User talk:This is Paul/Archive14
DYK for Smooth 70s
Yngvadottir (talk) 00:03, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
DYK for Absolute Radio 70s
Yngvadottir (talk) 00:03, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
For You
| Official Jo Stafford Fan | |
| Just wanted to say hello! We hope (talk) 23:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC) |
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The Signpost: 03 September 2012
- News and notes: World's largest photo competition kicks off; WMF legal fees proposal
Some of Wikimedia's most valuable photographs have been shot and uploaded under free licenses as a direct result of the annual Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) event each September. Last year, the project was conducted on a European level, resulting in the submission of an extraordinary 168,208 free images of cultural heritage sites ("monuments") from 18 countries, making it the world's largest photographic competition. Organising the 2012 event—which has just opened and will run for the full month of September—has required input from chapters and volunteers in 35 countries.
- Technology report: Time for a MediaWiki Foundation?
Developers are currently discussing the possibility of a MediaWiki Foundation to oversee those aspects of MediaWiki development that relate to non-Wikimedia wikis. The proposal was generated after a discussion on the wikitech-l mailing list about generalising Wikimedia's CentralAuth system.
- Featured content: Wikipedia's Seven Days of Terror
Five featured pictures were promoted this week, including a video explaining the recent landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. NASA called the final minutes of the complicated landing procedure "the seven minutes of terror".
- Op-ed: Dispute resolution – where we're at, what we're doing well, and what needs fixing
Since May 2012 I've been a Wikimedia Foundation community fellow with the task of researching and improving dispute resolution on English Wikipedia. Surveying members of the community has revealed much about their thoughts on and experiences with dispute resolution. I've analysed processes to determine their use and effectiveness, and have presented ideas that I hope will improve the future of dispute resolution.
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Jo Stafford autobiography
That looks great! It's only been out since the end of June. Guess after Santa leaves it for you, this means we'll see an article about the book and bunches of refs from it elsewhere. :-) We hope (talk) 21:00, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
- How about us making a run for it-GA with Jo, as there seems to be a lot more material available about her, in 2013? By that time, you will have memorized :) the book and I hope I'll have time to add refs from my folders that I've been meaning to do for some time. I seem to have more and more photos that need doing; at present, I'm doing a bunch from The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. There's always a "deadline" with them because if you don't get to them soon enough, they're no longer available. We hope (talk) 20:06, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
- One of the things I hope the book covers is the radio show Club 15. Recently found this photo of her as a co-host with Bob Crosby (yep, Bing's brother). File:Bob Crosby Jo Stafford Club 15 1951.JPG. At present, I know it was a radio program with a similar format to the "Supper Club", but every time I've tried to learn more about her work with the show, I get only sketchy details. There was a lot more information and material generated by the "Supper Club", which made it much easier to write about. I have refs where Jo tells how her romance with Paul began, but very little on Club 15. It may be that CBS and the program's sponsor didn't promote it as much as NBC and Chesterfield did with "Supper Club". Can see, though, how she wound up on radio at CBS at that point, because she had moved from Capitol to Columbia Records, which they owned. We hope (talk) 20:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
- Corinthian is still around and being run by their son, Tim. I wonder if he might be able to share some information via e-mail that could be worked into an article here, in addition to any in the book. We hope (talk) 16:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
- One of the things I hope the book covers is the radio show Club 15. Recently found this photo of her as a co-host with Bob Crosby (yep, Bing's brother). File:Bob Crosby Jo Stafford Club 15 1951.JPG. At present, I know it was a radio program with a similar format to the "Supper Club", but every time I've tried to learn more about her work with the show, I get only sketchy details. There was a lot more information and material generated by the "Supper Club", which made it much easier to write about. I have refs where Jo tells how her romance with Paul began, but very little on Club 15. It may be that CBS and the program's sponsor didn't promote it as much as NBC and Chesterfield did with "Supper Club". Can see, though, how she wound up on radio at CBS at that point, because she had moved from Capitol to Columbia Records, which they owned. We hope (talk) 20:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Corinthian site It looks like he's enthusiastic as he has the information about the book on the website. e-mail contact information. The Hanover Music you see was Paul's name for his publishing company; Tim handles that also. ;) We hope (talk) 17:20, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
- One of my "to do" list items is a magazine interview with photos of Paul, Jo and little Tim from circa 1953. Also just got to the following. There's information about the 1954 television program she did. Was at the US copyright office online for a search and found that this 1954 issue's copyright wasn't renewed, so the information and that nice color photo are able to be used by us as PD. :-) It looks like the magazine didn't renew its earlier issues. Found only one 1955 renewal for them and it was for a Norman Rockwell image of Arthur Godfrey, but they did start renewals in 1956. I can upload the page at Commons and ask for a bit of a hand with the photo to improve it, if you like it. We hope (talk) 17:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
- Good thing you grabbed the last copy! While I'm sure they'll restock before the Christmas season, it doesn't hurt to get your copy now as you can use it, as you said, re:questions for Tim, and now you can ask the family for other Jo Stafford items you've been wanting when it comes to the Christmas list. :) We hope (talk) 20:10, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
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The Signpost: 10 September 2012
- From the editor: Signpost adapts as news consumption changes
Thanks to the initiative of Yuvi Panda and Notnarayan, the Signpost now has an Android app, free for download on Google Play. ... but would readers be interested in an iOS app for Apple devices?
- Op-ed: Fixing Wikipedia's help pages one key to editor retention
Much like article content, the English Wikipedia's help pages have grown organically over the years. Although this has produced a great deal of useful documentation, with time many of the pages have become poorly maintained or have grown overwhelmingly complicated.
- In the media: Author criticizes Wikipedia article; Wales attacks UK government proposal
Philip Roth, a widely known and acclaimed American author, wrote an open letter in the New Yorker addressed to Wikipedia this week, alleging severe inaccuracies in the article on his The Human Stain (2000).
- Featured content: Not a "Gangsta's Paradise", but still rappin'
Three hip hop discographies were promoted this week, alongside seven other lists.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Fungi
After a week's hiatus, the WikiProject Report returns with an interview featuring WikiProject Fungi. Started in March 2006, the project has grown to include over 9,000 pages, including 47 Featured Articles and 176 Good Articles. The project maintains a list of high priority missing articles and stubs that need expansion.
- Special report: Two Wikipedians set to face jury trial
In dramatic events that came to light last week, two English Wikipedia volunteers—Doc James (James Heilman) and Wrh2 (Ryan Holliday)—are being sued in the Los Angeles County Superior Court by Internet Brands, the owner of Wikitravel.com. Both Wikipedians have also been volunteer Wikitravel editors (and in Holliday's case, a volunteer administrator). IB's complaints focus on both editors' encouragement of their fellow Wikitravel volunteers to migrate to a proposed non-commercial travel guidance site that would be under the umbrella of the WMF.
- News and notes: Researchers find that Simple English Wikipedia has "lost its focus"
In its September issue, the peer-reviewed journal First Monday published The readability of Wikipedia, reporting research which shows that the English Wikipedia is struggling to meet Flesch reading ease test criteria, while the Simple English Wikipedia has "lost its focus".
- Technology report: Mmmm, milkshake...
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for August 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which is edging its way towards its first deployment).
- Discussion report: Closing Wikiquette; Image Filter; Education Program and Momento extensions
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
DYK for Murder of Celine Figard
PanydThe muffin is not subtle 08:03, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Murder of Celine Figard
Hi Paul
I have just reviewed the article Murder of Celine Figard for DYK, and wanted to congratulate you on a fine piece of work. It is the best article I have seen amongst the DYK nominations: well-written, neutral in tone, thoroughly-referenced, and avoids either excessive detail or patchy coverage of the topic.
As I noted in the DYK review, the article appears to meet the good article criteria, so I wanted to suggest that you consider submitting it for assessment at Wikipedia:Good articles. I'm sure that any adjustments needed will be small.
GA review can involve a lot of minor tweaking, so if you decide to submit it, I suggest waiting until after the article has appeared on the front page. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:04, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the DYK review and positive comments about the article. I'm planning to put it forward for GA so it's good to know it's almost there. I notice the peer review's just closed without comment so that could be another good sign. :) I'll put it forward as soon as it's been on the front page and see how it goes. Thanks once again. Paul MacDermott (talk) 16:02, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
- Article now at GAN. Paul MacDermott (talk) 14:54, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Jo and Paul
Am surprised you could put the book down to post. :) I have some material marked re: the stuffy sponsor which can go for additional refs. Am hoping there might be more in the book re: Paul and the Grammys as he was one of the "founding fathers" of that. While we do touch on it in his bio, if there's additional information, we can expand the section. Think it's important because without Paul and those he was working with for the Hollywood Walk of Fame, there may not have been any Grammys as we know them today and as such, he was very influential in the music industry. One of those cases where someone who wasn't in the public eye a lot was instrumental in creating something that's now known world-wide. Also hope there's more on "mood music", since he began that too. Don't blame them for refusing to do a "tell all" book; if there's anything to tell, chances are that someone else has beaten you to it and told it about you. ;) We hope (talk) 20:01, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
- There were a few things that were working against Jo in the 1950s. (Have refs for these tucked in a folder.) One was that at Columbia, she was under the direction of Mitch Miller. He was very good for some artists, such as Frankie Laine, but simply dreadful for others. Have some material from an interview with Paul that really blasts him; he's said to have forced artists to record a lot of material they really thought was awful by telling them that if they didn't, he would see to it that their careers were done. Jo had to record many novelty songs that were terrible and the public thought so too, because they went nowhere on the charts, despite Miller's belief they would be hits. Jo had problems with television because of her eyesight. She had trouble reading the cue cards (no teleprompters yet) on the set, even though they were in large print. After having her skirt ripped off while singing "Let Me Go, Lover" on her live 1950s television program, she was very wary of doing live television shows. (One of the funniest photos I've seen from one of the shows-can't attribute it so it would have been non free here-was a set photo of Jo and a male vocalist guest in a park-like setting. There was a prop statue of Cupid to complete the idea that they were in a park. Cupid is posed with his hands to his ears like their voices are horrible.) After Tim was born, Jo decided not to be away from him a lot, so there was no more doing tours and she generally accepted guest spots on television programs that were done in LA so she wouldn't be. So basically she "traded" her career for her family. We hope (talk) 15:45, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- Mama Will Bark Take a look at what he had Sinatra record.;) We hope (talk) 16:50, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- This is a great 2 part interview with both of them. We hope (talk) 17:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- I just sourced some of it to Jo's article re: the "birth" of Darlene Edwards. Paul provided some great info re: Corinthian in it. It's a "treasure trove" of info from the people themselves, so have fun when you "dive in" :) We hope (talk) 17:34, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- Would it help matters if I posted some article links on Jo's talk page? This way, they're available and don't clutter anyone's talk page. We hope (talk) 21:11, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- OK-will start a section there now. ;) We hope (talk) 21:20, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- Would it help matters if I posted some article links on Jo's talk page? This way, they're available and don't clutter anyone's talk page. We hope (talk) 21:11, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I'll add to the talk page links as I run across them in my bookmarks. Re: her weight loss, she lost 40lb in a year. She hadn't seen Paul for a while and when they did meet after she was slimmer, he didn't recognize her, the change was so drastic. Ironically, after the La Martinique incident, she never performed at another club. We'll get the links all out and about! ;-) We hope (talk) 22:30, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Can you verify this?
