User talk:Nick Moyes

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Thank you

Thank you Nick for the warm welcome. Rinju2074 (talk) 21:46, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

You're very welcome, Rinju2074. I've left some further suggestions for you in my reply at the Teahouse. Good luck! Nick Moyes (talk) 21:55, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Test edit - rapid double click. Nick Moyes (talk) 16:04, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, Well

It looks as if I have an enemy for a little while. It won't last that long. Wikipedia has a few editors who habitually have enemies, but that is mostly because those editors who have enemies have a way of offending people. I don't think that I am the sort who is looking for enemies. One of three things will probably happen. The two most likely possibilities are that he may get indeffed for being not here constructively, or that he may get tired and bored of being against me and find someone else to dislike. The less likely but still possible scenario is that he might grow up. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, some very puerile actions there, even whilst I was trying to guide them - most unusual. I looked for the article when I woke just now, but found another admin had finally got around to deleting it, which doesn't really surprise me. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 07:56, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Interesting but stupid. It appears that he was hired by someone who hired him without knowing that he knew anything about Wikipedia, and that now he has gone away. Well, in that case, he needed to go away. Neither he nor his customer knew what they were doing. Hmmm. Robert McClenon (talk) 12:05, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I am always willing to do my best to help and support new, inexperienced editors, just as you are, but I don't believe anyone accepting money to create content here can expect us to molly-coddle them through their learning or incompetence phase. They should have addressed that long before they thought they could get paid for us doing their work for them. I've created and managed a number of websites over the last two decades, but would never pretend I knew the skills well enough to con people out of their cash by offering my services, and then expect others to do my work for them (and get rude and insuting about it in the process). Quite amusing really. Nick Moyes (talk) 12:24, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I find this conversation very interesting. It's like watching a movie, but only reading the subtitles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamesmanning986 (talk • contribs) 19:40, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Holly2017

Seems like WP:ANI#User:Holly2017: WP:NOTHERE, WP:CIR, or WP:DUCK was going to happen sooner or later. — Marchjuly (talk) 07:01, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Yep, I just noticed that from my watchlist. It's funny how one can sense the inevitable car crash right from some users' first few edits and interactions. Nick Moyes (talk) 07:49, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-40

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Admins can now see links to diffs of deleted revisions on Special:AbuseLog. This uses the interface of Special:Undelete. [1]
• Editors are automatically added to some user groups. For example editors are added to autoconfirmed users when they have edited enough times and long enough. Abuse filters can hinder users from automatically getting user rights for a period of time. They can also remove rights user have. Wikis can now ask to change how long this period of time is for their wiki in Phabricator. It is currently five days. [2]

Problems

• Last year some abuse filters stopped working because of a new change. If they tried to use variables that were unavailable for that action they would fail. This has now been fixed. [3]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 September. It will be on all wikis from 1 October (calendar).

Future changes

• You can't see the language links to other language versions from the talk page or history page. They are also not shown when you edit an article. This could change. It is not decided if for example the history page should link to another history page or to the article. You can take part in the discussion in Phabricator.
• The link colours could change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. You can read more in Phabricator.
• In your preferences you can choose to get different notifications on the web or by email. You will see Apps as one of the alternatives later this week. This is because the Android and iOS Wikipedia apps will use push notifications for those who want them. You can see the preferences on the test wiki. The goal is to have push notifications on Android in October and on iOS in early 2021. [4]
• You can soon put pages on your watchlist for a limited time. This could be useful if you want to watch something for a shorter time but don't want it on your watchlist forever. It now works on mediawiki.org and will come to more wikis later. You can read more and see when it will come to other wikis.
• You can see what Wikimedians think are the best new technical tools this year. You can also nominate them.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:23, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
	Thanks for your pointers on references Wes sideman (talk) 20:23, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).

Administrator changes

Ajpolino • LuK3

Jackmcbarn

Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM

There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely 1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created.

Technical news

• The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).

Arbitration

• The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
• Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.

Miscellaneous

• The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
• Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:43, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

New biography.... is this person notable?

For the first time in my 4.5 year WP career, I wish to write “my first article”, about a “zoologist, Antarctic and marine mammal specialist, author and ecologist” who died in 1994. Previous Teahouse comments said that we could ask Senior Editors about notability, so I am requesting your opinion. Here is my very rough draft: Draft: Nigel Bonner. The lede, and first two sections are somewhat fleshed-out, and the rest has rough notes. Please note that I have refs/sources in two places, as I have not yet added some of them to the statements they support.

Is it worth my time to complete this? I think I can gain access to the paywalled Cambridge obituary source, which may provide even more info. Perhaps between Bonner’s notability as an author, and a scientist, I can cite enough information to satisfy WP’s notability requirements. At this point, WP has four articles that refer to him: Bonner Beach, Bonner Lab at Rothera Research Station, and the South Georgia Museum, where a room is dedicated in his honor. He is also mentioned in Gerald Bonner, which is where I got the idea for the article. Thanks for your consideration! Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 01:15, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Tribe of Tiger, that looks a really interesting page (and right up my sleeve). Yes, I think it would very definitely meet WP:NACADEMIC. I'd ensure the key notability elements were included in the lead - especially Polar Medal. I'd suggest creating a 'bare bones' submission, rather than putting your heart and soul into it and then finding someone reviews it and declines it, asking for more sources. So only include the bits you can be easily verified. That said, I'd be OK seeing it go straight into mainspace once complete. But at an AfD discussion, I'd be saying their contribution to science, plus their polar medal and the geographical features named after them were wholly sufficient to meet our notability criteria. I would say that this person's article does have the potential for a WP:DYK slot, if you're interested to go for that, too. It's the kind of thing I might even suggest you could email a request to the BAS to ask if they have a photograph of Bonner that they would be willing to release under an appropriate Creative Commons licence for you/us to use in the article. Linking to a draft/work in progress or to a brand new article would demonstrate the value of their participation. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 10:17, 2 October 2020 (UTC)  

Thanks so much for this encouraging and detailed reply. I shall follow your advice and move forward. This is where your background knowledge of “this type of subject” is helpful. The Polar Medal sounded quite wonderful to me, but I wasn’t’ sure if it would assist notability. I will add to the lede Asap!

“So only include the bits you can be easily verified.” That’s easy, in this case, as the entire draft is based on my online research for sources. I regret that I cannot access a library to look for print sources, (Covid) but it has been great fun, sleuthing online! I started with his name, and one ref, both of which were in Gerald Bonner, went from there. It was like a National Geographic adventure, for a house-bound person! I will both follow and consider your various excellent suggestions and report back to you (if I may) when I think the article is “ready”. Again, thanks for the confirmation and encouragement. Regards, Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 21:34, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

@Tribe of Tiger: Yes, feel free. I am very interested. One of my adoptees here on Wikipedia is an Antarctic geologist and retired professor - and he has one or two bits of Antarctica named after him (see here). I interviewed at BAS many years ago for a summer posting in Antarctica, field-guiding scientists (but sadly didn't get through) - and mammalogy is one of my many interests, and I also enjoy the online search for biographical information. So I'd be happy to help you in any way I can. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:06, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

My frame of reference is limited, but my observation/experience has been that true scientists and academics are quite amenable to our WP concepts of proper references, (and COI) and comply with a degree of enthusiasm. My possibly “romantic” view is that they search for truth/knowledge, versus fame and glory. I am happy that you adopted BrucePL as a worthy editor. (I shall read, with pleasure!) We are very fortunate to have you here on WP, as you know the field of life science. I seem to remember something you posted a few years ago, about setting up cameras to observe birds (peregrines?) at your workplace. I am sorry that you did not get through BAS, I expect that this was a highly competitive posting. At any rate, this “older person” in the US thinks that your endeavors are fascinating, and has read your “About Me” user page section, with great admiration and respect! Mountains climbed, nearly one million plant records...then I saw that you had worked for the CIA! Fortunately, I clicked on the link, as I was thinking that you were also working in some sort of espionage, as in the US CIA. Spy peregrines, launched from mountain tops!

Seriously, though, regarding Nigel Bonner, is this important/worthy that he was “ President of the Mammal Society for a unique two terms“? I will include this in the article, but wanted to inquire. Thanks for your reply above. Sincerely, Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 01:08, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

@Tribe of Tiger: Thank you for those very kind words. Whilst Bonner's role as President of the MammSoc doesn't infer notabilty in itself, it certainly does add to the encyclopaedic value of the article. However, I might not deem it necessary to mention the uniqueness of two terms in office, just the years in which he served. It's likely that whatever link you cite will lead to that level of information, should someone need it. (I actually knew one of his successors, Derek Yalden, through my work in biological recording - a great mammalogist and botanist, too. I'm really pleased you chose this person to be the subject of your first article! Nick Moyes (talk) 10:47, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the very helpful explanations and good advice. I am moving forward and will let you know when I have the article in better shape. I just ordered a book, which I think/hope will help with notability, Antarctic Oasis: Under the Spell of South Georgia, by Tim and Pauline Carr, who assisted with the building of the South Georgia Museum. This should provide some post-retirement information, as well as personal enjoyment. I like to think that Nigel Bonner would be pleased that his life story has fostered friendly connections. Best, Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 00:06, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I am sure it is a bit silly, but you are the only person I "know" who has possibly been concerned about iceberg A68 beaching itself on South Georgia Island, and disrupting the tenuous and valuable food chain that supports marine mammals. I have been watching the news, with dread, for several weeks. But, now it seems that South Georgia will be spared, and I am so relieved. Fingers crossed that the ocean currents will flow in a favorable way for the marine mammals. Who would think that an older woman in NC, USA, would be so concerned about a far distant island? WP has broadened my horizons, and provided the opportunity to read and learn, despite my permanent lockdown, until the vaccine takes hold.

Now, onto WP topics. A WP friend emailed me a copy of the paywalled Cambridge obituary source, entitled as Polar Profile. I printed it, and it consists of four, double-columned pages! Oh joy! I plan to do more on the draft, after the New Year and will look into obtaining an image of this intelligent and worthy scientist. Will keep you posted. Thanks so much for your encouragement and support, it has meant a great deal to me. Best wishes to you and yours, as we bid a hearty farewell to 2020! Take care of yourself, Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 06:33, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tribe of Tiger: Yes - that was good news, indeed. I'm glad you got a copy of the Cambridge obituary, so good luck carrying on with his biography in the New Year. I'm so pleased you've found comfort and joy in editing Wikipedia, and do shout if you need any input from me. Meanwhile, here's a little festive poem for you on this Christmas Eve. See: WP:TWAS Best wishes! Nick Moyes (talk) 15:12, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

ACR info

Hi Nick Moyes. I saw your message on the request I put up. I hope I am doing this right because I have never used wikip like this. You mentioned looking for reliable sources for Amanda Carolina Rodriguez as a wrestler. I dont know if this counts but I will leave you wit links to look over. I think she proves international cult following. A lot of fans talk about and post about her. She has been round a long time and worked for a lot a big shows. She is also mentioned and credited in top wrestling companies and in wrestling retail. she has a lot of internet pages about her and truly think she deserves a page among the rest.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Manageittoday (talk • contribs) 15:04, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

@Manageittoday: You're referring to this thread. I think you meant to post this at Pi's page (who I have now 'pinged' by mentioning their name here), as they were the one offering to assist you, not me. I am afraid I have zero interest in wrestling, myself, though I am a bit worried by your user name. It suggests you might be doing paid editing here to manage information on behalf of client. Is that so? If it is, you have a Conflict of Interest and must declare who is paying you to edit which article, and to do that on your userpage. There is help for you to follow here: WP:PAID. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 16:04, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Biodiversity Park, Visakhapatnam: Revision history

Dear sir, Sure sir, I will follow you certainly. I am just trying to replace some existing ones with better ones only sir. I will maintain the number of pictures present in the original article.Matter also as advised by you I will cut short to make it more beautiful or else you will advise and edit sir please. thanking sir, with regards Dr. Rama Murty --Bmantha (talk) 14:15, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

No worries. Keep up the good work, sir. Nick Moyes (talk) 15:19, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• There is a new tool where you can see which home wiki users have in discussions on Meta. This can help show which communities are not part of the discussion on wikis where we make decisions that affect many other wikis.
• You can now thank users for file uploads or for changing the language of a page. [5]

Problems

• There were many errors with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was rolled back. Updates that should have happened last week are late. [6]
• Everyone was logged out. This was because a user reported being logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [7]
• Many pages have JavaScript errors. You can read more and now see a list of user scripts with errors.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 October. It will be on all wikis from 8 October (calendar).
• Letters immediately after a link are shown as part of the link. For example the entire word in [[Child]]ren is linked. On Arabic wikis this works at both the start and end of a word. Previously on Arabic wikis numbers and other non-letter Unicode characters were shown as part of the link at the start of a word but not at the end. Now only Latin and Arabic letters will extend links on Arabic wikis. [8]

Future changes

• You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [9]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:24, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Goldbach conjecture

Thank you sir ! for your kind advice! Debdoot guha (talk) 14:08, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Angelo Cardona - Conflict of Interest/Paid Editing Query

Hey, this is James, I can't find a way to leave a message on your talk page. First of all, thank you for your feedback on the Teahouse. I am writing about the draft: Angelo Cardona. I just wanted to mention that I do not have any conflict of interest in the creation of the article nor I have been paid to create it, and this is not the only article I have worked on as you mentioned on the Teahouse. I did translate the English article of Sharan Burrow (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharan_Burrow) into Spanish Wikipedia. I wanted to do the same thing with Angelo Cardona's article but I am not allowed to translate from Wikipedia Spanish into English yet. I am just learning how is the process of translating in multiple Wikipedias as I will be interested in translating articles in the future from one Wiki to another, any suggestions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by James Hagemann (talk • contribs) 18:20, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Replied to on your own talk page. Nick Moyes (talk) 13:38, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Historical Events and Objects

Dear Nick,

I hope you are healthy and in good spirit. I am reaching out to you as I am greatly interested in improving articles on Wikipedia dealing with historical events and objects in museums. I tried editing several articles by adding depth and notable information to enhance articles, but my entries/contributions were deleted very quickly.

