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Administrators' newsletter – December 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2017).

Administrator changes

added Joe Roe
readded JzG
removed Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:57, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Aboriginal peoples of South Australia (December 25)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by The Drover's Wife was:
This submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources. Reliable sources are required so that information can be verified. If you need help with referencing, please see Referencing for beginners and Citing sources.
 The comment the reviewer left was:
This article isn't quite ready for prime-time yet. The "Colonial intent" and "Early treatment" sections are unsourced, and it skips over the Frontier Wars entirely. The Protector of Aborigines section is a tidbit about only one Protector: Moorhouse. "Peoples" and "Settlements" are unsourced, and most of the Native Title section is about land held under statutory land rights instead. The "Modern aboriginal life" section is unsourced.
Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.
The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:00, 25 December 2017 (UTC)


Teahouse logo
Hello! ScottDavis, I noticed your article was declined at Articles for Creation, and that can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:00, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Hume Highway

open street map on cycle map shows topo info - about 200m up to 600m, but i'd not quote it Dave Rave (talk) 10:36, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

@Dave Rave: Thank you. I suspect there is a NSW gazetteer online somewhere that has elevations that could be added to the towns at the ends, then cited both in the towns and the highway article, but I normally deal with SA towns, so am not as familiar with other states' gazetteers. --Scott Davis Talk 11:05, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
google map, plain, with terrain also agrees with 600-200 ... I've got topo maps somewhere, could probably cite those Dave Rave (talk) 19:43, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
I found the New South Wales Geographical Names Board database[1] but it doesn't appear to have elevation. The SA equivalent doesn't always populate the elevation field, but it has one, and it's usually populated for railway stations (even old ones) which is helpful for place articles too. --Scott Davis Talk 21:59, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2017).

Administrator changes

added Muboshgu
readded Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned
removed None

Bureaucrat changes

readded Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

  • A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Can you help to moderate Singapore Management University's page?

I have been trying to add the standard QS/THES/ARWU rankings box to SMU's page, this ranking box basically exists for all universities' pages, but Bluestsky99 keeps removing it. I invited him to talk on the talkpage but he just ignored it and continued to remove the standard uni rankings box. Looks like an undergrad who wished SMU ranked higher.

The user: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bluestsky99 His recurring revision: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Singapore_Management_University&diff=817241078&oldid=817028456

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.14.209.221 (talk) 10:57, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

@116.14.209.221: I don't see any need for immediate admin action, and I can't see your invitation on Bluestsky99 (talk · contribs)'s talk page. To my eye, the screen full of rankings on Singapore Management University is just blur — an infobox with a couple of sentences would be better, as appeared on the couple of Australian universities I looked at. I also suggest that you create an account and log in, as otherwise we don't know if all the different IP addresses that edit a page are the same person in different places, or different people, so could all get blocked for the actions of one. --Scott Davis Talk 11:37, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
hi sir, thanks a lot for your help! i have readded the said standard infobox to SMU's page. I also left a message on bluesky999's talkpage inviting him to express any doubts on the talkpage if needed. have a good day! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.14.209.221 (talk) 04:32, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
hi scott, bluesky999 reverted the infobox again. he has repeatedly not replied on SMU's discussion page but he commented in his latest revert that 'infobox doesn't compare specialist university'. this is weird to me as the main point of QS and other international rankings (ARWU etc) is to try to fairly compare a diverse range of unversities in the world whether they are specialist/general/big/small universities. AFAIK the main rankings are usually based on research citations per faculty, teaching staff ratio, standing among employers, etc. The wiki pages for small specialist universities such as LSE and Caltech all include the standard infobox. my view is that the standard universities infobox should be included. can you take a look and moderate? thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.14.209.221 (talk) 06:50, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

LNP colour

The LNP colour you've used on Template:Australian Senators is absolutely unreadable on my browser (way too dark). Not sure if it's just me? Frickeg (talk) 10:55, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

