User talk:BrillLyle/Archives/ 11

Structured Commons newsletter, October 25, 2017
''Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!''


 * Community updates


 * Rama published an article about Structured Commons in Arbido, a Swiss online magazine for archivists, librarians and documentalists: original in French, illustrated and the article translated in English.
 * We now have a dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd webchat


 * Things to do / input and feedback requests


 * Join the community focus group!
 * Translation. Do you want to help out translating messages about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.
 * The documentation and info pages about Structured Data on Commons have received a thorough update, in order to get them ready for all the upcoming work. Obsolete pages were archived. There are undoubtedly still a lot of omissions and bits that are unclear. You can help by editing boldly, and by leaving feedback and tips on the talk pages.
 * We have started to list tools, gadgets and bots that might be affected by Structured Commons in order to prepare for a smooth transition to the new situation. You can help by adding alerts about/to specific tools and developers on the dedicated tools page. You can also create Phabricator tasks to help keep track of this. Volunteers and developers interested in helping out with this process are extremely welcome - please sign up!
 * Help write the next Structured Commons newsletter.


 * Presentations / Press / Events


 * Structured Data on Commons was presented at Wikimania 2017 in Montréal for a packed room. First design sketches for search functionality were discussed during a breakout session. Read the Etherpad reports of the presentation and the breakout session.
 * Katherine Maher, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, answered questions on Quora. One of her answers, mentioning Structured Data on Commons, was republished on Huffington Post.
 * Sandra Fauconnier, Amanda Bittaker and Ramsey Isler from the Structured Commons team will be at WikidataCon. Sandra presents Structured Commons there (with a focus on fruitful collaboration between the Wikidata and Commons communities). If you attend the conference, don't hesitate to say hi and have a chat with us! (phabricator task T176858)


 * Team updates

Two new people have been hired for the Structured Data on Commons team. We are now complete! :-)
 * Ramsey Isler is the new Product Manager of the Multimedia team.
 * Pamela Drouin was hired as User Interface Designer. She works at the Multimedia team as well, and her work will focus on the Structured Commons project.


 * Partners and allies


 * We are still welcoming (more) staff from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) to become part of our long-term focus group (phabricator task T174134). You will be kept in the loop of the project, and receive regular small surveys and requests for feedback. Get in touch with Sandra if you're interested - your input in helping to shape this project is highly valued!


 * Research

Design research is ongoing.
 * Jonathan Morgan and Niharika Ved have held interviews with various GLAM staff about their batch upload workflows and will finish and report on these in this quarter. (phabricator task T159495)
 * At this moment, there is also an online survey for GLAM staff, Wikimedians in Residence, and GLAM volunteers who upload media collections to Wikimedia Commons. The results will be used to understand how we can improve this experience. (phabricator task T175188)
 * Upcoming: interviews with Wikimedia volunteers who curate media on Commons (including tool developers), talking about activities and workflows. (phabricator task T175185)


 * Development

In Autumn 2017, the Structured Commons development team works on the following major tasks (see also the quarterly goals for the team):


 * Getting Multi-Content Revisions sufficiently ready, so that the Multimedia and Search Platform teams can start using it to test and prototype things.
 * Determine metrics and metrics baseline for Commons (phabricator task T174519).
 * The multimedia team at WMF is gaining expertise in Wikibase, and unblocking further development for Structured Commons, by completing the MediaInfo extension for Wikibase.


 * Stay up to date!


 * Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
 * Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
 * Join the next IRC office hour and ask questions to the team! It takes place on Tuesday 21 November, 18.00 UTC.

Warmly, your community liaison, SandraF (WMF)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 14:26, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-44
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available. Recent changes
 * You can now block users from emailing you through the Wikimedia wikis.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 November. It will be on all wikis from 2 November (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 31 October at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 1 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  00:20, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-45
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * You will no longer see the patrol log on Special:Log unless you specifically select it.

