User talk:Thryduulf

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Awards
For your help with April 21, 2005 Stubsensor cleanup project you are hereby given the Stubsensor award.
I hereby award you the RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar for your heroic efforts in repairing and repelling the Willy on Wheels vandal — Bratschetalk 5 pillars (KC)	This PSY is awarded for being polite, courteous, and extremely helpful to myself and other users, and as such bieng a blessing for good mental health. Awarded by PhatePunk 22:35, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
For your excellent contributions to Wikipedia - it is those little things that make all the difference :-) --HappyCamper 20:02, 27 April 2006 (UTC)	I am giving you this banner star for all of your work at WP:RFD - Tideflat (talk) 01:58, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
The Redirect Barnstar is hereby awarded to Thryduulf for all the work put into contributing at Redirects for Discussion and maintaining the navigational parts of the project. Quiet background work that very few see, yet it has a great effect on the projects readers! Thanks for your work in the area, Taelus (talk) 23:22, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
The Redirect Barnstar is hereby awarded to you, Thryduulf, for closing nearly an entire page of discussions, but more importantly, for all of the other thankless jobs that you do. Arbitrarily0 (talk) 21:26, 5 August 2011 (UTC) I'd like to echo these thanks, as I think we are some of the only admins who set foot in RfD these days :P. Thanks for helping with the backlog, all the best. --Taelus (talk) 13:44, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Fair and Helpful Thank you so much for helping me with an article (I'm a beginner.) I have no idea what I'm doing but you helped to keep my article up after it was deleted. You also checked back up on it when the references were deleted, I just checked and saw you even helped me on listing them too, I wasn't sure how to do that either. Anyway, thank you. :] Ohthegunsofbrixton (talk) 18:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar For exhibiting rational judgement on a certain list which caused considerable overreaction and worse case scenario concerns. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 19:07, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
The Redirect Barnstar Thanks for your (re)-explanation of why it [the Selby Wall redirect] was pointing where it was and why it should point to where it's now pointing Tonywalton Talk 00:11, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
The Redirect Barnstar I hereby award User:Thryduulf this shiny Redirect Barnstar for their excellent work at WP:RFD. Lenticel (talk) 08:57, 30 April 2013 (UTC)	The Technical Barnstar For your unfailing patience and kindness dealing with VisualEditor related problems and the users struggling with them :). (also for the fantastic car analogy). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:00, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
The Original Barnstar I appreciate I already gave you a barnstar for it, but I've just looked at the feedback page for the first time since stepping off my flight, and wow: you deserve another one :). Thanks for all you've done for the VE project thus far. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:59, 19 July 2013 (UTC)	The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar For sterling work above and beyond the call of duty at WP:VE/F. You're always there, logging defects, updating replies and always with politeness and calm. NtheP (talk) 09:51, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Precious thinking of options Thank you for quality pictures uploaded, for nominating to the news, for taking care of redirects and projects, for helpful proposals and thinking of options ("I can think of at least two options"), - you are an awesome Wikipedian! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:34, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
The Real Life Barnstar Yay! You're here at the [Wikimedia UK] office! Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 15:27, 14 October 2013 (UTC)	Survey King! You put absolutely hours of work into [the WMUK Members' Survey] and I am so so grateful! Really looking forward to finding out what worked and what didn't and making the results useful to the chapter! Thank you so much! Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 12:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
The Brilliant Idea Barnstar Arbitration Committee cases are inherently complicated matters. That your analysis of the case resulted in a suggestion widely accepted by participants and arbitrators alike, demonstrates it to be a brilliant idea. Congratulations! MarshalN20 | Talk 14:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Diplomacy Y'know what... ...Here's a barnstar. Consider this a token of my appreciation, on behalf of the project as a whole, for your contributions to this RfC, and for summarising a horribly complicated discussion into something that people could understand (and which slightly lessened my headache in closing it!). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:24, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
The Special Barnstar Thanks for the MASSIVE amount of work and time you put into the 2013 Membership Survey. It's really excellent and I hope its something [WMUK] builds on :-) Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 15:38, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
The Real Life Barnstar Thank you very much for all your hard work on Wikipedia Takes UCL last week. It was an event from which we've taken many lessons and I believe that a good number of people had a very positive experience from it thanks to you and the team you managed to coordinate. Here's to the next one! ToniSant (talk) 08:11, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
The Real Life Barnstar Chris, I'm indebted to you for your help at the Marjon event. Gil asked me to pass on her thanks in particular for your "excellent and clear explanations of the technical aspects of copyright". Next time I'm looking for helpers for an event, you'll be top of my list. Thanks again, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
The Photographer's Barnstar For your extra effort in providing photos for an article that another Wikipedian is working on. Exemplary teamwork! w.carter-Talk 17:12, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
'The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar I've got to say, I've seen your comments about the place and you seem one of the more "rational observers" (if you'll pardon the pun) on the site. I think you have a good head on your shoulders. I wish others were like you! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:22, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar Illegitimi non carborundum 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:17, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
The Redirect Barnstar Your diligent work in the area of redirect categorization and improvement is duly recognized and greatly appreciated. You are truly one of the unsung heroes of Wikipedia, and we hope you continue to enjoy your improvement of this awesome encyclopedia! For your well-thought, detailed, and infuriatingly reasonable close here. Well done once again. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:32, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
The Admin's Barnstar Congratulations making WP:EFH legit. JudeccaXIII (talk) 18:13, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
The Citation Barnstar For your excellent work on Sean Hughes' biography. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:23, 16 October 2017 (UTC) The Citation Barnstar For your hard work in the effort to get Robbie Coltrane to RD quality when it appeared doomed to not be included on quality grounds from the start; I award you this barnstar of citations! You recognized how important it was to get Hagrid onto RD owing to the emotional response of people to the beloved actor’s death (even the oppose votes were visibly upset and reluctant about their vote), so you worked hard to make it happen to the glee of the fellow Wikipedians. Well Done! :) DrewieStewie (talk) 11:50, 20 October 2022 (UTC) The Minor Barnstar Hello! While it may be small in the grand scheme of things, I wanted to thank you for drafting the disambiguation page at National and University Library. When I was looking into the title before the RfD, I saw a lot of different possibilities for targets and wasn't sure how to go about compiling them all into one place. It looked quite daunting to me, and to that end, thank you for initiating the first draft of it! (As well as the rest of your assistance at RfD, it is greatly appreciated.) Utopes (talk / cont) 20:11, 3 October 2023 (UTC) The Redirect Barnstar Thank you for all the work that you do at RfD. Your comments have changed my mind and helped to educate me on numerous occasions. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:11, 2 February 2024 (UTC) The Citation Barnstar For successfully dredging up a comprehensive and surprisingly compelling source list on Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Avon_Safety_Wheel BrigadierG (talk) 15:53, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi Thryduulf

