User talk:Robert McClenon/Archive 4

Talkback

Hello, Robert McClenon. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Help desk.
Message added 15:32, 4 June 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:32, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

eat it Mikeomalley (talk) 16:47, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you

Many thanks for the barnstar, Robert. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:27, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

AN/I

Robert, your edit here is indented so that the questions appear to relate to my post. Your questions have partially been addressed in that section but I'll touch on the basics for you here. The default can be bypassed by editors that do not employ the proper page move procedure. The articles in question were not created by IP users, at least the 3 that I checked. Tiderolls 15:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Abbeys

In the later 13th century Wellingborough was included in the well-organized system of sheep-farmingdeveloped by the abbey of Crowland. (fn. 33) In 1291 theprofits of the flocks are specially mentioned amongst theabbey revenues at Wellingborough (fn. 34. This proves the abbey was here it also states the monks moved from crowland and lived and worshipped here, hope this helps you.

From: 'Parishes: Wellingborough', A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 4 (1937), pp. 135-146. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66335 Date accessed: 14 June 2013.Abbot gordon (talk) 20:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Also fully :-In the later 13th century Wellingborough was included in the well-organized system of sheep-farmingdeveloped by the abbey of Crowland. (fn. 33) In 1291 theprofits of the flocks are specially mentioned amongst theabbey revenues at Wellingborough (fn. 34) and both sheepand wool were sent to Crowland. The special accountsof the sheep-run, however, end abruptly in 1314, (fn. 35) butwool remained an important factor in Wellingborougheconomy and in 1319 there were 200 sheep on theabbot's demesne. (fn. 36) Probably the demesne lands wereusually leased. (fn. 37) In the 16th century there was still alarge market for wool and fells in the town. (fn. 38) The making of cheese, which formerly made the cheese fair onSt. Luke's Day celebrated, (fn. 39) can be traced back to the13th century when a large number of cheeses wereaccounted for to the abbey. (fn. 40) In 1693, and again in1743, Wellingborough market was the scene of somewhat serious corn riots. (fn. 41) Lace-making was a thrivingindustry until killed by the introduction of machinemade lace, (fn. 42) but at the present day the main industriesof Wellingborough are boot- and shoe-making andironworks. (fn. 43)

From: 'Parishes: Wellingborough', A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 4 (1937), pp. 135-146. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66335 Date accessed: 14 June 2013.Abbot gordon (talk) 20:43, 14 June 2013 (UTC) In the later 13th century Wellingborough was included in the well-organized system of sheep-farmingdeveloped by the abbey of Crowland. (fn. 33) In 1291 theprofits of the flocks are specially mentioned amongst theabbey revenues at Wellingborough (fn. 34. This proves the abbey was here it also states the monks moved from crowland and lived and worshipped here, hope this helps you.

From: 'Parishes: Wellingborough', A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 4 (1937), pp. 135-146. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66335 Date accessed: 14 June 2013.Abbot gordon (talk) 20:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Also fully :-In the later 13th century Wellingborough was included in the well-organized system of sheep-farmingdeveloped by the abbey of Crowland. (fn. 33) In 1291 theprofits of the flocks are specially mentioned amongst theabbey revenues at Wellingborough (fn. 34) and both sheepand wool were sent to Crowland. The special accountsof the sheep-run, however, end abruptly in 1314, (fn. 35) butwool remained an important factor in Wellingborougheconomy and in 1319 there were 200 sheep on theabbot's demesne. (fn. 36) Probably the demesne lands wereusually leased. (fn. 37) In the 16th century there was still alarge market for wool and fells in the town. (fn. 38) The making of cheese, which formerly made the cheese fair onSt. Luke's Day celebrated, (fn. 39) can be traced back to the13th century when a large number of cheeses wereaccounted for to the abbey. (fn. 40) In 1693, and again in1743, Wellingborough market was the scene of somewhat serious corn riots. (fn. 41) Lace-making was a thrivingindustry until killed by the introduction of machinemade lace, (fn. 42) but at the present day the main industriesof Wellingborough are boot- and shoe-making andironworks. (fn. 43)

From: 'Parishes: Wellingborough', A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 4 (1937), pp. 135-146. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66335 Date accessed: 14 June 2013.Abbot gordon (talk) 20:43, 14 June 2013 (UTC) Archives

References

I havent removed a reference this evening, i have just reworked it into a template reference.Jason Rees (talk) 22:48, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 15

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Nation state, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Cornubia (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 11:18, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Help with 3RR report?

Thank you for your helpful comment on the help desk about a 3RR violation, actually 4 reverts. Now the subject has disappeared into an archive and I don't know how to find it. I also don't know how to report that problem. Do we ever help each other with such things? I need help with it. That's why I tried a help tag twice on that articles talk page. Not very good at this kind of thing. In all these years, this never happened to me before, but I don't think it should just pass. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 00:54, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Replied on my talk page. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 02:38, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Does it ever happen, as far as you know, that such reports to the noticeboard are completely ignored by neutral editors? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 22:53, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Europe

Hello Robert. I'm probably not very good with this editing rules. I left some brief description for the changes I made and I thought it would be sufficient. Anyway regarding the changes, I'm standing 100% behind them. All I have changed on some articles is that I removed e.g. from article "List of European stadiums by capacity" stadiums that are not in Europe. For example there was stadium in Şanlıurfa, Turkey which near border with Syria. My point is if the title says European there is no place for this e.g this stadium on the list. This is nonsense and completely non logical. Like if someone put "Parc des Princes", Paris on the list of North American list just because France has some territories in North America (St.Pierre and Miquelon). I also removed non European countries from various articles that deals with Europe. No matter what some people wish: Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are Asian transcontinental states with small percentage(<3%) of its territories in Europe. Armenia and Cyprus are countries that are completely situated in Asia. Of course, they have strong connections with Europe but also United States has it, but no one will put U.S.A. in e.g article that lists states with their capitals sorted by population. This was a bit lengthy explanation, but hopefully I clarified some things about this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wutholen (talk • contribs) 22:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Carr Collins, Jr. for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Carr Collins, Jr. is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carr Collins, Jr. until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. User226 (talk) 16:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

4 real talk i think median of medians its mine n u took it with errors

ive corected those errors on talk pages of "bfprt" median of medians 1973:wow was it b4 or after moon landing cz it looks u got some inspiration :P — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.118.212.93 (talk) 05:05, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

thank u 4 talking to me

4 a real talk also: u may keep any of my ideas if u wish... im just trying to figure it out who is actually doing this to me. i think i got dousines ideas that r both performant n original. u might b aware they rnt quite growing on yards... ok, thnx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.118.212.93 (talk) 14:51, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

ok, thank you 4 bringing some light about my posts or irrelevant notices however you wish to call them. it's not my intention to play extravagant or anything. i like solving "heavy" problems , some sort like some cracker analyst: im talking abt heavy math problem: i could easily switch on Rubik cube or chess mathematization attempts. please relax about that integer factorizationing: its just happening and im sorry better b more careful abt what problems ill have to think in the future, thats all. im sorry if i brought you "free" problems.you may block me from editing if you wish. there is absolutely no problem about that. i got some papers n other "projects" to play with also... bye-bye . Florin 93.118.212.93 (talk) 15:06, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Just to say supplied more quotes

Hi, you asked for refs for those quotes. I've supplied some more quotes on my talk page in case they are useful.

I doubt if any complaint about Warren's behaviour will help my situation, as I don't think there is any chance that he would stop doing it.

