> or <nowiki />. Self-closing tags have the slash at the end and no corresponding opening tag. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:20, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Is there a way to get a list of closing nowiki tags without opening tags? BD2412 T 02:40, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
@BD2412, I think you are looking for Special:LintErrors/stripped-tag. I didn't find any unclosed nowiki tags in the mainspace, but there are about 3,500 unclosed other tags in the mainspace (usually involving some combination of templates). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
nowiki tags aren't tracked by Linter. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 05:33, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
BD2412, this search shows only 9 articles have </nowiki> without <nowiki>. Not sure how reliable this search is though. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 05:44, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
BD2412, GreenC, Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 36#NOWIKI — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 01:54, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Also this phab with posts by Amire80 who created a taxonomy chart of nowiki problems. -- GreenC 03:15, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
@BD2412 Here is list of articles with 'nowiki tag without correct match'. ~Yahya (✉) • 12:53, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
I have checked all of them, and every single one of them was visible in page text, with only one actually belonging there (an attempt to use nowiki tags to display <nowiki> at UseModWiki). The rest were just oddly placed, sometimes breaking templates, and for no apparent reason. BD2412 T 16:44, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
A thing I encountered in Template:Largest cities of Vietnam; the noinclude tags don't seem to work, the content is still transcluded. Anyone see the same? feydey (talk) 18:02, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments: announcement

The Arbitration Committee is seeking to appoint additional editors to the Checkuser and Oversight teams. The arbitrators overseeing this will be Bradv and KrakatoaKatie. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the Functionaries team, and they will assist in the vetting process. This year's timeline is as follows:

  • 6 September to 18 September: Candidates may self-nominate by contacting the Arbitration Committee at arbcom-en-c@wikimedia.org@.
  • 19 September to 23 September: The Arbitration Committee and Functionaries will vet the candidates.
  • 24 September to 26 September: The committee will notify candidates going forward for community consultation and create the candidate subpages containing the submitted nomination statements.
  • 27 September to 6 October: Nomination statements will be published and the candidates are invited to answer questions publicly. The community is invited and encouraged to participate.
  • By 17 October: Appointments will be announced.

For the Arbitration Committee, Katietalk 11:39, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Dr Michael Yeardon

It is intresting to note that wickapedia has gone "covid friendly" with the attack article on Dr Yeardon. The article is locked and is nothing more than an assault on his character and opinions. Since when did wickipedia become a political hit piece that locks articles and assaults the opinions of public figures?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:5B0:2A15:2268:7DDC:6786:E52C:A750 (talk) 12:41, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia has never had an article on a Michael Yeardon (or "Dr Michael Yeardon"). BD2412 T 16:47, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
I suspect OP, with the anti-vaxxer's usual concern for accuracy, means Michael Yeadon. DuncanHill (talk) 17:18, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

A compliment to the years of editors improving articles

I "overheard" two professors discussing having students edit Wikipedia articles on Twitter. One asked for tips; the other replied "We tried asking MRes students to update a badly written or inaccurate Wikipedia page on a related topic - that worked quite well but too many wiki pages now excellently written". Too many wiki pages now excellently written — well done, everyone! Schazjmd (talk) 23:16, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey will happen in January

Hello everyone,

We hope all of you are as well and safe as possible during these trying times! We wanted to share some news about a change to the Community Wishlist Survey 2022. We would like to hear your opinions as well.

Summary:

We will be running the Community Wishlist Survey 2022 in January 2022. We need more time to work on the 2021 wishes. We also need time to prepare some changes to the Wishlist 2022. In the meantime, you can use a dedicated sandbox to leave early ideas for the 2022 wishes.

Proposing and wish-fulfillment will happen during the same year

In the past, the Community Tech team has run the Community Wishlist Survey for the following year in November of the prior year. For example, we ran the Wishlist for 2021 in November 2020. That worked well a few years ago. At that time, we used to start working on the Wishlist soon after the results of the voting were published.

However, in 2021, there was a delay between the voting and the time when we could start working on the new wishes. Until July 2021, we were working on wishes from the Wishlist for 2020.

We hope having the Wishlist 2022 in January 2022 will be more intuitive. This will also give us time to fulfill more wishes from the 2021 Wishlist.

Encouraging wider participation from historically excluded communities

We are thinking how to make the Wishlist easier to participate in. We want to support more translations, and encourage under-resourced communities to be more active. We would like to have some time to make these changes.