Tx for supporting my Arb motion. Lately it occurred to me however the crux of the problem was probably not so much kafkaeske conditions being imposed on someone, but that person unscrupulously imposing them on others. No amount of arbcom remedy (rewrites) would probably change that.

I had hoped at least ArbCom would have reminded the person that also remedy 3.3 of the infoboxes case is still in force (no battleground behaviour!). Maybe some day the person understands. Maybe not. But from my side, no regrets the motion has been canned. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:00, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

The problem from my point of view is that the arbitration sanctions have instead of stopping the infoboxes dispute's impact on the encyclopaedia it has made it worse by requiring WP:OWNERSHIP and all the battleground behaviour that comes with that. I have hopes that one day the committee will see the mistake that it has made and act. Instead it has yet again refused point blank to even consider the possibility that it isn't all sweetness and light - very much a head in the sand attitude. Thryduulf (talk) 22:19, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, agree. Under current conditions they are leaving the work to us chickens every time we come across such ownership-oriented editors, to get the situation defused. I'll be still more uncompromising on ownership issues from now on I suppose, at least that's what I took from the arbcom motion proceedings I initiated. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:46, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Guy Fawkes Night cheers!

For the rich...

...and poor alike

Happy Guy Fawkes Night!

---

Hello Thryduulf:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Guy Fawkes Night!
    – Si Trew^{Si Trew (talk) 13:37, 4 November 2014 (UTC)}

Spread Guy Fawkes cheer by Tarring and feathering a Roman Catholic!

You're a day early, but thank you! Thryduulf (talk) 21:56, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I see almost everything coming ahead, as if it were laid down in the stars or a ready-reckoner, or perhaps calendar, my child. It is all written in the stars, and in this diary my aunt gave me. The only exception to my plan of life is whatever the wife says, for that will be done, whether I like it or not, but is never predicted by the oriel. Si Trew (talk) 22:10, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—November 2014

Did you know?