But perhaps it is something that needs attention,I leave it to you to decide and if there is anything I can do to help do say. Robert Walker (talk) 19:34, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Are these sockpuppets?

Hi, I have suspected for a while that Warren Platts and BatteryIncluded might be sock puppets. I know you can't prove it but can disprove it if they don't share an ip address, is it possible to have a go at disproving it?

Reasons for the suspicion

Extended content

In all my time in wikipedia no editor has ever insulted me before - at all. Suddenly at the same time about a month ago they both start these extreme personal insults of me. Caveat - this may be because of a discussion forum I participated in outside of wikipedia where several members of the forum insulted me repeatedly in a similarly OTT way. Warren Platts was in that discussion forum and refers to it. There was no-one on the discussion group called BatteryIncluded and BatteryIncluded has never mentioned that discussion group here. The thing is - why should an uninvolved wikipedian who never knew me outside wikipedia suddenly start insulting me at the same time as Warren Platts? His barrage of insults started on very little basis - a disagreement on the talk page for Life on Mars about cosmic radiation and habitability of the surface of Mars for life - not something that should turn someone into such a hostile opponent of me - not if all he know of me was that i had a different opinion from him about the habitability of the surface of Mars. Curiously BatteryIncluded was one of those who suggested I create the article that was later sent to AfD. He was quite friendly in that first comment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mars_sample_return_mission#Suggestion_for_a_new_article_.22Back_contamination_concerns_for_a_Mars_sample_return.22 but later when Warren Platts started insulting me, that's about the same time that BatteryIncluded also started insulting me. With Warren Platts there was a build up over several posts in the discussion forum first. But with BI unless he was a member of that same forum and has just never said - there was no build up at all and I was quite taken aback by it. Suddenly he was violently hostile to me having been reasonably normal and friendly just a few days before. Here is a sample of BatteryIncluded's insults of me, similar to Warren Platts but more extreme http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Life_on_Mars/Archive_2&oldid=561846450#RfC:_Is_this_an_accurate_summary_of_the_research_on_cosmic_radiation_influx_on_the_Mars_surface.3F While ignorance can be corrected with self awareness and sincere curiosity, your deliberate BS mixed with hysteria is -almost- a comic relief, if it wasn't so obstructive to serious editors. While I seriously question your intentions (POV, synthesis, bias and editorializing) in this encyclopedia, I want to renew my heart-felt vow to not discuss science with you, and will do my best effort -BS toxicity permiting- to control the damage of your edits in Wikipedia back to the objective spirit in which the cited scientific articles were written. In all my years of editing wikipedia no-one apart from these two editors has ever insulted me or accused me of bias or misusing wikipedia in any way, not even once. And would he start insulting me like that over an important, but still, comparatively minor matter? Warren Platts had no user page at the start - which is unusual for anyone who has edited wikipedia as long as he did. I assumed he was a newbie and was surprised to find he has been editing wikipedia for years. When he did create a user page it was just his backup of his version of the article for the AfD. Which again is a strange thing to do when you have a sandbox you could use for that instead of your user page. Why would anyone use their user page as a sandbox? BatteryIncluded has an extensive user page - so if it is sock puppetry, Warren Platts would be the sock puppet and probably his real name. They also share very similar POVs. Both on contamination issues and on the habitability of the surface of Mars. BatteryIncluded claims to be an exobiologist but doesn't seem too knowledgeable about it from his comments on cosmic radiation effects on micro-organisms which just don't make sense. I have friends who are astrobiologists or microbiologists and can't imagine any of them saying that. They support each other's actions. Both voted strongly against me in the AfD and it was basically because of them that it was won. If just Warren Platts had opposed me without BatteryIncluded it would at any rate have lasted a lot longer. Also Warren supported BatteryIncluded on the Water on Mars page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Water_on_Mars - where he says it is already adequately covered he is referring to BatteryIncluded version of the deleted section. Battery Included made just one Delete on the AfD plus a reply but it was a strongly worded Delete. Without him it would have been a strong keep from me, a strong delete from Warren Platts, and a weak keep from N2e plus several new votes on the last day that might well have been swung by a different consensus to date. I don't think it would have closed so soon and I might have had some more keeps if it kept going. But the thing that has finally taken this to slightly more than just a background suspicion is that over the last few days, Both Warren Platts and BatteryIncluded have archived the entire contents of talk pages with open discussions started by me. This seems such an unusual thing to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Water_on_Mars&action=history 14:51, 26 June 2013‎ BatteryIncluded (talk | contribs)‎ . . (187 bytes) (-46,835)‎ . . (Archiving old and closed discussions.) (undo | thank) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Life_on_Mars/Archive_2&action=history 17:05, 27 June 2013‎ BatteryIncluded (talk | contribs)‎ . . (150,090 bytes) (+150,090)‎ . . (archiving talk page) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Manned_mission_to_Mars/Archive_1&action=history 15:13, 29 June 2013‎ WarrenPlatts (talk | contribs)‎ . . (106,524 bytes) (+106,524)‎ . . (Create archive)

Do you see why i am a bit suspicious. But I also know how easily one can be mislead by patterns and coincidences and on balance think it is just a coincidence.

For instance, they don't use the same text (Create archive rather than Arhiving). To me that suggests different people. Obviously think rather similarly to each other but probably different people.

Perhaps they are pals outside of wikipedia or else Warren saw what BatteryIncluded did and copied him. But is it possible to just get it checked - probably to show that they are not sock puppets?

Robert Walker (talk) 23:02, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Talkback: you've got messages!

Hello, Robert McClenon. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Help desk.
Message added kelapstick^(bainuu) 01:04, 29 June 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Talkback

Hello, Robert McClenon. You have new messages at LFaraone's talk page.
Message added 01:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

LFaraone 01:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Robert McClenon. You have new messages at LFaraone's talk page.
Message added 02:31, 29 June 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

LFaraone 02:31, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Help

Hi, I noticed you were online. I recently created David O. Dykes and it was tagged for a speedy delete before I was finished with it. I have made big changes since then from independent verifiable sources and established credibility. It now has almost 50 references. Could you please take a look at it and tell me if I have saved it and if not what I can do. -RedRaiderApache (talk) 15:09, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I know you didn't put the tag on it. I was hoping you could take a look at it. -RedRaiderApache (talk) 15:30, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

.

Replied to your question

Sorry I don't do a lot of talking to other editors via their talk pages. Do I need to say something here?

I've answered your request for the diffs here: User_talk:Robertinventor#Posting_to_Talk_Pages

Or - perhaps I should post them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AMars_sample_return_mission&diff=561730149&oldid=561689953

For this one you have to scroll down to 516 in the list of diffs http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AManned_mission_to_Mars&diff=561982672&oldid=561971091

(blanked comment here, after admin's suggestion to blank out corresponding section on my talk page)

Thanks, Robert Walker (talk) 07:26, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution

I am sorry about the way I behaved on the help desk.

Right now, I don't think that dispute resolution with Warren could work. Possibly after everyone has calmed down, say a couple of weeks from now, and if he is behaving in a more civil way to other editors in the project by then.

But if he starts insulting me again, I will just give up and let him win. Because once that starts, I find that I can't win, that the subject under dispute gets totally obscured by the personal allegations and trying to defend myself, and it is extremely stressful for me.

Also just want to say I have never once in the last month engaged in edit warring. I haven't even done a double revert (except at start of AfD see below). Just did BRD. When he reverses again instead of the D, then I give up on editing the article.