Changes later this week
 * The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 6 November. You can post proposals from 19:00 UTC and until November 19.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 November. It will be on all wikis from 9 November (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 8 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * URLs that link to sections on Wikimedia wikis with non-Latin scripts have looked like this:  instead of  . This will soon be fixed. Old links will still work.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  18:45, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-49
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available. Recent changes
 * It is now possible to upload MP3 files to Commons. Only users with MP3 file upload rights can upload MP3 files.
 * You can now use live updates for recent changes if you use the new filters. This feature updates the filtered recent changes every three seconds when you activate it.
 * There is an experimental onion service for Wikimedia projects.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 December. It will be on all wikis from 7 December (calendar).
 * Very old versions of the Opera Web browser are no longer supported. This means that technical development will not be tested to make sure it works with those Opera versions. Use Opera 15 or above or another browser if you have problems.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Almost 170 wikis with no high-priority errors in Linter categories will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. A few larger wikis such as German and Italian Wikipedia will also make this switch. It will happen on 5 December. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 5 December at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey will decide what the Community Tech team will work on next year. You can vote for wishes on the survey page until 10 December. You can see what has happened to last year's wishes on the 2016 results page.
 * The Community Liaisons team at the Wikimedia Foundation is looking for active tech ambassadors. This is to make sure the Wikimedia communities get all the information they need about new features and can be involved in the technical development.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  17:51, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: November 2017
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 20:46, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-50
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * URLs that link to sections on Wikimedia wikis with non-Latin scripts have looked like this:  instead of  . This has now been fixed on all wikis. Old links will still work.
 * A new tag marks edits where a redirect was created or removed. This still works when the editor writes something else in the edit summary. You can see the tags for example in the recent changes feed, article history, user contributions or on your watchlist.
 * If you use Chrome on Android, you can now use the print to PDF button to create a PDF of an article.
 * Filter by number of edits or filter by time range have been grouped on a same menu on the recent changes page if you use the new filters. The "" link is now more prominent.
 * Some of the web fonts that were provided by the Universal Language Selector extension are being removed. This is to reduce the load time on pages. The web fonts were added many years ago to help users read text in scripts which did not have fonts or had broken fonts. This is not the case any more. You can check the status page for a list of all web fonts and whether they are currently being used and especially for special requirements.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 December. It will be on all wikis from 14 December (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 December at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * You can discuss new or improved blocking tools with the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-Harassment Tools team. They will work on building better blocking tools. Leave comments on the talk page.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  17:58, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Structured Commons newsletter, December 13, 2017
''Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!''


 * Community updates


 * There was a IRC Office Hour about Structured Commons on November 21. You can read the log here.
 * Our dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd webchat


 * Things to do / input and feedback requests
 * NEW: Participate in a survey that helps us prioritize which tools are important for the Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata communities. The survey runs until December 22. Here's some background.
 * NEW: Help the team decide on better names for 'captions' and 'descriptions'. You can provide input until January 3, 2018.
 * NEW: Help collect interesting Commons files, to prepare for the data modelling challenges ahead! Continuous input is welcome.
 * Join the community focus group!
 * Do you want to translate messages and information about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.


 * Presentations / Press / Events
 * Sandra presented the plans for Structured Commons during WikidataCon in Berlin, on October 29. The presentation focused on collaboration between the Wikidata and Commons communities. You can see the full video here.


 * Partners and allies
 * We are still welcoming (more) staff from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) to become part of our long-term focus group (phabricator task T174134). You will be kept in the loop of the project, and receive regular small surveys and requests for feedback. Get in touch with Sandra if you're interested - your input in helping to shape this project is highly valued!


 * Research
 * Research findings from interviews and surveys of GLAM project participants are being published to the research page. Check back over the next few weeks as additional details (notes, quotes, charts, blog posts, and slide decks) will be added to or linked from that page.