VisualEditor is also available on the mobile version of Wikipedia. Login and click the pencil icon to open the page you want to edit. Click on the gear-shaped settings in the upper-right corner, to pick which editor to use. Choose "Edit" to use VisualEditor, or "Edit source" to use the wikitext editor.

It will remember whether you used wikitext or VisualEditor, and use the same editor the next time you edit an article.

The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor. Not all features are available in Mobile Web.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and requests, and worked on support for editing tables and for using non-Latin languages. Their weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org. Informal notes from the recent quarterly review were posted on Meta.

Recent improvements

The French Wikipedia should see better search results for links, templates, and media because the new search engine was turned on for everyone there. This change is expected at the Chinese and German Wikipedias next week, and eventually at the English Wikipedia.

The "pawn" system has been mostly replaced. Bugs in this system sometimes added a chess pawn character to wikitext. The replacement provides better support for non-Latin languages, with full support hopefully coming soon.

VisualEditor is now provided to editors who use Internet Explorer 10 or 11 on desktop and mobile devices. Internet Explorer 9 is not supported yet.

The keyboard shortcuts for items in the toolbar's menus are now shown in the menus. VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme from the User Experience / Design group. The appearance of dialogs has already changed in one Mobile version. The appearance on desktops will change soon. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" design and the new "MediaWiki" theme which will replace it.)

Several bugs were fixed for internal and external links. Improvements to MediaWiki's search solved an annoying problem: If you searched for the full name of the page or file that you wanted to link, sometimes the search program could not find the page. A link inside a template, to a local page that does not exist, will now show red, exactly as it does when reading the page. Due to a error, for about two weeks this also affected all external links inside templates. Opening an auto-numbered link node like [1] with the keyboard used to open the wrong link tool. These problems have all been fixed.

TemplateData

The tool for quickly editing TemplateData will be deployed to all Wikimedia Foundation wikis on Thursday, 6 November.  This tool is already available on the biggest 40 Wikipedias, and now all wikis will have access to it. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation.  When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top.  Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

You can use the new autovalue setting to pre-load a value into a template. This can be used to substitute dates, as in this example, or to add the most common response for that parameter. The autovalue can be easily overridden by the editor, by typing something else in the field.

In TemplateData, you may define a parameter as "required". The template dialog in VisualEditor will warn editors if they leave a "required" parameter empty, and they will not be able to delete that parameter. If the template can function without this parameter, then please mark it as "suggested" or "optional" in TemplateData instead.

Looking ahead

Basic support for inserting tables and changing the number of rows and columns in tables will appear next Wednesday. Advanced features, like dragging columns to different places, will be possible later. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. To help editors find the most important items more quickly, some items in the toolbar menus will be hidden behind a "More" item, such as "underlining" in the styling menu. The appearance of the media search dialog will improve, to make picking between possible images easier and more visual. The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap.

The user guide will be updated soon to add information about editing tables. The translations for most languages except Spanish, French, and Dutch are significantly out of date. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language. Talk to us if you need help exporting the translated guide to your wiki.

You can influence VisualEditor's design. Tell the VisualEditor team what you want changed during the office hours via IRC. The next sessions are on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC and on Wednesday 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC. You can also share your ideas at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Also, user experience researcher Abbey Ripstra is looking for editors to show her how they edit Wikipedia. Please sign up for the research program if you would like to hear about opportunities.

If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Wooton House image on Commons

The picture of Wotton House on Commons for which you reverted my change is of the one in Surrey. It should not be given the category Wotton House because that one is in Buckinghamshire. Thats why I removed it. I suggest you do now.Plucas58 (talk) 17:10, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I've undone my edit. It was the combination of removing that category and the removal of the The Iron Bridge category from another image that made me think this was in error. Thryduulf (talk) 19:56, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I might have a pic for Wootton House which I can freely share (taken by my family). Can you ping me to remind me. I think it is about 1959. Si Trew (talk) 16:21, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies

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RfD nov 9 10 and 11

Any idea why they are missing on these dates? Did I do somethng by mistake to knock them out? I don't want to bother you unnecessarily but it seems a bit odd to me. Si Trew (talk) 16:19, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Erm, afaict they are not missing. Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 November 9, Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 November 10 and Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 November 11 are all blue links for me. They will not be transcluded onto the main RfD page until that day (i.e. tomorrow UTC for November 9). Thryduulf (talk) 16:35, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I am a complete idiot, since it is (was) only 8 November. Si Trew (talk) 01:01, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks (RfD)

Thanks for fixing the RfD template at the Awake! redirect. Twinkle failed to automatically add the template, and it's been so long since I've done it manually that I'd forgotten which template was the right one.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: October 2014

This Month in GLAM – Volume IV, Issue X, October 2014 Headlines Australia and New Zealand report: National Library Conference; Feminist Art Edit-a-thon Finland report: Edit-a-thon Course "Bring Culture to Wikipedia" France report: Edit-a-thon & Mass upload Germany report: GLAM on tour Sauerland; WMDE World Café at the Conference of National Cultural Institutions Italy report: War Books; EAGLE project; National Library Conference Netherlands report: Images donated by Nijmegen municipality archive; World Day for Audiovisual Heritage Sweden report: Wiki Loves Monuments; Europeana Task Force UK report: The breadth of UK GLAM work: chemistry, ballet, tanks and more USA report: News from Philadelphia & New York City Open Access report: Open Access Week; peer-reviewed OA journal publishes Wikipedia article Calendar: November's GLAM events Read this edition in full • Single-page To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 23:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Awake (RfD) - thanks

Thanks for that revert, I must have slipped and saved it by mistake, was not my intention to subvert the discussion. Si Trew (talk) 08:57, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

ARCA

Thanks for your comments, and for leaving notes on the article talk pages. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:24, 15 November 2014 (UTC).

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources

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Thanks for your input on the wiki markup RFD!

Hey Thryduulf, I just wanted to reach out and say thank you for taking the time to analyze the status of the huge amount of redirects that I had nominated. At this time, I have nothing to debate or add to your comments. (However, that may be subject to change if I have more time, or if I think of something else.) I also wanted to come here to say ... if you believe that my nomination would be better off going through the RfC process in one way or another, I will in no way oppose. (I thought that the technical complications behind these redirects would have been merit enough for the majority of these to be clearly deleted, so thus, I didn't nominate then separately. [Though I was unsure about nominating '', considering that its usefulness is blatantly obvious, but ended up nominating it anyways since it falls in the scope of my concern regarding all of the redirects I nominated.] However, I also believe that if one person thinks this way, then there are most likely others who think the same.) Steel1943 (talk) 00:27, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

No I think RfD is the correct process to use for these. If I was nominating this many though I'd probably have broken them into chunks (perhaps alphabetically) and nominated them over several days to make it easier to digest - but that might have resulted in less input and/or just "per yesterday" type comments so it's a toss-up who is right.

Generally I don't see the need for these redirects, and I would discourage their creation (but as several I've seen have been the result of different people independently trying to achieve what {{italic title}} does, that's not going to do much; and I just know that a title blacklist would get in the way of something somewhere!) but there are ones that are seeing significant use or have some other reason they should be kept. A way to see what traffic is bot driven would help (possibly coming AIUI) and which comes from internal links and which comes from outside Wikipedia would be very helpful though (not possible afaik). Which leaves the requirement to make some educated guesses, and I always err on the side of keeping something if it seems likely people are using it. Thryduulf (talk) 00:55, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Imran Khan

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Proposed Closure of Formula 1 2015 season German Flag dispute

I have proposed a closure to the dispute as most parties seem to have understand the opposing views and simply disagree with them and there appears to be a consensus, as an uninvolved editor I would appreciate you weighing in here. SPACKlick (talk) 02:12, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've only just seen it, so far too late to comment, but I am happy with teh outcome. Thryduulf (talk) 18:01, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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section edit at RfD

dear Thry,

Am I just my usual idiot or every time I go to edit section I get the whole page for that day (at RfD) not just the section. That is a change. It is not that I cannot be bothered to track it – I shall – but the usual business if you edit a section is that it edits a section, not the entire section.