Jo Talk page. I commented it out and removed the category as I've yet to see anything re: her being publicly affiliated with a political party. Thanks, We hope (talk) 18:28, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- Don't worry about it--this is a now blocked sock. We hope (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- And here you see people who are not card-carrying supporters of a political party appearing at the White House on a regular basis. It would be crazy to think that all Super Bowl or World Series winners are avid supporters of the political party of the person at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, regardless of party in power, just because they accepted an invitation there. In times past, many of the Kennedy family were photographed there with Republican presidents because they were involved with a cause or a bill being supported or publicized. We hope (talk) 20:05, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- G.I. Jo "The Westons are liberal Catholics, and in an age when presidential rhetoric brought out of the woodwork all the bumper-sticker patriots, the gun people and assorted other crazies, they remained unintimidated liberal Democrats." :-) We hope (talk) 22:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
- And here you see people who are not card-carrying supporters of a political party appearing at the White House on a regular basis. It would be crazy to think that all Super Bowl or World Series winners are avid supporters of the political party of the person at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, regardless of party in power, just because they accepted an invitation there. In times past, many of the Kennedy family were photographed there with Republican presidents because they were involved with a cause or a bill being supported or publicized. We hope (talk) 20:05, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Newbergh-Beacon News October 31, 1960. "The Democrats will supply Milton Berle, Louis Prima and Keely Smith, Stan Freberg, Jo Stafford and others for a Kennedy rally in East Los Angeles Tuesday...." We hope (talk) 23:09, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Jo and Paul Book
Tim might be able to shed some light on things like the Grammys and Club 15. Just tried searching for La Martinique and didn't find much other than many people like Danny Thomas and Danny Kaye and his wife, got their big breaks while performing there. It was one of the "hot spots" in 1940s NYC to either perform at or to see/hear the future stars. It looks like the original club was gone by 1952, as I just read a news item in a 1952 Jet magazine saying that Josephine Baker's new club was to be on the site of the old La Martinique. I don't believe any of the original celebrity restaurants and nightclubs in NYC are still around. The Stork Club closed in the 1960s, Toots Shor's is gone, along with El Morocco and the original Copacabana.
Much of what's in the Como article wasn't in the bio either, but found by reading many, many newspapers and magazines, which I why I really still miss being able to do more than a 100 hit search on Google News Archive. It seems silly and petty because even though they aren't going to digitize any more newspapers, there are still plenty already done which could be of benefit to those researching something or someone, and it costs Google nothing for the larger searches which were available before. The information there about him losing his week's salary in a dice game came from a 1954 newspaper interview, with Como himself telling the story. Same with the detailed information about when he and Roselle first met and about becoming a "wedding barber"-from a 1954 magazine interview; none of this was covered in the bio.
Before I lose it again, here's the newspaper link for Jo talking about how Paul didn't recognize her after her weight loss. Ever the gentleman, Paul didn't admit that she had changed so much he didn't know who she was until after they were married. :) It also details how she met her one and only manager, Mike Nordif. He was one of the G.I.s who listened to Jo during WWII and asked if he could become her manager after he was out of service. Jo also tells the earthquake story here too.
- Jo Stafford Still Making Them Listen to Her Songs January 19, 1961.
I have a lot more to dig out and post to the article talk page just like this. :-) We hope (talk) 01:05, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
- Photo Just found a copy of the funny photo I told you about earlier; she's singing with Gordon MacRae. :) We hope (talk) 18:52, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
- I think what you assumed from reading re: Jo and Mike Nidorf is correct. Take a look at this 1949 news story. While Kilgallen doesn't print the question asked, it surely is hinting in that direction. We hope (talk) 00:22, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
- Photo Just found a copy of the funny photo I told you about earlier; she's singing with Gordon MacRae. :) We hope (talk) 18:52, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
Adele and James Bond
Hi Paul,
Unfortuantely, I've had to revert your edits to Adele's page stating that she will perform the Skyfall theme. Although you are correct in saying that Sky News is a much more reliable source than the likes of The Sun, and although the title of their report is "Adele 'Records James Bond Movie Theme Song'", the article you supplied as a reference makes it pretty clear that this has not been confirmed. I draw your attention to the following excepts from the article:
- Speculation is growing that Adele has recorded the theme tune to the 23rd Bond movie Skyfall.
- A leading bookmaker has paid out on bets that Adele will sing the new James Bond theme - before the news has been officially confirmed.
- There have been a number of reports the record-breaking 24-year-old was to get the role, although there has still been no official announcement about any involvement.
- Rumours have been rife that she will be the voice behind the film's opening song after she was spotted visiting London's Abbey Road studios.
I think it's great that you're being thorough like this. There are dozens of people who would happily accept the article that appeared in The Sun as a source for this. However, next time, I think you ned to read the sources you use as references rather than just reading the title and the publication. There are a lot of reliable sources out there that are simply using The Sun as their main source, so it's easy to get caught up. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 02:56, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
- The stuff about the book-keeper might be worth inclunding, but only once it has been confirmed. If it is confirmed. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 09:54, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
DYK nomination of Britannia Unchained
Hello! Your submission of Britannia Unchained at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! George Ho (talk) 03:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the heads up. I'll take a look at it again later today. Paul MacDermott (talk) 09:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 17 September 2012
- From the editor: Signpost expands to Facebook
We now have a Facebook page at facebook.com/wikisignpost. We invite you to "like" the page and join the discussion there.
- WikiProject report: Action! — The Indian Cinema Task Force
This week, we shine the spotlight on the Indian Cinema Task Force, a subproject that seeks to improve the quality and quantity of articles about Indian cinema. As a child of WikiProject Film and WikiProject India, the Indian Cinema Task Force shares a variety of templates, resources, and members with its parent projects. The task force works on a to-do list, maintains the Bollywood Portal, and ensures articles follow the film style guidelines. With Indian cinema celebrating its 100th year of existence in 2013, we asked Karthik Nadar (Karthikndr), Secret of success, Ankit Bhatt, Dwaipayan, and AnimeshKulkarni what is in store for the Indian Cinema Task Force.
- Featured content: Go into the light
Eight featured articles, six featured lists, ten featured pictures, and one featured topic were promoted this week.
- News and notes: Tens of thousands of monuments loved; members of new funding body announced
The world's largest photo competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, is entering its final two weeks. The month-long event, of Dutch origin, is being held globally for the first time after the success of its European-level predecessor last year. During September 2011 more than 5000 volunteers from 18 countries took part and uploaded 168,208 free images. This year, volunteers and chapters from 35 countries around the world have organised the event. The best photographs will be determined by juries at the national and finally the global level.
- Technology report: Future-proofing: HTML5 and IPv6
1.20wmf12, the 12th release to Wikimedia wikis from the 1.20 branch, was deployed to its first wikis on September 17; if things go well, it will be deployed to all wikis by September 26. Its 200 or so changes – 111 to WMF-deployed extensions plus 98 to core MediaWiki code – include support for links with mixed-case protocols (e.g. Http://example.com) and the removal of the "No higher resolution available" message on the file description pages of SVG images.
DYK for Britannia Unchained
Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for September 23
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Dale Cregan
I agree that Cregan should not be named at all at this juncture. There are only three people who know what happened that day and two of them are sadly no longer available to testify. For all that anybody knows, a 3rd party might have shot the officers and Cregan is taking the rap for it, i know its unlikly but it is a possibility, and until all the facts are laid bare in the court and the public domain, he should not be named. Now that he has been remanded until Nov, the Police cannot reveal any further information for fear of pre-trial prejudice and after the funerals, I think this story will not be heard of until the next court date. The Annecy shootings in France recently are a case in point, it was all over the news for the first few days but for the last 7 days, I have not heard a thing about it.Markdarrly (talk) 18:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
I have removed the wording that they were fatally injured by Cregan upon entering the house. I have also changed the wording further in the article that again stated that the officers had entered the house when the source given didnt say that. I have also removed the name of the grenade, whilst it was said a grenade was used, it was only speculation of the brand that was actually used. These inconsistancies are typical of over exaggerated entries.Markdarrly (talk) 18:41, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Articles concerning criminal acts
Verifiability
I think Wikipedia can be much more robust on the matter of verification in these articles. The point, and it is a very important one, is that the facts may be disputed up to and even after the trial. The police and prosecuting authorities can only say what they believe to have happened. Witnesses will in most jurisdictions be limited in what they can say, may disagree, and may change their account under cross examination. The accused may withold their defence, and if guilty may well not tell the truth. Even alleged confessions may not be true, nor may things said by eg family members at press conferences following the events. The law may well limit what can be disclosed even at trial, for good reason. So as well as the very important points about treating a person as innocent until proven guilty (whether or not true under the law of the country where the offence took place) and the need to avoid prejudicing a trial, the mere fact that a normally reliable source has reported something should not mean that it can be relied upon in Wikipedia. There is a question whether existing verifiability policy is clear enough, but we know in the UK that even quality newspapers can err on occasion and in any case can never be in a position to know the full facts. Just because something is repeated does not make it true. --AJHingston (talk) 15:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Cooling Off Period
I believe that a time period of either 7, 14 or 21 days should have elapsed before an article regarding a criminal event is able to be written about on wikipedia. The application of such a time span will allow the public furore to have calmed down and at that juncture, a more precise picture of the events surrounding the crime should be available. After this period, it is my belief that only people who are really interested and able to will probably bother to write for the article - the people who have just seen the news whilst eating dinner would not be able to "mould" what they have just heard into thier own perception and include that view in the article -"just for the sake of it". I think that a "minimum" time period would go a long way to preventing unsourced material and opinions being inserted into articles until somebody removes it, most of these types of articles are like a merry-go round, ranging from "monkey see - monkey do" upto "I heard it on the news last night" going through several sets of ears until somebody decides to write about the version that "Bill from work" told him about yesterday. Once good quality, well sourced facts are in the public domain, it will be harder for people to write half truths into the article, as such insertations will be easier to disprove after facts have been around for a while and are available from several good sources.Markdarrly (talk) 22:16, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
- I think cooling off period is quite a good idea as I've no doubt some people write about these things because they have strong feelings, and the subsequent article has to be skewed in some way. Generally, if something gets three weeks coverage it's on the way to becoming notable. Policing it could be difficult, though if there was a page where these cases could be mentioned it would help others to keep an eye on them. I'll add some of this to the essay, suggesting people might like to do consider waiting for a while until more solid facts are established. Also, I did open a discussion on "Murder of" articles at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living people, so you might want to add any thoughts there, too. Cheers. Paul MacDermott (talk) 22:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Devil's advocate
I appreciate the value of this, but I anticipate that you will encounter opposition from many people who work on hot news as a way of sorting out conflicting, confusing, and incomplete reports in the press. This opposition will probably not arise in full force at WP:VPR but rather on articles which are challenged if you are successful at VPR. If you have a dozen editors glued to the radio and Google News following a breaking story, they are going to see this kind of moderation as very disruptive. I wonder if there is something you can prepare in advance for those people. They will not be happy no matter what, but there might be some way to keep them from pitchforks. —Cupco 23:09, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Give them each a pen and paper and let them write down the tit-bits from the news stories and after 21 days, let them collate everything into an article of note.Markdarrly (talk) 00:46, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Case in Point - Madeleine McCann -V- Ben Needham
The McCann case is an excellent example of what is "said" rather than what is "known" entering the domain of the investigation and thus, the stories reported about it. If this case is compared with the case of Ben Needham, a British child who also went missing whilst on holiday abroad, the impact of the internet coverage between the two cases is enourmous. At the time Needham went missing, the only real reporting about it was in the newspapers and on the news, the internet didnt really play a part. In that case there has been no court cases for slander or libel, probably because as it happend in a different era, the "instant incorrect" coverage was virtually non-existant because people made sure that the facts being printed or told were correct. Fast forward to the McCann case and the speed at which this story circulated was nothing short of epidemic proportations. The news hungry journalists were asking locals if they had seen anything whilst holding a 100 euro note in their hand, this caused false leads to be followed (someone saw a stranger hanging around a few days before the kidnap and put 2 and 2 together and came up with 100 euros) The internet was on fire with rumour and innuendo, most false and this, started to form public opinion as to what happened. The McCann's and several of their group have all been awarded substantial damages for false stories about them that appeared in the tabloids. Robert Murat, a person that was included as a suspect because of the suspicion of a Sunday Mirror journalist, was later awarded £600,000 in damages by a group of newspapers that had syndicated the story. The difference being that nowadays, it is easy to write something that you have heard that is incorrect, thus spreading that "Incorrect fact" around until most people think that it is the truth. As has been mentioned, people will often quote sources "close to in the investigation", but most people these days take that to mean that a journo has overheard two coppers in a cafe and embelished the story, meanwhile, the writer is free in knowledge that "journalistic confidentiality" will protect him/her from disclosing the source of the published information, thus giving the impression that what is being written has been told as a matter of fact from people in the know rather than what is being printed is a bit of a conversation that our correspondant heard and has embelished for journalistic value. If the McCann story was written from scratch today, it would be completely different from the story that has been built up over time, and that is the point, time gives information the chance to be scrutinised and not just thrown in with a "what the hell for the consequencies" attitude being displayed.As of the 25th September 2012, the McCann article cites referances totalling 223, whilst the Needham article cites referances totalling 18. The fact that the Needham article was started in 2007, some 16 years after the event shows that the number sources that are able to be cited are so low because the incorrect sources have vanished into the ether over time. The McCann article was started 2 days after her disappearance whilst all the innuendo was still circulating, resulting in a total of 1425 edits in the articles first month on wikipedia. Compare that with the Needham article that has had just 161 edits in 5 years and the picture becomes very clear. The Needham article has not needed to have been edited to within an inch of its life because from the outset, what it contained was correct. The equation that I have formulated for such articles is thus - Date of Crime (doc) + 21 Days (tod) = More True Sources (mts). So it would seem that (doc)+(tod)=MTS would be a good rule of thumb when consideration is being given as to the start date of an article. Markdarrly (talk) 01:27, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
- Indeed, that's a good comparison between two similar events that were approached in different ways by both Wikipedia and the media. I'll add some of this as it's worth a mention, I think. Cheers. Paul MacDermott (talk) 22:06, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 24 September 2012
- In the media: Editor's response to Roth draws internet attention
Oliver Keyes' (User:Ironholds) defense of Wikipedia against the recent Philip Roth controversy has drawn a significant amount of attention over the last week. The problems between Roth, a widely known and acclaimed American author, and Wikipedia arose from an open letter he penned for the American magazine New Yorker, and were covered by the Signpost two weeks ago. Keyes—who wrote the piece as a prominent Wikipedian but is also a contractor for the Wikimedia Foundation—wrote a blog post on the topic, lamenting the factual errors in Roth's letter and criticizing the media for not investigating his claims: "[they took] Roth’s explanation as the truth and launched into a lengthy discussion of how we [Wikipedia] handle primary sourcing."