 * Development
 * The Structured Commons team has written and submitted a report about the first nine months of work on the project to its funders, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The 53-page report, published on November 1, is available on Wikimedia Commons.
 * The team has started working on designs for changes to the upload wizard (T182019).
 * We started preliminary work to prototype changes for file info pages.
 * Work on the MediaInfo extension is ongoing (T176012).
 * The team is continuing its work on baseline metrics on Commons, in order to be able to measure the effectiveness of structured data on Commons. (T174519)
 * Upcoming: in the first half of 2018, the first prototypes and design sketches for file pages, the UploadWizard, and for search will be published for discussion and feedback!


 * Stay up to date!
 * Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
 * Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
 * Join the next IRC office hour and ask questions to the team! It takes place on Tuesday, February 13, 18.00 UTC in wikimedia-office webchat.

Warmly, your community liaison, SandraF (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 16:32, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 25
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 25, October – November 2017

 Arabic, Korean and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta! Read the full newsletter Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * OAWiki & #1Lib1Ref
 * User Group update
 * Global branches update
 * Spotlight: Research libraries and Wikimedia
 * Bytes in brief

The Signpost: 18 December 2017
 * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:28, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-51
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News
 * Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 8 January 2018.

Problems
 * When you import a page from another wiki the usernames of the users who edited the article on the wiki you imported it from are shown in the article history. This should link to the users on the original wiki. A script to fix this caused problems for Wikidata and German Wikipedia. It also created a large number of SUL accounts on wikis where editors had never edited.
 * Some bot owners got email about their bots logging in from a new computer. If this is from one or a couple of wikis, you can turn these messages off in your preferences on those wikis until the problem has been solved. If not, you can report more about the problem in Phabricator.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week. There will be no new MediaWiki version next week either.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * Files on Commons will have structured metadata in the future. The developers are now looking for examples of different kinds of metadata to make sure they are aware of them when they build prototypes for structured data on Commons. You can read more and help by giving examples of interesting media files.
 * The Structured Commons team are making sure Commons work with structured data. If you regularly contribute to Commons and Wikidata you can answer a survey that helps the team prioritise the tools that are important for the Commons and Wikidata communities. The survey ends on 22 December. You can read more on Commons. You can also help the team decide on better names for "captions" and "descriptions". This ends on 3 January 2018.
 * The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey has now ended. You can see the results. They decide what the Community Tech team will work on next year.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  15:27, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

January 2018
Please do not attack other editors. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you.

Please let's stay focused on content at Talk:Shore Fire Media. There's no need to attack me personally for making edits to the article. Ca2james (talk) 19:23, 6 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Posting this here is 100% harassment. Please stop. Please also stop deleting legitimate content and shadowing my editing. Please learn how to edit Wikipedia and consider actually adding content versus deleting perfectly good information. You are hurting Wikipedia and if you don't understand that it's a problem. But leave me alone. -- BrillLyle (talk) 23:20, 6 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I want to make it clear, although I've already said this, that I went to exactly one other article you've worked on - Ann Powers - after I saw several citation mistakes on Shore Fire Media that you'd added there. I'm not shadowing your edits and I believe I'm working within policy. Please stop personally attacking me. Ca2james (talk) 00:36, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-02
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * On Wikidata, the "" button when you edit is now called "". This means all Wikimedia wikis have now changed from "" to "". This is to help new editors understand what it does.
 * Some edits will get an automatic tag on all wikis. This will happen when making a page a redirect, blanking a page, removing almost all content, undoing an edit, or rolling back an edit. You can see the tags for example in the recent changes feed, article history, user contributions or on your watchlist. Some wikis had already marked edits like these in other ways.
 * Special:UnusedFiles shows files that have been uploaded but are not used. It will show a file that is not used on the wiki it has been uploaded to, even if the file is used on another wiki. The new Special:GloballyUnusedFiles page on Commons only shows files that are not used on any wiki.
 * Structured discussions now uses the 2017 wikitext editor instead of its old custom one. This will work with your preference for wikitext or visual editor. The documentation has been updated.

