Jump to content

User talk:Avicennasis/MainArchive/2011

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2010 |
| 2012


The Signpost: 3 January 2011

The Signpost: 10 January 2011

Pittsburgh WP10 party

Hey! This is just a friendly reminder about the Wikipedia 10th anniversary celebration in Pittsburgh tomorrow. The meeting time has been moved up to 4:00 so that we can gather before the game starts and stake out places, and it may be a good idea to get there even sooner, if you can. Pittsburgh bars are likely to be a little crazy and very crowded. See you there!--ragesoss (talk) 02:18, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. :) I'll be there! Avicennasis @ 17:54, 10 Shevat 5771 / 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 January 2011

The Signpost: 24 January 2011

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 28 January 2011





This is the first issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program newsletter. Please read it! It has important information about the the current wave of classes, instructions and advice, and other news about the ambassador program.





Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 00:30, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Patriarch Zoilus of Alexandria

You tagged the article on Patriarch Zoilus of Alexandria as unreferenced. I know it has only one reference, added by myself, but are you questioning a specific part of the text? Dimadick (talk) 10:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I didn't tag it as unreferenced. It was already automatically tagged as unreferenced, which is why it was in Category:Articles automatically tagged as unreferenced. I merely adjusted the tag to {{refimprove}}. It states that there is a reference, however more would be desired. :) In general, I think, we shouldn't rely a single source alone, though I don't question your reference at all. Hope that clears things up! Avicennasis @ 01:10, 26 Shevat 5771 / 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2011

People from the SLRD

Re Category:People from Squamish, the reason for my previous edit comment about that category needing deletion is not because as a hyphenated version of the name, vs the current (but contested, by me) version that uses a dash, but because classifying people by regional district is just wrong, wrong, wrong but dates back to Wiki-ancient times when someone thought RDs were a valid way to indicate where people were from and/or for other reasons geographic subdivisions of BC. The RM for the re-hyphenation of RD names is at Talk:Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District (see Requested Move 2 there, that's a redirect to a "dashified" version of the page, but I refuse to type dashes when they're not where they should be; all sources - all - use a hyphen, as does the enabling legislation). I'll create Category:People from the Sea to Sky Country which will have the Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton Valley and Gates Valley people categories (whichever exists, I think Whistler's does only at this point).Skookum1 (talk) 02:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah. My goal wasn't to delete the category based on the edit summury - I am just working through Wikipedia:Database reports/Categories categorized in red-linked categories and removing the redlinked cats as I see them. :) Feel free to undo my edit if you want someone else to take a look at it - that page shouldn't come up again in my queue. Avicennasis @ 02:22, 29 Shevat 5771 / 3 February 2011 (UTC)
Actually, hm, you know what? I forgot to include the subcats in the RM, "people from", "populated places in" etc...oh wait, no I'm confused (like often), that's for the article, not the categories, which will be given a speedy by User:Good Olfactory once the main RM on the articles is done. Hopefully no CfD required; the first RM was inane enough....sigh.Skookum1 (talk) 09:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Indiscriminate removal of red-linked categories

I read in the section above that you are "just working through Wikipedia:Database reports/Categories categorized in red-linked categories and removing the redlinked cats as I see them". This you seem to be doing rather indiscriminately as a number of the categories which you are removing should in fact be created as they are established parts of existing hierarchies. Perhaps you should inquire at Wikipedia talk:Categorization before proceeding in this endeavour. __meco (talk) 10:20, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. I didn't think there would be a need for a redlink category (If it was a necessary cat, I would think it would be created already) but just to clarify I did leave a message on Wikipedia talk:Categorization, and will stop with this project until I get some responses. :) Avicennasis @ 14:01, 29 Shevat 5771 / 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Please try to fix redline categories, rather than just deleting them as you did to Mark Murphy (ice hockey). Thank you. Dolovis (talk) 04:56, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Um, I'm kind of cofused on this one. I removed two categories from the page, which you re-added, which you then removed again. Both of these cats were redlinked when I removed them. It seems you created them (2), and then you then put up for CSD. So, I'm curious, but what exactly was achieved here? Am I missing something? Avicennasis @ 06:03, 1 Adar I 5771 / 5 February 2011 (UTC)
I thought that maybe you were mistaken, and left this message on my talk page before you realized your mistake, but it seems that this note was left afterwards. It also seems that despite one of the cats being previously deleted, you re-created it anyways. Avicennasis @ 06:24, 1 Adar I 5771 / 5 February 2011 (UTC)
To clarify what happened (and yes, your are missing something), you removed relevant category redlinks when you should have fixed them. I added the categories back and then created categories for the redlinks. I then realized categories already existed, but under different names, so I fixed the categories on the article (as you should have done in the first place) and then CSD-deleted the redundant categories that I created in error. All of this effort would have been avoided if you did not remove the redlinks in the first place. If you have a dislike for redlinks then please fix them - do not remove them. And if categories confuse you, then please just leave them alone. Dolovis (talk) 00:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Still missing something. The end result, as I see it, is that the two red-link categories I removed, should have been removed. Perhaps replacing them would have been nice, but one cannot expect to know every single category to know which one is the proper category. And if some time goes past before another editor does add the proper cat, So what? Avicennasis @ 01:19, 10 Adar I 5771 / 14 February 2011 (UTC)
No, The two redlinks you removed should have been fixed. Blindly removing redlink categories is disruptive. Dolovis (talk) 04:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
I think we can agree to disagree on this one. You've "fixed" the article in question, and I've heard your view point. I don't think any further discussion needs to happen. Thank you for your time, and keep up the good work that you do. :) Avicennasis @ 16:31, 10 Adar I 5771 / 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Mentor

Hi, I am a James Madison University student and one of my classes is working on a Public Policy article this semester. I don't have a mentor yet and was wondering if you would be interested. Thank you, Kimberly — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimberly wymer (talkcontribs) 19:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello there, Kimberly! :) I'd be glad to offer help in any way I can. Just let me know what you need! I know that Wikipedia can be confusing at times, so if you have any questions, or are just curious about something, feel free to ask. Avicennasis @ 14:30, 30 Shevat 5771 / 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! If you would like to add our page for the class it is WP:USPP I do have one question. I was trying to add a photo to a page and I read through all of the how to add a picture and it wouldn't work. What is the code for it? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimberly wymer (talkcontribs) 17:49, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia
No problem. The code for adding a picture would be [[File:Filename.JPG|thumb|Caption text]]. This will only work if the file is already uploaded to Wikipedia (or it's sister website, Commons). Note that the filename is case sensitive. For an example, If I add [[File:Wiki.png|thumb|Wikipedia]] to this page, I'll get the image to the right. If you haven't already, you might want to check out Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. It's got a lot of good info and more advanced examples, if you want to experiment a little bit. :) Hope that helps! Avicennasis @ 18:03, 1 Adar I 5771 / 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your help on the picture. I got it to work, I appreciate it. My next question is would you mind looking at my article on food policy? I have added some information but I am not sure what else should be included within the article. Such as what information is still needed or is there something I am missing for sure. Thank you! Kimberly wymer (talk) 00:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Kimberly Wymer