In the AfD when he says I blanked out the page - what actually happened is that I reverted to the last version by me before he removed most of it. He reverted that back to his version. So for the beginning of the AfD the discussion was over whether to delete and merge his version of the article, and he prevented me from making a more substantial article to discuss. I.e. the opposing editor in an edit war who wanted to delete the article was presenting his own version of the article for the AfD.

I did do a second revert there to get back to the version I was working on, since it seemed so clear that I should be able to work on my version for the AD rather than let the decision to delete be made on his version, then he reverted that. Another editor eventually stepped in with a final revert to restore the version that I was working on. That episode is what he is referring to as me blanking out his edit.

See Comment on the AfD. As I understand it, this is not enough to invalidate the AfD, which went through due process. So not attempting to do that just putting the record right about my conduct and so you can understand my frustration with the whole process of the AfD.

I have never once gone against the wikipedia rules for ettiquette. My only thing I did wrong is to write too much in my talk posts.

Right now I am taking a break from any attempt to edit Project Mars or engage in discussion on its talk pages, which is why I am posting this here, where I feel I can say something without being immediately shouted down by my opponent in the debate.

Also thanks for intervening, have seen what you did, and surely it will help in the long term if not right away.

Robert Walker (talk) 11:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Tip

If you think someone is a sock of he who shall not be named then templates and the like should be avoided. People like that thrive on attention, and shrivel on indifference. This is why I am not using tags and such, so they don't get the "trophy" or reward. If you see me or another SPI clerk reverting someone who looks familiar, you can be sure we are watching. Much of that work is done off the pages here. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:56, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Have I done anything wrong?

When you say there was wrong on both sides, have I done anything wrong except to write too much in my posts? I never did any edit warring.

The only thing against wiki policy I know of is that Warren accused me of blanking out the article for the AfD, but what he said there was untrue. What I did was to revert to the last good version before the AfD and before all his edits to trim it, which was surely okay for the editor defending the AfD. He was the only editor in between apart from bots and people correcting typos.

The content I added was in good faith and started with a request, I think it was from farthered, to add material to balance the Manned mission to Mars article which was perceived as biased at the time. The article for the AfD was created after a proper discussion on the talk page for MSR missions decided in its favour.

Was there anything else?

Robert Walker (talk) 02:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Quebec (1775)

In a recent edit to the page Battle of Quebec (1775), you changed one or more words or styles from one national variety of English to another. Because Wikipedia has readers from all over the world, our policy is to respect national varieties of English in Wikipedia articles.

For a subject exclusively related to the United Kingdom (for example, a famous British person), use British English. For something related to the United States in the same way, use American English. For something related to another English-speaking country, such as Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, use the variety of English used there. For an international topic, use the form of English that the original author used.

In view of that, please don't change articles from one version of English to another, even if you don't normally use the version in which the article is written. Respect other people's versions of English. They, in turn, should respect yours. Other general guidelines on how Wikipedia articles are written can be found in the Manual of Style. If you have any questions about this, you can ask me on my talk page or visit the help desk. Thank you.

Just to let you know, the article does appear to be properly written in Canadian English, but because of RETAIN, not TIES. Cdtew (talk) 06:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear

Thanks for your comments at talk:BP. As an active member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention your insight into Visual Editor is worthy of note and investigation. I don't know much about it. Also, my comment re:games was meant for another editor...I should have made that more clear. ```Buster Seven Talk 23:48, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:User Advocacy

Robert, I noticed your comments the Visual Editor, QA and sound release and testing practices. You may be interested in contributing to the Wikipedia:User Advocacy effort. If you'd be willing to add your QA experience to the group, you could add your name here. Or simply contribute to the brainstorming discussion. --RA (✍) 13:20, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Volunteer QA information

Robert, I saw your interest in volunteering to test VisualEditor on VPT and I'd like to hear more. Probably the best thing to do is to sign up on our (relatively new) QA mail list. There is a link to some other getting-started type information there as well.

Thanks, Cmcmahon(WMF) (talk) 00:28, 9 July 2013 (UTC) (and I am also at Chris McMahon where my official profile resides for now at least)

VisualEditor newsletter

Hey Robert McClenon! We've just deployed some fixes to the VisualEditor. These include:

• "Edit" will load the latest version, not the version you're looking at (bug 49943)
• "Edit" will load the latest version, not the version you edited last time if this is your second edit (bug 50441)
• VE edit section links will load the latest, not original, version in diff view preview (bug 50925)
• <big><big>Foo</big></big> and similar repeated tags will not get corrupted any more (bug 49755)

In the meantime, testing is proceeding well, and hopefully we can get some more fixes out over the next couple of days. If you're interested in helping out, we have a set of open tasks we'd really appreciate your assistance with :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR

Hi there. I'm not sure why you seem to have taken up specifying national varieties of English as a pet project, but I keep seeing your name popping up on my watchlist. In general, Manual of Style should be followed on all articles without spelling it out everywhere. It is not necessary to go around and place templates and instructions for editors to respect ENGVAR. The only time the talk page banner should be used is when there are frequent disputes or anon editors floating in constantly trying to change from British to American English or vice versa. --Laser brain (talk) 01:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

VE newsletter

Hey Robert McClenon

We just deployed another VisualEditor release; bugs fixed include:

• Firefox 13/14 has been temporarily blacklisted, to avoid the insertion of broken links [[./that look like this]] (50720)
• Changing a reference in a template should no longer produce the bright red "you don't have a references block!" error (bugzilla:50423)
• Notices are now shown if you're editing a protected or semi-protected page (bugzilla:50415)
• The template inspector will no longer invite you to insert parameters that are already being used (50715)
• Same as above, but with aliases (50717)
• Parameter names in the template dialogue now word-wrap (50800)
• The link inspector will not show in the top left if you hit the return key while opening it (49941)
• Hitting return twice in the link editor will no longer introduce a new line that overwrites the link (51075)
• Oddly-named categories no longer cause corruption (50702)
• The toolbar no longer occasionally covers the cursor (48787)
• Changing the formatting of text no longer occasionally scrolls you upwards (50792)

Not specific bugs, but other things; cacheing is now improved, so people should stop seeing temporary breaking when the VisualEditor updates, and RTL support has received some patches. I hope this newsletter is helpful to people; I'll send out another one with the next deployment :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Life on Wikipedia?

Just a note to say your ongoing efforts in the still-in-progress life on Mars brouhaha are much appreciated. DanHobley (talk) 02:30, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

VE newsletter

Hey Robert McClenon! Another set of patches :). Today we have:

• Required template parameters are now automatically added to new templates (50747)
• Templates with piped links now display correctly when you alter them (50801)
• If your edit token expires, you're now informed of it (50424).

  You still won't be able to save - that's due to be fixed on Monday :).