Problems
 * Older versions of the Chrome web browser on mobile devices may see the PDF download button, but it does not work. The developers are looking into the problem.
 * With the new filters in the recent changes, "" in "" did not work for "" between 13 December and 2 January. When you loaded the saved filter all other namespaces were excluded instead. This has now been fixed. If you made any changes to your saved filters between 13 December and 2 January, you need to save your filters with excluded namespaces again.
 * The latest version of Google Chrome broke how section links are shown in the address bar. You now see  instead of   even if MediaWiki did not encode it that way. This happened in early December. This problem has been solved. The fix will be in Chrome 64 (23 January) or Chrome 65 (6 March).
 * Octicons-tools.svg Some POST requests to the API took longer than usual in parts of December. This affected the Wikidata UI and some gadgets the most. It has now been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Wikidata will be moved to its own database servers. This is because it is growing and needs more resources. Because of this you will be able to read but not edit Wikidata and the German Wikipedia between 06:00 and 06:30 UTC on 9 January. You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. This includes editing the language links on other wikis.
 * The font size in the editing window will change slightly for some users. It will now look the same on all browsers and operating systems.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 January. It will be on all wikis from 11 January (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg WikiEditor's ResourceLoader modules have been simplified to one: . All the other modules are now deprecated aliases and should be removed.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 January at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2018-W02"/> 16:19, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

January 2018 (2)
Please stop attacking other editors. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people.

Your edit to Talk:Ann Powers contained more personal attacks. I've already asked you several times to stop making personal attacks against me and to comment on content. If you continue making personal attacks like this I will take you to ANI. Ca2james (talk) 17:55, 9 January 2018 (UTC)


 * THIS is rich. You have proven by your behavior are a bad actor on Wikipedia. I am trying to defend content and you have done nothing but pick away and delete content. Please, yes, continue to abuse WIKI:Rulez and threaten me (how is that for bullying) with ANI. You have so few edits but yet you have captured so beautifully the worst of being an En Wikipedia editor. Really, it's quite stunning in execution. Well done! -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 17:58, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: December 2017
<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 21:38, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-3
<section begin="technews-2018-W03"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available. Recent changes
 * Bureaucrats on Wikimedia wikis where the Translate extension is installed can now add and remove the translation administrator permission by default. Administrators of wikis where this extension is enabled can add and remove this permission to or from themselves. Wikis that used a different configuration before have not changed.
 * Octicons-tools.svg There is a new Discourse test support channel for Wikimedia developers. You can ask questions or answer others questions about MediaWiki and Wikimedia software development.

Problems
 * Last week's MediaWiki update was rolled back. This was because of a bug that changed non-ASCII characters when a page was edited.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 January. It will be on all wikis from 18 January (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 16 January at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg A few hundred wikis with less than ten high-priority errors in Linter categories will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 31 January. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2018-W03"/> 18:45, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 January 2018
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:27, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Geoffrey Shindler Article Help
Hello, I have been working on the Geoffrey Shindler page (adding sources, editing for conciseness).

I need some help with sourcing. I recently hid the Personal Life section for Shindler because it lacked sources.

Currently, this line remains hidden: ''He is a grandfather of seven and brother of the novelist and scholar Colin Shindler ''

Would you mind helping me with sourcing?

Thanks! Neuralnewt (talk) 18:06, 16 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi -- I unhid the section you hid, removing grandfather mention as that's not a notable fact. It is 100% okay for both the information and the cn (citation needed) tag to be on the page like that.
 * I don't have time this afternoon to work on the article but from the AfD tag it's clear that the article needs help to establish his notability better. I'm happy to help out but it might take me a bit of time.
 * You seem like an enthusiastic new editor so I don't want to discourage you editing. If I edit the article heavily will that be helpful? Please let me know. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 19:52, 16 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I think the primary issue with the article has been WP:verifiability. I have been looking over the Biographies of living persons policy, and I am concerned about the integrity and standing of the article. In addition, one thing it says is "The burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores material". If you can justify uncited statements in the the article with sources, I think it would greatly help.


 * It doesn't feel right to me that I am retroactively adding sources that justify the contents of the article...