@Frickeg: I'm happy to have it tweaked by "experts". My objective was to make LNP explicitly different to LIB, as I had just reverted someone removing "(LNP)" from the text replacing it with "(LIB)" or "(NAT)" (and changing the NAT one's colour). I started with the colour used on Liberal National Party infobox - but that was so dark it looked like it needed white text! I've used the same colour, and just added an alpha channel number to lighten it - the "40" at the end of the colour in {{Australian Senators/lnp}} means 4/16ths transparency of the full colour, since substituting {{Liberal National Party of Queensland/meta/color}} was completely unreadable. I've tried it now in three browsers on two computers with different OSes. ... OH! I just realised the alpha channel is not parsed by Microsoft Edge. Oops. I'll try to work out what colour I've synthesised, and fix it. --Scott Davis Talk 12:12, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Frickeg: Thanks for noticing - hopefully you see a better colour now - it looks the same on Edge for me now as it already did on Firefox and Chrome, but not assuming such a clever browser. --Scott Davis Talk 12:30, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, looks much better, great job! (I'm on Firefox btw so Edge wasn't the issue.) Frickeg (talk) 12:56, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Bizarre. I think something has cahced the template with the old number now too - If I open the template in MSIE, I see the dark colour, but a null edit gives the light one. If I close the browser and try again, I get dark! The HTML source changes, so I know the templates underneath are OK now. --Scott Davis Talk 13:04, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Mintaro

I disagree with you reverting my recent edits to Mintaro. Suggest you look at Google maps. Farrell Flat is a town NE of Mintaro. The only thing at Polish Hill River is a winery or two. Clare is a town of 4,000 people.

Regards, Spy007au (talk) 23:24, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

@Spy007au: The reference I used for Mintaro, like most other localities in South Australia is the state government's legal data. I just noticed that the precise reference isn't on that page, so have rectified that (I checked it before rolling back your edits - the rollback button for multiple edits didn't allow for an edit comment like undo does for one). I agree that Clare and Farrell Flat are larger than Polish Hill River and Stanley, but the smaller ones are the neighbouring gazetted localities. Clare is used as a reference point in the Location field of the infobox. I hope that explains the reasoning for some SA places having quite obscure neighbours. --Scott Davis Talk 01:39, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

WikiMiniAtlas

Hello, I noticed you were interested in nearby article dots. I wonder if the nearby article dots were "refreshed" lately (until December that dissappeared) cause the last times I checked (many many months ago) no new articles/or changes in coords of articles were shown, at least in el.wikipedia.org (Greek) Drspiros (talk) 18:04, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Ian Allison (disambiguation)

Thanks! Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 12:08, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

@Pdfpdf: No worries - sometimes stalking user talk pages is useful :-) I've done a few similar things recently. --Scott Davis Talk 12:13, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2018).

Administrator changes

added None
removed Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
  • Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.

Technical news

  • A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Template:South Australia newspapers

Discussion 1

Hello. I have avoided using definite articles in the template since users, sources, and wiki-pages are quite varied about the actual use. To that end for the sake of consistency, simplicity, and ease of use (and to keep the ever expanding list of newspapers easier to read) I would preferably like to keep the list as is ATM without visible articles (but naturally any attached wiki-links can be formatted to whatever link or name seems best). Ok? Thanks. JabberJaw (talk) 11:51, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jabberjaw: Fair enough. The ones I have added, I have tried to use the name that the paper appears to have used/currently uses. For example, what I look at include The Advertiser and The Bunyip but News Review Messenger and Plains Producer. I don't mind displaying shorter forms if they still make sense. Can I suggest that you identify the "right" title for the article for each newspaper, and put red links in the navbox template to those titles, and also in the relevant disambiguation pages? That way, they should all show up (once!) in the various auto-generated missing topics lists. I'm not particularly interested in writing the articles about the newspapers (despite starting one yesterday - thanks for expanding on it), but standardisation and coverage are important to me. Cheers and keep up the good work. --Scott Davis Talk 12:11, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
Sure - its a WIP and may take some time but will do my best. And standardisation is important for me too, and the template is standardised within itself as is (although the links and pages they go to are by no means not). If you are happy to help by using your "admin powers" to fix page name inconsistencies I see, then I would be happy to report them to you here (Eg. The Transcontinental (Port Augusta) - no reason for a longer title since the simpler "The Transcontinental" is only used as a redirect to the longer). Thanks. JabberJaw (talk) 12:21, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm going slow on this specific one, as I think of "The Transcontinental" as the name of the passenger train that used to operate from Port Pirie to Kalgoorlie (or maybe as a service from Adelaide to Perth, but with a change of gauge and a change of operator), so was looking to see why I didn't find it at The Transcontinental or even on the dab page transcontinental (disambiguation). --Scott Davis Talk 13:04, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
@JabberJaw: OK, I've worked it out - "The Trans" for short was the Trans-Australian, not Transcontinental. I was only a kid when I travelled on it many years ago. I'll move the newspaper article. --Scott Davis Talk 13:11, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
OK - next one is Bunyip (newspaper) when The Bunyip is clearly available.
 Done Easy to confirm since I had already used it as an example! --Scott Davis Talk 13:28, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
Ok - how about a trickier one - The Recorder (Port Pirie) vs The Recorder?
no Declined The Port Pirie one is not primary topic vs The Recorder (Massachusetts newspaper). --Scott Davis Talk 13:42, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

OK - what about this one? Victor Harbor Times vs The Times (Victor Harbor) - the newspaper changed its name in 1987, so (the) Times is its common name now.

