User talk:Epipelagic/Archive 12

Sprats
Silly me. I thought that sprat would follow the same rules as fish - plurals for more than one SPECIES. I forgot that "biologists", as you claim to be, have a different rule for every situation. Sorry I'm not perfect like you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.189.141.88 (talk) 15:25, 5 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, That's reasonable, and I said as much on your talk page when I said you were not wrong. I didn't even revert your changes, which would also have been reasonable. What I pointed out was that sprat is also a collective term for all the species that can be referred to as sprats, and was even defined that way in the very first sentence of the article you were "correcting". So your corrections were unnecessary, and you were at best merely imposing your personal preference. You seem to have wised up and you can now make the distinction between fish and fishes. But you were not making these kind of distinctions earlier, as shown by the feedback you deleted from your talk page. Drop the sarcasm and passive aggression – it doesn't play well online. – Epipelagic (talk) 20:35, 5 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I believe what he stated was correct, minus the sarcasm and passive aggression, was genuine and honest opinion. You're speaking from a command tone which includes shoulds, guilt-tripping, and emasculating; this was not necessary even as an admin. 108.65.249.149 (talk) 04:35, 15 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Okay, good on you. I'm not an admin and don't want to be an admin. Epipelagic (talk) 05:16, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

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Marine life
On my talk page, you said: "What gives with your campaign against what you say is "drama", "puffery", "point of view", "peacock"...? The issue is the inclusion in a caption of the sentence, "However, the oceans are alive with less visible, but equally important forms of marine life, such as bacteria". That is a corrective statement anyone familiar with common misconceptions about marine life would want to see. Are you really so sure which side the "drama", "puffery" etc you claim to see is coming from? What am I missing?"
 * What campaign? My edits and their summaries indicate an effort to restore WP:NPOV, without the puffery and drama (WP:PEA) that had been written into the article, such as this edit which you reverted. You are passionate about marine life and the oceans -- as am I -- but there seems to be some WP:NOTADVOCACY in your comments. Let's remain objective. --Zefr (talk) 00:10, 8 March 2019 (UTC)


 * It is not collegial relocating comments like this, so you can hide them on your own talk page. You should by now have reached some understanding about what it is to be objective. It is an objective fact, massively documented in the scientific literature, that less visible forms of life, such as microorganisms or deep sea creatures, can be found throughout the ocean. It is also well established that these less visible life forms determine much of how marine ecosystems operate. There is nothing in the sentence at issue that is lacking in objectivity. To quaintly characterise this as drama, puffery and peacock is beyond absurd. Now you accuse me of nefarious advocacy. Are you behaving like this elsewhere on Wikipedia? – Epipelagic (talk) 02:45, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

IP at Marine life
Hello Epipelagic. Regarding your comment, do you have someone specific in mind? I ask because there is an SPI open about the IP you reverted. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 14:56, 5 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Thenabster126. The connection is clear in the specifics of what they were trying to do in the editing history here. The IP I referred to was also playing up here on Commons with the disputed image. See – Epipelagic (talk) 18:31, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

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May 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

 * May 2019&mdash;Issue 002


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

On 23 May, user created a talk page post, "Revamp of Wikiproject Biology--Who is In?". In the days since, WP:BIOL has been bustling with activity, with over a dozen editors weighing in on this discussion, as well as several others that have subsequently spawned. An undercurrent of thought is that WP:BIOL has too many subprojects, preventing editors from easily interacting and stopping a "critical mass" of collaboration and engagement. Many mergers and consolidations of subprojects have been tentatively listed, with a consolidation of WikiProjects Genetics + Molecular and Cell Biology + Computational Biology + Biophysics currently in discussion. Other ideas being aired include updating old participants lists, redesigning project pages to make them more user-friendly, and clearly identifying long- and short-term goals.
 * Fundamental changes being discussed at WikiProject Biology