 * Thanks, Neuralnewt (talk) 20:29, 16 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Please don't get too caught up in all of the WIKI:Rulez. And worrying about the integrity and standing of a Wikipedia article. If something is especially incorrect because edits are crowdsourced and there is a high level of scrutiny over BLPs, if there's something wrong it will be either tagged or removed. It is VERY possible to verify the facts of Shindler's life and his very notable career. It just takes time and a bit of work. Quite frankly you can use the BLP policies as a guideline, but it's better to look at other articles and get experience and consensus that way. Editors can use WIKI:Rulez to argue a variety of widely differing perspective of criticisms of Wikipedia pages, so while I try to follow the basic rules I try not to get too caught up in the rules, as they are often not very helpful, practical, or common sensical. And I find editors who throw them around are deletionist, aren't really doing Wikipedia page editing much favors. My unasked for 2 cents, but I want to be helpful, and set you up to succeed, and not flail around and get frustrated here. So...
 * So yes, the onus is on the Wikipedia editor to support the content they add. Yes, it is harder than it looks. But it is definitely possible. And adding facts without supporting citations is not ideal. I try to never do that -- only add content that is sourced by a solid citation. However, if I am planning on cleaning up an existing article that needs a ton of help like this one does, I wouldn't strip it to zero. I would just start cleaning up existing citations and then add more citations and content from those citations to make the entry as representative of the subject as possible.
 * As I said I have limited time to focus on and add more to the entry than I already have right now, but if you go through the page history step by step you can see that I have added Authority control, External link, Works and publications, and tried to add to the lede -- which I will find good citations to support when I have time later. Another editor has kindly tried to edit the page as well.
 * There are a ton of articles that need this kind of cleanup and work done to them to improve them and reflect the subject and their career and notability. Don't get too spooked from editing and caught up in the rules. Just clean up what you can, add good citations and good content if you have time. I can circle back to this later tonight or maybe this weekend when I free up (unless I get super motivated before then). Let me know if you have any other questions. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 20:42, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry- I didn't realized how many uncited things there were before you started helping with the article. I was being a little frustrated. Thank you for your response!
 * Neuralnewt (talk) 20:58, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Neuralnewt (talk) 20:58, 16 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Don't worry. You are just starting out. The fact that you want to make the entry better and that you looked at the rules -- and even better -- that you reached out for help, is a great thing. I am happy to help more but as I said I can't right now because I have a meeting. I can ping you later if you want to work on this some more with my help. Happy to support your editing and answer any questions you might have. Best, - Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 21:01, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-04
<section begin="technews-2018-W04"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Filters on Special:RecentChangesLinked will get the new look similar to on the recent changes page. Special:RecentChangesLinked will also get some new features.

Problems
 * With the new OOUI look menus and popups can open upwards instead of downwards. This was meant to make long dropdown menus easier to use. Sometimes these menus have been overlapped by other things. This is now fixed.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * will be rebooted on 22 February. Some bots use this to get the recent changes feed. They need to be able to reconnect automatically or they will not work until they have been fixed. Most bots can reconnect automatically.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2018-W04"/> 23:56, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Jimbo and William Saito
Here's how I look at the situation. Wales and Saito are at a conference. Saito walks up and says: "Hey, I know you founded the Wikipedia site. My article has the following problems, ..., and they're really causing me trouble in my life. Can you help?" I personally can't see anything better than posting at a noticeboard and asking for uninvolved editors to help. What do you think should have been done instead? --GRuban (talk) 18:13, 25 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi I think there are a ton of other options, which I posted to the BLP Noticeboard as well as the AfD page. Jimbo is way too heavily weighted to be a neutral impact, regardless if he was just asking for help. See I respond to the scenario you describe above and I get a ton of flack for doing that kind of page rescue. I usually respond to people on Twitter, but even then it's often problematic, especially if I improve the entry significantly. I get accused of being a fan-girl or being to promotional, when it's all facts. Anyway, see my other responses. I can't help Saito's entry because of the Jimbo thing and the Jytdawg thing. And the C2aJames deal. I don't want hard-won content deleted and/or picked at unnecessarily when there is so much work to be done. Thanks for writing. I really appreciate it! Best to you, Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 08:57, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Citations for BLPs
I see that you restored seven as the number of times Ann Powers was anthologized in the Best Music Writing series because the subject gave you that number. I know you deleted that section, which I had previously suggested doing and totally support so this particular instance isn't so critical.