More on Monday, I suspect. Hope you have a good weekend :). I should also have some news about the IP launch pretty soon. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:24, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

(if you're seeing this and aren't the newsletter recipient - please do sign up here)

Thank you for opening the Mars RfA

Thanks. Let me know if my perspective would be helpful. beefman (talk) 17:49, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Umm, I didn't realise that there were two case requests open! It was in reference to the other request, in which it is being requested that an editor be sanctioned for things he's written on another website. Can't remember if I'm allowed just to remove the statement, so I'll add something explaining my mistake and asking everyone to ignore it. Nyttend (talk) 01:32, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

VE newsletter

Hey Robert McClenon; hope you had a decent weekend :). We've got a pile of patches, some of which went out on Monday, some yesterday:

• If you insert wikitext such as links or section headers, you get a notice in the top right corner (over the save button). It doesn't go away until click, though once dismissed you don't get another one that edit. (49820)
• If your edit token expires, VE fetches a new one for you so you can save. (50424)
• If the page is empty of content but does have something non-content (like a category or an HTML comment), VE no longer crashes on load - (50289)
• sub tags are no longer removed ((49873)
• If you type at the end of links, they now extend
• Templates now only take a single click to insert
• Clear annotations clears links (50461)
• The link inspector stays open when you click to another item (50895)
• Typing after multi-byte characters no longer creats pawn icons (51140)
• Resizing thumbnails that have a default size set now works (50645)
• References made by tag:ref now display properly (bugzilla:50978)
• The VE is integrated with the spam blacklist (50826)
• Feedbacl link goes to the right language (bugzilla:47730)

There are a lot more improvements coming, but that's it for Monday and Tuesday. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:25, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Infoboxes ArbCom case opened

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Evidence. Please add your evidence by July 31, 2013, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, — ΛΧΣ²¹ 17:59, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration case request declined

Hello, this is a courtesy notice to inform you that the request for arbitration you filled regarding Mars has been declined to be heard by the Arbitration Committee. The Arbitrators felt that as well as there being content aspects to this dispute that tensions are begining to ease. They suggested that if issues with individual editors can be brought to easlier steps in the dispute resolution process or to ANI. Please see the Arbitrators' comments for further suggestions. For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:07, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Splitting comments

It is okay to insert comments inside someone else's comments, especially if they are long and segmented, but when that is done, it is important to duplicate the other editor's signature so that everyone can see where their comments were interrupted and yours begin. You will, though, often find editors who complain about their comments being split. See Talk:Heat. Apteva (talk) 14:27, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Insertion

You have inserted your contribution in the middle of mine destroying the sense and removing my signature.

Will you correct this please? I am not impressed by your efforts to make me look ignorant.

Have a nice day.

--Damorbel (talk) 14:56, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Question on !vote

Hi Robert, when you !voted here, were you !voting with the understanding that the proposal was for a time-limited topic ban, or one that was not time-limited (indef)? I'm asking because in your follow-up here you suggested a two-month ban but I'm not sure if that's what you had in mind with your original !vote, or if it was something you were suggesting only in response to Qwyrxian's question. If you were thinking in your original !vote that it was to be a time-limited topic ban, where was that discussed (or implied)? Don't mean to put you on the spot but just want to avoid an unnecessary rehash of the original !vote. Thanks... Zad68 04:16, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

VE newsletter

Hey Robert McClenon. The newest updates:

• Links now don't extend over space/punctuation/workbreaks when you type (bugzilla:51463)
• Users with the "minoredit" preference set get working functionality (bugzilla:51515)
• You can tab to buttons in dialogs, including the save dialog (bugzilla:50047)
• We now show the <newarticletext> (or <newarticletextanon>) message as an edit notice (bugzilla:51459)
• You can scroll dialog panels like in transclusions' templates' parameter listings (bugzilla:51739)
• Templates that only create meta-data and no display content at all (like Template:Use dmy dates) now can't be deleted accidentally or deliberately, but still don't show up (bugzilla:51322)
• FlaggedRevisions integration (bugzilla:49699)
• Edit summary will get the section title pre-added if you launched from a section edit link (bugzilla:50872)

Along with some miscellaneous language support fixes. That's all for today; as always, let us know if you spot more bugs. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:00, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:ANI

Hi, in case you don't get or ignore the notification from the new system, please note I mentioned you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Accusations at Talk:March Against Monsanto that need to be resolved. Nil Einne (talk) 06:39, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Metadata: another view

Hi, I've just noticed your question here [1]. Read this if you want one ex-user's view of metadata on Wikipedia. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 16:28, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Mail

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

Buster Seven Talk 21:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter for 06 August 2013

It's been almost two weeks since the last newsletter, and a lot of improvements have been made during that time. The main things that people have noticed are significant improvements to speed for typing into long pages (T54012), scrolling (T54014) and deleting (T54013) on large pages. There have also been improvements to references, with the latest being support for list-defined references, which are <ref>s defined inside a <references> block (T53741). Users of Opera 12 and higher have had their web browser removed from the browser black-list, mostly as a result of work by a volunteer developer (T38000). Opera has not been fully white-listed yet, so these users will get an additional warning and request to report problems.

Significant changes were made to the user interface to de-emphasize VisualEditor. This has cut the use of VisualEditor by approximately one-third. You can read about these at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Updates/August 1, 2013, but they include:

• Re-ordering links to the editors to put "Edit source" first and VisualEditor second
• Renaming the link for VisualEditor to "Edit^beta"
• Disabling the animation for section editing.
• Changing all labels for the classic wikitext editor to say "Edit source", regardless of namespace.

There have also been many smaller fixes, including these:

• Horizontal alignment of images working correctly on more pages (T53995)
• Categories with ':'s in their names (like Category:Wikipedia:Privacy) now work correctly (T53902)
• Magic JavaScript gadgets and tools like sortable tables will now work once the page is saved (T53565)
• Keyboard shortcut for "clear annotations" - now Control+\ or ⌘ Command+\ (T53507)
• Fixed corruption bugs that led to duplicate categories (T54238) and improper collapsing when multiple new references were added in a row (T54228).
• Improvements to display elements: The save dialog in Monobook is restored to normal size (T52058), pop-up notices on save now look the same in VisualEditor as in wikitext editor (T41632), and the popup about using wikitext has a link to the definition of wikitext that now opens in a new window (T54093)

Most of the Wikimedia Foundation staff is traveling this week and next, so no updates are expected until at least August 15th. If you're going to be in Hong Kong for Wikimania 2013, say hello to James Forrester, Philippe Beaudette, and the other members of the VisualEditor team.

As always, if you have questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 23:22, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Georgia (country) to Georgia move suggestion

Please comment here. Thanks. georgianJORJADZE 00:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Robert McClenon. You have new messages at JanetteDoe's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

VisualEditor newsletter for 21 August 2013

Both VisualEditor and MediaWiki were upgraded recently. For VisualEditor, this is the long-awaited post-Wikimania update with many bug fixes and enhancements. Work also continues on speed at opening and during use, as well as on the bugs reported here and at other Wikipedias. The full report is at Mediawiki.

References are displaying properly, even when nested (T52749) or in image captions (T2000. Reference lists are now always fully populated with references (bug 50094). Firefox users can insert an existing reference in the first paragraph (T54159). Opera users no longer see corruption of categories when a reference was added (bug 50385).

Stray spaces are being stripped from the start of paragraphs to end one of the common <nowiki> problems (T53462). We also fixed a round-tripping bug that caused desirable whitespace in templates (used to make templates more legible, e.g., by putting each parameter in an infobox on a separate line) to get corrupted (bug 51150).

Wikilink handling was improved. Users are not allowed to create internal links to invalid titles (titles that are actually impossible due to limits on acceptable character combinations in titles, not redlinks) (T35094). You can extend wikilinks, but it won't do so over a wordbreak (like a space) (bugs 49931 and 51463).