Editors and  had a very fruitful month, collaborating to bring two dinosaur articles to GA and then nominating them both for FA. They graciously decided to answer some questions for the first ToL Editor Spotlight, giving insight to their successful collaborations, explaining why you should collaborate with them, and also sharing some tidbits about their lives off-Wikipedia.
 * Editor Spotlight: These editors want you to write about dinosaurs

1) Enwebb: How long have you two been collaborating on articles? 2) Enwebb: Why dinosaurs? 3) Enwebb: Why should other editors join you in writing articles related to paleontology? Are you looking to attract new editors, or draw in experienced editors from other areas of Wikipedia?
 * Jens Lallensack: I started in the German Wikipedia in 2005 but switched to the English Wikipedia because of its very active dinosaur project. My first major collaboration with FunkMonk was on Heterodontosaurus in 2015.
 * FunkMonk: Yeah, we had interacted already on talk pages and through reviewing each other's articles, and at some point I was thinking of expanding Heterodontosaurus, and realised Jens had already written the German Wikipedia version, so it seemed natural to work together on the English one. Our latest collaboration was Spinophorosaurus, where by another coincidence, I had wanted to work on that article for the WP:Four Award, and it turned out that Jens had a German book about the expedition that found the dinosaur, which I wouldn't have been able to utilise with my meagre German skills. Between those, we also worked on Brachiosaurus, a wider Dinosaur Project collaboration between several editors.
 * JL: Because of the huge public interest in them. But dinosaurs are also highly interesting from a scientific point of view: key evolutionary innovations emerged within this group, such as warm-bloodedness, gigantism, and flight. Dinosaur research is, together with the study of fossil human remains, the most active field in paleontology. New scientific techniques and approaches tend to get developed within this field. Dinosaur research became increasingly interdisciplinary, and now does not only rely on various fields of biology and geology, but also on chemistry and physics, among others. Dinosaurs are therefore ideal to convey scientific methodology to the general public.
 * FM: As outlined above, dinosaurs have been described as a "gateway to science"; if you learn about dinosaurs, you will most likely also learn about a lot of scientific fields you would not necessarily be exposed to otherwise. On a more personal level, having grown up with and being influenced by various dinosaur media, it feels pretty cool to help spread knowledge about these animals, closest we can get to keeping them alive.
 * JL: Because we are a small but active and helpful community. Our Dinosaur collaboration, one of the very few active open collaborations in Wikipedia, makes high-level writing on important articles easier and more fun. Our collaboration is especially open to editors without prior experience in high-level writing. But we do not only write articles: several WikiProject Dinosaur participants are artists who do a great job illustrating the articles, and maintain an extensive and very active image review system. In fact, a number of later authors started with contributing images.
 * FM: Anyone who is interested in palaeontology is welcome to try writing articles, and we would be more than willing to help. I find that the more people that work on articles simultaneously with me, the more motivation I get to write myself. I am also one of those editors who started out contributing dinosaur illustrations and making minor edits, and only began writing after some years. But when I got to it, it wasn't as intimidating as I had feared, and I've learned a lot in the process. For example anatomy; if you know dinosaur anatomy, you have a very good framework for understanding the anatomy of other tetrapod animals, including humans.

4) Enwebb: Between the two of you, you have over 300 GA reviews. FunkMonk, you have over 250 of those. What keeps you coming back to review more articles?
 * FM: One of the main reasons I review GANs is to learn more about subjects that seem interesting (or which I would perhaps not come across otherwise). There are of course also more practical reasons, such as helping an article on its way towards FAC, to reduce the GAN backlog, and to "pay back" when I have a nomination up myself. It feels like a win-win situation where I can be entertained by interesting info, while also helping other editors get their nominations in shape, and we'll end up with an article that hopefully serves to educate a lot of people (the greater good).
 * JL: Because I enjoy reading Wikipedia articles and like to learn new things. In addition, reviews give me the opportunity to have direct contact with the authors, and help them to make their articles even better. This is quite rewarding for me personally. But I also review because I consider our GA and FA system to be of fundamental importance for Wikipedia. When I started editing Wikipedia (the German version), the article promotion reviews motivated me and improved my writing skills a lot. Submitting an article for review requires one to get serious and take additional steps to bring the article to the best quality possible. GAs and FAs are also a good starting point for readers, and may motivate them to become authors themselves.