But this edit highlights a problem, which is that you are adding BLP content that is not supported by sources. Verifiability is so important on Wikipedia. And we can't just add whatever article subjects say unless there are sources that support the text. Adding citations that don't fully support the text is bad. It's great that you're helping subjects improve their articles but it's so so so so so important that you find sources that fully support the text. "Because the subject said so" is not a reliable source and isn't allowed. Even if the subject is right - ie even if Powers had been anthologized seven, not five, times - if the text cannot be supported by reliable sources then don't add it to the article. Please your approach to only including text that can be fully supported by reliable sources. Thank you. Ca2james (talk) 00:40, 29 January 2018 (UTC)


 * DON'T FREAKING LECTURE ME ON CITATIONS. Don't tell me how to edit. Especially not until you actually add content supported by citations and see how hard it is to do this.
 * Beyond the fact: Ann Powers told me this number. If the subject of the article can't clarify and correct information to be accurate, then I throw my hands in the air. Why are you posting this here. It should be on the insane Ann Powers talk page anyway. I'm so sick of this hounding. I have already discussed this with people at WMF and they have seen the insanity over on the Talk page. They recognize it's harassment what you are doing so good on you for giving such clear examples. Please leave me alone. I've requested this of you many times. Please listen. -- BrillLyle (talk) 00:49, 29 January 2018 (UTC)


 * You will be lectured on citations until you can finally heed our policies. Stop raging for two minutes and go read WP:Verifiability:
 * The subject of the article may well be a reputable source on herself in some limited matters—WP:SELFSOURCE explains the details—but your claim that she told you so is not ever acceptable. Do you not see the difference? Rebb  ing  01:07, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I brought this here because it's a problem bigger than just the one article. I appreciate that you want to help BLP subjects but this must be done within the context of Wikipedia's policies.
 * Who is your contact at the WMF? I think it would be better if that person heard all sides of the story, not just yours. Ca2james (talk) 02:01, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Who is your contact at the WMF? I think it would be better if that person heard all sides of the story, not just yours. Ca2james (talk) 02:01, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions
Jytdog (talk) 01:32, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