- Recent research: "Rise and decline" of Wikipedia participation, new literature overviews, a look back at WikiSym 2012
A paper to appear in a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist (summarized in the research index) sheds new light on the English Wikipedia's declining editor growth and retention trends. The paper describes how "several changes that the Wikipedia community made to manage quality and consistency in the face of a massive growth in participation have lead to a more restrictive environment for newcomers". The number of active Wikipedia editors has been declining since 2007 and research examining data up to September 2009 has shown that the root of the problem has been the declining retention of new editors. The authors show this decline is mainly due to a decline among desirable, good-faith newcomers, and point to three factors contributing to the increasingly "restrictive environment" they face.
- WikiProject report: 01010010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 01101001 01100011 01110011
This week, we tinkered with WikiProject Robotics. From the project's inception in December 2007, it has served as Wikipedia's hub for building and improving articles about robots and robotics, accumulating two Featured Articles and seven Good Articles along the way. The project covers both fictitious and real-life robots, the technology that powers them, and many of the brains behind the robotics field
- News and notes: UK chapter rocked by Gibraltar scandal
In the second controversy to engulf Wikimedia UK in two months, its immediate past chair Roger Bamkin has resigned from the board of the chapter. The resignation last Wednesday followed a growing furore over the conflict of interest between two of Roger's roles outside the chapter and his close involvement in the UK board's decision-making process, including the access to private mailing lists that board members in all chapters need. But the irony surrounding Roger's resignation is its connection with efforts by Wikimedians and collaborators to strengthen the reach of Wikimedia projects through technical innovation.
- Technology report: Signpost investigation: code review times
Late last month, the "Technology report" included a story using code review backlog figures – the only code review figures then available – to construct a rough narrative about the average experience of code contributors. This week, we hope to go one better, by looking directly at code review wait times, and, in particular, median code review times
- Featured content: Dead as...
Fourteen featured articles were promoted this week, including Dodo, along with six featured lists and five featured pictures.
- Discussion report: Image filter; HotCat; Syntax highlighting; and more
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Speedy deletion nomination of Jenn Bostic

A tag has been placed on Jenn Bostic requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section R2 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a redirect to an article talk page, image description page, image talk page, mediawiki page, mediawiki talk page, category talk page, portal talk page, template talk page, help talk, user page, or user talk page from the article space.
If you think that the page was nominated in error, contest the nomination by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion" in the speedy deletion tag. Doing so will take you to the talk page where you can explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but do not hesitate to add information that is consistent with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. DASHBot (talk) 00:12, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for September 30
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Adele
Sola2012
please share the talk page first before remove anything .... by the way Adele's adds is true and there's a ref..
so please share the talk page again
thanks .--sola$$$$$$$$ (talk) 17:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
sola2012 (part 2)
First of all the number 50 million copies in the ref so please go translate or do something before you remove anything
and by the way you need to check (the Best selling artists of all time )
and again share the talk page first as much i do ,this is your last warning sir ......
thanks --sola$$$$$$$$ (talk) 11:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
sola2012 (part 3)
sorry im trying to let you understand i translate everything to you and you still think thats wrong sorry i cant deal with you anymore im trying to be helpful as much as i can but you dont give me any chance to compromise or at least to have normal talk other user will talk to you about it later ....
thanks --sola$$$$$$$$ (talk) 12:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
- Replied on your talk page, where I've made suggestions about what you need to do and given my reasons for removing the posting. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:13, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
sola2012 (part 4)
so you translated the artical right ?? great
so why you said that 50 million copies its not in the artical ????????
and secoundly this web very famouse in german like THE NEW YORK TIMES or THE DAILY....
and if you not sure about that go and google it ..
and by the way im not gonna answer you i have told you other user will talk to you later so please drop it until now .....
thanks--sola$$$$$$$$ (talk) 12:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Replies to above user
Various replies the above user deleted from his talk page, which I'm posting here to show I did actually try to deal with this.
I converted the ref from German and as far as I could see it said nothing about the number of album sales. Happy to add my comments to the talk page, but if the ref is back, it won't stay for long. Paul MacDermott (talk) 21:16, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
- Actually I saw it this time, obviously something wasn't working properly before. But I think you should provide a reference in English before adding it. Paul MacDermott (talk) 21:24, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
- I suggest you read WP:CIVIL before your next posting, and my request for an English reference stands. I Googled "Adele" "50 million", but nothing is jumping out. Paul MacDermott (talk) 11:55, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
- If you read my comments above you'll see I did translate it, but missed the paragraph on the first occasion. What I'm asking you to do, however, is to find an English reference as these are preferable for the English Wikipedia. I have no idea whether faz.de is regarded as a reliable source or a tabloid, but for this information to be included you need a reliable source. That could be something like New Musical Express, The Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, BBC News, RTE News, The Los Angeles Times, and so on. Generally sources such as The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Star, etc, should be avoided. If you can find a high-quality source then the information can be included. BYW, I removed your posting of the article from my page because that is against WP:COPYVIO rules. It is fine to quote a few sentences from an article, but not the whole thing. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:12, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
- I suggest you read WP:CIVIL before your next posting, and my request for an English reference stands. I Googled "Adele" "50 million", but nothing is jumping out. Paul MacDermott (talk) 11:55, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
An update on this. The site appears to belong to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which I understand is a broadsheet (having just spoken to a friend in Germany), so may be ok. I'm not sure what the guidelines are on using non-English references, but expect it's ok if no others are available. However, I've looked into the figure, and there don't appear to be any other references quoting 50 million album sales. That suggests to me the numbers are dubious because it would be more widely reported, so I don't think it should be added until more sources are available. Have commented on this at teh talk page if you wish to add any thoughts. Paul MacDermott (talk) 21:58, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
June Anne Devaney
I have recently submitted this article and its in AfC just now. I think you might find it interesting.Markdarrly (talk) 22:38, 26 September 2012 (UTC) Page has now been created at June Anne Devaney Markdarrly (talk) 09:20, 27 September 2012 (UTC) Thanks for that, its the first article that iv created, if its seems ok to you, i must be doing something right!! Iv gota few more acorns that need keyboard fertaliser to make them into mighty articles! once again, thanks Markdarrly (talk) 13:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the thanks!! On a similar note, iv recently put some info into the article "Paperweights" stating that fires have been caused by sunrays shining through windows and the magnifying effects of the glass paperweight having caused the ignition of surrounding items. A £750,000 house was torched because of such an incident, I was wondering if it would be possible for such a piece of info to be included in DYK or is it just for new content only? Markdarrly (talk) 12:55, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 01 October 2012
- Paid editing: Does Wikipedia Pay? The Founder: Jimmy Wales
Does Wikipedia Pay? is a Signpost series seeking to illuminate paid editing, paid advocacy, for-profit Wikipedia consultants, editing public relations professionals, conflict of interest guidelines in practice, and the Wikipedians who work on these issues by speaking openly with the people involved. This week, a scandal centering around Roger Bamkin's work with Wikimedia UK and Gibraltarpedia erupted ... In light of these events, opinions on how to avoid future controversy are as important as ever. ... The Signpost spoke with Jimmy Wales to better understand how he views the paid editing environment and what he thinks is needed to improve it.
- News and notes: Independent review of UK chapter governance; editor files motion against Wikitravel owners
Following considerable online and media reportage on the Gibraltar controversy and a Signpost report last week, the Wikimedia UK chapter and the foundation published a joint statement on September 28: "To better understand the facts and details of these allegations and to ensure that governance arrangements commensurate with the standing of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK and the worldwide Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia UK's trustees and the Wikimedia Foundation will jointly appoint an independent expert advisor to objectively review both Wikimedia UK's governance arrangements and its handling of the conflict of interest."
- Featured content: Mooned
Five articles, three lists, and nine images were promoted to "featured" this week.
- Technology report: WMF and the German chapter face up to Toolserver uncertainty
The Toolserver is an external service hosting the hundreds of webpages and scripts (collectively known as "tools") that assist Wikimedia communities in dozens of mostly menial tasks. Few people think that it has been operating well recently; the problems, which include high database replication lag and periods of total downtime, have caused considerable disruption to the Toolserver's usual functions. Those functions are highly valued by many Wikimedia communities ... In 2011, the Foundation announced the creation of Wikimedia Labs, a much better funded project that among other things aimed to mimic the Toolserver's functionality by mid-2013. At the same time, Erik Möller, the WMF's director of engineering, announced that the Foundation would no longer be supporting the Toolserver financially, but would continue to provide the same in-kind support as it had done previously.