I was wondering if we could have a chat about how to improve articles and to make lasting changes to articles and paragraphs that will not be deleted?

I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, Wiilkenson — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiilkenson (talk • contribs) 11:52, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Wiilkenson: Hello there and thanks for dropping by. I think you fell foul of diving in a bit too quickly with one specific source and then repeating that source again and again. As a result, all your edits looked like WP:LINKSPAM (that's a shortcut to a page on the topic) and they were reverted and you were then left a gentle warning notice on your talk page. Don't worry - it's very easy for beginners to make mistakes or appear to be out to achieve just one thing (e.g. book or organisation promotion) whereas you may know that you genuinely want to make valuable contributions. The trick is to learn from what other editors may tell you.

First off, why not make clear your background and interests by saying a little bit about yourself on your userpage? Whenever I distrust the motives of an editor, I go take a look at what, if anything, they've written there. Whilst absence of a userpage isn't a crime here, the presence of one can help guide me to understand a user's motives, and I can respond accordingly. You don't have to declare any personal details, but just tell the truth about your expertise and interests. Knowing a new user is a student doing a college project, or a local history buff having their first foray into editing is of enormous help. Their past edits to various pages also tell me their motives, and someone who has taken the trouble to do The Wikipedia Adventure and collected all 15 different badges on our interactive tour is likely to be seen as more worth being given the benefit of the doubt to than someone with four or five troubling major edits and no userpage.

I think this edit to Dún Laoghaire was troublesome because it was unbalanced. It failed to say a small fact in a concise way, and went on about the Little Museum of Dublin, and then repeated the reference unnecessarily - hence the linkspam revert. I don't know if you are directly connected to the museum, but if you are, or know anyone there, why not simply encourage them to upload that photo to Wikimedia Commons? We need more museums top appreciate that it indirectly benefits them in their mission to communicate knowledge by making resources available on Wikipedia. Any 1900 photo will be out of copyright by now, and could be inserted into the article with just a short caption. Of course, if you are connected, it would be a good idea to make a simple 'conflict of interest' declaration on your userpage. See WP:CI for details how you can do this.

So, start off with smaller edits to pages you're interested in, perhaps adding citations where these have been flagged up, or fixing typos/grammar. Learn how to add one reference and then use it again elsewhere without having to repeat it. See WP:REFNAME for that, or a little guidance page and video I made - see WP:ERB. If you are unsure whether an edit you want to make would be ok, you could propose it on the talk page of the relevant article (along with its source) and gain the input of other people who are watching edits made to that page. In time, you might want to visit the WP:GLAM WikiProject - a scheme aiming to link Wikipedians and cultural institutions together to mobilise knowledge from within Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums.  

I hope this reply offers you some useful insights. (Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four keyboard tildes like this: ~~~~.) Nick Moyes (talk) 15:20, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

grand, thank you so much!Wiilkenson (talk) 14:10, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

My Fault (Armond Rizzo)

Per this I should have just used a G11 from the start, you are absolutely correct, both at the same time looks like an overkill. Celestina007 (talk) 15:41, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Celestina007: No worries. I think AFD might have been the best route (but I've not waded through the article in detail, yet). Nick Moyes (talk) 15:48, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

User:Celestina007 - I disagree as to whether G11 should have been used from the start, and agree with User:Nick Moyes in declining the G11. G11 is for articles that are exclusively promotional. This article is not exclusively promotional. It is a biography of a living person that describes his career. In my experience, and I have tagged a lot of articles for G11 and have very seldom had a tagging declined, G11 is intended primarily for corporate articles, and only occasionally for articles about persons. If an article is capable of being reworked to be a run-of-the-mill biography of a non-notable person, then it isn't G11. A biography of a non-notable person should be deleted, but not via G11. I haven't decided whether the article should be deleted, but it was reasonable to nominate it for AFD, and nominating it for G11 was a good-faith mistake. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:32, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Robby,(hope you don’t mind me calling you that) the article was borderline promotional hence I should have carried it to an AFD first since I wasn’t 100% sure it was blatantly promotional. @Robert McClenon, you just like Nick are correct. Celestina007 (talk) 17:12, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

request for permission to create article on List of butterflies in Andhra Pradesh in Wiki article 'List of butterflies of India' per state lists.

Dear Sir, I am extremely happy - Already you have guided me in my first article, for which no words to express my happiness and gratitude. You have responded in a nice way, always guiding, supporting and encouraging me in creating new articles or editing articles. I did some research work and guided some research scholars also regarding the butterflies diversity of Visakhapatnam district (published some papers and the articles seen in some famous news papers of India and Andhra Pradesh) with some knowledge on state Andhra Pradesh level. Since the article is not existing I would like to contribute. Please guide me sir whenever time permits. I will follow your advise and instructions how to prepare the article which you have just mentioned. Thanking you sir with regards Dr.Rama Murty --Bmantha (talk) 13:57, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bmantha: Hello, Dr Murty. Please forgive me - I'm afraid I did not recognise your username when I replied at the Teahouse via mobile, and had not remembered we had previously communicated over Biodiversity Park, Visakhapatnam. You certainly seem like the ideal biologist to create that article. I hope I did not insult you by my reply. I do however worry whether your inexperience with Wikipedia might be a bit of a problem, but preparing a full species list in advance of trying to create it within Wikipedia does then make even more sense. I have rather a strong opinion of the many 'List of species' pages we have on Wikipedia. As someone who has researched, written and published both a printed checklist and a full Flora of my region, I get frustrated when I see the wasted opportunity of those Wikipedia lists that are totally non-sortable. To me as a consumer of biodiversity information, I would put the usefulness of printed checklists in order as follows (most useful at top):

1. Taxonomic listing by scientific name
2. Alphabetic list by scientific name

• Regional or Country Status (Native, Alien)

1. Conservation Priority status and then listed alphabetically by Scientific Name
2. Alphabetically by Common Name

1. Way down the bottom comes those random, totally incomplete lists of species we so often see on Wikipedia.

I wonder whether you would agree? But to be online and then to fail to take advantage of allowing the user to sort data in different ways is a terrible lost opportunity.

Not all my fellow Wikipedians see it that way. It is certainly true that a basic alphabetic or systematically arranged list that can't be sorted is considerably easier to create (especially if you want to include pictures), but does it offer as much encyclopaedic information to a user? Personally, I don't think so.

The nearest I have come to creating a regional species list on Wikipedia can be found it List of species and habitats of principal importance in England. I recognise that it has oddly named taxonomic categories, but these followed the names used by our government agency's own published list.

I would first put all the entries (Common Name, Scientific Name, Taxonomic Group name, Status, Conservation Status etc) into an Excel spreadsheet, directly from the online publication. For a checklist, I would want to ensure my spreadsheet was in taxonomic order, and so would add a sorting order column so I could return it to that arrangement within the spreadsheet prior to converting to Wikipedia-readable format. I used Excel's functionality to join column contents together so as to add the wikilink coding of double square brackets either side of the entry. So, by this stage I should have my spreadsheet looking like I want to see it on Wikipedia. I ensure the list is arranged taxonomically, and then I used a conversion tool (see https://excel2wiki.toolforge.org/) to convert to the usual wikimarkup code we see when using our Source Editor. That code is then pasted into my sandbox, where I can view the wikilinks. Many didn't work initially as they did not perfectly match existing page names or Redirect names. So these were manually resolved in my sandbox. I would check for accuravcy, either by following each individual link or, more easily, using the Navigation Popup tool to mouseover each link and check the displayed entry that appears.

If I felt I might need to make further major changes, I also copied those corrections back into Excel (which I keep as a 'Master' file) so that they match whatever I've changed in my sandbox. I then continue work in my sandbox by adding an introductory explanation of the List page, giving references to the published source or sources used to create the list. I think explicitly stating which checklist is used in the text is important, as different people use different checklists over the years, and it helps to know what the Wikipedia list page is based upon without having to go to the references section to find out.

My reason for creating a sortable table in taxonomic order is that it is not possible to return from alpha-sorting to taxonomic sorting unless there is a sort order column included - and this would probably be seen as intrusive. However, refreshing the page would return it to the order in which the table was originally inserted.

I would comment that List of butterflies of West Bengal is an unsortable, but pretty photographic list. List of butterflies of Kerala is an even more extreme example of over-use of photos. Neither page contains any introductory text giving me the information I would expect, such as total count of species, conservation statuses of those butterflies in India (or in just that region). Their use, therefore, is limited to being a poor-man's identification page, but gives me no idea how complete that list actually is! I would have to spend a lot of time counting entries and matching them to any published lists to be sure. List of butterflies of Gujarat is a simpler list, with a lead, but is uncited and unsortable. (See my comment on its talk page which I felt moved to make). I must reiterate my comment that many other Wikipedia editors are not sufficiently critical and are probably quite content with just a nice shiny page, partially complete and uncited, but full of nice pretty pictures, of course. I suspect I am in the minority in wanting to see 'List of species' that are based on scientific work, are actually informative and thus useful to readers!

Let me know what you think. I'll be happy to support you if you want to go down the route I have suggested. Nick Moyes (talk) 09:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Dear sir, Extremely happy to see your letter expressing your opinion on the articles. You are one of my favorite inspirers and guiding force in writing or attempted to write and create articles in wikipedia. Hats off to your knowledge in various fields and varied subjects and your systematic approach and commitment. Just I have gone through this of yours 'List of species and habitats of principal importance in England' - just simply excellent sir. I fully agree with what you said regarding the articles on butterflies of different states of India. To be frank enough, I am also a person who is with commitment, involvement, dedication and discipline and I love the work in which I am involved. I am also a result oriented person. I am sorry, these words appear as if they are a bit flattering.Though I am a retired Professor, but a student always and a constant learner. The main problem I am a learner in wikiworld. As you said still highly inexperienced, committing many mistakes but very eager to learn and correct. Still I don't know many words even you have used like sandbox. I am trying to learn. I will follow your suggestions and advise and try to be upto your expectations sir, Please try to look into my article "Sacred groves of Biodiversity Park, Visakhapatnam' in Wikipedia, where I tried to prepare tables, to depict the common name, scientific name and family. I am also not well versed with this modern computer language and applications. Regarding Butterflies, I will collect scientific data, citations, research paper URLs, along with my own articles and try to pool up the data. I know that it takes much time, I start now. I am confident, with your advise, support and constant guidance I will try to make it as more scientific and notable information in a nice format. Thank you very much sir, with regards Dr. Rama Murty, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bmantha (talk • contribs) 13:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bmantha: Because our interests so strongly coincide, I would be very happy to mentor you on some of the basics of Wikipedia and to guide you to producing a List of butterflies of Andhra Pradesh. But there is one minor condition: I would ask, please, that you do not refer to me as 'sir'. I have tremendous respect for you as a retired professor (so probably ought to be calling you 'sir' instead!). Everyone is equal here, I personally feel more comfortable just be referred to as Nick, providing you are happy to do so. I recognise this is just a small cultural difference between us. In fact, whenever two editors leave messages for one another, the convention is to use their full username and to sign their post at one and the same time. This causes the other person to receive a 'ping' or notification message, which they see at the top of any page. Some people, like me, also 'opt in' to getting an email message to inform them that they have been 'mentioned'. As you probably already appreciate, most editors work anonymously, so nobody knows their real names, anyway. But that doesn't bother me.

