User talk:Graham Beards/Archives/2021

Picture of the day
I have just listed as Picture of the day for 18th January. I don't want to mislead our readers, so please could you check the blurb, which is based on various related articles, for errors and amend or extend as you think fit. Incidentally, the file description mentions avian flu, but the diagram just mentions flu in general. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:40, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi Cwmhiraeth, the diagram is accurate (and excellent) but the blurb needs a little tweaking.Graham Beards (talk) 13:46, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Dimple Kapadia
Hi there, Graham Beards, good to see you. Dimple Kapadia is back at FAC. You probably remember how it was closed the first time and why, but I think it's anyway improved considerably. If you have any comments, plase do offer them on the FAC page. Regards, Shahid  •  Talk 2 me  09:41, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Paint It Black PR for future FAC
Hello Graham Beards! I was wondering if you would be able to take a look at "Paint It Black" and comment at its peer review? I would appreciate your input and am reaching out per your comments at Featured article candidates/Aftermath (Rolling Stones album)/archive1. I am curious your views on areas for the article's improvement and if you think that it is ready for FAC as I am fairly new to FAC and this is my first one where I am "leading" the charge. Thank you for your time and I understand if you are unable (or do not wish) to. -- The SandDoctor Talk 05:10, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS
Hi Graham, Hope you are keeping well and safe. I know you are busy. If you have time, could you look at the "Editorials and comments" section on the MEDRS talk page. Some proposals have been made concerning the different kinds of articles in a journal and have IMO become a bit unstuck over "peer review", as well as containing language/style unsuitable for a content guideline. It could do with some more input from someone familiar with the academic process. And are there any other editors with experience here who could improve the guideline in that area. -- Colin°Talk 10:48, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hello Colin, I'll have a look. Graham Beards (talk) 14:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Virus evolution
When the new variant appeared, the BBC twice had a virologist make the claim that over time, new viruses will tend to become less virulent and more infectious.

I recalled a book I had read last June, "Spillover", which I'd got on a 99p deal on Amazon. It concerns animal infections that spillover into human populations. It had a good short chapter on virulence, and commented on the above dogma. Essentially, it was bollocks. It discussed myxomatosis, which is often studied and cited on virulence evolution, and initially supports the idea that the disease went from being nearly 100% fatal to less virulent. The author discusses the 20 year research that showed that the most lethal and the least lethal (still about 50% deadly) strains both died out. There wasn't a tendency towards less and less virulence, let alone symbiosis. The most infectious form had horrible sores which the mosquitoes drank from, and took a while to kill but still killed 2/3 of cases. Getting a really nasty disease was the most successful variant. The book also mentions other diseases like rabies and HIV, which are still 100% deadly without treatment. And diseases with mainly an animal reservoir, like Ebola, have little evolutionary incentive to become less harmful to humans.

Recently we hear that the new variant might be 30% more deadly: 13 or 14 deaths rather than 10 deaths per 1000. This is no where the 99% or 67% fatality of myxomatosis. But then, humans don't breed like rabbits, so we wouldn't out-evolve such a threat. I'm thinking perhaps for where we are at with coronavirus, there doesn't seem to be any evolutionary selection that would encourage or limit the production of more virulent variants. Same perhaps for flu, which has a big animal population to fall back on. Would you say then that covid virulence is likely to be essentially random luck coupled with the limitations of how much the virus become modified? It isn't anywhere near a level of fatality where evolutionary selection would constrain it.

I tried to find some wiki pages on this. The closest I could find was Optimal virulence and Emergent virus, which has a section on "Virulence of emergent viruses". This section claims that "emergent viruses are often extremely virulent" and I wonder if that is actually true, or just a demonstration of availability bias. Horrendous diseases that come from animals spring easily to mind (and make great subjects for books), and we ignore perhaps dozens of viruses that we catch without symptoms. A new flu strain may or may not be particularly virulent: they don't all start off really deadly. Those two articles have few authors and aren't well linked to.

Sorry for a depressing post. It has been bugging me, and I wondered what you thought.

-- Colin°Talk 17:53, 30 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi Colin, you are not the first to ask me about this, but the first here. In the long term — and as we talking about evolution, this means hundreds to thousands of years — the morbidity and mortality associated with viral infections is generally low. Herpes simplex is an old virus that has been around for thousands of years (even fish have their version of it), and it has a low mortality, pretty much zero in the immune competent. Other ancient viruses include JC virus and BK virus, which most of us carry throughout our lives without our knowing about them. The emergent viruses, i.e. those that are zoonotic (from animals) are said to be highly pathogenic (i.e.. virulent), but, as you said,  we don't know how often viruses cross the species barrier without our noticing. Why would we? I have heard folk say that it's not in a virus's interest to kill it's host, but viruses don't have "interests" of course, but they are subject to natural selection. Killing as many hosts as possible works well for bacteriophages, but not for Ebola virus (at least in humans). Most people don't know that HIV emerged twice and that there are two of them. They do little to no harm in their original chimpanzee and monkey hosts. Viruses will do whatever evolution drives them to.
 * The morbidity and I think mortality myxomatosis is in decline, which is quick for a DNA virus. I say quick because RNA viruses evolve much more quickly than those that use DNA. The problems we are seeing with covid-19 is because it is an RNA virus, a newcomer and a zoonosis.  Most viruses are restricted to one species (thank goodness). The nasty ones tend to have a range of hosts and their transmission to humans does not happen just once, but all the time. So, by adapting to life in a pig can make a virus nastier the next time it infects a human. And the cycle goes on and on. We see this with influenza as you know.
 * Why was it possible to eradicate smallpox virus. Simple, it is (was) a DNA virus that only infected humans and there was only one strain that was susceptible to the vaccine.
 * I'll take a look at Emergent virus. I'll give Optimal virulence a rain check (and I don't believe in "virulence" only degrees of pathogenicity).
 * Please get back to me, as I suspect I have strayed from your point.Graham Beards (talk) 19:30, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

P.S. I forgot to say, in evolutionary terms, it is way to soon to discuss HIV, SARs-Co-2, and some might argue even rabies virus (genotype 1). Graham Beards (talk) 19:50, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