Another one is The Narracoorte Herald vs The Naracoorte Herald. The current name is spelt with one R, so the RR should be the redirect, and R the main page. I visited Naracoorte probably 50-60 times, but never knew that spelling existed until I edited the page here.JabberJaw (talk) 08:22, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 Done I have removed one 'r' from the place of the Herald. The lead needs turning around to match, but I'll leave that to you for now. You shouldn't need my help to move pages to titles that do not currently have a redirect or any other content. --Scott Davis Talk 12:19, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Discussion 2

Also given the continual renaming/merging of papers, I would also prefer pages to link to the latest common name for the newspaper - eg. The Kangaroo Island courier becoming part of the Glenelg Guardian, rather than creating new individual pages. This can be done with a bit of sleuthing, which I have been happy to do of late...

I'm happy to let you do that sleuthing in general. All of the former titles should have redirects with {{R to section}} and/or {{R with possibility}} so that references in other articles an easily link to the name of the newspaper that actually contained the information. Sometimes it's helpful to break out separate things to their own articles, and link them with predecessor/sucessor kind of connections if the total of the merged or renamed entity is substantially different to the previous one (I sometimes edit company articles, which have similar problems, and historic place names also bring a bunch of issues). --Scott Davis Talk 13:04, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
Most articles would probably start out as redirects/stubs anyway, so starting life as a section/paragraph in another article would be an easy untroubled way to evolve new content (which can migrate to new pages as needed). JabberJaw (talk) 13:16, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Here is a useful reference Fariax link (pages 2-3 for regional SA) showing official/correct/common(?) names for its publications.JabberJaw (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

There is one more in the list of SA papers than the list of SA websites. It took me several minutes to realise that is because both Port Lincoln Times and The Times (Port Lincoln) are in the list. To confuse your last request above even more, in that list, I matched up On the Coast with www.victorharbortimes.com.au - there's a nice little logo on the online masthead, but I didn't think of it as the main name of the paper! --Scott Davis Talk 05:19, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
I am ok with a renaming to standardise (as seen with port pirie and port lincoln - i.e current publication title (place). The redirect will catch name variants (perhaps even using "on the coast" as a redirect to The Times (Victor Harbor) too.JabberJaw (talk) 08:22, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Discussion 3

What about the Messenger Newspapers newspapers? Paul foord (talk) 13:30, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

I see there is also Template:Adelaide newspapers but neither references the other. Paul foord (talk) 13:37, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
I thnk the Messenger article is out of date anyway. Before they last stopped delivering to me, I thought we were getting a Northern Messenger instead of News Review Messenger but that title doesn't seem to be listed, and they have stopped delivering to me again so I can't check as easily. --Scott Davis Talk 12:19, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2018).

Administrator changes

added Lourdes†
removed AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V
† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news

  • The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
  • Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
  • A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
  • A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.

Technical news

  • CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
  • The edit filter has a new feature contains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.

Miscellaneous

Obituaries

  • Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

RfA potential nomination

Hi there ScottDavis. I'm interested at some stage in the future in RfA. Prior to doing so, I'd value your input into the areas where I need more development to ensure that my application succeeds. Do you have any comments or feedback? Many thanks for your time. Rangasyd (talk) 14:39, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Rangasyd:. I have been travelling, so am not checking closely on your edit history. My general comments ("referee report" if you like) is that I have no recollection whatsoever of ever being concerned by your edits, and I do not feel I need to routinely check your edits for validity just because it was you that made them. I am more likely to look to see what interesting information I would learn about a topic on my watchlist. There are a couple of entries on your current talk page that at first glance look to be of potential concern (I have not attempted a deeper look). Last year's archive looks much more positive, so you might want to make responses to the outstanding items. --Scott Davis Talk 12:47, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks ScottDavis. Good feedback and suggestions. Actioned the feedback. Rangasyd (talk) 13:41, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