Articles automatically tagged as unreferenced

Can I ask you to please not remove the auto= parameter from very short one-line stubs? There's really no point as the stub tag already conveys that the article is woefully incomplete, which would include referencing, it's redundant to have an unreferenced tag in addition to a stub tag, and totally unnecessary if there's only one sentence such as "<blank> is a village in <blank>" as there's nothing to cite anyway. I already updated the instructions at the category page. -- œ 22:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Not a problem. I was a bit unsure about tagging some articles. I verified the pages were still unreferenced, which is why I was removing the "auto=yes" part of the tag, but I wasn't sure how to keep the pages in the Category:All articles lacking sources without removing the tag entirely... But, if it's best these be passed over for now, I can do that. :) (The tags are a bit unsightly.) As Category:Articles automatically tagged as unreferenced has over 50k+ articles in it, I don't think that will be a big deal. I'll refocus a little bit on how I work through this cat. Avicennasis @ 02:25, 2 Adar I 5771 / 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Ya we shouldn't even be worrying about doing anything with the articles in that category, it's meant to be more of a tracking category than maintenance. All the pages still remain in Category:All articles lacking sources whether "auto=yes" is removed or not, so for the short one-line stubs it's better to just leave the tag hidden, and it'll still be categorized as being unreferenced for those working on finding refs. -- œ 02:47, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Ah. I was only going through it since someone mentioned it at AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. :) I'm just going to find articles that do have references and remove the tag entirely, if needed. I think that will be a better approach. Avicennasis @ 05:36, 2 Adar I 5771 / 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes, MUCH better, thanks :) -- œ 06:20, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 7 February 2011

Pittsburgh meetup: Sunday, 13 February

In case you're free, the next Pittsburgh Wikipedia meetup is this Sunday. Hope you can make it!--ragesoss (talk) 01:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 13 February 2011





This is the second issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed.



  • Userboxes and profiles - Add an ambassador userbox to your page, and make sure you've added your mentor profile!
  • Be a coordinating ambassador - Pick and class and make sure no students fall through the cracks.
  • New screencasts - Short videos on watchlists and a number of other topics may be useful to students.
  • Updates from Campus Ambassadors - Ambassadors are starting to report on classroom experiences, both on-wiki and on the Google Group.
  • Other news - There's a new on-wiki application for being an Online Ambassador, and Editing Friday #2 is today!
  • Things you can do - This is just a sample; if you're eager for something to do, there's plenty more.

Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 18:20, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Non-free files in your user space

Hey there Avicennasis, thank you for your contributions. I am a bot, alerting you that non-free files are not allowed in user or talk space. I removed some files I found on User:Avicennasis/sandbox10. In the future, please refrain from adding fair-use files to your user-space drafts or your talk page.

  • See a log of files removed today here.

Thank you, -- DASHBot (talk) 05:02, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Whoops! Sorry about that, was testing something. :) Thanks for the heads up DASHBot! Avicennasis @ 05:07, 9 Adar I 5771 / 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Monopoly on Violence, edit

Hey dude, I reverted your deletion of the move-protect icon from monopoly on violence. I called it vandalism in the revert description, but that was more of a general term to denote that something that was an integral part of the page was deleted. I just wanted to know why you deleted the icon? 138.246.7.70 (talk) 22:05, 13 February 2011 (UTC)talonx

Per my edit summary - the template was causing the page to show up in Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates. I assumed it was redudant with the {{pp-move-indef}} tag. This seems to have been a mistake, however, as someone changed the template incorrectly, which is what caused the issue, it seems. Avicennasis @ 22:14, 9 Adar I 5771 / 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Yeah I had read your edit, but was confused, because with your correction the page protect became invisible (or nonexistent?). Anyways, I just wanted to know what was up. Thanks for the answer :) Talonxpool (talk) 11:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 February 2011

Removing novels stub tags

Could you please refrain from removing stub tags with AWB, many of the ones you are removing are clearly stubs such as The Night of Kadar. Novels are an interesting case, because plot sections are exactly what the stub definition defines "very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition," whereas to become a start it requires additional information thus providing " some meaningful content." Length simply isn't a good judge of novels articles, Sadads (talk) 10:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you point me to where you got this info? I didn't find the word "plot" or the phrase "very little meaningful content" on Wikipedia:Stub, which means you must have another source for this. Avicennasis @ 16:35, 17 Adar I 5771 / 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Mentoring students: be sure to check in on them

This message is going out to all of the Online Ambassadors who are, or will be, serving as mentors this term.

Hi there! This is just a friendly reminder to check in on what your mentees are doing. If they've started making edits, take a look and help them out or do some example fixes for them, if they need it. And if they are doing good, let them know it!

If you aren't mentoring anyone yet, it looks like you will be soon; at least one large class is asking us to assign mentors for them, and students in a number of others haven't yet gotten to asking ambassadors to be their mentors, but may soon. --Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:05, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 February 2011

groups of students in need of mentors

Hey Avicennasis. One of the classes working with the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, Jonathan Obar's Media and Telecommunication Policy, is working in small groups and would like us to assign a mentor to each group (rather than having students request the mentors they'd like, as other classes are doing).

I invite you to sign on as the mentor for one or more groups, especially if any of the topics catch your interest. To sign up, go to the course page and add yourself as "Mentor: you" in the section for that group. They students and/or professor or campus ambassadors should be cleaning things up soon to list all the usernames for each group and add a few more groups. Once you know who the students are in the group, you can leave them each a quick introduction to let them know you'll be mentoring their group.

Thanks!--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:07, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello! Just a quick note to point out a couple of taggings that appear to have been in error, namely [1] and [2]. As you'll notice, the stub was categorized prior to the first tagging, which is why I reverted the first diff and have also reverted the second diff. I don't want to approach the 3RR line over the situation, so I thought I might bring it here to sort out! (No need to reply to my page via tb, I'll be watching this page) Cheers! Strikerforce (talk) 11:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello! Sorry about that. When considering whether a page is in a category, stubs are generally not accounted for that fact. We are looking for "content categories", that is, intended as part of the encyclopedia, to help readers find articles, based on features of the subjects of those articles. Stub categories do not fall under this, as they will now help a reader locate a certain page. I have added a real category to the page, so it should stay out of the Untagged Uncategorized Articles list.  :) Thanks for the heads up. Avicennasis @ 15:31, 19 Adar I 5771 / 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Ahh, I understand. It just seemed a bit odd, to me, at the time. We're on the same page now! Strikerforce (talk) 19:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Castle Age- Review

Dear, I think I am trying level best to improve the "Castle Age" page. I had already placed stub on it. I do not think It needs to be tagged orphan. I would rather request you to help readers by improving this page. Arshan.abbas (talk) 15:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but a page is considered an orphan if less than 3 articles link to it. Currently, as you can see, no other articles link to it. I would help out in greater part but I'm not too familiar with the topic. Once it has some links from other articles, you can remove the orphan tag. :) Avicennasis @ 15:34, 19 Adar I 5771 / 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Dear, I think it is ok now. Kindly review. Arshan.abbas (talk) 18:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Mentoring

Hi Avicennasis! I'm a grad student at Indiana University, and my trade econ class is working with Wikipedia this semester. I was hoping you could mentor me through the process. Cheers - Pubpolliz (talk) 19:45, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd be happy to! :) I'll try to keep an eye your edits, and help out where I can. Feel free to ask if you have any questions or run into any problems! Avicennasis @ 08:59, 21 Adar I 5771 / 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Warning