I make it plain. Editing an entry on "Fitzrovia" on "12 December 2014" does not lead you to "2014_December_12#Fitzrovia". Call me mr stupid but I spend most of my time editing articles and improving them. Something has changed but I can't put my finger on it, but now every time I make a contribution to RfD it has the whole day;s page when I just wnat the one bloody item. And then I cock it up by editing another item when I meant to put one at the bottom. You know me well enough, I am no stranger to cock-ups, but that is absurd.

but also I should like to say, Merry Christmas all to you and yours. Another year survived and improved by good people like thee and I hope me trying to make things better. I know you are perfect and I am not very good, but I try. I hope at least I have made it a little better.

May your god go with you.

S.

Our Dear Leader on Question TIme

Hi Thry,

Where should we announce it? I imagine it is kinda common knowledge, but my search here in Hungary has nothing about it. I think it will be 8 anuary but was ust announced at the end of the programme as "Our guests will be, Jimmy Wales [I think Jimmy was announced by the chairman David Dimbleby not "James" etc] and other boring politicians [my edit]." I know RfD was the wrong forum, but pace there is no other, really. I have no idea how to submit to Signpost, I just humbly gnome in the background. I get enough abuse about that. I edited a parish rag with 500 delivery for four years and had it set up in type and had to correct middle class English from this comprehensive inky who knows a split infinitive when he sees one, a special pleasure of mine telling the high middle classes that "the hoi polloi" is not good because "hoi" means "the", see fowler, and see them squirm from this poor comprehensive kiddy. I also beat the hell of em out of them at some village do at scrabble, and I wasn't even do ing the nips and tucks but laid some Shakespearean word and was called on it. And of course it is in Shakespeare. Never think a comprehensive schoolboy is thick. I have been fighting tha all my life and will continue to do so. That is about the only chip on my shoulder. When someone assumes I am thick because I speak with a cockney accent, my word you have my hackles up. And I even know what hackles are.

Take your laughs where you can. I still wish you a merry Christmas. I think I signed S. last time, which is how i usually sign in real life, but you can have Si Trew (talk) 18:13, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: November 2014

This Month in GLAM – Volume IV, Issue XI, November 2014 Headlines Australia and New Zealand report: ALIA partnership goes countrywide Belgium report: Workshops for collection holders across Europe; Founding event of Wikimedia Belgium; Wiki Loves Monuments in Belgium & Luxembourg; Plantin-Moretus Museum; Edit-a-thon at faculty library in Ghent University; Image donation UGentMemorie; Upcoming activities France report: Wiki Loves Monuments; mass upload; Musée de Bretagne Germany report: Facts, fun and free content Ireland report: Ada Lovelace day in Dublin Italy report: National Library Conference; Wiki Loves Monuments; Archaeological Open Data; BEIC Netherlands report: Video challenge; Wikidata workshop and hackathon; Wikipedia courses in libraries; WWII editathon Norway report: Edit-a-thon far north at the Museum of Nordland (Nordlandsmuseet) Spain report: Picasso, first Galipedia edit-a-thon, course in Biblioteca Reina Sofía and free portraits South Africa report: Wiki Loves GLAMs, Cape Town Sweden report: Use, reuse and contributions back and forth UK report: Medals, maps and multilingual marvels Special story: ORCID identifiers Open Access report: Open proposal: Wikidata for Research; Open Access signalling Tool testing report: Tools for references, images, video, file usage; Popular Pages Calendar: December's GLAM events Read this edition in full • Single-page To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 22:30, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

You've made it

Make us proud. 86.106.137.3 (talk) 02:25, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I will do my best. Thryduulf (talk) 02:32, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I came also for congratulations! So far arbitration was (for me at least, as you watched,) a synonym for waste of time, and ideally it shouldn't even be needed, - let's work on that ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, you had the misfortune to be involved in the case that was the committee's low point over the past few years. I'm going to do my best to make sure nobody else has that experience. Thryduulf (talk) 08:29, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

My experience is nothing compared to Andy's, - did you see my Kafka comment of expectation? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:40, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

My condolences on your election. ;-)

I hope that you turn out to be one of those amazing people who can be exposed to the worst problems in the community every day, and still remain optimistic about our future. Good luck, WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Induction to the 2015 Arbitration Committee

Congratulations on your success in the elections and welcome onto the 2015 Arbitration Committee. In the next few days we will induct you and the other new arbitrators. Please email arbcom-en-clists.wikimedia.org from the email address you wish to use for registration on the various private wikis and mailing lists. Please also indicate which, if any, of the checkuser and oversight permissions you wish to be assigned for your term (if you don't already hold both).

