This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
GOCE March 2011 backlog elimination drive progress graphs
There were 99 signups for the drive; of these, 70 participated. Interest was high mainly due to a link to our event from the Watchlist page. We had a record-breaking 84 articles listed on the Requests page in March; 11 of these have been promoted to Good article status so far. Several of our recent efforts have received Featured Article status as well, and the GOCE is becoming a solid resource for the Wikipedia community. Many thanks to editors who have been helping out at the Requests page and by copy editing articles from the backlog.
Progress report
Remarkable progress was made in reducing the backlog this month, as we now have fewer than 500 articles remaining from 2009. We are well under the 4,000-article mark for the total number remaining in the queue. Since our backlog drives began in May 2010 with 8,323 articles, we have cleared more than 53% of the backlog. A complete list of results and barnstars awarded can be found here. Barnstars will be distributed over the next week. If you enjoyed participating in our event, you may also like to join the Wikification drives, which are held on alternate months to our drives. Their April drive has started.
With the continued inactive WikiProject consolidation and cleanup, WikiProject Film Music was deleted in March due to no activity since 2008. WikiProject Media Franchises is currently undergoing a similar deletion discussion.
Based on views, the top five most popular articles from our project this month were: Sucker Punch, Battle: Los Angeles, Black Swan, The King's Speech, and 2011 in film. For a list of our project's top 1,000 most popular articles, see here. Consider helping to improve one of these articles that is seen by thousands to millions of people each month.
The GA Friday the 13th (2009 film) is currently at peer review. Stop by and leave a few comments at the review on further improving the article as it continues on its path to FAC.
Our project currently has just under 83,000 film-related articles, with only a few unassessed articles, thanks to the assessment department! Remember to always add the {{WikiProject Film|class=}} template to a film article's talk page so the project can get a better idea of what work still needs to be done. If you believe that an article should be assessed at a certain class, feel free to follow the assessment scale and assess the article yourself (it's not too difficult to determine the basic classes such as stubs, categories, or lists). Below is a table showing a breakdown of our articles by class.
Spotlight Update: Multiple films and film-related articles have reached GA and FA status in March 2011.
Remember that any editor can give the WikiProject Film Award to another WP:Films member. If you do present this award, please make mention of it here or tell one of the newsletter editors who will then include it in the next issue.
Please add your name to the member list if you have not already.
... that film pioneer William Haggar's 1903 short Desperate Poaching Affray is believed to have been a key influence on the "chase" sub-genre of early film?
... that Wrath of the Titans, the upcoming sequel to the 2010 film Clash of the Titans, is being shot in 3-D rather than being converted to 3-D like its predecessor?
From the editors
If you've just joined, add your name to the Participants section of Wikipedia:WikiProject Film. You'll get a mention in the next issue of the Newsletter and get it delivered as desired. Also, please include your own promotions and awards in future issues. Don't be shy!
Lastly, this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue (Issue 4 – April 2011). Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing!
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Please stop adding the Category:LGBT politicians of the United States to pages that already have Category:LGBT state legislators of the United States. LGBT politicians of the United States is a parent category of state legislators and therefore redundant. Thank you. GcSwRhIc (talk) 17:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm already done with those. I was merely performing a category split that listed at WP:CFD/W/M - Sorry to have duplicated the categories, but there were no notes at WP:CFD/W/M nor the deletion discussions about this. Again, sorry. Avicennasis @ 19:00, 10 Nisan 5771 / 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Fixed. I've gone through all articles in Category:LGBT politicians from the United States, and if that article was also in a subcat, then the parent cat was removed. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. :) Avicennasis @ 20:58, 11 Nisan 5771 / 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Just a note
A little over a year ago, you made the first revision to my talkpage with a nice welcome note. I just wanted to let you know that I'm still around and well; I've seen your name at the reference desk and the bear pit occasionally, but we haven't really interacted much. Just wanted to make sure you know at least one of the users you welcomed is still around and well. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
That's really, really good to hear. :) I've seen all too often a new contributor only making a few valuable edits before being scared off for one reason or another. I'm glad to see your still here - I've seen some of your work with WP:UAA, and other areas - keep up the great contributions. Avicennasis @ 21:07, 11 Nisan 5771 / 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Westinghouse Air Brake ...