P.P.S I didn't respond to you question about myxomatosis. The virus's "natural" host is New World rabbits in which it is fairly benign. In European rabbits, which were the ones introduced in Australia, it is generally lethal. After a few years less nasty strains emerged in the (unnatural) host European rabbits, which became the dominant strain because the rabbits lived longer increasing the chance of the mosquitoes to spread the infection. The less pathogenic strains still kill 70-90% of the poor bunnies. Myxomatosis is not the best example of viral evolution because of the effects of artificial selection. Graham Beards (talk) 20:12, 30 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I’m just an interloper/lurker reading this. Incredibly interesting. Like the OP I’ve been looking for an article that covered just this, and not finding it. Any thoughts on where (how) it could be covered? I’m not even sure what to call the topic. DeCausa (talk) 22:14, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've read a few other papers on myxomatosis (though still very ignorant). The 20 year study that the book referenced demonstrated that low-virulent strains were not selected for in the end. They appeared relatively soon after introduction, but then disappeared over time. There wasn't an inevitable and unending progression towards mild disease. I believe the disease was chosen because it was known to harm European rabbits, so this isn't a good example of an accidental zoonosis. Also it is unusual that the host can respond by breeding so rapidly and recover from near extinction. There is then a strong selective process on the host to develop immunity and engage in an "arms race" with the virus. I read another paper that looked at variants in Scotland, and found that highly lethal strains appeared at times and caused local extinctions. As you say, the virus doesn't know what it is doing.
 * We know a virus needs a living body to survive and spread. So killing the host too quickly may not be optimal. But if after a month you have fought off a virus and developed long term immunity to it, is that much different to being dead after a month? It is if you kill so many hosts of breeding age that the population dies out. But if you just kill the old and the sick... well it seems in some animal groups that is even desirable (the conservationists say that removing a predatory species can be harmful for its prey).
 * Looking wider at other parasites, it seems evolution is comfortable with a mix of benign and harmful species, with plenty of the latter. Interesting that the three low-pathogenic diseases you mention are also ones that linger in our bodies. I wonder if, in the absence of medical treatments, HIV would tend towards that or would instead remain long-term-lethal and globally lower the lifespan of humans. Pre-antibiotic/vaccination, we responded to nasty diseases by having more children and not expecting them all to reach adulthood. There was a evolutionary balance there, where being nasty encouraged the host to breed faster.
 * Coming back to covid, and you say it is too early to discuss evolution. But people will want to know about tendencies with these new strains. Am I right in thinking we simply cannot know where variants will go. It is too random. That it is silly to comfort people with "it will become lower in virulence with time". -- Colin°Talk 09:43, 31 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Myxoma virus was released in Europe as well of course (in the early 1950s) and the epidemiology (perhaps I should say epizoology) was pretty much the same as in Australia. Have you seen this paper from 2012? Although most eventually died, the rabbits lived longer and contributed to the spread of infection. Evolution is often cruel; once a virus has had it's way with a host, the fate of  the host is irrelevant to its evolutionary success. The selfish gene concept is important here; a virus doesn't "care" about other strains. It has just evolved to get into a cell make thousands of copies of itself and get them out. That's all.
 * Often in zoonotic viral infections, the human is a dead-end host. If I remember correctly, West Nile virus is a good example. It's natural host is birds, where it does little harm, and most humans have no symptoms following infection despite well-documented fatalities. Humans are a dead end because the levels of virus in them is too low to be effectively transmitted by mosquitoes, and humans don't ooze an excrete the virus particles.
 * The point you make about HIV is interesting. To some extent it is already well on the way to becoming "cryptic". It integrates and becomes literally part of  our DNA despite being an RNA virus. To a biologist, the difference between the two forms is more than the difference between a whale and a cockroach. In it's cryptic stage, HIV does no harm to the host. HIV's distant cousins, the retrotransposons, which are all fully cryptic have even become beneficial to us.
 * As for covid, I have stopped making predictions. Everything, well most things, I said about the progression of the pandemic last March have been wrong. Having said that, I agree with you that we do not know and cannot predict the epidemiology of the variants and it is deceitful to say anything to the contrary.
 * DeCausa to answer your question I think the nearest we have is Viral pathogenesis, which needs a lot of work. Graham Beards (talk) 10:29, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about the Herpes simplex and that it is a mild disease in people with normal immune systems. But we also thought warts were just a cosmetic annoyance and only forty years ago discovered some of them play an important role in some cancer. I've now read the myxomatosis paper. It has similar charts to what I saw before, showing the most frequent strains were neither the most rapidly deadly nor the least. Interesting in their section 11 where they wonder if the virus DNA is limited in how much it can change to become benign and whether it will always be harmful and only held in check by rapid breeding of the rabbits. Also interesting that the Australians reintroduced the virus several times, and that the introduction of Rabbit hemorrhagic disease in 1995 makes it hard now to study myxomatosis in Australia. -- Colin°Talk 13:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * We never new about human herpesvirus 8 which was cryptic until HIV emerged and causes Kaposi's sarcoma. When DNA is copied, several proof-reading enzymes come into play which check the accuracy of the copy. RNA does not have these mechanisms. This makes DNA quite conservative in evolution. We have to remember that natural selection removes many more variants from the genetic pool than it encourages. But this is not the case with RNA viruses, which have been called a quasispecies. Coronavirus is an RNA virus. By the way, if you are ever in a pub quiz and the question as to whether a particular virus is RNA or DNA is asked, here's a trick. Sometimes RNA viruses have "RNA" somewhere in their names such as picornavirus, picobirnavirus, coronavirus and DNA viruses have "DNA" such as hepadnavirus and adenovirus. It doesn't always work of course.Graham Beards (talk) 14:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks Graham, I’ll take a look at the article you mentioned. DeCausa (talk) 15:03, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I love it that the RNA/DNA letters are embedded in the word like they are embedded in our cells. -- Colin°Talk 11:01, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

FAC discussion
Graham, when you have a free moment, could you look back in here? Bst, Sandy Georgia (Talk)  14:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Comirnaty Use section
Hello Graham,

The source for the info is listed at the bottom of the section. It is a summary of product characteristics published by the European Medical Agency. I wasn't sure how to Reference it properly, but found the information interesting.

Regards,

Zoran — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoranb (talk • contribs) 14:46, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi, was it copied from the source? Graham Beards (talk) 14:49, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * The part about the instructions for use, yes. The calculations about the low dead-space needles/doses I did myself. You're more than welcome to factcheck. Regards Zoranb (talk) 15:56, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Let me know if you need any info from my side. R Zoranb (talk) 15:57, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry, copying is not allowed see WP:Copyvio and original calculations are not allowed either. See WP:NOR. Graham Beards (talk) 14:59, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

?
Why did you restore a block evaiding edit by a now-blocked IP? --00:13, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Graham, As Macon is being a pain on my (ex) talk page yet again, can you protect it again (and without the pointless note on their too?) Cheers SC (and if you want confirmation it is actually me, let me know and I’ll ping you another email. Cheers 2A01:4C8:481:EFBD:8CCA:7B1F:D0F5:BFDB (talk) 15:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Gavin, can you email me and fill me in on the background? Thanks. Graham Beards (talk) 15:58, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Cheers Graham, just emailed. - SC / Gavin 2A01:4C8:481:EFBD:8CCA:7B1F:D0F5:BFDB (talk) 16:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

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Ethnicity versus race
I don’t dare ask this on the talk page. I don’t have a Medscape account, so can’t access that article (maybe I should just get an account), but how did they come up with this? One thing is race, another is ethnicity. Hispanics can identify as black or white; eg, a woman can be a white Hispanic. See Race and ethnicity in the United States; is it different in the UK? Then where do they put, for example, my sons, who are a) white like both their mother and father, and b) Hispanic because their lineage is from Spain and they were born and raised in the Hispanic culture, region and with Spanish as their first language? Sandy Georgia (Talk)  21:32, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
 * white women (14.3%) than black (7.1%) or Hispanic (6.9%) women ...
 * Allright, I got a Medscape account, and they stated it just that way ... how odd, since Medscape is New York. But if you look at what it’s based on, it’s a 2002 study, that does distinguish (although perhaps in an era where only “brown” people were considered Hispanic, I dunno): .  Since they say the difference is not significant, maybe best just to drop the distinctions than to have to deal with race v. ethnicity?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:56, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The differences didn't look statistically significant to me (at a glance). I think we can safely leave it out of the article. Graham Beards (talk) 08:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)== WP:MEDRS ==

Hi Graham, Hope you are keeping well and safe. I know you are busy. If you have time, could you look at the "Editorials and comments" section on the MEDRS talk page. Some proposals have been made concerning the different kinds of articles in a journal and have IMO become a bit unstuck over "peer review", as well as containing language/style unsuitable for a content guideline. It could do with some more input from someone familiar with the academic process. And are there any other editors with experience here who could improve the guideline in that area. -- Colin°Talk 10:48, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hello Colin, I'll have a look. Graham Beards (talk) 14:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Virus evolution
When the new variant appeared, the BBC twice had a virologist make the claim that over time, new viruses will tend to become less virulent and more infectious.

I recalled a book I had read last June, "Spillover", which I'd got on a 99p deal on Amazon. It concerns animal infections that spillover into human populations. It had a good short chapter on virulence, and commented on the above dogma. Essentially, it was bollocks. It discussed myxomatosis, which is often studied and cited on virulence evolution, and initially supports the idea that the disease went from being nearly 100% fatal to less virulent. The author discusses the 20 year research that showed that the most lethal and the least lethal (still about 50% deadly) strains both died out. There wasn't a tendency towards less and less virulence, let alone symbiosis. The most infectious form had horrible sores which the mosquitoes drank from, and took a while to kill but still killed 2/3 of cases. Getting a really nasty disease was the most successful variant. The book also mentions other diseases like rabies and HIV, which are still 100% deadly without treatment. And diseases with mainly an animal reservoir, like Ebola, have little evolutionary incentive to become less harmful to humans.