- WikiProject report: The Name's Bond... WikiProject James Bond
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series, we spent some time bonding with WikiProject James Bond. The project is in the unique position of having already pushed all of its primary content to Good and Featured status, including all of Ian Fleming's novels, short stories, and every film that has been released. Work has begun in earnest on the article Skyfall for the release of the new Bond film later this month. The project could still use help improving articles about Bond actors, characters, gadgets, music, video games, and related topics
Talkback

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16:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

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BabbaQ (talk) 16:08, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
April Jones
I find it interesting that the suspect has been charged with perverting the course of justice as well as the other charges. The police must have some evidence of the disposal of something or other. Corpus delicti will prove interesting here, they must have something solid to pursue the suspect for, otherwise they would have let him go.Markdarrly (talk) 17:52, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
SOLA2012
Hi
(Adele song Skyfall) How come the ref not reliable ??? >???
the song toped the iTunes in 19 countries ..
the score is the main page of the charts ................
the score is - http://www.apple.com/euro/itunes/charts/top10songs.html
By the way for the 500000 times please share the talk page before you remove anything please/,,,,
--sola$$$$$$$$ (talk) 18:21, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
- If you check the talk page you will see that I have commented there. The problem with the Apple source, I think, is that it isn't static. As soon as a different song knocks Skyfall from the top of the chart the page will say something different. I've Googled this, but without finding anything reliable. Please read our guidelines on what is considered to be a reliable source beccause that will go a long way to explaining what is and what isn't regarded as reliable. Paul MacDermott (talk) 18:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Speedy deletion nomination of 2013 in British radio
Hello Paul MacDermott,
I wanted to let you know that I just tagged 2013 in British radio for deletion, because it seems to be inappropriate for a variety of reasons.
If you feel that the article shouldn't be deleted and want more time to work on it, you can , but please don't remove the speedy deletion tag from the top.
You can leave a note on my talk page if you have questions. Thanks, Ankit MaityTalkContribs 15:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 08 October 2012
- News and notes: Education Program faces community resistance
Wikipedia in education is far from a new idea: years of news stories, op-eds, and editorials have focused on the topic; and on Wikipedia itself, the Schools and universities projects page has existed in various forms since 2003. Over the next six years, the page was rarely developed, and when it did advance there was no clear goal in mind.
- WikiProject report: Ten years and one million articles: WikiProject Biography
On this day five years ago, the WikiProject Report debuted as a new Signpost column with an overview of WikiProject Biography. Today, we're celebrating two milestone: five years of the WikiProject Report and the tenth birthday of our first featured project. WikiProject Biography is by far the largest WikiProject on Wikipedia, with over one million articles under the project's scope. As a comparison, WikiProject Biography is three times larger than Wikipedia's second largest project, and if WikiProject Biography were split into its 14 subprojects and work groups, it would still make the list of the 20 largest WikiProjects... four times.
- Featured content: A dash of Arsenikk
This week the Signpost interviews Arsenikk, an editor of six years who has brought sixteen lists through our featured list process, mostly regarding transportation in Norway but also about the 1952 Winter Olympics and World Heritage Sites in Africa. Arsenikk tells us about why he joined the project, what moves him, and how editors can join the sometimes daunting world of featured lists.
- Technology report: The ups and downs of September and October, plus extension code review analysis
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for September 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which is edging its way towards its first deployment). Three of the seven headline items in the report have already been covered in the Signpost: problems with the corruption of several Gerrit (code) repositories, the introduction of widespread translation memory across Wikimedia wikis, and the launch of the "Page Curation" tool on the English Wikipedia, with development work on that project now winding down. The report also drew attention to the end of Google Summer of Code 2012, the deployment to the English Wikipedia of a new ePUB (electronic book) export feature, and improvements to the WLM app aimed at more serious photographers.
- Discussion report: Closing RfAs: Stewards or Bureaucrats?; Redesign of Help:Contents
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...
Adele Page
Hi, Yes I made sure to check with multiple music sites as well as artwork for stylization. thanks for taking precautions though. Rogueassassin (talk) 10:31, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
OTRS team email address
Hi, can someone provide me with the OTRS email to request a delrev of something that could be potentially libellous? I've looked, but can't seem to searching in the right places. Cheers Paul MacDermott (talk) 18:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
- oversight-en-wp@wikipedia.org . Good luck. Dru of Id (talk) 18:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
- Cheers. Paul MacDermott (talk) 18:45, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for October 13
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The Golden Hour
Very pleased to hear Simon Bates read out a news item in the first half of yesterday's Golden Hour which was based on a Wikipedia entry I made in June 2009. Definitely worthy of a mention here, I think. The item, which can be found at 1992 in British television is reprinted below:
27 March – During the 1992 General Election campaign, Conservative MP Edwina Currie famously pours a glass of orange juice over Labour's Peter Snape shortly after an edition of the Midlands based debate show Central Weekend has finished airing. Speaking about the incident later, Currie said "I just looked at my orange juice, and looked at this man from which this stream of abuse was emanating, and thought 'I know how to shut you up.' ".
Cheers, Simon. Nice to have made a small, albeit indirect contribution to such a legendary show. :) Paul MacDermott (talk) 14:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 15 October 2012
- Op-ed: AdminCom: A proposal for changing the way we select admins
There is wide agreement among English Wikipedians that the administrator system is in some ways broken—but no consensus on how to fix it. Most suggestions have been relatively small in scope, and could at best produce small improvements. I would like to make a proposal to fundamentally restructure the administrator system, in a way that I believe would make it more effective and responsive. The proposal is to create an elected Administration Committee ("AdminCom") which would select, oversee, and deselect administrators.
- In the media: Wikipedia's language nerds hit the front page
This week saw a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal on editorial debates in Wikipedia. The story focused on the title-naming dispute surrounding the Beatles article, and specifically the RfC on whether the 'the' in the band's name should be capitalized or not.
- Featured content: Second star to the left
On the English Wikipedia, five featured articles, ten featured lists, and four featured pictures were promoted, including USS Lexington, a ship built for the United States Navy that, although ordered in 1916 as a battlecruiser, was converted to an aircraft carrier. It was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea during the Second World War.
- News and notes: Chapters ask for big bucks
The volunteer-led Wikimedia Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and interested community members are looking at Wikimedia organization applications worth about US$10.4 million out of the committee's first full year's operation, in just the inaugural round one of two that have been planned for the year with a planned budget of US$11.4M.
- Technology report: Wikidata is a go: well, almost
A trial of the first phase of Wikimedia Deutschland's "Wikidata" project–implementing the first ever interwiki repository—may soon get underway following the successful passage of much of its code through MediaWiki's review processes this week.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Chemicals
This week, we experimented with WikiProject Chemicals. Started in August 2004, WikiProject Chemicals has grown to include over 10,000 articles about chemical compounds. The project has a unique assessment system that omits C-class, Good, and Featured Articles. As a result, the project's 11 GAs and 9 FAs are treated as A-class articles. WikiProject Chemicals is a child of WikiProject Chemistry (interviewed in 2009) and a parent of WikiProject Polymers.
DYK for Liquid nitrogen cocktail
Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
About Jo
And I'm still lagging behind with everything... Right now, I'm "living" between 2 computers. My main one needed the shop for a keyboard and fan issue--was advised that since I could take it to a local authorized repair center, it would be faster than sending it to the company's main US one. Just got it back yesterday after it was there for a month! When I sent one into the company's US center previously, it took a week (including shipping times) to get it back for a bigger job (keyboard, drive and new motherboard). (The "nice" part of it all is they were both covered by warranty, so no bill.)
Found a new photo of her File:Jo Stafford Chesterfield Supper Club 1946.JPG which was sent out by the Supper Club-you can see she was still a bit heavy when it was taken. Have another one I think we need to talk about re: the later Jo Stafford television program. Not sure if you want to change the infobox photo or not, but this is a photo from her Bob Hope show. You'll see by the date on it that it was sent out in the US 2 years after the program had aired in the UK. Since the program was done and aired in the UK before it was in the US, if we choose this, we'll need to keep it here at en.WP due to the possibility of UK copyright. We got the present photo from a local US newspaper ad promoting the show. Not a problem to upload it here and tag it "no Commons"; it's PD in the US, but again, there's a possibility it may not be in the UK. We hope (talk) 16:14, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
- Then I'll upload the "Bob Hope" photo here and get it into the television show article. Just expanded on the Supper Club "airplane" broadcasts. In the photo you see Como holding the microphone for Jo--this was because the stand-held mikes weren't good for this kind of broadcast and while removing them from the stands and holding them worked better, they were hard to hold because of the cabin pressure of the plane. A real learning experience. No idea how a drive could become dislodged under normal use unless it wasn't in there properly to start with. (But no use telling them that.) :) We hope (talk) 17:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
- OK-I did a bit of clean up on the Jo article. I need to have a look through my bookmarks, but I believe I have a photo of Avakian-Jonathan Edwards' "creator"-that's PD. :) We hope (talk) 18:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
- Here's Avakian at Commons from the Library of Congress File:George Avakian (Gottlieb 00371).jpg. I added the one with Bob Hope to the television show article. We hope (talk) 19:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
- OK-I did a bit of clean up on the Jo article. I need to have a look through my bookmarks, but I believe I have a photo of Avakian-Jonathan Edwards' "creator"-that's PD. :) We hope (talk) 18:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
After I saw the photo, I realized it was from LOC and was at Commons. Had seen it recently when looking for something else at LOC. Sometimes I see so many photos, I know I've seen one, but can't instantly remember where my bookmark for it is. :) Also linked the mentions of his name in the various articles to his WP bio. There are times you find photos of some of the "behind the scenes" people at places like eBay-recently found a television producer's photo there with an NBC photo mark on it, so that was able to be uploaded as PD.
Just knew I'd seen an Avakian photo and bookmarked it because he was the "start" of Jonathan and Darlene. When I found the one from the television program with Hope in it, I also found some very nice photos of her which look to be shots taken at the same time the cover shot of American Folk Songs was. Trouble is, they're dated but not marked as to who took the photo or where it came from, so we can't use them unless I can find an identical one that says who produced it. Still hoping I can eventually get information on that one with Gordon MacRae and the Cupid statue, as I think it's so funny! :) We hope (talk) 00:14, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
DYK for Skyfall (song)
The DYK project (nominate) 08:02, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 22 October 2012
- Special report: Examining adminship from the German perspective
Unlike the long-running disputes that have characterised attempts to reform the RfA process on the English Wikipedia, the German Wikipedia's tradition of making decisions not by consensus but knife-edged 50% + 1 votes has led to a fundamentally different outcome. In 2009, the project managed to largely settle the RfA mode issue in 2009 indirectly.
- Arbitration report: Malleus Fatuorum accused of circumventing topic ban; motion to change "net four votes" rule
One clarification request concerns the civility enforcement case – specifically, Malleus Fatuorum's perceived circumvention of his topic ban. It has resulted in thousands of bytes spent in vitriolic discussions, multiple blocks, and "no confidence" motions against the Arbitration Committee and one arbitrator, among other ramifications.
- Technology report: Wikivoyage migration: technical strategy announced
Planning for Wikivoyage's migration into the WMF fold built up steam this week following a statement by WMF Deputy Director Erik Möller about what the technical side of the migration will involve. Wikivoyage, which split from sister site Wikitravel in 2006, is hoping to migrate its own not-inconsiderable user base to Wikimedia, as well as much of its content, presenting novel challenges for Wikimedia developers
- Discussion report: Good articles on the main page?; reforming dispute resolution
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- News and notes: Wikimedians get serious about women in science
It is well known that women are underrepresented in the sciences, and that high-achieving female scientists have often been excluded from authorship lists and passed over for awards and honours solely on the basis of gender. Also significant has been the underplaying in the academic literature, news reporting, and online, of women's current and historical contributions to science.
- WikiProject report: Where in the world is Wikipedia?