It is clear that you have the biodiversity knowledge for you area, and I have the knowledge to help you mobilise it here. So that sounds like good cooperation. Although I normally only work publicly on Wikipedia, I think this is one time where we both might find it helpful to work using email, too, as you would be able to send me Excel spreadsheets to look at, and send back. Let me know if you think this would help, and I will send you my personal email address. (There is an 'email this user' link on the left side of the page when you are on one of my userpages.

It would be sensible to work on a dedicated subpage, so your Sandbox is ideal. There is a link to it at the top of every page (i.e. User:Bmantha/sandbox). You can have as many sub-pages as you need, and name them as you wish. e.g. User:Bmantha/Butterflies. These links will be red-linked (see WP:REDLINK) until such time as you actually create them by adding content and clicking 'Publish changes'.

I'm afraid I cannot write any more at the moment - I am a little unwell. Hope to be back soon, but please don't expect immediate replies from me. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:06, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Nick, for accepting my request to guide and cooperate in creating this article on Butterflies. I wish You should 'Get Well Soon' --Bmantha (talk) 02:12, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

List of species and habitats of principal importance in England

Dear sir, Hope You might have seen my extension letter in 'request for permission to create article on List of butterflies in Andhra Pradesh in Wiki article 'List of butterflies of India' per state lists'. I earnestly request you to go through the tables in 'Sacred groves of Biodiversity Park, Visakhapatnam, and I solicit your valuable opinion and suggestions. The purpose of writing this letter is, I have gone through the page 'List of species and habitats of principal importance in England, I hope created by you (in fact I don't know how to check the creator of a page in wikipedia articles), which is really excellent. I got some doubts or suggestions (I don't know) regarding the table. for example: 1. species list, under taxon column for all mammals, it is better to mention class Mammal/Mammalia uniformly to all or Mammal and Cetacean (for whales) or Mammal and Chiropteran ( for bats) it goes on like this for others also. 2. under taxon column for all reptiles, it is better to mention order name reptile/reptilia uniformly or reptile and lizard/lacertilian for lizards, reptile and snake/ophidian for snakes, reptile and turtle/chelonian for turtles. Sir Please dont mistake me, I am novice in this wikiworld and not having in depth knowledge in any field. I am just having superficial knowledge in this biological world. I am a bit poor in my expressions in english also. Please suggest and advise me. I am extremely happy over your subject knowledge in many fields and friendly nature in your expressions. Thanking you sir, with regards, Dr. M. Rama Murty, --Bmantha (talk) 03:43, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bmantha: Please do not be worried by my silence. I have already part-drafted a (detailed) reply to your previous post, offering my support. I apologise that I have been very busy in real life and am not quite ready to post it, as yet. I hope to be able to reply within the next 2 days or so. Nick Moyes (talk) 07:52, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

A cupcake for you!

Thanks, and you were right! Even though nothing bad happened, having that userbox just to have it ahead of time so I won't have to remember putting it there in the future, that would be misleading to other users. Thanks for saying that! :) Toad62 (talk) 19:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

@Toad62: Thank you, muchly. It can be really hard to know how best to raise small errors, or how they'll be taken. But always better to raise something sooner, than let it become a problem later on. All the best, Nick Moyes (talk) 19:53, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Please can you read my draft?!

Hi @NickMoyes: a few weeks ago you offered to mentor me... I've just finished writing my first page, and it's been submitted (thanks to TeaHouse help!)... I'd really appreciate it if you could look at it and comment, as I understand I can continue to edit it while it's waiting for approval. It's here (I'm learning!). Is this a reasonable request?? I'm finding some things about Wikipedia really straight forward, and others quite confusing Best wishes Ruthhenrietta (talk) 09:03, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Ruthhenrietta: Stunning job! I'm really impressed, and by the time I saw it, Thomas Daniel (merchant) had already been moved to mainspace. But, yes, we always encourage editors to continue working on their articles whilst awaiting review. The reality is also that, despite there being a cue of around 3,600 draft articles at the moment, most reviewers quickly spot the non-promotional, really interesting articles like this one and review them very quickly. You'll have seen that I've removed all the external links within the article itself, as these go against our 'Manual of Style' I've converted most to inline citations for you. More on external links at WP:EL. You did a good job adding a table - these are never the easiest things to work with.

If you really fancy a challenge, I might suggest you put this article forward for our Main Page 'Did You Know...? spot. This is a way of showcasing new content. It can be a fiddly process to go through, but the prize of a mainpage presence for 12 or 24 hours is a great reward and gets you many thousands of views. You can find out more at WP:DYK though the instructions there are complicated. Here's a simpler version. The critical thing is that you have to make the submission within 7 days of it going into mainspace. After that, you can take your time addressing any feedback you receive to get it into shape. Something like:

• "Did you know ... that merchant and slave owner Thomas Daniel was known as the 'King of Bristol' because of his power and influence over the city's business affairs?", or
• "Did you know ... that at the abolition of slavery in Britain in 1834, Bristol merchant Thomas Daniel was awarded compensation for his loss of 4,967 enslaved people?"    

You might even be able to get the good folks at Bristol Museum to give you access to copy and upload his image to go on the main page.

Either way, you've done a great job and should be proud of your work. I can see you've mastered quite a lot, but if you wanted to drop me a list of things you still don't fully understand, I'd be happy to try and steer you in the right direction, or link to guidance pages you can read. I might be out of circulation for a little while on health grounds, but I'll do what a can to assist. There's no need to ping me if you post on my own talk page, though it's essential if you do it from another page. (Make sure you get me name spelled correctly, though. You missed the space off, so it wouldn't have worked anyway. But not to worry. Regards,

Helpful

Hey I saw a reply from you in one of the questions at the Teahouse, I found it helpful too. Thank you Yogibur (talk) 09:41, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

You didn't say which question, but I'm glad you found it helpful. Just watching and seeing other questions and answers is a great way to learn new stuff. All the best!. Nick Moyes (talk) 09:44, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you...

...for stepping on on the Ed Gold brouhaha. With great effort I had restrained from pointing out to Mr. Gold that except when he stirs up Teahouse, the article about him garners an average of five view a day, and perhaps he should work harder on his career and worry less about what is written about his career. David notMD (talk) 11:47, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I hadn't even noticed that! I am just in the process of leaving him a notice, telling him that the consensus at the Teahouse is that he's no longer welcome to post their, and am working out how to implement my first partial block on someone. I find this a really sad and most unusual situation where someone who could clearly benefit the project and could themselves benefit from people working with them. Instead, they have put everyone's back's up. In complete contrast, I have just received a lovely 'thank you' gift from the widow of a mountaineer about whom I chose to write earlier this year. I spent 6 months deciding whether I dared approach them to offer a chance to comment on my draft. They were over the moon that someone actually wanted to create a page about them. Those are the positive highlights, this has sadly been one of the negatives. Nick Moyes (talk) 12:33, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-44

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

• You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on October 27 around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [10]
• Last week, links to "diffs" from mobile watchlists and recentchanges were linking to page-revisions instead of diffs. This has now been fixed. [11]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• Since the introduction of the interface administrators user group in 2018, administrators couldn’t view the deleted history of CSS/JS pages. Now they can. [12]
• There was a problem with the Change Tags. The software would apply the "Reverted" tag to any page actions such as page-protection changes if they came directly after a reverted edit. This has now been fixed for new edits. [13]
• The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias in November. Another announcement will be made once the date is finalized. [14]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Appropriateness of Online Source

Hi Nick,

I hope this message finds you well and in good spirit.

I have a question concerning the appropriateness of a source which I would like to use.

This is the link to the online source: https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/the-little-museum-of-dublin

Nick, I would love you to visit my user page, which describes in more detail why I am reaching out to you regarding this issue.

I look forward to hear from you.

Sincerely, Wiilkenson (talk) 13:02, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

@Wiilkenson: Thanks for asking. I wasn't familiar with this Google project. I would certainly want to use it with great care, as it's clear that some content is provided by legitimate cultural organisations, but that others is provided by unspecified third party sources, including Wikipedia itself. I took a look at the section on Joseph Wright of Derby and it's pretty thin, and not all info comes from the organisations (see here). It comes down to context and purpose for which you want to cite something. As a museum person myself, I would be OK to cite my organisation's own website (or even literature I had published through it), providing it supported factual statements about objects within that museum. But I would not have wanted to use that source again and again simply to promote the museum. I certainly would never cite a Google Knowledge panel, which is an algorithmic assemblage of information, not all of which is in any way correct. I would certainly prefer you to cite the museum's own website about objects you want to write about than to a Google-created mashup. But maybe if you let me know the context, I can comment further. If you are in the position of being able to encourage the Dublin-based museum to publish definitive documents on its own website, these can be cited with no concerns over reliability as they will already have had editorial review. Does this help? Nick Moyes (talk) 13:46, 28 October 2020 (UTC)  

Thanks a lot for your quick response. Your feedback was very helpful indeed. Nick, everything on the Google Cultural Institute's Little Museum page was both provided by and edited by the Little Museum for accuracy. Why is the source problematic in your opinion? I am happy to give you more context: I would like to propose and make changes to already existing articles dealing with notable objects that we have in our collection. This also goes in hand with uploading relevant pictures of our notable objects to related articles. Since we own the pictures, it would not be problematic in terms of copyright, would it? Another thing: To make sure, the Little Book of Dublin itself is appropriate as long as the citation does not appear more than once in the article? It contains solid information on the related objects and is available in print establishing verifiability. Wiilkenson (talk) 11:06, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Wiilkenson: OK, lots of issues here. Firstly, you cannot use images owned by the museum unless they have been clearly and obviously released under a CC-BY-SA licence, permitting commercial reuse. Just giving permission for someone to use an image on Wikipedia is not acceptable. The museum can, if it wishes, create its own account and upload its own photos - but you may not do so unless you own the legal rights to the image. It can, of course, add a Creative Commons licence statement to either its entire website, a single page, or to a single image. You could then capture and upload that image, stating that it is not your own, then linking to the page where it comes from. One of our so called 'OTRS Team' members then assesses the rights and either approves or declines it. Even if that original image were then to have its licence statement changed, the fact that it was previously irrevocably released for reuse is not overridden. I am personally very keen to encourage all museums to consider the merits of making images of objects in their collections available under Creative Commons commercial re-use licence, which allows Wikimedia Commons to accept them. Often, the museum fears it is somehow losing it's commercial control and doesn't want to do that. But I respond by saying that you control the image resolution you release. By making the image freely available for PC use, you still control the higher resolution images which a book publisher needs AND you still own the copyright and have the right to be credited whenever that image is reused under that CC-BY-SA licence - so you get the publicity and visibility that foes with it.

Secondly, linking to 'The Little Book of Dublin' is only OK if it is relevant to an article and is not seen as link spamming - a pitfall I think you fell into previously. Self-published books are less well-regarded than those produced by organisation or commercial publishers, having editorial control. Thirdly: I still urge you to link to the Museum's own material, not stuff that it has 'curated' on a third party site. But give it a try and let me see how a few of your edits might appear. Finally, I was unclear if I was communicating with you as an official member of the museum staff, a volunteer there, or just a keen enthusiastic visitor who wants to see objects in its collections better interpreted. All of these are fine, but it can influence how I advise you. I then noticed your COI declaration that you are an intern at the museum. I think that means you ought to use our WP:PAID declaration, even though your time there might not be remunerated with cash. You still receive some benefits from your involvement there, and especially so if you have been directly encouraged to edit. If you are the author of, or benefit from the sale of the book you're keen to use, that, too, ought to be declared, I feel. None of this is to discourage you - I love seeing Wikipedians assist museums to mobilise knowledge about their collections. If you encounter problem or concerns about image release, I'd be happy to speak with or reply to emails from the relevant official museum staff member to address any concerns he or she might have.  Nick Moyes (talk) 11:49, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Nick, thank you so much for your help and support. Your quick and detailed feedback is of great help to me! I really appreciate it. I am planning on setting up a section for the museum on Wikimedia Commons. I am interested in uploading definitive documents, i.e. pictures of our museum and objects.