I added the NRHP nomination form from PHMC. It's got about 8 pages of detailed info on the building. I fairly randomly added it as footnote 12. Smallbones (talk) 04:20, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! This has really helped me expand the article. :) Avicennasis @ 21:41, 23 Nisan 5771 / 27 April 2011 (UTC)
India pilot being organized now - Plans are currently underway for a pilot expansion of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program – in India! Hisham Mundol and other Wikimedia staff have begun recruiting Campus Ambassador candidates for Pune.
Document DYK, peer review and other milestone at the trophy case - If students you are working with (or any others you notice) are doing work that makes to DYK, is nominated for Good Article status, or is just solid content worth marking, then please help us document the students' success at the trophy case.
Changes to mailing list - A new low-volume mailing list, [Ambassador-announce-l], is being created. It will be reserved for key announcements and news, which we'd like all ambassadors to be subscribed to.
For the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, Smetanahue has suggested a collaboration to improve the films associated with the festival. Many of the films in the competition or showcased in the festival lack articles or could use expansion.
Based on views, the top five most popular articles from our project this month were: Scream 4, Sucker Punch, Fast Five, 2011 in film, and Thor. For a list of our project's top 1,000 most popular articles, see here. Consider helping to improve one of these articles that is seen by thousands to millions of people each month.
Our project currently has just under 83,600 film-related articles, with only a few unassessed articles, thanks to the assessment department! Remember to always add the {{WikiProject Film|class=}} template to a film article's talk page so the project can get a better idea of what work still needs to be done. If you believe that an article should be assessed at a certain class, feel free to follow the assessment scale and assess the article yourself (it's not too difficult to determine the basic classes such as stubs, categories, or lists). Below is a table showing a breakdown of our articles by class.
Spotlight Update: Multiple films and film-related articles have reached GA and FA status in April 2011.
Remember that any editor can give the WikiProject Film Award to another WP:Film member. If you do present this award, please make mention of it here or tell one of the newsletter editors who will then include it in the next issue.
Please add your name to the member list if you have not already.
... that the documentary film Berlin im Aufbau has historical significance in that it documents the first phase of the rebuilding of the destroyed city of Berlin after World War II?
If you've just joined, add your name to the Participants section of Wikipedia:WikiProject Film. You'll get a mention in the next issue of the Newsletter and get it delivered as desired. Also, please include your own promotions and awards in future issues. Don't be shy!
Lastly, this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue (Issue 5 – May 2011). Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing!
The Guild of Copy Editors – May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive
The Guild of Copy Editors invite you to participate in the May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive, a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy-editing. The drive began on May 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on May 31 at 23:59 (UTC). The goals of this backlog elimination drive are to eliminate as many articles as possible from the 2009 backlog and to reduce the overall backlog by 15%. ! NEW ! In an effort to encourage the final elimination of all 2009 articles, we will be tracking them on the leaderboard for this drive.
Awards and barnstars
A range of barnstars will be awarded to active participants. Some are exclusive to GOCE drives. More information on awards can be found on the main drive page.
You are receiving a copy of this newsletter as you are a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, or have participated in one of our drives. If you do not wish to receive future newsletters, please add you name here. Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 07:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Please help assess articles for Public Policy Initiative research
Hi Avicennasis/MainArchive/2011Q2,
Your work as an Online Ambassador is making a big contribution to Wikipedia. Right now, we're trying to measure just how much student work improves the quality of Wikipedia. If you'd like contribute to this research and get a firsthand look at the quality improvement that is happening through the project, please sign up to assess articles. Assessment is happening now, just use the quantitative metric and start assessing! Your help would be hugely appreciated!
