Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals sections when appropriate, or at the help desk for assistance. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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Top news story

I apologize if this is the wrong place for this. If it is, please tell me where it should go.

I've learned that Shane Warne was a legendary cricket player, but does his death really deserve to be the top news story on the front page for an entire week? There's a major war going on right now, that has the potential to become much much worse.

Is Warne's story likely to be updated anytime soon? Was there anything suspicious about it? I'm not trying to belittle the death of someone who was very widely beloved and admired, but there are large portions of the world that know little or nothing about cricket. I myself (I'm American) know very little about it. I wouldn't expect the death of an American athlete to completely monopolize the news at the beginning of an international crisis. --JDspeeder1 (talk) 07:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't characterise Warne as "monopolising" the news. Out of the five In the News items, four are non-Warne related, including one on the war in Ukraine. – Teratix ₵ 07:39, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

And far more people (including over a billion in India) follow cricket, of which Warne was one of the top few players of the last few decades, than any American sport. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:08, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Folks, let’s not miss the point. Should the death of a sports figure (of any sport) be featured as a top story in the news section for this long (especially when we consider what else is currently happening in the world)? Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly my point. Thank you. JDspeeder1 (talk) 13:37, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• You're all perfectly welcome to take this discussion topic to WT:ITN and WP:ITN/C which was and indeed is the responsible entity for managing the "In the news" template in the first place, but just so that it's as clear as a pikestaff -- "Wikipedia:In the news is not a news ticker." The posting system on ITN functions on reverse chronological order, not order of perceived importance. Shane Warne's death happened after the invasion of Ukraine began. --WaltCip-(talk) 14:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• You just had to wait a little longer; the top story is now the South Korean election.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 21:09, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• JDspeeder1's post illustrates extremely well how ITN is broken. Users expect it to operate like a normal news roundup, displaying the most significant story first rather than the most recent above all else. Users also won't intuit that we leave some stories out because the article quality isn't up go standard yet. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:35, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

  I wasn't expecting the headlines to be listed in order of significance, I was expecting chronological. That's not what was happening, though. The Shane Warne story was at the top for a whole week, even as other stories were coming in below it. JDspeeder1 (talk) 16:59, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

  If stories were being added beneath an existing blurb, it's because the seminal events in those stories pre-dated said blurb, not because of significance. WaltCip-(talk) 17:25, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• I was eagerly awaiting this topic being brought to WT:ITN as I suggested, since it seems that there's a belief at least among some that ITN needs to be changed. I was quite disappointed to see no one took me up on the offer. I guess it really isn't that big of a deal. --WaltCip-(talk) 13:37, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

User Page Privacy Concerns

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.

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I've been a bit hesitant to bring this up since it might exacerbate the issue I'm having, but when I first made my user page on Wikipedia in 2015, I included a lot of personal information about myself. Although I have long since removed the info from my user page, it still shows up in my user page history.

I was wondering if an admin could remove the earlier revisions containing my personal info, as I do have a lot of privacy concerns regarding this. Thanks!

--Dtale1984 (talk) 16:53, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Did this, although it didn't contain a lot of private information IMO and I am hesitant to do a log redaction here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:58, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! I only needed the earliest revision to be redacted honestly but I appreciate it nonetheless. Dtale1984 (talk) 17:01, 12 March 2022 (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.

Wiki Loves Folklore 2022 ends tomorrow

International photographic contest Wiki Loves Folklore 2022 ends on 15th March 2022 23:59:59 UTC. This is the last chance of the year to upload images about local folk culture, festival, cuisine, costume, folklore etc on Wikimedia Commons. Watch out our social media handles for regular updates and declaration of Winners.

(Facebook , Twitter , Instagram)

The writing competition Feminism and Folklore will run till 31st of March 2022 23:59:59 UTC. Write about your local folk tradition, women, folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, folklore, and tradition, including ballads, folktales, fairy tales, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, calendar customs, folk arts, folk religion, mythology etc. on your local Wikipedia. Check if your local Wikipedia is participating

A special competition called Wiki Loves Falles is organised in Spain and the world during 15th March 2022 till 15th April 2022 to document local folk culture and Falles in Valencia, Spain. Learn more about it on Catalan Wikipedia project page.

We look forward for your immense co-operation.

Thanks Wiki Loves Folklore international Team MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:40, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Leadership Development Working Group: Apply to join! (14 March to 10 April 2022)

Hi all, following the call for feedback last month for the Leadership Development Working Group, I would like to share the summary of input (note the terminology change to Working Group) along with an invitation to apply. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:01, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

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You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

More languages • Please help translate to other languages.