Feel free to let me know what you think, Nick. I would be delighted to hear your thoughts on this as you are an expert on both Wikipedia and museums. Wiilkenson (talk) 09:42, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

@Wiilkenson: Will you be taking all these images yourself? Or are they from the museum's own collections? This is a crucial distinction. If the latter, it might be best for you to work with the staff member who is authorised to release their images and get them to create a separate account, used just for Wikimedia commons uploads. eg "DubMusFiona" is a unique, non promotional name for one person, which they can include an explanation of their work role and they can make the relevant uploads. Tell me more about how you're thinking of working with them to do this, and I can probably advise as best I can, rather than have to guess all the various permutations of how you might work with them. It would help me to know that they are fully in support of your plans, and give me some idea of the total number of images you're thinking of releasing under a Creative Commons licence. I will just suggest one other thing for you and they to consider. Why not set up a Flickr Account for the museum instead? Then they will have control of which of the images they release (by changing the default Flickr licence per image, per topic or per account). That would than allow you, me or anyone else to select only those images they have chosen to release under a CC-BY-SA licence, and upload those to Wikimedia Commons, whilst others that they wish not to be re-used commercially can be kept as copyright Dublin Museum, and they can't be used on Wikipedia or commercially by anyone. I'm thinking this is a good way to go. The Museum staff can plan and make mass uploads of copyright images, linked to their museum website, then they, alongside you, can change individual images they'd like to see on Commons, and you or anyone else is then free to select the ones needed to illustrate articles. See Wikipedia:FLICKR, plus some helpful advice at WP:REQUESTFLICKR. Nick Moyes (talk) 16:04, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

November edit-a-thons from Women in Red

Women in Red | November 2020, Volume 6, Issue 11, Numbers 150, 173, 178, 180, 181 Online events: New: Textile arts | Stage+Screen+Radio+Podcast Continuing initiatives: #1day1woman | BLM/Anti-discrimination Contest (Oct-Nov-Dec): Women in Asia Help us plan future events: Virtual Ideas Cafe Join the conversation: Women in Red talkpage Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red | Opt-out of notifications Social media: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:51, 28 October 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging

TheWikiWizard-October 2020

Hello, Nick Moyes! Here is the October 2020 issue of TheWikiWizard.

• What's Hot! (candy time?)
• Articles (New One this month)
• Interviews (We have a new Interview!)
• News about Wikipedia! (WAM 2020)
• Editor's Notes (News/Updates!)
• Activity Page (Activities?)
• Ads (Super Cool Ads)

To change your subscription, or to subscribe click Here. We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading & stay safe! --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 23:27, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

a disruptive user is being disruptive

user:2604:3D09:7287:2600:A54D:53EB:380E:C41D is being disruptive and doing vandalism. I think it might be necessary to block them, although I am just someone looking at recent changes. Firestar9990 (talk) 05:40, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi Firestar9990. An important part of monitoring Recent Changes is following up on vandalism. You did the right thing by issuing increasing levels of warnings against vandalism. The important thing is to wait until after your last warning to see if the user continues. That is then the right time to report to WP:AIV. Avoid doing both final warning and reporting at once. I either add the user to my watchlist (or simply keep an extra tab open on their special contributions and refresh it from time to time to see if they've continued. If they have, then go to AIV. Some editors are too keen to both warn and report at the same time, which I just reject at AIV as insufficiently warned, and thus it's waste of an admins time to investigate and turn down, plus a waste of the reporting editor's time if they can't be bothered to follow the procedure and help us work together. But you made the right assessment of vandalism, and I see the IP has now been blocked.

With an IPv6 IP editor, I always look, not only at the single IP contributions, but also display those across what's called 'the /64 range' - this is the range of different IPv6 address one individual user might edit under, without having any control over which addresses their system chooses for them. To see this, in the url at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/2604:3D09:7287:2600:A54D:53EB:380E:C41D just add /64 to the end to display this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/2604:3D09:7287:2600:A54D:53EB:380E:C41D/64. In this instance the contributions are identical, but that isn't always the case. See here. Try putting /64 on the end of this url to see the difference in one person's contributions. So, do mention at WP:AIV if you've found vandalism from more than one related IPv6 address in the /64 range, so we can then block the entire range, if necessary. You're allowed to tot up the warning across the different addresses within that range and conclude they're not here for good. Hope this helps, and I see another admin has already blocked the IP address you mentioned above. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 15:03, 31 October 2020 (UTC)  

RE: 20/20 vision

Thanks for letting me know.

I actually selected the color based on the Wikimedia Design Style Guide for accessibility reasons, but it appears to refer to the usage of black text on yellow. I've changed my signature to apply the colourization (as I just look for the color and general shape more that the actual text anyways) through user CSS, so it would appear regularly coloured by anyone who doesn't have my user styles. —Mainframe98 _talk 10:36, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

ANI AIV

Hi, Nick. I've just seen this response from you to me at ANI AIV. I just thought I'd mention that we were in agreement on the essential point, which is that the editor should not be blocked at present. We gave different explanations as to why we thought that, and as I said I was a little surprised at what you said, but I don't think that difference of opinion was a big deal. And I certainly agree with you that "it's better to not block someone than to do so unjustifiably". JBW (talk) 21:40, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

AArgh! Don't panic me like that, JBW. I didn't know I'd been brought to WP:ANI - but then realised you meant WP:AIV. Phew! You know, it really wouldn't have bothered me if someone had decided to go further and block them - better that than overturning another admin's actions without prior discussion. Perhaps it was late (1am local time), but teasing it out a little for my own benefit, all I saw was what I often see at the Teahouse - someone trying to push their favourite subject in a promotional manner in one article with multiple edits to it and no prior warnings of spam editing on their talk page, bar a warning about WP:COPYVIO, so felt reluctant to block as vandalism purely over a single act of WP:PROMOTION at that time. So I think that was why I commented that it wasn't WP:VANDALISM or of huge concern to me - but it was good the IP editor felt it was an issue (I hope I didn't put them off future reporting). I'm just talking through the rationale for my actions more for my own benefit really. I'm pleased we agreed overall, so there's no need to reply back ...unless you want to point out something really dumb that I've said. - All the best. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:45, 31 October 2020 (UTC)      

Sorry about the "ANI" shock. I really shouldn't use these TLAs, then I wouldn't risk getting them mixed up. Leaving that aside, what you say makes perfect sense, and no, I don't think you've said anything really dumb. TTFN. JBW (talk) 16:53, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Growth team updates #15

Welcome to the fifteenth newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.

Variants C and D deployed

Variant D in Portuguese Wikipedia

Variants C and D are two new arrangements of the newcomer homepage. We hope they will increase the number of users using suggested edits. They both make suggested edits the clear place where newcomers should get started on the page. They have some differences in their workflows, because we want to test which design is better. We deployed these variants on October 19; half of newcomers get each variant. After about 5 weeks, we will analyze the data from the tests. The goal is to determine which variant is helping more newcomers to make more suggested edits. We will identify the better variant and then use it with all newcomers.

Structured tasks: add a link

Concept A for add a link.

As we discussed in previous newsletters, the team is working on our first "structured task": the "add a link" task. After community discussion on design ideas, we ran user tests on the mobile designs. We decided on the design concept we want to use moving forward: Concept A. We're now engineering the backend for this feature. Next, we will be running user tests for desktop designs.

Learn more about the findings.

Community news

• We recently deployed the Growth features to Polish, Portuguese, Swedish and Turkish Wikipedias. 18 wikis now have Growth features. Learn more about getting the features.
• Have you recently checked if all interface messages are translated for your language?

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

10:09, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2020).

Administrator changes

John M Wolfson

Bduke • Nilfanion • Philosopher • Rspeer • Yunshui

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

TonyBallioni

CheckUser changes

EdJohnston • Oshwah • Yamla

Yunshui

Oversight changes

Anarchyte

Yunshui

Guideline and policy news

• Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.

Technical news

• Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
• Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
• Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.

Arbitration

• The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
• The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.

Miscellaneous

• A reminder that standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. (American Politics 2 Arbitration case).

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:52, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser uses very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It could lead to downgrade attacks. Since October 29, 2020, users who use old TLS versions will not be able to connect to Wikimedia projects. A list of browser recommendations is available. All modern operating systems and browsers are always able to reach Wikimedia projects. [15]
• There is a new automatic tracking category available: Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments. It collects pages which use the {{formatnum}} parser function with invalid (non-numeric) input, e.g. {{formatnum:TECHNEWS}}. Note that {{formatnum:123,456}} is also invalid input: as described in the documentation, the argument should be unformatted so that it can be reliably and correctly localised. The tracking category will help identify problematic usage and double-formatting. The new tracking category's name can be translated at translatewiki. [16]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 4. It will be on all wikis from November 5 (calendar).
• Administrators and stewards will be able to use a special page (Special:CreateLocalAccount) to force local account creation for a global account. This is useful when account creation is blocked for that user (by a block or a filter). [17]
• The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias on November 4. This change excludes the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias, plus a few smaller Wikipedias with special circumstances. You can read the help page and the troubleshooting guide for more information. [18]

Future changes

• A discussion has been restarted about using a Unicode minus sign (− U+2212) in the output of {{formatnum}} when it is given a negative argument. [19]
• In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions.

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16:08, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Opinion, please?

Nick, would you have a look at Draft:Art Napoleon (Artist)? I discovered this through the Teahouse. In the course of refining some sentences, I read through several sources. They supported the information, and were not close paraphrases or copyvios. Even if I am "allowed" to move an article to Mainspace, I am not sure if I have the gravitas to do so. I think User:TipsyElephant has done a fine job, here. You are an outdoorsman, who must eat in wild places. Perhaps this article is interesting to you, & you may wish to speed it along to Mainspace. I am somewhat unclear on WP rules (and advice) for placing other editor's draft articles into Mainspace. So, here we have a good article by a good editor...asking your opinion. Thanks for your time. Best, Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 03:57, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi Tribe of Tiger. Thanks for your post here. Whilst the article looks quite good, I'm sufficiently busy right now that I don't feel I can drop things to make a proper assessment of it. So, I'd prefer to let the AFC folk handle it. Let me know if, in due course, there's a problem with it. I might be willing to step in then. Hope that's OK, Nick Moyes (talk) 01:29, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, sorry, I was seized by a fit of enthusiasm, and later felt badly, and quite embarrassed, for troubling you by posting here. A good article will be moved to Mainspace in due course...there's no dire hurry, unless we want a freshly-caught moose for dinner! Thanks for your generosity and kind words. Take care, Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 02:15, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Fred Butt

Hi Nick, I wanted to let you know that I think the FRED BATT that you banned earlier is the real Fred Batt. I found a question from FRED BATT in the Teahouse regarding something about another account with his name, the Fred Batt with capital letters is the real one. He is the demonologist from the TV show Most Haunted and you have blocked him indefinitely because you thought he was an impersonator Hope this helps :-) 82.40.130.75 (talk) 08:25, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you kindly, IP editor. Yes, I was aware of that but, without 'proof' of identity, we have no way of knowing if the person is who they say they are. A polite softblock allows them to establish that fact. It was me who answered them at the Teahouse], and explained what I was going to do. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:29, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

John

It would be encyclopedic to find RS on John pulling the ground intelligence out of Iraq. That blinded George and sent Collin to the UN with nonsense. Charles Juvon (talk) 00:25, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

No comprendo. I guess that relates to John M. Deutch, but I don't follow, sorry. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:41, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-46

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• You can see reference previews. This shows a preview of the footnote when you hover over it. This has been a beta feature. It will move out of beta and be enabled by default. There will be an option not to use it. The developers are looking for small or medium-sized wikis to be the first ones. You can let them know if your wiki is interested. [20]
• From November 16 the categories will not be sorted in order for a short time. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the internationalisation library. They will use a script to fix the existing categories. This can take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [21][22]

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15:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Well said

Hello NM. Is it possible to enshrine your post somewhere in the policies or guidelines? It is succinct while clearly covering all the important points that someone who wants to edit here at the 'pedia needs to know. I've tried to make helpful posts like this and tend to get bogged down in the details. In any event thanks for the post and for all your work over the years. Regards. MarnetteD|Talk 21:26, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Problems with your archives