This edit is of the minor type of edits, for which we should not use AWB. Debresser (talk) 08:47, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd double-check that. The article was tagged as unreferenced, despite it having a reference. This update corrected the template, and by doing so also updated the maintenance categories on the page. :) The edit was minor, by not trivial (E.g., "such as only adding or removing some white space, moving a stub tag, converting some HTML to Unicode..." et cetera.) Avicennasis @ 08:52, 21 Adar I 5771 / 25 February 2011 (UTC)
I apologize, I was in a haste and got mixed up between the two templates. Debresser (talk) 13:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
I am not as involved in Wikipedia as I once was. Sorry. Debresser (talk) 16:32, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
No apology needed - I've done worse, I'm sure. :) Keep up the positive contributions! Avicennasis @ 22:05, 22 Adar I 5771 / 26 February 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate your efforts to correct these templates. Having an old unref tag on an article that contains even one WP:Inline citation or WP:General reference is inappropriate. I think, though, that it would be better to also update the date at the same time, so that people know that it was recently determined that the references needed to be improved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the tag change - it seems very sloppy when a reader sees a tag saying an article has no references, then sees references at the bottom of the page. It makes us seem unprofessional. As for the date - the tag change is suggested by AutoWikiBroswer, and it's only programmed to adjust the tag, not the date. I assume there is a reason/consensus for that, however I have not looked into it. I suppose you could ask at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser if you wanted specifics there. :) Hope that helps. Avicennasis @ 21:01, 26 Adar I 5771 / 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Mentoring

Interested in possibly having you as a Wikipedia mentor for my PPI article. Aelarini (talk) 15:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Hey there Aelarini! I'd be happy to help out however I can! Feel free to ask if you have any questions, as well. Avicennasis @ 22:06, 22 Adar I 5771 / 26 February 2011 (UTC)

AWB and categorization

Hi, and thanks for expressing an interest in my recent post about getting some AWBers to help out with the categorization project. I've written up a page, User:Bearcat/AWB categorization and tagging, which provides a basic walkthrough of how to do the task, but of course feel free to ask me if you have any further questions or need advice or clarification. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 23:51, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 February 2011

Ooops! at John Dos Passos

Hi. I left a rather snotty edit summary at JDP, which was supposed to be directed at an earlier ISP-number editor, not at you. Sorry! — HarringtonSmith (talk) 00:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, no worries there! Thanks for the clarification. :) Avicennasis @ 01:02, 26 Adar I 5771 / 2 March 2011 (UTC)

It would be very helpful if you could say where additional citations are needed for this article. Thanks. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 20:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems good, I've removed the {{refimprove}} tag. Before that, it was tagged as {{unreferenced}}, which obviously isn't the case since there are references. AutoWikiBrowser suggested the tag change, since it did have refs - it's just not good at deciding how many references are enough. :) Avicennasis @ 20:57, 26 Adar I 5771 / 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 21:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi again, Avic! I'm currently trying to assign mentors to all the remaining groups in Professor Obar's class. Would you be the mentor for the group of students working on United States 2008 wireless spectrum auction and the group working on National Broadband Plan (United States)? If you can do it, thanks! If not, please let me know.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:59, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Online Ambassador Program

Please take a look at this project page and see if you can be a mentor to one of the many Areas of Study. If you can, please put your name in the "Online Mentor" area of the Area of Study of your choice and then contact the students you will be working with. As the Coordinating Online Ambassador for this project, please let me know if I can be of assistance. Take Care...NeutralhomerTalk04:29, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Comp Video Games

Re. Wikipedia:Botreq#moving articles and User:Avicennasis/sandbox6

I was having a look at that, at the same time.

I've added a list of the nine with the specific concern you'd also noted - ie articles under "computer" and "video".

Beware two entries on your list; Blaby Computer Games, Star Wars computer and video games.

I'll leave you to it; poke me if needed. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  16:50, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, Thanks for the heads up! Not sure how those two got in there, but precisely why I posted it at WP:BOTREQ before doing anything more - extra eyes are always handy. I think those nine will have to be disambig'd, or possibly merged if the "(video game)" version is already about the computer game. Avicennasis @ 16:56, 27 Adar I 5771 / 3 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree, those need manual sorting-out. But that doesn't have to stop the rest. There is one more small 'gotcha' which I've posted on the REQ page. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  17:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Mhm, looks OK to me. (As in, I checked some of the merge, and yeah; looks OK)  Chzz  ►  05:36, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Universe (video game), and it appears to include material copied directly from http://www.kosmix.com/topic/The_Universe.

It is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article. The article will be reviewed to determine if there are any copyright issues.

If substantial content is duplicated and it is not public domain or available under a compatible license, it will be deleted. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material. You may use such publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. See our copyright policy for further details. (If you own the copyright to the previously published content and wish to donate it, see Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials for the procedure.) CorenSearchBot (talk) 00:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so, CorenSearchBot. You must be a little confused. :) It's ok, I love you anyway. Avicennasis @ 00:54, 29 Adar I 5771 / 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Re your removal of stub tags, stub is not a stub, but it used to be. SpinningSpark 00:28, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Huh. I have no idea why that happened. Thanks for fixing it and bringing it to my attention! :) I'll file a bug report with WP:AWB devs. Avicennasis @ 00:37, 1 Adar II 5771 / 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Bug filed, if your interested. :) Avicennasis @ 00:48, 1 Adar II 5771 / 7 March 2011 (UTC)

chris brooks

The above article is not worthy of space on wikipedia. This presenter has a little tin pot job on a local radio station and i dont think this will benefit anybody who should read it, only to massage the already over inflated ego of a cheesy disc jockey who went out with the arc

Try reading tags which have already been added which requests the removal of this pointless article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.21.163.252 (talk) 11:13, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I assume you mean Chris Brooks (radio presenter)? I do see it has been tagged for deletion. Some admin will come along, and if they agree with the deletion reason, the article will be removed. Avicennasis @ 16:01, 1 Adar II 5771 / 7 March 2011 (UTC)

CfD Manual bot list

Cheers for that list. I've never mastered AWB myself - if you could remove the categories from the 92 living that would be the best start to getting them all in line. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

No prob. :) I'll get to it shortly. Avicennasis @ 20:50, 1 Adar II 5771 / 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 Done Avicennasis @ 22:04, 1 Adar II 5771 / 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Concur with removing living persons from bias categories

Avicennasis: I concur with the recent CFD on bias categories. I notice you removed many individuals from several of those categories. Another category that may be appropriate is Category:Antisemitism in the United States which has quite a few living persons in it, who are implicitly accused of being biased, simply by being mentioned in the Category, hence a BLP issue. If you have time, you may want to scrub that category also. --Noleander (talk) 00:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done :) Feel free to let me know if I can be of more assistance. Avicennasis @ 01:14, 2 Adar II 5771 / 8 March 2011 (UTC)
That was fast :-) David Duke is still in that category: was that a deliberate choice? --Noleander (talk) 01:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Nope. A fluke. I loaded all articles in Category:Antisemitism in the United States, then scanned them to see which articles contained the text [[Category:Living people]]. Not sure how that one slipped through - I've removed it now as well. :) Avicennasis @ 01:41, 2 Adar II 5771 / 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Actually, upon looking a little deeper, it looks like I did get this removed. Another editor undid the change, though. Avicennasis @ 01:47, 2 Adar II 5771 / 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Your signature