A handful of fixes to the user interface were made. The toolbar doesn't float over personal tools after opening a dialog or the inspector (T54441). Toolbars were also re-written to be collapsible/expandable, with room for more icons. Buttons in dialogs can now be activated using the Tab ↹ and ⇧ Shift+Tab ↹ key commands (bug 50047). This saves time for editors, because you don't need to take your hands off the keyboard to click a button. We fixed a handful of bugs that affected only certain articles or certain browsers, including toolbar buttons in Firefox (bug 51986) and dialog panels that didn't always scroll correctly (bug 51739). Bugs with undo/redo getting confused have been fixed (T54113).

Images, in addition to getting references displaying correctly, also saw improvements with a set-empty |link= parameter no longer corrupted (51963). We corrected thumbnail images' display so that they look don't wrong in some contexts (bug 51995). Inserted images no longer explicitly set their alignment, but instead inherit the default position in compliance with the Manual of Style (bug 51851).

More edit notices, warnings, and metadata like information about Pending Changes on an article now appear as appropriate (bug 49699). When new articles are created, users are now shown the <newarticletext> message (bug 51459). VisualEditor now handles templates that set "meta" items (like a category) and nothing else better (bug 51322). If the database is locked when a user tries to save with VisualEditor, they now get a message telling them as such and an opportunity to try again, rather than a silent failure (bug 51636).

When you save the page, having the default preference set to "mark all my edits as minor by default" no longer overrides the setting in the save dialog (bug 51515). If you open VisualEditor from a section edit link, the section's title will be pre-filled in in the edit summary box when you go to save it (bug 50872). The size of the save dialog box in the Monobook skin has been fixed (bug 50058). Also, wikipage content handlers like sortable tables are re-run automatically after saving (T53565).

A very early version of the mathematics equation editor is now available for testing on mw:Mediawiki. If you would like to help improve the user interface for math editor, please test out the extension at mw:Mediawiki:Sandbox and leave your comments directly at the discussion page for the Math Node User Interface at Mediawiki. You should be able to use your regular username and password should to login to Mediawiki.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 17:39, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Borderline BLP violation

Please be more careful in the future. "Just because he didn't kill as many people as Hitler or Pol Pot doesn't change the fact that they were all evil." That comment could be misinterpreted to say "even though he didn't kill people, he's still evil". I've redacted that as well as other comments there that could be reasonably construed as a BLP violation. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 02:10, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Please forgive this. In reading your comment, I've gotten 3 different interpretations from it. I'll assume you didn't mean it bad. I've gone ahead and fixed the mess (hopefully) by removing the comments there in whole. Too much misinterpretation possible. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 02:15, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC Reviewer permission

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC Reviewer permission. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter for September 5

This Thursday's VisualEditor update was mostly about stability and performance improvements, and some preparatory work for major planned improvements, along with bug fixes for non-English language support and right-to-left text. Everything that the English Wikipedia received today has been running on Mediawiki for a week already.

Officially, the problem with the link inspector not linking to a specific section on a page (bug 53219) was fixed in this release, although that critical patch actually appeared here earlier.

A number of bugs related to copy-and-paste functionality were fixed (48604, bug 50043, bug 53362, bug 51538, among others). Full rich copy-and-paste from external sources into VisualEditor is expected "soon".

In other fixes, you can no longer add empty ref tags (<ref/>) (bug 53345). Selecting both an image and some text, and then trying to add a link, previously deleted the selected image and the text. This was fixed in bug 50127. There was another problem related to using arrow keys to move the cursor next to an inline image that was fixed (bug 53507).

Looking ahead: The next planned upgrade is scheduled for next Thursday, and you should expect to find a redesigned toolbar with drop-down menus that include room for references, templates, underline, strikethrough, superscript, subscript, and code formatting. There will also be keyboard shortcuts for setting the format (paragraph vs section headings).

If you are active at other Wikipedias, the next group of Wikipedias to have VisualEditor offered to all users is being determined at this time. Generally speaking, languages that depend on the input method editor are not going to receive VisualEditor this month. The current target date is Tuesday, September 24 for logged-in users only. You can help with translating the documentation. In several cases, most of the translation is already done, and it only needs to be copied over to the relevant Wikipedia. If you are interested in finding out whether a particular Wikipedia is currently on the list, you can leave a message for me at my talk page.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:43, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

RfC about "oppose" comments

I am contacting every editor who commented at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Questions about "oppose" comments in WP:RFC/Us, in case you might wish to participate in the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Clarification of the rules. Thank you. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:28, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Evidence phase open - Manning naming dispute

Dear Robert McClenon.

This is just a quick courtesy notice. You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute/Evidence. Please add your evidence by September 19, 2013, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Seddon ^talk 23:31, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter for September 19, 2013

VisualEditor has been updated twice in the last two weeks. As usual, what is now running on the English Wikipedia had a test run at Mediawiki during the previous week.

As announced, the toolbar was redesigned to be simpler, shorter, and to have the ability to have drop-down groups with descriptions. What you see now is the initial configuration and is expected to change in response to feedback from the English Wikipedia and other Wikipedias. The controls to add <u> (underline), <sub> (subscript), and <sup> (superscript), <s> (strikethrough) and <code> (computer code/monospace font) annotations to text are available to all users in the drop-down menu. At the moment, all but the most basic tools have been moved into a single drop-down menu, including the tools for inserting media, references, reference lists, and templates. The current location of all of the items in the toolbar is temporary, and your opinions about the best order are needed! Please offer suggestions at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Toolbar.

In an eagerly anticipated upgrade to the reference dialog, newly added references or reference groups no longer need the page to be saved before they can be re-used (bugs 51689 and 52000). The 'Use existing reference' button is now disabled on pages which don't yet have any references (bug 51848). The template parameter filter in the transclusion dialog now searches both parameter name and label (bug 51670).

In response to several requests, there are some new keyboard shortcuts. You can now set the block/paragraph formatting from the keyboard: Ctrl+0 sets a block as a regular paragraph; Ctrl+1 up to Ctrl+6 sets it as a Heading 1 ("Page title") to Heading 6 ("Sub-heading 4"); Ctrl+7 sets it as pre-formatted (bug 33512). Ctrl+2, which creates level 2 section headings, may be the most useful.

Some improvements were made to capitalization for links, so typing in "iPhone" will offer a link to "iPhone" as well as "IPhone" (bug 50452).

Copying and pasting within the same document should work better as of today's update, as should copying from VisualEditor into a third-party application (bug 53364, bug 52271, bug 52460). Work on copying and pasting between VisualEditor instances (for example, between two articles) and retaining formatting when copying from an external source into VisualEditor is progressing.

Major improvements to editing with input method editors (IMEs; mostly used for Indic and East Asian languages) are being deployed today. This is a complex change, so it may produce unexpected errors. On a related point, the names of languages listed in the "languages" (langlinks) panel in the Page settings dialog now display as RTL when appropriate (bug 53503).

Looking ahead: The help/'beta' menu will soon expose the build number next to the "Leave feedback" link, so users can give more specific reports about issues they encounter (bug 53050). This change will make it easier for developers to identify any cacheing issues, once it starts reporting the build number (currently, it says "Version false"). Also, inserting a link, reference or media file will put the cursor after the new content again (bug 53560). Next week’s update will likely improve how dropdowns and other selection menus behave when they do not fit on the screen, with things scrolling so the selected item is always in view.