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
Well, the bad news is that this one is really hard to find, since there was also a British Diplomat named Charles Arbuthnot, and he had several titles in his life. The good news is, I was able to find a Public Domain picture of Sir Charles Arbuthnot. :) I'll keep looking for the date, though! Avicennasis @ 13:48, 10 Iyar 5771 / 14 May 2011 (UTC)
Please take the Wikipedia Ambassador Program survey
Hi Ambassador,
We are at a pivotal point in the development of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program. Your feedback will help shape the program and role of Ambassadors in the future. Please take this 10 minute survey to help inform and improve the Wikipedia Ambassadors.
WMF will de-identify results and make them available to you. According to KwikSurveys' privacy policy: "Data and email addresses will not be sold, rented, leased or disclosed to 3rd parties." This link takes you to the online survey: http://kwiksurveys.com?u=WPAmbassador_talk
Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments, Thank You!
I see that you removed a username concern tag from User:Blockpartyweho. I probably should've been clearer in why that concern was being raised; I was addressing the concern to the user, with whom the reason for the concern had already been brought up, I believe on a now-deleted talk page. "Block Party" is the name of a store in West Hollywood ("WeHo"), and the user was the web designer for the store. As such, the name was one that represents an organization. (User was editing a now-deleted page that talked repeatedly about a Mr. Block who owned the store.) It seems to me that the tag you deleted should be restored until whatever appropriate username change is done. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:50, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Per the instructions at Category:Wikipedian usernames editors have expressed concern over and discussions at WT:UAA, Stale reports should be removed from this category. As the notice was from April, and the user's last edit was May 5th, this is stale. :-) If the user returns, feel free to post a notice at WP:UAA. Avicennasis @ 13:54, 27 Iyar 5771 / 31 May 2011 (UTC)
I had to do something for you for all the help you have given me and The Penn State DuBois Alumni Society today. I have hit up the Live support again to see what I could do to get it out there that you did a wonderful job. They mentioned something about a Barnstar, so Im giving it a try. Hope it helps you out in some way with your work. We greatly appriciate all your time and effort that you have put into helping us with our page. Now we feel we are a step in the right direction with getting information out there. You are awesome! A very nice PATIENT person to be exact, especially with my constant questioning. Keep up the great work!! So, for the 100th time today. Thank you so much for the help!!!!
Summer Wars, which recently became a GA, is currently at peer review. Stop by and leave some comments to help improve the article to FA.
Kung Fu Panda is currently at GAR awaiting some fixes to prevent its delisting. If you went and enjoyed the sequel in May, come help out with improving the quality of the original!
Our project currently has just under 84,500 film-related articles, with only a handful of unassessed articles, thanks to the assessment department! Remember to always add the {{WikiProject Film|class=}} template to a film article's talk page so the project can get a better idea of what work still needs to be done. If you believe that an article should be assessed at a certain class, feel free to follow the assessment scale and assess the article yourself (it's not too difficult to determine the basic classes such as stubs, categories, or lists). Below is a table showing a breakdown of our articles by class.
Remember that any editor can give the WikiProject Film Award to another WP:Films member. If you do present this award, please make mention of it here or tell one of the newsletter editors who will then include it in the next issue.
Please add your name to the member list if you have not already.
If you've just joined, add your name to the Participants section of Wikipedia:WikiProject Film. You'll get a mention in the next issue of the Newsletter and get it delivered as desired. Also, please include your own promotions and awards in future issues. Don't be shy!
Lastly, this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue (Issue 6 – June 2011). Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing!
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
Hi Avi, you removed the category, "Sephardi Jews" from the Frieda Belinfante page. Any reason why, or was that bot action? Funk & Wagnall's traces her paternal line pretty clearly that way.