Hi Avicennasis, please use a standardised timestamp so that bots such as archive bots can interpret it correctly. I think your use of the Hebrew calendar is a nifty trick, but your sig must contain the timestamp in this format *somewhere*: "19:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)". Thanks! Graham87 03:00, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I've posted tons of places that use archive bots - I've never broken one yet. :) If you can point me somewhere that is has, I'll gladly change it. Avicennasis @ 03:05, 2 Adar II 5771 / 8 March 2011 (UTC)
It would only break an archive bot if you were the only person to post in a particular section. Maybe your sig doesn't break the archive bots ... you'd best ask their maintainers. But I'm pretty paranoid about this sort of thing ... hear are some examples where I've had to fix such breakage on relatively well-used talk pages. Graham87 03:10, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
It would also break the archive bots if there were no signatures with standard timestamps in the section (i.e. your sig + unsigned comments and/or other sigs with non-standard timestamps), but that's not very likely. Graham87 03:16, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Well, the diffs you posted were both issues with User:MiszaBot II. I found an edit I made to Wikipedia talk:Edit filter where I was the last editor to post in a section, and User:MiszaBot II still archived it fine diff.
It also seems that User:KingpinBot doesn't mind it either - same result here, archived with no problem. So, I assume I'm good. :) Thanks for the concern, though. Avicennasis @ 03:26, 2 Adar II 5771 / 8 March 2011 (UTC)
But both those diffs contain sigs with standard timestamps; other contributors have signed within those sections. Ah well, it's not a high-priority issue, really. Graham87 05:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

HESPTYLTD

Hi, I was just wondering why this name did not warrant a block at this time considering there is no evidence of name change and their SPA contributions to Home Entertainment Suppliers which the name appears to represent and promote? Thanks (talk) 13:00, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

In general, abandoned accounts aren't usually blocked. This account hasn't edited since Feb 24, and it seems unlikely they will be back. (A good deal of accounts reported at WP:UAA are abandoned, and no further action is taken.) If they do return, however, and continue the same behavior, the account will be blocked at that point. :) Hope that helps. Avicennasis @ 13:05, 2 Adar II 5771 / 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation, I agree it's low risk. As users I have welcomed stay on my watchlist for around the 2 month mark before getting automatically unwatched, I'll probably notice if they start up again over the next few weeks anyway. Cheers (talk) 13:13, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 7 March 2011


Vacation

{{Vacation}} tag added 02:10, 11 March 2011 (UTC)


Trouted

Whack!

You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

You have been trouted for: going on vacation. Didn't you know that you're not allowed to do that without offering to purchase a shot glass for me to add to my collection? Shame on you! ;) Strikerforce (talk) 02:29, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Great. Now my face smells like fish. ;P —Terrence and Phillip 03:23, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
Strikerforce: Ah, I knew I was forgetting something! :) So sorry - I'll try to make a note next time to pick you up something. Avicennasis @ 15:48, 9 Adar II 5771 / 15 March 2011 (UTC)
Don't let it happen again! :) Strikerforce (talk) 08:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
TerrenceandPhillip: Sorry you had to take a trout for me since I was away - but thanks for that! I'll grab you something, too, next trip I'm on. :) Avicennasis @ 15:48, 9 Adar II 5771 / 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Online Mentor

Just wanted to say hello, as you're my group's online mentor for the Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy. Looking forward to working with you! I'm a junior at Michigan State majoring in Computer Science. My group members should leave a comment here soon, also. Tuoheyjo (talk) 19:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)I believe Avicennasis is away on vacation, at the moment. If your group needs assistance in the interim, I would be happy to offer my help. You may either leave a message here so Avicennasis will have them all in one place when he returns or on my talk page. Strikerforce (talk) 22:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm back! :) Hello there, Tuoheyjo! I look forward to working with you! Please feel free to ask questions and whatnot - I'm happy to be able to help! Avicennasis @ 15:50, 9 Adar II 5771 / 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Notification: changes to "Mark my edits as minor by default" preference

Hello there. This is an automated message to tell you about the gradual phasing out of the preference entitled "Mark all edits minor by default", which you currently have enabled.

On 13 March 2011, this preference was hidden from the user preferences screen as part of efforts to prevent its accidental misuse (consensus discussion). This had the effect of locking users in to their existing preference, which, in your case, was true. To complete the process, your preference will automatically be changed to false in the next few days. This does not require any intervention on your part and you will still be able to manually mark your edits as being 'minor'. The only thing that's changed is that you will no longer be able to have them marked as minor by default. For more information on what a minor edit is, see WP:MINOR or feel to get in touch.

Thank you for your understanding and happy editing :) Editing on behalf of User:Jarry1250, LivingBot (talk) 23:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I'd much rather keep the preference - perhaps I'll have to try and make a gadget or somesuch thing to keep this feature. Else all my edits are just going to be "major" instead of minor. :) Avicennasis @ 15:51, 9 Adar II 5771 / 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 March 2011

GOCE / Mid-drive newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors March 2011 backlog elimination drive

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors March 2011 Backlog elimination drive! Here is your mid-drive newsletter.

Participation
GOCE March 2011 backlog elimination drive progress graphs

So far, 79 people have signed up for this drive. Of these, 64 have participated. Interest is high due to a link to our event from the Watchlist page, and many new and first-time copy editors have joined us for the drive. If you signed up for the drive but haven't participated yet, it's not too late! Try to copy edit at least a few articles. Remember, if you have rollover words from the last drive, you will lose them if you do not participate in this drive. If you haven't signed up for the drive yet, you can sign up now. Many thanks to those editors who have been helping out at the Requests page. We have assisted in the promotion of seven articles to Good article status so far this month.

Progress report

We have already achieved our target of reducing the overall backlog by 10%; however, we have more work to do with the 2009 backlog. We have almost eliminated May 2009 and we only have some 700 articles left from 2009. It is excellent progress, so let's concentrate our fire power on the remaining months from 2009. Thank you for participating in the March 2011 drive. We anticipate it will be another big success!

Utahraptor resigns

The UtahraptorTalk to me has decided to step down from his position as project coordinator due to real-life issues.

Your drive coordinators – S Masters (talk), Diannaa (Talk) and Tea with toast (Talk)


Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 04:41, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Online Mentor II

Just wanted to say hello, as you're my group's online mentor for the Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy. I'm a senior at Michigan State majoring Media Communication Technologies. Look forward to working with you!. Gruszyn1 (talk) 15:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for stopping by! I'm glad to offer my services. If you have any questions and whatnot, don't hesitate to ask. That is what I'm here for! Avicennasis @ 15:53, 9 Adar II 5771 / 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello Online Mentor III

My name is David Gill and i am a student at Michigan State University, working on the following project: Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy. I'm a senior at Michigan State majoring Media Communication Technologies and minoring in computer science. Gilldav2 (talk) 15:22, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello David, and welcome to Wikipedia! Please, feel free to settle in and make yourself at home. If I can be of any assistance, just drop me a note, and I'll be happy to help! Avicennasis @ 15:54, 9 Adar II 5771 / 15 March 2011 (UTC)



Vacation

{{Vacation}} tag removed 15:40, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Marking articles students are working on

Howdy, Online Ambassador!

This is a quick message to all the ambassadors about marking and tracking which articles students are working on. For the classes working with the ambassador program, please look over any articles being worked on by students (in particular, any ones you are mentoring, but others who don't have mentors as well) and do these things:

  1. Add {{WAP assignment | term = Spring 2011 }} to the articles' talk pages. (The other parameters of the {{WAP assignment}} template are helpful, so please add them as well, but the term = Spring 2011 one is most important.)
  2. If the article is related to United States public policy, make sure the article the WikiProject banner is on the talk page: {{WikiProject United States Public Policy}}
  3. Add Category:Article Feedback Pilot (a hidden category) to the article itself. The second phase of the Article Feedback Tool project has started, and this time we're trying to include all of the articles students are working on. Please test out the Article Feedback Tool, as well. The new version just deployed, so any bug reports or feedback will be appreciated by the tech team working on it.