5) Enwebb: What are your editing preferences? Any scripts or gadgets you find invaluable? 6) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-wiki?
 * FM: One script that everyone should know about is the duplink highlight tool. It will show duplinks within the intro and body of a given article separately, and it seems a lot of people still don't know about it, though they are happy when introduced to it. I really liked the citationbot too (since citation consistency is a boring chore to me), but it seems to be blocked at the moment due to some technical issues.
 * JL: I often review using the Wikipedia Beta app on my smartphone, as it allows me to read without needing to sit in front of the PC. For writing, I find the reference management software Zotero invaluable, as it generates citation templates automatically, saving a lot of time.
 * Editor's note: I downloaded Zotero and tried it for the first time and think it is a very useful tool. More here.
 * FM: Perhaps that I have no background in natural history/science, but work with animation and games. But fascination with and knowledge of nature and animals is actually very helpful when designing and animating characters and creatures, so it isn't that far off, and I can actually use some of the things I learn while writing here for my work (when I wrote the Dromaeosauroides article, it was partially to learn more about the animal for a design-school project).
 * JL: That I am actually doing research on dinosaurs. Though I avoid writing about topics I publish research on, my Wikipedia work helps me to keep a good general overview over the field, and quite regularly I can use what I learned while writing for Wikipedia for my research.

Get in touch with these editors regarding collaboration at WikiProject Dinosaurs!
 * Marine life continues to dominate ToL DYKs

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Thank you
My fault entirely, it was a very sloppy edit. Thanks for the heads up! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.90.92.207 (talk) 19:35, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

June 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

 * June 2019&mdash;Issue 003


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!


 * Spineless editors overwhelmed by stubs

Within the Tree of Life and its many subprojects, there is an abundance of stubs. Welcome to Wikipedia, what's new, right? However, based on all wikiprojects listed (just over two thousand), the Tree of Life project is worse off in average article quality than most. Based on the concept of relative WikiWork (the average number of "steps" needed to have a project consisting of all featured articles (FAs), where stub status → FA consists of six steps), only seven projects within the ToL have an average rating of "start class" or better. Many projects, particularly those involving invertebrates, hover at an average article quality slightly better than a stub. With relative WikiWorks of 5.98 each, WikiProject Lepidoptera and WikiProject Beetles have the highest relative WikiWork of any project. Given that invertebrates are incredibly speciose, it may not surprise you that many articles about them are lower quality. WikiProject Beetles, for example, has over 20 times more articles than WikiProject Cats. Wikipedia will always be incomplete, so we should take our relatively low WikiWork as motivation to write more articles that are also better in quality.

We're joined for this month's Editor Spotlight by, a long-time contributor who lists themselves as a member of WikiProject Fungus, WikiProject Algae, and WikiProject Cephalopods.
 * Editor Spotlight: Showing love to misfit taxa

1) Enwebb: How did you come to edit articles about organisms and taxonomic groups?
 * Nessie: The main force, then and now, driving me to create or edit articles is thinking "Why isn't there an article on that on Wikipedia?" Either I'll read about some rarely-sighted creature in the deep sea or find something new on iNaturalist and want to learn more.  First stop (surprise!) is Wikipedia, and many times there is just a stub or no page at all.  Sometimes I just add the source that got me to the article, not sometimes I go deep and try to get everything from the library or online journals and put it all in an article.  The nice thing about taxa is the strong precedent that all accepted extant taxa are notable, so one does not need to really worry about doing a ton of research and having the page get removed.  I was super worried about this as a new editor:  I still really dislike conflict so if I can avoid it I do.  Anyway, the most important part is stitching an article in to the rest of Wikipedia:  Linking all the jargon, taxonomers, pollinators, etc., adding categories, and putting in the correct WikiProjects.  Recently I have been doing more of the stitching-in stuff with extant articles.  The last deep-dive article I made was Karuka at the end of last year, which is a bit of a break for me.  I guess it's easier to do all the other stuff on my tablet while watching TV.

