User talk:Thedewster/Archive4

Userfy Template:Thedewster/TalkHeader

Greetings. Please move Template:Thedewster/TalkHeader and any other personal templates that you have created into your user pages. Template:Thedewster/TalkHeader does not support encyclopedic content, so it is not really appropriate for the template namespace. You can still use the template as before once you move it, either directly by typing {{User:Thedewster/YourNewPagename}} along with any parameters when using it on your user pages, or by using {{subst}} with the appropriate syntax and parameters when using it in other namespaces. Thanks. Thetrick (talk) 02:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC) 02:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Oxford Wikimania 2010 and Wikimedia UK v2.0 Notice

Hi,

As a regularly contributing UK Wikipedian, we were wondering if you wanted to contribute to the Oxford bid to host the 2010 Wikimania conference. Please see here for details of how to get involved, we need all the help we can get if we are to put in a compelling bid.

We are also in the process of forming a new UK Wikimedia chapter to replace the soon to be folded old one. If you are interested in helping shape our plans, showing your support or becoming a future member or board member, please head over to the Wikimedia UK v2.0 page and let us know. We plan on holding an election in the next month to find the initial board, who will oversee the process of founding the company and accepting membership applications. They will then call an AGM to formally elect a new board who after obtaining charitable status will start the fund raising, promotion and active support for the UK Wikimedian community for which the chapter is being founded.

You may also wish to attend the next London meet-up at which both of these issues will be discussed. If you can't attend this meetup, you may want to watch Wikipedia:Meetup, for updates on future meets.

We look forward to hearing from you soon, and we send our apologies for this automated intrusion onto your talk page!

Addbot (talk) 20:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

"West" longitudes should not have a negative value (e.g. [1]). I've fixed that, but please bear it in mind in future. It's always a good idea to check the map link, after you've added coordinates. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

AAU reminder notice

A friendly reminder from the Adopt-a-User project =)

Hey there Thedewster! This is a friendly reminder to update your status at Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User/Adoptee's Area/Adopters whenever it is appropriate in order to provide new users with the most up-to-date information on available adopters. Also please note that we will be removing adopters who have not edited in 60 days. If you become active again (and we hope you do!) please feel free to re-add yourself. Cheers!

• Notice delivery by xenobot 14:36, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

plz {{adoptme|20081114195649}}

it says you will

Dcollins52 (talk) 19:56, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Will you adopt me? RioRichmond —Preceding unsigned comment added by RicoRichmond (talk • contribs) 22:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

In need of your mentorship

Hi,

I need the advice of an experienced Wikipedian, and I saw your name over at WP:ADOPT.

I need advice concerning a WikiProject I've been coordinating. Here's the situation:

The project is WP:WPOOK. The set of pages the project concerns is listed at Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge and Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of knowledge#Projected outline, and has grown to about 500 articles in the encyclopedia. I also run a team of 5 advanced wiki-editors - the team communicates via user talk page posts. We use a variety of tools such as AWB, bots, Linky, etc. to execute tasks on batches of hundreds of pages at a time. Three of the team's members are admins, and 2 of the members have bot accounts. The team works on tasks that I assign, on the OOK and also on problems that the OOK has revealed in the encyclopedia-at-large (reverse outlines are good at that) - we've worked on things as diverse as creating country demonym disambiguation pages, to cleaning up the CIA World Factbook data on country "Demographics of" pages, to renaming "Cuisine of" articles to their demonymic form, to organizing the "Index of x articles" pages, etc. I also send out a newsletter or project update to the team, to the WikiProject members, and to anybody else who has been involved or who has expressed interest (20 to 30 Wikipedians).

So you see, we can implement just about any strategy. But we need more strategies. Your ideas on the following would be greatly appreciated...

The goals of the WikiProject are:

1. Increase awareness of readers of the existence of the outlines on Wikipedia
2. Complete the existing outlines
3. Create an outline for every subject that is exensive enough to benefit from having an outline (core subjects and major or extensive fields). There are thousands of these.
4. Recruit as many editors to work on these as possible (we need thousands of editors working on these)
5. Surpass portals in number by the end of the summer, and leave them in the dust by the end of the year
6. Get the major outline subject areas displayed on the Main Page (in place of or in addition to the portal links at the top of the page)
7. Increase the OOK to higher quality than Britannica's Outline of Knowledge (published in its Propaedia volume).

We've posted over a thousand banners and notices so far, which resulted in just a couple complaints - one complainer posted at WT:WPOOK & WP:AN & WP:VPP and the other posted at WP:VPR. Not a bad negative feedback level for such a large posting. The complaints went nowhere, as several users came forward in defense of outlines.

I've proposed a 200-Wikiproject contest at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries, and I had notices posted on the talk pages of all the corresponding country WikiProjects' talk pages.

I've created some pointers for developing outlines to guide editors through the process of building outline pages, because once many editors are attracted, I won't be able to instruct them one-on-one. I've also been working on a new article for the subject, since the current article is very lacking.

I was hoping you could comment on how to achieve the goals above.

Also I'm interested in every possible way of reaching readers and editors of Wikipedia. How can I get the most eyes and typing fingers on Wikipedia's outlines? Contacting editors directly without a reason relevant to them is spam, which I'd like to avoid. There are 75,000 regular editors on Wikipedia, and I want to contact all of them. So how do I do it? Directly or indirectly, I don't care which, piecemeal or all-at-once, all methods are fine with me. But I've got to find ways. I need your help.

I would also like to know how to find or attract editors to create new outlines. And I need advice on finding editors to help write the new outline article mentioned above (it needs to be fleshed out, completely referenced, and brought to featured article status).

Every little bit helps. So anything you know or come across would be most appreciated.

I look forward to your reply on my talk page.

The Transhumanist 02:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)