Recently we hear that the new variant might be 30% more deadly: 13 or 14 deaths rather than 10 deaths per 1000. This is no where the 99% or 67% fatality of myxomatosis. But then, humans don't breed like rabbits, so we wouldn't out-evolve such a threat. I'm thinking perhaps for where we are at with coronavirus, there doesn't seem to be any evolutionary selection that would encourage or limit the production of more virulent variants. Same perhaps for flu, which has a big animal population to fall back on. Would you say then that covid virulence is likely to be essentially random luck coupled with the limitations of how much the virus become modified? It isn't anywhere near a level of fatality where evolutionary selection would constrain it.

I tried to find some wiki pages on this. The closest I could find was Optimal virulence and Emergent virus, which has a section on "Virulence of emergent viruses". This section claims that "emergent viruses are often extremely virulent" and I wonder if that is actually true, or just a demonstration of availability bias. Horrendous diseases that come from animals spring easily to mind (and make great subjects for books), and we ignore perhaps dozens of viruses that we catch without symptoms. A new flu strain may or may not be particularly virulent: they don't all start off really deadly. Those two articles have few authors and aren't well linked to.

Sorry for a depressing post. It has been bugging me, and I wondered what you thought.

-- Colin°Talk 17:53, 30 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi Colin, you are not the first to ask me about this, but the first here. In the long term — and as we talking about evolution, this means hundreds to thousands of years — the morbidity and mortality associated with viral infections is generally low. Herpes simplex is an old virus that has been around for thousands of years (even fish have their version of it), and it has a low mortality, pretty much zero in the immune competent. Other ancient viruses include JC virus and BK virus, which most of us carry throughout our lives without our knowing about them. The emergent viruses, i.e. those that are zoonotic (from animals) are said to be highly pathogenic (i.e.. virulent), but, as you said,  we don't know how often viruses cross the species barrier without our noticing. Why would we? I have heard folk say that it's not in a virus's interest to kill it's host, but viruses don't have "interests" of course, but they are subject to natural selection. Killing as many hosts as possible works well for bacteriophages, but not for Ebola virus (at least in humans). Most people don't know that HIV emerged twice and that there are two of them. They do little to no harm in their original chimpanzee and monkey hosts. Viruses will do whatever evolution drives them to.
 * The morbidity and I think mortality myxomatosis is in decline, which is quick for a DNA virus. I say quick because RNA viruses evolve much more quickly than those that use DNA. The problems we are seeing with covid-19 is because it is an RNA virus, a newcomer and a zoonosis.  Most viruses are restricted to one species (thank goodness). The nasty ones tend to have a range of hosts and their transmission to humans does not happen just once, but all the time. So, by adapting to life in a pig can make a virus nastier the next time it infects a human. And the cycle goes on and on. We see this with influenza as you know.
 * Why was it possible to eradicate smallpox virus. Simple, it is (was) a DNA virus that only infected humans and there was only one strain that was susceptible to the vaccine.
 * I'll take a look at Emergent virus. I'll give Optimal virulence a rain check (and I don't believe in "virulence" only degrees of pathogenicity).
 * Please get back to me, as I suspect I have strayed from your point.Graham Beards (talk) 19:30, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

P.S. I forgot to say, in evolutionary terms, it is way to soon to discuss HIV, SARs-Co-2, and some might argue even rabies virus (genotype 1). Graham Beards (talk) 19:50, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

P.P.S I didn't respond to you question about myxomatosis. The virus's "natural" host is New World rabbits in which it is fairly benign. In European rabbits, which were the ones introduced in Australia, it is generally lethal. After a few years less nasty strains emerged in the (unnatural) host European rabbits, which became the dominant strain because the rabbits lived longer increasing the chance of the mosquitoes to spread the infection. The less pathogenic strains still kill 70-90% of the poor bunnies. Myxomatosis is not the best example of viral evolution because of the effects of artificial selection. Graham Beards (talk) 20:12, 30 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I’m just an interloper/lurker reading this. Incredibly interesting. Like the OP I’ve been looking for an article that covered just this, and not finding it. Any thoughts on where (how) it could be covered? I’m not even sure what to call the topic. DeCausa (talk) 22:14, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've read a few other papers on myxomatosis (though still very ignorant). The 20 year study that the book referenced demonstrated that low-virulent strains were not selected for in the end. They appeared relatively soon after introduction, but then disappeared over time. There wasn't an inevitable and unending progression towards mild disease. I believe the disease was chosen because it was known to harm European rabbits, so this isn't a good example of an accidental zoonosis. Also it is unusual that the host can respond by breeding so rapidly and recover from near extinction. There is then a strong selective process on the host to develop immunity and engage in an "arms race" with the virus. I read another paper that looked at variants in Scotland, and found that highly lethal strains appeared at times and caused local extinctions. As you say, the virus doesn't know what it is doing.
 * We know a virus needs a living body to survive and spread. So killing the host too quickly may not be optimal. But if after a month you have fought off a virus and developed long term immunity to it, is that much different to being dead after a month? It is if you kill so many hosts of breeding age that the population dies out. But if you just kill the old and the sick... well it seems in some animal groups that is even desirable (the conservationists say that removing a predatory species can be harmful for its prey).
 * Looking wider at other parasites, it seems evolution is comfortable with a mix of benign and harmful species, with plenty of the latter. Interesting that the three low-pathogenic diseases you mention are also ones that linger in our bodies. I wonder if, in the absence of medical treatments, HIV would tend towards that or would instead remain long-term-lethal and globally lower the lifespan of humans. Pre-antibiotic/vaccination, we responded to nasty diseases by having more children and not expecting them all to reach adulthood. There was a evolutionary balance there, where being nasty encouraged the host to breed faster.
 * Coming back to covid, and you say it is too early to discuss evolution. But people will want to know about tendencies with these new strains. Am I right in thinking we simply cannot know where variants will go. It is too random. That it is silly to comfort people with "it will become lower in virulence with time". -- Colin°Talk 09:43, 31 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Myxoma virus was released in Europe as well of course (in the early 1950s) and the epidemiology (perhaps I should say epizoology) was pretty much the same as in Australia. Have you seen this paper from 2012? Although most eventually died, the rabbits lived longer and contributed to the spread of infection. Evolution is often cruel; once a virus has had it's way with a host, the fate of  the host is irrelevant to its evolutionary success. The selfish gene concept is important here; a virus doesn't "care" about other strains. It has just evolved to get into a cell make thousands of copies of itself and get them out. That's all.
 * Often in zoonotic viral infections, the human is a dead-end host. If I remember correctly, West Nile virus is a good example. It's natural host is birds, where it does little harm, and most humans have no symptoms following infection despite well-documented fatalities. Humans are a dead end because the levels of virus in them is too low to be effectively transmitted by mosquitoes, and humans don't ooze an excrete the virus particles.
 * The point you make about HIV is interesting. To some extent it is already well on the way to becoming "cryptic". It integrates and becomes literally part of  our DNA despite being an RNA virus. To a biologist, the difference between the two forms is more than the difference between a whale and a cockroach. In it's cryptic stage, HIV does no harm to the host. HIV's distant cousins, the retrotransposons, which are all fully cryptic have even become beneficial to us.
 * As for covid, I have stopped making predictions. Everything, well most things, I said about the progression of the pandemic last March have been wrong. Having said that, I agree with you that we do not know and cannot predict the epidemiology of the variants and it is deceitful to say anything to the contrary.
 * DeCausa to answer your question I think the nearest we have is Viral pathogenesis, which needs a lot of work. Graham Beards (talk) 10:29, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about the Herpes simplex and that it is a mild disease in people with normal immune systems. But we also thought warts were just a cosmetic annoyance and only forty years ago discovered some of them play an important role in some cancer. I've now read the myxomatosis paper. It has similar charts to what I saw before, showing the most frequent strains were neither the most rapidly deadly nor the least. Interesting in their section 11 where they wonder if the virus DNA is limited in how much it can change to become benign and whether it will always be harmful and only held in check by rapid breeding of the rabbits. Also interesting that the Australians reintroduced the virus several times, and that the introduction of Rabbit hemorrhagic disease in 1995 makes it hard now to study myxomatosis in Australia. -- Colin°Talk 13:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * We never new about human herpesvirus 8 which was cryptic until HIV emerged and causes Kaposi's sarcoma. When DNA is copied, several proof-reading enzymes come into play which check the accuracy of the copy. RNA does not have these mechanisms. This makes DNA quite conservative in evolution. We have to remember that natural selection removes many more variants from the genetic pool than it encourages. But this is not the case with RNA viruses, which have been called a quasispecies. Coronavirus is an RNA virus. By the way, if you are ever in a pub quiz and the question as to whether a particular virus is RNA or DNA is asked, here's a trick. Sometimes RNA viruses have "RNA" somewhere in their names such as picornavirus, picobirnavirus, coronavirus and DNA viruses have "DNA" such as hepadnavirus and adenovirus. It doesn't always work of course.Graham Beards (talk) 14:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks Graham, I’ll take a look at the article you mentioned. DeCausa (talk) 15:03, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I love it that the RNA/DNA letters are embedded in the word like they are embedded in our cells. -- Colin°Talk 11:01, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