And of course, don't forget to check in on the students, give them constructive feedback, praise them for positive contributions, award them {{The WikiPen}} if they are doing excellent work, and so on. And if you haven't done so, make sure any students you are mentoring are listed on your mentor profile.

Thanks! --Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:10, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

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

Stubs
Sports & Exhibition Authority of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County
Frick Art & Historical Center
Chatham University Arboretum
Pittsburgh Rens
Children's Museum of Pittsburgh
Grand View Scenic Byway Park
Pittsburgh Phantoms (ABA)
West End Overlook
ArtGardens of Pittsburgh
Roberto Clemente Memorial Park
West Park, Pittsburgh
First Commonwealth Bank
The Andy Warhol Museum
Government of Pittsburgh
Riverview Park (Pittsburgh)
Steel City Renegades
Westinghouse Park
Byham Theater
Pittsburgh Force
Cleanup
Nationality Rooms
H. J. Heinz Company
Pittsburgh International Airport
Merge
Christopher Weeramantry
Prison population of England and Wales
Road Warriors (Atlantic League)
Add Sources
The Bank of New York Mellon
Excela Health
River City Brass Band
Wikify
Center for Measuring University Performance
Pittsburgh Dance Council
City chicken
Expand
Consol Energy
Gasparo Tagliacozzi
Astrobotic Technology

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

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 07:38, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Stubsensor

I was wondering if the stubsensor program could be used to do a custom project. There is a list of articles at Category:Articles automatically tagged as unreferenced. Virtually all these are marked as stubs, but some are more stubby than others. Is there a way the stubsensor could try to distinguish between the articles that are really microscopic (essentially one or two sentences of prose) and the ones that are longer? I'm thinking it would need to ignore infobox code, which can add a lot of bytes to the source. If the stubsensor isn't written to do that, I can write a script to do it, but I thought I would ask if you already have code that can do it. We just need some sort of rough division of the stubs in that category. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:42, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I'm only able to get an article's total size. I could pull a report, say, for all articles in that cat that are less than 1000 bytes. It would find articles like Rubiales, for example. I don't know if that would be a helpful start or not. :) Let me know if I cab be of any assistance. Avicennasis @ 17:06, 11 Adar II 5771 / 17 March 2011 (UTC)
The total size I can also get, from the toolserver database. Unfortunately, some articles have a lot of text, and some have a lot of infoboxes, so the total size doesn't distinguish between them. But I can write a quick script that will scan through the articles and get the size of just their plain text. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:24, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

White space edits

Hi; is there a reason you are adding two spaces between the end of text and templates at the bottom of an article and labelling such edits "clean up"? One space should be sufficient, no? Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:22, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm referring to edits made under the User:AvicAWB account, by the way. User talk:AvicAWB redirected me here. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:29, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
I assume you mean edits like this one? It's a basic part of AWB's general fixes, it's nothing I've special that I've setup. Someone recently mentioned it here - not sure if that discussion helps or not.
And my apologizes for not seeing the message sooner - Generally, when editing with AvicAWB, I have a window open on this account that refreshes automatically once a minute, so I can see and respond to any new comments. This time I dropped the ball and forgot to set the auto-refresh. Facepalm Facepalm So sorry about that. Avicennasis @ 00:42, 12 Adar II 5771 / 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Oh, OK. I have never used AWB before, but that's good to know that that is a standard thing that's done with it. I didn't know. No worries about the delay—I just figured if I edited your talk page and reverted it immediately, it would at least get your attention. :) Thanks for responding. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

AWB & Ship Index

Regarding your AWB edit. Where there are a number od ships with a similar name, there is a "Ship Index" page - in category "Disambig-Class Ships articles". Editors are advised not to link to such pages, but to link to the individual ship articles. Is it then appropriate for you to add "dead end", advising editors to link to such pages? Please reconsider your edit to SS Irish Oak Lugnad (talk) 08:46, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

My apologizes - AWB suggested the tag, as I guess it doesn't see the link made by the {{SS}} template. I will try to be more careful in the future - thanks for the heads up! Avicennasis @ 15:25, 12 Adar II 5771 / 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Yep, that seems to be the trouble. Until that's fixed, I'll change my settings to skip all pages with the {{shipindex}} tag. I also found a few more pages this happened to, and have undone those edits. Thanks again. Avicennasis @ 15:48, 12 Adar II 5771 / 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Please don't add {{stub}} to disambiguation pages. PamD (talk) 09:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. My settings should be skipping disambiguation pages. I'm not sure why this happened. Thanks for the notice, I'll be looking over this and see why that happened. Sorry for the trouble. Avicennasis @ 15:27, 12 Adar II 5771 / 18 March 2011 (UTC)
I believe I found the issue - AWB is supposed to skip all pages with the {{disambiguation}} tag. These articles, however, use the tag {{Species Latin name abbreviation disambiguation}}. I've changed my settings to skip these as well, and reverted the edits I mistakenly made to those pages. Again, sorry to be a bother, but thanks for the heads up. Avicennasis @ 15:36, 12 Adar II 5771 / 18 March 2011 (UTC)
There are quite a few of these specialised dab tags - they survived a TfD here - you might like to check whether any of the others won't be recognised by AWB either! PamD (talk) 15:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Please do not make controversial edits using AWB

From the AWB Rules of Use:

2. Don't do anything controversial with it. If there is a chance that the edits you are considering might be controversial, consider soliciting comment at the village pump or appropriate WikiProject before proceeding.

A few days ago you made this edit to John Burgee. I revert that edit, and today you restored it . An edit which has been reverted by another editor is, by definition, controversial, and therefore should not be done using AWB. Please do not revert again. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:52, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I edit a great deal of articles - it's hard for me to keep track of them. Re-doing this edit was unintentional. IT's AWB's code that suggest the page is not a stub - and I tend to agree. The page is not a stub. Could it be longer? Of course; it could be a lot longer. However, per WP:STUB: A stub is an article containing only a few sentences of text... This article has 3 paragraphs, 2 lists and images. It's not a stub. If you want to draw attention to this article, I would suggest you follow the Wikipedia:Stub guideline and use a {{expand section}} tag or similar. Avicennasis @ 23:18, 13 Adar II 5771 / 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Redirecting dashes from templates

Hi, I thought I'm not gonna make Bot request, because it takes time to get answer. Could you redirect templates from Category:Fb round templates, Category:Fb round templates UEFA and Category:Fb round templates England. Just simply "-" to "–" between years according to dashes rule in Wikipedia? Thanks in advance. Pelmeen10 (talk) 14:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. Got 2 outta 3 done - will get the last one shortly. Avicennasis @ 18:00, 14 Adar II 5771 / 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 Done. For Category:Fb round templates, there are still a few hyphens I couldn't move to endashes, since the endash version already exist. I didn't check to see if both versions are the same, but if they are, one could simply redirect the hyphen verison to the endash. :) Hope that helps. Avicennasis @ 03:51, 15 Adar II 5771 / 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Pelmeen10 (talk) 19:26, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Err, nevermind

Hey again! Are you up for mentoring one more student? If so, I'll ask you to take over for My76Strat's mentee, User:Kimberly wymer. Please let me know either way. Whoops, nevermind, someone already volunteered for this. Sorry for the bother.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, please list your mentees in your profile at Wikipedia:Online Ambassadors/Mentors when you get a chance.