Hi Nick,
I found a few problems with your archives. On Archive 1, the dates go from 2010-2017, on Archive 2, the archives from 2017-2020, and on Archive 3, the archives go from 2017-2020. I think archives are supposed to go in chronological order. Just letting you know of those issues. Interstellarity (talk) 18:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: I wasn't aware of that at all! It looks like the bot went haywire sometime around March to August of this year. It appears to have archived recent talk page messages to the ends of many older achive files. I’ll have to sort this out sometime, though I'm not quite sure why it happened. But it’s a low priority right now, though thank you ever so much for bringing it to my attention. Nick Moyes (talk) 19:11, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Help if you can please

About a month ago I nominated Biblical criticism for FA. It is getting little enough attention that the coordinator is considering archiving it. This is its second try and I am afraid that would kill it forever. IMO, it is an important topic that deserves to be amongst WP's best. It needs a source review - random checks to be sure sources say what the tex claims, so I am asking everyone I know for help. There are too many sources for any one person to do, so if you could even do one, it would be deeply appreciated. Post anything you do here. Please help if you can. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:04, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate the dilemma, but the subject is not my forte, so forgive me if I don't find the time to assist. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:02, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

thanks for responding

i knew how to make a page but my computer with my account that got hacked doesent work anymore because it was a windiws 7 so I have a small laptop with the wikepideia app and I just can't seem to figure out how to add a page Ezzpin (talk) 23:14, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that, Ezzpin. If you let me know your old account name, I will check its status for you. But I simply have no experience of any Wikipedia editing apps. Hardly any editors use them at all. I simply suggest you go back to editing via a browser. No app needed, and you'll have all the functionality you will have been familiar with. Out of interest, could you give me a link to the app, so I can give it a tryout sometime? Thanks, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:34, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia&referrer=utm_source%3Dportal%26utm_medium%3Dbutton%26anid%3Dadmob That is the link to the app i will try to go back to using the browser i never thought of that my old account was called Ezzirp i have tried to look for it i cant find it anywhere though so if you could find it that would be amazing! Thats kind of where i got my new name from Ezzpin im kind of old and not that good with technology thats why im kinda wondering about all this stuff.

@Ezzpin: I can find no trace of any account by that, or similar name (see here) Nearest fit is 'Ezzkmo', but that one only made a few hundred edits. Nothing else comes close. Unless you can remember a few key articles which you made a significant contribution to, or talk pages you edited, or unusual interactions and memorable you had over a specific topic, I doubt I can find it with that information. However, if you can remember at least one article you've edited which doesn't attract hundreds and hundreds of edits, then you could click the View History tab and scroll back 500 edits at a time to look for editor names around the year period you were editing. That might prompt you as to your previous account name.

I see the app is the official Wikipedia/Wikimedia app (see List of Wikipedia mobile applications), but it doesn't look like its intended for article creation - just viewing or minor editing. I seriously suggest you ignore it and do as I suggested previously if you want to create a new article. Seee this page for guidance on new articles. (Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four keyboard tildes like this: ~~~~.) Nick Moyes (talk) 02:37, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Ezzpin: I installed the Wikipedia app on my old iPhone last night and gave it a try. Whilst it looked fine for viewing Wikipedia content, I couldn't get it to work anything like properly when trying to reply to this thread (three test replies all ended up halfway up the page in another thread entirely). I switched it to desktop view (via the tiny link at the bottom of every page), but found it would not fit on my screen or let me access the top right search bar, so I couldn't even search for existing pages. I would never, ever consider using it for editing, and would stick to my Chrome or Safari browsers as this gives me full functionality. It was worth a try, so thanks for the prompt. Let me know how you get on, or any thought you had on your old account. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 10:45, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-47

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 16 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for most languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [23][24]

Changes later this week

• If you merged two pages in a namespace where pages can't redirect this used to break the merge history. This will now be fixed. [25]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 November. It will be on all wikis from 19 November (calendar).

Future changes

• The Community Wishlist Survey is now open for proposals. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 16 to 30 November. You can vote on proposals from 8 December to 21 December.

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15:36, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks

Sorry i did not get back to you sooner i have been very busy Well i guess i don't remember the name to my old account i will go through some of the articles i did edit though i guess i will just stick to using the browser as it seems easier to use Thanks for all the help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ezzpin (talk • contribs) 22:26, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	Teahouse Barnstar
	Nick, I am constantly grateful for the work you do keeping the Teahouse true to its roots and initial vision (such as that was!). Thank you for embodying the spirit of the Teahouse in your answers and strategy/policy discussions. J-Mo 23:37, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I would also like to thank you so much for your work at the Teahouse. This barnstar is well deserved!! :-) Interstellarity (talk) 18:13, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:National Pollinator Strategy

Hello, Nick Moyes. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "National Pollinator Strategy".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:54, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks

Many thanks indeed for your help. I now understand what to do. Much appreciated! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Garboard Strake (talk • contribs) 07:42, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

TheWikiWizard-November 2020

Hello, Nick Moyes! Here is the November 2020 issue of TheWikiWizard.

• What's Hot! (Lots of turkey)
• Articles (New Ones this month!)
• Interviews (This month, we focused the interview on a certain topic)
• News about Wikipedia! (Updates about Wikipedia)
• Editor's Notes (News/Updates!)
• Activity Page (Activities!)
• Ads (Super Cool Ads)

To change your subscription, or to subscribe click Here. We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading & stay safe! --つがる Talk to つがる:) 🍁 02:34, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

• This Message was delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:44, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-48

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Timestamps in Special:Log are now links. They go to Special:Log for only that entry. This is how timestamps work on for example the history page. [26]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from 1 December. Unclaimed projects can be deleted from 1 January. [27]

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17:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Admin help requested

Please consider handling this under #2. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:40, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

@Davidwr: This edit does not really merit redacting (WP:REVDEL) - it will be lost in due course, and not visible. I might have redacted the edit summary had it contained offensive content (which it didn't) as these stay visible for much longer. Thank for letting me know. I have left a formal, level 2 warning for the editor concerned. Nick Moyes (talk) 18:14, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the consideration. Oh, nothing is "lost in due course" but if you mean "forgotten about in due course" and falling off the list of the 1000 most recent edits to that page in due course, I understand. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:28, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Molly.anderson0110

Just letting you know that this editor simply resumed their Disruptive editing after being released from the recent block you gave them. Looks like a longer block or an indef for WP:NOTHERE may be in order after all. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:34, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, IJBall. I am very reluctant to go straight to an indefinite block, for such minor editing behaviour, but have given them a 1 month block with an opportunity to be unblocked if they recognise the need to change that editing behaviour. I hope this gets the balance about right. Let me know if problems ever recur. Nick Moyes (talk) 19:16, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Understood. I'm coming at the standpoint of experience with editors like this and editors that just ignore the messages you and I left them are very unlikely to improve their behavior. So don't be surprised if one of us is back in another month to ask for the WP:INDEF for real next time! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:19, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Sure thing! Nick Moyes (talk) 19:38, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Can you please also block Potato2900, the latest sock?

Can you please also block Potato2900, the latest sock? Also, please revoks talk page access for all the Potato accounts, as they frequently troll the talk page. Best regards, 4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 23:20, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

OK Nick Moyes (talk) 23:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

DannyS712 should action be taken at SEWP? account link here --つがる Talk to つがる:) 🍁 03:23, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@つがる and DannyS712: Yes. Clearly the same child. I have no admin powers there. Please reportt them there. Nick Moyes (talk) 08:23, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

A block you placed

Consider semi-protecting this page for a day or two in the spirit of this block you placed in September. revision history for reason. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:40, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Action taken, as discussed. Many thanks. Nick Moyes (talk) 16:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Two questions: 1. Can you please look at latest discussion on Talk:Mountaineering; 2. Issues about changing UserName.

Hi Nick, It's Brett Aubrey of the Lyells' discussions and I have 2 questions for you, if I may be so bold. No great hurry on these...

1. I'm being harrassed (my intyerpretation) for putting up photos in the 'Talk:Mountaineering' article and my last post there - duplicated on Talk:Wikiproject Mountains - whereby User MONGO has deleted my 4 shots and used two similat but worse shots of his choosing. At first he deleted 2 of mine and made up Policy for each that is not, in fact, policy at all (but if they were, my shots would have to be deleted). When I pointed that out, he brought up more policy that didn't apply to my shots if one reads the whole policy. I'm not looking for a rubber-stamp approval from you, rather an unbiased view of whether I have grounds to keep them up (or rather, since he's deleted them, to re-add them). Someone deleted (or collapsed) 75% of my post :-(.

2. I think I recall you saying that you used to have a username, but changed over to your real name some time ago. Am I right? If so, I'm thinking of doing the same thing and am wondering if there there is any downside to that process? Is it simple for the user? Does the process leave a lot of usernames where you used them and does it change all occurrences of username to new username?

Cheers, Brett.

P.S. Here's what they deleted (no personal attacks but a journal of what MONGO has been doing)...

BACKGROUD FOR THIS POST (Very Much Optional Reading, Summarizing the Whole Thread...)

Again, I want a broader consensus from editors and other experienced Wikipedians as to the applicability of these 4 shots, which to my mind improve the article with information largely not covered elsewhere. Right now, I have MONGO unilaterally saying 'No way' to my photos and even when I say I want then up temporarily, he deletes them. I added 4 photos without deleting any other photos - he first deleted 2 of mine and as we talked, he deleted 2 more and added 2 of his choice). MONGO bitches that my photos don't adhere to policy, but then he makes up "policy" with what seems to be fake rules, such as:

• "avoid images of nonnotable recognizable persons"... (no such rule exists, as far as I can tell and I did look for it), and
• "image is not clear enough for use as a descriptive"... (I think mine are as clear as other photos, and clearer than one MONGO used).

MONGO said of my first two photos that he deleted: "policy and my personal opinion is that the two I removed were not a benefit to that article", (later adding that it was mainly policy, but the photos he used to replace mine are of the same ilk, only less directed to the article text to their left, and one of his photos features even smaller climbers visually (a complaint MONGO had about mine). The article text talks about a lot about ropes and my photo features rope, prusik and other gear that the article notes, or sometimes doesn't note, like eyewear. MONGO also complains that my second photo is "very dated now", but as an encyclopedia I would think images that were dated by a couple of decades would be OK (and one really has to look at the 'date' field to know that it's dated to the mid-1980s). I say my first 2 photos are a benefit as thay overview climbing-related topics like glacier goggles, prusiks and rope.

MONGO seems to take pride in being ornery as his TalkPage boasts: "This is the talkpage of the notorious MONGO! Leave me a message if you dare!" I don't know many people - or really, anyone - who would be proud of being notorious and then follow it up with notoriously bad and off-topic text. He's anything but helpful and makes that known with his language, lack of friendliness and high degree of snark. My experience is that the longer one deals with him, the more he stretches the rules and ignores the other person's (valid) questions, even on comments that he initially raises questions on.

MONGO also constantly brings up the policy "Images with you, friends or family prominently featured in a way that distracts from the image topic are not recommended for the main namespace. These images are considered self-promotion and the Wikipedia community has repeatedly reached consensus to delete such images." And as I've noted each time he posts that, my photo realistically CANNOT "distract from the image topic" because it's an example of the image topic - it highlights the image topic - a mountaineer on the summit of a mountain. Since MONGO always ignores that point, I've even asked MONGO just what distracts him in my photo (no response to that either, though he did ridicule the mountaineer's smile), and I asked multiple times "How can a photo of a mountaineer in his element with his gear 'distract' from a mountaineering article?" That question either got more silence from MONGO, or a repeat of the initial question, like I didn't answer it multiple times already.

At one point, MONGO even informed me that readers were not psychic (like there is such a thing), and of course I wasn't suggesting that readers are psychic (this response from MONGO was as silly and off-topic as some of his other replies); I'm only suggesting that readers can actually read the caption and therefore determine that the photo is, in fact, a summit lunch and that lunch and drink are being consumed. This seems simple to me and I'm not sure why he has a big problem with it. It's the only place in the article that nutrition and hydration are noted and based on that, I think it's worthwhile keeping in the article, but if the consensus agrees with MONGO, I'll gladly keep it down.

Another MONGO post citing 'policy' was when he deleted a shot of mine with a watermark. Searching using a variety of seach criteria centred on "Watermark", I came across Watermark-related text that stated: "This page is a proposed Commons guideline, policy, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption. References or links to this page should not describe it as "policy"." So if MONGO's "Policy" includes that text, I don't want my work deleted because of it - it's not Policy when it says it's not policy. I know I'm stretching here, so am willing to back off this image or see if my watermark can be removed (the website was shut down 8 or 9 years ago).