2) Enwebb: Many editors in the ToL are highly specialized on a group of taxa. A look at your recently created articles includes much diversity, though, with viruses, bacteria, algae, and cnidarians all represented&mdash;are there any commonalities for the articles you work on? Would you say you're particularly interested in certain groups?
 * Nessie: I was a nerd from a time when that would get you beat up, so I like odd things and underdogs. I also avoid butting heads, so not only do I find siphonophores and seaweeds fascinating I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes.  I go down rabbitholes where I start writing an article like Mastocarpus papillatus because I found some growing on some rocks, then in my research I see it is parasitized by Pythium porphyrae, which has no article, and how can that be for an oomycete that oddly lives in the ocean and also attacks my tasty nori.  So then I wrote that article and that got me blowing off the dust on other Oomycota articles, encouraged by the pull of propagating automatic taxoboxes.  Once you've done the taxonomy template for the genus, well then you might as well do all the species now that the template is taken care of for them too. and so on until I get sucked in somewhere else. I think it's good to advocate for some of these 'oddball' taxa as it makes it easier for editors to expand their range from say plants to the pathogenic microorganisms of their favorite plant.


 * My favorite clades though, It's hard to pick for a dilettante like me. I like working on virus taxonomy, but I can't think of a specific virus species that I am awed by.  Maybe Tulip breaking virus  for teaching us economics or Variola virus for having so many, one of which was popularly sung about by Desi Arnaz and then inspired the name of a cartoon character who was then misremembered and then turned into a nickname for Howard Stern's producer Gary Dell'Abate.  Sorry, really had to share that  chain, but for a species that's not a staple food it probably has the most deities.  But anyway, for having the most species that wow me, I love a good fungus or algae, but that often is led by my stomach.  Also why I seem to research so many plant articles.  You can't eat siphonophores, at least I don't, but they are fascinating with their federalist colonies of zooids.  Bats are all amazing, but the task force seems to have done so much I feel the oomycetes and slime moulds need more love.  Same thing with dinosaurs (I'm team Therizinosaurus though).  But honestly, every species has that one moment in the research where you just go, wow, that's so interesting.  For instance, I loved discovering that the picture-winged fly (Delphinia picta) has a mating dance that involves blowing bubbles.  Now I keep expecting them to show me when they land on my arm, but no such luck yet.