FAC discussion
Graham, when you have a free moment, could you look back in here? Bst, Sandy Georgia (Talk)  14:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Comirnaty Use section
Hello Graham,

The source for the info is listed at the bottom of the section. It is a summary of product characteristics published by the European Medical Agency. I wasn't sure how to Reference it properly, but found the information interesting.

Regards,

Zoran — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoranb (talk • contribs) 14:46, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi, was it copied from the source? Graham Beards (talk) 14:49, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * The part about the instructions for use, yes. The calculations about the low dead-space needles/doses I did myself. You're more than welcome to factcheck. Regards Zoranb (talk) 15:56, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Let me know if you need any info from my side. R Zoranb (talk) 15:57, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry, copying is not allowed see WP:Copyvio and original calculations are not allowed either. See WP:NOR. Graham Beards (talk) 14:59, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

?
Why did you restore a block evaiding edit by a now-blocked IP? --00:13, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Graham, As Macon is being a pain on my (ex) talk page yet again, can you protect it again (and without the pointless note on their too?) Cheers SC (and if you want confirmation it is actually me, let me know and I’ll ping you another email. Cheers 2A01:4C8:481:EFBD:8CCA:7B1F:D0F5:BFDB (talk) 15:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Gavin, can you email me and fill me in on the background? Thanks. Graham Beards (talk) 15:58, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Cheers Graham, just emailed. - SC / Gavin 2A01:4C8:481:EFBD:8CCA:7B1F:D0F5:BFDB (talk) 16:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Song of Summer.jpg
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Ethnicity versus race
I don’t dare ask this on the talk page. I don’t have a Medscape account, so can’t access that article (maybe I should just get an account), but how did they come up with this? One thing is race, another is ethnicity. Hispanics can identify as black or white; eg, a woman can be a white Hispanic. See Race and ethnicity in the United States; is it different in the UK? Then where do they put, for example, my sons, who are a) white like both their mother and father, and b) Hispanic because their lineage is from Spain and they were born and raised in the Hispanic culture, region and with Spanish as their first language? Sandy Georgia (Talk)  21:32, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
 * white women (14.3%) than black (7.1%) or Hispanic (6.9%) women ...
 * Allright, I got a Medscape account, and they stated it just that way ... how odd, since Medscape is New York. But if you look at what it’s based on, it’s a 2002 study, that does distinguish (although perhaps in an era where only “brown” people were considered Hispanic, I dunno): .  Since they say the difference is not significant, maybe best just to drop the distinctions than to have to deal with race v. ethnicity?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:56, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The differences didn't look statistically significant to me (at a glance). I think we can safely leave it out of the article. Graham Beards (talk) 08:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks

 * Thank you Clayquot, it was teamwork! Graham Beards (talk) 08:20, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

History of biology
Greetings! I see that you have promoted History of biology to featured status. In the references section, there is a cleanup tag stating that references are incorrectly formatted. Could you please verify this? Cheers. Wretchskull (talk) 16:53, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, I didn't promote the article. I can't see any major issues with the citations. --Graham Beards (talk) 17:05, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Kudos for Menstrual cycle
Almost a three-quarter million views last year! Thank you for the sustained effort to restore Menstrual cycle to Featured status. It is always such a pleasure to work with you, and to watch you work, but this one was especially fine work. Best regards, Sandy Georgia (Talk)  01:41, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you Sandy, this has made me happy.--Graham Beards (talk) 07:51, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * +1 Everything that Sandy said. -- Colin°Talk 08:40, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Colin.--Graham Beards (talk) 11:13, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Heads up
Just a courtesy note to say I mentioned the 1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom and The Last Days of Smallpox in a comment at AN/I. Just in case you are curious if the articles get increased attention. -- Colin°Talk 10:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you Colin. Wise words. --Graham Beards (talk) 10:13, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Group FAR
Dear Graham Beards,

as a consequence of your opening a FAR on groups we (mostly me) edited the article, following some comments by. You flatly raised the concern that the article needs more citations, at least in every paragraph. I don't see any featured article criteria that would make such a requirement, so I don't currently consider this a necessary thing for keeping it an FA. Can you please elaborate on your concern by making it more specific or otherwise relate your request to existing FA criteria. Otherwise I guess I would consider your request non-actionable.

Thanks -- Jakob.scholbach (talk) 08:39, 3 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I said at the review, "I am nominating this featured article for review because the article was promoted in 2008 and current FA requirements are more demanding particularly with regard to citations, which are lacking for sections of this article," and I am pleased see improvements have been made in this regards and others. It is good for the project to revisit old FAs and even better when they can be brought up to current standards. I don't understand why some editors take WP:FAR as an affront, I stood back from the review after a response to me on the article's Talk Page that I felt was rude and aggressive. I'm looking forward to seeing the article remain in our list of FAs. --Graham Beards (talk) 13:21, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure -- I personally don't take it as an affront. That said, 's comment was, IMO, saying that requesting a citation for every paragraph (which you did) without any understanding of the material (which you may or may not have, I make no claim on that, and David didn't do that either) is not based on FA criteria, and as a consequence not particularly productive.
 * You might want to compare your approach to 's approach, who suggested a number of concrete, actionable issues that can be worked on. Their remark did spur a number of constructive discussions and improvement of the article, flatly requiring every paragraph to contain a citation did not (and is unlikely to do).
 * If you have concrete actionable qualms about the article at hand I cordially invite you to spell them out there. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 19:06, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I am pleased with the progress. I see further citations have been suggested today. I have already explained why I have stood back from the FAR and see no purpose in elaborating. As you have shown interest in my approach to articles at FAR, I suggest you take a look at Featured article review/Menstrual cycle/archive2. Best regards --Graham Beards (talk) 19:22, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * @Graham: I'm noticing that specific commentary leads to people not taking FAR as an affront / be unduely stressed because of it. Of course, that's time-consuming, so I only tend to do this for our core articles. FemkeMilene (talk) 19:24, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!
 Happy First Edit Day! Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 18:43, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Micrographs
Why does your coronavirus micrograph have weird shaped bodies but other images are more rounded, and they are described as "rounded" in the literature? -- Colin°Talk 10:28, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Traditionally coronavirus particles are described as pleomorphic (blobs) by negative-stain electron microscopy and this is how they would have appeared to  June Almeida (I knew her). Electron microscopes only function in a vacuum and as a result, viruses dry out and shrink  on the supporting formvar membrane.  The more tricky Cryogenic electron microscopy stops this by using vitreous ice as the supporting medium, but the images still have to be reconstructed by  computers using  Fourier transforms and other magic. Up until recently (this century) most of the images of viruses in textbooks were negative-stain electron micrographs, which make viruses look two-dimensional. Essentially all images of viruses are artificial. And this is particularly true of the false-colour and false depth of field ones like that red and grey COVID image, which I see everywhere. There is no such thing as  a true to life  photograph (or micrograph)  of a virus. In the days when electron microscopes were routinely used to diagnose infections, it did not matter how distorted the particles were as long as they remained recognisable. The structure of most viruses was determined by X-ray crystallography, which produces images that don't look at all like virus particles. Our understanding of what a virus looks like is a concept, a model even, not a likeness. Graham Beards (talk) 11:17, 16 June 2021 (UTC)