Thanks!--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 21 March 2011





This is the third issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed.



Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 22:20, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 March 2011

The Signpost: 28 March 2011




GOCE drive newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors March 2011 backlog elimination drive report

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors March 2011 Backlog elimination drive. Thank you for participating in the March 2011 drive! This newsletter summarizes the March drive and other recent events.

Participation
GOCE March 2011 backlog elimination drive progress graphs

There were 99 signups for the drive; of these, 70 participated. Interest was high mainly due to a link to our event from the Watchlist page. We had a record-breaking 84 articles listed on the Requests page in March; 11 of these have been promoted to Good article status so far. Several of our recent efforts have received Featured Article status as well, and the GOCE is becoming a solid resource for the Wikipedia community. Many thanks to editors who have been helping out at the Requests page and by copy editing articles from the backlog.

Progress report

Remarkable progress was made in reducing the backlog this month, as we now have fewer than 500 articles remaining from 2009. We are well under the 4,000-article mark for the total number remaining in the queue. Since our backlog drives began in May 2010 with 8,323 articles, we have cleared more than 53% of the backlog. A complete list of results and barnstars awarded can be found here. Barnstars will be distributed over the next week. If you enjoyed participating in our event, you may also like to join the Wikification drives, which are held on alternate months to our drives. Their April drive has started.

New coodinators

On March 21, SMasters appointed Chaosdruid (talk) and Torchiest (talk) as Guild coordinators to serve in place of The Utahraptor, who recently stepped down. Please feel free to contact any coordinator if you have any questions or need assistance.

Your drive coordinators – S Masters (talk), Diannaa (Talk) and Tea with toast (Talk)


Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 14:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:FILM March newsletter

--Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talkcontrib) 20:58, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 April 2011

The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter, Q1 2011

The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter
Volume 4, No. 1 — 1st Quarter, 2011
Previous issue | Next issue

Project At a Glance
As of Q1 2011, the project has:


Content


Project Navigation
To receive future editions of this newsletter, click here to sign up on the distribution list.

MuZemike delivered by MuZebot 02:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 April 2011

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

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

Stubs
James Avati
002 Operazione Luna
16102 Barshannon
Post-war
1279 Uganda
1701 Naval Air Squadron
108th Regiment of Foot (Madras Infantry)
1697 in poetry
1872 Washington Olympics season
107th Street (Metra Electric)
(6624) 1980 SG
.cv
12482 Pajka
007 (album)
1912–13 Nemzeti Bajnokság I
17921 Aldeobaldia
17502 Manabeseiji
.ni
1406 Komppa
Cleanup
Transvestism
Masculinity
Superstition
Merge
Intercooler
Goliath (Gargoyles)
Da An Elementary School
Add Sources
The City and the Pillar
Nightwood
Djuna Barnes
Wikify
Anthony Slide
Forrester Blanchard Washington
Colin James & The Little Big Band: Christmas
Expand
1948 in Denmark
1950 Chatham Cup
1977–78 Colorado Rockies season

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

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 10:27, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Category:LGBT politicians of the United States

Please stop adding the Category:LGBT politicians of the United States to pages that already have Category:LGBT state legislators of the United States. LGBT politicians of the United States is a parent category of state legislators and therefore redundant. Thank you. GcSwRhIc (talk) 17:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm already done with those. I was merely performing a category split that listed at WP:CFD/W/M - Sorry to have duplicated the categories, but there were no notes at WP:CFD/W/M nor the deletion discussions about this. Again, sorry. Avicennasis @ 19:00, 10 Nisan 5771 / 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Fixed. I've gone through all articles in Category:LGBT politicians from the United States, and if that article was also in a subcat, then the parent cat was removed. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. :) Avicennasis @ 20:58, 11 Nisan 5771 / 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Just a note

A little over a year ago, you made the first revision to my talkpage with a nice welcome note. I just wanted to let you know that I'm still around and well; I've seen your name at the reference desk and the bear pit occasionally, but we haven't really interacted much. Just wanted to make sure you know at least one of the users you welcomed is still around and well. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

That's really, really good to hear. :) I've seen all too often a new contributor only making a few valuable edits before being scared off for one reason or another. I'm glad to see your still here - I've seen some of your work with WP:UAA, and other areas - keep up the great contributions. Avicennasis @ 21:07, 11 Nisan 5771 / 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Westinghouse Air Brake ...

I added the NRHP nomination form from PHMC. It's got about 8 pages of detailed info on the building. I fairly randomly added it as footnote 12. Smallbones (talk) 04:20, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! This has really helped me expand the article. :) Avicennasis @ 21:41, 23 Nisan 5771 / 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 April 2011

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 22 April 2011





This is the fourth issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed.



Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 16:30, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 April 2011


The article Westinghouse Air Brake Company General Office Building you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within seven days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See Talk:Westinghouse Air Brake Company General Office Building for things which need to be addressed. Harrison49 (talk) 19:23, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

It has now passed, well done. Harrison49 (talk) 18:50, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:FILM April newsletter

--Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talkcontrib) 22:27, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 May 2011

GOCE drive newsletter

The Guild of Copy Editors – May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive


The Guild of Copy Editors invite you to participate in the May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive, a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy-editing. The drive began on May 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on May 31 at 23:59 (UTC). The goals of this backlog elimination drive are to eliminate as many articles as possible from the 2009 backlog and to reduce the overall backlog by 15%. ! NEW ! In an effort to encourage the final elimination of all 2009 articles, we will be tracking them on the leaderboard for this drive.

Awards and barnstars
A range of barnstars will be awarded to active participants. Some are exclusive to GOCE drives. More information on awards can be found on the main drive page.

We look forward to meeting you on the drive! Your GOCE coordinators: SMasters, Diannaa, Tea with toast, Chaosdruid, and Torchiest

You are receiving a copy of this newsletter as you are a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, or have participated in one of our drives. If you do not wish to receive future newsletters, please add you name here. Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 07:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Please help assess articles for Public Policy Initiative research

Hi Avicennasis/MainArchive/2011,

Your work as an Online Ambassador is making a big contribution to Wikipedia. Right now, we're trying to measure just how much student work improves the quality of Wikipedia. If you'd like contribute to this research and get a firsthand look at the quality improvement that is happening through the project, please sign up to assess articles. Assessment is happening now, just use the quantitative metric and start assessing! Your help would be hugely appreciated!

Thank you, ARoth (Public Policy Initiative) (talk) 17:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 9 May 2011

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

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

Stubs
Allegheny County Airport Authority
Allegheny Trail
Bairdford, Pennsylvania
Oaken
Allegheny County Alcoholic Beverage Tax
Pittsburgh Cannons
Central Northside (Pittsburgh)
Mt. Lebanon Tunnel
Phillips Park (Pittsburgh)
North Side (Pittsburgh)
King's Island, Pennsylvania
Clinton, Pennsylvania
Motor Square Garden
Pittsburgh Phantoms
Pittsburgh Burghers
Greenlee Field
Warrendale, Pennsylvania
Island Sports Center
L V Rogers Secondary School
Cleanup
Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania
Castle Shannon, Pennsylvania
Joseon Dynasty
Merge
Eastern Michigan University
Airborne Airpark
Peter Gabriel (1982 album)
Add Sources
Vancouver Canucks
Harmar Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Forest Hills, Pennsylvania
Wikify
Wrought Iron Bridge Company
New York & Company
Columbia, Pennsylvania
Expand
Foxburg Bridge (2008)
Pennsylvania Route 346
Pittsburgh Riverhounds