Over the coming days, you will receive a small number of emails. Please carefully read them. If they are automated registration emails, please follow the instructions in them to finalise registration. You can contact me or GorillaWarfare (the designated newbie contacts) directly if you have difficulty with the induction process. Lastly, you must identify to the Wikimedia Foundation prior to being appointed. Please promptly go to the Identification Noticeboard and follow the instructions linked there if you are not already identified.

Thank you for volunteering to serve on the committee. We very much look forward to working with you this term.

For the Arbitration Committee,
AGK [•] 08:35, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this message. I am toying with the idea of setting up a new email address specifically for arbitration-related matters, so it might be tomorrow before I email to set up registration, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 08:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!!!

E-e-bayer_lover (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

E-e-bayer_lover (talk) 22:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, although it doesn't really feel that Christmasy yet - despite it being the WMUK Christmas Party tomorrow!. Thryduulf (talk) 23:14, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh you poor sod

You poor, poor sod. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR - David Gerard (talk) 16:46, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)

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Experience?

Re your comment about the "appallingly written" decision, I find myself wondering if you have any prior experience serving on an authoritative decision making board? NE Ent 12:52, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I have experience in dispute resolution in the online world, and just shy of a decade's experience of Wikipedia and the need for remedies to say what they mean in the least ambiguous way possible, and of the need for remedies to actually be capable of solving the problem the set out to (which is not true of the infoboxes case remedies as a whole). Thryduulf (talk) 18:58, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

(watching) last time today's favourite edit summary peace and joy - I am convinced that my "remedies" might have worked better, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:12, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Which reads like a "none" -- the key word being "board." As a member of the committee ya'll have as close to absolute power as it gets on English Wikipedia, but as an individual, in theory you have no more cred than you currently have: in practice I think you'll find you have less freedom of moment because begin "arbitrator" puts you in a bit of a glass bowl. (See WP:Bradspeak). Your job will be difficult enough without making your fellow committee members look bad by excessively harsh and unnecessary public criticism -- you can't make remedies say anything without the support of the other members.

Incidentally, I couldn't care less about infoboxes. As a reader, if I want to know when Ada Lovelace passed away, what possible difference does it make to me whether the date's in the lead, the Death section, or an infobox? 1852 is 1852. A great tragedy of Wikipedia is editors who care so much and work so hard end up in conflict over things that, in the big scheme of things, aren't really that important. NE Ent 18:25, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

(still watching) I am not interested in infoboxes, no more than in images in articles. Both are nice to have. What got me into a situation that was interpreted as fighting were two things: I don't like people being so interested in "no infobox" that they remove them from articles others wrote (actually that was the reason why the infobox case was requested, - I wasn't asked, would have said nooooooo), and I saw a friend in danger to be banned who hasn't done anything I would call disruptive since 2012 (26 December, to be precise, Cosima Wagner two days after TFA on her birthday, - she is not even a classical composer, actually I wouldn't call it disruptive, but there are others who think a FA should not be edited at all.). - I think the situation improved greatly, and have proclaimed the 2005 infobox wars over more than once. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:05, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I do not want to rehash the arguments for or against infoboxes here, as that will not be productive, but as a reader I am very appreciative when there is an infobox and I severely disliked the attitude and behaviour of some who disagree. I also think that the remedies in that arbitration case have not resolved the dispute (the number of subsequent amendment and clarification requests does nothing to dispel this view), and the way it required WP:OWNership of articles has been particularly counter-productive and just further entrenched views. I was not alone in predicting this at the time. My being on the committee does not mean that I cease to have an opinion - especially about the work of committees past. Thryduulf (talk) 21:31, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for having an opinion and not changing it, - possibly some voted for you because of it ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—December 2014

Did you know?

Basic table editing is now available in VisualEditor. You can add and remove rows and columns from existing tables at the click of a button.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on table editing and performance. Their weekly status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

VisualEditor was deployed to several hundred remaining wikis as an opt-in beta feature at the end of November, except for most Wiktionaries (which depend heavily upon templates) and all Wikisources (which await integration with ProofreadPage).

Recent improvements

Basic support for editing tables is available. You can insert new tables, add and remove rows and columns, set or remove a caption for a table, and merge cells together. To change the contents of a cell, double-click inside it. More features will be added in the coming months. In addition, VisualEditor now ignores broken, invalid rowspan and colspan elements, instead of trying to repair them.