If you are active at other Wikipedias, the next group of Wikipedias to have VisualEditor offered to all users is being finalized. About two dozen Wikipedias are on the list for Tuesday, September 24 for logged-in users only, and on Monday, September 30 for unregistered editors. You can help with translating the documentation. In several cases, most of the translation is already done, and it only needs to be copied over to the relevant Wikipedia. If you are interested in finding out whether a particular Wikipedia is currently on the list, you can leave a message for me at my talk page.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:45, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Derry

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Derry. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:01, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Be wary of this topic as it is shrouded in POV and has been abused by a number of sockpuppets, but my argument has merit, unfortunately a wikipage is only as reliable as those who watch it and in Northern Ireland politics neutral ground is hard to find, and in this case it is tilted towards an irish nationalist persuasion. But the page doesn't make sense, how can the city be Officially Londonderry in the text yet the official_name is Derry (which it isn't) as city status in the UK is granted by UK Monarch which granted Londonderry with city status.Dubs boy (talk) 15:20, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter on 16 October 2013

VisualEditor is still being updated every Thursday. As usual, what is now running on the English Wikipedia had a test run at Mediawiki during the previous week. If you haven't done so already, you can turn on VisualEditor by going to your preferences and choosing the item, "MediaWiki:Visualeditor-preference-enable".

The reference dialog for all Wikipedias, especially the way it handles citation templates, is being redesigned. Please offer suggestions and opinions at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog. (Use your Wikipedia username/password to login there.) You can also drag and drop references (select the reference, then hover over the selected item until your cursor turns into the drag-and-drop tool). This also works for some templates, images, and other page elements (but not yet for text or floated items). References are now editable when they appear inside a media item's caption (bug 50459).

There were a number of miscellaneous fixes made: Firstly, there was a bug that meant that it was impossible to move the cursor using the keyboard away from a selected node (like a reference or template) once it had been selected (bug 54443). Several improvements have been made to scrollable windows, panels, and menus when they don't fit on the screen or when the selected item moves off-screen. Editing in the "slug" at the start of a page no longer shows up a chess pawn character ("♙") in some circumstances (bug 54791). Another bug meant that links with a final punctuation character in them broke extending them in some circumstances (bug 54332). The "page settings" dialog once again allows you to remove categories (bug 54727). There have been some problems with deployment scripts, including one that resulted in VisualEditor being broken for an hour or two at all Wikipedias (bug 54935). Finally, snowmen characters ("☃") no longer appear near newly added references, templates and other nodes (bug 54712).

Looking ahead: Development work right now is on rich copy-and-paste abilities, quicker addition of citation templates in references, setting media items' options (such as being able to put images on the left), switching into wikitext mode, and simplifying the toolbar. A significant amount of work is being done on other languages during this month. If you speak a language other than English, you can help with translating the documentation.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment

As you previously participated in related discussions you are invited to comment at the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC for AfC reviewer permission criteria. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:13, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Ghouta chemical attack

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Ghouta chemical attack. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:02, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Edits to Cease and desist

Many thanks for your message on my talk page. However, I believe it was unnecessary to use a standardized template to express your disagreement with my edits. The essay WP:DTR explains why. Furthermore, you wrote:

"Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to Cease and desist, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary."

With all due respect, I did provide clear edit summaries, see here and here. It seems that perhaps you might not have seen these edit summaries. I think that it is better to have no information, than to have information with no sources, as now explained on the talk page, here. Cheers, --Edcolins (talk) 21:33, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Iran–Iraq War

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Iran–Iraq War. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Duplication Detector

I'm sure you probably found this already, but I saw your question at the helpdesk unanswered. The page about the Duplication Detector is here WP:dupdet and there's contact details for a user to ask questions to. Regards, CaptRik (talk) 20:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Requesting help with Verizon Communications article

Hello Robert McClenon, I'm reaching out to you because you previously helped with the archiving of the Talk page for Verizon Communications. I'm wondering if you might help me out with another thing on that article. I've drafted some new language about Verizon's products and services that I think should be incorporated into the article. If you have time, could you take a look at the language that I've proposed and incorporate it into the article if it looks okay? Thanks so much, VZBob (talk) 18:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi again, thanks for your help on this! I just left a note over at Talk:Verizon Communications about a few outstanding issues, though. If you have time, do you think you could take a look at the remaining things? Thanks so much, VZBob (talk) 23:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Robert, Thanks again for your help at Verizon Communications. Just wanted to let you know that I posted another follow-up note over at Talk:Verizon Communications about the new "Lines of business" section, in case you hadn't seen. If you have time, do you think you could take a look? Thanks so much, VZBob (talk) 15:56, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey Robert, I replied over at Talk:Verizon Communications, but I was wondering if you'd be willing to go ahead and delete the "Copper-wire removal" section under "Controversies", now that it's discussed in context. Thanks so much, VZBob (talk) 19:41, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey again, I just wanted to follow up here and see if you thought you'd have time to delete this section. If you're busy, I'm happy to reach out to other editors as well. Thanks so much, VZBob (talk) 14:56, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Drafts namespace proposal

You opposed creating the Drafts namespace because of the restrictions that might be applied to Userspace. We've now changed the proposal to remove all references to changing userspace and indeed we now explicitly allow userspace drafts in the proposal.

Would you perhaps take a look at the current language and see if it satisfies your worries? I think most of us sincerely y don't want to interfere with the status quo of userspace at all, we just make life easier for those users, generally new ones, who need to work with experienced editors in a shared space-- users who actively need and want help with their drafts and are putting out the call that they don't own in it the way we own userspace drafts.

If you aren't the kind of user who needs a collaborative draft space, then your Wikipedia experience should be unaffected-- that's the idea as I see it anyway. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:02, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

New section on the Anime and Manga RfC

Hello there. Since the Anime and Manga RfC seems to have developed a consensus for the "It depends on notability and uniqueness of each adaptation", I have started a thread to see if we can offer metrics or further guidance for such case by case... erm... cases. I have no idea if such a thing is even possible to draft up, but since having it might help, I figured I'd try. The thread is HERE, and as a previous participant in the RfC I wanted to let you know about it using this overly long, rambling message. Cheers, Sven Manguard Wha? 16:12, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	For telling it like it is. AutomaticStrikeout (₵) 20:12, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Philippine Military Academy

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Philippine Military Academy. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter for November 2013

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some feature changes, major infrastructure improvements to make the system more stable, dependable and extensible, some minor toolbar improvements, and fixing bugs.

A new form parsing library for language characters in Parsoid caused the corruption of pages containing diacritics for about an hour two weeks ago. Relatively few pages at the English Wikipedia were affected, but this created immediate problems at some other Wikipedias, sometimes affecting several dozen pages. The development teams for Parsoid and VisualEditor apologize for the serious disruption and thank the people who reported this emergency at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and on the public IRC channel, #mediawiki-visualeditor.