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

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 07:43, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for ref format help (May 4 help desk #3)

Your contribution (slightly modified) may be viewed at fn 14 in Gene Schoor.63.17.78.77 (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. :) Avicennasis @ 13:49, 10 Iyar 5771 / 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant

Thank you very much. When was Sir Charles Arbuthnot appointed KCB please? Kittybrewster 12:46, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, the bad news is that this one is really hard to find, since there was also a British Diplomat named Charles Arbuthnot, and he had several titles in his life. The good news is, I was able to find a Public Domain picture of Sir Charles Arbuthnot. :) I'll keep looking for the date, though! Avicennasis @ 13:48, 10 Iyar 5771 / 14 May 2011 (UTC)
I am delighted with the picture. Many thanks. Kittybrewster 14:02, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
There is also a General Charles George James Arbuthnot, who, like Sir George Gough Arbuthnot is pictureless. Kittybrewster 14:13, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 May 2011

U.S. Roads WikiProject Newsletter, Spring 2011

Volume 4, Issue 2 • Spring 2011 • About the Newsletter
Departments
Features
State and national updates

Project reports for

ArchivesNewsroomFull IssueShortcut: WP:USRD/NEWS
Rschen7754bot (talk) 01:59, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 May 2011

Please take the Wikipedia Ambassador Program survey

Hi Ambassador,

We are at a pivotal point in the development of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program. Your feedback will help shape the program and role of Ambassadors in the future. Please take this 10 minute survey to help inform and improve the Wikipedia Ambassadors.

WMF will de-identify results and make them available to you. According to KwikSurveys' privacy policy: "Data and email addresses will not be sold, rented, leased or disclosed to 3rd parties." This link takes you to the online survey: http://kwiksurveys.com?u=WPAmbassador_talk

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments, Thank You!

Amy Roth (Research Analyst, Public Policy Initiative) (talk) 20:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

BAGBot: Your bot request AvicBot 2

Someone has marked Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AvicBot 2 as needing your input. Please visit that page to reply to the requests. Thanks! AnomieBOT 17:03, 27 May 2011 (UTC) To opt out of these notifications, place {{bots|optout=operatorassistanceneeded}} anywhere on this page.

Blockpartyweho username concern tag

I see that you removed a username concern tag from User:Blockpartyweho. I probably should've been clearer in why that concern was being raised; I was addressing the concern to the user, with whom the reason for the concern had already been brought up, I believe on a now-deleted talk page. "Block Party" is the name of a store in West Hollywood ("WeHo"), and the user was the web designer for the store. As such, the name was one that represents an organization. (User was editing a now-deleted page that talked repeatedly about a Mr. Block who owned the store.) It seems to me that the tag you deleted should be restored until whatever appropriate username change is done. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:50, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Per the instructions at Category:Wikipedian usernames editors have expressed concern over and discussions at WT:UAA, Stale reports should be removed from this category. As the notice was from April, and the user's last edit was May 5th, this is stale. :-) If the user returns, feel free to post a notice at WP:UAA. Avicennasis @ 13:54, 27 Iyar 5771 / 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 May 2011

Thanks a Million

The Helping Hand Barnstar
I had to do something for you for all the help you have given me and The Penn State DuBois Alumni Society today. I have hit up the Live support again to see what I could do to get it out there that you did a wonderful job. They mentioned something about a Barnstar, so Im giving it a try. Hope it helps you out in some way with your work. We greatly appriciate all your time and effort that you have put into helping us with our page. Now we feel we are a step in the right direction with getting information out there. You are awesome! A very nice PATIENT person to be exact, especially with my constant questioning. Keep up the great work!! So, for the 100th time today. Thank you so much for the help!!!!

--Miranda Meyer (talk) 19:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:FILM May 2011 newsletter

--Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talkcontrib) 01:39, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Politicians arrested and charges with corruption

You are invited for discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 June 1 and also Category talk:Politicians arrested and charges with corruption- . Shlok talk . 17:31, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 June 2011

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

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

Stubs
Salem Sowdeswari College
1987–88 WIHL season
Uzbek League 2003
Liberian Premier League 1992
Walnut Street (Pittsburgh)
Richard Schultz (designer)
Pittsburgh Americans
Pittsburgh Keystones (baseball)
Market Square, Pittsburgh
Liberian Premier League 2002
Gerald Arbuthnot
Institute for Cancer Prevention
2009 Liberian Premier League
Pittsburgh Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority
Uzbek League 2005
Libyan Premier League 2000
Uzbek League 2004
Uzbek League 2002
Chicago Browns/Pittsburgh Stogies
Cleanup
1951 Pan American Games
Anti-Zionism
Alcoa
Merge
School District 38 Richmond
List of elementary schools in ISD 196
Marxism
Add Sources
2000 Japan Football League
George Galloway
Trotskyism
Wikify
Williamsport Red Sox
License borrowing
Criticisms of communist party rule
Expand
Hiroko Hayashi (singer)
Soviet Second League B 1970
Gulf Coast Limited

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

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 07:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi

Im just testing im not vandalizing --Tohoeg (talk) 16:40, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Then you should be using a sandbox - do not test on live articles. Here's a quick easy way to make one.

Hope that helps. Avicennasis @ 16:44, 8 Sivan 5771 / 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Article on Mechanical System

Hello, Avicennasis. You have new messages at [[User talk:Prof McCarthy (talk) 12:40, 12 June 2011 (UTC)|User talk:Prof McCarthy (talk) 12:40, 12 June 2011 (UTC)]].
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Category:Sephardi Jews

Hi Avi, you removed the category, "Sephardi Jews" from the Frieda Belinfante page. Any reason why, or was that bot action? Funk & Wagnall's traces her paternal line pretty clearly that way. Thanks! Laguna greg (talk) 17:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I removed it because the category didn't exist, and per out guidelines at Wikipedia:Categorization, "an article should never be left with a non-existent (redlinked) category on it. Either the category should be created, or else the link should be removed or changed to a category that does exist." However, by all means, please feel free to create Category:People of Sephardi Jewish descent if you believe it to be a useful category. Avicennasis @ 22:25, 11 Sivan 5771 / 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Avi,

Thanks for explaining that, and you quick response! I'm spending some time updating that page and, as a NB here, didn't want to put foot in mouth yet again. Laguna greg (talk) 16:17, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 June 2011

About your recent project tagging

Hi there Avicennasis. I saw you were recently doing a lot of high speed WikiProject tagging. Were you using some kind of program to do this, or just editing manually? Also, did you discuss this with the project before you started tagging? Regards, - Kingpin13 (talk) 14:51, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I sometimes use a program called TypeItIn for some of my more repetitive editing, but I try to watch my speed with it. :-) I didn't discuss any tagging because I didn't believe it was necessary - if a page clearly falls within the realms of a WikiProject, there should be no problem. I did check a few talk pages that were already tagged by members, and copied the template they used for the rest. e.g., here for here. Avicennasis @ 15:06, 12 Sivan 5771 / 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Ah, okay. Could I suggest you use a bot in future? You can find a list here, and it'll save yours and others' time as the edits will be marked as bot edits, and therefore can be set to not show up on watchlists/recentchanges. In addition, the bots can just be set to run in the background on the operator's computer, as they do not need to be constantly supervised. Some of the bots also feature some pretty fancy features such as class auto-assessment/inherit. Alternatively you could start up your own bot to do all of that with AWB using Plugin++, but you'd need approval for that - let me know if you want details on how to get your own bot going, but obviously that's not required as there are already a fair number of bots willing to do this task. Regarding asking the project, it's not such a problem for category tagging or this particular project, but some smaller projects can become overwhelmed if you tag to many articles as in their scope: It's always best to be cautious. - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:48, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
I'll keep that in mind for any more large scale tagging. :-) Perhaps I might put another BFRA for AvicBot in the future for this. Avicennasis @ 16:06, 12 Sivan 5771 / 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Just a suggestion. Could you use {{WikiProject Trains}} instead of a redirect in the future? Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 16:00, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll try to watch for that in the future - I know that even if redirects are cheap, (and plentiful!) they can be annoying to BotOps and the like for changes down the road. :-) Thanks for the heads up. Avicennasis @ 16:06, 12 Sivan 5771 / 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Weather box