 * In the original source given by the Wikipedia article, it says "Particles are more or less rounded in profile; although there is a certain amount of polymorphism". Although the Wikipedia citation implies this is a paper with eight authors, including Almeida, it turns out to written by an unnamed correspondent (the editor?) and the language is very much second hand and more editorial. So one perhaps wonders how close it is to the authors' observations and opinions. Is this how things were done back then? I see that at 80 to 120 nm, we are talking about something much smaller than the wavelength of visible light.
 * Your "pleomorphic" description reminds me of "The Dig", where a young archaeologist describes a finding as "rusted lumps" and is pulled up by his mentor about forgetting his training. He revises it to "an amorphous mass of corroded objects". -- Colin°Talk 13:58, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Their being smaller than the wavelength of visible light means of course viruses are too small to have a colour. That Nature report is weird – a cross between a letter and an editorial. It was before even my time (I was still  at school) so I don't know if it was the norm. I published a letter in Nature in the early 1980s and it was, as you would expect, written by me and my group. Graham Beards (talk) 14:25, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I have just stumbled on this from March 2020 "Grey images of unfamiliar blobs don’t make for persuasive or emotive media content"] -Graham Beards (talk) 16:34, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Just to add to this, we know that laboratory cell culture can drastically change virus morphology, even when microscope conditions are maintained.

Influenza viruses are pleomorphic and even can appear "filamentous" (like ebola) in samples of infected tissue from the natural reservoir, but then appear almost entirely "spherical" after a few passages in cell culture. Just another one of the ways in which laboratory experiments can be looking through a glass, darkly.-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 14:49, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Appreciate your contributions and the good name you give to virologists on wiki
Hi Graham, just wanted to say I love your micrographs and appreciate your contributions over these many years. From a much less wiki-holic virologist (me) to one who is decidedly more of a fixture around here (you), I appreciate the good name you give to our profession. Keep up the excellent work :) -- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 18:17, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, you are too kind. Graham Beards (talk) 18:59, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Revert
Don't get your reasoning. Happy to find a better source for the chickenpox point, but it hardly seems controversial. (Is it?) The lede was poorly organized, scattering sentences across paragraphs with no evident scheme. Clarifications please. Lfstevens (talk) 06:25, 7 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi, there were several reasons:

-Graham Beards (talk) 08:16, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Virion redirects to Virus, that's why "virion" was in boldface in accordance with the guidelines.
 * You changed "environment" to "population" which is wrong.
 * You deleted "as they are" from this sentence "Most virus species have virions too small to be seen with an optical microscope, as they are one-hundredth the size of most bacteria."
 * You added a WP:MEDRS non-compliant source. Virus  is a Featured Article, all the citations have been carefully chosen in accordance with those guidelines.
 * Time-dependent statements such as ("growing by more than 1,000 in 2020") become out of date quickly (that one already is) and have no place in the Lead.
 * Influenza is a more obvious example of an airborne virus than chickenpox.
 * Immunity is immunity, saying "artificially acquired immunity" is not accurate. Artificially acquired immunity means the injection of immune globulin (antibody).
 * With regard to mosquitoes, by changing "carried by" to "carry them among animals", you lost the concept of carriage, which has a specific meaning in epidemiology.
 * There were other changes of style which I accepted and others I didn't agree with.
 * I think the Lead is well-organised, I can't see any sentences that are scattered across  paragraphs.

Re:July 2021
Thank you for your message. These are not unconstructive edits. I only intend to maintain the article status that the user Lopezsuarez arbitrarily changes since July 10, 2021. This user intends to change the town's coat of arms of Órgiva and Dúrcal in the articles from all wikipedias just because I drew it. The topic was widely discussed in es.Wiki, and in Wikidata the user has already been warned for trying to change it. If you're ok with it, I restore the version 00:16, 28 February 2021 by Ulric1313 and will open if necessary a thread on the talk page. I ask you, please, to help me keep the article in that version. Sorry for the inconvenience. Greetings, --Abelardo Yard (talk) 14:40, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
 * OK. But you should have started a discussion on the English Wikipedia article's Talk Page. Graham Beards (talk) 14:47, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedian virologists category
Hey Graham, thought you might want to add this: Category:Wikipedian virologists. Totally up to you of course. Just noticed we didn't have one and it can be useful if anyone goes to the page via Expert help. :) -- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 18:46, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm delighted to join you  there. Graham Beards (talk) 21:09, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Your reversion of virus
The number of antivirals must be vague, unless you know the exact number. Clinically used antiviral number is on the order of 50, half for HIV. The description of “many" is an improvement over “several“. "Many" is correct where "several" is flattly wrong. Look up"several"; it basically means "two." Try to respect your fellow editors instead of refexively reverting without thinking. Now you don't like my edit and you have left an error. Fix it. S  B Harris 18:40, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Wow, this comment appears quite rude to me. Please moderate your tone, especially if you want others to take your suggestions seriously and in good faith.— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 19:09, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * There is no need to SHOUT. And you are not in a position to demand fixes. You introduced two errors. You did not write "many" you wrote "a number of", which doesn't really mean anything. I looked up "several" and it means "three or more". I changed it to several classes. And yes I do know how many antiviral drugs there are. Your other mistake was to change "hundredth" to "tenth". The average size of a virus is around 60 nanometres, whereas bacteria are around about 1 to 2 microns in diameter. I suggest you check your fellow editors credentials before being rude to them.Graham Beards (talk) 19:08, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, I advise you not to be rude to anybody here. Graham Beards (talk) 19:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I second Shibbolethink‘s “wow”. if you’re going to be that rude you, at least, have to be right. But Look up"several"; it basically means "two." is both wrong and laughable in equal measure. DeCausa (talk) 19:30, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Okay, let me try again. I was indeed wrong about the definition of "several" and you were wrong about the definition of the phrase "a number of" which is not to be taken literally, but in colloquial English is essentially a synonym of "several"! They both mean "more than two but less than very many," According to Merriam-Webster. Perhaps this is some Americanism-- I hope not. Anyway, "a number of" does indeed mean "something." You have to go outside the dictionary to tap the connotation of language to know that if you tell your friend you have "several" things to tell him in person, he is going to be shocked later at discovering an agenda of 50 things (and complain he was not warned at one that long), but if you say you have "a number of things" to tell him, far less shocked at 50 things. That's all I have. The same goes for this article, and I was intending to avoid that very thing, and a simple quick reversion that as "no value" is rather rude itself. "A number of" is a better warning for later 50 than "several". If you poll 10 of your friends, they'll tell you so. Perhaps we should put the approximate number of 50 up front. The second thing is that after some study I think I reject your idea of anybody knowing how big the average virus is, as a fixed number, or the same for bacteria. http://book.bionumbers.org/how-big-are-viruses/. You'd have to spend a paragraph just defining what you mean anyway-- the mean of one individual of all known species? Has anybody even done that? The number-weighted mean out there in the world, pulled down by the size of all those ocean phages? The median, as this is a heavily skewed distribution? Most viruses are in the range of 20 nm to 200 nm, and that's about all you can intelligently say, I think. What's the "middle" of the distribution 20 to 200? Same problem occurs. If you have a cite for 60 nm, put it in. What's the middle of the bacterial range of 1000 nm to 2000 nm? Is it 1500 nm S  B Harris 03:50, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * , you are digging yourself deep, talking to a man (Graham) who has likely imaged many hundreds of species of viruses with electron microscopes over the course of his career. If anyone is going to have a solid estimate of how large the average virus is, it's going to be this guy. And yes, we do have good estimates, of the typical size of a virion for each virus family. Based on electron microscopy data.— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 04:09, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I gave you my cite. So you show me yours. S  B Harris 09:04, 29 August 2021 (UTC)