MONGO complains about the small size of the mountaineers in my shot, yet in a replacement shot of his, mountaineers "further up the slope" are noticably smaller... This seems a clear case of Do as MONGO says, not as MONGO does. I dismiss MONGO's argument as an unfair one. And please stop posting images that are worse in the way you complain about with my photos, while you delete mine (if my mountaineers are too tiny to see, MONGO's smaller ones are too).

Two of MONGOs other off-topic and useless response posts are:

• "My game is not to get caught by any jealous husbands." and
• "yes, I am soooo unfair. MONGO bad, BAD MONGO."...

... both of which failed to even attempt an answer to my points. Interestingly to me, I read the documentation for the upcoming Zoom Conference / Wishlist last might detailing Behaviours that would not be Tolerated and it seems to me that MONGO is a good example of people who exhibit such behaviour. Specifically, these points are from Wikipedia:

• Posts content that has nothing to do with the current topic (as per the previous point).
• Belittles others (or tries to, like proclaiming user's photos 'ridiculous' and not explaining why).---
• Conscious Intimidation (read every post in this thread from MONGO).
• MONGO deleted my Columbia Icefield / tent shot, yet replaced it with a much smaller hut shot that looks like it was taken with a disposable camera.

Mongo again cites 'Policy' as a reason but I've seen plenty of watermarks on WP and I can't find his 'findable' text with his "Please do not post images with watermarks" (I got 3 hits when searching with that text plus "wiki" - none being Wikipedia.) I have found text banning watermarks on text that states "References or links to this page should 'not' describe it as "policy"."If that's what MONGO is on about / referencing, so I (or someone else), can easily find the correct text. You've wasted my time by having me search for text that just doesn't exist. With all of MONGO's text (some made up, some unfairly cherry-picked), I find him not trustworthy (I end up searching for his complaints and invariably find that what he claims isn't true. And MONG has muddy the water rather than clarify anything.

MONGO definitely had problems answering my questions, his claims notwithstanding. He repeats himself 3-4 times without addressing my repeated point, which contains the crux of the issue. I've mentioned and highlighted "in a way that distracts from the image topic" several times and have noted that the mountaineer in my shot can hardly be viewed as a distraction - a mountaineer with rope, prusik, etc. visible certainly supports the topic of mountaineering; that is, it's an example of mountaineering. As to other questions you seem to have a problem answering, here are some examples:

• My question is 'Where are these rules or guidelines, please?' This question was in response to MONGO's now-seemingly-bogus reasons for deleting 2 of my photos because they violated a policy that stated "
• It's highlighting the image topic as far as I can see. What 'distracts' in this photo of a mountaineer, in your view?
• MONGO asked me: "Do you see the difference (in MONGO's rendition to my alternative) from an encyclopedic standpoint?" As I said: 'No, I don't see the difference from that standpoint, but perhaps you can enlighten me as to the difference.' (That was a request for information from a newbie - did MONGO find that there was no valid or reasonable answer?)
• Did'ja figure a little ad hominem would help your case?
• The article has been there for a while without you adding photos, right? Why does he wait for another editor to add his photos?
• What is it with you and my photos (Mongo)? You don't like newbies to Wikipedia?
• Or does MONGO object to Canadian content?

• MONGO writes: "Lastly....the beloved image of the man staring at that camera with "equipment". The answer is nope, not happening..."

Wow. When MONGO changes his tune about an image, he really goes all the way! So now it's your "beloved image", huh, MONGO? Well, whatever turns your crank, I guess. To me, it's just a mountaineering picture (with more descriptive text than I find other users normally using) displaying and explaining rope, prusik, eyewear (and 'biner) in a shot showing Banff area mountains from the highest peak in the confines of Banff National Park. I see nothing "ridiculous" in this image and ask Mongo what he finds rediculous. And maybe MONGO's right and it indeed is "not happening", but with his seeming biased and useless replies and non-replies, I think I'll put it out there to the WP community and see if there's a consensus that can agree with one of us.

So my bottom line is: Can I keep / have my photos in the Mountaineering article or is MONGO's word the end (I don't mind if his AND mine stay up - I think photos improve an article, especially one like Mountaineering). I appreciatex your time and consideration. Thanks muchly, Brett

P.S. I hope people can wade through the above without ending in tl;dr :-) or just read the opening paragraph and answer Yes (Use the photos, with or without Mongo's) or No (Don't use the photos). BrettA343 (talk) 23:33, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@BrettA343: It is a bit of a lengthy one this (and it's v. late at night here now) so I might have to address some of your points later. But, I've taken a look at the version of Mountaineering as you left it, and the current version as left by Mongo. Notwithstanding any of the personal interaction or comments (which I've not looked at) I have also taken a quick peek at the talk page where you've posted your concerns and I honestly have to side with MONGO's preference for images. I would not see three images taken on the same mountain (Mt Forbes) as acceptable coverage in a general article about worldwide mountaineering, and I also agree that the image about hydration/nutrition failed to show anything significant or encyclopaedic in that respect. I would have removed that pic, too. I know you made an enquiry about removing watermarks from your own images, but I'd also agree with the rationale of not using a watermarked image if other possibilities exist. As nice as the 'tenting' image is, it's not as informative as it could be, either (though I've no idea what alternatives exist on Commons). I'd quite like to have seen an extreme hanging bivvy on a big face with a stove suspended off a krab, with climbers in the down bags!

My view is to say that if your editing and addition of images has spurred others to consider the most appropriate content and to change some for the better, then the overall effect is to improve the article. (You may note I've had a bit of a tussle with editors at Talk:Hiking, but the net effect is an improvement of the article. Every one of us who goes into the mountains knows that behind each photo we take there is a big story. But that isn't experienced by the reader, who instead simply sees the photograph for what it is - a moment in time. They all have to be instantly encyclopaedic and informative, and sufficiently varied to reflect the topic from a worldwide perspective. So, I'm sorry I can't side with you on this one. I think you both have the article's best interest at heart, so it's important to focus on that and not to take it personally when another editor gives (what seems to me at first sight) as a reasonable rationale for changing images.

To quickly answer the question about changing username is that it reveals who you are in real life, but it also associates all your edits with you as a person, not an anonymous username. If you're going to edit in highly contentious topics, and know that all your real-life personal contact details can be easily found, then you might not want to associate your account here with your real persona in order to avoid a lot of grief and hassle from the bigots, bully boys or blockheads who seem attracted to such topics. All the best. Nick Moyes (talk) 01:21, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

No probnlem about not being the answer I might have hoped for, @Nick Moyes:: - your reasons make eminent sense and in retrospect, I'm surprised MONGO didn't use those. It would have saved time for everyone involved. His made-up policies just made no sense at all to me. The following question for you is: Can one of my Forbes photos be appropriate in your opinion - I'm viewing the photo marked '1' above, which highlights rope, prusik and eyewear, as well as being a subliminal ad for mountaineering in Canada (I hope), to go by the paragraph dealing largely with ropes. Wha'cha think?

And thanks for your response to my second question, most appreciated and gives me new info to consider. Cheers, Brett BrettA343 (talk) 08:17, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

National Hand Touch Football League

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Hand_Touch_Football_League can this be edited please? Demons24 (talk) 17:41, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-49

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 December. It will be on all wikis from 3 December (calendar).

Future changes

• The iOS Wikipedia app will show readers more of the article history. They can see new updates and easier see how the article has changed over time. This is an experiment. It will first be shown only to some iOS app users as a test. [28][29]
• The Wiki Replicas can be used for SQL queries. You can use Quarry, PAWS or other ways to do this. To make the Wiki Replicas stable there will be two changes. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work. You can also only query a database if you connect to it directly. This will happen in February 2021. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. [30]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:44, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

A second chance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Hand_Touch_Football_League I thought you where giving my article a chance and I did thank you? Demons24 (talk) 20:10, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

National Hand Touch Football League

Will you be working on National Hand Touch Football League just wondering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Demons24 this is my page? Demons24 (talk) 21:28, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi Demons24, No, as you'll have seen from my earlier reply at your talk page, I won't be working on it myself. Sport's not my thing at all (unless you include mountaineering). But please delete the content on your userpage at User:Demons24 - that page is for you simply to say a few words about yourself - it's not a place to draft new articles. Please work only at Draft:National Hand Touch Football League, but be aware that I chose to copy/paste the deleted article's content and put it into your sandbox at User:Demons24/sandbox in case there was content there that you'd like to move over to the draft, and not lose. Only when its contents are properly laid out like other encyclopaedia articles, and suitably referenced should you submit it for review. Unless it gets immediately accepted, you'll then get further feedback to point out any issues that still need addressing before you submit it again. All the best, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:51, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for working on this with me Demons24 (talk) 22:03, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Bouncy balloon Ball

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_(game) I made a reference by expanding it is that ok because it’s a google searchable and it has a ton of views 431 so far? Demons24 (talk) 00:49, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

No. It's utterly pointlesss as a video. I have reverted your edit. Do not edit war over silly videos. Nick Moyes (talk) 08:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Might you adopt me?

Hello! I recently learned about the adoptee program, and just checked to see who might be available. You have kindly helped me in the past, and I've been impressed with your help to others, including some of my students, in the Teahouse. I have been editing for a couple of years, mostly writing articles on topics related to women: artists, needlework, or historical topics (a few recent examples are Deerfield Society of Arts and Crafts, Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework, Margaret C. Whiting, Tilden Ladies' Seminary). I teach undergraduates using the Wiki Education program, and love doing that. I also sometimes work on finding references. I've organized several Art & Feminism events on my campus. I would like to deepen my knowledge/experience of Wikipedia and at some point Wikidata too. I feel as if there is so much to learn, and I have only been dipping a toe into the water. Thank you for considering my request. TrudiJ (talk) 02:18, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi TrudiJ Yes, I'd love to be of help. You look to be the perfect fit for the type of editor I would wish to support - especially as you are already training others - though you are rather more arts-based than I am. My approach to supporting committed editors like yourself is not a structured one, but is rather a chance to invite you to ask a whole range of questions on topics that maybe need longer answers, more consideration or follow-through than one gets at places like the Teahouse. But WP:TH is still something you should use for quick answers to immediate problems.

What I did with a previous 'adoptee' Clovermoss was to create a subpage somewhere (probably best located as one of your own userpages) in which we can use the talk page to work through areas of interest. (See User:Nick Moyes/Adoption/Clovermoss and the discussions at its related talk page.)

Even after 10 years here, I am still learning new things, and that's what makes Wikipedia so interesting. It is both elegant and highly complex at one and the same time. But do bear in mind I have no idea (and possibly little interest) in what 'metaliteracy' or 'open pedagogy' means; I might have to leave that to you and your classes. I try and keep things simple when I can, but I do also have a preponderance for waffling on rather a lot! And, sadly, I still know nothing about Wikidata, I'm afraid.

My approach would probably be to invite you to think about the things you've found hard or confusing and to draft out a bulleted list which I can address one bit at a time, and which can be expanded or teased out as we go along. I'd like to know if there are areas you want to learn about in a mor structured way, or policies you need explaining. Along the way I would expect to be learning as well, which is a good thing. I see adoption as a two way deal; we both have to feel comfortable with it and we can each choose to stop at any time, with no questions asked.

If this appeals, just let me know. I won't be able to respond instantly to everything, but will do my best to offer support or guidance. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks, Nick Moyes. I am very excited about this opportunity, and will begin to work on my bulleted list. I've set up a subpage of my userpage, as you suggested, and will ping you as soon as I've added something.TrudiJ (talk) 12:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I started this page for our conversation and have added a couple of very basic questins to start. I am looking forward to learning! TrudiJ (talk) 07:23, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@TrudiJ: That's a great start. Feel free to add on bulleted queries as you think of them, and add the page to you watchlist in case I forget to ping you from there. I'll address each one in turn, and we can both build up a simple list of policy links or topics covered on the user-page, so as to form a quick regerence. I am off to fetch my daughter home from University today, so it maybe a while before I can get some quiet time on a proper keyboard to respond in detail. Nick Moyes (talk) 08:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020).

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

• There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.

Technical news

• Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Electronics the religion

Hi,

Regarding post earlyer. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Teahouse&action=edit&section=58

That my page is not was previously published, and my article and is not on something i made up and created.

I am the head admin of the website www.electronicsthereligion.com And content is "fictional". But the ideology is there and my article on wiki is not for promotional reasons but informative. Thus, for people.