3) Enwebb: I noticed that many of your recent edits utilize the script Rater, which aids in quickly reassessing the quality and importance of an article. Why is it important to update talk page assessments of articles? I also noticed that the quality rating you assign often aligns with ORES, a script that uses machine-learning to predict article quality. Coincidence?
 * Nessie: I initially started focusing on WikiProject talk page templates because they seem to be the key to data collecting and maintenance for articles, much more so than categories. This is where you note of an article needs an image, or audio, or a range map.  It's how the cleanup listing bot sorts articles, and how  does his automated taxobox usage stats.  The latter inspired me to look for [https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?language=en&project=wikipedia&ns%5B0%5D=1&ns%5B118%5D=1&templates_any=Virusbox%0D%0ATaxonbar%0D%0ATaxobox%0D%0ASubspeciesbox%0D%0ASpeciesbox%0D%0AParaphyletic%20group%0D%0AOobox%0D%0AMissing-taxobox%0D%0AInfraspeciesbox%0D%0AIchnobox%0D%0AHybridbox%2Flua%0D%0AHybridbox%0D%0ABiota%20infobox%0D%0AAutomatic%20taxobox&templates_no=rodents%0D%0Afishproject%0D%0AWikiProject%20Viruses%0D%0AWikiProject%20Turtles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Spiders%0D%0AWikiProject%20Sharks%0D%0AWikiProject%20Rodents%0D%0AWikiProject%20Reptiles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Primates%0D%0AWikiProject%20Poultry%0D%0AWikiProject%20Plants%0D%0AWikiProject%20Paleontology%0D%0AWikiProject%20Palaeontology%0D%0AWikiProject%20Microbiology%0D%0AWikiProject%20Micro%0D%0AWikiProject%20Marine%20life%0D%0AWikiProject%20Marine%20Life%0D%0AWikiProject%20Mantodea%0D%0AWikiProject%20Mammals%2FBats%20Task%20Force%0D%0AWikiProject%20Mammals%0D%0AWikiProject%20Lepidoptera%0D%0AWikiProject%20Insects%0D%0AWikiProject%20Hypericaceae%0D%0AWikiProject%20Gastropods%0D%0AWikiProject%20Fungi%0D%0AWikiProject%20Fishes%0D%0AWikiProject%20Equine%0D%0AWikiProject%20Dogs%0D%0AWikiProject%20Dinosaurs%0D%0AWikiProject%20Cetaceans%0D%0AWikiProject%20Cephalopods%0D%0AWikiProject%20Cats%0D%0AWikiProject%20Carnivorous%20plants%0D%0AWikiProject%20Bivalves%0D%0AWikiProject%20Birds%0D%0AWikiProject%20Beetles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Banksia%0D%0AWikiProject%20Arthropods%0D%0AWikiProject%20Animals%0D%0AWikiProject%20Amphibians%20and%20Reptiles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Algae%0D%0AWPSpiders%0D%0AWP%20Spiders%0D%0ASquirrels%0D%0ARodent%0D%0AMammal%0D%0ALepidopteraTalk%0D%0ABirdTalk%0D%0AAARTalk&templates_use_talk_no=on&search_max_results=500&sortby=title&sortorder=descending&add_image=on&interface_language=en&active_tab=tab_templates_n_links&doit= articles on organisms that are not assigned to any ToL WikiProjects] which initially was in the thousands.  I got it down to zero with just copypasta so you can imagine I was excited when I saw the rater tool.  Back then I rated everything stub/low because it was faster:  I couldn't check every article for the items on the B-class checklists.  Plus each project has their own nuances to rating scales and I thought the editors in the individual projects would take it from there.  I also thought all species were important, so how can I choose a favorite?  Now it is much easier with the rater tool and the apparent consensus with 's method of rating by the pageviews (0-9 views/day is low, 10-99 is med, 100-999 is high...).  For the quality I generally go by the ORES rating, you caught me.  It sometimes is thrown off by a long list of species or something, but it's generally good for stub to C: above that needs formal investigation and procedures I am still learning about.  It seems that in the ToL projects we don't focus so much on getting articles to GA/FA so it's been harder to pick up.  It was a little culture shock when I went on the Discord server and it seemed everyone was obsessed with getting articles up in quality.  I think ToL is focusing on all the missing taxa and (re)organizing it all, which when you already have articles on every anime series or whatever you can focus on bulking the articles up more.  In any event, on my growing to-do list is trying to get an article up to FA or GA and learn the process that way so I can better do the quality ratings and not just kick the can down the road.

4) Enwebb: What, if anything, can ToL and its subprojects do to better support collaboration and coordination among editors? How can we improve?
 * Nessie: I mentioned earlier that the projects are the main way maintenance is done. And it is good that we have a bunch of subprojects that let those tasks get broken up into manageable pieces.  Frankly I'm amazed anything gets done with WikiProject Plants with how huge its scope is.  Yet this not only parcels out the work but the discussion as well.  A few editors like  and  keep an eye on many of the subprojects and spread the word, but it's still easy for newer editors to get a little lost.  There should be balance between the lumping and splitting.  The newsletter helps by crossing over all the WikiProjects, and if the discord channel picked up that would help too.  Possibly the big Enwiki talk page changes will help as well.

5) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-Wikipedia?
 * Nessie: I'm not sure anything would be surprising. I focus on nature offline too, foraging for mushrooms or wild plants and trying to avoid ticks and mosquitos.  I have started going magnet fishing lately, more to help clean up the environment than in the hopes of finding anything valuable.  But it would be fun to find a weapon and help solve a cold case or something.


 * June DYKs

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sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Traditional fishing tackle of Central India


The article Traditional fishing tackle of Central India has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "Does not appear to meet WP:LISTN."

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

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

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:58, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cod&oldid=prev&diff=907734344
Could you please explain why custom formatting is needed here? In my eyes, it looks much better without centering. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 12:04, 25 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Whether captions are centered or left justified is just a preference. There is no policy on the matter. As you point out, for images that are formatted using File:xxx notation the caption is left justified by default. But for images that are formatted into galleries using the captions are center justified by default. There is no reason for this particular choice, and it could have been the other way round or chosen by coin toss. It just that something has to be chosen as the default.
 * Generally captions are better left justified if they are long and center justified if they are short. In particular, if the image is a wide one and the caption is very short, the caption is, in my view, much better centered. That is the case with the cod picture. But as I said, it is a preference, and you are perfectly entitled to have a different view.
 * When preferences are the issue, I think it is appropriate to apply your own preferences when you add content yourself to Wikipedia, and a matter of courtesy to let alone and not try and override preferences when someone else added the content. – Epipelagic (talk) 20:26, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Tree of Life Newsletter



 * July 2019&mdash;Issue 004


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:59, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

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Backlog Banzai
In the month of September, Wikiproject Military history is running a project-wide edit-a-thon, Backlog Banzai. There are heaps of different areas you can work on, for which you claim points, and at the end of the month all sorts of whiz-bang awards will be handed out. Every player wins a prize! There is even a bit of friendly competition built in for those that like that sort of thing. Sign up now at WikiProject Military history/September 2019 Backlog Banzai to take part. For the coordinators, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:18, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Wikiproject Military history coordinator election nominations open
Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the coord team. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:38, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

August 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter



 * August 2019&mdash;Issue 005


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!



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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 15:43, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Milhist coordinator election voting has commenced
G'day everyone, voting for the 2019 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:37, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

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Wikiproject Military history coordinator election half-way mark
G'day everyone, the voting for the XIX Coordinator Tranche is at the halfway mark. The candidates have answered various questions, and you can check them out to see why they are running and decide whether you support them. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:36, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

September 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter



 * September 2019&mdash;Issue 006


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!



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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 22:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

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Royal New Zealand volunteer Reserve
With respect I can assure you that the admissions listed of notable people who have served in the Royal New Zealand Naval Reserve are very much correct and if you would like me to give the reasons I am happy for you to amend these in acknowledgement of their service. For instance