 * , you came shouting on my User Page, not my Talk Page and your rude comment was moved here. You concede that "several" and "a number of" are synonyms, so why did you change "several" to "a number of" and introduce the redundancy (with the edit summary "far more than two")? I later changed it to "several classes", which is more helpful to the general reader than a ever-changing total. With regard to the  sizes, in this book:


 * , there is a useful diagram on page five (scroll down).


 * The diagram shows the comparative sizes of viruses compared to E. coli. It shows that my 1/100 is a better illustration of the difference than your 1/10. Had you introduced giant viruses into the discussion, your argument would have warranted more discussion. But they are called "giant viruses" for a good reason, implying that they are not typical. What is typical is shown in this electron micrograph of mine (a Featured Picture), which shows viruses attached to the end of an E. coli bacterium. The viruses – and there are hundreds of them – are clearly less that 1/10 the size of the bacterium. In the real world, had a student quoted your 1/10 size in an examination, they would have lost marks. I'm looking forward to your apologies. Graham Beards (talk) 10:01, 29 August 2021 (UTC)


 * , I have to agree with the other comments here about rudeness. And you made a number of [see what I did there] mistakes. The "several" thing, where you seem to confuse the word with "a couple", is probably best put down to a brain fart and you'd be wise not to dig yourself further into that hole. Wrt size, I've found Graham to be very approachable when I question what has been written. He's good at either explaining why the text says what it says, or accepting that it isn't clear or there's a mistake, and fixing it. He's certainly keen that our articles should be accurate and clear. I think it would be better if you'd asked (on the virus talk page) about the size comparison, rather than inserting your own judgement, and getting all hot and bothered when it got reverted.
 * You are right that simple averages can be misleading and we could weight things in different ways. If we were considering averages, perhaps neither 10th nor 100th are correct, and one might think another figure (50th?) or a range (10-100 times) would be more accurate, whatever "accurate" means here. And there's the whole complication of diameter vs length and there being a large variety of shapes. But the article says "Most virus species...", which isn't an average figure. The point of the sentence really is to say most viruses are invisible to an optical microscope and are quite considerably smaller than bacteria. -- Colin°Talk 10:40, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * , yes and thank you. To simplify things, I based my comparison on spheres that's where diameters come in. Rotavirus, a typical virus, and a staphylococus (a typical round bacterium) are both spherical and have diameters of around 0.6 and 1 micron respectively. If you calculate the volume (size) of each, the difference is greater than 100 times. (If my arithmetic is correct!) I think the confusion has arisen from thinking the values given were lengths.  Although the article does say "diameter", I'll check that it is clear on this. Graham Beards (talk) 09:14, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it is valid to consider size as a volume measure (we expect larger sizes for shoes and clothes to be bigger all round). The word is a little imprecise, though, and diameter and length are perhaps easier to quantify in microns and nanometres, and those numbers relatable to whether it is visible. Ultimately I don't think it matters much to the point of the sentence as long as the reader comes away thinking they are an awful lot smaller. -- Colin°Talk 16:31, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed. All that would have saved a lot of fighting. S  B Harris 01:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Graham Beards: Sbharris, you came shouting on my User Page[5], not my Talk Page and your rude comment was moved here.
 * ANSWER: I think rudeness is best discussed on user pages, as it’s a user problem, not a topic problem. (user:SandyGeorgia, it can be done both ways). A simple error is not rude. Thoughtless reversions without checking on sources, and containing errors in the reversion comment themselves, are rude. BTW, much of the “shouting,” if you must complain of it yet again, was a stuck capslock function due to a nasty interaction between iPhone and WP software; I fixed it five minutes later before you had time to complain, and you know it. (I am going to quit editing with a smartphone, as it leads to ugly mistakes.)

You concede that "several" and "a number of" are synonyms, so why did you change "several" to "a number of" and introduce the redundancy (with the edit summary "far more than two")?
 * Because, as I said, I had a wrong definition of several. As did you. As I said, it’s a hole for both of us, as you reverted “a number of” in place of the old “several.” Logical question: if they were indeed exact synonyms, and you knew it, you had no reason for a curt revert, did you? That’s just rude to do it, then. And if you are going to argue that reverts of changes that are zero improvement are your goal, your revert note was erroneous and cannot be explained: you said “That's even more vague 1, 2, 3, 4” So you did not think it a synonym. I do not, however, see you admitting any mistakes. Do you do that? It’s *not* more vague, and I have no idea what you mean by “1,2,3,4”, but whatever it was, you are not closer than I was. Sheesh.
 * FYI, English has very few exact synonyms: if it did, it would collapse into something closer to Orwell’s Newspeak, or at least, into Basic English. In actuality “a number of” connotes a bigger number than “several”, so you should have let it stand as a synonym or even an improvement, or discussed. Using the word to describe “classes” rather than number of drugs is an improvement and recognizes this (even though again you will not admit it.)

[6] I later changed it to "several classes", which is more helpful to the general reader than a ever-changing total.
 * The number of classes is ever-changing too: we are up to seven now with just HIV.

With regard to the sizes, in this book: Oxford, John; Kellam, Paul; Collier, Leslie (2016). Human Virology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-871468-2. OCLC 968152575., there is a useful diagram on page five [7] (scroll down). The diagram shows the comparative sizes of viruses compared to E. coli. It shows that my 1/100 is a better illustration of the difference than your 1/10.
 * That depends on whether you are talking about volume or length. It’s a crappy illustration pulled out of the air by some illustrator with a 1000 nm x 3000+ nm E. coli (wrong). I’m not impressed and you should have read my article which has a far superior quantitative discussion.

Had you introduced giant viruses into the discussion, your argument would have warranted more discussion. But they are called "giant viruses" for a good reason, implying that they are not typical. What is typical is shown in this electron micrograph of mine (a Featured Picture), which shows viruses attached to the end of an E. coli bacterium. The viruses – and there are hundreds of them – are clearly less that 1/10 the size of the bacterium.
 * There’s that word “size”. And you’re doing down the road of meandering about “typical.” (Another bad word). If typical is weighted by virion numbers, almost all virus particles in the world are ocean phages. But (sloppily) you then poked an illustration from a text of human virology at me, with five classes of human infectious viruses. Needless to say, none of them phages. Is this article about human viruses? The typical human infections plaguing the world right now feature 100-120 nm diameter virions (flu, HIV, COVID-19). Herpes, the middle class in your illustration, is 150-250 nm. So definitions are in order. I said that, and you’re not listening.