I do have a feeling that Wiki is "trying to move to other platform"? Or has a "Technical Registration Problems" by moving my content a side? Not in a distancing way.

But i am the admin and the leader of the group.

Best regards, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orangmatter (talk • contribs) 14:13, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Good luck to you, then. Nick Moyes (talk) 16:35, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Giselle Donnelly

This page is about me, but the photo is an old, pre-transition photo. Please substitute an updated one, such as the one on my AEI scholar page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Giselle Donnelly (talk • contribs) 21:42, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Giselle Donnelly Thank you for dropping by with your concerns. (I've moved your question down to the bottom of my talk page, as this is where we post the newest questions and answers) Forgive me, as I know nothing about you, but I do appreciate your concerns. I don't know what AEI page you refer to, I'm afraid, as you didn't give me a url. But I doubt I would have the legal right to upload any newer image of you unless it was very clearly stated as having already been released under what we call a 'Creative Commons' licence that allows for commercial reuse. (the commercial reuse is a critical requirement - SEE HERE) This is often referred to as a CC-BY-SA licence. If you have a website with your picture on it that you own copyright of (i.e. one that you took of yourself with a timer or selfie stick), you could change the wording to release that image for commercial reuse under a CC-BY SA 4.0 licence). I could then drop by and copy it and upload it to Wikimedia Commons myself, where a volunteer would check that I had done so legitimately by looking at your release statement. But it would be far, far easier if you were to upload that image yourself, or ask anyone who took it to upload it, as it's only the copyright owner who can lawfully upload and release such an image. Here is the link for a registered user to upload an image that they own (or which they have sourced from a properly released image elsewhere):  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard

I would not want you to think that anything we do here is intended to cause upset or harm. Please appreciate that I have no way of knowing you are who you say you are, other than your username. But, should we ned to, we have some helpful behind-the-scenes workers (see WP:OTRS) who can verify a user's identity without anyone else seeing personal information. All this is done to protect real people, their image rights and so forth. I can appreciate you would like to see a newer image of yourself- so I hope you can help us there. But I do have to also explain (in what I sincerely hope are polite terms) that we rarely change legitimate content at the behest of the article's subject unless, of course, it is manifestly wrong, biased or unsourced. But I will do my very best to assist you. But my I also request that you don't, at this time, try to remove the old photo of you again, please? You are, of course, free to post this and other concerns on the article's talk page if you don't feel I'm helping you sufficiently. I hope all this waffle makes at least a degree of sense. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Giselle Donnelly: Including your birth name is encyclopedic given that you used that name for many years of your public life. Whether the use of the old picture is encyclopedic or not is something that can be discussed on the article's talk page if anyone objects to my removal. If my removal IS reverted, I will not remove it again without a discussion first. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:27, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

National Hand Touch Football League

I would like to review the draft page if you see any mistakes I added References and stuff on there I think your going to like it. Demons24 (talk) 00:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Demons24: I'm not sure we're seeing things in the same way here. What I see at Draft:National Hand Touch Football League is a not very well-written lead paragraph which is quite confusing. There's some poor referencing, incomplete external links, sections without any text or citations, and not much additional content to demonstrate notability. I am quite disappointed you felt it was worthy of submitting to AFC review in this state. It will undoubtedly be turned down at this first time around if it remains in this parlous state. So you've got some work to do before it crosses a reviewer's screen. Try to stand back and look at it from a distance, and in comparison with other equivalent articles, and maybe you will see what it needs to turn this into a well-written encyclopaedia article. Because sports is not my thing, I can't comment on notability, but take a look at American Flag Football League for something a lot more coherent. Sorry to sound so critical - but it's best to say it like it is. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:58, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

No your alright in my books I hope it doesn’t get turned down Daniel Hand High School has been playing Hand Football also that’s why I put the links down there for Demons24 (talk) 01:01, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Adoption

I see your name on the adoption page. May I ask for adoption?

I am so scared of asking a question for fear of being banned that adoption would be very helpful. Last month, I was accused of personal attacks but the one of the two accusers seemed to be the one attacking me. I do not want you to be a judge and decide. Rather, I want a mentor. Thank you in advance for your kind assistance. Vanny089 (talk) 03:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi there Vanny089. Thanks for dropping by to seek some help and guidance. Adoption is a long-term, two-way mentoring process which I am sometimes prepared to provide to newish editors who have already shown a clear commitment to Wikipedia across various topics and already understand our basic ways of collaboration. I'm afraid you seem too confrontational and not sufficiently willing to accept the simple advice that other, more experienced editors have given you, and so for that reason I must decline. I can understand your concerns about being blocked. If you are unsure whether or not making an edit, my simple advice is don't. Instead, you could post your suggested edit and source on the article's talk page and ask for feedback. Then wait a four or five days for any response. If there is none, that might be the time to add it. If they point to a rationale for reverting you, based on our policies, go and read right the way through the ting so you understand why experienced editors are telling you something. But once an editor challenges your edit and reverts you, don't go into battle mode as you seem to have done with Meters, and in future avoid the temptation to insult other editors - that'll only get you blocked per WP:CIVIL if you repeat what you said to Meters. Stay calm and polite at all times. Keep a discussion in one place -either on your talk page if you are following up on a warning notice, and simply want to understand why an edit was made or changed, or take it to the article talk page, which is a good place for content-related discussion. Meanwhile, find less contentious and more encyclopaedic edits to make so that you learn the zen way of editing. [31] is an example of how to politely enquire why one person made an edit, which led to a quick resolution. If I'd turned up and said "I'm right, you're wrong; you're stupid, just revert it" I'd only make a situation much harder to resolve, because it is sadly human nature to dig our heels in when challenged. For further immediate help or advice, feel free to post a clearly-worded question at the Teahouse. You might like to demonstrate your commitment to Wikipedia by collecting all 15 badges at The Wikipedia Adventure, and perhaps add a few lines on your userpage to explain your interests and motivation in contributing to this encyclopaedia. I've left a few extra links on your talk page. All the best. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)      

A barnstar for you!

The Writer's Barnstar

I love the quote on your user page. I relates very well to our conversations on doing the work yourself rather than letting others do the work. You already provide the same advice to others as you have provided me for the past almost 2 years and I believe you should continue doing that especially for newcomers wanting to create articles (which is very hard unless you know what you're doing and most likely an advanced editor). Thanks again for your contributions and happy holidays!! Interstellarity (talk) 18:32, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Erythrina chiapasana

I've got it loosely assembled but I don't have access to JSTOR which means i can't see the Brittonia source. I have a feeling that journal could clarify a couple of things. Would you be able to lend a hand? Thanks, Zindor (talk) 16:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

@Zindor: It looks like you're after this, as well, perhaps as this? Hope they help. (I don't currently have access to JSTOR, but I could arrange it as an alumnus through my old University. But I think the Wikipedia Library may be able to grant you future access. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:45, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Wikipedia library makes JSTOR and a bunch of other sources available to all extended-confirmed editors at your library page on the "instant access" tab. No sign-up or pre-approval needed anymore. Schazjmd (talk) 22:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks - I wasn't sure what the current access status was. I appreciate this clarification,. What we now need is for the major world newspapers to grant Wikipedia editors slightly greater free access to their content so we can reuse it here. Just managed to get access to 5 articles a month from the Independent here in the UK registering for free, and greater access to The Guardian content by making a small PayPal donation. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:55, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for finding those, I'm sure I'll be able to glean some content. I applied for an exemption to the library requirements a few months ago but never even heard back and I seemingly forgot about it. Looks like I'm only a day off meeting them again, so hopefully will get access before I head off on my Christmas Wikibreak. I've found the New York Times to have a reasonably low subscription fee, which is great because I'm not a big fan of the papers here in Ireland (apart from the Farmer's Journal). Zindor (talk) 23:35, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Growth team updates #16

Welcome to the sixteenth newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.

Growth features show impact

Newcomer task experiments results

The team recently published our analysis of the impact of newcomer tasks. We are happy to announce that we found that the Growth features, and particularly newcomer tasks, lead to increased editing from newcomers.

In November 2019, the Growth team added the "newcomer tasks" feature to the newcomer homepage. After six months, we collected data from Arabic, Vietnamese, Czech, and Korean Wikipedias. We analyzed the overall impact of the Growth features, including newcomer tasks.

This analysis finds that the Growth features lead to increases in:

• the probability that newcomers make their first article edit (+11.6%)
• the probability that they are retained as editors
• the number of edits they make during their first couple of weeks on the wiki (+22%)

We also find that the quality of their edits, as measured by revert rate, is comparable to that of a control group.

• 
  The number of suggested edits completed by each wiki each week, going from December 2019 to November 2020, with a line for the total.
• 
  The number of distinct users completing suggested edits by each wiki each week, going from December 2019 to November 2020.

Because of these results, we think all Wikipedias should consider implementing these features. Learn more about how to get them.

You can find more details about this experiment on the report page. Please post any feedback or questions on the talk page

General metrics

As of November 2020, across all wikis where the features have been deployed:

• more than 5,000 newcomers have made more than 40,000 edits using Newcomer tasks.
• more than 14,000 questions have been sent to volunteer mentors by more than 11,000 users.
• more than 2,000 questions have been asked on help desks by more than 1,500 users.

Learn more about Growth results here, and please post any feedback or questions on the talk page.

Variants C and D

Variants C and D are two new arrangements of the newcomer homepage. We deployed them in October. After six weeks of these variants being deployed, we can see that they have led to increased interactions with newcomer tasks. Next, we will determine which variant is best and use that for all newcomers.

News for mentors

A separate list for workshops hosts

During workshops organized by education programs through the communities, workshops hosts like to mentor people they train on wiki. Several wikis requested to have a way to claim their mentees without having other newcomers being randomly being assigned to them. To address this need, a separate list can be created on wiki, for mentors that wish to claim mentees, but prefer not to have random mentees being assigned to them. Learn more about this feature.

Claiming multiple mentees at once

Mentors can use Special:ClaimMentee to claim a newcomer as their mentee. The feature now allows mentors to claim multiple newcomers at once.

Community news

The help panel allows people to post a message to the local help desk while editing. Previously, the tool always posted messages to the bottom of help desks. Wikis are now able to configure it to display new messages at the top of the help desk page. T261714

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

14:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-50

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time. Some wikis already had this function. [32][33]

Changes later this week

• Information from Wikidata that is used on a wiki page can be shown in recent changes and watchlists on a Wikimedia wiki. To see this you need to turn on showing Wikidata edits in your watchlist in the preferences. Changes to the Wikidata description in the language of a Wikimedia wiki will then be shown in recent changes and watchlists. This will not show edits to languages that are not relevant to your wiki. [34][35]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all wikis from 10 December (calendar).

Future changes

• You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 8 December and 21 December. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Follow-up to Teahouse discussion on Dec. 8 at 12:27 UTC

The following message is from TheLAXPlanespotter. DON'T JUDGE ME

---

At the request of Nick Moyes, aka, you, the user page has been updated to reflect a more "current" synonym because vigilante sounds too 1880's. I didn't want to change it, but I decided to because I am not an idiot. (I am referring to myself, not anyone else). I also observe the general scope of things around Wikipedia, and maybe, just maybe it sounds like I'm not welcome here because of all of the restrictive things we can do. Not saying there is no freedom of speech, but I think Wikipedian Admins should pull the reins and loosen them a bit. Not too much, but just a bit. But, just maybe, maybe, I will consider deleting this account and never returning to edit on Wikipedia. :)

Regards, TheLAXPlanespotter "The original AvGeek" LINKS FOR GOOD USE: www.flightradar24.com (Mobile version is better, will work on desktop fine) www.airbus.com (View my user page to find out why I put this link) That's it for now, more coming soon.