Cyril Pepper, All Black, served in the RNVR Auckland Division before the War and transferred to the Army on the out break of the War. He is also listed on the Memorial inside the meeting hall of the headquarters of HMNZS Ngapona if you wish to take a look. Tom Schnackenberg, OBE OAM Renown sail designer, and member of Team NZ in the America's Cup, served at HMNZS Ngapona from 1965-68 where he was commissioned to the rank of Sub-Lieutenant' Nelson Blake, mentioned in Denis Glover's book 'Hot Water Sailor,' was also the holder of the Fairburn Cup at Canterbury University for boxing, which included many war heroes, J T Burrows DSO for one. Lt Blake was on the very next convoy after the tragic events of PQ17. A Borough Councillor, retired school teacher and historian, Nelson Blake Blake wrote many historical articles including 'The Story of Howick 1847-1864, A Howick Historical Society Publication' and the book 'Understanding The Treaty.'Brother of Battle of Britain pilot Minden Blake DSO DFC who as you would know was in Charge of Hut H where the 'Great Escape' at Stalag Luft III occurred. Arch Jelley, coach of gold medalist John Walker and retired school-teacher. Please see 'My story: Arch Jelley - Russian Convoy Club' Arch last year joined in a polite invitation to the Ngapona Association. Robert Mills DSD VRD Former police detective and Naval Reservist. Lt-Cmdr Joe Mills RNZNVR recently passed away, served in the Sudan on a peace-keeping mission which earned him his DSD. John McEwan VRD leading Psychologist and former school teacher. Author of 'Auckland Rockies A history of Auckland's Naval Reserves 1859-1995. John Barnes BEM 'Barney' as he was affectionately know was the Chief Regulator At HMNZS Ngapona for nigh on thirty years. Served in RN during the War including on HMS Hood when escorting the Second Echelon of 2ndNZEF which were sent to England. Fortunately transferred before its sinking. Need I go on? Any more details I'm happy to oblige.


 * Ooops... wires were crossed here and I apologize for leaving such a stiff message on your talk page. I knew there was some validity to the entries, for example, I knew Arch Jelley personally. Still, none of them seemed to have legitimate Wikipedia entries of their own, which is the criteria needed to establish "notability" for the list. You linked some of the people you added to Wikipedia articles, but they were linked to different people who just happened to have the same name.


 * Anyway, over the years thousand of people belonged to the reserve. Only a small handful are appropriate for listing in the Wikipedia article, and the criteria adopted is that they should have their own Wikipedia article. If you personally knew the people you mentioned then they may tend to figure as somewhat prominent in your mind. But what Wikipedia uses to decide notability is what has been set down in reliable sources that are accessible today, and preferably accessible online. I've looked, more carefully this time, at the people you suggest. Unfortunately none of them apart from Schnackenberg, in my assessment, really warrants an article on Wikipedia. Perhaps Arch Jelly comes the closest. If you think Arch Jelly should definitely be on the list, then first write a Wikipedia article about him and see if you can make it stick. If it does stick, then you can add him to the list.


 * There also needs to be verification of membership in the Volunteer Reserve. The New Zealand Navy doesn't seem to bother about providing a straightforward online verification. Here is verification that Nelson Blake was indeed a member in 1942, but it doesn't come from the New Zealand Navy, it come from the National Library of Scotland.


 * Somehow I overlooked Tom Schnackenberg. He has his own article and qualifies for inclusion. Unlike Nelson Blake, I cannot find online verification he was in the reserve. I've added him provisionally to the list, on your say so. But can you please try and locate verification you can cite after his name. Regards – Epipelagic (talk) 01:49, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

October 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter



 * October 2019&mdash;Issue 007


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

{| role="presentation" class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%; background:#b6ecd0;" By request from another editor, this month I wrote an overview of ways that content is featured on Wikipedia. Below I have outlined some of the processes for getting content featured:
 * Alphabet Soup: Explaining DYK, GA, FA, and More

Did You Know (DYK)
What is it: A way for articles to appear on the main page of Wikipedia. A short hook in the format of "Did you know...that ___" presents unusual and interesting facts to the reader, hopefully making the reader want to click through to the article

How it works: The DYK process has fairly low barriers for participation. The eligibility criteria are few and relatively easy to meet. Some important guidelines: The process for creating the nomination is somewhat tedious. Instructions can be found here (official instructions) and here ("quick and nice" guide to DYK). Experience is the best teacher here, so don't be afraid to try and fail a few times. The last few DYK nominations I've done, however, have been with the help of SD0001's DYK-helper script, which makes the process a bit more streamlined (you create the template from a popup box on the article; created template is automatically transcluded to nominations page and article talk page)
 * To be eligible, article is either new (newly created or moved to mainspace), a 5x expansion, or passed a GA review. Its creation, expansion, or promotion to GA must have been in the past 7 days.
 * Article must be long enough, with more than 1,500 characters of prose (this doesn't include embedded lists)
 * I find Shubinator's DYKcheck script useful in determining whether an article is eligible for nomination.