William Saito article
Thank you for your efforts to add sourced material to the William Saito article as part of its rescue. The information you added about his parents is attributed to his biography, accessible here at Google Books, but it seems that both of his parents are Japanese according to that source. His mother may have been born while her parents were in Korea, but that doesn't necessarily make her Korean, unless there are further sources to justify that, as it appears that they were a Japanese family from Okinawa according to the source, and nationality is something that is usually a matter of choice for those that are born to parents living overseas at the time of birth, plus according to Japanese nationality law citizenship is attributed by blood not by location of birth, and dual citizenship is not permitted. Also I can find no mention there of his father's name, and since he was born in Japan of Japanese parents it seems unlikely that he would be called Bill. Again, if you have a reference, please add it. As this page is the bio of William Saito and not his parents, who are probably not notable as they do not have their own Wikipedia articles, it seems that this information is unnecessary anyway, even if you can find sources. "Saito was born in Los Angeles, California[1] of Japanese parents." would seem to cover it and also improve the readability of the article. Rather than make the change directly I thought it polite to let you know and ask you to correct the article. Please do not take this as a personal attack - I am sure you did not set out with the intention to add poorly-sourced or misleading information to the article, and your only aim is to improve the content and readability of Wikipedia as a whole. --ER8-8mvm (talk) 12:30, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * thanks for taking the time to write. The citation for the book is viewable via WorldCat which has a better user interface than Google Books IMO. But yes that was where I got the information. I thought that the information was correct but if I misunderstood please correct it. The book is written very strangely and it was difficult to figure out what he was talking about. I saw Bill there or in FamilySearch results possibly but again if that isn’t clear then please change it. I try not to use USPR as the info is less a vital record and for living people it’s more current. The California Birth Index is a birth record and is therefore a vital record. And definitely matched info in the book and in VIAF. It seems like you are interested in editing the article. Please I encourage you to do so. I was only editing because it was clear there is a lot of information to support his notability but the editing was not doing that. Which is common for Some BLPs (biographies of Living People). So go for it! If you run into any questions or have technical questions on how to add content and citations, let me know. I am happy to assist if I can, especially as you seem to be a new enthusiastic editor. And you obviously want to improve the info and make sure it is correct. Apologies if I wasn’t as precise as ideal. I admit I make mistakes sometimes and am not perfect. No one is. Thanks again. — Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 14:45, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the encouragement, I will see what I can do to contribute. The part of the article in question has already been fixed by Jytdog, so I will look for something else that can be added or another article to work on. I didn't realize that the WorldCat page includes the Google Books preview until I took a look today - thanks for the tip. I got involved in this article because it was just such a mess and after spending time fixing broken links with wayback machine where I could and finding that nothing really supported the article as it was, and not finding alternative references to support the previous content I didn't know how to move forward. I didn't feel I could just start removing all the stuff that lacked sources, and I couldn't just leave it as it was. But the speed with which the editors that got involved managed to turn this around into a decent article with solid references is really impressive. Thanks again. --ER8-8mvm (talk) 11:14, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I am glad it was helpful and informative to see a page rescue. I think that queueing the article for deletion in the first place was not ideal but thankfully the article survived this process. If next time you find an article that needs help, reach out to me or maybe others on the Teahouse or in various WikiProjects for assistance. The page needed to be fixed obviously, which is your good instinct at work, but fixing it is not always easy to know how to do, as you describe, especially for a newer editor.
 * On that tip, it would be great if you turned your user name from red to blue by taking the time to write a sentence about yourself, even anything as simple as "Hello World!" on your user page. It will mean that your edits will be a bit less scrutinized, and that you have "joined" the community more official-like by taking the time to edit your user page. It's up to you but it's the first thing I encourage new editors to do after registering for a Wikipedia account.
 * I disagree with Jytdog on just about everything. If you look at an editor's contributions (click on their user name and then on the left hand menu click on "User contributions" -- select 500 past edits) and all it is is a sea of red deletions and notices to editor talk pages that's pretty indicative of their presence on Wiki. Jytdog deleted almost everything, which is not the way to rescue the page of someone obviously notable like this. By deleting the Early life information about Saito's family -- information which is quite typical in many BLPs actually -- instead of fixing it and making the information better sourced, this does not improve the page really. Saito had written a biographical book, had had his family featured in a very lengthy BBC article with photos and everything. The early life of many subjects of Wikipedia entries is instrumental in establishing the subject's life, career, and even notability. So maybe the information was not perfectly presented, and needed adjusting, clarifying, smoothing, re-working, better and more specific citations. All of which is a lot more difficult but also very worthwhile. Versus just going in an deleting the content. Of course my opinion, but I also was trying to minimally edit the article and did not do as thorough a job as I typically would have to address this issue. Because the issue here is that Jytdog is trying to get me banned from editing Wikipedia. He has a known pattern of being very difficult on Wiki. This is a fact. I have been subject to his "help" and it has been very destructive to me on a personal level. It has impacted my editing and has caused me a lot of stress and unhappiness. So I would never hold up his editing as an example or as something constructive. It's clear from what he did to the Saito page that he probably can't fix the page. Deleting is not usually the answer. But Jytdog would and does vehemently disagree with me obviously.
 * Please reach out. I will help if I can. I hope you will continue to edit. It can be fun and rewarding at times. -- Best, Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 13:24, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Please reach out. I will help if I can. I hope you will continue to edit. It can be fun and rewarding at times. -- Best, Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 13:24, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-05
<section begin="technews-2018-W05"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg The Wikimedia Foundation is working on how to get less unmaintained code on Wikimedia wikis. This could be by finding maintainers or removing unmaintained features. They are now looking for feedback on what do do with AbuseFilter, the IRC RecentChanges feed, the RelatedSites extension and TimedMediaHandler. You can leave feedback on the linked talk pages.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2018-W05"/> 17:07, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 26
<div style = "color: #936c29; font-size: 4em; font-family: Copperplate, 'Copperplate Gothic Light', serif"> The Wikipedia Library <span style="font-size: 2em; font-family: Copperplate, 'Copperplate Gothic Light', serif">Books & Bytes