A new space to talk to us about priorities and wishes not granted yet

We will have gone 365 days without a Wishlist. We encourage you to approach us. We hope to hear from you in the talk page, but we also hope to see you at our bi-monthly Talk to Us meetings! These will be hosted at two different times friendly to time zones around the globe.

We will begin our first meeting September 15th at 23:00 UTC. More details about the agenda and format coming soon!

Brainstorm and draft proposals before the proposal phase

If you have early ideas for wishes, you can use the new Community Wishlist Survey sandbox. This way, you will not forget about these before January 2022. You will be able to come back and refine your ideas. Remember, edits in the sandbox don't count as wishes!

Feedback

  • What should we do to improve the Wishlist pages?
  • How would you like to use our new sandbox?
  • What, if any, risks do you foresee in our decision to change the date of the Wishlist 2022?
  • What will help more people participate in the Wishlist 2022?

Answer on the talk page (in any language you prefer) or at our Talk to Us meetings.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the updates, @SGrabarczuk (WMF). They look interesting, but I think they really ignore the elephant in the room, which is that nowhere near enough wishes are being addressed. At this point, there is years and years of technical debt, with massive years-long phabricator backlogs in essential areas. I think there can be a tendency, with the Santa branding and "wishlist" name and all, to think of the list as "here's a bunch of things the community would find nice to have, and we'll pick the few at the top as the gifts that'll be most appreciated". That's really not the right way to look at it. At this point, the wishlist each year contains hundreds of important unaddressed community needs, with the top hundred or so reasonably classified as "urgent" and the top ten "dire". It's nice that you get to the dire stuff, but that still leaves another ~90 items in the urgent category. When you talk about "a new space to talk to us about priorities and wishes not granted yet", I'm not sure that'll help all that much—the issue isn't so much that you don't know what the community's priorities are (we spend hundreds of hours each year voting on the list proposals), it's that you're only addressing a tiny fraction of them. Now, I realize that you're a small team with a limited capacity, so my issue isn't with the work you do under the present circumstances. But have you asked whoever controls the WMF budget if they've considered quadrupling the size and resources of your team? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 07:09, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Hey @Sdkb, thanks for being empathetic and tolerant for the, let's say, current limitations. You're correct, only one team is officially working on the Wishlist and wish-granting. However, other managers and senior staff do check the Wishlist as well. Some planning decisions (made by/for other Product teams) are inspired by the results. We also grow as a team. Just compare this version from August 2020 with this version from August 2021. We are so glad to have more support. Larger decisions are not up to us. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 10:00, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Results for the most contended Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2021 Board election. The Elections Committee has reviewed the votes of the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election, organized to select four new trustees. A record 6,873 people from across 214 projects cast their valid votes. The following four candidates received the most support:

  1. Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
  2. Victoria Doronina
  3. Dariusz Jemielniak
  4. Lorenzo Losa

While these candidates have been ranked through the community vote, they are not yet appointed to the Board of Trustees. They still need to pass a successful background check and meet the qualifications outlined in the Bylaws. The Board has set a tentative date to appoint new trustees at the end of this month.

Read translations of this announcement.

Read the full announcement and translations.

Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 23:59, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Women jazz singers category

Not sure if this is the proper venue for this question, but perhaps you can advise. Since the renaming of [[Category:Female jazz singers]] to [[Women jazz singers]], are juvenile female jazz singers intended to be excluded from the category? Or are they to be considered young women? I don't expect that this issue will come up often but it has at Baby Esther (date of birth uncertain), who was at most 16 y.o. and perhaps only 12 when she faded into obscurity. Ewulp (talk) 01:12, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

@Ewulp, despite what someone might reasonably wonder if you spend much time reading political stuff, we're not trying to pass judgment on anyone's womanhood or lack thereof. Put that singer in that category if you think people looking at that category might be interested in that article, and leave it out if you think it's irrelevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:41, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
I think the category is likely to be useful to readers but another editor has been adamant about removing it, which is why I was wondering if there's any consensus about this. Ewulp (talk) 23:01, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

62 munite audio documentary to translate from Swedish - important source

I have 62 munite audio documentary to translate from Swedish (download). From what I heard there can be a lot of important information for Basshunter biography. I'm not sure if it is possible to find anyone to listen it and translate yet if it's not fan. Eurohunter (talk) 15:38, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee ending 14 September 2021

Movement Strategy announces the Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. The Call opens August 2, 2021 and closes September 14, 2021.

The Committee is expected to represent diversity in the Movement. Diversity includes gender, language, geography, and experience. This comprises participation in projects, affiliates, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

English fluency is not required to become a member. If needed, translation and interpretation support is provided. Members will receive an allowance to offset participation costs. It is US$100 every two months.