Once your nomination is created and transcluded, it will need to be reviewed. The reviewer will check that the article meets the eligibility criteria, that the hook is short enough, cited, and interesting, and that other requirements are met, such as for images. If you've been credited with more than 5 DYKs, the reviewer will also check that you've reviewed someone else's nomination for each article that you nominate. This is called QPQ (quid pro quo). You can check how many credited DYKs you've had here to see if QPQ is required for you to nominate an article for DYK.

Good Article (GA)
What it is: A peer review process to determine that an article meets a set of criteria. This adds a symbol to the top of the article. About 1 in 200 articles on Wikipedia is a GA.

How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Anyone can nominate an article&mdash;you don't have to be a major contributor, though it is considered polite to inform the major contributors that you are nominating the article. The article is added to a queue to await a review. In the ToL, it seems that reviews happen pretty quickly, thanks to our dedicated members. Once the review begins, the reviewer will offer suggestions to help the article meet the 6 GA criteria. Upon addressing all concerns, the reviewer will pass the article, and voilà! Good Article!

Advice to a first-time nominator: Look at other Good Articles in related areas before nominating. If you're unsure about nominating, consider posting to the talk page of your project to see what other editors think. You can also have a more experienced editor co-nominate the article with you.

Featured Article (FA)
What it is: An exhaustive peer review to determine that an articles meets the criteria. This adds a to the top of the article. About 1 in 1,000 articles on Wikipedia is a FA.

How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Nominated articles are usually GAs already. Uninvolved editors can nominate, though the article's regular editors should be consulted first. Several editors will come by offering feedback, eventually supporting or opposing promotion to FA. A coordinator will determine if there is consensus to promote the article to FA. For an editor's first FA, spot checks to verify that the sources support the text are conducted.

Advice to a first-time nominator: The Featured Article Candidate (FAC) process is a bit intimidating, but several steps can make your first one easier (speaking as someone who has exactly one). If you also did the GA nomination of the article, you can ask the reviewer for "extra" feedback beyond the GA criteria. You can also formally request a peer review and/or a copy edit from the Guild of Copy Editors to check for content and mechanics. First-time nominators are encouraged to seek the help of a mentor for a higher likelihood of passing their first FAC.

Good and Featured Topics (GT and FT)
What it is: It took me a while to realize we even had GT and FT on Wikipedia, as they are not very common relative to GA and FA. Both GT and FT are collections of related articles of high quality (all articles at GA or FA, all lists at Featured List). GT/FT have to be at least 3 articles with no obvious gaps in coverage of the topic, along with other criteria. For GT, all articles have to be GA quality and all lists must be FL. For FT, at least half the articles must be FA or FL, with the remaining articles at GA.

How it works: Follow the nomination procedures for creating a new topic or adding an article to an existing topic. Other editors weigh in to support or oppose the proposal. Coordinators determine if there is consensus to promote to GT/FT.

Advice to a first-time nominator: There are very few GT/FT in Tree of Life (5 GT and 11 FT). Most of the legwork appears to be improving a cohesive set of articles to GA/FA.
 * }

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Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 03:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)

A survey to improve the community consultation outreach process
Hello!

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking to improve the community consultation outreach process for Foundation policies, and we are interested in why you didn't participate in a recent consultation that followed a community discussion you’ve been part of.

Please fill out this short survey to help us improve our community consultation process for the future. It should only take about three minutes.

The privacy policy for this survey is here. This survey is a one-off request from us related to this unique topic.

Thank you for your participation, Kbrown (WMF) 10:44, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

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