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone who participated in the feedback period for the Leadership Development Working Group initiative. A summary of the feedback can be found on Meta-wiki. This feedback will be shared with the working group to inform their work. The application period to join the Working Group is now open and will close on April 10, 2022. Please review the information about the working group, share with community members who might be interested, and apply if you are interested.

Thank you,

From the Community Development team

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Let me know if you have questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:01, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Egyptian bean

can anyone please find a pre-2006 source confirming that Nelumbo nucifera is referred to as such? RZuo (talk) 11:10, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

This isn't really the right place to ask this question (better would probably be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants) but, helpful chap that I am, I will point out that there are plenty here. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:21, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Zelensky or Zelenskyy? – feedback requested

The Ukrainian president is much in the news, and various spellings are used by reliable sources. Your feedback would be appreciated at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ukraine#Zelensky or Zelenskyy. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:37, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Where is the discussions of speedy deletion?

When I was finding the origin of speedy deletion, I found no discussions about why this has to be set up. So, where are the discussions? Wiki Emoji | Emojiwiki _Talk~~ 23:54, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Emojiwiki see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, whose history goes back to 2004. Many policies, especially older ones, were not proposed to become a policy as we usually do today - but instead was documenting the community norms. CSD was spun off from the Wikipedia:Deletion policy where these exceptions to the "discuss first" practice is documented back to 2003. As to "why" because some things are so blatantly obviously bad that it would be a waste of community resources to hold a discussion - and more recently some things are so offensive that they need to be removed as quickly as possible to minimize disruption. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:02, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Join the Community Resilience and Sustainability Conversation Hour with Maggie Dennis

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

More languages • Please help translate to other languages.

The Community Resilience and Sustainability team at the Wikimedia Foundation is hosting a conversation hour led by its Vice President Maggie Dennis.

Topics within scope for this call include Movement Strategy, Board Governance, Trust and Safety, the Universal Code of Conduct, Community Development, and Human Rights. Come with your questions and feedback, and let's talk! You can also send us your questions in advance.

The meeting will be on 24 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC (check your local time).

You can read details on Meta-wiki. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 02:48, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Definition of "municipality"

Many editors, myself included, have spent a lot of time trying to make consistent the articles listing the cities, towns, villages, etc. of every state in the country (and of various other political entities around the world). One question has come up several times: how do we define "municipality"? We've settled on Lists of municipalities as a catch-all so we don't end up with separate lists for villages and cities in a state where the only legal difference is an arbitrary population cutoff. However, to that end we've been using "municipality" to mean "incorporated municipality", so as to exclude (and list separately) CDPs, civil townships, and the like. There seems to be a lot of agreement that this is good: we should list incorporated cities, towns, and villages, etc. separately from unincorporated CDPs and townships.

However, another possible definition of "municipality" is "a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction". One example of where this gets fuzzy is Michigan: Michigan only has two kinds of incorporated municipalities – cities and villages – but its unincorporated townships do have powers of self-government, and its unincorporated charter townships have even more self-government or jurisdiction. So should these be listed in a List of municipalities in Michigan? In other cases (see Wisconsin and South Dakota, both of which are still awaiting a merge) there is a consensus not to include civil townships, even if they have limited self-government.

As a further example, Vermont has 5 unincorporated towns, which are otherwise equivalent to the rest of the state's towns. Should these five towns be excluded from the list of municipalities because they aren't incorporated? If so, then shouldn't Michigan's townships be excluded from their list of municipalities? Is consistency even that important? Dylanvt (talk) 02:57, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Vermont's 5 unincorporated towns had their incorporation revoked by the state (for good reason, e.g. Glastenbury, Vermont has all of 9 residents). Townships generally shouldn't be included, I'd think, although I see Michigan has lumped together multiple survey townships into an organized township. Have you considered a population criterion, e.g. incorporated and having at least 2,000 residents (or 5,000, or 1,000, or 10,000, or ...)? --R. S. Shaw (talk) 03:16, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Can someone authorized to close a "withdraw" request to delete a WP article

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.

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Here [1] is the withdrawn Wikipedia page deletion request. Please, close this request. Thank you - --Ooligan (talk) 00:02, 20 March 2022 (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.