In the real world, had a student quoted your 1/10 size in an examination, they would have lost marks. I'm looking forward to your apologies. Graham Beards (talk) 3:01 am, Yesterday (UTC−7)


 * Yes, I had teachers like you. I was not that kind of medical school instructor myself when I had a hand in it. You’ll get an apology from me when you realize vague questions lead to vague answers. I’m perfectly aware of what I’m talking about, and I did apologize for my errors, and did introduce further thought on the problem. It is you who seem unable to do this, and it is you who seems to WP:OWN this article, on account of being a virologist. But this is not a complex question of virology. It’s a matter of a simple question, like "how big is the average fish?" or “how hard does it blow in an average storm?” and it takes some clear thinking to even start to address it. It may not even have a good answer, as put that way. In any case, you don’t need a fisherman or weatherman to discuss it. It’s a problem of language, not science. S  B Harris 01:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * ANSWER: I think rudeness is best discussed on user pages, as it’s a user problem, not a topic problem, I think you may be misunderstanding. You posted on Graham's User Page, not his User talk page. That was the issue. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 02:19, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

This discussion is closed. Graham Beards (talk) 08:33, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Editnotice for this article
Graham, I am unclear on how virus was missed when editnotices were set up, for example, Template:Editnotices/Page/Rotavirus ? I believe experienced users should generally know that Wikipedia policy advises care and discussion when editing featured articles, yet I see no recent edits at Talk:Virus from Sbharris. Sbharris, might you have approached this differently? Graham, shall I add an edit notice? Sandy Georgia (Talk)  14:56, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * , not OP or Graham, but agree that an edit notice would be beneficial. Very technical topic, outstanding article, often edited by non-experts in recent times. As it's not an admin sanction notice, I'm gonna go ahead and add one.— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 15:37, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I prefer to take a slow, steady, collaborative approach to any changes to editnotices; there may have been a reason for leaving off this one, and templates should be edited with caution. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  15:56, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * , I absolutely agree that we should be slow and deliberate about most editnotices and templates which are transcluded in many places...This is a relatively harmless example, on an article that has been an FA since 2008. I cannot conceive of any way in which this would harm the project. So I was bold and implemented the change before you replied. My apologies for the crossed wires. If anyone would like me to revert, I am happy to self-CSD. I also went ahead and fixed the talk page link on that edit notice, which used broken magic words. It was redlinking to the talk page of the edit notice instead of the talk page of the article in question, when transcluded.— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 16:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with the edit notice. Thanks for adding it and fixing that link. Graham Beards (talk) 16:15, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * All good then … but I don’t know about the fiddling of the template as created by Outriggr, who no longer edits. I try to take great care not to lose my template editor rights :) :) Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  16:19, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm too scared to touch them. :-) Graham Beards (talk) 16:21, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * ,, I am naive and young :) But truly, I think my general rule of thumb (to mirror the old adage) is: If it's broken, no harm in fixing it. AKA if it's already broken, I'm probably not going to make it worse!— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 17:00, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I dunno … like Graham, I am quite hesitant to touch anything on a template if I don’t know exactly what it’s doing, as I don’t want to lose template editor rights (which, if I understand correctly, are not passed out lightly :) Since Outriggr created the template, I really don’t know if your edits will stand … time will tell, thanks for trying to help, and not to worry. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  17:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * , Well, as with any of my edits, if you find a way in which it's breaking something or in error, don't hesitate to let me know! and thank you for the advice.— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 17:15, 29 August 2021 (UTC)== Taking a stab at writing a featured article ==

Hi Graham. Hope that you’re well. I have been thinking about taking a stab at upgrading a GA I’ve been involved in to FA status. Two I have been thinking about are antibiotic sensitivity testing and ureter. Do you think either need much more work in this regard?

As it is I understand my next step after getting your advice will be to put them up for a pre FA peer review and proceed from there. I’d be keen to get your opinion on this plan!

Cheers, Tom.Tom (LT) (talk) 12:39, 2 September 2021 (UTC) Tom (LT) (talk) 12:39, 2 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi Tom, It's a pity Disk diffusion test was never merged with the sensitivity testing article as there is a lot of duplication. I wonder how many labs are using the Vitek system? I know of two near me. We might need to include this. The section on EUCAST and CLSI needs expanding to include, for example how zone sizes corelate with MIC, and how MICs compare with achievable antibiotic levels in the blood and tissues and the use of "expert rules". It should not take that much work. The flow of the prose need polishing. For example, this sentence needs to be moved further down "There are many factors that can affect the results of antibiotic sensitivity testing, including failure of the instrument, temperature, moisture, and potency of the antimicrobial agent." The reader hasn't been told about instruments and other methods at this stage. I didn't see "synergy" mentioned  (or the opposite - I've forgotten what it is called).  Ureter is looking good, but I confess anatomy is not my speciality. Both articles are certainly good candidates for a FA. Were you planning just to choose one to begin with? Graham Beards (talk) 16:16, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

In appreciation
Thanks Gog Graham Beards (talk) 21:06, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Symphyotrichum lateriflorum comments
Hi, Graham! Thank you for your (missing) comments regarding the FAR for Symphyotrichum lateriflorum. I see that you reverted them before I had a chance to respond, so I maybe you answered your own questions? If not, let me know and I'll be glad to address them. Eewilson (talk) 14:03, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

IP harassment


Has also come to visit my talk page. I've reported at AIV (this is really an issue where blocking might be more effective); but notifying too in case nobody takes action there. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:39, 4 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi, I have left a warning. Let me know if you see any further problems. Already blocked, I see. Graham Beards (talk) 15:09, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I am always happy to see how responsive the admin corps are these days against harassing IPs :) — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 17:17, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I saw that you reverted my edit on Dementia with Lewy bodies. I literally copied the title from the article because there is a typo in the word current. Before I did that, I checked the style of capitalization in the references. It is mixed, see e.g. Yamada. Therefore I saw no reason to change it. For these reasons I want to revert your change.Keesal (talk) 09:47, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi we use lower case for the titles of journal articles; it doesn't matter in this case what was used in the original publication.Graham Beards (talk) 12:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Clpo13
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Brian0918 • JDoorjam • Karanacs • MrDarcy • Mindspillage

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Evad37

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Dreamy Jazz • Ferret • GeneralNotability • Girth Summit • RoySmith

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Dreamy Jazz • LuK3

Guideline and policy news
 * Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.

Technical news
 * Toolhub is a catalogue of tools which can be used on Wikimedia wikis. It is at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/.

Arbitration
 * , and  have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections.  and  are reserve commissioners.
 * Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves to stand in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections from 07 November 2021 until 16 November 2021.

Miscellaneous
 * The 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of five new CheckUsers and two new Oversighters.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Vella Pillay
Hello there. Thanks for your works on Vella Pillay. I had started writing a draft in February of this year and had not gotten to it. While I finally finished the draft and was trying to promote the article, I saw that you had also invested a lot of effort in writing the article out. I have combined both the articles with an aim to not lose any of your content. The good thing is that our sources are pretty much the same. I plan to further work in the coming days to nominate this one for WP:GAN. I will keep you included and you can participate to the extent that you want to. If you have other thoughts, please feel free to let me know. Ktin (talk) 02:16, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks. I have made a few more edits to remove duplicated citations and redundancies. I'll probably engage with the GAN when it is initiated. Best. Graham Beards (talk) 13:22, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Looks good. I am looking at a few other sources as well. Will update shortly. Ktin (talk) 15:50, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2021).



Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg A Train • Berean Hunter • Epbr123 • GermanJoe • Sanchom • Mysid

Technical news
 * Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page.
 * The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse.

Arbitration
 * Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
 * The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled
A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Invitation to take part in a survey about medical topics on Wikipedia
Dear fellow editor,

I am Piotr Konieczny, a sociologist of new media at Hanyang University (and User:Piotrus on Wikipedia). I would like to better understand Wikipedia's volunteers who edit medical topics, many associated with the WikiProject Medicine, and known to create some of the highest quality content on Wikipedia. I hope that the lessons I can learn from you that I will present to the academic audience will benefit both the WikiProject Medicine (improving your understanding of yourself and helping to promote it and attract new volunteers) and the wider world of medical volunteering and academia. Open access copy of the resulting research will be made available at WikiProject's Medicine upon the completion of the project.

All questions are optional. The survey is divided into 4 parts: 1 - Brief description of yourself; 2 - Questions about your volunteering; 3 - Questions about WikiProject Medicine and 4 - Questions about Wikipedia's coverage of medical topics.