TheLAXPlanespotter (talk) 15:17, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Crikey, TheLAXPlanespotter - someone's a sensitive puppy! This comment and advice was intended for you in all good faith. So I'm sorry if you felt it was unwelcoming - that was most definitely not my intention, and I am quite happy to apologise if I offended you. But, yes, there is a lot of stuff that's not permitted around here, and you may well need to be prepared for people giving you more good advice. Nick Moyes (talk) 15:25, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Australian, eh? I once went there and let me tell you, it was quite nice. Anyway, thanks, but I stand where stand. Also, I don't like dogs. See ya in my talk page in awhile! -TheLAXPlanespotter (Totally NOT in Los Angeles....) TheLAXPlanespotter (talk) 15:33, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

TheLAXPlanespotter Awards

	Order of the LAX Airport
	For your understanding and companionship, I, TheLAXPlanespotter, hereby bestow upon you the Order of the LAX Airport, which is the highest honor of the TheLAXPlanespotter Award Council. Thanks for your contributions! TheLAXPlanespotter (talk) 20:39, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Can I borrow this ...

for the next Signpost? -[36]

Probably I'd put it under Humour.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Sensible redirect. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:29, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Smallbones: Feel free! For the last two of three years I've posted it on the Teahouse every 24th December. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:04, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Smallbones: OOps - I've realised that there's a slightly better, and more up-to-date version here that you might prefer to use. Nick Moyes (talk) 15:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Perfect, just perfect! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: I went ahead and created a proper redirect, Wikipedia:The Night Before Wikimas. Consider moving the page over the redirect. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

New Page Patrol December Newsletter

Hello Nick Moyes,

Year in review

It has been a productive year for New Page Patrol as we've roughly cut the size of the New Page Patrol queue in half this year. We have been fortunate to have a lot of great work done by Rosguill who was the reviewer of the most pages and redirects this past year. Thanks and credit go to JTtheOG and Onel5969 who join Rosguill in repeating in the top 10 from last year. Thanks to John B123, Hughesdarren, and Mccapra who all got the NPR permission this year and joined the top 10. Also new to the top ten is DannyS712 bot III, programmed by DannyS712 which has helped to dramatically reduce the number of redirects that have needed human patrolling by patrolling certain types of redirects (e.g. for differences in accents) and by also patrolling editors who are on on the redirect whitelist.

Rank	Username	Num reviews	Log
1	DannyS712 bot III (talk)	67,552	Patrol Page Curation
2	Rosguill (talk)	63,821	Patrol Page Curation
3	John B123 (talk)	21,697	Patrol Page Curation
4	Onel5969 (talk)	19,879	Patrol Page Curation
5	JTtheOG (talk)	12,901	Patrol Page Curation
6	Mcampany (talk)	9,103	Patrol Page Curation
7	DragonflySixtyseven (talk)	6,401	Patrol Page Curation
8	Mccapra (talk)	4,918	Patrol Page Curation
9	Hughesdarren (talk)	4,520	Patrol Page Curation
10	Utopes (talk)	3,958	Patrol Page Curation

Reviewer of the Year

John B123 has been named reviewer of the year for 2020. John has held the permission for just over 6 months and in that time has helped cut into the queue by reviewing more than 18,000 articles. His talk page shows his efforts to communicate with users, upholding NPP's goal of nurturing new users and quality over quantity.

NPP Technical Achievement Award

As a special recognition and thank you DannyS712 has been awarded the first NPP Technical Achievement Award. His work programming the bot has helped us patrol redirects tremendously - more than 60,000 redirects this past year. This has been a large contribution to New Page Patrol and definitely is worthy of recognition.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 2262 Low – 2232 High – 10271

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here

18:16, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Remember?

Do you remember this i have a gut feeling he’s back. I’d be opening an SPI once I possess cogent evidence. Just thought to remind you. Celestina007 (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

@Celestina007: oh, yes I do, now you've reminded me. I have confidence in your blood-hound skills to root them out. (Should you ever wish to email me off wiki on this, or related matters, do feel free.) Nick Moyes (talk) 22:28, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Nick!

A favourite memory of Crete: my bivouac on summit of Psiloritis in 2017

… for taking the time to set my rudder straight so I can be a good Wikipedia editor. As you suggested, I have begun redoing my user page, and I’m trying to use some good pages as templates for the sandbox work you saw, and for further editing/creation. Also, thanks a bunch for the direct to loading images correctly. My inexperience showed on that one. I will work hard to be more clear, as well, since as a storyteller I tend to drift into the rabbit hole. On another note, I am living on Crete in Greece, and I am sure that, with your and the community’s help, I can contribute many stunning details about the island. The stub Galatas Palace, for instance, is a subject that I have special knowledge and/or access to. Please, if you and the other wonderful Wikipedians can assist, there are dozens of such places that would fill in this fantastic library. Philbutler (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:16, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Philbutler. Thanks for posting, though I had to move your comment down to the bottom of the page, which is our talk page convention here for the latest additions. Oh, and don't forget to sign each post with four keyboard tildes, so that a date/timestamp is automatically added, as well as your username. May I make a few other positively critical feedback suggestions for you?

I still feel your 'biography' is too long for a Wikipedia Userpage. If you could trim it down by 50% to the bare basics, that would be wise. The purpose of a userpage is just to say a few words about one's own background and rationale for editing Wikipedia, either now or in the future. You can also use it to maintain notes and helpful links to guidance pages and favourite resources here.

But thanks for turning the tense around. You've clearly got a lot of background in the IT world, so it'll really only be the Wikipedia intricacies that you'll be coming to terms with.

On Agia Pelagia, for example, I don't think your additions of images was that necessary. We tend to discourage WP:GALLERIES in articles, linking instead via a Wikimedia Commons logo to show more categorized material exists elsewhere (see {{commons category}}. I feel one of your images virtually duplicates the first image, whilst that of sea and bougainvillea doesn't add anything encylopaedic at all. So I'd suggest removing those. The trick is to ignore pretty images in articles, but to go for informative ones where words alone don't do it.

On Galatas Palace, I've removed the phrase 'discovered recently' because the date of discovery was clearly stated, so it needed no qualification. If you need help adding inline citations, there's a simply guide at WP:REFBEGIN, and I also wrote my own at WP:ERB. You choose which to use!

Of course, if you need more personal help, feel free to send a couple of air tickets. We are really missing Crete - our most favoured travel destination, both before and after we had children. One of my favourite solo excursions was to get the 7am bus from Rethymnon to the tiny village of Fourfouras, and then climb up Psiloritis for an overnight bivouac near the little summit chapel, and then to take the rarely-travelled northwest mountain ridgeline, finally dropping down past Arkady monastery (hitching the last leg, if possible) to return tired but fulfilled, ready for a swim and a beer the following evening. (I'm not sure my knees would be up to the 40km trek now, though!) Nick Moyes (talk) 11:18, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

What an amazing world we live in Nick Moyes, and small as they tell us too! Again, thank you for the super helpful suggestions. I have begun my redux already by deleting the Agia Pelagia ones.

Since I am the proverbial poor church mouse, I can only send tickets when I win the Greece lottery here. However, if I can get you to wear a GoPRO I am sure the rest of you and your wife's trip will be courtesy Cretan Filoxenia, which I know you are familiar with. Why, I already have your Psiloritis basecamp picked out. One of our Cretan brothers has a place overlooking Anogeia that is perfect!

On account of my bum ticker, I cannot venture into Ha Gorge and the hundreds of other wondrous places. We write a lot about the Cretans, and the travel and archaeological treasures here. So, you are video test pilot would be a perfect solution! Please do, come back to Minoan land at your earliest convenience! Philbutler (talk) 13:36, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Mail Notice

Hello, Nick Moyes. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Celestina007 (talk) 15:53, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello

Hello Nick,

I'm excited to write and edit more articles on Wikipedia by following your steps — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahulpatelfan (talk • contribs) 17:38, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

@Rahulpatelfan: OK - good luck. Bear in mind that creating a new article about someone from scratch is the hardest task anyone can do here. Ensuring you can find sources to meet our WP:NBIO critieria is critical. You should keep the books he's written into a 'Publications' section (with authors title, year and publisher), and not include a link to Amazon (which comes over as advertising). Nick Moyes (talk) 12:08, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you :)

Appreciate your response on my question found at the Teahouse. It was really helpful. Have a nice day. HotTomatoe (talk) 10:28, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-52

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News

• Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 11 January 2021.

Recent changes

• The {{citation needed}} template shows when a statement in a Wikipedia article needs a source. If you click on it when you edit with the visual editor there is a popup that explains this. Now it can also show the reason and when it was added. [37]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.

Future changes

• You can propose and discuss what technical improvements should be done for geographic information. This could be coordinates, maps or other related things.
• Some wikis use LanguageConverter to switch between writing systems or variants of a language. This can only be done for the entire page. There will be a <langconvert> tag that can convert a piece of text on a page. [38]
• Oversighters and stewards can hide entries in Special:AbuseLog. They can soon hide multiple entries at once using checkboxes. This works like hiding normal edits. It will happen in early January. [39]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

TheWikiWizard-December 2020

Hello, Nick Moyes! Here is the December 2020 issue of TheWikiWizard. Pilot Project, trying a smaller and different style newsletter

• Here are the events of December 2020

Wikipedia News

• On the French Wikipedia, the new vector skin design has already been rolled out! Check it out here!
• Wikipedia will soon celebrate it's 20th Birthday very soon! Go back to 2001 by visiting nostalgia.wikipedia.org !
• EN Wikipedia has more than 6,200,000 Articles!

Humor

• Santa is watching you.... Don't vandalise Wikipedia, or he will reward you a block and no presents this year if you do so. (Seriously don't vandalise Wikipedia, even if santa isn't watching)
• More turkey on Christmas

Notes

• We are trying out this pilot style newspaper, making it easier for you, and our editors to use. Please let me know what you think about this new 'style' of newspaper!
• The Wikipedia Ads section will be omitted, to make the flow of this newsletter easier. Discuss this issue here

To change your subscription, or to subscribe click Here. Enjoy this Issue and stay safe! Happy Holidays --つがる Talk to つがる:) 🍁 01:13, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• This message was sent by --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:16, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Happy holidays

This year, many people had COVID to fear,
The holidays are getting near,
One thing that will be clear,
We will still have holiday cheer,
Happy holidays and happy new year!!
From Interstellarity (talk) 13:49, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Is this worthy of revdeletion?

[40] It appears to include a slur, which is a valid reason for rev deletion, but the example page says normal profanity is not a valid reason for rev deletion. I'm unsure how to proceed. Scorpions13256 (talk) 15:12, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hello Scorpions13256. This is a question that would be better to send an email to Nick about. It could trigger the Streisand effect which means that other people would look at it before it gets deleted to see the contents. I will let Nick decide whether the content is worthy of revdel. I'm just giving you an FYI. Interstellarity (talk) 15:16, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

@Scorpions13256: Yes, I think that was a misogynistic and grossly offensive remark against a woman, and I have hidden it from view and have blocked the IP editor for a period of two weeks. Thank you for letting me know. Nick Moyes (talk) 15:19, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Interstellarity, Sorry about that. He already deleted the revision. I only asked him because I saw that he was active. Regardless, I will do this by email from now on or by IRC or Discord. Thank you for taking the time to explain things to me. Nick, thank you for your help. Sorry about the slow response everybody. I had to deal with an edit conflict. Scorpions13256 (talk) 15:21, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

I'll just add that I'm not too bothered about being openly contacted about purely offensive comments, but I do advise not highlighting edits publicly where personally identifiable information (phone nos, emails, addresses, birth dates etc) have been revealed. Then its a case of either finding an active admin and emailing them privately (and hoping they see it quickly), or contacting the central email address given at WP:REVDEL which is more likely to be acted upon rapidly. Nick Moyes (talk) 15:24, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

RD vandalism

Hello, I stumbled upon some material here that could possibly be RD'd under WP:RD2. I'm only bringing it here because it contains no personal information (I read the above section), and that I don't use wiki email or IRC. Have a good day! B732 (talk) 19:00, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks very much, B732. I've blocked the IP, but will let the edit stand as it's close (but probably not quite there) to being directly offensive to individuals - more the childish rambling of some kid with a keyboard in this instance, I'd guess. Cheers

Yo Ho Ho

Donner60 (talk) is wishing a foaming mug of Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec20}} to your friends' talk pages.

Merry Christmas & Let's See Out the Year!

	Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2021!
	Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! In this toughest of years, thank you for continuing to care about others - both in your editing, your words, and just in your being. Roll on 2021 and I'll see you there! Nosebagbear (talk) 14:44, 24 December 2020 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Season's Greetings

File:Christmas tree decorations 2.jpg	Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
	Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and your family. I hope you are well and thank you for all you have done and continue to do. Whispyhistory (talk) 17:21, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

The Night Before Wikimas

Thanks again for making this and publicizing it every year. I put some code on Wikipedia talk:The Night Before Wikimas people can crib from to transclude an abbreviated version on their own talk page. It's not efficient but it gets the job done without modifying the original. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 03:41, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2021!

Hello Nick Moyes, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2021. Happy editing, LorriBrown (talk) 05:53, 25 December 2020 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.