Thanks! Laguna greg (talk) 17:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
I removed it because the category didn't exist, and per out guidelines at Wikipedia:Categorization, "an article should never be left with a non-existent (redlinked) category on it. Either the category should be created, or else the link should be removed or changed to a category that does exist." However, by all means, please feel free to create Category:People of Sephardi Jewish descent if you believe it to be a useful category. Avicennasis @ 22:25, 11 Sivan 5771 / 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Hi Avi,
Thanks for explaining that, and you quick response! I'm spending some time updating that page and, as a NB here, didn't want to put foot in mouth yet again. Laguna greg (talk) 16:17, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Hi there Avicennasis. I saw you were recently doing a lot of high speed WikiProject tagging. Were you using some kind of program to do this, or just editing manually? Also, did you discuss this with the project before you started tagging? Regards, - Kingpin13 (talk) 14:51, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
I sometimes use a program called TypeItIn for some of my more repetitive editing, but I try to watch my speed with it. :-) I didn't discuss any tagging because I didn't believe it was necessary - if a page clearly falls within the realms of a WikiProject, there should be no problem. I did check a few talk pages that were already tagged by members, and copied the template they used for the rest. e.g., here for here. Avicennasis @ 15:06, 12 Sivan 5771 / 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Ah, okay. Could I suggest you use a bot in future? You can find a list here, and it'll save yours and others' time as the edits will be marked as bot edits, and therefore can be set to not show up on watchlists/recentchanges. In addition, the bots can just be set to run in the background on the operator's computer, as they do not need to be constantly supervised. Some of the bots also feature some pretty fancy features such as class auto-assessment/inherit. Alternatively you could start up your own bot to do all of that with AWB using Plugin++, but you'd need approval for that - let me know if you want details on how to get your own bot going, but obviously that's not required as there are already a fair number of bots willing to do this task. Regarding asking the project, it's not such a problem for category tagging or this particular project, but some smaller projects can become overwhelmed if you tag to many articles as in their scope: It's always best to be cautious. - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:48, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
I'll keep that in mind for any more large scale tagging. :-) Perhaps I might put another BFRA for AvicBot in the future for this. Avicennasis @ 16:06, 12 Sivan 5771 / 14 June 2011 (UTC)
I'll try to watch for that in the future - I know that even if redirects are cheap, (and plentiful!) they can be annoying to BotOps and the like for changes down the road. :-) Thanks for the heads up. Avicennasis @ 16:06, 12 Sivan 5771 / 14 June 2011 (UTC)
It's part of Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates. Near as I can tell, the reason it gets dated is so if someone uses the template but doesn't provide a source for the data, it'll automatically tag it as {{citation needed}}, and the date help sorts that tag, the same way {{citation needed|date=June 2011}} would. Avicennasis @ 15:41, 15 Sivan 5771 / 17 June 2011 (UTC)
With a source, of course, the {{citation needed}} won't show/add CN categories. You could remove the date tag, but it's not hurting anything, and it's likely to get re-added by another AWB user eventually. Avicennasis @ 17:07, 15 Sivan 5771 / 17 June 2011 (UTC)
You AWB users are adding parameters because they’re “not hurting”? Seems to me you should fix AWB not to add unneccessary stuff. --dealerofsalvation06:54, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
It is necessary if there is no source, and WP:AWB isn't able to read complex templates to make sure the field is filled out properly. If a source is missing, it helps - if a source isn't missing, it doesn't hurt. One possible benefit outweighs the zero negative consequences. If, however, you still think it should be changed, feel free to bring it up for discussion.Avicennasis @ 07:00, 16 Sivan 5771 / 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, superfluous parameters which are not documented are confusing to the readers of the source code and thus reduce the source’s quality, so I consider this a bug. As a user of AWB, not being a component of MediaWiki, you are responsible for its use including its known bugs and I don’t consider it my business to report bugs of tools I don’t use. If weather boxes are to complicated for AWB to handle, then AWB can’t be of any use in locating unreferenced weather boxes anyway, right, so why don’t you just exempt the weather box from the list of templates it hooks on?