There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

• Accidental deletion of infoboxes and other items: You now need to press the Delete or ← Backspace key twice to delete a template, reference or image. The first time, the item becomes selected, and the second time, it is removed. The need to press the delete key twice should make it more obvious what you are doing and help avoid accidental removals of infoboxes and similar (bug 55336).
• Switch from VisualEditor to the wikitext editor: A new feature lets you make a direct, one-way editing interface change, which will preserve your changes without needing to save the page and re-open it in the wikitext editor (bug 50687). It is available in a new menu in the action buttons by the Cancel button (where the "Page Settings" button used to be). Note that this new feature is not currently working in Firefox.
• Categories and Languages are also now directly available in that menu. The category suggestions drop-down was appearing in the wrong place rather than below its input box, which is now fixed. An incompatibility between VisualEditor and the deployed Parsoid service that prevented editing categories and language links was fixed.
• File:, Help: and Category: namespaces: VisualEditor was enabled for these namespaces the on all wikis (bug 55968), the Portal: and Viquiprojecte: namespaces on the Catalan Wikipedia (bug 56000), and the Portal: and Book: namespaces on the English Wikipedia (bug 56001).
• Media item resizing: We improved how files are viewed in a few ways. First, inline media items can now be resized in the same way that has been possible with block ones (like thumbnails) before. When resizing a media item, you can see a live preview of how it will look as you drag it (bug 54298). While you are dragging an image to resize it, we now show a label with the current dimensions (bug 54297). Once you have resized it, we fetch a new, higher resolution image for the media item if necessary (bug 55697). Manual setting of media item sizes in their dialog is nearly complete and should be available next week. If you hold down the ⇧ Shift key whilst resizing an image, it will now snap to a 10 pixel grid instead of the normal free-hand sizing. The media item resize label now is centered while resizing regardless of which tool you use to resize it.
• Undo and redo: A number of improvements were made to the transactions system which make undoing and redoing more reliable during real-time collaboration (bug 53224).
• Save dialogue: The save page was re-written to use the same code as all other dialogs (bug 48566), and in the process fixed a number of issues. The save dialog is re-accessible if it loses focus (bug 50722), or if you review a null edit (bug 53313); its checkboxes for minor edit, watch the page, and flagged revisions options now layout much more cleanly (bug 52175), and the tab order of the buttons is now closer to what users will expect (bug 51918). There was a bug in the save dialog that caused it to crash if there was an error in loading the page from Parsoid, which is now fixed.
• Links to other articles or pages sometimes sent people to invalid pages. VisualEditor now keeps track of the context in which you loaded the page, which lets us fix up links in document to point to the correct place regardless of what entry point you launched the editor from—so the content of pages loaded through /wiki/Foobar?veaction=edit and /w/index.php?title=Foobar&veaction=edit both now have text links that work if triggered (bug 48915).
• Toolbar links: A bug that caused the toolbar's menus to get shorter or even blank when scrolled down the page in Firefox is now fixed (bug 55343).
• Numbered external links: VisualEditor now supports Parsoid's changed representation of numbered external links (bug 53505).
• Removed empty templates: We also fixed an issue that meant that completely empty templates became impossible to interact with inside VisualEditor, as they didn't show up (bug 55810).
• Mathematics formulae: If you would like to try the experimental LaTeX mathematics tool in VisualEditor, you will need to opt-in to Beta Features. This is currently available on Meta-wiki, Wikimedia Commons, and Mediawiki.org. It will be available on all other Wikimedia sites on 21 November.
• Browser testing support: If you are interested in technical details, the browser tests were expanded to cover some basic cursor operations, which uncovered an issue in our testing framework that doesn't work with cursoring in Firefox; the Chrome tests continue to fail due to a bug with the welcome message for that part of the testing framework.
• Load time: VisualEditor now uses content language when fetching Wikipedia:TemplateData information, so reducing bandwidth use, and users on multi-language or multi-script wikis now get TemplateData hinting for templates as they would expect (bug 50888).
• Reuse of VisualEditor: Work on spinning out the user experience (UX) framework from VisualEditor into oojs-ui, which lets other teams at Wikimedia (like Flow) and gadget authors re-use VisualEditor UX components, is now complete and is being moved to a shared code repository.
• Support for private wikis: If you maintain a private wiki at home or at work, VisualEditor now supports editing of private wikis, by forwarding the Cookie: HTTP header to Parsoid ($wgVisualEditorParsoidForwardCookies set to true) (bug 44483). (Most private wikis will also need to install Parsoid and node.js, as VisualEditor requires them.)

Looking ahead:

• VisualEditor will be released to some of the smaller Wikipedias on 02 December 2013. If you are active at one or more smaller Wikipedias where VisualEditor is not yet generally available, please see the list at VisualEditor/Rollouts.
• Public office hours on IRC to discuss VisualEditor with Product Manager James Forrester will be held on Monday, 2 December, at 1900 UTC and on Tuesday, 3 December, at 0100 UTC. Bring your questions. Logs will be posted on Meta after each office hour completes.
• In terms of feature improvements, one of the major infrastructure projects affects how inserting characters works, both using your computer's built-in Unicode input systems and through a planned character inserter tool for VisualEditor. The forthcoming rich copying and pasting feature was extended and greater testing is currently being done. Work continues to support the improved reference dialog to quickly add citations based on local templates.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 22:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Liao Dynasty

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Liao Dynasty. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:01, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Request for outside perspective on two sites...

...asking since in addition to other matters, you have expressed an interest in the importance of referencing standards, and have offered edits in the hard sciences. The articles are: Species and Steroid, both ranked as important in their respective projects. Cheers, look forward to a response there, or here if you have a perspective to offer. Lengthy or brief as you wish. Cheers. Leprof 7272 (talk) 06:06, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I do not routinely log, and what you have picked up on is an IP for one of my work locations. But the controlling editors at both sites (see more below) both know me—have had access to this User information, and know my expertise/professional intel (PhD chemist, former pharma, current univ). (Earlier stalking/outing of my university information by an editor here, with an earlier login, keeps me out of many normal Wikipedia programs and activities.)

By way of further introduction, see Bürgi–Dunitz angle, an article I turned around and am about to bring to properly formatted Wikipedia status, and see biomimetic synthesis, a stub I have just begun. I am also completing a long Bio of David A. Evans at Harvard. All are representative of what I believe is a reasonable reliance on the literature, though none are yet good encycl articles (sound drafts, only).

Extended content

The question at hand is, What might be described as the accepted interpretation and application of WPs regarding how unreferenced text is to be a uniformly handled? Issue at both sites is large numbers of sections or large tracts of text in sections without a single citation. Both controlling editors believe that text without citation, for whatever reason, for whatever persisting period, is better than no text. My opinion is essentially the opposite, that unsourced scientific text that is not common knowledge as defined by the WP should not be allowed in, and text in place that is un-sourced for more than 3-6 months comes out. As I have stated, likely at both sites: to leave it demands reader faith—believe it because it is here—and therefore undercuts the way science is intended to function, and to appear, especially poignant a problem with regard to young readers. (I have no issue with expressions of faith, just do not allow it as the strong currency of interaction between science writer and reader.) E.g., after 4 years of a 1600 word closing section being without citations at Species, and intermittent comments indicating attention was needed, I pulled the section, explaining why. This initiated a fire storm, which eventually came to a standoff. (The controlling edtor can rally a consensus around leaving it; I have neither time nor desire to try to fight that.) Is such continuous unreferenced factual (non-lead, non-segue) scientific text a problem or not? My reading of the WP says such writing as appears without citation at Species and Steroids is almost all not common knowledge (of either WP-listed sort), and so text must be sprinkled with citations. (See both articles; I cannot imagine a paragraph in either that is fully common knowledge.) The dominant editors at both articles reject the need, and argue that interested editors should leave the text, and practice what I term "forensic referencing"—allowing the text to remain, others trying to think the original author's thoughts after them, with these later editors adding citations the original authors did not. In my experience, the issues here are deep, and profound for the organization. First, persons willing to write in this way are often not those that should be writing; I have never found an excellent science article—sound in the science, and tightly presented—that is not referenced. Good scientists and science writers know they must present their sources. Permissiveness in this area in the science therefore invites poorly prepared contributors, including some of these that are actually cribbing direct from open texts. Second, weak and unreferenced text in place and allowed to remain sets the standard for what is expected of new/visiting editors—weak and sloppy content begets more weak and sloppy, and the problem only grows. Third, widespread forensic referencing exacerbates the problem by having the later editor, often non-expert, add citations that are often inaccurate (e.g., chosen by title or abstract word association). Fourth, the implications of this hidden aspect of Wikipedia, relative to common perception of its presentation of the sciences (based on its own article scorecards, the Nature evaluation, etc) are also profound. Proponents of Wikipedia in academia that I deal with have said, well at least the science articles are sound. Species, and Steroid, both top importance articles, are not, and cannot be, as long as this issue persists. (Fundamentally, I believe large swaths of science text at Wikipedia to be plagiarized, by the "idea" facet of that term's definition, by the WP definitions of "common knowledge", and by the standard interpretations and expectations of western higher education.) This leads me to ask the following practical questions: What does WP actually require with respect to having citations in the sciences, where, by actually I mean able and willing to enforce)? What is really expected when this requirement is not met (what is to be tolerated, what is to be corrected)? If unreferenced material "may" be removed, at what point in time? By whom? And with what formal Wikipedia recourse when the removed text is reverted (as it will be, in my experience)? I have all but washed my hands of both sites, because of fundamental differences on these matters with the controlling editors (Obsidian at Species and Boghog at Steroid, both of whom are extremely tolerant of text without citation). If some formal arbitrative process exists to move the editors to consensus, I would gladly return to contribute (after some time, because of the current level of ill will my arguing as engendered).