We are looking for people who have some of the following skills:

  • Know how to write collaboratively. (demonstrated experience is a plus)
  • Are ready to find compromises.
  • Focus on inclusion and diversity.
  • Have knowledge of community consultations.
  • Have intercultural communication experience.
  • Have governance or organization experience in non-profits or communities.
  • Have experience negotiating with different parties.

The Committee is expected to start with 15 people. If there are 20 or more candidates, a mixed election and selection process will happen. If there are 19 or fewer candidates, then the process of selection without election takes place.

Will you help move Wikimedia forward in this important role? Submit your candidacy here. Please contact strategy2030(_AT_)wikimedia.org with questions.

This message may have been sent previously - please note that the deadline for candidate submissions was extended and candidacies are still being accepted until 14 September 2021. Xeno (WMF) 17:16, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Server switch

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to other languages.

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on Tuesday, 14 September 2021.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

  • You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, 14 September 2021. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday, 15 September).
  • If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

  • Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
  • We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:45, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Talk to the Community Tech

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to other languages.

Hello!

As we have recently announced, we, the team working on the Community Wishlist Survey, would like to invite you to an online meeting with us. It will take place on September 15th, 23:00 UTC on Zoom, and will last an hour. Click here to join.

Agenda

Format

The meeting will not be recorded or streamed. Notes without attribution will be taken and published on Meta-Wiki. The presentation (first three points in the agenda) will be given in English.

We can answer questions asked in English, French, Polish, and Spanish. If you would like to ask questions in advance, add them on the Community Wishlist Survey talk page or send to sgrabarczuk@wikimedia.org.

Natalia Rodriguez (the Community Tech manager) will be hosting this meeting.

Invitation link

See you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 03:03, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Participate in the Universal Code of Conduct Roundtable on 18 September 2021

Read this announcement in other languages

The Movement Strategy and Governance facilitation team is hosting Roundtable discussions on 18 September 2021 at 03:00 UTC and 15:00 UTC for Wikimedians to talk together about how to enforce the Universal Code of Conduct . These calls are part of the Universal Code of Conduct project Phase 2 Enforcement draft guidelines review (EDGR).

Each session will last for 90 to 120 minutes and translation support for various languages will be provided. Also, sessions in specific languages may also be held depending on demand. Community members are encouraged to sign up in advance and add the topic to discuss during roundtable session.

If you are not able to make the roundtable session, you can provide comments at the draft review talk page in any language, talk pages of translations, and local discussions.

For more information, please visit roundtable discussion information page at Meta-wiki.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

@Xeno (WMF), SGrabarczuk (WMF), and JKoerner (WMF): You collectively just sent about seven pages of MassMessage announcements to this one VP page in a single week. I am not certain, but I suspect this is really bad for the flow of the forum. (To say nothing of what's happening in other languages' Village Pumps, which look like they're being completely crowded out of their own discussion fora by these things...) There are a lot of ways to limit the amount of space taken up: avoid large block-display eye-catching icons, omit the "in other languages" link on English wikis, shorten the wording and keep extraneous content behind a link, reconsider whether a MassMessage is really necessary for each point, avoid redundant/repetitive messaging, and generally try not to grab attention from people who don't want to give it. Please consider making use of them? Thanks. --Yair rand (talk) 18:25, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Tully Monster Popularity

I saw that Tullimonstrum was a very popular article yesterday from the mobile app "most read" card. Can anyone explain why? I haven't been able to find the source of the popularity. -- Veggies (talk) 02:01, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Veggies: It was trending on Reddit (with a direct link) [4]. – BMacZero (🗩) 16:55, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Thank you! -- Veggies (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Obsolete split proposal?

Hi! I've seen there is a split tag from 2015 on the page Hotspot_(geology). Is it ok for me to delete the tag? A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 09:42, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@A. C. Santacruz, I've removed it – seems it was added by @Fgnievinski (who is still active on the project, hence the ping), but no discussion ever took place. AngryHarpy‍talk 11:36, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
thanks AngryHarpy! Perhaps if Fgnievinski still believes in the split they can start a new split proposal and mention it in relevant WikiProjects to get eyes on it.A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 15:54, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Xenoscapa

Guys, there is a third specie: Xenoscapa grandiflora See [5]] and [6]. Regards! Oesjaar (talk) 18:22, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@Oesjaar: Please be bold and add the content and/or create an article about Xenoscapa grandiflora. — xaosflux Talk 18:46, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
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