The WikiProject Report normally brings tidings from Wikipedia's most active, inventive, and unique WikiProjects. This week, we're trying something new by focusing on Wikipedia's dark side: the various regional and national WikiProjects that are dead or dying. How can some tiny municipalities and exclaves generate highly active, cross-language, multimedia platforms be successful while the projects representing many sovereign countries and entire continents wallow in obscurity? Today, we'll search for answers among geographic projects large and small, highly active and barely functioning, enthusiastic about the future and mired in past conflicts.
- Featured content: Is RfA Kafkaesque?
Eleven articles, including one on Franz Kafka, three lists, one image, and one portal were promoted to 'featured' status this week.
Disambiguation link notification for October 25
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DYK for Sky Movies 007 HD
Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Jo article
It looks great! :) We hope (talk) 19:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
- Have been on an internet "journey" (this is a "rest stop" on it) and have learned that Jo and her sisters did a demo radio show for radio station KECA in the LA area called "Open Spaces". It was done with The Sons of the Pioneers but for some reason, it never sold. (In those days and in the early television days, the key was having-and keeping--a sponsor, who would underwrite the costs of a show.) We see what Tommy Dorsey had to do when dear old Sir Hubert became upset about the Pied Pipers; he was protecting his neck, since Sir Hubert's company paid all the salaries and the bills. :)
- There's also a story which I can't confirm at this time, that Jo did another record with Red Ingle, but this time she called herself "Buttermilk Tussie". He describes how the Stafford Sisters first sang with a nasal twang and then adopted the style Jo became famous with. There's an MP3 copy of one of the demo songs the Sons of the Pioneers and the Stafford Sisters did-- "Tumbling Tumbleweeds"--online at this link. Jo referred to this demo in a 2001 interview (and that she had a big crush on Roy Rogers). :)
- Let me see what else I can dredge up fron the 'net. We hope (talk) 22:07, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 October 2012
- News and notes: First chickens come home to roost for FDC funding applicants; WMF board discusses governance issues and scope of programs
The first round of the Wikimedia Foundation's new financial arrangements has proceeded as planned, with the publication of scores and feedback by Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) staff on applications for funding by 11 entities—10 chapters, independent membership organisations supporting the WMF's mission in different countries, and the foundation itself. The results are preliminary assessments that will soon be put to the FDC's seven voting members and two non-voting board representatives. The FDC in turn will send its recommendations to the board of trustees on 15 November, which will announce its decision by 15 December. Funding applications have been on-wiki since 1 October, and the talk pages of applications were open for community comment and discussion from 2 to 22 October, though apart from queries by FDC staff, there was little activity.
- WikiProject report: In recognition of... WikiProject Military History
This week, we're checking out ways to motivate editors and recognize valuable contributions by focusing on the awards and rewards of WikiProject Military History. Anyone unfamiliar with WikiProject Military History is encouraged to start at the report's first article about the project and make your way forward. While many WikiProjects provide a barnstar that can be awarded to helpful contributors, WikiProject Military History has gone a step further by creating a variety of awards with different criteria ranging from the all-purpose WikiChevrons to rewards for participating in drives and improving special topics to medals for improving articles up to A-class status to the coveted "Military Historian of the Year" award.
- Technology report: Improved video support imminent and Wikidata.org live
The TimedMediaHandler extension (TMH), which brings dramatic improvements to MediaWiki's video handling capabilities, will go live to the English Wikipedia this week following a long and turbulent development, WMF Director of Platform Engineering Rob Lanphier announced on Monday ... Wikidata.org, a new repository designed to host interwiki links, launched this week and will begin accepting links shortly. The site, which is one half of the forthcoming Wikidata trial (the other half being the Wikidata client, which will be deployed to the Hungarian Wikipedia shortly) will also act as a testing area for phase 2 of Wikidata (centralised data storage). The longer term plan is for Wikidata.org to become a "Wikimedia Commons for data" as phases 2 and 3 (dynamic lists) are developed, project managers say.
- Featured content: On the road again
Thirteen articles, ten lists, nine images, one topic, and one portal were promoted to featured after peer reviews.
- Recent research: WP governance informal; community as social network; efficiency of recruitment and content production; Rorschach news
A paper in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, coming from the social control perspective and employing the repertory grid technique, has contributed interesting observations about the governance of Wikipedia.
Lynn parsons Broadcaster
Hello Paul This is Lynn Parsons. I have never met you and to my knowledge I am not related to you. I do have a birth certificate but it doesn't have the name or date that has been on Wikipedia forever, I absolutely object to your questioning my name and date of birth! How extraordinary', my reason for changing it now is that I interviewed Dawn French this week we both agreed to correct our individual pages! As they are completely wrong!!! I am happy for you to remove the page altogether rather than have lies in print about me. Sorry if you think this is harsh but it is a full moon and I happen to know my name and date of birth. Love Light and Sunshine Lynn Parsons Broadcaster86.9.79.223 (talk) 18:50, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Jo article-part 2
Sorry, haven't been back her until now (that pesky RL again :)). Let me try working out a way re: why they had to be let go from the radio program without getting into terrible detail about the amount of control a sponsor had over a radio (and early television) show and those who were part of it. Since the respective companies paid for everything, they were, in effect, one's boss. You either did as they asked/said, or your program could be off the air because the sponsor stopped paying the bills. Re: the extremely popular radio program, Amos 'n' Andy, when sponsorship of the show changed from Pepsodent toothpaste to Campbell's soup, Campbell's moved the program from NBC to CBS. The creators/performers had no say in the matter.
A sponsor's requests or demands weren't always reasonable ones. Re: Red Skelton and his first NBC television program, it looks like they (Procter and Gamble) had no idea of how demanding a live television program was. There are a couple of of these shows at the Internet Archive; whether you view it through or just look at the thumbnails, you see it's all Skelton for 30 minutes, down to his doing the commercials live too. They made no provisions for the commercials to be done by the star on film or to cut to an announcer who would deliver them, allowing the performer a break to change costumes, or other necessities. When there was a larger cast, one person didn't have to perform for the entire length of the program-he/she would get a bit of a "break" in the action like that. Skelton was just very lucky CBS-TV decided to take a chance on him; they picked up the show on a sustaining basis (network paying all bills) in the beginning.
From the accounts I've read re: Sir Hubert's ire, it sounds like he was too upset for anyone to try reasoning with him about the Pipers. (Dorsey might have been the next one out the door if he tried.) True, he wasn't dependent on the program for his total living, but the loss of the exposure offered by it would have been a detriment. We hope (talk) 20:36, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- I think I do have some sources which deal with the Sir Hubert situation a bit more in depth--will re-read tonight, ref and do what might be needed there. About the Edwardses, if this is what you thought may be a quote: "Stafford asked if she could help; she stood in and in a completely impromptu performance, was brilliantly funny, a remarkable example of how a true singer could adapt to any theme and style. It was not known initially that it was her voice on the record.", the "puff" was added to the article by someone else. The 2 refs say she offered her help to Ingle on the spur or the moment and that it wasn't known she was Cinderella G. Stump for a time. Let me re-read some sources tonight and add or subtract in that department. We hope (talk) 21:56, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- BTW-the embarrassment of Weston and Stordahl spoken about after the Pipers got sacked has a ref--an interview where Weston himself talks about it. We hope (talk) 22:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- Right now, I'll need to take a bit of time for some vet article ref links. The site where the information was moved to has been down for a few days and there appears to be no information re: what's happening. The original sources are still online at the old website, so I need to swap out the pdf links so our articles are working right. Then I'll get onto Jo's stuff. :) We hope (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- BTW-the embarrassment of Weston and Stordahl spoken about after the Pipers got sacked has a ref--an interview where Weston himself talks about it. We hope (talk) 22:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
My article
Hi.
I have to thank you for being sensible on the Monovia page. So people were really rude and disrespectful, but I can sympathise with your argument. I would however, like it if Monovia was featured in the list of micronations, we have done more then say the Northern American archipelago, we have met the deputy UK prime minister and appeared in the loal news, though I now see your point on the page. Btw, although Monovia is my micronations, I didn't make that article, so you should discuss it with the original maker. Btw, if your a admin, as the Monovian leader, I actually would like it if you could delete the page, it's causing far too much trouble. But I think it would be just for us to appear on the list of micronations. But anyway, Thank you for having a nicer approach then some other people. I am actually a admin on MicroWiki, so I can completely see where you are coming from.
176.26.240.54 (talk) 12:28, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm sure it could be added to the list of micronations, but I'm not sure what their criteria for inclusion actually is. I'm not an admin, so I can't delete it. I'll mention your comments at the afd discussion though. Give me a few minutes to sort some other stuff out then I'll do it. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:35, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 05 November 2012
- Op-ed: 2012 WikiCup comes to an end
J Milburn is a British editor who has been on the site since 2006. He is one of two judges of the WikiCup. Here, he uses an op-ed to explain the way the WikiCup works and to review this year's competition, which ended recently.
- News and notes: Wikimedian photographic talent on display in national submissions to Wiki Loves Monuments
The results of most of the national heats for Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) have been published on Commons. A maximum of 10 images have been submitted by all but eight of the 34 participating countries, and the international jury for what is the largest competition of its type in the world is set to announce the global winner in four weeks' time.
- In the media: Was climate change a factor in Hurricane Sandy?
Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record and has caused millions of dollars in damage. Naturally, Wikipedia covered it. But was Wikipedia's coverage unbiased?
- Discussion report: Protected Page Editor right; Gibraltar hooks
The Signpost's weekly roundup of topics for discussion on the English Wikipedia.
- Featured content: Jack-O'-Lanterns and Toads
This week, the Signpost interviewed two editors. The first, PumpkinSky, collaborated with Gerda Arendt in writing the recently featured article on Franz Kafka and won second prize in the Core contest last August. The second, Cwmhiraeth, collaborated with Thompsma in promoting the article Frog, which was featured last week. We asked them about the special challenges faced while writing Core content and things to watch out for.
- Technology report: Hue, Sqoop, Oozie, Zookeeper, Hive, Pig and Kafka
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for October 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month. TimedMediaHandler also went live.
- WikiProject report: Listening to WikiProject Songs
This week, The Signpost sings along with WikiProject Songs which focuses on articles about songs of every generation and genre. The project initially began as a rough outline in October 2002 and was reimagined in March 2004 using its parent WikiProject Albums as a template.