Anyway, you should not knowingly use a tool with a known bug in instances where the bug knowingly strikes – just like you shouldn’t manually add some random unsupported parameter to some random template. --dealerofsalvation18:20, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I truly don't see how this "reduces the sources' quality'. It's not a bug, it's an intended feature of AWB that is in place due to consensus. If you wish to change that, you need to discuss it with the larger community. It's not up to me to single-handedly disable an agreed upon feature. Also, I've added the documentation on this feature via this edit. I hope this addresses your concerns - if not, then you will need to mention it at WT:AWB. Avicennasis @ 18:38, 18 Sivan 5771 / 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, if that feature is not a bug and if it makes sense, then at least one of my following assumptions I got from what you wrote here and at the template doc must be wrong. I’d appreciate you to tell me which of these is/are wrong, otherwise I’ll just manually remove the date:
AWB is supposed to add “date” parameters to any instance of a list of templates it finds that doesn’t have a source specified
Specifically with weather boxes, AWB can’t correctly recognize if a source is specified and it will always add a “date” parameter to each and every weather box it encounters, whether it bears a source or not.
So eventually all articles containing a weather box will get into a subcategory of “Category:Articles with unsourced statements”
I’m confident no discussion is needed to know that #4 is definitely not wanted, and it’s our job to prevent that – either yours by telling me where I’m wrong, yours by not using a tool leading to that consequence, or mine by manually removing the date. --dealerofsalvation06:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Number four is where your error in logic is. The article will only be listed in a subcat of Category:Articles with unsourced statements if there is no source specified. All articles that use the template and have the source listed in the template will not be listed in a subcat Category:Articles with unsourced statements.
I tried to make this clear when I said "With a source, of course, the {{citation needed}} won't show/add CN categories."
So, to repeat/clarify, the date will only list the article in a subcat Category:Articles with unsourced statements if the source field is blank. I hope that explains things properly - I'm sorry if I used any unclear language above. Avicennasis @ 06:36, 19 Sivan 5771 / 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, as IMHO #2 and #3 inevitably combine to #4, this means #2 is not correct either – not the way I wrote it. I have some interest in Smackbot as I plan to setup a similar scheme of maintainance categories at de.wikipedia, and it seems SmackBot & Co are double-checking whether really a source is missing, and it seems in contrast to AWB they are able of correctly dealing with weather boxes, but I know you’re not the right one to talk about SmackBot, and I’ve contacted its operator before. Anyway, this here stuff is now OK for me – but I’ll come back in the event Aalen gets categorized as unsourced ;) --dealerofsalvation15:34, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm crying
Hi,
It seems you created category "Sockpuppets of Gantuya eng". Was it so necessary to create it? I have been treated too harsh anyway. I was accused, personal attacked, insulted, humiliated in connection with this case. And that's all for my volunteering for better content of Wikipedia. I will be very thankful, if you delete it. None of them are my sockpuppets. Most of them seem to be real names of people. I understand it's good to defend the rules of Wikipedia and many editors like you are granted Wiki-knighthood for such defence. But who is going to care for human soul? When will my heart heal? They all humiliated me and why should you contribute to the humiliation as well? Gantuya eng (talk) 03:58, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
The page was only created because it was listed at Special:WantedCategories. Whether or not it belongs, I have no opinion about. Note that currently no pages link to it, so short of you mentioning it, no one will stumble across a link to it. I'm not too sure what the policy (if any) is on keeping these categories around - however, you could ask Maunus or another admin to delete it, if they determine it's not needed. :-) I wish you the best of luck, and a welcome back. Avicennasis @ 07:07, 16 Sivan 5771 / 18 June 2011 (UTC)
No prob. Some wiki's don't mind unflagged editing, some do, and it's hard to tell the difference when you don't know the language! :-) I have posted at the link you gave me. Avicennasis @ 17:05, 24 Sivan 5771 / 26 June 2011 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.