Talk page button

What happened to our talk page button? It displays the text ‘Fa tiban ka ho’! I hope someone fixes this. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 10:56, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

@Inqilābī this sounds like a bad translation in the upstream interface translation files; they usually get updated every couple of weeks. If you use the "en - English" language setting in your preferences at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal you should not see bad translations here. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:07, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I use en-GB in my preferences. Anyway, am I the only one who sees a different translation? ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 11:10, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

My initial thoughts were the same as User:Xaosflux's, but I use en-GB and have seen no problem. Can browser language settings influence this? I am using Firefox 98.0.1, also with en-GB. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:14, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

It might be worth posting a link to this discussion at WP:VPT, as it seems to be a technical issue. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:18, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

@Inqilābī and Phil Bridger: no need to put on VPT, there is nothing we can do about this here on the English Wikipedia - it has to be fixed on translatewiki, then you have to wait for any updates to sync to mediawiki and then back to us. They usually fix those on translatewiki pretty quick, then there is about a 10 day lead time. We discourage the use of en-GB here, for many reasons - this being one of them - if you insist on using en-GB, en-CA, or other en-XX variants you should expect oddities. If something extremely vulgar or severely disruptive is in one of these, please let us know at WP:IANB or WP:AN and we can put in temporary manual overrides - but we are not going to maintain those variants in general (we had an RfC about that last year I think). Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 15:01, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Thanks for the tip! I edited my preferences to use en and now I see the usual text. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 15:09, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

And thanks from me, as I was puzzled by this issue even though I wasn't suffering from it. I have no chauvinistic attachment to "en-GB", so have also changed my preference to "en". Phil Bridger (talk) 15:17, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Inqilābī and Phil Bridger good to hear! For the most part en-XX variant's in the interface are not really, we've been looking for some technical solutions for a long time to avoid this - but it requires a lot of upstream work. Changing your preference will have no impact at all on the text of articles or other content pages, and you are welcome to edit articles in whatever dialect is appropriate! Best regards — xaosflux ^Talk 17:13, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Quarterly Community Safety survey

Apologies for cross-posting this, I wanted to make sure that as many people as possible knew this was going to happen, so people aren't surprised when it appears.

Starting the week of 28 March 2022, the Wikimedia Foundation will conduct a quarterly anonymous survey about safety perceptions among the English Wikipedia community members.

This survey responds to a Universal Code of Conduct community recommendation, and we encourage you to participate.

There are more details about the survey on the project page, and you can also leave comments.

Best regards, Community Safety Survey team –– STei (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

RFC on wording of bullet point

Your feedback is requested in an RFC at Wikipedia_talk:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle#RFC_on_wording_of_bullet_point_in_Discuss_section. The issue is over how to word a bullet point in the discuss section. Thank you. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:455:ADAB:CD27:8849 (talk) 03:03, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

“Sexual assault allegations vanished from potential Cori Bush challenger’s Wikipedia page”

Just wondering if any of you have seen this new front page article, it’s pretty concerning. https://theintercept.com/2022/03/21/missouri-senator-steven-roberts-wikipedia/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perfecnot (talk • contribs) 12:24, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

And this is exactly the sort of thing we'd never be able to catch once the WMF enables IP masking and adopts the UCoC (which prohibits discussing contributors' place of employment). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:40, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Targeting of Talk:Speech synthesis

Any conjectures on why Talk:Speech synthesis receives a particularly large number of drive-by additions of new sections, added by single-edit IP users, that consist of gibberish or sentence fragments in Indonesian or both? I'm particularly intrigued by the ones (in Indonesian) that translate to "salaam aleikum to all bus passengers from johor bahru to malacca will be departing soon we from larkin sentral would like to wish you a happy hari raya"[2], "Ayang beautiful there is a whatsapp from my handsome"[3], "Moskona you love but how come you're so naughty"[4], "Hi adam there's a whatsapp message coming in"[5], and "the child has a whatsapp entry from the girl"[6], covering a span of more than two months. Largoplazo (talk) 16:36, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

There could be several reasons. I believe this belongs in VPT, perhaps tagged as a security issue, as one reason could be somebody is testing the waters for wider-scale disruption, but not necessarily targeting Wikipedia exclusively. 172.254.222.178 (talk) 00:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Question for a logo in Ukraine

On this page I discovered a logo combined the coat of arms of Ukraine and four fleurs-de-lis, who know about that? --Great Brightstar (talk) 17:28, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

It is the logo of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine. --Jayron32 17:45, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Opinions on the phenomenon some might call RfC-itis?

See heading. MarshallKe (talk) 00:07, 23 March 2022 (UTC)