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AfDs - Notification of interested parties
Hi. I've just !voted on a few AfDs you created. Although the original creators may be long gone, I wondered whether you considered #After nominating: Notify interested projects and editors in conjunction with creating the nominations. I doesn't look as if you notified anyone, and I think would have been a good idea to do so. Apologies if this message is unwelcome. Cheers. -- Trevj (talk) 12:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- No worries, I probably should have done it. I'm in the fortunate position to only have had a couple of articles go to AFD so wasn't really familiar with this. I actually thought a Bot notified the original creator, but perhaps not. I'll remember to do it manually next time. :) Cheers. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- OK. I don't know if there's an automated way, but if I find one I'll try to remember to let you know! Cheers. -- Trevj (talk) 12:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:19, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- ok, have added a few {{AFDWarning}} templates. Better late than never, I guess. :) Paul MacDermott (talk) 13:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- Looks as if it was worthwhile. Nice one. -- Trevj (talk) 22:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks, a 25% success rate from contacting old users can't be bad. :) Paul MacDermott (talk) 22:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- Looks as if it was worthwhile. Nice one. -- Trevj (talk) 22:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- ok, have added a few {{AFDWarning}} templates. Better late than never, I guess. :) Paul MacDermott (talk) 13:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:19, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- OK. I don't know if there's an automated way, but if I find one I'll try to remember to let you know! Cheers. -- Trevj (talk) 12:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
More on Paul & Jo
We have these if you know of a spot for them:
Ran into something interesting last night- this album of sacred music where Jo sings nothing but the religious music written by Paul. If you look at the photos on eBay's zoom, you can read the cover with the liner notes and selections just fine. According to the seller, this was done in the 1960s. I'd say it was done after 1963, because they came up with Zip Codes (the numbers after Cincinnati, Ohio) at that point. This is all I know about the album at this point--didn't know of it until I ran across it last night while looking for something else. :) We hope (talk) 20:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- It looks like the discography dating of 1970 for the album is right, as it mentions that Paul was the music director for The Jim Nabors Hour. That aired from 1969 to 1971. It also looks like it was Jo and Paul's compositions for side one only, as Martin Luther wrote "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God". The discography says there was an album on Tribute Records, but everything I've seen so far for a label with that name is too recent to be the right one. Here's World Library of Sacred Music, but it looks like it's out of both press and print re: sheet music. I think we need to work it in somewhere with at least a mention, don't you? 22:03, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- Just bumped up the fine print at Billboard and it's the identical copy to the first Billboard link you found. :) We hope (talk) 22:37, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- Not so bad after all! :) I read your WorldCat link and it leads to Tribute Records/World Library of Sacred Music in Cincinnati, Ohio, as the distributor. This Tribute was in New York and this might be it. We hope (talk) 23:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
- Just bumped up the fine print at Billboard and it's the identical copy to the first Billboard link you found. :) We hope (talk) 22:37, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 12 November 2012
- News and notes: Court ruling complicates the paid-editing debate
Last week, media outlets reported a ruling by a German court on the problem of businesses using Wikipedia for marketing purposes. The issue goes beyond the direct management of marketing-related edits by Wikipedians; it involves cross-monitoring and interacting among market competitors themselves on Wikipedia. A company that sells dietary supplements made from frankincense had taken a competitor to court. The recently published judgment by the Higher Regional Court of Munich, in dealing with the German Wikipedia article on frankincense products, was handed down in May and is based on European competition law.
- Featured content: The table has turned
Thirteen articles, six lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status last week.
- Technology report: MediaWiki 1.20 and the prospects for getting 1.21 code reviewed promptly
In late September, the Technology report published its findings about (particularly median) code review times. To the 23,900 changesets analysed the first time (the data for which has been updated), the Signpost added data from the 9,000 or so changesets contributed between September 17 and November 9 to a total of 93,000 reviews across 45,000 patchsets. Bots and self-reviews were also discarded, but reviews made by a different user in the form of a superseding patch were retained. Finally, users were categorised by hand according to whether they would be best regarded as staff or volunteers. The new analyses were consistent with the predictions of the previous analysis.
- WikiProject report: Land of parrots, palm trees, and the Holy Cross: WikiProject Brazil
As promised, we're expanding our horizons by featuring projects that cover underrepresented areas of the globe. This week, we headed to WikiProject Brazil which keeps track of articles about the world's largest Portuguese-speaking country. The project has shown spurts of activity and continues to serve as a hub for discussions, despite the project's collaborations, peer reviews, and outreach activities being largely inactive.
Disambiguation link notification for November 19
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DYK for Salvage (2009 film)
Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:03, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Highlighting Diff text
{{helpme}}
Quick question. I notice the appearance of diffs appears to have changed this evening, and the text changes are no longer highlighted. If this is a permanent change, is there a way to get highlighting back because it's a nightmare to spot minor tweaks. Paul MacDermott (talk) 22:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
- As far as I can tell, the highlighting still is there, maybe the page you were looking at just had some whitespace removed and therefore had nothing to highlight? gwickwire | Leave a message 00:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for responding. I thought it could be that, but it definitely appears to have changed. I made a couple of minor edits to see what would happen and wasn't getting any bold text to identify the updates. I wondered if some software changes were being implemented. Paul MacDermott (talk) 00:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm sorry that I can't be much help then, the diffs still look fine to me. I'll leave this open so others can come help. Alternatively, if you have an IRC cloak or don't mind using your IP address, you can join #wikipedia-en-help connect and maybe someone there will know what's going on. gwickwire | Leave a message 00:36, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks, I need to log off for the night because it's getting quite late. Hopefully someone might find out what's happening overnight, but if not I'll look at IRC in the morning. Just a note to anyone who sees this, the change happened suddenly just after 21:00 UTC this evening. Thanks again for taking a look. Paul MacDermott (talk) 00:41, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm also in UK, the system was playing up quite a lot tonight - I loaded up several pages and it failed to display them properly, it was obvious that the CSS (or part of it) had not been applied to the article - maybe it was an issue with the European server, it seems to be improving now. It would not surprise me if the highlighting in the diffs was not controlled by the CSS. Ronhjones (Talk) 00:49, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
- From a quick read through the article it seems this could be the problem. Strangely it's only happening with Google Chrome. I've checked in IE and Firefox and those seem to be fine. Interestingly I seem to suddenly have HotCat which I've never bothered to install on this account (though I have an alternative account with it). I think I'll mention this at the helpdesk because it may be a bug in the software. Cheers Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:23, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Just because I still had this on my watchlist: HotCat was enabled for all registered users (in a kind of smaller fashion) by default a while ago (not too long). Also, I think there was a rolling wave of server issues on that night, as about 2-3 hours later we all got it here in the USA, and none of our gadgets were working.. Hope that helps clear things up a little bit. gwickwire | Leave a message 16:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks, I didn't know they'd enabled HotCat automatically. I just spotted it the other night and wondered what was going on. The diff thing seems to be up and running again now, so hopefully all the bugs are fixed. :) Paul MacDermott (talk) 16:35, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Who Can See It and What Is Life GARs
Hi Paul MacDermott, thanks so much for taking the time to review these two song articles. I'm over the moon about "Who Can See It" getting to GA (wow!), and I'll take a look at those points you've raised about improving the article further, particularly re extending the lead-in. With "What Is Life", I've gone ahead and removed that unsourced point on The Discotheques scoring a top ten hit in 1972; seems a pity, but you're quite right – the statement should be either supported with a reference or removed entirely. Thank you again. I really do appreciate contributors taking the time to review GA noms, especially over this last month or two when there seems to have been such a huge backlog of nominated articles. Best, JG66 (talk) 03:38, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Hi again. Just wanted to say, I've got The Concert for Bangladesh up as a nominated article – in case, you felt up to doing another Harrison article. (Completely understand if you'd rather not, of course.) Regards, and thanks again. JG66 (talk) 15:21, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
- Hi Paul MacDermott. A big thanks for the Concert for Bangladesh GA and for your complimentary words. As for taking the article (and "What Is Life" too) up to FA, I'm a bit reluctant to get into that, actually, from the point of view of available time. I've only been involved, as a contrib offering comments, in one FAC, and the process seemed to drag on forever from what I could see, with the number of contribs taking part and the diverse opinions. Probably wrong of me to judge the process on such limited experience, I realise, but I worry that I'd be following other contribs' suggestions/requirements blindly, just to get the thing over and done with, even though I might disagree with their suggestions. So ultimately the quality of the article might suffer. Maybe I just happened to pick a particularly challenging FAC, I don't know(!). But hey, it means a lot that you think at least one of those articles you've reviewed is a contender – thank you. I might well be in touch again soon once I've got another Harrison article ready for GAN, if that's okay. Cheers, JG66 (talk) 06:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the message, Paul MacDermott. Yes, 'taking over your life' – I think I'll just stick in the realm of GANs for now. Cheers, JG66 (talk) 10:12, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Re: Thanks
Hello, thank you very much for your comment about Lorraine Newman. I have now delisted the article as a GA nom, due to your very good points! There are no sources about Newman's birth, nor where she grew up. The first mention of her is when she was 17 and she got her job at EastEnders. She has done minor projects, but her role in EastEnders is her most prominent. The article may come a bit unstable as it will needed to be constantly updated, so I believe what you put on my talk page i correct. Im not sure if I will re-submit it, but I a going to try and try to find some mention of her before the age of 17. Thanks! — M.Mario (T/C) 22:35, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
- Hello again! Please do not feel bad, it was the correct decision! So, please, do not feel bad, as I think it is most likely it would have not been passed. I may try for GA in the future, but only once I have found a bit more background past. Thank you for reviewing Marsden, hopefully it will be passed - once again thanks! — M.Mario (T/C) 15:21, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 19 November 2012
- News and notes: FDC's financial muscle kicks in
The WMF's Funds Dissemination Committee has published its recommendations for the inaugural round 1 of funding. Requests totalled US$10.4M, nearly all of the FDC's budget for both first and second rounds. The seven-member committee of community volunteers appointed in September advises the WMF board on the distribution of grant funds among applying Wikimedia organizations. The committee, which has a separate operating budget of $276k for salaries and expenses, considered 12 applications for funds, from 11 chapters and from the WMF itself for its non-core activities. The decision-making process included community and FDC staff input after October 1, the closing date for submissions. Taken together, the volunteers decided to endorse an average of 81% of the funding sought—a total of $8.43M, which went to 11 of the 12 applicants. This leaves $2.71M to be distributed in round 2, for which applications are due in little more than three months' time.
- WikiProject report: No teenagers, mutants, or ninjas: WikiProject Turtles
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Turtles. The young project started in January 2011 and has accumulated 5 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, and 6 Featured Pictures. The project maintains a combined to-do list and hot articles meter, a popular pages ranking, and a collection of resources for turtle articles. We interviewed Faendalimas and NYMFan69-86.
- Technology report: Structural reorganisation "not a done deal"
WMF Executive Director Sue Gardner was forced to clarify this week that proposed structural changes to the Foundation's Engineering and Product Development Department were not a "done deal" and that it was "important that you [particularly affected staff] realise that ... your input is wanted". The reorganisation, announced on November 5 and planned for the middle of next year, will see its two components split off into their own departments.
- Featured content: Wikipedia hit by the Streisand effect
Seven featured articles, four featured lists and ten featured pictures – including the photograph that spawned the Streisand effect – were promoted this week.
- Discussion report: GOOG, MSFT, WMT: the ticker symbol placement question
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include the question of ticker symbol placement and the notability of various types of creative performer.