In closing, my desires are not to persuade, but to be guided what to do at these two sites, and to have a framework so I do not anger other editors in the future.

Answer however you see fit, here or at mine. Collapse this if you wish. Leprof 7272 (talk) 01:42, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Responding to your reply at my talk, here, hopefully to make it easier on you... Your point about about my Talk entries being too long is well taken. First posts in each thread are fairly short. Point-by-point rebuttals of argument and replies to queries asking examples add to reply length. As do disagreements about meaning/application of WP policy. (When a matter moves to content and policy, discussions get long. I'm not good at arguing WP shorthands.) And, honestly, the exasperation at being unable to effect change adds to length, through repetition, etc.

So, you do conclude that large blocks without citation in these science texts are content and not WP interpretation/application issues? If so, this leaves me without hope, here. I believed from those Talk discussions that we were at a point where the issue was, substantially, differences in WP interpretation. Hence, the request of your opinion.

Extended content

As well, I'm looking to understand if I need to shift gears, philosophically, and view WPs as a category of nonenforceable rules, e.g., http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DKJ654VkMb8C&pg=PA95&dq=&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7RslT_iJLoXO8QOpr_ziBw&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=nonenforcement&f=false (accessed 9 December 2013). One can most freely drive 79 mph on most Illinois expressways, sometimes faster, despite posted 55 and 65 mph limits. Is that what I am facing here? Do WPs exist without real motivation/mechanism to enforce, for whatever reason? And if this is the case, how does this square with http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-July/050773.html (accessed 9 December 2013)? And why then even state such things as the underlined portions of the WP at Talk:Species, section When to cite, when not to cite? I would appreciate your brief perspectives on these questions, and any remaining in the preceding Talk entry (paragraph beginning "This leads me to ask..."). I've read all of the WPs. Needed are reflections from a higher level wikipedian than myself, one with broader experience (like Madscientist, above). Bottom line, are large blocks of unreferenced science text generally a problem, as I perceive, or no? Does Mr Wales comment not extend to science verifiability (is it only BLP that matters)? Does the WP on "When to cite" not actually apply to such citation-free blocks as at Species and Steroid? I really am seeking to understand, not just be affirmed.

As for adding a "Request for Comments" at Species... I'm less concerned about specific answers at these two articles, than for the general guidance asked. Moreover, the 3-4 RfC processes I have witnessed seemed one-sided, involving very interested individuals (rather than more distant, objective inputs). (All were dense with the status quo editor's network of friends, so in all the status quo was unchanged. How this comes to pass, you'd understand better than I.) More power to you if you decide to post a Request at Species or Steroids. Perhaps you have the respect/prestige to make such a course productive. Leprof 7272 (talk) 02:12, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello

In regards to the ANI you created out of concern that User: 78.156.109.166 was "a troll", I wanted to advise you that there appears to be more to this matter than simple trolling. His last half dozen talk page edits have been administratively removed, his talk page access blocked, and the matter is now being handled by the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm not sure if you plan to comment on your ANI any further, but I think it best if you just let it "die out" (become archived due to inactivity / lack of comment). If you have any further concerns, I suggest you bring them here, to the talk page of the admin handling the matter. Thanks - ^theWOLFchild 17:35, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter • 19 December 2013

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some toolbar improvements, fixing bugs, and improving support for Indic languages as well as other languages with complex characters. The current focus is on improving the reference dialog and expanding the new character inserter tool.

There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

• Rich copying and pasting is now available. If you copy text from another website, then character formatting and some other HTML attributes are preserved. This means, for example, that if you copy a pre-formatted suggested citation from a source like this, then VisualEditor will preserve the formatting of the title in the citation. Keep in mind that copying the formatting may include formatting that you don't want (like section headings). If you want to paste plain, unformatted text onto a page, then use Control+⇧ Shift+V or ⌘ Command+⇧ Shift+V (Mac).
• Auto-numbered external links like [2] can now be edited just like any other link. However, they cannot be created in VisualEditor easily.
• Several changes to the toolbar and dialogs have been made, and more are on the way. The toolbar has been simplified with a new drop-down text styles menu and an "insert" menu. Your feedback on the toolbar is wanted here. The transclusion/template dialog has been simplified. If you have enabled mathematical formula editing, then the menu item is now called the formula editor instead of LaTeX.
• There is a new character inserter, which you can find in the new "insert" menu, with a capital Omega ("Ω"). It's a very basic set of characters. Your feedback on the character inserter is wanted here.
• Saving the page should seem faster by several seconds now.
• It is now possible to access VisualEditor by manually editing the URL, even if you are not logged in or have not opted in to VisualEditor normally. To do so, append ?veaction=edit to the end of the page name. For example, change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random?veaction=edit to open a random page in VisualEditor. This is intended to support bug testing across multiple browsers, without requiring editors to login repeatedly.

Looking ahead: The transclusion dialog will see further changes in the coming weeks, with a simple mode for single templates and an advanced mode for more complex transclusions. The new character formatting menu on the toolbar will get an arrow to show that it is a drop-down menu. The reference dialog will be improved, and the Reference item will become a button in the main toolbar, rather than an item in the Insert menu.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:40, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of topics characterized as pseudoscience

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:List of topics characterized as pseudoscience. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:01, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you very much for your arbitration without arbitration. (If you are actually asking for the editors who deleted your articles to be blocked or banned, you may be assured that that will not happen.) Sir it is not my intention. However, I have two questions: (i) I could not understand which type of published material is acceptable for editing an article (2) If there are no abusive contents, is it appropriate to delete the article summarily?

Further please note I do not want restoration of my deleted article. It is my pleasure that I am talking to a Scientist, in this manner you are much more superior to me. Nannadeem (talk) 14:43, 30 December 2013 (UTC)