Hi Avicennasis,

what is the "date" parameter you inserted here[6]? I cannot find it documented in Template:Weather box. --dealerofsalvation 15:32, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

It's part of Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates. Near as I can tell, the reason it gets dated is so if someone uses the template but doesn't provide a source for the data, it'll automatically tag it as {{citation needed}}, and the date help sorts that tag, the same way {{citation needed|date=June 2011}} would. Avicennasis @ 15:41, 15 Sivan 5771 / 17 June 2011 (UTC)
hum … A source is provided in parameter “source 1“. That suffices to remove the date? --dealerofsalvation 16:23, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
With a source, of course, the {{citation needed}} won't show/add CN categories. You could remove the date tag, but it's not hurting anything, and it's likely to get re-added by another AWB user eventually. Avicennasis @ 17:07, 15 Sivan 5771 / 17 June 2011 (UTC)
You AWB users are adding parameters because they’re “not hurting”? Seems to me you should fix AWB not to add unneccessary stuff. --dealerofsalvation 06:54, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
It is necessary if there is no source, and WP:AWB isn't able to read complex templates to make sure the field is filled out properly. If a source is missing, it helps - if a source isn't missing, it doesn't hurt. One possible benefit outweighs the zero negative consequences. If, however, you still think it should be changed, feel free to bring it up for discussion. Avicennasis @ 07:00, 16 Sivan 5771 / 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, superfluous parameters which are not documented are confusing to the readers of the source code and thus reduce the source’s quality, so I consider this a bug. As a user of AWB, not being a component of MediaWiki, you are responsible for its use including its known bugs and I don’t consider it my business to report bugs of tools I don’t use. If weather boxes are to complicated for AWB to handle, then AWB can’t be of any use in locating unreferenced weather boxes anyway, right, so why don’t you just exempt the weather box from the list of templates it hooks on?
Anyway, you should not knowingly use a tool with a known bug in instances where the bug knowingly strikes – just like you shouldn’t manually add some random unsupported parameter to some random template. --dealerofsalvation 18:20, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I truly don't see how this "reduces the sources' quality'. It's not a bug, it's an intended feature of AWB that is in place due to consensus. If you wish to change that, you need to discuss it with the larger community. It's not up to me to single-handedly disable an agreed upon feature. Also, I've added the documentation on this feature via this edit. I hope this addresses your concerns - if not, then you will need to mention it at WT:AWB. Avicennasis @ 18:38, 18 Sivan 5771 / 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, if that feature is not a bug and if it makes sense, then at least one of my following assumptions I got from what you wrote here and at the template doc must be wrong. I’d appreciate you to tell me which of these is/are wrong, otherwise I’ll just manually remove the date:

  1. AWB is supposed to add “date” parameters to any instance of a list of templates it finds that doesn’t have a source specified
  2. Some mechanism (e. g. SmackBot, I assume) will add a subcategory of Category:Articles with unsourced statements to any article bearing a template with a “date” parameter.
  3. Specifically with weather boxes, AWB can’t correctly recognize if a source is specified and it will always add a “date” parameter to each and every weather box it encounters, whether it bears a source or not.
  4. So eventually all articles containing a weather box will get into a subcategory of “Category:Articles with unsourced statements”

I’m confident no discussion is needed to know that #4 is definitely not wanted, and it’s our job to prevent that – either yours by telling me where I’m wrong, yours by not using a tool leading to that consequence, or mine by manually removing the date. --dealerofsalvation 06:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Number four is where your error in logic is. The article will only be listed in a subcat of Category:Articles with unsourced statements if there is no source specified. All articles that use the template and have the source listed in the template will not be listed in a subcat Category:Articles with unsourced statements.
I tried to make this clear when I said "With a source, of course, the {{citation needed}} won't show/add CN categories."
So, to repeat/clarify, the date will only list the article in a subcat Category:Articles with unsourced statements if the source field is blank. I hope that explains things properly - I'm sorry if I used any unclear language above. Avicennasis @ 06:36, 19 Sivan 5771 / 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, as IMHO #2 and #3 inevitably combine to #4, this means #2 is not correct either – not the way I wrote it. I have some interest in Smackbot as I plan to setup a similar scheme of maintainance categories at de.wikipedia, and it seems SmackBot & Co are double-checking whether really a source is missing, and it seems in contrast to AWB they are able of correctly dealing with weather boxes, but I know you’re not the right one to talk about SmackBot, and I’ve contacted its operator before. Anyway, this here stuff is now OK for me – but I’ll come back in the event Aalen gets categorized as unsourced ;) --dealerofsalvation 15:34, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm crying

Hi, It seems you created category "Sockpuppets of Gantuya eng". Was it so necessary to create it? I have been treated too harsh anyway. I was accused, personal attacked, insulted, humiliated in connection with this case. And that's all for my volunteering for better content of Wikipedia. I will be very thankful, if you delete it. None of them are my sockpuppets. Most of them seem to be real names of people. I understand it's good to defend the rules of Wikipedia and many editors like you are granted Wiki-knighthood for such defence. But who is going to care for human soul? When will my heart heal? They all humiliated me and why should you contribute to the humiliation as well? Gantuya eng (talk) 03:58, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

The page was only created because it was listed at Special:WantedCategories. Whether or not it belongs, I have no opinion about. Note that currently no pages link to it, so short of you mentioning it, no one will stumble across a link to it. I'm not too sure what the policy (if any) is on keeping these categories around - however, you could ask Maunus or another admin to delete it, if they determine it's not needed. :-) I wish you the best of luck, and a welcome back. Avicennasis @ 07:07, 16 Sivan 5771 / 18 June 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 June 2011

Tatar Wikipedia

Hi! If your bot (AvicBot) will remain working in Tatar Wikipedia, it's better to take bot flag there. You can ask it here. Thanks!--Рашат Якупов (talk) 16:50, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

No prob. Some wiki's don't mind unflagged editing, some do, and it's hard to tell the difference when you don't know the language! :-) I have posted at the link you gave me. Avicennasis @ 17:05, 24 Sivan 5771 / 26 June 2011 (UTC)
WikiProject Pittsburgh
An invitation to join us!

You are invited to participate in WikiProject Pittsburgh, a WikiProject dedicated to developing and improving articles about the City of Pittsburgh and the surrounding Western Pennsylvania area. Please see the Pittsburgh WikiProject page for more information. See yinz there!

--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Bot in the Circassian Wikipedia

Hi,

Please request bot rights in the Circassian Wikipedia (kbd) here: kbd:WP:BOT.

Thank you. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 20:59, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 June 2011


User talk:Avicennasis/MainArchive/2011Q3 User talk:Avicennasis/MainArchive/2011Q4 Template:Talkarchive