Please note that by filling out this questionnaire, you consent to participate in this research. The survey is anonymous and all personal details relevant to your experience will be kept private and will not be transferred to any third party.

I appreciate your support of this research and thank you in advance for taking the time to participate and share your experiences! If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me at my Wikipedia user page or through my email listed on the survey page (or by Wikipedia email this user function).

The survey is accessible through the LINK HERE.

Piotr Konieczny Associate Professor Hanyang University If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:24, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Featured Article Save Award
Thank you everyone. It's rare to get recognition and I am pleased. Graham Beards (talk) 10:33, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!
Thank you. Graham Beards (talk) 09:33, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Amalthea • Ihcoyc (deceased) • Kateshortforbob • Kirill Lokshin • Rifleman 82 • Ryan Norton • Wrp103

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Mr. Stradivarius



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Cabayi • Donald Albury • Enterprisey • Izno • Wugapodes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Opabinia regalis
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Casliber • David Fuchs • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy

Oversighter changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Cabayi • Donald Albury • Enterprisey • Izno • Wugapodes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Opabinia regalis
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Casliber • David Fuchs • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy

Guideline and policy news


 * Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.


 * Additionally, consensus for proposal 6C of the 2021 RfA review has led to the creation of an administrative action review process. The purpose of this process will be to review individual administrator actions and individual actions taken by users holding advanced permissions.

Arbitration


 * Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee:, , , , , , ,.

Miscellaneous


 * The functionaries email list () will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

How we will see unregistered users
Hi!

You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.

When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.

Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.

If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.

We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.

Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

DYK for Vella Pillay
— Maile (talk) 12:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Viroid
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. Invasive Spices (talk) 20 January 2022 (UTC) 22:06, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I have commented on the article's Talk Page. In my view, you are edit warring. Graham Beards (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Did you get my ping at WP:ANEW? I asked you a question there. Please answer it.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:31, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it best just to move on, Graham Beards (talk) 14:36, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2022).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg AustralianRupert • Cimon Avaro • Euryalus • Jehochman • Nunh-huh
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg 28bytes

Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg 28bytes



Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Evad37 • Galobtter
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news
 * The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines have been published for consideration. Voting to ratify this guideline is planned to take place 7 March to 21 March. Comments can be made on the talk page.

Technical news
 * The user group  will be renamed   in around 3 weeks. This will not affect the name shown to users and is simply a change in the technical name of the user group. The change is being made for technical reasons. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections.
 * The Reply Tool feature, which is a part of Discussion Tools, will be opt-out for everyone logged in or logged out starting 7 February 2022. Editors wishing to comment on this can do so in the relevant Village Pump discussion.

Arbitration
 * Community input is requested on several motions aimed at addressing discretionary sanctions that are no longer needed or overly broad.
 * The Arbitration Committee has published a generalised comment regarding successful appeals of sanctions that it can review (such as checkuser blocks).
 * A motion related to the Antisemitism in Poland case was passed following a declined case request.

Miscellaneous
 * Voting in the 2022 Steward elections will begin on 07 February 2022, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2022, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
 * Voting in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey is open until 11 February 2022.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:01, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Invitation to discussion: FAC 4 nomination of nonmetal
Please accept this note as an invitation to participate in the discussion of this latest FAC nomination for the nonmetal article.

The context is that you were involved in the FAC 3 discussion for the article (which was not prompted) or you are an editor who made a recent edit to the nonmetal article.

Thank you. Sandbh (talk) 07:07, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I note that you supported the previous version. Please indicate, on the nomination page, whether or not you still support the promotion. Petergans (talk) 09:33, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't and you are convasing. Graham Beards (talk) 09:40, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I apologize. I misinterpreted what occurred after the issues you that had raised had been addressed. May I suggest again that you post your current position and the reasons for adopting it. Petergans (talk) 12:16, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
 * You should stop canvassing! Graham Beards (talk) 12:24, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Rotavirus at WP:URFA/2020
An article that you nominated for FA status, Rotavirus, has been marked as "Satisfactory" by two editors at WP:URFA/2020. Can you check the articles and determine if it meets the FA criteria? If it does, please mark it as "Satisfactory" on WP:URFA/2020A. If you have concerns about the article, we hope that you will fix it up or post your concerns on the article's talk page. If you have any questions, please go to the URFA/2020 talk page or ping me. Thanks for your help and happy editing! Z1720 (talk) 18:28, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. Graham Beards (talk) 18:55, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Here's one more you nominated, if interested: Introduction to viruses. Z1720 (talk) 19:03, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * That one was updated only last year ready for its second Main Page appearance. Graham Beards (talk) 19:58, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * If it's still satisfactory from last year's TFA run, can you mark it as so on WP:URFA/2020A? This will allow someone to move it to "FAR not needed" (probably Sandy). Z1720 (talk) 22:51, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * It's already marked. Graham Beards (talk) 09:19, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2022).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Modussiccandi
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg BOZ • Brookie (deceased) • Jackmcbarn • Jamesday • Jonathunder • Master of Puppets • Saravask



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Callanecc

Oversighter changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Callanecc

Guideline and policy news
 * A RfC is open to change the wording of revision deletion criterion 1 to remove the sentence relating to non-infringing contributions.
 * A RfC is open to discuss prohibiting draftification of articles over 90 days old.

Technical news
 * The deployment of the reply tool as an opt-out feature, as announced in last month's newsletter, has been delayed to 7 March. Feedback and comments are being welcomed at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project.
 * Special:Nuke will now allow the selection of standard deletion reasons to be used when mass-deleting pages. This was a Community Wishlist Survey request from 2022.
 * The ability to undelete the talk page when undeleting a page using Special:Undelete or the API will be added soon. This change was requested in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.

Arbitration
 * Several unused discretionary sanctions and article probation remedies have been rescinded. This follows the community feedback from the 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.

Miscellaneous
 * The 2022 appointees for the Ombuds commission are Érico, Faendalimas, Galahad, Infinite0694, Mykola7, Olugold, Udehb and Zabe as regular members and Ameisenigel and JJMC89 as advisory members.
 * Following the 2022 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AntiCompositeNumber, BRPever, Hasley, TheresNoTime, and Vermont.
 * The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey results have been published alongside the ranking of prioritized proposals.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Question about 92.234.166.163
Hi there. On 24 December you indefinitely blocked the IP 92.234.166.163 because they were a vandalism only account. However, this was an IP not an account and a couple of months have passed since the block, so it's likely no damage is going to be done. Could you unblock the IP? Thanks, --Ferien (talk) 16:53, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, done. Thanks for your message. Graham Beards (talk) 17:49, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Firefly • Sdrqaz
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Ad Orientem
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Geschichte • Ryan Postlethwaite • Sabine's Sunbird • Wassupwestcoast



Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Evad37

Guideline and policy news
 * An RfC is open proposing a change to the minimum activity requirements for administrators.

Technical news
 * Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the  and   rights. This means that those in the Researcher user group and Checkusers who are not administrators can now access Special:RevisionDelete. The users able to view the special page after this change are the 3 users in the Researcher group, as there are currently no checkusers who are not already administrators.
 * When viewing deleted revisions or diffs on Special:Undelete a back link to the undelete page for the associated page is now present.

Arbitration
 * has been updated to reflect current practice following a motion.
 * A arbitration case regarding Skepticism and coordinated editing has been closed.
 * A arbitration case regarding WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has been opened.

Miscellaneous
 * Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines has closed, and the results were that 56.98% of voters supported the guidelines. The results of this vote mean the Wikimedia Foundation Board will now review the guidelines.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:13, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Request for FA Review
I noticed you are listed as an FA mentor. Would you be so kind as to assist in reviewing the article Texas A&M University at the peer review page? Buffs (talk) 23:00, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

New administrator activity requirement
22:52, 15 April 2022 (UTC)