City of Orange

Hi, Thanks for your message. I wasn't aware of City of Orange (New South Wales) as I was working from the dab list &, as you say, used Orange, New South Wales. It was today's the top listed article on Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links with 160 links, which is why I tried to tackle them - sorry I got it wrong & thanks for helping to sort it.— Rod talk 10:40, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

If you look at https://tools.wmflabs.org/dplbot/dab_fix_list.php?title=Orange you will see all the links (mostly from Template:Local Government Areas of New South Wales) would you be kind enough to take a look and see if any of the others should have gone to City of Orange (New South Wales) rather than the ones I changed them to?— Rod talk 10:50, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. I will. --Scott Davis Talk 10:54, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Capitol Images

Hello! I saw you added a description to File:Capitol5.JPG, thanks a million! There are three images in that series. The one you edited, plus File:Capitol2.JPG and File:Capitol4.JPG. I had PRODed them because I couldn't figure out what they were, but based on your comment I'm guessing they're all of the Capitol Theater. Do you think they would have encyclopedic value to anyone? If so, I can just move them to Commons instead of deleting them here. Your thoughts would be most welcome. Thanks and happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 14:39, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@Ajpolino: I suspect that File:Capitol4.JPG is detail of the ceiling somewhere in the building, and is probably the only one of the three that I would think is worth keeping. It looks like a different angle of the same design as commons:File:Ceiling Detail At Foyer.jpg so could be transferred to commons and added to commons:Category:Capitol Theatre, Melbourne. The one I tagged is a pretty average view of a busy footpath to me. The photo in the article is better than the scene from across the road in this set. Moving them all to that category on Commons would be an OK solution, but I don't see much value in the outside ones. --Scott Davis Talk 22:18, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Great! Thanks again for your help. File:Capitol4.JPG is now available on Commons as File:Capitol Theatre Ceiling, Melbourne.jpg. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 19:32, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your work on Australian content!

Great to see you finishing off the localities in an LGA! It's one of my missions for Queensland. I agree with your comment about it being hard to find much about the last few; there isn't always much to say about them! But I think it's great to have the "complete set"!

Kerry (talk) 22:23, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Kerry. I didn't even really intend to finish off that LGA - they stood out as red links on 2015 Pinery bushfire. I've just about run out of places with family history connections (I think!) but tend to write an article for places I hear about on the news that don't have one yet too. There could be material "out there" about Fischer, South Australia, but as it is named with a common surname, it is difficult to search for. It is quite a small geographic area and appears to have never had a school, hotel or church, so there has to be a story somewhere about how and why it exists and was not integrated to Woolsheds or Reeves Plains. --Scott Davis Talk 03:03, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The Satin Man Uncovering the Mystery of the Missing Beaumont Children / Searching for the Beuamont Children Whiticker and Mullins Co Authors

Dear Scott

In regards to the Beaumont Children Disappearance there are some inaccuracies and also some important information missing .Michael Madigan , The Beaumont Children book reiterates this.

Examples:

The man at the beach that day in 1966 did not have blonde hair or long blond hair. He had combed back fairish to light brown hair early 30s to early 40s or middle aged. All in the 3 books ( the man at the beach never has blond hair or long blond hair sufis guy )

The children's and the man's money was taken as this was stated by the man to the eye witnesses at Colley Reserve noted in all three books.

The children follow the man to the Colley Reserve Change sheds part of the Glenelg Surf Life Saving Club 120 metres north where the children wait for him. This was all in the opposite direction to the children bus stop and Wenzel's Bakery.

Within a short period of time the children end up at Wenzel's bakery to by one pie, 5 pasties, 5 finger buns, and 2 bottles of fizzy drink with a one pound note. Noted by the shop keeper who knew Jane as unusual as Jane had never paid with a one pound note previously and her mother had only given her only 8 shillings. All in these three books

Firstly ,Scott I can send you copies of the books above for your reference can you advise what address to send this to ?

Regards

Stuart Mullins Co Author researcher The Satin Man Uncovering — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stuart R Mullins (talk • contribs) 23:55, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2018).

Administrator changes

added 331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG
removed Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

  • Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
  • Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
  • The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
  • The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

  • A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
  • The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Footnotes problem?