WikiProject Staffordshire
Hi,
I am currently working as Wikipedian in Residence at Staffordshire Archives and Heritage Service. Are you still interested in starting Wikipedia:WikiProject Staffordshire? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:17, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Tried my hand at cleaning this up. It had far too many scripts on it from the collapsible tables and it was a hard job because of it. Saw that Capitol Collectors Series has 4.5 stars, so it could go back to having its own page. Also see that the Portrait Edition compilation album is well rated too, so you might want to do something with that, but we have to be careful with adding more to the list because of the table scripts that make the page load slowly and hard to work with. If you want or need album covers for these two, let me know. We hope (talk) 06:21, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
- I think you're onto something with the thought of splitting it because it would "limit" the number of tables/scripts on each page, and that should mean no more issues. When we look at other articles that don't have so many tables and scripts, there's no problem. After you split them and get the other 2 albums onto pages, let me know and I'll add them to the template. We hope (talk) 16:15, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
- Will get onto the AllMusic rating right away! :) We hope (talk) 17:10, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Paul MacDermott, I'm beginning the copy-edit to the above article that you requested at the GOCE Request page. Please feel free to contact me, or to correct or revert my edits if I'm doing something I shouldn't. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 05:06, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for taking this on. Looks fine so far. Cheers Paul MacDermott (talk) 11:54, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm thinking of putting the presenters in 'Presenter history' into a collapsible table. What do you think? My concern is that as presenters join and leave the station, the section will become a cluttered mess. However, I am counselled to avoid laundry lists. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 05:56, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
- That sounds fine. I've been updating them as changes are made to the line up. There was a former presenters section, but looking at other radio stations such as BBC Radio 2, I see those tend to become overling in time. Paul MacDermott (talk) 14:48, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for replying; I've converted the prose in that section to list format, which can be expanded as necessary and possibly hidden if needed, but I've left it visible as there's not too much data there. I've retained references but ditched the prose - I hope that's ok. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 06:23, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
- Should be ok. As we don't currently have a lot of GA-class radio station articles to go on (and none at FA) it's difficult to know what to include and what to leave out. I think as a lot of other articles of this type have the information in list format there shouldn't be a problem. Paul MacDermott (talk) 20:30, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for replying; I've converted the prose in that section to list format, which can be expanded as necessary and possibly hidden if needed, but I've left it visible as there's not too much data there. I've retained references but ditched the prose - I hope that's ok. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 06:23, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
- That sounds fine. I've been updating them as changes are made to the line up. There was a former presenters section, but looking at other radio stations such as BBC Radio 2, I see those tend to become overling in time. Paul MacDermott (talk) 14:48, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm thinking of putting the presenters in 'Presenter history' into a collapsible table. What do you think? My concern is that as presenters join and leave the station, the section will become a cluttered mess. However, I am counselled to avoid laundry lists. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 05:56, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I was going to ask for an exemplar radio article to follow, but as there's none I've followed my nose. :-) Anyway, copy-edit done - please feel free to contact me about any issues arising from the copy-edit, and good luck with the GA - I'll inform the reviewer I'm done. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 05:27, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the copy-edit. Its looking much better now. The closest FA-class article I could find that was relevant to this is Mutual Broadcasting Systems, which has a similar format for presenting information no their prominent personnel. With that in mind I'm thinking I might take this forward to FAC eventually as it would be a definite candidate for Today's Featured Article, but that's for the future. :) Once again thanks for the work you've done with this. Cheers Paul MacDermott (talk) 16:28, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
- No worries; it's lucky it reached the top of the queue just in time for GA review. It's an interesting article which I think would make a good FA. Thanks for the Mutual link - I think it's strange that article uses the 'See also' section to present shows and presenters info. Oh well, good luck :-) Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 22:07, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
GA Review Smooth Radio

You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
No problem and congratulations on bringing the article up to speed. As I said in the review, I enjoyed reading it very much. The copy-edit provided by baffle was also excellent. I'm not sure how far you want to take the article, but I do think it is fairly close to FA standard (though as someone who routinely fails to get his own GA articles through WP:FAC, I might not be the best judge of these things) and it might be worth taking it to peer review as a logical next step. Whatever you decide, best of luck :) Meetthefeebles (talk) 15:13, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Capitol Collectors Series AllMusic Template
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
- ^ This is Paul/Archive14 at AllMusic. Retrieved 24 November 2012.
OK-here's the AllMusic template for the album. Will be glad to do the same with the Portrait one too. We hope (talk) 17:26, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
- Right now, I'm going to try working on the template for the right links for all of this. Will re-do the Capitol Collectors' Series link when you've moved it and add one for the Portrait album when it's ready. We hope (talk) 17:31, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
- Got them both rated and with covers. :) The site now "hides" the info we need for the ratings template under "album metadata IDs". Clicking that link gets you the number starting with an "R", which is what we use. But they've put a space between the R and the numbers, so we have to get rid of that and make the R lower case, it seems, to make it work with the template. We hope (talk) 19:08, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
- Right now, I'm going to try working on the template for the right links for all of this. Will re-do the Capitol Collectors' Series link when you've moved it and add one for the Portrait album when it's ready. We hope (talk) 17:31, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
You just have to figure out what they've changed and do a little "improvisation" to make it work with what we have. ;) We hope (talk) 19:14, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
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The Signpost: 26 November 2012
- News and notes: Toolserver finance remains uncertain
On November 24, a general assembly of Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) voted on the fate of the Wikimedia Toolserver, a central external piece of technical infrastructure supporting the editing communities with volunteer-developed scripts and webpages of various kinds that are assisting in performing mostly menial tasks.
- Recent research: Movie success predictions, readability, credentials and authority, geographical comparisons
An open-access preprint presents the results from a study attempting to predict early box office revenues from Wikipedia traffic and activity data. The authors – a team of computational social scientists from Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Aalto University and the Central European University – submit that behavioral patterns on Wikipedia can be used for accurate forecasting, matching and in some cases outperforming the use of social media data for predictive modeling. The results, based on a corpus of 312 English Wikipedia articles on movies released in 2010, indicate that the joint editing activity and traffic measures on Wikipedia are strong predictors of box office revenue for highly successful movies.
- Featured content: Panoramic views, history, and a celestial constellation
Six articles, one list, and six images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.
- Technology report: Wikidata reaches 100,000 entries
Wikidata, the new "Wikimedia Commons for data" and the first new Wikimedia project since 2006, reached 100,000 entries this week. The project aims to be a single, human- and machine-readable database for common data, spanning across all Wikipedia projects, which will "lead to a higher consistency and quality within Wikipedia articles, as well as increased availability of information in the smaller language editions" while lowering the burden on Wikipedia's volunteer editors—whose numbers have stalled overall, and continue to dwindle on the English Wikipedia.
- WikiProject report: Directing Discussion: WikiProject Deletion Sorting
This week, we uncovered WikiProject Deletion Sorting, Wikipedia's most active project by number of edits to all the project's pages. This special project seeks to increase participation in Articles for Deletion nominations by categorizing the AfD discussions by various topic areas that may draw the attention of editors. The project was started in August 2005 with manual processes that are continued today by a bevy of bots, categories, and transclusions. The project took inspiration from WikiProject Stub Sorting and some historical discussions on deletion reform. As the sheer number of AfDs continues to grow, the project is seeking better tools to manage the deletion sorting process and attract editors to comment on these deletion discussions.
Harrison GAN
Hi Paul MacDermott. I'm just about to put The Best of George Harrison up for GAN, after it got knocked back pretty severely in my previous attempt (slightly unfair, imo, but that's not to say the reviewer wasn't spot-on much of the time). It would be great if you could look at this one too? Hope so. Cheers, JG66 (talk) 15:09, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
- That's fantastic – thank you. It should be up on the noms page by now. Cheers, JG66 (talk) 15:22, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
- Hi Paul MacDermott. I imagine you've probably got the article's talk page on your watchlist, but just in case ... Thank you for offering me the extra time to fix the issues you mentioned – I've gone through the article, made the necessary changes, and I think it's ready now. The only thing I feel doesn't really work is the addition of a reviewer's quote in the lead-in, but see what you think. Thanks, JG66 (talk) 12:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks again for the pass, Paul MacDermott. I'm not sure why I had such a problem with this article compared with others – I think because the subject seems so entirely enshrouded in negativity, so it was a horrible article to work on really. Anyway, your keeping me honest (by reiterating concerns raised by the previous reviewer which perhaps I'd thought weren't valid) has made for a way better article now. Big thanks! Cheers, JG66 (talk) 03:58, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- Hi Paul MacDermott. I imagine you've probably got the article's talk page on your watchlist, but just in case ... Thank you for offering me the extra time to fix the issues you mentioned – I've gone through the article, made the necessary changes, and I think it's ready now. The only thing I feel doesn't really work is the addition of a reviewer's quote in the lead-in, but see what you think. Thanks, JG66 (talk) 12:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
A note on Jenn Bostic
If you feel it's a little too early for this article to appear in the mainspace then please feel free to move it back to my userspace. Cheers. Paul MacDermott (talk) 23:42, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
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The Signpost: 03 December 2012
- News and notes: Wiki Loves Monuments announces 2012 winner
The global jury of Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), the world’s largest photo contest, announced its results on 3 December.
- Featured content: The play's the thing
Three articles, two lists, and four images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.
- Discussion report: Concise Wikipedia; standardize version history tables
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
- Technology report: MediaWiki problems but good news for Toolserver stability
Deployments of MediaWiki 1.21wmf5 cause widespread problems for users across wikis when HTML and CSS updates came temporarily out of sync. On the first wikis targeted for deployment, this was caused by the different cache invalidation rates for HTML (typically one month) and CSS (typically five minutes). The retrospective on the problem highlighted the fact that that the test wiki – the WMF's answer to a production environment that individual developers can no longer practically emulate themselves – actually demonstrated the exact problem that would later manifest itself on production wikis. It went unnoticed.
- WikiProject report: The White Rose: WikiProject Yorkshire
This week, we went searching for white roses in the lands of WikiProject Yorkshire. The project began in May 2007 as a way to improve articles about the historic English county of Yorkshire and its modern-day administrative divisions and cities. Since then, the project has accumulated 31 Featured Articles, 14 Featured Lists, 91 Good Articles, and a monstrous list of Did You Know entries. Despite all of the effort improving Yorkshire articles, the project has experienced waning participation in the last few years. The project still publishes a newsletter each month, monitors the popularity of and recent changes to its articles, maintains a portal, and collects resources for contributors to use.
Your help desk question
Regarding this question, have you tried WP:VPT?— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:41, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Ron Ball
I've reviewed your DYK suggestion of Ron Ball and have a few queries. Espresso Addict (talk) 14:14, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
- I've responded at the DYK subpage. By the way, are you still interested in organising WikiProject Shropshire? I live a few miles from the border and would be happy to contribute, but I tend to work best on projects which have infrastructure, and it looks as if the project never really got off the ground. Espresso Addict (talk) 15:49, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
DYK for Ron Ball
Mifter (talk) 16:03, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Question re:WebCite
Are you having issues with it re: your A/V saying there's a virus on the site? I've had them for a long time when I'd try going to their main page to create a citation. Am also wondering if you've seen a lot of spam at the e-mail addy you use or used for creating citations. Have had to delete the gmail addy I had for 5+ years because of spam (used it at WebCite) recently. Thanks for any info you may have, We hope (talk) 22:50, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
- My thought re: WebCite is that someone may have hacked it and gotten access to the various addys people used for citations, so whatever addy or addys you used for them, you're now getting spam there. I have Avast A/V and it's gone off every time I've tried going to their main page to create a site for some time now, so I've stopped trying to archive like this. Avast has gone off whether I was using IE or Firefox. Unfortunately, I don't know how one can get in touch with those who run the site (didn't see any e-mail addy when I was there last and Avast didn't block the page) to let them know there may be a problem so we can all use the site without issues again. We hope (talk) 14:38, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
- No-the addy would be whatever e-mail address or addresses you used or were using to create citations there. If someone's hacked into the site, they're able to have access to the e-mail addresses of anyone who's created a citation there, and can use them for spamming. When I go to the main WebCite page, using either IE or Firefox, I'm told that Avast just stopped a malware download on the page.