You can now use find and replace in VisualEditor, reachable through the tool menu or by pressing ⌃ Ctrl+F or ⌘ Cmd+F.

You can now create and edit simple <blockquote> paragraphs for quoting and indenting content. This changes a "Paragraph" into a "Block quote".

Some new keyboard sequences can be used to format content. At the start of the line, typing "*  " will make the line a bullet list; "1.  " or "# " will make it a numbered list; "==" will make it a section heading; ": " will make it a blockquote. If you didn't mean to use these tools, you can press undo to undo the formatting change. There are also two other keyboard sequences: "[[" for opening the link tool, and "{{" for opening the template tool, to help experienced editors. The existing standard keyboard shortcuts, like ⌃ Ctrl+K to open the link editor, still work.

If you add a category that has been redirected, then VisualEditor now adds its target. Categories without description pages show up as red.

You can again create and edit galleries as wikitext code.

Looking ahead

VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme designed by the User Experience group. The new theme will be visible for desktop systems at MediaWiki.org in late December and at other sites early January. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" theme and the new "MediaWiki" one which will replace it.)

The Editing team plans to add auto-fill features for citations in January. Planned changes to the media search dialog will make choosing between possible images easier.

Help

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Translations of the user guide for most languages are oudated. Ukrainian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch translators are nearly current. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language.
• Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Wednesday, 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC.
• File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.

If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta.

Thank you! WhatamIdoing (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

RfD closures

Thank you for closing all these RfD discussions. However, where the result is not delete please could you add {{Old RfD}} to the redirect's talk page. When I'm doing that I normally tag the redirect for the same wikiprojects as the target (using class=redirect and no importance parameter), but this is entirely optional. See Talk:Windows X in a couple of minutes for an example. Thryduulf (talk) 22:03, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I have generally been adding {{Old RfD}}, but I missed that one. Guess I'm still new at the process. 8) -- Beland (talk) 01:08, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It was the only one I had time to check, so a bit of good/bad luck! Thryduulf (talk) 02:24, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Seasonal Greets!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2015!!!

Hello Thryduulf, 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 a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015. Happy editing, --L235-Talk Ping when replying 03:40, 25 December 2014 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Thank you! Thryduulf (talk) 10:48, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion

You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion. Should you wish to respond, your contribution to this discussion will be appreciated. For tips, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment § Suggestions for responding. If you wish to change the frequency or topics of these notices, or do not wish to receive them any longer, please adjust your entries at WP:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:05, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Penlee inflation help please

Hello Thryduulf, Happy New Year, and sorry to bother you out of the blue. I watch Tees Transporter Bridge and I was interested by your edit there sorting out the inflation-adjusted figure. If you had a moment, could you please have a quick look at the £3M/£10M thing in Penlee lifeboat disaster#Aftermath (first paragraph), which has a similar issue? I was already concerned about its ambiguous wording, which I've now had a try at; but I think it may need a similar treatment to sort out the year thing, as it is currently showing 2015. I did look at your work on the bridge but I don't feel confident about how the syntax works, so I would be very pleased if you could find time to see to this one too. Sorry for the cheeky request, but thanks! Best wishes DBaK (talk) 22:55, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

No problem at all and now done. The syntax for {{inflation-year}} is very simple - it takes one mandatory parameter which is the country the inflation figures are for (in the same format as the {{inflation}} template uses), e.g. "UK" in this case. I noticed a couple of days ago that {{inflation-year}} is not mentioned in the documentation for the main template so there are probably hundreds of uses of CURRENTYEAR or vague time statements (as I happened across at B-25 Empire State Building crash the other day), but haven't had chance to fix. I'll drop a note on it's talk page - thanks for the reminder! Thryduulf (talk) 23:10, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

That's brilliant, thank you very much. Best wishes DBaK (talk) 23:34, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Article titles

Hello! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Article titles. Should you wish to respond, your contribution to this discussion will be appreciated.