Hi Scott, Thanks for your help with the surrounding electoral districts. I'm experiencing a problem with the footnotes parameter in Template:Infobox Australian Electorate, and wondered if you were too - I can't get the footnotes to display anything at all, most particularly, I can't get it to display the very useful links to the very useful maps. What about you? Pdfpdf (talk) 03:25, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me. I was thinking about red links at the time, and forgot to go back. It seemed that the footnote was appearing in the reflist, but without the visible anchor in the infobox under the footnotes heading. I'll see what I can work out. --Scott Davis Talk 04:26, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
It seemed that the footnote was appearing in the reflist, but without the visible anchor in the infobox under the footnotes heading. - Yes, that was what I was/am experiencing. I'll see what I can work out. - Enjoy! Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 04:46, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 Fixed {{infobox}} supports label<n>, header<n> and data<n>, but the data is not displayed if there is a header - so choices are header<n> and data<n+1> (what I have used now in {{Infobox Australian Electorate}} and seems to have been the old way, gives a purple band) or label<n> and data<n> (gives a title on the left and data next to it). --Scott Davis Talk 05:15, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Disruptive user

Can I please get a hand with this user's disruptive edits? They are also blanking their talk page. Timeshift (talk) 14:30, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

It is past my bedtime, so I need more specific information on the problem - is it that there is one edit adding a lot of photos? The pre-1955 ones appear to be fine to me at this hour, but the Walshe, Dunstan, Corcoran ones require fair use statements, and they have only been made for the article about each person, not for the list article? As I said, I am going to bed, so will not look further until at least Friday morning. --Scott Davis Talk 14:46, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi ScottDavis. I have nominated the above page for deletion as a copyright violation, as while much of the Government of Australia's web content is released under a compatible license, the source page for this content is not, as far as I can tell. It's marked as © 2014 Department of State Development. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 13:08, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

3DB - The Minstrel Show.

Dear ScottDavis,

You have removed exactly the same section as was removed earlier by The Drover's Wife. I see this removal as a problem as there has to be an explanation that the thinking about such things as Caucasians parodying African-Americans has not been acceptable for the last 40 years or so.

Despite your comments on the 3DB talk page, this explanation is tied into 3DB because it leads into a listing of the names of characters in the 3DB show, and also into a joke that is taken out of a script for The Minstrel Show.

I really feel that it's important that this be placed back again!

That being said, thanks for adding the section explaining that it was an Australian version of American minstrel shows.

Please get back to me,

Yours, Albert Isaacs (talk) 06:43, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

@Albert Isaacs: The bulk of the text I removed had nothing in particular to do with 3DB. I would encourage you to find a third-party reference to identify whether the show was seen as racist either by the nation generally or by particular elements of our society, and how that image impacted on the rest of 3DB and affiliates programming, and use that reference to add some context. The larger paragraph I removed could probably be massaged slightly and inserted into Minstrel show as a new Australian section. Perhaps then update the wikilink in 3DB (Melbourne) to point directly to that section if you think that fits better.


I also have concern about the long list of actors, most of whom appear to be non-notable. --Scott Davis Talk 06:59, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Dear ScottDavis,

This whole thing is really starting to get to me! However, perhaps you've come up with the answer - a few short sentences about The Minstrel Show on the 3DB page with a link to a new page on the show itself. Anyway, let me think about it overnight and do something about it, sometime over the weekend.

There's one thing you can probably assist me with. How can I make a copy of the original minstrel section without pressing Undo?

At some stage in the future, I will add two more sections to the 3DB page: 1. About the variety shows that supported broadcasts of Ashes cricket games in England, and how these evolved into "The Happy Gang"; 2. How World War II affected 3DB.

Oh, how I hope the these will not be as controversial asThe Minstrel Show turned out to be, much to my great surprise.

Yours, Albert Isaacs (talk) 08:55, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

@Albert Isaacs: I'm not sure if the 3DB radio show is sufficiently notable by itself, but I guess that depends on how many references you find for it. I was thinking you might add an Australian section to the otherwise US-centric Minstrel show article.
To see the text of an older version of an article, use the "View history" link at the top of the page (next to the edit buttons, below your user links). You can see differences between each version and the current ("cur") or previous ("prev") versions, shown side-by-side in paragraphs of wiki source, or use the radio buttons to get a difference between any two versions on the page. You can also click on a timestamp to see the page as it was at that time, and the edit button then will provide the source of that version (with a pink warning that you are editing an old version). You can copy/paste from that, then use the back button of your browser to get out.
Your proposed new sections should be fine as long as they are about 3DB, not editorialising about The Ashes or World War II, and are supported by a range of references.
Are you able to find the SLV references again and provide full citations? Those URLs don't work for me, I think they are search session URLs, not permanent links into the catalog. Thanks. --Scott Davis Talk 09:27, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Dear ScottDavis,

I think that a new page is the way to go but, obviously there would be links both ways with both the Minstrel Shows and 3DB. I am extremely hesitant to add an Australian section to the existing minstrel page as I don't know much about live Aussie minstrel shows, or about minstrels on Aussie TV, or about minstrel recordings made in Australia.