Issue 26, December – January 2018 <div style = "margin-top: 1.5em; border: 3px solid #ae8c55; border-radius: .5em; padding: 1em 1.5em; font-size: .9em"> Arabic and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
 * # 1Lib1Ref
 * User Group update
 * Global branches update
 * Spotlight: What can we glean from OCLC’s experience with library staff learning Wikipedia?
 * Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 5 February 2018
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:12, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Carole Byard - thank you!
Thanks for jumping in and adding from your draft to the Carole Byard article! I'm so glad you were able to access that oral history, that's incredibly valuable. I'm kicking myself for not getting a photo of her work when it was on exhibition last year at the Brooklyn Museum... I have a couple of questions about citations in the early life section, but I'll take that to the article talk page. Thanks again for your contributions! Catemcc (talk) 14:08, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-06
<section begin="technews-2018-W06"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Bureaucrats can now add and remove the accountcreator permission by default. This means the user can help create a large number of accounts, for example for an editathon. Wikis can change this if they want to.
 * The Wikidata vandalism dashboard is a new tool to monitor vandalism on Wikidata labels and descriptions. It is filtered by language.
 * Info pages for file pages now show the file's SHA1 hash value in the table of basic information. This is so users can see that the file is the same as the one they uploaded.

Problems
 * Special:Export has a higher error rate right now. This means that the export does not always work. You should check to make sure your page exports worked. The developers are working on fixing this.

Changes later this week
 * When you review an edit made with the visual editor you can check a visual diff of your changes besides the wikitext diff. If you pick one diff type it will remember and show you that in future. The visual diff will now be the type first shown to new users.
 * When you use a gallery to show images you can define the size, like . You could use   or   instead of   but it would make no difference. You can now only use   or nothing . If you write something else, instead of treating it like , it will not work.
 * The wording when you send a thanks message will change. Instead of  or   it will say   and  . It will also be easier to understand that all thanks are public.
 * Redirects connected to Wikidata can create double Wikidata items. There will now be a tracking category for this. Wikis that don't want it can disable it.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 February. It will be on all wikis from 8 February (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 February at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The Education Program extension will be removed on 30 June. It is replaced by the Programs and Events Dashboard.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2018-W06"/> 20:51, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: January 2018
<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 13:56, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-07
<section begin="technews-2018-W07"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * TemplateStyles has been deployed to the Swedish Wikipedia. TemplateStyles is a feature to make it easy to add CSS to templates without administrator privileges. This allows for better adaptability to screen sizes, especially on mobile where are half our total page views. If your community would like to be the next to have the feature, please submit a task on Phabricator.
 * Registration pages now collect keyboard/mouse usage information for research on identifying spambots.

Changes later this week
 * You can opt in to a new beta feature that lets you use visual diffs on history pages.
 * The visual editor shows and lets you edit templates in one way, and reference lists in another. This meant that templates that only contain a fake reference list, like, would not get updated as you edited. Now they will update as you edit, but you will no longer be able to visually edit them as templates.
 * The abuse filter extension has a new feature  that you may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 February. It will be on all wikis from 15 February (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 February at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The settings page and beta options for the mobile website are being improved.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2018-W07"/> 21:59, 12 February 2018 (UTC)