- Yes, sometimes an A/V can have false positives (got rid of Norton ages ago because it went off every time I worked on a site I'd worked at for years and knew they have great security), but it would seem that after a given period of time, the false positive should be resolved and you'd hear no more from your A/V when you went to the site. I'd believe that Chrome, McAfee and Avast all aren't wrong about something not right there, because they've continued to give us some kind of warnings over time. I'll be glad to add my pennysworth (inflation reduced it from two cents :)) at either or both of the desks because I do think there's an issue with the site. BTW, if you want a good free e-mail program that gets rid of the spam (for one account only-more accounts isn't free), try this. Have used it and it does work. :) We hope (talk) 15:45, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
- These are phishing mails and should be reported to your internet service provider if that's where the addy is or to the provider (Microsoft, Yahoo, etc.) of your e-mail service. I ditched the gmail because I was reporting stuff like this and Google didn't seem to be doing anyting about it. If you get a new addy, if the name is anything like the one you're getting phishing spam on, they already have that in their dictionary and may find you at another place. If this is the address you were using to create citations at WebCite, it sure looks like there is something really wrong there and we need to find a way to let the real WebCite people know. We hope (talk) 17:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Grab the headers of any you have and get them to BT. They should have a department that deals with e-mail fraud, phishing and the like. BT may ask you to keep copying the headers and sending them in until they can fix the problem. The best and fastest help with e-mail issues I ever had was with the now defunct WorldNet. They used Brightmail for screening and if you had to report something, it was history in a hurry. I'll use a "throwaway" e-mail addy to contact WebCite's tech department to tell them of the issues I've had. Will let you know what their response is. We hope (talk) 18:28, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
- Great!! Some time ago, there was a virus that grabbed addresses and sent e-mails. My cousin had a habit of sending out a bulk mailing with everyone's addys on it. One of her friends got the virus and it started sending out mail. The virus took someone's name and "matched" it with someone else's mail provider. I got one of them; knew it was wrong because it wasn't her mail provider and deleted it on sight. :) We hope (talk) 23:07, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Sent e-mail to WebCite tech support
Text of e-mail:
Hello,
I've used it happily for some time at Wikipedia, but in the last few months, each time I try to access the cite, my A/V (Avast) blocks the home page, saying it's prevented a malware download.
Also, in the last couple of months, I started receiving spam at the e-mail address I was using for making citations. I'd had the address for over 5 years without issues like this. Google did nothing to resolve the problem so I closed that address and moved to using the same name at Hotmail.
The same type of spam is now at Hotmail and I will be abandoning that address as soon as a medical e-mail subscription address can be changed. It appears to be a dictionary-related issue.
A Wikipedia colleague in the UK is having the same sort of issues. His McAfee A/V issues a warning when using WebCite; he also uses Chrome and the browser stops and asks if he really wants to go to WebCite when he attempts to use it. His BT home e-mailbox contains the same type of spam I was getting at gmail and now at Hotmail.
From this perspective, it appears that WebCite has been tampered with. We would all appreciate any information you're able to provide so we can continue using this great resource as we have in the past.
Thanks,
We hope (talk) 18:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
- If your spam has attachments, I'd not open them or the mail. There's now a malware gang operating who shuts down your PC and holds it for ransom. Story was recently in the New York Times. I'd leave them right where they are and get hold of BT for advice. None of the stuff I've gotten had attachments; the last time I had some that did, I was with WorldNet and AT&T asked my permission to go into my mail for them. (The spammers were evading the spam filters by sending their mesage via image.)
- What I would do, though, is to open a Hotmail or Outlook account for use with web citations and things like this. Signing up for gmail now means you have to take a Google+ account, which you may not want. You don't have to do anything like this with Hotmail or Outlook and if there is a problem e-mail in your inbox, you have a selector to click that's for reporting phishing e-mails. It reports them and dumps them. We hope (talk) 19:44, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 10 December 2012
- News and notes: Wobbly start to ArbCom election, but turnout beats last year's
At the time of writing, this year's election has just closed after a two-week voting period. The eight seats were contested by 21 candidates. Of these, 15 have not been arbitrators (Beeblebrox, Count Iblis, Guerillero, Jc37, Keilana, Ks0stm, Kww, NuclearWarfare, Pgallert, RegentsPark, Richwales, Salvio giuliano, Timotheus Canens, Worm That Turned, and YOLO Swag); four candidates are sitting arbitrators (David Fuchs, Elen of the Roads, Jclemens, and Newyorkbrad); and two have previously served on the committee (Carcharoth and Coren). Four Wikimedia stewards from outside the English Wikipedia stepped forward as election scrutineers: Pundit, from the Polish Wikipedia; Teles, from the Portuguese Wikipedia; Quentinv57, from the French Wikipedia; and Mardetanha, from the Persian Wikipedia. The scrutineers' task is to ensure that the election is free of multiple votes from the same person, to tally the results, and to announce them. The full results are expected to be released within the next few days and will be reported in next week's edition of the Signpost.
- Featured content: Wikipedia goes to Hell
Eight articles, four images, six lists, and one topic were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
- Technology report: The new Visual Editor gets a bit more visual
The Visual Editor project – an attempt to create the first WMF-deployable WYSIWYG editor – will go live on its first Wikipedias imminently following nearly six months of testing on MediaWiki.org. A full explanatory blog post accompanied the news, explaining the project and its setup. Once a user has opted-in, the editor can handle basic formatting, headings and lists, while safely ignoring elements it is yet to understand, including references, categories, templates, tables and images. At the last count, approximately 2% of pages would break in some way if a user tried the Visual Editor on them; it is unclear whether any specific protection will be put in place beyond relying on editors to spot problems.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Human Rights
In celebration of Human Rights Day, we checked out WikiProject Human Rights. Started in February 2006, the project has grown to include over 3,000 articles, including 12 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, 66 Good Articles, a large collection of Did You Know entries, and a few mentions "in the news". The project monitors listings of popular pages and cleanup tags. We interviewed Khazar2, Cirt, and Boud.
Ron Ball correction
Thanks for the comment and for picking up on my typo. What can I say? Dinner was calling and I rushed it! Dalliance (talk) 23:11, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi Paul, I'm beginning the copy-edit you requested for the above article at the GOCE Request page. Please feel free to contact me, or to correct or revert my changes if I'm doing something I shouldn't. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 00:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
- Done - I think it's an interesting and well-written article that deserves to have GA status, so wishing you well for the nomination. Please feel free to contact me about any issues arising from the copy-edit. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 12:00, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the copyedit. As usual you've done an excellent job so I'll submit it for GA this afternoon. Cheers Paul MacDermott (talk) 15:56, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
- No worries :-) Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the copyedit. As usual you've done an excellent job so I'll submit it for GA this afternoon. Cheers Paul MacDermott (talk) 15:56, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
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Requested move
OK, I completely messed up here. I was wondering if someone could move A is for Acid to A Is for Acid per the naming of articles. I know this isn't the usual means of requesting a move, but things are slightly complicated because Talk:A is for Acid redirects to Talk:A Is for Acid so I'm not entirely sure how to proceed. Alternatively could someone post a request in the appropriate place? This is an uncontroversial move so there shouldn't be a problem. Cheers Paul MacDermott (talk) 17:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
- I've removed the redirect Talk:A is for Acid to Talk:A Is for Acid for you, but you will need an administrator's help with this page move as the target title already exists. I have changed the {{help me}} tag to an {{admin help}} one, so hopefully an administrator will be along shortly. Pol430 talk to me 19:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Done Should be good to go. Calmer Waters 19:41, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
- Cheers, guys. Thanks for sorting it out for me. Paul MacDermott (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
DYK nomination of A Is for Acid
Hello! Your submission of A Is for Acid at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 01:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 17 December 2012
- News and notes: Arbitrator election: stewards release the results
Seven days after the close of voting, the results of the recent Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) elections have been announced by two of the four stewards overseeing the election, Mardetanha and Pundit. Of the 21 candidates, 13 managed to gain positive support-to-oppose ratios, and the top eight will be appointed to two-year terms on the committee by Jimbo Wales, exercising one of his traditional responsibilities.
- WikiProject report: WikiProjekt Computerspiel: Covering Computer Games in Germany
In the past year, we've tried to expand our horizons by looking at how WikiProjects work in other languages of Wikipedia. Following in the footsteps of our previously interviewed Czech and French projects, we visited the German Wikipedia to explore WikiProjekt Computerspiel (WikiProject Computer Games). The project dates back to November 2004 and has become the back-end of the Computer Games Portal, which covers all video games regardless of platform. Editors writing about computer games at the German Wikipedia deal with unique cultural and legal challenges, ranging from a lack of fair use precedents to the limited availability of games deemed harmful for youths to strong standards for the inclusion of material on the German Wikipedia.
- Discussion report: Concise Wikipedia; section headings for navboxes
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...
- Op-ed: Finding truth in Sandy Hook
This week's big story on the English Wikipedia is obviously the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (which, by the time you read this, may be renamed 2012 Connecticut school shooting). Quickly created and nominated for deletion not once but twice, and both times speedily kept, the article saw the expected flurry of edits (a look at the history suggests an average of at least one a minute over the first day and a half) and more than half a million page views on the first full day.
- Featured content: Wikipedia's cute ass
Four articles, three lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week, including a picture of a three-week old donkey (also known as an 'ass').
- Technology report: MediaWiki groups and why you might want to start snuggling newbie editors
MediaWiki users (including Wikimedians) can now organise themselves into groups, receiving recognition and support-in-kind from the Wikimedia Foundation. The project, backed by new Wikimedia technical contributor coordinator Quim Gil, has seen five proposals lodged in its first week of operation. The idea of MediaWiki groups mimics that of Wikimedia User Groups.
Merry Christmas
Happy Holidays!
Here's a wish from me you won't see as shocking, that this lady's music is in your Christmas stocking! We hope (talk) 20:34, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi Paul MacDermott. I'm just about to put this article up for GAN, so thought I'd let you know, in case you're able to review it? Hope so. Cheers, JG66 (talk) 08:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
- Hi again. Thanks for your comments in the GAR – very useful. I've made the changes, and there's a message on the talk page also. Thanks again, Paul MacDermott. JG66 (talk) 15:54, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
- Hey Paul MacDermott. I hope you're enjoying your Christmas. Just to let you know, I'm putting "Dark Horse" and maybe "Hari's on Tour (Express)" up for GAN very soon. Completely understand if you have something else you'd rather be doing at this time of year(!), but just in case ... Cheers, JG66 (talk) 07:54, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 24 December 2012
- News and notes: Debates on Meta sparking along—grants, new entities, and conflicts of interest
As part of its new focus on core responsibilities, the Wikimedia Foundation is reforming its grant schemes so that they are more accessible to individual volunteers. The community is invited to look at proposals for a new scheme—for now called Individual engagement grants (IEGs)—which is due to kick off on January 15. On Meta, the community is once again debating the two new offline participation models—user groups (open membership groups designed to be easy to form) and thematic organizations (incorporated non-profits representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting work on a specific theme within or across countries). In a consultation process on Meta that will last until January 15, the community will be discussing WMF proposals for a new guideline on conflicts of interests concerning Wikimedia resources. The draft covers COI issues for both volunteers and organizations across the movement.
- WikiProject report: A Song of Ice and Fire
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject A Song of Ice and Fire, which focuses on the eponymous series of high fantasy literature, the television series Game of Thrones, and related works by George R. R. Martin. The project was started in July 2006 and has grown to include 11 Good Articles maintained by a small yet enthusiastic band of editors.
- Featured content: Battlecruiser operational
Seven articles and two lists were promoted to 'featured' status this week, including List of battlecruisers. The article covers all of the battlecruisers—which were a type of warship similar in size to a battleship but with several defining characteristics—ever planned or constructed. The last British battlecruiser built, HMS Hood, is pictured at right.
- Technology report: Efforts to "normalise" Toolserver relations stepped up
Efforts were stepped up this week to sow a feeling of trust between the major parties with an interest in the future of the Toolserver. The tool- and bot-hosting server – more accurately servers – are currently operated by German chapter, Wikimedia Germany, with assistance from the Foundation and numerous volunteers, including long-time system administrator Daniel Baur (more commonly known by his pseudonym DaB). However, those parties have more recently failed to see eye-to-eye on the trajectory for the Toolserver, which is scheduled to be replaced by Wikimedia Labs in late 2013, with increasing concern about the tone of discussions.
DYK for A Is for Acid
Gatoclass 12:03, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
DRN
There is a thread where you're listed as a party. It is from the 14th of December, but do you think that continuing the discussion be necessary? The thread is still open. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 01:45, 29 December 2012 (UTC)