I'm still looking forward to an answer to my question in the second para of my penultimate email.

Yours, Albert Isaacs (talk) 00:42, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

@Albert Isaacs: Make a new page first if you like. Perhaps even make it in your user space first to see how it develops. Yes, if there were a lot more Australian minstrel shows, it would be out of balance to only mention one of them. I don't know what question I haven't answered. Sorry. Feel free to ask again. --Scott Davis Talk 01:09, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Dear ScottDavis,

In reference to setting up a Minstrel Show page, and using parts of what had been on former versions of the 3DB page, I asked: How can I make a copy of the original minstrel section without pressing Undo?

Yours, Albert Isaacs (talk) 01:16, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

@Albert Isaacs: I thought I answered that. Do you need more help? To see the text of an older version of an article, use the "View history" link at the top of the page (next to the edit buttons, below your user links). You can see differences between each version and the current ("cur") or previous ("prev") versions, shown side-by-side in paragraphs of wiki source, or use the radio buttons to get a difference between any two versions on the page. You can also click on a timestamp to see the page as it was at that time, and the edit button then will provide the source of that version (with a pink warning that you are editing an old version). You can copy/paste from that, then use the back button of your browser to get out.--Scott Davis Talk 01:38, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Dear ScottDavis,

Thanks for the clarification.

I must admit that all this kerfuffle has sapped me of my motivation. I leave it for a few days and wait for my motivation to return.

Yours, Albert Isaacs (talk) 04:03, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Australian media..

Any chance you could take a look at this backlog sometime: Category:PD-Australia_images_with_unknown_US_copyright_status ?

It would be nice to get as many as 'legally' possible on to Commons. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:32, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm going through and marking a bunch of old ones with the pre-1923 tag. Thanks for your help today. --Scott Davis Talk 13:52, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

File:John McInnes 2.jpeg

Is it an 'official' dress he's wearing? Which would place it from either his time as Speaker , or Mayor. Either way it's OK for Commons.

Maybe if the date can be pinned down more effectively, a note could be sent back to the archivists? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:56, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

I would not presume to know as much about the clothes in the photo as the folks at the State Library would know, as to whether it is ceremonial dress or just upper-crust formalwear. --Scott Davis Talk 15:15, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

The Beaumont Children

Scott

I am the co author of the satin man uncovering the disappearance of the Beaumont Children and forwarder and researcher of Searching for the Beaumont Children .I would send you these two book for your reference if you can let me know me know where to send.

On wiki pedi there are some in accuracies regarding the description of the man seen with the children at the beach which way they walked and would like to highlight these to you for correction can you advise?

Regards

Stuart Mullins www.thebeaumontchildren.com.au — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stuart R Mullins (talk • contribs) 02:34, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of George Edward Harris

The article George Edward Harris has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Fails WP:NBIO. Cannot find any reliable secondary sources on him.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Rogermx (talk) 14:45, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

It looks like in fact, I created this article. I support its deletion. I created it as a side-effect of turning [2] into a proper disambiguation page in November 2005. The page is longer now, but no more worthy than it was then, and the inbound links are now that disambig page (which is far longer now) and another disambiguation page. I am surprised it has taken this long to reach deletion. --Scott Davis Talk 10:15, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018).

Administrator changes

added None
removed Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

  • The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
  • A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

  • AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
  • When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
  • The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
  • There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

Obituaries

  • Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

That was a zloppy one...

thanks for correcting the slumpz, haha, I usually check my text before submitting, but this one was mizzed... Cheerz, Tisquesusa (talk) 15:49, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

No worries. It took a few minutes to search for "slumpz" in case it was a real term in a jargon I don't know. All good now. --Scott Davis Talk 23:05, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018).

Administrator changes

added None
removed Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
  • There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
  • It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

  • A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
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