For tips, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment § Suggestions for responding. If you wish to change the frequency or topics of these notices, or do not wish to receive them any longer, please adjust your entries at WP:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:06, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: December 2014

This Month in GLAM – Volume IV, Issue XII, December 2014 Headlines Australia and New Zealand report: Trove in the encyclopedia Germany report: Out now: GLAM on Tour film; Looking back: WMDE discussion rounds 2014 Norway report: Seminar at the NTNU University Museum: uploading images to Wikimedia Commons Spain report: Edith-a-thon about Spanish scientists in six museums Sweden report: Central Museums and Glöggmingel UK report: Going for Gold, map tagging and Histropedia USA report: Wikipedia in New York City Update Special story: Wikidata for cultural heritage Open Access report: Wikidata for research; Open Access Media Importer rewritten; JATS-Con Calendar: January's GLAM events Read this edition in full • Single-page To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 11:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Photographer's Barnstar
	For your extra effort in providing photos for an article that another Wikipedian is working on. Exemplary teamwork! w.carter-Talk 17:12, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! Thryduulf (talk) 17:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Speedy keep

Hello! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Speedy keep. Should you wish to respond, your contribution to this discussion will be appreciated.

For tips, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment § Suggestions for responding. If you wish to change the frequency or topics of these notices, or do not wish to receive them any longer, please adjust your entries at WP:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:06, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Question

Could you see if the editor who made this diff [2] has any registered accounts and if so quietly have a clerk block them? Thank you. Jehochman ^Talk 05:07, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I've forwarded your request to the Functionaries list as I am not awake enough myself (it's 5:20am here). Thryduulf (talk) 05:21, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Lightning in a tropical cyclone

I've closed the longstanding RFD for Lightning in a tropical cyclone as no consensus with an unusually detailed rationale. Basically, nobody wanted to keep it, but there wasn't consensus on what to do, so I've taken a bold step of un-redirecting it and immediately sending it to AFD to get input from people who don't often show up at RFD. I'd really appreciate your input at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lightning in a tropical cyclone, where I've given a strong suggestion that people pick between the RFD-favored steps of deletion or retargeting to lightning. I'm attempting to notify everyone who participated in the RFD (that's BDD, Ivanvector, Inks.LWC, Guy1890, Steel1943, and Thryduulf), but if I missed someone, please do the notification for me. Nyttend (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

ITN for Leon Brittan

--Spencer^T♦C 00:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Note

Before casting your vote in the Wifione case, please be sure to have read and understood this thread. If you have any questions, please ask. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Wifione is accused of editing tendentiously and avoiding accountability. The topic area is the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), its owners and its competitors. A massive sock farm (sockmaster named Mrinl Pandy) dominated the topic area until it was revealed shortly before Wifione arrived. DGG's statement (linked in the last thread on the above-linked page) is a good place to start. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 20:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ban appeals reform 2015

Hello! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ban appeals reform 2015. Should you wish to respond, your contribution to this discussion will be appreciated.

For tips, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment § Suggestions for responding. If you wish to change the frequency or topics of these notices, or do not wish to receive them any longer, please adjust your entries at WP:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:02, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Please look at the substance

There are reasons I'm saying what I am saying. Please look at the substance of the complaints and what is actually being said. We are dealing with a person with a history of manipulation and dishonesty. If you haven't noticed this same user is trying to use that case as a blunt hammer to gain her ends. I have voluntarily stayed away from Lightbreather because our paths do not cross in article space, my only involvement is seeing a page that is against WMF policies (after massive canvassing it was hard to miss) about discrimination and the SPI which remains in my watchlist. The others have been directly related to the arb case. TKOP assessment is actually quite true but he also misse3s the fact that Lightbreather was pulled into the SPI because she accused me of casting aspersions then too and after a large investigation it was proven true. Please look into the substance, it's vastly important so you won't be manipulated. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 17:25, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

BTW the committee didn't endorse anything, two arbs were involved in a discussion started by Lightbreather on her talkpage. Again it's the manipulation of the facts surrounding the presentation is vital. I have added enough evidence I think including I believe 5 admin comments showing that TKOP and myself are not in any way casting aspersions. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 17:33, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Mind keeping it on the case page? Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 01:49, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News 2015—#1

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. 

Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements

The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:

• starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog:  blue ,
• takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation:  green ,
• might remove or lose your work, like removing a link:  red , or
• is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window:  gray.

The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).

Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.

Looking ahead

The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.

We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.

Let's work together

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Please help complete translations of the user guide for users who speak your language.
• Join the weekly bug triage meetings beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. Contact James F. for more information.
• Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 19:00 UTC.

Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)